The Sports Curmudgeon

I have always enjoyed the portion of the NCAA Tournament where the field is cut from 16 to the Final Four. Most teams that have made it to that point of the season are playing well and most are good teams; the players give full effort for the entirety of these games and the experience is always enjoyable. When CBS signed off their coverage yesterday and went to 60 Minutes, I was just a bit sad that it would be another year until I got to see a long weekend of basketball so enjoyable again.

Speaking of CBS, I think the suits there are probably about as happy as they can be with the way this tournament has unfolded. They had their Cinderella teams and upsets in the early rounds that gave them the opportunity to gush and to marvel at the unpredictability of it all. Then in the end, the four “monsters” – all four teams seeded #1 in the regions – are set to travel to San Antonio. If my math is correct, the combined record of the Final Four this year is 143-9. “Chalk” teams attract fans every year; there is a huge segment of the sporting public that loves a front-runner and people will latch onto teams that are “top-rated” every year. That usually translates to TV ratings and TV ratings translate very directly to revenues.

Ever since the Dallas Mavericks exploited the ridiculous loophole in the NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement to pay Keith Van Horn more than $4M to “come back” to the NBA so they could trade him and his “salary” to the Nets for Jason Kidd, the Mavs have not beaten a team with a winning record. At the moment, Dallas is still in the playoffs but they are falling rapidly in the ultra-competitive NBA West and have a bunch of road games against winning teams to finish the season. They are not a shoo-in to make the playoffs - - let alone advance. Meanwhile, the NJ Nets – from whence Jason Kidd came – are currently in the #8 slot for the playoffs in the ultra-mediocre NBA East.

The Nets are hardly a shoo-in for the playoffs either; their record as of this morning is a pathetic 31-43 but the teams chasing them for that last slot are not exactly world-beaters either. Now, would it not be worth a chuckle if the Nets got into a playoff series while the Mavs were relegated to “Lottery Pick Limbo”? For me, it would pay off a karmic debt somewhere in the cosmos.

Speaking of the Mavs and their misfortunes, isn’t it interesting that Mark Cuban is so silent about his Mavericks with regard to topics of “responsibility” and “accountability”? He loves to champion those things in his blog in so many other dimensions of the world and the human condition. When a referee makes a mistake – or a call that Cuban just does not agree with – he sends tapes to the league office and complains that the officials should be accountable for their mistakes. When David Stern does something Cuban doesn’t like, it usually does not take long for Cuban to call out the Commish. So, why is he being so soft on this group of overpaid and underachieving athletes? Couldn’t be a case of latent jock-sniffing - - could it?

According to an AP report, former NBA player, Isaiah Rider, is in police custody again. According to police reports, he failed to stop at an intersection at 2:30 AM; and when police pulled him over, they found that the car had been reported stolen in South Los Angeles. I hope no one is shocked by this news because the concept of Isaiah Rider being in trouble with the law is prosaic. It is one of those things that you know is going to happen. It is sort of like when you were in high school and you got set up on a blind date; no matter how much you hoped things would be better this time, you knew in your heart that your date would look like one of Shrek’s siblings.

It is not worth the trouble to go and find a complete rap sheet on Isaiah Rider to make the point that this man has not been adequately socialized as an adult hominid. Just from memory, during and after his NBA playing days, Rider has been involved in legal issues related to drugs, assault and battery, improper possession of firearms and resisting a police officer. He once spit at fans who were jeering him. Last year he pled guilty to charges of felony possession of drugs and was sentenced; a couple of months ago he was arrested on charges involving illegal possession of firearms; now the latest incident. Think about all of that and now consider the following proposition:

Isaiah Rider gets himself back in shape (he is 37 years old) and wants to make a come back in the NBA. None of the 30 teams will even return his phone calls.

Is that collusion on the part of the NBA owners? Alternatively, is it an expression that they do not want an aging player who used to be able to play in their locker room because of the baggage that he brings with him?

Just asking…

The NHL has an interesting set of legal issues ongoing at the moment. Remember when Steve Bertuzzi attacked Steve Moore from behind ending Moore’s career with a broken neck? Well, Bertuzzi is back in the league and here is some of the legal fallout from all of that:

Moore is suing Bertuzzi and has included then Vancouver coach, Marc Crawford, in his complaint.

Bertuzzi is suing the Canucks as a team. (Don’t recall why…)

The Canucks have counter-filed against Bertuzzi. (Don’t recall why…)

NOW, Bertuzzi is suing Crawford – his former coach – regarding the incident.

At the time, the NHL could not find any justification to suspend Crawford for any part he may have played in the incident – either actively or passively. Perhaps, after depositions are taken in all of these matters, the papers can be sent to the NHL Front Office so that the commissioner can see what his super-sleuth investigators might have missed when they looked into all of this.

Finally, here is a comment from Steve Simmons in the Toronto Sun about another lawsuit that is ongoing now:

“You can’t make this up: Boxing promoter Don King is suing ESPN for $2.5 billion for defamation of character. How you defame a killer is beyond me, but oddly enough, this lawsuit appears to be proceeding.”

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

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Brian is a long-time reader of these offerings. When I got an e-mail from him recently asking me if I was going to do my annual post-mortem on my NFL pre-season predictions, two things ran through my head:

1. It had completely slipped my mind to do such a thing this year.

2. Since he attached a copy of that document for my reference - - even though I did have one stored in memory here in Curmudgeon Central - - I figured I must have really pulled a rock in those predictions.

Here is the link to that analysis in case you want to have it open to read along as I go through this post mortem.

Therefore, it was with just a small measure of trepidation that I double-clicked on the icon for my 2007 pre-season analysis to see how horribly I had done. Now we can go over those predictions together…

Coaches I thought might be on a hot seat were off base in most cases:

I thought Brad Childress might have problems in Minnesota because Brad Johnson and Tarvaris Jackson would not get the job done on offense for him. That part was right; they did not. However, Adrian Peterson ran the ball well enough to keep the Vikings offense viable.

Norv Turner survived in San Diego; I said he might be in trouble if the team sagged and only made a wild card slot in the playoffs. We will never know what would have happened in that scenario.

Tom Coughlin more than survived the season.

Wade Phillips survived the season, but stand forewarned; he will be on my list of coaches on the hot seat for 2008.

Joe Gibbs made the playoffs in Washington and then threw in the jock on his own leading to the strangest coaching search in the history of the NFL.

Dick Jauron eked out 7 wins with the Bills for the second straight year despite losing players and having to switch starting QBs in mid-stream.

Jon Gruden made the playoffs the year after the Bucs went 4-12 and just plain stunk.

