A Million Little Fibers: Looking Back on Two Years

Two years ago I decided it was time to get my blog on. I had run the Astron Solutions blog for a few years but while I enjoyed writing about HR, I really wanted to write about sports. I wrote for school newspapers in high school and college and had even started a sports magazine in college. I liked the writing and I liked the discussions that followed. I was part of the sports department of Brandeis' radio station, WBRS, and I loved the spots debate. I felt like I had the experience. So I figured blogging about sports should be a breeze (little did I know...)

The first task was choosing a name and this took me a while. But on January 4, 2009 I was watching South Park episode "A Million Little Fibers" and the idea which had been oscillating in my head for a few days came to fruition as Towlie was being fired from PF Chang's ("how spicy would you like your Chang sauce?)": No, You're a Towel.

We had a mascot, we had a name, we had a blog...but as our first post showed, we had no clue exactly who we were. We wrote about anything and everything and sometimes at the same time. We had an awesome name but few people--if any--would take us seriously. Last January we had our most popular post ever (a look at Scott Boras' conflict of interest) and a few people e-mailed me that it was time to change the name.

So we did and that's why we're at NYaT now. But it also changed our focus. We stopped trying to be everything to everyone and stuck to what we do best: New York area sports and television. Sure, we digress every once in a while (it's only natural) but we have fun and try to bring you something worthwhile. There are better and much more popular amateur Yankee blogs out there (River Ave Blues, IIATMS, Yankeeist, and TYU just to name a few--and you can always find links to all of them in our blogroll on the right) but we'll always be here covering the Yankees. The idea is to try to bring you a different perspective and provide it to you in a meaningful way.

Read more>>

Welcome to the New Site: NYaT.net

I love this blog. NY sports and 24 with a comedic/over analytical twist?
I'll take one.

-Commenter "Parch"

Welcome (or should I say Namaste?)! If you've found your way here, something worked correctly. I want to apologize for the downtime you may have experienced with the blog. The forwarding should have gone a lot easier, but, alas, it seems nothing is truly as easy as it seems with technology. As you can see, we've moved on from "No, You're a Towel" and we're now NYaT, which was our nickname anyways.

But now, after a little over a year in business, we're refocused. NYaT now also stands for: New York sports and Television. We're going to give you about 75% sports (and most of that will be New York Yankees baseball), about 20% TV and about 5% "other". We have fans of all the major New York area sports teams writing for the blog, but we'll also get into national topics as well.

What spawned this? Well, we've been wanting to change the name for a while. Not because we disliked the name (hell, I thought it was extremely creative, and judging by the messages I've gotten since I decided to change, many of you did as well), but more because we wanted to continue to grow and evolve. Everyone who watches South Park loves Towelie but as a blog that focuses on sports mostly should have something other than a pot-smoking, army-built towel as a theme. And this week, with more visitors coming than we've ever had, we've had another rallying cry to change the name.

But we're not letting "No, You're a Towel" die (and we'll still keep the Twitter account for a while). "No, You're a Towel" was the original name of the blog because that's what we would say to each other when our sports teams would get made fun of, but over time, it seemed to have lost it's meaning. Towelie will still be in our name and we won't change a lot else. Hopefully all the changes will be to the benefit of the readers. The design will change a bit on the site and hopefully make it easier to read. The content will be more focused. But hopefully we'll begin to be taken more seriously as a sports blog, a process that really took off this week. 

And if you have suggestions, just click the "contact" link at the top of the screen and let me know. I'm technically challenged, but I've really loved blogging and interacting with the readers and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Let me know what you like and what you don't like and hopefully we can make this a place you make a priority to visit multiple times a day. From Ari, Ben, Jay, Sarah and myself, we thank you for making this part of your online reading and we hope you subscribe to our feed/e-mail updates (on the right), become our friends on Facebook, Networked Blogs, and Twitter, comment on our posts with your thoughts and pass this along to your friends. We hope you love what you see.

Thanks!

New York Sports Live Chat Starting at 2 PM EST

The first ever No, You're a Towel live chat on New York Sports:

WBRS honors Nelson Figueroa

The Sports Department at WBRS 100.1 FM -- the official radio station of Brandeis University -- recently conducted an exclusive interview of former Judges pitcher Nelson Figueroa after Brandeis retired his No. 2 jersey, as we previously covered here.

This occasion is exciting for so many reasons. Obviously, the ceremony itself was important because it recognized the most successful baseball player in Brandeis history. Figueroa was, after all, the school's first major leaguer. His recent success on the New York Mets, in particular, has helped put Brandeis Athletics on the map. I imagine I was not the only person who was bombarded by text messages after the Mets' SNY broadcast team of Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling talked about Figueroa's college years at Brandeis!

