The Sports Curmudgeon®

Now that Selection Sunday has come and gone, can you truly think of 31 additional college basketball teams who are genuinely worthy of being in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament? I cannot. But if the tournament field were expanded to 96 teams for this year, you would have to come up with 31 more “worthy” teams. Good luck with that.

In fact, when I look at the teams in their places in the brackets this morning, you could convince me that cutting the field from 65 down to 56 would not leave out a large bunch of “worthy teams”; you might even be able to get down to a 48 team field but that starts to get tight. For the 2009/2010 season, a 96-team tournament field would have been a huge embarrassment for the NCAA. Assuming of course that the NCAA is capable of embarrassment…

Once again, Seth Greenburg - - coach at Va Tech - - is moaning about what the Selection Committee did. They left Va Tech out of the tournament and Greenburg has a series of “how come” questions and “what about this” questions. I have no dog in this fight; I did not go to Va Tech or to any of its rival schools; therefore, let me try to explain to Coach Greenburg how he can be sure to get into the tournament next year:

1. Schedule some real teams for your out-of-conference games - - not the Mary Kay Letourneau Middle School “Fightin’ Fondlers” or the Special Olympics All-Stars.

2. Then win most of those games against real teams outside your conference.

Memo to Coach Greenburg: If your team truly deserved to be in the NCAA tournament this year, go prove it by rampaging through the NIT and beating every opponent there by at least 15 points.

With Syracuse as a #1 seed (deservedly) looking at the possibility of a debilitating injury to one of its big men, might this be the year when a 16-seed wins a game? Still highly unlikely…

Having watched a lot of college basketball games this year - - how could anyone avoid that without choosing to watch things like CSI: Council Bluffs - - I think that the time for conference tournaments has come and gone. In the ACC, who really started the idea of a conference tournament and made it into a big deal, there were empty seats clearly visible in every game I watched - - to include the final game. In the Big East, where the #8 seed in that tournament is now a #3 seed in the NCAA tournament, I saw empty seats at the games. Maybe it is overexposure; maybe the NCAA tournament has become so important that winning the conference tournament is not a big enough deal to draw fans; maybe the time has come and gone. It was a lackluster season for basketball conference tournaments.

A long-time reader of these rants contacted me over the weekend wondering why I had not commented on “the Ben Roethlisberger matter”. Here is the denouement of his communication:

“By now I figured that you would have labled (sic) him the qb of the Pittsburgh Feelers.”

Sorry to have disappointed - - and I really do wish I had thought of the “Pittsburgh Feelers” line on my own. By the time I got back to the keyboard, it seemed to me that everyone and his/her maternal grandaunt had commented on the original story of the alleged sexual assault. Arriving late to the party and with nothing cogent to add, I figured I would wait until the police investigations resulted in something – close the case or take it to a grand jury – and comment then. However, since I have been “prodded” for a comment, here is my thinking pending additional information.

Based on the reports that I read, Ben Roethlisberger had some kind of “sexual contact” with a young lady at a bar in Georgia. The part of the reports that made me want to know more was that this alleged contact took place in the ladies’ room of that bar in Georgia. (To be fair, one report I read said it was a unisex bathroom and not the ladies’ room.) That single allegation puts the entire incident into the realm of “strange doings”. I will wait to learn more about what happened that night before drawing conclusions here but I do want to reserve one position:

If indeed whatever contact that happened that night did occur in the ladies’ room of a bar in the wee hours of the morning and if at some later date Ben Roethlisberger characterizes that as a “bad decision”, I reserve the right to call down jihad on the lawyer/PR goof who told Roethlisberger that was a reasonable excuse.

Merlin Olsen died last week. Young readers never saw him play; he was a great DT. He was also an excellent color analyst for NFL games on NBC many years ago. Here is a comment on Merlin Olsen that I ran across from Packers’ OG, Jerry Kramer (also in the Pro Football Hall of Fame):

“Merlin was 6-5 and a shade under 300 pounds. He was a Phi Beta Kappa, had a master’s degree in economics. He had a great heart, he never quit, he never slowed down, he never gave you an inch. And those were his weak points.”