Jack Del Rio led the Jaguars to the playoffs. I thought he might be gone if the team missed the playoffs. We will never know…

Romeo Crennel went from 4 wins in 2006 to missing the playoffs on the final weekend of the season. That saved his job.

Marvin Lewis continues to survive in Cincy despite a losing/underachieving season. I think the fact that he has time left on his contract and the Bengals notoriously do not like to pay coaches not to coach has something to do with that.

In the AFC West, I said that there was one excellent team, one pretty good team and two bad teams. Indeed the Chargers were excellent; the Broncos were not really at the level of “pretty good” but they were not awful either; the Raiders and Chiefs just plain stunk.

I thought the Chargers would win 12 games and the division championship; they won 11 games and the division championship. I thought the Broncos would win 9 games despite Jay Cutler at QB – about whom I remain skeptical. I did not have the Broncos in the playoffs and indeed, they did not make it because they only won 7 games. I had the Raiders winning 6 games for the year and the Chiefs winning 5; they each won only 4 games. They were both worse than I thought. I said the Oakland offense would likely continue to struggle and that the Chiefs would not be able to count on Larry Johnson to carry their offense for the year. Those things turned out to be the case.

For this division I’ll give myself a grade of A-minus.

In the AFC South, I said there was one excellent team (Indy) and one team with a lot of talent who was missing a QB (Jax) and one excellent young QB who did not have a plethora of talent around him (Vince Young/Tennessee) and one team that had been pretty bad for most of its existence (Houston). Other than the fact that David Garrard played exceptionally well in Jax, this was pretty much on target. The Houston Texans finished at 8-8 - - the best record in franchise history.

I had the Colts winning the division and 12 games; they won the division and won 13 games. I had the Jaguars winning only 9 games and missing the playoffs; they won 11 games and made the playoffs. I had the Titans winning 8 games and missing the playoffs. They won 10 games and made the playoffs. I said the Texans would win 6 games - - even though I said there was the outside possibility they could break even for the season. They did break even for the season.

For this division, I’ll give myself a grade of B.

So far, things are looking not so bad. However, before getting my hopes up too high, I thought I remembered some misjudgments in the “other half of the AFC”. I remembered correctly…

In the AFC North, I said there were three teams that could be playing well into January and one team that would “need visits by a sequence of fairy godmothers to break even”. That hapless team would have been the Cleveland Browns. Ooops.

I had the Steelers winning 10 games and winning the division on a tiebreaker and that is exactly what happened. Unfortunately, I had them besting the Ravens in that tiebreaker because I thought the Ravens would also win 10 games and make the playoffs; the Ravens won half that number and their coach got fired for that. I had the Bengals winning 9 games; they only won 7; and I had the Browns winning only 5 games and they doubled that total.

Because I got the Steelers win total on the button and that they would win a tiebreaker to win the division, I’ll give myself a grade of C-plus here.

In the AFC East, I had the top of the division and the bottom of the division picked correctly. That should be worth something - - no?

I said the Patriots would win the division and 12 games. They sure did win their division; they won all 16 games they played and no one else in the division played .500 ball. I thought the NY Jets performance in 2006 was for real and that the Jets were an emerging team. I predicted 10 wins and the playoffs for the Jets; they won all of 4 games and were out of the “playoff chase” by Thanksgiving. I thought the Bills would win 6 games this year; they actually won 7. In addition, I did say that the Dolphins would stink and that Joey Porter would not be nearly the huge impact on defense that many thought he would be when he signed on in Miami as a free agent. That was pretty much on target but I thought Miami would win 5 games and they won exactly 1.

Because my assessment of the NY Jets was so outrageously wrong, I’ll give myself a grade of C for this division.

Surely, things had to be better than this in the NFC. My long time and seemingly supportive reader, Brian, would not set me up to find the really horrible news at the end of the post-mortem, would he?

In the NFC West, I said there was one good team, two question marks and one perennially bad team. Considering that the Cardinals have won exactly one playoff game in the last 60 years, I think that might qualify them as “perennially bad”. The overall analysis of this division was on the mark.

I said the Seahawks would win the division with 10 wins and they did exactly that. I also said that Patrick Kearney would be a good addition to their pass rush and he was indeed. Sadly, things came apart after that… I thought the Niners would continue to improve under head coach Dick Nolan and that they would win 8 games. I gave the Niners 8 wins for the season; they managed to get only 5. I thought they would be the lowest seeded team in the NFC playoffs, which clearly they were not. However, I did say that Patrick Willis would be a big addition to their defense so I ought to get bonus points there. I gave the Cardinals 7 wins for the season and they actually won 8 games. I said the Cards should be able to score points on offense and they accumulated 404 points. Then there are the Rams; I thought they would win 5 games but they only won 3.

In this division, I’ll give myself a grade of B-minus.

In the NFC South, my predictions sort of went south - - if you catch my drift. For the first time in this post-mortem, I didn’t even get the division champion right. I was seduced by the strong showing of the Saints in 2006 and thought they were the class of this weak division. But true to form, the Saints became the ‘Aints again and spent January at home on their recliners watching the playoffs.

I thought the Saints would win the division and 11 games and make the playoffs. They only won 7 games. I thought the Panthers would finish second here with 8 wins because I thought they were underachievers in 2006 and ought to improve; they underachieved again and won only 7 games and were a miserable 2-6 at home. I said the Bucs would win 6 games and would be improved but “not nearly sufficiently better to win this division”; they won 9 games and did win the division. I did have the Falcons finishing last in this division and said they should start considering a rebuilding process to commence in 2008, which is what they are doing as I write this. I thought they would win 4 games and have toe overall #1 pick in the draft. The Falcons indeed won 4 games but the Dolphins’ bed-wetting season and the Rams’ debacle left the Falcons drafting in the #3 spot.

In this division, I’ll give myself a grade of D only because I think I nailed the Falcons’ season pretty well.

In the NFC North, I also was seduced by the strong showing in 2006 of the Chicago Bears and thought they could prevail in this division again. In fact, I called them a “clear-cut winner”. Channeling Lee Corso here, “Not so fast, my friend.”

I had the Bears winning the division and 12 games partly based on the fact that I thought they would get at least 5 wins from their divisional games. I even had them as the #1 seed in the NFC for the playoffs. The Bears won only 7 games and won only 2 in the division. Ouch! I had the Lions finishing second in the division with 7 wins. The Lions actually won 7 games despite losing four of their last five but they finished third. I had the Packers finishing third with 7 wins and that they might have trouble scoring this year; the Packers won the division with 13 wins and scored 435 points. Ouch again! I had the Vikings finishing last with 4 wins and they actually won 8 games.

In this division, I’ll give myself a grade of F. If there were such a grade as H, I’d give that to me here.

