The Sports Curmudgeon®

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the ad where Peyton Manning is confused and harried in a hotel corridor and wondered how that might induce me to purchase whatever was being sold by that message. I still see that ad; I still don’t get it. But watching it and actually paying attention to it did get me to focus on other ads that are on the airwaves at the moment and to realize that there are lots of really bad ones out there. You’ve seen them too. Have you focused on how bad they are and felt annoyed or outraged by them? I have.

Let me start with a relatively new one in which Danica Patrick is pitching Peak Anti-Freeze. The tag line is

“When you win, you Peak.”

That’s a cute play on words – I guess – except for the fact that Danica Patrick doesn’t win anything very often. And it also would be a lot more appropriate if she were a bridge player because then it is very true that

“When you peek, you win.”

What is your impression of the young man who spills the tiniest dollop of A-1 Steak Sauce on the barbecue grill and goes to retrieve it with his tongue? If you answered anything less condemning than “moron”, then you probably qualify for a deep discount if you go to a mind-reader’s salon.

How about that commercial for Guinness with all the guys launching themselves against drum heads so they can disintegrate themselves and turn into foam bubbles? That’s always been my goal in life. And then comes the tag line

“It’s alive inside.”

Oh swell! If I drink that stuff that’s alive inside, maybe I’ll contract an intestinal infection and not dare stray more than 10 yards from a toilet for the next 48 hours. If I can’t make it as a foam bubble in life, my second greatest desire is to become dehydrated.

I’m confused about the message in the Snickers ad where the “Viking-look alike guy” gets upset to learn there are no Snickers bars at the gas station; so, he throws a trash can at one of the cars parked there. When informed that they did have dark chocolate Snickers bars, he once again picks up a trash can and heaves it at the same car. And so let me understand correctly here; the message is

“Eat Snickers bars of whatever form of chocolate covering you can lay your hands on and you too can develop uncontrollable anti-social rages?”

And that’s a good thing?

Taco Bell provides us with a glimpse of big brother passing along wisdom to his younger sibling. The cornerstone advice is to always get chili on your nachos. Why not? The nachos will put you in danger of cardiovascular disease but having the chili on top will at least let you go out in a state of flatulence. Makes sense to me that Taco Bell would be spending mega dollars to provide that message…

Then there is the ad where the very anxious mother and children return home in their minivan fearing what awaits them inside the house. This is not a Public Service Announcement about spousal abuse or child neglect; these people are fearful because Dad is cooking dinner that night. Wow; he might be making wombat soufflé; how awful would that be? Instead Dad shows that he “can cook” by ordering a Pizza Hut dinner. Excuse me, but that does not show that he “can cook”; it barely shows me that he can think well enough to figure out what telephone number to call in order to have a decent dinner delivered to the house.

Come to think of it, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell are owned by the same parent company. Could it be there is someone up there in corporate headquarters who thinks either of these ads with their messages is “cute” or “informative”? That’s a frightening thought…

The ads for the competing medicines to treat erectile dysfunction are hardly uplifting. [Sorry, I could not resist that one. It won’t happen again.] But the ones for Cialis are particularly stupid. They end with the allegedly soon-to-be-copulating couple sitting in outdoor bathtubs next to each other. The “twin tubs” have now appeared in at least a half-dozen different places. I’ve been to lots of hotels and motels and resorts on six different continents, but I haven’t run into any of those “twin tubs” yet. Where are they? Oh and where are the pipes that deliver the water to those tubs? I keep looking for them and can’t find them or the faucets they connect to.

There is an ad for Nike Pro where a woman is running in less than wonderful weather conditions and suddenly collapses to the ground seemingly in great pain. A second runner wearing Nike Pro equipment just passes her by and keeps on jogging. Clearly Nike is not targeting the “Good Samaritan Demographic”.

And of course, there is the hugely annoying little girl who roams about with an elephant in tow whispering to people in various venues that “It’s the mirrors.” In the past two months, I bought a flat screen/HD TV for my home. Not one time in the decision making process did I think to myself, “What kind of TV does that saccharinely sweet little brat say I should buy?” And by the way, if you do choose to buy one of them, I hope you have a plan for what to do with all of those elephant droppings you’ll have to deal with in your backyard. I hear it composts very well…

We are coming to that time of year when ads for Holiday Shopping dominate the airwaves. I was offended on the afternoon of Halloween this year when I heard on the local sports radio station an ad for Overstock.com sung to the tune of Jingle Bells. The kiddies had not yet donned their costumes and gone out to extort candy from their neighbors and these folks are trying to sell me stuff via Jingle Bells. I can tell you with 100% certainty where I will NOT be doing any of my Holiday Shopping this year.

And with the arrival of the Holiday Season just around the corner, I’m going to be looking for my first sighting of two traditional ads. When will I see the Budweiser Clydesdales pulling their wagon through the woods and the snow? When will I see the Miller Beer ad with a one horse open sleigh tromping along a road to a decorated house at the end of the lane while I get a persistent camera shot of the horse’s arse? I’m thinking they arrive sometime during football telecasts on the first weekend of December.

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

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Recently, I handed out some kudos to a few college football coaches. That was done off the top of my head; therefore, I happened to ignore some other coaches whose teams have excelled/over-achieved this year. So, let me add to my previous list with kudos to:

Ron Zook – Illinois: The win over Ohio State ought to demonstrate that he can do more than just recruit athletes; he can “coach ‘em up” too.

Al Groh – Virginia: After losing the first game to a truly mediocre Wyoming team, Virginia has steadily improved and will get to play in a “significant” bowl game. The butt-stomping they put on Miami in Miami’s final game in the Orange Bowl was definitive.

Sylvester Croom – Mississippi State: This season, Mississippi State beat Alabama for the second year in a row. In addition, they went to Auburn and Kentucky (two teams who spent time in the rankings) and beat both of them on the road. The Bulldogs will be going to a bowl game this year - - and not as spectators.

Illinois’ win over Ohio State may have prevented another train wreck. If the BCS Championship Game had been played a week ago, it would have been LSU/Ohio State. Let’s see; an undefeated Ohio State walks through a soft schedule in a conference living on past glories only to meet a faster and much more athletic team with one loss in the SEC; I think we’ve seen that movie already. Everyone focused on the really tough Ohio State defense up until a week ago when Illinois ran through it at will at the end of the game to close things out. Here’s a question; how many offensive powerhouses did Ohio State shut down this season? Akron? Kent State?

The Big 10 is a conference that was once dominant in the US. It may regain that status some day. But at the moment, it is certainly in the bottom half of the BCS Conferences in terms of overall quality. I won’t make it out to the worse than some of the “minor conferences” because that is just not the case, but the Big 10 is not awesome and is not deserving of any kind of reverential stature.

