The Sports Curmudgeon®

What is going on in San Diego? Less than a month ago, the owner of the Chargers had to intervene in the long-standing feud between Marty Schottenheimer and GM AJ Smith to declare that Schottenheimer would be the coach next year. Even so, both coordinators and two other assistant coaches left the Chargers for other opportunities in the league which has to tell you that all was not peaches and cream at “Chargers’ Park”. Now, the owner, Deal Spanos, does a 180 and fires Schottenheimer. All Marty did was go 14-2 last season, compile a 47-33 record in five seasons in San Diego and a record of 35-13 over the last three seasons. Look, I am a firm believer that good players are more important to a team than a good coach and that great players can make a good coach look a whole lot better than he actually is. But I really don’t understand how Marty Schottenheimer is the fall-guy for whatever shortcomings the owner may perceive after a 14-2 season.

And remember, the San Diego Padres kicked Bruce Bochy to the curb just a few months ago after he finished winning three consecutive NL West division titles. Can someone in San Diego please check to see if hallucinogens have leached into the town reservoir?

While you’re at it, can you explain to me what just happened with the NY Giants? When I read that they cut Lavar Arrington and Carlos Emmons, I was mildly surprised but not shocked. Father Time has eroded Arrington’s big play skills significantly and he never was a “steady, get-the-job-done, no-frills” kind of player. Emmons never lived up to the expectations the Giants had to have had for him when they signed him away from the Eagles. Nevertheless, it was a mile surprise to see both of them cut loose. Then I read that the Giants also cut Luke Pettigout. Say what? I thought he was the best OL on the team and they cut him in February? Yes, he was injured last year and maybe his recovery is not going well; that’s possible. But if he returns to his previous stature and ability, I think the Giants will look back on the decision to cut him very unhappily.

The newspapers in the Dallas all think new Cowboys’ coach, Wade Phillips, is a really nice guy who can fit into the “Texas milieu” because of his family ties to the Texas/Louisiana area. Phillips did have some success in Buffalo taking the Bills to the playoffs twice - - and they haven’t been there since he left. His tenure in Denver was hardly a positive one even with some guy named Elway at QB and his “interim stints” in Atlanta and New Orleans were not memorable. The most important thing for Phillips to do is not to inspire the Cowboys’ defense – that’s the conventional wisdom. What he really has to do is to allow Jerry Jones to have a completely free hand with regard to personnel decisions and he needs to stay out of any confrontational situations with T.O. that might cause Jerry Jones some public embarrassment. If he does those two things, he’ll be fine as the nominal coach of the Cowboys in the eyes of the owner/President/GM/shadow-coach. And that’s all that really matters…

I’ve read in various analytical pieces that it was Phillips’ success with the Chargers’ 3-4 defense that got him the job in Dallas where they have the personnel to play a 3-4 defense. All that’s fine and dandy, but that’s the same attribute that got him hired in Denver and in Buffalo and put him in those interim jobs in the past. However, it was his performance as a head coach in Denver and Buffalo that got him fired in both cities and it was the lack of any significant “bump” in Atlanta and New Orleans that prevented him from getting the head coaching job there on a permanent basis. So, why is all of this going to change in 2007?

The real winner in the Cowboys’ coaching sweepstakes might just have been Norv Turner. Norv’s record as a head coach is not all that hot; granted he worked for two really dysfunctional organizations in the past, but a career record of 59-83-1 isn’t a compelling entry on one’s résumé. Now, there is the perception that he didn’t get the job because he was not sufficiently “pliant” for job based on the special need to incorporate the views and actions of the owner/President/GM/shadow-coach in Dallas. Mild-mannered Clark Kent stood up on his hind legs and took a stand that may have cost him a job. That might just get him another job interview one of these days - - like maybe in San Diego? They interviewed him five years ago when Schottenheimer got the job…

I want to say one thing about Andy Reid taking a month-long leave of absence in Philly. What happened to the Reid family is a tragedy; any parent who would have to deal with the situations that two of Reid’s sons find themselves in without being stunned and confused and emotionally drained is a sorry excuse for a parent. In fact, that person – regardless of gender – would be a sorry excuse for a biped. This is not the time to pour out venom on Andy Reid or his family. Absent a whole lot more information on this matter or some egregiously self-serving statements/actions by parties to this matter, I will refrain from any nasty commentary.

A leave of absence from an NFL team by a head coach is not a commonplace event. In fact, the only analogous situation I can recall is when Mike Martz took a medical leave of absence from the St. Louis Rams a few years ago because he had some form of heart disease that was life threatening and required his hospitalization. As I said, the situations are analogous but hardly the same.

It’s a recurring theme in these rants that there are too many college football teams in bowl games and too many NBA teams in the NBA playoffs and too many NHL teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The NCAA and the NBA and the NHL reward mediocrity. This morning, I received an e-mail from a regular reader who resides in Melbourne, Australia telling me that the National Basketball League there makes the NCAA, NBA and NHL look pretty good on this front. There are 12 teams in the Australian NBL; 8 of those 12 teams are seeded into a playoff format. The 8th seed in this year’s tournament (the Singapore Slingers) according to my correspondent had a regular season record of 13-20; they open the Phillips Championship tournament against the Townsville Crocodiles imminently. The NBL is indeed a very generous organization with regard to rewarding sporting “achievement” when 13-20 is a record worthy of inclusion.

