I will be off the air for a couple of days. I am taking a long weekend to visit my grandson and his parents in Ann Arbor. I will probably be back here next Tuesday or Wednesday.
Please check back then.
Have a good weekend all…
The news of the morning has to be the NCAA formally charging Memphis University with “major violations” during the 2007-08 basketball season. According to AP reports and the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the NCAA charges the basketball program with “knowing fraudulence or misconduct” related to an SAT exam for a player who participated on the Final Four team in the spring of 2008. Based on the wording of the NCAA charges, folks have deduced that the SAT exam irregularity has to do with Derrick Rose. In what would be a minor violation when compared to the blockbuster allegation above, the university is also charged with providing $2,260 in the form of free travel to an associate of one of the players. This may or may not be the same player who had the SAT irregularity.
Remember, these are allegations at this point; the university and the NCAA super-sleuths still have work to do here. Nonetheless, media reports have already jumped ahead to the end of the story and have said that if proven, these charges would cause Memphis to forfeit its Final Four appearance back in 2008. Whoop – di – damned – doo!!
More interestingly to me is that John Calipari just left Memphis for the job at Kentucky and – once again leaping to the end of the story here – if Memphis has to forfeit its Final Four appearance, that will continue Calipari’s streak of never making it to the Final Four with a completely legit team/program. When he took UMass to the Final Four, there were sufficient shenanigans going on there that the school had to forfeit its games; that was back in the mid-90s. UMass never recovered from that situation in terms of on-court success.
Since I am on the subject of college basketball, – sort of – let me make a couple of observations about the upcoming NBA Draft. Just about everyone has assumed that the LA Clippers will use the first pick to select Blake Griffin; were I in their shoes, I would do that immediately. One downside for the Clippers could come from a situation where Griffin just does not want to play for such a sorry-assed franchise and “mails it in” for the balance of his initial contract looking to score a deal with a decent team after it has run its course. Or, if Blake Griffin is a student of history, he may choose to take matters into his own hands now.
In football, there are the two historical markers of John Elway and Eli Manning who were taken with the first pick in the draft and then forced the teams that took them to trade them elsewhere. Both players made it known that they were not going to sign with the team holding the overall #1 pick in the draft. Blake Griffin can look at how that turned out for those two QBs. And in addition, there is an NBA historical lesson for him…
Back in the early 1980s, the Dallas Mavericks were starting to put together their team. Kiki Vandeweghe came out of UCLA and the Mavs took him with their first round pick. Vandeweghe wanted no part of an expansion team and forced the Mavs to trade him to the Nuggets where he began an NBA career that took him to three or four different teams - - one of which was the Clippers but none of which was the Mavericks. If Blake Griffin wants to play in a more positive environment than the LA Clippers have provided for players in the past, maybe he should begin to let it be known that he isn’t going to be a happy camper in the Clippers’ family.
One other NBA Draft note if I may… Any NBA team looking for a point guard has to be salivating over the prospects here. Obviously, some of these young players will flame out along the way, but I can’t recall a draft with a larger selection of quality players whose natural position is point guard. Consider in alphabetical order - - and I may have missed a couple of others:
Stephen Curry - - and he can shoot a bit too.
Jonny Flynn - - good at dribble penetration.
Brandon Jennings - - playing in Europe at the pro level at age 19.
Ty Lawson - - fast enough for you?
Patty Mills - - dominant player at college level.
Ricky Rubio - - projected to go at #2 in the draft.
Willie Warren - - overshadowed by Blake Griffin.
To catch you up on a bit of NFL news, I will simply present a comment by Kevin Cusick of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, which summarizes the situation quite well:
“New Orleans’ Jeremy Shockey was hospitalized Sunday afternoon after losing consciousness at a Las Vegas party. Saints officials claim the tight end was just ‘dehydrated’ and believe the incident won’t affect his ability to drop footballs.”
Over the years, I have had lots of opportunities to comment on Mike Tyson and his behaviors. For the most part, my comments have been anything but laudatory. However, Mike Tyson’s four-year-old daughter died this week after a freak accident at the Tyson home in Arizona. At this time, it behooves everyone to leave the Tyson family alone to work through the monstrous level of grief that must accompany a tragedy of this magnitude.
Rest in peace, young lady…
As a public service, allow me to remind you that today is the day set aside to recognize the return of the garden slugs from isle of Capistrano to the mainland where they will spend the rest of the summer leaving slime trails in gardens. In the spring, the swallows return to Capistrano - - cue the Glenn Miller Orchestra - - and in the spring, the garden slugs leave Capistrano. It is the rhythm of the cosmos…
Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:
“Angered over encounters with walkers wearing nothing but boots and socks, citizens in the tiny Swiss Alps canton of Appenzell Inner Rhodes have voted to ban nude hiking.
“Hey, it was either that or bust the budget on ‘Beware of Bares’ signs.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…
Just two days ago, I mentioned how the Cavs/Magic game from last weekend had been devoid of flow and rhythm due to all the fouls called in that game. Then on Monday night, the Lakers and Nuggets had their playoff game interrupted by another parade to the foul line. A total of 84 free throws happened in that game. The game did not go into overtime; more than a foul a minute drew a whistle.
Finally, last night there was an NBA playoff game that was exciting in two dimensions. The Cavs and the Magic played an OT game where the lead changed more than a few times and neither team ever led by 10 points. In addition, the players were able actually to play basketball for stretches of the game and did not spend all of their time lining up along the free throw lane.
By the way, here is a question for the Cavs’ coaching staff:
Why does LeBron James have to start about 80% of the offensive plays in your half court offense?
