The Sports Curmudgeon

A friend sent me a link to Curt Schilling’s blog and the entry where Schilling talks about the Mitchell Report and some of the players named therein. In that piece, Schilling talks about when he – and other players – went to Congress to talk about steroid use in baseball. I had forgotten that the players had been sworn in and were speaking under oath to that Congressional Committee. But now that Curt Schilling has set the record straight, let me offer up something to consider for those folks who believe that Barry Bonds has been treated unfairly with regard to steroid use allegations just because he is Black.

At that hearing, Rafael Palmiero wagged his finger at the Congressthings and said he never took steroids. Then he tested positive; remember, Bonds has never tested positive. Granted, the possibility exists that he never took any steroids until the day after he appeared in that hearing, but doesn’t it seem that his testimony there might be perjurious? And isn’t Bonds being charged/tried for perjury? So, how come the US Attorney in SF comes to press this perjury case against Bonds whereas the prosecutorial authorities in Washington DC don’t seem to be moving against Palmiero for what seems to be very similar offenses? Is it a racial thing?

One more thing about the Bonds/Clemens usage/non-usage of steroids and/or their truth-telling with regard to all of that. I would like for every sportswriter and commentator in America to make this New Year’s Resolution for 2008 and 09 and 10 and 11 and …

“I will refrain from writing about or commenting on how I or anyone else might vote for Bonds/Clemens when their names come to the ballot for the Hall of Fame at least five years hence.

“I will refrain from giving any kind of analysis about how I come to whatever position I have at the moment.

“I will do these things in the interest of the global sanity of sports fans who cannot possibly withstand five years or more of that kind of nonsense.”

Alabama and Colorado played each other in a meaningless bowl game yesterday. When Colorado lost, they ended the year with a losing record showing just how important a game that had to be. I wonder if Miami Dolphin fans were rooting for Colorado to beat Alabama – and their first-year coach Nick Saban – of if what they really wanted was for the Colorado mascot to get loose and trample Saban on the sidelines. If they could only have had one of those things happen, I’m not sure how Dol-fandom would vote…

UCLA finally has a new coach. It will be Rick Neuheisel. There had been some criticism of the AD at UCLA for taking so long to make his decision on this hiring. Now that we know that it was Neuheisel he was considering, the delay is understandable. Given Neuheisel’s previous dealings with the NCAA, I’m sure that UCLA would want to do a thorough background check on him to include whether or not he had any involvement in the kidnapping of the Lindberg baby. [While at Colorado, Woody Paige of the Denver Post gave him the moniker “Rick New-weasel”.] Those background investigations take time you know…

And by the way, Neuheisel brings an interesting résumé to UCLA in addition to his NCAA violations at Colorado and his shenanigans at Washington. He is the offensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens at the moment. The Ravens were 13-3 last year; Neuheisel was the QB coach last year. Now that he is the offensive coordinator, the Ravens are 5-11 and their offense is certainly one of the weakest parts of the Ravens’ team.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the Steelers got into the playoffs as a wild-card team and then won three straight games away from home to take down the Lombardi Trophy. They will get a home game in the playoffs next week, but would then have to leave Heinz Field for any further playoff games. Can they do it again? Well, their play away from home this year has hardly been stellar.

At home, the Steelers are 7-1 and give up less than 12 points per game. On the road, the Steelers are 3-5 and give up 22 points per game. That’s not good. Oh, and that one loss at home came against Jax - - the team that will be visiting Pittsburgh for that home playoff game next weekend. I know all about “on any given Sunday…” Nevertheless, things don’t look all that rosy for the Steelers at the moment.

In the AFC South, three teams will make the playoffs and the 4th place team – Houston – finished the year at 8-8. In the NFC East, three teams will make the playoffs and the 4th place team – Philly – finished the year at 8-8. That is what you call two tough divisions.

In the SF/Cleveland game yesterday, the Niners yielded 129 yards plus a TD to Josh Cribbs on punt returns with time left in the first quarter. I think there’s going to be an opening on the SF staff for a special teams coach in this off-season.

In that same game, we had a Brady Quinn sighting. He played a series while Derek Anderson was in the locker room for X-rays on a finger of his throwing hand. Quinn played decently leading the team down the field inside the 10 yardline where Braylon Edwards dropped a TD pass that hit him in the hands and then Kellen Winslow Jr. dropped a TD pass that hit him in the hands and on his numbers.

The Redskins are in the playoffs but I have to ask a question about their coaching staff. Against Dallas, the Redskins challenged a call on a fumble by QB Todd Collins alleging that he had started his throwing motion. The replay so obviously showed that it was a fumble that I have to ask this question:

“Who is the guy in the press box who advises Joe Gibbs to throw the red flag out onto the field? Mr. Magoo?”

I said that the Steelers don’t look all that good heading into the playoffs this year. Well, that goes double for the Cowboys. Tony Romo looked like a confused second year QB yesterday; the Cowboys’ secondary would have had trouble in man-coverage against anything that moves faster than a sloth. Injury took away Terrell Owens yesterday but you saw what the offense did when he was “taken away” i.e. NOTHING. So, if you are a defensive coordinator having to play the Cowboys, why not double TO just about every down and take him away?

Since the Raiders lost that Super Bowl game to the Bucs, the Silver and Black have gone through five consecutive years with 10 or more losses. Have they changed the signs at Raiders’ HQS to “Commitment to Ineptitude” and “Humiliation and Instability”? Here’s a comment from Scott Ostler in the SF Chronicle regarding the situation in Oakland:

“Wednesday is the day Al Davis might fire defensive coordinator Rob Ryan. The whispers are that Ryan blames others for stuff that goes awry, and that while he once was a cutting-edge innovator and motivator, the game has passed him by. No, wait, that’s not Ryan, that’s Davis.”

