The Sports Curmudgeon®

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…

Comments(9)

With the NFL Playoffs about to begin, that means the Super Bowl is only a month away - - and that means new advertising campaigns for lots of companies that will buy time on the pre-game programming and during the game. Those new campaigns cannot come soon enough for me because there are some mighty annoying ads on TV these days - - I have been keeping a list. You know, it really is amazing how the TV folks have found a way to sneak a football game in amongst all of those commercials.

For years, Miller beer used the same Holiday Season ad. It showed a one-horse open sleigh making its way down a lane to a house with lights on it. The problem is that the camera was placed in the driver’s seat of the sleigh so all you did was to stare at a horse’s ass for the duration of the ad; it made me certain that veterinary proctology was not my calling in life. Finally, they put that one out to pasture so to speak - - and they replaced it with something even more annoying. We now have to watch a bunch of smiling goofs clinking Miller Lite glasses thereby creating the tune Let It Snow! After the third time I saw it, I wished every one of the folks clinking those damned glasses would die of cirrhosis of the liver.

How about the goofball who goes into the Taco Bell and will not place his order with the attractive young woman at the counter but would rather place it with another attractive young woman who is working in the back. He thinks he is getting a special deal on an 89-cent burrito guaranteed to give him gas for at least 6 hours. What a jamoke! Oh, by the way, have you ever gone into a fast-food joint and found two women working there who looked as attractive as the two in that ad? I can tell you that where I live most of the women working in fast-food emporia look like the losers in an axe fight.

Taco Bell is a serial annoyer this time around. A couple of months ago, they were touting the “Black Taco” and they asked why you would pay more than 89 cents for that concoction.

Memo to Taco Bell: Here are two reasons why…

1. I really do not want to have to “make a run for the border” if you get my drift.

2. Maybe I would want to buy something that was actually - - you know - - edible.

The same company that owns Taco Bell also owns KFC; so, you should not be totally surprised to see some KFC stuff on my list. At one point, KFC was trying to say that 60 million people ate their new “grilled chicken”. How could they possibly know that? Well, one way might be that they had sold 60 million portions of that stuff and they figured no one would be stupid enough to order it twice. Ergo…

The entire message for the “grilled chicken” part of the KFC menu is that it is “healthy”. Compared to chicken cooked in a pressure cooker full of oil, it is not all that hard to come up with a “healthy alternative” - - but that is not the point here. In the midst of getting folks to consider the “unfried side” of KFC, the company also launched a test marketing of something they called the “Double Down”. The “Double Down” is a sandwich without the bread; the two outside layers are KFC Original Recipe breast filets and the center of the sandwich is two kinds of cheese, bacon and “The Colonel’s Special Sauce”. Let me say unequivocally that I do not want to know what is in “The Colonel’s Special Sauce” for the simple reason that he has been dead for nigh onto three decades here.

The “Double Down” has a caloric content of 1700 calories and it also comes as a “combo meal” with potato wedges and a soda, which would bring that calorie count well over 2000. I got to listen to pitches for that bad boy juxtaposed with calls to come in and try the new “healthy” stuff on the socially conscious KFC menu. Yeah, right…!

Dr. Pepper continues to advise me to drink it slow. Well, I think I am in compliance with their wishes because the last time I had even a sip of that swill was in the mid-1980s. Is that slow enough?

I love those General Motors ads that tell me to compare cars and may the best car win. Sounds great except… Back in the 1970s, GM had a market share right around 50%; today, it has a market share closer to 20% than 10%. What that means is that the buying public has been comparing cars for the past 35 years, and the best cars won. GM didn’t make them…

GMC trucks supposedly are “built to exceed the highest standards”. How is that possible?

You have to have seen the ad where the GMC truck goes to a mudhole and pulls a Toyota and a Dodge truck out of the muck and mire. Looks great until you watch closely and see that the chains used to do the towing go limp during the “great pull out”. How can you tow something with a limp chain unless those other trucks are moving on their own?

One of the latest ads for Viagra is particularly annoying. You know the one I mean; it is the one where the guy is walking down the street to go and see his doctor and he carries on a running conversation with his reflection in store window-fronts along the way. His reflection wants him to talk to the doctor about “their” erectile dysfunction problem. Might I suggest that the guy needs to have a discussion with his doctor about his raging delusions and his conversations with imaginary friends far more than he needs to have a conversation with his doctor about his dysfunctional Johnson?

There are Blackberry ads out there with The Beatles song, All You Need Is Love going in the background while the screen is filled with images that have exactly nothing whatsoever to do with phones/web enabled devices/techno-geek items. That ad has no meaning at all but I have to admit that it is a lot better than seeing a Cialis ad with The Beatles singing A Hard Day’s Night in the background as a couple holds hands in those twin bathtubs in the woods somewhere. Even worse, would be The Beatles song, Why Don’t We Do It In The Road as background music for an erectile dysfunction product.

One of the jewelry stores tells us that you need to keep your heart open so that love can find its way in. Some woman designed jewelry to that “theme” because of something her mother told her sometime in the past. Great. Hey, Mom; if you keep your heart open, the blood will flow out - - and then you will die. Deal with it.

Speaking of jewelry reminds me of the really annoying - - and insulting - - ads for those companies that want you to send your unwanted gold to them. If I had a bunch of gold lying around and really needed money, what would make me want to put it all in an envelope and mail it to people I do not know with the confidence that they will give me a fair reading of the weight of the gold and a fair price for the gold?

Oh, here is a Quick Quiz:

Which “Jared” is more annoying?

A. Jared the “former fatty” who still does Subway ads.

B. Jared the Galleria of Jewelry.

Remember gagging your self with a spoon is not an option here…

When one watches one of those “Hi, I’m a Mac. And I’m a PC” ads, you might actually get the idea that Mac has more of a market share in the personal computer business than 15%. It does not.

Those Southwest Airlines guys who love your bags and see them along their way - - sometimes on the same airplane that you are on - - are scary. One of them says, “Bags are my life.” Do you really want to fly on an airline that will not only hire but will also brag about the fact that they have hired and retained clinically insane folks? Imagine if the pilot on your flight felt that “Trees are my life.”

The last ad that is annoying to the max is not a TV ad; it is an Internet ad - - one of those things that show up on the sidebar of a website that you may be visiting. It is for some kind of colon cleanser - - something I tend not to think about very frequently when I am at my keyboard. The ad boasts in large type that this particular product was the “#1 Colon Cleanser in 2009”. Maybe it’s just me, but given what a colon cleanser is supposed to do, wouldn’t I want to have the brand that was #2? Just asking…

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

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We have turned the calendar page twelve times and 2009 is about to disappear into the rearview mirror. Sadly, some folks will not be joining us on the journey into the next year/decade. Here are a few we might want to remember.

