The Sports Curmudgeon®

Let me begin today with a Quick Quiz:

If NASCAR races are sporting events, why isn’t Ice Road Truckers a sporting event?

100 words or less…

Marcus Vick was arrested last week on charges of DUI, eluding the police, reckless driving and driving on a suspended license. I think he should be acquitted of the “eluding the police” charge since he obviously didn’t do that; they caught him. This is not Marcus Vick’s first brush with the law by a long shot. He has had a boatload of traffic citations – witness the “suspended license” business here – and he has had arrests related to firearms and molestation of a minor. I wonder if this is a case of sibling rivalry where Marcus is trying to run up a tab of small offenses that might compete with his brother, Michael’s, shorter but more heinous criminal record. On the other hand, maybe Bob Molinaro of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot got it right:

“In the wake of Marcus Vick’s latest run-in with police, let’s once again express relief that there’s not a third Vick brother.”

Cedric Benson cleared NFL waivers over the weekend meaning that no team in the NFL wanted to take him on at the moment. Of course, Benson has two court dates staring at him for boating under the influence and driving under the influence; that might explain why teams are leery. Even when Benson’s lawyer gets him off with no jail time, there is always the possibility that Roger Goodell might suspend him for a while. He also suffered an ankle injury last season that was more than a trivial sprain. And on top of all that, Benson has not been anything close to a stud tailback in his NFL days.

So, here is another Quick Quiz:

What will happen first?

1. Cedric Benson plays for another NFL team

2. Cedric Benson gets arrested for SUI - - skateboarding under the influence.

Another former Chicago Bear, William “The Refrigerator” Perry, is out of the hospital after a bout with Guillain-Barre Syndrome. That is a neurological disorder involving inflammation of the nerves peripheral to the brain and spinal chord. These nerves deal with strength in the arms and legs and with breathing. The Fridge is home, has “lost a little weight”, and reportedly is feeling much better. When Perry played, it is unlikely there were more than a dozen players in the league who weighed 300 pounds or more. On the current Bears’ roster, I counted twelve…

Dwight Perry had this item in the Seattle Times yesterday regarding the upcoming Olympics in Beijing:

“More than 4,000 Chinese children have been given the name Aoyun — meaning Olympic Games — in honor of Beijing hosting this year’s big event, BBC News reported.

“Just be glad that China never landed the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl.”

Greg Cote had an insightful observation in yesterday’s Miami Herald:

“Women’s roller derby is making a comeback, thanks to incessant promos on ESPN, refuting the idea that something has to have been missed as a precursor to it making a comeback.”

Wow, that is awfully deep. Does that mean if Mike Tyson makes a comeback and signs to fight a tomato can named Willie Getup, it might not really be a comeback because no one actually cared that Mike Tyson has not been fighting for the past couple of years? I can see Wayne and Garth plumbing the depths of this issue for an entire movie…

I remember about ten years ago when Tiger Woods took over the golf world, there were dozens of pundits who proclaimed that he would be the inspiration that would put more and more African American players into golf. Now Tiger Woods is a veteran and there has been a lot of time for young black golfers to make themselves known on the circuit. But I don’t know any and so I wonder if all those pundits might be willing to point out that they were wrong? Probably not…

Speaking of golf, the sport may have peaked in terms of popularity here in the US. I am not talking about TV ratings; I am talking about people who play golf. According to a report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the National Golf Federation estimated that 17 million fewer rounds of golf were played in 2006 than were played in 2001. In addition, 267 golf courses closed their doors in 2006/2007 - - or should I say, “stopped mowing the grass”?

Donald Trump wants to build a new golf course along with a resort, timeshare condos and a few hundred houses in Scotland. He was there pitching the concept to whatever they call a zoning authority in Scotland and he said his goal was to build the world’s greatest golf course. With Donald Trump, you would not expect him to say anything less than that. Nevertheless, I wonder what the residents of St. Andrews think about his proclamation. My guess is that they think they already have the world’s greatest golf course right there in their town.

