The Sports Curmudgeon

A little more than a year ago, the San Marino international soccer team scored its first goal in international competition in more than a 5-year span. Notwithstanding that feat, San Marino failed to win the game; in fact, San Marino has never won an international soccer game. The international team has been in business since 1990 and its record stands at 0-61-1. That tie game happened about a week ago when San Marino and Estonia met in something called “European qualifying” and the game ended at “Nil-Nil”.

Question:

Given the performance of San Marino over the last quarter of a century, what might they be qualifying for?

For the record, there are 208 international teams recognized by FIFA. San Marino and Bhutan are tied for last place in the FIFA World Rankings. Can you imagine how low on the pecking order at FIFA one would have to be such that one were assigned to go and watch San Marino play Estonia to see if – possibly – there might be a way to put San Marino ahead of or behind Bhutan in the rankings? How much coffee would one need to stay awake during that struggle?

On many occasions, I have demonstrated here my less-than-glowing competence in the field of advertising/promotion/marketing. Nevertheless, I understand the concept that a “promotion” is intended to associate a product with an event (e.g. a movie or a sporting event) in a way that gets patrons of the event to try the product/buy the product. In that sense, the product has to be relatively accessible to the patrons. It is that “accessibility” that was a problem in Philly…

Papa John’s pizza had a promotional deal with the Philadelphia 76ers such that when the Sixers won a game, people could enter some kind of promo code online and get discounted pizzas. It will not take any basketball fan more than about 10 minutes watching the Sixers to realize that they are just not going to win very many games this year; that made the product inaccessible to the patrons. So, Papa John modified the terms of the deal in mid-stream. Now, Sixers fans can get the discounted pizza whenever the Sixers score 90 points in a game. [Aside: If you watch the Sixers for even a single game, you will quickly realize that if they score only 90 points, they are not going to win many games because they play bad defense.]

Frankly, I think Papa John’s should have left the promotional terms alone and just let the whole thing go quietly into the night. Now, people can make the following association in their minds:

BAD Sixers team – – – Bad pizza

Even I know that kind of association is not what Papa John was aiming for…

The Marlins’ new contract with Giancarlo Stanton (13 years for $325M) was shocking. Marlins’ owner, Jeffrey Loria, normally throws money around the same way he throws grand pianos around. [Recall that the Marlins were rebuked by MLB for pocketing their revenue-sharing dollars and not “reinvesting them” to improve the on-field product.] The Marlins also have a history of letting young players go to other teams as soon as their free agent eligibility kicks in.

After getting over the original shock, I started to think about this contract and it raises a few questions in my mind. Let me preface those questions by saying that Giancarlo Stanton is a young player who has the potential to be a superstar for the next decade or so. This is not a guy in his early 30s who is close to the point in his career when the vector heading is turning south. Nonetheless:

The Marlins drew an average of 21,386 fans per game last year. That put them 27th in MLB. In 2013, the Marlins were 28th in MLB in attendance. In neither year did they come close to drawing 2 million fans. Question:

Miami fans found ways to do something other than go out to see the team with Giancarlo Stanton playing for the past two years; what is going to convince lots more of them to go to games this year and next year to see the Marlins with Giancarlo Stanton?

According to reports, the Marlins’ local TV/radio revenue is about 6% of what the top teams – such as the Dodgers and the Yankees – get from that source. Question:

Is it likely that local radio and TV companies are going to fork over 10 times more money in the next couple of years to show the Marlins? Remember, they did not add players; they are merely paying one of their current players a whole lot more money.

Now, those two revenue related issues leads me to wonder about this very fundamental question:

Absent significantly increased revenues, how will the Marlins field a team around Stanton?

I am not saying that the situation in Miami cannot work; I do think that there are other things that have to happen to make it work smoothly and it is not obvious how the team is going to change the “revenue situation” in Miami.

Finally, the college basketball season has begun and we are in the phase of the season where horrible mismatches dominate the scene. Here is an observation from Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald to that point:

“Creighton opens its regular season Friday night vs. Central Arkansas, a team that was 8-21 last year and has only one player back and a new coach. In college basketball, this is what’s known as ‘the perfect opening opponent.’”

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

Last Sunday, agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency conducted some “surprise inspections” of NFL visiting teams looking for any irregularities with regard to the dispensing of controlled substances particularly painkillers. Several reports said that the inspections had their origins in allegations made in the “concussion lawsuit” regarding improprieties with these substances under the Controlled Substances Act. The Niners, Seahawks and Bucs confirmed that they underwent some kind of inspection; this report in the Washington Post indicates that the focus is not merely on those teams.

