Seattle Sounders fans at Pioneer Square before their game against Barcelona this past August.

I said I’d be back with my thoughts on today’s Philadelphia Union news, and here I am. This could take a while, but I hope you’ll stick with me.

Let’s start with the announcement that the Union’s home opener will be played at Lincoln Financial Field. I suspect it will be a controversial decision, and here's why.

At the simplest level, playing at the Linc will cost the Union rent money to the Eagles, though that can be made up for with a big gate.

The bigger potential problem is that playing at the Linc could be a hindrance in convincing people to buy tickets in advance for games in Chester, as many people have already done. An average Philadelphia fan who just wants to go to one game, or to be part of a big moment in Philadelphia sports history, might go only to the opener at the Linc.

He or she might also feel inclined to wait until closer to the day of the game, and maybe until the game itself, to buy a ticket. Major League Soccer has been trying to push back against that mentality for a few years now. Building soccer-specific stadiums helps the effort considerably because of the scarcity of seats at soccer-specific stadiums.

While the Linc’s seating capacity will be limited to 37,500 - the lower bowl and club level - you could still get a pretty sizeable number of people who will sit on their hands until the spring.

It is a sound argument in a lot of ways, especially with regards to economics. I disagree with it, though, and here’s why.

We are told often in life that you only get one chance to make a first impression. But moving the first home game to Lincoln Financial Field gives the Union two first chances.

The Linc game will be a big spectacle, with a huge crowd and lots of buzz. The Union will then get another shot of attention when the new stadium is christened. That is certainly a good thing.

And frankly, it will be a good thing to have a big show on the Eagles' turf. It's a significant stage, of course, and being at the Sports Complex for a day will resonate with the local fan base.

There's another reason for the Union to have a relationship with the Eagles: the Chester stadium will be too small for big international exhibition matches. Both teams know this, and it was good to hear this afternoon that they will work together going forward to bring more showcase games to the Linc.

We already know that Lincoln Financial Field is a pretty good soccer venue. Yes, the field is too narrow, but other than that it’s a great place. The sightlines are good just about everywhere, and the stadium footprint is pretty compact - unlike caverns such as Giants Stadium and Gillette Stadium. This holds the noise in and makes for a better atmosphere (unless you’re in the press box).

In fact, Lincoln Financial Field bears more than a passing resemblance to Qwest Field, where the Union will play their first game next season. Which brings me to what I really wanted to write about today: the significance of christening the Union in Seattle.

Not that you would have realized this, but I was on vacation during the first week of August. My travels took me to Qwest Field to watch the Sounders host FC Barcelona. I had heard a lot about the electric atmosphere at Sounders games and how the team had captured the city’s hearts, and this was my chance to see it all in person.

It was every bit as advertised. From the stadium’s location - right on the edge of downtown and adjacent to the city's biggest train station - to the boisterous pregame rally at Pioneer Square, it was as great a soccer atmosphere as I’ve seen in this country.

The atmosphere inside Qwest Field was just as impressive. The stadium was completely sold out, with at least 65 percent of the fans in attendance wearing Sounders green. The supporters’ club sections were large and loud, with colorful arrays of banners and flags.

They were also impressively coordinated with each other. At the bottom of this post, you’ll find video of the clubs’ call-and-response chanting. I will admit that hearing it at kickoff of the Barcelona game produced more than a few goosebumps.
 
In a lot of ways, Seattle and Philadephia are opposites as soccer markets. Seattle has no NBA or NHL team and the Mariners aren’t doing so well these days, which gave the Sounders an opening to get serious attention in a market that was already passionate about soccer.

Philadephia, by contrast, has professional teams in all the major sports, and all are firmly entrenched in the city’s sporting conscience. We know the Eagles inhale TV time and newspaper space, and the Phillies’ continued success has earned them considerable attention as well. Flyers fans consume everything they can get a hold of, and the Sixers aren’t going anywhere.

Add to that seven Division I colleges and a raft of minor league teams, and you can see how much work the Union has to do. It will not be easy to carve out a niche with all that competition.

Oh, and did I mention that Villanova could be playing in the Sweet 16 at the Carrier Dome on the same night as the Union's opener? The NCAA Tournament East Regional semifinals are also on March 25. If I had to pick one, I’d rather be in Seattle than Syracuse. But even on that big night the Union will have competition for attention.

It is not an impossible task, though. The team and its fans have already demonstrated that they can create buzz for themselves. Among other examples, soccer stories on Philly.com have generated enough traffic to get attention from some reasonably important people around here.

You might recall that a few months back, I wrote a piece for the Inquirer in which I argued that soccer’s status in America will be measured this summer by how many newspapers send writers to the World Cup.

That argument can be scaled to Philadelphia Union as well. If you see Bob Ford or Kerith Gabriel getting lunch at F.X. McRory’s on that Thursday afternoon, it will mean something.

