The Sports Curmudgeon

It had been my intention not to make any pronouncements regarding the Duke Lacrosse situation until after the legal proceedings were over. That is what I did with the Kobe Bryant “situation” and that is what I hoped to do here. However, I have to comment on an aspect of the current set of events not because I know what happened and feel a need to set the record straight. No, I need to comment because of the range and tone of other commentary on this matter that is out there and continues to appear.

Just so there is no misunderstanding, let me say this as unambiguously as I can:

I do not know what happened that evening.

I do not condemn people who do things that are legal; nevertheless, I may point out at times that they were stupid to have done something perfectly legal given ancillary circumstances.

I believe that the law should apply equally to everyone.

What has begun to bother me a little bit is that there have been so many people who have seized on this matter as a way to make proclamations that have a very thinly veiled political or social agenda beneath them. That’s fine; the world is full of opportunists in various fields from gold miners to railroad builders to social/political activists. Make no mistake about it; some of the stuff happening now is pure opportunism and nothing more.

It took almost no time after the news of the allegations hit the streets for some folks to point to this as an issue of “the racial divide”. That one was actually pretty easy since the antagonists in this matter are of different races and that commentary was to be expected. But once you’ve said that, there really isn’t much more to say until and unless you know what actually happened that night. I don’t know and neither do the folks who want everyone to focus on this through the prism of race. It may turn out to be the critical factor here or it may turn out to be a trifle. We won’t know that for a while.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson inserted himself into the matter for a short period; I have no doubt that he will return to this when it appears to him to be in his best interest to reappear. He will not make it any easier for folks to arrive at “the truth of what happened that night” nor will he make it any the more difficult. His presence is irrelevant opportunism and nothing more. Rev. Jackson has in the past – repeat, in the past – participated in events that brought about highly positive social change in the country. In sporting terms, he hasn‘t exactly been on a hot streak for the last decade or so, but back in time he was really a unifying force for people of good will. Now he is an opportunist. Are you surprised that Rev. Jackson sees this as a matter of racial inequity? I hope not; I suspect that Rev. Jackson sees the game of chess as a symbol of the racial divide because there are white pieces and black pieces on the board.

It also took almost no time after the news of the allegations hit the streets for some folks to identify this as an issue of class warfare. That was pretty easy too. Duke University is an elite school; and on average, the students who attend Duke come from an economically privileged subset of America. At the same time, Durham NC is a city that is struggling to raise the quality of life for its residents and the alleged victim in this matter is clearly not part of the economically privileged subset of America. Just as Rev. Jackson will not make it easier or more difficult to ascertain what actually happened that night, neither will the people who keep harping on this aspect of the situation. It’s there; you told us about it; it was not difficult to see in the first place; now, move on.

It also took almost no time after the news of the allegations hit the streets for some folks to say this was a gender issue. Wow, slow down there Sparky and let me be sure I understand this. A woman alleges she was gang-raped by men and you say there is a gender perspective to the matter. Oh, thanks, now I get it… And that revelation will assist in the uncovering of the facts of the matter by …?

It was easy for people to point accusatory fingers at college athletics and athletes in general for receiving privileged treatment. Not only are the accused here athletes; they are also members of a team that has had more than a few brushes with the law in the last five or six years. And the Duke Athletic Department would prefer for everyone to believe that they were sufficiently concerned about such pervious behaviors that they warned the coach to keep this team under control. Does the term “double secret probation” ring any bells here? Let me be clear; the fact that athletes are treated in ways that produce a higher than normally expected population of “spoiled brats with a sense of entitlement” is not news in 2006; it probably hasn’t been news for 20 years.

Some folks recognized that most of the convenient niches for commentary in this matter already had occupants and that moved some folks to delve the level of examining the differences between an “exotic dancer” and a “stripper” as their way to chime in here. That brought a linguistic angle to the story with all of the connotations those words bring with them as they are used. That’s not going to affect the search for the truth in any way, shape or form.

However, in all of the communications surrounding this matter, there seems to be something missing. Maybe it is so obvious that everyone feels it need not be said. The only reason I doubt that is that pointing to racial and economic divisions in American society is equally obvious. So, even though I risk pointing out something blatantly obvious that will not assist or retard the determination of what actually happened that night, I want to say something that seems not to have gathered much attention.

