The Sports Curmudgeon®

The oddest sporting event for yesterday was David Stern’s news conference. What makes it odd was that David Stern did not conduct the session with a smirk on his face and a demeanor that intended to show everyone present that he was the smartest person in the zip code at the moment – and probably for many moments to come. The Count of Condescension, the Earl of Egotism, the Sultan of Smug and the Viscount of Vainglory stood there in the full awareness that no matter how much he tap danced around the questions or how much he tried to imply that he really did have all the answers but wouldn’t reveal them, it wasn’t gonna work this time.

He said that betrayal has happened to other organizations where people in trusted positions had turned on those organizations; he mentioned the CIA and the FBI specifically. Then he tried to justify the soundness of NBA Security by saying that the league hired people with FBI and CIA experience. Excuse me, but if the bad apples in those organizations are your rationalizations regarding why it took an outside organization to ferret out your internal problem child, then you can’t hold up alumni of those organizations as the gold standard for security. You can have it either way - - but not both.

The NBA will have to find a way to improve its internal security procedures – and notice that David Stern did not say that the NBA was already doing that. Surely, this is something that he would have trumpeted if they actually were. No one asked him what the league was waiting for so of course he didn’t explain. Here is one small portion of their problem; the NBA like many other organizations suffers from the syndrome that allows Person A to occupy a position of authority and control on the basis of whom Person A happens to know in the NBA hierarchy - - and not on the basis of Person A’s actual knowledge, skills and abilities to perform the functions of that job excellently.

I don’t expect David Stern to start asking any probing questions of the people in positions of authority and control within the NBA for a couple of reasons. First, it’s not clear to me he knows any probing questions to ask of the folks who are supposed to provide quality control oversight for the on-court actions of the referees. Secondly, if he starts doing that, he might have to extend those probing questions to folks who are in positions only because he put them there. And that will not be something the Viscount of Vainglory will deign to do.

Elliott Harris had this comment in the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday – before David Stern’s news conference:

“The delay in NBA commissioner David Stern holding a news conference to discuss former referee Tim Donaghy’s case of betting on games? Must have been waiting for Vegas to set the over/under for other league officials involved in such activities.”

By the way, it is important that you remember an under-reported fact related to this matter because it will become relevant sometime in the near future. When NFL referees botch calls really badly, there are dozens of commentators whose immediate response is along the lines of: “When in the name of everything that is good and holy will the NFL hire full time referees who are part of the league and under their control/tutelage all year round?”

Memo to Knee-Jerkers: The NBA hires its officials exactly the way you want the NFL to hire them. The mode of hiring does NOT assure on-court/on-field competence nor does it assure the integrity of the corps of officials.

With the MLB trading deadline fast approaching, lots of commentators have focused on the Rangers’ Mark Teixiera as one of the plums out there to be plucked by a contending team. To be sure, Teixiera is a fine player and his contract extends through the 2008 season, but there are three things that could give an acquiring team pause:

1. The Rangers need to get more than one top prospect in return to jump-start their less than spectacular farm system; and preferably, those prospects would be pitchers. Most teams are not willing to part with top quality pitching prospects.

2. Teixiera is a first baseman and most of the contending teams have that position covered. The Braves are the only contending team where Teixiera would be an improvement of several quantum levels.

3. Texiera’s agent is Scott Boras so any acquiring team may be certain that he will not be signing a long-term contract extension and that Boras will ask for a minimum of $20 per year for Teixiera when he is a free agent. Teixiera is affordable now; he’s not a two-month player rental; he’s more like a player with a long-term lease in place; but the balloon payment at the end of that lease if you want to keep him might approach the GDP of a West African nation.

The NL Central is a pathetic division this year. According to my morning paper, four of the six teams are below .500 and three of the teams – half the division – are 14 or more games under .500. Someone will win that division and make the playoffs; that team might get hot in October and move on. But we have to recognize and acknowledge that the teams at the top of the NL Central got to play an unusually weak schedule this year and that whatever their record might be at the end of September, it would likely have been worse had they been in a different division.

When NFL training camp opens, that means the first of the Exhibition Games – the Hall of Fame Game – cannot be more than two weeks away. This year, it will be on 5 August and it will be telecast on NFL Network. In addition, NFL Network will telecast eight other Exhibition Games live and on a national basis AND the network will also show 45 Exhibition Games on tape delay. Some of those games will air starting around midnight here in the Eastern Time zone so they won’t be horribly convenient in terms of watching them and being a functional and social being on the next day. Watch any or all of these games at your pleasure but please do not succumb to the temptation to wager on these games just because they are on TV and you’ll get to see them live or on tape. If you find yourself even thinking along those lines, seek help immediately.

Here’s a public service announcement; you may need to take a few moments to prepare for this. July 27 is Take Your Houseplant For A Walk Day; and simultaneously, it is National Walk On Stilts Day. Celebrating those two things together might take a bit of practice so I thought I’d give you a few days advance notice…

Finally, here’s a comment from Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Good news for the Bengals: When just-released linebacker Odell Thurman was accused of kicking and hitting two men in a bar fight, police reports made no mention of illegal use or misuse of dogs, drugs, weapons or women.”

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