Meanwhile, Conference USA stands poised to have Old Dominion and Charlotte join the conference along with UT-San Antonio to create intense future rivalries with C-USA old-timers such as Southern Mississippi and/or UTEP. Seriously, what would you call the “rivalry game” between Old Dominion and Southern Miss? The “Connecting Flights From Hell Game”?

Less obvious in all the moving around is the fact that one of the oldest NCAA conferences stands on the brink of extinction. The Western Athletic Conference has not fared well in the game of Collegiate Conference Dominoes. Two years ago, Boise State left the WAC and Boise State was the “tall dog” with regard to football in that conference by a long shot. While it is still unclear where Boise State will wind up, its departure opened the door for Fresno State, Hawaii and Nevada to leave the WAC and join up with the Mountain West Conference as of last year. This year the WAC will only have 7 football schools left – - and then it could get a lot worse.

The remaining schools are:

Idaho
Louisiana Tech
New Mexico State
San Jose State
Texas-San Antonio
Texas State
Utah State

No one is going to mistake that line-up for the murderer’s row of college football; but consider that after next season, Louisiana Tech and Texas-San Antonio are off to C-USA; San Jose State and Utah State will hightail it to the Mountain West Conference and Texas State will defect to the Sun Belt Conference. For those keeping score at home, that leaves the WAC with two conference members that play football

Idaho
New Mexico State

Supposedly, Seattle University is on a course to join the WAC at some future time; but as of this morning, Seattle University does not field a football team. Who knows if there will be a WAC when Seattle is ready to sign on…?

Brad Rock had this observation about conference shuffling and far-flung collegiate conferences in the Deseret News:

“Big East commissioner John Marinatto resigned last week.

”Sources say he decided it was time to step down right after he got calls on the same day from Alaska-Anchorage and Minnesota-Duluth.”

Meanwhile, stories are flying around now that Florida State might jump from the ACC to the Big 12. According to an AP report, the university president is “weighing the pros and cons” of such a move while saying that negotiations with the Big 12 are not happening. [Aside: I do not know how you weigh pros and cons if you do not know what the offer is to leave one conference to join another, but I will leave that logical conundrum for the reader to unravel.]

One of the reasons he says that it might be good for Florida State to leave the ACC is that the conference is “basketball-centric” [Duh!] and that the ACC television contracts give the basketball power schools an advantage. [Excuse me, but Duke is a basketball power school and hardly dominates in football while VaTech is a small fish in the basketball world but highly competitive in football.]

In case the Florida State university president has not considered this, the Big 12 is extremely “Texas-centric” featuring a bunch of teams in that state and The Longhorn Network, which is owned by one of the Texas schools. In fact, the Longhorn Network and the lack of sharing of revenue there from almost caused the Big 12 to implode only a couple of years ago.

Frankly, I do not give a fig what conference Florida State calls home. Nevertheless, here is some perspective from Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

“There is only one thing that throws me about this Florida State-to-the-Big-12 rumor that has been growing and mutating over the past several days: Do school officials consider themselves some kind of super power? Because I believe time machines are not applicable here. In the last six years, Florida State has played in the Emerald Bowl, the Music City Bowl, the Champs Sports Bowl, the Gator Bowl, the Chick-fil-A Bowl and the Champs Sports Bowl again. They have played in one BCS bowl (Orange) in the last eight seasons (and lost). They haven’t won any BCS bowl game since the national title 12 years ago. They haven’t won the ACC since 2005. They have played in only one ACC championship game in the last six seasons. Before a school starts making financial demands and threatening to change conferences, shouldn’t it at least have to win the ACC Atlantic Division more frequently than Boston College?”

Finally, Greg Cote of the Miami Herald had this comment recently regarding the decision by Florida International to change conferences:

“FIU is switching from the Sun Belt to Conference USA in 2013. To put that in perspective, if this were a poker hand, it made the leap from a pair of twos to a pair of threes.”

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

The USFL schedule will consist of 14 games between March and June.

The USFL franchises (8 of them) will purposely be located in cities where there are neither NFL teams nor any MLB teams.