Finally, here is another item from Dwight Perry’s Sideline Chatter column in the Seattle Times:

“Booth banter between Angels broadcasters Steve Physioc and Rex Hudler, during one of pitching coach Mike Butcher’s mound visits to counsel struggling rookie Nick Adenhart:

Physioc: ‘Hud, what’s Butcher telling Adenhart now?’

Hudler: ‘Do you prefer a window or aisle seat on your flight back to [Class AAA] Salt Lake City?’ “

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

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While publicizing the ESPN coverage of the US Open that began yesterday, one of the talking hairdos there said that Torrey Pines would be the “epicenter of the sports world” for this weekend. The hyperbole doesn’t bother me but when you consider that Torrey Pines is in La Jolla and may straddle the San Andreas Fault, I think the writer might have chosen a better metaphor there.

ESPN and NBC – who will pick up coverage over the weekend – are taking advantage of the astronomical facts of life for this tournament. Since it is on the West Coast, they can play golf at normal times out there and extend coverage into prime time on the East Coast. In addition, the folks in the northern hemisphere are just about to come upon the longest day of the year meaning there is ample daylight for golf until about 11:00 PM EDT. Some golf snobs are unhappy that the television moguls are having such a large input into things like opening round pairings and tee times and the lengths of the rounds. The fact of the matter is that television is paying a tidy sum to put the US Open on the air and when any sporting event goes for “maximum dollars” they must submit to “lessening of control”. That is true even for golf…

Just in the first day’s coverage, I think I heard about Tiger Woods’ knee and its surgery six jillion times. If this keeps up, the American Society of Orthopedic Surgeons and every physical therapist in the US should give thanks to ESPN and NBC. There will be an awareness of the health of the human knee and the surgical/rehab regimens needed to maintain the health of the human knee as never existed before.

Memo to ESPN and NBC:

1. We know Tiger Woods had surgery on his knee in mid April.

2. We know that his surgeon did a fine job.

3. We know that Tiger Woods worked hard in rehab.

4. We know he did not play a round of competitive golf on that knee coming into the US Open.

5. If you MUST tell us something about Tiger Woods’ knee, can you work on it a bit and come up with something we don’t already know because you’ve already told us about it 39 times?

In the world of boxing, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. says he is retiring. Since he is only 31, Mayweather has at least another 6 years in which he can retire and “unretire” without having anyone bat an eye. After that, he can come out of retirement to pull down a payday about once every 12-15 months if he wants. I was not buying the “retirement angle” when I first heard it and then another shoe dropped to make me even more skeptical.

Floyd Mayweather, Jr. reportedly will sign on with one of the “mixed martial arts” companies to the tune of $200M and a possible ownership share of the company. Excuse my cynicism here, but I have this strong inclination to believe that this $200M is about as real as the reported $250M that MLS led everyone to believe they would pay David Beckham to play soccer. That is not even close to correct and I suspect that the $200M that Mayweather will supposedly take down is not all cash money out of the exchequer of the mixed martial arts company.

The NBA has been trying to sell itself as a fan-friendly league for a while now. The following tidbits make you wonder if they actually know what the family fortunes of most of their fans might be. Prior to Game 4 of the Finals this year, Stubhub.com had courtside seats to the game on sale for $22,800 each. Normally these seats go for $3700 with another $200 on top of that for a pass to use the Valet Parking at the Staples Center. There was no mention about whether or not the Valet Parking pass was included in the Stubhub offering…

Any Lakers’ fan who ponied up that kind of bread for a courtside seat to Game 4 has to be seriously considering medication today. The Lakers led by 24 points in the first half of the game and led by as much as 20 points in the third quarter. Then the Celtics rallied and won. If the Lakers come back to win the championship after that loss – leaving them at a 1-3 deficit in the series – it will be the biggest comeback since Lazarus.