January:

Senator Claiborn Pell issued his last grant.

Joe Hirsch, Daily Racing Form columnist, cashed his final exacta.

Ricardo Montalban drove his Chrysler Cordoba – with its “fine Corinthian leather” seats – into the sunset.

Andrew Wyeth dipped his final brush.

February:

Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity, drove his final nail.

James Whitmore took his final direction.

Dewey Martin will be visiting neither Buffalo nor Springfield again.

Brad Van Pelt made his final tackle.

Paul Harvey told the final chapter of “The Rest Of The Story”.

March:

George McAfee toted the ball for the final time.

Natasha Richardson started taking skiing lessons in the sky.

George Kell played his final game of pepper.

Irving R. Levine signed off for the last time.

Lou Saban held his final practice session.

April:

Marvin “The Human Eraser” Webster had his life erased.

Harry Kalas’ microphone went silent.

Marilyn Chambers went “behind the green door” one last time.

“Doc” Blanchard took his final handoff.

May:

Jack Kemp called his last audible and ran his final political campaign.

Dom DeLuise had one last bowl of pasta.

Dom DiMaggio took a called strike three. [Bad month for people named “Dom”.]

Danny Ozark uttered his final malapropism.

Bea Arthur deadpanned her last line.

June:

David Carradine began his celestial Kung-fu practice.

Roy Boe had to explain to St. Peter why he sold Dr. J to the Sixers.

Michael Jackson took his search for the lost glove into the cosmos.

Billy Mays made God a special offer on two tubs of Oxi-Clean.

July:

Alexis Arguello took a ten count.

Karl Malden watched the credits roll one last time.

Steve McNair strapped on his helmet for the last time.

Walter Cronkite signed off. “And that’s the way it is…”

August:

Eunice Kennedy Shriver started awarding Special Olympics medals in Heaven.

Robert Novak filed his final column. [His mantra was “Always love your country but never trust your government.” Not bad advice over the years…]

Les Paul joined a Heavenly jam session.

Dan Hewitt left the planet - - perhaps to create a Celestial version of 60 Minutes with Walter Cronkite.

Senator Edward Kennedy reunited with Mary Jo Kopechne.

September:

Dr. Myles Brand tried explaining the BCS to God - - with no success.

Mary Travers joined Puff the Magic Dragon and slipped into a cave.

Jody Powell began conducting news conferences in the sky.

Jack Kramer lost match point to The Grim Reaper.

William Safire showed God how to diagram sentences.

October:

Larry Jansen was taken out of the game for the last time.

“Captain” Lou Albano went through the Pearly Gates - - and had a foreign object concealed in his tights.

Cullen Bryant took his final handoff.

Jack Nelson filed his last exclusive story.

Soupy Sales took a pie in the face one last time.

November:

Claude Levi-Strauss buttoned up his jeans for the last time. [Not really…]

Bobby Frankel saddled his last winner.

Abe Pollin started watching NBA games from a real “Sky Box”.

December:

Tommy Heinrich struck out – but still made it to celestial first base.

Foge Fazio held his final football practice.

Gene Barry had his Rolls Royce driver deliver him to the Pearly Gates.

Paul Samuelson began his professorship at Cosmos University.

Oral Roberts started preaching to the choir in Heaven.

Chris Henry caught his final fade pattern.

Arnold Stang joined Uncle Miltie in a vaudeville skit in Heaven.
George Michael turned off The Sports Machine one last time.

May all of these folks, rest in peace…

One person who remains with us as we go forward into the next decade is the guy who plays “The Most Interesting Man In The World” on the advertisements for Dos Equis beer. He started me thinking about something that might come to fruition in 2010:

Who is The Most Uninteresting Person In the World?

Would the guy in that beer commercial make the list?

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

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Today, I feel like Luke Skywalker. I feel as if I have achieved a level of understanding regarding a cosmological concept through study at the foot of The Master. I can now contemplate further growth in my mystical insights in the hope that someday I might become like The Master. Let me explain…

As I have reported in previous years, Gene Collier of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette does a year-end column wherein he awards the Trite Trophy for the year. The Trite Trophy is given to that word or phrase that it horribly overused and horribly under informative in the language during the previous year. The criteria are that it has to be over-used, generally meaningless and most annoying.

The column awarding the Trite Trophy for 2009 appeared in the Post-Gazette yesterday. It was the 26th annual presentation of the award and the column was excellent as usual. I commend it to your reading.

So, why do I feel like Luke Skywalker? Well, I have been keeping my own small list of overused and annoying phrases from broadcasts and telecasts for the past several months; and just after Thanksgiving, I sent an e-mail to Gene Collier timidly nominating three such phrases for inclusion in the awards column this year. I acknowledge that The Trite Trophy presentation is based on a vote of a committee of one person - - Professor Collier - - but I hoped that he might look upon my suggestions and agree that they would be worthy of a mention in the column. As it turns out, two of my suggestions got an honorable mention for the Trite Trophy 2009 and one of my suggestions was The Winner Of The Trite Trophy for 2009. I feel I have begun to learn from The Master…

I will not contain my enthusiasm any longer; my suggestion for a phrase that is overused to the point of annoyance, which won the Trite Trophy 2009, is dialing up a blitz. Given the number of coaches who do this, I have to hope that they are all part of that national cell phone program that allows for unlimited free calls or the costs to the teams might sink the NFL. Oh, and by the way, just whom do they call to create that blitz; are they all pocket-dialing Flava Flav?

One of my other nominees - - an honorable mention recipient from Professor Collier - - was upon further review. When the NFL referee returns to the field after spending a seeming eternity evaluating a challenged call on the field, he often begins his pronouncement of the final edict with upon further review… Excuse me, but that was the first time the play was reviewed so how can it be “further” review?

My third nominee - - another honorable mention - - was dribble drive. In a basketball game, is there really any other kind? Not counting the NBA allowance for star players to do anything they want on the court without ever needing to dribble a basketball…

Those three phrases were my top picks for the year but I had lesser ones on my list; and since this is the time of year for the Trite Trophy, let me put them out there for your perusal with the full understanding that the official list is the one published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and these are a poor imitation of that list.

Too often, we hear that a quarterback makes good decisions. What the Hell does that mean? Am I supposed to believe that he thought about it and decided on a given day that it would be a bad thing to throw 7 INTs in a game and that insight let to a “good decision”? Or maybe that it would be a good idea to complete 5 TD passes that day? How stupid are those QBs that they think this is a matter for decision making?