Time for a Quick Quiz. In 200 words or less please evaluate:

What would be more preferable – a baseball season without Barry Bonds or a football season without Terrell Owens?

No extra credit will be given for any references outside the sports of football and baseball even if you can concoct a scenario where either or both of these goofs play for Mark Cuban…

Finally, I’ve had less than nice things to say about the Pro Bowl. In fact, I’ve suggested on many occasions that the game be canceled and never reinstated. However, Greg Cote’s evaluation of the Pro Bowl in the Miami Herald is even less flattering than my suggestion to stop playing the damned game:

“They played the Pro Bowl Saturday in Honolulu. It’s the game guys make excuses not to play in, the annual anticlimax to the NFL season. The Super Bowl being followed by the Pro Bowl is sort of like an exquisite meal being followed by a bowel movement.”

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

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No, I did not watch the Pro Bowl. I did read that Drew Brees suffered a dislocated elbow in the game – to his non-throwing arm fortunately – and it made me wonder why fans of various teams work themselves into states of righteous indignation when one of their players is not selected to the game. The game is meaningless and of marginal entertainment value; the risk of injury is there; so why do you want to put your favorite player into that situation?

I also read somewhere that the regular season game between the NY Giants and the Miami Dolphins to be played in London next season already has 500,000 ticket requests. You’ll pardon me if I don’t actually believe that, won’t you? Yes, I know that the NFL is a big deal in the sports world and having a regular season game in England would be a “special event”, but 500,000 ticket requests? Let’s just hope that some marketing troll in the NFL offices doesn’t take that number as reality and extrapolate it to mean that there needs to be a franchise in London.

Remember, there used to be a franchise in London. Back in the early days of NFL Europe – it used to be the WLAF or the World League of American Football – they had a team called the London Monarchs. As I recall, the Monarchs played in one of the WLAF championship games. The league proceeded to “suspend operations” for a couple of seasons due to fan disinterest; and when it regrouped and came back to “active status”, the Monarchs no longer could afford to play in Wembley Stadium so they played on one of the fields used by a the London soccer team. The Monarchs couldn’t draw flies. In the franchise’s final days, it would have been an occasion of great celebration if the team could draw 15,000 folks to a game. Eventually the franchise was relocated/disbanded however you want to look at it. So, if anyone is looking at the putative “500,000 ticket requests” as more than a promotional “little-white-lie” and is thinking of a London franchise for the NFL …

The Miami Dolphins have several thousand of their club seats up for renewal next season; the ten year “contract” that people had to guarantee the right to purchase these club seats expired at the end of the 2006 season. According to a report in the Miami Herald, the price for a new contract to purchase those seats over the next ten years will more than double from the levels last year and will contain a modest “inflation factor”. Wow! You might think that the Dolphins had actually been a good team for the last five years or so instead of a team that makes its record seem less odious by winning lots of games when the games have no meaning with regard to playoff eligibility. I’m sure the Dolphins will sell those club seats at the inflated price they are asking; lots of NFL fans are like sheep.

It would appear that three NFL quarterbacks with recognizable names and histories could be available as free agents this year. Jeff Garcia’s play with the Eagles surely heightened interest in procuring his services among those teams that are quarterback-deficient. I can understand that one. Now, there are stories that David Carr may become available and he might be an interesting pick-up for a team that needs a QB and already has an offensive line that can protect a passer. Carr has not set the league on fire to be sure but he has spent all of his years in Houston either running for his life or picking himself up from the bottom of a pile of defensive pass rushers. He might be an intriguing commodity.

The “available quarterback” who is gathering interest and publicity that I just don’t understand is Jake Plummer. In addition to all of the teams who really do need QB upgrades, Plummer is supposedly the reason that Carr may become available because the story goes that Houston coach, Gary Kubiak, might want to have Plummer come to Houston and replace Carr. Kubiak and Plummer were together in Denver; that’s the basis of the story. I would think that since Kubiak was with Plummer for several years already, that would be enough to convince him not to bring Plummer to Houston but what do I know?

Here’s what I don’t understand. Plummer has been a mediocre QB for his career. Yes, he had a winning record in Denver (40-18) but he had a really good team around him. Even so, he managed to get the team exactly zero playoff wins. His overall career record happens to be 71-71 which epitomizes mediocrity in my book. Last year, he lost his job to a rookie who really was unprepared to lead a playoff caliber team because Plummer played so miserably that something had to be done. Now that he hasn’t played for a few months, people are fantasizing about his prowess as a QB. By not playing, people are now talking about Plummer as if he’s really John Unitas in disguise. Now that he hasn’t been on the field, writers and commentators are talking about Jake Plummer as the solution to a team’s problems instead of the source of problems for a team.

I just don’t get it; the only thing that Jake Plummer has accomplished in the last couple of months by sitting on the sidelines is that he hasn’t thrown any brutally ugly interceptions at the most inopportune moments of a game. How does that make him a prized commodity?