I think this is a very complicated issue. Obviously, there is an important social need for certain substances to be controlled and dispensed only by people certified as knowledgeable enough to do so properly. Highly addictive painkillers fall into that category and no one – not football fans, law enforcement officials or legislators – ought to be surprised to learn that professional football players suffer painful injuries in the course of their professional activities. The potential problem here is that a law and the regulations that flow from that law which was written with hospitals and pharmacies in mind will almost certainly have areas of recordkeeping and physical storage that are treated loosely by the physicians traveling with NFL teams.

A little cynical voice in the back of my head says that this is merely a grandstanding play by the Feds so that as the concussion lawsuits proceed their activities can be seen in a positive light. I want to be wrong about that but I cannot quiet that little voice completely.

With regard to the entire issue of players taking potent painkillers in order to “get back in the game” situations, I think an important distinction needs to be made with regard to three kinds of scenarios:

Scenario 1: Player is injured; he does not know the extent of the injury but it does hurt a lot. Team physician – or other doctor involved somehow – says he does not think it is a debilitating injury and a painkiller will alleviate the suffering. He and the player agree that is a course of action; the player takes the pill(s) and can return to action.

Scenario 2: Player is injured; extent of injury is not known; doctor suspects it is not debilitating and just gives the player a pill to take without the player knowing what the pill is or what the injury is all about.

Scenario 3: Player is injured; he does not know the extent of the injury but the doctor does. There is a chance that continued play can make it worse but the doctor does not tell the player of those potential consequences as he gives the witting or unwitting player a painkiller to get him back in the game.

Would I be surprised to learn that at some time in the past and the present, each of these three scenarios has played itself out? Absolutely not… Importantly, I believe the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act have very different intersection with these kinds of scenarios. This is a complex issue; I hope this is not a grandstand play by the Feds; I hope the teams, the doctors and the players are all acting responsibly here…

Earlier this week, the Atlanta Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals threw some kerosene into the hot stove league. The Braves sent Jason Heyward and a pitcher to the Cards for Shelby Miller and another pitcher. Heyward and Miller are young players who have significant accomplishments already in their major league careers and still plenty of “upside”. The ideal trade is one that can help both teams; this one might fit into that category.

The Cards need an outfielder to replace Oscar Taveras who was killed in a car accident recently. Heyward gives them that outfielder.

The Braves need pitching. Miller is someone who could become a “top of the rotation” guy.

Two things surprised me just a bit about the trade. The Cards starting rotation has question marks. Adam Wainright has an elbow “issue”; Michael Wacha has a shoulder “issue”. The Cardinals traditionally rely on solid starting pitching as a foundation of team; so, trading a 24-year old starter with a career ERA of 3.33 is not something I thought they would be willing to do. Also, the Braves had “offensive problems” last year. I do not want to make Jason Heyward out to be a nascent Ted Williams or anything like that, but he was one of their better offensive players. I am surprised the Braves were willing to deal him.

When we bought our new car, we got a free 3-month subscription to SiriusXM Radio. At first, I liked the idea of all the different sports channels but soon came to realize that all of them struggled to fill 168 hours per week with any kind of programming let alone quality programming. I found myself turning off the radio far too often to make any consideration of extending that subscription for even a day. I mention this only to set the stage for the next “announcement” I ran across:

John Daly – the sometimes golfer and full-time celebrity/personality – has signed on with SiriusXM Radio to do a show starting in December.

This event will be on the SiriusXM channel dedicated to PGATOUR Radio and the initial run for the program will be 6 shows. The program will be called Hit It Hard with John Daly and here is the brief description of what it will be about that supposedly would make me want to tune in:

“Daly will take calls from listeners around the country, talk about his experiences in and out of the sport, offer his thoughts on today’s game and players, share his love of music, and more.”

Maybe – I said MAYBE – I would listen to that at gunpoint…

Finally, Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times summed up the situation regarding FIFA’s investigation into alleged shenanigans related to awarding the 2022 World Cup Tournament to Qatar:

“FIFA (wink, wink) found no irregularities in the way World Cups were awarded to Russia and Qatar, but bid-committee members weren’t available for comment.

“They’d just left on their surprise vacation junkets to Barbados.”

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

Last week in a game against the Memphis Grizzlies, Kobe Bryant set an all-time NBA record. Until last week, John Havlicek held the record for the most missed field goal attempts in a career at 13,417. In that game last week, Kobe missed attempt 13,418 and he continues to add to the record.

Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times had a perfect perspective on that record as it relates to Kobe and the Lakers:

“Kobe Bryant broke an unwelcome NBA career record with his 13,418th missed shot.
“Or as he prefers to call them, rebounding opportunities for teammates.”