Up in Buffalo, there is a strange situation unfolding. Bills’ running back, Marshawn Lynch, is the subject of an investigation in a hit-and-run traffic accident. This is not like the time when Randy Moss nudged a traffic officer with his car; this is reportedly a full-blown hit-and-run accident involving a pedestrian. It happened in late May and the investigation continues. What is strange is that as of yesterday, Lynch had not spoken to the police about it. His lawyer has spoken to the police and his lawyer says that he and his client have cooperated with the investigation. Do not ask me to explain that one; it makes no sense to me either…

Now the District Attorney seems to be getting tired of all this and says he will issue subpoenas for three Bills’ players alleged to have been in the vehicle at the time of the accident if they do not cooperate with police and answer questions. Those subpoenas will compel grand jury testimony and I would think that the agents/lawyers who advise those other players would be able to communicate the problems that may arise from giving false testimony to a grand jury. Recent history should provide guidance in the cases of:

Jones, Marion

Bonds, Barry

Clinton, William

Nonetheless, I have come to realize that the capacity of athletes to receive bad advice and act on it and/or their ability to ignore good advice and do something counter-productive is virtually limitless. I have no idea what happened in that incident; but given the fact that the investigation has dragged on for a couple of weeks and that the DA is threatening to use his subpoena powers just to get to talk to witnesses makes me think this one is not headed to a happy ending.

The headline on a recent column by Charlie Walters in the St Paul Pioneer-Press was:

“Tarvaris Jackson improving as Minnesota Vikings quarterback, Matt Birk says”

To which I say:

I should hope so!

Finally, here is an observation from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

“Parting thought: Ever watched Jeremy Hermida try to play right field for the Marlins? It’s like watching a blind man try to catch a butterfly.”

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

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Amidst the clamor about NBA officiating honesty, here are two columns that create more light than heat.

The first is by Scott Ostler in today’s SF Chronicle.

The second is by Mark Heisler in today’s LA Times.

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With everyone focused on Tim Donaghy’s allegations of fixed playoff games, I thought it might be good to look at something related to the Finals that did not involve officiating. So here it is. The Lakers ugly win in Game 3 of the Finals prevented a Celtics’ sweep of the series. Why is that self-evident statement of any interest?

The Lakers have been swept from the NBA Finals more than any other team in the NBA. It happened to them while they were still in Minnesota (against the Celtics) and it happened to them against the Sixers and the Pistons in the 80s. It won’t happen this year.

Left-handed pitchers have careers of unusual longevity in MLB. Many continue to get slots on rosters as situational relief pitchers long beyond their abilities to go out there and pitch three consecutive innings. But the results of the 2008 season so far might give GMs around baseball some pause. Barry Zito’s plummeting effectiveness married with his long and expensive contract portend an albatross around the neck of the Giants’ ownership for more than a few years now. Last year, Zito’s ERA was 4.35; that’s not good although it isn’t horrible either; last year his WHIP was 1.35, which is not good but not horrible. However, in 2008, Barry Zito’s ERA is 5.83 and his WHIP is 1.87; both of those numbers are horrible. And Barry Zito is still a young left-handed pitcher.

However, Barry Zito may get a reprieve from the scorn of the fans if the career of Dontrelle Willis continues to plummet earthward. Willis is still a youngster and has just found himself optioned to Class A baseball. That is where kids just out of high school and college reside as those guys try to start a career that will hopefully end in the major leagues. The odds are at least 100-1 against them. Dontrelle Willis is there because the Detroit Tigers want to see if he can get any of those guys out because he surely did not do that in Detroit.

Last year, Willis pitched for a miserable Marlins team so one might overlook his 10-15 record. Nevertheless, in 2007, Willis’ ERA was 5.17 and his WHIP was 1.60. Those numbers are bad and they have nothing at all to do with the less than full competence of the team around him. Detroit gave him a contract extension worth about $30M and Willis has been just awful this year. His ERA is an astronomical 10.32; his WHIP is 2.47. In his last start in Detroit, he walked eight batters in less than two innings. There are pitching machines that can equal or beat those numbers.

These two cases should be a caution signal for baseball GMs as they think they are falling in love with a left-handed pitcher. Might it be time to re-examine some baseball dogma about the value of left-handed pitchers?