The league and not the clubs will own/hold the players’ contracts.

At the end of the USFL season, NFL training camps will be gearing up and the USFL could serve as a developmental league/springboard for players who may need a bit more exposure to have a shot at the “big time”.

In discussing this concept with friends over the weekend, the first thing they said was that there were no places to put USFL teams such that there would be no direct competition with MLB or NFL franchises. That shows how fixated we have become with the current “sports map” within the US and how hard it is for some folks to “think outside the box”.

Minor league baseball survives very well in micropolitan areas because salaries are controlled. This incarnation of the USFL is sort of like “minor league football” and so cost containment will be paramount to its survival in the early years until it builds – - hopefully – - a fanbase. So, here are two dozen places – in alphabetical order – where the USFL might put its franchises:

Albany, New York
Austin, Texas
Akron, Ohio
Birmingham, Alabama
Canton, Ohio
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Columbus, Ohio
Fresno, California
Knoxville, Tennessee
Las Vegas, Nevada
Little Rock, Arkansas
Montgomery, Alabama
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Omaha, Nebraska
Orlando, Florida
Portland, Oregon
“Research Triangle”, North Carolina
Salt Lake City, Utah
San Antonio, Texas
Scranton, Pennsylvania
Shreveport, Louisiana
Tallahassee, Florida
“Tidewater Area”, Virginia
Tulsa, Oklahoma

The league plans to have 8 franchises so they have plenty of potential sites for their franchises. However, just because I want to be helpful here instead of hurtful, let me offer two pieces of advice to any of the folks who buy into the “new-USFL”:

1. Do not sell one of your franchises to Donald Trump.

2. Use the old drafting model of the NBA back in the 50s and 60s where a team could claim “territorial rights” to a limited number of players. Having players on the USFL team in an area who used to play college football in that same area cannot hurt in terms of developing interest in the new team.

Ultimately, the survival of the league will probably depend on its ability to get a decent TV contract with a network that is actually seen in most parts of the country and then for the league to establish decent ratings. If it can do these things, it might actually do more than just survive…

Come to think of it, since the USFL is “rising from the ashes” they should think about putting a team in Phoenix and naming that team “The Ashes”. Problem is that Phoenix is home to the NFL Cardinals and MLB’s Diamondbacks. Otherwise…

A lot of attention has focused on Red Sox pitcher, Josh Beckett, and his playing golf on an off day when he was nominally injured. I have no idea what is wrong with him; that is between Beckett, his agent, the Red Sox team doctors and Bobby Valentine. However, Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle – only about 3000 miles outside of Boston – saw that situation for what it is:

“If you’re Josh Beckett, it’s time to make a decision. That pitching you’re doing is hurting your golf game.”

Finally, words of assurance from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“The words “underwear bomb” were in news headlines this month, but public panic was quickly averted.

”Alas, it was just another al-Queda plot and not Charles Barkley threatening to wear a Speedo again.”

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

“To justify my inclusion in this terrific society, I went back and looked at everybody who’s in it and did some statistics. It turns out that I have known 95 of these people when they were living. I’ve written stories about 73 of them. I’ve had cocktails and drinks with 47 of them, and I played golf with 24 of them. So I want somebody else to try and go up against that record. “

“That’s what I’ve been doing for the last 60 years, and I guess I’ll keep doing it until I topple over and they start to work on my tombstone. I’ve already picked out two things. The first one is going to be,

‘I knew this would happen.’

“But I’ve got a better one. The better one is,

‘You guys hold it down here, I’m off to the next great adventure.’ “

Congratulations to Dan Jenkins. Oh, and we will not mind it even a little bit if you hang around and write more “stuff” for us to read for the next several decades…

A week ago, I completely misinterpreted the English Premier League table (that translates into “standings” for folks on this side of the Atlantic). I thought the season was over; there was a week left to go. So, let me give you the final results from that season:

Manchester City and Manchester United ended the season tied at the top of the table. Manchester City is the league champion based on goal differential over the course of the season.

