The Sports Curmudgeon

Back in those heady days of Spring Training, there were some folks who pondered the possibility of a Cubs/White Sox World Series. Lots of fans have unrealistic expectations in March as they imagine mediocre pitchers on their favorite team “putting it all together this year” and winning 22 – 25 games. That kind of thing actually happens once in a great while – see Tigers, Detroit (2006) – but most of the time players who were mediocre players in the past continue to be mediocre players in the present. In Chicago, this kind of fanciful rumination tends to happen a lot. You’d think that having seen one World Series Championship amongst the town’s two teams in the last 99 years would temper that kind of exuberance or at least make folks think such exuberance is irrational [/Alan Greenspan]. Whatever.

Well, if you look at the standings today, the Cubbies are actually in second place in the NL Central. They happen to be 7.5 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers and they are one game under .500, but they are in an amazingly weak division where any team can go in the tank at any moment. I shan’t be making any wagers with the mortgage money on the Cubbies going to the World Series this year – or even on their making the playoffs – but they still have a shot.

The White Sox on the other hand seem to have come apart at the seams. They are nine games under .500; they are twelve games out of first place in the AL Central; they are only two games ahead of the Kansas City Royals. The season is just about half over and the White Sox would need to climb over the Twins, Indians and Tigers to win their division. That simply is not going to happen without Divine intervention.

Since I mentioned the Milwaukee Brewers above, here’s something to ponder. If one is in recovery and participating in an Alcoholics Anonymous program, would it still be appropriate for him to root for a team known as the Brewers? Just asking…

The Baltimore Orioles shook up their organization when they fired their manager a short time back. Peter Angelos hired Andy MacPhail to be the Orioles’ Chief Operating Officer – whatever that title means in baseball. Folks in Baltimore tend to see this in an extraordinarily positive way and they point to his baseball pedigree – father and grandfather were “baseball men” – and his experiences working his way up the ladder in the game. I think they may be looking at the world through orange-colored-glasses to some extent. Andy MacPhail’s prior job in baseball was as the GM for the Chicago Cubs and as the President/CEO for the Chicago Cubs. I don’t recall exactly how long he was there in Chicago, but let me estimate that he spent 10 years in one or both of those jobs. If he were such a stupendous choice to turn around the Orioles’ franchise, wouldn’t his genetic make-up and baseball experience have led him to turn the Cubbies into a powerhouse sometime during that 10-year period?

I guess I have to resign myself to being an old-school baseball fan. I’m so old-school that I remember double headers on Memorial Day, the 4th of July and Labor Day. In the current time, it isn’t even certain that every team will play on those holidays. I also remember Sunday doubleheaders for most of the Sundays from mid-May to mid-September. The next time some goof tries to tell you that no species has ever gone extinct, ask them whatever happened to all those Sunday doubleheaders. The goof will probably call you an unflattering name; just tell him, you’re “old-school”.

As NFL teams wound down their “Organized Team Activities” last week, there was a lot of gushing in Dallas about how much more fun things are within the team now that Wade Phillips is the coach and Bill Parcells is doing TV work. It became de rigueur for players and writers to intimate that the martinet atmosphere of a Bill Parcells “OTA” was not conducive to positive team chemistry or a winning atmosphere. Here’s what I know about Bill Parcells; he coached 4 different teams; all of them were losers when he took over; he had all of them in the playoffs within two years of his arrival; no other coach in NFL history has ever taken 4 different teams to the playoffs.

Now, does that mean he was perfect as a coach and that anything he decided to do with his team was automatically the correct thing to do? Of course not. But I think the players and the writers in Dallas ought to take a step back and look at the big picture here. Bill Parcells’ Cowboys made the playoffs last year as a wild card team and lost to Seattle on a fumbled snap from center on an extra point try. If he stays retired, he is a mortal lock to be in the Hall of Fame. I wonder how many of the players complaining about his coaching can look forward to certain induction in Canton?

Parcells’ influence around the league is pervasive. Tom Coughlin and Romeo Crennel both coached under Parcells. Coughlin is probably close to the end of his run in NY, but recall that he took an expansion Jax team to a conference championship game very quickly. Crennel simply does not have enough talent on the field to win a lot of games. Sean Payton coached under Parcells and he seemed to do pretty well with the Saints last year; I believe he was Coach of the Year. And of course, Bill Belichick – he of the three Super Bowl Championships in New England – had a long coaching association with Parcells. One would be mightily hard pressed to come up with a comparably accomplished “coaching-tree” for Wade Phillips.

People are already handing out grades on last night’s NBA Draft. I’m on record that drafts can’t really be evaluated for the first couple of years but you’d think that it might be interesting to wait until the draftees have actually played in an NBA game or two – even exhibition games? – before declaring that this guy will be a star and this other guy was an awful draft pick. If you’re waiting for me to give an early assessment here, check back sometime in late January/early February of 2008. I don’t focus much on NBA basketball until then because most of the players aren’t all that focused on the games either.

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

“FilmSchoolRejects.com has released its rankings of the 10 best ultra-violent movies of all time, and ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ (1974) edged out ‘Hostel’ (2006) for the No. 1 honors.

Also receiving votes: the 2006 Oakland Raiders highlight film.”

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

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I’m back from Seattle and from watching four games at Safeco Field including the triumphal return of Ken Griffey Jr. to Seattle. He received a hero’s welcome there; he got about a 3-5 minute standing ovation during pre-game ceremonies welcoming him “home”; he got another standing ovation when he came out to the on-deck circle for his first at-bat; he got a standing ovation every time he came to the plate. I was trying to think of any other player who might get that kind of welcome from fans after he had decided to leave that city to play elsewhere and I can’t come up with one.

I’ve said it before and I’ll reiterate. Ichiro Suzuki is worth the price of admission all by himself. If you have not seen him play and you have the opportunity to do so, take that opportunity. He is a special player.