At this time of the season in the NFL, far too many announcers will tell us that for some teams there is no tomorrow. Really? Is the team going to disband at midnight? I can’t recall the last time that happened in the NFL…

Coming up very soon, there will be selections for the annual Pro Bowl followed by intense - - albeit meaningless - - debate on which players received a Pro Bowl snub. Allow me to shine a bit of light onto the concept of a “Pro Bowl snub”; most players have exactly no interest in playing in the game in the first place. Many players develop a nagging injury as soon as they are selected for the teams necessitating someone who received fewer votes for the “honor” to take their place. That even happened when the game was in Hawaii where the players in the game got themselves a freebie trip to Hawaii in February - - not all that bad a deal. The players want to play in this game even less than people want to watch this game. Therefore, it is not possible for a player to be “snubbed” here. In fact, the players are snubbing the Pro Bowl game…

A hugely overused phrase in baseball is that a player got good wood on the ball. Whenever a player hits a ball, that is a fact because bats are not made from worm-infested wood. Players never put bad wood on the ball. [Aside: One might say that Tiger Woods has gotten himself into some family difficulties because of his own bad wood, but that is a different concept entirely…]

Coaches, GMs and players also contribute mightily to the list of trite phrases that assault our earpans every day. Consider these few:

We decided to go in a different direction. The translation for that is, “We told that doofus not to let the door hit him in the ass on his way out.”

This team will not accept losing. So, that means that they are going to challenge the league standings that say they have lost some games, right?

I have to look at the film before I can comment on that play. Why? Weren’t you paying attention when it happened on the field right there in front of you?

We will let the legal process play out before we decide what to do with a player involved in miscreant behaviors. Translation: Maybe someone else will make this decision for us…

You can’t measure heart. My cardiologist would beg to differ with you, Coach.

Joe Flabeetz needs to stay within himself. Does he actually have a choice in this matter? Would he make a bad decision if he tried to play in the midst of an out of body experience?

Two phrases that usually do not come out together demonstrate even more clearly how meaningless they are when juxtaposed. We had good success today followed by ya know what I’m saying? Of course I know what you are saying, Dumbass; there is no other kind of success. By analogy the team you beat on the day you had good success must have had a sequence of bad failures - - are there other kinds?

Joe Flabeetz just made a great basketball play. Slow down there hoss; let me catch up with you. I am sitting here watching a basketball game on TV and you just told me that this guy made a great basketball play. What else might it have been? I just can’t imagine that anyone involved in a basketball game would take a moment to make a good decision on materials from which to make a quilt.

Joe Flabeetz can score the basketball. That is most surprising. I did not realize that the referees would allow him to bring an Exacto knife onto the court while play was in progress…

As 2009 draws to a close, I feel as if have achieved a new level of enlightenment with regard to meaningless phraseology with regard to sports broadcasting. I shall continue to focus on the matter and seek more intense union with the trite and the banal in that part of the cosmos in the future. Nevertheless, I bow in the direction of The Master when it comes to the selection of the Annual Trite Trophy.

Ommm…..

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

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In the last month or so, a few events portend the eventual return of the NFL to the Los Angeles area. To be sure, the most important of those events was the resolution of the lawsuit in Southern California that sought to block the building of a new stadium in the City of Industry and the passage of a bill through the California legislature clearing the way for stadium financing via a bond issue. The NFL has made it clear more times than Nancy Grace has been annoying that no team would move to LA without a new stadium. The city fathers of Los Angeles have concocted myriad offers to get a team back there but none of them involved a new stadium; the NFL has always politely told them to stick any and all of those plans where the sun never shines.

So, it looks as if there will be a new stadium in Industry, CA specifically to attract an NFL team. [I hesitate to call it a suburb of Los Angeles because there are not a lot of residents there but it is about 25-30 miles east of Los Angeles Airport.] Current plans/designs call for it to be built into a hilltop along with mixed development of office buildings and retail outlets. The stadium will seat 75,000 (11,000 premium seats) and will have 175 suites. The ambitious schedule says that the stadium can be completed in 2 years and that it could open for the 2011 season.

Interestingly, as plans for the new stadium in the LA area crystallized, another portentous event happened about 2000 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The Minnesota Vikings and a sports commission in Minnesota had been talking about a new stadium for the Vikings for at least the last 3 years and probably for the last 5 years. The Vikings broke off negotiations last month and said that they would not sign any extension of the lease to play their games in the Metrodome; that lease interestingly expires in 2011.

The sports commission has threatened to charge the Vikings $4M annually in lease fees if the team does not sign an extension. Frankly, that seems like chump change in the context of the monies involved in the negotiations to keep the team in town with a new stadium. I guess the sports commissioners felt they had to do something in response to the Vikings’ statement. Surely, lawsuits will follow these actions - - perhaps from both sides of the table; law firms in the Twin Cities area are already licking their chops.

There are interesting parallels here between the Vikings of 2009 and the Cleveland Browns of the mid-90s. The Vikings are playing in an old facility by NFL standards; the Metrodome opened in 1982; and most importantly, it is the only stadium used by an NFL team that has no club seating level. Seating capacity is 64,000 making it one of the smaller facilities used by NFL clubs. Recall that in the mid-90s, the Cleveland Browns were playing in an antiquated facility with meager premium amenities - - albeit Municipal Stadium had plenty of seats. Both the Vikings now and the Browns back then believe that their stadiums put them at a competitive disadvantage with regard to other NFL teams in terms of revenue streams.

In the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, there are two separate indoor sports arenas - - one for the NBA Timberwolves and another for the NHL Wild. There will be a new baseball stadium for the Twins opening next spring. The University of Minnesota opened their new stadium in Minneapolis in September 2009. Everyone else in the sporting sphere in that part of the world has a new crib but there does not seem to be the inclination to spend money on a new playpen for the Vikings.

That was the case in Cleveland too. The Indians got a new place to play; the Cavaliers got a new place to play; when it came the Browns’ turn, the city decided it did not have enough money to build them a stadium and also deal with the creation of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Therefore, the Browns left town. Clevelanders hate Art Modell for doing that although their anger is horribly misplaced. It was the city fathers who were to blame for the loss of the Browns and the proof of that is what happened as soon as the NFL said they would put a franchise back in Cleveland - - so long as there was a new stadium to play in. The city, county and state governments moved at warp speed to find the money to get that new stadium construction project rolling; it is amazing how easily they found a way to get it done with no team in town when it was impossible to do so as long as Art Modell’s Browns were thought to be chattel property.