No one gives Hawaii any serious consideration for a major BCS Bowl Game and I marvel at the short memories for all the college football gurus. Last year – it really wasn’t back when Amos Alonzo Stagg was roaming the sidelines – those same gurus also knew for sure that Boise State stood exactly no chance against Oklahoma. Unless I was in some parallel universe at the moment, I recall Boise State winning that game. So, why not Hawaii against one of the champions of a supposed power conference? I think it would be fun to watch and that could mean big TV ratings which means big revenues - - and that’s the only reason we have BCS Bowl Games in the first place.

Since I’m on the subject of bowl games, the “naming rights” business has gotten out of hand with regard to these games. If you think I’m over-reacting here, ruminate on these:

The San Diego Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl will be played at Qualcomm Stadium.

The Meineke Car Care Bowl will be played at Bank of America Stadium.

When you think of college football during the Holiday Season, does the San Diego Credit Union immediately come to mind? If it does, you need help. Where is all of this leading? I don’t know but I do know there are some “naming rights” that should never happen no matter how much money is involved. For example:

Camel cigarettes should never have the naming rights for a hospital annex.

The Betty Ford Clinic should not “brand” a line of cocktail napkins.

The “More Taste League” should never worry about whether or not to sanction Salvation Army Beer.

There are some bad NCAA football games on the docket for this weekend:

Florida hosts Florida Atlantic on Saturday. Why?

Alabama hosts Louisiana-Monroe. Why?

Louisiana-Lafayette travels to play Florida International. Who cares?

When the Pope comes to the US next year, he will say a mass at Yankee Stadium. On the same visit, he will also say a mass in Washington DC at the new stadium for the Washington Nationals. In another piece of news, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays changed their name to the Tampa Bay Rays. Did they do that to have a better chance of getting the Pope to Tampa to say a mass there? Enquiring minds want to know…

Finally, here’s a comment from Mike Bianchi in the Orlando Sentinel regarding the name change for the Tampa baseball team:

“The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are no more. Earlier this week, they officially changed their name to just the ‘Rays.’ Meanwhile, down in Hades, the Devil released the following statement: ‘Thank God. Those bums were giving me a bad name.’ “

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

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Before anyone asks, I have no idea why Stephon Marbury has left his team on the West Coast and flown back to NY. One story has it that he was upset to hear rumors that the Knicks were going to take away his starting spot and were trying to trade him. I can understand that might be a message that Marbury wouldn’t have any basis to deal with because all of his “quirky behaviors” in the past seem to have been overlooked because he could play basketball. He says that he had permission to leave the team and the Knicks say he is welcome back. Fine; let’s wait for the next shoe to drop here because you know there is another shoe to drop. And that shoe is not likely to be a “Starbury”…

Oh, and with regard to the idea that the Knicks might trade Marbury consider:

His salary is one of the top five in the NBA. Marbury and Allen Iverson both make $20.1M this year.

He will make $21.9M next year.

Maybe he will have trade value in the middle of next year because his contract expires at the end of next year; but as of now, a team would owe him a guaranteed $42M over the next two years.

Memo to Stephon: You’re not going to be traded; No one would want the burden of your $42M salary PLUS the baggage you bring.

Since I started with an NBA item today, let me continue on that track. When the owner of the Sonics announced that he would move the team to Oklahoma City, my first reaction was that this was part of the larger “mating dance” that was going on between the team and the folks in Seattle relative to a new arena. But as soon as David Stern jumped into the fray with guns a-blazing, I realized this was more than just ritualized kabuki theater.

Stern said rather definitively that if the Sonics left town, no NBA team would replace them. His exact words were, “…not in any conceivable future plan that I could envision.” Now since David Stern fancies himself as the “World’s Smartest Biped”, that means any replacement team would have to come from a series of events inconceivable even to his 10-acre brain. That’s heavy.

The stumbling block is an ordinance saying that any monies used to build an arena would have to earn a rate of return to the city equal to the return on a US Treasury bill. And therein is a potential poison pill for sports franchises in various places.

When politicians cave in to owners and leagues to build them new facilities with the taxpayers’ dollars, the politicos love to trot out the fiction that these are developmental funds that will increase the local economy and provide great paybacks to the locality over the years. In reality, I doubt that too many of the venues ever earn back their costs for the cities let alone ever “show a profit”. But as long as the politicians have that kind of “cover”, they can trot out that explanation when they’ve gotten cozy with the owners/leagues. Now, the questions are very simple.

If a new arena is such a great deal in terms of development, how come it can’t earn back a rate equivalent to a US Treasury bill?

And oh, by the way, if a new arena can’t earn that rate of return in Seattle, how come it will earn any kind of profit in some other city?

If the Sonics move to Oklahoma City, I have a very real suggestion for the NBA. Take the team that demonstrated that Oklahoma City had an interest in NBA basketball – the New Orleans Hornets – and move the Hornets to Seattle. Forget all the feelgood stories about how the Hornets have returned to the Katrina-ravaged city and have sparked hope in the residents there. That’s the nonsense of the PR-world; it has little to do with reality.

New Orleans is not a basketball city. They had a team and lost it because of poor attendance. They got a replacement when the Hornets – actually its owner – were less than politely asked to leave Charlotte. But after the novelty wore off, the Hornets were not playing to 90% capacity crowds in the pre-Katrina days. Now the city has a significantly smaller population and no greater interest in basketball; so, it’s not all that surprising that the Hornets have already had home crowds less than 10,000 this year. For the NBA, I think the Hornets franchise is like the guy in the old Fram oil filter commercial:

You can move it now; you can move it later…

One last NBA item today, if I may. ESPN did one of those polls that has no real scientific validity recently, but it does say something clearly about the NBA. Fans were asked to name their favorite NBA team. Almost 60% of the respondents said they had no favorite NBA team. That should send chills down the backs of the folks in charge of “growing the NBA brand”…

In NHL news, Eric Lindros announced his retirement recently. How many of you knew he was still playing? How long has it been since a team could pretend that he was a top-shelf player and one that fans needed to come out and see?

The folks who run the PGA are not happy when commentators refer to this time of year as golf’s “Silly Season”. But that’s what it is with all of its concocted events. And the silliness is becoming even worse since the top name golfers aren’t even showing up to collect paychecks without the exertion of a 72-hole tournament. The Skins Game started all of this nonsense and it used to have Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer on the course; in later years, Tiger Woods was a “regular” and Anika Sorenstam participated. If you are looking for a polite way to describe this year’s field, you might say that it features three new faces and one link to the past glory of golfdom. Here’s the field:

Stephen Ames
Zach Johnson
Brett Wetterich
Fred Couples

Conceding that Zach Johnson won the Masters and might be recognized on sight in Augusta or Savannah, I think the first three guys on that list would be a great example of “athletes who can transit an airport without being hounded for autographs.” Fred Couples has been an ambassador of golf for a while now; that’s a polite way of saying he can’t play any more.