There was – with virtually no uncertainty – illegal activity ongoing that night. Not everyone in that house and at that party was of legal age to consume alcohol. In fact, the two young men who are charged at the moment with rape are both sophomores and if reporting is correct, are both underage. Look, I’m not one to carry a banner for the Women’s Christian Temperance Union or anything of the sort. But it does seem to me that the folks at Duke who run the show there had to have more than an inkling that some of the problems caused by the lacrosse team’s brushes with the law had to involve booze. I also know there is nothing that the Duke authorities could have done to prevent booze parties by team members; and in fact, they should not have done so when the parties involved only team members over the age of 21. But if they want me to believe that the team was on Duke’s version of “double secret probation”, then these folks were really asleep at the switch. Or am I also to believe this is the first time all year that these folks quaffed a brew on or around the campus? I don’t believe that.

Remember, I don’t know what happened that night. Nevertheless, let me try to construct a scenario for your consideration based on things that I don’t believe are seriously in contention.

A group of young males – athletes in this case but almost any group of young males would do – had been drinking for a while.

Some person or persons contracted with two women to arrive at this party sometime around midnight, to take off their clothing and dance in front of the semi-inebriated young males. Clearly, the form of dancing was not going to resemble Swan Lake; the implicit understanding in the “contract” was for the dancing to be “arousing”.

At this point, the only positive outcome is that the women do their dancing, collect their money, make like Elvis and leave the building. There is no potential to move the human condition forward here; the best that can happen is for it to end with no harm to anyone.

It is alleged at the moment that “the best” did not happen on that evening. It is now the responsibility of the authorities and the court system in Durham NC to ascertain what actually did happen. I know that I’ve heard and read more than was necessary from people who know no more than I do what actually happened. It is now time to go back to reporting news events and to stop with the thinly veiled socio-political commentary. And it is also time to stop giving breathtaking coverage to spin-control statements from prosecutors running for election in Durham and from defense attorneys whose only interest it is to get their clients off the hook. There will be real news items happening here in the future; let’s wait to hear them and turn the volume down to zero on the rest of the nonsense.

And as the news reporters have some time on their hands awaiting the next outbreak of real news here, may I suggest that they turn their attention to the administration at Duke University and what their role in all of this might have been. For at least five years, the lacrosse team has behaved in clearly anti-social ways. Almost as certainly, the team members over that period of time have violated the drinking laws of the town and what has to be part of the Duke University “code of student behavior” or whatever they call it.

And what did the Duke Athletic Department do about that?

And what did the overseers of the Athletic Department do about that? By the way, the current president at Duke has only been there a year or two so maybe one needs to ask what the previous president and administrative trolls did about that too?

And what are they doing now to recognize that the scenario I painted above needs to happen far less frequently within the “Duke Community” in the future?

The scenario I painted above is now playing itself out for the folks who are in charge at Duke University; and it isn’t all bright and rosy. What is happening now isn’t at all about maximizing returns; it’s only about minimizing regrets.

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

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The whole idea behind the NFL draft – and the entry draft in every other professional sport of any stature in the US – is that the teams at or near the bottom rung of the ladder should have the first pick in the entry draft. That position in the draft will help them to get better; and thereby, produce parity within the league. When that doesn’t happen more often than not, many folks merely point out that some organizations do a bad job of talent evaluation and/or player evaluation and therefore don’t draft well. It’s easy for people to make a case for that kind of thinking.

A team took Ryan Leaf with the #2 overall pick in the draft and that did precisely nothing to make that team any better than it had been. A team traded up to draft KiJana Carter with the overall #1 pick in the draft. Granted he was injured for most of his career, but Carter’s career made no difference to any team on which he played. Every team in the league passed on Tom Brady for multiple rounds of the draft and Brady’s on-field results have been nothing short of spectacular ever since he took over for an injured Drew Bledsoe in New England.

Now that I’ve tossed out those glaringly bad draft day decisions by teams, you might be tempted to tell me that if teams drafted well, that would bring parity into the NFL to an even greater extent than has the salary cap. And if you were to succumb to that temptation, I might have to tell you that I think you’d be wrong.

Let’s assume a “perfect world” for a moment here where all of the NFL teams have good and competent scouting systems and that they all use the same methodology to rate and rank players. If you find that offensive for some reason – equating the Arizona Cardinals scouting with the Pittsburgh Steelers’ scouting for example – then imagine that there is a super-computer out there which can infallibly rank all of the players eligible for the draft in any given year. Oh yeah, and all the teams have passwords to get access to the results of this super-computer’s calculations.