The top four teams will compete in next year’s UEFA Champions League – - in addition to the English Premier League. Those four teams are:

Manchester City
Manchester United
Arsenal
Totenham Hotspur

The bottom three teams from this year are relegated next season to one level lower in the English futbol hierarchy. Those three teams will be:

Bolton
Blackburn
Wolverhampton

Queens Park Rangers avoided relegation by a single point.

Last week, there was an announcement by the Denver Nuggets that Chris “Birdman” Andersen was asked to stay away from the team until the completion of an investigation by authorities in California and Colorado. The announcement stated that Andersen’s house had been searched and that the issue at hand was “Internet Crimes Against Children”. That sounded extremely disgusting.

Over the weekend, Andersen’s lawyer released a statement saying that Andersen is the victim of extortion by a female fan. Here is the lawyer’s statement:

“A female fan in 2010 mailed Mr. Andersen multiple letters and included several photos in which she was scantily clad. Chris and this woman communicated with each other and in 2011, this woman, who represented herself as 21 years of age, flew to Colorado, showing her required identification. After leaving Colorado, she became upset at his lack of interest. In 2012, she threatened to retaliate if he did not provide financial remuneration.”

If the lawyer’s representation is correct, that may not make Andersen out to be a noble man worthy of emulation, but it certainly would elevate him from the status of someone involved with “Internet Crimes Against Children”.

The Minnesota Vikings are going to get a new stadium; both houses of the State Legislature passed a bill providing funding and sent it to Governor Mark Dayton for a signature. Roughly, this is how it breaks down:

Stadium Cost: $975M
Stadium Site: Where the Metrodome now stands.
Vikings’ Contribution: Approximately $400M
Lease: Vikings sign a 30-year lease to play in the new stadium
Naming Rights: Belong to the Vikings

So, I guess you can take the Vikings off the list of teams that might consider a move to Los Angeles should one of the two proposed stadia in that metropolitan area ever move toward reality. That leaves three four possible franchises on the table as potential transplants:

Jacksonville: Even with 15% of the seats covered in tarps, they cannot sell out the stadium reliably. Frankly, I do not think the NFL should have put a team there in the first place, bit it is there – - for the moment.

Buffalo: The Bills are a “small market team” owned by one of the founders of the AFL who is in his nineties. New folks will run this franchise one of these days…

San Diego: The team and the local government have been wrestling over a new stadium/renovations to the old stadium/whatever for at least a decade.

Oakland: The Raiders were in LA once before; the Coliseum is antiquated; calling the city of Oakland “cash-strapped” is to praise the city’s financial situation.

Finally, here is Greg Cote’s Mothers Day comment from yesterday’s Miami Herald:

“Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there! I called my mother earlier today. Unfortunately, she did not accept the charges — but I called.”

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

Tracy McGrady – - in the league since 1997
Erick Dampier – - in the league since 1996
Jerry Stackhouse – - in the league since 1995

By the way, the Hawks’ owner needs to realize the jinx his team was carrying in this playoff series. Tracy McGrady has been in the NBA since 1997 and he has never been on a team that made it past the first round of the playoffs. Just saying…

I said recently that the euphoria in Los Angeles regarding the new ownership of the Dodgers may have been a bit premature and over the top. Now, I think it is fair to say that the honeymoon in Los Angeles is over. T. J. Simers is an acerbic columnist for the LA Times and in this column, he torches the Dodgers’ organization and the new owners. Moreover, when I say he “torches” them consider:

He calls out the mayor of LA and some dude on the City Council. (No big deal you say, they are politicians; lots of folks call them out.)

He calls out Stan Kasten – - the “baseball brains” of the new ownership group. (Not such a big deal you say.)

He calls out Magic Johnson as a show pony. (Hold on there. In LA, that is a big deal.)

He calls out Vin Scully. (That is a HUGE deal in LA. That is like the Pope calling St. Paul some “Johnny-come-lately Christian”.)