Finally, Greg Cote had this to say in the Miami Herald about the Dolphins’ hiring of Bill Parcells as VP for Football Operations or whatever his title is there:

“Parcells said his job will be to oversee the coach and GM, but allow them to do their jobs without interference. The media responded with braying laughter and a chorus of, ‘Yeah, right!’ “

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

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Every year around this time, Gene Collier of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes a column wherein he awards the “Trite Trophy”. He takes the dozens upon dozens of sports cliches and weaves them together with more than a generous helping of sarcasm and humor and comes up with the worst cliche of the year.

This year’s column is here. I won’t ruin it for you by telling you which cliche won the 24th Annual “Trite Trophy”. I will tell you that you’ll enjoy the commentary leading up to the presentation of the award as much as the award itself.

Enjoy

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I saw just enough of the Miami Heat on Christmas Day to conclude that this must be the final season for Shaq as an NBA player. Unless he has such a major injury that might be fully corrected by off-season surgery, I just cannot see him continuing to be worthy of a starting position much longer. At the moment, he is starting for a monumentally bad team whose true rottenness will not be fully appreciated this season because of the presence of the Minnesota Timberwolves in the same league.

Shaquille O’Neal has had a career that assures his Hall of Fame induction. But as with all things - - including bad cases of constipation - - its time has come and it is gone.

Speaking of the NBA, will someone explain to me how firing Scott Skiles will make the Chicago Bulls a better team - - or how keeping him on the job will make them a better team. The problem with the Bulls seems to scream out from the stats. Three of their young “stars” – Deng, Heinrich and Gordon – are not shooting well this season and their “older star” – Ben Wallace – has never been able to shoot well. The Bulls don’t score a lot; and when that happens in the NBA, teams tend to lose more than they win. And that’s a coach’s fault?

Since I have no idea whether or not I’ll write one of these essays next Monday, I do want to comment on three of the bowl games scheduled for New Years Eve:

1. Clemson/Auburn: Are you tired of seeing bowl games where neither team can play any defense at all (think Purdue/Central Michigan or Texas/ASU)? Well, if you want to see some defense, tune in here because Clemson was ranked #6 in defense in the country and Auburn allowed fewer points than anyone in the SEC. You might just see a defender cover a receiver closely enough to knock down a pass attempt.

2. Indiana/Oklahoma State: This game is the Insight Bowl. So what is the insight provided? Neither of these teams is all that special would have to start any list of insights provided.

3. Florida State/Kentucky: Obviously, this game is meaningless. It features a Florida State program that continues to draw attention only because of past glories and a Kentucky team that drew attention because it was above average this year - - and that is a dramatic improvement of Kentucky football teams of the past decade or so. The game is the Music City Bowl; if might be just as attractive if it were the Mucous City Bowl.

Oh, and Florida State will be sure to bring its integrity to the game. About two dozen of the players will be ineligible for the game because they got caught cheating in an online “course” in Music History. We had a course like that where I went to school; we called it “Tunes For Goons” and if you were smart enough to find your ass with either hand, you didn’t need to cheat to get an “A” in that puppy. But it gets worse…

Florida State says it cannot identify the cheaters because Federal privacy laws prohibit that. So when anyone compares the rosters of the FSU team from four weeks ago with the roster for the bowl game, they’ll see a bunch of guys that are missing from the later one. But the list of “missing players” will include players who are legitimately injured and no one will know into which category any individual player might fall. So, to protect the identity of the cheating weasels, the injured players on the squad have to endure the suspicion that they too are cheaters. Can anyone explain how that can possibly be the proper outcome here?

FSU coach, Bobby Bowden, has had a long and honorific career as a football coach but it may be time for him to hang up the jockstrap. When the scandal broke, you’d expect the head coach to take a position. If he is a man of honor and integrity, the position is that this kind of behavior is unacceptable and you’ll see to it that nothing like this happens again. If he is basically a lying weasel walking upright, the position is that some rat on the faculty is just out to get the noble scholar-athletes on your team because that faculty member is only 8-to-5 to be able to place on foot in front of the other sequentially without falling down. Here’s what this paragon of leadership and teamwork, Bobby Bowden, had to say on the occasion of this scandal making it to the newspapers:

“It’s not like I had anything to do with this.”

It’s not as if the “major bowl games” in early January are all that much better than many of these useless match-ups in the “minor bowl games”. So, let’s root for some more embarrassment for the BCS mavens. This year, they had to put a two-loss team in their BCS Championship Game for the first time and had no undefeated team with any national championship credibility available as an opponent. (Sorry, Hawaii fans.) The game will decide nothing except the winner of the game. So, let’s root for a horrendously sloppy game with a dozen turnovers and a final score of 3-0. I really don’t give a rat’s ass which team wins here; I just want both teams to look awful and have the game be an affront to the eyeballs of every viewer.

Then maybe the wisdom of using all these meaningless bowl games as the stepping-stone to set up a small Championship Tournament for Division 1-A football will start to make sense…

The Oakland Raiders are a bad football team. Just as the Miami Heat will not be recognized for their badness this year because of the Timberpuppies, the Raiders will not be demeaned as severely as they might because the Dolphins can’t be relegated out of the NFL. There are probably dozens of reasons why the Raiders stink this year, but here is one of the big ones. Teams have been able to run the ball down their throat all year long. Consider:

Opponents average 4.9 yards per carry against the Raiders defense.

Opponents have scored more rushing TDs against the Raiders than any other team (24).

Ten opposing running backs in the first fifteen games this year have run for 100 yards or more.