Recently, Roger Clemens amended the charges in the defamation suit he filed against his former trainer/needler, Brian McNamee. The additional charge claims the “intentional infliction of emotional distress” by McNamee against Clemens caused by McNamee’s assertion that Roger Clemens took performance-enhancing drugs. Time for the usual disclaimer here; I am not a lawyer so all I can do is comment on this in terms that I – and hopefully most everyone else – can understand.

A charge of “intentional infliction of emotional distress” – dare I give it the acronym IIED to save keystrokes – means that the defendant (McNamee) intentionally and purposefully engaged in an activity (accusing Clemens of using performance-enhancing drugs) which results in emotional pain and suffering on the part of the defendant (Clemens). Now I presume that courts have some threshold of “distress production” here lest everyone who has ever been called a “bodily orifice that rhymes with glass bowl” might sue under this umbrella. I refereed basketball for 37 years; if that were the case, I could have about 10,000 lawsuits meandering their way through the legal system at this moment.

Actually, if Roger Clemens wants to charge anyone – other than himself of course – with IIED, he might think about filing suit against the folks who advised him to demand a Congressional appearance and to refuse to talk to the Mitchell Commission prior to the issuance of the Mitchell Report. The problem with that is he would be filing suit against his own lawyer. That could get sticky.

Terrell Owens is now on the NFL’s list of players who may receive additional drug testing scrutiny. Let me be clear; Owens did not fail a drug test; there is no indication that he has ever failed a drug test. He finds himself on the list because he missed a scheduled drug test. The explanation given is that he never got messages left for him on his phone or his cell phone. Missing a drug test automatically puts one on the list for “enhanced testing.”

This “failure of communication devices” leads to some interesting scenarios to ponder:

Terrell Owens just signed a new contract extension with the Cowboys wherein he received something on the order of $13M guaranteed. When his agent or Jerry Jones needed to get in touch with him to arrange to sign that deal, TO’s phone seemed to work perfectly. So, should the NFL drug testers have asked Jerry Jones to contact TO and notify him of his test date and time? After all, Jones’ calls seem to get through and/or his messages seem to receive attention.

Terrell Owens may need to think about changing his cell phone plan. If he really never got a notice that there was a message for him to respond to, then he had better have a different service provider pretty quickly. Now that he is on the “enhanced testing list”, a missed drug test will cost him an automatic four-game suspension - - and the loss of four game checks at his new augmented salary level. He is now subject to 24 random drug tests throughout the calendar year. If he does not get the message again, the league office might want to start leaving messages that begin with, “Can you hear me now?”

Finally, here is an observation from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

“Michael Vick has been ordered to pay more than $2.4 million to a Canadian bank for defaulting on a loan. Damn. And just when things were going so well for him!”

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

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I want to focus on two topics today: Tim Donaghy redux and Big Brown’s Belmont. So let me get one other thing out of the way here in one simple declarative sentence:

Last night’s Game 3 of the NBA playoffs between the Celtics and the Lakers was the most brutally awful playoff basketball game that I can remember.

Tim Donaghy is back in the news with his allegation to the court/Federal officials that NBA playoff games have been fixed in the past in order to achieve some NBA League priorities that would not be served had the “wrong team” won that particular game. Here is a good summary of that entire situation.

When the Donaghy story broke, I wrote that the single worst thing that could happen to the NBA was for the slime to be spread around to other referees. Donaghy took all that to another level alleging that the league honchos were in cahoots with the referees in at least one instance. And the conspiracy theorists have lined up from here to eternity to shout, “I knew it all along.”

David Stern was interviewed just prior to last night’s game and he was in his “Sultan of Smug” mode. He dismissed all of this with a sweeping denigration of Donaghy as a convicted felon and as someone whose motive was to say anything that might minimize his sentence at his impending hearing. As soon as he said that, I wished that one of the toadies doing that interview would have asked him this:

Mr. Stern, you say we should not believe Mr. Donaghy because he has a motive to “stretch the truth”, but don’t you – as the overseer of a multi-billion dollar business enterprise – also have a powerful motive to “make all of this go away without any more public scrutiny”?