So, put The Skins Game on your list of television programs that will provide you with easy access to nap-time should you need some extra sleep as the rush of the Holiday Season begins…

Finally, have you ever noticed that infomercials tell you that you can have whatever they are hawking for “four easy payments of $39.95”? So exactly how is that different from a “four complicated payments of $39.95”…?

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

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Let me tell you how non-competitive last night’s MNF game between Seattle and SF was. I actually appreciated it when ESPN dragged Drew Carey into the booth for an extended chat about The Price Is Right in the third quarter and when they had Steve Young drop in and chew the fat with the announcing crew for a time in the fourth quarter. There was nothing compelling happening on the screen and there was nothing the announcing crew might have done to make it compelling. I don’t know if it was the worst game of the weekend, but it was surely not one of the best.

Interestingly, last weekend, the visiting teams did extraordinarily well. In the 14 NFL games, the visitor won 9 of them. Home field advantage is not what it used to be; in fact, the Carolina Panthers are winless at home – as are the Rams and the Dolphins for the season.

I had some less than fully kind things to say about Don Shula last week regarding his nattering about how a Pats’ unbeaten season might deserve an asterisk in the record books and then his retraction of that remark. However, I wasn’t nearly as unkind as was Dan Daly in the Washington Times:

“You can understand his [Shula’s] protectiveness toward the one-and-only ‘72 Dolphins. Take them away — their 17-0 singularity — and he might be remembered as The Coach Who Couldn’t Win an NFL Championship With Johnny Unitas or Dan Marino.”

Things are very wrong in Baltimore. The Ravens managed to score only 7 points on the Bengals’ defense last weekend and the Bengals’ defense is most politely described as “porous”. Only one other team scored as few as 20 points on the Bengals’ defense this year – and that would have been the Ravens in the first game of the year. At the moment, the Ravens’ offense is about as effective and efficient as a herd of turtles.

The Ravens are now 4-5 and have a difficult schedule for the rest of the season – including three consecutive games against the Chargers, Patriots and Colts. A final record of 5-11 is not out of the question and that is a huge drop from last year’s record of 13-3. Steve McNair is now all heart but with next to no physical skill; Kyle Boller is not significantly better now than he was three years ago. The Ravens are a team that needs an extreme makeover.

In college football, Boston College lost to Maryland last weekend. Johnny, what parting gifts do we have for the BC Eagles as they leave the ranks of teams people actually care about?

Please note that with Ohio State losing last weekend, I am getting really close to my wish that every champion of every BCS Conference end the season with 1 loss so that the Selection Committee will necessarily cheese off the maximum number of people as they decide who will play in the Championship Game.

Kansas still needs to lose a Big-12 game to make this wish come true and they certainly can do that. Kansas is undefeated but they may just be figments of a freakishly benign schedule. I know they did not set up their Big 12 schedule for this year; the conference honchos did that. But Kansas has not had to play Texas or Oklahoma this year in conference, which is always a blessing. And their out of conference schedule – over which they have 100% control – has been pillow soft to say the least. The quartet of Central Michigan, Southeastern Louisiana, Toledo and Florida International opened up the Jayhawks’ season. The cumulative score against those 4 patsies was 214-23. Toledo stayed within 5 TDs of Kansas in their game, so maybe next year the Jayhawks will drop Toledo and add the American Asthmatics Institute to their schedule.

I am perfectly willing to give Kansas coach Mark Mangino kudos for keeping the team focused and efficient for the season to date. They have won 10 games in a row; that is not a trivial accomplishment. While handing out kudos, I also want to mention three other coaches:

Dennis Erickson turned the Arizona State program around very quickly.

Lloyd Carr survived the vilification that came with his opening two-game losing streak at home and fielded a competitive team.

Al Golden is the coach at Temple – a school with a football tradition so morbid that you would not think that Beowulf could set it on a positive course. Temple has three wins over MAC teams this year.

Outside the Lines did a story on Sunday about why Delaware does not play Delaware State in football. Since Delaware State is a historically black university and Delaware is predominantly white, ESPN allowed several people to proclaim that this was a racially based decision. And maybe it is; I don’t read minds, so I don’t know for sure. But at one point, one of the guys who was so certain that this was a racially motivated thing asked why these two state schools wouldn’t play each other when they are so close to each other – implying that race would be the overriding reason. Well, let me observe that Penn does not play Penn State; Georgia does not play Georgia State; South Carolina does not play South Carolina State and etc.

It’s not axiomatic that such rivalries are natural ones that need to be played out on the football field. Maybe – I said maybe – the reason Delaware does not schedule Delaware State has to do with money; maybe they can earn more money scheduling the folks they do (such as Navy) than they could earn by playing Delaware State. Don’t know that for sure either, but maybe that’s the reason.

The list of the nation’s worst football teams has to include Notre Dame this year. Yes, the Irish have lost to some pretty good teams but they have also lost to some mediocre teams and they have looked positively putrid at times on the field. They are down there in the company of Utah State and FIU (both winless this year) along with Marshall and Minnesota. The Gophers are down there because of their defense which is allowing almost 550 yards per game and is the worst in Division 1-A football.

And of course, there is perennial football bottom feeder, Duke. And this weekend in a game that would likely give indigestion to a buzzard, Duke travels to Notre Dame. At the moment, Duke is a 5.5 point underdog. The reason not to bet on this game is simple; without a wager there, it will be ever so simple to ignore the fact that this game exists - - and that is really what you want to do in your heart of hearts…

As the college basketball season starts up, the NCAA wants the referees to crack down on coaches swearing on the sidelines – and acting like spoiled brats. The referees are supposed to use technical fouls and ejections to maintain this level of decorum. We’ll see if any of that works. John Thompson – the former coach at Georgetown and father of the current Georgetown coach – said on his radio program here in the DC area that this decree from the NCAA assures he could never return to college coaching because he’d be out of the building in the first two or three minutes of every game. I suspect that is only the slightest of exaggerations…

Finally, an observation from syndicated columnist Norman Chad:

“Nielsen no longer releases ratings for NHL games on Versus; it simply lists the names of all viewers on its Web site.”

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

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Last week, I suggested some nominees for “NFL Coach of the Year” at mid-season. That small item got me an e-mail from a long-term reader asking if I had any other nominees for such awards. That e-mail arrived late last night so he could very properly note that two of my nominees for Coach of the Year lost last weekend and the third one escaped with a win over the hapless Dolphins thanks to a last minute field goal. And so, with no intention to put a hex anyone else, here are a couple of my other nominees for NFL Mid-Season Awards:

MVP: This has to be Tom Brady given the stats he has accumulated so far and the record of the Pats. But I would like to suggest someone who is a distant second or third or fourth in this race who deserves mention - - Derek Anderson. He is a significant part of the reason that the Browns are resurgent and sit above .500 this late in the season.

