The Sports Curmudgeon®

Having been off the air for 10 days, I missed the opportunity to make all of you aware of some important celebrations in the month of July. Everyone knows about July 4th and about Bastille Day, but one of the reasons you come here is to learn new things and presumably, these public service announcements help in that regard:

July 13 was Embrace Your Geekness Day. Hope you all enjoyed that one.

In case you missed the July 13 celebrations, July 15 was Be A Dork Day. I saw loads of folks celebrating that one…

July is National Blueberries Month and National Baked Bean Month. Please do not try to celebrate those two things together…

July is National Hot Dog Month and National Horseradish Month. You may celebrate those two things together - - and you can add baked beans to the mix too if you’d like.

AND July is National Cell Phone Courtesy Month. If enough people celebrate that one, I won’t need to think about jamming those things where the sun never shines…

There are a few NBA items on my clipboard that deserve comment. Recall that I said that athletes ought to be paying attention to the trial where Allen Iverson was sued on the basis that his bodyguards beat up a couple of people who would not give up seats in a VIP section of some club for Iverson. Well, the jury found in favor of the plaintiffs here and while they did not get the $20M they asked for, this could be a chilling precedent for “celebrity-athletes” who travel with their posses.

Speaking of Allen Iverson, he should be reveling in the results of the Americas Cup Regatta. The defenders from Switzerland retained the Cup rather handily. Switzerland is a landlocked country so one wonders how these folks get to practice regularly for ocean yacht racing. And we know that Allen Iverson has a dim view of “practice” as opposed to actual competition …

Steve Francis had his contract bought out by the Portland Trail Blazers to the tune of about $30M. That’s right, he will collect that money on the premise that he will say home and stay away from the team. He joins an elite club of outrageously overpaid and underperforming players who wore out there welcomes in NBA locker rooms league-wide. This is the player known as “Stevie Franchise”; it seems as if the Blazers are the first actual “Franchise” to figure out Stevie’s true worth.

If you’d like to get a sense of the difference between the NBA and the various European Leagues, consider the situation of Khalid El-Amin. You probably recall him as the gravitationally-enhanced point-guard of the UConn NCAA championship team from a few years ago. He’s been playing in Europe (Turkey) and the Ukraine for a while now and has been the league MVP wherever he has been for the last four consecutive seasons. Even with that résumé, do you think he’ll be a top prospect in any NBA camps this September/October? I don’t.

I know that ESPN has a cozy relationship with the NBA and that ESPN might actually stand for the Exceedingly Strident Promotions Network, but some of their recent business has gone over the top. If you check out the crawl on ESPN and its sister networks, you will find the scores and the top stats for games in the NBA’s Summer League. These data do not mean didley-squat to anyone outside the nuclear families of the players involved in the games; they should not be reported anywhere - - let alone on the self-proclaimed World Wide Leader in Sports. Can we get someone to intercede with the ESPN decision-makers on our behalf here? How about Mother Teresa? Oh, I forgot; she’s dead…

And there’s good news on the WNBA front. The WNBA just signed a rights deal – actually an extension of its rights deal – with ESPN through the 2016 season. Why is that good news? Well for the first time in the 12-year history of the WNBA, they will actually get someone to pay them a rights fee to put their games on TV. That’s right; for the first 12 years, the WNBA did not get paid when its games were on the tube. So this is a breakthrough moment for them.

In baseball doings, I wonder if the “yardsticks” for greatness have changed over the past decade. Craig Biggio got his 3000th hit a few weeks ago; that has generally been a ticket to an early induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I don’t want to denigrate Biggio’s career because it has been a very good one, but I’m not sure he belongs in the HoF at all let alone on his first or second time around. Similarly, Frank Thomas joined the 500 home-run club this year and that too was a sure-fire way to get an early induction into the Hall of Fame. I’m more inclined to put Thomas in the Hall than I am Biggio, but neither one of these guys scream out “greatness” to me. If the “yardsticks” haven’t changed, maybe they ought to?