Rest in peace…

The MLS players voted last week to call a strike if there is no new CBA with the league prior to the beginning of the 2010 season - - scheduled for 25 March. Reportedly, the sticking points are a greater degree of free agency for players and a provision to have a greater fraction of the player contracts guaranteed. If the strike happens, it would be the first one for MLS. The good news is that the impasse is over economic issues; that means that the league has gotten to the point where its economics are sound enough to be a bone of contention at the bargaining table. The bad news is that a strike in April and May will kill the momentum that MLS might gain in the lead-up to the World Cup Tournament in South Africa this June.

I have a question for those few folks who are still tuning in to watch the “Tigerless” PGA golf tournaments on television:

Are you surprised to learn that there are so many players on the tour that you never had a chance to see or hear about in the past decade?

Finally, Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times commented on the problems that the University of Oregon football team has been having with the gendarmes recently:

“Six University of Oregon football players — including star quarterback Jeremiah Masoli and 1,500-yard runner LaMichael James — have been arrested and/or charged since Jan. 24.

“Or as it’s suddenly known in police-lineup circles, getting all your Ducks in a row.”

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

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News broke this week that ESPN, the NFL and a company called Andell Entertainment will join forces to make a movie about Vince Lombardi. The screenwriter for this undertaking will be the same guy who won an Oscar for Forrest Gump and who also wrote The Horse Whisperer. That’s impressive. Equally impressive is that Robert Di Nero will play Vince Lombardi in this film. The timing for the work calls for the film to be released on the weekend between the NFC and AFC Championship Games and the Super Bowl in 2012. So far, everything points to a successful enterprise - - except for one nagging minor point.

ESPN is involved in this production and I will summarize for you in two words why that has to make you cautious about getting too excited about this movie:

Junction Boys

Anyone who has read more than a few of these rants understands that I have an extremely low regard for the 535 members of the Congress of the United States. Nevertheless, I want to offer them some advice here regarding a way that they can make a simple and positive contribution to the Nation in a totally bi-partisan way. The bi-partisanship they exploit here might be the basis for further cross-aisle agreements on key issues such as whether or not the sun rose in the east yesterday or how to fillet a cod.

The leadership - - and I use that term very loosely here - - in the Congress need to get together this afternoon and pass a piece of legislation that should immediately garner a minimum of 510 of the possible 535 votes. [Remember, five per-cent never get the memo.] Once passed and signed by the President - - in about four nanoseconds - - this new law would be called:

The Banishment of One Shining Moment Act Of 2010.

Immediately, the world would be a better place…

There was an announcement recently that Yankee Stadium would host a college football bowl game starting this year and it will be called the Pinstripe Bowl. The date will be December 30 and it will feature a titanic struggle between the third place team in the Big East against the sixth place finisher in the Big 12. Be still my heart…

Lest anyone believe the thought that went into creating this monstrosity is revolutionary or groundbreaking, I need to inform you that this happened before. I remember the farce of previous Gotham Bowls held in NYC - - but they happened 50 years ago so many folks would not know they ever existed. I had to use Google to get the details, but let me give you the rich and proud history of the Gotham Bowl – now the Pinstripe Bowl:

In 1960, they were supposed to hold the inaugural contest. They ran into one minor problem. They could find only one team (Oregon State) who would accept the invitation to come and play a December football game in NYC. The game was cancelled.

In 1961, the Gotham Bowl matched Baylor and Utah State - - in NYC. Really… Amazingly, they actually got some folks to show up for that game, but not very many. Attendance was announced as 16,000 but you know they “papered the house”.

In 1962, the pairing was Nebraska and Miami (Fla) and 6,000 folks turned out to watch. After this game, the Gotham Bowl died a merciful death.

Here is a fact of life. The big cities of the East Coast (Washington, Baltimore, Philly, NYC, Boston) are major sports markets, but they are not college football hotbeds. Other than Boston College, look at that list of cities and name a single major college football power in or near any of them. [Do not try to convince me that Maryland, Rutgers or UConn fall in that category; they do not.] So, the Pinstripe Bowl organizers are going to need a lot of alums and fans from the rival schools to travel to NYC in December to watch a football game or you will be able to count the house during the telecast.