Make no mistake, he is clearly the best player on the team and may be the best player in the league at the moment – although that is clearly debatable. But there are point guards on the Cavs’ team who should be able to start some of the Cavs’ set offense more than once in a while. If not, why are they there?
Here is a reason to root for Cavs/Nuggets final series in the NBA. Picture that the series goes to a seventh game; in that seventh game, the Cavs have a one-point lead with about 5 seconds to play. Imagine if Denver were to inbound the ball to a player wearing #7 who then drove the length of the court to score a lay-up at the buzzer to beat the Cleveland team. Fans in Cleveland would have flashbacks to “The Drive” and John Elway; if that were to happen, it would behoove the drug companies to have half their inventory of Prozac and its similar medications in the Cleveland area.
Did someone ask who #7 on the Nuggets is? Merely Chauncey Billups… And that leads me to my next topic.
One of the sidebar topics for the NBA now, which has exactly nothing to do with the playoffs, is where Allen Iverson might play next year. Let me be as explicit as I can here; Allen Iverson was an exceptional player when he was at the peak of his game; today, Allen Iverson is not that player but he remains a very good player. The reason there is all the discussion about where he might find a basketball home next year has nothing to do with his on- court skills.
Given that the Denver Nuggets morphed from a team with a losing record and a lethargic style of play into championship contenders immediately after trading Allen Iverson away, many people have blamed the Nuggets weak start on the season on Iverson. That’s not really fair; the reason for the turnaround has as much to do with the addition of Chauncey Billups as the “quarterback” for the Nuggets as anything else. In addition, Iverson himself does not make it easy to dismiss all the barbs aimed his way with the way the Pistons tanked after he got to Detroit.
Does anyone really believe that the reason the Pistons put a premature end to Iverson’s season was because Iverson’s back injury would not allow him to play at an NBA level? I do not. The Pistons were a team going nowhere this year; and when Iverson came back from his injury and griped about his lack of playing time, that was enough for the team to recognize that it would be a more pleasant end to the season – with a similar “one-and-done” playoff appearance – with Iverson in a different zip code.
That is – and has been – my only criticism of Allen Iverson from the first time I saw him play for Georgetown. He is a supremely talented player who plays full throttle all the time; and at the same time, he requires the ball in his hands so much that the other players on the team stagnate resulting in no championships for any team he has ever been on. Some players make teammates into better players; some players make teammates appear to be better players; Allen Iverson stagnates his teammates.
I don’t read minds, so I don’t know if Iverson plays the way he does because he is selfish or because he was allowed to play that way for so long as a supremely talented kid that he never learned to play any other way. Here is what I do know. Now that his skills have begun to erode, his need to dominate the ball and his less than fully cooperative attitude with team activities will make finding a position for next year into an event. Teams considering signing him need to think about this one very carefully:
There is no “I” in team - - but “Iverson” begins with “I”.
Finally, here is a comment from Jim Armstrong in the Denver Post about LeBron James:
“As for the MVP, was that a yawn I detected the other night after LeBron’s 38-footer at the halftime buzzer? Makes you wonder how good the kid could be if he used women’s fertility drugs.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…
Randy Johnson won the 299th game in his career over the weekend. That has led to several columns from around the country saying that we should savor his next win because Randy Johnson may be the last 300-game winner in MLB. The logic behind that assertion is that baseball has changed markedly in the last 20 years. Gone are the four-man rotations for starting pitchers; everyone uses a five-man rotation now meaning a top-shelf starter will probably get no more than 35 starts in a season. Add to that the slavish devotion that many pitching coaches have to “pitch counts” and that many managers have to seventh/eighth/ninth inning pitching mixtures. These actions serve to remove starters from games that they might win if they are allowed to hang around another inning or two. Thus, you have created a situation where there are only a few 20-game winners in any given season. For the art history majors out there, a pitcher needs to win 20 games for 15 seasons to get to 300 wins.
I agree it will be more difficult for young pitchers just coming to MLB today to get to the 300-win mark, but I think the analysis I just presented in Cliff Notes form above is too simplistic. And, here is the statistic that makes me think this is not the last time anyone will see such an achievement:
Randy Johnson won 250 of his games after his 28th birthday.
So, who is to say that one of the really good young pitchers of today (Johann Santana, Cole Hamels, Felix Hernandez) cannot do it? Keep your eye on Hernandez; he is only 23 now and he already has 44 wins with a team that has been anything but a powerhouse for most of the time he has been in the major leagues. Heck, do not discount Roy Halladay either. Yes, he is 32 but if he can do what Randy Johnson did and pitch effectively into his early 40s, he can get from his current 139 wins awfully close to 300 wins. In addition, CC Sabathia is 29 years old with 121 wins and he has made 30 or more starts in all but one of his seasons in MLB. It will be more difficult to amass 300 wins these days; but it is not impossible.
I also read that the first 300-game winner in MLB was James “Pud” Galvin back in the 1880s. According to a story in the Style Section of the Washington Post by Paul Farhi, he got his nickname because someone said that he reduced opposing batters to “pudding”. True or not, that has to be a better justification than any you might come up with for how Willie “Puddin’Head” Jones might have gotten his nickname. The story in the Post says that Galvin may also have been the first baseball player who was a juicer; he took – via injection I presume – something called Brown-Sequard Elixir. According to a Google search, this elixir contained a fluid prepared from the testicles of guinea pigs and dogs.