Finally, here’s an item from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

“The U.S. lost the World Cup of Golf in China. Gee, what a shock. We sent Boo Weekley and Heath Slocum to represent us. Evidently, the multitudes better than them were all busy.”

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

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I think there is an interesting situation developing regarding the NFL Coach of the Year. Romeo Crennel will get a lot of support even if the Browns don’t make the playoffs; that team exceeded expectations this year. The same can be said for Dick Jauron in Buffalo. Lots of folks will point to the great year for the Packers and suggest that Mike McCarthy is worthy of serious consideration for Coach of the Year and the Cowboys have done very well this year under new coach Wade Phillips. Many folks will make those kinds of cases but here is something that will probably get very little play:

If “Spygate” never happened, Bill Belichick would be the hands down/consensus choice for Coach of the Year.

If Belichick does not win Coach of the Year honors, you can chalk it up to that component of the selection process that is akin to a beauty contest. That subjective portion of the voting process wherein ballots are cast for coaches that are likeable, friendly, and inclusive will dominate the process if Belichick doesn’t win. It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out.

When Michael Vick received his prison sentence, it preceded a national TV appearance for the Falcons. Understandably, some of his teammates wanted to express their support for him as a person – and presumably not for what he did to get himself sent to jail – and so they set out on a course to show that support. In doing so, they violated the NFL’s “uniform rules”. On the few occasions when the team had any reason to celebrate and they were few indeed as the Falcons got shellacked on national TV, they flashed shirts worn under their uniforms saying things like “Free Mike Vick”.

The key point here is that these players knew in advance what they were doing was against the NFL’s rules/policies and that violations of said rules/policies brings a fine. Sure enough, the league imposed a fine. Now if the story ended there with the players forking over the $5K or $10K to pay the fine and telling everyone how it was worth it to show their support with their teammate who is now in a less than positive circumstance, there would be not much to say about it. But no. The players have filed a grievance hoping to get out of the fines.

If you want to know why the Falcons are losers, this incident gives you a glimpse into part of the core of their problems. Instead of taking a stand and manning up to accept the consequences of their actions, they are now whining about the fines. Frankly, I don’t care even a bit whether or not their fines are collected; but that kind of whining speaks volumes about why the Falcons have won as few games this year as they have.

There were four games on tap for the final weekend of the season that appeared to be games of keen interest viewed from the perspective of several weeks ago. There was a time when the Jax/Houston game might have been an important one because Jax may have needed the game to make the playoffs and Houston has always played Jax very well. Not a problem. Jax is the #1 wild card team in the AFC no matter what happens this weekend.

It also appeared as if the Cincy/Miami game might be a game of interest because Miami might have been headed for an 0-16 season. The Ravens saw to it that Miami could avoid that ignominy and rendered the game against the Bengals this weekend moot.

For a while, it looked as if the Pats/Giants game would be very interesting because the Pats could be going for 16-0 while the Giants looked as if they might need the game to make the playoffs. Yes, the Pats’ quest for perfection is still operative but the Giants are in the playoffs making the game this weekend only half-interesting.

A similar situation existed with the Redskins/Cowboys game this weekend. For a while, it looked as if the Cowboys would need to win to maintain home field advantage in the playoffs and it has long been the case that the Redskins had to win out the schedule to make the playoffs. Based on the Packers loss last weekend, the Cowboys are now the #1 seed in the NFC despite what happens this weekend. In addition, with Tony Romo and Terrell Owens injured, there isn’t much hope that the Cowboys will take the field with their full compliment of players on offense. True, the Redskins need to win to make the playoffs and this is indeed a rivalry game; but much of the luster came off this game last week.

The only reason to watch the Chargers/Raiders game this weekend would be if the league raised the stakes on the game. Oakland has been awful this year and they were pantsed by the Jags last weekend. The JaMarcus Russell sighting was ugly indeed. Completing 7 of 23 passes is bad; throwing 3 INTs into that mix makes it horrid. Here’s how the league could make the game interesting:

If the Raiders lose by more than 10 points, they will be forfeit their right to watch the NFL playoffs or Super Bowl on TV even in the comfort of their own homes.

Meaningless bowl games continue this week. The Texas Bowl pits Houston against TCU. Well… at least both teams are from Texas. However, there is no way that these are the two best teams in Texas. Oh, and it can’t be billed that the loser will be the worst team in the state because SMU and North Texas are still there…

Finally, some words of wisdom from P. J. O’Rourke:

“Golf combines two favorite American pastimes: taking long walks and hitting things with sticks.”

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

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When the Tim Donaghy story broke, there was a clamor in all of the sports media about how this could be devastating to the NBA. And I am not convinced that we have heard the last of that saga or the fallout from it. At the moment however, there is another “situation” ongoing in the sports world that is very similar; and yet, is has gotten only minimal play as a “top story of the day”. The Big Ten has an officiating crew – and specifically one of its referees – under scrutiny for some “controversial calls” in two games earlier this year and allegations that there may be “gambling ties” to the referee on that same crew. The referee in question filed for bankruptcy in 2002 and two of the creditors listed in that bankruptcy filing were gambling casinos according to a story on Yahoo Sports.

I do not want to get into the “gambling is evil” debate because it may or may not be. There cannot be a whole lot of debate on the assertion that gambling is inevitable and widespread in human society. But there is a question that has to be asked here and seems not to be front and center in the few stories on this subject that are making their way into the mainstream sports media:

Why didn’t the NCAA know about this years ago and why did it take some “unusual betting patterns” on a couple of Big Ten games this year involving this crew to bring focus to the situation?

Once again, the super sleuths who pretend to assure that NCAA sports are completely on the up-and-up seem to have been asleep at the switch.