Presumably, that is why the NYC folks got the Big East involved in their Pinstripe Bowl game. If they get Rutgers or UConn finishing third in the Big East, people could drive to NYC for the game to see the lads play one last game. If Pitt or Syracuse is the Big East representative, there will be some folks who travel to see the game. Perhaps there is a Big 12 school out there that will “excite” the NYC fan base to come out for a cold weather football game? However, here is the disaster scenario:

South Florida versus Iowa State

Marginally better might be:

Louisville versus Baylor.

Chalk this game up as just one more event you can ignore when it comes to scheduling your time between Christmas and New Years Day. You are still free to schedule your hemorrhoid surgery on 30 December…

There was a minor kerfuffle a few weeks ago about Jimmy Johnson (the football coach not the NASCAR guy) endorsing a “male organ enhancement” product. I count myself fortunate that I have only seen the ad one time; “Smiling Bob” was a better ad campaign and pitchman for that kind of product than JJ is. There is always something about these male enhancement products that confuses me:

If these products actually worked, wouldn’t the drug companies that make Viagra and Cialis be making them too?

Moreover, wouldn’t just one of the product development folks at Viagra and Cialis also come up with the idea of putting “male enhancement product” in a single pill along with “low dosage Cialis or Viagra”?

So … why do you think they have not come up with that idea? [No pun intended.]

Finally, Scott Ostler of the SF Chronicle summed up the situation regarding the civil lawsuit filed by Raiders’ coach, Randy Hanson, against Tom Cable and the Raiders:

“Randy Hanson, the reports say, won’t call off his civil lawsuit against the Raiders and Tom Cable unless he gets an apology. No problem. I’m sure Al Davis will call a press conference and beam his apology via overhead projector.

“The civil trial likely will feature the see/hear/speak-no evil testimony of the three Raiders assistant coaches who were in the room when Hanson unobtrusively and mysteriously flew across the room and busted his jaw. And you wonder why Raiders’ coaches can’t spot flaws in team execution?”

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

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Yesterday, I wrote that it would be interesting to see if Jacksonville supported minor league football (the resurrected Arena League) because it does not support major league football (the NFL) very well. A former colleague and long-time reader who has retired to northern Florida sent me a link to an article in the Jacksonville Daily Record, a newspaper I had never read until yesterday. The article reported that former Jaguars’ All-Pro OT, Tony Boselli, gave a speech to a local Rotary Club luncheon recently urging the business community there to lend support to the Jags. Boselli’s speech was full of data showing how the Jags’ presence in Jax is good for the community as one might expect.

He also said that the Jags helped to put Jax on the map and into the national discourse. He is right about that. Fifteen years ago when Pete Rozelle announced that one of two expansion franchises was going to Jacksonville, a widespread reaction around the nation was:

“WTF?”

Notwithstanding the exactitude of his remarks on that point, here is where Tony Boselli went around the bend. He also said:

“Even if you don’t like football, if you’re in business in Jacksonville you need to support the Jaguars. It’s the duty of anyone who can afford season tickets to buy them.”

Excuse me. A duty is some kind of an obligation – legal or moral – which should compel one to act in a certain way. Clearly, there is no legal obligation to buy Jags tickets; therefore, I will have to wait to hear the moral impetus that demands ticket purchases by “anyone who can afford season tickets.”

Once again, Jacksonville Florida has engendered the reaction:

“WTF?”

It must be “National WTF Day” - - and no one told me - - because that has to be the reaction to the reason given by the LA Clippers for firing GM, Mike Dunleavy, yesterday. Believe me, I am not going to make an argument that Dunleavy should not have been fired; he had been the GM and/or the coach there for seven years and the team was more than 100 games under .500 for that time-span. However, it is the reason given by the Clippers that is stunning - - not that they need to give any reason in the first place; basketball coaches and GM are not tenured in their jobs.

Here is part of the statement by the LA Clippers on this matter:

“The Clippers want to win now.”

That statement is stunning; when I first ran across it, I shook my head in disbelief and went back to read the statement again thinking I may have developed dyslexia and read it incorrectly. After re-reading it, let me summarize my thoughts:

Say what?