There is a note on SI.com saying that MLB is considering a rule change that would make the “fake-throw-to-third-base-throw-to-first-base” pickoff move illegal. The new rule would make that a balk. Evidently, the rules committee thinks that is a good idea and the umpires agree that is a good idea. However, for reasons that are certainly not clear to me, SI.com says that the players union vetoed the idea. The union says they need to “discuss it further”.

OK, let us all take a 30-second break here.

All right… Have they finished discussing this potential rule change yet? What is there left to discuss? Let me summarize the over-arching issues here:

Baseball has survived with that rule in place for 100+ years.

In the last 50 years, it has only worked about twice at the major league level.

Pitchers would not be significantly disadvantaged; runners would not gain any significant advantage.

Changing that rule or keeping that rule just does not matter.

Memo to Players Union: There is nothing left to discuss; flip a damned coin and make a decision.

Often in these rants, I pose rhetorical questions or possibly offer up a Quick Quiz to put perspective on some current sports issues. Steve Rosenbloom’s Rosenblog, on the Chicago Tribune website had one of each flavor recently with regard to the continuing “Bountygate” saga:

“Question for Jonathan Vilma: How much for a cart-off of the commissioner?”

“Doesn’t Drew Brees deserve a suspension for being stupid and/or lying about knowledge of the bounty program while serving as player rep whose union should care about the safety of union members?”

I do not think Brees deserves a suspension; but if he were to decide any time soon to do a one-on-one interview with someone like Bob Costas or Jeremy Schapp on the subject of “bounties” and what was going on in the Saints’ locker room, he would be truly stupid.

Dwight Perry offered up words of warning for sports fans in the Seattle Times recently. Everyone should take heed:

“Stephen A. Smith has become a full-time commentator opposite Skip Bayless on ESPN2′s ‘First Take.’

”Gentlemen, start your mute buttons.”

Finally, Greg Cote offered this perspective on conspicuous consumption in the Miami Herald:

“A couple from the Florida Keys bid $100,000 in a charity auction to spend a day with Tebow. If I’m spending $100K for a day with Tebow, he’d better be leaving a $99,500 sports car in my driveway.”

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

According to previous reports, T.O. is supposed to pay $44,600 per month to support his four children from four mothers. Additionally, T.O. says he is nearly broke despite earning somewhere between $65M and $80M during his career. He admits that his lavish lifestyle cost him a lot of that money but also says that bad investments recommended to him either by his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, or people referred to him by Rosenhaus drained his assets. I do not plan to go all “Price Waterhouse” on you here; suffice it to say that T.O. probably has less money than one would think he might have based on what he has earned in the last 15 years of his life.

Someone looking to assess blame can easily point to Owens himself and his extravagant lifestyle with multiple houses and his lavish birthday parties. In addition, there is the obvious issue of his fathering four children who now cost him over $500K per year to support. You might point the finger at Rosenhaus if you believe that he was central to a series of financially disastrous decisions that T.O. made – - not much more than an assertion at this point. Another potential culprit is the family court system.

When someone decided that T.O. should pay approximately $11K per month per child – - I am assuming that each mother/child gets the same amount out of that $44K per month pull on T.O.’s bank account – -, they seem to have forgotten to put in a “sanity clause”. Sure, when the case was heard and T.O. was making millions of dollars per year, he “could afford it”; but anyone smart enough to be an official in a family court system had to know that earning power was not going to continue for 20 years. There ought to have been a way for those payments to “come back to Earth” when there was no income to pay them out.

Had it been Joe Flabeetz in court instead of T.O. when a mother sought child support and Joe Flabeetz demonstrated earnings of $35K per year, the judge and the system would have found a way for the mother and child to survive on a tad less than $11K per month. Well, right about now, T. O. is much more like Joe Flabeetz than he is like the T.O. of 10 years ago.