In the NFC East, things did not turn out nearly as I thought they would. I did say that all of the teams could cluster around the .500 level; and except for the Cowboys who had that spectacular early season run, all the teams did just that. However, the details of my predictions do not come out nearly as well as they ought to have.

I had the Eagles winning the division with 9 wins. Actually, they finished last in the division with 8 wins. I had the Cowboys finishing second with 9 wins. Actually they won the division with 13 wins - - and then laid a “Giant” egg in the playoffs. I said the Redskins would improve on their “shameful and prideless “5 win season in 2006 and would win 8 games. They did that and a bit more; they won 9 games and made it to the playoffs for a cameo appearance. I said that the Giants could win the division but would not. They did not win the division - - but they did win the Super Bowl. According to my calculations, they would not have been able to do that because my predicted 7 wins for them would not have allowed them into the playoffs in the first place; the Giants won 10 games.

In this division, I’ll give myself a grade of D-minus.

Well, Brian did not set me up too badly after all. I hit some predictions squarely on the head and some were so far off that they were almost comical. Assuming that I have time to do the analyses and put together a set of predictions for next season, I will surely do them again. And for those of you who are sitting there in the glow of the post-season thinking that pre-season predictions team-by-team are easy, let me remind you of a comment by Mark Twain about predictions:

Prediction is difficult – particularly when it deals with the future.

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

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In past years, I derived great pleasure on the day/evening when Bob Huggins’ team was eliminated from the NCAA tournament. It had nothing at all to do with the school where he was coaching; it was he. In his previous incarnations – actually he wasn’t at K-State long enough to “incarnate” there, that was more like a fleeting ghostly ectoplasm than an incarnation – his teams and his behaviors were offensive. And I do not mean “offensive” in the sense that they scored a lot of points.

I do not need to go through the litany of boorish behaviors in his history or in the behaviors of his players. If you want to refresh your memory, Google is your friend. But his current team at West Virginia is a solid group; they play hard without trying to intimidate or demean their opponent; their star player, Joe Alexander, reportedly is an actual student-athlete; Huggins and his players do not spend time-outs swearing at each other. So, when the Mountaineers were eliminated last night in OT, I realized that I no longer could count “Bob Huggins’ Elimination Day” as a source of smug pleasure. At the same time, I realized that the tournament itself will be better off for that.

I did not get to watch all of the W. Kentucky/UCLA game last night because CBS kept switching between the two late games. However, I did see parts of the game and all of the end of the game when the outcome was in doubt. For all of the conspiracy theorists out there, I did not see any evidence of favoritism toward UCLA. There were points in the final five minutes of that game where the outcome was sufficiently in doubt that if “the fix were in” we would have seen a strange call from the officials.

Whilst grazing through the channels a couple of days ago, I happened across NFL Network as it did a show about the players who will be in the upcoming draft and how the teams are evaluating them and building their “wish lists”. I could not stay and watch that stuff because the draft is still a month away and NFL Network will be pounding that drum for as much of the intervening time as they can get away with. However, I was there long enough to hear one of the talking hair-dos say that the draft was really the last great opportunity that teams have to improve themselves as they look forward to training camp - - in July no less. According to his world construct, free agency is the time when a team signs the impact players it needs to shore up weaknesses exposed during last season and the draft provides depth and balance to the squad.

As I changed the channel to watch a sporting event and not Football Philosophy 101, I wondered if the folks at NFL Network actually paid attention to what happened in the NFL just last year. Because it seems to me that the NY Giants won the Super Bowl – as a wild card team that played four consecutive road games to win the trophy – and that the NY Giants did just about nothing during last year’s free agency period to shore up weaknesses that had to be apparent on the 2006 version of the team that finished 8-8.

During the free agency feeding frenzy of 2007, I believe that the NY Giants signed only one free agent - - Kawika Mitchell - - and he got a one-year deal. Meanwhile, the Cowboys signed Leonard Davis to a $50 M deal, the Patriots signed and traded for a bunch of very good veteran players, and the perennial Free Agency Champions – the Washington Redskins – signed London Fletcher to a hefty deal.

Perhaps, the Giants have blazed a new path to NFL glory. What they did with their team was to build it through the draft and to emphasize the concept of “team” over the concept of “star power”. Recall last summer that Michael Strahan did his version of Hamlet as he pondered his future and wondered if he should play or retire. He made his decision and returned to the team after training camp was over. During that time, the Giants basically took the position of “Vaya con Dios” with him. They did not cajole him or take any active role in any kind of media circus such as would have happened had it been Terrell Owens playing Hamlet. The Giants already had players on the squad to replace Strahan; if he returned, that would be great; if he retired, they were prepared to go on. The Giants had spent relatively high picks in previous drafts to acquire Justin Tuck and Osi Umenyiora and Mathias Kiwanuka.

In addition, Tiki Barber retired after the 2006 season to go into broadcasting. With the certainty of 20/20 hindsight, some folks have concluded that Barber’s retirement was a good thing for the Giants because he was not a team player. I have no idea if that is actually the case, but it would be hard to deny that Tiki Barber was a fine running back and someone who should have been very difficult to replace. Nevertheless, the Giants replaced him with a group of players who took turns giving solid if not Pro Bowl kinds of performances throughout the season and the playoffs.

The Dallas Cowboys had thirteen players on the Pro Bowl team; the NY Giants had one. If the star-power that comes through free agency were actually the way to the championship, then how did the Cowboys come close to losing anything last season? The Patriots had a more star-studded roster than did the Giants but the Giants won the Super Bowl game and the Pats did not.

You will not find the NFL Network folks changing their tune on these matters any time soon for a hugely pragmatic reason. They are on the air for 168 hours a week during 52 weeks of the year. They need something in terms of programming and once the post-mortems of the Super Bowl are over, the only things to talk about are free agency and the draft until training camps open in July. There’s no way those guys will diminish the “cosmic importance” of either the draft or free agency; if they did that, they might have to run a couple of weeks of test patterns.

Finally, here is a note from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald about José Canseco’s new book:

“Jose Canseco is coming out with a sequel to his 2005 steroids tell-all book, Juiced. Not sure of the impact this time, though. Publishing insiders tell me that in the new book’s biggest revelation, Canseco accuses Billy the Marlin of using a beak-enhancing substance.”

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

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Baseball season has begun - - in Japan for the first time. While I do not like that idea exactly, I do think that the early morning telecasts of the games from Japan may provide an interesting marketing ploy for MLB. Let me explain.

