The Sports Curmudgeon®

Let me reset the premise for all of these “NFL Improvement” rants. The NFL is a well run league and it certainly has captured the attention of the US sports fans to a degree unmatched by any other attraction. Nonetheless, it can be made better and I keep trying to come up with suggestions to that end.

The last time I did one of these, I got a note from Dwight Perry at the Seattle Times. Here was his comment:

“How about promoting a receiver rating similar to passer rating to evaluate receivers? It seems as though there’s too much emphasis placed on number of receptions and not enough to yards or TD catches. That would be the same thing as giving the rushing title to the back with the most carries.”

Messr. Perry is absolutely right. The guy who “leads the league in pass receiving” at the end of the year is the guy who caught the most passes. And that is not always the best receiver in the league. So, there needs to be a way to incorporate the number of catches by a receiver into some kind of metric that takes into account factors such as these:

TDs scored
TDs scored that created a lead change.
Game winning TDs
First downs made
First downs made in situations of third-and-ten or longer
Yards gained (gross)
Yards gained on the pass (Gross yards gained minus YAC)

I will leave it to the same folks who gave us the QB Rating system to figure out the math and the weighting system here. Moreover, it must be understood that no one should ever use this proposed “receiver rating system” to compare receivers across decades of football. There were great receivers in the 1940s and 1950s but their “numbers” will be minuscule because of the different way the game was played back then.

Just before the Super Bowl was played, I read something that made me wonder if Commissioner Roger Goodell had hacked into my computer. He recognized a problem that was on my “clipboard” that I intended to include the next time I put together an “improvements rant”. And he just went and talked about it. Here it is:

The NFL needs to find ways to incentivize teams that have already made the playoffs to continue to play hard and serious football in those final “meaningless games”.

The reason they are meaningless is that the playoff format is set in stone such that teams can lock in their position in the playoffs a couple of weeks before regular season games are done. Somehow, the seeding of the teams needs to incorporate the team record after the team has guaranteed that they will be in the playoffs in some position and the other competitive factors such as overall record and head-to-head records for two teams that have played each other and both will make the playoffs. Late season games where teams are “resting their starters” bear a terrible resemblance to that final exhibition game in late August/early September…

Since I am talking about the playoff structure in the NFL, I really do think that it is time for the league to expand the playoffs such that those first week byes are eliminated. The battle cry here is to make the byes go bye-bye. Now the problem here is that in a weaker conference there could be teams with 7-9 records making the playoffs and that is not a good thing. Therefore, here is my suggestion. No team can make the playoffs with less than 8 wins in the season. If that means that an AFC team has to be added to the NFC playoff bracket because there are not enough NFC teams with eight wins, then so be it…

The other way to eliminate the byes is to cut the playoffs down to four teams per conference and then to grant division winners access to the playoffs only if they win 9 games in the regular season. If a division winner does not qualify with 9 wins, the best wild card team would make the playoffs that year. I recognize that this means there will be four fewer playoff games for the NFL and that will reduce revenues and so this will never ever happen. But the quality of the football played would be increased…

I would definitely eliminate the “dark week” between the Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl. The hype for the Super Bowl can easily be fit into a single week; the teams spend the vast majority of their season playing every weekend; there really is no need for or purpose served by continuing to schedule the “dark week”.

There is an asymmetry in the game that need not continue there. If a defender commits pass interference 25 yards downfield, the ball is marked at the spot of the foul. If the offensive pass receiver pushes off – they do that you know on at least half of the pass routes they run – the penalty is only 10 yards. My suggestion is to make defensive pass interference a ten-yard penalty with an automatic first down and offensive pass interference a ten-yard penalty with the loss of a down. That makes the two transgressions much more similar in their cost to the offending team.

If you have followed these rants for any period of time, you know that I am opposed to All-Star Games in all pro sports. And the Pro Bowl is one of the prime offenders on that front; the game is a meaningless waste of time as far as I am concerned. However, I recognize that my top-shelf idea - - to cancel the game permanently - - is not going to happen so here are two ideas to make it less unappetizing as a football product:

1. Do not announce the Pro Bowl teams in December before the final two or three games have been played. There is no need to do that; it just is not all that hard for the players to find seats on airplanes to get to Hawaii for the game; they do not need eight weeks notice to get a flight and a hotel room. By waiting until after the last game of the season, there is a better chance that the Pro Bowl selections will recognize the players who had the best season overall and not the ones who had a real good start and then tapered off as the season ended. This year, the team was announced with two regular season games left to play.

2. Once the players have been selected - - and some have collected the bonuses in that are in their contracts for earning this honor - - the league needs to require them to attend and to play except for really significant impairments. Obviously, a player who needs surgery and has it done in January will not be ready for an early February game; he can be dismissed on a case-by-case review. Obviously, Sean Taylor was not going to play in this year’s game even though the fans selected him; the league will have to exercise some wisdom and judgment here. How can they enforce this? Well, new player contracts can revise the standard Pro Bowl bonus clauses to tie the payment to game participation. In addition, the league can get the players to commit to playing in the game if they are selected with some kind of consent form that the players sign. If they do not sign, then they are not on the ballot for selection in the first place.