Rookie of the Year: Of course, it has to be Adrian Peterson at this point. [Please note: his injury happened before I nominated him here not after.] My dark horse candidate is someone who will get no votes at the end of the year because offensive linemen never get any of these kinds of votes, but Joe Thomas has also been an important addition to the Cleveland Browns.

Offensive Player of the Year: Forget Tom Brady in this discussion or Randy Moss; they are too easy to select here. Now, toss a coin between Tony Romo, Jon Kitna and Brett Favre.

Defensive Player of the Year: I think Bob Sanders and Troy Polamalu stand out from the pack this year. One level down from those two might be Osi Umenyiura.

Since I mentioned Derek Anderson above, I have to comment on what seems to be shallow thinking by various football analysts. The consensus seems to be that Anderson will be making a huge amount of money next year because he is a free agent. And that would be a certainty save for one minor point - - he’s a restricted free agent. And I think that distinction could wind up costing him money in the open market.

The Collective Bargaining Agreement governs free agency – and restricted free agency – and I will not pretend to know all the ins and outs of that document. But here’s what I do know:

The Browns can “tender Anderson an offer” at the end of the year and the amount of that tender defines the level of compensation that another team would have to give the Browns if Anderson signed with them and the Browns opted not to match the other team’s offer sheet. Offering Anderson any kind of tender gives the Browns the right to match any offer sheet; the amount of the tender determines what they will get in terms of draft choice compensation.

I believe that the highest level of compensation would be two first round picks. So, the team offering to sign Derek Anderson might have to give him a healthy contract AND surrender two first-rounders in the process. That might be why Anderson’s value is not as high as it might be were he an unrestricted free agent.

At the same time, the Browns would be in a precarious position if another team made an offer for Anderson. If the Browns match it and keep Anderson, then they have big money tied up in Anderson and in Brady Quinn. One of them will be sitting on the bench eating up big cap space. If the Browns don’t match the offer and choose to let Anderson go - - and collect the compensatory draft choices – then they better be certain that Brady Quinn is ready to play regularly and at a high level. It worked out for Carson Palmer and the Bengals…

When I was a kid, the Lions and the Packers played every year on Thanksgiving Day; they did not rotate opponents in Detroit. One year during the Vince Lombardi dynasty, the Packers went through a season with only one loss and that loss came at the hands of the Lions on Thanksgiving Day on national TV. In recent years, the “early game” on Thanksgiving has not been one filled with playoff implications because the Lions have been out of it by mid-November every year. Not so this year; the Packers and Lions are atop the NFC North and the “early game” on Thanksgiving Day should be competitive and it should be important to the standings.

A friend of mine used to say that the Lions’ game on Thanksgiving Day was merely a harbinger of what was to come later in the day. After a large turkey dinner, the tryptophan in the turkey meat brings on drowsiness and lethargy. My friend suggested that the Lions’ game starting early in the day also tended to put you to sleep and thus prepared you for the way you would be feeling about 4 or 5 hours hence. Possibly, this year’s game will not be so sleep inducing?

Some quick comments on other NFL games this weekend:

The Rams beat the Saints. Might it be time to stop beating the drums regarding the genius of Sean Payton as a head coach? I’m not saying he’s a stumblebum, but his team played in the NFC Conference Championship game last year and now the Saints are under .500 with a loss to the Rams…

The Eagles beat the Redskins. The Redskins – and Joe Gibbs very specifically – have still not grasped the concept of “clock management”. And can we please bury the myth of Joe Bugel as a genius at coaching an offensive line? Once again, the Redskins had a game where they snapped the ball six times inside the five-yard line and had to settle for a field goal.

The Packers routed the Vikings. If you were a defensive coordinator with the Packers coming up on your schedule and you had finished a two-day review of the Packers game tapes for the season, wouldn’t you be tempted to build your defensive game play around kryptonite?

Switching gears, there was a story about a week ago that Dennis Rodman is seeking a return to basketball. No, he’s not going to try to play in the NBA; and no, he wants to return to basketball in a more permanent way that going overseas once or twice a year to play in a couple of games in a foreign league. Fortunately, there are no reports that he harbors some desire to be a high school basketball coach where he could serve as a role model for young players; perhaps, there is not sufficient attention given to high school coaches to make Rodman happen.

But Rodman does see a future in coaching and his target at the moment is - - hold your breath - - the WNBA. Rodman said that he’d stress conditioning, defense and rebounding for a team, which is surely a good foundation to build on. Rodman said that those three things are what propelled his career and they would put him in the Hall of Fame. I’m wondering if any WNBA franchises are looking for delusional coaches…

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

“Mark Cuban: Screwed by refs in the NBA, now screwed by the judges in “Dancing With The Stars”. Cuban should try boxing or figure skating, where the refs and judges are for sale.”

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

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Brad Lidge is the most recognizable name involved in the 5-player deal between the Astros and the Phillies this week. Lidge is the guy who gave up the colossal home run to Albert Pujols in the playoffs a couple of years ago to spark the Cardinals win over the Astros in that playoff series. Some folks still believe that home run ball has not yet returned to Earth from orbit; according to my calculations – based on the physics classes I took in college – it indeed has returned to Earth sometime in the last couple of days.

Phillies’ fans have experienced what it is to have their closer give up a big home run at a most inopportune time in the playoffs. Recall for a moment the Mitch Williams/Joe Carter confrontation in the World Series. Carter’s shot may not have been in danger of going into orbit, but it did cost the Phillies dearly – it eliminated them from the World Series. And in that small vignette is a cautionary tale for Brad Lidge.

For at least 5 years after Mitch Williams’ faux pas, he would have been well advised to have hired a food taster if he were going out to dine in the Philly area. In Houston, fans may have been angry or disappointed in how Albert Pujols took his pitch out of the park; but in Philly, that level of anger/disappointment would not even register on their seismic instruments.

Welcome to Philadelphia, Brad Lidge…

Right after Senator George Mitchell was named to head up baseball’s “wide ranging study” of the use of performance enhancing substances, I wrote that George Mitchell was part of an “iron triangle”. You can read that essay at www.sportscurmudgeon.com by going to 6 April 2006. I must admit that I had not anticipated the potential for the huge real or perceived conflict of interest that Senator Mitchell finds himself in at the moment.

The final report will supposedly be made public in December 2007. Let’s assume for the moment that date is for real. And let’s also assume that there are players named in the report who may become subject to some kind of disciplinary action by MLB up to and including suspensions – but not a lifetime ban from baseball. Presumably, Senator Mitchell knows the names of the players identified in that report by now; there has to have been a draft report done and circulated for editing and concurrence of the committee members already. Did I hear someone ask, “So what’s the big deal?”