Starting the season in Japan only to have the two teams return to the States and play some more Spring Training games before actually playing more “games that count” is just bizarre. Imagine the NFL doing that. They start their season with a game in England two weeks before everyone else starts and then those teams return and play another exhibition game before everyone starts the season in earnest. That just doesn’t work. So in order to play real games in Japan, maybe what MLB needs to do is to schedule the teams to play there just before the All-Star break so that the teams can have a three day “respites” upon flying home - - and schedule both teams to play on the West Coast for a week upon their return.

Yes, I realize that might mean some players might choose to miss the All Star Game to get their biological clocks reset properly. That would be their choice - - as it is now whether or not to actually participate in the All Star Game.

However, that early morning TV game made me wonder if that might not work in several cities in the US. Why can’t there be “Breakfast at the Ballpark Days”? There are day games during the week called “Businessman Specials”; why not a morning game or two? Obviously, these games will not work for a late season clash between the Tampa Rays and the Baltimore Orioles, which will not draw flies even at night. But why not one of the White Sox/Cubs games played in the early hours - - and then everyone goes to work later in the morning?

Frankly, I enjoyed waking up and seeing baseball on TV. Driving to work and listening to a ball game on the radio - - they would have to be on a national broadcast feed - - has to beat most of the morning radio fare available. Some marketing guru for MLB ought to look into this.

The Washington Nationals will open their season in their new ballpark. Ever since the Orioles moved to Camden Yards, the opening of a new park has been a cue for teams to see large attendance increases in the next season – some as large as 79%. Since the Nationals played to crowds that could be counted between pitches at the end of last season, a large attendance increase this year should be easily attainable. However, the attraction will be the park and not the team. The Nationals will be fortunate to win 75 games this year

Keep an eye on the Pittsburgh Pirates this year. If they have another losing season, it will be their 16th in a row and that will tie them with the Phillies’ teams of 1933-1948 for the MLB record of most consecutive losing seasons. Last year they won only 68 games so you might think a losing season is in the bag for them this year. But consider that they do play in a mediocre division with a Reds team that looks to be a loser, with a Cardinals team whose starting rotation looks like one that might not win a championship in AAA ball and an Astros team whose starting pitchers gave up a lot of runs last year. Nevertheless, it does seem as if the Pirates have a date with destiny at the end of this season.

Here is something to make Cubs’ fans happy. Kerry Woods had back spasms during spring training. At least it wasn’t pain in the elbow or shoulder this time…

The Florida Marlins blew up their team in the off-season trading away two of their three quality players. Their projected starting rotation has five pitchers with ERAs north of 5.0 for last year; their projected closer had an ERA of 3.54 last year. Losing 120 games in a season is not an easy thing to do, so I will not suggest that they will do that; but they will lose 100 times and might sneak up to 110 in the loss column.

The KC Royals will not win much this year either in part because they have to play in a division with Cleveland, Detroit, Minnesota and the White Sox. Such is the case with the Baltimore Orioles and the Tampa Rays who have to play with Boston, NY and Toronto.

Speaking of the Orioles, why have so many players who have been caught up in the steroid mess of MLB been part of the Orioles organization? The team has not won any division titles in a while but they sure seemed fixated on winning the Mitchell Report Citation race.

The AL West could be very exciting. The Mariners could make a serious run at the post-season and in the post-season once they get there. The other teams in the AL West are good too - - but all have their flaws. The Angels have two starting pitchers with arm trouble before the season starts; the Rangers pitching staff cannot get anybody out and the A’s have to pray that Bobby Crosby and Eric Chavez can stay healthy for the whole season – something they have not done recently. And by the way, if you have never seen Ichiro Suzuki in person and if he is coming to a city near you this season, make it a point to go out to see him play. Go early and watch him in batting practice and in the field before the game. Watch him in the dugout and watch him between pitches in the outfield. He is a treat to watch; he is the only player in MLB today that I would make a journey to see play a baseball game.

The new José Canseco book is about to hit the shelves. There was a story that Canseco had offered Magglio Ordonez the opportunity to keep Ordonez’ name out of the new book if Ordonez would invest in a movie project that Canseco was involved with. At least that is how Scott Boras – Ordonez’ agent – portrayed it as he reported this sordid mess to the FBI. That would be extortion if it happened. Moreover, just as no one in baseball has yet sued Canseco for slander/libel, the FBI has not indicted him for extortion yet either.

Finally, a baseball note from Scott Ostler in the SF Chronicle:

“The Giants ‘08 slogan is ‘All out, all season.’ But that’s misleading. I think some of the guys will be out, like, half the season.”

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

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Last week, I wrote about the inordinate attention paid to the Rockets’ winning streak in the NBA and to Tiger Woods’ winning streak in PGA events. Now both are history and the real records – the ones belonging to the LA Lakers and to Byron Nelson – were never seriously in danger. It would be a good resolution for media folks to make for themselves only to begin to rhapsodize about the greatness of winning streaks in the NBA when the streak extends beyond 24 games or when a golfer has won 8 PGA tournaments in a row. That would mean there might – I said might – be a serious assault on the extant records. Oh, and with the golf record specifically, I think it would a whole lot more interesting if the person making the assault on the record winning streak played more than once a month picking and choosing among the courses he or she might compete upon…

One look at the NCAA tournament brackets for the men and the women gives you an insight into a fundamental difference between men’s collegiate basketball and women’s collegiate college basketball. More than a couple of lower seeded men’s teams pulled off the upset against teams with “bigger reputations”. In the women’s tournament, chalk prevails. In the first round of the women’s tournament, exactly two lower seeded teams advanced; neither went to the Sweet 16. The women’s bracket is set up to allow a Tennessee/Connecticut game in the finals. You don’t think that the Women’s Selection Committee made sure that might happen, do you?

The men’s East Bracket is pure chalk; the four teams left were seeded one-through-four. And UNC’s demolition of Arkansas might be a good argument for the incorporation of a “mercy rule” in college basketball. That game was not in doubt after the first five minutes of play. In the Midwest Bracket, the teams left were seeded one, three, ten and twelve. All of the #1 seeds are still alive but half of the #2 seeds have gone home already.

My two favorite Big East teams, Georgetown and Pitt, did not advance to the Final Four as I predicted; in fact they are back on campus already while teams that finished significantly below them in the regular season and/or the Big East Conference Tournament play on. That makes the men’s tournament more interesting because it is less predictable or formulaic. One of those “lesser Big East teams” is Villanova. On the Great Monday of Whining after the men’s brackets were announced, Villanova was one of the teams cited as being less worthy of inclusion than certain favorite “mid-major teams” whose destiny in life is to get screwed by that Selection Committee. I have not heard any apologies from the people who wrote that the inclusion of Villanova was a crime against humanity only slightly below the level of the one ongoing in Darfur at the moment.