As with all of my other great ideas for improving the NFL product, these too are very likely to die on the vine. I have no intention to go all theological on you today, but I am truly a voice crying in the wilderness here. These ideas are not going to happen any time soon. You’d have to be really naïve to think the NFL is going to convene its movers and shakers to take up these concepts and suggestions in the next couple of months - - naïve enough to leave the light on in case Jimmy Hoffa comes home tonight.

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

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So did you spend much of yesterday in front of a TV set with C-SPAN on the screen? I checked out some of the hearings; I could not bring myself to watch all of it. The most outrageous part of it came when Rep. Burton went off on a riff about the media turning this whole matter into a circus atmosphere. Excuse me; but Rep. Burton was using that whole “circus atmosphere” to get his mug on the TV screen and in front of one of the largest TV audiences for a Congressional Committee hearing ever.

There are two things about this whole matter that simply do not make sense to me and I am now convinced that Roger Clemens and his lawyer are neither willing nor able to explain these things such that they might make sense. Consider:

1. Why would Andy Pettite tell the truth about his own HGH use – something that will not enhance his image or his career – and lie about what he knows about Roger Clemens’ alleged usage? Seems to me as if Pettite has a motive to lie about his own usage more than he does to lie about Clemens’ alleged usage.

2. Why would Brian McNamee give HGH to some of his clients (Pettite, Knoblauch) but withhold it from his top-shelf client?

After what I saw yesterday, I seriously doubt that Roger Clemens will be reporting to Spring Training anytime next week. And that is a good thing because it will free up for him all those weekends of quality time with his kids that were so important to him when he negotiated his last several contracts.

In contrast to the obfuscation and the careful wording of answers at the Congressional hearing yesterday, consider the remarks of Hernan Dario Gomez. He is a soccer coach with a sound résumé; he coached the national teams of both Colombia and Ecuador into the World Cup tournament in the past ten years. Until recently, he was the coach of the Guatemalan national team. Gomez resigned after his team lost to Argentina taking his record with the Guatemalan team to 5-11-4. He did not go quietly into the night; he is probably the leader in the clubhouse for the 2008 “Howard Cosell Tell It Like It Is Award”:

“It [the team’s losing record] would be a failure if I had been coaching Argentina. It would be a failure if I had been coaching Italy. But, with all respect, it is not a failure because Guatemala has never won anything.”

People refer to the dog days of August. In the sporting world, they should refer to the dog days of February because that is when people feign interest in both the Westminster Dog Show and the Iditarod.

Darren Rovell reports in Sportsbiz on the top twenty selling NFL jerseys in the period 1 April 2007 through 8 February 2008. The top four – in order – are Tony Romo, Tom Brady, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning. There is no real surprise that these are the top sellers; I probably would not have guessed that Romo was in the #1 slot but I cannot call this information a “revelation”. However, here are two interesting things from the list:

Reggie Bush was at #13. Last year, his jersey was the #2 seller; that is a big drop. Then again, Bush did not do all that well on the field this year.

Brady Quinn was at #17. Wow! Imagine how many jerseys he could sell if he actually – you know – played in NFL games. Was he on the field for more than 30 minutes all season long? I’d be surprised.

While on the general subject of sporting economics, there was a story in Sports Business Daily recently about cable TV. ESPN is the third most popular cable TV channel with an average of just under 2 million viewers in prime time. ESPN2 had another 657,000 pairs of eyeballs on the screen on a typical evening in prime time. That is good news for the ESPN folks - - except that the viewership was down almost 11% from a year ago. Nevertheless, the ESPN family dominates the “sports channels” in terms of eyeballs on the screen.

For example, Versus – where NHL games go to die – averaged only 225,000 viewers in prime time; it was the 47th most popular cable channel. The NFL Network – which has been unsuccessful in jamming its product down the throats of cable TV operators – averages 196,000 viewers in prime time and finishes 50th in terms of popularity. In addition, The Golf Channel checks in at 59th on the list with only 137,000 folks tuned in on average during prime time.

That data show why a sport should try to get its product on ESPN. It is not just the hype that ESPN will provide to the product but it is the number of folks out there watching ESPN so that they can be revved up by the hype.

In case you were wondering, USA Network finished first on the list and TNT finished second ahead of ESPN…

Jerry Greene had this tidbit in a column in the Orlando Sentinel. I do not know if this is a sign of the apocalypse but I am certain that this does not portend an imminent leap forward for Western Civilization:

“Mastiff, a small video game company, has hooked up with the pro competitive eaters for ‘Major League Eating: The Game.’ ‘Major League Eaters aren’t just elite athletes,’ said Mastiff Chief Executive Officer Bill Swartz. ‘They are people who built America — or at least the competitive eating part of America.’ “

Finally, here is a comment from Jay Leno that has a small intersection between sports and Valentine’s Day:

‘’Eleven percent of all businessmen prefer golf to having sex. The other 89 percent said they prefer to have sex with a woman whose husband was out playing golf.'’

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

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According to a report in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Latrell Spreewell may be facing foreclosure on his house. You may recall that his yacht was auctioned off a while back because he didn’t make the payments on it or maintain proper insurance on the vessel. Now the story is that the bank holding the mortgage on his house has filed to foreclose on that mortgage for non-payment from September 2007 through January 2008. The bank claims he owes more than $200K in non-payments and late fees and interest; the report says that the house is valued at just over $400K.