The Lakers’ roster as of today is not a good one. Kobe Bryant is a bona fide star and a Hall of Fame player; beyond him the roster consists of role players and guys “with potential” which means they have not yet definitively shown if they are competent or incompetent. On that squad, Kobe Bryant is the guy who is going to have to take the most shots; and indeed, over the first ten games of the season, Bryant leads the NBA in field goal attempts with 244 shots fired up. Other teams in the league know already that Bryant is the only dangerous scorer on the Lakers and he draws sufficient defensive attention that his shooting percentage so far this year is .377, which is significantly down from previous years. In fact, for a full season the lowest field goal percentage in Bryant’s career since coming into the league in 1996 has been .417 in that rookie season.

At the current pace, Bryant will attempt 2000 shots this year and at the current rate of misfiring, he will miss a total of 1246 of them. I think this record is safe for a while just as John Havlicek’s record stood from 1978 until this year.

One player who hoped to join Kobe Bryant on the floor in a Lakers’ uniform this year is Steve Nash but a bad back has him out for the year – and has likely ended Nash’s career. Bob Molinaro had this item in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot a while back:

“Next chapter: It was reported as news that Steve Nash is injured. When did that become news? Now that the 40-year-old former two-time MVP has been ruled out for the season with a bad back, it’s time to find him a chair at ESPN or TNT. Preferably, one with excellent lumbar support.”

Whenever I have heard Steve Nash interviewed, I have come away from the experience thinking that this is a guy who has a future in broadcasting. He comes across as intelligent, articulate and analytical about the game of basketball. ESPN and/or TNT should indeed work with him to get him on the air. Lord knows, both networks have former basketball players under contract who are “less than wonderful” on the air.

Frank Fitzpatrick of the Philadelphia Inquirer had this comment several months ago:

Baseball’s instant replay is the worst baseball idea since John Felske.

I mention that not because I want to complain about baseball’s instant replay. John Felske is an example of a manager/coach who helped his teams underachieve; he was part of the problem. All too often, coaches/managers are fired after poor on-field results when they are no more to blame for those poor results than they are to blame for world hunger. A case in point right now would be the Oakland Raiders.

I was never one who thought Dennis Allen was a great hire in Oakland or that he was a nascent Hall of Fame coach about to burst onto the football landscape. Having said that, he was not responsible for the Raiders’ unmitigated suckitude over the past couple of years; no coach ever could have made that compilation of players into anything other than a losing team.

Back in late September when the Raiders were 0-4 and looking at their Bye Week, they fired Dennis Allen and replaced him with Tony Sparano whose first coaching act seems to have been the ceremonial burying of an NFL football to symbolize the death of that first quarter of the season and the start of something new. And what has changed…? Here we are in the middle of November and the Raiders’ record stands at 0-10 meaning they have continued to lose games since changing coaches.

I would like to see some kind of empirical evidence that changing the identity of the head coach in Oakland had any material on-field effect. By the way, that does not mean that the Raiders win a game that the oddsmakers thought they would lose; I mean that the team on the field actually shows that they are better than someone else more than “on any given Sunday…” Not only are the Raiders losing, they are always behind; the team has not been leading at halftime in any game this year.

Here are some reality checks for Mark Davis and Reggie McKenzie who are the folks responsible for assembling this cast of characters that a head coach is supposed to lead to victory.

1. Your offensive line is awful. Some people cannot get out of their own way; in the case of the Raiders’ OL, what they need to figure out how to do is how to get in the way of opposing defenders as those defenders are making their way to the guy with the ball. Until you find 5 guys capable of that; you are doomed. In only 3 games this year have the Raiders had more than 200 yards passing; they have yet to have any RB go for more than 80 yards in a game.

2. The 2014 Raiders are worse than the 2013 Raiders and/or the 2012 Raiders. That is important because both of those earlier iterations of the team stunk. Your job has been to make it work out there in Oakland and over the last three seasons, a bad team has been made into something significantly worse. This is on one or both of the two of you and not on any head coach, coordinator, assistant coach or trainer.

I will not be surprised in the least if the Raiders fire Tony Sparano at the end of this season. Raiders’ fans can look at the rest of the schedule and see the possibility of two wins in that mix. Somehow, I doubt that a 2-14 record will get Tony Sparano a contract extension. Moreover, just as it was futile and impotent for the Raiders to fire Dennis Allen, the same will be true when they fire Tony Sparano. He is not the problem; there are probably 30 players on the 53-man roster who do not belong there and that is the fault of either Mark Davis or Reggie McKenzie – or both.

Finally, one more item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times. He suggested this as a prop bet; I am not sure which way one should play it:

“The first to win a game will be the:

a) 0-9 Oakland Raiders
b) 0-7 Philadelphia 76ers
c) 2015 Arizona Diamondbacks”

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

I am sure that you have heard and/or read about the high school in New Jersey that canceled its football season after allegations of outrageous hazing activities on the football team came to light. The alleged activities are not like taping the new players to a goal post and pouring honey on their heads. Suffice it to say that some of the alleged activities were of a sexual nature that involved bodily penetration and the allegations are serious enough to have brought criminal charges in a half-dozen cases. This is not going to be any kind of rant about morality or the imminent demise of Western Civilization; there have been plenty of those presented already.