To borrow from the old Robert Frost line, this day gave the Union and its fans some real promises to keep. Their long wait will end six months and two days from now, when the Sons of Ben join the Emerald City Supporters to march from Pioneer Square to Qwest Field.

How fitting that a journey of so many miles will end with a few short blocks.

You all know that I've been covering Penn basketball for a while now. Of the many great names whose pictures adorn the walls of the Palestra, the Quaker who has always interested me more than any other has been Jerome Allen.

I never saw him play in person. I've seen highlight clips here and there, particularly of Penn's win over Nebraska in the 1994 NCAA Tournament. But there is almost an entire generation now of local college basketball fans who only know Allen from the history books.

After spending two years in the NBA, Allen played most of his professional career in Europe. But after this past season, he decided it was time to come home. So he moved back to Philadelphia and became an assistant coach at his alma mater.

Yesterday afternoon, just a few days after his wife gave birth to their fourth child, I finally met Allen for the first time. We sat down for a pretty lengthy interview, which you can read below.

From where I sat, he seemed quite excited to be back in Philadelphia and at Penn. Given the Quakers' struggles in recent years, perhaps that energy might give the program a bit of a boost. We'll see.

Q. What made you decide to come back now?

A. Well, I knew at the latter part of my career that coaching was definitely something I wanted to do. As my career started to wind down, I tried to learn as much about the field as I possibly could while still playing. So I did an internship with the [San Antonio] Spurs' staff on their Summer League team out in Las Vegas [in 2007]. That really propelled my interest even further.

From that point on, I said, this is something I really want to get into. I finished playing, and spoke with Coach Miller, and he said there may be an opportunity. And I said, well if there is, that is something I'd like to consider.

Q. You had quite a run in Italy.

A. Yeah. I spent the bulk of my playing career in Italy, and played more or less eight years in the country for four different teams. My youngest daughter was born in Italy. So I've been blessed with so much - the game has taken me all across the world. I'm appreciative of not only the process to get to that level, but I'm more appreciative of the journey that I was able to partake in.

Q. A lot of Ivy League players have gone on to play in Europe - including another former Penn guard, Ibrahim Jaaber, who plays in Italy now. Did you get a chance to talk to them while you were over there?

A. Absolutely. I had the chance to play against and with Mason Rocca, who played at Princeton, for two years. I played against [former Penn guard] Michael Jordan, I played against Ibby. So to see those dynamics unfold was something special.

One year, Vince Curran, who was a senior when I was a freshman and now does the radio for the Quakers, he came over to visit and we were playing Ibby's team at the same time. So it was a kind of a Penn reunion. And the team that Ibby played on had a guy who played at Temple [David Hawkins, from what I can tell - J.T.], so we kind of turned into a Big 5 reunion.

It was kind of special, especially coming from this university, to see guys do well at the collegiate level and then have opportunities to play at the next level.

Q. You said you were with the Spurs for a while. What was it like learning from Gregg Popovich?

A. For the month or so I was there, "Pop" wasn't around, but he was "there." What I mean by that is that he was traveling, getting ready for Tony Parker's wedding at the time - they had just come off winning a championship. But he and R.C. Buford, they do such a good job of molding the environment, the culture, the Spurs brand, so that [Summer League] head coach Don Newman just did a really good job of implementing their brand of basketball. And although [Popovich] wasn't there, I had the feeling that he was there because things still went according to plan.

Q. What has changed around here since you left?

A. Even if you just look at 40th Street with the new high rises, the movie theater, the Marathon Grill and all the other retail outlets there - Huntsman Hall [the main Wharton School building] used to be the school bookstore. Steinberg-Dietrich [the main Wharton building before Hunstman Hall opened] is no longer the Steinberg-Dietrich I knew it to be.

And just all the [athletic facility] development going on here with the Penn Connects plan. It's exciting. I'm a little bit in awe. But as I'm in the moment, I just try to take it all in and just say that this is really how things are supposed to evolve.

You can imagine - the first day I set foot on campus was 18 years ago.

Q. From what I've heard, you've done a lot with current Penn guard Zack Rosen since you came back. Can you talk about what that's been like?

A. Prior to my accepting the position, what I normally did in the summertime was find a core group of local guys and work them out during the summer. Zack Rosen and Jack Eggleston and a couple of other local kids would call my phone every morning to make sure I was up and was going to be on time. They really had the thirst for trying, wanting to get better.

One of the things I give these guys credit for is the fact that a lot of people want to get better, but not everyone has to get better. Those guys made the commitment that they had to get better. I just tried to share what I know about the game. I learned some things from then and I would hope that they learned some things from myself.

Q. I want to go back in time a bit to the Nebraska game in the 1994 NCAA Tournament, which was Penn's last win in the NCAAs. It's probably what a lot of people around my age know you for best. For the people who weren't there, what was that day like?