You mean they have not wanted to win for the last 25 years?

Are they going to give refunds to the saps who paid to watch all of those games?

WTF?

The statement by the Clippers reminds me of a hugely comical moment in NFL football history. Back in the 90s, an aging Leon Hess owned the NY Jets. Hess decided on a coaching change for the Jets and announced that he wanted to win a Super Bowl now because he did not have much time left on the planet. [Aside: Mr., Hess was correct on that score; he died about five years after making his coaching change.] However, Mr. Hess’ selection as the coach that would take the Jets to the Super Bowl “now” was the one and only, Richard Edward Kotite.

At this point, I feel compelled to remind Clippers’ owner, Donald Sterling, of the words of British philosopher, Edmund Burke:

“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”

Speaking obliquely of the NY Jets, their new cornerback, Antonio Cromartie, looks as if he might be an interesting character. Only in his mid-20s, Cromartie has sired seven children with six women in five states. Whatever the Jets do, they have to put a security blanket around this guy to assure that he never hooks up with Octomom.

When it was revealed that the Jets gave him an advance on his salary for next season to take care of some “paternity issues”, Cromartie – via his people – issued a statement which said, in part:

“I made some wrong decisions in my first two years [in the NFL] and I have to take on that responsibility.”

Excuse me. He made wrong decisions? Making a decision demands the consideration of alternative means to achieve an end. Did he consider the possibility of contraception and consciously choose not to use it? Seven times? In the spirit of today as a national celebration, I must ask again:

“WTF?”

Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Veteran NFL nose tackle Jason Ferguson has been given an eight-game ban next season for violating the league’s performance-enhancing drug policy.

“Adding further insult, during his suspension he’ll be listed as a dislocated nose.”

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

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The NCAA “Super Sleuths” struck again while I was away. They concluded their “investigation” into allegations that Rich Rodriguez had his Michigan football team practicing 24 hours a week instead of the NCAA maximum allowed 8 hours a week and the sleuths came to this conclusion:

It was a clerical error. The school was not sufficiently vigilant in keeping and filing the records on practice schedules.

Memo to All Small Time Football Schools: Do not try to use this defense if you come under NCAA scrutiny. This only works for the “big boys”.

Let me get this straight. Several of the “student-athletes” on the Michigan team blew the whistle here. These are some of those folks who the NCAA loves to tell us “will be going pro” in lots of fields other than athletics. The players claimed they were practicing more than 8 hours a week. However, the NCAA says it was only a clerical error.

Translation: The Michigan football players are too stupid to tell time. They cannot differentiate between 8 hours in a week and 24 hours in a week.

Michigan has a new AD; he comes to that position having been the CEO of Domino’s Pizza; perhaps he can find jobs for all those Michigan players who cannot tell time? Allow me to point out something to the new AD that I am sure has not been a centerpiece of the briefings he has gotten from his football folks:

1. Rich Rodriguez has a winning percentage of .333 in his time at Michigan.

2. The team has been practicing 3 times more than it should.

3. If I suggested that his winning percentage might be .111 with appropriate levels of practice, do you think keeping better records for practice time is your biggest problem there?

You are welcome.

Regarding the seemingly ever-expanding set of divorce proceedings between Frank and Jamie McCourt, one report said that the attorney fees for both sides could exceed $19M. [Aside: Did I hear someone say ‘recession”?] LA Dodger fans need to keep that number in mind because the Dodgers could solve a lot of their pitching problems for less than $19M.

The Arena Football League is back after it crashed, burned and canceled a season. Maybe it should be called the Phoenix Football League - - rising from its own ashes? A key element in the resurrection here is a one-year TV deal with NFL Network. NFLN will televise a Friday night game during the season, which will run from early April thru August. Already in high rhetorical form, the Arena League Commish, Jerry Kurz, pronounced that the relaunch of the Arena League is “bringing back jobs”. So, maybe he is positioning himself to be the next Secretary of Labor or maybe Commerce? Neither of those positions would give him a hard act to follow…

On the website now there are 15 teams listed for the new Arena Football League - - and the season starts in less than a month. Unless the league has some exciting new ideas that will allow three teams to compete in the same game, one team will have to be “inactive” every week.