Even some of the so-called mid-majors are not immune from critical scorn on the Great Monday of Whining. I heard several people say that Davidson might have been seeded too high despite having won 22 straight games entering the first round of the tournament. After all, they didn’t beat anybody notable in that streak went the logic behind that criticism. Well, Davidson has now won 24 straight games; they are scheduled to play Wisconsin next; they have already sent Gonzaga and Georgetown home.

Western Kentucky has been another pleasant surprise – unless you are a player for or a fan of Drake and/or San Diego. The shot they hit to beat Drake had to come from 35 feet away and hit nothing but net. Against San Diego, they continued to shoot well. Can they get to the Final Four and be this year’s version of George Mason? They can if they continue to shoot the way they have been shooting…

If there is anything formulaic about the men’s seeding and selection processes, it would be the automatic berths given to some of the minor conferences. I know that it is good and noble to give teams in the Ivy League and the Patriot League and the MEAC and etc. a chance to participate and to have a brief moment in the sun. But most of those teams do little to advance the cause of including more and more of the “little guys”. Please consider Mississippi Valley State and their showing this year. They lost to an offensively challenged UCLA team by 41 points. I know; other #1 seeds blew out their first round opponents too. However, UCLA held Mississippi Valley State to 29 points for the game. Recreation league teams for twelve-year-olds often score more than 29 points in a shorter game that the 40 minutes Mississippi Valley State was on the floor.

Travel back in time to December 2007 and you’ll find a game between Mississippi Valley State and Washington State - - another PAC-10 team. In that contest, Washington State won the game 71-26 limiting Mississippi Valley State to a total of 9 points in the second half. I sure hope the notes on those halftime adjustments for that game found their way into the recycle bin…

The beauty of the men’s tournament is that you never know what will happen. But so long as some of the “little guys” who make the tournament leave in such humiliating fashion, the idea of adding more “little guys” and breaking the hegemony of the “big time programs” isn’t going to advance very quickly.

ESPN.com ran a men’s bracket contest this year and it drew 3.65 million entries. None of those entries had all of the 32 first round games picked correctly; in fact, the best selections had only 30 of the 32 games right and there were only 51 of them. On the obverse, there was an entry that picked every one of the first 32 games incorrectly. And if you think about it, that is as difficult a feat as picking all of the games correctly.

A little over a week ago, the Seattle Supersonics lost a game to the Denver Nuggets in which the Nuggets scored 168 points - - in a regulation game. That’s bad enough but consider for a moment to the monumental understatement by Sonics’ coach, PJ Carlissimo:

“We didn’t offer any defensive resistance at all.”

I should say not. This line could probably have been uttered with equal insightfulness by Charles de Gaulle in reference to the French Army’s performance against the Germans in 1940.

Finally, an observation from Chris Harry last weekend in the Orlando Sentinel:

“Dallas is interested in Pacman [Jones]; they traded for Tank Johnson last year. Is a front-office post for O.J. next?”

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

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I think I have allowed the “Brett Favre Retirement” thing alone long enough to allow all the angles on the story to have had time to surface. I had no interest in trying to be the first to make a type of observation and I figured that loads of other folks would present the landscape of that event for you. Now that they have had their say, allow me to make a couple of points.

First of all, I tend to believe Brett Favre when he says he wants to retire. I also tend to believe that he will go through an athletic version of “withdrawal” as training camp is about to open. I have no direct pipeline of information here, but I suspect that he will stay home and stay retired and become an ambassador of football. Either that, or he will be playing QB for the Packers…

One of the ubiquitous – and highly predictable – “debates” that went on as soon as Favre announced his retirement was whether or not he was the “best of all time” or if he was “in the Top-5” or … Every time a really good player retires in any major sport these days, that kind of kerfuffle ensues. Why can’t we be happy to recognize his many career passing records and the enormity of his 275 consecutive starts (counting playoff games) as a QB in the NFL?

I think that the more interesting question would be put to older Packer fans when they were totally sober, and it would be:

Brett Favre or Bart Starr?

Thanks to Chris Harry in the Orlando Sentinel, I have a list of names for you. Tell me what the “title” of this list is. The answer is below:

“Chris Miller, Wade Wilson, Billy Joe Tolliver, Bobby Herbert, Jeff George, Chris Chandler, Tony Graziani, Steve DeBerg, Danny Kanell, Doug Johnson, Michael Vick, Kurt Kittner, Matt Schaub, Joey Harrington, Chris Redman and Byron Leftwich.”

I think a really interesting aspect of Brett Favre’s announced reason for retiring was that the only way for next year to be a success for him would be for the Packers to win the Super Bowl. He said specifically that if the Packers went to the Super Bowl and lost, that would be the worst thing that could happen. That made me stop and think… The Packers were awfully close to making it to the Super Bowl this year, and the team they took to overtime in the playoffs wound up winning it all. Nevertheless, Favre chose to retire. That tells me how difficult it is to win a Super Bowl and how the reality of that difficulty makes itself known to veteran NFL players.

That list above represents the 16 quarterbacks that have started the 256 regular season games for the Atlanta Falcons since the Falcons traded Brett Favre to the Packers in 1992. Remember, Favre started all of the games in Green Bay…

With the NFL Draft next on the schedule as an important annual event in the world of football, many colleges are holding “pro days” where scouts from various teams come to the school to see student-athletes there work out and show their wares. That’s pretty standard stuff but at UCLA, the school had a former student-athlete there for workouts because the former student-athlete has been out of football for a few years and might want to “get back in”. That erstwhile NFLer would be WR, Freddie Mitchell whose career in Philly is notable for two things:

1. He made the “fourth-and-twenty-six catch” in the playoffs.

2. After he made some less than flattering remarks about some Pats prior to the Pats/Eagles Super Bowl game, the normally reserved Bill Belichick said of Freddie: “All he does is talk. He’s terrible, and you can print that. I was happy when he was in the game.”

Another rite of spring for NFL teams is that they cut players to make room to sign free agents and/or their draft picks. It happens all the time. However, those wacky Atlanta Falcons took things to a new dimension this year. They cut QB, Joey Harrington, from the squad and then the next week they signed him again. Did he all of a sudden show a lot more potential over that weekend? Was he at one of those pro days somewhere?

The silliness that builds before the NFL Draft is monumental. Keep an eye out for it and you can amuse yourself as teams jockey for position to draft certain players and agents try to keep their star clients in the news. If you do not take any of that nonsense seriously, you can derive some chuckles from it. Greg Cote rather put all of this draft silliness into perspective in the Miami Herald:

“Dolphins remain undecided on how to use their overall No. 1 pick. Internal debate is whether to select Virginia defensive tackle Chris Long, Michigan offensive tackle Jake Long, former Louisiana governor Huey Long, fading actress Shelley Long or Miami Herald sports writer Gary Long.”