A. It was unique in the sense that it was the first time in my career that we went past the first round in the NCAA Tournament. But it was more unique in the sense that everyone took part in it. What I mean by that is that it wasn't just the 15 players we had, it wasn't the four coaches we had, the four managers we had. We were in Nassau Coliseum on Long Island in New York, and if there were 12,000 fans at that game. Penn probably had 8,000 fans there.

To be able to share that with so many people was the best feeling that a player could ever have. To really be able to do something and know that other people were sharing in the success. My own mother ran on to the court. I asked her what she was doing on the court and told her to get off the court and she said no.

She felt like she won the game also. The 8,000 fans we had there were cheering, going crazy. They felt like they were playing defense and making assists and making threes. The game of basketball is so special in that it touches so many people. That's really what stands out in my mind about that game.

Q. What do you think it's going to be like to walk out on to the floor of the Palestra as a coach for the first time?

A. I'm quite sure that it will be a little funny, but I've been in that building so many times after my career here ended that I imagine it just being what it is - me having the opportunity to help our guys get better. My playing days are long over with and I try to leave them where they are, which is in the past. I try to focus on how I can help put my stamp on what coach Miller is trying to do here.

Q. Along that line, I have one more question. When the Temple game comes around, you're going to have Fran Dunphy, Matt Langel and Shawn Trice on the other side of the floor. Have you thought about what that is going to be like?

A. I mean, my best friend is LeShawn Trice [his actual name], who was my roomate at Penn. I will treat it as if we were in the gym playing pickup ball and I had to play against those guys. I want to win. And then after the game, we can laugh and joke and talk. But Temple is obviously on our schedule and it is a game we are going to prepare to win. It is a game that should be a difficult one but I hope we come out on the positive side.

Then after the game, I think my relationships with Coach Dunph and Matt Langel and LeShawn Trice and Coach [Dave] Duke will still continue, but we're in this business to win games.

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You’ve probably noticed by now that one of the undercurrents of this blog is my interest in sports outside the traditional Big Four.

Thus far, the journey has taken us through college football, college basketball, track and field and soccer. Sometimes what I write generates interest, and sometimes it generates tumbleweeds.

Today, I’m killing this blog’s audience once and for all.

I’m writing about tennis.

For all that I’ve ever said about the other sports I cover, believe me when I tell you that tennis is one of my very favorites.

So when I heard that Andre Agassi was coming to King of Prussia to play World Team Tennis for the Philadelphia Freedoms, I made sure my calendar was clear.

Even though he’s been retired for a few years now, Agassi remains a star. If I went out on the street and asked 10 random people to name one American tennis player, I bet a few would pick him, and not just because he's married to Steffi Graf.

The real reason why Agassi is still so well-known is his place as the last link in a decades-long chain of American dominance in the sport.

From the mid-1990's through their famous 2002 U.S. Open final, Agassi and Pete Sampras were at their best on tennis’ biggest stages. Sampras held the Grand Slam singles titles record for a time, winning the last of his 14 in the aforementioned duel at Flushing Meadows.

But Agassi countered Sampras' resumé with nine Slams of his own, inclduing the 1999 French Open. Not only did that title clinch the career Slam for Agassi, but it came on the famed terre battue that Sampras never solved.

In the early 90's, Jim Courier and Michael Chang also stood among the sport’s elite. Before that, John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors seized the spotlight with big games and bigger tempers.

(I grant that I wasn’t alive for much of the McEnroe-Connors era, but I’ve been told that The Inquirer used to send staff writers to Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. I guess the company had money to spend once upon a time.)

These days, however, tennis registers only a blip on the American sports radar. Golf now has more of the “country club” audience, while baseball and (above all) the NFL are now year-round affairs.

But tennis has also been complicit in its own demise, at least in this country. Notwithstanding Andy Roddick’s epic loss to Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final last Sunday, Roddick’s 2003 U.S. Open title was the last men’s singles Slam won by an American.

(If only he’d hit that backhand volley in at the end of the second set...)

Americans want to see Americans win championships in international sports, plain and simple. If that doesn’t happen, they go elsewhere. It’s part of why soccer is where it is in this country, for example, and even if the U.S. wins a World Cup they’ll probably have to win more than one for the sport to really go mainstream nationwide.

(Note that I said nationwide, not locally in Philadelphia. As you’ve probably heard by now, that’s another story.)

Anyway, back to tennis. I played the sport fairly often (if not too well) growing up, and the four Grand Slams have been appointment television for me for many years. There were public hard courts near my parents' house, and I took lessons under a big inflatable bubble a few miles down the road.

I imagined Sampras leaping for overhead smashes at the net, and Agassi returning blistering serves with impeccable backhands (which he's still got, by the way).

I ended up with a forehand that could sustain a decent rally when playing with family and friends. Such is life.

Nowadays, kids in Switzerland watch Roger Federer hit groundstrokes that resemble impressionist paintings. In Spain, they marvel at Rafael Nadal’s ability to surf across red clay. Andy Murray has inspired Great Britain to believe that he might end a Wimbledon drought for the home nation that rivals anything William Penn or the Cubs could offer.