As the NBA moves toward its All-Star Game, there has been a quiet surge in the pathetic Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. For most of the year, no one in the division had a winning record; now the Toronto Raptors have surged to a 27-24 record and they lead the division by 2.5 games. If you don’t think you should get all that excited about a 27-24 record, please check your stats and you’ll notice that the Raptors won a total of 27 games for the entirety of the 2005/06 season. The pairing of Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargnani at forward may not make people forget about Bradley/DeBusschere or Havlicek/Heinsohn, but they seem to make the Raptors work. At least, the Atlantic Division champions seem not to be in danger of getting into the playoffs with a sub-.500 record…

Here is a public service announcement for everyone. Today begins National Flirting Week which will run through Feb 18. In what would seem to be a most fortuitous overlap, National Condom Week begins on Feb 14 and runs through Feb 21. So, now you know…

Finally, here’s a comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

“Hard to say which was the bigger shock: The first ever rained-out Super Bowl happening to be in sunny South Florida. Or odd-couple Jay-Z and Don Shula (Don-S?) turning up in the same Budweiser Super Bowl ad. The closest thing Shula has in common with hip hop is hip replacement.”

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

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People watch with anticipation for the ads on the Super Bowl because many of them are clever and many of them have entertainment value that can last for a while. Just think of the Budweiser frogs who gave rise to Louie the Lizard… I watch for Super Bowl ads because I hope that the creative spark that leads to some of those ads will also lead to the demise of some other ad campaigns that have become tedious at best and more likely, monumentally annoying.

So let me get out of the way the ads on the Super Bowl that I found amusing/attractive:

Bud Light ad where two guys settle there differences with a game of Rock/Scissors/Paper – only one guy throws a real rock at the other one.

Bud Light ad with Carlos Mencia regarding “No Speak English”.

The Not Fade Away Tour with Sheryl Crow. Frankly, I wish Sheryl Crow would actually fade away, but the ad was clever.

T-Mobile ad with D-Wade and Charles Barkley where the punch line is, “Is this your dad?”

The rest of the ads were average at best or already annoying at first glance. But I’ll give them all a “bye” because compared to some of the ad campaigns that have been around for a while they are Pulitzer Prize material. Some ad campaigns have long ago run their course; consumers should be organizing jihads against companies who continue to run these ads. Let me give you a few examples…:

Every ad that runs for a shaving product is an insult and an affront to 90% of the male population old enough to need to shave. The guy with a face-full of lather/gel has just completed a two year training regimen for abs development and he stands in front of the mirror with his hair neatly combed and his eyes clear and focused. Here’s an insight for advertisers out there; that’s not how things look in the typical guy’s bathroom in the morning and having your commercial portray it as such is really annoying. Then the guy uses a product called a Turbo Something-or-Other and/or Mach-12 razor. One gentle swipe across his face and he gets a shave that makes his skin as pristine as a newborn’s butt. Who’s kidding whom here? It NEVER works that way. And please don’t try to tell me that the way to a shave and a look like that is to have seven blades on my razor and a motorized contraption attached to those seven blades. Look, I know that my beard in the morning could use a farm thresher, but I don’t need any motors driving sharp stainless steel blades anywhere near my carotid artery before I have my third cup of coffee in the morning.

Tell the truth now; do you actually know anyone who bought his or her spouse a Lexus for Christmas, put a humongous red bow on the roof, and parked it in the driveway? I don’t. And just suppose you did that one year and told your dear wife to cover her eyes and walk outside in her bathrobe to see her surprise present. What the hell would she think she was getting that required her to walk outside to see it? A diamond bracelet? I don’t think so. Maybe a John Deere riding mower - - if you wouldn’t mind sleeping on the sofa for the next three months. Otherwise, it would pretty much have to be a car – or a lifetime supply of plastic pink flamingoes for the lawn. Enough of that stupidity, please.

Can someone explain to me why the world needs Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper? Until that’s clear to me, I don’t need to see any ads for this concoction.

Whenever I saw Dr. Z as the Chrysler spokesthing, I wanted the “Z” to stand for “ZAP” because I always was looking for someone to run out from the background and hit the fool with a Taser. Sadly, that hasn’t happened yet in the ad campaign and so unless that’s the next round of ads to air, can someone just put these things back on the shelf?

I was annoyed to the max the first time I saw the GM ads with the “levitating cars” to provide the message that there would be a 100,000-mile engine and power-train warranty on GM cars in the next model year. Who cares about that nonsense? What I want now that they put that ad on the air is a car that will levitate like that and get out of traffic jams. Here’s a clue for GM and all manufacturers:

I want a car that will run 100,000 miles with routine maintenance and recommended service at appropriate intervals and one that will start reliably when the temperature is zero degrees with the wind blowing at 20 mph and one that will handle snow/ice/rain/wind conditions if I drive sanely. Produce that car for a reasonable price and I’ll buy it and so will loads of other people.

I want to say this ever so politely and ever so clearly to the people at Schering-Plough Inc. No, I am not gellin’ like a melon nor have I ever been a felon. Stop that stupidity immediately!

I want to say this ever so politely and ever so clearly to the people who make and market Flomax – that pill designed to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia. I don’t need to see some guy who is constantly running to a bathroom to take a leak; you can get your message across without making the guy in the ad into someone who really ought to be wearing adult diapers instead of pumping yet another medicine through his bloodstream. I got the message; if I ever spend more than 2 hours a day “draining the lizard”, I’ll be sure to talk with my doctor to find out how to get that much of my life back to normal.