The TV series, The Bronx Is Burning, seems to be making George Steinbrenner out to be some kind of heroic figure. Perhaps Yankee fans think that way; but even so, consider this:

Without George Steinbrenner, there might never have been a Danny Boy Snyder. So, is Steinbrenner’s contribution to sports all good?

I’m sure you remember Danny Almonte – the Little League pitching phenom who led his team to the Little League World Series title and just happened to be a couple of years over the age of 12 at the time. Well, Danny’s career in baseball took a significant turn for the worse when he started pitching to people his own age – and maybe some who were even older than he. He was released by the Frontier League Southern Illinois Miners in June. There aren’t a whole lot of pro baseball leagues below that one…

I’m sure you’ve heard that Dan Patrick will be leaving ESPN in mid-August. He’s been a fixture there for almost 20 years and has provided entertainment as well as information in all those years. Now there is one more favor that sports fans ought ask of Dan Patrick as he leaves the ESPN ambit. Maybe Dan Patrick could take Stuart Scott aside and explain to Scott all of the opportunities and all of the things one might do if one were not shackled to ESPN with something as restrictive as a “contract”. Now wouldn’t that be a glorious present for Dan Patrick to give to all of his ESPN fans sometime real soon…?

Finally, Greg Cote had this item in the Miami Herald a couple of weeks ago:

“The Orlando Magic was left in the lurch when Billy Donovan changed his mind and abruptly returned to the Florida Gators. The Magic then hired Stan Van Gundy. Cannot confirm speculation Van Gundy plans to announce he is leaving the Magic to spend more time with his family. Or that the club would then set its sights on hiring a coach who in turn would be accused of falsifying his résumé and is fired.”

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

Comments(1)

In a normal year, I would have given my mid-season MLB awards during the All-Star break; this is not a normal year by any stretch of the imagination. So, you’ll need to pardon me for being a few days late with regard to the “normal schedule”:

AL MVP: Magglio Ordonez and Alex Rodriguez are both very worthy. Anyone who says that either of these players is unworthy is not someone to be listened to. I’ll give my interim MVP award to Ordonez here by just a smidgen because his team is doing a whole lot better than A-Rod’s team.

NL MVP: Both Prince Fielder and Ryan Howard deserve serious attention here. The Phillies have been a whole lot better once Howard came back to play regularly this year. But I’ll give the interim award to Fielder simply because he’s been there all season.

AL Cy Young: Dan Haren and CC Sabathia and John Lackey deserve to be in the final discussions as you cut down the short list. I like Haren here but I won’t argue strenuously if you prefer either of the other two.

NL Cy Young: At this point, I think this has to go to Jake Peavy. Maybe you could make a case for Brad Penny but it would take a lot of convincing on your part to make me change my mind.

AL RoY: This has to be “Dice-K”. I don’t think I’d be swayed by any arguments to the contrary.

NL RoY: No one stands out here; this award will probably go to the rookie who has the best second-half of a season. Maybe the interim award should go to Hunter Pence? The fact that I feel obliged to say he is the CF for the Astros makes me believe this is not an obvious selection. And of course, the Astros aren’t doing all that well as a team either…

AL MoY: I would have chosen Mike Hargrove – but he sort of disqualified himself by resigning from the job. So, my other choice would be Eric Wedge.

NL MoY: Toss a coin between Bob Melvyn and Charlie Manuel. How can either of those teams be over .500 given the injuries and other “dramas” associated with those teams?

In other baseball news, Mark Cuban has identified himself as an interested buyer for the Chicago Cubs. David Stern is searching frantically for a rule that says an NBA owner cannot own teams in more than one sporting league – but he won’t find one since Jerry Reinsdorf has owned the Bulls and the White Sox for a long time now. But if David Stern could make a restrictive rule to force Cuban out of the NBA, my guess is that he’d do it in less than 24 seconds.