Interestingly, one of the “games in question” is the Illinois/Ohio State game, which produced the only loss of the year for Ohio State. That was on 10 November. This particular officiating crew had been involved in the Penn State/Purdue game on 3 November and had drawn sufficient criticism for the Penn State/Purdue game that the crew was suspended for a week by the Big Ten - - but not until after the Illinois/Ohio State game. Jim Delany is the Big Ten Commissioner; he has had no comment on all of this. Dr. Myles Brand has also been silent on the matter - - which is to be expected since the only time it seems that he takes his head out of the sand is to jam it up his backside…

As the college bowl games continue, their glorification of mediocrity can best be seen in the confrontation between Colorado (6-6) and Alabama (6-6). The game is the PetroSun Independence Bowl; it used to be the Poulan Weedeater Independence Bowl. Given the records of these two teams, I’d say they are pretty much like “weeds” and the game needs a giant Poulan Weedeater to manifest itself and clean house here.

Bowl games do not matter all that much to schools and coaches. If you think I’m exaggerating, UCLA, Southern Mississippi and Georgia Tech all fired their coaches - - and those teams will be playing in bowl games. Meanwhile the coaches for Navy, Michigan, Arkansas and West Virginia all chose to leave their teams prior to those teams playing in a bowl game. Does that tell you how important those myriad bowl games actually are?

There is a chance history will be made in the NBA this season. In their first 24 games this year, the Minnesota Timberwolves were 3-21. If you project that to an 82-game schedule, that would give the Timberpuppies 10 wins. The record for NBA futility is the Philadelphia 76ers who once went 9-73. Keep track of the Timberpuppies; they could go even deeper in the tank and forge a place for themselves in history.

The Minnesota team got lots worse when it traded Kevin Garnett away to the Celtics who had an almost mirror image record of 20-3 over the weekend. So, maybe Kevin McHale should be a candidate for “NBA Front Office Exec of the Year” for his contribution to the ascension of the Celtics to elite status?

I try my best to keep politics out of these rants but when it creeps into them, I really cannot hide my disdain for the people on the extremes of both of our major political parties and for the agglomeration of these extremists that calls itself the Congress of the United States. Without taking sides on any of these issues, there is important business to be done by the Congress on inter alia immigration reform, changing the Alternative Minimum Tax, dealing with the international issues of war, environment and genocide. Nevertheless, the Congress has not been able to find the time to stop bickering long enough to get any of that done. However, according to the Denver Post, the Congress did find time to pass a resolution congratulating the Colorado Rockies for winning the NLCS and advancing to the World Series. Does that make me feel better about the Congress? No, it does not!

With Bill Parcells now going to Miami, it is interesting to consider the comments by many football analysts about how he “did not leave the cupboard bare” in Dallas. The Cowboys had plenty of talent on the team and it is showing itself on the field this year. That was definitely not the situation in Miami when Nick Saban left. I am a bit surprised that so few people in the media have pointed to what a flawed team Saban left behind and then how the Dolphins’ front office took that depleted roster and made it a lot worse with their drafting and their trading/free agency strategies. Bill Parcells has his work cut out for him to turn the Miasma Dolphins around…

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

Rusty and LeAnn Real of Mississippi named their newborn son ESPN (pronounced ES-pen). Rusty was quoted, ‘’We’re the talk of the hospital!'’ Yes, Rusty. But most of that talk began with, “Can you believe those morons who . . .'’

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

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I have to start today with three baseball notes. The first has to do with the tiff that seems to have evolved between A-Rod and Scott Boras. Wow! Coming on the heels of the news that Pamela Anderson and her “hubby-of-the-moment” are also splitsville after only three months of marital bliss, is there anything left for me to believe in? Can’t everyone just get along?

The second item relates to the Washington Nats. A couple of weeks ago, they traded for Elijah Dukes and I pointed out here that Dukes had some troubling character issues in his past regarding domestic violence and anger management. As they say, the past is prologue… Dukes now has a restraining order against him from a new girlfriend who claims domestic violence by Dukes.

Memo to Washington Nats: This is NOT what is meant by “Designated Hitter”.

The third item worthy of mention is that the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association is reconsidering its invitation to Roger Clemens to address its annual convention. The issue causing that reconsideration is the content of the Mitchell Report linking Clemens to steroid use/abuse. Reportedly, the arrangements to have Clemens there as a speaker were made more than six months ago and he was supposed to speak on what he did on a daily basis to maintain his condition and his top-shelf abilities. Hence the “reconsideration” on the part of these folks who also have to pretend to be educators and leaders of tomorrow’s citizenry…

UCLA is seeking a new football coach. The LA Times says that they are interviewing Rick Neuheisel for the job. That can only mean that UCLA was unsuccessful in resurrecting Amos Alonzo Stagg to take the job because among actual living and breathing football-coaching candidates, you’d think Neuheisel would be the 350,627,449th option for a major Division 1-A school. As I recall, Colorado suffered NCAA sanctions for a number of violations of rules just as Neuheisel left town there - - and I think the number of violations was north of fifty…

In NFL happenings, I wonder if there is a Terrell Owens meltdown coming in the next few weeks. If you’ve seen Cowboys games in the past two weeks, you’ve seen TO sulking alone on the bench and you’ve seen him animated and berating folks on the sidelines. If you’ve watched the NFL for a few years, you’ll see a similarity between these recent TV images and those you saw before in Owens’ incarnations in SF and Philly. Owens’ latest target is Tony Romo’s girlfriend, Jessica Simpson. Here are two comments by T.O. guaranteed to make the Cowboys’ locker room a friendlier environment:

“She was hot on my list until last week. I’ve got a message for her when we make the playoffs. Just stay tuned.”

“Right now, Jessica Simpson is not a fan favorite in this locker room or in Texas Stadium. With everything that has happened and the way Tony played and the comparison between her and Carrie Underwood, I think a lot of people feel like she has taken his focus away.”

