BO JACKSON'S HIP

SUPER BOWL SHUFFLE

2012-02-08T21:29:00.007-05:00

The Super Bowl, by nature, is never just another football game. From it's hyperbolic moniker to its grandiose affectations to the nonstop media attention, the game is without doubt the premiere event in American sports. While its position as the most talked about and attention-grabbing game of every sporting year is inarguable, there have certainly been better games than others, more intriguing match-ups than others, and juicier story lines than others. The last time that the Giants and the Patriots played in the Super Bowl in 2007 was one of those years when the hype machine was put into overdrive and the stories surrounding the game were clear-cut. The Patriots were trying to complete a perfect season, something that no one besides the 1972 Miami Dolphins have ever done and the first of the era of the 16-game schedule. They were big-time favorites (12 points) over the Giants, who had snuck into the game as an NFC Wildcard. But the Giants slew the Goliath from Foxboro and took home the title in dramatic fashion. This year's rematch of that legendary Super Bowl game was similar in many ways, and brought its own batch of dramatic and melodramatic subplots, beyond the unavoidable allure of a remake of that classic 2007 game.

Going into this year's Super Bowl, the most fascinating aspect of the game was the “what-if” scenario attached to each of the respective quarterbacks involved. For Tom Brady, if the Patriots were able to find a way to win, he could legitimately claim that he is the greatest quarterback who ever strapped on a helmet. While he has consistently nudged his nose into the room where this conversation was happening, a win in Super Bowl XLVI would cement his résumé and put him next to Joe Montana and John Elway in the three way race that I believe exists for the title of greatest QB of all time (sorry, but I’m just not old enough and don’t have the kind of perspective to go pre-Super Bowl era or really have a grasp of the talent level in the early years of the game). Montana is one of only two quarterbacks with four championship rings and Elway has two rings, but an amazing 5 Super Bowl appearances (which Brady matched this year) to go along with both quarterbacks' sterling reputations as go-to-guys in the closing moments of the game.

For Eli Manning, a Giants win in Super Bowl XLVI would add considerable fuel to a fire that up until this season has only been the size of a match head: who is the better Manning brother at the quarterback position? This didn’t used to be the kind of thing that was debated with any seriousness, because the older Manning was for so long clearly either the best or second best quarterback in all of football. He and Eli both had a ring, but Peyton had an unmatched statistical pedigree. But with Peyton in jeopardy of never playing another down in the NFL after off-season neck surgery, a Giants victory would give Eli his second ring by age 31 and it would become a legitimate argument that Eli’s rings trump Peyton’s numbers. Not to mention the fact that Eli would have knocked off Tom Brady to get both of his rings, who is supposed to be older brother’s arch rival. Not only that, but he already ruined Brady’s perfect season, which would have given him a point on his résumé that no other quarterback outside of Bob Griese can lay claim to. That's almost like winning one-and-a-half Super Bowls if you ask me.

Well, as it turned out, the Giants beat the Patriots 21-17 on Sunday night in a classic football game that had just as much drama, competitiveness and legendary plays that their first meeting in the 2007 Super Bowl had. Once again, Manning and the Giants made a fourth-quarter touchdown drive to go ahead late, and once again Brady was unable to respond in kind, suffering his second Super Bowl loss to the Giants in five years and raising heretofore unthinkable questions about his remaining skill as a quarterback and ability to rise to the occasion in the game’s most important moments. The fact that these two quarterbacks and these two teams have played such spectacular football in the Super Bowl is a delight for fans and a boon for the NFL’s caché in the world of American sports, but the way that Brady and Eli Manning have started to reach into the story of each other’s careers is some truly fascinating stuff.

Lately, the two quarterbacks’ respective fates have been dramatically intertwined and are reaching almost dialectically opposing circumstances. Whereas Manning’s hail mary throw from midfield somehow finds a receiver’s hands in the divisional round against the Green Bay Packers, Brady’s is left falling to the turf before the outstretched arms of the banged-up Rob Gronkowski in this year’s Super Bowl. Where Brady’s perfectly thrown deep ball to Randy Moss near the end of the 2007 Super Bowl is tipped away at the last second, Manning’s is cradled perfectly by Mario Manningham, allowing him to stamp both feet to the ground like a library attendant marking a due date, right in the face of hoody-clad head coach Bill Belichick no less. Where Brady’s desperation chuck with D-Line pressure bearing down upon him is called for intentional grounding and results in a safety on his team’s first play from scrimmage in this year’s Super Bowl, Manning’s twirling, near-sack chuck into the middle of the field in the game winning drive of the 2007 Super Bowl somehow finds the arms of David Tyree, where he is forever left holding it against his helmet in the football field of memory.

So while Manning will continue to live out the winning scenario of that previous paragraph, what is next for Touchdown Tom? Well, the future is probably more murky than he would like to admit. Despite all of the attention being paid to Wes Welker’s drop near the four minute mark that had it resulted in a catch, would likely have also resulted in a win, Tom Brady is going to bear the brunt of the criticism for his team’s loss in this year’s Super Bowl. Just ask his wife, who snapped back at some drunken Giants fans with a retort that Tom isn’t probably very keen on and one that he knows doesn’t justify his late-career playoff and Super Bowl stumbles. I think Brady is starting to realize that while he may always have the historic upper hand on Eli’s brother Peyton, the younger Manning has now cost him two chances at football immortality. That fourth Super Bowl ring is on Brady’s mind like it was forged in the heart of Mount Doom, and Eli prevented him from achieving it in the most dramatic of fashion in 2007, as the culmination of a perfect season, and now again in 2012, where his superior play kept Tom Brady from that precious number four once again. Sure Brady is one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, but right now, he is not the greatest, and there is no doubt in this writer’s mind that the man with millions of dollars, a super model wife and an already hall-of-fame-worthy career wants that GOAT title more than anything he has achieved up until this point.

And perhaps all of this leads us to what might be a turn of the tide in the NFL. It is possible that Manning and the Giants’ victory in Super Bowl XLVI is the beginning of the end of an era for two quarterbacks and the clearly manifest start of one for another two. It used to be that the conversation about the best quarterback in the NFL started with P. Manning and ended with Brady, but it now seems that it starts with E. Manning and ends with Aaron Rodgers (you can decide where the NFL’s other clearly elite quarterback, Drew Brees shakes out, though he seems to be straddling both eras as of right now). Peyton is dealing with a neck injury that could all but ruin the rest of his career, and Brady has now lost the last two Super Bowls he’s played in. Meanwhile, Eli Manning is now two for two in Super Bowl appearances, leading two Giants teams that were not only unlikely to go deep into the playoffs, but a laughable Super Bowl pick at the start of the regular season and the playoffs in both of the 21st century seasons that they ended up winning it all. And for all of Peyton's numbers and adulation how many signature moments does he have as a a quarterback? Eli now has two, with his throws to Tyree over the middle and Manningham down the sideline, and not only are they memorable for him personally, but they are sure to become two of the most replayed in the history of the sport's biggest game, the Super Bowl. In addition, Aaron Rodgers set a new standard for what is possible at the quarterback position in this year’s regular season, and already grabbed his first ring in last year’s Super Bowl victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers, which ties him with Peyton Manning's lone championship and leaves him still one behind yet another current NFL starter, the Steelers' Ben Roethlisberger.

So while the younger Manning may not look the part quite as much as Brady or even older brother Peyton as Twitter so snarkily illustrates, and Rodgers got bounced by Eli's Giants in this year’s divisional round, the two quarterbacks have officially stepped forward to join Drew Brees and Big Ben in the debate about who's the best at the QB position in the NFL. None of these relatively younger quarterbacks seems in danger of slowing down at any point in the near future, and they have begun to kick up dust in the face of Brady and Peyton Manning, who were not only considered the two best quarterbacks in the NFL for a solid decade, but dominated the conversation on the position so fully that their recent lapse in productivity doesn’t just seem anomalous, it seems sacrilege. Personally, I’m not willing to write Brady off just yet, especially because the ragtag bunch of Patriots he just led to the Super Bowl only affirms his and head coach Bill Belichick's talent once again, but Manning’s neck injury is continually worrisome and it looks like amazingly, his days with the Indianapolis Colts are all but over.

Sometimes it can take weeks, months, even years to understand the impact of a single game, especially a Super Bowl, but this year's game has certainly started some debates about the elite players at the quarterback position in the NFL. A reporter asked Eli at the beginning of this season if he thought he was in Brady's class as far as quarterbacking went, and he got criticized and laughed at for saying he thought that yes, he definitely is. Well no one is laughing now and it seems that discussion will now begin as to who is the better Manning, and it will have to continue as to who is the best quarterback of all time. Sometimes the outcome of a game begs more questions than it ends up answering. This year's Super Bowl definitely feels like one of those classic debate-launchers. It might be that the only certain thing to come out of the Giants' victory and the Patriots defeat is a new level of uncertainty. The power struggle at the game's most important position is officially the most competitive it has been in more than 10 years and if it leads to more Super Bowls like the one we just witnessed on Sunday, please let the battle begin.

WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW ABOUT PRESSURE?

2012-01-26T13:22:00.002-05:00

This weekend's conference championship games in the NFL were a wonderful thing to watch. Both games saw back and forth, competitive football that came down to crucial plays at the end of the game. With a trip to the Super Bowl on the line, there isn't much more a football fan can hope for than overtime in one game and a last-second, game-deciding field goal kick in the other. The down-to-the-wire nature of the games in the AFC and NFC set up two dramatic plays that ended up deciding the outcome of both contests, and while that shows you just how fun and enthralling sports can be as a form of entertainment, the end of both games also accentuated what is another perennial part of athletic competition: heartbreaking moments created by huge mistakes on big plays.

For the Ravens, who lost to the New England Patriots on a last-second field goal miss by their kicker Billy Cundiff that would have tied the game and sent it into overtime, the sting is particularly sharp. What you will hear from coaches and players on both sides after a game like this is that one play doesn't decide a game, but what fans and the general sporting public know is that a bromide like that is not an adequate salve to heal the kind of gaping wound that Ravens' players, coaches, and fans now have bleeding across their hearts. Cundiff missed the kind of big field goal he has been making all year on the Ravens run to the AFC Championship Game, a 32 yarder that most of his positional peers would agree is the kind of short-distance kick you want to be faced with (if you must be faced with one that ties/decides the game in its final moments).

But Cundiff pulled the kick left (or right if you're watching from home), and the Ravens didn't get a chance to play an extra period that could have earned them a trip to Indianapolis to play in the Super Bowl. Now there is a long list of kickers who have made similar mistakes, from Scott Norwood's miss in the Super Bowl XXV to Boise State's Kyle Brotzman's multiple big-game misses, to Ray Finkle's fictitious though equally memorable "laces out" moment, there are more kickers ruing the day they decided to quit the soccer team and play football than there are Adam Vinatieries. Now Cundiff joins that club of unfortunate place kickers and has to deal with the fact that his stellar season and consistent poise at the end of many a game will now be footnotes on a resumé with only one real headline: Missed game-tying field goal against Patriots, cost team chance to play in Super Bowl.

Across the country in San Francisco, where the 49ers played the New York Giants in the NFC Championship, a similar late-game miscue cost a team a trip to the Super Bowl. The 49ers fill-in punt returner Kyle Williams (who stepped in for an ailing Ted Ginn Jr.) fumbled the football on a run back in overtime, giving the Giants the ball in field goal range. The Giants pushed the ball a bit farther down the field before Lawrence Tynes split the uprights and gave New York the win and made Kyle Williams a Bay-Area-sized goat. Again, you'll hear from coaches and players that one play doesn't decide a game, but the fumble was Williams' second misstep on a punt return that day, and like Cundiff, he did the one thing he couldn't afford to do in his situation: he cost his team a chance to win the football game.

The two players' similar plights are a fascinating storyline folllowing the conference championships, and they are an example of something I think that everyone above ground can relate to: making a mistake when a mistake could not be afforded. I always like to say that this blog is a place where sports and life intertwine, and with that in mind I can't help but look at the human aspect of the story of Cundiff and Williams. Say what you want about the fact that they're just playing a game and that it isn't the end of the world and blah blah blah, but the simple truth is that this was the biggest moment of both of their professional careers, with millions of people staring at them on televisions across the country, and they shit the bed, plain and simple. If you're a 49ers or Ravens fan I'm sorry for your losses, but if you're a human being, you have to feel for these guys.

Think about it. I think there is a moment in everyone's life where you're sitting there, pressure on, telling yourself that no matter what, under no circumstance can you "insert appropriate action". And then you do it. And you can't believe you just did it. And it feels like the world just spun off its axis and you're in the middle of a Dali masterpiece because life just got so surreal. The sounds and faces around you are muffled and blurred, you are completely inside your own head where the phrase that keeps careening from one side of your skull to the next is: "this is not happening, this is not happening." For both of these players, it was happening, it did happen. Now all they can do is wallow in that failure, face it, accept it, and attempt to move on.

We can search for analogous circumstances for this kind of a mistake, and to stay with the world of sports for a moment, maybe you're a young girl or an international superstar who forgets the words to the National Anthem, or an over-excited soccer star who drops the championship trophy under the wheels of a bus. Or for more real-world examples, maybe you're a bride who falls on her face on the way to the altar or a waitress who drops a bottle of $200 wine on the way to a table full of particularly well-to-do customers or a classically trained cellist who misses a note in their Juilliard audition. There are a million high pressure situations where the one thing you cannot do is the one thing you end up doing. It might ruin the moment, crush your pride, or leave you with an unbearable level of embarrassment, but at the end of the day there's that old adage that you can always lean upon: everyone makes mistakes. Sure, they don't always come in an important, life-changing moment, but they are always there to be made and as human beings, it is simply despicable to attack your fellow man for your own homo sapien borne lack of perfection.

It's why I commend both Cundiff and Williams for the amount of composure they have maintained in the face of their errors and for the amount of ownership they have taken for said mistakes. It is also why the reaction on social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook and the overreaction of the sports media to their gaffes is absolutely galling to me. Yes, these men failed miserably at the task they are paid a very large some of money to perform, but when fans and the media react the way that they have over the days since Sunday's games it makes me embarrassed to be a human being. Just check out a few of the tweets sent out following the two games:

@NotBillWalton:

I'm pretty sure some despicable Ravens fans would like to see Billy Cundiff kick the bucket. Unfortunately for them, he'd probably miss.

@BradBirdA113:

The Harbaugh bros will do a live reading of their new book "Billy Cundiff, Kyle Williams and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day"

@Shady_McCoy (that's Philadelphia Eagles running back LeSean McCoy, a fellow NFL player mind you...):

I think it's safe to say that Kyle Williams & Billy Cundiff will be taking their talents to the unemployment line. #NOTSC @NOTSportscenter

And those are among the more benign of the tweets sent out. Among the more egregious are death threats to both players and their families from Ravens and 49ers fans and similarly horrible jokes and barbs thrown in their direction. There is an element to gallows humor that as a bit of a prick myself I am willing to allow and the environment on Twitter of snap judgment and the levying of instant admonishment that is expected if not excusable, but threatening a person's life because your team lost a football game is among the most petty and downright deplorable things any sports fan can do. At that point, I believe that your fandom has officially transformed into psychosis and a look in the mirror, not the glossy panel of your smart phone as you thumb out a tweet or Facebook post, is what is truly called for.

While fans or other players may in the end be exonerated by their ignorance, the sporting cognoscenti that type out stories and columns for respected newspapers and websites cannot be given the same amount of leeway. Yes, they are paid to give their opinion and to inspire debate, but there is no reason for Cundiff or Williams to draw comparisons to Bill Buckner or to face the immense barrage of attacks against their skill as players, let alone their worth as human beings (shout out to Stefan Fatsis for the links to those articles). Cundiff and Williams will probably never play the game they love or live their lives in quite the same way following this weekend's games, and instead of vilifying them or piling on, I think that a certain level of compassion and commiseration is in order. These were their "Mr. Destiny" moments, and they both came up short, left to live on wondering what might have been if they had come through in the clutch instead of coming up short.

I guess what I'm trying to say at the end of the day is that while we can all relate to mistakes and failure of one kind or another, no matter how apt a real-world analogy for what happened to these two men may be, it will never quite capture the feeling that must still be permeating their flesh. While we all know our human foibles all too well, there is no comparison for a fan or member of the media or general public to draw on that can possibly allow us to empathize properly. It is why I believe that all we can do in this situation is try. Try to understand what it is like to miss out on a trip to the Super Bowl in front of millions of people and let everyone on your team down when they were counting on you the most. We have to try to give these two men the kind of support we would desire if we were in their shoes, not tear them down and send them death threats and throw any more gasoline on the fire of disappointment they are both now warming their hands by.