What caught my attention was a recent action taken by the school board in Sayreville, NJ. About a week ago, the school board had a public meeting and announced that the coaches of the football team would be suspended indefinitely – with pay – not as a punishment but as a means to uncover the truth in all of this.

No one should be opposed to finding the truth in all of this to determine if in fact punishments are in order. I certainly have no problem with that. Nonetheless, I have to pose a couple of questions here:

The season is canceled; there will be no football games. What exactly is the difference between a suspended football coach and a football coach whose team will play no games?

Perhaps I am just being obtuse here, but how does the act of suspending any or all of the coaches further the quest for “the truth” here?

Please do not read into those questions any sort of hint that I think the coaches are blameless here. Even if the legal processes determine that there were no criminal actions involved, there certainly existed an environment where upperclassmen bullied freshmen brazenly. Since the football coaches are employees of the School Board – or whatever that governing body happens to be called in New Jersey – they are de facto adults involved in educating the students in that community. Creating an environment where bullying is acceptable – or just as bad – being so out of touch that one does not know that bullying of this type is ongoing do not fit well in the job description of “educator”. In this case, malfeasance and nonfeasance should carry the same degree of opprobrium; the total mass of the opprobrium to be borne by the adults in charge here depend entirely on the revelation of truth that the police and the School Board seek.

[Aside: I read one report that said the head coach at this school had 12 assistant coaches. Thirteen sets of eyes and ears had no clue… What are some of the adjectives that come to your mind to describe this situation?]

Taken as a whole, the situation in Sayreville is simply a mess. According to reports, one of the victims has met with an attorney and that attorney has characterized the events as “rape”. I am not an attorney but I am confident that introducing the word “rape” into the dialog here is not going to make the revelation of truth any easier that it might have been before.

Controversy is not associated only with high school football these days. Florida State’s football program has the various issues involving Jameis Winston floating around it and yesterday, reports said that the Tallahassee Police Department has an ongoing investigation regarding domestic abuse involving RB Karlos Williams. Here is what the school had to say about that:

“The athletics department is aware of an investigation by the Tallahassee Police Department involving football student-athlete Karlos Williams. Until we receive more information regarding the alleged incident his status with the team will be under review.”

Karlos Williams is the leading rusher on the #2 ranked college football team. Pardon me for being a cynic here but I just have a feeling that Williams’ status with the team will continue to be “under review” until at least 48 hours after Florida State plays its final game of the season. The pace at which the school and the authorities there are pursuing the various incidents in Jameis Winston’s life off the football field point me in that direction.

For those who are spring-loaded to chastise me for jumping to a conclusion here, let me offer the words of H. L. Mencken on the subject of cynics:

“The cynics are right nine times out of ten.”

That is a batting average that would get one into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot…

An old adage of the newspaper business says that it is not news if a dog bites a man but it is indeed news if a man bites a dog. That adage came to mind when I read a headline on the Baltimore Sun website recently:

“NFLPA investigator Richard Craig Smith complains about lack of cooperation from NFL, Ravens”

Back when the NFL hired former FBI Director, Robert Mueller, to do an independent investigation of the way the NFL handled the Ray Rice matter, the NFLPA reacted by hiring their own independent investigator. That would be Mr. Smith referenced in the headline above. So, is anyone surprised that the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens are cooperating with the guy they hired and not cooperating with the guy that the other guys hired? More importantly:

Is Richard Craig Smith surprised?

I certainly hope not…

Finally, here is an item from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald related to a “minor error” in a TV sports report:

“Seattle TV station KOMO, airing a report on Peyton Manning breaking the TD-pass record, mistakenly showed a photo of Gary Payton. Other than the football/basketball, black/white, first name/last name and spelling differences, the report was accurate.”

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

The academic scandal at UNC continues to unfold and with every new investigation and revelation, the squalor of the situation gets worse. Obviously, I have no idea which if any of the members of the coaching staffs for any of the UNC teams had direct knowledge of the “shadow courses” and the ongoing fraud. Having said that, let me make a few observations from afar based on what has been reported:

This business went on for about two decades. How this all managed to “stay under the radar” when students were obviously putting one over on “the system” is miraculous. Or maybe, people in the system actually knew it was going on and pretended not to notice…

Those athletes who were on scholarship for 4 years and who took these shadow courses to major in a subject where they learned less than what might be reasonable were defrauded by the University of North Carolina. Their opportunity for an education was reduced almost to nothing.

Where is the faculty outrage here? The stature of the university where their lot in academic life is cast has been tarnished.