Here in America, we pay all that little notice. Most of the tennis fans I know are resigned to the sport’s rank on the totem pole, though Twitter and other social networking sites have made their sighs louder.

Agassi held a press conference before last night's match, and I asked him whether tennis can make a comeback in the United States. You'll see his answer in the video player below.

I also talked to Jan-Michael Gambill, an American who rose as high as No. 14 in the ATP rankings in 2001. Gambill was in town with the Boston Lobsters, who beat Agassi and the Freedoms.

Now I turn the question to you. Can tennis in America return to prominence? Or is it gone for good?

If I may analyze the Sixers' selection of UCLA guard Jrue Holiday from the perspective of a college basketball observer instead of a pro basketball observer...

We don't see a lot of Pac-10 basketball on the East Coast. This is in part because the conference's games are on Fox Sports Net, whose telecasts CSN doesn't always pick up, and in part because the big games are often at 10 p.m. our time.

So let's look at Holiday's stats from this past season, his only one in college basketball. Holiday averaged 8.5 points, 3.7 assists, 3.8 rebounds and 1.6 steals in an average of 27.1 mintues per game. He shot 45.0 percent from the field, 30.7 percent from three-point range and 72.6 percent from the free throw line. Collison played in 35 games this past season, starting in 34.

To me, those numbers aren't indicitative of the kind of top talent that we heard Holliday described as when he arrived at Pauley Pavilion - especially the single-digit points per game.

Then I look at this quote from Bob Cooney's live blog of the Draft:

[John] Smallwood says you had to do it, because if he was able to come straight out of high school, he would have been a number one pick. Like I said earlier, he is a guy who gives them a couple of years. He is a project with good skills. [ESPN's Jay] Bilas called him a top-ten talent. Satisfied fans?

And these quotes from Tony DiLeo:

He was one of the guys we liked. We tried to move up a little bit but couldn't, very fortunate cause he dropped to us. He's exactly what we wanted. Bug guard and can play a lot of different combinations. He could be a great fit for our team. He's a very good defender, which is rare for ayoung player. He was the top player in high school coming out.

We interviewed him in Chicago, didn't have him in for a workout because we thought he'd go in the top 10. He told us that he was never jealous of [Darren] Collison at UCLA. That was a situation where he didn't get to develop his point guard sills in his one year there. Don't want to put pressure on him. I think defensively he can come in and play. He can definitely play. We ween't looking at him to come in and make an impact next season, we're looking further ahead of that. We'ere still a work in progress as a team and we still want to do some things. He compared himself to Deron Williams of the Utah Jazz.

Well, I was under the impression that the Sixers needed point guard help right now. Holiday might not have been jealous of Darren Collison, but a lot of people expected to see Holiday put up better numbers than he did regardless of his place on the depth chart.

And in perhaps UCLA's highest-pressure game of the year, the NCAA Tournament second-round matchup against Villanova, Holiday scored only four points on 1-of-6 shooting in 27 minutes. He dished out seven assists, but also committed four turnovers.

If Holiday turns out to be as good as Deron Williams, that will be great. But Williams led Illinois to the national championship game, and in general built a far deeper resumé in college than Holliday has. That kind of experience counts a lot to me, but I know that NBA scouts often look at athleticism and upside more than past accomplishments.

(That's a polite way of saying what I really think about what's been wrong with the NBA for most of this decade.)

It's all well and good that Holliday wants to disprove some of the negative perceptions that people have of him, as he said on ESPN after his name was called. But if it was up to me, I would have chosen a more proven commodity.

Specifically, I would have taken North Carolina's Ty Lawson. When you have the chance to own the straw that stirred the most explosive drink in college basketball over the last three seasons, I don't think you should pass it up.

I don't care if he's only 5-foot-11. He's got fantastic speed, great court vision, and can score from both the lane and the perimeter. He also knows how to run system-based offenses, and Eddie Jordan is a system-based coach.

Granted, it's not the same kind of system Lawson orchestrated at Carolina, but in terms of how Jordan wants the ball to move around, I think Lawson would have handled it quite well.

And I think it's of no small significance that Lawson was taken with the very next pick by Minnesota, even if he was later traded to Denver.

After Lawson, the next three picks were Wake Forest's Jeff Teague, Virginia Commonwealth's Eric Maynor and UCLA's Darren Collison - putting the Holiday pick in even more context.

Personally, and again, I'm writing this as a college basketball observer, I think all of the above guards had better seasons than Holiday. Again, I'm using the experience-over-upside argument, but I also read in the Inquirer that Maynor was considered by scouts to be "NBA-ready."

In particular, I think Lawson and Collison were the best point guards in college basketball over the last few seasons by a considerable margin. Holiday may well have more "upside" than Collison, but Collison was a great controller of tempo and flow of the game when he was on the court.

(Though my opinion of him definitely went down a notch when he criticized Villanova's physicality after the NCAA Tournament game.)