According to a story in the LA Times, the chairman of the Motherwell soccer team in Scotland expressed his displeasure with the continued oppression of drunken soccer fans. There aren’t any typos in that last sentence. Alcohol is banned at Scottish soccer matches and has been for almost 30 years after riots broke out during the Scottish Cup matches back then. Motherwell chairman, John Boyle, thinks that’s wrong and that “football fans are being discriminated against.”

In many parts of the world, soccer riots and soccer hooliganism are dangerous to life and limb. I really don’t believe that many of the folks who participate in those riots or beat-downs among fans of opposing sides need alcohol to get them to vent their spleen while they try to extract someone else’s spleen from his abdomen. But keeping booze away from them can’t hurt anything, can it? There does have to be plenty of time to tailgate before and after the game, no?

Finally, in this NFL free agent season, the Philadelphia Eagles signed both Asante Samuels and Chris Clemons. I wonder if they would consider making an offer to Tom Sawyer – who is the head football coach at Division II Winona State University – to join the coaching staff in light of those signings…

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

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I promise not all of today’s rant will be about the NCAA tournament, but I do have to make one “prediction” that I hope does not come to pass. There have been more than a couple of incidents of “poor officiating” – to be as polite as I can be – in college basketball games this year and they have generated national media attention. Now in the tournament, you might find officials so focused on making the exactly correct and proper calls that they make calls just to be sure that their crew and their game isn’t on national TV as an example of “incompetent officiating”. Folks, I refereed basketball for 37 years – not at any level close to the NCAA tournament to be sure – and referees are humans who react to the situations they find themselves in. That may come as a surprise to that faction of the fanboy-nation that thinks referees are some alien life form. They are not and this very human overcompensation could happen and that would be a bad thing to have happen in the tournament.

Most of the national media is ridiculing the inaugural running of the CBI – the College Basketball Invitational Tournament. I have to agree that after the 65 teams are picked to go into the NCAA tournament and another 32 teams are invited to the National Invitational Tournament, the organizers for the new tournament are mining some pretty low-grade ore. I doubt that I’ll pay a whole lot of attention to this newcomer on the March sporting landscape, but I do have an answer to those people who simply cannot see why organizers would think to do something as foolish as starting a new tournament.

Take yourself back about 4 years when the “owners” of the NIT filed suit in Federal court against the NCAA for violations of the monopoly laws. The suit was on the docket to be heard when the two sides settled; the “owners” of the NIT got $57M from the NCAA to drop their claims and to hand over ownership of the NIT to the NCAA. Obviously, the plaintiffs here were more interested in the money than in achieving the level playing field that the anti-trust laws seek to assure…

So, maybe the CBI organizers have in mind a future strategy that includes another anti-trust suit against the NCAA for the way it shuts out everyone else from post-season basketball tournaments for colleges. It worked before; obviously, the NCAA thought that a rather sizeable payment was preferable to taking their chances in court; maybe it will work again…

In the NBA, people were ecstatic about the Houston Rockets and their 22 game winning streak that came to an end last night. On various ESPN shows, they had people “debating” if the Rockets winning streak was more or less “amazing” than Tiger Woods’ current winning streak of 5 consecutive tournaments. Can everyone cut down on the caffeine here for just a moment and put some perspective on these matters:

1. Houston’s streak was still a full 10 games short of setting a new record for consecutive wins in the NBA. Put another way, they were just over 2/3 of their way to breaking the existing record. You might call this premature exuberance if you wish.

2. Tiger Woods’ streak is not yet halfway to the mark set by Byron Nelson. Put in baseball terms, this is like someone having a 26 game hitting streak and then projecting the date on which that player would necessarily break Joe DiMaggio’s record for hits in consecutive games.

Both streaks are/were impressive; neither is/was at the point where everyone needs to gush all over them. Take a deep breath for a moment …

Juan Gonzales has an injury to muscle tissue and is sidelined. Perhaps this will save the St. Louis Cardinals from themselves? If this surprises anyone, he/she needs to get a high-speed connection to the Internet and to link to the “Clue Server” so that he/she can download a few…

Let me do a version of good cop/bad cop here and present baseball’s version of “good guy/bad guy”. Jamie Moyer is your good guy. When a close friend of the Moyer family died of cancer in her teenage years, Jamie Moyer and his wife created the Erin Foundation named after the late teenager. It created bereavement camps to help children cope with the loss of a parent or family member or close friend. Ten new camps in ten major league cities will open this year; the five-year goal is to have a bereavement camp in every major league city. Jamie Moyer and his wife Karen are to be commended for this work.

In these stressful economic times, it would take special circumstances to revel in the fact that someone is out of work and cannot find new employment. Until yesterday, I thought that Barry Bonds’ inability to get new work was due to his long-standing churlish reputation combined with the legal clouds hanging over his head. But now that Donald Fehr says that he wants to investigate to see if there is collusion to keep Barry Bonds out of baseball, I can revel in the fact that Barry Bonds is out of work and cannot find a new job.

Barry Bonds is not a likeable fellow according to every report you can read about him; Donald Fehr is even less likeable. A Barry Bonds/Donald Fehr ticket as independent candidates for the Presidency would probably lose big time to Ralph Nader even if Nader ran with Satan on his ticket. These two goofs are the bad guys that offset Jamie and Karen Moyer as the good guys.

The Detroit Lions have not had a winning season in this millennium. Last year it looked as if they might get over the “break-even line”, but they lost seven of their last eight games to maintain their record of ineptitude. They have been building and re-building for so long that fossils are starting to be discovered in the foundations of their edifice. So allow me to pose a rhetorical question here about the Lions’ franchise:

How long does a franchise have to continue to try to re-build itself before it needs to admit that it just cannot build anything worth a damn?

I heard on Around the Horn that a billiards player in Germany flunked a blood doping test. That’s right, a billiards player… What’s next? Will they find that someone in the rock, paper, scissors tournament is “on the sauce”…?

Finally, Greg Cote had this item in the Miami Herald a while back regarding drug testing:

“Parting thought: It is suspected that many of those enraged 2,200-pound bulls used in professional bullfighting are on steroids. Tell ‘ya what. You collect the urine samples.”

