The Sports Curmudgeon®

According to news reports this week, FOX will discontinue Best Damned Sports Show after almost eight years on the air. The final new show has been taped and the network will put on re-runs through mid-August. I must say that its absence from the airwaves will not bring a wave of sadness into my life. I have said for quite a while now that I do not understand how the title of that show gets past the “truth in advertising laws”.

A few legacies of this program remain on television such as Michael Irvin, John Kruk and Rob Dibble. And of course, Tom Arnold pops up from time to time in a variety of places for no discernable reason. None of these folks is doing much to prove Newton Minnow wrong. Other alums include John Salley and Stephen A. Smith, Deacon Jones. I suspect that TV is not their best avenue to fame.

There is one player in the National League who – when he comes to your town or somewhere close enough to your town for you to make a visit – you should consider going out to the park to see him. He is enough of a reason to go to a ball game making the rivalry and the standings and things like that secondary. For me, that player would be Albert Pujols. Just looking at recent history, in the single month of June 2009, Pujols hit 14 HRs and drove in 35 runs. Do that every month of the baseball season and you would have 84 HRs for the year and 210 RBIs.

For me, the one player in the American League who fits that bill would be Ichiro. However, I will tell you now that the tandem of Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau has a very strong attraction for me too…

Watching the Confederations Cup games over the past couple of weeks made me wonder if US men’s soccer coach, Bob Bradley, and Buffalo Bills head coach, Dick Jauron, were separated at birth. Google images will let you decide for yourself…

I am glad that the NBA free agency season has produced as many surprising moves of big name players as it has. That is not because I think there is some cosmic importance contained in those movements; it is because it gets a small but vocal group of nit-picking nitwits to focus their attention elsewhere. The nitwits I am talking about had free rein after the Lakers won the NBA Championship; they were out there “merely pointing out” that Kobe Bryant has never won a championship without Phil Jackson.

In the modern vernacular, that is called “hating”. In my parlance, it is called “irrelevant”. While factually correct, it really adds nothing to the knowledge base. It is also true that:

Michael Jordan never won a championship without Scottie Pippen.

Michael Jordan never won a championship without Phil Jackson.

Red Auerbach never won a championship without Bill Russell.

Those three facts do not diminish the accomplishments of Michael Jordan or Red Auerbach except in the minds of people who are spring-loaded to seek out ways to diminish their accomplishments. And, the fact that Kobe Bryant has always had Phil Jackson as his coach when he won his four championships does not diminish his accomplishments in any way either.

The St. Louis Rams are up for sale; according to reports, the asking price for the team is somewhere north of $900M. Damn! If my IRA had not tanked in the last 9 months, I might have considered making a bid… One of the rumored interested parties in this deal is Rush Limbaugh. I have no idea if the reports of his interest are correct or not but here is something that I would love to have. I want a transcript of the first private conversation between NFL owners, Rush Limbaugh and Al Davis. I have a feeling that would be akin to the transcript of a conversation among Noam Chomsky, Salvador Dali and Immanuel Kant.

Interestingly, there has not been a huge outpouring of stories about someone buying the Rams and moving them back to LA. Recall, there is a gentleman out in the LA area who has the approval to build his own stadium in the City of Industry pursuant to a commitment from an NFL team to move there. And, therein lies the rub…

The proposed stadium would cost about $800M to build. Purchasing the Rams with the intention to commit to moving them to LA would cost $950M (to pick a figure north of $900M). The NFL would probably impose a relocation fee on the new owner; I have no idea what that fee might be, but it will not be pocket change. In any event, the total cost of the deal – for one buyer if it is the same guy building the stadium in LA or two people assuming one builds the stadium and the other buys the team and pays the relocation fee – starts to get into the neighborhood of $2B.

Granted, interest rates are pretty low right now. Nonetheless, this is a huge risk in the current economy. Adding to the financial risk is the fact that if someone bought the Rams and targeted them for a move to LA in 2012 – it would take that long to get the new stadium built – think about how the team will be supported in St. Louis in the interim. At the moment, the Rams play in a taxpayer funded dome with – what is reported to be – a sweetheart lease. The first option for the team to get out of the lease is not until 2014 so add some cost to the total for the deal here to pay St. Louis to break the current lease.

Maybe such a buy-and-move deal might have made sense five years ago; I do not think it makes financial sense in 2009.

Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry in today’s Seattle Times:

“The quote, ‘He wanted relief from an embedded ball,’ was uttered by:

“a) A PGA Tour official, at last week’s U.S. Open, after Phil Mickelson encountered trouble on the 13th hole.

“b) The Braves’ team trainer, in 1968, after Hank Aaron tried to dig in against Bob Gibson.”

[Close call here. It could have been either one.]

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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When I was a kid, my grandfather, who had come to this country as an immigrant with a tradesman skill, believed that education was the way to a better life for his kids and grandkids. Nonetheless, he held onto the idea that one should always have a trade/skill to fall back on if necessary. His world-view was that a skilled trade was something that would always be in demand somewhere - - whereas book-smart jobs or professional jobs might just evaporate one day as they had in the Great Depression. Forget how this affected me in my growing up; that is not important. Consider how my grandfather would advise anyone who might think of becoming the Head Coach of the Detroit Pistons. This is not exactly a “steady job”:

Rick Carlisle was NBA Coach-of-the-year in his first season in Detroit and then took the Pistons to the conference finals in his second year, 2003. Then they fired him.

Larry Brown came in and won the NBA Championship with the Pistons in 2004; he and the team “parted company” in 2005.

Flip Saunders then took the Pistons to three consecutive Eastern Conference finals and the team fired him.

Michael Curry was just fired as coach of the Pistons after the team finished under .500 and made an ignominious 0-4 exit from the first round of the playoffs.

It would seem as if being coach of the Detroit Pistons is about as stable a position as being a wife of Henry VIII.

Stephon Marbury is an NBA free agent. He has no agent so he speaks for himself; and evidently, what he is saying is that NBA free agents should think twice before they sign with the NY Knicks because of Coach D’Antoni’s system and because of the way the organization treats its people. Here is what he said to the NY Post:

“I wouldn’t want to play in that system. That system can’t win championships. You can’t win championships if you don’t talk about defense. In Boston, the coaches even play defense.'’