So, now all the teams know the ranking order of the players from first through last among the draft eligible players; and assuming for a moment that all of the teams are rational actors (a favorite assumption among economists worldwide), what would happen on the day of the draft?

Yes, I know. There would be no drama for the TV coverage of the draft and that would encourage Chris Berman to come up with even more outrageous antics so that people would not turn off in disgust or nod off in total boredom. Forget that, I mean what would happen to the teams in the league.

The worst team last year would take the best player; let’s call him Player #1. The best team in the league will take Player #32 – on the assumption that there have been no trades to send draft picks to other teams. Then the worst team will get Player #33 and the best team Player #64 and so on. So for seven rounds of the draft, the worst team would get Players #1, 33, 65, 97, 129, 161and 193. The best team in the league would get Players #32, 64, 96, 128, 160, 192 and 224.

If you are willing to accept that the super-computer would not find a world of difference between Player #32 and Player #33, then you should also be willing to accept that pairings of players at #64 and 65, #96 and 97, #128 and 129, #160 and 161, #192 and 193 will be similarly small. In fact, for all of those pairings, the best team in the league is getting a new player who the super-computer calculates to be every so slightly better than the one that the worst team will get.

The only real advantage for the worst team in the league on draft day is this:

Worst team gets Player #1

Best team gets Player # 224

That’s it; that’s the significant difference. All the other picks are very close in their ability to play football and the “edge” in all those marginal cases goes to the best team in the league. And this is the system which – if conducted accurately and rationally – is supposed to produce parity in the league?

Maybe it’s actually beneficial for the NFL and for fans that the NFL Draft is not a science. Maybe it is a good thing that they assemble the draft eligible players and time them in 40-yard dashes and count the number of times they can bench press 225 lbs and even give them Wonderlic tests. Maybe all that data clouds the minds of the people trying to make the decisions and prevents the NFL Draft from seeming to be anything close to an accurate and rational decision process. And maybe that’s good for the league and good for the fans.

So even though some teams “succeed” and others “fail” on NFL Draft Day, their fans should neither gloat nor sink in to depression. The draft is not all it’s cracked up to be. Take heart in the words of Joseph Heller:

“Success and failure are both difficult to endure. Along with success come drugs, divorce, fornication, bullying, travel, medication, depression, neurosis and suicide. With failure comes failure.”

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

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I often refer here to my long-suffering wife. Just so you understand, we will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary in July of this year; she is long-suffering by almost any measure you’d like to apply. Even the Israelites got a reprieve after 40 years of wandering in the desert; therefore she is about to endure her suffering for a time that can accurately be called “a period of Biblical proportion”. I mention this because I believe that 40 years of marriage allows me some standing in terms of discussing the subject.

However, since I am going to talk about some marriages that are on less than the firmest of footing at the moment, I want to make it clear that I am not an absolutist on the subject. I believe that there are times when it is best for everyone involved for a marriage be dissolved; I’ve been fortunate not to have been in that circumstance, but I’ve seen at a close enough range more than a couple of situations where it was clearly the case. A successful and enduring marriage takes two people caring enough about each other to try to get over the speed bumps of life together as opposed to apart. In two instances related to sports today, I don’t know if that situation obtains.

Kris and Anna Benson are public figures who can live in a celebrity spotlight if they are together; it is debatable if either can remain as the focus of media/public attention if they go their separate ways. Kris Benson is a decent pitcher but nothing in his career so far says that he is a player of such accomplishment that people need to wonder what he will do with his career next or what he thinks about any particular issue other than how to get batters out effectively. His “celebrity” is tied to the fact that he is married to Anna Benson and she has been known to do and say “outrageous” things. Oh, and she also poses for photographers in a much less than fully-attired state.

Anna Benson is an attractive woman, but let’s be candid here. There are lots of attractive women who pose for photographers in little or no clothing; it’s not as if Victoria’s Secret has only two or three models to work with. Anna Benson stands out from that crowd because her hubby is a major league baseball pitcher. And all you have to do is go to Anna Benson’s website to get a clue that she really does revel in the public attention that devolves to her from that convergence of circumstances. In the biography there – and if she wrote it in the third person wouldn’t that still correctly be an autobiography? – it notes that she is an “irreverent humanitarian” and a woman “to be seen and heard”. But little of the rest of the biography is highly convincing about the need for her to be “heard”. She obviously wants her celebrity status; she is identified as a “poker diva” and she is the leader of a charitable foundation dedicated to “fighting terrorism in local communities”. And in her spare time, she manages “her husband’s career”. Excuse me, for stifling a yawn here…