Senator Mitchell is a director of the Red Sox – in addition to lots of his other real and honorary positions – and the fact that this is free agent hunting season makes it really important for GMs to know if one of the free agents they covet might be “on the list” for a suspension by MLB down the road. And in that case, would it surprise anyone if the Red Sox just happened to have some special access to that kind of information which might not be available to the rest of the MLB clubs? It would not surprise me. In fact, I think Senator Mitchell might be duty bound in his responsibilities as a Red Sox official to advise the Red Sox if they were “barking up a wrong tree”.

Since I just mentioned one of the connections between baseball and politicians, here is another one I ran across while perusing one of the Internet sportsbooks last week. The odds for the Devil Rays to win the World Series next year are listed at 100-1; that’s not a good bet because their real chances are more like 10,000-1. On the same site, the odds for Dennis Kucinich to win the Presidential Election in 2008 are also listed at 100-1; that’s not a good bet either unless you believe that the Mother Ship of the UFO he spotted years ago will spread a thought control beam across the US on Election Day and sweep him into office as a write-in candidate - - - ‘cause it ain’t happening any other way.

I got a missive from a friend and long-term reader of these rants about Joe Torre leaving the Yankees and heading west to manage the Dodgers. Understand that this friend/reader is a lifelong Red Sox fan as you contemplate his message to me:

“Torre will fit right in with the Dodgers. There will be no learning curve for him. Remember, the Dodgers haven’t won a world series either in this millennium…”

That same friend/reader is the antithesis of a Roger Clemens fan. He still harbors resentment over Clemens leaving Boston those many years ago – and he would never allow him to return to the Red Sox even for a moment. Regarding Clemens recent decision to “retire” and act as a “consultant” to the Astros, my friend points out Roger Clemens’ shortcomings in critically important games. Here’s his evidence; I have not checked it out to verify its accuracy:

“When his team is facing elimination in the playoffs or the world series, Roger Clemens has one win in seven games and a 5.28 ERA in those seven games. The one win came in October 1986 – that’s 21 years ago.”

There are three really good games on the NFL schedule for this weekend:

Cleveland at Pittsburgh: Are the Browns for real? This weekend ought to go a long way toward answering that question. The Steelers are undefeated at home this year and they crushed the Browns in the first game of the season; so even if the Browns don’t win here, they can identify themselves as a seriously improved team by making this a close/competitive game.

Indy at San Diego: Are the Chargers contenders or pretenders? At 4-4, the Chargers have already lost twice as many games in 2007 as they did in all of 2006. Given the miserable state of the AFC West, it would be hyperbole to say the Chargers do not dare lose another game lest they not make the playoffs, but this is a yardstick game for them.

Dallas at Giants: Dallas clobbered the Giants in Week 1 and the game had a stratospheric score. Both defenses are improved since then and it’s hard to see how this game will similarly go into the 70s. A Dallas win puts them in control of the NFC East; a Giants win makes that division a dogfight to the end.

There are two NFL games this week that should have the fans throwing Milk Bones onto the field by halftime:

Chicago at Oakland: Who stinks more? Here are two teams heading downhill. Absent a tie at the end of five quarters, one of them will win this game and will delude their fans – and themselves – that good times are just ahead. They are not.

Atlanta at Carolina: Who cares less? I wonder if Bobby Petrino is quietly eyeing the potential openings for coaches in NCAA football and thinking about how badly he has to coach the Falcons to get his butt fired at the end of this season. That would not be a completely irrational way for him to think. Oh, and Carolina is going nowhere either.

I checked out the new Dennis Miller sports commentary show on Versus earlier this week. It’s not great by any means. But it is a light-year better than Best Damned Sports Show is and than Cold Pizza was. If the mavens at Versus decide to try to give it a push, I wonder if they would put it on after NHL games to bring that audience to the show or after a fishing show. Such are the dilemmas facing the movers and shakers at Versus…

Finally, here’s a comment from Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle about players seeking to move to new teams:

“Hey, look, it’s a diva garage sale! Bonds, A-Rod and Kobe Bryant! Any buyers? Bonds might wind up sharing an outfield with Rickey Henderson and Jose Canseco. Rodriguez might sign with the Rangers, awash in cash since A-Rod opted out of his $27 million Yankee contract, $21 million of which would have been paid by the Rangers. And Kobe, it just seems like he would be a good fit with the Knicks.”

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

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Are you ready for a Hypocrisy Alert? I think we have one brewing here. Recall that the NFL played a game in London, England and there was a story that the Commissioner was ruminating on the possibility of putting a Super Bowl Game in London. We saw NFL owners there in London talking about how wonderful it was to be in London and how it was a spectacular thing for the NFL. For the whole week leading up to that game, seldom was heard a discouraging word …

I’ve been to London more than a few times; it is a wonderful city; I’ve enjoyed myself there; I plan to go back. One of the things I did notice in London - - because it is impossible to walk around the city without noticing - - is that London is full of sportsbooks. The name I recall at the moment is Ladbrokes and once inside any of their dozens upon dozens of establishments, you can wager on more sporting events than you can in any Las Vegas casino/sportsbook. Oh, yes; you can bet on NFL games right there in London and it’s all perfectly in the open and legal.

So, how come no one on ESPN or any of the other national outlets has asked the NFL to explain why it’s perfectly OK to play real NFL games in London possibly to include a Super Bowl Game - - and to have had an NFL Europe franchise there - - in the presence of hundreds of sportsbooks when, at the same time, Las Vegas is off-limits? I’d love to hear Roger Goodell asked that kind of question out of the blue at a news conference because I think he’d probably do a pretty good imitation of Ralph Kramden about then, “Hammina … hammina … hammina.”

When you look at the NFC West, it’s probably best to avert your eyes. Outside the division, the teams have a combined 3-17 record; Seattle leads the division at 4-4 but looks nothing like a team pointed to an NFC Conference Championship Game come January. At the bottom of that division rest the St. Louis Rams who have not won any of their eight games this year. But the Rams are particularly bad on the road – even by the standard of a winless team. So far, the Rams have lost all four of their road games by a combined score of 114-19. The Rams had a bye week last weekend and return with consecutive road games (at the Saints and at the Niners). If the trend continues, the Rams should be looking at 0-10 - - unless the ineptitude level in San Francisco continues to rise.

Mentioning the Rams makes me think that the halfway point in the NFL season is the proper time to identify the worst teams in the league. So here’s my bottom quartile:

Rams/Dolphins – both are 0-8; can there be any doubt they belong on this list?