The people in the Twin Cities area should look about 750 miles to the southeast to Cleveland for what could happen to their Vikings’ team. There are folks in LA building a stadium; those folks are spending money; and as the old adage goes:

Money talks and “bullspit” walks…

I believe that there is an opportunity here to make the new stadium in LA into something even bigger than the designers envision. I think that the NFL should consider putting two teams in LA and have them share that stadium. I say this because there are at least four other franchises in the league that should benefit financially from a move to LA. And, truth be told, the NFL exists only to provide bottom line benefits to the owners of its teams. All of the feelgood nonsense about the league caring about cities and “giving back” is an opiate for the masses. The NFL is about the bottom line - - just ask the folks in Cleveland.

So who would be candidates to move to LA? Obviously, the Vikings are on the list for the reasons cited above. In addition, think about these others:

The Jacksonville Jaguars’ attendance is a mess. Jacksonville Municipal Stadium can seat 80,000 for a Super Bowl or for the annual Georgia/Florida football game. The Jags have not filled that capacity in years and have tarps over enough seats to make a capacity crowd for a Jags game about 67,000. They do not fill that on a regular basis either. In fact, this year with the team seriously in playoff contention, the Jags’ games are blacked out locally because they cannot sell out the facility. Last week, they played to the smallest attendance in team history; only 42,079 were able to find the stadium to see the Jags beat the Texans. The Jaguars host the Dolphins this week and then host the undefeated Colts on Thursday 17 December. The Jags will be in a race for the wild card; the Colts could be undefeated then; that game should be a sellout and there should be scalpers outside the stadium doing business. If the fans do not care enough to go to that game, move the team.

The Buffalo Bills took one of their home games this year and put it in Toronto purely for monetary purposes. Attendance is fine in Buffalo but the revenue streams there are limited; like Jax, it is one of the NFL outposts. There is no way the team will move so long as Ralph Wilson is the owner; I think someone nailed one of his feet to the ground near city hall in Buffalo. However, Ralph Wilson celebrated his 91st birthday a couple of months ago; actuarially, the NFL should not include him as a viable presence were it to draw up a 10-year long-range plan. At some point, it will make good financial sense to move the Bills out of Buffalo and Los Angeles might be a reasonable destination.

The San Diego Chargers are in a “stare down” with the folks who run the city of San Diego that mirrors the one in Minnesota. It is almost as if the Vikings and the Chargers are characters in a science fiction story existing in parallel universes and destined for similar outcomes. One fundamental difference between the Chargers’ situation and the Vikings’ situation is the weather in the two cities. In December, the weather in San Diego still allows for activities on the beach and in the ocean - - in addition to skiing activities relatively close by. That gives the residents there options to do other things besides following the fortunes of a football team. The weather in Minnesota in December provides fewer alternate recreational options - - and it will take a whole lot of global warming before Minnesota in December resembles San Diego in December.

The Oakland Raiders hosted the Cincinnati Bengals the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Granted the Raiders’ team was already out of contention for the playoffs by then, but the Bengals were leading their division. A crowd of 34,112 showed up for that game. That is embarrassing for the NFL; seven different MLB teams averaged more than 34,112 in attendance last season over an 81-game home schedule. Clearly, there are still some bad feelings within the NFL regarding Al Davis and his lawsuits against the league; but just as with Ralph Wilson, there are actuarial trends in play here. In a league devoted to “parity”, having franchises that are “revenue disadvantaged” does not make much sense. The fly in the ointment here is that the Raiders extended their lease in Oakland recently. Perhaps another less than judicious decision by the Raiders’ managing general partner…?

I think there are five teams that would benefit from a move to Los Angeles. The league should be interested and so should the players. After all, the players’ aggregate salary cap depends on maximizing team revenues across the league. Teams that draw about 40,000 fans per game will generate smaller revenues than might flow in to a team in a new 75,000-seat facility in a huge metropolitan area like Los Angeles.

Were I “NFL Commissioner For A Day”, I would surely put two teams in the new stadium in LA long before I would consider putting a team – or a couple of teams – in European cities or in Mexico City.

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

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Despite the utter lack of an outcry for me to bring this feature back for another year, I am going to do it anyway. The reason is simple. I enjoy writing these things.

I doubt that I will be able to do one of these every week of the college football season. I still have a lot of travel on my calendar despite the fact that I basically lived out of a suitcase for most of the summer. In fact, I have been away from Curmudgeon Central for the past week and so this was written very early using lines that could easily change in the intervening time. I will try to write as often as possible; and like last year, I will keep the NCAA and the NFL Mythical Picks separate.

Of course, no one should ever use any information in these rants as the basis for a decision to make a wager on a specific game or as the basis for what side to back in such a wager - - if the wager were to involve actual money. Only a dumbass would do that. In fact, he/she would have to be so stupid that he/she would likely try out for the goalie position on a darts team.

Yes, I will continue to follow the fortunes of Linfield College where there has not been a losing season in football since 1956. The Wildcats only play 9 games in a season and this year 5 of them are on the road. In addition, two of their out of conference games will be against “ranked opponents”. Putting that 54th consecutive winning season in the books is hardly a sure thing. Their season does not start until September 12 so they have another week of practice to get ready. Go Wildcats…

General Comments:

There is a long tradition of schools padding their schedules with cream-puff games out of conference to assure gaudy records at the end of the season. I don’t pretend to have done exhaustive research on all the schools and all of their schedules, but here are a few “name schools” (in alphabetical order to avoid any hint of favoritism here) that seem to have chosen some pretty meager fare in their non-conference opponents:

Arkansas: Missouri St., Texas A&M, Eastern Michigan, Troy

Kansas St. UMass, La-Lafayette, UCLA, Tennessee Tech

Mississippi: SE Louisiana, UAB, Northern Arizona

Northwestern: Towson, Eastern Michigan, Miami (Ohio), Syracuse

Penn State: Akron, Syracuse, Temple, Eastern Illinois

Rutgers: Howard, Florida International, Maryland, Army

Texas: La-Monroe, Wyoming, UTEP, Central Florida

Wisconsin: Northern Illinois, Fresno State, Wofford, Hawaii

Note that Kansas State has UCLA on this year’s schedule but with the return of Bill Snyder to the coaching seat, is should not surprise anyone that K-State is trying to buy its way out of that game for 2010. The LA Daily News had that tidbit earlier this summer. If Snyder gets his way, he will schedule Obesity International in place of UCLA…

There were also reports earlier this year that ESPN wanted to set up a game between Texas and Wisconsin as a prime inter-regional game. The game will not happen supposedly because neither team was willing to give up one of its seven home games this year. You can see above three of Wisconsin’s “can’t miss home games”; they travel to Hawaii; they are home for the other three games. Meanwhile Texas could not possibly do without any of their three out of conference home games (Wyoming is the game on the road). Please remember this if either Texas or Wisconsin does not get into the bowl game that they want based on strength of schedule…

On the other hand, Miami University starts out the season with a killer schedule - - unlike any of the teams above. Their first four games are against Florida State, Ga Tech, Va Tech and Oklahoma. Wow!