Oh yeah, this has the potential to become more than interesting. I wonder if T.O. can find a way to paint Tony Romo as a homosexual while Romo is reportedly dating Simpson. That could be way more than interesting…

The Redskins/Vikings game this weekend may be the best game on the slate. If Washington wins, they put themselves squarely in the wild card picture and they set up their final game of the year (at home against the Cowboys) as a really meaningful game. If the Vikings win, they are pretty much in the driver’s seat with regard to the playoffs. Both teams will probably rely on defense and the running game here because the starting QBs – Todd Collins and Tarvaris Jackson – will not present opposing defensive coordinators with sleepless nights or the need to place orders for dozens of cases of Rolaids…

The Chicago Bears are now mathematically eliminated from the playoff picture in the NFC. They were dead ducks a few weeks ago in terms of reality; now it is official. How did this Super Bowl team from ten months ago implode so badly? I’m sure Chicago fans can give you a dozen reasons; let me give you four:

1. Their defense suffered mightily when the Bears cut DT Tank Johnson for “character issues”, allowed two other DTs to go to other teams via free agency, and then suffered injury after injury to folks who tried to be DTs this year.

2. They traded their best offensive player – and reportedly a good clubhouse presence – in Thomas Jones for not much more than a sack of stale cookies.

3. They fired their defensive coordinator and defensive line coaches in the off-season. The new defensive coordinator has never been an NFL coordinator before.

4. Their quarterback play has been awful at best. After an injury to Grossman and demonstrated mediocrity by Griese, the Bears turned to Kyle Orton last week. Elliot Harris of the Chicago Sun-Times summed up the Orton incumbency very well:

“Orton is not the answer — unless the question is: ‘’What is the name of the Bears quarterback who went to the same college as Brian Griese’s father?”

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

“With ex-Falcons QB Michael Vick reaching the one-month mark in prison, penal experts say, this is when monotony starts to set in.

“Or in his case, the dog days of slammer.”

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

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Don’t worry; this is not going to be one of those sappy end-of-year retrospectives. Nevertheless, I have to begin by saying that as 2007 draws to a close there is a disturbing trend emerging in the sports world. So, let me set the stage and then pose a troubling question for you to ponder as you sit back and pretend to be interested in the minor college bowl games on TV this week.

In 2007, we learned of the content of Mitchell Report, which gives more credence to José Canseco’s assertions of rampant steroid use/abuse in baseball.

In 2007, we learned that one of the NBA’s referees had close and continuing ties to gamblers involved in organized crime. Additionally, we learned that about half of the NBA’s referees blew off the clause in their contract that forbids them to enter gambling casinos/establishments.

In 2007, we went through the totality of the Michael Vick debacle/ruination with regard to dogfighting.

There is a common thread to those three situations. All three happened in major sports leagues where the league itself maintains a significant administrative staff to assure that all is right within the leagues. All three leagues have large – and vaunted – security staffs who have two important purposes – albeit not ones spelled out directly in their mission statements because these reasons don’t come out all that well when translated into “management-speak”:

1. Make sure the games are on the up-and-up so the league doesn’t look like pro ‘rassling - - no fixed games, no tilted playing fields. The only people who should be crying out about conspiracy theories are the ones who are also wearing tinfoil hats to prevent their minds from being controlled by the “thought beams” from the Mother Ship hovering out there behind the dark side of the moon.

2. Make sure the league knows in advance of any happenings that could cause a PR nightmare – criminal or otherwise. As Andre Agassi said in his commercials, “Image is everything.”

So, can someone explain to me how these crack security staffs failed to have a hint about the illegal purchases and shipments of steroids/HGH to players in the clubhouses or about Tim Donaghy’s multi-year association with gamblers tied to organized crime and the flaunting of the “no casino rules” by other officials or about how a star QB was a central figure in a dogfighting ring? The commissioners of all those leagues stand up and tell us about the expertise and the acumen of their security people and how they used to work for the FBI and the CIA and the DEA and all that stuff.

So, can anyone tell me how these folks missed all of this”?

Oh, and while you are at it, can someone tell me why these folks are still employed?

The disturbing trend here goes beyond the demonstrated incompetence of these Keystone Kops; they make Inspector Clouseau look like Sherlock Holmes’ mentor. I’m not one of those folks who believe that by changing processes and procedures an organization automatically gets better; I believe that a core level of competence has to exist in the organization first before “process change” and “innovation facilitation” and all that happy-face stuff can make even a marginal difference. Sadly, nothing that has transpired in the NFL, NBA or MLB security world in 2007 gives me the feeling that such a core level of competence actually exists.

Since I’m speaking about people of questionable competence maintaining their positions, here is another point to ponder:

Suppose George Steinbrenner owned the Knicks. How long would Isiah Thomas have kept his job?

Enough negativity - - for the moment. My mom always told me that if I didn’t have something nice to say I should keep quiet. OK, let me try to say something nice here:

Al Gore isn’t as fat as he used to be.

In sports, lots of people spend time pondering the best teams of all time in various sports. Here in Curmudgeon Central, the focus is to look for all time losers and an item in a recent Philadelphia Inquirer gives us an entrant in the “Descent to the Depths”. A racehorse named Dona Chepa has raced its entire career at what used to be called El Commandante racetrack in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Dona Chepa has been to the gate 128 times in her career; Dona Chepa has lost 128 times in her career. There is an old horseracing adage that a good strategy for winning a race is to go to the front and then continue to improve your position. Dona Chepa’s exercise rider says that her style of running is to get behind the pace and then fall back … and back … and back.