With all that said, what matters most is how the players do on the floor from this point forward. Perhaps Holiday will turn out to be a star, and he'll become the kind of leader the 76ers envision.

But in the present tense, I would feel a lot better had the Sixers drafted Lawson.

What do you think?

Since I work for a mainstream media organization, I figure it makes sense for me to extend my coverage of Blogs with Balls for one more news cycle than some might think the story requires.  It's quite the trend these days, after all.

(Yes, that was sarcasm. I do have to keep getting my paycheck, you know.)

In all honesty, I think the discussion across the sports blogosphere about this past weekend is far from over. There is a lot for us all still to talk about, and while I don't know how much of the conversation will take place on this blog, I'm sure there will be plenty of other venues.

I'd like to take a moment to thank the many of you who've come here for the first time this week as a result of Blogs With Balls. If you haven't read the previous posts I've written about the conference, you'll find them at the bottom of the page.

I hope you'll stick around, and if there's stuff relating to college sports or soccer that you'd like to see on here, please let me know via email or in the comments.

So here's the third interview I did on Saturday, and there's a good reason why I saved it for the end. There's probably no bigger name in the sports blogosphere than Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio, and it just so happens that he's a native of the Philadelphia area.

Well, maybe it's not so coincidental. Daulerio made a name for himself writing for Philadelphia magazine, which means that he's spent time as both a mainstream journalist and a full-time blogger.

In a week like this, it's not a bad perspective to have.

Question: What does it say that this event is taking place?

Answer: I think you’re finding that blogs are becoming a lot more popular and a lot more legitimate, and people are taking them seriously. It’s no longer just a hobby for people, it’s a kind of lifestyle, and possibly a career, too.

Q. Should mainstream media organizations be reporting on what’s said in the blogosphere?

A. I think you have to pick and choose. Especially after the latest incident with the Midwest Sports Fan guy [and Raul Ibanez], I think he was kind of treated a little unfairly. I understand where some things can get reckless and can take on a life of their own, but I think that was a little self-created too, by you guys.

I think everybody has to have a really good read on what’s quality and what is something that could be potentially damaging.

Q. Given your position in charge of Deadspin, I’ve noticed that a lot of people have come up to you and asked if you could link to their stuff. What’s that like?

* - It happened twice during this interview.

A. I guess it’s expected in some ways. Obviously, we have a lot of traffic that people would like to get sometimes. And that’s part of the deal, really. It just speaks to the success of the site in a lot of ways, I guess, so you can’t really be upset about it.

Q. Do you ever have mainstream media people send you their stuff asking if you could link to it?

A. Absolutely, and I think it’s happening more and more. Especially with the bigger publications. Sports Illustrated is doing it, GQ does it, Esquire does it. They all see the value in terms of taking our audience and getting our eyeballs on their pages.

Q. Do you have any sense from where you are of where the relationship between the mainstream media and the blogs is headed? On both sides, lots of people would admit that there was, at the start, the dynamic of one side versus the other. Now the walls have come down to some degree, and the two sides are sort of living with each other, if not working with each other. Where do you think it’s headed?

A. I think more and more, you’re going to see an intersection between how mainstream and blogs can work together. I think it’s already starting to happen - obviously, you guys have a blogging component to their site.

Everybody’s going to be able to do this and see how this is beneficial to really getting better stories out there and getting some more truth and geting some more opinions out there. It might be at a saturation level, but I think there is some room to grow.

Links to Previous Coverage
- Interview with Chris Lucas of Hugging Harold Reynolds
- Interview with Don Povia of Hugging Harold Reynolds
- My analysis of Blogs With Balls

Here's the second of the three interviews I did at Blogs With Balls. This one is with Chris Lucas, who co-authors Hugging Harold Reynolds with Don Povia. It's pretty long, but it's worth reading all the way through.

You can read my interview with Povia here, and my original post from the conference here.

Question: For you, what are the goals of this event?

Answer: We had goals going into it and our goals sort of changed over time. Initially we thought, let’s just get folks together. Because we have these networks and these names, but we don’t put faces to them. We all are in the same circles, but we know there are ways we could be doing this better. So it’s just a question of getting people in the same room. And then it became a question of getting people in the same larger room, and then we made the room larger and larger.

Then we realized how many people were out there who wanted the same thing, and they were just people we didn’t know. So one of the major goals was, okay, how do get everybody in the same place? And can we do it, and what would it take to do it? We want people to network obviously, but we also want people to come away with an idea of what they want to do next, and not a rehash of what happened. Because people are changing on the internet while people are here now.

So we want to let some great best practices percolate up, and we’re hoping we’re accomplishing that. I’ve talked to a couple people who have ideas now of what they want to do next. Are they trying to find new ways of distributing their content, new people to network with, [or] are they going to scrap what they’re doing and start over. We’ve really got diverse takeaways here.