Some other things in the sporting world are also “special” in a different sense of the word. Here’s one of them. Starting in July, a league for video gamers will commence play. The Championship Gaming Series will have six franchises in various cities and they recently held a draft for players/gamers. DirecTV will televise the competitions. What’s the over/under on how long it will be until ESPN televises the draft for this new “league”? Like I said, this is really special…

And since I’m talking about televised “sports”, am I the only one who is beginning to wonder how long the upward spiral of networks’ rights fees can continue? Ratings are down for just about everything except NFL Football - - and in some cases they are down more than a little bit. No one watched the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs – even the finals. When no horse had a shot at the Triple Crown, the ratings for the Belmont Stakes were trivial. The NBA playoffs ratings were down yet again. And so it goes. Fewer people are watching sports on TV now than watched 5 years ago. And in that environment, the leagues seek higher rights fees and networks pay them. I don’t get it.

Even the NFL rights fees are out of control. When the last series of negotiations were underway, ABC claimed to have lost more than a hundred million dollars on its MNF package. So, of course the other arm of Disney involved with sports - - ESPN - - bid even more money for the MNF package for the current period of time. I know that I’m not Warren Buffett, but that just doesn’t make a lot of business sense to me. And I have to wonder when the network execs will decide that losing gobs of money on sports rights fees just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense anymore.

Talk about the potential for a bubble collapsing, can you imagine what will happen to sports franchises that have huge guaranteed contracts hanging out there when the TV money starts to head south? It seems to me that the trigger point here will be when advertising agencies decide to stop paying increased ad rates for time on sporting events based on reduced viewership. When/if that happens, it should not be a long time until the folks who have been dining at the trough of pro sports start to get their shorts in a knot.

If you think I’m being a Cassandra here, think about this. Owners and players and agents have been reveling in the glory of the sports revenue tsunami for the past 10-15 years. There’s a lot of money out there and all of these folks are getting a nice chunk of change from pro sports. Now, tell me what those folks have done individually or collectively to grow the fan base of the sport. Owners have raised prices for tickets and parking and hot dogs and … [Aside: At Safeco Field this week, I saw bottled water for $4.00 a bottle. Do you think there’s a bit of a mark-up there?] Players have become aloof and guarded when they aren’t being downright anti-social or criminal in their behavior. Agents seem to go out of their way to annoy fans instead of trying to cultivate them. When/if the bubble bursts, all of these folks will deserve a share of the blame for the collapse.

The NHL may be in a position to survive a collapse despite its minuscule TV ratings because after the yearlong strike/lockout/work stoppage/whatever, the league seems to have its finances under control even with only a trickle of TV revenues. Granted, prices to see NHL games live and in person are very high, but the league may be able to “take a hit” here as well as any other leagues - - and better than some such as the NBA. I read somewhere – and forgot to note where so I cannot cite the source – that the six Canadian franchises in the NHL (20% of the league) generated 35% of the revenue for the league. I’m not shocked by those figures even though that is a big deviation from the “even distribution model”. Here’s what surprises me a bit…

A Canadian has recently purchased the Nashville Predators and has indicated that he’d like to move that team to Hamilton, Ontario. The league is resisting that move. I never think of Nashville as a “hotbed of hockey”, so why would the NHL oppose adding another franchise to its roster that might generate above average revenues? And don’t tell me about the need for a national footprint in order to get a TV deal. The NHL has a national footprint and its TV deal is with a network that specializes in televising bull riding, fishing competitions and infomercials. I don’t get this at all.

I’m not a hockey guy so maybe there’s a real reason why I don’t get this next hockey item. Mike Keenan just got a job as the new coach of the Calgary Flames. This is the eighth team in the NHL that he has coached and even I know that his departure from most – if not all – of the previous franchises was less than totally amicable. Can someone explain to me how this guy keeps on getting jobs in that league?

The premature death of a professional wrestler often involves drug usage and a life that seems to have spun out of control. The latest case – the death of Chris Benoit – is far more tragic than that. According to police, Benoit “strangled his wife”; then “suffocated his young son”; then placed a Bible next to their corpses before “hanging himself with a weight-machine pulley”. It appears as if all this happened over a two or three day period. And yes, anabolic steroids were found in the house…

Finally, Jim Armstrong had these observations about sports TV ratings recently in the Denver Post:

“We are all witnesses, Nike’s marketing people like to say. Not according to the television ratings for the NBA Finals, we aren’t. At least the NHL has an excuse. Most people have to hire a private investigator to find the Versus network.”

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

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On ESPN’s The Sports Reporters last Sunday, Mike Lupica said that a huge hole in the résumé of Tiger Woods was that he had never come from behind at the end of three rounds to win a major tournament. Wow. It looks as if golf seeks to challenge baseball in terms of the sport with the most arcane statistics that can be dragged out of the dustbin at any given moment. Lupica went on to say that when Tiger Woods leads a major at the end of three rounds he always wins and when he trails after three rounds he always loses but this year’s US Open was set up for him to win because he should be able to catch the much less experienced leader.

That he did – on the first hole. However, from two strokes behind Tiger Woods came Angel Cabrera to catch Tiger Woods and win the whole tournament. So someone did catch Tiger Woods from behind in the final round of a major tournament last weekend - - or isn’t that the way that statistic is maintained?

One other thing about the US Open if I may. Had that been Joe Flabeetz lining up his birdie putt on the 18th hole with a chance to tie Tiger Woods and send the tournament into a playoff round and Flabeetz missed, wouldn’t more than a few of the golf poets have used the word “choke”? Just asking…

It has become standard fare during the US Open to comment on the difficulty of the course and to opine that the USGA is trying to humiliate the best golfers in the world. People say it isn’t interesting or entertaining to watch the best golfers in the world shoot 10-over par. OK, assume there is a smidgen of validity to that for a moment. Now, explain to me why it is perfectly OK for the PGA to play so many of its tournaments on “dumbed-down courses” where the light rough looks like a snooker table and the winning score is 22 under-par? If the idea is to see low scores, why not play one of those PGA tournaments on a putt-putt course and see scores in the 20s and 30s?