In terms of advertising, there are five words that ought to bring a sense of loathing and disgust to every TV viewer in the US. I’ll just mention the words here and let you shudder in your revulsion:

Ted Ferguson - - Bud Light Daredevil

Since I mentioned a Budweiser product here, let me also note that all of the ads for Bud Extra are annoying and the product itself serves an unfathomable niche in the marketplace. Bud Extra is beer infused with caffeine, ginseng and guarna extract whatever the hell that is. For all I know it’s a fancy term for guano extract. I must have missed a memo here because I never realized that beer drinkers needed something to keep them alert and aware; I sort of thought that was antithetical to the whole purpose of pounding down a dozen bottles or so. How does caffeine enhance the mellowness of the buzz one gets after finishing that ninth beer? Just what is the recommended daily amount of guarna extract in a healthy and balanced diet - - and what would constitute an overdose of guarna extract? Can you imagine what would happen if people decided to start doing boilermakers with Bud Extra? You’d have people drunk out of their minds who could not fall into a coma because of all the caffeine. They’d all wind up watching the ceiling spin around above the bed and be unable to go to sleep to make it stop.

And without a doubt, we do need to put the brakes on the various erectile dysfunction ads. We have gotten the message over the last half dozen years. If these folks would only clear up one final detail, we won’t need to hear about Viagra, Cialis or Levitra ever again. The detail is this:

Exactly what is the cure that your doctor will prescribe for an erection that lasts more than 4 hours? Naked pictures of Janet Reno, Sally Struthers, Queen Elizabeth and Rosie O’Donnell?

But the worst ad campaign has to be one that runs in the local paper here. Unless you look carefully in the Washington Post you’ll never see these ads – and that will redound to your benefit. A local clinic advertises colonic hydrotherapy as a way to colonic health and thereby a plethora of benefits. I’m not sure how colonic hydrotherapy differs from an enema, but I’m sure there’s a difference that encompasses more than the price of the treatment. Here’s the kicker, the ad says that “clients have complete privacy” during the treatment. Excuse me, but how does one have complete privacy whilst catching an enema? Do they have Artoo Detoo roll into the room with a hose attachment? This ad is not helpful or attractive; please make it go away.

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

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Abut six months ago, I told you about a guy in California who was suing the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for discrimination on the basis that they had a Mothers’ Day promotion - - and Mothers’ Day by definition is discriminatory on the basis of gender and he didn’t get a tote bag of goodies that the women did on that day. I had few if any nice things to say about him or about the legislators in California who would pass a law that could possibly be interpreted in a way such that Mothers’ Day celebrations might find themselves on “the wrong side of the law”. Well, according to SI.com, a judge in Orange County California has summarily thrown out this suit in a way that makes it unlikely to reappear in a new guise. On the assumption that report is correct, I want to make two statements about this judge:

I want this judge, whoever he or she may be, to be on the short list for the Supreme Court of the United States the next time a vacancy happens on that bench no matter what President of which party is in the White House and no matter which party controls the Senate of the United States.

Here is a judge that “gets it”. Some people go to court who have not been injured in any significant way and those people need to be told to get the hell out of there to make way for proceedings where someone may in fact have been injured ins some significant way.

Since that lawsuit pertained to baseball, that got me thinking about some of the nonsense that happened over the last month or so in baseball; and the first thing that came to mind was that the Chicago Cubs seem to have been responsible for the ridiculous free agent market in baseball this winter. Ted Lilly is a career .500 pitcher; his lifetime record is 59-58; let’s just say that the mayor of Cooperstown, NY is not anticipating giving Lilly the key to the city. Nevertheless, the Cubbies gave Lilly $10M per year for 4 years. And that sets a salary standard for pitchers…

Barry Zito is a significantly better than .500 pitcher and now he is making $18M per year. Even if Zito never has a twinge of an injury, the best a team can hope for is that he will participate in 40 games in a season. That translates to $450K per game. Barry Zito is a fine pitcher and someone who would be a positive addition to any rotation on any team in MLB. But is he worth $450K every time he strides to the mound? I don’t think so.

But the Cubbies may get beaten by the karma stick here. Carlos Zambrano’s contract is up after next year. If you look at Zambrano’s “numbers” over the last 4 years, you’ll see that he’s three years younger than Zito, pitched about as many games and averaged about as many innings per start as Zito. But his record is much better than Zito’s (59-32 for Zambrano versus 55-46 for Zito) and his ERA is 0.72 lower than Zito’s and his WHIP is slightly lower too. So, what will the Cubbies have to pay to keep Zambrano? Maybe $20M per year for 5 years – if they’re lucky? If they don’t come up with that kind of offer, there are teams that will…

Since I’m saying some less than nice things about the Cubs, here’s an observation. Ever since the 2003 playoffs when the “Bartman Incident” happened and the Cubs imploded I the playoffs, things have been unusually painful for Cubs’ fans - - way over and above the normal angst that those folks suffer. In 2004, the Boston Red Sox ended their 86-year absence as World Champions; next to the Cubs, it was the longest drought in MLB. Then in 2005, the cross-town White Sox won it all and White Sox fans could hold mini-World Series parades on Waveland Avenue for a year. And last year, the archrival St. Louis Cardinals won it all whilst the Cubs never really threatened to be part of the post-season activities. So what evil will befall Cubs’ fans this year? I don’t know what would be worse – having the Milwaukee Brewers or the Pittsburgh Pirates win the NL pennant with the Cubs finishing somewhere near but below .500.