This is an amazing statement from Starbury on so many levels that it could be the basis of a senior thesis on sports psychology. First of all, Stephon Marbury was never – as in not ever – a defensive minded player for the entirety of his career in the NBA. Yes, he can defend marginally better than Jason Kidd; on the other hand, a garden gnome can defend marginally better than Jason Kidd. Secondly, since Starbury has never – as in not ever – won a championship at any level past high school, what credentials does he bring to the discussion about what it takes to win a championship? He may, in fact, be absolutely correct in his assessment; but he has too much baggage with the Knicks and too little in the “accomplishments section of the ledger” over his entire career to run his mouth with any credibility here.

Yesterday, I wrote about some of the financial doings and decisions going on in the NHL. Here is another one. About a month ago, the NHL held its awards presentation ceremonies in Las Vegas. That is a great idea since this is a celebratory event and Las Vegas is a great place to go for “escape” and “vacation” and things of that ilk. Obviously, that led someone to ask the question about if there might ever be an NHL franchise in Las Vegas and reportedly George McPhee – GM of the Washington Caps – answered in this way:

‘’I wouldn’t have a problem with it. Our sport has been remarkably successful in places that aren’t traditional markets.'’

I too would have little problem with a franchise in Las Vegas. It is a place where visitors from all over North America – and indeed all over the world – are routinely in town. Even if there are only 5,000 to 7,000 dedicated hockey fans living permanently in town (and there are likely a few more than that), there will always be visitors who might be interested in taking in an NHL game while on holiday there. Having said that, George McPhee must not be paying close attention.

Memo to George:

1. How are the NHL and its franchise in that non-traditional market known as Phoenix doing? Does the word “bankruptcy” come to mind?

2. How are the Florida Panthers doing at the gate and in terms of local radio and TV deals? Does the word “pathetic” come to mind? They played to 22% empty seats at home even though they discounted tix below face value.

According to an item in the Totally Random column in the LA Times, a high school soccer goalkeeper named Meghan Huggins in Arkansas earned a soccer scholarship to Lamar University. Her comment to the local newspaper on that accomplishment was as follows:

“I wish I could major in soccer in college, but they make you get an actual degree in some kind of something.”

Please copy that down and tape it to your computer screen so that when you read the next bloviating nonsense from the NCAA about their “student-athletes” most of whom will go on to become pros in something other than athletics, you can reach back and ground yourself in reality with Ms. Huggins’ words. I checked the Lamar University website for her, but could not find a major in “Some Kind Of Something”…

With regard to current events, it is pretty clear that waterboarding is not an activity that is in favor with the current administration to the degree that it was with the previous administration. I do not want to get into any debate about whether or not waterboarding is or is not torture; that is for the administration in office to determine. Nevertheless, I do have a question for the powers that be when it comes to hostile interrogation of suspects regarding terrorism:

Would it be torture to make these captives watch – on a continuing basis – reruns of ESPN’s Cold Pizza?

I would probably do just about anything to make that go away…

Finally, here is an insightful analysis of the “Alex Rodriguez phenomenon” from Bill Simmons of ESPN.com:

“No modern athlete brings more to the idea table. He plays in New York for a team that stopped making the World Series as soon as he arrived. He has made statistical history but cheated to do it. He’s our highest-paid athlete in a tanking economy. He’s the star client of this generation’s most despised agent. He’s handsome and articulate, only his polished personality is so contrived nobody can connect to him. If gossip rags and blogs had a Thank God for This Athlete fantasy draft, he’d unquestionably be the first pick.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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The Montreal Canadiens have a new owner. Someone in the family that brews Molson beer paid something north of $500M to buy the team and the arena they play in. The previous owner, George Gillett, is a 50% owner of the Liverpool soccer club in England - - along with Texas Rangers’ owner Tom Hicks - - and Gillett needed to sell some holdings outside that Liverpool asset to raise capital just as Hicks has the Rangers up for sale after Hicks sports enterprises defaulted on a series of loans in the $450M range. This is sort of interesting for two reasons…

First of all, it made NHL ownership meetings look a bit unseemly. Tom Hicks still owns the Dallas Stars; George Gillett owned the Montreal Canadiens; simultaneously, those two men are equal partners in a completely separate business interest. I guess no one on the NHL Board of Governors can spell “conflict of interest”.

Secondly, this is interesting because of the price that the Canadiens’ franchise drew. Down in Phoenix, there is another NHL team up for sale and the latest news is that Jerry Reinsdorf will lead a group bidding to buy the team for $148M and to keep the team in Phoenix. I guess no one on the NHL Board of Governors has connected the dots that when you put a franchise in a place where there are lots of fans and lots of interest in the sport, you get a more valuable property than when you put an ice hockey team in the middle of a desert.

The Reinsdorf bid is interesting for another reason. Recall that the NHL successfully blocked the sale of the team to Jim Balsillie for $212M on the provision that he would immediately move the team to southern Ontario. That means that the creditors of the bankrupt Phoenix team will now have $64M less money to spread around to cover the debts of the team. Obviously, I would defer to the lawyers out there who read these rants to explain why the other creditors – the NHL itself is one of the largest creditors of the bankrupt team – do not file a motion with the bankruptcy judge asking that the NHL claims go to the back of the line here since it was the NHL that took $64M out of the “kitty” for the creditors to share.

The finances of sporting enterprises have derailed. The fault lies ultimately with sports fans; the greedy player agents and the slimy owners are merely the implementers of the fans’ illogic. Consider:

Last year Jake Long got about $30M to sign his NFL contract before he ever played a down in the NFL. It seems as if he will be a good player but when the Dolphins signed him, he might have been Tony Mandarich.

This year, Matthew Stafford got about $40M to sign his NFL contract before he ever plays a down in the NFL. Is he Peyton Manning or is he Tim Couch? We will know in a couple of years; he has $40M no matter what.

In the NBA, guaranteed contracts to the tune of about $125M are handed out to players who are “good” but are not nearly among the elite players on the game. Jermaine O’Neal and Rashard Lewis come to mind here.

In baseball, the Washington Nationals – a team going nowhere – decided it made sense last winter to pay Adam Dunn $10M. For what? So he could hit .250 and strike out 175 times?