Since José Canseco was not around to let us know if indeed Galvin shot this stiff into his body, we can only go on hearsay. Nonetheless, such a concoction injected into one’s bloodstream should increase the testosterone levels there since the testes of most mammals contains a goodly quantity of those hormones - - albeit not the exact human hormone. Galvin probably could not pass a drug test today…
One more Galvin stat that is amazing. He won 364 games in his career and pitched 646 complete games. That number of complete games, however, only puts him second on the all-time list and he trails the leader in this category by a huge margin. For his career, Cy Young won 511 games and Cy Young pitched 749 complete games. Here is some perspective for you:
Cy Young pitched 103 more complete games than the guy who is second all time on the list.
Randy Johnson – our soon to be 300-game winner – has thrown only 100 complete games in his career spanning 22 years.
Since I am on a track of fascinating facts here, allow me to pass along a note that a reader sent to me. He observed – correctly – that I enjoy interesting statistical quirks or accomplishments from the past and so he gave me this tidbit:
“Stan Musial had 3,630 hits in his career.
“Stan Musial had 1815 hits at home and 1815 hits on the road in his career.
“Interesting? Yes. Important? No.”
Milton Bradley had a career batting average of .280 coming into the 2009 season. In 32 games this year, he is hitting .188 with only 4 HRs and 9 RBIs. Looking at those numbers, I wonder if Cubbies’ fans are beginning to think that MLB should start testing for PDDs - - Performance Decrement Drugs?
The Minnesota Twins will get a new stadium in 2010; it will be called Target Field assuming that the economy does not tank completely. Unlike the HHH Metrodome, this will be an outdoor stadium; there will be no more domes used as homes by MLB teams; retractable roofs, yes; domes, no. I have a humongous preference for baseball as an outdoor sport played on summer evenings. Having said that, this also means that the Twins will be hosting games in Minneapolis/St. Paul outdoors in April and possibly in the first week of November should they make it to the World Series. As much as I prefer “outdoor baseball”, the description of the weather conditions for a game should never need to include the wind-chill factor.
Finally, a rhetorical question from Jim Armstrong in the Denver Post:
“So, when ManRam comes back, does he carry a glove or a purse out to left field?”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…
By this stage of the NBA Playoffs, you should expect to see good teams playing intense and competitive basketball games. Last night, the Cavs and the Magic – two good teams – played an intense game that was close from beginning to end. It should have been great entertainment but it was not. The reason is that the intensity mixed together with the officials created a concoction whose main ingredients were a stopped clock and a parade to the foul line. The game ended in regulation time; three players fouled out; a total of 58 fouls were called in addition to 2 technical fouls; a total of 86 free throws were shot. The game had all the rhythm and tempo of a funeral dirge. By the way, the Magic won just in case you finished that pot of coffee in the third quarter and could not make it until the end of the game…
The Indy 500 happened last weekend. I will simply give you a short portion of Bernie Lincicome’s description from his blog here to summarize what the Indy 500 has become:
“Television has done what it can to make turning left exciting, with on board cameras and talking to the drivers during the race and putting little cartoon cars on a make believe oval, like one of those candy piece races at the basketball game.
“But until something happens, that is, until somebody crashes into somebody else, auto racing is duller than warts.”
Speaking of televised sports, I want to state for the record and I suspect that this statement will go without any significant contradiction:
NHL games are soooo much better on high-def!
As last week ended, Jake Peavy exercised his no-trade clause and vetoed a deal that would have sent him to the White Sox reportedly in exchange for 4 young prospects. Some have criticized Peavy for doing this – even challenging his courage for opting to stay out of the American League – but what is the purpose of having a no-trade clause if it is not to prevent being sent to a team/city/situation that is not of your liking? I do not think Jake Peavy did anything wrong here at all.
Now as for the White Sox, that is a different story. Peavy’s no-trade clause was not a bit of classified information protected with all the zeal of national security data. So, before the negotiations with the Padres ever got down to the specific players that might be sent to San Diego in exchange for Peavy, would you not think that someone from the White Sox organization would have spoken directly with Peavy and/or his agent to know that he would accept the trade if and when it the Padres agree to terms? I do not understand how the White Sox could have let things unfold the way they did.
By the way, after the Minnesota Twins beat the White Sox 20-1 last week, is there still any compelling reason for MLB to hold the Home Run Derby this year? I didn’t think so…
The data is in. Attendance at the Preakness a week ago was down 35,000 people from a year ago. Most of that decrease was seen in the Pimlico infield partiers who stayed away once it was announced that people could not bring in their own beer – or even their own bottled water. Coupled with the poor economy and the general decline of horseracing, attendance took a serious hit. The Maryland Jockey Club – these are the folks who are in charge of the Preakness and Maryland racing in general – still says that they made the right decision and they expect that attendance will go back to previous levels in the next several years.
That assumes that the Preakness will still be held at Pimlico several years from now and that is not a foregone conclusion.
I am of two minds here. On one hand, Maryland racing – not just Magna Entertainment who owns the tracks – is in crisis. Last time I checked, a ticket to get into Pimlico for the infield party on Preakness day cost $50. Therefore, the cash-strapped Maryland Jockey Club turned away about $1.75M just in admission fees. Add in the parking revenue and other purchases and a few wagers from these folks and you can probably set the cost of the diminished attendance at $3M. That seems not to be a good economic decision.
On the other hand, Pimlico is not a facility that handles six-figure crowds well. The last time I attended the Preakness, the announced attendance was something like 85,000 and it was not a great experience. Even back then, the atmosphere of drunken debauchery created an unpleasant day at the races; by all accounts, it had only gotten worse in the intervening years.
The Maryland Jockey Club needs to find a way to stay in the racing business AND it needs to find a way to make the Preakness into a day at the races that in enjoyable for all kinds of fans. That is not an easy line to walk. At the moment, they seem to have found a way to antagonize one large segment of their fans while still providing a sub-standard experience for others by forcing them to spend a day in a decrepit facility.