Cubs’ fans think this will be a great thing that might happen to there loveable losers. Let me say only that MLB baseball owners are a whole lot more “conservative” and “set in their ways” than are the NBA owners. So, I’m not certain that Cuban could win approval in MLB to buy a team and – truth be told – his ownership of the Mavs has taken a moribund franchise and turned it into team that “always seems to find a way to underachieve in the playoffs.” I guess Cubbies’ fans would be thrilled to be playoff regulars even if it meant “one-and-done” more years than not.

I wonder if the MLB Umpires’ Union would want Cuban in MLB. Can you imagine being an umpire assigned to a Cubs game – home or away doesn’t really matter – and knowing that Lou Piniella is in the dugout and Mark Cuban has a front row box seat? Umpires can call that “criticism in stereo” if they are feeling very polite…

I am on record that I want to get rid of All-Star Games in every major sport. I know that’s not going to happen so maybe it is time for MLB to think about getting rid of the Home Run Derby. It has gotten VERY tedious. That won’t happen either so here’s a suggestion about how to make it a lot less burdensome than the extant three-hour event:

Set up brackets – like the NCAA basketball tournament – and hold all of the match-ups through the quarterfinals in the late spring at various parks around the country or in one location where MLB can break up the action into highlight footage.

Then have only the “final four” compete in a home-run derby during the All-Star break and use the last couple of weeks of June and the time in early July to hype that contest.

To deal with the “disaster scenario”, if one of the finalists is injured, so be it. If three of the four are injured, bring in the home run leaders from all the AAA leagues and give them a shot at the title.

Maybe – I said MAYBE – that would make the Home Run Derby worth salvaging.

According to a report, Rev. Jesse Jackson said during the All-Star festivities that Barry Bonds was getting hosed by MLB with regard to all the innuendo about his assault on Hank Aaron’s record. Here is the quote from Rev. Jackson that caught my eye:

“There’s no reason to condemn him [Barry Bonds]. If you can’t prove it [performance enhancing substance use], embrace him and his record. In American justice, evidence matters.”

Memo to Reverend Jackson:

Please shut up.

You condemned publicly, loudly and repeatedly the Duke Lacrosse team for their transgressions. But now that all of those allegations have been shown to be unworthy of prosecution, you have been notably silent in your apology to those players and that institution. Until you admit that you ran your mouth in opposition to American justice where “evidence matters”, please stop assaulting our eardrums and our sensibilities with your inanities.

Thank you very much.

Finally, here’s a note from Charley Walters column in the St. Paul Pioneer-Press:

“Kent Hrbek, 47, on expectations for the August reunion with the teammates of the Twins’ 1987 World Series champions: ‘There will be beer drinking and lots of b.s., kind of like we did when we played.’ “

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

Comments(1)

Writing on Saturdays is abnormal for me, but my computer is going to be packed away later this day and so I have to write now or forever hold my peace. I don’t know when next I shall have access to the Internet for an uninterrupted time, so let me get some stuff out of the way now that I have been holding in anticipation of a truly historic event.

It shan’t be long until the Philadelphia Phillies lose their 10,000th game. Odds are that I’ll be back on the air before that happens, but I don’t want to take any chances. The Phillies are a franchise with a history of bad stuff. It really isn’t all that surprising that they will be the first team to achieve the ignominy of 10,000 losses. Consider:

The Phillies lost the first game they ever played in 1883. One of the pitchers on that squad, John Coleman, lost 48 games in that first season for the franchise. It was an omen…

In 1930, the Phillies could boast of eight position players who hit .300 or better for the season. Nonetheless, the team finished last because the cumulative team ERA was 6.71 – a record for futility that stands to this day.

In 1961, an obnoxiously miserable Phillies squad managed to lose 23 consecutive games. I’m confident that a team who managed to make the College World Series could play against major league competition and find a way to win one game in a 23 game stretch.