Jets – currently 1-8; they just can’t score; they have the Dolphins on the schedule for another game; if they lose that one …

Denver – currently 3-5 and only one game out of the lead in the AFC West; but they have looked horrible more than once in a while this year.

Cincy – currently 2-6 but they have given up 244 points in those eight games; do the math; that’s over 30 points per game.

Philly – currently 3-5 and looking totally disorganized.

SF/Oakland – both currently 2-6; both stink; is there something in the water supply in the Bay Area that EPA doesn’t know about?

One more point as we go to the second half of the NFL season, I think there is a three-way tie for Coach of the Year at the moment – and I don’t have Tony Dungy or Bill Belichick anywhere on my list. The Colts and the Pats are teams that were supposed to be really, really good and they are. My list of coaching excellence consists of three teams that have played very well so far when not everyone thought they would.

Romeo Crennel has the Browns more than respectable.

Dick Jauron has the Bills at .500 even though the team is not scoring 17 points per game.

Rod Marinelli has the Lions at 6-2; it’s been a while since the Lions were 6-2.

I told you that Jeff George had been lobbying for a workout with the Vikings given the Vikes’ glaring needs at QB. He didn’t get his workout and the Vikes just signed - - drum roll please - - Koy Detmer to be their clipboard holder. Let me be clear; I don’t think Koy Detmer can play at the NFL QB level for two consecutive games. But the fact that the Vikes signed him instead of Jeff George speaks volumes about how George is viewed as a “person you want to have in your locker room.”

I have to say something about Don Shula and his suggestion that if the Pats go 16-0 this year – or even 19-0 – there should be an asterisk on that record. Excuse me; since the Pats got caught videotaping the Jets’ signals in the opening game of this season, I would need to be shown some evidence that any of the rule-breaking they did then had any effect on the outcome of games after the Jets’ game. It will also take some convincing for me to believe that’s why the Pats won on opening day and not the Jets. So how does the asterisk apply to this year’s achievements? Please don’t ask Shula to explain his answer to that; the logic he’d use would be so twisted that it might wind up choking him to death.

Don Shula has become a whining harpie who complains about far too many things related to football. He was a fine player and a very good coach in his time. But his time has come and it is now gone. He and his attention-starved 1972 Dolphins’ players can have their champagne toasts. But any complaining out of this group about the Pats’ achievements in 2007 is nothing but whining.

And while fawning columnists and commentators hasten to paint Don Shula as a saintly figure who never had a cloud of controversy around him, may I remind everyone that Shula’s signing with the Dolphins around 1970 involved tampering. The Dolphins were penalized a draft pick – I think it was a first round pick but it was a LONG time ago so I may be misremembering that detail. Yes, it was the team that was punished, but it’s hard for a team to get caught “tampering” if the person on the other end of the phone isn’t cooperating with the activities that are determined to violate the rules. So, do not succumb to the revisionist historians – such as Michael Wilbon - who try to portray Don Shula as a man so virtuous and so righteous that scandal would never even dare approach his name.

By the way, here’s an accomplishment that Shula has that Belichick does not. Shula has lost several Super Bowl games; Belichick has yet to match that performance.

Finally, here’s an item from the agate-type section of the paper under “Transactions”:

“Tennessee: Signed free agent DT Demetrin Veal.”

When I saw that item I thought I recalled that Emeril had prepared that dish as part of his “Holiday Feasting” programs last year on The Food Channel.

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

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Since the Pats/Colts game was the Game of the Millennium on Sunday, I guess I should start with my comments on that game. First of all, it is hardly unusual for the visiting NFL team to collect more penalties than the home team. I haven’t done the counting in the past for every weekend, but it happens more often than not by a comfortable margin. If my counting is correct, last weekend the visitors in NFL games cumulatively drew 29 more penalties than did home teams for a difference of 285 yards. But the calls in the Pats/Colts game were outrageous. There were two horrible pass interference calls against the Pats and a few non-calls for the same infraction against the Colts in that game. If the NFL were paranoid, they would check to see if any of those officials had ever had contact Tim Donaghy in their lifetime. I had no money on the game; I had no “dog in the fight”. That game was horrendously officiated.

You must not overlook Wes Welker as an important ingredient in the Pats’ success this season. Welker is an excellent return man, an aggressive blocker for running plays and screen passes and he makes big catches when the ball is thrown his way. His catch on third-and-six late in the fourth quarter actually iced the game for the Pats.

Did you hear enough about the Pats/Colts game being “Super Bowl 41 ½ “? I sure did. These teams are at least an even-money bet to meet in the AFC playoffs and I want to call a moratorium now and forever on naming that game “Super Bowl 41 ¾ “ before it happens.

Remember when Charlie Weis left the Pats as offensive coordinator to go to Notre Dame. Some folks were worried about how that might hamstring the Pats offense. Have you noticed who no one is hearing from those voices of doom about now?

Last weekend, the Detroit Lions clobbered the Denver Broncos by 37 points. That’s right, the Lions beat the Broncos; and if you had Denver plus 5 TDs, you lost. The Lions remain undefeated at home and the vast majority of NFL teams cannot make that claim. The Broncos aren’t going anywhere this year, but if they have to play Patrick Ramsey as their QB for a significant part of the rest of the season, then they are over, done, out-of-it, finito. Oh, by the way, if Jay Cutler is able to come back and start at QB, there is a trend play for NFL wagerers. Jay Cutler is now 2-12 against the spread in games he’s started at QB for the Broncos. In wagering – as on Wall Street – the trend is your friend.

Will the Lions’ resurgence make Mike Martz a hot commodity when the NFL Head Coaching Sweepstakes happens come January/February 2008? Possibly, but GMs on the look for new coaches ought to take a close look at how things ended for Martz in St. Louis. Here’s the Cliff Notes version:

It did not end prettily.

Last weekend, nine players returned punts/kickoffs/interceptions/ fumble return/failed field goal tries/ whatever for TDs. But the Vikes’ Antonio Cromartie’s return of a missed field goal 109 yards for a TD is a record that will stand forever. It’s just not possible – given the NFL standards for measuring yardage – for that record to be broken. It can be equaled one of these days, but never surpassed - - unless the NFL goes to the Canadian Football League size fields in the future.

The Vikings took care of business against a good Chargers’ team that seems to be having difficulty focusing this year. Maybe they were looking ahead to their meeting with the Colts this weekend? In any event, the Chargers only got LaDanian Tomlinson 40 yards in 16 carries and a total of 42 yards rushing as a team. Going into the game, the Chargers’ defense had ranked 7th in rushing defense in the NFL. On Sunday, Adrian Peterson set an NFL record by rushing for 296 yards against the Chargers – about 250 of those yards coming in the second half. Here are some items for perspective for you with regard to Peterson’s accomplishment last weekend:

Emmitt Smith, Tony Dorsett and Bo Jackson – a trio of pretty damned good running backs – each managed to gain 200 yards in a single game exactly once in their careers.

