The Sports Curmudgeon®

I will be off the air for the next couple of weeks. My long-suffering wife and I are flying south - - where it is warm - - with friends. We will be visiting Panama and spending three days of our trip on a small watercraft traversing the Panama Canal.

I will probably post my next rant on Monday 8 March or Tuesday 9 March - - depending on things like jet lag and the amount of time it takes to get back into the rhythm of writing.

Please check back then.

Stay well, everyone…

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I do not know where you live; but for anyone reading this in the Mid-Atlantic region or the northeast part of the US, you probably have had enough of winter and are ready for spring. Even cross-country skiers have to have had enough of this nonsense by now… Therefore, I am going to do my small part to conjure up for you images of springtime and warmth and renewal and - - - baseball.

One can be happy about the impending arrival of baseball even if one is throwing cold water on the prospects for the hometown nine in 2010. Gene Collier writes for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; he holds no illusions about the Pirates crafting a miracle season in 2010; he threw a barrel cold water on that season in a column last week - - and living in or around Pittsburgh this February, it was not hard for him to find cold water. This is definitely not your standard “Hope Springs Eternal…” exposition.

Collier’s effort from 18 Feb deserves to be read in its entirety; it is a very good column and extremely well written. You will have to read it to find out what constitutes “Murmerer’s Row”.

Let me see, it is 23 February… If my calculations are correct, the Washington Nationals were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs sometime yesterday afternoon…

I make fun of the Nationals because it is so easy to do; they have not yet put a true major league team on the field in their tenure here in DC; this is a team that would not have been a prohibitive favorite to win the Minor League World Series last year. Having said that, the Nats are not the only team that begins their spring training drills with little if any hope of making the playoffs. Truth be told, most of these teams have little if any hope of finishing at .500 in 2010. Consider:

AL West: Given the moves made by the Mariners and the Rangers, it looks as if the Oakland A’s have first dibs on last place in this division. Remember “Moneyball” and how the A’s were so far ahead of the curve as compared to all the other teams in MLB in using advanced stats to assemble a roster? So which is it? Is “Moneyball” not all that effective as a strategy or is it that the A’s have no idea how to implement it effectively? The success of the A’s in their “Moneyball Hey-Day” was due in the largest part by a young pitching staff that was excellent. Harden, Haren, Hudson, Mulder and Zito could have won with a team assembled by anyone smarter than a blueberry bagel. Please note that none of those guys are anywhere near the 2010 A’s roster …

AL Central: Despite an early spasm of winning and some Herculean pitching performances by Zack Greinke, the KC Royals wilted last year. Moreover, they will wilt again this year. In the last 16 years, the Royals have been at .500 exactly one time.

AL East: People will focus on the “race” to see who wins this division. What they need to watch is the race to the bottom. Will the Orioles or the Blue Jays be “looking up at all of them” when October rolls around? When the Jays traded Roy Halladay, you had to think they were acclimatizing themselves for a visit to the bottom of the division standings. However, even an optimistic glance at the Orioles roster makes you winder how anyone in the AL East can possibly finish behind that squad. The Canadian Football League season usually begins in early July; I do not know if the Jays will be eliminated from contention that early so that Toronto sports fans can turn their attention to the Argonauts. However, the NFL does not start until the second week in September. The Orioles will have been out of the race for weeks by that time and fans can comfortably focus their attention on the Ravens by then…

NL West: San Diego is a wonderful part of the country; it is a great place to live. Having said that, the Padres are a miserable baseball team. The owner of the team was enmeshed in a “less than amicable” divorce proceeding and that forced him to sell the team to a guy who had been an agent for players in the past. There is a new GM in town but not any new impact players. I suspect the Padres are going to stink…

NL Central: Ah, the Pirates… For 17 consecutive seasons, the Pirates have finished below .500. Sometime this autumn, a kid in the Pittsburgh area will become eligible to vote and that kid will have been born since the last time the Pirates were a winner. As the Pirates trade away their players, the incumbent owners tell the fans they want to build via the farm system and that takes time. Lots of fans think “17 years” constitutes “time”… Oh, by the way, the Pirates signed a new closer for 2010. That would be Octavio “Heartbreak” Dotel. I just do not think he is the answer - - unless of course the question was:

Where can we find a relief pitcher who can masquerade as a closer and who will work cheap?

NL East: Ah, the Nationals… The product on the field at the end of 2009 stunk. Meanwhile, the Nats’ farm system was hardly ripe with Top Shelf prospects. I saw their A and AA farm teams last year and not a single player jumped out as a guy you wanted to get an autograph from because he was surely going to be a big leaguer in a couple of years. Attendance has cratered in Washington - - despite the hunger built up there in baseball fans by 35 years of absence - - and so the team had to find a way to make fans think they were going to be competitive in 2010. Enter a couple of relatively high priced players one of whose careers sure seems to be in the rear view mirror of life - - Pudge Rodriguez - - and a closer who had an ERA over 5.50 last season - - Matt Capps.