You also may recall that a few years ago, Spreewell was highly insulted by a contract offer of $21M for three years to continue his career. The thought of his making only $7M a year was so insulting because he said he could not feed his family on that amount. He never got a higher offer and never played again. I think that extra $21M in his account would be a nice thing for him to have right about now, no?

I do not have the energy or the interest to try to find out the total amount of money that Spreewell earned in his NBA career but it has to be more than $50M; it could even be as high as $100M. Even with income at the low end of that range, several questions come to mind:

1. What is he doing living in a house that is only worth “just over $400K”?

2. Even accounting for taxes consuming half of his income over his career, how can he be “out of money” already?

3. Is PJ Carlissimo just a wee-bit tempted to buy the property at foreclosure from the bank so that he can be the one to evict Spreewell?

The NBA season is just more than half over. The imbalance between the two conferences is so stark that you have to wonder if David Stern is tempted to change the league playoff rules in mid-season. Consider the Western Conference:

Nine teams have winning percentages greater than .600.

Eight teams make the playoffs so one of these teams would be sitting at home and watching.

Only five teams in the conference are under .500.

Compare that situation to the Eastern Conference:

Three teams have winning percentages greater than .600.

Two other teams have winning percentages greater than .500.

Eight teams make the playoffs so three teams currently below .500 are going to be in the playoffs.

At this moment, the three “sub-.500 teams” would be Washington, New Jersey and Philly.

No offense to the Sixers’ organization but let me tell you why they should not be in the playoffs. Unless you live in Philly or are so close to coach Maurice Cheeks that you are mentioned in his will, you probably cannot name three players on the team. The reason for that is there are not three players on the team who are sufficiently memorable for you to waste synaptic energy to remember them.

The NBA really should not allow this kind of situation to obtain through the playoffs. As of now, Golden State and Houston are tied for the final playoff slot in the West with records of 31-20. The Sixers would be the eighth team in the Eastern Conference playoffs if the season ended now with a record of 22-30. The NBA has a large stake as a league and as a business entity to put on entertaining and competitive basketball in the playoffs; so, how does it make sense to have a set-up wherein a team that is 31-20 sits at home while a team at 22-30 competes in the playoffs?

Memo to David Stern: You are the smartest guy in the room. Find a way to fix this - - soon.

The Baltimore Orioles have traded away quality players in this off-season - - and the Orioles just didn’t have all that many quality players to start with. Miguel Tejada, Eric Bedard, Brian Roberts and Nick Markakis were the top shelf players on that team and at least half of them are not going to be with the O’s for 2008. This is more than a rebuilding phase for the team; this is a full-fledged retreat of scorched earth proportions hoping to be able to regroup and fight again a few years down the road. Meanwhile, the team had to deal with another roster situation.

Daniel Cabrera made a bit less than $2M last year. For that salary, his record was 9-18 and his ERA was 5.55. Just to be clear on this, that is a bad season. Cabrera was eligible for salary arbitration and he asked for $3.3M, which is about a 65% raise. How he and his agent avoided charges of grand larceny for tabling that offer is not completely clear to me, but they did. The Orioles compounded the problem by settling on a contract with Cabrera before the arbitration hearing; they will pay him $2.875M for next season; that represents a 45% raise for bad performance last year.

I think you have to conclude that Giants’ defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnuolo, demonstrated his football acumen and his insight last week. After the Super Bowl win over the Pats, Danny Boy Snyder and Vinnie Cerrato interviewed Spagnuolo extensively for the Redskins’ head coaching job. What happened next was that he left Washington and immediately resigned with the Giants as their defensive coordinator with a hefty increase in salary. That shows his football instincts are good ones and it shows why he just may be a really good head coach in the NFL one of these days - - in a situation where he works with a front office that can find its way out of a telephone booth without having to resort to a map.

Finally, an observation from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald regarding the recent Super Bowl:

“The official slogan for this Super Bowl is ‘Who wants it more?’ Evidently all of the good, creative slogans already were taken. (Although I like ‘Who wants it more?’ better than Phoenix’s city motto, which is, `Every mile, another Jack in the Box!’)

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

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Last weekend was the New Year on the Chinese calendar; and in their zodiacal system, this will be the Year of the Rat. Somehow, I think that many of the folks I talk about here will fit nicely into something called the Year of the Rat. Moreover, if lots of those folks exhibit behaviors controlled by the forces of the Chinese zodiacal system, I will have more than plenty of material to write about…

Before anyone asks, I have no idea why the Phoenix Suns traded anyone or anything to acquire Shaquille O’Neal. His game – when he is healthy, in shape and three years younger than he is now – is not a game based on speed and stamina and agility. Unless I’ve seen the wrong Phoenix NBA team on TV, that is exactly the kind of game they play. Therefore, I have no idea how Shaq is supposed to fit into their game plan(s). I will say that the folks who run the Phoenix franchise are successful and shrewd basketball people and so I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the moment about the value they received in this exchange. But it is certainly anything but obvious to me…

How would you like to be Shawn Marion at the moment? Last week, he was part of a Phoenix team virtually certain to be in the NBA playoffs and on a team that might have contended for the Conference Championship. This week, he is in Miami on a team that will make the playoffs only with Divine intervention – and even with supernatural guidance, that team would be “one-and-done” in a playoff situation.