Of course, none of the journalists present – motivated to retain their NBA-issued press credentials to be sure – asked anything even close to that question. Nevertheless, as you read about this matter as it unfolds, keep your minds open and remember that if Tim Donaghy can be shown to be lying to the authorities here, he will add perjury charges to the ones he has already pled guilty to. On the other hand, if David Stern and his minions “spin the facts” in press releases and get caught, they can weasel out of that with whatever version of “it depends on the meaning of is” that they come up with.

When this matter broke, I said that David Stern needed to clean house in the NBA Security Office because all of this happened under the noses of the folks there and so they could not possibly be uber-competent. Not only did that not happen, David Stern now wants me to believe that in addition to sharing info with the authorities on this matter, his crack security staff has thoroughly investigated everything that is going on here and has found nothing. Well, if that isn’t the fox watching the hen house, then tell me what is.

Were previous NBA playoff games fixed? I don’t know but I would not rule it out.

Were games fixed by gamblers that the NBA has no clue about? I don’t know but I think that is at least a 50/50 proposition.

Were games fixed by referees at the direction of the NBA League Office? I don’t know but if they were you can start to shovel the dirt on top of the coffin of the NBA as a major sports entity in the US.

Can the NBA Security apparatus investigate itself, find nothing and convince me that all is well? Not in this millennium…

By the way, you will have a chance to gauge ESPN’s journalistic standards in the next few days. A journalistic enterprise would dig out the tapes of the games in question, go over them call by call with players and retired referees as analysts, and present that to the public. That should be an Outside The Lines special ready for airing by this weekend. A journalistic enterprise would take their investigative reporters – such as the ones they hired in the wake of the BALCO/Barry Bonds situation – and turn them loose on such allegations. Alternatively, ESPN can show itself as an “NBA partner” and simply have some studio goofs cluck about the horror of all of this. I’m betting on “NBA partner”…

Now on to Big Brown’s Belmont… Let me say at the outset, as simply and clearly as I can that I do not think this race was fixed in any way, shape or form. Several readers have written to me asking for my explanation of what happened. So, here is my slant on the situation.

First of all, I remain hugely unconvinced that Big Brown is some kind of super-horse. In all of his wins leading up to the Belmont Stakes, he beat his contemporaries and I have not seen any three-year-old run any race yet that is eye-popping. Unless there are late bloomers in this crop of foals, this is a bad crop; and Big Brown may be the least bad of the bunch. So, if my sense is correct, then a mediocre horse did what mediocre horses do all the time; he ran inconsistent to form and stunk out the joint.

Could Big Brown have been “coming down off his steroids” since he went a month without a Winstrol injection? Maybe.

Could the hoof crack have been more severe than it seemed? Maybe.

Could the missed workouts from the hoof crack have played a role here? Maybe.

Could it be that he just didn’t like running on Belmont’s sandy track surface? Maybe.

There are loads of unusual things that happen in horse races every day; not every one of them has a sinister explanation. In addition, that statement leads me to another matter here. Trainer Dick Dutrow has now begun to place the blame for all of this on jockey Kent Desormeaux. I watched the race and have seen replays at least ten times; Kent Desormeaux did not cause Big Brown to finish last in the race. As a matter of fact, as I watched the race live with two other folks, I said out loud as the field reached the top of the turn heading for the stretch and Big Brown began to lose a little ground to a tiring set of front-runners, “He’s not only going to lose; he’s probably going to finish last today.”

For the record, Kent Desormeaux is a Hall of Fame jockey. He led the nation in wins for three consecutive years; he still holds the record for most races won in a single year (598). He is not an incompetent boob.

For the record, Dick Dutrow has been suspended somewhere in the US for having horses in his charge fail drug tests in every year since 2000. He is not a man with a record that screams “honesty”.