During Super Bowl week, there was a story that a Los Angeles-based publicist attended one of the “significant parties” in Miami and let it be known that a former NBA player would be making an announcement on Valentine’s Day that the former player is gay. The player was unidentified but it was announced that there would also be a book coming out related to this entire subject. When I read about this, my reaction was “So what?” However, the story seems to have gained traction and on Pardon the Interruption yesterday, they said that the alleged retired player who will be coming out of the closet is John Ameche. If that is the case, let me say two things:

I will not be buying the book because I don’t really care enough about his trials and travails as an NBA player who happened to be gay.

I hope that this revelation brings him some measure or peace and happiness because it is not likely to bring him great wealth or supreme stature in the society.

Now that the dust has settled with regard to Lane Kiffen assuming the head coaching position with the Oakland Raiders, I think someone needs to sit down with him and give him a clue about topics he needs to talk about and topics he needs to talk around with the press. As Kiffen was revealing the foundation pieces of his coaching philosophy – that same philosophy that convinced Al Davis that this was THE man to lead the Raiders back to glory – he said a couple of things that made you sit up and shake your head in wonderment:

On offense and defense, he intends to utilize the team’s skill players – their big time players. Wow! I never thought of that! You mean that the Raiders now have a coach who intends to use his best players as part of his game plan? Hold on while I catch my breath here. And to think that he announced this ploy to the world so that other coaches might hear it and catch on to this novel approach to the game… Oh, and can someone tell me who all these “big time players” on the roster might be?

He said that the players on the Raiders were going to “play happy” and because they were happy, they would also “play hard”. Can you imagine the way Randy Moss and Jerry Porter took those remarks since neither played happy or hard last year - - and Porter didn’t’ play much at all no matter what his state of mind. Coach Kiffen is just as likely to get pantsed by some players and have a “smiley face” painted on his butt-cheeks as he is to get that assemblage to “play happy” or “play hard”. How many players will have to be unconditionally cut to put together a roster that makes these conditions even remotely achievable?

Finally an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“An Oklahoma woman made medical history of sorts, Tulsa’s KOTV reported, when doctors surgically removed a 93-pound tumor.

“Proud Texans, refusing to be outdone by their border rivals, immediately demanded that the Cowboys get rid of Terrell Owens.”

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

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Today, I’m glad that my cable company doesn’t carry ESPNU. That makes it impossible for me to watch that network’s coverage of “Signing Day”. Today is the day when high school seniors who are coveted football players make it official about where they will be going to college. And this has become a news event so horrendously blown out of proportion that I want nothing to do with it. But ESPNU will put on seven hours of programming today devoted solely to high school football players deciding where to go to college. Let me restate that; most of them won’t be “going to college” in the fullest sense of that phrase. Most of them will be deciding where they will try to play football next year.

I understand that recruiting is the foundation of successful college football programs and I can therefore understand why devoted fans of various schools should be interested in how many good recruits will be matriculating at good old Alma Mammy next year. But to watch seven hours of coverage of this stuff when none of these guys has yet to strap on equipment for even a practice session is a bit over the top. Compound that with commentary from a bunch of folks who probably have not seen 5% of these people play a football other than on a highlight reel and you have the makings for a truly surreal experience. The NFL Draft is a hugely over-hyped event to be sure, but at least the players at the top of the draft are ones that people have seen play football against good competition for several years. Think about how imprecise the NFL Draft process is and what all the effusive verbiage associated with its coverage actually means in terms of reality at that level. Now project that back to high school kids about to enter college…

There are a couple of high school football players whose final destination in terms of college might be worth a look. This has nothing to do with their football skills; it will have to do with the tolerance level that the college football program will have for demonstrated antisocial skills. Here in the DC area, we have a football player who is described by the Washington Post as a “high-level recruit”. He also has served a few days in jail followed by about a month of house arrest with several years’ probation because he participated in the robbery of an establishment called “Smoothie King” in the DC suburbs. In Florida, a kid who some folks say is the top recruit in the state was charged with “lewd and lascivious battery” against a 14-year old and was actually out on bail when he played in the state high school championship football game. Next year these two guys may be wearing the uniforms of one of the top football schools in the country - - or they may be modeling orange overalls. Time will tell…

Look, here’s what I would like to have happen. I’d like there to be an immediate cap placed on the number of high school football games televised outside the school districts of the teams involved; high school football does not need “commercialization” or “exposure”. Then, I’d like to see the number drawn down over the next several years. AND, I really want ESPN and/or any of its spin-off networks to stop any and all coverage of signing day or press conferences held by high school kids to announce their verbal commitments to schools. For today, ESPN stands for Excessive Signing Programming Nonsense!!