Spurs’ coach Greg Popovich was sufficiently unhappy about the trade that sent Pau Gasol to the Lakers for something less than a “Happy Meal with a super-sized drink” that he suggested that the league have a committee to review trades that make no sense. Obviously, “Pop” has an axe to grind here and we need to put that on the table for all to see. However, even giving due consideration to that axe, this is a bad suggestion because his idea is an attempt to prevent a team from doing something stupid. That never works. Here are five guiding principles with regard to stupidity:

1. There is no cure for stupid.

2. You cannot save someone from himself.

3. If ignorance is bliss, why are there so many unhappy people?

4. It is a shame that stupidity is not painful.

5. There is plenty of ”youth” in the world; someone needs to find the Fountain of Smart.

Focusing on baseball and the upcoming Congressional hearings on steroids and who may have used them and who may not have used them, please note that Spring Training is just about to begin and you are not hearing lots of stories about teams vying for the opportunities to sign Barry Bonds and/or Roger Clemens. Looking at all of this from the perspective of those two players there is good news and bad news associated with the lack of contract offers so far:

Good News: The clock starts ticking down to the time when they will be eligible to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Bad News: Steroid investigations may keep them out of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Just as I have no idea why the Phoenix Suns traded for Shaq, I have no idea how or why the Washington Redskins signed Jim Zorn as their new head coach. At least Danny Boy Snyder and Vinnie “Boombatz” Cerrato didn’t try to spin this hiring to lead one to believe this was the guy they had in mind all along. Zorn clearly was not that guy. Jim Zorn may be a great NFL head football coach; it’s just that there is nothing in his background that would indicate that he is or will be one because he’s never even been an offensive coordinator anywhere. So, the jury is out…

What the Redskins’ “hiring process” did achieve was to keep Danny Boy Snyder in the news for all of the time between early January when Joe Gibbs cashed in his chips and last weekend when Zorn signed on. Face facts, there is exactly no other way he could have done that without getting caught doing something illegal to or with a household pet at one of his Six Flags Amusement Parks. So, in that sense, he is absolutely correct when he says that “the process worked”; it made him a person who commanded the public’s attention for about a month…

Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa) – sometimes lovingly known as “Snarlin’ Arlen” – says that he wants the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold hearings to find out why the NFL Commissioner destroyed the tapes that were related to Spygate. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not something that relates even remotely to the Senate Judiciary Committee responsibilities; Roger Goodell is not a Federal judge nor is he about to be nominated to the Federal bench nor would he take a job on the Federal bench in lieu of his current job with the NFL. And to put some perspective on the entirety of “Spygate”, this is not anything at all of comparable importance to the 17-minute gap in the Watergate tapes that occurred “accidentally”…

Finally, here is a commentary from Brad Rock in the Deseret Morning News:

“Rumors circulated last week that New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush was engaged to TV tabloid staple Kim Kardashian.

“The daughter of former O.J. Simpson attorney Robert Kardashian told OK! magazine that 2007 taught her much. ‘One thing I did learn from ‘07 was to try to keep it as private as possible,’ she said.

“Good point. Who knew making a sex video, posing for Playboy and showing up on a reality show could make things so … public?”

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

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I shall be off the air for the next few days. My long-suffering wife and I will be traveling on a long weekend sojourn. I should be back with something to say next Tuesday.

In the meantime, watch the Pro Bowl this weekend only if you are physically immobilized in front of the TV and you cannot reach the remote. Calling the Pro Bowl an example of “sports” demeans every legitimate sporting competition this side of pro ‘rassling.

Stay well.

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In the past couple of weeks, I have received several comments about my advancing age as it relates to my having witnessed events that are now taught in history courses and about my austere nature that categorizes me as “old school”. I am not a fatalistic person by nature but there have been enough comments aimed at me with the word “old” in them or associated with them that I started thinking about my perspective on the world – and more generally on the world of sports. And so, I started wondering:

Am I the only one who recalls a time when there were only eight teams in the National League and only eight teams in the American League and only one team from each league played after the season was over by going directly to the World Series? Simultaneous with that taxonomy in baseball, the NHL had six teams; the NFL had twelve teams; the AFL did not yet exist and Monday Night Football was still decades away from popping into the mind of any TV exec.

Am I the only one who recalls a time when baseball teams would “take a swing to the west” and play in St. Louis because that was as far west as major league baseball existed? Moreover, there were two teams in St. Louis then…

Am I the only one who recalls a time when the A’s played baseball in Philadelphia before they moved to Kansas City before they moved to Oakland? In addition, in those times there used to be these things called “doubleheaders” that were put on the schedule intentionally before the season started and you could go to the park for a single admission and see two games. Is this making any sense to anyone out there now?

Am I the only one who recalls a time when Harry Caray called the games for the St. Louis Cardinals and Vin Scully called the games for the Brooklyn Dodgers? It’s true; they did that.

Am I the only one who recalls a time when stadium security was sufficiently lax that Morganna the Kissing Bandit made it onto the field more than occasionally to plant a wet one on a player or coach or manager? For the young’uns out there, Morganna was a woman who would put Dolly Parton or Pamela Anderson to shame. Let us just say that the Good Lord smiled on this specimen of womanhood.

Am I the only one who recalls a time when Julio Franco was not playing baseball?