Where is the alumni outrage here? The value of UNC degrees has to be diminished given that thousands of students took these non-existent courses.

Now, we have something akin to a litmus test for the NCAA. For at least the last 50 years, the NCAA has presented itself as an organization dedicated to the concept of the “student athlete”. Recall all the self-congratulatory promos that the NCAA has done about its athletes who will be “going pro” in something other than sports. Here is a situation where one of its member schools – and one of its very successful athletic schools – has systematically undermined the concept of the “student athlete” for two decades. That situation is far more subversive to the concept of the “student athlete” than a booster hiring an athlete for a summer job and paying the kid more than he is worth. What UNC has been doing is to perpetuate a system that incentivizes athletes not to be students.

Please notice how quiet and private Mark Emmert has been over the last week or so as more information regarding the academic scandal hits the press. I doubt that he is in a coma so I wonder where he is and what he thinks about this and what the hell he is going to do about it.

On the assumption that what I have read about the investigative report is true – I have not read the investigative report itself – here is a baseline punishment:

No UNC team in any sport will be allowed to participate in any game with any other NCAA school for a period of one year. Any athlete on any UNC team who chooses to transfer during that period can immediately be eligible at the school to which he/she transfers.

That is the baseline; preferably, the period of time where UNC athletics would be “dark” would be two years and not just one year.

If the NCAA limits punishment to “bowl bans” and “reductions in scholarships” for this 20-year violation of the rules, I will have to conclude two things:

1. The NCAA is even more hypocritical than the IOC.

2. The entire concept of a “student athlete” is a sham and no one in the NCAA can even pretend to believe it is real.

Bob Molinaro of the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot made a cogent point related to this mess:

“No-brainer: Could you find academic corruption like the kind that was uncovered at North Carolina going on at other football and basketball factories? Sure, if anyone looked hard enough. But following big-time college athletics has always required fans – fans in the media included – to resist the temptation to look behind the curtain.”

I agree that academic frauds exist in places other than UNC. My position is, however, that existence elsewhere does not exonerate UNC even a little bit. Moreover, my agreement points one more accusatory finger at the NCAA and prods me to ask the institution:

Will you reveal to the public the extent of the NCAA’s efforts to root out academic fraud at member institutions beyond waiting for the next whistleblower to nail a set of theses on your door – so to speak?

I have been enjoying the World Series games despite the “in your face” nature of the FOX telecasts. Scott Ostler of the SF Chronicle had this plea in a recent column and I would like to join him in his entreaty:

“World Series Telecasts: Dear Fox: On those in-game dugout interviews, pleeease put the interviewee in a box in the corner of the screen, for the benefit of those of us who want to watch the freaking baseball game!

“The dugout interview: Greatest innovation since the $12 beer.”

Finally, here is an interesting observation from Brad Rock of the Deseret News:

“Warner Bros. television is planning to release a Mike Tyson-inspired adult cartoon series.

“That’s kind of been the theme all along, hasn’t it?”

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

In the middle of last weekend’s Keeping Score blog entry by Gregg Drinnan, I found the following tidbit:

“When the Kamloops Blazers gave goaltender Bolton Pouliot to the Portland Winterhawks the other day — call it an early Christmas present — it brought back memories of Jan. 19, 1983. That was the day the WHL’s Seattle Breakers traded forward Tom Martin to the Victoria Cougars for a used bus.”

To say that my knowledge of the comings and goings in the Western Hockey League is an eighth of an inch deep would be most generous; clearly, the memories he refers to here did not leap to mind. So, I asked Gregg Drinnan if indeed a player had actually been traded for a used bus. Here is “the rest of the story”…

Tom Martin had been drafted by the Winnipeg Jets but in 1983 found himself on the roster of the Seattle Breakers of the WHL. Martin wanted to play some hockey and also to get a college education; he was a native of Victoria. The Breakers needed a new team bus because the engine on their bus had gone to the great grease pit in the sky on a road trip to Kelowna. The Victoria Cougars had a spare bus they picked up when the Spokane Flyers’ franchise went belly-up. Martin was not going to play for Seattle; Victoria had a bus in Spokane that would cost them money to transfer and register in Canada. The trade of player for bus was pretty simple.

In that link, there are a couple other references to players who were traded for things other than players:

Keith Comstock – a relief pitcher who bounced around in MLB for a few years – was once traded for a box of used baseballs whilst he was still in the minor leagues. According to an old Sports Illustrated report, he was actually traded from the A’s to the Tigers for $100 and a box of used baseballs.

John Odom played for the Calgary Vipers in the Golden Baseball League and was traded to the Laredo Broncos of the United Baseball League for ten maple baseball bats. The reason for the trade was that Odom had a minor criminal offense on his record that prevented him from going to Canada to work/live.