Q. Is an event like this a means or an end in and of itself?

A. I think you’d have to ask the people who are here. We want it to be a means. But some folks, they just want to see some of these people, and that’s it, mission accomplished. But this is really a means. The Internet is constantly evolving, so what we do here today could be obscure in a month or a year.

We want to do this to promote the networking opportunities, but [also] to promote the quality of what we’re doing. Because there is a lot of quality content out there, and we want to support that. So I consider it a means in that sense because it’s a means of support. People who are discouraged because they aren’t getting the traffic they deserve or want, let’s show you how to do that because you’re putting out great stuff.

Q. What does it say to you when two ESPN SportsCenter anchors (David Amber and Josh Elliott) and a camera crew show up to this thing?

(I was told by Amber that there will be a feature about Blogs With Balls on “Outside the Lines,” though he didn’t give me a specific date.)

A. It’s about time. But at the same time, they’re welcome. Just because you’re late to something doesn’t mean you’re not welcome. The fact is that ESPN’s a huge company, and a lot like the Internet. It used to be, as long as you’re on it - but that was a mistake to begin with.

You need to be involved, and I think you’re seeing that with the blogs. You can’t just have a blog, you need to be involved with the communities that exist and that are developing. And whether you or not try to create those communities, that’s great too, but you need to acknowledge - and in some ways, ESPN provides legitimacy that another blog network couldn’t.

So I think part of the fact that ESPN is here should boost the people who are saying, “Oh, I get that stupid blogger stereotype of just a lonely person.” No, everyone deserves respect for what they do.

Q. One of the panelists in the discussion on the future of sports media talked about how a sports consulting firm does aggregation and research work for SportsCenter’s Blog Buzz segment in addition to working with athletes and coaches. What was your reaction to hearing that?

A. I can’t say I’m surprised or shocked. But at the same time, do I care about how they get it in there initially? Probably not. Again, be here, be involved, and realize how you can fix the way you’re doing it.

At the same time, is the company that’s working with them an objective intermediary? Who knows. But that’s why we’re doing this. The present situation is murky, it’s messy and that can be okay, but at the same time, maybe some folks will come out of this [asking] that same question and maybe that will lead to a change. Hopefully a change for the better.

Q. Given the ability for something to go viral, and given the numbers of people who maybe don't read that blog every day but who might read that one blog post, should bloggers have the license to say whatever they want?

A. Of course. And here’s the thing. You have newspapers that are saying that the reason why blogs aren’t reliable is because of that. It’s speculation, it’s liability, it’s people just mouthing off. That [mainstream media outlets] have whole research departments, we have the resources and education and knowledge and historical perspective to be arbiters of what people are saying.

Is it any different from anybody saying it in a crowded bar? No. The reporter could have heard it in a crowded bar and written it. But because it’s a blogger, we fear that this person has an audience, [and] what if it gets out? That’s not even realistic. The blogger is allowed to ask questions.

And to be perfectly frank, the questioning of [Raul] Ibanez in general - the environment exists. [Albert] Pujols acknowleged it in a Sports Illustrated piece not that long ago. So I didn’t see [the Midwest Sports Fans blog post] as being that controversial, but I think it illustrates the need for this [conference], for sure.

Q. The flip side: Should the mainstream media be employing people who report on what is said on the blogs, knowing that whether or not it is intentionally so, that reporting gives a certain legitimacy to what is being said?

A. I think that’s an interesting question, but I think it goes to a larger issue in reporting. Do you report on what someone says, and that’s it, or do you report what someone says and then debunk it, support it, or criticize, find the validity there or why it’s completely wrong?

We trust newspaper reporters and other mainstream media to judge. That goes for whether it’s a city beat, a sports beat or international affairs. We’ve gotten to this place where everyone reports on what is said, without context. This situation deserves context just as much as a G-8 summit. A lot of people say, let’s call [out] people when they’re off, but if somebody echoes a sentiment that has some truth, that’s worthy of repeating as well. But provide some context.

Q. I guess a follow-up to that would be: A lot of people say the act of making a statement has now become news in and of itself. So the reporting on what is said is considered an act of journalism.

A. And does that sound right to you? It doesn’t have to be that way. That’s something that’s easily corrected by saying, “Somebody said this, here’s why it’s wrong.” And that’s why people go to either your mainstream website or another mainstream website, because they like the objectivity of the reporting that’s done.

It’s reporting, not transcribing. I feel like we’re getting to a point where there seems to be a gray line where there shouldn’t be.

Q. Can the different standards of blogging and “mainstream journalism” be reconciled? I’ve even heard some bloggers say that mainstream reporting is a different kind of act from blogging.

A. That’s probably true. But look at Yahoo! and SBNation. You have an AP article about the Boston Red Sox, and right under it you have a link to OvertheMonster.com, which is a blog. And maybe Yahoo! took a look at SBNation and said their standards are good enough for us, so we can put these next to each other.