In 2004, Dona Chepa started 15 races and earned exactly zero money. Remember, the horse that finishes fifth in a race gets a trivial percentage of the purse so that gives you an idea where Dona Chepa ran in those 15 races. Only twice in her career has she been within 10 lengths of the winning horse. And in one race at 5 ½ furlongs, she once finished more than 35 lengths behind the winner. That’s very difficult to imagine in such a short race – unless she was pulling a hay wagon. Yowza!!

Finally:

In 2004, London’s Metropolitan Police Authority announced that it would refer to black people in police reports as “visible ethnic minorities”.

Then in 2005, the same London Metropolitan Police Authority announced that it would cease to use the phrase “visible ethnic minorities” and replace it with “black and minority ethnic people”.

We haven’t heard anything along this line from the London Metropolitan Police authority in the past two years. Therefore, may I conclude that they are now focusing more on preventing crime and catching criminals than the phraseology of their reports? I would hope so.

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

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Now that we have had a couple of days to let the commentary on the Mitchell Report sink in, I have a few comments to make. I am not going to backtrack and try to convince you that the report was a good one or and important one or even a cathartic one. It is not. There are no surprises and the recommendations are either patently obvious or destined to cause friction between MLB and the Players Association. Let nothing that follows lead anyone to think that I believe the Mitchell Report is worth a whole lot. Nevertheless, some of the howling criticism of the report is over the top and meaningless.

Let me start with the absurd notion that the Mitchell Report contains nothing except information provided by two men who are being pursued by the Feds and the DA of New York for felonies related to this steroid trafficking mess and that without such information there would be nothing in the report. Welcome to Planet Earth, Captain Obvious. Mitchell had no power to compel anyone to talk to him; indeed, most players who were invited to speak to him and his committee members declined. Everyone knew that was the case on the day the study began; the fact that he managed to find a way to get the authorities to direct a couple of “witnesses” his way speaks to his negotiation abilities.

Let us also dismiss the criticism that the information herein comes from people who are charged with serious crimes and they are speaking out only to save their skin. Welcome to Planet Earth, Captain Obvious. Turning one criminal into a witness for the state against other potential criminals is hardly a new circumstance. Why is it that the people who turned on folks like Ken Lay and/or Scooter Libby are immediately credible witnesses whose words cannot possibly have any self-interest in them but McNamee and Radomski are nothing but lowlife weasels? It is common practice to use plea bargains to gather evidence for subsequent prosecutions; while the Mitchell Report is not a prosecutorial tool, there does not appear to be any great social harm done by having witnesses aimed their way by the Feds or by the DA’s office in NY.

Peter Gammons went so far as to describe McNamee and Radomski as “sewer rats”. Excuse me? Even if this whole mess devolved down to a “he said/he said something else” confrontation, why at this stage does he know for sure that one side of the argument deserves to be demonized and characterized as sewer rats while the other side is treated with kid gloves. Suppose a general manager called Gammons a “slimy enabler’ in all of this because he lionized and protected Clemens and Bonds and other big league players all of those years? Do you think that Mr. Gammons would take offense and froth up in righteous indignation? You bet he would.

The way to find out if these guys are “sewer rats” is pretty clear. Roger Clemens needs to sue them for defamation/slander/libel and the like and then he needs to testify in court about what happened. Then there will be a way to determine who the liars are and who the truth-tellers are. I shan’t be holding my breath - - because to date no one has sued José Canseco for naming individuals as users. But this would be the way for us to find out who the real “sewer rats” are.

Another charge is that “everything in the report is hearsay”; there are no positive drug tests there. So what? There are people in jail all over the country based on circumstantial evidence. Of course, it would be nice to have a positive drug test too just as it would be even better to have a video tape of one of the ball players getting injected in his buttocks with the label on the syringe clearly legible. If that is to be the standard of evidence, then no one will be convicted of anything in any of these matters because those tapes more than likely do not exist. Additionally, remember that the report does make reference to personal checks and mailing labels and personal handwritten notes all related to the purchase of steroids and HGH. I know this is an assumption and that assumptions are dangerous, but if a player ordered and paid for steroids/HGH, why should I believe that he never used any of them? Unless he was reselling them to other players of course…

I am not a lawyer; I never went to law school; I do not play a lawyer on TV and I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Having said that, I do not think that everything that has been dismissed as “hearsay” is really “hearsay”. If player Joe Flabeetz asks trainer Sam Glotz to order him some steroids/HGH and then Sam Glotz recounts what Joe Flabeetz asked him to do, that is not hearsay. I do not know what the exact legal term is, but that’s a statement directly related to a criminal act – purchasing of steroids/HGH outside a doctor’s supervision – so it is not hearsay. The cancelled checks and mailing labels are not hearsay. The statement from Sam Glotz that he injected steroids/HGH into the butt of Joe Flabeetz on however-many occasions is not hearsay. All of this does not add up to an airtight case against Joe Flabeetz or any other player in the report, but to dismiss everything there as hearsay is nonsense.

I would also like to point out that the Mitchell Report was delivered to the Commissioner of Baseball not to a Federal Court. The Federal Rules of Evidence are foundation pieces in the administration of justice and those rules will apply when/if anyone faces prosecution for actions discussed in the Mitchell Report. Nevertheless, there was no need to make the evidence used in the report adhere to those standards. Moreover, in the Court of Public Opinion, evidentiary rules are quite different. If you don’t think so, consider the number of endorsements offered to and the money collected for endorsements by one Orenthal James Simpson over the past decade. At one time, he hauled in big-time endorsement money because he was someone the public recognized and liked and trusted. Now the public merely recognizes him - - despite the fact that a criminal court said he was not guilty of a double murder. In the Court of Public Opinion, rules of evidence and the standards for a negative outcome are very different from a Federal criminal case.