Can T.O. get another shot at the NFL? Of course he can; look, Randy Moss got a chance in SF for this year so there is indeed a market for previously gifted wide receivers who are also pains in the ass. If he gets such a shot and makes a team, that will be a short-term thing. T.O. will be 39 years old in December; I do not care about his physical conditioning and fitness; no NFL team is going to put his name down as an integral part of their “five-year plan”. Therefore, even if he gets another chance for a big payday, it will not last long and that $44K per month payment is just not going to materialize for those kids. And the family court officials should have seen that coming…

Speaking of T.O. and his financial difficulties that have gotten him crosswise with the court system, let me say something about the NFL players who are suing the NFL because of the dangers of pro football and how those dangerous conditions have negatively affected the lives of those former players. Look, I really do feel sorry for the low quality of life that some former players must endure and I think that the league and the NFLPA can do more to assist those former players in ways that transcend mere financial aid. However, here is where I get off the train:

Some of these players allege that they did not know that a pro football career could have the long-lasting damaging effects on their joints and on their brains and that the NFL hid those dangers from them.

OK, my Bulls[p]it Detection System just hit maximum…

Those former players went to college and most stayed there three years or more. They were what the NCAA constantly refers to as “student-athletes”. Well, what did those universities teach them if it did not make them aware of the long-term damage that violent collisions might have on their bodies? The condition of “punch-drunkenness” for boxers has been around for longer than I have; doctors and ordinary people have noticed that boxers who take repeated blows to the head suffer from mental “disorders” of varying types and degrees later in life. This situation is not like the ill effects of smoking where research into the deleterious effects of smoking were purposefully kept from people who might take up smoking or continue smoking.

As I said, former players deserve more assistance from the NFL and from the NFLPA than they are getting. Nevertheless, some of the claims made by some of the players in their legal pleadings just do not hold water.

I have three ideas on how the NFL and the NFLPA – - jointly – - can make professional football less injurious over the long-term. Yes, these would change some of the ways that the game is played and/or marketed, but I do not think the changes would be disastrous.

1. Ban the use of facemasks. That will reduce the number of head-to-head collisions drastically in very short order. As a corollary to that rule change, any blow to the face by an opponent with his arm or fist should disqualify that opponent for 2 full quarters of football games – - even if that means carry-over into the next game. In addition, use replay to monitor those kinds of blows to the face/head…

2. The NFL needs to sit down with their “partners” in the broadcasting business and make it clear that program segments such as “Jacked-up!” and “Huge Hits!” have to stop. If the league and the players let the media glorify that style of play, it will grow instead of diminish.

3. Reduce the exhibition season to 2 games from 4 games – - not with the intent of adding 2 games to the regular season. Cut the number of games from 20 games (4 exhibition plus 16 regular season) to 18 games with this simple logic:

Fewer games = Fewer blows to the head/knees/spine/ankles…

Finally, here is a note from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“What do you get when you cross Tom Osborne with grunge music? We’re about to find out.
“Nebraska’s football team just got an oral commitment from a linebacker named Courtney Love.”

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

The pro forma suspension is for 5 games given to Cole Hamels of the Phillies. What Hamels did was to hit Nationals’ rookie phenom, Bryce Harper, with a pitch in the first inning of a Nats/Phillies game and then to admit to reporters after the game that he had done it intentionally. Here is the irony of this situation:

Most often, people are punished when they do something wrong and then the penalty is magnified if they lie about what they did or if they try to cover it up.

Hamels is suspended for telling the truth.

MLB does not suspend pitchers routinely for hitting a batter in the vicinity of the batter’s waist. A fastball that clocks a batter in the face might be a different story, but usually a shot in the back around belt high gives the batter first base and nothing more.

Please note, that when Hamels came to bat in the third inning and squared around to bunt, the Nats’ starting pitcher hit Hamels in the leg. Jordan Zimmerman threw the ball at Hamels with the same degree of intention that Hamels had when he hit Harper. The difference? Evidently, no one asked Zimmerman if what he did was on purpose…

Phillies’ fans ought not to be upset about this because a 5-game suspension for a starting pitcher simply means he will get an extra day’s rest until his next start. That is why this entire “suspension saga” is pro forma.

Greg Cote pointed out the importance of good pitching with this cogent observation in the Miami Herald:

“Six Cubs fans are walking 1,600 miles accompanied by a goat named Wrigley to help end the club’s 104-year curse. Yeah, I would think either that or better pitching would be the answer.”