These expenditures are the tip of the iceberg; there are tons of other examples and the way NBA teams are lining up to go on a spending frenzy after the next season portends some more humongous overpayments. However, the blame for all this belongs with the fans who complain but then go ahead and pay the added – and sometimes outrageous costs that allow the owners to pass along these ridiculous deals to the players via their agents. The Yankees’ “$2700 seats” are only one outrageous example of fans paying the freight here. Ticket prices in lots of other baseball venues are sky high; NFL teams routinely charge a couple of hundred dollars a game for decent seats; NBA ticket prices are significantly overpriced considering that most regular season NBA games aren’t worth watching at all. Yet, fans continue to pay those prices and that leads advertisers to believe that paying huge ad dollars to TV networks must be sensible since these folks must have loads of disposable income.

As Sonny and Cher sang years ago,

“And the beat goes on…”

Ricky Rubio – one of the myriad point guards drafted by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the recent NBA Draft – reportedly does not want to play in Minnesota and would rather play in New York for the Knicks. Rubio’s agent says that they also have offers to have Rubio play in Turkey and in Spain. Who knows if those offers are real or imagined? Here is what I conclude from the story as it has unfolded so far:

Despite David Stern’s best efforts to make the NBA into a global sporting enterprise, the following for the NBA and the dissemination of NBA news in Spain cannot be all that great. If it were, why would Ricky Rubio want to play for the Knicks? Has he seen that team play anytime in the last three years or so?

Here is an item from Brad Rock in the Deseret Morning News that puts perspective on one of the stories making the rounds these days:

“ESPN the Magazine is planning an October edition on the beauty of the human body, complete with photos of athletes posing ‘nude but artfully covered.’

“We already have that, don’t we?

“I think it’s called Wrestlemania.”

Finally, here is an observation from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald about the Dolphins top draft pick this season:

“Dolphins No. 1 draft choice Vontae Davis supposedly was arrested in Illinois, but claims mistaken identity related to his wallet being stolen. Not good when a cornerback is the one getting picked.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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To say that some of the elite athletes in the sporting world are pampered should not be a surprise to most folks. In addition, the thought that an elite athlete might be in a situation where they were not allowed to do as they please and that situation might be annoying to that athlete should not be a surprise. Nonetheless, when one sees an example, it still causes one to shake one’s head.

At Wimbledon this year, they have a new rule. I have no idea why they made such a rule, but the folks running the tournament made it. Players may not bring food into the locker room. Oh, the horror of it all… Fruit and health bars are available to the players but no “outside food” in the locker rooms. Serena Williams called the rule “unfair”, which seems like a very strange characterization to me. If the rule is applied to everyone, then how might it be “unfair”. In her blog, Serena Williams also wrote:

“Like, do they really expect me or any other player to actually walk outside all the way to the player’s lounge? That is time not spent well, and I value my time.”

Much of adulthood is about adapting to circumstances and making choices relative to one’s actions. If the way to get food to nibble on means walking “all the way to the player’s lounge” then indeed that is what “they” expect the players to do - - assuming that the players choose to eat some food. The alternative choice is to stay in the locker room and do whatever other things one might accomplish there with the player’s valuable time. But that means choosing not to eat some food. I suspect the tournament organizers recognize this situation for what it is and that they think it serves some constructive purpose from their standpoint.

As I said, I have no idea why they made such a rule; it may or may not be a necessary one; I don’t know. I do know that the rule is absolutely fair in the sense that it applies equally to everyone. Moreover, I now know that even the most minor imposition - - such as this one - - can cause an elite athlete to complain; thereby showing how coddled they are.

Recently, a report on Yahoo said that Rangers’ outfielder, Marlon Byrd, was taking nutritional supplements on the advice of Victor Conte and has been for more than a year. Byrd confirmed that report. At first blush, you would have to think that this situation has far too many ways to go south for Byrd and for the Rangers. However, Byrd fleshed out the story saying that Conte is advising him on what he needs to eat and what he needs to use as nutritional supplements and that all of the supplements are approved by the National Sanitation Foundation, which is designated by MLB to provide the list of banned substances. Byrd told the Dallas press:

“I’m tired of going in GNC and taking chances. That’s not fair to us. Everything is approved by MLB. Everything has to be NSF-approved for us to take. Everything I take, he [Conte] sends to MLB.”

Indeed, if that is the whole story, Marlon Byrd is doing a very smart thing here. Unfortunately for Byrd, Victor Conte’s name will forever conjure up steroid use by baseball players.

The Cubs are an underachieving bunch. As of this morning, they are a game under .500 and sit in fourth place in a mediocre NL Central Division. Stress is building in Cubbie-land. Recently, manager Lou Piniella told outfielder Milton Bradley to take off his uniform and go home in the midst of a game. As “Sweet Lou” followed Bradley to the locker room, there are reports he called Bradley a “piece of [excrement]”. Carlos Zambrano screwed up a pitchout; threw the ball past the catcher and allowed a run to score from third base. He reacted to his own screw up by throwing at the next batter almost igniting a brawl. Is the ever-volatile Lou Piniella really the guy to get this train back on the track? Here is Steve Rosenbloom’s assessment in the Rosenblog on the Chicago Tribune website:

“The Cubs are in chaos. They look abysmal. They can’t play baseball. Forget the distractions of a manager kicking his own player out of the park with a pottymouth insult and the whining about visiting clubhouse leaks. It wouldn’t happen or matter if they could play baseball. But they can’t play baseball right now.

“This has surpassed messy, hit atrocious and is headed for disaster.”

Looking at the baseball standings as of this morning, the Florida Marlins are at .500 and are in second place in the floundering NL East. That is good news. Looking at baseball attendance figures for 2009, the Marlins’ attendance is up 22.2% compared to last year. That too is good news. However, even with that increase in attendance this year, the Florida Marlins have the lowest attendance in all of MLB; they play at home to an average crowd this year of only 17,603. The politicos in Miami and Florida approved a new stadium for the Marlins; but with that kind of attendance/fan interest, you really have to ponder the long-term viability of a franchise there.