I say we move on fast and look on toward the Giants and Pats Super Bowl rematch, because it should be a doozy. Check back to the Hip for a Super Bowl recap soon after the game goes into the books.

(ALMOST) BEYOND REPAIR

2012-01-10T16:32:00.007-05:00

Andy Lyons, Getty Images

So last night, No. 2 Alabama trounced No. 1 LSU and won the BCS National Championship game. But are they really the best team in college football? This seems like a ridiculous question and a complete contradiction in terms, but it is a question that you will hear asked for the remainder of the day and the remainder of the week, if not the remainder of the college football off-season. That's because the system for determining the best team in college football is so completely flawed and blatantly inadequate, that it has become the laughing stock of American sports. In no other major sport do conjecture and opinion weigh so heavily on the crowning of a champion, because every other major sport has made the logical and obvious decision that a playoff system is the only fair and just way to give fans, players, coaches, and universities a satisfying outcome to a long and grueling college football season.

The issue of what to do about college football's national championship has many subtle and complex features and no one solution will ever solve the many ills that exist in the sport's current post-season incarnation, but it is abundantly clear that what the NCAA and BCS are doing right now does not work, will not work, and needs to be changed as soon as humanly possible. Why? Because the National Championship Game is over and done with and could not have been decided by a more clear and obvious margin of victory (Alabama - 21, LSU - could have just stayed at the team hotel) but there are still murmurs throughout the sports media that the national title should be "split". And not just between the two teams that played last night, but possibly with No. 3 Oklahoma State, who had the same record as Alabama entering last night's game and actually won its conference title in more than convincing fashion in the Big 12.

Of course, all of this opinion and second-guessing of the outcome of the game comes from the fact that Alabama and LSU already played earlier in the season in a game that LSU won 9-6 in overtime. But because college football relies on polls of sports writers and coaches, blended with the statistical analysis of a computer ranking system, Alabama finished No. 2 in the final BCS Rankings (notice how BCS.org links you to ESPN for that info? Who says the mothership isn't controlling sports...) and got a second chance to play the undefeated and clear No. 1 team in the nation, LSU. Now I'm not going to sit here and tell you that rankings aren't necessary in college athletics, because they are. With so many teams involved you have to sort out the chaos some way. This isn't professional sports where teams can play the majority (or all) of the other teams in their sport during the regular season and enter a manageable playoff bracket.

But while rankings are necessary to help determine the quality of a team's stock, they should not and cannot be the sole factor in determining who gets to play for college football's national championship. If this is going to continue to be the case, then college football will lose its designation as an according-to-Hoyle sport. I spent a previous post on just this very subject and deemed anything that relies on judges and opinion and cannot determine a clear-cut victor by means of wins and losses athletic competition and not a true sport. Sports are defined by a winner and a loser, a champion and everybody else. This is not something that college football can claim to have under its current system.

It is in danger of becoming no better than gymnastics or figure skating or diving--and that is not an assault on the merit of the athletes that take part in those forms of competition--where judges and their opinions determine a champion. How is that any different than how college football currently operates? Sure, the individual games during the regular season have a winner and a loser, but what does that matter if at the end of the year their wins and losses might not mean anything? What does it matter if a team like Oklahoma State can lose as many games as Alabama, but not even have a chance of playing for the national championship? Heck, why do we even have a final score in the National Championship Game? Why not just play four quarters, then have a group of judges and pollsters look at the game and decide who they think actually won. That way if a team loses on a last-second hail mary touchdown pass, but actually played a better game of football than its opponent, they get the win because they are better and deserved it more.

That sounds foolish right? Well I don't see how the BCS and its ranking system and this anachronistic reliance on the bowl system is any less foolish. The bottom line in college football is money and revenue, but that is true in every other sport as well. And the plain fact is that a playoff system is more lucrative in every other sport, but fans have continually been told that this is not the case in college football. So because of the bottom line and the long tradition of the bowl system, teams, fans and coaches are forced to be continually unsatisfied with how their sport determines its champion. And don't even start with the whole "most coaches want to keep the current system as-is". Yeah, most coaches that coach for a team that has a chance at getting into the National Championship Game under the current system feel that way. They are like anybody else: when a system is set up to benefit you, the last thing you do is question whether or not it's the way things oughtta be.

So what's the solution? Well, for me it has to be a playoff that also kowtows to the BCS and their continued proclamation that the bowl system must be left intact. Fine, let's do that. All of the lesser bowls and their meaningless outcomes can stick around. The only thing I'll touch in my playoff system are the top 6 teams in the end-of-the-regular-season BCS rankings. Here's how I think it should work:

What we need is a short, but effective playoff bracket that will still reward teams for ending up in the top two slots of the BCS rankings, and not shatter the bowl system completely, something that BCS will try to convince you would happen if a playoff system were implemented. The most agreed upon and logical next step in the eyes of many is the so-called "Plus-one" format. This would be analogous to the "Final Four" in college basketball, where the top four teams would advance to have a shot at playing in the championship game. The No. 1 team would play the No. 4 team, the No. 2 team would play the No. 3 team, and the winners of those two games would play for a shot at the "Crystal Egg" in the National Championship game.

This simple addition of one game solves many of the problems with the current system, but in my eyes falls just a bit short. I would instead put forth a six-team playoff system that would work exactly like the playoff system in the NFL, if instead of two conferences, there were only one. In the NFL, six teams make it into the playoffs in both the AFC and NFC, with the top two teams receiving first round "byes". They sit at home while No. 3 plays No. 6 and No. 4 plays No. 5. After those games are played, No. 1 gets the lowest ranked team remaining, while No. 2 would play the next highest team remaining. Then you would basically have the "Plus-one" or "Final Four" and things would play out according to the manner I just mentioned in the previous paragraph.

I consider this to be the best way to do things for a few reasons. It would still give the BCS what it currently has: marquee match-ups for the teams that sit atop the BCS rankings, and an opportunity to keep all of the other bowls as exhibition games for teams that played well enough to be bowl eligible. At the same time this six-team format is at once far more lucrative and attention-grabbing, making for 3 (or at most 4, if an off-week is included before the championship game) weeks at the end of the year that would be among the most exciting in the world of sports. Not only that, but the new system is short enough that players would not miss an egregious amount of school time because of holiday schedules and it would not interfere with any other major sport's playoffs or regular season in a significant way. The way things are now, the regular season is over by the first week of December, but the National Championship is not played until the second week in January.

This playoff structure would actually shave some time off of that timeline and give fans what they want: a legitimate process for determining a champion.

It would also prevent a lot of bellyaching by teams like this year's Oklahoma State squad, who have just as good a claim on being in the championship game as Alabama, but are left out in the cold. Sure, the pollsters might have cost the Cowboys a first-round bye, but they would be "in the tournament" that decides who is champ and could play their way into the National Championship Game the same way the other 5 teams involved with the playoff could. It's certainly a lot better than telling the Cowboys, "Great job guys, you lost only one game all year, an overtime road game that came on the heels of learning that two of your women's basketball coaches died in a tragic accident. You fought hard and have as many losses as Alabama, and unlike them, actually won your conference title, but by the weight of opinion only, you will not get a chance to prove you are the best team in the country. Instead, you get to play a meaningless game against fellow heavyweight Stanford (which you will win) and go home thinking about what might have been had you been given the shot to play LSU in the National Championship Game."

Mike Gundy is a man, but I don't think he's taking his team's ranking in the final BCS standings and narrow (we're talking percentage points of percentage points here) third place finish behind the Crimson Tide like one, certainly not after Alabama's manhandling of LSU last night. The six-team system makes so much sense because with that many teams, the chance of leaving out a truly deserving squad is mitigated greatly, the prestige and position of the current BCS Bowls is maintained, and the remaining bowl games don't lose any of their current, rather dull, luster. It seems to me that under this system, everybody wins and finally and at long last, college football could identify a true and clear-cut national champion without any of the speculation and controversy it is currently forced to endure each and every year around this time. Hopefully this time next year, the BCS and the NCAA will have both gotten their respective acts together, and I will be able to whole-heartedly congratulate the national champion. That's something that as of right now, I simply cannot do.

KEEPING THE TITLE

2011-11-21T17:13:00.002-05:00

As someone with an opinion on just about everything that has to do with the world of sports, I've learned to think before I speak. When a big story breaks, it is often unwise to go spouting off about something before all of the facts come out. Now, there are a lot of people that make a lot of money doing just that in print, television, and on the radio, but because I don't get paid to write about sports and because I don't have a deadline, I'm allowed to take a deep breath, digest all of the information and opinions that I've heard, and then levy my judgement at my leisure. When it comes to the scandal at Penn State though, the first reaction I had, the only human reaction anyone should have had, of pure disgust and unmitigated admonishment of everyone involved, has not changed one iota in the time that the story broke and now, when I finally set my fingers to the keys.

We have learned much and heard more from everyone in the world of sports journalism and the larger mainstream media outlets about this story, but it hasn't changed anything about the way I feel and what I think about what happened at Penn State. As a human being, it is easy to feel a knot in the stomach and a vivid anger in the heart when you hear that grown men either took part in the act of child rape and molestation or the ensuing cover up of the crime, so my opinion on the matter in that regard is shared and easily formed. What has seriously angered me in the aftermath of all of this sad, lurid business is that there remain pockets of the population that continue to support Penn State head coach Joe Paterno in any way, shape, or form. There is absolutely no reason for anyone to lend a friendly word or a piteous glance in Paterno's direction, no matter how much he has done for the university, its football program, or the community in State College, PA.

Paterno recently became the winningest coach in college football history and is perhaps its greatest example of elder statesmanship in an era where scandals of all shapes and forms continually flash across the headlines. This year alone has seen two of college football's biggest programs in Ohio State and Miami both have their reputations tarnished through the impropriety of players, coaches, boosters, and university officials, but as Sports Illustrated points out in their cover story on the Penn State scandal, the violations by those schools and similar situations at schools like North Carolina look effectively quaint in the shadow of what has happened at Linebacker U. Penn State coaches and officials are not guilty of covering up a player receiving cash for a job he didn't really work, trading his equipment and memorabilia for tattoos, or partying in strip clubs and yachts on a booster's dime. They are guilty of covering up what is perhaps the most heinous crime to ever be associated with a college football program, and need to be treated as such.

The details of the Penn State story get darker and darker the deeper you dig, as the aforementioned SI piece illustrated, but the central crime and the men related to its cover up are plainly guilty and their lives and legacies will never be the same. There is of course, former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, who perpetrated the crimes of child molestation and rape in the Penn State showers, among other places, but his serial child molestation is not the only gut-wrenching crime that is evident here. Two more Penn State officials are already guilty of perjury for covering up Sandusky's actions, and head coach Joe Paterno did as little as humanly possible to make sure that Sandusky was punished and prosecuted for his crimes, though he did avoid a perjury charge of his own in his just-truthful-enough statement to the grand jury regarding the case.

So what we have at the end of the day is one sick, twisted individual carrying out crimes against young men he (gallingly) met through his charity for at-risk youth and several other grown men with sterling reputations risking their own morality and freedom to make sure that no one found out about it. Sandusky is a bone-chilling figure (not to mention an imposing one at over 6 feet tall and 200 lbs. plus), to be certain. Not only did he carry out these crimes, but if you listen to him being interviewed by Bob Costas (seriously, click that link if you haven't seen the interview and haven't recently eaten) on national television and responding to blunt, terse questions like "Are you sexually attracted to young boys?" by first having to repeat the question to give himself time to think, then answering with a kind of "aw shucks, I was just horsing around" duplicity, every ounce of your humanity urges you to hop a plane to Pennsylvania to give this guy exactly what he deserves. And this terrible, awful individual was protected from upon high at Penn State by Paterno, the Pope of college football (insert Catholic priest joke here), which sullies the legacy of perhaps the sport's all-time greatest and most venerated leader.

As Dan Patrick recently pointed out on his well-listened-to radio program, if this does not constitute lack of institutional control, a charge that gets mentioned whenever the NCAA is investigating a large scandal at any university, then what exactly does? Sure there isn't any rampant disregard for rules regarding paying players or special favors for athletes, but what we're dealing with at Penn State is far more widespread and insidious. Sandusky has had the cloud of child molestation charges hanging over him for ten years and no one thought to do anything about it or keep him away from young boys or the university's facilities. This is not only the worst scandal that has ever been associated with any college or university, but a crime and cover-up that should enter the annals of American wrong-doing in any form.

The whole business in unforgivable, but again what makes me the angriest is that people still don't seem to understand that in certain circles. If you happened to catch this week's episode of "This American Life" on NPR, which details life in and around Penn State both in the wake of the scandal and in prior years, when the school was voted the top party school in the country by the Princeton Review, I applaud you if you still have a radio. I was certainly tempted to rip mine out of the socket and toss it out the window as I listened to person after person at Penn State, whether they were faculty, students, or employees of the university, continually tell the audience that they just don't understand what it's like at Penn State. The blue and white Kool-Aid these folks are drinking is so potent that apparently it's our fault. We just can't comprehend how powerful and respected a figure Joe Paterno is, and we have to look at this whole situation in the entirety of its context.

Trouble is, Nittany Lions fans, there is no context. This is the rape of young boys within the walls of a major university and men and women in places of power doing nothing about it.

Rape, they say, is the ultimate crime of power, where the perpetrator and victim are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to control. If that is true, and I agree it is, then what we have is the longest and most painful case of rape I can ever recall reading or hearing about. Not only were the victims molested and raped initially, but they were endlessly violated by people in places of power that used their influence and positions to cover-up and conceal the crimes committed. What happened at Penn State is rape in its literal form and rape in the figurative sense, as the victims were held down and silenced by those who knew about what happened and did nothing. Joe Paterno et al failed to bring justice to the young men whose lives were irrevocably damaged by what happened, plain and simple.

If you're tired of reading that word, "rape", I am in no way tired of typing it. It needs to be shouted from the mountaintops that surround Happy Valley whenever anyone tries to explain away or defend what happened there. The word needs to be spray painted on Joe Paterno's front door and tattooed on Jerry Sandusky's forehead. It needs to follow the men and women involved with this scandal wherever they go for the rest of their lives. As Christy Leigh Stewart says, "You keep the title of 'president' even if you served only one term. The same goes for rapists." There is no rehabilitation or redemption that can be earned for anyone with even the slightest bit to do with this ugly, gruesome story and you should do yourself a favor and let anyone who feels otherwise hear why it must be so.

Children were molested and raped and people did nothing about it. That is all that will come to mind for this writer whenever Penn State plays a football game, makes the headline of a newspaper, or is mentioned in any context. I'm certainly not in the position that so many at Penn State were, the position of being able to do something about what happened, but I do have the relatively meaningless but personally important purview of never keeping my mouth shut on this matter, whenever it is brought up. There are times in life when you can't do much, but still must do everything you can, and for me that is shouting down anyone that supports Penn State in regards to this matter for the rest of my natural life. This post is the beginning, but not the end of my effort to let no one forget what happened to these young men. Please join me in doing the same, gentle readers.

WE'LL SEE YOU TOMORROW NIGHT

2011-11-04T16:46:00.013-04:00

I know the tardiness of this post may make it look like I'm a bit late to the party, but I think it's finally time for me to talk 2011 World Series Game 6. While I knew I had to write about Game 6 of this year's World Series between the Cardinals and Rangers, the historical implications of the game made me take a deep breath and process it fully before I started spouting off about how it was one of the best games I have ever seen played. Well, now a week has passed and I can confidently say that it was one of the best games I have ever seen played. I'm not only talking about baseball here either, Game 6 was one of the most enthralling and entertaining games I have ever watched in any sport.

Because it has been a week since the game was played I'd like to shift the focus for the most part away from a recap of the action (which was sublimely abundant) and more towards what the experience of a great game is all about for a fan. In any sport, during any season, there are always great games. There are back and forth contests with shifts in momentum and amazing moments throughout that constitute a truly great game, but rarely do they come in the playoffs, let alone a championship series or game, and seemingly never in an elimination game where the sport's crown is up for grabs. Game 6 between the Rangers and Cardinals had all of this, and added to its implications was a litany of oh-my-god moments that left me on the edge of my seat and gasping for breath when the game was over.