Am I the only one who recalls a time when starting pitchers actually finished the games they started more than once or twice a year? Oh and the relief pitchers of those days often pitched more than a single inning during their appearances. It was unusual for a pitcher to come into the game to face only a single batter - - unless he arrived with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Am I the only one who recalls a time when a pitcher with an ERA of 3.95 was considered mediocre? Today, a pitcher with that ERA who throws 205 innings and wins 12 games will get a fat free agent contract. Call it the rewarding of mediocrity…

Am I the only one who recalls the time when the American Football League started up with Joe Foss as the AFL Commissioner? The Oakland Raiders actually joined the league after the first draft for the AFL was held and so the Raiders were stocked by a dispersal draft from the other existing teams who had already drafted about 50 players. By the way, it was the American Football League that came up with the idea of putting players’ names on the backs of the uniforms not just the numbers.

Am I the only one who recalls a time when the Super Bowl was not sold out? That was the case for Super Bowl I; that game was also carried by both NBC and CBS because those two networks had the contracts to carry the games for the two separate football leagues. I believe that game took about three hours to play because there weren’t six jillion ads and a halftime show that was longer than the Mesozoic Era and only half as interesting.

Am I the only one who recalls a time when the fans attending Super Bowl games where actually fans interested in seeing the game and not a bunch of rich/well-connected suit dummies who are only there for the festivities and for the chance to be seen attending the game?

Am I the only one who recalls a time when you could watch a telecast of a sporting event without seeing some “rhymes with glass bowl” waving to the camera while talking to someone on his cell phone to be sure he’s on camera? All of those people should be caned; a hundred lashes ought to do the trick.

Am I the only one who recalls a time when you could watch a telecast of a sporting event without seeing even one shot of the owner’s box and/or a player’s wife/girlfriend/significant other/insignificant other/whatever? I think all of this started with shots of “Mom and Dad” in the stands and has now gotten completely out of hand.

Am I the only one who recalls a time when the Collegiate Football All-Stars played the NFL champs in the first exhibition game of the next season? Oh, and in those times, there were six exhibition games prior to a 12 game season. What was up with that?

Am I the only one who recalls when Penn State actually promoted one of their assistant football coaches to the head coaching job? Some guy named Paterno…

Am I the only one who recalls a time when the Collegiate Basketball All-Stars played the Harlem Globetrotters on a short barnstorming tour each year? They really did that.

Am I the only one who recalls a time when the ABA used red-white-and-blue basketballs?

Am I the only one who recalls a time when the NY Knicks were both a good basketball team and a classy organization?

Am I the only one who recalls a time when you actually looked forward to seeing the Olympics on television?

Am I the only one who recalls a time when poker was a game you played with friends and family and was not a “sporting event” that took up hundreds of hours of television network time?

I guess I am both old school and old. Nevertheless, there are limits on the things I have witnessed in my tenure here on Planet Earth. I surely do not recall the time when - - and perhaps no one does - - the Cubs last won the World Series.

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

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On July 4 2001, I wrote that Bob Knight should retire. That rant “got lost” when the website converted to the current format, but I had saved the original document and have reposted it for reference. In the past 48 hours, Bob Knight did in fact retire after a time at Texas Tech where he turned a moribund basketball program into one that won 20 games in five consecutive seasons. That had never happened there before; it is not a mortal lock that it will ever happen again.

In 2001, I thought Bob Knight should retire because he was out of step with the sensitive and politically correct nature of the times and that he would be a constant target of those people who bought into those sentiments. He was indeed out of step; he is still out of step; he was the target of many people’s scorn; he will now be a much less available target for same.

In forty years of coaching college basketball, Bob Knight only held three jobs – Army, Indiana and Texas Tech. In forty years of coaching college basketball, the NCAA never had to put any of those programs on probation or suspension or anything of the sort. In forty years of coaching college basketball, Bob Knight’s teams averaged 22.5 wins per season. One reason Bob Knight had 40 years in his profession is that he began is Division 1 coaching career at age 24; no other person has done that. He retires with a record 902 wins to his credit.

If you read anyone in the next few days who demeans those accomplishments on the basis that Bob Knight was also a hard-ass who was difficult to get along with, then that person has his/her own agenda going on. It is not difficult to dislike Bob Knight for some of his anti-social actions. At this moment however, it is important to step back and to recognize the enormity of his accomplishments within his chosen profession.

I stand by what I said back in 2001. Had either or both of my sons had the ability to play college basketball – they did not – I would have gladly sent them to play for Bob Knight if he would have had them. He is a man of principle, integrity and brutal candor. He is a man of the 1970s and 1980s. He has earned his retirement and everyone should wish him well in that phase of his life.

Thinking about Bob Knight leads me to the intersection of basketball and integrity. And that leads me to another topic that could become scandalous for the professional version of the sport one of these days. Think about the recent ruling by the NBA that the final 52 seconds of an Atlanta/Miami game needs to be replayed because of a scoring error. Shaq was disqualified from the game at that point, because of what was recorded as his sixth foul when in fact it was only his fifth. There is every reason to believe this was a simple clerical error and the league moved to “right the wrong”. However, in the post-Tim Donaghy world, is that the end of the story?