I am definitely not a seamhead when it comes to exotic statistical analyses of baseball happenings. However, I did chuckle when I saw that Scott Ostler cited this statistical oddity in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“One for the stat freaks: When Giancarlo Stanton of the Marlins hit a game-winning homer off Giants’ closer Santiago Casilla on Wednesday, it was a major-league first: A hitter with an ethnic, four-syllable first name ending in ‘o’ hitting a game-winning homer off a pitcher with an ethnic, four-syllable first name ending in ‘o.’ ”

There has been a lot of hypothesizing about the cause-and-effect of the shortened and compacted NBA schedule and the injuries that have accrued to high profile players this season. Folks on neither side of the debate regarding causality here have made compelling arguments but their arguments got me to focus on the NBA’s 66 game schedule played between Christmas and mid-April this season. Even if were to conclude that the compacted schedule caused some of the injuries we have seen, there are a couple of other conclusions I have drawn from this season:

A 66-game regular season schedule is better than an 82-game regular season schedule. Even with 16 fewer games, more than a couple of games were either tanked or played with junior varsity rosters or played in “slo-mo”. Adding 16 games next year will add to the number of those kinds of games for which fans will pay full-price.

While a 66-game schedule is good, here is what would be better. The NBA regular season should be 58 games; that is a home-and-home series for each team with every other NBA team. End of story…

That 58-game regular season schedule should start on 1 January – - or Christmas Day if the NBA has to have that date in its quiver – - and should end on June 1.

Then start the playoffs, which if played at the current pacing will take until mid- August. Still better would be to condense the playoff schedule a bit; there is plenty of downtime in the schedule as it stands not such that if my proposed playoffs began on 2 June, they could be over by 1 August.

That schedule structure has about as much chance of happening as seeing a visiting team hit a walk-off home run.

During Game 3 of the Knicks/Heat series, the crowd at Madison Square Garden chanted “A$$hole” at LeBron James every time he went to the foul line or when he entered the game or when he missed a shot. Meanwhile, sitting at the end of the Knickerbockers’ bench was Amare Stoudamire because of his self-inflicted wound coming as a result of his trying to punch-out a fire extinguisher.

Memo to Knicks’ Fans in the Garden: I am confused. Who is the “A$$hole” in this circumstance?

Finally, here is one more baseball assessment from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald:

“In summary, I would call the first month of the Marlins’ season a rousing success, other than the Muhammad Ali Opening Day calamity, the Fidel Castro crisis, the lack of hitting that sent the team spiraling to the NL East cellar, and the fact the new ballpark roof leaks and the outfield grass is dying.”

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

Does the viewer of NFL games bear any responsibility for these consequences since it is the viewer support that makes the game a viable commercial entity?

Whether or not you agree with where Doyel comes out on this question, this column deserves to be read in its entirety.

The “Stadium To Be Named Later” will seat 68,500 folks. The most expensive seats in the place will cost $375 per game on a season ticket basis after the purchaser also puts down $80,000 as a personal seat license for that seat for the life of the stadium. There are approximately 1000 of these seats and the Niners say they have sold “nearly all of them”. Let us do a bit of math here and assume that “nearly all of them” means that they have sold 900 of them.

Before doing much more than ribbon-cutting, the Niners have put:

$72M in the bank from the seat licenses on those 900 seats plus

$3.375M in the bank from the cost of the game tickets.

Remember, there are 67,500 other seats in that stadium still to generate revenue for the team prior to any games happening in the new facility. The team says that another 7500 seats – - with personal seat licenses required of course – - are also available for purchase at this time. For now, current season ticket holders have a right of first refusal on comparable seating in the new stadium.

Current plans call for the stadium to be open for business at the start of the 2014 NFL season. Until then, folks will have to rely on the Mission Statement for the new stadium as provided by the Niners’ ownership:

“Our stadium will consistently deliver the most elegantly satisfying outdoor sports and entertainment experience in the world. The stadium will be an economically and environmentally sustainable showcase for innovation in the Silicon Valley.”