Earlier this month, the Miami Dolphins sold the naming rights to their stadium to Landshark Lager. Now at the end of this month, the Dolphins have announced an innovation in that stadium that seems like the Great Leap Backwards to me - - with all due apologies to Mao Zedong here. I will let Greg Cote of the Miami Herald summarize for you:
“To enhance the fan experience at BadBeer Stadium this season, the Dolphins announced that 5,000 hand-held devices would be available to premium seat holders in the club and suite levels. The rich folk will be able to access instant replay, different camera angles, field-level audio and split-screen video and statistics. In other words, they will be at the game, but it almost will be as if they were at home watching it on a really, really small TV.”
Finally, here is an item from Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot - - followed by a retort from me:
“Men’s Fitness magazine just picked its list of the 25 Fittest Men in America. The No. 1 spot went to Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal. What part of America is Spain in?”
Memo to Bob Molinaro: Hey, look at the bright side. At least it wasn’t National Geographic…
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…
Yesterday marked the beginning of the WNBA Exhibition Season. In this morning’s Washington Post, the report of the Washington Mystics loss in their first exhibition game was all of six lines long and was taken from wire service reports. That pretty much gives you an idea of how important the Mystics are in the Washington sporting firmament. That leads me a Quick Quiz; no Googling allowed:
1. When does the WNBA Regular Season begin?
2. Who won the WNBA Championship last year?
3. The league lost a team and held a dispersal draft in the off-season; which team does not exist anymore?
4. Are you prepared for the draft in your WNBA Fantasy League?
Surely, you know that Michael Vick is home in Hampton, Virginia. ESPN has been hammering on that story all week. The only bit of coverage they missed was to have a helicopter tracking the progress of Vick’s “vehicle convoy” as it made its way down the Interstate. It is too bad that whoever picked him up in Kansas to drive him back to Virginia did not have the sense of irony to make the drive in a white Bronco. How cool would that have been?
I have a question related to the Michael Vick case that I have not seen anything about yet - - believe it or not. Vick may leave his home to go to and from a $10/hour construction job that he will have for at least the duration of his home confinement. In no way do I begrudge him his $400/week – minus deductions of course – but riddle me this:
In an economic situation where unemployment is running near 10%, how did Michael Vick get this job?
Are there really and truly no other people in the Tidewater area who want a $10/hour job?
Was his time in Leavenworth the key entry on the application form that put him on the short list for hiring?
A magistrate in Florida issued a ruling that would reverberate loudly throughout the world of bad-boy athletes if it becomes commonplace. A US Magistrate in Tampa ruled that former NFL running back, Travis Henry, was in violation of his bond and ordered him to jail. Henry was out on bond after pleading guilty to a federal charge of trafficking in cocaine; he is awaiting sentencing on that guilty plea. How did he violate the conditions of his bond? The Montana judge who set the bond and named the conditions included a provision that Henry could not consume alcohol; the Florida magistrate ruled that when Henry did that he violated the terms and conditions under which he was allowed to be out of jail prior to sentencing.
Imagine if judges started to include that provision for bond or for probation after a plea bargain for all bad-boy athletes. Then imagine if evidence of alcohol consumption routinely resulted in revocation of bond or even worse violation of probation such that some jail time pays off the balance of the probationary period. If this were to become prevalent, we might have to build a few more jails in the country…
The brouhaha over Steelers’ linebacker James Harrison’s idiotic remarks about why he will not join the Steelers when the team visits the White House has abated for the moment. Surely, it will resurrect itself when the visit takes place; hopefully, that will be only a brief reappearance of the story. However, this upcoming visit by the Steelers coupled with the recent visit to the White House by the Phillies as last year’s World Series Champion makes me wonder:
Is it time to call a moratorium on sports teams going to the White House for a visit after winning a championship?
I am not going to use the argument that the President has better things to do than to waste a half hour with a bunch of jocks. Sure he does; but he is an adult and he has to have sufficient judgment to be able to determine how to spend his hours in the day just to survive in that job for even a week. My reason for suggesting this moratorium has nothing to do with that angle; my reason is that these photo ops have become as interesting as an announcement that John Madden has released a rap CD.
I guess there was a time when a visit to the White House for a photo op by a championship team was new and fresh and interesting. By now there have been so many of them that they are scripted, stale and silly. The Phillies gave the President a Phillies uniform with a large “0” on the back and the name “Obama” across the shoulders. Boy, that was an original idea; no one had ever thought to do that one before… Gee, do you think the Steelers might give him a jersey too? I sure do want to check out the video to find the answer to that one…
Memo to President Obama: Calling a moratorium on these kinds of silliness would be change I could believe in.
The folks at ABC/ESPN have been looking forward to – and hyping – an NBA Finals matching LeBron James against Kobe Bryant. Both players led their teams to the NBA version of the “Final Four” - - even though the NBA dares not to call it that lest they incur the wrath of the trademark watchdogs at the NCAA. However, both the Cavaliers and the Lakers have lost a game at home early in their semi-final series. If home teams were to prevail from here on out, the NBA Finals would be Denver versus Orlando.
So, just how many prescriptions for Klonopin, Valium and/or Xanax do you think have been filled in the past day or two for folks at ABC/ESPN?