For reasons that I do not understand, most of the media has heaped far more abuse on Senator Mitchell and Bud Selig than they have on Don Fehr and the Players Association. At some level of analysis, the Players Association has to get an equal measure of blame. Consider this statement from Scott Ostler in the SF Chronicle:

“The players’ union fights drug testing every step of the way, to protect the players. How’s that working out? Every player is now embarrassed publicly. The sport will lose trillions, and its dignity. The juicers have carted off zillions of dollars, and taken hundreds of jobs, and records and honors, at the expense of the non-juicers. You’re doing a heckuva job, Union!”

With regard to the idea that Roger Clemens is getting better treatment from the media than Barry Bonds did, that is the case at the moment. Is that because of Clemens’ whiteness and Bonds’ blackness? I don’t think so. At the moment, Bonds is charged with perjury – not steroid use/abuse. Roger Clemens – to the best of my knowledge – has never been put under oath to speak about steroid use and therefore cannot possibly have perjured himself on that subject. It’s not nice to stand in front of a camera and lie to the public; it’s against the law to do that under oath with a judge presiding. Former President William Jefferson Clinton found that out in a very personal way, no?

So, hold off on the racial aspect of the Clemens/Bonds treatment issues for a little while and see how all of it shakes down in the future. If Clemens is called to testify in court and lies under oath, then look to see if the prosecutors charge him after a couple of years of scrutiny. If they do not, then look for explanations involving race; if they do, drop the race angle.

With regard to Hall of Fame voting, I’ve heard more than a few people say they will vote for both Bonds and Clemens for the Hall of Fame because they did Hall of Fame caliber “stuff” on the field long before it is alleged that they began to take steroids. I don’t vote for the Hall of Fame and don’t want to presume to tell anyone how to vote for the Hall of Fame. Nevertheless, that logic just doesn’t seem nearly as appealing when you consider that the same standard would usher Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame in a heartbeat. Rose collected 4256 base hits long before there is any hint that he bet on baseball games. If a voter looks to and relies on achievements prior to the onset of ‘improper activities”, then that voter would seem honor-bound to press a serious case to get Pete Rose eligible for the Hall of Fame and inducted at the earliest possible moment.

For the record, if I did have a Hall of Fame vote, I’d put Rose and Bonds and Clemens in the Hall of Fame because of their accomplishments AND I would add in their displays statements and conclusions about their transgressions with regard to how most people see the etiquette, the history and the rules of baseball.

Finally, one more comment from Scott Ostler in the SF Chronicle regarding athletes and steroids:

“From Marion Jones and Bonds, a lesson for you kids out there: If you’re eating Flax-o-Flakes or Choc-o-Flax every morning and you suddenly notice that you’re setting sprint records, winning Olympic gold medals and hitting monstrous home runs, have mom get a lab analysis of that cereal.”

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

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Do you recall the temper tantrum of Ravens’ linebacker, Bart Scott, in the Pats’ game as he threw the official’s flag out of the end zone to get an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and then announced that the referees were biased against the Ravens because the officials – and maybe the league itself – had decided that the Patriots were the golden boys of 2007? Well, I got to watch the Ravens/Dolphins game yesterday because that was the CBS game piped into this particular market; I watched because sometimes it is actually fun to see ineptitude play itself out on the screen. Oh yes, there was plenty of ineptitude on display yesterday; and Bart Scott provided his share of it.

The Dolphins victory in OT was the product of a 64-yard touchdown pass. The vaunted – and, truth be told, highly overrated Ravens’ defense – yielded that pass not to a passer/receiver combination of the likes of Unitas/Moore or Tittle/Shofner or Bradshaw/Stallworth or Montana/Rice or Manning/Harrison but to Cleo Lemon/Greg Camarillo. Therefore, the question for Bart Scott now is simple:

Did the referees – and maybe the league itself – decide that the Dolphins needed to win a game this year and chose the game against you guys because you had dared to mouth off?

Brian Westbrook’s decision to forego a TD and stop running and down the ball at the Dallas 1-yard line to preserve a victory – Dallas was out of timeouts and the Eagles could win the game by taking a knee successively – is a play that demonstrates the mirror image of the defense standing aside to let a team score quickly to get the ball back. And in the copycat NFL, look for similar plays to happen in the future. When that happens, they should call it “Westbrooking the ball”. Fantasy football owners probably went berserk at the play and that makes it all the more wonderful…

Speaking of the Cowboys/Eagles game, I certainly saw enough camera shots of Jessica Simpson to last a lifetime. Who cares about her during a football game – even if she is “dating” Tony Romo? [Notice how polite I am today. I qualified that last statement. In actuality who cares about her at any point of history?] There is a reason we do not see camera shots of every player’s wife/girlfriend/significant other/insignificant other during a game. Those camera shots are I R R E L E V A N T. With regard to the pink Cowboys’ jersey Ms. Simpson wore, I think it is fair to say that anyone wearing a pink jersey or hat that is otherwise an “official” team item is not a longstanding fan of the team.

After listening to the Atlanta Falcons’ players talk about how Bobby Petrino was a quitter and a weasel and someone who made them sick even to talk about, you might think they would have played with some inspiration for their new interim coach. If you thought that, you would be dead wrong. The Falcons players played like quitters who make you sick even to talk about.

Final score: Tampa 37 Atlanta 3.

It wasn’t nearly that close. The Falcons achieved all of 5 first downs for the day, held the ball for only 17 minutes, and amassed a total of 27 yards passing. That is a bed-wetting performance.

If the Falcons wet the bed then the Lions wet themselves. Five interceptions and a lost fumble were the main ingredients in a pathetic loss to the Chargers by the nail-biting score of 51-14.