Here is one other interesting thing about the new league. One of the teams is brand new; it is not one of the teams from any of the previous arena leagues; it is starting fresh in 2010. That team will be the Jacksonville Sharks. In the NFL, Jacksonville cannot sell out its tickets. It will be interesting to see how that same market responds to minor league football.

Having mentioned the rebirth of the Arena League, perhaps it is fitting and symmetrical now to mention the precipice on which MLS finds itself. There has been plenty of talk about the bargaining in the NFL for a new CBA and about the financial woes of the NBA. Flying under the radar here is a similar problem for MLS. The players and the league have been negotiating for a new labor contract for months but it has not reached fruition. The MLS season usually starts in the last week of March/first week of April time-frame; so, there is not a whole lot of time left to get something done here.

The thing that makes these failed negotiations seem really stupid is that this is a “World Cup Year”. In the US, that translates into a higher level of interest in and awareness of soccer. One might think that both the league and the players would want to capitalize on that spike in interest/awareness to bring new fans to the league. MLS has grown in size and in popularity in recent years; if both sides do not find a way to avoid a work stoppage, they are all dumb as bait. Alienating fans this World Cup Year and in this economic environment is probably the worst idea since the leisure suit.

The league position is that they will not lock the players out. The league says they are willing to continue to negotiate while playing the 2010 season under the terms of the now expired CBA. The Philadelphia Union will play its inaugural season in MLS this year - - if there is a season - - and next year MLS hopes to expand by two more teams in Vancouver and Portland.

Memo to MLS Owners and Players: It is time to channel Larry The Cable Guy. Git ‘r done.

Finally, Greg Cote of the Miami Herald can bring you up to speed very quickly on two happenings in the Miami area so you need not spend time looking for information on your own:

“A sponsor referred to last week’s Miami Marathon as ‘the Pro Bowl of running events.’ I take that to mean half the runners pulled out with fake injuries? Turned out to be a great, somewhat historic race, though. Americans won, not Kenyans.”

“The annual Miami International Boat Show is wrapping up. Tough economy for that. I understand the biggest-selling boats were the kind that float next to the rubber duck in the bathtub.”

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

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In Sunday’s Philadelphia Inquirer, Stephen A. Smith’s column focused on the trouble in Allen Iverson’s life - - not merely as a basketball player whose career is on the wane. Smith says that without an intervention, Allen Iverson’s difficulties with alcohol and gambling will ruin his life and that the divorce his wife seeks will hurt him seriously. While Allen Iverson has never tried to project a warm and cuddly persona, this is a sad situation one should not wish on anyone else. I recommend you read this column in its entirety.

Speaking indirectly of the Philadelphia 76ers, Mark Heisler of the LA Times reported a few weeks ago that the Sixers might be on track to lose $30M this year. If every team in the league were in that situation, the league would stand to lose $900M this year and not the measly $400M that David Stern mentioned during the All-Star Game weekend. Financially, the NBA is not in as good condition as the NHL; you certainly could not have made that statement with a straight face 10 years ago.

Allow me to nibble around the edges of that “revenue shortfall” for a moment and suggest to the NBA a couple of ways to cut down on obviously bloated expenditures. At the outset, let me say that I know these ideas will only cut costs by only a small amount. However, thinking in these kinds of ways might open up minds in ways to consider other cost containments:

1. Save electricity. Cut out the laser light shows and the “smoke enveloped” entrances by the teams.

2. Save more electricity. Cut down on the loud music and other nonsense during halftime and every timeout. Oh by the way, if you cut the loud music, you can also release the resident “disc jockey” and save a salary plus benefits there.

3. Trim the coaching staffs. The Washington Wizards have four assistant coaches. If you watch that team play a full game, you will come away scratching your head wondering what those four guys actually do for a living. By the way, the Knicks and Clippers have five assistants while the Bobcats have six. If teams cannot control themselves, the league needs to put a limit on the number of assistants per team - - say two.