Scott Ostler obviously heard reports of Evander Holyfield’s financial woes and offered this analysis in the SF Chronicle:

“Holyfield is so desperate, he might have to fight José Canseco.

As of January 2011, the Rose Bowl game will leave network TV and migrate to ESPN. The network also has rights to other BCS bowl games starting in 2011. A network executive explained how happy ESPN is to acquire the rights to all these games and said:

“Fans will welcome ESPN’s all-encompassing approach, and the additional opportunities and value resulting from our multi-platform presentation will benefit the college football community and our business partners.”

Allow me to translate that one for you:

“ESPN will promote and cross-promote these games so much that fans teeth will begin to itch every time a football bowl game is mentioned. The benefits to the college football community come from the fans expenditures on products that sponsor these games; the benefits to the ESPN business partners comes from the fans expenditures on products that sponsor these games; the fans are paying the bills for the massive hype-job that will be coming their way.”

Finally, an observation from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald, which provides us with yet another insight into the mind and the life of an elite athlete:

“Immediately after the reports of Michael Jackson’s death, Bengal Chad OchoCinco, on Twitter, called it ‘just as sad as 9/11.’ I’m not saying we abolish Twitter. I’m saying we ban Chad Ocho Cinco.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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I had the opportunity to watch yesterday’s USA/Brazil soccer game in the presence of two avid and knowledgeable soccer fans - - parents of a collegiate level player. When Clint Dempsey scored to put the US up 1-0, we agreed that would not be enough for the US to win; when Landon Donovan then made the score 2-0 and when the US defense seemed capable of thwarting the swarming offense that Brazil threw at them, we thought that if the US could hold that lead until halftime, they had a real shot to win the game.

However, when Brazil scored its first goal inside the first minute of the second half, the mood in the room darkened significantly. Then, when there was a 10 or 12-minute span of play where the ball was constantly in the US defensive end of the field, we kinda sorta knew that it was going to take a few miracle saves by the US goalkeeper to hold onto this lead. By then, we had pretty much given up the thought that the US was going to go on offense sufficiently to add a third goal. The US goalkeeper, Tim Howard, indeed made a couple of miraculous saves but even those were not sufficient. The result from yesterday showed that the US men’s soccer team is a good one and indeed may be on the verge of joining other traditional soccer nations as a “tough out” in any international competition.

The US team will face an interesting challenge in early August when they travel to Mexico for a CONCACAF game. The US beat Mexico earlier this year here in the US. The men’s soccer team has – to put it mildly – not had great success playing in Mexico; their cumulative record there is zero wins in twenty-three games. But a team capable of beating Spain and playing Brazil as tough as they did away from home should be considered capable of a road win in Mexico - - no?

Having said all of the above, I am not ready to pronounce the sport of soccer as “having burst onto the US sporting scene”. I do not think it has done that; frankly, I don’t think it is about to do that. Call me jaded; call me a nattering nabob of negativity; call me anything except late for dinner; even a US victory over Brazil yesterday would not have made soccer a top shelf sport in the US in 2009.

I was here and interested in soccer when Pele came to the US to take the North American Soccer League to the top of US sports. Courtesy of an old friend who worked for the NASL, I got to see a championship game from midfield seats in the upper deck of RFK Stadium. I was here when the orgasmic prose came from the soccer poets about how more kids were playing soccer than baseball in the US and how when they grew up soccer would dominate the scene. As I recall, those odes were rather common back in the early 1980s. Few if any of the soccer poets have recast those odes as the elegies they should have been in the first place. I was here when the US Women’s soccer team won the World Cup and Brandi Chastain’s sports bra became the sports bra seen round the world. I was here for the David Beckham scam – a con of such a proportion that you would have thought P.T. Barnum had been reincarnated.

Soccer remains a niche sport in the US. That is not a bad thing nor is it a good thing. It is reality. According to reports, all of the MLS teams playing in soccer-only venues instead of hugely expensive and cavernous football stadiums are operating in the black. There continue to be millions of kids who play youth soccer. More people are watching soccer on TV – particularly the international matches involving the lead up to next year’s World Cup. That is the state of soccer in the US and it is not a bad state to be sure. What US soccer does not need is another outpouring of baseless praise and rosy scenario projections suggesting that the NFL will be overwhelmed here in the US by soccer interest sometime in the next decade. To anyone poised to pen such nonsense, I have three words for you:

Not … Gonna … Happen!

While watching yesterday’s Confederations Cup Final, I kept marveling at how good soccer is as a TV watching experience. There are no commercial interruptions; there are few if any annoying on-screen graphics; there is a judicious use of replay so most of what you are seeing is the live action of the game. As a viewer-from-the-couch, soccer is “good TV” - - and that got me to thinking about sports that are “bad TV”. And that brought to mind immediately the sport of golf.

It takes PGA Tour players almost 4 hours to complete a round; in those 4 hours, their ball is actually in play - - moving relative to the earth - - for about 2.5 minutes. That is not riveting TV and so I began to think about how golf could make a rule change here and there to make it more interesting on TV. Please note, I don’t think any or all of these rule changes would make golf a better game; I think they would make it better on TV…

First of all, there needs to be a shot clock for golf. Hey, it works for the NBA and for college basketball. So, give each golfer 24 seconds from the time he walks within 15 feet of his ball to hit the ball or lose a stroke. It is not compelling TV to watch Tiger Woods take more than two minutes to line up a putt. Hit the damned ball…

Taking a lead from the NHL, maybe golf should allow fighting - - with the stipulation of course that no clubs can be used in the altercations lest that appear far too unseemly and ungentlemanly.

The PGA needs to outlaw caddies. If these guys are the best golfers in the world, let them figure out the distances to the pin for themselves and let them line up their own puts - - in 24 seconds or less of course. If these finely honed athletes cannot carry their own bags, let them pull them on a carrier. It would please me no end to see the golfers use golf carts but the golf goofs still cannot bring themselves to think about that after Casey Martin publicly cleaned their clocks over that issue…

Here is a rule most TV viewers would vote for. The PGA should ban for life from any tournament gallery any person who yells “You da man…” or “Get in the hole…” as soon as a ball is struck. These folks have to be among the most annoying assclowns on the planet. Here is Scott Ostler of the SF Chronicle on the subject:

“About that annoying gallery guy who follows Tiger Woods. When that guy dies and they’re about to lower the coffin, will someone shout, ‘Get in the hole!’?”