Finally, since I mentioned Michael Vick and his return to Virginia above, let me close here with a comment from Kevin Cusick in the St. Paul Pioneer-Press:
“Convicted quarterback Michael Vick reportedly is planning to write a book about his experiences. It’s a children’s tale to be titled ‘Clifford the Big Red Dog Goes to Sleep.’ “
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…
Yesterday must have been “Welcome Back Day” but no one let me in on that. Is this the latest of the Hallmark Card Co.’s holiday inventions? If so, Curmudgeon Central never got the memo. Nonetheless, here are some “Welcome Backs”:
Welcome back, Dontrelle Willis. Yesterday morning I read that he pitched six and a third shut out innings against the Rangers (a good hitting team) and at one point retired 17 hitters in a row. That got him his first major league win since September 2007. Here is hoping that whatever therapy he is undergoing for anxiety disorder has progressed to the point where he has his life back in order. Willis seems to be a genuinely nice person; last year buried deep in the minor leagues and not pitching well even at that level, he remained upbeat and accessible to the fans there. Welcome back…
Welcome Back, David Ortiz. Last night, he hit his first home run of the 2009 season. All the biographical information related to “Big Papi” says that he is 33 years old; up until last night, he had been swinging the bat as if he were 73 years old. One home run is not exactly the hitting productivity that Red Sox fans expect from their DH making $13M for the season, but perhaps last night is the jump-start that Ortiz’ 2009 season needs. If he is poised to go on a streak that puts him back on track for his normal run production stats for a season, the Sox upcoming opponents – Blue Jays, Mets Twins – might not be happy to see him come to the plate. Welcome back…?
Welcome Back – to ESPN – Keith Olbermann: Yesterday, I read in USA Today that “KO” will return to ESPN to do a radio program for an hour every Friday. There are many accounts of how and why ESPN and Olbermann parted ways. One excellent account is in the book, ESPN: The Uncensored History by Michael Freeman. Let me say in summary that the parting was far closer to The Gunfight at the OK Corral than it was to a group of folks sitting around a campfire singing Cumbaya. I always liked Olbermann on SportsCenter and I very much enjoyed his segments with Dan Patrick on Patrick’s radio show. Some folks are put off by Olbermann’s politics; I will not find it difficult to ignore any such distractions when I listen to him comment on sports. Welcome back – to ESPN…
Since I alluded to Keith Olbermann’s politics above, I need a disclaimer here. I really try to keep politics out of these rants as much as I can - - other than my absolute disdain for the people who make up the Congress of the United States. However, yesterday I also read about a political gambit that has the word “FAIL” written all over it. UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-mon, recently named President Bill Clinton to be a UN Special Envoy to Haiti. Said Secretary Ban:
“I am confident that President Clinton will bring energy, dynamism and focus to the task of mobilizing international support for Haiti’s economic recovery and reconstruction.”
Good luck with that. More likely, some future UN Secretary General will name former US President, Chelsea Clinton, to be a Special Envoy to Haiti with the same set of objectives…
Three MLB teams may be wondering why they did not get a gift yesterday as a celebration of “Welcome Back Day”. Consider:
Atlanta Braves: They signed pitcher, Kenshin Kawakami, to a 3-year contract worth $23M. At the moment, he sports a 2-5 record with a 5.73 ERA. In his seven starts, he has only amassed 37.2 innings during which he has allowed 42 hits and walked 19 batters.
Chicago Cubs: They signed outfielder, Milton Bradley, to a 3-year contract worth $30M. Bradley recently had an eight game hitting streak; that’s the good news. Overall, this year – including that hitting streak – he is batting .193 with 4 HR and 9 RBIs. Bradley has also served a suspension already this year and had a short stint on the DL.
Cleveland Indians: They signed pitcher, Kerry Wood, to a 2-year contract worth $20.1M. In the role of the Indians’ closer, Wood has a 1-2 record with 6 saves and an ERA in the stratosphere at 7.71. As of this morning, his WHIP is 1.86.
According to a website called “letsgomets.vox.com”, the NY Mets’ payroll for 2009 is $138.2M. The team has certainly not skimped on expenses. Earlier this week, someone on the business side of things in the Mets’ organization had to be wondering what he had to do in order to get his money’s worth here. In a single game, the Mets committed five fielding errors AND they had a runner called out on an appeal play – negating a run scored – because the runner failed to tag third base while coming around to score. Oh, and he did not miss that bag by only an inch either…
Lost in all of the cutesy remarks about whether or not Manny Ramirez was trying to get pregnant while taking that female fertility drug is the question of how the LA Dodgers set themselves up to pay Manny Ramirez $25M for this season. Let us reset the story back to last November. Ramirez and Scott Boras had forced a trade out of Boston with the provision that the Dodgers would not exercise the team option for the final two years of his existing contract at $20M per year. Ramirez had been brilliant for the final three months of the season plus the playoffs in LA. Nonetheless his age, his quirkiness and his behavior while forcing the Red Sox to trade him generated no other teams having sufficient interest in him to bid for his services in the $20+M range.
Somehow, Dodgers’ owner Frank McCourt studied all of this and took it to mean that he needed to bid against no one else and offer a contract worth $25M this year with a player option for next year at $20M. Really? Would Scott Boras really have let Ramirez sit out a season having helped him walk away from a guaranteed $40M in Boston with Ramirez at age 36? Just a suggestion here, but I do not think Frank McCourt ought to go to Vegas to play in any high stakes cash poker games…
Finally, a comment from Mike Bianchi in the Orlando Sentinel:
“Reportedly, thousands and thousands of social security checks are sent to the deceased every year. I believe the Pittsburgh Pirates got one just the other day.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…
I have a wide range of stuff on the clipboard for today so the best way to attack the muddle is one item at a time. Steelers’ linebacker, James Harrison, says that he will not join his Super Bowl Champion teammates for the traditional visit to the White House because:
“If you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers, invite us when we don’t win the Super Bowl. So as far as I’m concerned he would have invited Arizona if they had won.”