Several commentators thought that the absence of Paul Tagliabue from the NFL Hall of Fame inductees’ list was a shock and an affront. I’m not going to say anything derogatory about Paul Tagliabue and I think that he is deservedly a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame in the next couple of years. But all the people who are shocked by this “snub” should check out the history of the NFL Hall of Fame. Pete Rozelle was a visionary who really made the NFL into the economic juggernaut that it is; he handed Paul Tagliabue a robust going concern, which Tagliabue did indeed take to stratospheric proportions. But Pete Rozelle was not inducted into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. If I counted the voting cycles correctly, he waited 8 times until his name was called. So, pardon me if I am not appropriately outraged by the “affront” of the selection committee.

Cleaning up a few items about the Super Bowl, I wonder how those folks who paid $3000 – 5000 for a seat felt as they sat there in the pouring rain. As we were watching the game, someone commented that they were getting soaked by the elements after they had already gotten soaked by the ticket brokers. At least most of the uncomfortable folks were the sponsors and league partners and high rollers who force the game to be played in these “good weather venues”.

Oh, and speaking of the rain, is it really beyond the state of the art to prevent water droplets from falling on the camera lens and staying there for most of the game? I’ve heard that someone has this new technology to accomplish this; he calls it an awning. There are lots of folks who shelled out top dollar to get HDTV for the game and what they got was a high definition picture refracted through a raindrop on the lens and water condensation. CBS should apologize for that. But don’t hold your breath…

When Jim Nantz made the obligatory reference to Tony Dungy being the first African American coach to win the Super Bowl, I was impressed with Dungy’s response. He said that he thought it was also important that he and Lovie Smith represented the work of Christian coaches. Tony Dungy is a man of faith; whether or not you share his faith, it is central to his being what he is. And that he focused attention on what is inside him in addition to the color of his skin on his outside is laudable. Remember, it was only about 15 months ago, that Tony Dungy lost his son to suicide. His faith obviously gave him some of the strength needed to get through that horror.

The old adage, “defense wins championships”, played out last Sunday. The Colts fell behind 14-6 and needed its defense to keep the game from getting out of hand. After the Bears had two early TDs, the Colts defense held the Bears to less than 40 yards on the next five possessions in the first half. Counting the time into the third quarter, the Bears went 24 minutes without a first down. The Colts’ defense won that championship as much as the offense did.

If the Bears had won on Sunday, I would have loved for one of the players to ask for Dennis Green to come out and crown them with their championship trophy. Remember Green’s tirade about the Bears being exactly who the Cardinals thought they were; well, it would be fitting for Green to show up since he obviously would have known … Too bad.

Finally, an observation from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald about stadium security for the Super Bowl:

“NFL officials have come out with a list of prohibited items that cannot be brought into the stadium Sunday. The list includes umbrellas, coolers, beach balls, banners, weapons and O. J. Simpson.”

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

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I have never pretended to have “sources” deep within the NFL structure who tell me things in sotto voce about the inner workings of the league. So, nothing here comes from that kind of “Deep Throat insight”. However, I do have a good acquaintance whose job it is to try to get as much information about the NFL into the public knowledge base and so he does have some access to “sources within the NFL”. I spoke with him this morning about the Super Bowl game; of course, the huge success of that game as a TV event came up. In case you’ve been hung over since Sunday night, the Colts/Bears game drew the second highest Super Bowl audience in history and the third largest TV audience in history. I said to my friend that it was a shame that these kinds of ratings didn’t happen in the final year of a TV contract because that would give the league a humongous lever when it came to negotiating the next TV deal.

His response was that it might not be necessary because by the time the current TV deals expire, the NFL might consider taking the playoffs and maybe even the Super Bowl to pay-per-view. My friend says that the NFL is surely thinking along those lines in the 15-20 year time horizon but that there might be enough credibility in that concept to allow its use as a negotiating lever even in the next TV negotiations. I believe the current deal with FOX, CBS and NBC expires in 2012 and that the current deal with ESPN expires in 2014.

I think the success/failure of the NFL Network – particularly the degree to which NFLN penetrates the cable TV market as a part of “basic cable packages” around the country – will be the real leverage threat for the NFL in the next set of negotiations. But somewhere down the road, the playoffs and the Super Bowl will become a package pay-per-view deal. Now, if I were a candidate for the presidency in 2012 – stay calm, I’m not even hinting that might be possible – I’d surely come out in favor of the Super Bowl on free TV and I’d be sure to make it known that the regulatory arm of the government in my administration would not look favorably on taking these games to pay-per-view TV. That’s a position I’d stake out early in the campaign and it’s one that millions of people can relate to.

Memo to Everyone: Watch and enjoy the Super Bowl games as much as you can over the next decade while they are still free. They won’t be all that much longer…

Do you remember about ten years ago when some addleheaded folks suggested that the sport of soccer should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize because it was a common denominator to bring people together? Juxtapose that Pollyanna thinking with what happened in Sicily over the weekend. In the midst of a game between Palermo and Catania, fan violence in and around the stadium reached such a level that police had to fire tear gas into the crowd to try to quiet things down; as you might guess, that caused a stoppage in play while the air cleared. Then after the game, rioting got a lot worse; hundreds of people were trapped in the stadium; a police officer was killed; authorities found the makings of several “crude bombs”, arms and drugs in the debris clean-up after peace had been restored; and the government decided to stop all soccer games in all of Italy for the weekend. Yessir, whenever I think of the Nobel Peace Prize there are three things that always leap to mind:

1. The agreement between Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain in Munich to bring “peace in our time” to Europe and the world.