The USA soccer team recently beat Trinidad and Tobago in the Gold Cup. I recall that Trinidad had been in the World Cup and thought that was a good sign for the USA team. Later I read that the Trinidad team is “hampered” by a boycott of its best players who have not yet been paid their bonus money from the 2006 World Cup. For reasons that I don’t pretend to understand the soccer federation in Trinidad has withheld these payments. The Trinidad coach was refreshingly candid about all this saying, “It’s tough for me to talk about it because the federation is upset if we mention it.” I would guess that they would be upset if someone mentioned that they were sort of like “deadbeat dads”.

Georgia police want to talk to Pacman Jones. It seems as if Pacman and some friends were at a strip club – surprise, surprise – in DeKalb County and some kind of altercation developed over a young woman there. Evidently, Pacman left the club but others in his group returned around 4:00AM and shots were fired. The NFL has suspended Pacman for an entire season after a series of arrests and a shooting at a strip club in Las Vegas during the weekend of the NBA All Star Game but he could be reinstated after 10 games if he “turns his life around”. Not that Pacman Jones would listen to any advice I might have for him – or any advice from anyone else it would seem – but one good way to demonstrate that he has NOT turned his life around is to continue to go to strip clubs and become embroiled in late-night altercations involving gunshots.

In other police blotter news that should not be shocking to anyone, another Cincinnati Bengals’ player was arrested. Let’s see if any of the data in the police report ring any bells here. A group of folks were celebrating a wedding at a bar at 3:00AM. Police asked the folks to disperse after shots were fired and there may have been some underage drinking going on. The folks didn’t disperse so the police broke out the handcuffs.

Late night alcohol enhanced revelry + gunshots = arrest.

Why is that equation so difficult for some athletes to comprehend?

You’ve probably read about the incident where Nuggets’ guard JR Smith ran a stop sign causing a traffic accident, which killed his 21-year-old friend and companion. Yesterday, I talked about the need for greater personal accountability for individual actions and choices and the antecedent actions here may point to why we need greater personal accountability. In the past year or so, JR Smith has earned five speeding tickets and has been arrested for driving with a suspended license five different times. But he was still out driving around on that fateful evening… I wonder if all of those judges who kept putting him back on the street after he clearly showed he would not restrict his driving as the law dictates feel any special remorse over this incident?

The Baltimore Orioles fired manager Sam Perlozzo. Sure, the Orioles are at the bottom of the AL East; sure they were humbled by the “next-door” Washington Nationals – never to be confused with the 1927 Yankees – in a weekend series; but, Sam Perlozzo hasn’t lost any games this year. Frankly, I don’t think that Perlozzo was a great hire in the first place and he hasn’t shown any brilliance or special talent in that job since the day he took it. But he’s not the problem with the Orioles; no one could manage that team in such a way that the team would make its way to the top of the AL East. The squad is flawed on the field and in the bullpen. Their best player, Miguel Tejada, is still hitting well (.302 batting average at the moment); but in the games I’ve seen this year his defensive skills are noticeably diminished.

Meanwhile, the LA Dodgers fired hitting coach Eddie Murray. That’s a bit strange since the Dodgers are currently 39-30 only a game and a half behind the Padres in the NL West. If the season ended today, the Dodgers would be the wild card team in the NL. Teams in that position don’t usually fire managers/coaches. There is more to this situation than meets the eye…

Finally, Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle had this comment after Lou Piniella went on his most recent tirade that got him suspended for a couple of games:

“Five careers we should be thankful Lou Piniella didn’t choose: Waiter, taxi driver, DMV clerk, Bobby Knight’s assistant, President of the United States.”

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

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I am one of a chorus of voices that decries the lack of accountability for the personal actions of athletes and celebrities. So, allow me to hope that the level of accountability hung around the neck of Mike Nifong – the erstwhile prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse rape case – signals that the pendulum is swinging back in the other direction. Not only has he resigned from his position as Durham District Attorney, he has been disbarred from the practice of law in NC. That is a full measure of accountability.

Make no mistake; I am not even beginning to intimate that I think the penalty is too severe. I do not know what motivated him to do what he did; I can’t really come up with a motivation that would mitigate what he did to a sufficient degree that he might deserve leniency. But he has paid a huge price here and maybe that’s the start of something different when it comes to criminal behaviors by athletes/celebrities/public figures/elected officials. I sure hope so…

I am also one of a chorus of voices that decries the lack of truthfulness in public statements by lots of folks in the sports world. So, allow me to hope that the acknowledgement of reality by David Stern recently signals that the pendulum is swinging back in the other direction. Here is what David Stern had to say about the NBA Finals drawing the lowest TV ratings ever:

“We’ve had, shall I say, inelegant games, and the ratings show me that our fans are very discerning.”

That may not be the height of candor; but coming from a man whose middle name ought to be “Smug”, it is a huge step toward truth-telling. The NBA ran a long series of promotions showing great moments in the league history and then asking rhetorically, “Will you be watching when …?” Well, the viewing public answered that one with a resounding. “Hell no!!” With the Finals over and done with and a weekend to gain just a modicum of perspective, I still want to say that the Final Series was at least as bad as – and probably worse than – the humongous Super Bowl blowouts. And unless David Stern stifles his smugness and starts to listen to good ideas, there is a real potential for this to happen again for several years.

The flat fact is that the Western Conference is so superior to the Eastern Conference that the Finals are likely to be horrid next year and the year after that. Unless someone convinces David Stern to change the way teams get into the playoffs, that is. I proposed this before so let me say it again slowly:

1. All six division champs get into the playoffs and are seeded 1 thru 6. That’s the prize for winning a division; that’s all.