There is an adage in college football that “returning experience” portends a good season. It also helps when the players who are returning with that experience are pretty good to begin with and that leads me to point out that Arkansas started 10 freshmen last season and went 5-7 against an SEC schedule. Arkansas might be very good this year and next year…

It should not be news to anyone who has been conscious for the past couple of weeks that Greg Paulus will start at QB for Syracuse this year after playing out his basketball eligibility at Duke. Paulus was a highly recruited high school QB from the western NY area four years ago but he chose to play basketball. He is exploiting a loophole in the NCAA rules to do that and I think that is great for him. He will not have an NFL career as a QB and he is unlikely to have an NBA career of note either; but he can continue to have an NCAA athletic career.

Will this make a difference for Syracuse this year? Probably not. But it does seem as if Syracuse and Greg Paulus are made for each other. Neither has played major college football for the last four years…

If I gaze into a crystal ball and look for teams that ought to be “tougher outs” in 09 than they were in 08, here are a few that I see:

Arkansas: See three paragraphs above.

Auburn: The offense has to be better - - doesn’t it?

Michigan: Favorable schedule including Delaware State who is foregoing a conference game to go to Ann Arbor for a payday.

North Carolina: Butch Davis knows what he is doing.

Notre Dame: All the difficult games are in South Bend but beware Nevada in the season opener…

Note that I do not have Boise State on this list. That is because Boise State is now a consistently good football team. They are now the Gonzaga of college football; they should not surprise anyone; they are always a good team.

If I gaze into a crystal ball and look for teams that ought to be “not as good” in 09 as they were in 08, here are a few that I see:

Maryland: Tough schedule.

Missouri: Just about all the offensive production from last year is gone.

Oregon State: Lost their 2 best WRs and the entire defensive backfield.

If someone in the state of Washington finds an old lamp on the beach and a genie appears to give out three wishes, one might be for the state’s major football teams to do just a tad better this year than last. Washington was 0-12; Washington State was 2-11 with wins over Div 1-AA Portland State and - - Washington.

Absent that genie appearing, maybe these teams qualify under the Washington State law they call the Death With Dignity Act? I’m not sure what the teams might qualify for, but given last year’s results the teams certainly seemed to be dead and there was a dearth of dignity…

The Ponderosa Spread Games:

I try to keep track of what I call Ponderosa Spread games. The Ponderosa was the huge ranch (big spread, get it?) owned by the Cartwrights on the TV series, Bonanza. I define a “Ponderosa Spread” as 24 points or more. Last year the favorite went 46-28-3 against those huge numbers, which is very unusual. In most years, the favorites barely hold a winning record against “the number” in these games. This week we have 4 Ponderosa Games:

Akron at Penn State – 27 (58.5): A more interesting question is: Will the outcome of this game still be in doubt at the beginning of the second quarter?

W. Kentucky at Tennessee – 29.5 (44): That is an awfully large spread for a game where the total number is only 44 points. The Lane Kiffen era begins at UT. If the Vols don’t cover, there will be grumblings; if the Vols lose outright, Lane Kiffen will need to hire a food taster.

San Jose St. at USC – 34.5 (48): Here is another game with a very large spread relative to the total projected.

La-Monroe at Texas – 40 (61.5): This was one of the games Texas could not possibly cancel in order to play Wisconsin…

Games of Interest:

South Carolina at NC State – 4 (46): Good inter-conference sectional rivalry here. Based on venue and South Carolina’s spotty offense last year, I’ll take NC State and lay the points.

Oregon at Boise State – 5 (64): If Oregon wears those phosphorescent yellow uniforms on Boise State’s blue turf, the astronauts on the International Space Station might be able to see them. I’ll take the OVER here.

Western Michigan at Michigan – 11 (56): Rich Rodriguez needs a good start to the 09 season. They have a new addition to the stadium; it cost a lot; the boosters want to see winning football right away. I’ll take the OVER here.

Baylor at Wake Forest – 2 (53.5): I do not understand this line. Does it mean that Baylor is much better this year? Does it mean Wake Forest is not as good as it has been in recent years? Interesting game - - but no wager for me…

Nevada at Notre Dame – 14.5 (61): I said beware of Nevada up above. I do not like them to win the game outright, but with two TDs and a half-point hook, I’ll take Nevada with the points here.

BYU at Oklahoma – 22 (68): I like Oklahoma a lot but BYU is not a patsy. Just for the halibut, I’ll take BYU with this generous helping of points.

Miami at Florida State – 6 (48): A long time ago in a galaxy far away, this game was an annual war with the winner likely to be in the top 2 in the country. Not so anymore, but still a solid rivalry. I like FSU to win and cover here.

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

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I keep a running list of things that are annoying, overblown, or perhaps simply irrelevant that keep coming up in the sports world. When that list gets to a point that it provides sufficient material to fill a rant, I run through the inventory and start a new list. As you probably have guessed, my list runneth over…

I just don’t care about the debates surrounding the NFL’s overtime rules. They have been in place for at least 30 years now - - I think the league adopted the regular season sudden death rule in the mid-70s - - and all of the arguments pro and con for this rather simplistic rule have already been made. Until someone comes up with a new argument, the debates are tired and threadbare. Enough already…

I just don’t care about any debate regarding who was the “greatest ever”. These arguments are bad enough when comparing apples to apples such as Wilt vs. Russell or Magic vs. Bird and then how any of those guys might compare to Michael Jordan. However, folks who are attracted to this kind of debate - - sports radio talkers with lots of time to kill, for example - - often take the debate from the stage of merely annoying all the way out there to mindblowingly silly. Who was better, Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods? Puhleez. Why not add Luciano Pavarotti to the mix and make it completely stupid? Enough already…

I just don’t care about any discussion of a coach or player in terms of his/her “legacy to the game”. Fans remember great players and coaches when they are no longer playing or coaching; that is what fans do. The number of players/coaches who actually handed down something to the game that was a lasting change can usually be counted on a single hand. Enough already…