2. Any action by Kofi Annan in his tenure at UN Secretary General to resolve any dispute anywhere in the world which had more basis than the debate over “tastes great” versus “less filling”.

3. Soccer fans coming together in displays of sportsmanship and goodwill during and after a hard-fought match with a longstanding rival.

Soccer in Italy is a mess – even when viewed from afar and only once in a while. The World Cup championship from last summer didn’t do anything to validate Italian soccer; it merely awarded a trophy to the team that happened to win a specific tournament. Don’t forget, soccer in Italy was found to have rigged matches just six months ago and an icon of Italian soccer committed a defenestration suicide just days before he was going to have to testify under oath at a trial about fixed soccer games. Rioting at games – and before and after games too – is commonplace and now we have people dead as a result of something as silly as a sporting event.

And what do the folks who run soccer think they need to do to try to bring all of this back to the realm of sanity? Well, the new president of Europe’s governing body for soccer pledged to work diligently with the Italian soccer authorities to “end the violence”. Way to go out on a limb there, Chief!

Most of the soccer clubs in Italy don’t own stadiums and so they don’t assume any responsibility for stadium security or crowd control. In fact, many of the stadiums don’t even have turnstiles or people to try to assure that ticket-holders can sit in the seats they paid for. Do you think that might put a few people on edge even before the opening kick-off? And let’s not even discuss the degree to which “adult beverages” might play into the atmosphere at an Italian soccer game…

So the latest proposal from the Sports Minister in Italy is to allow games to proceed but not to allow fans in to see the games in those stadia where security measures are inadequate. Please remember that the latest rioting started outside the stadium in Catania so even if these measures were in place, it is not certain that these riots could have been avoided. Another governmental proposal suggests that the soccer clubs be forced to sever their ties with their fan clubs. The basis for this thinking is that members of many fan clubs have “extremist political views” and they bring added tension and emotion to an already charged atmosphere. I’m no sociologist or political scientist, but just how will severing these ties between a team and a fan club alter people’s extremist political views? And how will severing those ties prevent those with “extremist political views” from going to games and acting out their inner anger?

According to a TV soccer analyst in Italy, Marco Mazzocchi, there exists a quid pro quo between soccer clubs and politicians in Italy. He said:

“Soccer is a business that provides votes for politicians. All these fans can vote, and these club owners can often control votes.”

How great is that? These fans – the ones who make it such that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee needs to sit up and take notice – are the ones who get to influence elections in Italy. All I proposed here was for a Presidential candidate in 2012 to advocate keeping the Super Bowl on free TV; I guess that woud not play to the “extremist political views” of som Italian sports fans. And they say that the fans in Philadelphia are over the top…

Finally, let’s hear from someone whose sporting accomplishments have nothing to do with violence or pay-per-view greed. Here’s what Henry Aaron had to say:

“It took me 17 years to get 3000 hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.”

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

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At the beginning of the 2006/07 college basketball season, there were 336 colleges and universities playing Division I basketball. Unless I misread the standings of conferences and indies, 335 of those schools have won a game so far this year. Iona College in New Rochelle, NY is the only one that has not won a game; they are 0-21 at the moment and play Siena tonight. They had a four game stretch in mid-January where they lost two OT games, then lost by a point and then lost another OT game. They have 8 games left until the MAAC Championship Tournament in early March; they’ll have to win that tournament to get the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament if they hope to play on beyond the first week of March.

Given the results at Iona and the less than rosy future there, you might forgive the local scribes for being a bit down on the team. Meanwhile, out in Colorado, the Buffaloes aren’t doing all that well either. They have won 5 games this year out of 18 starts and they’ve lost 7 conference games by an average of 20 points per game. Mark Kizla of the Denver Post was not pleased with the way things were going for the Buffaloes when he wrote:

“In more than a century of CU’s hoops, the Buffaloes have had more than their share of lost years. But watching this team lose night after endless night, with the arena as lonely and gray as a tomb, is morbid. The Ricardo Patton [coach at CU] era has a duty to die.”

I don’t even want to think about what Mark Kizla might have to say if he had to cover the Iona College basketball beat…

Once the pitty-pat part of the college basketball schedule is over and done with, the games become compelling. One thing I’ve noticed this year is that a couple of “traditional powerhouses” aren’t merely reloading this year; they’re rebuilding and things don’t look all that well in the reconstruction phase. I caught UConn about a week ago against Louisville and the Huskies looked overmatched. That hasn’t been the case with a UConn team for a long time now.

I’ve seen Illinois play twice (Ohio State and Wisconsin) and they too looked overmatched both times. I saw that Illinois has a decent record so I went to see just how creative a scheduling job the athletic department had done for the team in November and December. It was feather-pillow soft. That’s another team that’s not nearly as good as it has been in recent years.

I’ve only seen Oklahoma play about half of a game so maybe I just caught them at a bad time, but the Sooners didn’t look all that good to me. But there’s still a month to go in the season and then there are conference tournaments. Maybe these teams are setting themselves up to peak at the end of the season. Whatever.