If Big Brown is not injured as Dutrow claims and is a super-horse as Dutrow claims, then look for Big Brown to follow the schedule that Dutrow set out for him. Later this summer look for him in the Haskell Invitational (Monmouth) or the Jim Dandy or Travers Stakes (Saratoga) as a stepping-stone to the Breeders’ Cup Classic in the fall. Dutrow may decide to take Big Brown to California for the Del Mar meet and run him there – maybe in the Pacific Classic – because the Breeders’ Cup races will be in California this year. If Big Brown skips those races, you can reasonably suspect that the horse is injured despite what the trainer says. If Big Brown throws another clunker out there, you can conclude he is not a super-horse.

My guess is that Big Brown will not race against older horses prior to the Breeders’ Cup Classic because his value at stud would plummet if he lost badly to a tough field – such as might show up for the Pacific Classic. At the moment, the owners of Big Brown are looking at an asset worth something north of $50M at stud. However, if he starts losing, his value will drop like a rock since his own pedigree is nothing special. His sire was Boundary and all I can find about Boundary is that he was at stud for 10 years and his stud fee was $10K. [Aside: In the racing business, a $10K stud fee is peanuts.] Boundary only sired 16 stakes winners in his 10 years at stud and that may be why his career in the breeding shed was so short.

Finally, here are two comments from Scott Ostler of the SF Chronicle related to the officiating in NBA playoff games:

[This came after the NBA announced that the refs missed a crucial call in Game 4 of this year’s Western Conference finals.] “The NBA also announced that refs missed 8,753 charging fouls on Shaq O’Neal over the years and, just this season, failed to notice 5.1 miles of assorted traveling violations.”

“I understand that NBA playoff basketball is a lot rougher than reg-season ball, with the refs letting a lot of physical stuff slide. What I don’t understand is why. ‘Because fans don’t want to see important playoff games decided by refs,’ you say. Good point. When I go to a regular-season game, I’m thinking, ‘Man, I hope the refs get busy tonight! Love those free throws!’ “

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

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Phil Jackson thinks that the free throw disparity in the first two games of the NBA Finals shows that the referees have caused the Lakers to lose. There is no argument that the extra scoring opportunities afforded to the Celtics have been advantageous to the Celtics, but I am not yet convinced that there is some kind of bias in the referees here. I refer all skeptics to a replay where Lakers’ forward Vladimir Radmanovic is on a breakaway during the Lakers’ rally to cut a 20+-point lead to two points late in Game 2. Radmanovic took five – count them five – steps without a dribble going for his dunk. His final dribble was just outside the three-point arc. If the referees were biased and trying to assure a Celtic victory, they might have been tempted to call traveling on that play – even though most of them have forgotten that traveling is indeed still a violation of NBA rules.

Vinny Del Negro is reportedly the choice of the Chicago Bulls to be their next coach. I remember Del Negro as a player but know nothing about him personally. Nevertheless, I wonder if the Bulls really need a coach who has never coached before. The Bulls have a young team who chafed under the “stern leadership” of Scott Skiles and so the Bulls moved Skiles out and put in a laissez-faire coach who led the team exactly nowhere. The Bulls seem to play hard only in spurts and seem uncommitted to things like tough defense and lots of effort on the court. It would seem to me that a “newbie coach” might not be the way to go here…

Staying in Chicago, the Bears cut Cedric Benson yesterday. Recall about a month ago that Benson was arrested in Austin Texas on charges that he “driving” his boat while intoxicated. That interaction with the gendarmes was less than cooperative and his actions caused him to be pepper-sprayed and restrained; he still claims he was not drunk. Over the weekend and once again in Austin Texas, Benson was arrested for DWI in the early morning hours. No pepper spray was needed this time and Benson claims he was not drunk once again. The Bears have obviously had enough of this behavior simply because Benson’s on-field performance has not been nearly good enough for them to put up with this nonsense.