I also think that spectator cheering should be allowed during the matches. After all, the ball is sitting perfectly still for the best players in the world to strike. It isn’t like a baseball player trying to hit a 100 mph slider. Think of all the productive man-hours that would be generated if the PGA did not require volunteers to come out to hold up “Silence” signs at every hole for every player. And the good news here is that the basic rules of golf would preclude any goofs from showing up with a “D” and a “Fence” to start a chant of “Dee- Fence…”

Finally, the PGA needs to hire fashion consultants - - or wardrobe mavens. Some of the players look like clowns on TV. Once again, allow me to offer a comment by Scott Ostler to make my point:

“The white belt will never make a comeback, but you have to admire the courage of PGA golfers for trying.”

Finally, since I have cribbed liberally from Scott Ostler’s observations today, let me close with one more of his observations about a sport that might need some changes of its own:

“If you’re a spectator at a NASCAR race and a driver lands in your lap, do you have to throw him back? Carl Edwards didn’t quite make it into the cheap seats at Talladega, but the radio account of Edwards’ oopsie probably went like this: ‘And there’s a souvenir transmission for some lucky fan!’ “

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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In addition to yesterday’s NBA trade of Shaq to Cleveland, which got all the publicity, there were other trades. Perhaps the oddest was the Wizards sending Etan Thomas (mediocre) and Darius Songalia (mediocre) and Olekisy Pecherov (who’s he?) and the #5 overall pick in last night’s draft to Minnesota for Randy Foye (mediocre) and Mike Miller (best of the five current NBA players involved in this swap). That trade gave the Timberwolves 4 picks in the first round of the draft. I sure thought that this was the prelude to something big…

Well, if it is going to be “big” it is going to have to wait because the Timberwolves spent the fifth pick and the sixth pick and the eighteenth pick last night on three point guards. That is right; they took Ricky Rubio, Jonny Flynn and Ty Lawson; they cannot put all of them on the floor at the same time…

In another set of NBA moves/trades, the Spurs acquired Richard Jefferson from the Bucks. Jefferson has a huge contract and has not been performing at the “huge contract level” for the last season or two. But the Spurs only needed to give up Bruce Bowen (37 years old) and Kurt Thomas (mediocre) and Fabricio Oberto (who?) to acquire Jefferson. That seems lopsided but it gets worse if you believe the rumors.

The Bucks are expected to release Bowen to save money and offer a buyout to Thomas. That would make the trade Richard Jefferson for Fabricio Oberto but it goes on from there. The Bucks shipped Oberto to the Pistons for Amir Johnson (he is four years in the league straight from high school; suffice it to say he is not one of the success stories people cite when they say high school kids should be allowed to jump directly to the NBA). In that trade, the Pistons are then expected to waive Oberto to save money.

If indeed everything happens as rumored here, the Spurs could have Jefferson and then resign which – if any – of the three players they traded to Milwaukee they might want back. The only logical conclusion for me is that the Bucks really and truly wanted to rid themselves of Richard Jefferson…

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported yesterday that Evander Holyfield is facing foreclosure on his mansion (109 room house sitting on 235 acres) because the mortgage holder is calling in the $10M loan on the property. Holyfield has a smaller house also in Georgia and it too is facing foreclosure and an auction to satisfy the mortgage on it. The paper reported that the mansion is probably worth about $20M and that it costs Holyfield about $1M a year just to maintain it.

The paper estimated that Holyfield made $248M in his boxing career but a couple of divorces and child support payments of more than $500K per year have taken their toll on his assets.

Given this situation, can another heavyweight comeback bout or title shot against one of the unknown heavyweight “champs” of the moment be all that far away?

John Daly is back on the golf scene. He has stopped drinking - - again - - and has lost a reported 65 points. That’s right; Daly lost the equivalent of a third grader. HIs banishment from the PGA Tour and the sponsor exemptions that the Tour brought his way put his financial circumstances in peril - - maybe even greater peril than Evander Holyfield faces now. Daly estimates he has lost $50-60M gambling and he has been divorced four times. In a Pro-Am event once, he hit his tee shot off of a beer can; the golf goofs who run the PGA Tour did not use that to sign up a sponsor for the Pro-Ams on the rest of the Tour card; the golf goofs sanctioned Daly. Oh by the way, this is not his first emergence from rehab; the previous stints there had no lasting effect.

However, Daly played overseas this Spring in the Italian Open and he was at the Masters – albeit not playing – and selling tee shirts and autographs out of his RV parked proximal to Augusta National. He is in Europe again playing in the BMW Invitational in Munich and then heads to Scotland to be part of the British Open. He won the British Open once before; imagine if he wins it again now…

Horse racing is in trouble nationwide; the sport needs these two bits of news about as much as Michael Vick needs a DWI arrest as he tries to maneuver to be reinstated as eligible to play in the NFL:

1. The owner of Rachael Alexander says that he will not allow his horse to participate in the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita this year because she would have to race on a synthetic track there. The owner says he will not run his horse “on plastic”. Many were looking to see Rachael Alexander take on Zenyatta – last year’s Ladies Classic winner and a mare who is undefeated in 10 races lifetime. The showdown won’t happen at what is supposed to be the confrontation of all the best horses in training…

2. The AP reports that a veterinarian has been barred from the track and is under investigation on an allegation that he used a handgun to euthanize a horse at Philadelphia Park. If true, that would violate industry standards; horses are normally euthanized with an overdose of barbiturates not lead poisoning wherein 180 grains of lead enter the left hear and exit the right ear. It would also violate track rules, which prohibit the carrying of guns on the track grounds except for security folks. When all of this is settled, please expect to hear from PETA and from the “Barbaro idolizers”. They will have nothing good to say in this matter - - and for once, they would be perfectly correct in their bleatings.

Since I mentioned John Daly and his return to golf above, here are three points made by Frank Fitzpatrick in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the July issue of Golf Magazine:

“I’d stop missing four-footers if I’d only stand up straight, rotate my elbows inward, rest them on my rib cage, tilt forward from the hips, and rest the putter directly beneath my eyes. Great, but I’m going to need a memory course to remember all that.”