I just don’t care about sideline reporters and the in-game interviews that they foist upon viewers. Asking a coach about what the team needs to do in the second half as the coach is running onto or off the field at halftime can only produce one realistic answer, “We have to score points and we have to stop them from scoring points.” Asking a player how he feels after he just scored a winning TD or after he just missed a free throw to tie a game and send into overtime cannot produce a wide spectrum of responses. In addition, I am certain that the fate of civilization as we know it does not dangle on the thread of insights we might get from an in-game interview of a parent/guardian of a game participant or from some celebrity whose opinions on a sporting event are as meaningful as a dissertation on the historical significance of cottage cheese – small curd. Enough already…

I just don’t care about polls for college or high school sports. It is clear that the poll voters are either not fully informed to cast meaningful votes and/or they have personal agendas that they are pushing with their votes. All polls should be expunged from our existence. Having said that, can you imagine just how idiotic I think any of the pre-season polls might be given that the uninformed and/or biased voters are basing their votes on exactly zero actual performance measures? Enough already…

I just don’t care about any college bowl game played before December 30. Not a single one of them has any importance at all. In a good season, two of that mélange of games will represent an interesting match-up and only one will actually be a good game to watch. Enough already… [For the sake of clarity, the paragraph above should not lead anyone to believe that I think all the college bowl games played after December 30 are important and worthy of attention. That is not the case; some of those games are truly stupid too.]

I just don’t care about the NIT and/or any of the other nonsensical college basketball post-season tournaments that have sprung up in the past couple of years. There are 65 teams in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. In truth, 50 of those teams really have no shot of winning the tournament, but they are there to fill out the brackets and make that tournament the best three-week sporting event in the world. All the other tournaments feature games between break-even teams, which would be anti-climactic and boring if held during the regular season when winning and losing might actually matter with regard to getting into the “real tournament.” Enough already…

I just don’t care about televising games from the Little League World Series except for the final three games. Now we are watching games from regional tournaments to see which teams will go to Williamsport for the World Series Tournament. If this goes any further, ESPN will have to spin off another network just to cover sports for kids under the age of 15. Enough already…

I just don’t care about competitive eating events. Gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins; it is not a spectator sport. Have you noticed that the writers and broadcasters who moan about the “message we send to children” when discussing things like steroids do not moan equally loudly about the Nathan’s Fourth of July Face-Stuffing Fest? Enough already… [For the sake of clarity, I do like however, the statement of a basic rule for Philadelphia’s Wing Bowl gluttony extravaganza, “You heave; you leave.]

I just don’t care for MMA/UFC. To me, it seems like the WWE with real blood; far too much hype for the entertainment value presented by the events themselves. Enough already…

I just don’t care for calling any fans of any team a “Nation”. It may have been cute the first time the phrase was coined; now it is trite beyond description. Oh, and of course all of the putative citizens of any nation must wear team gear to any games so that they can be shown on TV as a horde of raving maniacs. I don’t call those folks a “nation”; I call them a group of posers and wannabes who cannot wear those jerseys for real but get their jollies from screaming in front of a TV camera while wearing them. Enough already…

Finally, I just don’t care about Danica Patrick - - unless of course she wins another race or two which is what she is supposed to do as an Indy car driver. As of this writing, she has won precisely one Indy car race (last year) in her five years as a professional driver. It seems to me that the only thing she does well is to maintain her celebrity status - - sort of like Paris Hilton. Enough already…

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

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As NFL training camps opened, there was a surfeit of reporters in every camp in the league. That created an explosion of meaningless stories from around the country. In addition, when there was a story that might be interesting/important, this surfeit of reporters hopped on it and put it in about three bazillion outlets. An example of a story that was covered in an unusually large number of places was the fact that Lendale White reported to the Titans’ training camp at 228 pounds which is about 30-35 pounds lighter than he was last year – and even 10 weeks ago.

That is an interesting tidbit; it may be important because one of the “issues” surrounding Lendale White has been his “commitment” to football. Whatever. The part of the story that got me thinking was that White evidently told a reporter that the way he lost that weight was to stop drinking tequila.

I have exactly zero interest in joining into a discussion with any hominid on the planet about the mechanism of weight loss in humankind because there are too many people out there who have a cult-like set of beliefs about one kind of diet or another. I am a chemist by training and in any system that does not involve a nuclear reaction the First Law of Thermodynamics must be obeyed; kids learned that Law under a different name in seventh grade science; it is the Law of Conservation of Energy.

Lendale White lost 30+ pounds in something like 3 months by eliminating tequila from his diet? You do not want to do the calculation as to how much tequila he had to be consuming daily – or even hourly – to effect that weight loss with only that dietary modification. Let us just say that if that is all he did to change his caloric intake, his blood might have been 10-proof.

Nevertheless, what Lendale White did is not an easy thing for a human to do and so I started thinking about some other athletes (past and present) who might use Lendale White as a role model. Here are some that came to mind:

CC Sabathia: He is a really good pitcher but at some point, someone is going to calculate what the Yankees paid per pound to sign him for $160M.

Sid Fernandez: His caboose was anathema to the guys who operated the center field camera in MLB parks; when he pitched the catcher and the umpire often disappeared.

David Wells: When he sat down in the dugout, seismic sensors detected the event.

Aurelio Lopez (Señor Smoke): I had a baseball card of his in the 70s that said he weighed 190 lbs. When I saw him on the mound, I thought they had found a way to weigh him only from the waist down.

Bartolo Colon: Insert your own comment here related to the multiple meanings of the word “colon”.

Bob Wickman: You have to wonder how he finds his belt to take off his uniform to shower after a game.

Cecil and Prince Fielder: Father and son demonstrating the validity of Gregor Mendel’s pioneering research.

Mo Vaughn: He ate his way out of the major leagues.

Jared Lorenzen: Just consider his nicknames – “The Pillsbury Throwboy”, “J-Load”, “Hefty Lefty”, “BBQ” (for Big Butted Quarterback) and “The Abominable Throwman”.

Scott Mitchell: He was Jared Lorenzen - - only slower.

Gilbert Brown: Yes, defensive lineman need to be big, but Gilbert was his own zip code.

Shaun Rogers: He may qualify for group health insurance all by himself.

Hollis Thomas: You could say he was built “low to the road”.

Grady Jackson: Water runs uphill faster than he does.

Tony Siragusa: Every time I see him on TV, I want to ask him if Han Solo ever paid off that IOU.

Arte Donovan: If he took up skydiving, astronomers could study the sun during solar eclipse conditions on a daily basis.

Sir Charles Barkley: Almost big enough to go into business selling shade.