Clearly, none of those cost savings will add up to $400M league-wide. What has to happen is to contain player salaries. However, the way the NBA has marketed itself over the past 25-30 years, the salaries of the top players are not the problem. The NBA markets its stars and it is the stars that bring people to the arenas and to the TV sets. Maybe the stars are overpaid in terms of the revenue they bring in but only by a little bit; the real problem lies in the salaries paid to the “second-tier” players.

The “second-tier” players make a whole lot of money and few if any people follow them sufficiently to warrant the expenditure on them. The current situation is one that the owners have brought on themselves in large measure because they sign these “second-tier” players to contracts that will not ever “pay for themselves”.

Consider a just four examples; if pressed, I could find a dozen more with less than 30 minutes of searching. In all of the cases I cite here, the players are good – or in some cases very good. Nevertheless, they are not players who generate revenue for their teams nearly equal to what they are making. They are “money-sinks”.

Elton Brand (76ers): A fine player whose contract runs through the end of the 2012/13 season. From the beginning of the 10/11 season until the end of the contract, he will earn $51.1M.

Emeka Okafor (Hornets): A fine player whose contract runs through the end of the 2013/14 season. From the beginning of 10/11 until the end of the contract, he will earn $52M.

Michael Redd (Bucks): A fine player whose contract ends at the end of next season. Next year he will earn $18.3M.

Jermaine ONeal (Heat): A fine player whose contract ends at the end of this season. This year he earned $22.995M.

Fans buy tickets to see or tune in to watch Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Chris Paul, Kevin Durant, Shaq, Dwayne Wade and players of that caliber. I really doubt that anyone is attracted to an NBA event because of any of these “second-tier” players listed above. Those are the salaries that need to be brought under control if fiscal sanity is to return to the NBA. We saw the “dot-com bubble” and the “housing bubble”; we saw what happens when they burst. The NBA is not on the verge of collapse just yet, but they are on an unsustainable path…

Dwight Perry had this item in the Seattle Times recently regarding a likely future basketball star:

“Ye Li, the 6-foot-2 wife of 7-6 Rockets center Yao Ming, is expecting the couple’s first child this summer.

“Doctors predict the girl will be born July 22, 23 and 24.”

There is a rumor out there that Mike Tyson could return to the boxing ring one more time to fight - - - wait for it - - - Evander Holyfield. Let me put that putative fight into perspective here.

I would rather sit in a ringside seat at a pro-rassling pay-per-view extravaganza than sit in the comfort of my home and watch another Tyson/Holyfield “struggle”.

Who might be on the undercard for that fight? Joe Louis versus Jack Dempsey?

Finally, let me close with two items from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

“The Honda Classic, ending Sunday in Palm Beach, began with a pro-am that included this foursome: Jack Nicklaus, Dan Marino, Super Bowl champ Drew Brees and Kenny G. Which indicates to me that Kenny G must have some compromising photos of the guy in charge of the pro-am pairings.”

“The 38th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race has begun in Alaska. Never cared that much about it, but found myself liking it once I learned how much it annoys People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.”

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

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It seems as if lots of “stuff” happened while I was seeing Panama and the Panama Canal at a leisurely pace. I cannot even pretend that I am caught up on things yet but some events of the past week and a half call for comment.

John Daly got mad when a reporter did a story on Daly’s 456-page personal file held by the PGA. That file contained much of the disciplinary actions taken by the PGA with regard to his behaviors over the years. The reporter did not “steal” the records or get them from a “mole” within the PGA; the file was public record because it was evidence in a lawsuit that Daly filed against a different reporter several years ago. So, Daly is the one who made the file available. Nevertheless, Daly sent out a note to his “Twitter Twits” giving them the cell phone number of the dastardly reporter who published his shenanigans and told the “Twitter Twits” to flood the reporter with complaint calls. The Twits did just that. Three things jump out at me from that short description of what happened:

1. How the hell could the PGA put up with a member who had a 456-page disciplinary file? Isn’t golf supposedly the gentleman’s game where one has the honor to call penalties on oneself? Looks to me as if the PGA cannot call a penalty of any significance on a popular player. Question:

How many pages would be needed in an NFL player’s disciplinary file before he was suspended for a year or more and the basis for the suspension was widely known in the reign of Roger Goodell?