James Harrison is a really good linebacker. Because he was an undrafted free agent coming out of college, I assume that he did not come out early and that he spent sufficient time in college to use up his eligibility there. On that assumption, I think it is OK to conclude that he majored in neither Logic nor Current Events. Strike another blow for the concept of the “student-athlete”…
Meanwhile, Greg Paulus – who may be a Phi Beta Kappa at Duke for all I know – will transfer to Syracuse to try to play football this Fall since he has used up his basketball eligibility at Duke. I have no problem with this whatsoever. I do want to point out, however, that his college career in basketball followed by this maneuver to play football does make it seem as if “athlete-student” might be a better description for the NCAA to use - - no?
The NBA Lottery was held last night. I like that NBA Lottery more than I do the NFL Draft for a very simple reason; it only takes a couple of minutes and there is no pretense of “pre-Lottery analysis” that stretches out over the two-week period before the drawing. The LA Clippers will pick first this year. Before Clippers’ fans get themselves into too high a state of euphoria, allow me to remind everyone that the last time the Clippers had the overall #1 pick they took Michael Olowakandi and left Dirk Nowitski and Paul Pierce on the board. So, how is that working out?
A new theme park, named Love Land, was supposed to open in Chongqing China in October. The park was going to exhibit items and displays related to the history of sex and it would hold “workshops on sex techniques.” Chinese officials took a closer look and pronounced the not-yet-open theme park as “vulgar, misleading and indicative of a sick mind.” Needless to say, when the authorities in China take a position along those lines, the park will not be opening.
The Guardian’s website offered this possible reason for the conclusion drawn by the Chinese authorities:
“Maybe it was the giant revolving model of a woman’s legs and lower torso, clad only in an unflattering crimson thong, or perhaps it was the oversized replica of a set of genitals.”
You are probably asking yourself what this has to do with sports and why is it in here? Well, one of the NFL owners, Danny Boy Snyder, is currently taking a huge financial bath with his investment in Six Flags. Maybe what he needs to consider is buying up the exhibits planned for Chongqing at pennies on the dollar and changing the motif at Six Flags. Just a thought…
David Whitley did a “Week in Review” column at Fanhouse.com last Sunday. The following are “entries” for last Thursday and a “prediction” for this week:
“Favre visits famed orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews, who threatens to suture his mouth shut if Favre doesn’t announce his retirement soon.”
“Prediction for this week: Favre again announces his irrevocable retirement, unless he decides he feels good enough to run in the Belmont.”
An important question everyone needs to try to keep track of is this:
Will ESPN have more stories/features on Brett Favre or Michael Vick between now and the opening of NFL training camps?
Secondarily, try to imagine the paroxysms that would exist amongst ESPN producers if either of the following events were to happen this summer:
Brett Favre sells his farm in Mississippi and moves to a house two blocks away from where Michael Vick is serving out his sentence. The two of them play catch in Vick’s front yard - - remember, he cannot leave home except to go to work - - every evening.
Allen Iverson goes home to Hampton, Virginia and joins the two of these guys in the evening “throw arounds”. Once Vick is allowed to leave home, the three of them arrange touch football games with local high school kids.
Here is my position on Michael Vick and his reinstatement by the NFL as an eligible player. What Michael Vick did was heinous and revolting; the legal system of the US worked its will and Michael Vick served his time. That does not excuse what he did but it does mean that he and US society as represented by the legal system are now square. By the standards of everyone else in society, he should be free to try to make a living doing what he is competent to do.
The question for Michael Vick is this: Can an NFL team/owner employ Michael Vick in light of the vitriol that continues to exist in the general public? On one hand, NFL teams need to sign competent players and Vick is certainly superior to some folks who will be on NFL rosters starting this September. On the other hand, NFL teams have to maintain a positive relationship with the fans who buy their tickets, buy their paraphernalia and watch them on TV. [Aside: NFL coaches also hate “distractions” and there are no circumstances under which Michael Vick would not generate “distractions” for a team this summer.] At the moment, it is not clear how all of this might balance out in the case of any specific team.
Here is something I am certain about. Michael Vick would not be the first convicted miscreant to be allowed back into sports after serving time for a pretty awful crime. Two examples leap to mind:
Leonard Little was driving while intoxicated and he struck and killed a woman. Little served his time and as I recall the NFL suspended him for part of the following season before allowing him to return to the St. Louis Rams where he remains on the depth chart as of this morning.
Mike Tyson returned to boxing after a conviction for rape and a few years in jail.
As I said above, what Michael Vick did was heinous and revolting. Nonetheless, look at these two precedents before deciding that there is no way he will ever be allowed back in the NFL.
Finally, Greg Cote had this comment in the Miami Herald that is related to the hoopla that will surely swirl around Michael Vick this summer:
“People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has asked the pop group Pet Shop Boys to change its name to Rescue Shelter Boys. Seriously. But that’s only because PETA couldn’t come up with an even more ridiculous, embarrassing publicity stunt.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…
ESPN announced yesterday that Jon Gruden will replace Tony Kornheiser on MNF. According to the official statement, Kornheiser opted out of this assignment because of his fear of flying – an actual fear of being in an airplane and not a fear of having to read Erica Jong’s horrid novel of the same name. Today on Pardon the Interruption, I am sure we will hear more from “Mr. Tony” on this decision.
Tony Kornheiser is an acquired taste. I happen to enjoy his work in print, on the radio, on PTI and on The Sports Reporters. I find him knowledgeable and entertaining at the same time. I will miss him on MNF. That statement is not a knock on Jon Gruden who does not have a body of work in radio/TV that would allow me to form an opinion on his competence or lack thereof. This may turn out to be a brilliant move on the part of the MNF producers; time will tell.