Kevin Duckworth: His breakfast cereal bowl needed its own lifeguard.

John “Hot Plate” Williams: Ate his way out of the NBA.

Eddy Curry: In danger of eating is way out of the NBA.

Shawn Kemp: At the end of his career it looked as if was trying to smuggle watermelons in his pants.

Oliver Miller: Looked as if he was born with a silver shovel in his mouth.

Robert “Tractor” Traylor: His butt has its own Congressthing.

Butterbean: He needs to set up sawhorses and a platform in his driveway to iron his clothes.

Surely, that is not an all-inclusive list; but it gives you an idea of some folks who could have used a role model like Lendale White in the past or who can look to him now for inspiration.

Another athlete who has dropped significant avoirdupois is John Daly. Given all the other “issues” in his life, I surely would not suggest that anyone use him as a role model for anything other that weight loss.

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

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I doubt that I will need a long time to convince most of you that the economy is still far less than robust; but in case you need reminding, here is a single tidbit to consider. According to an article in the Seattle Times, the city of Tacoma, Washington advertised a job opening for a parking meter-reader; they intended to hire one person. Fourteen hundred people applied for the job. Cabeesh?

The economic situation continues to deliver blunt instrument trauma to the sports world. You know about the Yankees and the Mets attendance shortfalls. Consider that the Yankees and the Mets play in an area where their ardent fans had – past tense – more than a little disposable income to spend on baseball tickets. This year, both teams are in new stadia and neither team is close to selling out the place. If that message remains subtle, then someone is not paying attention.

The effect of the economy on the NHL will be seen in living color as the business related to the bankruptcy and sale of the Phoenix Coyotes proceeds. Gary Bettman – like his mentor David Stern – loves to proclaim great progress and success in everything his league does. Notwithstanding his proclamations, Game 7 of the Caps/Penguins series featuring the two biggest young stars of the league going head-to-head, the TV audience for that game nationwide was estimated at just under 650,000. Meanwhile, on that same evening, also on cable TV - - not network TV - - Game 6 of the Lakers/Rockets series attracted an audience of just over 6 million.

Memo to Gary Bettman: Check the local ratings on that evening in Phoenix. How many fans watched basketball versus hockey in that city that night? Neither game had a local team involved. Those ratings might give you a clue about why your hockey franchise died on the vine.

However, lest you get the impression that the NBA is healthy, let me suggest ever so politely that it too is in deep yogurt – despite David Stern’s dismissal of any suggestion that there is anything to be concerned about. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain… The rest of this rant will focus on NBA economic concerns.

Back in the first round of the NBA playoffs as the Cleveland Cavaliers were up two games to none on the Detroit Pistons in a series that produced exactly no drama or intrigue at all, the series was set to move north to Detroit. The Pistons could not sell out the place for the playoff game; in fact, they were not even close to selling out. So, the Pistons sent e-mail invitations to Cleveland Cavalier season ticket holders inviting them to come to Detroit (about a 3-hour drive) to see the playoff series continue there. Ladies and gentlemen, Detroit is a very good sports town; they support their teams very well even when the teams do not do very well. This is another bludgeon to the head for sports execs regarding the economic condition…

The NBA business model needs re-examination in the next collective bargaining agreement. There are several axioms of the NBA that may need to change and the first of them is the guaranteed contract. Nothing damages the product on the floor worse than a team signing a player to a large six-year contract only to have that player show up for games and give a nonchalant effort for the first five seasons. It kills the team; if the contract is a big one it can prevent the signing of other players; most of all, it annoys the fans. Other than that, it is just fine and dandy. Players need some degree of “protection” in their deals but a full guarantee of salary is no longer the answer. Review for just a moment the contract history of Stephon Marbury as an example of how a guaranteed contract just does not work.

The NBA is a league that lives on marketing its star players. There is nothing wrong with that - - so long as the star players are distributed around the league and each is surrounded by something other than rejects from the Washington Generals. Fans pay good money to see Kobe Bryant and LeBron James and Kevin Garnett and Chris Paul and etc. They do not pay good money to see “supporting cast players”. Nevertheless, without competent “supporting casts”, none of those stars would be nearly as exciting or as big a drawing card as they could be. So, perhaps there needs to be a formula derived regarding the distribution of salaries within a team salary structure?

The league and the union would do well to find a way to keep cohesive teams in place for more than a single season. NBA fans have been conditioned to identify with the star players and not the team jerseys; that is fine so long as the games are competitive and entertaining but when those conditions are not present, the fans need something to root for – or against. Teams that stay together over a period of several seasons are hardly the norm anymore. That does not help with fan interest and attention.

The league also needs to figure out how to reduce the season. This will reduce revenue and drive down whatever form of salary cap that the league has in place. That sounds like a bad idea but I do not think it is. Far too many NBA regular season games are “shoot-arounds” until the final 10 minutes when players begin to play hard. I do not read minds so I do not know if this is because the players are fatigued from the number of games and the travel arrangements or if this is because the players lose interest in an 82-game season. Or both.

Whatever the cause, a fan that pays anything near $100 a seat – assuming that fan knows anything at all about basketball – will not be happy to leave the arena realizing that he just watched 10 minutes of serious play and 38 minutes of “grab-ass”. At least 50% of the regular-season NBA games could be classified as “passion deprived”; the translation for that would be “boring”. I suspect that fewer games will make each game a better “entertainment value” and that is precisely what the NBA needs right now. Attendance is way down in several cities and down enough for other teams to notice. Part of that decline is due to the fact that people now are looking at how to spend discretionary income and some are deciding that regular season NBA games are not worth the money. In far too many instances, they are absolutely right.

I have to mention here something I have been in favor of for at least the past decade. The NBA needs to consider contraction. Recall, the league had to take out a loan of approximately $200M from the troubled US banking system to use as a way to infuse liquidity into various teams in the league who could not get loans from banks once credit tightened last year. There is no way that fact is a “good thing”. There is also no way that the league or the individual teams are going to open their books to let the union or the public see which teams are in the most serious financial peril. Nevertheless, some are in bad shape and others are in worse shape. Even though it would mean reduced numbers of jobs for players and reduced revenue for the league, it may be time to contract the NBA. Here are 12 of the 30 franchises in the league (40% of the teams!) that might be in sufficient difficulty that it makes sense to “redistribute their assets” around the league:

Charlotte: This is college basketball country. The NBA did well here for about three or four years but the bloom is off the rose.

Sacramento: Unless the team is a threat to win it all, attendance is “limited”.

LA Clippers: Any questions?

Memphis: This town did not work in the ABA; it is not working in the NBA.