2. The other ten teams are seeded 7-16 on the basis of regular season record. If all ten are from the West, so be it.

3. After every round of the playoffs, teams are reseeded based on their total record in the regular season plus the playoff record.

It is ludicrous to try to blame this ratings flop on Tim Duncan and his lack of charisma. The problem is that the games were awful – take a deep breath here, and think about this – the Cleveland Cavaliers were awful because LeBron James didn’t live up to 10% of the hype laid on us by the basketball “cognoscenti”. Every one of those ESPN and FOXSports “analysts” who took the time to compare LeBron to Michael Jordan – or in some cases went way around the bend and said that he was already better than Michael Jordan was – should have to spend a week in the stocks so fans can pelt them with rotten veggies. When the Nets were in the playoffs about three years ago, I thought that was the worst team that could possibly ever make it to the NBA Finals; now, I’m not so sure about that…

If David Stern is willing to listen to ideas for improvements to the NBA playoffs, maybe he’d also be willing to think about ways to improve the game so that more fans watch regular season games and get invested in the idea of following the playoffs? Here are a couple of ideas that are a lot more radical than my simple playoff improvements above:

1. Put in place a “timed withdrawal plan” whereby the league contracts at least four teams – six would be even better. There are too many players on all the rosters who simply cannot play NBA caliber basketball. Ten guys, most of whom would not make a difference if they were seconded to the worst roster in the league, surround LeBron James. Getting rid of six teams would take 72 of these guys out of the league and make each team deeper and more talented by default.

2. Instead of worrying about a dress code or having officials call technical fouls more readily, focus on teaching the referees to call the games such that teams don’t “goon-up” the games. It is not to the league’s advantage for games to be slow and boring and that’s what comes from “goon-ball” – the prototype for which was built by Pat Riley in NY. Get rid of that.

3. If you want the game to be more elegant and have players with a fuller set of skills, think about making dunks only count one point.

One more thing for David Stern to think about doing is to sit down privately with the folks at ESPN – TNT gets a pass here – to tell them that promotion is good but excessive hype is not. Every NBA game is not critical to the furtherance of Western Civilization, but if you watch ESPN, you could get that idea quickly. Remember the fairy tale about the boy who cried wolf…

Nike has been pounding us with the promotion that “We are all witnesses…” Truth be told, we were witnesses to a horrible series and the exposure of their iconic figure as one with feet of clay. Not only is LeBron not Michael Jordan just yet, please recognize what happened in the Final Series:

LeBron James averaged almost six turnovers a game.

LeBron James shot 36% from the floor over the four games.

The Cavs scored 322 points in the four games; that is the lowest total for four playoff games ever.

Finally, now that Robert Horry has his seventh championship ring, does that make him a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame? After all, MJ only has six…

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

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For the foreseeable future, my writing schedule will have to change. Since I do this because I love doing it, I will write as often as I can; but the rants will be sporadic for a while. Let me explain…

My long-suffering wife and I have sold our house. It’s too big for two people; we need something smaller. Given the real estate environment here in Northern Virginia, we anticipated it would take a couple of months to sell our house; so we put it on the market on 1 June because the new house we’ve already bought will not be finished until sometime around 1 October. Of course, our house sold in 5 days…

We have to move out on 9 July. That means we are packing and going through the turmoil of a move. That leaves me a lot less time to gather material for these rants or to write them. That’s one reason for “decreased frequency”.

Additionally, we are going to be traveling to Seattle for 5 days starting in the middle of next week. That’s yet another trip we had planned far in advance that happened to fall at a most inopportune time - but it can’t be changed. I won’t even try to access the Internet during our visit with friends while there.

Once we relocate to our “temporary quarters” after 9 July but before we can move into our new house, our Internet access is in question. We will be living at our weekend home in Pennsylvania for most of that interim period. We just learned that the company that provides us with the satellite link to the Internet is going out of business. Until and unless we find another link to the Internet other than ancient telephone lines - it is only a small exaggeration to say that Alexander Graham Bell’s DNA is on those phone lines - I might be very limited in my distribution and posting capabilities.

All of this will sort itself out. But until it does, the normal schedule will be perturbed.

Just wanted to let you know. Please check the site once in a while to see what I’ve managed to post.

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The baseball kerfuffle of the moment centers on the question of whether or not Barry Bonds should be added to the All-Star team if the fans do not vote him onto the team. I am not a Barry Bonds fan; I’ve said more than a few times that I believe that he has been a steroid user. Nevertheless, there is a huge tradition in baseball that to put aging stars onto All Star teams even if only for cameo appearances long after their skills cease to command their presence in the game. Hell, if you are a loved and respected aging star like Cal Ripken, you can even have a pitcher groove a fastball for you. Barry Bonds is a first magnitude star; he was a star long before he began to “bulk up”; he may not be able to play the outfield any better than Babe Ruth at the moment – and the Bambino has been dead for more than 50 years now – but he is still a good hitter. He belongs in the game whether or not the fans vote him in. Period. Look, the game is in SF where the local fans actually love him. Exclamation point! Case closed.

Absent Divine intervention to the contrary, Barry Bonds will be the all time home run leader in baseball sometime very soon. As has been reported hundreds of times, Bonds is a less-than-loveable character on his best days. It would seem that would make him well qualified to be one of baseball’s all time statistical leaders. Consider:

Pete Rose is the all time hits leader. I shouldn’t need to take up much space here to convince you that he has some personality/character flaws.

Ty Cobb is the guy Rose replaced. Cobb was hardly a warm and fuzzy character full of the milk of human kindness.

Ricky Henderson is the time stolen base leader. Henderson does not have an evil or devious reputation, but he is a world-class flake.

Let’s see, Cy Young is the all time leading pitcher in terms of wins. I wonder what skeletons exist in his closet or if he was a churlish man?