At the moment, Cedric Benson leads all NFL players in 2008 off-season arrests. Just to clarify, that is not a good thing…

I know that the baseball season has not hit the halfway mark yet, but I think that one needs to acknowledge that Chipper Jones is hitting the ball is if he were playing tee-ball. It is the middle of June and he is hitting .420; he already has 92 hits for the season in 58 games. The most hits Jones ever had in a season is 189 – back in 2001 – so he is almost halfway to that mark in a little over one-third of the season. It is too early to start a “Chipper Jones Assault On Hitting .400 For The Season” watch. I surely do not want ESPN to break into its coverage of whatever is on to show on split-screen every Chipper Jones at-bat. However, if he is still hitting .420 on August 1, that might not be too early to focus on his every at-bat.

The Tampa Bay Rays are on a pace to win 96 games this year. For the first ten years of their existence, the Rays have averaged 97 losses per year. The Rays have never finished at or above .500 for a season. That is another thing to keep an eye on in the baseball season.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have had 15 consecutive losing seasons; if they finish below .500 this year, they will tie the baseball record – held by the Phillies – for consecutive losing seasons. The Pirates are only two games under .500 as of this morning and they host the woebegone Washington Nationals in their next series. Pirates teams have had reasonable starts to seasons in recent years only to watch their seasons go into tailspins in August and September. This is another thing to keep an eye on as the baseball season unfolds.

Quick Quiz:

What is the more difficult feat in baseball – hitting .400 for a season or accumulating 15 consecutive losing seasons?

One hundred words or less…

Here is another rhetorical question:

How do the folks who comprise the medical staff of the Los Angeles Dodgers manage to retain their jobs?

In recent years, the Dodgers have handed out big-money contracts to Nomar Garciaparra, Andruw Jones, Esteban Loaiza and Jason Schmidt. It is too much work to go back to check the daily rosters, but one has to wonder if there was ever a game in which the Dodgers had all four of these guys off the DL and on the active roster at the same time…

Evander Holyfield’s estate near Atlanta will hit the property auction market on July 1. Holyfield is having serious financial difficulties, his estate has to be sold, and it ought to bring a decent price. The house has 54,000 square feet of living space including 17 bathrooms, 3 kitchens and a bowling alley. The lot is 232 acres.

Evander Holyfield earned a boatload of money during his boxing career. I read one estimate that said he earned more than $170M. Even if that is overstated by 50%, he earned a whole lot of money and this situation represents a cratering of his financial situation. It may explain why he continues to fight into his mid-forties - - even though he has not been able to fight very well for the last 5 years or so. One has to wonder what tomato can they will put in front of him next time. Or has Holyfield become the tomato can with a recognizable name that gets put in front of “up and comers”? Hmmm…

Here are a few of Holyfield’s outstanding debts:

He has stopped paying $3,000 a month in child support for one of his children. That may not seem like a huge sum, but recall that Holyfield has fathered ten or eleven children – the accounts vary – among a variety of women. By the time you do the math, his child support payments are a serious cash-flow drain.

He has a mortgage that is in default on the property that is up for sale. The note value reportedly is $10M.

He has a judgment outstanding for $560,000 for failure to pay a loan taken out to effect landscaping on the estate.

Finally, here is a comment from syndicated columnist, Norman Chad on the NBA Finals once again pitting the Lakers against the Celtics:

“It’s morning again in America. I half expect to look outside and see Norman Rockwell mowing my lawn and gas at 29 cents a gallon.”

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

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I really had no idea what to expect after returning from a three-week blackout of sports news. ESPN may dominate the US sports media scene; but in China, you don’t find it on most hotel TV systems. I wondered what all could have happened during that hiatus; and in situations like that, my mind often conjures up some weird fantasy scenarios. However, none of my fantasies could ever have matched the fact that Pacman Jones is now with the Cowboys and his new teammate, Terrell Owens, is saying that Pacman needs to develop amnesia so he can forget about strip clubs and stay out of trouble. Terrell Owens is serving as a mentor for a troubled young player on a team. I wouldn’t dare fantasize about something that bizarre.

When I left, the Stanley Cup playoffs were in process and now they are concluded. However, the NBA Playoffs march on. If the league finds a way to add just a little more time to the commercial breaks in the games, they might be able to stretch the playoffs out until the MLB All-Star Game.