Peterson had 224 yards against the Bears a couple of weeks ago; so, he’s now passed the 200 yard mark in a single game twice in an 8-game career.

Remember that six NFL teams passed on Peterson in the draft last spring; the Vikes got him with the #7 pick.

Jamal Lewis had held the single-game rushing record until Sunday. On the day his record was broken, Lewis also had a productive day in terms of scoring if not yardage gained. Lewis gained a total of 37 yards rushing on 20 carries last weekend; normally that would be a disastrously bad day. But he managed to score 4 TDs in the game against the Seahawks. Those four TD runs covered a total of 6 yards.

The Bengals lost to the Bills over the weekend and looked very bad doing that. It’s been almost 20 years since the Bengals have beaten the Bills and this team, which announced itself as the new AFC North powerhouse two seasons ago, has now lost nine of its last eleven games. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton always lecture people about how things have to be viewed through the prism of race. So, let me ask this:

If Marvin Lewis were white, how likely would he be to keep his job?

After watching Pittsburgh disassemble the Ravens on MNF, I think it is fair to say that Steve McNair’s career is about at the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute. He’s taken a huge beating over his career and now he can no longer run nor can he escape effectively in the pocket and his arm does not allow him to stretch the field anymore. He had a good run, but Father Time has caught up with him - - and no one escapes Father Time’s grasp.

Speaking of the Steelers, they have a schedule set up that ought to have them poised at 10-2 when they travel to Foxboro to play the Pats in early December. Absent a rash of injuries on both/either squads, that will be a really good game to watch.

Nationally renowned columnist, Jason Whitlock, continues to call for his high school teammate, Jeff George, to get a tryout/look from an NFL team. Vikes’ coach Brad Childress suggested George go to a fantasy camp. The Panthers – needing an off-the-street QB badly – scoffed at the idea of giving George a workout. Then the Panthers actually did give Chris Wehnke a workout. Anyone who has watched more than 20 minutes of NFL football and has seen film of George and Wehnke throw the ball knows with certainty that George’s arm is many-fold better. Yet he gets no interest from NFL GMs; how big a locker room chemistry problem reputation do you think George has to have had to amass to make that happen?

In the world of quarterbacking, it sure seems as if Mike Nolan and Alex Smith are having trouble “communicating” in SF. In fact, it’s almost starting to look in SF the way things looked last season in Oakland between Art Shell and his Raiders’ team. For purposes of clarity, that is a really bad thing…

Starting the season the Jaguars’ QB situation was David Garrard and Byron Leftwich. They cut Leftwich and Garrard is now injured; so, now they have Quinn Gray, Todd Bauman and “Sleepy the Wonder Sloth” playing QB there. I’ve read where Democratic Presidential hopeful, Dennis Kucinich, says that he once saw a UFO whilst staying at Shirley MacLane’s home. That statement by Kucinich raises two important questions:

1. Was that sighting in this life or in some previous life where Kucinich was a liver fluke floating in the Nile River?

2. Is that claim of a “UFO sighting” any more incredible than the claim by the Jaguars’ coaching staff that they can see an actual NFL QB on their active roster at the moment?

Finally, Greg Cote had this to say in the Miami Herald:

“Parting thought: Detroit is No. 1 in The Sporting News’ latest list of best American sports cities. The positives for those fans include the winning Pistons, Tigers, Red Wings and WNBA Shock. The one negative outweighing even the Lions? Having to live in Detroit.”

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

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The news this morning is that Don Mattingly and Larry Bowa will join Joe Torre in the dugout for the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the last ten years, every baseball fan has seen Joe Torre sitting stoically/imperturbably on the bench as tense moments of the game unfolded on the field before him. I think it is important for LA fans who might not be completely familiar with Larry Bowa to realize that if you took the outward emotion shown by Torre and Bowa and mixed it together in a vat and then portioned it equally between the two men, you’d wind up with two “normal” individuals.

Did you know that the National Lacrosse League cancelled its season for this year over an impasse in labor negotiations? If not, let me fill you in on two important background items:

1. Yes, there is a National Lacrosse League. No, this is not a belated April Fool’s prank.

2. No, Gary Bettman is not moonlighting as the commissioner of the National Lacrosse League.

In Arena Football, the Arizona Rattlers didn’t do all that well last season; they finished with a 4-12 record; obviously, they didn’t make it to the playoff rounds in the Arena League. Team ownership is either very confident in their ability to turn things around immediately or they have far more money than brains because the Rattlers have offered this unconditional money-back guarantee to season ticket buyers for 2008:

Team makes the playoffs or a full refund – no strings attached.

As of this morning, the Rattlers are sold out of their three highest priced season ticket packages – ranging from $525 to $740 for eight home games plus a playoff game. Other packages remain on sale ranging from $45 (for a season ticket!) to $455. It will be interesting to see how this plays out…

In the soccer world, the Minnesota Vikings are offering to sell access to luxury suites in the Metrodome for an exhibition game in which David Beckham is scheduled to play. The game is on 11 November and the suites, which seat up to 24 folks, can be had for $2200. I won’t be there to count the number of suites which are actually occupied on that day, but I wouldn’t be in a huge hurry to contact the Vikings if you’re interested. I suspect there will be empty suites on game day.

At a much lower level of the soccer world – in more ways than one – there is a story about a coach of a teenage girls’ soccer team in Windsor, California. According to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle, his team had played a hotly contested match recently; and after the game, he dropped his pants and mooned the opposing team. I tell you; this guy has class. Sadly, it is all second class; but he does have class.

The guy who runs NASCAR, Brian France, is beginning to sound like David Stern. NASCAR’s TV ratings have peaked; last year’s TV ratings were down 10% from the year before; this year they are down another 9%. And when you watch the race highlights – no I won’t even suggest you sit through an entire race as a TV viewing event – you will see plenty of empty seats in the stands for most of races. But the NASCAR honchos are saying that none of this matters because they are selling NASCAR on so many different platforms that they are actually increasing their fan base. That may be so, but how many of those “different” platforms sell advertising for tens of thousands of dollars a minute? Allow me to offer one simple reason why NASCAR interest may have peaked or reached a plateau:

There are a very limited number of ways in which promoters can hype an event which boils down to a bunch of guys driving in circles.

If you watched Football Night in America on Sunday night, you saw them dim the studio lights and turn the NBC logo green to be part of and NBC “programming event” to being attention to the environment. Here’s an e-mail I got at half-time of the Eagles/Cowboys game from an Eagles’ fan who has been reading these rants for about five years prior to their being available on the Internet:

“Why do we have to tolerate the NBC “green movement” ideology pre-game and at half time during this game? I’m watching a football game that is annoying the hell out of me as an Eagles fan because McNabb sucks and Andy Reid can’t coach a game to save his life with all his distractions. After this mess I won’t support anything with the Peacock logo.”