Commissioner Bud Selig said last Fall that he wanted to increase the “pace” of the game and he assembled a blue ribbon panel of baseball guys - - translation a meeting of “Geezers R Us” - - to provide recommendations to do just that. Well, I am a geezer too; and so, I have three ideas for the Commish:

1. Wave a batter to first base as soon as the defensive manager calls for an intentional walk.

2. Limit the number of “strolls to the mound” by a pitching coach or manager. On the third such visit of the game - - not an inning - - the pitcher on the mound must be removed. In addition, as soon as the pitching coach or manager emerges from the dugout for his stroll, have the umpire hit a stopwatch. If the current pitcher is not removed, the coach/manager has 45 seconds to get back across the foul line on his way back to the dugout or the batter due up starts his at-bat with a 2-0 count.

3. Forget about any more renditions of God Bless America in the seventh inning. They take time; most of them are poorly done. Unless MLB finds a way to reincarnate Kate Smith to do the number, put that rather young tradition out to pasture. It was fine to do this when baseball came back after 9/11; now…

Baseball is a sport that thrives on records and stats and history. Back in 1961, then Commissioner, Ford Frick, put an asterisk in the record books next to Roger Maris’ 61 home runs in a single season because he hit those 61 home runs in a 162-game season as opposed to Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs in a 154-game season. Given that history, here is another suggestion for Commissioner Selig:

Go to the record books and put a “dagger” next to the asterisk that Commish Frick had there. The asterisk footnote should acknowledge that Maris hit his 61 home runs in the “162-game era”. The dagger footnote should note that Maris hit his 61 home runs in the “steroid free era”.

Then put “double daggers” next to the numbers of any home run records involving play in the 1990s and until 2007 and make the note that there is reason to suspect that “chemical enhancement” was involved in any or all of these records.

Finally, let me close with two items from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times, which have exactly nothing to do with baseball:

“Steve Schrader of the Detroit Free Press, on trying to decide whether to watch the Winter Olympics or the Westminster Dog Show: “Best in Show or Best in Snow? Kiss and Cry Area or Scratch and Sniff Area?”

“Q: What do they call the baddest dude on the Winter Olympic ski slopes?
A: Whistler’s mutha.”

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

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Bob Ford of the Philadelphia Inquirer hit this one out of the park…

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After the fact of the “Tiger Woods Apologia” on Friday, I feel no need to change anything I said on that subject last Thursday evening. However, there was one aftermath of his staged appearance that does need a comment.

To the shock and horror of everyone at ESPN, the Dalai Lama had never heard of Tiger Woods until Friday when someone informed the Dalai Lama of Woods’ statements that he had strayed from the Buddhist precepts his mother had taught him. Tiger Woods also said that he recognized that returning to those precepts would help him deal with his infidelities and keep him on a more righteous path in the future. Those remarks, from a person the Dalai Lama had never heard of, somehow generated the need for the Dalai Lama to issue a statement.

I do not know how to speak Tibetan, but there must be a phrase in that language that carries the same sense that “stuff a sock in it” does in English. Come now… A religious leader - - who also doubles as a political head of state for an independent state that does not exist - - need not glom onto anything said by a philandering golfer as yet another way for said religious leader to get in the news.

Lest anyone think that is an expression of religious intolerance, it is not. I would apply the same standard to leaders of every religion in the world from the Pope to the Archbishop of Canterbury to every Imam in the Muslim world should any of them choose to weigh in on this non-issue. In addition, the same goes for Brit Hume of FOX News and his suggestion to Tiger Woods on Woods’ choice of religious beliefs. Enough already; there is no theological content here; move on.

Some folks thought my comment on Tiger Woods were overly blunt last week. Admittedly, I did not intend to make them sound like a diplomatic statement coming from the State Department. However, what I said pales in comparison with what Dan Jenkins said in Golf Digest last weekend. Jenkins had ignored this whole issue for three months but penned his thoughts after the apologia last week and took a shot at the people who have fawned over Tiger Woods all these years saying:

“For all of the Tiger idolaters out there, it must have been like finding out that ice cream sundaes give you gonorrhea.”

Jenkins’ column deserves to be read in its entirety. I will not pretend to be able to do it justice here in any summary fashion.

It seems as if Crystal Magnum is back for another 15 minutes of fame. In case you do not recognize that name, she had her first time in the spotlight four years ago when she accused three members of the Duke lacrosse team of raping her. Surely, you recall the swirl of events that resulted from that accusation. Last week, Crystal Magnum was charged with arson and attempted murder based on an allegation that she burned her boyfriend’s clothes in a bathtub and attacked him. Nancy Grace and her producers will probably be all over this case…

David Whitley on AOL Fanhouse had this comment about Ms. Magnum:

“Crystal Magnum, the woman who falsely accused three Duke lacrosse players of rape four years ago, is charged with attempted murder after allegedly assaulting her boyfriend and setting his clothes on fire. Rev. Jesse Jackson blames the Duke baseball team.”

[Aside: I never did see any apology from Rev Jackson for his actions and remarks in the Duke lacrosse case and a cursory Google search came up with none. Interesting…]

In my continuing quest to keep you up to date with happenings in the Winter Olympics - - without me having to spend hours upon hours in front of a TV set watching more of those events than I could stand - - I will take you on a trip round the country for comments by others:

First, Bob Molinaro of the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot had this to say:

“Wondering: Where do women hockey players go between Olympics, the federal witness protection program?”

Moving further south, Greg Cote of the Miami Herald had this note about the effect the NHL’s Olympic hiatus has had on the Florida Panthers:

“The reeling Panthers lost six consecutive games before the NHL went on hiatus for the Winter Olympics. Here’s how bad the Cats’ offense has been. While not playing any games the past week, the team’s goals-per-game average has risen slightly.”