Last week, Anna Benson filed for divorce from Kris Benson calling their marriage “irretrievably broken”; early this week, she rescinded that divorce petition. Last week, she alleged that her husband had been unfaithful; this week she is committed to making all of this work. Last year she said that if her husband were ever unfaithful to her, she would have sex with each and every person on his team – to include the groundskeepers – just to get even with him; this year his alleged infidelity is an issue of far less import. Clearly, this woman who sees herself as a thinker whose thoughts need to be widely promulgated and considered changed those monumental thoughts. I wonder why…

Look folks, I’m no psychologist; I don’t play one on TV and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. But I have this little voice in the back of my head saying to me that someone explained to Anna Benson over the weekend that she could probably get a nice financial settlement from this divorce but that unless she marries another famous guy pretty quickly, her days of being on the A-List for the Howard Stern Show or getting calls from Playboy or Penthouse to do a feature layout are numbered. Her celebrity status derives in order from:

a. Her marriage to a major league pitcher
b. Her attractiveness
c. Her outrageousness
d. Her “views” on matters of political/social interest

Take away the first one on that list and the rest of those things become commonplace. There are women that are more attractive; there are attractive women who do things that are more outrageous. The upshot of all this is that no one will want to hear anything Anna Benson has to say about what she thinks about anything. Face it, folks; she’s not high on Tim Russert’s “gotta get list” on any given Sunday for Meet The Press.

As of this moment, it isn’t fully clear what Kris Benson is going to do. Anna’s latest statement says she will live in Atlanta with her kids this season while Kris toils in Baltimore. According to the schedule, that will bring Kris to the same zip code as Anna for three days this season (30 June – 2 July). I don’t understand how those logistics are going to keep the marriage together “for the benefit of the children”.

The other pitcher with more than the normal hodgepodge of marital issues at the moment is Derek Lowe. He was the Opening Day starter for the Dodgers earlier this week and to say he had a rough outing would be generous indeed. Lowe is in the midst of a divorce action based on the revelation last year that he and a local TV reporter covering the Dodgers were having an affair that may have included having sex on the pitcher’s mound in Dodger Stadium. As a pitcher, Lowe knows not to balk on the mound; I would have thought it was common knowledge that one should not boink on the mound. Whatever…

After his disastrous start on Opening Day, news broke on the same website that first revealed his dalliance with the TV reporter last year. According to ronfineman.com, Lowe gets a prescription amphetamine from a Dodgers’ team doctor via the team trainer without any examination by the physician. That’s not good for anyone involved in this matter in any way. But it gets worse. Supposedly, Scot Boras – Lowe’s agent – told his estranged wife that the reason Lowe would not be re-signed by the Boston Red Sox was due to Lowe’s drinking problem. And his estranged wife also says that in 2004 – the year the Sox won their World Series – she got a call from Boston saying that Lowe was “falling apart” – presumably related to the drinking problem.

Since this website is a subscription site, I have not gone to the trouble or expense to determine where all this information comes from. But indeed this website had the allegations of the affair between Lowe and Carolyn Hughes last year, which seems to have been borne out by time and further inquiry. Given the nature of these revelations, it seems that they have to come from Lowe’s wife or Lowe’s wife’s attorney or from some preliminary court proceedings involving the divorce petition. I’d lean toward the latter of these sources since one other teaser on the website says that Carolyn Hughes – the “other woman” here – “disrupt[ed] and stopp[ed] her ex-husband from giving a deposition in the Lowe divorce case.”

If Derek Lowe feels as if he is in the midst of a “Jerry Springer moment”, I can certainly understand that feeling. All of this came down on him because he stopped thinking with his brain and started thinking with his glands. But, isn’t that how virtually all of the folks who have “Jerry Springer moments” on the TV show get to where they are in life?

In April 2006, it would certainly seem as if major league pitchers and troubled marriages present a volatile mix. Remember, bad things happen in threes so I wonder from whence the next eruption may come. Fortunately for me, I am not a major league pitcher. The odds are still good that I’ll remain married when my 40th anniversary arrives in July - - even though my long-suffering wife has learned over the last 40 years to respond when someone says “You poor dear…”

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

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Sociologists and political scientists sometimes refer to the Military Industrial Complex as an “iron triangle”. It refers to a cozy relationship among the private sector weapons builders, the Pentagon bureaucrats and the Congress because each actor in this opera can move toward achieving goals important to them by associating with the other two actors. Don’t worry; this will not morph into some polarized political blog about defense policy or anything like that. I merely bring this up because there is an “iron triangle” that has been created by MLB.