OK City: Maybe this franchise will work out because there is no other pro sports team within a few hundred miles, but is that worth the gamble?

New Orleans: There are two pro franchises in town. The Hornets will always be #2. Always…

Atlanta: One of the two worst pro sports towns in the country.

Miami: The other of the two worst pro sports towns in the country. Love seeing those bright orange empty seats on TV for playoff games.

Indiana: There are reports that the team is losing $30M a year. If that is even close to correct, that cannot go on for long.

Washington: Like Sacramento, attendance drops like a rock when the team is not in contention. The biggest front-runner fans in the country…

New Jersey: Like New Orleans, the Nets will always be the #2 team in the NYC market. Always…

Philadelphia: The team has not drawn well for a while now; their announced attendance numbers should be filed under “F” for “Fictional”.

From that list, the league could surely find a way to cut down to 24 teams at the most. I would cut all the way to 20; but that’s just me…

Finally, here is a comment from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald regarding the intersection of the sports world and the economy:

“A 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card sold at auction for $1.62 million. Unless the card includes a secret code to the whereabouts of about $1.61 million in hidden treasure, I’m thinking the buyer overpaid.”

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

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I purposely intended not to write about the truly bad call made by Ed Hochuli in last Sunday’s Chargers/Broncos game, which cost the Chargers a win. I thought that the six thousand replays of that error on TV from Sunday night until Monday noon would make everyone realize how bad the error was. I thought that the reports on Monday morning that Ed Hochuli had gone to Norv Turner to say he had blown the call and was sorry about it would have taken the air out of the story. I was wrong…

Earlier today and more than 96 hours after the fact, I was out running some errands and turned the radio on to the local sports radio station. The topic of conversation was Ed Hochuli and his error and how he has spent the week getting hate e-mail messages from people around the country for his mistake. I thought that was bizarre enough until the show host took a call from some goober who said that Ed Hochuli deserved every hate message that he got because:

1. He cost the Chargers a win and

2. Ed Hochuli is a horrible referee who makes bad calls in every game he officiates.

That caller made me realize that I had to say what I think about all of this. So let me tell you from whence I come on this matter; I refereed basketball for 37 years; I refereed other sports too but none nearly as much as basketball. For about 12 years, I helped with clinics that taught young people how to go about refereeing games. I never did anything nearly as important nor as widely seen as even the most meaningless NFL game, but I do know what it means to be an official in a sporting event.

When I taught those classes for novice referees, I always began by telling them that there are two kinds of referees in the world. There are those who have made mistakes and there are those who are just about to. I told them to rid themselves of the notion that they would be perfect; they would not. I told them they had to recognize their mistakes and use them to get better at officiating and that they should never – ever! – do a make-up call because that is just taking one mistake and piling it on top of the other.

Ed Hochuli made a mistake. He blew his whistle way too fast; he did not let his brain process thoroughly what his eyes saw; he knows he made a mistake; he acknowledges he made a mistake; he is remorseful for his mistake.

Ladies and gentlemen, what the hell else would you have the man do?

Yes, he cost the Chargers a win; and yes, that could come back to haunt them in the final weeks when playoff berths are being handed out. That is certainly not a situation that the Chargers or the NFL would want to see play itself out; it is certainly not what Ed Hochuli would want to happen either. This is not a reason to send this man hate e-mail messages. Remember folks, these are, after all, games; these are not life and death combat despite the hyperbole used to describe the games.

If you think Ed Hochuli is a horrible referee who makes bad calls in every game he officiates, then you must also believe that the NFL is a cauldron of conspiracies. Ed Hochuli has been a football official for decades; he has been in the NFL for almost two decades; every game done by every official is taped and then reviewed by other officials after the fact. If Ed Hochuli – or any other official – made bad calls in every game, that official would not continue in the employ of the NFL. Not only has Ed Hochuli continued to be in the employ of the NFL, he has been promoted over the years from one of the minor officials to the status of referee and crew chief. He is anything but a horrible official so he does not merit hate e-mail messages on that basis. And by the way, if that caller made an important error on his job and that error became widely known, would he think that he merited hate e-mail messages? Somehow, I doubt that.

On top of all of this, Ed Hochuli came forward and publicly admitted his error, assumed full responsibility for what he did and apologized to the people who were hurt by his error. Think about other figures in the sporting world who have been caught doing wrong things - - some of them criminally wrong things - - and ask yourself how many of them were nearly as forthright as Ed Hochuli was. Compare his behavior after the fact to Mark McGwire testifying before the Congress or Roger Clemens’ throwing his wife under the bus with regard to steroid use or any random athlete run in by the gendarmes for drug possession/usage or an athlete who is charged with spousal abuse. Tell me who the truly contrite person is here and why he is the person receiving e-male hate messages.

In addition to his apology to Norv Turner immediately after the game, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Ed Hochuli has responded to many e-mails from Chargers’ fans saying, “I failed miserably.” On that one play and in that one situation he is absolutely correct; he failed miserably. Nevertheless, that does not make him a failure and it does not make him a person of evil who deserves hate messages. What’s next? A few death threats?

What Tim Donaghy did was evil and attacked the integrity of his sport. What Ed Hochuli did was blow a call. If you need me or anyone else to explain to you why one of those people is a significantly worse person than the other, then I doubt you would ever understand what I was trying to explain.

The very next caller on that sports radio show I tuned in to suggested that Ed Hochuli should be fired by the NFL for that call. Remember, every game is reviewed on tape. If the standard becomes that officials will be fired for making a bad call as a result of a human error, there will be no officials left to do the games. [There are two types of referees – those who have made mistakes and those who are just about to.] Moreover, here is something that fanboys all over the country need to recognize:

Without officials, there would be no NFL football games.

I want to leave you with a few comments from sports columnists regarding the ways that sports figures explain away their wrongdoings/bad decisions/errors of judgment and the way it ought to be done. Then go back and review what Ed Hochuli has done since the moment of his really bad call:

“Every baseball player who apologizes without explaining what he’s apologizing for should then apologize for his apology.” [Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle]

“Roger Clemens, under a steroids cloud, seen as a liar and accused of multiple affairs, including one with a 15-year-old girl, issued a generic apology for unspecified mistakes. You know things are going bad for a ballplayer when he even whiffs on the apology.” [Greg Cote, Miami Herald]

“Brad Miller is suspended five games for some kind of failed drug test and says, ‘I want to apologize to my family, teammates, fans and the entire Kings’ organization.’ Why do these apology statements always wind up sounding like Oscar acceptance speeches?” [Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle]

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

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