There is another baseball issue at the moment that appears to have great significance for society. Troy Ellerman is the gentleman who pleaded guilty to allowing those two SF Chronicle reporters to have access to the grand jury testimony of some of the athletes involved in the government’s investigation of BALCO and steroids and all that stuff. He and prosecutors reached a plea agreement but the judge in that case has refused to go along with the deal because he thinks Ellerman – a lawyer himself – is getting off too easy. The judge had some unusually blunt things to say to the lawyers on both sides of this matter; it’s pretty clear that he thinks 15-24 months in jail for Ellerman isn’t even close to sufficient in terms of sentencing - - and that was the plea arrangement.

That’s not the important part of this matter for society. The important part is the role and the participation of the two SF Chronicle reporters. Their journalistic brethren have lionized them for their steadfast position on protecting their source in this matter. Some even used them as poster-children for why a”Federal Shield Law” might be necessary to protect reporters from a rampaging prosecutor and/or a curmudgeonly judge. I wrote earlier that these guys might not be the best example to use if you supported such a Shield Law. Here’s why.

One of the many things that Ellerman did that was wrong was that he allowed Mark Fainaru-Wada to read the transcripts of grand jury testimony given by the players. That’s wrong for Ellerman to do; unless Fainaru-Wada never knew what he was reading until after he had written about it, it was wrong for him to read it. If the sanctity of “journalistic sources” is to be taken as a given, then the sanctity of “grand jury proceedings” has to exist at an even higher level of holiness. Fainaru-Wada had to know he was doing something wrong when he was reading the testimony; he probably took notes on what he read – on the assumption that he does not have an eidetic memory – and he had to know that was also wrong; and when he reported on what was contained in that testimony, he surely knew that he was publishing something that was not supposed to be published.

What seems to have happened here is that the SF Chronicle reporters acted in concert with Ellerman to circumvent the processes by which justice “happens” in our system. The system is not perfect, but it is the way this society administers justice to the citizenry. Ellerman – representing some defendant in the BALCO miasma – obviously thought that getting the word out that athletes told the grand jury they did not knowingly take steroids would be to his and his clients’ benefit; the Chronicle reporter(s) surely had a beneficial interest in this situation too. So, everyone involved in this convenient cabal looked to benefit from a pollution of the judicial processes as all of this leaking was happening. Bottom Line: The reporters assert great public good comes from their investigative reporting; but if in fact this is how the original leak happened, it was their actions that did harm to the public good by poking a hole in the administration of justice.

But it might get even worse. I don’t know if these allegations have been corroborated and entered as part of the evidentiary background in this case, but some folks have alleged that the Chronicle reporters took verbatim notes on the testimony on at least two different occasions. I do not know that for a fact but for the moment assume that the allegation is correct. Folks also have alleged that at least one of the “note-taking events” came after Ellerman had moved for a mistrial on the basis of the leaked testimony. Now if those allegations are true, Ellerman is a first-class scoundrel; he created the leak and then used the existence of the leak he created as the basis for a motion to end the trial of his clients. At the same time, it would be equally true that the Chronicle reporters were accessories to this first-class scoundrel’s attempts to pervert the justice system. And it is even more true that if they went back for a “second helping” of testimony they should not have seen in the first place, then they are second-class scoundrels for abetting the actions of that first-class scoundrel to pervert the system of justice. But we don’t know all of the actions of Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams because they assert a privilege of confidentiality here. Interestingly, the public may not have a right to know what these reporters actually did because their disclosure of same might be protected by the Fifth Amendment. Channeling Arte Johnson here - - Verrry Interesting !!

In any case, these guys need not be lionized any more. The public has a right to know “stuff”; that’s the mantra of investigative reporters. In this case, the public has a right to know just how involved in the perversion of the justice system these Chronicle reporters may have been unless of course their involvement crossed the line into criminal behavior at which point the public has no right to demand their explanation. They do not deserve a “Shield Law”. Maybe other reporters do; these guys don’t.

Finally, in keeping with today’s baseball focus, here is a comment from Scott Ostler in the SF Chronicle about something new in LA:

“The Dodgers have turned their ballpark’s right-field pavilion into an all-you-can-eat section. Ticket price includes unlimited dogs, nachos, sodas, peanuts, popcorn. It’s Lasordaville. Even the tickets are edible. Look for it by mid-season: The left-field pavilion will be converted into the Liposuction Section.”

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

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And a Happy Flag Day to one and all…

File this one under “Just What They Didn’t Need”… Boxing is a sport that has descended from a prominent place in the sporting hierarchy to a sport worthy of derision on its best days. I said over a decade ago that boxing and pro ‘rassling were on a convergence course and now we have another similarity between the two “sports”. James Toney – three-time champion of various weight divisions from some of the myriad sanctioning bodies in boxing – recently fought Danny Batchelder. After the fight, both of the fighters tested positive for two steroids and both of them have been suspended indefinitely. The “sport” of boxing needed that about as much as you look forward to an IRS audit. And in case you think this might be accidental or erroneous, recall that James Toney tested positive for steroids after a bout several years ago.

Tonight in Joliet Illinois, the Joliet Jackhammers will host the KC T-Bones in a minor league baseball game. The promotion for the night is that patrons who pay $30 for two admissions and a couple of beers and a plate of nachos on “Date Night” get to participate in a “Dating Game” where the prizes are dates with two of the front office employees of the Jackhammers – one male and one female. Blind dates rarely turn out to be wonderful events. In this case, the blind date will result from something akin to a lottery. What could possibly go wrong?