I have absolutely had it with the BCS apologists who like to say that the presence of the BCS makes every weekend in college football just like a tournament/playoff. That is nothing more than a crock of ovine ordure. Here is what the perpetuation – and the seemingly endless expansion – of the college football bowl system produces:

Half of the Division 1-A teams get to play in bowl games (64 out of 120 this year.

Those teams reach those bowl games based on winning half of their games.

How does that make very weekend seem like a playoff? It seems much more like a system to reward mediocrity.

Where is the Lake Woebegone Bowl - - for those teams that are just slightly above average?

The Bowl season begins this week and one of the early games shows how meaningless these things are. Florida Atlantic and Memphis play each other in the R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl on December 21. If you are having your office Christmas Party - oops I mean Omnibus Holiday Celebration – on that evening, go and enjoy yourself because missing this game will not be any big deal. For this game to be remembered beyond December 23 of this year, something spectacular will have to happen – on the order of the roof collapsing in the middle of the second quarter. Oh, by the way, no I do not know who or what R&L Carriers is/are. Moreover, I don’t have the interest to go to Google to find out…

On December 22, BYU and UCLA play in the Las Vegas Bowl. Why is this a worthless game? Well, these two teams already met this year in one of those weekends that that was just like a playoff/tournament - - and UCLA won that game. So, why is there a rematch? Does this mean that college football’s “playoff weekends” have a repêchage round?

Then on December 23, East Carolina plays Boise State. I’m hard pressed to imagine why that game would be important under any circumstances or in any venue but since these two teams are traveling all the way to Hawaii to play this game, I know that all of the players will be focused only on winning and ready to give their all for the glory of old alma mater. Me? I’ll have another egg nog thanks…

Duke needs a new football coach. In the last 13 seasons, Duke has won a total of 22 football games. On November 29, the school’s human resources website had a posted job opening for the position. The school said that it needed to do so in order to comply with university hiring regulations and practices. A likely story. Maybe they put the job notice there in the hopes of attracting someone the job who might not feel comfortable letting it be known that he actually sought the job.

Finally, here’s Jerry Greene of the Orlando Sentinel on the Duke University’s search for a new football coach:

“Bobby Johnson coaches football at Vanderbilt. But he may get an offer — from Duke. Some guys just can’t catch a break.”

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

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On more than a few occasions, I have quoted items from Dwight Perry’s column, Sideline Chatter, which appears just about every weekday in the Seattle Times. That column is described on the paper’s website in the following way:

“Times night-desk editor Dwight Perry uses Sideline Chatter as a not-so-safe haven for the humorous, offbeat and bizarre events and characters that color the sports landscape.”

That is a very accurate description - - although it does omit the fact that the column also contains lots of plays on words and puns that will make you groan aloud. Why mention this today?

I had the opportunity to meet Dwight Perry and chat with him for about an hour last summer on a visit to Seattle. He told me then that December 14 would be the 2000th installment of Sideline Chatter since he took over the column on December 9, 1999. Do the math folks; that comes out to 250 columns a year; that amounts to five columns a week for fifty weeks of the year.

Anyone can do regluar “cut and paste” items with only a bit of diligence and a whole lot of patience. However, it is anything but easy to turn out original stuff with that frequency and with any degree of quality.

I want to suggest to everyone to put a bookmark in your browser so that you can read Sideline Chatter regularly. You can go to the Seattle Times sports page and find the link to that day’s version of the column along with other columnists.

If you prefer just to get to the “Sideline Chatter archives”, you can find the last week or so of them listed here.

As I said above, doing “cut and paste” is not particularly difficult; and so, allow me to pad this offering by providing a few samples from previous Sideline Chatter columns to demonstrate what I mean about interesting and original work…

“Actor Sean Connery, who sued Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, Calif., over endorsement proceeds, has settled for an undisclosed sum, E! News reported.
“Or to put it in golf terms, he hit the green with a 007-iron.”

“Good news for you Big East also-rans: Conference presidents have voted to include all 16 conference members, instead of the usual 12, in their postseason basketball tournament, starting in 2009.
“The change, they said, is in keeping with their No Manchild Left Behind policy.”

“Chiefs Hall of Fame linebacker Bobby Bell, 67, won Kansas City’s version of “Dancing with the Stars,” the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.
“Thus inventing artificial-hip hop.”

“The legend that Notre Dame football star George Gipp’s girlfriend bore his child just after his death in 1920 has been debunked by DNA tests that ruled him out as the father, a family member told an Alabama author.
“Or as one giddy abstinence proponent put it: ‘Win One For The Zipper!’ “

“Thirty years ago — Nov. 13, 1977 — marked the final appearance of the comic strip ‘Li’l Abner.’
“On the bright side, though, we still have Terry Bradshaw.”

“The Dallas Stars boast the NHL’s best record in overtime shootouts - 22-6 - since the league implemented the post-OT tiebreaker during the 2005-06 season.
“In fact, historians say, they haven’t seen such a spiffy showing in shootouts since Bonnie and Clyde went 28-1.”

“In auto-racing news, Playboy magazine will be the title sponsor for the Sports Car Club of America’s 2008 Pro Racing Mazda MX-5 Cup.
“And no, the roadsters won’t be required to race with their tops down.”

In order to prove that some of the puns are outrageous enough that you might want to threaten Messr. Perry with revocation of his freedom of expression, here is a real groaner:

“Veteran coach Billy Joe, with more victories than any other football coach at a historically black college other than Eddie Robinson, will be named coach at Miles College, the Birmingham (Ala.) News reported.
“No word on salary terms — or as he prefers to call it, owed to Billy Joe.”

Here’s looking forward to December 2011 and the 3000th version of Sideline Chatter…

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