“I already know how to “Erase a Bad Ballstriking Day.” Bring your own pencil.”

“Boo Weekley’s 3-wood is a Cleveland Launcher, 15-inch, Aldila VooDoo XVS8 graphite shaft, X-flex 42.75-degree graphite. I think Harry Vardon played the same club.”

If you do not get the Harry Vardon reference, Google is your friend…

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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Shaquille O’Neal will join forces with LeBron James in Cleveland next year. On paper, that would seem to alter the league dynamics and the balance of power. After all, when Shaq was in Miami with Dwayne Wade, that was good enough to bring a championship to South Florida; and LeBron James would seem to bring everything to the party that D-Wade does… I don’t doubt that the Cavs have helped themselves via this trade because they didn’t give up anything to acquire Shaq. Consider:

Ben Wallace: For those of you who think that Shaq’s best days are behind him, think about Ben Wallace.

Sasha Pavlovic: To be polite, I’d say he has been disappointing to date. To be less kind, I’d say he should be renamed Pavlovian because he’s been a dog.

Second round draft pick: Most NBA second round picks wind up in the D-League.

However, I am not yet ready to concede that the Cavs will be a juggernaut in 2009/2010 and that they will roll through the playoffs. Here is what I will concede, however.

If the Cavs start slowly next year and find themselves at or near .500 in mid-December, they will give themselves a new coach for Christmas. This trade is a table setting for a championship and nothing less.

Here is one area where the Cavaliers are unquestionably at or near the top of the NBA - - the combined age of their centers. Ilgauskas is 34 years old; Shaq is 37 years old.

Meanwhile, CBSsports.com reports that there is another NBA trade percolating. This trade is almost the antithesis of the Shaq-to-Cleveland deal. In this rumored trade, two lowly teams seem to be interested in exchanging pieces that just do not matter. The report has it that:

The Knicks will part with Quentin Richardson. I doubt that will cause great weeping and gnashing of teeth amongst the folks calling into WFAN in NYC.

The Grizzlies will part with Darko Milicic. Supposedly, his contract expires at the end of this year and that creates more cap room for the Knicks in what fans expect will be a spending frenzy next summer.

You will excuse me for failing to try to delve into the subtleties and the impending front office machinations these two organizations have planned next. Given the recent trading history of these two teams, it will be unusual for either one to come out on top in this deal.

I need to reset the background for this next item. Unless you live in the Dallas area or are a member of the “Chicken Fried Nation” as Randy Galloway of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram likes to refer to Dallas sports fans, you probably have not been following the kerfuffle about whether or not Tony Romo has received some tough-love from the Cowboys’ offensive coordinator about getting in better shape or not. In the Dallas papers, this has been kind of a big deal. The latest head-shaker comes from Tony Romo himself who said:

“I’ve been coached the same since I’ve been here. There’s no different style or way. I mean, if you need to be coached to be good or great, then you’re probably not going to be good or great.” 

Excuse me. The coaching provided by Bill Parcells is the same as the coaching provided by Wade Phillips? One of the monikers hung on Wade Phillips by Jennifer Engel in the Star-Telegram is “Coach Cupcake”. No one ever thought Bill Parcells was a “cupcake”; some may have thought he might have chowed down a few too many cupcakes in the past, but no one thought he was a cupcake.

I also don’t get the assertion that Romo makes about the lack of importance of coaching to become “good or great”. Consider:

Michael Jordan’s greatness came to the fore when he teamed up with Phil Jackson as his coach.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have swing coaches.

The top tennis pros have coaches too – and the coaches attend most of the key matches. There are even rules in tennis to limit “coaching” during matches.

Gymnasts and track and field athletes all have coaches. If the ones who become great would have done so without the coaching, why did they waste all of that money and put up with all of the coaches’ nonsense?

In a shocking development, the US men’s soccer team beat Spain in the Confederations Cup. Spain was ranked #1 in the world by FIFA at the time. The last time the Spanish team had lost an international match was in November 2006; since that game, they had been undefeated in 35 matches and had won outright their last 15 matches in a row. The final score was 2-0 - - a comfortable margin in international soccer. You would have to credit US goaltending to a large extent for this win; Spain had 22 shots on goal while the US only managed 9. On Sunday, the US team will be in the finals of the Confederations Cup against the winner of the Brazil/South Africa match. I never saw that as a possibility…

Finally, here is an observation from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Ex-NFL quarterback Bernie Kosar filed for bankruptcy protection last week, citing debts of $1.5 million to the Browns, $3 million to his ex-wife and $9 million for real estate loans.

“Football historians immediately declared it the mother of all three-and-outs.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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First, I need to correct an error from a couple of days ago. I said then that my math had the Red Sox record at 306-194 during their 500-game sellout streak. The “Houston gentleman” who is a font of sports stats sent along the following e-mail:

“Going back to May 15, 2003 when the Red Sox streak began, they are 327-173 according to an AP article.”

I suspect the reference to the AP article is there at least in part to make me feel better about my math errors. I am also sure that he has this information in some database that he maintains just because…

The big baseball news is that Donald Fehr has announced that he will step down as the head of the MLBPA before the start of the next baseball season. Tell the truth; are you going to miss his highly entertaining presence at news conferences and Congressional hearings in the future? I shall not. Many people think that Donald Fehr is a towering figure in the sporting world who has made things better as a result of his actions. I agree that he is a towering figure; and in a sense, he has been hugely successful representing his “clients” – the baseball players. I have never thought – nor do I think now in the afterglow of his retirement announcement – that he has made things better.