When Justin Verlander tossed his no-hitter against the Brewers earlier this week, it was the first one for a Tigers’ pitcher since Jack Morris accomplished this feat back in the mid-1980s. It was the sixth no-hitter in the history of the Detroit Tigers – a franchise dating back to 1894 when it was one of the original clubs at the founding of the American League. That should give you a bit of perspective on a baseball record. The Tigers as a franchise have had six no-hitters in more than 100 years of existence; Nolan Ryan had seven no-hitters by himself…

I told you recently about the stupid logo for the London Olympics that cost the organizers almost $800K to design. Sebastian Coe is one of the leading figures in the London effort to put on the 2012 games and he said of the logo that it was a way to capture the attention of young people, “It’s vital that we reach out to these young people in a language that they understand and in technology that’s familiar to them.” Swell. Why not send all the young people in the world a text message…That’s a language they understand and a technology familiar to them; the jigsaw-puzzle logo is no more related to current technology than a stick.

But Sebastian Coe is not alone in the Olympic hierarchy when it comes to talking about reaching out to young people. The International Olympic Committee itself has a proposal before it to make skateboarding a sport for those 2012 Games in London. A spokesthing said that the Committee was seriously pondering this matter because “The IOC wants to make the program relevant for young people.” Stand by in 2016 for new sports such as “zoned-out i-pod listening”, “freestyle Sim City” and “rhythmic gymnastics whilst speed dialing”.

This summer, Shaquille O’Neal will participate in a TV show/series that will give kids ways to avoid and/or rectify juvenile obesity. Think about that for just a moment here; Shaq will be offering advice and counsel on ways to avoid being overweight. Who – pray tell – will be the celebs who might make guest appearances in this oeuvre? Sam Adams? Any sumo wrestler with the rank of yokozuna? Sally Struthers? John Daly?

And speaking of John Daly, how long would you have to stay awake before you could come up with a series of ideas for him as to how he might make his life a bit more chaotic. Here’s a guy who is on his fourth or fifth marriage and now claims that his incumbent wife came after him with a steak knife and inflicted wounds. She on the other hand claims none of that is true but that Daly actually assaulted her. At one point this loving couple was in court seeking restraining orders one against the other; then they talked of reconciliation; after that …

John Daly’s turbulent life may have caught up with him. He no longer enjoys an exemption on the PGA Tour; to get into tournaments, he needs to qualify or get a sponsor’s exemption. His last PGA Tour victory came in the Buick Invitational in 2004. In his last 12 PGA events, he has missed the cut five times and withdrew from the competition three other times.

Michelle Wie does not have the personal demons of drug abuse, alcoholism, obesity and stormy marital relationships that John Daly has. But perhaps her turbulent life is catching up with her too. I have long been critical of Michelle Wie and those who are supposedly acting in her best interests for turning her into circus act. Putting her into men’s PGA events at age 14 or 15 was cute the first time; after that it became tedious; now it is embarrassing. One time when I was critical of Wie for not playing in events where she might actually win, I got a couple of comments along the line that I was just jealous of Michelle Wie because I couldn’t play golf the way she could. Since I don’t play golf, that would be so obviously correct that I would never claim otherwise.

However, consider this. Michelle Wie has not finished a tournament at par for over a year now. I can do that too. She hasn’t won a tournament since turning pro. I can do that too. Here’s what she can do that I can’t. She can expect to get lots of sponsor’s exemptions and publicity for her rounds of golf even when those round of golf are nowhere near competitive with others in the same tournament; she can expect to be clucked at – instead of castigated – for violating golf rules that she claims she doesn’t understand and for withdrawing from tournaments when she is totally out of contention claiming heat exhaustion and/or wrist injuries. I couldn’t get away with any of that.

At the moment, Michelle Wie is a much younger and much slimmer version of John Daly on the golf course. They both hit the ball far off the tee; they are both media darlings. They both finish deep in the pack in tournaments far more often than their celebrity status might lead one to believe. That’s the point; they are celebrities and not competitive professional golfers.

Finally, Jim Armstrong had this item in the Denver Post a while back:

“Being a pro football player must be a great way to pick up chicks. Provided, of course, that they are court stenographers.”

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

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I don’t know who first coined the phrase “winning ugly”. Whoever came up with that phraseology must have been prescient because he had to have had in mind last night’s Spurs/Cavs game. No matter who won, that team would have “won ugly” because that was one of the absolutely most brutally unsightly demonstrations of basketball ever. Consider:

Of the ten starting players on both squads, only one – the defensive specialist for the Spurs – managed to shoot over 50% for the night. One of the nominal “pure shooters” for the Cavs went 1-10 from the field.

The box score says there were 26 turnovers in the game; if you had asked me to give an estimate of that stat as the final whistle sounded, I probably would have said 45. Bakeries don’t make that many turnovers in a single evening.

At the end of the third quarter, the score was 55-50.

Anyone trying to make last night’s game seem attractive in any way is fighting a losing battle. Remember, you can tie a pretty ribbon with a colorful bow around a toxic waste dump; that doesn’t make the dump into venue demonstrating Mother Nature’s beauty.

It will be a little more than nine months before the Olympic Torch leaves Greece in order to make its way to Beijing for the opening ceremonies there. Once the torch does “hit the road”, it will be on the road for 4.5 months. It was about 130 years ago, that Phileas Fogg went around the world in only 80 days in a novel; but it has also been about 120 years since a journalist set out to accomplish that feat and did it with ease. The torch will be on the road and traveling 85,000 miles for almost 20 weeks; sadly, the journey will probably generate 85,000 sappy stories/vignettes about its journey. The whole display is little more than concocted crap. When the Olympics were last in the US, the torch relay actually ran down a street that is 200 yards from my house at a time when I was at home. Throngs gathered to see it; I stayed in my house ignored it.

But wait, there’s more. We still have nine months until the Olympic Torch starts its journey but this story is like a zombie; it just won’t die. Because the games will be in the People’s Republic of China, the folks who run the show in Taiwan don’t want to participate in the torch relay. You could sit the leaders of both countries down for a three-week meeting and my guess is they’d fail to agree that Tuesday comes after Monday. And so it goes. Not only will we have to endure the sappy torch traveling stories, we’ll get to witness “dueling press statements” from these two governments for the next nine months about whether or not the damned torch will be allowed to set foot – so to speak – on the island of Taiwan.