In the late 30s/early40s, the Phillies had a pitcher on the staff named Hugh Mulcahy. He was lovingly known to the fans as “Losing Pitcher Mulcahy” because that was the notation in the box scores in the paper more often than not. From 1937 – 1940, “Losing Pitcher” managed to lose 76 games; that’s an average of 19 per year.

In 1943, the Phillies’ owner, William Cox, was banned from baseball for life because he bet on baseball. If what he did was what Pete Rose alleges he did – namely bet on his team to win – then Cox was a supreme loser. The Phils lost 100 or more games from 1938 – 1942 and then they lost “only” 90 games in 1943. If Cox only bet on his team to win, he deserved to go bankrupt.

But the worst part of the curse of the Phillies’ franchise is that they have unfailingly managed to be on the wrong side of the baseball DNA – particularly when it came to pitchers. Remember, this is the team that traded away Hall of Fame pitchers Grover Cleveland Alexander and Ferguson Jenkins. What they got back in trades for those guys was not worth much at all. In addition, the Phillies’ scouts and front office types have always seemed to find a way to acquire the “wrong” brother.

The Phillies had Mike Maddux not Greg Maddux.

The Phillies had Tim Worrell not Todd Worrell.

The Phillies had Ken Brett not George Brett.

The Phillies had Mark Leiter not Al Leiter.

But the greatest ignominy in the “wrong brother” scenario had to be the way they dipped into the DiMaggio gene pool. Joe DiMaggio was among the 50 best players ever; Dom DiMaggio played eleven years in the major leagues and hit .298 for his career in addition to being a superb defensive center fielder. The Phillies signed Vince DiMaggio at the end of his career. Probably the only thing the Phillies can feel good about regarding Vince DiMaggio is that he hit .257 in his only year with the team and that is 8 points higher than his career average.

Once MLB went to an amateur draft, you might think that the Phillies would have had a better shot at top talent. Well, they did have a shot at top talent but their scouts seem not to have been able to recognize it when it stared them in the face. The Phillies once drafted a pitcher named Marvin Freeman whose physique was such that the name Starvin’ Marvin was an obvious nickname. That physique did not portend great durability and Freeman’s career bore that out. Freeman pitched parts of ten seasons in the major leagues but only worked more than 100 innings twice in his career; in three and a half years with the Phillies, he threw a total of 103 innings. In his best year with Colorado, Freeman started 18 games, pitched a total of 112 2/3 innings and had a 10-2 record. That was one pretty good season in a ten year career; HOW-EVAH, the player selected immediately after Marvin Freeman was Al Leiter.

In another draft, the Phillies took a high school phenom Freddy “Action” Jackson who reportedly could outrun a deer. Too bad the Phillies were not fielding a track team because Jackson never made it past AAA ball where he struggled mightily. The player taken immediately after Jackson is someone you may have heard of – Frank “the Big Hurt” Thomas.

It takes blue-chip ineptitude on the field and off the field to lose 10,000 times in any sporting endeavor and when it comes to ineptitude, the Phillies have no equals. Back in the 1920s, there was a sign on their outfield wall for Lifebuoy soap (one of the first deodorant soaps) and the sign said that the Phillies used Lifebuoy. Their fans would always remark that it didn’t matter because the team still stunk.

Now, with that backdrop of baseball futility, here is a Quick Quiz:

In 250 words or less, will the Tampa Bay Devil Rays ever achieve mediocrity? If so, how? If not, why not?

Finally, here’s an item from Bob Ryan’s blog at boston.com regarding Mike Timlin whom the Phillies had for a brief time:

“It’s no secret the Fenway faithful want no more of Mike Timlin. This was perhaps best summed up early Tuesday morning by a woman of my acquaintance who said, ‘You know how they say stress causes weight gain? Well, my stress is when Mike Timlin comes into the game. That’s when I head to the refrigerator.’ ”

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

Comments(4)

There are some strange things happening in the world of pro basketball about now. And the strangest one involves Mark Cuban - - but that should not be all that surprising. Recall that Mark Cuban is of the philosophy that all publicity is good for the league and pro basketball; that’s what he said about the publicity surrounding the Kobe Bryant rape trial. You sort of need that as a backdrop to the current surrealism.