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

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Yesterday was the expansion of Orwell’s “one hour of hate” into a full day of hate directed against the NCAA Selection Committee. Now it is gone and many folks have turned themselves to filling out brackets – even at the “Schools That Were Screwed” where NIT brackets will probably be filled out first. Naturally, all the fanboys for all the “Schools That Were Screwed” will have those schools sailing through the NIT as if it were the Panama Canal. They cannot all be right…

Even schools that made the NCAA tournament can create grief on the “one day of hate”. The play-in game - - sorry, the NCAA has demanded it be called the “Opening Round Game” - - between Mt. St. Mary’s and Coppin State will be played in Dayton Ohio tonight. For those of you who live outside the Washington/Baltimore area, both of these schools are just outside Baltimore. Naturally, some “Baltimorons” complained that the game should be played in College Park at the University of Maryland venue. Of course, the play-in game is routinely played in Dayton every year; the NCAA seems to have decided that makes good sense for reasons known only to them; every school knows that before the season starts; every so-called fan should know that too. But on the “one day of hate”, people can complain about anything related to college basketball and get away with it. Now it is time to shut up and let these two schools play their game tonight to see which one will be a sacrificial lamb on Thursday.

If you want bracket picks and you cannot find them today, let me say only that Google is your friend. Here, I will only give you my Final Four predictions:

UNC
Georgetown
UCLA
Pitt

The Stanford Cardinal and the Cornell Big Red meet in a first round game. I am surprised that the NCAA has not found a sponsor for this one; maybe it could be played in the memory of Red Buttons.

If Villanova and Vanderbilt both win their first round games in meet in the second round, shouldn’t a portion of the gate go to the Jimmy V Foundation?

Every time I glance at my bracket sheet, I think I see a game between Kansas and Portland Cement. Actually, it’s Kansas/Portland State but I do not think the Vikings stand any more chance than a bag of Portland Cement in that game.

Duke and Belmont does not sound like a very intriguing game. It sounds more like an intersection in some city somewhere.

Purdue plays Baylor in a first round game. Purdue is a major program in Indiana; Baylor coach Scott Drew comes used to coach at much smaller Indiana basketball program, Valparaiso.

The only way for Mt. St. Mary’s to meet St. Mary’s in the tournament would be in the National Championship Game. Indeed, that would take Divine intervention…

Here is my All-Tournament Team of Colors – the Palette Team if you will:

DJ White – Indiana
Danny Green – UNC
Derrick Rose – Memphis
Gilbert Brown – Pitt [No, he does not weigh about 400 lbs…]
Drew Lavender – Xavier

Do not be confused.

Stanford Speech plays for Mississippi Valley State not Stanford
Dave Bliss plays for Georgia not Baylor
Chris Collinsworth plays for BYU and does not work for NBC
Taj Finger plays for Stanford and is not an obscene gesture
Dionte Christmas plays for Temple and is not a new holiday
Adam Liberty plays for Oral Roberts; Liberty did not make the field
Derrick Caracter plays for Louisville and his name is missing one
Longar Longar plays for Oklahoma and is not an echo

My All Tournament Team of players with great names would be:

Comelio Guibunda – American University
Yemi Ogunoye – Oral Roberts
Gyno Pomare – San Diego
Tweety Carter – Baylor
E’Twaun Moore – Purdue

Finally, here is a comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald about those new Reebok ads you are starting to see now:

“Bosox star David Ortiz filmed a new Reebok ad at Plantation’s Sunset Park recently, and I’m told the production crew for Papi’s commercial shoot numbered more than 100. Fathom that next time you wonder why sneakers cost $129.”

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

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The 65 teams for the men’s NCAA basketball tournament are set. So today is more than St. Patrick’s Day; today is also that one day of the year when millions of folks whine about whom the Selection Committee screwed over. By tomorrow, all of that angst will be gone and forgotten as millions of folks shift their agonizing to which upset teams to take in their brackets.

Here in Curmudgeon Central, I don’t worry about who is in and who is out because if a team was left out of the tournament, there is one thing that is surely part of their résumé - - they have lost more than a few games. So, to all the righteously indignant fans and authorities who are sure that Whatsamatter U got the shaft, I say if Whatsamatter had just won three for four of the games they lost, they would be in the tournament. It is not the Selection Committee’s fault; it is the team’s fault.

For the last several years, my suggestion has been to select 96 teams for the NCAA tournament. Seed the top 32 teams and give them byes. Then play off teams numbered 33 through 96. Those winners constitute the field of 64 for the NCAA championship. Those losers constitute the field of 32 for the NIT.

I think my idea would save a lot of arguing. For the teams that are seeded in the “low-thirties” who think they deserved a bye, all they have to do is defeat a team seeded in the mid-nineties. If they cannot do that, then they surely did not deserve a bye. By the time you have 96 teams in the tournament, the ones that are not seeded will have to have either “losses in the teens” or a schedule that is laughably easy. Their cries will be muted at best. In addition, if the Selection Committee announced that a major factor in the seedings of a 96 team tournament for the ”Bottom-64” was “out-of-conference strength of schedule”, you might see a lot more of the “power conference” schools looking to schedule some of the top notch “mid-majors”.

If you go to the official website of the NCAA you will find that the NCAA has an online “Bracket Challenge” that you can enter. Of course, the NCAA decries the idea of any nexus between collegiate athletics and gambling, but they have decided that it is a good idea to put out a Bracket Challenge with some sponsorship on it. No one is going to print out that bracket and use it for his or her “office pool” of course. So, is this yet one more example of NCAA hypocrisy or is this the beginning of the NCAA withdrawing its head from the sand? I lean toward hypocrisy but you make the call…

Steve Simmons had a great comment in the Toronto Sun yesterday about the tournament:

“Winthrop is apparently going to the NCAA basketball tournament. Mortimer isn’t .”

Think about it for a while - - it will come to you…

Let me see if I managed to put all of this together properly. The Miami Heat have been awful all season. The Miami Heat traded away Shaq - - and his very expensive contract a month ago - - in what was probably a good long-term move. Then the team “shut down” Dwayne Wade for the rest of the season. Now Pat Riley doesn’t bother to show up for all of the games because he is out scouting players in college tournaments. Therefore, here is my question for Miami Heat season ticket holders:

How much of a rebate has the team offered you on the price of the seats for the rest of the season?

Another embarrassment of a franchise in the NBA would have to be the Knicks. Some folks wonder if the only reason people pay attention to the Knicks’ stinkitude is because they are in NYC and everything in NYC is covered in too much detail. I don’t think so. The Nets are in NYC too – or so close that it doesn’t matter – and no one cares if the Nets are good, bad, or indifferent as a franchise year after year. If being bad were what it took to get attention, everyone would know every detail about the Charlotte Bobcats’ franchise - - and no one does. I think there is something more at work here.