Also, and perhaps most importantly, this ceremony underscored how unique Figueroa is among major leaguers. We hear too much about the Milton Bradleys and Gary Sheffields of the game - men who are talented but selfish and can't seem to shake the chip on their shoulder. They take a lot from the game - fame and fortune, most often - but give little back to the people who got them to that level. But here we have Nelson Figueroa. He may not be as rich or talented or successful as A-Rod or Barry Bonds, but would those guys return to their Division III alma mater to take photos wearing a not-for-profit radio station's giveaway t-shirt?



No, they would not. Figueroa did. Whether he's at Citi Field or the Shapiro Campus Center, he is willing and happy to give (a considerable amount) of his time to aspiring collegiate journalists. That generosity and warmth cannot be overstated. He's a unique professional athlete in this era, so let's not applaud him just because he went to Brandeis. Let's also recognize him for the positive example he sets for his peers.

Finally, I think Figueroa's celebration -- or should I say the celebration of Figueroa -- is important because it shows how "minor league" sports journalism can achieve big things if the people working in those trenches are persistent. I see Nelson standing in front of those stacks of CDs and LPs -- the same stacks that surrounded Andrew, Ben, and I when we used to broadcast our sports talk show as Brandeis undergrads in the wee hours of the morning -- and I am excited to see how much the WBRS Sports Department has accomplished.

As a member of that department, I once attended a Celtics practice at their facility in Waltham. I leafed through a press packet next to Jackie MacMullan and I got to interview Delonte West. We got Jayson Stark to record a "You're listening to WBRS 100.1 FM, Waltham" promo. But we never got a pro athlete to come to our studios. Nelson Figueroa came to our studios. That day was a great day for WBRS, and for all college radio stations, newspapers, and blogs. Despite the endless and often overwhelming presence of ESPN, Fox Sports, and RSNs such as YES and NESN, here's to the little guys. Here is to WBRS and No, You're a Towel.

Gotta Love The 'Stache

Clay Pflibson Zavada is not exactly a household name. And his mustache isn't exactly one you see every day either. But his story is two-fold: there is the mustache, but the story of the man is equally compelling as well.

The New Times of Broward-Palm Beach describes his first outing (H/T Jorge Says No for the article and the picture): "It's the worst kind of brutality: swift, unforgiving, and ushered in by a waxed, turned, well-spun piece of man hair. If you didn't see it [May 21st], the Marlins lost to the Diamondbacks 4-3. And the winning pitcher only appeared in the seventh inning. It was also his first time to pitch in the big leagues. Most notable though, was the man's incredible facial hair. That's right, Clay Zavada rocks the Rollie Fingers-esque handlebar womb broom...It seems this fantastic 'stache symbolizes something bigger than baseball--something about the perseverance of the blue collar American, and all his facial fuzziness."

As that article seems to suggest, there is something more to the mustache than just hair; something about the man as well. Well, as the New York Times wrote back in December, the 24-year-old Zavada lost his father in December 2006 following his first year of professional baseball. So he gave up baseball for a time to tend to the family farm in Streator, Illinois (practicing by throwing to the assistant principal of his old high school), before he returned to the Arizona Diamondback organization in 2008. But the road back was not as easy at it seems:

"Zavada’s mother, Linda, had died when he was 3; his older brother, Dustin, was serving in the Navy. Suddenly, [after his father's death] Zavada found himself responsible for looking after his family’s property, a mix of farmland and forest that was his father’s pride and joy. 'That’s when the wheels kind of came off the track,' Zavada said. 'He was my life. My brother and him, that’s all we were. The three of us.' Zavada failed to report to spring training in 2007 and lost touch with the Diamondbacks, who dropped his contract later in the summer...That fall, Zavada decided to honor his father’s wishes by completing his bachelor’s degree at Edwardsville. He also took a part-time job delivering furniture"

At that point he was pretty much done with baseball until a friend urged him to try out for an independent league team. Although he started slow, he soon got his momentum back, was resigned again by the Diamondbacks and started his unlikely journey to the big leagues.

But after being called up from AA, he's been lights out. Zero runs in 6 appearances, 5 innings pitched with only 3 hits and zero walks to 7 Ks. He has a win and two holds and looks like he could be sticking with this team for a long time to come. His 'stache has been seen on all over ESPN's programming from Baseball Tonight to First Take (video below where they talk about his "Lip Sweater")

“You got to do what you got to do,” Zavada said in that New York Times article. “It’s how I grew up, you know. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

And because of who he is (and what he looks like), we here at No, You're A Towel have decided to sponsor our first Baseball-Reference page for Clay Zavada. Let's hope him and his mustache have a long and distinguished career in major league baseball.

Canadians love "No, You're a Towel"

While stuck in some brutal Memorial Day traffic this afternoon, I snapped this picture on the Hutchinson Parkway in New York. Some might conclude that this young couple from Ontario wanted to proclaim their love of South Park for all drivers to see. I disagree. It's quite obvious that our readership has finally blossomed north of the border. Thanks for the shoutout, Canada.



Click on the photo to enlarge and read the license plate.