Cuban is suing Don Nelson as coach of the Warriors claiming he should not be allowed to coach in the NBA and that Nelson used “confidential” information about the Mavericks in order to get the Warriors to beat the Mavs in the playoffs this year. All of this seems to emanate from a suit brought by Nelson regarding non-payments to him by Cuban after Nelson stepped aside as coach of the Mavs. An arbitrator will hear all of this and rule sometime soon – presumably. In the meantime, Cuban is once again a laughingstock but surely, he doesn’t mind that because any publicity is good publicity.

I didn’t watch every minute of every Mavs/Warriors game – mostly because I was out of the country for much of the series. What I did see was that the Warriors employed a less than unique strategy there; they ganged up on Dirk Novitsky and dared the rest of the Mavs to make enough shots to beat them. That strategy has been employed by many teams against many opponents in the past; to say that Nelson had “inside info” that Novitsky is the Mavs’ premier player and he’s the guy to shut down if you want to employ that strategy would be the same as saying that Napoleon knew Moscow was the capital of Russia and figured that he needed to capture that city if he wanted to conquer the country. It’s not rocket science, folks. But is there a factual basis to Cuban’s claim that Nelson – as the former coach of the Mavs – knew firsthand that Dirk Novitsky is the best player on the team? That goes without saying…

If Cuban prevails here, imagine the effect on baseball teams trading catchers. Those guys know how their old team would try to pitch to all the batters on their new team - - but the now traded catchers won’t be allowed to share that “inside info” lest some lawsuit be filed against them. Donald Trump once said something to the effect that becoming a billionaire couldn’t be all that difficult because Mark Cuban did it. I think Trump is a blowhard of immense proportion, but I’m beginning to think he’s onto something here.

NBA players – and athletes in other major sports to be sure – ought to keep an eye peeled on the outcome of a jury trial in DC against Allen Iverson and his bodyguards. According to the suit, two of the bodyguards beat up a couple of guys pretty badly because they would not vacate some VIP seats in a nightclub in the DC area to let Iverson sit there. The plaintiffs seek $20M in compensation. I know nothing at all of the facts of the case other than what has been in the papers. But if Iverson loses here and has to pay even a third of what the plaintiffs have asked for, that should be a chilling lesson for big time athletes who travel with big entourages and bodyguards. Iverson is sued on the basis that people in his employ did this damage in his name and without proper supervision on his part. If that becomes precedent, big time pro athletes had better start paying very close attention to what goes on around them.

PJ Carlissimo is back in the NBA as a head coach. He’ll try to turn around the fortunes of the Seattle Supersonics – who just may become the Oklahoma City Supersonics sometime in the next couple of seasons. Carlissimo did well in Portland in a previous stint as a head coach before becoming famous as Latrell Spreewell’s “chokee” at Golden State. Speaking of Spreewell, I wonder if he’d consider going back to play for the Sonics now at the veteran minimum salary - - even though it would not be nearly enough to feed his family. Wouldn’t that be an entertainment spectacular for those good folks on Puget Sound? And could Spreewell and Carlissimo co-exist for as long as the franchise looks to be staying on the shores of Puget Sound?

And LA Laker fans can now give a huge sigh of relief because Luke Walton has agreed to a $30M contract with the Lakers over the next six seasons. Think about this; if Luke Walton is worth $30M guaranteed, what would his father – uninjured and in his prime – be worth in today’s market? Even Mark Cuban might gag on writing a check for that amount of money…

When the NBA was going through one of its periods of labor unrest and strikes/lockouts were threatened, Larry Johnson – then of the Knicks – said that he felt as if he were a rebellious slave. He was making somewhere near $10M a season at the time and it was free agency that allowed him to make that kind of money in the city of his choosing so his reference to slavery was “thin” at best. Well, Gary Sheffield has taken up that same line of thinking today. In his recent autobiography – written with David Ritz so I’m not sure how that differs from your run-of-the-mill biography – Sheffield says:

“When a black man, no matter how great his talent, is put on the block and sold to the highest bidder, he can’t help but feel the historical echoes.”