Dwight Perry’s column, Sideline Chatter, appears four times a week in the Seattle Times. You can rely on Messr. Perry to come up with items that are on the fringe of the sporting world; clearly, he scours the newswires for inspirational material. Last week, he outdid himself with these two items:

“Stunt woman Jolene Van Vugt of London, Ontario, broke a world land speed record when she clocked 46 mph in Sydney, Australia — on a motorized toilet.

“Canadians are reportedly so flush with pride they can’t keep a lid on it.”

“Netherlands Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, as part of the Queen’s Day holiday festivities honoring his mother Beatrix’s birthday, went to Rhenen and took part in the town’s toilet-bowl-tossing contest.

“Air to the throne? No kidding.”

Of course, there are toilets here in Curmudgeon Central. However, they are not used in any events of a sporting nature. They have an important yet narrowly pragmatic role around here and that pragmatic role does not allow them time to be either motorized or tossed through the air. Some folks have too much time on their hands…

Did you feel the earth shudder last weekend? I did not, but it must have. Last week, Tiger Woods entered a PGA golf tournament and did not make the cut as of Friday afternoon. Nonetheless, the PGA went ahead and finished the tournament without him and the TV network continued to televise the event without his participation. That had to mark a shift in the tectonic plates that are the foundation of the golf world – - but I did not feel the tremor. Perhaps, it was not a tectonic shift but merely the passing of an era.

All four of the Saints’ players suspended by the NFL for “Bountygate” will appeal their suspensions. That should shock exactly no one. The position of the NFLPA with regard to these appeals is that:

Conduct prior to the current CBA cannot be punished under the new CBA.

Art Shell and Ted Cottrell, as the arbiters of on-field discipline, should hear the appeals – - or – -

The designated arbiter under the new CBA, Stephan Burbank, should hear the appeals.

I am certain that those arguments have legal and rhetorical value and they should be pursued to determine if any carry enough weight to dismiss the suspensions. Please note however that the NFLPA has not yet said anything this direct:

The charges that are behind these suspensions are false. They cannot be substantiated; those things never happened.

What happened in “Bountygate” is that some players conspired to try to injure some other players. Imagine for a moment if the group conspiring to injure some players was an outside group and not a part of the NFLPA membership. This is a preposterous example but think about it for a moment:

Orthopedic surgeons – - seeking to have more patients who can pay for top-end surgeries – - conspire with helmet manufacturers to include features in helmet designs that will increase injuries to players (either players wearing the helmet or players who get hit with the helmet worn by someone else.)

Imagine also that the surgeons are paying the helmet manufacturers a percentage of the revenue generated from those “additional football surgeries”.

Under such circumstances, do you think the NFLPA would be so procedurally focused – - particularly if the surgeons had admitted they were doing that to the NFLPA members? Hmmm…

Finally, let me close with another Dwight Perry item from the Seattle Times:

“Brad Dickson of the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald, explaining the crowd of 70,000 for WrestleMania: ‘With America forced to go up to 18 months between Adam Sandler movies, we’re starved for bad acting.’ ”

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

Sorry about that – - and thanks to Murray for the correction.

Over and above that, I am NOT a virtuoso on the mandolin. All of you will recognize that a mandolin is a musical instrument as is a bassoon. Let me confess that when it comes to playing music, I am most accomplished in playing the radio or the cassette tape or the CD or the iPod or whatever is the technological issue of the day. I do not play musical instruments; I played the piano as a child and all I can say is that every time I practiced, Chopin wept.

A mandolin is more than a musical instrument; it is a kitchen device that slices and dices veggies. Do a Google Images search on “mandolin kitchen” and you will see the kinds of devices I am referring to here. I am not a virtuoso on the kitchen version of a mandolin either; last evening, I managed to slice a small piece of my right thumb off while using one trying to slice zucchini for dinner. That event makes typing this rant ever so eventful and ever so uncomfortable since I am right handed and reflexively hit the space bar with my right thumb.