Political commentators often say that politics makes for strange bedfellows. That line is appropriate here because the lynchpin in baseball’s iron triangle is a longtime and highly successful politician, former Senator George Mitchell. When Bud Selig named Mitchell to head up the investigation into the baseball steroid mess, Selig forged the baseball iron triangle. Did he realize what he was doing at the time? I have no idea. But make no mistake, the iron triangle is there; that means that any information that comes from any of the iron triangle’s vertices needs to be viewed in context.

Here are the actors:

George Mitchell: He is clearly a man who left the political realm with his honor and integrity in a good state of repair. [Joe McCarthy, Dan Rostenkowski and Tom DeLay should have been so lucky.] He is charged by the Commissioner of Baseball to conduct an unfettered and wide-ranging investigation into the use of banned and illegal substances by the players since 2002. Mitchell is in a position to champion an agenda that is favorable to a majority of baseball fans – the purity and the integrity of the records of the national pastime. [Cue Battle Hymn of the Republic in the background, please.] Mitchell is also in a position to cast baseball in an unfavorable light if evidence is uncovered that would do so.

Barry Bonds: Make no mistake about it, George Mitchell’s unfettered and wide-ranging investigation better not get too far off the track of trying to determine what Barry Bonds has been doing chemically to his body. I’m not even hinting that there is any agenda anywhere to protect other players, but even if the committee can produce video tapes of Joe Flabeetz jabbing himself in the butt with a syringe full of stuff clearly labeled as one of the banned substances, that is not the sole focus of the investigators. Barry Bonds is under the microscope here; he’d probably like to say he’s in the crosshairs, but I think that’s excessive. Simultaneously with being the focus of George Mitchell’s investigation, Barry Bonds is providing weekly programming to ESPN – presumably for a fee. In any event, ESPN is providing Bonds a forum to present himself to the public however he may want to do that. And of course, ESPN has that contract with MLB to televise lots of their games…

The Walt Disney Company: I’m sure you know that Disney owns ESPN and so there is a connection right there, but it does not seem to come back on itself and form a triangle - - until you realize that George Mitchell is the Chairman of the Board for The Walt Disney Company and has been so since March 2004.

I’ll leave the precise definition of “fiduciary duty” to someone who has passed a bar exam. I’ll just say that George Mitchell is not in a position to do anything that will do damage to The Walt Disney Company. And for those who believe that all of these corporate ethical matters are nothing but window dressing, let me refer you to The Walt Disney Company Notice of the 2006 Annual Meeting and Proxy Statement Page 43.

According to that document, George Mitchell owns or has voting authority over 25,423 shares of Disney stock and he has an additional 34,794 shares of Disney stock coming to him via deferred compensation plans. At current prices, the totality of those shares represents an asset worth more than $1.6M to George Mitchell. Indeed, he has a legal/ethical responsibility to The Walt Disney Company; and he also has an enlightened self-interest in assuring that no financial harm comes to The Walt Disney Company.

So, how does he assure that his investigation does not damage major league baseball as a “product” that ESPN (Disney) has paid for while simultaneously conducting a wide-ranging and unfettered investigation?

So, how does he investigate Barry Bonds very specifically while Barry Bonds represents bought and paid for programming on ESPN (Disney) and while Barry Bonds is a major figure and attraction within major league baseball which ESPN (Disney) telecasts?

Might it not be just slightly in Barry Bonds personal interest to go thorough an elaborate Kabuki theater performance with Mitchell to give the appearance of openness and cooperation that both of them so desperately need?

As a long time politician, George Mitchell has become adept at such Kabuki performances. It will be interesting to see if Barry Bonds – and the jamokes at ESPN covering baseball – can learn this art form quickly and on the fly [no play on words intended].

When I was a sophomore in college and was taking a required American literature course, Dr. Weales once told me that I had a particularly cynical view of some character’s behavior in some book or play; the details are lost in memory. I responded that I was not a cynic but a realist. Dr. Weales told me to think about Mark Twain’s observation that the only difference between a cynic and a realist is whether or not you agree with him. I may not remember which character did what to spark that exchange, but I do remember Dr. Weales’ exhortation. So, if you agree with me on this matter, I’m a realist; if not, I’m a cynic. I really have no preference here.

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

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