All together now:

We … Don’t … Care … One … Way … Or … The … Other … Where … The … [Bleeping] … Torch … Goes … Or … Doesn’t … Go … On … Its … Trip.

Zygi Wilf bought the Minnesota Vikings two years ago. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported recently that Wilf had promised back then to create a Board of Advisors for him in his ownership role and that he was about to make good on that promise. The Vikings’ ownership/management folks are having a retreat this week and twenty-five local business leaders, executives from local civic and charitable organizations and “community leaders” will join the retreat and begin their existence as the Board of Advisors. Normally, I’d look on a group like this as an adult version of a Middle School Student Council having all the privileges and authorities of that Student Council. However, this group may just have something to offer at this particular moment.

Just last week, Charlie Walters reported in the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, that Vikings’ ticket sales are not what they have been. The Vikings have had something close to 100 consecutive sell-outs [I don’t recall the exact number] but Walters said that the streak may be in jeopardy this season and that TV blackouts may show up in the area for the first time in more than a decade. I’m not cynical enough to believe that is the reason for Zygi Wilf to convene this Board of Advisors; I am realistic enough to recognize that if sell-outs are not longer a mortal lock in town, it makes a whole lot of sense to work with local business folks and civic organizations and “community leaders” to find out what might put fannies in those empty seats. Well, other than putting a championship team on the field of course…

Last week, we had the mercifully brief maelstrom created by Gary Sheffield’s remarks that there are more Latino players in MLB than Black players because Latinos are easier to control than Blacks are. That is so politically incorrect that many people in the media had to find a way to distance themselves from the remarks without calling for Gary Sheffield’s head on a plate - - because that too would have been ever so politically incorrect. Now that the furor has died down, think calmly for moment about what happened and ask yourself a couple of questions:

Suppose a Latino player had said that the reason there were fewer Black players in MLB than Latinos is because Blacks are more stubborn and obstreperous than Latinos. How long would it be until the Black members of the media and the Reverends Al and Jesse took loud and righteous umbrage?

Suppose a White player had said that the reason there were fewer Black players in MLB than Latinos is because Blacks are more stubborn and obstreperous than Latinos. How long would it be until he and John Rocker would be forever joined at the hip?

Finally, Greg Cote had this item in the Miami Herald recently:

“Trying to send a nice card to Adam “Pacman” Jones. But it turns out Hallmark does not make a card specifically to congratulate someone for going a full week without being arrested.”

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

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If you’ve been reading these rants for a while, you have to know that I have a very low opinion of the folks who have a hyper sense of political correctness when it comes to team mascots and nicknames. These people definitely need to find another hobby to occupy their time and energy. Having said that, I was pleased to read that a judge in Illinois dismissed a lawsuit brought against the University of Illinois claiming that the university broke state law when it got rid of its mascot, Chief Illiniwek. I was pleased to read that on several levels:

1. I’m happy to know that the legislature in Illinois never found time to make laws regarding the tenure status of university mascots.

2. By dismissing the suit, the judge reduced the clutter on the judicial docket.

3. Maybe – just maybe – this action will put an end to all of this.

As I was reading the AP story on the end of this lawsuit, I was also glad to see that in a world swirling with change, some things remain constant. The NCAA remains a bunch of lying weasels. The now dismissed lawsuit claimed that the NCAA had coerced the University of Illinois into ending the appearances of Chief Illiniwek as its mascot. After the judge ruled, the NCAA through a spokesperson said:

“In no way did we force the school to take action.”

What a crock! Let’s see, the NCAA told schools with offensive mascots/nicknames/logos that they had to change or they could not host NCAA tournament events and that they could not use said mascots/nicknames/logos and have teams participate in NCAA tournament events. When the school appealed, the NCAA told them – in ever so politically correct terms – to go crap in a flat hat. But the NCAA never coerced the school…

In a totally separate legal setting, a judge in Arkansas issued another ruling that brought a smile to my face when I read about it. A fan of Arkansas football had filed a suit against the university Chancellor. This fan alleged that an Arkansas football booster had sent a “disparaging e-mail” to a former Arkansas QB, Mitch Mustain. Mustain has since left Arkansas to ply his trade elsewhere. The fan filing the suit charged that the Arkansas Chancellor failed to investigate thoroughly this alleged disparaging e-mail sent to this former scholar-athlete and he sought via discovery motions access to computer hard drives and phone records and files for various folks in the university. Say what? The judge dismissed the suit and punctuated his dismissal with the following terse and very cogent statement:

“I have not been shown any reason that a state court should get involved in the administration of the football program or athletic program.”

That’s the kind of legal insight that our society needs a lot more of …

The University of Minnesota hasn’t been a football power for quite a while now. The last time they won the Big Ten was in 1967; the last time they won the national title was in 1960. They have a new coach starting this year and you have to give him credit for thinking positively and thinking big. He has a few incentives built into his contract including:

Win the Big Ten title - - collect $200K

Play in National Championship Game - - collect $300K

Win National Championship Game - - collect $50K on top of that $300K

I found only one of the Internet sportsbooks that has a futures line posted for who will win the BCS Championship next year. Remember, most futures bets are sucker bets; the odds offered are usually far lower than the actual chances a team has to accomplish the goal of the bet. The way to look at futures bets is to see where a team ranks in relation to other teams. Here is what this one oddsmaker at this one sportsbook thinks of Minnesota’s chances to win the national championship next year:

South Carolina 80-1
Oregon 80-1
Mississippi 80-1
Minnesota 100-1
Kansas 100-1
Boise State 100-1
Southern Miss 100-1
Air Force 100-1
Army 125-1
South Florida 150-1
TCU 150-1

My suggestion for new Minnesota head coach, Tim Brewster, is that he not put a down payment on a Lamborghini with the idea of paying it off with his bonus money come January 2008…

Finally, here’s an observation from Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“To help rest his legs in the clubhouse, why doesn’t [Barry] Bonds get one of those leather recliner chairs?”