2. John Daly is an even bigger horse’s ass than I thought.

3. Most of the writers who have covered the PGA Tour for the past 15 years or so cherish their access to the golfers way too much to be considered “objective journalists”. Am I to believe that few if any of the behaviors that led to a 456-page disciplinary file manifested themselves to the PGA press corps? Why was there any “news content” in the current story other than the exact number of pages in that file?

In perusing reports from Spring Training, I try to avoid the ones that are formulaic such as a player reporting to camp 10 pounds lighter than last year or another player reporting to camp 15 pounds heavier than last year both with the expectation that the change in weight will make them better at the end of a long season. However, there were a couple of reports that caught my eye.

Kyle Farnsworth is an extremely fortunate man; he is in the Kansas City Royals’ training camp this year. Assuming that he makes the squad and travels north to Kansas City in April, this will be his twelfth major league season. How that can be true and why he is in camp again is what makes him an extremely fortunate man. A quick check of the record books will tell you that Farnsworth’s career major league record is 31-53 with 27 saves in 11 seasons. He is 33 years old, over his career, his ERA has been 4.47 and he gives up 8.7 hits per 9 innings. Farnsworth pitched for the Yankees for 2 seasons and had a losing record there; now the Royals are going to try to make him over into a starter – again – and somehow they think he will generate a winning record in Kansas City. Maybe Kyle Farnsworth is really Mandrake the Magician…

I have written in the past that I really enjoy watching Giants’ infielder, Pablo Sandoval, play baseball because he plays with enthusiasm and hustle. In one sense, he reminds me of Manny Sanguillen and Roberto Clemente in the sense that there is no pitch that he will automatically take - - other than the one that bounces 10 feet in front of home plate. According to reports from Giants’ training camp, this winter he played in the Venezuelan league with a hitting coach and worked on “pitch selectivity”. That would clearly be beneficial to Sandoval who is already a very good hitter despite chasing pitches well outside the strike zone. That is the good news for Giants’ fans…

Over the same winter, Pablo Sandoval went to a nutrition clinic and worked with a nutritionist to lose some weight. Sandoval comes by his nickname, Kung-Fu Panda, honestly. He came out of the clinic 10 pounds lighter and with a new dietary regime. Then he went to Venezuela and gained all of it back. So much for “learning and retaining new behaviors” at the dinner plate. That makes the question facing Giants’ fans rather simple; can Pablo Sandoval learn and retain new behaviors at home plate?

I read a report on MLB.com where Manny Ramirez said:

“I’m an employee here. I just do what they want me to do.”

Ah yes, Manny Ramirez trying to stake out the position as the loyal follower dedicated to betterment of the team as a whole… I wonder what the fans in Boston and the Red Sox management might think about that kind of image makeover in light of Manny’s famous knee injury that prevented him from playing regularly until the day after he was traded to LA.

Let me say from the beginning that I have never been enamored with Dusty Baker as a manager. Looking at the reports from the Reds’ training camp this season, it seems as if much of the positive feeling for the team centers on young pitching. The Reds have Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez on the squad - - with Volquez working his way back from surgery. Both are young and talented. In addition, the Reds signed Cuban phenom, Aroldis Chapman over the winter. However, the caution flag should be flying in the minds of Reds; fans because Dusty Baker had Kerry Woods and Mark Pryor in Chicago and both became “regulars on the DL” with arm trouble because they were used up early in their careers.

I noticed that Forbes Magazine named Cleveland as America’s most miserable city. From that fact, I draw the following conclusion:

The panelists who deliberated to confer this “award” have spent precious little time in Detroit, Fresno or Lubbock.

Finally, two comments from sports columnists on recent sports happenings:

“BYU guard Michael Lloyd was munching a candy bar on the sidelines when called into action, Saturday against New Mexico. He ended up having the game of his career, coming off the bench to notch 19 points on 8-of-9 shooting.
“No word on which candy bar he was eating, but here’s guessing it was a Skor.” [Brad Rock, Deseret Morning News]

“Shawne Merriman and Tila Tequila have settled their dueling lawsuits out of court, which is a huge relief. You’d hate to see those kids tarnish their reputations.” [Scott Ostler, SF Chronicle]

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

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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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