Fred Roberts was an NBA journeyman who was traded from the Jazz to the Celtics in 1986. The NY Times reported that he was traded for a “future draft choice”. The link here says he was traded in exchange for “two preseason games in which Boston would play Utah.” The report in this link makes for a better story, so I choose to go with that report…

Bob Molinaro had this item in a recent column in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Numbers game: Media accounts of Kansas City’s undying love for its Royals go real easy on the inconvenient truth that the team ranked 25th out of 30 in attendance. The Royals were one of only six MLB clubs that didn’t break the 2 million mark this year. But don’t expect the facts to get in the way of a good story.”

Indeed, only 5 teams drew fewer fans than did the Royals in 2014; the Royals averaged 24,154 fans per game at home this year. Kauffman Stadium has a capacity of 37,903 so the Royals played to just under 64% of capacity. Granted, it had been 30 years since the Royals had been a playoff team; but this year’s team was “in the mix” all during the summer. Consider the five teams below the Royals in attendance this year:

Houston Astros – 21,628 fans per game. The Astros took a big step forward this year losing only 92 games.

Miami Marlins – 21,386 fans per game. The Marlins never draw well; the fans and the owner are not “best buddies”.

Chicago White Sox – 20,381 fans per game. The Sox lost 89 games after starting slowly and never contending this year.

Tampa Bay Rays – 17,858 fans per game. The Rays did not draw in years the team won the AL East; this year the Rays were 19 games out of first place there.

Cleveland Indians – 17,746 fans per game. This is bad; the Indians were in the playoff picture much of the season.

Over the weekend, Danica Patrick led a NASCAR race – the Geico 500 at Talladega – with only 20 laps to go. She was not involved in a wreck and managed to finish 19th in the race. One report said that a caution flag in the late running took away her momentum and other racers finished ahead of her. I would point out ever so politely here that every driver in the race had to slow down and then restart when that caution flag was out so every driver similarly lost momentum for that time.
I am hardly an expert in searching out NASCAR stats but if I searched correctly, Danica Patrick has been a full-time NASCAR performer for two seasons and her best finish in a NASCAR race was 6th place in September of this year.

Finally, here is an interesting item from Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald:

“Olympic wrestler Dremiel Byers was cited for allegedly hunting deer at a Colorado Springs Lexus dealership … He was cited for hunting out of season. How about hunting out of place?”

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

The NFL and NFLPA agreed on a testing regimen/protocol for human growth hormone (HGH) testing and finally implemented it. Testing began the week of October 6 and here is the rough outline of how the testing will go:

Every week, five players on 8 teams will be selected for testing.

No testing will be done on game days.

Appeals of positive results will be handled by a third-party neutral and appeals will be handled “expeditiously”.

Punishments will be:

Use of masking agents is a 2-game suspension
Steroids/stimulants/HGH is a 4-game suspension
“Manipulating a test” is a 6-game suspension
Second violation is a 10-game suspension
Third violation is a 2-year suspension.

Is this a perfect solution? Of course not. Is it a step in the right direction? I think it is a big step in the right direction because it does several things:

It acknowledges that HGH is a substance that can be abused and it includes HGH as part of the “banned substances” and/or PED menu.

It provides random testing.

It takes the adjudication/sentencing aspects of “failed tests” out of the hands of the Commissioner.

The league and the union have been working on this for at least a couple of years. Kudos to both sides for coming up with an improvement in this aspect of NFL football. I hope they seize on this success to arrive at a more effective and efficient means of handling other kinds of disciplinary measures involving players/coaches/front office folks/owners.

Speaking of those “other disciplinary matters”, here is a comment from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, which seems to indicate that some NFL players have not gotten the memo:

“On the NFL and harassment of women: Dolphins suspended defensive end Derrick Shelby after his nightclub arrest for allegedly harassing women. Cops did not buy his excuse that he mistook the women for quarterbacks.”

In another disciplinary matter that is ongoing, Adrian Peterson – charged with felony child abuse for beating his young son with a switch – is out on bail but admitted to smoking a little weed just prior to a urinalysis test. Yes, he lit up the test tube; no, courts do not look upon failing a drug test while out on bond as a laughing matter; yes, Peterson got himself another warrant and another charge to answer. What was it Joe Theismann said about NFL players?

Geniuses do not play football.
Geniuses are people like Norman Einstein.

It was something like that…

Here is something else that the league and the union can work on. This is the kind of juxtaposition that makes people wonder if there is adult supervision at work.

Julius Thomas was fined $8,268 for an illegal chop block that injured another player. That fine is based on the current CBA between the league and the union; it is not just a number pulled out of a bodily orifice.

Colin Kaepernick was fined $10,000 for wearing a brand of earphones other than Bose, which is a league sponsor and “the official earphones of the NFL”.