Excuse me, but in the real world of sports in 2007, it is the black man of great talent who puts himself on the market and then chooses which of the offers from various bidders he will accept. If it happens to be the highest bidder – often the case – it is of that talented black man’s choosing. That is a far, far cry from the situation that Dred Scott found himself in. And if those differences aren’t blatantly obvious, then it probably isn’t worth trying to explain them…

The “E” in ESPN stands for “Entertainment”; the “S” in ESPN stands for “Sports”. On July 4, ESPN gave us the privilege of watching the Hot Dog Eating Championship. On July 7, ESPN will give us the privilege of watching the Rock Scissors Paper Championship.

Memo to ESPN Honchos: Would these two “events” fall under the category of “E” or “S”? Just asking…

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

“You’re John Daly and sometimes your head is so hazy you’re not sure whether your wife suddenly developed a terrible slice or you’re working on an unplayable lie.”

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

Comments(0)

With all the rain at Wimbledon, the tournament is humongously behind schedule in finishing matches. One count said there was a 63-match backlog as of Wednesday morning. That is bad for the tour organizers but it’s even worse for the British papers who feel compelled to have Wimbledon stories prominently displayed on a daily basis. With all that rain, nothing has been happening on the courts so the London Sun has pursued off-the-court stories for its readers. Here’s one of the things they came up with.

Maria Sharapova announced that she is a fan of James Bond movies. And she said that one of her great aspirations in life is to be one of the James Bond girls in one of those flicks. Leave the story there, and you might have a simple puff-piece that can fill space during a day of rainouts. But no, they had to quote Sharapova too:

“I’m great at spying – I should have been Sherlock Holmes.”

Way back in my youth, I once read the entire series of Sherlock Holmes stories – every last one of them. Even though I don’t remember all of them and would be hard pressed to pass an exam on the trivia of the series, I do recall that Holmes was a detective and not a spy. So, Sharapova’s comment makes about as much sense as my saying:

“I’m great at painting baseboards – I should have been Rosie O’Donnell.”

The Chicago Rush is the city’s Arena Football league entry. As with just about every indoor sports team these days, the Rush have a dance team. [Aside: Did I miss the debate in Congress that led to a law mandating these dance teams for all indoor sports?] I manage to ignore most of these things, but I do have to admit that the name of the dance team in Chicago is clever. They call the dancers The Adrenaline Rush.

The Orlando Magic has a commitment from Rashard Lewis to a five-year “max deal” under the NBA salary cap rules. But they can’t sign him for a week and the Sonics still have the option of giving him a six-year “max deal”. So, don’t write him onto the Magic roster in India ink just yet; remember the Magic actually did sign a coach to a contract and that only lasted about 36 hours…

A month or so ago, I had some nice things to say about MLS and got excoriated because I had the audacity to say that David Beckham might be over the hill and that he hadn’t actually played in any MLS games so far this year. Many folks referred me to the MLS press conference at Beckham’s signing saying he would not be here until a month after his contract ran out with his European club. Well, that month has passed and he’s still not playing. Latest word is he will make his first appearance in an LA Galaxy game in late July - - in an exhibition game against a European team and not against an MLS opponent. And there have been rumors – all of which were denied of course – that he has an “out clause” in his MLS contract. Let me say two things about the “out clause debate”:

1. Its existence would prove pretty conclusively to me that the $250M figure on that contract is fictional.

2. When all is said and done, who really cares if the clause is there or not? The “out clause” only matters if it exists AND it is exercised. If it were exercised, then we would know for sure that it existed…

And speaking of the LA Galaxy, their General Manager is Alexi Lalas – the former defender on the US National Team. In a recent spasm of hyperbole, Lalas said that when David Beckham arrived in LA he would become larger in stature than Tiger Woods and/or Michael Jordan. The two operative words to respond to that prediction would be: “Not Happening”. I don’t know if MLS tests its athletes for performance enhancing substances and don’t really care. I do think they might consider a testing program for MLS front office personnel regarding the use of hallucinogens, however.