Does the league do any kind of background checking on the scorers and timers for its games? As of about three years ago, I know that the home teams hired the timers/shot clock operators; if any kind of background check were done, it probably ascertained with 99% confidence that the person was not a “felon at large” and wanted in several states. But the clock operator can affect “gambling outcomes” of games - - either acting alone or in concert with one of the referees. Do not tell me it cannot happen…

If “the wise guys” are betting OVER in a game, how many extra seconds could a clock operator blend into a game by being extra quick to stop the clock when the ball goes out of bounds and being extra slow to start the clock every time that is necessary. More time in a game means more opportunity to score … If you took the tape of an NBA game where the clock operator was scrupulously honest and went to the laboratory to reconstruct the timing down to milliseconds, you would see that it would be a miracle if there were actually 48 minutes of playing time in a game. Now, suppose that the clock operator really did want there to be 49 minutes in that game or even 50… Who would ever notice?

Please note that in my example, it is the “wise guys” who have bet the OVER in one of the NBA games. Suppose the clock operator himself is the person placing the wager using a cut-out [a “beard”] to make the actual wagers and collections? Can you imagine the crow that David Stern would have to eat when it is not clear that Tim Donaghy was not a “rogue individual” and that the NBA’s crack security staff missed another one?

Back on July 26, 2005, I wrote that the NHL had the opportunity to lead the way for pro sports. The league had canceled its All-Star Game that year because the Winter Olympics had already wrought havoc with the schedule and I hoped that all the other sports might follow suit and cancel their All-Star Games permanently. Sadly, that has not been the case. But now I read a report in the Ottawa Sun that gives me new hope.

The NHL may be taking this “All-Star Game cancellation concept” to a higher plane. In 2010, they will not have an All-Star Game because of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. In addition, according to a “league source”, the NHL All-Star Game may take “a permanent hiatus”. Let’s not quibble here that “permanent hiatus” is a contradiction in terms; the important word is “permanent”. Such a situation would leave room for other sports to skip an All-Star game or two without seeming to be following the lead of the NHL. Each league could come up with its own PR-speak to explain why they are going to try a season or two without this nonsense and how that is best for the fans.

Every once in a while, you read something attributed to someone and you just know there is a strange story behind the utterance. Consider the sentence, “…I can live a good life without toes.” Well, Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times provided the background/context here about two weeks ago:

“This month’s Black Knight (”It’s Just A Flesh Wound”) Award goes to Andrew Wells, who will likely have two toes amputated after running nearly 17 hours in sub-zero temperatures on the Ice Age Trail to win last weekend’s 64-mile Frozen Otter Ultra Trek in Wisconsin.

“As Wells, 27, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from his hospital bed: ‘There’s nothing I can do about it now. I can live a good life without toes.’

“For his efforts, the Davenport, Iowa, resident won a gift package that included energy drinks, gel flasks, Moosejaw adventure gear and a subscription to Trail Runner magazine.

I know that I can live a good life with my toes and without that gift pack of energy drinks, adventure gear and a subscription to Trail Runner magazine. But that’s just me…

Finally, here is another Dwight Perry item:

“Portland Winter Hawks goaltender Jordan White stopped the first 66 shots he saw in a 4-0 Western Hockey League loss to the Seattle Thunderbirds on Saturday night.

“The Memorial Coliseum record for saves, by the way, was reportedly set in 1992 by Billy Graham.”

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

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The Super Bowl was a great football game. Forget who won and who lost and all that stuff; it was a well-played game between two excellent teams that was never a two-score game. One can lament the outcome if one is a Pats’ fan or if one had a significant amount of money on the Pats or the OVER or for various and sundry other reasons, but it was still a good football game.

A few quick observations about the game as it appeared on TV:

Jordin Sparks sang the National Anthem. Until yesterday, I had never heard the name Jordin Sparks. Yesterday, I learned that her mother was “spelling-challenged”.

Gatorade’s slogan, “Is it in you?” is not particularly appropriate for the Super Bowl. In that game the key question about Gatorade ought to be, “Is it ON you?”

Someone in the FOX game production/direction hierarchy made a quick and excellent association. After what turned out to be the winning TD, they went back and called up tape of that exact play in practice before the game. Kudos to the person(s) who made that happen.

For a game that was close all the way through and one that meant so much, could there have been less crowd noise? I think the peak decibel level yesterday has been matched at WNBA games.

In one way, Eli Manning and Plaxico Burris saved the sportswriters for the NY tabloids a whole lot of grief. When the Giants won that game, it took those sportswriters off the hook for what was going to be a very difficult assignment. If the Giants had lost, think about the contorted logic those folks would have had to go through to find a way to blame all of this on Alex Rodriguez. After all, he is the cause of just about everything else that goes wrong in NY sports that does not have Jim Dolan’s DNA on it…

The month of February is one of the “slow times” in sports. Spring training baseball isn’t happening yet; college basketball is on the rise but most folks haven’t paid nearly as much attention to it so far in the season as they will two weeks from now; the NBA and NHL are midway through their eternal regular seasons which are mere preludes to interminable playoffs; football is over [the Pro Bowl is a farce and not football]. But to the rescue – seemingly – comes the US Congress. They have already begun to depose witnesses who will then be heard in open – translation: televised – sessions soon. And those hearings will provide stuff for commentary. It is a rare day indeed when I offer up even a morsel of positive commentary regarding the US Congress but today is one of those days…

I read that this year’s baseball Hall of Fame Game will be the last one. According to MLB, the game will have to yield because of “large scheduling difficulties”. OK, I’ll even suspend my disbelief and accept that as a good, sufficient and even factual reason for canceling the game. Nevertheless, let me point out that the Tampa Bay Rays have – throughout their existence – found it largely difficult to schedule a playoff game. And you don’t see MLB falling all over itself to cancel the playoffs.