Fans look at that and ask to what level of stupidity must one sink in order for those two things to make sense. The NFLPA may be upset with the magnitude of Kaepernick’s fine; but before they get their knickers in too tight a knot, they need to consider that they were party to setting the level of the fine that injured one of their union brethren. The NFL might want to look at this kind of publicity and suggest to the NFLPA that until the chop block fine level can be increased, fines are not publicly announced.

As the baseball playoffs move along, recall that I said I was rooting for the Royals to make it to the World Series because they had not been in the playoffs since next to forever. I did not think they would make it this far, but they have a 2-0 lead over the Orioles with 3 games in KC providing the opportunity to close out the ALCS and go to the World Series. I get to see plenty of Orioles’ baseball on TV during the summer and the O’s are a good team to watch. However, in the back of my mind, I simply cannot invest any enthusiasm in rooting for the Orioles to win the World Series simply because I would not want to see Peter Angelos holding the Commissioner’s Trophy.

Finally, this comes from Gregg Drinnan’s weekend blog entry, Keeping Score:

“The best quote out of this week’s 1984 Edmonton Oilers’ reunion came from Mark Messier, who said: ‘I never finished high school, so this is my first actual reunion.’ “

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………
By The Sports Curmudgeon, on October 14, 2014 at 10:42 am, under Daily Rants

The NFL announced that Katy Perry will headline the Super Bowl halftime show in February – ignoring my advice and an Internet petition to get “Weird Al” Yankovic to do the show. Not surprisingly, I do not know Katy Perry and could not tell the difference between Katy Perry and Perry Como, Perry Mason, a Mason jar or a Freemason. That really does not matter since I do not watch Super Bowl halftime shows.

Speaking of the NFL, you have to have noticed the ads on games and on pre-game shows for Fan Duel – one of those fantasy football sites where each week is a season unto itself and people reportedly win lots and lots of money. If you look closely early in the ad, there is small print low on the screen that says:

This is not a gambling site

Let me get this straight… Lots of people pay money into a pool in order to make fantasy football selections and some of the people who do so receive more money than they put in while others receive none of their money back. If that is not gambling, then pari-mutuel wagering on horses is not gambling and poker is not gambling. I do not play fantasy football – or baseball – simply because I do not find them interesting but the idea that fantasy sports is not a form of gambling is not much more than an exercise in parsing the English language.

Please remember the willingness of the NFL to have this advertising associated with programs that feature the NFL the next time the league files a legal brief alleging that gambling would attack the integrity of the game. Think about it folks, players in the NFL are playing fantasy football meaning they have an interest in how players on teams other than theirs perform. I do not believe that has destroyed the integrity of the game, but if you try to make “high moral ground arguments” about gambling and integrity and that kind of stuff, how can you allow fantasy football to be in your league and advertising on your programs?

Here is an item from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald about 2 weeks ago:

“Four Redskins fans agreed to go on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and were surprised to be confronted by Native Americans. That’s like going on Fox News and being surprised by conservatism.”

I hope those same four fans are not surprised when they go to FedEx Field and see the team lose…

Switching over to baseball, Tony Bosch – the former director of Biogenesis – is in jail because his bail was revoked after he failed two drug tests and did not attend the voluntary treatment sessions that were part of the deal that let him out on bail. Here is what the judge said as he revoked bail:

“I simply have no confidence in his ability to appear as required. I don’t find that he’s a good candidate to remain out on bond.”

Bosch is “required to appear” to plead guilty to charges of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances as part of a plea deal with prosecutors as he is a cooperating witness in other matters related to the whole Biogenesis mess. Bosch was one of the folks who provided evidence against Alex Rodriguez to MLB leading to the season-long suspension of A-Rod.

Here is another baseball-related idea from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

“Parting thought: Baseball continues to mull ways to speed up games. They already rejected my idea: Relievers getting from bullpen to mound via catapult.”

Man, the folks who run baseball are ossified fuddy-duddies. That is a great idea. You could modernize the concept and make it seem like a cannon with an explosion just as the pitcher is launched from the bullpen. Oh, and it would not be long until one of the DJ geniuses at one of the parks took to playing Johnny Cash doing The Wabash Cannonball as relievers’ entry music…

Pro football has its problems with domestic violence issues and concussions; baseball has its problems with PEDs. In college sports, the nefarious activities remain focused on old-fashioned bad behavior. According to the Tallahassee Democrat, Sanford Lovingood was the comptroller for an organization known as Seminole Boosters. It does not take a great deal of insight to realize that this organization raised funds to support Florida State athletics. The organization fired him after an audit of the organization’s bank records revealed that Lovingood “took” somewhere between $500 – 700K from Seminole Boosters for himself.

The report in the Tallahassee Democrat says that Lovingood admitted to Booster members that he had taken the money and explained how he did it. Evidently, he had been doing this since 2011.

Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel put some perspective on misdeeds in Tallahassee with this comment:

“Did you see where Sanford Lovingood, the comptroller of FSU’s athletic booster organization, is accused of misappropriating between $500,000 and $700,000 from the booster fund? And we’re worried about Jameis Winston stealing $20 in crab legs?”

Finally, here is a self-contained description of a minor sports event from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

“The 60th Columbus Day Regatta wraps up Sunday on Biscayne Bay. That’s the local institution known for drinking, topless women, partying, debauchery and, when time allows, sailing.”

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

A headline at CBSSports.com this morning says:

Arian Foster rips ‘Thursday Night Football:’ No one likes it

Recently, Bob Molinaro had this comment in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Numbers game: If the string of lopsided scores from the NFL Thursday night games is any indication, the mystical forces that control the football cosmos strongly disapprove of the new prime-time CBS package. Through five games, the average margin of victory has been 29 points, with no result closer than 20 points.”

I do not have a direct line to the inner sanctum of the football gods, but Arian Foster and Bob Molinaro are both onto something here. The Thursday Night Games so far this year have been laughers; the “tightest game” was the Baltimore/Pittsburgh game where the score was deceptively close at 26-6. Here are a couple of Arian Foster’s comments about Thursday Night Football:

“Thursday Night Football is pretty annoying for players. I don’t know one player that likes it. I really don’t know a fan that likes it, either. I think it’s just the league’s way to try to generate more revenue, but that’s what they are here for.”

And…

“Nobody is ready to play physically after a Sunday game but you have to go out there and do it.”

I guess the reason Arian Foster thinks fans do not like Thursday Night Football is because he has never met the ten million or so fans who tune in to watch those games on CBS and/or NFLN. However, I can certainly believe his two points that players do not like Thursday games and that many players are not physically recovered from the previous Sunday games when Thursday rolls around. The NFL itself provides some evidence for that last point.

More than a few times during the season, a player cannot practice during the week but recovers sufficiently to play on Sunday. Most – if not all – of them would not be able to play on Thursday night without putting their well-being at greater risk than normal. The NFL injury reports and the media coverage of teams and their practices tell us this.

Foster was asked why he did not voice his complaint to the NFLPA and his response was interesting:

“The union and the league is kind of the same thing.”

Well, I am not the same as the union or the league and so let me offer a possible path toward resolving this issue:

Every team that plays a Thursday game will have a Bye Week the week before that game. Therefore, every player will have 10 days to recover/prepare for a Thursday game.

That means every team will need 2 Bye Weeks during the season and to accommodate that, the regular season would be extended to 18 weeks (but would stay at 16 games).

Players and coaches should like the extra time to prepare; the league and the union should like the extra revenue that another week of NFL games on TV will generate; the networks should like another week of highly rated programming; the fans should like being able to see more regular season games over a longer period of time. Only the folks in the scheduling department might dislike this idea because it would complicate their job ever so slightly.

Foster’s comments are timely because the Texans and the Colts are the Thursday Night Game this week…

While I am on the subject of making changes for the NFL, may I suggest a different way for the league to keep track of return yards? Consider the following scenario:

Team A kicks off to Team B. The ball goes five yards deep into the end zone and Team B’s returner does not take a knee; he returns the kickoff.

Team A covers the kick well and the returner is tackled at the 12-yardline.

The current return stat would credit the returner with a 17-yard return. In reality, what he did was to cost Team B 8 yards of field position. Had he just refused to run the ball, Team B would have had the ball at the 20-yardline. Somewhere, the league should account for that kind of hidden yardage within a game and report it. If the returner gets the ball out to the 27-yardline, he should get credit for a 32 yard return and get a “plus 7” for field position as a result of his return. In my original example, the returner would get a “minus 8″ for field position.

It would be a new stat and it would be one that cannot be applied retroactively to previous games for at least 2 reasons:

1. It would be more work than it is worth to go through NFL video archives and do the calculations for previous games.

2. There are too many NFL games for which there is no video or film record and so the calculation for those games would be impossible.

Nevertheless, I would like to see the league begin to record this stat.

Finally, Bob Molinaro writes for the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot but is a Baltimorean by heritage. It should please him to realize that one of his recent items proves a point made by the Bard of Baltimore, H. L. Mencken:

“No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American Public.” [Mencken]

And…

“Dollar signs: Derek Jeter’s career may be over, but the marketing of his image continues, right down to the selling of Jeter game-used dirt. Steiner Sports, the Yankees and Jeter are making available plaques that include a capsule of infield dirt from Yankee Stadium that Jeter allegedly walked on. But if that doesn’t intrigue you, you might be interested in Jeter game-used socks – only $409.99 per sock.” [Molinaro]

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