Here’s a positive note about MLS. AEG used to own six or seven of the teams in the league creating in political terms “the appearance of a conflict of interest”. They now own three of the teams in the league; and reportedly, a deal to sell the Chicago Fire to local investors/owners is near completion. If that deal closes, that would leave AEG with only the LA Galaxy and the Houston Dynamo under its control. That leaves only one final step to take…

In the midst of the college basketball season, Pokey Chatman resigned as the coach of the LSU women’s team. The resignation came on the heels of a charge from one of the assistant coaches that Chatman and one of the players had engaged in “inappropriate conduct/contact”. At the time, I said that we needed to know lots more about the facts of the case before making any judgments about Ms. Chatman. Now, we do know that she received a $160K settlement from LSU in the matter. She also received the full $85K “post-season bonus” that was in her contract since the team did make the NCAA tournament and did advance. Some reports say the $85K was included in the $160K settlement; other reports say the $85K was on top of the $160K; whatever.

Now imagine for a moment that a male coach at a major basketball school had to resign under similar circumstances. Let me pose a couple of questions:

1. Do you think that male coach could have disappeared from view and received no national scrutiny for about 5-6 months? Please recall the Larry Eustachy saga regarding his inappropriate contact/conduct – and that wasn’t with one of his players.

2. If that male coach got a sizeable settlement – virtually what his contract called for him to make if he worked – under the same circumstances, would that be reported as a factual matter and left alone?

3. If Title IX is supposed to generate equality between the sexes in college athletics, shouldn’t it require equal coverage of alleged inappropriate coach/player contact? Remember Bob Knight’s “inappropriate contact” with Neil Reid? Just asking…

Last fall, Western Carolina paid a November visit to Gainesville Florida to get whomped by the Florida Gators in a game that should not have been scheduled in the first place. I’m too lazy to go and look up the exact score, but I remember that Western Carolina was shut out in the game and lost by more than 50 points. Looking at college football schedules for this year, Western Carolina will visit Alabama on September 1 and they will visit Georgia on September 15.

Memo to Western Carolina Athletics Department: You are in the Division 1-AA Southern Conference not the SEC – in case you hadn’t noticed.

Finally, July 4th is the date for the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest – or whatever it’s called. Champion Takeru Kobayshi was a “game time decision” regarding his entry in the event due to a medical condition. Here’s what Greg Cote had to say about that in the Miami Herald:

“Competitive-eating champion Takeru Kobayshi is sidelined by an arthritic jaw. Seriously. What? You mean repeatedly jackhammering 53 hot dogs into your maw within 12 minutes puts stress on one’s facial hinge? No way.”

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

Comments(0)

Two brief items this morning… The NFL administered the coup de grace on NFL Europe/Europa last week. I guess they figured that they couldn’t just change the name and pretend that there was anything new they might bring to the consumer in Europe to make the league turn a profit. The NFL has so dominated the US sports scene that it always seemed to believe that it could walk into a part of the world where there was disposable income and dominate there too. Maybe it can, but not with the business model they used in regard to WLAF/World League/NFL Europe/NFL Europa.

Here is what that business model looks like from the outside. The NFL partitioned off areas of Europe – at times as far flung as Scotland, Barcelona and Frankfurt – and put what amounts to minor league football there. The quality of football played by NFL Europe is not demonstrably superior to what the USFL once put on the field. Absent the silly hype, it is not all that much better than the XFL product either. And the NFL seemed to believe that was all it needed to do in order to win the hearts and minds of European sports fans was wait a while. Well, [American] football fever has spread in Europe about as fast as trickle-down economic well-being has worked in Latin America.