The LA Lakers are now a credible contender in the NBA Western Conference. I do not want to try to make out that Pau Gasol is the second coming of Michael Jordan; he is not. However, Pau Gasol is a top-shelf player, that gives the Lakers two of those commodities along with a handful of very good players, and those are the ingredients for serious contenders in the NBA chase. In addition, the Lakers unloaded Kwame Brown whose only real value is that he contract expires this year.

Understand that the Memphis Grizzlies are up for sale and the owner there has to be cutting payroll/expenses to make his books look more attractive to that one person who will take this team off his hands. Frankly, I believe that Memphis’ problem as a cash-flow generator is Memphis itself. Even with John Calipari’s Memphis team atop the college rakings at the moment, Memphis is not a basketball hotbed. Go back to the days of the old ABA and recall the Memphis franchise – one that did not do well at the gate at all – was called the Memphis Tams. That name was not intended to evoke an image of a tightly fitted Scottish cap; “TAMS” was an acronym. The TAMS were supposed to belong to and to draw support from people in Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. The TAMS did not then and the Griz do not do that all that well now.

Trading Pau Gasol for Kwame Brown and draft picks will make the books look good in the immediate term but the gate problems for the team and any new owner will not change all that much.

In college basketball, Dick Vitale is going to return to ESPN in time to do the UNC/Duke game this weekend. Vitale has been “on the shelf” this season due to surgery on his throat to remove “non-malignant ulcers”. Look, I have no idea what that kind of surgery entails but it does call to mind an old definition that is surely correct:

Minor surgery: Any surgery performed on someone else…

Dick Vitale did so many games in the past that he became annoying because you could not get away from him. Part of his “rehab” reportedly is an instruction from his medical team that he not work on consecutive days. That might be a huge blessing to ESPN viewers. They will get to hear him some of the time and get to be part of his exuberance; at the same time, they will get to watch at least some games where the decibel level is below the “tornado imminent” level.

For those folks who just love Dick Vitale and hope for him to be back at full strength one of these days, there is hope. I read that the doctor who did the surgery on Vitale – Dr. Zeitels – has also treated William Jefferson Clinton. And we do know that President Clinton still has the ability to talk – and talk – and talk – and…

Finally, here is a comment from Scott Ostler in the SF Chronicle:

“Paris Hilton and Matt Leinart. Now Romo and Simpson. It’s part of the NFL’s new program, No Bimbo Left Behind.”

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

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As the football season draws to a close, I am reminded that I spent a lot of time watching college and pro football on TV for the last five months. I have seen some very good games and I have seen some real dogs. Most of all, I’ve listened to announcers and color analysts and commentators over the past five months that have ranged from very good to persons on whom I wish a case of everlasting laryngitis. So, before the season goes totally dark, let me give you some “football people” evaluations from my note pad.

Watching college football on TV is different from watching the NFL. There are fewer NFL teams so the teams are far more familiar. In addition, the players tend to be much better known/recognized. That means there are different “burdens” on the announcing teams depending on whether they are doing college or pro games. I understand that; I often wonder if the producers of the different programming understand that.

For the college game, there are a handful of announcers that I have come to dread. When I tune into a game I have targeted for viewing - - as opposed to surfing through the channels on a Wednesday night and coming across a game between two teams I really don’t give a fig about - - there are some voices I just do not want to hear. It is hard to say who is at the top of that dreaded list, but Mike Gottfried has to be near the top if not on it. I am sure he is a nice man, but he just goes on and on and on without saying anything insightful. When I hear his voice come through the speakers, I know that at least half of the game will be watched with the “MUTE” symbol lit on the screen.

I really do not like Tim Brandt or Brent Mussberger very much anymore and for polar opposite reasons. Tim Brandt is just dull; he is a vocal Sominex tablet; he could put me to sleep fifteen minutes after a pair of double espressos. Brent Mussberger annoys me in just the other way; he contrives “tension” and “drama” in game situations that are run-of-the-mill. By the time you get to the real crunch time in a game that Brent is doing, you feel as if there is no energy left to witness the next “crisis moment”.

Eric Collins is a mediocre announcer on his best days. Pairing him with Bill Curry is cruel and unusual punishment for the viewing public. When these guys were doing the Houston/SMU game this year, the outcome of the game was not in doubt much beyond halftime. Collins/Curry just could not bring themselves to tell you that - - even though it was blatantly obvious on the screen. Instead, Collins kept saying how SMU was a “team in transition” because they had fired their coach but he was staying on to coach out the rest of the games in the season. OK, he didn’t have to say that SMU just plain stunk out the joint, but he could point out that a Houston team that was only slightly above average outclassed them.

I would like to say with as much clarity as I can muster here that Chris Spielman seriously needs a voice coach. After about five minutes, I find myself listening to the voice and ignoring what he has to say. Maybe that is a blessing; I do not know.