If the surging Cardinals seemed like a team of destiny during the stretch run of baseball's regular season, where they had to go on an unbelievable tear to even make the post-season, and during their subsequent run through the National League playoffs, where they rode their heroic superstar Albert Pujols into the World Series, their magic seemed to be fading in Game 6, especially in the seventh inning, when the Rangers took what looked like a Series' clinching 7-4 lead on back to back home runs by Nelson Cruz and Adrian Beltre. A 7-4 lead going into the bottom of the seventh is just about where you want to be when you're up 3-2 in the series and only need 9 more outs to be a World Series champion, but the Rangers were destined to come up short and what happened over the next four innings was as breathtaking a turn of events that has ever occurred in sports.

What happened after the Cardinals' went down three runs was simply stunning. From there the game went to 7-5, 7-7, 9-7, 9-9, and finally, with a walk-off home run from St. Louis' David Freese, a final score of 10-9 in eleven innings. That's 11 runs in the last 4 innings combined from both teams, which included what looked like a series clinching home run by the Rangers' Josh Hamilton, misplayed balls, errors, and so many pitching substitutions that the Cardinals' Tony La Russa was using his pitching staff as pinch hitters. In case you aren't too familiar with baseball, the pitcher hits 9th in every line-up because they aren't paid to swing the bat, they're paid to throw the ball.

As a fan, when you're watching a game like this, you're simply trying to enjoy the action, but what inevitably happens is that your brain starts to add weight to the outcome because of the circumstances and consequences of the gameplay. Sure, this would have been an amazing regular season affair considering the amount of runs scored and frenetic play in the last 4 innings and because the game went into extras, but when the magnitude and timing of the game are also considered, you begin to see what sets it apart and makes it one of the most memorable contests ever witnessed. Let's just go down the list of reasons this game was so incredible.

We'll start with the where the Series itself was at when Game 6 started:

The Rangers were playing in their second consecutive World Series and have never won a championship in franchise history, having lost to the San Francisco Giants in last year's fall classic.
Texas held a 3-2 series advantage after a mystifying end to Game 5, in which a miscommunication between the Cardinals' dugout and bullpen resulted in the wrong pitcher being called into the game.
The Series featured two of major league baseball's premiere players--Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton--one on each side, and one of its most decorated and venerated managers in the Cardinals' Tony La Russa.
A rain cancellation postponed the game one day to allow the Cardinals' ace pitcher Chris Carpenter enough time to rest and take the mound instead of watching it from the bench. A clear advantage for the Red Birds.

And as for the game itself:

It featured 5 errors, a staggering number considering these were supposedly the best teams that their respective leagues had to offer, any one of which could have ended up contributing to a win or loss for either team.
The Rangers were twice not only one out away, but one strike away from ending the game, but failed to do so both times. Additionally, their clubhouse was twice covered in plastic in preparation for their championship celebration, before being restored to its normal, stain-susceptible condition by Busch Stadium employees.
Josh Hamilton, a recovering drug and alcohol addict who was a hand-full of pills and a couple of shots away from being a tale of what could have been, hit a home run that put the Rangers up two runs that he alleges God Almighty told him he was going to hit before the at-bat.
The Cardinals overcame not only Hamilton's seemingly game-ending two run blast, but also back-to-back home runs by Beltre and Cruz in the seventh.
Veteran Lance Berkman of the Cardinals, "The Big Puma" (née "Fat Elvis") was seemingly left for dead after a terrible season in New York last year, but after signing with St. Louis in the off season both scored and drove in runs to keep his team in the game.
The Cardinals' David Freese, a native of the city where he now plays major league baseball, ended the game with a walk-off home run, baseball's most exciting play, after botching an easy pop-up to third base earlier that could have cost his team the game and the Series.

Just look at all of that drama! That's the sort of thing that is running through your head as you're watching this game. There's so much on the line, so many twists and turns in the action, and so much back story and emotional investment for both the fans and players, that it all adds up to a truly monumental game. Not only that, but this was a baseball game after all, the sport with so much soul, history, memorable moments and apocryphal legends that it could fill a set of encyclopedias. This game is so great because it is set against baseball's fabled backdrop, where not only are there myriad moments of glory and agony, but enough great World Series Game 6 memories that this contest had one of the highest historical bars to leap over and seemed to clear it with room to spare.

As NPR sports correspondent and Slate contributor Stefan Fatsis pointed out in Slate's Hang Up and Listen sports roundtable following the Series (a podcast any intelligent sports fan should have a subscription to), this year's Game 6 was played in the shadow of Carlton Fisk's arm-waving walk-off home run in 1975, Reggie Jackson's three home run game in 1977, Bill Buckner's infamous gaffe on Mookie Wilson's ground ball in 1986 (a moment that provided the title and plot device for the one and only movie my favorite author Don DeLillo has written), Kirby Puckett's game-seven-forcing walk-off dinger in 1991, and Joe Carter's walk-off home run two years later off of Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams in Toronto in 1993. As Fatsis points out by referencing these amazing moments, the World Series has seen its share of Game 6 drama, and this year's has set itself within that pantheon, if not holding the position of its quintessential example. For me, it has to rest at the top of the Game 6 list, simply because I'm not old enough to remember any of those moments save the Joe Carter walk-off, which I vaguely recall gaping at as a wide-eyed eleven year old boy.

A game like the one played out in St. Louis last Thursday night is the kind of game that makes you remember why you love sports so much if you're a fan. It lets you forget about inflated salaries, performance enhancing drugs, labor disputes and contract negotiations and just revel in the beauty of a game-winning home run sailing through the dry air of autumn, clearing the fence to send one team into a champagne-soaked ecstasy and the other into the nadir of emotional experience as professional athletes. The Cardinals victory in Game 6 of course did not win them the World Series, but only tied it 3-3 and forced a game 7 the following evening, but I think if you asked anybody with an iota of knowledge about sports who would win that Game 7, they would have all said St. Louis. The emotional baggage a loss like that creates for the loser, in this case Texas, versus the blue-whale-sized wave of momentum it gave the winner, St. Louis, was simply too much to disregard.

And of course, last Friday night, that's exactly what happened. The Cardinals won easily 6-2 and took home the World Series crown, but if there were ever an anticlimactic Game 7, this year's was it. There was just no competing with Game 6 and its positively breathtaking moments and historical repercussions. Sure we didn't have the Yankees or the Red Sox in this year's Series, but if the 2011 showdown between the Cardinals and Rangers is any indication, we don't need any east coast heavyweights to give us something to watch. Instead, all we need is the beautiful game of baseball, where anything can and does happen, over and over. I'm just glad I get to sit back and watch it all happen. Hope you are too.

THE FALL CLASSIC

2011-10-19T19:20:00.000-04:00

If you happen to read this blog on a regular basis (thanks to both of you!) you might be a little surprised that with all of this great baseball happening I haven't said word one about what's going on in this year's MLB playoffs. Well the plain truth is that like a lot of fans and guys that actually play the game, your boy is very, very superstitious. Especially when it comes to my favorite team, the Detroit Tigers. If I were a proper journalist, I suppose I would have to eventually learn to wean myself off of the love I have for my favorite teams, but as is I can't help but be a fan first, writer second, and as a result I've had to keep quiet on the baseball playoffs while the Tigers were still fighting with the Yankees and Rangers, trying to reach their first World Series since a loss in 2006 to the St. Louis Cardinals.

It basically comes down to what ol' Crash Davis told Nuke LaLoosh in 'Bull Durham': never fuck with a winning streak. The Tigers were on one and in the myopic mind state of a dedicated Tigers fan, I had the feeling that if I started to gloat, comment, or complain about anything that had to do with the AL playoffs, I would somehow initiate some kind of new, alternate universe where my comments would eventually screw the Tigers over. Turns out, they went ahead and did that to themselves, so I am now free to say anything I care to about the MLB playoffs and give the world my two cents on how I think things will shake out in the 2011 World Series, which is set to begin less than an hour from now.

I could start with all of the usually effusive stuff that comes to my mind every year around playoff and World Series time, but if you want to go back and read about why I think that baseball is so pure and romantic and makes me go all school-girl silly, you can do that at another date. Instead, lets just get right to what led us to this year's World Series match-up and how I think it will affect how the Series plays out. The first thing I noticed watching the AL side of the things? The Texas Rangers line-up is really, really good. Top to bottom, there are threats for big hits or the long ball, and there aren't many teams in the league outside of New York City that can make that claim. It's why the Rangers just did the boys from Motown dirty and why they ended up in the World Series, because although their starting pitching has been solid, it has not been incredible, which is usually the case for a team that makes a deep playoff run. Oh yeah, and one Nelson Cruz is absolutely on fire. Not bad for a guy in the bottom third of your line-up.

The Rangers' starting pitching staff has been just good enough, performing at a level just high enough to let their big bats and their bullpen do all of the talking. Like I said before, I'm a huge Detroit Tigers fan and that has screwed with my bias to some extent, but as I watched, I definitely noticed that the Rangers are flat out better this year. I don't think that there pitching is better than Detroit's, but the Tigers found out that even though superior starting pitching always seems to win championships, a team that has a line-up that is as good as the Rangers, adequate starters and a deadly bullpen can still win the day. Sometimes, being able to swing a bat really well can overcome weaknesses in starting pitching, and allow your bullpen to do the lion's share of the work while you crush the ball over the fence and leave your opponent in the dust.

As for the St. Louis Cardinals, I don't think even the most keen-eyed of baseball observers saw them ending up in the World Series. They were left in the middle of the NL Central for much of the season, but got hot at the right time, with a blistering performance down the stretch run of the regular season that carried them to a Wild Card birth on straight through the NL playoffs. The soon to be free agent Albert Pujols, easily the game's best pure hitter, was particularly brilliant, shutting up Nyjer Morgan and his loud-mouthed Twitter account to knock out the Brew Crew and advance to the Series. Unlike the Rangers, the Cardinals do have stellar starting pitching, anchored by their ace Chris Carpenter. The Series will be an interesting contrast in styles, as the Cardinals hope to ride their starters and rely on manager Tony La Russa's manic manipulation of the bullpen to carry them through most games. They also have bats to help with their cause, led by the aforementioned Pujols and augmented by guys like Matt Holliday, who can certainly give the Rangers pitching staff fits on a given night.

For those of you who don't watch baseball on the regular, I think that the most intriguing part of the Series for the casual fan will be the philosophies of the teams' managers, La Russa and the Rangers' Ron Washington. La Russa is the epitome of the cerebral clubhouse guru, willing to do whatever it takes whenever he sees fit to give his team (particularly his pitching staff) the best chance to win. Washington is a shoot-from-the-hip wild west gunslinger in comparison, with the kind of enthusiasm in the dugout and go-for-broke base path strategy that sees the Rangers running whenever a guy gets on base and an improvisational style that can be hard to counteract at times. La Russa may have the rings, laurels, and published accounts of unprecedented shrewdness to accentuate his managerial prowess, but Washington brings an insouciance and will to take risks that was only emboldened by the Rangers' experience in their World Series loss to the San Francisco Giants last year.

As a guy who puts out opinions on the world of sports, I of course have to make my prediction for the Series. As such, I'm taking the Rangers in 5. I won't lie, with the Tigers in the ALCS I definitely watched more of their series with the Rangers than I did the Cardinals/Brewers showdown, so that might have led to a bias towards Texas, but I just think they are the best team on the field right now. That line-up is just absolutely too much to handle for any starting pitching staff, the Cardinals' included. I know La Russa is the mad genius and St. Louis has perhaps the best player of his generation in Albert Pujols, but I like Texas to continue their winning ways and make quick work of the Cardinals. If my Tigers can't be there to avenge their 2006 World Series loss, I'd like to hope that their AL brethren that just sent them back to the Motor City will take care of business. Here's to the World Series, have fun watching and if you never have, go ahead and pop your cherry on what should be an exciting bit of action as fall once again settles in and baseball takes center stage.

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

2011-10-13T20:02:00.003-04:00

Football, especially in its professional incarnation, has always had somewhat of a bad reputation among people that are not avid sports fans. To an outside observer, the cerebral, exacting, and technical aspects of the game are rendered invisible by the violence, bravado, and muscle mass that also permeate the gridiron. For true sports fans, this balance is appreciated fully and it is what makes the game of football such a joy to watch: its graceful athleticism and carefully constructed game plans blend perfectly with the crushing blows and bone-jarring impacts that NFL and college players (not to mention players at any age group, from Pop Warner to high school) subject themselves too. It is this refined sort of violence that makes football so alluring at the end of the day, but as a regular viewer of the action that takes place on both Saturdays and Sundays in the fall, I cannot help but feel a knot beginning to form in my stomach that is due to the sheer destruction the game can bring to those who play it.

I’m not just talking about the controversy over concussions, short lifespans, or missing memories that many current and former players have come face to face with as the years go on, but I will say that those realities are what initiated this post in the first place. I’ve become an avid reader (as should every football fan) of a season-long back and forth between writers for the famous/infamous Deadspin (they’re the guys that gave us the pictures of Lil Brett) and the folks at Slate Magazine, who explored the football player’s existential dilemma with aplomb two weeks back. I don’t want to just rehash what those enlightened fellas had to say, because the facts regarding head injuries, short lives and rolling marbles in the football player’s brain are documented and chilling, but are not what has changed the way I view the game I love over the last couple of seasons.

I have read the statistics and processed the consequences, but there is something much more visceral acting on my spectating conscience than cold hard facts and medical records. It comes from simply watching the game of football and realizing that in my approximately 20 years as a cognizant football fan (I would say my initial years watching the game were spent more worshiping players and cheering the action as opposed to actually understanding the actual intricacies of game play) the game has changed for the better in terms of entertainment value, but that has come with some heavy baggage that is beginning to create pains in my intellectual lower lumbar. Although Jim McMahon’s account of not being able to remember what the hell he was just doing is one of those documented cases of abuse that garners my support for his lawsuit against the league, the players know what they’re getting into, and stories like McMahon’s have simply let the general public know what they’re getting into as well.

But like I said, all of the already established risks aside, as legitimate advancements in everything from training regimens, supplements and weight lifting programs have occurred alongside less publicly accepted strides in making football players faster and stronger like steroid use and detection prevention, human growth hormone, and starting a young athlete’s road toward athletic fame and fortune at increasingly young ages, the game of football as a viewing experience has become an undeniably violent contest that entertains its masses at the price of its competitors. The obvious and tired analogy to the human spectating evolution lies in comparisons to the Roman Colosseum and gladiators dying en masse at the whim of the emperor and to the delight of the crowd, and the more I watch collegiate and professional football, the more of a connection I feel to those ancient spectators. Sure, nobody is being eaten alive by a tiger or run through with a longsword, but if you’ve watched enough football, you’ve seen enough horrifying injuries and near death/life-altering experiences to make you question whether or not in the year 2011, this sort of violence for the sake of entertainment is still an acceptable way to pass your idle time on the weekends.

A week and a half back the NFL and NCAA saw two gruesome injuries on their respective fields of play, which you can check out here and here if you happen to have the stomach for it. I usually can’t watch injuries like the ones Eric Foster of the Indianapolis Colts and LaMichael James of the Oregon Ducks sustained more than once, and that holds true with these two videos. There is just something about watching a person’s body parts move at angles that would challenge a geometry student employing a protractor that gives me butterflies in my stomach. I’m not the only one either, as Foster’s injury was so gut-wrenching that it reportedly had teammates and opposing players alike crying on the field. These two injuries are only the latest in a long litany of football casualties––from Joe Theisman’s broken leg (perhaps the single most devastating injury you will ever see) to Willis McGahee’s shredded knee ligaments––that make you realize just how brutal the sport can be. And while I know that other sports have their share of similarly hard-to-watch moments, football stands alone as a sport where something like this can happen on any play.

It stems from the very nature of the game, which I guess is my point at the end of the day. I love football, but I do not like to see my fellow man dismembered in order for my weekend TV watching to be entertaining. Along with the type of injuries I just mentioned, the sheer size and speed of players has made football the most violent form of entertainment in America outside of a horror film. And when you hear a helmet crack against another one or see someone not moving after leading with their head on a kickoff tackle, there really is no other form of guilt quite like it. You know at that moment you’re getting your sporting jollies from the pain of other people and perhaps at the cost of the lives of other people, and it can become unsettling. Like I said, this guilt has become particularly prickly for me over the last two seasons, and I feel myself at a crossroads in my life as both a fan and a dood with a decent head on his shoulders.

My brain can’t help but start asking certain questions. Should I continue to watch a game that I know does nothing but damage to those that play it? Should I enjoy rooting for my favorite team when the guys that suit up for them have the chance to be killed as I watch? Can I be a true fan when in my heart I’m not really comfortable with concussions, memory loss, short life spans, and post-career suicides?

The plain truth is that I just don’t know. For now I’m enduring some serious cognitive dissonance side effects and I guess I’ll just have to see if the drug of American football keeps working enough to make me forget about the other(s) pain it causes.