Having said all of the above, I am beginning to wonder if the “three-man booth” is overpopulated. Back in the early 1970s, MNF broke new ground with a “three man booth”. The trio of Frank Gifford, Dandy Don Meredith and Howard Cosell provided an entertaining – and very different – presentation of NFL football on TV. [Aside: Keith Jackson did play-by-play the first year for MNF before Frank Gifford took over that role.] Most folks have attributed those golden days for MNF to Howard Cosell; and in no way, do I doubt for a moment that he was a critical element of the show’s success. Nevertheless, my sense is that the “three man booth” worked well because of the presence of Don Meredith who did not compete with the other two for airtime.
One other “three man booth” worked brilliantly. In the 1980s, Dick Enberg, Billy Packer and Al McGuire formed the best announcing team for college basketball ever. Enberg provided competent play-by-play; Packer had not become the annoying scold that he would turn into 20 years later but when he did go off on some tangential point, Al McGuire calmly pricked the balloon and brought him back to Planet Earth with wit and charm.
In my opinion, those are the ONLY “three man booths” that have been excellent and you will note that both of these ceased to exist about 25 years ago. Ergo, I suggest that the suits at the various networks consider the possibility that:
Two announcers are sufficient to do a sporting event on television.
In another announcement related to sports media yesterday, FOX said that it had reached an agreement with MLB to move up the start of World Series games this fall. The games will start at 8:00 PM Eastern Time meaning that on most nights here on the East Coast one should be in bed by midnight. Of course, that assumes there will be no snow delays in the games that will be played in November… I realize that on the West Coast that means the games will start at 5:00 PM and that working folks will miss the first inning or two - - depending on traffic. Nevertheless, I think this change is a positive step overall. Here is the next step that MLB needs to take:
Saturday games for the World Series need to happen in the afternoon.
Here in the DC area, baseball news has to focus on something other than the 2009 version of the Washington Nationals because that club would have to be twice as good as it is to pretend to be a major league squad. So, the baseball buzz here is all about whether or not the Nats will use their first pick in the baseball draft next month to take pitcher Stephen Strasburg, the uber-prospect from San Diego State who has Scott Boras as an agent and who may ask for a $50M rookie contract. I do not care how fast he throws a baseball or how great his career has been to date, that is a huge financial risk on the part of a baseball team in terms of a young pitcher.
Nevertheless, here is why the Nats really do have to take that risk and pay this kid whatever it takes to sign him. The front-running fans of Washington have abandoned the Nationals. The team is only 5 years old in this town and it is playing its second year in a new stadium. In 2009, they have played 18 home games. Compared to the first 18 games of last season, attendance is down 170,658 people. For those keeping score at home, that is an average of 9,481 fewer people per game.
The Nationals have not been willing to announce how many season tickets the team sold this year; last year it bragged that it had more than 20,000 of them sold. Various estimates for this year put the number for 2009 in the 14,000 range; obviously, that is an estimate/educated guess. Here is what is not a guess. If the Nats actually renewed 20,000 season tix for 2009, there are loads of ticket holders who are not coming to the games AND who are not disposing of their tix in such a way that someone else goes to the games. I watched last night’s game; the announced attendance was 14,549. All I can say is that the people running the concession stands had to have been VERY busy last night because it sure did not ever look as if there were that many folks actually in seats watching baseball action.
By the way, if any of you are visiting Washington this summer and want to take in a ballgame, you can be certain to buy walk-up seats. In addition, a check of Stubhub will reveal that cheap seats - - as low as $4 in some cases - - are available for all home games.
Greg Cote of the Miami Herald put Saturday’s Preakness win by Rachael Alexandra into a perfect social context with this comment:
“Rachel Alexandra on Saturday became the first filly to win the Preakness since 1924. Twelve desperate males chasing one favored female? Sounds about like any Saturday in any bar in America.”
Finally, here is another observation by Greg Cote in the Miami Herald about the Florida Marlins – another MLB team with attendance woes – and one thing the team has tried to do to ease those woes:
“Friday night’s Marlins game featured a ‘Saturday Spectacular’ postgame concert by ‘Stevie B with Angel and Aby formerly of TKA and download Mp3 online.’ Because, evidently, all of the performers anybody had ever heard of or might care to see had been booked.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…
I doubt that I will need a long time to convince most of you that the economy is still far less than robust; but in case you need reminding, here is a single tidbit to consider. According to an article in the Seattle Times, the city of Tacoma, Washington advertised a job opening for a parking meter-reader; they intended to hire one person. Fourteen hundred people applied for the job. Cabeesh?
The economic situation continues to deliver blunt instrument trauma to the sports world. You know about the Yankees and the Mets attendance shortfalls. Consider that the Yankees and the Mets play in an area where their ardent fans had – past tense – more than a little disposable income to spend on baseball tickets. This year, both teams are in new stadia and neither team is close to selling out the place. If that message remains subtle, then someone is not paying attention.
The effect of the economy on the NHL will be seen in living color as the business related to the bankruptcy and sale of the Phoenix Coyotes proceeds. Gary Bettman – like his mentor David Stern – loves to proclaim great progress and success in everything his league does. Notwithstanding his proclamations, Game 7 of the Caps/Penguins series featuring the two biggest young stars of the league going head-to-head, the TV audience for that game nationwide was estimated at just under 650,000. Meanwhile, on that same evening, also on cable TV - - not network TV - - Game 6 of the Lakers/Rockets series attracted an audience of just over 6 million.