Meanwhile in the great northwest, Dwight Perry accumulated several comments of this ilk in the Seattle Times:

“ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, on the Winter Olympics: ‘Skiing, snowboarding, ice-skating, these are not sports. They’re vacation activities. I feel like I’m watching someone’s home movies.’ “

“Headline in the Vancouver (B.C.) Sun: ‘It’s Johnny Weir — the d is silent.’ “

“Todd Dewey of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, after Tuesday’s ski schedule was dashed because of too much snow: ‘ What’s next, canceling beach volleyball because of too much sand?’ “

Finally, on a different topic of only marginal interest within the sports world, here is a comment from Greg Cote that wraps it all up in 16 words:

“I think America’s Cup sailing just happened in Spain. I’m pretty sure some rich guy won.”

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

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In all of the rants I have done here, I do not think I have ever done this before. I must inform you that I am writing this late at night on the day before the date that you see at the top of this rant. I want to make that clear because I am going to talk about the “Tiger Woods Coming Out Party” scheduled for tomorrow morning and I want to be sure that everyone knows that this is written before the fact and not after the fact. If I need to change or modify any of my statements here after the fact, I will be back on Monday to do so.

[Aside: Reading that last sentence, I realize that I sound like a US Senator who has just asked for and received unanimous consent to modify and extend his remarks after his previously prepared speech. As you know, I hold the entire Congress of the United States in profound contempt; therefore, the similarity of my statement there to a US Senator makes me feel the need to go and take a shower. I will be back in a moment…]

OK, I am back - - and surprisingly, there is still some soap left in the shower…

The topic of the moment is the reemergence of Tiger Woods from his self-imposed exile/hibernation subsequent to his “one-car traffic incident” back around Thanksgiving time when his wife miraculously and benevolently came to his aid with golf club in hand to smash out the window in his SUV with the sole purpose of extricating him from that dangerous and threatening situation. Remember, that was the “official story” way back when…

After about three months of living in a cocoon, Tiger Woods will reemerge in front of TV cameras, radio microphones and “selected members of the media” - - translation tame scribes who are on a short leash with shock collars attached - - to address the public and tell us what happened.

First of all, let me say that each and every member of the press corps who attends this charade by invitation and holds to the dictum that no questions will be allowed needs immediately to turn in his “investigative journalism card”. Go to this event under those conditions and fawn over this man after his prepared and well rehearsed statement and you are nothing but a toady. If that term offends anyone, the one I had here before I “edited” it was “lickspittle”.

Let me begin by stating something that you will not find anywhere on the website of The Golf Channel:

The entirety of the adult life of Tiger Woods has been a lie - - and I do not mean that in the sense of where a golf ball comes to rest. This man is really a blatant pretense of a socialized being; he is not the person we have been led to believe that he is. He cares nothing for his family; he is not focused solely on the greatness of his golf game; he is a horndog.

I will pause for a moment here while everyone associated with the administration of the PGA Tour and The Golf Channel catches their breath and calls “911” to come and assist their associate in the next cubicle who has just lost consciousness…

I really do not care how much you might want to sugar coat the “Tiger Woods Reemergence Event”; the fact is that his image as a wholesome family man and totally focused competitor is a complete lie, fabrication, untruth, calumniation - - go to your thesaurus for more synonyms here.

In addition, having said all of that, let me add that it is HIS life and so be it. There is no cause for - - or need for - - any prodigious amounts of hand-wringing on the part of US society at large. This man is a golfer; he hits a small white ball into a hole in the grass for a living. Big f- - - ing deal!!!

He is not a “leader” of society; he is not a “pillar” of society. If he happened to drop dead next week from an aortic aneurysm, what would be the loss to humankind-at-large? Answer: Not a damned thing! In fact, if The Golf Channel managed to survive his imagined demise, they would be the only people whose lives would be impacted by his imagined demise more than 6 months from now…

Let me be clear. Tiger Woods committed no heinous crimes against society. Depending on your views of family and marriage and honoring one’s oaths, he may have committed heinous acts against a small circle of individual people, but Tiger Woods is not Josef Mengele.

Tiger Woods’ handlers and image-makers herded the media in the past the same way drovers herded cattle. When anyone “got out of line”, that person got a cattle prod. In the case of a drover, that was a literal event; in the case of Tiger Woods, a “journalist” who got off the reservation simply got cut off from any access to “His Tigerness”. Most golf journalists who had access would rather have taken a cattle prod to a sensitive body region…

Now, we are about to see a reemergence of “His Tigerness” orchestrated by the same handlers and waiting to be covered by the same tame writers who have been on the short leash for so long. Tiger Woods will stand before cameras and microphones and will mouth words that have been prepared and “focus-grouped” for him in advance by the same handlers that sold us the image of the “devoted family man” just three months ago. You can be certain that he will apologize for his actions to anyone and everyone. Please note there will be no polygraph leads attached to him so he can say whatever he wants with complete impunity. His media acolytes will assure everyone that he is sincere, that he has learned a terrible lesson, and that the future will show what a wonderful hominid he really is. [They will surely stop short of assuring us that Tiger Woods walks upright instead of on all fours but that is probably the limits of the lengths to which many will go to assure us that their hero/meal ticket is “only the best”.]