THINGS DONE CHANGED

2011-09-13T15:17:00.003-04:00

When I relaunched Bo Jackson’s Hip last year I did so with somewhat of a mission statement. I refocused my intent on illustrating why sports are important to me and how the inner workings of athletes and the games they play provide a lot of analogous material to what it means to be human and to play the game of life. I also explained why I call my missives about the world of sports Bo Jackson’s Hip. If you don’t want to go back and read all about it, here’s a quick summation:

Bo Jackson is perhaps the greatest athlete I’ve ever seen and definitely the favorite athlete of my youth. He played two professional sports exceptionally well and may have gone on to be one of the all-time greats in both football and baseball had it not been for avascular necrosis, a condition that made his hip fly out of socket when he was tackled playing for the Los Angeles Raiders. After that day his football career was over and his baseball career was never the same (even though he did hit a dinger in his first post-recovery at-bat, because like I said, he’s the greatest athlete I’ve ever seen). Did I also mention that he allegedly forced his own hip back into socket on the field after he felt it pop? The Raiders' athletic trainer said that no one is that strong. This writer believes that Bo was.

Nevertheless, it changed that fast for Vincent Edward Jackson. One play he was on top of the world, the next, his career as an athlete was all but over. It taught me something about life as a bright eyed sports fan to see my hero’s future dim so quickly, and I like to think I have taken that life lesson with me as I approach thirty years on planet earth. Bo’s injury speaks to me on many levels. It hits on a lot of cliché but ultimately true sentiments you always hear about existence. Life is short. Life is not fair. Tomorrow everything could change. Success is not guaranteed. Take nothing for granted.

With the news that Peyton Manning’s season and career may now be in jeopardy due to a neck injury coming on the heels of Sidney Crosby’s press conference about his lingering concussion-related symptoms, Bo’s story and his connection to my writing have truly come into focus over the last week or so. While I hope it is not true, it’s possible that two of America’s big four sports might lose their most recognizable athletes. Crosby’s prognosis probably isn’t that dire, and it’s too early to tell if Manning really is watching his career slip away from him, but their two predicaments certainly brought to mind Bo Jackson and the fragility of life on planet earth for me all over again.

Manning is the face of the NFL. He is a borderline genius at the position he plays, which I’ve talked about before as being the most important and difficult position in all of sports: NFL quarterback. Likewise Sidney Crosby, “Sid the Kid”, is the 24 year old phenom who has become the face of the National Hockey League. With MVP, Stanley Cup Champion, and Olympic Gold Medalist already on his short but impressive resumé, the sky is the limit for the already dominant hockey player.

But for both players, as Biggie would say, “Things Done Changed.” Manning was on the path towards owning every important record that an NFL quarterback can hold and perhaps more Lombardi trophies to add to the Super Bowl victory he earned against the Bears in 2006. Crosby has already climbed many of the highest peaks in hockey and his ascent is just beginning up the staggeringly tall mountain that Wayne Gretzky currently sits atop as the greatest hockey player that ever lived. Now, both of their careers hang in the balance.

Manning sustained his neck injury in 2006 (if you believe what his former coach Tony Dungy says) and it eventually led to two surgeries to try and repair the damage. Over the last week news broke that a third surgery that involves the removal of a damaged disc in his neck is necessary and the guy who urged others to “Cut that meat!” will be getting cut for the second time in the span of five months. It doesn’t look good. Manning need only look to Sterling Sharpe, a dynamic wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers that had his career end early because of a similar infirmity to see that not only his season, but his remaining days as an NFL player are in jeopardy. The paradigm for Manning has shifted and he is now staring into the abyss of a career cut short. Not only a career, but what is already among the greatest in NFL history and one that might be the greatest if he is allowed to keep going.

For Crosby, he is a prime example of the growing attention and concern related to concussions, which has plagued the NFL in recent years and is now reaching into the NHL as well. If you read about what Crosby has been going through, things don’t look good for him either. He sustained two head injuries in consecutive games last season, ending his pursuit of another Stanley Cup abruptly and putting him in a position of extreme uncertainty regarding this season as well. He has complained of a foggy feeling in his head while doing everything from skating to watching television. Even more chilling, the Kid says he’s also had moments of not being able to sense where his limbs are. This kind of brain malfunction is scary for anyone, but especially an athlete that plays a sport like hockey that is so predicated on contact and physicality.

Like Manning’s corollary Sharpe, Crosby also has an athlete he can learn from in Justin Morneau, a baseball player for the Minnesota Twins that suffered a concussion that continues to plague him and prevent him from reaching his full potential. Morneau and Crosby are both young, approaching their prime, and now sidelined by hits to the head that have resulted in puzzling recoveries that point to the still unknown damage that concussions can do to a person’s brain and overall health.

My hope is that Manning and Crosby, along with Morneau, are not victims of a catastrophic injury that turns their world upside down. I hope that they are not on their way to becoming the next Bo Jackson. As a fan, I want to continue to watch their greatness, and as a human being I hope that tragedy hasn’t befallen them. I hope they return to the games that they love and are better than ever. I hope that the world isn’t as cruel to them as it can be and that sports writers and fans can one day construct their comeback stories and tell future generations that they faced down the most traumatic experience of their lives and came out stronger on the other side.

But...if things end up as badly as they possible can, this period will be remembered as momentous and tragic in the world of sports. The tail end of 2011 could very well be the tipping point in the careers of two of the most recognizable athletes in American sports. While both Manning and Crosby sustained their injuries previously, the news that Manning is out indefinitely and Crosby’s less than reassuring press conference have come in quick succession and might be the first words in the sentences that describe each of their retirements. While it seems unlikely that two such prominent athletes would have their careers cut short, I think it’s important to remember what kind of injuries they are dealing with.

Injuries to the neck and brain are nothing to mess around with. This isn’t a damaged knee or wrist or a sports hernia in either case, these are injuries that have the potential to be life-damaging or even life-threatening. If Crosby and Manning’s doctors tell them that a return to their respective sports has the potential to affect their quality of life, how do you think they will react? In Manning’s case, he already has a distinguished career, but more importantly a wife and children. I’m guessing he won’t let his competitive drive (even though it might be the most competitive drive in sports) interfere with a chance to watch his children grow up. And in Crosby’s case, at such a young age, how can he possibly return to the ice if the doctor’s tell him it could result in something permanent, like brain damage? Would you live the rest of your life with a few marbles rolling around if you were only 24 years old?

It’s a shame that the situations for both Crosby and Manning have come to this, and as a fan it is tough to think about hockey and football losing their respective superstars. Bo Jackson’s hip injury is a lesson to every fan in how quickly things can change, but it’s a lesson I don’t want to vicariously learn again, or see two such prominent and gifted athletes learn first hand.

Get well soon fellas, we’re all rooting for you.

LABOR DAYS

2011-07-23T17:38:00.006-04:00

The country is currently in the position of watching two unfortunate public squabbles, one in the political arena, and the other in the sporting world. While the fight over raising the ceiling on the debt limit might have more of a real impact on our day to day lives, the childish obstreperousness of Democrats and Republicans is eerily similar to the fight between NFL players and owners, which has been going on for an even longer period of time than the war over how much money the United States can continue to spend. Political debates like the one we’re seeing right now are hard to stomach because the actual opinion of the American public seems to be disregarded completely, while the NFL labor dispute inspires the same kind of disgust for this writer, and I'm assuming most fans, as our interests and opinions are similarly dismissed.

While the fight over the debt ceiling continues to rage, the lifting of the NFL lockout is all but a done deal and football will soon be back in working order. As such, I feel the need to vent about why this whole process has rubbed me the wrong way and why football fans throughout the country should be revolted by the way both NFL owners and players have treated spectators. Despite how much both sides continue to behave as if we actually give a damn about their court cases and litigation and petty arguments, all we really want is for some football to be played after the usually compelling NFL off-season has been ruined by a fight over a breathtaking $9 billion in revenue.

I've talked a few times about how I still think baseball is America's pastime, but that football is now America's game. Baseball might always be the sport with the most soul and the most purity, but football is now the game of choice for most every American sports fan. If we were talking music, and not athletic competition, it would be safe to say that the blues has finally lost out to rock and roll.

It's why though baseball has a near monopoly on the world of sports right now (aside from some soccer played by women--a boring sport made even more boring; perhaps?), the NFL labor battle still dominates the headlines on a daily basis. The NFL lockout has swallowed up its off-season story lines and left the American sports fan in a strange place when it comes to things to talk about and ponder. If you think baseball is a tiresome thing to watch and discuss, try replacing your usual NFL off-season talk at the water cooler or the corner bar with headlines about court cases, mediation, and the petty public squabbling that is the NFL labor dispute.

It’s not necessarily the subject matter, but the participants involved that get my goat at the end of the day. That’s because I know about labor issues and I'm a big union supporter; always have been. I was born in Toledo, Ohio, which is a stone's throw away from Detroit and like the Motor City, its workforce is largely dependent on the automotive industry. That said, I have friends, relatives, friends of relatives, and relatives of relatives up the wazoo that are union guys. They make the parts for and the actual cars that a lot of people in America and other parts of the world drive around in, and I know how important those jobs are to the people and families they support, and how much a strong labor union means to their pocketbooks and livelihoods. You could say I grew up on lofty ideals [sic] like a decent wage, the 40 hour workweek (supplemented by overtime of course), and ample vacation time to spend enjoying the money you work so hard for.

This belief in the importance of unions was galvanized in my teen years by the art and information I surrounded myself with. Through a teenage obsession with Rage Against the Machine, I learned about organizations like UNITE! and was pointed towards books like the Autobiography of Mother Jones and Out of This Furnace, and I would eventually encounter similar texts in college and find more bands, like Fugazi, who carried a similarly burning torch. I learned about how much a good job and the right to organize labor means from this music and literature, and felt the sympathy in my heart for unions and belief in decent working conditions continue to grow. My education was far from over though.

My first job was bagging groceries at the local Kroger, where I was a part of my first and only labor union, but a few years back I got the chance to work for the AFL-CIO's community outreach arm, Working America, where I truly learned what the union experience is all about. Going door to door, canvassing for support, I learned about how real people felt about jobs, the economy, and what it is to be American. I found out that these ideas are intertwined to a staggering degree and that even those who don't support organized labor support the idea of having the right to the best job they qualify for, and the right to have that job provide for them and their families. It only enhanced those feelings from my youth about how much I care about the causes surrounding labor and the right to organize, and only made for added vitriol toward large corporations, such as Wal-Mart, that go to the depths of hell to prevent their workers from unionizing.

It's why though the NFL has a labor union, and I understand the Players Association fighting for what they feel is right, their situation not only doesn't jibe with my union sensibilities, it doesn't interest me whatsoever. I went off for a few paragraphs a few posts back about this very fact, and my ambivalence towards the outcome of the NFL lockout has not wavered in the time since I put those words out for the world wide web to see. Even though I have sympathy for a union fighting for its rights against the company that it works for, the plight of the NFL players is anything but a plight. Instead it is a classic example of a way to alienate fans and treat those that provide the revenue that creates your outlandish paycheck with derision and contempt.

The truth of the matter is that I don't give a damn about labor disputes in professional sports. I have ignored nearly all news about the fight between the players and the owners and the public bickering between Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell as much as I possibly can, despite how difficult the sports media makes this ignorance. What I should be enjoying right now are compelling story lines and off-season shake-ups surrounding the game I love. Instead, I have "sources close to whoever" and "some nobody close to the talks" giving me useless information that doesn't make a damn bit of difference to my existence as a football fan.

See, the NFL is a year-round sport, even if it really only lasts around 5 months. After the regular season, we get the playoffs and the Super Bowl. Then, after a brief hiatus, draft speculation and free agency heats up. Next, the draft happens and trades and roster moves are made as free agents find new homes. Before you know it, OTA's have begun, training camp comes along, Hard Knocks kills it on HBO, and the preseason is here. Then you're on the final turn towards opening weekend, and the process starts all over. The NFL is big in America and it is near ubiquitous in the sporting world. It is a very, very powerful game and one of the biggest businesses in the country.

More than that, its a break from the daily grind, not only on Sundays in the fall, but all year round. It takes your mind off the day job or the problems with your reality, big or small. It lets you into a different world where you can think and talk about the game or your favorite team and forget about your troubles and focus on the progression of a rookie wide-receiver, the addition of a big-time free agent, or the shake-ups in coaching staffs that might affect how a team looks come the regular season. The NFL off-season is important to sports fans, and it has been ripped away from them for no apparent reason.

The lockout is winding down, the two sides are soon to come to an agreement, and no part of the 2011 season will be lost to the labor dispute. I've been of the opinion all along that this was going to be the case, but now that an agreement is actually happening I'm only more upset that the off-season was ruined by the league's labor strife. No matter how you slice it, even for a union supporter, the NFL's long labor battle is still millionaires fighting with billionaires about how much money each side gets.

There have been labor struggles in sports that make sense, like Curt Flood leading the way towards the abolition of the reserve clause in baseball and the formation of the MLB Players Association (HBO just did a doc on Flood and his intriguing fight for justice for ball players, which you can read about here). Since then though, strikes and lockouts have been nothing but bad news for sports. Hockey and baseball saw labor battles scar their leagues for years, and the NBA lost a chunk of one of its seasons to the same greedy arguing (and just might be repeating its own history if their newly initiated lockout doesn't end well). Football players have a bit more to fight for considering the damage they can do to their bodies and the shortness of the average career, but their troubles (if you want to call them that) are nothing compared to what the average worker (read: fan) goes through in the world of work or in a country where the unemployment rate is hovering near the double-digit mark.

Football owners have absolutely no right to moan about the billions of dollars in revenue that their teams create through television rights and ticket sales, and players don't have much more to be teary-eyed or angry about either. For one, if you're an NFL player, chances are that you were a scholarship athlete in college. That means that you had a free ride to track down the necessary skills for a job and life after football. And even if you only play for the average number of years an NFL player lasts (3.5) at the median league salary ($700k, though the average is near $2 million), you could probably still retire the day after you can't hack it anymore and live a comfortable life. Not to mention the added opportunities that arise through coaching positions and jobs in the media, where ex-players are usually the most qualified to find careers in both fields.

So when you're anywhere from wealthy to holy-fucking-shit wealthy from playing a game where you chase a leather ball filled with air around all day, don't expect me or any other fan to sympathize with the fact that your boss won't let you come to work. Especially when everyone knows that football is going to be played eventually anyways and that the money involved can be split up any way you want and both sides will continue to get rich. Fans don't care about what you're going through Drew Brees, so don't lead yours and the other team in a show of solidarity before a game on national television. Same goes for you Tom Brady, for while I know that attaching your name to a lawsuit against the owners in a court case is a symbolic gesture, all it symbolizes to me is a guy fucking Giselle Bundchen and throwing a football for a living bitching about how rough he's got it. The owners and players have said repeatedly that they just know the fans are on their respective side, when in reality we're on our own side, the side that wants both of you to shut up and play.

Perhaps players really don't understand that fans don't want to think how much money they make. If you're like me, you have to put pro athlete salaries out of your head entirely in order to truly enjoy sports, just so you don't get sick to your stomach when you compare the average athlete's salary to that of a teacher or industrial worker or landscaper or short-order cook. Maybe they don't get the fact that all of the public arguments and allusions to slavery are truly in poor taste. It's possible that they don't know that with nothing to talk about, ESPN and every other major sports media outlet will cram a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo down our throats about the NFL when the only thing to focus on are labor issues. If they do understand any of this, they need to shut up and play. If they don't understand it, they need to shut up anyways because every last sports fan in America has had just about enough of all this BS.

At the end of the day, the NFL is probably too big of a money making and marketing machine to let the lockout slow them down, and starving their fans all summer will most likely lead to even more interest in the sport once it actually gets moving towards the beginning of the 2011 season. I'm not sure which one of those facts disgusts me more. Fans have had the door shut in their face, and while they've slept out in the cold, the owners and players have been patiently waiting to let them back in to sit by the fire, no doubt unsurprised that we were still curled up by the door.

The lockout has been ugly, and created a bitterness towards the game inside of me that I don't know will ever leave. I hope that the NBA is taking notes right now, because while the NFL has the luxury of being the sporting equivalent of a dead-beat boyfriend that we just have to take back, the Association doesn't have nearly that cache with sports fans. Like a lover with low self-esteem, we'll take the NFL any way we can get it, because we love it so goddamn much. I just hope fans have learned that those who play and profit from the game they love seem to take their adoration for granted to a nauseating degree.