Financially, the baseball players have thrived under Donald Fehr’s leadership; there is no question about it. The average salary in baseball has risen about 1000% in the last 25 years. Would that a similar situation had obtained with me for the final 25 years of my career… In that dimension, Donald Fehr was supremely successful and beneficial to his clients. A cynic might say that the fact that Donald Fehr’s recompense was tied to the average salary of a baseball player explains his seeming monomaniacal focus on that aspect of his job to the exclusion of most others. But perhaps that hypothetical cynic is indeed a realist…

Outside his singularly outstanding area of success – compensation for the players – Donald Fehr was an obstructionist. You can blame a lot of people for averting their eyes as steroid use - - an illegal practice since the substances being used were illegal substances - - crept into baseball and spread like soft butter throughout the game. Nonetheless, as soon as someone began to suggest testing the players, it was Donald Fehr who came up with the argument that it would be an invasion of their privacy for the players to subject themselves to testing. That same stance is still in vogue when it comes to blood testing which is why there is no testing for human growth hormone at this time. Know that such an argument is fabricated; there are jobs/professions in the US where employees can be tested randomly for drugs as a condition of their employment. I once had such a job…

Maybe the fact that steroids got players bigger contracts and that put more money in the Fehr checking account came into play there? I don’t know; I don’t read minds. I do know that with his obstructionism he delayed testing several years, which maintained a workplace for his clients that was more dangerous to their long-term health than it had to be. Continued steroid use outside of a physician’s supervision can really damage a human organism. Donald Fehr caused that situation to obtain and to flourish longer than it needed to.

Let me get a couple other things out on the table here. The infamous list of 104 players who failed drug tests in 2003 that was never to be made public resided with the MLBPA. If it was indeed the MLBPA’s sworn duty to maintain the anonymity and privacy of those 104 members of the MLBPA, then it was the union that failed. If Donald Fehr is to receive accolades for advancing union causes, he needs to take a major shot for this debacle.

Oh, and by the way, it was Donald Fehr - - NOT Bud Selig - - who “cancelled the 1994 World Series”. It was the players who walked out on the season in the middle of 1994; the owners did not lock them out. It was the players who did not return to work in time for a World Series. Donald Fehr made that happen; it was in his power to avoid that happenstance; he led the union in such a way that there was no World Series.

Nepotism seems not to bother Donald Fehr all that much either. His brother has been one of the “day-to-day negotiators” of the last two CBAs with the owners. I doubt that DeMaurice Smith’s son is the CFO for the NFL Players Union…

I had hoped that one day Donald Fehr might have to resign under some kind of cloud of impropriety because I wanted to use as the headline for that day’s rant, “Fehr Strikes Out”. That won’t happen now. Too bad. So allow me to reiterate something that I have said before about Donald Fehr and his sidekick, Gene Orza:

Fehr and Orza are – indisputably – four letter words.

Recall a few years ago when the NCAA political correctness tribunal decided that the College of William and Mary would be allowed to retain its nickname – The Tribe – but that it had to change its logo because it had two feathers depicted on the logo that might offend someone somewhere. As a result, the school is in the process of coming up with a new mascot to go along with a new logo and it is hard for a mascot – singular – to be a tribe – plural. There have been several hundred suggestions made to the College President; one of the suggestions is a spear of asparagus. That would be a good idea since that would not offend any vegans anywhere. It would also be a good mascot because they could dress him/her up as a spear and have the costume designed such that the asparagus had a cheese sauce on it. With William and Mary’s colors being green and gold, that would look right.

In case you aren’t buying any of that, neither am I. Having an asparagus spear as a mascot is no better than having an animated flake of dandruff as a mascot.

Finally, Scott Ostler posed a series of rhetorical questions in a recent column in the SF Chronicle: [I really like the last one…]

“We can put a man on the moon, so why can’t the man be Jose Canseco?”

“If A-Rod is suffering from exhaustion, where’s his cousin?”

“If a winning team helps build community spirit and morale in hard times, shouldn’t a lousy team be declared a menace to society?”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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Ralph Waldo Emerson said that one gets to paradise “…by the stairway of surprise.” Given some of the surprising events in the sporting cosmos in the past few days, it looks as if it will be a long climb indeed to paradise.

The first surprise came over the weekend when the US men’s soccer team made it into the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup in South Africa. After having lost its first two games to Italy and to Brazil and looking over-matched in those two games, the only chance the US team had to advance was that they had to beat Egypt by a minimum of three goals AND Italy had to lose to Brazil by three goals. I don’t know what that parlay ticket would have paid out in Las Vegas, but a $100 parlay ticket with those two events would have returned a hefty four figure sum - - because both things happened.

Brazil’s win over Italy was decisive - - except that the teams played relatively evenly for about 80 of the 90 minutes in the match. Egypt played as if half the team had refrigerators strapped to their backs. The US team was faster and more aggressive than the Egyptians from the get-go; that was not the pre-game common wisdom.

The US team’s reward is a semi-final match up against Spain. The Spanish team is currently ranked #1 in the world; the Spanish team is undefeated in its last 35 international matches. Brazil and Italy are ranked third and fourth in the world at the moment and both teams dominated the American squad. So, maybe someone needs to think about slipping some Quaaludes into the Spanish team’s water bottles if the next game is going to be meaningful?

Speaking of soccer and surprises, UEFA – the Union of European Football Associations – suspended a Chelsea striker, Didier Drogba, for four games. They decided that he was guilty of a “…vulgar rant at a referee.” YOWZA !! Can you imagine if anyone in the NBA thought of suspending LeBron or Kobe for four games for their rants regarding referees and officiating decisions? My guess is that you would see Kobe and LeBron on the court less than two dozen times a year. And if that were the case, ticket sales all over the NBA would plummet like a stone - - explaining why that will never happen here…

Another surprise came from golf’s US Open. Turning for home after 54 holes played in segments between the deluges, the co-leaders were Rickey Barnes and Lucas Glover. Prior to last weekend, I could not have picked those two guys out of a group photo with the cast of The Muppet Show. Of course, Dan Jenkins was covering the US Open; and here is what he had to say about the weather conditions and the course conditions early on:

“There’s so much water on the 18th hole that Michael Phelps couldn’t par it.”

Here is another surprise - - in the form of a Quick Quiz:

Going into last night’s MLB games, which team in the National League would be the wild-card team in the playoffs if the season ended then?

The answer is the San Francisco Giants - - and they had a better record than the Phillies who are the leaders in the NL East. Nonetheless, Dodger fans need not worry; the Giants are a full 8 games behind the Dodgers. For the Dodgers to miss the playoffs, someone would have to show up for batting practice at Chavez Ravine with an AK-47 and spray rounds for a full 5 minutes before anyone could stop him.