Controlling the audience is a typical behavioral mode for the folks who have handled Tiger Woods for the last 15 years. They can do that here because they can control access to this event. However, those people - - and Tiger Woods - - are deluding themselves if they think they can control the “tabloid wing” of the media. Lots of celebrities have tried; few if any have succeeded.

In the past, access to Tiger Woods meant that the writer/reporter had information to convey that was timely and important because it had a source. That access gave a cachet to the reporter and whatever he had to report at any instant in time. People hung on that kind of stuff. But the tabloids do not work that way.

Readers of the tabloids and the “gossip-gobblers” do not care if a reporter interviews the subject - - in this case Tiger Woods. All they give a fig about is “stuff”… If someone has some “stuff” that leads to the possible conclusion that aliens abducted Tiger Woods 15 years ago and gave him a rectal probe that lasted too long such that it afflicted him with an insatiable sexual appetite, there is a tabloid somewhere that will print it.

Tiger Woods’ handlers have been able to control a bunch of golf-writing lapdogs for the past decade. Good luck controlling the tabs and the paparazzi…

Before the fact of the Tiger Woods Reemergence Event, let me make a couple of things very clear:

1. He needs not to apologize to me or to you. He did not do anything to us that affected our lives in any meaningful way. If you think he owes you an apology, you are an entitlement freak.

2. His actions - - not any crafted statements or choreographed publicity events - - will determine whether or not his wife accepts his apologies.

3. His actions - - not any crafted statements or choreographed publicity events - - will determine to what degree his “bimbo troupe” accepts his apologies. Just a suspicion here, but “his actions” in this regard could well involve a lot of portraits of dead presidents migrating in the direction of the “bimbo troupe”…

If you have gotten the idea here that I think Tiger Woods’ handlers are antediluvian pond slime and all of them should be waterboarded just for the Hell of it, you are pretty much on target. Nevertheless, let me presume to offer some advice to Tiger Woods as a golfing icon:

Memo to Tiger Woods:

1. Once you show up back on the PGA Tour - - which is really the only venue on Earth where you are even marginally interesting as a “public figure” - - try to be a wee bit “nicer” to the plebeians who cover your actions. To some extent, the furor over your “one-car traffic accident” emanated from what many would call your “haughtiness” in dealing with the ink-stained wretches that cover you and who work on deadlines.

2. Either that, or do not screw up even … one … more … time…

Just so there is no ambiguity as to where I stand on this issue and because I want to make it clear that I have never been part of the “Tiger Woods Adulation Machine” nor will I ever be on speed dial for any of his handlers, here is what I think of Tiger Woods:

1. For the period 2002 – 2010, he is/was the best golfer on the planet.

2. The label of “best golfer on the planet” is no more significant than the label “best bisexual yodeler on the planet”.

3. As a father and as a family values person, Tiger Woods is a turd with hair.

Finally let me close with a comment from Scott Ostler in the SF Chronicle. This comment came a couple of months ago when Nike chairman, Phil Knight, tried to minimize the things that were coming to light regarding Tiger Woods’ activities. This comment puts into perspective “wrongdoings” by sports figures and “wrongdoings” by more important entities:

”Nike’s Phil Knight says Tiger’s misdeeds eventually will be seen as ‘a minor blip.’ I guess when you’ve been accused of massive exploitation in third-world countries, blind-side chop-blocking your wife and kids at the knees would seem like a minor blip.”

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

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As someone who grew up reading Sports Illustrated religiously every week, I knew something about a guy in Texas named Blackie Sherrod who was the sports editor of a newspaper there that seemed to send lots of really good writers to SI. Do not hold me to this list because it is from synapses that have not fired in a while; but I believe that Dan Jenkins, Bud Shrake, Ron Fimrite, Frank Luska and Gary Cartwright all emerged from the tutelage of Blackie Sherrod. You can hold me to this; all of those writers - - whether or not they were “Sherrod grads” - - were outstanding writers.

Back in the 90s, once the Internet came into existence, I ran across a comment attributed to Blackie Sherrod about the best of the next generation sportswriters. He named Sally Jenkins - - Dan Jenkins’ daughter demonstrating the power of genetics - - and Bernie Lincicome as his favorites of the next generation. I had never heard of Bernie Lincicome but was able to find him at the Chicago Tribune and started following him there and subsequently at the Rocky Mountain News about ten years ago. When The Rocky Mountain News folded, Bernie Lincicome started a blog; and as soon as I found it, I put it on my “Favorites List”.

However, the blogging stopped fairly quickly when this note went up on a sidebar of the blog labeled “Thought of the Day”:

“In the movie ‘Julie and Julia’ the character’s food blog did not become legitimate until a story about it appeared in a newspaper. It takes newspapers to authenticate anything, so if newspapers would just ignore blogs, there would be no more blogs, including this one.”

However, Bernie Linciome’s “Tweets” do show up on the blog and he has tweeted a Winter Olympics glossary. So that gave me an idea for today’s rant. I am just going to be lazy and let Bernie Lincicome and a few other sportswriters who have had snarky comments about the Winter Olympics games write 90% today’s rant for me. I will merely intersperse a brief comment here and there. Hey, I’m retired; I’m allowed to just mail it in once in a while…

So let me start with two entries from the Lincicome Glossary for the Winter Olympics:

“Nordic Combined: This is, of course, Minneapolis and St. Paul.”