REASONABLE DOUBT

2011-06-18T12:38:00.000-04:00

Whether you want to look at this year's NBA Finals as the one where Dirk finally got his ring or the one where the Miami Heat failed to reach their goal, the six-game series was one of the best closing chapters to a basketball season in recent memory. The NBA lucked out and got two great Finals match-ups two years running now, with the Mavs and Heat giving us just as much intrigue and drama as the Lakers and Celtics did last year. It didn't go seven games, but nearly every single game was full of big runs and thrilling comebacks, coming down to the final possession and reDirkulous heroics more often than not.

It is obligatory when talking about this year's Finals to give the Mavs their propers before moving on to LeBron and the Heatles, so that's what I'mma do too. The Mavericks played spectacular team basketball and Dirk Nowitzki was transcendent. J.J. Barea and Jason Terry were potent scorers. Shawn Marion returned to form as the Matrix. Jason Kidd held it all together. They played a cohesive, collaborative brand of defense and made every big play when they had to. They beat the Heat in 6, something most folks, including this writer, didn't see coming. I picked the Heat at the beginning of the series, but should have known better considering the thumping the Mavs gave my LA Lakers and the resiliency they showed in their opening round series with the Blazers and the Western Conference Finals against the Thunder.

I'm glad to see Dirk get his ring, sort of glad to see Kidd get one (he is a wife-beater after all), and definitely happy to see an entire team full of players that had never won a championship come together as a unit and beat the big bad Miami Heat. Now that I have that out of the way, let's get down to South Beach and talk about the real story from the Finals: LeBron James, D-Wade, and Chris Bosh coming up short on their short-cut to a championship ring.

If you watch sports long enough, you come to realize that games and series truly have a feel to them. You can stare at stats and match-ups and highlights all you want, but sometimes there is a feel to the game play that lets you know what's really going on. It's that same kind of feeling of impending doom you get when no matter how safe a situation should be, something is amiss. Something doesn't seem right. You have a feeling that something is going to happen. It's exactly how I felt watching the Heat lose this series. There was a vibe, a certain something hanging in the air when they played, that made it clear that they weren't going to get it done.

Even when they went down 3-2 after the three middle games in Dallas, I was still telling anyone that would listen that the Heat were going to prevail. It just made more sense. They were more talented, they were going home for the final two games, they had two of the top five (if not top three) players in the league in Wade and James. But after watching the first half of game six, I realized what my gut had been telling me all along: they weren't ready to win this year. They looked out of sorts in the half-court and confused on defense and their two biggest stars seemed either too reluctant (in the case of James) or too skittish (in the case of Wade) to make plays when they had to. Oh yeah, and Chris Bosh isn't as good as people think he is and not nearly mentally tough enough to play on the size of the stage the Big Three have created for themselves in Miami.

I mean, did you see him after they lost? He was on his knees in the tunnel, crying like a baby. Emotion is what sports is all about, but that kind of stuff you can take home to your girl or your mother if you have to Chris. The guy looked like a whining little kid, not a guy who had poured his heart into this season and was grappling with a gut-wrenching defeat. Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said earlier this season that some of his players were crying in the locker room after one of the team's particularly tough losses. One guess as to who he was talking about.

I know, I know, that might be a petty point to make, but it illustrates the larger problem that this team is facing: an emotional and psychological lack of control. I could break down every single thing that the Heat did wrong on the court, but the truth is, I don't think that's the team's problem. They are immensely talented and will only become better as the years roll on, but what needs to be fixed is their attitude and their psychological resiliency, not their mid-range game or post-up moves. While Bosh is the weepy cherry on top, LeBron James is the hot fudge sundae of frayed nerves that is at the root of the Heat's lack of composure.

I wrote a post a while back about the enormous level of expectation this Heat team created for itself with LeBron's "Decision" and their pre-season victory celebration, and the spotlight they drew on themselves is certainly part of their problem. The bigger issue though, is the expectation level for their best player, LeBron James. James, if he is not already, will soon be the greatest basketball player on planet earth. Just think about that simple fact for a second: imagine being the best in the world at what you do, and how people might look at you if you don't succeed at it. That's a lot to handle, but the greatest players that have played any sport have a near sociopathic imperviousness to the weight of the pressure this creates. They ignore that pressure or thrive on it, they don't keep passing the ball off to teammates and have the body language of a girl who just got stood up on prom night.

James is facing a crossroads in his career that I don't think he was ready for. I think that the move to Miami when he became a free agent should have been the turning point, but if the way he has handled his teammates, his coach, the media, and the general public over the last year is any indication, he needs to do some mental house cleaning before he can start heading in the right direction. The NBA has been waiting for the next Michael Jordan for a while (and I'm one that would tell you that Kobe Bryant is already that guy, but I digress) so there is absolutely no patience or empathy in the heart of most fans for the failings that LeBron has encountered both on and off the court (you can check out Josh Levin's Slate piece about how Michael's shadow is doing bad, bad things to LeBron here).

He has failed twice in the NBA Finals, yes, but more importantly he has failed to grasp a true sense of himself as an athlete and as a celebrity. I think he was truly astounded by how negatively the public reacted to "The Decision" and totally caught off-guard by the fact that he is now a heel in the world of sports. LeBron is a nice guy (maybe too nice). A guy who hosts SNL and the ESPY Awards, a guy that starred in Nike commercials featuring multiple comedic likenesses of himself. He loves being loved, and I think his desire to back that up with success on the court led him to Miami, but did not prepare him for the consequences.

He is now in a place where not only is expectation to be the next Michael Jordan astronomically high, but he doesn't have the fan support to lean on like he did in the past. All he has are his fellow villains in Miami--Wade and Bosh--and a young coach who doesn't seem to have the force of personality to scream him out of his basketball daydream of times gone by--times when he was the GOAT in-waiting and a media darling at the same time. Because of all this, James looks shy when the game is on the line, becoming too willing a passer and timid to shoot the big shot. Joe Posnaski wrote a great piece on James and the Heat's failure in the Finals where he described himself screaming at the television in disbelief that James kept passing the ball in game 6. I was equally appalled, but not as similarly surprised.

LBJ just doesn't feel ready to me. He has every skill a basketball player could desire and is basically an NFL tight-end playing in the NBA. He's fast, he's powerful, he has incredible court vision, he passes effortlessly and accurately, he's developing into a good, soon to be great shooter. His head? That's a whole 'nother story. He should have the mental tenacity of Tiger Woods pre-Thanksgiving-spousal-golf-club-beat-down. Instead he's got the gelatinous gray matter of Tiger post-string-of-banging-gross-skanks-dealing-with-sex-addiction-and-bad-knees-can't-get-his-head-straight. You can ask Eldrich yourself, that's a bad spot to be in.

I've mentioned before that I've always been reluctant to try and get inside an athlete's head, because it's hard to know what someone else is thinking. In LeBron's case, I have an unending desire to sit him down on a reclining leather couch to try and help him through his problems Frasier Crane style. Before this series I never thought I would ever look at LeBron James with sympathy again, but now that it's over I want to simultaneously give the guy a hug and slap him in the face and tell him to act like a man. I don't know which one he needs more, but something has to be done or this guy is going to unravel, mark my words. He needs to talk to someone like MJ or Bird or ideally, Magic, who has that amazing blend of likability and competitive killer instinct that LeBron wants and needs to no end right now.

Because I'm a sports fan, I admire and love watching greatness. It's why I want LeBron to win deep down, and why even after he acts like the epitome of a spoiled athlete, like the way he did during the post-game presser after the Finals loss, I still want him to succeed. I want him to chase Michael's legacy, fill his fists with championship rings, and to be comfortable with where his decisions in life have taken him (perhaps because I have trouble doing this myself...TMI?...sorry). I want him to be the Man, but he needs to get straight between his ears before this can happen. Entitlement is a bitch, and it can catch up to you quick when you've won at life for so long, but now find yourself losing. LeBron James is slowly learning this fact.

To go back to Tiger for a moment, he's always reminded me of a truism that I think also pertains to LeBron: in the world of sports (and the game of life), you doubt greatness at your own peril. I think this is something LeBron needs tattooed on his forehead. He needs to forget the old, fun-loving LeBron and embrace his role as villain the way he claims that he already has. He needs to get his own version of MJ's fist pump or Kobe's underbite. He needs to want the other team dead before he lets them beat him, and needs to be the one leading the charge with a battle axe in his hands. He needs to shut the people who doubt him up quick, and like I've said before, I still think he will. I think...

THE MALICE IN DALLAS

2011-05-11T01:21:00.003-04:00

Before any of this gets started, and in case you didn't already know, I'll tell you that I'm a Los Angeles Lakers fan. A big one actually. I've loved Kobe Bryant since he came into the league and started loving the team that he plays for a short time later. Ever since then, the Lakers have been one of my "we" teams. It's a designation that I only use with three sports teams in the world: the Ohio State Buckeyes, the Detroit Tigers, and the aforementioned LA Lakers.

If I talk about these teams, I say "we". I say it like I'm a part of the team, but what it really means is that the team is a part of me. They take up large chunks of my brain space and their performances have an affect on my overall mood and well being. Their losses hit hard, ruining the days and nights and weeks spent watching them, and their wins can lift me similarly, painting a smile on my face and placing a lilt in my heart that endures long after contests and seasons are complete.

For me, one of my "we" teams is already in some big trouble and causing me unwanted stress, they being the Ohio State Buckeyes football program. I say "we" for all of the Buckeye teams, but the football team at OSU is really the original "we" team for me. I have loved Ohio State since I was knee high to a grasshopper and the Buckeyes are mired in controversy and dogged by looming NCAA sanctions; with the fate of head coach Jim Tressel currently hanging in the balance and the future of the program floating somewhere in the ether.

While OSU is being put through the investigatory ringer and the autumn of 2011 fraught with uncertainty and probable doom, I thought that I at least had the Lakers to make my summer vibrant and enjoyable, with another ride to the NBA Finals likely and a third consecutive championship possible, if no longer as certain as I may have thought at the season's start.

That all changed when the Lakers played the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of this year's NBA playoffs. When they were swept out of the playoffs 4 - 0 in their seven game series with Dallas, when they flat-out embarrassed themselves on national television time and again, with a disgraceful 36 point loss on Sunday putting the icing on a cake made of a Kentucky Derby-sized pile of horse manure. The day after the Derby, the Lakers were blown right of the gym and acted like a bunch of spoiled children who had their favorite toy taken away, alternating between a pouty, unprecedented petulance and a tantrum-throwing disregard for their coach, their star player, and the purple and gold uniforms they wore that day.

It is likely head coach Phil Jackson's last memory as a Laker coach, and it was crushed into a potent nugget of disappointment by the Dallas Mavericks as he was disobeyed and disgraced by his players. The Lakers not only committed the grievous sin of quitting on their leader, but also committed ugly, unprofessional fouls down the stretch that cannot be called anything other than dirty plays. With their season coming to an end thanks to a Dallas team that seemed better than them at every facet of the game and one of their best players in Pau Gasol moping around the court like the jilted lover he is rumored to be, the Lakers decided to play dirty and without class, committing fouls that had no other intention than to harm players on the other team under the guise of extreme frustration.

The Lakers were rightly disappointed, down 3 - 0 to a team that had proven in those first three games that they were clearly the better squad. The Mavericks were faster, more determined, and locked-in on their goal, three things that the Lakers perhaps did not expect, and seemed unable to return in kind with their effort on the court. So as the season drew to a close and with one of their players, Ron Artest, already marred by a dirty play in game 2 that led to a suspension in game 3, Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum decided to act like bullies and turn their sub-par performance into an absolute disrespect for their opponent and head coach by flagrantly fouling Dirk Nowitzki and J.J. Barea respectively. These were dirty, nasty, uncalled for plays that left me aghast not only as a Laker fan, but a fan of professional basketball in general.

Phil Jackson is perhaps the greatest head coach in the history of sports, with 11 championship rings and a trio of three-peats under his belt. He announced early on this year that it would be his last with the Lakers, and Kobe Bryant seemed determined to help Phil go out on the right note by completing a fourth three-peat and giving Jackson an even 12 for his career. Instead, the team that Kobe has led alongside Phil for over a decade crumbled under the pressure of trying to win their third consecutive championship and melted down in front of a sold-out crowd in Dallas and millions of fans watching the game at home.

Lamar Odom might as well have had hockey pads on the way he blatantly checked Nowitzki at the top of the key in the fourth quarter, which was bad enough. But minutes later, Bynum threw an elbow into Barea's rib-cage while the diminutive point guard was mid-air near the basket, watching the young man crash to the ground with what was enough force to knock the living daylights out of him. They were both egregious fouls that led to the players' ejection from the game and do not speak to the character of Jackson or the pride of the Lakers, who have won 16 world championships in the NBA.

What those fouls and this swift exit from the playoffs have done to the legacy of both Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant remains to be seen. Jackson was pursuing an amazing 12th title, while Bryant was searching for his 6th, something that his idol Michael Jordan achieved playing under Jackson himself. In the long run, Jackson will likely return to coach another team after a hiatus with a chance to rekindle his legacy, and Bryant will continue to play under a new coach and doggedly seek his 6th ring, but the game did little for either in terms of the public perception of their greatness.

My "we" team let me down. Okay, it's a bummer, I'll just have to wait 'til next year. But the way the Lake-Show went out this season has me still scratching my head these two days later, and wondering how Bryant will be able to continue with the cast of characters he has around him. Dallas most assuredly exposed the retooled Laker bench as markedly inadequate, but there are deeper issues at play. Rumors are swirling in Los Angeles that Bryant's wife contributed to the end of Pau Gasol's long-term relationship with a girlfriend, leaving the Spanish power forward listless and uninterested in playing meaningful basketball. Odom's hard foul on Nowitzki and uncharacteristically lackluster playoff performance point to his level of distraction in Los Angeles, where he is a reality TV star and husband to a Kardashian, a truly unfortunate combination for a professional athlete.

Bynum, while young, showed a level of immaturity that cannot be attributed solely to his age, and the Lakers rock-solid, but obviously slow point guard Derek Fisher may have turned from "veteran leader" to "aging liability" right before our eyes. I'm not one to panic when it comes to my "we" teams, but the truth is that something has to be done in LA if Kobe is going to end his career as the legend he wants to. He is already a five-time champion and one of the top-five talents the game has ever seen in my eyes, but in order to move from an honored resident in the House of NBA Legends and start down the hallway to the wing where players like Michael and Magic rest, he needs another ring and even more proof of worth on his already crowded resume.

My guess is that the gears in Kobe's head are already turning and he is making a list of those he does and does not want around him next season. A list that includes players and coaches and one that the management and ownership in LA has to abide by in some way shape or form. Say what you want to about Kobe's off-the-court and on-the-court personality and proclivities, the man is as determined an athlete as the sporting world has ever seen, and this writer seriously doubts that we have seen the last of his greatness. Los Angeles is a city of stars, and Kobe is among its brightest. I have a feeling that we'll find out just how hard he'll burn in the coming months and NBA off-season, and I hope that my "we" team bounces back from this inglorious exit and makes me a proud Laker fan once again.

If not, I've still got Justin Verlander and the Detroit Tigers to try and pick me up, and a no-hitter in May sure isn't a bad place to start...

RECAPPING THE MADNESS

2011-04-05T23:30:00.004-04:00

The anticlimactic moment has always been at the top of the list of disappointment for a sports fan. The world of sports is built on moments of high drama, where the line between victory and defeat is finally erased and one team goes home exuberant, while the other hides their head in the sand. As viewers and fans, we want the walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth, the game-winning fourth quarter drive, the overtime goal, or the last second buzzer beater. The dramatic finish helps a game or an athlete live on in our memories as the seasons carry on and new opportunities for greatness manifest themselves.

If we can't be spoiled with such legend-making plays, we at least want an entertaining game and competitive action in any contest, and this is especially true in a sport's championship game. Unfortunately for college basketball fans, none of the things that make sports worth watching were on display Monday night when Butler and UConn met to decide the National Championship in Houston. The game was by all accounts an ugly affair, and that is treating it with the softest of kid gloves. To get down to brass tacks, it was a horrendous display of the game James Naismith created and was a whimper of epic proportions after a fantastic tournament filled with numerous memorable moments and compelling story lines.

Butler played one of the worst offensive games I have ever watched as a basketball fan, and while UConn didn't play much better, they looked like world-beaters next to what CBS analyst Clark Kellogg called the "unparalleled ineptitude" of the Bulldog shooters (more on CK in a minute), including the team's two stars Shelvin Mack and Matt Howard, who shot a combined 5 of 28 from the field. Butler made three two-point baskets all game and waited until well into the second half of play to score a single point in the paint. They went 12 of 64 from the field as a team, leading to a jaw-dropping and championship game record-low field goal percentage of 18%.