Notwithstanding the Dodgers’ position in the NL West, let me reiterate something I wrote here about a month ago. When I do get to see the Giants play on TV – a late night game here on the East Coast – I have really become a fan of Pablo Sandoval. Going into last night’s game, he was hitting .338 with 8 homeruns and 33 RBIs and an OPS in excess of .900. Because many of the Giants’ games on TV are late games in the Eastern and Central time zones, some fans may never have had the chance to see Sandoval play more than a time or two. He is only 23 years old and he is worth staying up late just to see him play.

Speaking of surprises, what would be the over/under on the date for the next revelation of a name from the 2003 list of MLB players who flunked a test for performance enhancing drugs? Remember, there are still more than 100 mystery names on that list. Suppose I set the date at July 28 - - a couple of days before the trading deadline… Over or under?

Speaking of surprises, CC Sabathia left a game in the second inning last weekend with what has been described as “biceps tendonitis”. This is a surprise because of Sabathia’s history. Since his arrival in MLB in 2001, Sabathia has always been a reliable starter. Only one time has he started less than 30 games in a season - - and in 2006 he started 28 games. In addition, he has always been good for about 200 innings in a season. This man does not miss starts; this might be a very interesting story to follow for the rest of the baseball season.

Syndicated columnist, Norman Chad, wrote a great column this week; that is not a surprise because the vast majority of his columns are at least very good. He wrote about some of the summer activities planned by organizations that are scouting and evaluating middle-school athletes in football. On the basis of reports from these folks, Chad already has one guy penciled inn as a Top 5 pick in the NFL draft in 2017… This is a column that should be read in its entirety; it is that good.

Finally, here is an observation from Dan Daly in the Washington Times on the occasion of Pudge Rodriguez breaking Carlton Fisk’s record for most games caught in MLB:

“The 32,425 fans at Rangers Ballpark, his old stomping grounds, gave him a crouching ovation.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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Manny Ramirez remains on baseball’s suspended list through July 3. Maybe I’m just dense, but I would think that a “suspension” through July 3 would mean that he would not be able to play baseball for any US professional teams associated with MLB until then. He could certainly play at a local park; he could play at a family picnic, he could play in a baseball league in New Zealand; but he would not be allowed to play in MLB or anything associated with MLB. Clearly, I just don’t get it…

Manny Ramirez will start playing this week for a Dodgers’ Triple-A farm team, the Albuquerque Isotopes. The rationale behind this is that he needs this opportunity to prepare so that he will be ready to play for the Dodgers as of 3 July. Sorry, but I take a different view here. He is on a 50-game suspension – not a trivial penalty for a non-trivial transgression of the rules of baseball – and it ought to be his burden to stay in shape/find someone to pitch serious batting practice to him/get himself ready for his return to the Dodgers. Why is he permitted to play for a minor league team when any of the other players on the Isotopes would be suspended and not allowed to play anywhere if they failed the same drug test?

Speaking of failed drug tests, here is a quote from a column by Nick Canepa of the San Diego Union-Tribune attributed to San Diego Padres’ closer, Heath Bell regarding the Padres’ prospects for the rest of the season:

“We’re not out of the wild-card race and the Dodgers can’t play this way forever. We’re lying in the weeds.”

Based on that quote, I suggest that MLB should be testing Bell for hallucinogens sometime soon…

The Boston Red Sox celebrated their 500th consecutive sold-out game last week. There are a lot of factors that have contributed to that streak - - some very good teams, a stadium that is a baseball shrine, a stadium that is hardly cavernous, a dedicated fan base. What is somewhat surprising is that the economic slump has not interfered with ticket sales in any significant way. By the way, the Red Sox record during those 500 sold-out games was 306 -194 - - assuming my math is correct.

You have probably read about Bryce Harper – the 16-year-old high school baseball phenom who will get his GED and then leave high school to focus on playing baseball. He will be going to junior college next year and then in June 2010 he will be eligible for the MLB Draft. Obviously, he is doing this with de minimis the approval of his parents if not their orchestration. I hope this works out for Bryce Harper because the comparisons to Michelle Wie as a teenage phenom who flamed out will follow him around if this does not work out. Clearly, following the Michelle Wie path to athletic success over the later teenage years is not where Bryce Harper needs to go. Bonne chance, Bryce Harper.

By now, you must know about the latest negative event in the life of Ryan Leaf. A warrant for his arrest was issued in Texas based on an arrest for breaking and entering there - - allegedly to acquire prescription painkillers. Leaf was in Canada for some reason and was arrested by a border guard when he returned to the US. That led Dwight Perry to say in the Seattle Times:

“Further proof that old football habits die hard: Ryan Leaf gets intercepted at the border.”

On the same topic, Bob Molinaro had this item in the Hampton Roads Virginian Pilot:

“Down and out: There have probably been worse busts than Ryan Leaf, but none come quickly to mind.”

Molinaro’s comment started me thinking about some of the sports world’s monumental busts and after a few minutes of rumination, I came up with this list:

Tony Mandarich
Darko Milicic
LaRue Martin
Sam Bowie
Rick Mirer
Tim Couch
Akili Smith
Brian Bosworth
Reggie Bush - - too soon to tell?

And of course, if one is making a list of monumental busts everywhere, one cannot possibly leave out the name of:

Morganna the Kissing Bandit.

According to reports last week, Bernie Kosar filed for bankruptcy. It was not all that long ago that Cleveland Browns’ fans wanted Bernie Kosar to be a significant part of the ownership of the resurrected Browns’ franchise. Seemingly, there were two reasons for that desire:

A. He was not part of the Lerner family.

B. He had a reputation as a shrewd and astute businessman.

Well, at least the first condition continues to obtain… According to the court filings, Kosar owes the Browns $1.5M, his ex-wife $3M and a bank $9M on some real estate deals that have not worked out. Given that debt burden, one would suspect that Kosar will have to restrict some of his discretionary expenses. I guess that is yet another reason not to contemplate a weekend at Bernie’s.

Finally, since I used a Dwight Perry line above, allow me to close today with another one from the Seattle Times:

“Sleep, according to a new University of California study, is nature’s way of:

“a) Resetting the magnetic north of your emotional compass.

“b) Killing eight hours when there isn’t a Nats doubleheader.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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