“Biathlon: Ski awhile and shoot awhile, ski awhile and shoot awhile. From this, ski masks first became popular in liquor store holdups.”

Personal comment: Help me out here because I really do not get figure skating. In the pairs skating competition, the team that falls down the least number of times gets the gold medal, right?

Professor Lincicome has a different way of looking at figure skating:

“Figure Skating: The winner gets a gold medal and millions to tour in evening clothes while the silver medalist gets to be Daffy Duck.”

Personal comment: Thirty years ago, it was commonplace for people to call for “gender determinations” on putative female athletes from East Germany and/or Bulgaria. You may recall that there were some behemoths on those country teams. Today, I think that it is only political correctness that prevents people from demanding “gender testing” on male figure skaters. Just saying…

Back to Bernie Lincicome for four more glossary entries:

“Luge: Competitors are called sliders. A double slider is a Wendy’s with cheese. Skeleton is an X-ray of luge.”

“Bobsledding: If race cars had no wheels and no roof and no reason to be shoved down an icy chute, they would be bobsleds.”

“Snowboarding: The chief danger is enhaling secondary apre-ski smoke, which gives a whole new meaning to the term joint press conference.”

“Curling: A big stone is shoved around until the beer is cold.”

Personal comment: One of the reasons given for dropping softball in the Summer Olympics was that the contests were not very competitive - - and truth be told, they were not. However, if that rationale carried the day, how did the IOC keep women’s ice hockey on the menu? The only outcome more certain that some of those women’s ice hockey games is what will happen to Bluto as soon as Popeye The Sailor eats his spinach…

Here are some more glossary items from Professor Lincicome. Pay attention, these will be covered on the final exam…:

“Alpine Skiing: Where you arrive at the slopes in a BMW.”

“Nordic Skiing - - Where you arrive in a Volvo.”

“Freestyle Skiing - - Where you are dropped off by your mother.”

“Ski Jumping - - Where the law of gravity is applied equally to everyone but Finns.”

“Cross Country Skiing - - This is what a golf course is used for in the wintertime.”

Meanwhile Steve Rosenbloom had this comment in his blog on the Chicago Tribune website relative to the US men’s ice hockey victory over Switzerland:

“The Yanks were lucky; the Swiss guard the Vatican more diligently than their slot.”

Finally, I can slide home on this rant by citing two items from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times related to the Winter Games:

“One bobsled event features four men together sliding across ice,” noted Brad Dickson in the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald. “In Omaha during winter, we call that a carpool.”

“TNT’s Ernie Johnson, on corpulent co-host Charles Barkley’s dream of running with the Olympic torch: ‘You wouldn’t have to worry about it going out.’ “

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

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Ari Fleischer had a difficult time as George W. Bush’s press secretary in terms of trying to maintain a positive image for his principal. After doing his job well for about 3 years, he moved on to other challenges and opportunities in the world of communications and image polishing/maintenance. He now has a new client whose image maintenance will be as challenging as was the image maintenance of the President. Ari Fleischer now represents Mark McGwire - - the new hitting instructor for the St. Louis Cardinals - - who is heading to Florida for Spring Training with the team and his new wards. I cannot imagine that Mr. Fleischer will be spending a lot of time with the team in Florida, so I wonder how he is going to protect his client from the many questions about steroid use that will have to arise. This could be fun to watch or it could be a train wreck. Time will tell…

Here is a comment from Scott Ostler of the SF Chronicle regarding Ari Fleischer’s newest client:

“McGwire credits all those homers to what he received from ‘the man upstairs.’ Apparently McGwire’s steroid dealer was living in an attic above the gym.”

When Dr. Myles Brand took over as the head man at the NCAA, he made it clear that as a former university president, he was going to see to it that university presidents reined in all of the rogue athletic departments and made sure that athletics were completely in step with the core mission of the university - - education. Oh, that sounded so good; too bad it was nonsense on at least a half-dozen levels. The most obvious problem was that university presidents were involved as active participants in academic scandals at St. Bonaventure and at the University of Georgia. Meanwhile, university presidents at other institutions preferred to deal with other issues rather than risk rocking the boat with alums who liked the athletic programs at various schools.

Dr. Myles Brand is no longer with us. Therefore, he will have to view from the other dimension the situation that is unfolding at Binghamton University (formerly SUNY-Binghamton). The university president there really wanted to have a big-time basketball team/program; she pushed through the building of an arena; she relaxed admission standards for athletes and dressed all that up in the verbiage of achieving greater diversity on campus. Then the house of cards collapsed…

Now, there is a 99-page investigative report circulating regarding the sordid mess. According to a story in the New York Times, here are just some of the things that went on at Binghamton:

One recruit transferred to Binghamton and received credit for courses taken at another institution in Bowling I and Theory of Softball.

A player on the Binghamton team - - a team that made the NCAA Tournament last March - - was arrested for “possession and sale of crack cocaine”.

Six other players were dismissed from the team for incidents including drug possession and/or use of a stolen debit card to purchase stuff.

A player has alleged that an assistant coach wrote a term paper for him.

The report says that students who transferred to Binghamton from other “schools” did so with courses on their records that had “limited if any academic content”.