I've heard sports pundits and radio jocks talk about UConn's length and defensive tenacity all day long after last night's cringe-worthy action, but the truth is that the kids from Indianapolis are the ones to blame for their defeat. UConn just had to show up and play halfway up to their potential (which they did...barely, shooting a paltry 34% themselves) to take out the team that was playing in its second consecutive National Championship game. There was no trouble finding a ticket to Monday's game in Reliant Stadium, and I bet by halftime even those who got a great deal on their seats were contemplating an alternative way to spend their Monday night.

There was a point in the second half where I felt the kind of third-party embarrassment usually reserved for a scene from "Swingers". John Favreau and an answering machine got nothing on the kind of humiliation I felt for the Bulldog shooters though, who not only couldn't hit a three pointer to save their lives, but didn't find a way to put in even a layup for what seemed like an eternity. I guess I didn't even feel bad for the Butler kids, really, but more of a personal sadness from having to watch a championship game where a team couldn't play dead and was still never really out of the game.

Apparently UConn couldn't find it in it's heart to shoot the wounded horse named Butler, which only added to the game's complete lack of compelling moments. Even the best player on the floor and the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, the dynamic Kemba Walker, put on a pedestrian offensive performance (5 of 19 for 16 points). While I appreciate a great defensive effort as much as the next guy, I was ready to put aspirin in my Coke rather than continue to watch Butler die a slow death on national television last night.

For UConn though, a National Championship is a National Championship is a National Championship (shout out to Ms. Stein). I'm sure they don't care how poorly they or their opponent played, because at the end of the day, they get to put up another banner back in Storrs. And I'm also guessing Coach Jim Calhoun isn't sweating about the way he got to join a very elite club with his third National Championship as a head coach. The Huskies made a truly incredible post-season run, winning five games in the brutal Big East Tournament followed by the clinching six wins in the Big Dance. Congrats to the kids from UConn, even though if I had to watch the game that brought them a championship again, I might pry out my eye balls.

The championship game aside, the tournament itself was another great, mad ride through March. From Shaka Smart's VCU Rams making the Final Four, to the head-shaking fouls that decided the Pitt/Butler game, to all four No. 1 seeds falling by the wayside, this year's tournament was another lesson in the dramatic power of the Big Dance. I think if you would have told anybody with more than a passing interest in college hoops that none of the four number ones would make it to Houston and VCU would be playing Butler for the right to be in the championship game they would have promptly laughed you out of the room or put an incredulous hand to your forehead to make sure you weren't delirious with fever.

Adding to the allure of the tournament's unexpected excitement this year was the additional coverage provided by TNT, TBS, and TruTV, which allowed for the opportunity to see every single game of the tournament for the first time in its existence. CBS let the other guys in and let fans follow whatever team they liked (and test their remote control acumen), providing the kind of blanket coverage that folks had been clamoring to get for the past decade or so. We've had the technology to bring every game to live TV for years and I'm glad the dollar signs lined up right this year so fans (and the networks) could reap the respective benefits.

Of course, there's always one moment that sticks out among the rest, and personally, it has to be Kentucky's Brandon Knight draining a jumper to take out my beloved and No. 1 seeded Ohio State Buckeyes, who were also my pick to win it all in my bracket. That bracket, by the way, was fireplace fodder nearly immediately and only one of the teams I picked to make the Final Four did so, that being National Champions UConn. I said that the Buckeyes would have to lay an egg to get beat (no pun intended), and they proved me right by shooting a shade over 30% from the field against the Wildcats. They also made for a difficult night at the bar that Saturday, where I was surrounded by folks in UK blue puffing up their chests. Oh well, there's always next year Bucks.

Another highlight for this writer that I alluded to earlier was the color commentary of Clark Kellogg, who just happens to be a former Buckeye hoopster himself. Kellogg was paired with Jim Nance throughout the tournament and the tandem was joined by another insightful voice, Steve Kerr, for the Final Four and championship game. Kellogg is not only knowledgeable and observant, but has a way with words that would make any writer proud. All tournament long, Kellogg subtly and tastefully reinvigorated the language surrounding the game and reworked and reinterpreted a litany of basketball bromides when he wasn't foregoing them altogether.

It isn't the ball, it's "the orange" or "the pumpkin", that wasn't a steal you just saw, it was a "pilfer". The player that can thrive both inside the paint and out near the three-point line? He's "reversible clothing". It's not only jargon he's having fun with though. As I watched a Final Four match-up on Saturday, I had to find a pen to take note of his analysis of a shooter getting on a roll. There are a lot of tired cliches concerning a player making one bucket and turning it into a streak, but I just love Kellogg's way of putting it: "One goes in and that basket becomes cavernous." I don't remember Billy Packer ever waxing that poetic. Props to CK on a job well done.

So, March has come to an end and the sporting life can go back to normal for a bit, allowing the baseball season to get its wheels turning and the paths leading to the NBA and NHL playoffs to near their own end. There's nothing quite like the NCAA Tournament in the world of sports, and though the championship game exclamation point turned out to be more of a barely visible semicolon, the basketball sentence it completed was still one of the best tournaments in recent memory. I'm contemplating a move away from sports for the next post, something I've flirted with in the past and am excited to give a try. One cannot live on athletic bread alone after all. See you soon.

PICKING UP A FEW THINGS

2011-03-18T00:50:00.003-04:00

Okay, so I've got a a lot on my mind because there's a lot going on in sports right now and because I've been slacking and haven't written in like three weeks. So instead of just one topic, I'm going to hit a few. Let's talk some college hoops first, because there's nothing quite like tourney time...

COLLEGE HOOPS

March Madness is here, finally. The long college basketball regular season is now polished off and we can all sit back and enjoy four of the best days of the year in the sports fan's calendar. The first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament are as good as it gets in the world of sports and I for one am ready to park in front of the television and soak it all in between now and Sunday night.

My bracket is filled out and ready to take on all comers too, though I had to fill out a second bracket at work as part of the rules, so I can't claim as I usually do to only have one sheet in play. I think it's important to stand by your picks and be true to one sheet, so I consider that second one a throwaway that might still score me the cash, but not the pride. So in my real, honest-to-goodness bracket, I've got the Final Four made up of Ohio State, U-Conn, Kansas and Pitt. That's three number one seeds and a number three if you're keeping track and I got the Buckeyes taking it all home in the end.

That's not a homer pick, trust me. The Buckeyes are the best team in the country. They fill out all of the cliche must-have attributes that get trotted out by everybody on any network that gets paid to talk about college hoops: they have excellent guard play, they have a presence inside, they play unselfishly, they have a starting five committed to defending, and they have senior leadership. They have lost two games all year, both to tough conference foes on the road, and can win in a variety of ways.

You're going to get to know their starting five + two very well over the next couple of weeks. That's right, the Bucks only play seven but they are a mean seven. Buford and Deibler shoot, Lighty slashes, Sullinger bullies, and Kraft defends. Throw in the instant offense of Deshaun Thomas and the glass eating of Dallas Lauderdale and find me a team that can beat them when they play their best. The tournament is all about doing so for six games straight, so for the Buckeyes to fall, they'll have to lose it themselves. I don't see them getting outplayed when they're on their mark.

Of course, picking the winners of the games and filling out your bracket is only half the fun. March Madness is all about the buzzer beaters, the first round upsets, and the Cinderella making a run at history. So while I'll root for the Buckeyes and pick them to win it all, I'm really just going to enjoy the tournament for the most part, something everyone should do for at least this weekend. The first two rounds of the Big Dance are an event in the sporting year, so get to know your couch and a bag of popcorn and watch some college kids play hoops this weekend, you won't regret it.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Sticking with Ohio State, I also have to put down a few words on the fiasco that has ensued since Jim Tressel admitted that, yeah, he did know about the trouble his players were getting into regarding trading their trophies and other merchandise for discount tattoos. The trouble that has cost some of the best Buckeye football players, including starting quarterback Terelle Pryor, five games next season. I already laid out my thoughts on those involved a few posts back, but now that head coach Tressel is on the record as knowing about the infractions as far back as April, the skies in Columbus have only gotten grayer.

Ohio State football is what I love the most in the world of sports and I can't say that I'm surprised that we had a scandal or that our coach lied about when he knew about it. The pressure is high on the head coach of a top-tier program like Ohio State and the celebrity status and advantages for the players themselves are myriad. The guys who traded tattoos for trophies and the like thought they would make some quick cash and get away with it. Now we know that their coach knew about it and didn't tell a soul. The NCAA doesn't like that sort of thing.

Who's really to blame? At the end of the day, I don't know. The fact of the matter is I expect more out of Tressel. I'm not naive and I don't think that any big time college sports program is clean, not a one. They're all hiding something, large or small, so I'm not surprised by Tressel's admission. What I don't like is the way he's handled it all, with an "aw shucks" half-apologetic demeanor that doesn't speak at all to the pristine image he puts out to the public. Or that WWJD bracelet he wears on his wrist. I'm not a believer myself, but I have a feeling the dood on the cross wouldn't have been down for lying to NCAA investigators.

Man, I just had the coolest mental image of Jesus in a three-piece suit, hair in a sharp looking pony tail, stroking his beard and answering questions from an NCAA investigator in his (no doubt) plush office. Try it for a second. It's kind of funny. Anyways...

I love what Tressel has done for Ohio State football on the field, by the way. OSU is a perennial threat to win the National Championship (and Tress already brought one home) and a top destination for recruits. We beat Michigan just about every year now and have won a couple of BCS bowls the last two years. I think he's a spectacular coach and I don't want to see him leave my favorite team, but at the same time I think he's being disingenuous at best and pedantic at worst in his handling of this situation. Cop to the crime coach and tell us you're sorry. I mean for real sorry, not "I didn't know who to tell" sorry. We all make mistakes, and the sporting world loves a redemption story. Get yours started with the right paragraph and keep winning ball games, because I honestly have an identical yen for both.

**As I'm about to publish this-a-here blog, I've found out that Tressel has asked the NCAA to up his suspension, which was a self-imposed two-game stretch, to five games to line up with what his players got. It's a start, but it still ain't enough, and when the NCAA finally rules on the matter, I'm guessing they'll agree with me. Oh well, onto more stuff that's bothering me...

NFL

There are sports stories I can tolerate and those that I can't. No matter how large my hunger for sports information grows, I will never be tempted by the Ramen noodles of the sports story in any league: labor disputes. I'm a child of the 1994 baseball strike. I was twelve years old when the only baseball season of my lifetime (and not to mention, the only chance at glory the Montreal Expos ever had) was cut short because of labor issues. I didn't care why it was happening then, in baseball, and I don't care why it's happening now, in football. I was disillusioned as a bright eyed pre-teen baseball fanatic back then, but now I'm downright angry that the sports media is devoting so much time and effort to reporting on the new collective bargaining agreement in the NFL.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a union supporter, so I understand that things have to be hashed out at some point in order for both sides to be comfortable with how much money they're making. But we're not talking the teachers' union, or a government employees' union here. We're talking about the most popular sport in America and the amount of money in question is rumored to be right around $9 billion in revenue. That's with a 'B'. Nine...billion. I'm guessing that workers pulling shifts for the government and teachers across the country, not to mention folks on assembly lines, retail workers, janitors--you name it--can tell the NFL owners and players that $9 billion is not something you should publicly whine over having to split-up between yourselves. You're all super rich. Shut up already.

I'm a working class dood and more importantly, a fan, so I don't give a fuck how big the chunk of money the players and owners are fighting over is (but man, that is such a big chunk), because I'll never get a cut of it, but will most certainly contribute to it. I'll watch the league on TV, buy tickets to games, and keep on loving pro football, but that doesn't give me any vested interest in the labor dispute, only a contributor's remorse. I don't need Roger Goodell taking a $1 salary until a deal is reached or Adrian Peterson referring to the plight of the players in the same breath as slavery via a Yahoo! interview. These sorts of acts and statements aren't endearing, they're blatantly condescending and psychotically ungrateful.

Make a deal, shut up, and give me a normal NFL off-season that leads into another captivating regular season, playoffs, and Super Bowl. Anything short of that, or the reasons why I have to deal with anything short of that, is completely beyond my radar at this point. The owners and players are both making money hand over fist, while guys like me, who love and watch the game, who allow the owners and players to make these ungodly sums of money, are contemplating a second job to make ends meet. I'm not fishing for sympathy here, I'm just asking for a little respect. Shout out to Otis and Aretha.

Seriously guys, the unemployment rate in the United States is just a shade under 9% as of February and people are having their right to collectively bargain stripped away in states like Ohio and Wisconsin, but I'm supposed to care how some rich guys and some more ridiculously rich guys want to split up their $9 billion kitty? I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to hear a word about who wants what and when they want it. All I want the players and owners to know is what I want. What the fans want, and that is that both sides stop whining, agree on how big a pile of money they each get, and to play some goddamn football.

Man, I was going to talk about a few things happening in the NBA in this post too, but I think I've exhausted my current word supply. The anger can really soak up those vowels and consonants in a hurry. Oh well, there's always next time. Stay close gentle readers, if you still care.

THE COLLEGE YEARS

2011-02-21T16:15:00.004-05:00

I'm from Ohio, where football is king and the rest of the three major sports take a back seat, no matter if it's during the season or the off season. We like our football a lot in Ohio and when I moved to Louisville around five years ago I found out that people in this state love their basketball with an equally large heart. Both the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville are storied college basketball programs and I had to get used to the fact that while I wanted to debate the spread option, Tampa two defense, and zone blocking, folks around here were more likely to change the subject to the full court press, the 2-3 zone, and boxing out.

It didn't bother me at first, different athletic strokes for different folks after all, but over the years I've come to resent the implication made by a lot of die-hard college basketball fans that the game they love is not only superior to the NBA (which it isn't), but also superior to college football as well. This is a barroom argument in it's truest sense of course, the old my "insert team/sport here" is better than your "insert team/sport here." So after having more than a few of those barroom arguments and with March Madness looming on the horizon, I thought I would make the case for college hoops not being all it's cracked up to be.

Hopefully this will be less of an indictment of college basketball on the whole, and more a lesson in how the product the NCAA puts on the court can be improved and why the NBA is still a much more entertaining viewing experience for this writer. That said, I am going to organize things by putting numbers and bold text in front of my points. Hopefully, it makes me look smarter. Here's why the NCAA doesn't quite stack up:

1. The one-and-done rule The rule that a player cannot enter the NBA draft without having first played at least one season of college basketball is one of the most ridiculous and misguided things the NBA has ever done, and the NCAA's lack of real resistance to it's implementation is a large reason as to why the competition in college basketball is becoming watered down. The specifics of the rule for domestic players are that they be 19 years old the year of the draft and a year out of high school, so for all intents and purposes college is foisted upon a lot of guys that probably don't want to go in the first place, as Michael Wilbon can tell you. I'm with Mike on this one, and as he illustrates in that piece, so are most college coaches. They don't like babysitting guys for a year only to see them bolt to the NBA post haste.

There is no longer any time for fans to get to know and love a team's superstars, because for the most part those players with the big stars next to their names are gone by the time their first year of classes is complete. Even if a player with NBA level talent decides to stick around two years instead of one, that doesn't give programs and coaches the time to build elite teams that can contend for years at a time. Coaches and recruiters are now the stewards of revolving doors at their gyms, where players show up, show out, and ship out before they have time to mature as athletes or as people. What's left is a system that doesn't give fans a chance to build a relationship with their favorite players and doesn't give coaches the time to create elite teams. This year's parity in college hoops is testament to this fact, where in the waning days of February, a great team is still yet to be found.

There are exceptions of course, but for the most part even college teams that have found a way to be consistently successful have no real consistency in their line-ups. Teams and programs that used to be perennially dominant are miring in mediocrity. North Carolina, Kentucky, Duke, Michigan State et al are no longer superior to their competition year in and year out, but are left to find a group of super freshmen to make a title run in the odd year their recruiting class was truly dominant.

Super freshmen and sophomores now leave before they have even come close to polishing their game or becoming men. This not only hurts the level of competition at the collegiate level, but forces NBA teams to draft players as works in progress (not to pick on UK, but the two stars they just sent to the NBA are both in need of some seasoning--DeMarcus Cousins is a foul machine with maturity issues and John Wall, despite his freakish gifts, still suffers from a serious turnover problem, just as a couple of examples). So, kids are drafted on potential and not ready for prime-time, something that diminishes the talent pool in the NCAA and stunts growth in the NBA.