I can certainly understand how Eagles’ fans can be annoyed at the way this season is unfolding. And I can also understand how an educated audience member who reads books without pictures can be annoyed by the “NBC green movement ideology” intruding on their TV watching. Folks, we are past the point where we need to “raise awareness” about environmental problems and/or to “bring attention to them”. We need to find ways to make things better and to implement those ways to make things better after we find them. The time for yakking about all of this is over; now it is time to do something - - or at least shut up about it because all the hot air that is emanating from the pundits and politicos here is adding to global warming.

I have a simple question for the football analysts and writers based on NFL events of the past two weeks. When the Pats spanked the Redskins 52-7, there was an outcry that Bill Belichick ran up the score by throwing the ball when the score was 38-0 and then again when it was 45-0. That controversy consumed almost a week of my attention. Now, will those same people who were so righteously indignant about the Patriots actions two weekends ago please look at the game summary for the Lions/Broncos game this past weekend and explain this to me:

With 8 minutes to play in the game, Shaun Rogers intercepted a Broncos’ pass and returned it for a TD. The score at that point was 37-0.

Jon Kitna stayed in the game. Three minutes later, the Lions scored another TD to make it 44-0.

So, why isn’t this an equally horrid example of “running up the score”?

Oh, and on MNF this week the Steelers were leading by 5 TDs when Ben Roethlisberger had to be helped off the field in the third quarter. He returned to the field for one more series of plays in the fourth quarter. But that isn’t “disrespecting” the opponent and/or “rubbing it in”?

Methinks some of the commentators just don’t like Bill Belichick and are looking for reasons to say bad things about him and the Patriots. That’s their prerogative to be sure; I just wish they’d be a bit more honest about the basis for their venomous spew.

Finally, Greg Cote had this to say in the Miami Herald regarding the Dolphins’ bye week:

“As you know, the Dolphins have a bye this week. Things are looking up for Miami, though. The bye is only favored by 3 ½ points. Also, good news for Dolfans: Parking at Dolphin Stadium, today only, has been reduced to $15.”

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

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Some things are really superfluous – like a third nostril. So, when the thought of something like that flashes into my mind, my normal instinct is to move on as quickly as possible to something that has a higher chance of being relevant. I had one such instance recently and was just about to flush the idea down whatever serves as the sewage drain for ideas - - and then I stopped. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Maybe the world of college football actually needs another conference.

Recall about a week ago, I told you about the recently fired football coach at SMU who said that perhaps SMU might have to relax its academic standards if it were going to be able to compete with the “big boys”. As I said then, the folks running SMU – the only recipient of the NCAA “Death Penalty” to date – could not have been thrilled at the suggestion. But maybe there is the germ of a useful idea in there.

It seems that in lots of the major conferences, there are schools that always struggle to compete – except in those Cinderella seasons that happen once every two or three decades – because those schools really do have higher academic standards for admission than their conference counterparts. Oh, and these schools also tend to make their athletes attend classes regularly and do their own academic work and get reasonable if not honor roll grades in their courses. So, maybe there needs to be a new conference made up of those kinds of schools where they can play each other more often than not and find themselves on a more or less level playing field.

Who could be in such a conference, you ask? Well, that was a sticking point for me at first because I was hobbled by the antiquaated thinking about collegiate conferences - - that they should be geographically compact. But as soon as I started to think about Conference USA with a geographical span from Huntingdon, West Virginia to El Paso, Texas, I realized I might be able to give up on that notion. Then I pondered the geographical compactness of the WAC and realized that regionality really was an outdated notion. In the WAC – even if you ignore Hawaii which is several time zones away from the closest of its rivals – the other schools cover the states of California, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and Louisiana.

Having gotten rid of the shackles of regionality, I could construct a conference that I’ll call Schools Whose Athletes Take Their Own Exams (SWAT-TOE for short until someone can come up with a better name). The second challenge was to come up with ten schools in this conference such that they can play a full football schedule but aren’t big enough to get NCAA approval for a “Championship Game”. Nonetheless, SWAT-TOE’s champion should get an automatic invitation to a bowl game. I don’t mean a BCS Bowl Game here; that’s not the objective. I mean the champion here should get an automatic berth is something bigger than the Humanitarian Bowl but smaller than the BCS Elite Bowl Games.

Here’s the line-up.

Stanford has to secede from the PAC-10 and stop trying to compete with all those huge state schools.

Northwestern has to secede from the Big-10 for the same reason.

Duke would need to secede its football program from the ACC but retain its ACC basketball membership. That might be tricky, because the ACC needs 12 football teams to hold its playoffs and someone would have to join on a football only basis. I presume that could be arranged given the money ACC football makes.

Vanderbilt has been on the rise as a football program in recent years, but they are banging their heads against the wall trying to win an SEC Championship against the likes of the other schools in that conference.

So, there were the four obvious cornerstones of SWAT-TOE. Now all I had to do was come up with six more schools. Three more can easily be found by looking at the service academies; no one can really question the fact that their academic/athletic policies are aligned with SWAT-TOE. The addition of Army, Navy and Air Force gave me seven schools.

Rice fits the bill nicely here to make for SWAT-TOE’s eighth school.

Baylor is hugely overmatched in the Big-12 – as it used to be in the old Southwest Conference – and is a natural as the ninth school to be invited to join.

But where to find the tenth school? The easy answer would be to pick a school from the Ivy League and/or the Patriot League for SWAT-TOE, but that would simply set up the same situation that exists now; there would be one team that was always going to be overmatched. I thought about several other schools but they just didn’t fit my mental model of the academic atmosphere that the rest of the SWAT-TOE schools emanate. [I’ll refrain from naming the three schools I had in mind here in order to avoid the howls of protest from alums from those schools and the assertions that I don’t know my posterior from the fifty-yard-line.]

And then – in a flash – it came to me. There is a well known private institution whose football program struggles to compete with the “big boys” that has had at least a few prominent alums suggest that they might need to alter academic standards to get to the top. And so, my suggestion for the tenth and final school for SWAT-TOE is - - drum roll please - -

Notre Dame.

There you are. I alphabetical order, here are the members of the new conference – one that Dr. Myles Brand ought to endorse wholeheartedly since they put academics ahead of athletics:

Air Force
Army
Baylor
Duke
Navy
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Rice
Stanford
Vanderbilt

It even sets up a natural rivalry between Navy and Vanderbilt. After all, Navy is producing the Admirals of the future and Vanderbilt is the Commodores. Someone cleverer than I could turn that into something…

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

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