So NFL Europe is no more. Greg Cote summed up what all of this means in the Miami Herald last weekend:

“The NFL has sacked its NFL Europa league after 16 money-losing seasons. The league will play a one-game European season in 2007: Dolphins-Giants on October 28.”

The second item this morning comes from a reader who wondered why I hadn’t joined the pack of writers heaping scorn on the World Wrestling Entertainment folks over the murder-suicide perpetrated by Chris Benoit. The reason is that I really didn’t have much to say about it other than what I had said - - it is a tragic situation because three people are dead. I do not follow professional wrestling; I used to but I moved on to other things shortly after the Bruno Sammartino Era ended. When I first read about this tragedy, I thought Chris Benoit rhymed with Detroit; in a later piece, the author informed me that the name was pronounced “Ben-WAH”; that is the level of expertise I brought to the matter. So, I didn’t think I should pontificate about this stuff.

Then I read a piece by Greg Wyshynski in Sports Fan Magazine.

He said that far too many writers have jumped on this story and focused on the “steroids angle” when they have shown no previous interest or knowledge of professional wrestling. And he’s right. Here’s the line that caught my attention:

“It’s like everyone who aspired to grow up to be Frank Deford decided to become Phil Mushnick for a day.”

That got me to thinking. Why is it that sportswriters in general – and Phil Mushnick more specifically – are spring loaded to say nasty things about World Wrestling Entertainment and Vince McMahon? I have no interest in holding that organization or that man up to any kind of honorific stature, but I don’t think either the organization or the man is so demonstrably odious that they should each be assumed to be guilty of the most heinous aspect one could imagine in any circumstance in which they are involved.

Do professional wrestlers use steroids? Every time I see a photo of one of their champions, it sure looks as if they do. Do professional wrestlers tend to die young? Well, there seem to be about two or three stories a year about such happenings so I’d presume that was a gruesome trend. But what makes professional wrestlers different here?

Do baseball players use steroids? Yes they do. Do NFL players use steroids and HGH? Every time I see some of those players without their pads on, it sure looks as if they do. Do professional football players die young? Some do [see Alzedo, Lyle]. Do professional football players live out their adult lives after football with their bodies in less than fully functional conditions? The Congress of the United States seems to believe so.

But when these same writers comment on baseball or football and the players who make the games work, they do not assume they are ne’er-do-wells. When they write about baseball owners, they talk about their greed and their “blind eye” to the steroid era until now but don’t make them out to be pond slime. When they talk about the NFL owners, they speak in reverential tones. So, what did Vince McMahon and the professional wrestlers do to the average sportswriter in America to deserve the treatment they get? I really don’t know the answer to this, but there is truly a double standard here.

And I really don’t think the basis for this lies in the fact that pro wrestling is “fake”. That can’t be a revelation to anyone over the age of 12 with an IQ higher than your typical rutabaga. I don’t think it is that Vince McMahon is a bombastic person who pushes the envelope of taste in his antics once in a while. Please recall that there was only minor “clucking” when Ted Turner and Jane Fonda participated in the ever so politically incorrect tomahawk chop during Atlanta Braves playoff games.

And today’s two items tie together in a strange way. With the folding of NFL Europe, we have reporting and comment that the NFL made a business decision to terminate a money losing proposition but that the league will be examining other globalization strategies. When the XFL folded, it was almost reported with glee in many quarters. And the motive force behind the XFL was Vince McMahon.

Like I said, what did he do to get on the [bleep]list for the sportswriters of America? It must have been a sordid tale…

Finally, another commentary from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

“At South Brunswick High in North Carolina, a 40-year old track coach, Brenton Wuchae, married one of his 16 year old athletes. Dear Brent: The over/under on her dumping your old [expletive] is about a year. Meantime, you are the subject of national ridicule or scorn. Also wild-guessing that your future in teaching and youth coaching might be iffy. Otherwise - - congratulations.”

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

Comments(5)