The solution to this problem comes from football, where you can't enter the NFL draft until three years after you graduate from high school. This means that college football is stocked with juniors and seniors that have NFL level talent, with freshman and sophomores of exceeding ability alongside them to fill out the ranks. The talent and maturity comparison between the two sports is not even an argument at this point. Because players are forced to remain in college, football presents a better product that is far closer to the level of competition of it's professional counterpart and much more fun to watch during the regular season. Then again, football doesn't have March Madness (or a playoff of any kind in it's highest division), which is the only thing that keeps college hoops relevant--more on that in a minute.

2. Pace A friend of mine told me that because I grew up watching Big Ten basketball for the most part, that I'm biased on this point, but I think anyone who watches the NBA and college basketball with equality knows that the college game is sllloooowww. First of all, someone needs to get rid of the 35 second shot clock and move it closer to the NBA's 24 second clock. I can't stand watching a team swing the ball around the perimeter for 27 to 30 seconds and then dump it in to their bigs or hoist up a three pointer just before the shot clock expires. I shudder to think what watching college basketball was like before the shot clock, but I have a feeling it was like soccer with a ball you can touch.

This sort of pace makes the game a lot harder to watch and a lot slower than it's professional counterpart. I know that the NBA and NCCA levels of talent show much disparity, but that doesn't mean college kids wouldn't be able to play up to their talent level if the tempo were pushed. The 35 second clock creates a grinding pace that is only accentuated by zone defenses, which thrive on not letting the opposing offense get a good look at a shot without a drive and dish or a particularly quick and accurate pass (most likely as the shot clock winds down...see what I'm saying here?). Even if your team is blessed with a kid that can create his own shot, the game's pace probably won't let him affect the contest the way he would if things were moving faster.

3. Defense Okay, so this point isn't so much about something that college hoops lacks, but more about a sentiment I'm tired of hearing: that they don't play defense in the NBA. In case you are among the misguided folks that think that all those good young lads in college hoops do is play D while their NBA counterparts just cash checks and slam dunk uncontested, allow me to retort. You may not have noticed, but NBA rosters are crafted from the best and brightest of college basketball talent along with international studs, and as such boast the fastest and most athletic defenders in the world.

If you can't play defense in the NBA, you don't win, it's that simple. And as an individual, there is no way to become a legitimate franchise player or NBA legend without being able to D-up the guy opposite you. Before you start in on me, I know there are exceptions. Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki--these guys like defense about as much as the aforementioned AI likes practice, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

Look at LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Dwayne Wade, Dwight Howard--guys that are superstars and the current face of the NBA. They all excel on both ends of the floor, balancing their ability to score with an equal vigor and aptitude on defense. In fact, you could argue that LeBron truly entered into "holy shit" territory when he started making chase-down blocks as much a part of his highlight reels as rim-shaking dunks. And if you need anymore proof, just look at the Celtics and Lakers, the two teams that have won the last three NBA championships and faced-off against each other for two of them. They play defense, tough defense, grinding, violent defense. Having the ability to score is one thing, possessing the will to stop the other team from doing so is what gets you the rings.

4. The three point shot Now this is an NCAA exclusive problem if you ask me. The NBA has it's share of unconscious three point shooters, but rarely do teams that rely solely upon the three point shot succeed deep into the post-season, a direct result of how good the league's defenders are. A zone defense is rarely implemented in the NBA (and only recently became legal), and when it is the intention is only to briefly change what an offense has to look at and is not used as a permanent strategy. The reason? Defenders in the NBA are so good one-on-one. They close out on shooters far better than their college counterparts, slide into double teams much faster and are better at switching off of ball screens and picks.

College kids don't have the same kind of defensive ability and thus have a tougher time getting a hand into a shooter's face. If you can shoot, you can shoot, and having more open shots means that more threes get put into the hoop in college basketball. This makes for a situation where teams are very hard to put away, even when you build a big lead, because a string of threes and a few defensive stops can swing the momentum within a few possessions. Duke has built it's dynasty on this competitive loophole throughout the years, because raining threes and playing better than average defense can build an elite program in college ball, but not the NBA.

Not only that, but the three point line itself is too close to the basket. Can we just back it up to NBA range already? The NCAA's best three point shooters, guys like Jimmer Fredette, won't be affected because they can hit from damn near anywhere inside the half-court line, so move the shot back and make things a little tougher for the average shooter. It will trim a few three pointers off the box score, make game-changing scoring runs a little less rare, and only make the game more competitive.

5. The regular season It just isn't what it used to be. I know the easy reaction here is to point out that post-season play in every sport is better than the regular season, which is true. More is at stake in the post-season, so players and coaches are more invested, the level of competition and talent is higher, and the chance to witness greatness is increased. College basketball benefits from this in spades, with perhaps the premiere post-season in sports thanks to the NCAA Tournament b.k.a. March Madness. The problem is that because the tourney is so captivating and because it grabs the attention of the sporting world so fully, it can render the college basketball regular season less-than watchable in its current state.

This is a result of a subtle combination of the four previous points I put forward, but that's not something you can tell the die-hard college basketball fan. But for a more rounded fan, or one that is focused more on other sports and leagues, I think the argument is valid. The college basketball regular season is but prelude to the tournament, and not much more. It can determine seeding and it's enjoyable to debate which "bubble" teams will or won't make the Big Dance, but the fact remains that the college regular season is only the appetizer to the fantastic drama, excitement, and exuberance of the NCAA Tournament.

I guess my point is, there's nothing wrong with holding off serious viewing until March begins. The conference tournaments and the NCAA tournament itself are what keeps me invested in college basketball, and I don't feel disconnected from the game or that I'm missing out on something important if I only watch my favorite team (or even if I do miss a Buckeye game here and there too). I don't feel this way about college or pro football, the NBA, or the MLB. For those sports and leagues I do feel out of the loop if I'm not on top of the ins and outs of all (read: most) teams and the regular season as a whole.

The only other sport or league that I only watch during the playoffs is the NHL, and you don't want your sport compared to hockey, do you college hoops fans? I jest hockey fans, I do like my sports on ice of course, but there is a serious danger in diminishing interest in your sport if your regular season is not must-see TV. It's the main reason I think that college basketball isn't on par with the games I watch more of, namely the NFL, NBA, and college football. If the NCAA doesn't start making some serious changes, March Madness will be all that's fit to watch.

That might be just fine for revenue, but it could end up putting college hoops on the verge of losing its heart and soul, something this writer hopes doesn't have to be the case. The hunger and drive of college players and the palpable ferocity of the student sections cheering their guys on is what makes college basketball great, but if the game turns into an increasingly watered-down one year try-out for the NBA, we as fans will all suffer in the long run.

SUPER SUNDAY

2011-02-04T01:21:00.004-05:00

The Super Bowl ceased being simply a football game a long time ago, and over the years has become an ad-hoc Amercian holiday. It's a day where we not only put the biggest game in our most popular sport on display, but put a lot of what it is to be an American on display as well. It's excessive, it's gaudy, it's borderline obnoxious--a lot like most of the people that inhabit the country in which we live.

It's just as much about the game of football as it is about our culture. A lot of folks tune in less for the game and more for the spectacle and the event the game has become. The commercials between plays and the halftime show are just as popular as the athletic competition going on on-field and give non-football fans a reason to watch and enjoy. And while we're on the subject of the halftime show, I know that after old Beatle Paul, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and The Who, the NFL needed some youthful exuberance for this year's game, but the effing Black Eyed Peas? I just hope Fergie doesn't wet herself on the world's biggest stage. Actually, I take that back, I hope she does.

So, with football fans already invested and the non-fan coming along for the ride, the Super Bowl gives all of us an excuse to cut loose on a Sunday night, getting up in the morning for work and a potentially brutal hangover be damned. We plan parties around Super Bowl Sunday and gorge ourselves on fatty food. We drink, we carouse, we gamble on the outcome of the game and how long the national anthem will run (among other things...god I love prop bets!).

In short, we do our damndest to be American as fuck. While that can have all sorts of drawbacks, I have to tell you that Super Bowl Sunday is one of my favorite days of the year.

Football is king in American sports, by a long shot. It's the most lucrative and popular of our sports, even though it may not be our National Pastime just yet (keep your head up baseball, diamonds are forever!). Because of that, it attracts a boat-load of media coverage in the sporting world and beyond (there are estimates that there could be up to 5,000 members of the media at the game on Sunday). And with all that attention, you know everybody's got an opinion on what will happen this Sunday in Dallas, when the Pittsburgh Steelers take on the Green Bay Packers for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and a place in NFL history.

I know that for the casual or non-fan, this year's game doesn't have the cache of last year's Super Bowl match-up. There isn't a team with the hopes of a hurricane-ravaged city riding on the outcome of the game like last year's Saints or a product-hocking, commercial-starring, SNL-hosting star QB like Peyton Manning of last year's Colts, but this year's contest does feature perhaps the two most storied franchises in football history. The Steelers are the kings of the Super Bowl era, with 6 Lombardi trophies, while the Packers, led by that same Lombardi, made Green Bay the original title town, ruling the NFL's pre-Super Bowl era with nine championships before adding three more Super Bowl victories.

What we have this year is a football fan's football game. These are two teams that are very, and I do mean very evenly matched, with a toughness and historical allure born not just of their success, but also of their cities' cold weather style of play and working-class attitudes (in fact, Green Bay is the only franchise in sports still owned by the city itself). I spent last post taking a look at the two teams' quarterbacks, who are a couple of the best the NFL has to offer, including one in Big Ben Roethlisberger that is vying for his third Super Bowl title in his short but productive career. But beyond the QB position, there is still more parity to be found, especially on the defensive side of the ball.

Both teams play similar brands of defense under coordinators Dick LeBeau (Pittsburgh) and Dom Capers (Green Bay). They're aggressive, violent, and versatile. They can get after the passer, stuff the run, and cover the field, and it's no coincidence that the two teams have made it to the last game of the season considering how well they play on defense. Each team boasts phenomenal statistics to back up their play and both are littered with some of the league's best players on defense. In fact the two teams' two brightest stars, Troy Polamalu and Clay Matthews Jr., just finished one-two in a tight race for Defensive Player of the Year honors, with Troy taking home the trophy.

The Steelers are led by that aforementioned one-man-wrecking-crew Polamalu, who for those of you who just watch the commercials is the guy with the flowing mane of curly black hair that stars in all those Head-and-Shoulders ads. Polamalu is a freestyling safety that leads a defense that also boasts a Super Bowl hero and NFL fine magnet in James Harrison, a shut-down corner in Ike Taylor, and myriad other big-time guys like James Farrior and Ryan Clark, just to name a couple.

Likewise, the Packers are led by another guy known for his long hair and the second place DPOY vote getter in Mr. Matthews, who rings more bells than a church at high noon and is joined by veteran playmakers like former Little Giant Charles Woodson, solid role players like AJ Hawk, the hip-shaking NFC Championship game hero BJ Raji (wait, AJ, BJ, I guess killin' with initials is kind of the GB M.O. Get it?), along with playoff interceptor extraordinaire Tramon Williams.

Each defense boasts the talent and schemes to give any offense nightmares, so I think it's fair to say that it's a push as far as who has the advantage. It's going to be up to the two teams' offensive units to face down these brutal defensive attacks, and it's this writer's belief that the team that does the better job of taking care of the football and making the big play when it must be made is going to be the victor in Dallas.

It's the reason I'm picking the Green Bay Packers to win the Super Bowl, 27 - 21.

I know that Big Ben has the Super Bowl pedigree and nobody runs on the Steelers defense (take a look at that per game average, mama mia), but I believe that Aaron Rodgers will end up out-playing his competition at the quarterback position and that the Packers resurgent running game (led by the out-of-nowhere talent of James Starks) will balance their attack just enough to let one of the league's most dynamic receiving corps do it's thing on the fast track inside the new Cowboys Stadium and propel the Pack to another championship.

Rodgers is playing out of his damn mind right now and he's throwing to the likes of Greg Jennings, Donald Driver, James Jones, and Jordy Nelson (though I could go on...), a fearsome foursome that has both big-play potential and possession-saving good hands. Just imagine if stand-out tight end Jermichael Finley were healthy right now and not bitching about not being in the team picture. The Packers' air attack would only be more lethal.

It will come down to Rodgers making big plays on O when he has to (and maybe some that don't feel that big at the time--say a field goal drive just before halftime perhaps...) and someone like Charles Woodson or Clay Matthews providing a game-changing moment on D that will seal it for Green Bay down the stretch. Hell, if Clay's little brother Casey can almost make the biggest play of the National Championship game for the Oregon Ducks, who's to say that another Matthews can't do the same, this time with a better result? He's gotta be feeling slighted by losing out to Polamalu for Defensive Player of the Year too, as if the guy needs any added motivation.

I know that the Steelers have their weapons on offense too (I see you Mike Wallace), and I do think that the superiority of their running game and Roethlisberger's knack for showing up in the big moment make a solid case for their being the better team on Sunday, but I just have to go with the Pack. I think Green Bay will end up doing more with their offensive possessions and scoring opportunities, enough to edge out the Steelers and keep Big Ben from that legend-making third ring.

So there you have it Hipsters, if you're still with me. I'm sure most of you just read up until my lead-pipe-lock pick of a 27 - 21 Packer victory and are already on the phone to your bookie, considering how on-point my argument is...

Oh, you're still here? Well, enjoy the game you ungrateful crumbsnatcher. Don't forget I told you so and save some of that buffalo chicken dip from your Super Bowl party for your boy, that stuff is too good.

CONTRASTING STYLES

2011-01-27T13:05:00.001-05:00

After a long NFL season and an exciting and somewhat surprising playoff run, the match-up for this year's Super Bowl is finally set. We've got quite a bit of time to go over every storyline, statistic, and shit-talking salvo in the next week and a half, so I thought before I got into a full-on Super Bowl preview and revealed my pick for the game's outcome, I would take a long look at the guys who play quarterback for each team.

The two players we're talking about here, Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers and Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers, are men of contrasting styles and characters for the most part, and are definitely going to dominate many of the headlines as the Super Bowl draws closer. Rodgers and Roethlisberger are both talented and capable quarterbacks who have steered their teams through the long, arduous journey of the NFL season and planted their flags firmly in Dallas, where the Super Bowl will be played in the tricked-out house that Jerry Jones built.

Aside from Michael Vick, there is perhaps no other quarterback in recent memory that has been in the headlines for the wrong reasons more than Ben Roethlisberger. Big Ben seems to have some uh...you might say...trouble getting along with the ladies, as he followed a dust-up with a female paramour in Lake Tahoe in 2008 with an eerily similar encounter during the 2010 off season in Georgia. I should be clear here and state that Roethlisberger has never been convicted or even charged with any criminal wrong-doing in either case, though there were civil accusations in 2009, which followed around a year after the 2008 incident and are still pending.

Of course, the NFL has their own justice system. Roethlisberger was suspended for the first six games of this season for violating the NFL's personal conduct policy, but ended up serving a reduced penalty of only four games because of a vague belief by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell that he had displayed good behavior during his time of woe. So, Ben sat out four games and the Steelers went 3-1 in his absence. Just as he had deftly avoided so many defenders in the past, Ben similarly stiff-armed a couple of twenty-something female accusers and faced few on-field consequences in the process--he is playing in the damn Super Bowl for chrissakes.

With all that out of the way, I think the guy's pretty much a creep. Roethlisberger has always been a standoffish, brooding lout toward the media and general public, (not to mention his hometown in Ohio) but that coupled with now repeated suspicious incidents with college-age women makes for a guy that is certainly not on my list of favorite athletes. If there's one thing that can't be excused, it's being a bully towards women, and that should be an especially important rule if you're nearly six and a half feet tall and right around 250 pounds. I don't have time to go over the ins and outs of those cases, but if you'd like to learn more, you can click here and here and read for yourself (although some of the info you might wish to know about the incident in Georgia did go missing rather mysteriously...).

I never want to be one to judge at a distance, but when you're talking about sports it becomes hard to avoid that particular vantage point. I don't know the guy personally, but I think that his track record with women, even from a removed perspective, doesn't exactly jibe with the prevailing social sentiments towards the matter. He just has that aura about him now, and no matter how much you believe that people can change, and I surely do, there hasn't been enough time passed or difference in Roethlisberger's demeanor right now for me to be on his side. And this is coming from a guy who has respect for Mike Vick's turnaround.

The point here is that Ben has incurred a rather large amount of personal baggage over the last couple of years, while in the meantime risen to the top of the heap at his position and collected two Super Bowl championships in the process. A guy with a surly attitude and a predilection for intimidating the opposite sex is hard to root for, but there is no way to argue that Roethlisberger hasn't excelled at the quarterback position. He's got two rings and he's only twenty-eight. That's one less than and one more than the two guys that always get brought up as being the pinnacle of the QB position, they being Tom Brady and Peyton Manning respectively.