The NCAA likes to threaten schools with a finding of “lack of institutional control”. In this case, Binghamton can assert pretty clearly that there was plenty of institutional control since the university president - - she is retiring this summer - - was involved in many of the decisions that led to the current situation. Everything was indeed “under control”; the problem is that the person at the controls had no real interest in protecting the academic integrity and reputation of the school if it meant that there would be a problem for the basketball program.

I wish we could find a medium who might channel Dr. Myles Brand for us regarding this matter. I would like to hear what hi might have to say about yet another university president who seems to be complicit in this kind of academic scandal. I would like to know how any of this might have been aimed at putting the athletic department at Binghamton in step with the core mission of the university…

Here is an item from Brad Rock in yesterday’s Deseret Morning News:

“The NBA is looking into an incident in Dallas whereby two women recently walked into the Portland Blazers’ huddle during a timeout. One of the women reportedly wrapped her arms around Rudy Fernandez.

“Which is really sad, when you consider the Nets needed a hug so much more.”

The New Jersey Nets are 5-48 so far this season; they won last night to make that record look better than it did over the weekend. They have declared themselves as significant threats to break the NBA futility record for a single season set by the 76ers in 1972/73 at 9-73. I have looked at their remaining schedule and I doubt that the Nets will be Las Vegas favorites more than a couple of times - - they do still play the Wizards twice. Nonetheless, as opponents give up any hope of reaching the playoffs, those opponents could be vulnerable to a Nets team that might just be hustling to dodge the ignominy of breaking that longstanding record for futility.

Meanwhile the Charlotte Bobcats should go into hiding for a while. The Nets beat the Bobcats last night, which is embarrassing. What is humiliating is that on Dec 4, 2009, the Charlotte Bobcats also lost to the Nets – in the Nets’ first victory of the season making their record at that point 1-18. The Nets and the Bobcats have one more game this year - - on April 12, it is the next to last game for the Nets. Could they actually go 3-1 against another team while being epically bad at the same time?

Finally, here is an item from David Whitley of AOL Fanhouse.com:

“A California man pleads guilty to transporting 14 tons of marijuana in the back of a semi truck. He refused to divulge his destination but authorities found ‘NBA All-Star Weekend’ on a crumpled work order in the glove box.”

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

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The 2010 Daytona 500 was a humongous embarrassment. More than 2 hours of delays to fix a pothole on a racetrack that had not been resurfaced since 1978 cannot be considered “acceptable” for the “Super Bowl of NASCAR”. Just to refresh some memories, here is what was going on in 1978 - - the same year they put new asphalt on the Daytona International Speedway:

Jimmy Carter was the President of the US.
Augsto Pinochet was the President of Chile.
Roman Polanski skipped bail and fled to France.
Agreements in Rhodesia led to the end of white rule there.
Congress authorized the turnover of the Panama Canal to Panama.
The “Son of Sam” was convicted of serial murders.
Begin and Sadat signed the “Camp David Accords”.
“Space Invaders” was the hot video game.
Grease and Saturday Night Fever were hot movies.
Kobe Bryant was born.
Golda Meir died.

If I recall correctly, there were multiple billions of dollars out there a year ago for road repairs under the “stimulus bill”. I can only conclude that the Daytona International Speedway was not “shovel ready” when that money was being handed out…

Over the weekend, I happened to catch about 75% of the Richmond/St. Bonaventure basketball game on cable. Richmond won bringing their record to 20-6 and putting them in a tie for the lead in the A-10. Richmond is a good basketball team and they are fun to watch. Unless they absolutely collapse in the next couple of weeks, they will be in the NCAA tournament. David Gonzalvez is a good player and fun to watch because he plays hard every moment he is on the court. If you happen to run across a Richmond game on cable TV, stop grazing; put down the remote and enjoy.

Last week, a photographer caught a shot of John Daly taking a leak in the bushes at the Pebble Beach Pro-AM. Insert your own snarky line here; most of the ones that I am thinking of will just get me in trouble…

Dwight Perry had this item in his column in the Seattle Times.

“Allegations of illegal German sleds at the Winter Olympics?

It figures: Somebody had a bone to pick with the skeleton racers.”

You may have been noticing articles on the front pages of your favorite newspapers recently about a crisis in the economies of several foreign nations. One of the economies reportedly in a precarious position is the Greek economy. And that leads me to ask:

How can that be?

Only 6 years ago, Athens hosted the Olympic Games. If you listen to the promoters of such events or to the IOC Pooh-Bahs or to politicians who sell the prospect of these games to their constituents, hosting the Olympics creates an economic bonanza for the lucky city/country that gets the games. Have you ever heard a politician or an IOC member say otherwise?

In order for Greece to use the euro and become a member of the European economy at large, one of the major things the government and country had to do was to reduce its national debt to something in the range of 3% of its GDP. Then Greece chose to spend euros on the Olympics - - and many estimates for their expenditures are in the range of 9-10 billion euros. Listening to all of the organizers, that was merely a down payment on a tsunami of euros that would enter Greece from outside the country as people came to the games and as the IOC shared some of the TV rights fees with Greece. Guess what; little if any of that happened.

One economic report plotted the Greek GDP annually for the last 15 years. In 2005, the year after the Olympics were in Athens and the year when the Olympics-induced economic benefits should be kicking in, the Greek GDP was the lowest that it has been in any year since 1996. I think two things are clear from these events:

1. Hosting the Olympic Games did not cause the economic crisis in Greece all by itself. There is a long history in Greece of deficit spending by the national government leading to major swings in the economy.