Nevertheless, onward and upward…

Over the weekend, Mariano Rivera sustained a knee injury that will keep him on the DL for the rest of the season and it may be a career-ending injury for a pitcher who is 41 years old. The irony is that he sustained the injury shagging flies in batting practice, which has to be something he has done prior to about 4000 baseball games in his career. The baseball gods must have been mightily angered at something he did or something that the Yankees’ organization did recently to have that happen…

Meanwhile, Delmon Young is set to return to the Detroit Tigers after sitting out a 7-game suspension levied by MLB because Young was arrested in NYC in an allegedly intoxicated state shouting anti-Semitic comments at a panhandler who was dressed in a yarmulke and who was wearing a Star of David. Whether or not he is convicted of those hate crime charges is for a court to decide. What I find interesting is the apology that Young offered – - obviously one crafted by image consultants and lawyers. He apologized to his family and his teammates and his team and his fans ever so contritely. To whom he did not apologize to are the people who were the targets of his – - allegedly – - anti-Semitic ravings. Until that happens, it would seem that this is another of today’s famous “non-apology apologies”…

In the US, we have a phenomenon known as “Selection Sunday”. In the UK, yesterday was “Relegation Sunday”. The Barclay’s Premier League season ended yesterday with excitement at the top of the standings and at the bottom of the standings.

At the top, Manchester City and Manchester United both had a chance to claim the league championship for the season. Manchester City did that based on goal differential against the teams in the Premier League over the course of the season.

At the top, six teams had a shot at the top four slots in the standings, which would gain those four teams entry into next year,’s UEFA Champions League. Manchester City and Manchester United were assured of their slots in the top four. The last two slots could have gone to Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle United and/or Tottenham. Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur made the cut.

At the bottom, the stakes are as great if not greater. The bottom three teams in the Premier League are relegated “one level down” in the futbol hierarchy of the UK while the top three teams from “one level down” graduate to the Premier League. Before this weekend, the team from Wolverhampton was certain to be relegated. However, as of Sunday morning, Blackburn, Bolton, Queens Park and Wigan were in danger of relegation. Now that the season is over, Blackburn and Bolton will be joining Wolverhampton “one level down” next year.

If the same concept applied to US sports, the three worst teams in MLB from last year would be playing in Triple A baseball this year while the top three Triple A teams would be in MLB competition. Because of the farm system affiliations between Triple A teams and MLB teams, this analogy is far less than perfect, but you get the idea. For futbol fans in the UK, yesterday was a VERY big deal.

The British Parliament resolved after holding hearings – - or whatever they call those events in Britain – - that Rupert Murdoch was unfit to run his newspaper/media enterprise. This comes on the heels of revelations that reporters at one of Murdoch’s tabloids certainly acquired information about celebrities and politicians via unauthorized and covert access to the cell phones of those celebs and/or pols. Since Murdoch is the “man in charge”, this atrocious situation demonstrates his lack of fitness to run the operation in the minds of the Parliamentarians…

I wonder what these same folks might say about Peter Angelos’ competence to run the Baltimore Orioles given that the last time the Orioles were in the playoffs was before anyone ever heard the name, Monica Lewinsky.

Just asking…

When the Knicks beat the Heat yesterday in the NBA playoffs, it marked the end of a 13-game losing streak in playoff games by the Knicks dating back to 2001. Moreover, 7 of those 13 losses had come at home in Madison Square Garden. Good thing the Knicks won; that streak was beginning to become embarrassing.

Yes, Floyd Mayweather Jr. won another boxing title bout last weekend. Here is what will be a newsworthy story that may or may not be covered extensively by the boxing press:

On 1 June, Floyd Mayweather Jr, will report to jail to serve a sentence for a conviction on charges of domestic violence.

An undefeated world champion of multiple weight classifications beat up on someone in his household. Oh swell…

Finally, Greg Cote had this observation in the Miami Herald this weekend:

“NBC-TV had a three-hour Kentucky Derby preview show Saturday for a two-minute race. Unless the horses started talking, that strikes me as a bit excessive.”

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