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ESPN's Title Town, USA: And the winner should be...
If you are an avid sports fan, undoubtedly, you watch ESPN's SportsCenter. Reflecting its primary focus on entertainment, rather than sports, the folks at ESPN are conducting yet another unscientific and haphazard fan voting contest-Title Town, USA.
The concept of ascertaining a sports "Title Town, USA," is an interesting one. As usual, ESPN finds a way to mess things up. Among the problems with this poll is the fact that ESPN does not set any parameters.
If you log on to ESPN's website, go to the search option and type in "titletown" you will discover ESPN's Top 20 options. But you will not find any information about what the criteria should be in order to cast your vote. The link is provided here:
http://sports.espn.go.com/keyword/search?searchString=Titletown&page=es…
And yes, I know that the point of such useless polls is designed to stimulate conversation among sports fans, but what good are the results? Does the city that wins this poll really get to lay claim to be "Title Town, USA?" Designations such as Title Town are as ridiculous as the Dallas Cowboy's claim as "America's team" or the Boston Red Sox' claim to be a "nation."
Because I think it is important to establish parameters, let's do so. First, the city must have won titles in multiple major sports. Second, the city must have won titles in multiple decades. Third, and most importantly, the city must win major titles at all three levels: professional, college, and high school. Fourth, are the intangibles, which serve as a sort of tie-breaker.
Using these four criteria allows for the quick elimination of nearly all the options provided by ESPN. Thus, Massillon (yes, you are great at high school football), Palo Alto, Green Bay, Parkersburg, Knoxville, Ann Arbor, Chapel Hill, Columbus, Gainesville, Williamsport (you only hand out titles, you don't earn any), Valdosta (Valdosta State wins at Division II but this would not be considered a major sport championship), Louisville, Lawrence, you are all gone! You win, for the most part, at one level.
This leaves us with 7 cities: Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and San Francisco. Boston has won two World Series in the past 90 years or so, but the Celtics have won numerous titles. As the representative of San Francisco states, the Patriots don't count because they play in Foxboro. But what college from Boston wins multiple major sports titles? Is there any college in Boston that wins any Division I sports titles?
New York City has the Yankees and they have won a ton of titles in baseball, no one is sure if the Knicks are still in the NBA, and the Rangers won a title a decade ago. The G-Men? No, they don't count, they play in New Jersey. New York is easily eliminated in that this city of 8 million people does not have one single major college winning any titles.
We can eliminate San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago and Pittsburgh for the same reason NYC and Boston are out-no major sports titles at the college-level.
Thus, the clear, and obvious "Title Town, USA" belongs to Los Angeles. Multiple titles in baseball (yes, it has been 20 years) and basketball over numerous decades. LA is the only major city that also wins at the college level: USC in football and UCLA in basketball. LA also lays claim to numerous sports titles at the high school level. And, the intangibles: host to the World Cup, Olympics and Super Bowls.
Los Angeles, you are "Title Town, USA." And, as Tommy Lasorda states, "Los Angeles it the sports capital of the world!" Who could argue with Tommy?!
ESPN will reveal the results of their fan voting-and fans can vote more than once!-next week.