2. Hosting the Olympic Games did not generate an economic boom or provide economic benefits nearly equal to the costs of putting on the Olympic Games.

The Eastern Conference of the NBA is bad. There is no polite way to say that. Let me channel Ed McMahon here for a moment and ask:

“HOW … bad is it?”

Well, I think that the 1967 version of the Philadelphia 76ers – the team led by Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer, Billy Cunningham and Chet Walker – could finish third in the NBA East this year. Oh, and in case you had not been paying attention, Wilt Chamberlain is still dead…

Finally, paying homage to the fiasco that was the Daytona 500, here is a NASCAR comment from Frank Fitzpatrick in the Philly Inquirer:

“During NASCAR’s Champions Week in Las Vegas, Sprint Cup champ Jimmie Johnson posed with a copy of the book ‘NASCAR for Dummies.’

Isn’t that redundant?”

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

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Yesterday was the start of the Chinese New Year; today we begin the Year of the Tiger. Considering what Tiger Woods accomplished in recent years when it was not the Year of the Tiger, I would suggest that locking up the womenfolk might be in order…

By the way, did medical understanding change or did we just find new terminology here. Twenty-five or thirty years ago, Tiger Woods’ sex addiction was simply referred to as “Wade Boggs Syndrome” and there weren’t any clinics.

Normally, during the NBA All-Star Weekend festivities, David Stern paints a rosy picture about the NBA and its expanding popularity overseas. For years, I have said that he is selling snake oil with all that buncombe; this year his tone changed significantly. This year, David Stern said that the NBA will lose $400M league-wide. For the first time that I can remember, he has acknowledged that all those empty seats that you see on televised games actually affect the bottom line. More interestingly, David Stern also acknowledged that he had been pumping sunshine up our butts for the past several years. He said that in the first four years of the current CBA, the league lost

“…at least $200M a year.”

Of course, there are impending negotiations on a new CBA and Stern wants to position himself for hard bargaining. Nevertheless, the NBA is not nearly on a sound financial footing anymore and for the first time, David Stern has admitted that. I have not seen his accounting books so I do not know if “the problem” is solely the fault of the CBA but there are some other endemic problems that might contribute to the economic malaise:

1. There are too many meaningless games.

2. There are too many teams requiring clubs to put marginal players on the court in those meaningless games far too often.

3. The league has marketed to celebrities who want to and can pay hundreds or thousands of dollars per seat. Normal folks cannot afford decent seats for a small family to a dozen games a year.

4. The league has marketed its “stars” - - and not its “games”. When the “stars” are not compelling figures, interest wanes.

5. The league has marketed the “experience” - - and not the “games”. That attracts folks other than hard-core fans so when economic issues hit them, going to a basketball game is not at the top of their list of “things they have to do.”

The NBA could hire a consultant to do a study to come up with those five issues for the league; it would probably cost them $500K. In a spasm of generosity of spirit normally not seen here in Curmudgeon Central, I offer it to David Stern, gratis.

A week ago, NFL Network pulled Warren Sapp from the Super Bowl pre-game shows after Sapp had been arrested on a domestic violence charge. I have no problem with their decision to do that. Granted, they did not have lots of time to find a replacement; but inserting Joey Porter for Warren Sapp was a bit strange. I do not pretend to have Porter’s biography firmly in my mind, but I do recall that he and some friends attacked and beat up another NFL player in a Las Vegas casino a couple of years ago and he was involved in some hi-jinks at a nightclub where he wound up being shot in the butt. Granted, Porter did not have any legal charges pending last weekend, but I do not think he was a great step up from Sapp in this case…

Roger Goodell seems bound and determined to spread NFL football to Europe - - more specifically to Great Britain. He has hinted at times that there might be more than one real NFL game per year played over there. Personally, I do not think that is a great idea, but it will not harm the NFL for him to give it a go. Recently, I read something ominous; since I gave David Stern some free advice above, I think that I will continue my expansive mood and pass along some free advice to Commissioner Goodell:

If you want the NFL to gain a foothold in Europe, do not use Joe Theismann on the international TV feed for the Super Bowl game.

The Buffalo Bills announced a ticket price increase for the 2010 season and not a trivial one; the increase amounts to a 15% rise. Oh yes, that 15% increase will apply to the exhibition season games played in Buffalo to which season ticket holders must subscribe. I must have missed the fact that the Bills made a run at the Super Bowl this year and that they were just a play or two away from “The Big Game”. I could have sworn that the Bills went 6-10 last year…

Here is an item from Bob Molinaro’s weekend column in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Kid you not: My office just received an e-mail from Scores, informing us that the so-called gentlemen’s club in New York City is lobbying to have pole dancing accepted as an Olympic sport by 2012. The press release didn’t mention whether the competition would be clothing optional.”

Tom Glavine announced his retirement and he will move on to the next phase of his life working in the Braves’ Front Office. He said that he might consider broadcasting too. After a very long and successful career as a major league pitcher, it is worth remembering that the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL also drafted Tom Glavine around the same time that the Atlanta Braves selected him in the MLB draft. Not many pitchers with 300 wins on their record can make that claim…

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

“Not a lot of people know Valentine’s Day was named after baseball manager Bobby Valentine. Imagine. If not for a coin flip, you would be sending your honey flowers each year on Lasorda’s Day.”