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

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If you are a Cleveland Cavalier’s fan, I guess you can take some solace in the fact that the Cavs were down 0-2 in their last series against the Pistons and then won the next four games. And in last year’s NBA Finals, the Mavs led two games to none and the Mavs came up short in the end. But it sure looked to me as if the Cavs were playing as intensely as they could in the 4th quarter as they made their run, but the Spurs are too good a team to yield after leading by more than 20 points. And if the Cavs hope to win, they have to find a way to stop one of the three scorers on the Spurs. When Duncan, Parker and Ginobili put 78 points in the book, it’s going to be a long night. I think the Cavs need a defensive adjustment as much as anything else.

I really do appreciate LeBron James and his talent and his focus during the game. He is a rare and special talent. What I do not appreciate is the apparent need for many writers and commentators to make him into the next Michael Jordan or at the minimum to compare his deeds to Jordan’s accomplishments. There’s plenty of time for that and the time for that is not now. Michael Jordan won six NBA championships; no, he didn’t win them single-handedly, but anyone who watched any of those series knows that Michael Jordan was the most irreplaceable player on the floor for either team. I believe that Michael Jordan was the league MVP five times – it may have been six. Folks, LeBron James hasn’t yet been in the NBA for five years. James is only 22 years old; even if he leads the Cavs back from the precipice they find themselves on, he will not have equaled or surpassed Jordan. There is plenty of time to watch and enjoy LeBron James’ special gifts on the basketball court and then to assess if he equaled or exceeded Michael Jordan’s special gifts on the basketball court.

And let me make the obverse clear too. If the Cavs do lose to the Spurs in this series – even if the Spurs win in a sweep – that does not mean that LeBron James needs to be bashed for not living up to all the hype and hoopla that has surrounded him since his senior year in high school. It is too early to know whether or not he is the best player in the history of the game; at the same time there has been sufficient evidence presented to know for sure that LeBron James is not a stumblebum whose only real talent is making money. Enough already with the commentaries that try to belittle his abilities on the basketball court and to imply he’s just a big guard who really should have gone to college to learn how to really play the game.

I would have thought that the NBA publicity machine would have been able to convince the TV audience for NBA basketball that watching LeBron James’ in his first NBA Finals is “must-see TV”. The NBA publicity machine came up painfully short. In the first game of the Finals on ABC, the overnight rating was 7.8 which is good but not great. True the game did earn the highest rating for any program in that time slot on that night. HOW-EVAH [ /Stephen A. Smith ] that was the lowest rating for a first game of a final series in prime time ever recorded. I can’t find a reference to the ratings for last night’s Game 2; it will be interesting to see how it fared in prime time on a weekend night.

Earlier this year, the Chicago Cubs made a preemptive offer to Notre Dame pitcher/wide receiver, Jeff Samardzija. The Cubs offered him a contract with a guaranteed $10M and he accepted it in lieu of putting his name into the NFL draft pot. The Cubbies are not exactly known for their “home-grown pitchers” but Samardzija obviously felt he could overcome that burden/curse/whatever. At the moment, he’s assigned to the Daytona Cubs in the Florida State League; that league is described as “Class A, Advanced” which probably distinguishes it from some other league which is “Class A, Declined” – or maybe not. At the moment, Samardzija is having serious difficulties at this level. He is 0-5 at the moment with an ERA of 5.40; opposing batters at the “Class A, Advanced” level are hitting .333 against him; his WHIP at that level is 1.67. For the record, none of those statistics are good. The Daytona Cubs have taken him out of the starting rotation and put him in the bullpen. If that doesn’t work, I suggest that he invest that $10M very wisely…

Recently, JD Drew had a seven RBI game to power the Red Sox to a win. Drew was also hot for the first two weeks of the season. In the time between mid-April and early June, he was useless; his batting average for May was .171. Oh, and he was injured too as if that was a surprise. This is the guy that the Red Sox front office thought was worth $70M. I know that those folks who run the Red Sox live in a new paradigm where they can infer intrinsic value in players that is not discernable by mere mortals. But I will still have to be convinced that signing JD Drew for $70M was a worthwhile activity. Remember, this $70M man has been sharing time in the lineup with Willy Mo Pena and I don’t know too many folks who think that Willy Mo Pena is a $70M asset to any baseball team.

I see where the Duke lacrosse players have been granted an extra year of eligibility by the school and by the NCAA as compensation for the season they lost during the legal fiasco of 2006. I don’t have any problem with that nor do I think that such an extension of eligibility is richly deserved by those players. What I do think is sorely lacking are apologies all the way around.

I think the Duke University President and the Duke Faculty Senate should stand up and publicly apologize for their rush to judgment in the matter. They all made some pretty rash statements and issued some draconian edicts last year - - and most of them came to naught. I think an apology would be in order.

I won’t hold my breath until I hear an apology from “The Reverends” – Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Turns out they were misguided in their remarks and actions too – and that’s being really polite.

Former Durham NC prosecutor, Mike Nifong, won’t be apologizing any time soon since he has to be busy preparing to defend himself in proceedings that could get him disbarred.

AND the entire Duke lacrosse team needs to apologize for their anti-social behaviors on that fateful evening last year and for perpetuating the image of themselves as helpless victims in all of this. Had they not scheduled that drunken party with the added debauchery of hiring a stripper to show up late in the evening, none of this would have happened in the first place. They need to tell the world that they are sorry for consuming so much of the world’s attention on account of their boorish behavior.

Finally, Scott Ostler had this to say recently in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“I don’t condone dogfighting, catfighting, cockfighting or bullfighting, but before it comes out in the papers, I have a confession: I bet heavily on hamster lacrosse.”

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

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