Up at the NBA level of basketball, the league is doing what it always tries to do – focus attention on its stars and draw attention away from some of the fetid corners of the league. The Boston Celtics are particularly fetid at the moment; they are two full games worse than the Sixers and the Sixers are a team in the process of self-immolation. One personnel move – among more than a few – that just has not worked out for the Celtics is their acquisition of Sebastian Telfair. I think that it’s getting to be time to declare that this kid was dreadfully over-hyped and really isn’t going to amount to much at the NBA level. He’s not playing in Boston because he’s been beaten out for the starting guard spot by Delonté West – a decent player – and by Rajon Rondo – who may some day become a decent player. This bench-warming role in Boston follows a bench-warming role in Portland where he watched as Steve Blake got the minutes. Telfair has a shoe contract and a movie about him and all that stuff. I think he belongs in the Developmental League because I don’t think he could even start in most of the European leagues.

I have no idea what is going on with the Barry Bonds/SF Giants contractual machinations. Supposedly, there is a side-letter to the contract that says the Giants can void the contract if Bonds is indicted; Bonds’ agent says it is unenforceable because the Collective Bargaining Agreement would supersede it; so, why would the Giants work to negotiate the letter in the first place and why did it take time for the Bonds’ folks to agree to it? During the impeachment brouhaha for President Clinton, people made a lot about whether or not the Special Prosecutor might indict him and how a good prosecutor could “get a ham sandwich indicted”. Well, if that’s even remotely true, then using an indictment as the trigger for voiding a contract seems a bit strange. Stay tuned…

Sammy Sosa signed his deal with the Texas Rangers and it is a non-guaranteed minor league contract that he may turn into a $500K contract with incentive clauses if he makes the squad in the springtime. Sosa says he was mentally beaten down after the 2005 season in Baltimore and even though he did want to play in 2006, he now thinks it was a good thing for him to take the year off and get himself ready to play in 2007. He says his body is in shape and he’s ready to go. Before taking 2006 off, Sosa’s numbers declined for four straight years; it will be interesting to see what his one-year sabbatical did for him. That assumes of course that he can make the Rangers’ squad…

The Asian Games are underway in China. In an ice hockey game, Kazakhstan beat Thailand by a score of 52-1. That’s not a typo. Insert your own punch line here.

In Denver, they have a new soccer-only stadium for their MLS team and they sold naming rights for it. The stadium is Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. I wish that I could listen to Denver sports radio because you just know that they had a contest to come up with the “short name” by which the stadium will be known. And you know that they would have had each and every caller on a 10-second delay with not one but two guys at the engineering console poised to hit the “dump button”.

Finally, since I mentioned soccer and MLS, here’s a comment from Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“If you tell American sports fans that David Beckham ‘transcends soccer,’ you have to tell ‘em what soccer is.”

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

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Last week, Mythical Picks made three selections. The record was 2-1 for a weekly Mythical Profit of $90. Let me recap the Mythical Picking Season up to now as we head toward the Super Bowl - - the Grand Crescendo:

Reg Seas: 146-128-4 + $ 850

Playoffs: 8-4 + $ 420

Total NFL:154-132-4 +$1270

Allow me to reiterate that I will not “go crazy” this weekend and make a bunch of silly bets [such as the over/under for how long it will take to sing the National Anthem] just because I’m ahead. See last week’s Mythical Picks for the explanation as to why I’m not doing that. I will make three wagers this week for a total of $300 Mythical Dollars. That means that the worst I can do for the year is to come out ahead by $970 Mythical Dollars.

My long-suffering wife and I are leaving town tomorrow and taking an overnight train to Chicago to visit #1 son and his lovely bride. We’ll watch the Super Bowl game with them and some of their friends in Chicago. If the Bears win, I don’t think there will be a lack of exuberance – rational or irrational – in the room. That explains why these picks are a bit earlier in the week than normal.

And of course, no one should take anything written here and use it as the basis for making a wager on the Super Bowl. If you did that you would be so dumb that if a woman offered you “super sex”, you’d think for a few moments and then take the soup.

General Comments:

To hear some of the analysts talk about this game, the single factor to decide the outcome will be whether or not the Bears’ defense can stop the Colts’ offense. The Bears’ offense and the Colts’ defense must feel like Rodney Dangerfield about now. But the points scored by each team is the same. Granted, the Bears have more scores from their defense/special teams, but they all count the same on the scoreboard. There aren’t any style points awarded for how teams score.

Looking at the regular season stats, would it surprise you to know that the Colts gained more yards per rushing attempt than did the Bears? I was surprised. On the assumption that neither team will turn the ball over a half dozen times this weekend, I think this game should stay close. The game could come down to a battle of the kickers and both teams have good ones – based on this year’s performances. You may recall when Cris Carter was playing, Chris Berman and Tom Jackson on ESPN always used to say that all Carter did was catch TD passes. Well, along those lines, all Adam Vinatieri does is kick winning field goals in playoff and Super Bowl games.

Indy – 7 “at” Chicago (49): Obviously, you should shop the line here because it varies from place to place and small differences can be important. I want to make three wagers on this game. I want the Bears with the points; I think the game will stay close. I want the game UNDER; I believe that there will be more field goals than TDs. And I want a $100 money-line bet on the Bears to win the game outright at +240. Frankly, I think that price is a bit lower than it would be for a game with a TD spread in the regular season, but I still think it is worth a shot.

Good luck.

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

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