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

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What I have today is sort of a slumgullion of sports - - a little of this and a little of that, one from Column A and two from Column B. If folks are right when they say that you never want to see how sausage is made, then what follows here ought not to be very pretty either.

The Winter Olympic Games are off and running - - actually sliding, not running. People who have been sent to cover these games in Vancouver are very fortunate people in the sense that Vancouver is a great city with wonderful things to see and do and some great restaurants. Hopefully, those folks will find some story lines that will let them do their jobs well because most of the events they need to cover are mediocre spectator sports at best. In the hope of adding spectator interest to future games, here are two suggestions for the IOC:

1. For the freestyle portion of the pairs figure skating, why not have all the competitors on the ice at the same time doing their thing. It would make one portion of figure skating into a contact sport. Just change the name from “freestyle routine” to “ice demolition derby”. I could get into that…

2. Take the least exciting spectator sport on the menu - - cross-country skiing or biathlon would be my nominees - - and replace it for one Winter Olympiad with ice fishing. If no one notices the difference, just let the Winter Olympic Games die a quiet death.

NHL Commissioner, Gary Bettman, has his league on hiatus as the players join their national teams for the Olympic ice hockey competition. Bettman sounded less than happy with all that when the AP quoted him thusly:

“It’s difficult for any business, any league, to shut down for two weeks with the attendant loss of attention and everything that flows from that.”

Excuse me; I must have been in a parallel universe connected to this one via a wormhole a few years ago when Gary Bettman shut down his league for an entire season - - “with the attendant loss of attention and everything that flows from that.” Right?

Scott Ostler of the SF Chronicle had an observation relative to the Winter Games and one of its participants that deserves mention:

“Figure skater Johnny Weir, removing the real fur from his wardrobe after protests from animal-rights groups, says, ‘I do not want anything as silly as my costume disrupting my … chance at a medal.’ No problem, Johnny. There’s nothing as silly as your costume.”

The NBA All-Star Game – with affiliated nonsenses – happens this weekend in Dallas. They are going to take this meaningless game and play it in Jerry Jones’ new football stadium. Jones says he wants 100,000 folks in the arena. Good luck to those who are sitting anywhere near the back row. If you want to see the game, get a pair of binoculars and look at the moon; if you cannot find the American Flag that Neil Armstrong left behind up there with those binoculars, you are not going to see much of the game either.

Here is an idea for the NBA as a way to make the All-Star Game more relevant:

Just suppose the winning conference in that game had home court advantage in the NBA Finals…

After nude pictures of two NBA players showed up on the Internet, I read somewhere that these young men needed to be more cautious and selective in terms of relationships where such “sexting” might occur. Let me say unequivocally that “advice” is nonsense.

The best way to avoid - - in fact the only guaranteed way to avoid - - having a nude picture of yourself show up on the Internet would be to stop posing for such pictures in the first place or to stop taking pictures of yourself in the mirror in a “state of unadornment”. Taking nude pictures of yourself and sending them around to others – or just showing them to others – is not one of those important social skills one’s mother tried instill during the growing-up process. By the way, it is not much of a career enhancer either; just ask Sean Salisbury.

An Internet rumor spread last week that the LA Clippers might hire Isiah Thomas as their GM. The Clippers have denied these rumors and the “furor” seems to have died down. Personally, I think the Clippers deserve Thomas and Thomas deserves the Clippers. The franchise has been a rock-bottom laughingstock for about 25 years; Isiah Thomas has demonstrated less than spectacular managerial acumen with the Raptors, the CBA and the Knicks. Allow me to shamelessly steal a line from Joe Queenan’s hilarious book, Red Lobster, White Trash and The Blue Lagoon, to describe what a Clippers’ team run by Isiah Thomas might become:

“…the deepest recesses of the inner sanctum of the Star Chamber of the Temple of Doom of the Tri-Lateral Commission of Suck.”

Actually, the reason Thomas should not leave Florida International University just yet is that he has not yet destroyed that program - - although it looks as if he is well on his way to doing that. According to reports this week, FIU home games are drawing about 100 fans. That is comparable to the crowd one might draw on a Saturday morning for a 12-and-under soccer game in your typical American suburb…

Here is a note from the agate section of the newspaper last week. The University of Wisconsin named Chris Ash as their new defensive backs coach. How appropriate will that be next season when one of the DBs gets burnt for a long TD?

Coming out of National Signing Day, I saw a note saying that a QB prospect named Munchie Legaux had chosen to go to the University of Cincinnati having also been heavily recruited by the University of Colorado and the University of Oregon. One question here:

How did LSU miss out on this guy?

A recent issue of Men’s Health rated Fresno California as the “drunkest city” in the US. Question:

If true, which of the citizenry will be able to walk to the podium to accept the award?

The demolition of Giants Stadium has begun. Here is the question:

When they find Jimmy Hoffa’s body, will they simply re-inter it or will they bill his estate for the seats he had at all those games?

Finally, Greg Cote of the Miami Herald summarized completely another item that was in the news recently:

“Three-year-old rape allegation against Michael Irvin surfaced this week in a civil suit. It was believed to be the first public blemish in Irvin’s otherwise tranquil, under-the-radar life.”

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

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