I read a story that the NBA is going to fine players next year for “flopping”. David Stern thinks that it detracts from the game and has made that proclamation. I do not understand what that is all about because “flopping” is a violation specified in the rules of basketball, which can be effectively enforced by the officials on the spot. I am not sure why or how “flopping” needs to be elevated to some kind of “super-violation” deserving of a fine. All they need to do is to have the referees enforce the rules against “flopping” the same way the referees enforce the rules against traveling … oh, now I see why fining the players is the preferred option.

In the world of baseball, I read in the NY Daily News that the Yankees are cashing in on their final season in this incarnation of Yankee Stadium. Please recall that this is not “The House That Ruth Built”; that stadium has already been renovated and modernized once before. Nonetheless, in this final year in this stadium, the Yankees have increased ticket prices presumably for two reasons:

1. To cash in on the nostalgia factor

2. To soften the blow on the prices they will charge in their new playpen next year.

Last year, a seat behind the dugout in Yankee Stadium cost $150 a game. This year, that same seat costs $250 a game. Next year, a seat behind the dugout in Yankee Stadium 3.0 will cost $850 a game. Do some math here. If you wanted a single season ticket for a seat behind the dugout for the Yankees next year, the cost would be $68,850. According to the US Census Bureau, the 2006 median income for families in the state of New York was $62,138. Therefore, the cost of this seat at 81 home Yankees’ games exceeds the total annual income of more than half the families living in the state of New York. Wow!

I realize that it is only June and the baseball season is only about 1/3 finished, but there exists a moment of quiet pleasure for fans of small market baseball teams at the moment. In New York, the two teams there have a combined payroll that is comfortably north of $300M. The combined record of the Mets and the Yankees at this time is 62-63. I surely would not wager on the possibility that these teams will combine for a sub-.500 record for the year, but that is where they stand as we head to Father’s Day next weekend. Meanwhile the two Florida teams have a combined payroll of about $70M and those two squads have a combined record of 71-54. So, are the Rays and Marlins overachieving or are the Yankees/Mets underachieving or both?

During my China visit, I heard nothing from or about “Yammering Hank” Steinbrenner. I cannot say that made me unhappy in any way…

There are other early season surprises – at least to me – in MLB such as:

I thought the Orioles would stink in spades this year and that they would be at least 10 games under .500 by now. They are not; they are at .500.

I thought the Tigers and Indians would be at the top of the AL Central. The only reason they are not at the bottom of that division is that KC is in that division.

I thought the Mariners had a real shot to win the AL West this year. Instead they have the worst record in MLB at this point and are on pace to lose 105 games for the season.

I did not expect the Cardinals or the Marlins to be over .500 at this point in the season.

I did not expect the Pirates to be this close to .500 at this point in the season.

Thankfully, there is one thing happening in baseball that is going exactly the way I thought it would. The Washington Nationals are just plain awful and the crowds attending Washington Nationals games have dwindled to next-to-nothing. The team continues to report attendance as tickets sold/distributed; but if you look in the stands during some of the telecasts, you have to wonder what those attendance figures actually represent. Maybe they are counting the number of teeth in the fans on that particular day?

Sammy Sosa said he will retire from baseball if no one offers him a contract in the near future. Honestly, I thought he retired already. Does anyone actually miss him?

The Texas Rangers released pitcher Sidney Ponson. It’s not that Sir Sidney hasn’t been given his walking papers in the past, but this one is more unusual than the others. Ponson was actually having an effective year for the Rangers; he had a 4-1 record and an ERA of 3.88. That’s not Hall of Fame material; but on the pitching-starved Rangers, that’s acceptable. However, Ponson was released after remarks that he made to players and staff on the team. Rangers’ GM, Jon Daniels said that Ponson violated no team rules but that Ponson’s remarks made it clear that Ponson did not want to be a part of the team they were trying to build in Texas. And so, he is gone.

Finally, Greg Cote had this business analysis in a recent column in the Miami Herald:

The Marlins supposedly spend $10 million a year on advertising and marketing, the most in the majors. My question: Couldn’t they spend a fraction of that and still be last in attendance?

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

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