Memo to Gary Bettman: Check the local ratings on that evening in Phoenix. How many fans watched basketball versus hockey in that city that night? Neither game had a local team involved. Those ratings might give you a clue about why your hockey franchise died on the vine.
However, lest you get the impression that the NBA is healthy, let me suggest ever so politely that it too is in deep yogurt – despite David Stern’s dismissal of any suggestion that there is anything to be concerned about. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain… The rest of this rant will focus on NBA economic concerns.
Back in the first round of the NBA playoffs as the Cleveland Cavaliers were up two games to none on the Detroit Pistons in a series that produced exactly no drama or intrigue at all, the series was set to move north to Detroit. The Pistons could not sell out the place for the playoff game; in fact, they were not even close to selling out. So, the Pistons sent e-mail invitations to Cleveland Cavalier season ticket holders inviting them to come to Detroit (about a 3-hour drive) to see the playoff series continue there. Ladies and gentlemen, Detroit is a very good sports town; they support their teams very well even when the teams do not do very well. This is another bludgeon to the head for sports execs regarding the economic condition…
The NBA business model needs re-examination in the next collective bargaining agreement. There are several axioms of the NBA that may need to change and the first of them is the guaranteed contract. Nothing damages the product on the floor worse than a team signing a player to a large six-year contract only to have that player show up for games and give a nonchalant effort for the first five seasons. It kills the team; if the contract is a big one it can prevent the signing of other players; most of all, it annoys the fans. Other than that, it is just fine and dandy. Players need some degree of “protection” in their deals but a full guarantee of salary is no longer the answer. Review for just a moment the contract history of Stephon Marbury as an example of how a guaranteed contract just does not work.
The NBA is a league that lives on marketing its star players. There is nothing wrong with that - - so long as the star players are distributed around the league and each is surrounded by something other than rejects from the Washington Generals. Fans pay good money to see Kobe Bryant and LeBron James and Kevin Garnett and Chris Paul and etc. They do not pay good money to see “supporting cast players”. Nevertheless, without competent “supporting casts”, none of those stars would be nearly as exciting or as big a drawing card as they could be. So, perhaps there needs to be a formula derived regarding the distribution of salaries within a team salary structure?
The league and the union would do well to find a way to keep cohesive teams in place for more than a single season. NBA fans have been conditioned to identify with the star players and not the team jerseys; that is fine so long as the games are competitive and entertaining but when those conditions are not present, the fans need something to root for – or against. Teams that stay together over a period of several seasons are hardly the norm anymore. That does not help with fan interest and attention.
The league also needs to figure out how to reduce the season. This will reduce revenue and drive down whatever form of salary cap that the league has in place. That sounds like a bad idea but I do not think it is. Far too many NBA regular season games are “shoot-arounds” until the final 10 minutes when players begin to play hard. I do not read minds so I do not know if this is because the players are fatigued from the number of games and the travel arrangements or if this is because the players lose interest in an 82-game season. Or both.
Whatever the cause, a fan that pays anything near $100 a seat – assuming that fan knows anything at all about basketball – will not be happy to leave the arena realizing that he just watched 10 minutes of serious play and 38 minutes of “grab-ass”. At least 50% of the regular-season NBA games could be classified as “passion deprived”; the translation for that would be “boring”. I suspect that fewer games will make each game a better “entertainment value” and that is precisely what the NBA needs right now. Attendance is way down in several cities and down enough for other teams to notice. Part of that decline is due to the fact that people now are looking at how to spend discretionary income and some are deciding that regular season NBA games are not worth the money. In far too many instances, they are absolutely right.
I have to mention here something I have been in favor of for at least the past decade. The NBA needs to consider contraction. Recall, the league had to take out a loan of approximately $200M from the troubled US banking system to use as a way to infuse liquidity into various teams in the league who could not get loans from banks once credit tightened last year. There is no way that fact is a “good thing”. There is also no way that the league or the individual teams are going to open their books to let the union or the public see which teams are in the most serious financial peril. Nevertheless, some are in bad shape and others are in worse shape. Even though it would mean reduced numbers of jobs for players and reduced revenue for the league, it may be time to contract the NBA. Here are 12 of the 30 franchises in the league (40% of the teams!) that might be in sufficient difficulty that it makes sense to “redistribute their assets” around the league:
Charlotte: This is college basketball country. The NBA did well here for about three or four years but the bloom is off the rose.
Sacramento: Unless the team is a threat to win it all, attendance is “limited”.
LA Clippers: Any questions?
Memphis: This town did not work in the ABA; it is not working in the NBA.
OK City: Maybe this franchise will work out because there is no other pro sports team within a few hundred miles, but is that worth the gamble?
New Orleans: There are two pro franchises in town. The Hornets will always be #2. Always…
Atlanta: One of the two worst pro sports towns in the country.
Miami: The other of the two worst pro sports towns in the country. Love seeing those bright orange empty seats on TV for playoff games.
Indiana: There are reports that the team is losing $30M a year. If that is even close to correct, that cannot go on for long.
Washington: Like Sacramento, attendance drops like a rock when the team is not in contention. The biggest front-runner fans in the country…
New Jersey: Like New Orleans, the Nets will always be the #2 team in the NYC market. Always…
Philadelphia: The team has not drawn well for a while now; their announced attendance numbers should be filed under “F” for “Fictional”.
From that list, the league could surely find a way to cut down to 24 teams at the most. I would cut all the way to 20; but that’s just me…
Finally, here is a comment from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald regarding the intersection of the sports world and the economy:
“A 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card sold at auction for $1.62 million. Unless the card includes a secret code to the whereabouts of about $1.61 million in hidden treasure, I’m thinking the buyer overpaid.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…
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