I think the Knicks are so horribly incompetent as an organization that people keep checking in on what they are doing to see just how they can dig themselves into a deeper hole. Despite the difficulty of doing that, the Knicks seem to find ways to do it on a fairly regular basis. If some day the Knicks ownership decides that it needs to find a way to punish Isiah Thomas for his central role in flushing that franchise into the septic tank, here is an idea:

1. Have him coach the NY Liberty in the WNBA.

2. Assign a lawyer to shadow the team members to find any sexual harassment charges anyone on the team might possibly find a way to file.

You knew that a minor league baseball team would come up with a promotional night in honor of the Eliot Spitzer matter. Here is the first one I’ve heard about. The Macon Music of the independent South Coast League will hold Eliot Spitzer night on 13 June. They will give away a “one night stand” at the Mayflower hotel in Washington DC and will offer reduced price tickets to anyone who has resigned from a job.

Greg Cote of the Miami Herald had a good Eliot Spitzer line yesterday:

“Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. will get $20 million to take part in WWE’s next Wrestlemania on March 30 in Orlando. I believe that makes Mayweather the highest-paid prostitute not associated with former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.”

The Eliot Spitzer matter bothers me - - not because of its immorality or its tawdriness. I have come to expect all of that. What bothers me is that he reportedly paid about $4500 for a night with a prostitute and that makes me feel very, very old. I don’t have anything near $4500 worth of imagination anymore…

NASCAR races seem to have generated an upsurge in TV ratings this year. Even for the less prestigious races following the Daytona 500, ratings are up more than 9% this year compared to last year. Controversy is up too. Drivers are complaining about the tires; winning cars have failed inspection after the race; drivers are testy with one another already. So, that leads to a Quick Quiz:

In 250 words or less, which sport has more cheating/skullduggery, NASCAR or pro ‘rassling?

Extra Credit: Explain why “Snarlin’ “ Arlen Specter has not threatened to hold Senate hearings in the aftermath of driver Carl Edwards “losing” the cover on his oil tank somehow during one of the NASCAR races that he won.

Finally, Greg Cote had another cogent observation in yesterday’s Miami Herald:

“It’s ‘’Noche Latina'’ night at the Heat game as Miami joins the Lakers, Spurs and Suns as teams paying homage to significant Hispanic followings. Those four teams have something else in common. Three of them are really good.”

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

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I think I’ll have coconut custard pie today. What kind will you be having? It is “Pi” day after all…

I happened to run across an ESPN program with Cris Carter on camera talking about NFL matters. Listening to him speak calmly and pointedly about the subject at hand in sentences that were amenable to diagramming, I wondered if his acquisition by ESPN was a step toward the network letting Emmitt Smith’s time on the air dwindle to nothing. Time now to cue Paul McCartney:

“Let it be … let it be … let it be … let it be.”

According to an ESPN report, the citizenry of Oklahoma City voted to approve a sales tax extension thereby creating a means of funding a $120M initiative to improve an existing arena and to build a practice facility in the hopes of luring an NBA franchise to town. A 1% sales tax was to expire sometime soon and this vote extends that tax for an extra year and a half. Interestingly, the local politicos in Oklahoma City are taking the tack that no new taxes were involved in the funding that might lure an NBA team to town - - and literally that is the case. However, since that sales tax was scheduled to expire and now the tax has been extended, one could just as rationally make the argument that an “extended tax” is a “new tax”. At the most the difference between them is a distinction without a difference.

The team most folks think will be the one to move to Oklahoma City is the Seattle SuperSonics. In the past couple of weeks, local leaders in the private sector revealed a plan they have to spend $300M to modernize Key Arena in Seattle to keep the Sonics in town. Four high rollers in Seattle have pledged $150M of their money to this plan contingent on their ability to buy either the Sonics or another NBA team to house in the modernized facility.

The NBA Board of Governors will vote on issues surrounding all of this in April. On the table at the moment is a proposal to move the Sonics to Oklahoma City. Stand by for some old fashioned lobbying/politicking on this one…

Elliot Harris reported in the Chicago Sun-Times earlier this week that MLB Commissioner, Bud Selig, earned a salary of $15.06M for the baseball fiscal year that ended on October 31 2006. He also pointed out that the 2006 payroll for the Florida Marlins’ team was less than Selig’s salary.

Regardless of the fact that I think Bud Selig is under-appreciated as a commissioner for baseball or for any of the other major US sports, the fact that he made more money than did the entire Marlins’ roster for the season is appallingly out of line.

I also read a blurb saying that Chan Ho Park was in the Dodgers’ spring training camp. That leads to a very important question:

Why?

No matter how much testosterone driven aggression happens between the Yankees and the Rays this spring, the unalterable fact of baseball life is this:

Spring training games just do not matter at all.

Having said that, the fans in San Francisco might be permitted to generate a small measure of stomach acid over this piece of news. In a recent outing, Barry Zito yielded 8 runs in 3 2/3 innings to the KC Royals. By itself, that is an ERA of 19.6 and against the Royals that would have to be categorized as a “miserable outing”. However, the news gets worse. That game lowered Zito’s total ERA for the spring. Ouch!!!

In the European Champions League, top shelf soccer teams from all over Europe compete for a tournament championship. This year’s tournament has reached the quarterfinals stage and there are four teams from the English Premier League still standing – and a fifth team, Everton, lost out on penalty kicks recently. Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United remain alive in the tournament. In the 53 years this tournament has existed, never before have there been four teams from a single league still standing in the quarterfinals.

I read somewhere that Lindsey Lohan was ordered to work in a morgue as part of her sentencing for drunken driving. I have no idea if that sentence would stand up on appeal; but if the judge wanted her to be in a place of solitude and quiescence such that Ms. Lohan might reflect on her behaviors that lead to her driving while intoxicated, maybe he could sentence Ms. Lohan to take in a bunch of games in the opening round of the Women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament coming up. She could have entire sections of the arena to herself and the noise level should not exceed a healthy stomach growl in those first round match-ups.

Bob Connolly writes a weekly sports round-up for The Bronx Times Reporter. Recently, he summarized the Klitschko/Ibragimov heavyweight championship bout in a way that summarizes just why boxing is a sport in serious eclipse:

“That fight was touted to be a unification bout that would return the Heavyweight Championship of the World to its one-time venerated high position. But to me, it was more hype than substance. I realize that the “big boys” could take you out with one punch, but that punch HAS TO BE THROWN. Klitschko only threw three or four right hands in seven rounds while Ibragimov stood right in front of him. I guess we were spoiled by Ali’s, Frazier’s, and Tyson’s action packed rounds.”

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

“Parting thought: Congrats to Edgar Prado, who at Gulfstream this week became the 16th jockey to get 6,000 career victories. Cannot confirm a proud Prado said the accomplishment made him feel five feet tall.”

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

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