There are three good workers for college football that I noted during my trips through the channels. I will list them here in alphabetical order because I would have to hear them do the same game to really decide whom I like the best:

Ron Franklin

Brad Nessler

Pam Ward

Now, as I reflect on these college football announcers, I have this thought running through my head – with profound apologies to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel:

Where have you gone Keith Jackson?
A nation turns its lonely ears to you …woo, woo, woo.

For NFL games, the lead announcing team on all of the networks is good. Jim Nantz and Phil Simms is a good pair; they work well together; they seem to talk with each other about the game and let the viewer in on the conversation. My only nit-pick might be that Simms is reluctant to criticize obvious and big-time mistakes - - as if he feel embarrassed for the person who just “screwed the pooch” and doesn’t want to appear to be piling on.

Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are very good together. When Joe Buck was off doing other stuff, Kenny Albert and Troy Aikman were very good together. Maybe that means that Troy Aikman can work with anyone who can speak more clearly than Daffy Duck.

Al Michaels and John Madden are just good together. It is easy to make fun of John Madden for his repetition of the obvious, but he does a good job of explaining how offenses and defenses work to deceive the other unit.

It is fashionable to knock the ESPN MNF crew but I prefer not to do that because they added a huge amount by getting Joe Theismann off the air and then added more by putting Ron Jaworski in the booth. Of the four “front line crews”, ESPN’s is the fourth best, but they are still good.

I like “Moose” Johnston as an analyst. However, will someone take some time with him in the off-season and explain to him that it is a “moot” point and not a “mute” point?

Memo to the “Moose”: All points are “mute”. None of them has vocal chords.

I can only take Kevin Harlan in small doses because he is the NFL’s version of Brent Mussberger. Everything in a game is projected to be a HUGE event. A three-yard pass completion in the first quarter on second and seven is not worth the same emotion and vocal energy as a game-winning TD in the final two minutes. Kevin Harlan exhausts me. Pairing Harlan with Rich Gannon is just plain unfair to the viewing public; Gannon is annoyingly whiny. In addition, I hope that Gannon’s “Secret Santa” gave him Hooked on Phonics for Christmas:

Memo to Rich Gannon: It is not “ath – a – letic”!

Chris Rose and Terry Donahue ought to be illegal. With all of the FCC investigations and crackdowns on offensive things that go out over the airwaves, can’t they find a way to keep that pairing in a soundproof chamber?

Dick Enberg was a good football announcer in days gone by. But the days have indeed gone by and he has lost a whole lot off his fastball. Oh my…

Either JC Pearson is from another planet or he is experiencing the NFL game at a higher plane of intellect than I can ever hope to achieve. One example will suffice here. He was doing the Bears/Seahawks game; the Bears had just scored and were kicking off; the Bears trailed by 7 points with about 15 seconds to play. Every person who sees the game the way I do had to know that an onside kick or some kind of trick play to recover the kick was coming. Nothing else made any sense at all. The Seahawks knew that was the case and when they recovered the onside kick, Pearson said the Bears tried to catch them napping. I’m sorry; I have no idea where that came from or where it was supposed to guide my thinking.

The most underrated NFL play-by-play guy is Ian Eagle. I have said it before and I will say it again. I do not understand why he is not higher on the food chain at CBS than he is.

I like the ESPN studio guys with one exception. Tom Jackson is excellent; Keyshawn Johnson became very good as the season progressed; Bill Parcells was incredibly efficient with his comments which were laden with meaning albeit brief; I like Chris Berman even though it is fashionable to say that his act has grown tiresome. However, Emmitt Smith is – plainly and simply – a disaster behind a microphone. If the US Congress ever passed a law making English the official language of the United States, Emmitt Smith on television might be considered a felony. I wonder if the person at ESPN who interviewed Emmitt Smith for the job and found Smith’s grammar, syntax and pronunciation of simple English words to be “insufficiently horrid so as to be instantly embarrassing” would stand up and identify himself/herself. If that person can be found, it should be a firing offense at ESPN.

I really like the team of Bob Costas, Keith Olberman and Cris Colinsworth. Here are three intelligent, articulate and critical men who entertain and inform at the same time. If NBC “lost” Tiki Barber and Jerome Bettis, I would shed no tears. Peter King is a totally different story; I’ll just let a comment from syndicated columnist, Norman Chad, summarize the way I feel about Peter King on TV:

“Every time NFL insider Peter King comes on ‘Football Night in America,’ he’s just gotten off the phone — I just wish one time it were NBC Sports czar Dick Ebersol telling him not to go on the air.”

The FOX and CBS studio crews are OK but they seem more interested in putting on a comedy program than they are in doing a football show. I watch them in small doses.

A long time ago, the voice of the NFL for big games was Ray Scott. He was a broadcasting minimalist; he let the action on the screen speak for itself. Sadly, I am not sure he would make it in network football telecasting these days; he had no shtick. Now as I reflect on Ray Scott, I once again have these words running through my head:

Where have you gone, Ray Scott?
A nation turns its lonely ears to you … woo, woo, woo.

Finally, here is a comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald the sums up my feelings about NFL Network announcing:

Parting thought: What’s worse? That only 39 percent of U.S. homes get games being shown exclusively on NFL Network? Or that the ones who do must listen to Bryant Gumbel?

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

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