But the fact is that you will always have bloggers who decide that whatever the mainstream media does, I’m just going to be opposite. They relish that they can do anything. Then you have some legitimate news organizations who say they want to be more like blogs.

Q. I think I can fairly say that a lot of people in the mainstream media fear that the relationship with blogs is, or at least could become, one of substitution instead of being complementary.

A. I think any relationship that has the word fear in it is never going to be healthy. Give me an example where something based out of fear turns out to be a good situation for both parties. So if that’s the truth, then we’re all in trouble.

Bloggers need mainstream media. They need something to link to. They need content just as much as they need to create it. But at the same time, blogging remains a huge missed opportunity - still. Yahoo! the first to really try this in earnest. But if you incorporate [blogs’] content, especially well-written content, why deny people that?

Q. Who should be the judge of what’s well-written content?

A. I think well-written content shows itself pretty clearly. Now the question is, is it well-written content with foul language in there? Then it becomes an editorial issue for whoever’s writing. If you say, “We want to work with you, but we can’t,” then [the blogger] can make the decision as to either tone it down or to just stay how they are and say, “See you later.”

That just means that a conversation needs to take place, and that’s a healthy thing. Once people start talking, that element of fear that you mentions begins to diminish, I believe. That can’t be 100 percent of the time, but once people start talking, you find that there are real humans on the other side of the phone or e-mail.

But who decides well-written content in the end? Your readership, based on whether they keep coming back.

I said I'd be back today with my interviews from Blogs With Balls, and here I am. I thought I'd be able to fit them all in one post, but I realized there's just too much stuff for that to work.

So I've split them up. The first interview is with Don Povia of Hugging Harold Reynolds. In addition to being one of the organizers of the conference, Povia is the man behind the mask at HHR's Twitter feed.

If you haven't read my report from the conference yet, click here.

Question: What’s the goal of Blogs with Balls?

Answer: The one thing we’ve been really advocating for - and I think there was a perfect storm this week with the Ibanez story - is just opening up the lines of communication and facilitating that conversation. Not only among bloggers and traditional media outlets, but also advertisers, marketers that are looking to dive into new media.

The one thing that we wanted to do from the beginning is put people in one room. Put some faces on people that are blogging and that are folks you see online, and note the fact that these are real people, these are intelligent people, and they’re influential people as well. So really it was putting people in one room and really opening up conversation that was long overdue, specifically in the sports world.

Q. Is this a means or an end, as such?

A. Well, I think it’s ever-evolving. One thing that we talked about is doing this as a series and using it as a resource, because things are so rapidly changing. There’s been a lot of talk about Twitter today - in a year from now, two years from now, we won’t be using Twitter. It will be so out of date. The same thing in a couple months, a couple weeks: who knows what’s going to happen? It’s ever-evolving. So I really think it’s a maze, and this conference and ones in the future are just a platform.

Q. With the Ibanez story, you guys were involved in it, the Inquirer was involved in it. Any blogger, even the mainstream bloggers in a lot of ways, want to get their stuff read by other bloggers. They want to get it picked up and circulated, they want the attention. Do they really want the kind of attention Midwest Sports Fans got?

A. In the aftermath of all that, people were pointing at Jerod [Morris] and saying, “You’re attention-grabbing, I hope you’re happy.” I really don’t think that was the point. I really think it mushroomed into something bigger than it was. I don’t think that was his purpose. If anybody went back and read the original article, I think it’s been terribly misconstrued. I’ve had conversations with John Gonzalez about this and I don’t think [Morris] was seeking the attention, but I think he handled it well with the attention that’s been brought to it and to himself.

Q. On the flip side, should mainstream news organizations have their reporters reporting on what is being said on the blogs?

A. Well, I talked to John and I hope he doesn’t mind me relaying this. He brought up a great point when he said that whether newspapers or any other media source wants to admit it, when people are talking about it, inherently it’s news and it is relevant. So it’s not reporting on every little thing that’s put out there on the blogosphere, but if there’s a conversation going on, why ignore what people are talking about?

Q. Do you think at that this event, given that you have mainstream journalists and bloggers and PR types together, getting all these people to meet face-to-face instead of via Twitter and such can help change attitudes?

A. I think it’s a start. I’m not saying that attitudes are going to change overnight, but going back to the purpose, it’s opening up doors and making introductions. John Gonzalez articulated that well, that this is the direction that things are heading in. If that’s the case, and I believe it is, it only serves to benefit all the parties. It’s a long-overdue conversation and we’re just trying to catch up the process.

Journalists and bloggers. Notice the lack of flying tomatoes.

NEW YORK - Many of you know that in addition to writing about sports, I have a keen interest in social networking and building community online. Those two interests dovetailed yesterday in a way that I think you'll find interesting.

The popular sports blog Hugging Harold Reynolds put together a conference in Manhattan for sports bloggers, mainstream journalists, public relations types and the owners of some of the web's biggest sports fan blogging networks. It was titled Blogs With Balls, and yes, the name works on more than one level.

I was there, and so was my Philly.com colleague Sheil Kapadia of Moving the Chains fame. That wasn't coincidental - we both have a strong interest in finding ways for sports fans, especially in the Philadelphia region, to interact with us and with Philly.com's content.

There was a wide range of topics discussed, from how to monetize blogs to the future of the media to the perennial question of the relationship between bloggers and mainstream journalists.

I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that there was much discussion of the recent controversy over whether Raul Ibanez is using performance-enhancing drugs. For those of you who did not read the Jerod Morris' blog post on Midwest Sports Fans that started the discussion, here it is.

Much was made of how mainstream media - the Inquirer included - fueled the story. Yet the discussion's tone was impressively civil, even with the copious amount of beer that was consumed by many in the room.

(Though not by me. I had work to do, right?)

While the debate over whether bloggers should be able to say whatever they want on their sites will continue for a while to come, I think three significant themes emerged from yesterday's panels.

First, no matter how many ways we find to converse with each other online, nothing matches being able to talk to someone in real life. Whether at a media conference or a ballpark clubhouse, there is something about a face-to-face conversation that Twitter and Facebook just can't match.

Second, the lines that used to divide blogs and mainstream media have been blurred considerably from where they used to be. I remember going to a conference a few years back on the conflicts between blogs and the mainstream media, and there was a sense that the two sides really were opposed to each other.

Today the mainstream media has found value in blogs - just look at Philly.com's Fan Blogroll or Page 2 of the Inquirer sports section. At the same time, bloggers are acknowledging that their work would be diminished without mainstream journalists' access to players and coaches.

(Definitely read Frank Fitzpatrick's piece in today's Inquirer for more perspective on this.)

Third, you never know when something you say will get linked up on the web and suddenly explode into something bigger than you could have ever imagined.

It doesn't mean that bloggers should necessarily restrain their opinions, but it does mean that you have to make sure you're okay with all of your words reaching a wider audience than you might expect.

A blog post you thought would get read by only 10 people might get linked up on other blogs and all of a sudden you've got 100,000 readers instead. As blogs become ever more popular, their authors are finding out that such wide exposure can be both a blessing and a curse.

(This post by Morris on Saturday is a great example, as he considers the broader ramifications of the language he used in the first post about Ibanez.)

On the whole, though, it was a great day. You can find out much more about what happened at Blogs With Balls' official website, and it's also worth reading the wide range of reactions to the conference on Twitter.

Tomorrow, I'll post interviews with two of the organizers of Blogs With Balls as well as Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio. All three had interesting things to say about the significance of the event and where things might head from here.

Did you get any work done this afternoon?

At the very least, I bet you were less productive than you usually are. Literally hundreds of millions of people around the world watched today's titanic Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United, and judging from Twitter and the rest of the Internet a lot of people in Philadelphia were paying attention.

It was a great game between two teams stacked with superstars, from Man U's Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney to Barcelona's Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi.

In the end, Messi and the Blaugrana came out on top. Barcelona got a goal in each half - Samuel Eto'o in the first half and Messi in the second - to seal a 2-0 win. It was Barça's second Champions League triumph in four seasons, and the first time ever that Man U lost a final.

The so-called "Cup with the Big Ears" has returned to Catalonia, and there's no doubt that soccer fans the world over ar quite happy about it. Barcelona has earned its reputation as one of the world's most popular sports teams by insisting on playing attractive soccer, not just in recent years but going back decades. This year's squad has certainly continued that tradition.

As you can see above, I've put together a photo gallery of some of the best pictures from the day in Rome. I hope you enjoy it.

Back in the States, there's some late-breaking news that John Calipari is in hot water with the NCAA.

(You may start snickering...)

The Memphis Commercial-Appeal reports that Calipari is accused of "'knowing [of] fraudulence or misconduct' on an SAT exam by a player on the 2007-08 team."

In other words, a student on that team had someone else take the SAT for him. While the player's name was redacted on the NCAA's report due to privacy laws, Commercial-Appeal writer Dan Caulken writes that "[t]he wording of the report seems to indicate the player in question only competed during the 2007-08 season and specifically the 2008 NCAA tournament."

Only one player fits that description: Derrick Rose.

Juicy, isn't it?

There is no accusation of "lack of institutional control," which would bring the big hammer down if proven. But the allegation at hand could result in Memphis forfeiting its trip to the national championship game a year ago.

Commercial-Appeal columnist Geoff Calkins lets Calipari have it, and you can read his writing here.

You can read the NCAA's letter to Memphis at the Commercial-Appeal's website here.

Oh, and by the way, this all happened on the same day that former Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie sued the school for being fired without cause. He's seeking $6 million in lost salary and "an undisclosed amount of punitive damages, attorneys' fees, court costs and interest," according to the Associated Press.

If only the Wildcats had some spare NCAA Tournament revenue sitting around. Oh, wait.

Any armchair judges out there?