Ben doesn't put up their kind of numbers statistically, but he definitely wins football games and has proven his mettle as a clutch performer that makes the big plays down the stretch, when the outcome of a game is on the line. The drive he engineered at the end of the 2009 Super Bowl to beat the Arizona Cardinals was breathtaking and the one that killed the rest of the clock in this year's AFC Championship Game against the New York Jets was another example of his ability to face down the big moment and will his team to a win.

I've always been one to defend Peyton Manning despite his lack of big game "moments", the kind that can make or break a QB's legacy, but if you look at Brady, Roethlisberger, and Manning, I think you have to put them in that order as far as the best in the game. Big Ben's rings and his clear-cut mastery of the game's most important moments put him ahead of Manning's jaw-dropping statistical dominance and MVP trophies (Brady meanwhile, trumps them both by possessing a stunning combination of clutch performances, championship rings, and stats for days).

So I don't like him, but Roethlisberger has proven to me that he's one of the game's elite QB's, and as a football fan, I can't say I'm disappointed that he's in the Super Bowl. He can only make the game more exciting and competitive for one, and his troubled past makes for some added juice if you happen to write a blog about sports.

On the other side of the ball two Sundays from now will be a player that has both a boat-load of athletic talent and nothing but my utmost respect and admiration. The former will help him more than the latter as far as the Super Bowl goes, but Aaron Rodgers is both the kind of QB that general managers swoon over and the kind you want to knock a few beers back with, as cliche as that might sound. Rodgers is now in his third year as an NFL starter and has already proven that he's a playoff performer and leader of men, the kind of QB that can get his team to the biggest game of the season, this year and beyond.

The Packers played their way into the playoffs over the last few games of the season, with each being a do-or-die contest as far as their post-season hopes were concerned. After that, they only beat the Philadelphia Eagles, dismantled the Atlanta Falcons with a historic performance by Rodgers, and outlasted a gutty Chicago Bears team--all on the road--on their way to the Super Bowl against the Steelers. Rodgers beat the resurgent Michael Vick in Philly, went 31 for 36 with 366 yards and 3 touchdowns against the Falcons, and while he wasn't overwhelming against the Bears, made every big play he had to, gutting out a vicious hit by Julius Peppers and making a touchdown-saving tackle on Brian Urlacher after throwing an interception.

Rodgers's playoff run not withstanding, he also put the injury riddled Packers on his shoulders all season long, emerging as the top quarterback in the NFC down the stretch (all apologies to Mr. Vick). He did so without his starting tight-end and running back for practically the entire year, all the while throwing masterful passes and making play-saving runs in the shadow of Brett Favre. The Packers were Favre's team, but right now there isn't a man, woman, or child in Green Bay that would take Favre back for all the whiskey in Ireland (ahem, hate to say I told you so but...). These are the new Packers, and they don't need a salt-and-pepper drama queen to steer the ship anymore. They've got a throttling defense and number 12 behind center and as-such aren't messing around these days.

On top of his ability, Rodgers is easy to root for because of how well he has handled everything during his NFL tenure. Coming out of college at California, Rodgers was initially projected as the number one overall pick by most prognosticators. As draft day neared, things started to shift and the whole country watched as the guy who should've had the shortest stay on the draft board slipped all the way to number 24, where the Packers took Rodgers to back-up the at that time still vibrant Brett Favre. Rodgers took it all in stride and did his duty as Favre's back-up. When he was finally named starter and Favre un-retired to try and take his old job back, he was equally calm and collected, allowing the drama to pass by and assuming his new role with class and restraint.

After that, the dood just went off. He has played increasingly well in all three years as the Packers' starter and has proven to be as tough and upstanding a guy as his past behavior had intimated. Not only that, but he's just as passionate and exuberant as Favre was in his heyday. Rodgers is hard on teammates but well-liked by all, displaying a love of the game with a consistent on-field smile and a pro-wrestling championship belt celebration for his TD's (which culminated with a fantastic, nuanced rendition during the NFC Championship game against the Bears where Rodgers merely pointed to his waist). He's playing and acting like a world champ, and is now in the position to make it happen.

Like I said before, you don't want to try and feel like you know a professional athlete too well from a spectator's view, but unlike Roethlisberger, Rodgers has a respectful, professional way of doing things that leads to him being one of this writer's favorite players to watch. Don't give me that cancer patient, autograph-dodging stuff either (if you don't know what I'm talking about, click here and check out the video. It looks bad, I know, but the woman involved doesn't have any hard feelings and Rodgers has obliged her with many an autograph in the past). Rodgers is a man of character on and off the field and unlike the man he replaced in Green Bay and the one he'll face in the Super Bowl, doesn't crave or disgracefully attract the limelight whatsoever.

As I discussed in my recent post on the quarterback position, teams with stellar QB's have a nose for the Super Bowl, and much of a team's success rides on who is taking the snaps. Rodgers and Roethlisberger were the deciding factors in their teams' victories on Championship Sunday, where both the Packers and Steelers were evenly matched defensively against the Bears and Jets. The four QB's lined-up with four equally impressive defensive units, and the two quarterbacks left standing are the two that were better than their opponent at the position when it mattered most (although Jay Cutler did miss the entire second half of the Packers/Bears contest with a knee injury--and by the way Jay, everyone's watching now so don't take the stairs man!).

It's my opinion that we're in for a Super Bowl with a similar set-up. With the Matthews/Woodson led Packers and the Polamalu/Harrison led Steelers battling each other on defense, it will be up to Rodgers and Roethlisberger as to which team's offense will win the day, and most likely the game. While I think you know who I'm going to be rooting for, there's no doubt that the quarterbacks in this year's Super Bowl will be a joy to watch as they compete for the ring and a study in contrasting styles that will hopefully make for an exciting and dramatic Sunday in February.

THE WAY THE BALL BOUNCES

2011-01-19T00:31:00.004-05:00

There is a great lineage of "what if's" in sports that many of us can relate to from experiences in our own day-to-day lives. It isn't just the pivotal moments that could've gone one way and not the other, nor is it simply the paths that we've chosen to walk down when others were there to be traveled. Instead, it is the cumulative effect of both that leads us to where we're at and who we are. In life it can define our sense of self, while in sports, it often defines an athlete's legacy, shaping how they are remembered and how we as a sporting public view their accomplishments.

As the NBA trade deadline looms a few weeks down the road, one name that continues to pop-up has definitely made me think of what could have been as far as a player's career and legacy are concerned. I'm talking about Steve Nash, the two-time league MVP point guard for the Phoenix Suns, whose name is at the center of trade talks to a variety of teams that could most definitely benefit from his services. While my man Ian Thomsen can tell you it makes no sense for the Suns to trade Nash if they want to win now, I certainly hope they understand that their chances at success in the West are dwindling by the day. That way, they can let Steve find a happier home and get their rebuild project going now instead of later.

Full disclosure: I love Steve Nash's game. He is one of the most accurate three-point shooters I've ever seen at the point guard position and is perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the modern NBA's crackdown on hand checking. Giving a guy with his quickness, vision, and playmaking ability free motion off the dribble is damn near criminal, evidenced by the way he weaves in and out of the lane, even under the basket and back, to find open teammates or a good look at his own shot. He has everything you could want in a point guard and his career statistics get gaudier by the year. At the end of the day, we're talking about a back-to-back league MVP that will sure-as-shit be in the basketball Hall of Fame (oh yeah, he's tough as nails too, click here if you need some proof).

Nash is closing in on 37 though, damn-near ancient as far as NBA players go, and while he is a no-doubt hall-of-famer and one of the greatest point guards of his generation, Nash's career is an acute study in what might have been. He came into the league by traveling a unique path: he's Canadian, went to a small college (Santa Clara) and was largely unheralded on the national scene when he was drafted with the 15th pick by the Phoenix Suns in 1996. After a couple of less than impressive seasons with the Suns, they shifted him to Dallas, where the spry Canuck flourished alongside seven-foot sharp-shooter Dirk Nowitzki.

Things went well in Dallas and the team was on the rise, but after the '04 season, Dallas owner Mark Cuban decided to let Nash move on in free agency, when he landed back with the team that drafted him, the Phoenix Suns. In retrospect, this was a crucial move for both parties involved. Cuban obviously didn't think it was worth it to match the Suns' offer and probably felt more comfortable moving forward with extra cash on hand to build around the younger Dirk. Nash did what was better for him financially, taking the Suns offer of more money and more years on the deal. It's a shame too, because it sure looks like Dirk and Steve had good times on and off the court...

In all seriousness though, I think if you asked Cuban and Nash, they would both tell you they wished they could have worked things out. The Mavericks have been to the Finals and lost, but other than that have found themselves step-brother to the real titans of the Western Conference like the Lakers and Spurs. Nash meanwhile has found himself in a similar situation, reaching only as far as the Conference Finals in his second tenure with Phoenix. Together, Nowitzki and Nash might have built a team to rival LA and San Antonio, but apart, both parties have failed to reach the promised land.

It's one of those things, in life and in sports, where diverging paths most certainly would have led to different outcomes. Instead of being part of a stellar team in Dallas, Nash finds himself swimming with small fish from the NBA talent pool in Phoenix, especially now that Amare Stoudemire has bolted for New York to join the Knicks as their go-to guy. Interestingly enough, most prognosticators led us to believe that Stoudemire would most certainly miss Nash in NY, but after his MVP-like start to the season, it seems more and more apparent that Nash is the one who misses his big man in the middle, and not vice versa.

Nash is now left to wonder about another move, perhaps to chase a championship if he can have any say in the matter. It's sad to think that Nash's legacy will be one as the best two-time MVP to never play in (let alone win) an NBA Finals, but it's the hand that been dealt him to this point in his career. Success in sports is just as much luck and happenstance as it is ability and desire to win, and Nash has come face to face with this reality in the twilight of his career. It can happen to anybody if you think about it. Talent, ability, and intelligence are sometimes no match for luck, advantages, and the cold hand of fate in all walks of life.

Perhaps creating the most daunting obstacle for Nash is the sport he happens to play. The NBA, more than any other major American sport, is a top-heavy league where only a handful of teams have the talent and pedigree to make a run at the title. Nash has honestly never been on one of those teams. You could argue that the Mavs had a chance at one point, considering their Finals appearance, but the way they folded in that series against the Heat says a lot about what it takes to win, and I'm not sure that even Nash could have put that team over the top. Similarly, the Suns have never played enough defense or had the depth to contend, despite Nash's brilliance.

In the years following the Mavericks Finals appearance, when the Lakers and Spurs were facing a bit of an identity crisis in alternating seasons, the Mavericks could have moved in for the kill with Nash and Nowitzki, but now that's all just speculation. Speculation that I can assure you has cost Steve Nash a few nights of restful sleep. I don't want to try and get inside of his head too much, but I think we all know that regret is a part of life that can drive you crazy if you let it, and in sports, where championships determine legacy more often than not, I'm sure that regret can reach levels unknowable to the general public.

So what's next for Nash? He is on a team that is going relatively nowhere--a playoff team, but not a contender. The Suns and Nash have to know that it's not going to happen, so shifting him before the trade deadline this season would be a boon to the aging superstar and perhaps the Suns as well in the long term. What I hope is that Nash is afforded the opportunity to find a contender with some money to burn and a few draft picks to let go of, so the Suns get something for him and he has a shot at a ring. At 37, Nash is in incredible shape and still has a spectacular game to go along with an obvious hunger to win.

Let's just hope he finally gets to eat at the big kids' table before all is said and done.

HEEDING THE VOICE

2011-01-04T00:19:00.010-05:00

So I took some time away from The Hip for the holidays and a whole lot has happened since the last time I put fingers to keys. The NBA season is hitting its stride, college hoops have begun in earnest, the Winter Classic went down on a cold night in Pittsburgh, and the college football bowl season has damn near reached its end. Beyond all of that, the biggest story that popped up from my perspective is of course the suspension of five members of the Ohio State Buckeyes football team for the first five games of the 2011 season.

The news broke on my birthday, December 23rd, and as an unmitigated Buckeye fan, there was nothing that could've spoiled my born day more. Not only did I learn that five members of my favorite team in all of sports would miss the first five games of next season, but I learned that among them were the Buckeyes' top running back, wide receiver, and our star quarterback, Terrelle Pryor. The players involved in the suspensions were found to have sold several of their trophies and awards earned during their college careers and to have traded autographs for tattoos and other discounts.

After the shock wore off, I started thinking more and more about the situation from a non-Buckeye fan perspective. The whole thing leaves me confused, angry, and frustrated. I was of course disappointed in the guys from my team for making some truly bonehead moves, but as a guy that follows sports and especially college football with a religious enthusiasm, I can't help but be most puzzled with the increasingly hypocritical way in which the NCAA doles out punishment.

First of all, the players involved in the scandal will be permitted to play in the team's bowl game, the Sugar Bowl, which takes place tomorrow night in New Orleans against the Arkansas Razorbacks. As a fan, I want nothing more than to see my guys get to play, but as a realist, I know in my heart that if they're going to miss the first five games of next season, there is no earthly reason they should be allowed to play in the bowl game, which if you believe what the NCAA consistently tells the media, is a reward to the school and in particular the players for a spectacular season on the gridiron.

The student athletes from OSU involved in this whole shitstorm do not, in my eyes, deserve anything resembling a reward for what they have done. It turns out that the violations they are being punished for occurred in 2009 and that the items that they sold for thousands of dollars are awards and trophies that include those given to them for past bowl appearances as members of the Buckeye football team. Now that just doesn't smell right from the jump, but it stinks for more reasons beyond the obvious (that being the fact that they sold-out on the rewards previously given them, only to be rewarded with another bowl appearance and a list of new swag that comes to all athletes participating in bowl games).

Pushing beyond the fact that the players will be allowed to participate in the game and collect its accompanying perks, the whole situation raises numerous red flags because of the way the NCAA continues to shift the way it punishes schools and athletes according to the ring of theirs and the television networks' cash registers. The bowl games are incredibly big business, bringing in millions of dollars for the schools, networks, the NCAA and of course, the organized crime syndicate that calls itself the Bowl Championship Series.

If Boom Herron, Devier Posey, and Terrelle Pryor hadn't been Ohio State's leading runner, receiver, and pass-thrower respectively, I doubt that we would see them tomorrow night in the Sugar Bowl. But because the bowl system is reliant on television contracts and the resulting revenue, the players will be on display because of their star-power and to ensure a more competitive game. The Sugar Bowl president has already come forward and said as much, and I'm sure ESPN (who will broadcast the game) is thinking the same thing to themselves, even as they devote their networks' echo-chamber to reporting the story ad nauseum.

This whole situation stinks to high heaven, but it isn't the first time the NCAA has picked and chosen who to punish and to what extent. What I keep coming back to in regards to the institutions and athletes involved is my old man's favorite words of advice:

Heed the voice.

My father is always ready with a piece of advice when I need it, but usually boils things down to that simple dictum in more cases than not.

What he means by that is: get to know your conscience, because it has an uncanny ability to steer you in the right direction. The voice inside your head seems to be indelibly linked to your brain's moral compass, no matter how often yours points towards the right thing to do. It's a simple acid test anytime you're faced with a decision between right and wrong. Despite any rationale or gimmick you may use to force yourself into the wrong move, that voice, that immutable internal dialogue that is always going on in your head, it knows which decision is the right one. It's up to us all to listen and act accordingly.

That said, the players involved in this scandal had to know that they were making bad decisions, even if they felt they were not in the wrong (for though they have apologized, some have indicated that the items sold were theirs after all, and they do have families back home that might be struggling). Selling the trophies and awards you've earned, no matter what the reason you may give, is wrong however, and their internal voices all knew it.

Not only that, but getting tattoos in exchange for jerseys or autographs or their notoriety in general (which are among the other NCAA violations that resulted in punishment) is wrong, and they knew that too. It doesn't matter if a coach or advisor hasn't spelled out the letter of the NCAA law to the players regarding such actions, they knew what they were doing was wrong. They had to have known and as such, deserve whatever punishment follows.

But that doesn't mean they're the only ones misreading their moral compasses. The NCAA and the BCS are made up of boards and committees, which are in turn made up of individuals. The individuals who make the decisions that govern these institutions prove in this case and many others (AJ Green comes to mind) that they refuse to heed the voice as well. They have to know that they have created a corrupt, money-hungry system that does not reward the student athlete, the university, or the fan, but instead continues to pad their pockets and increase their level of power over college football and in a broader sense, college athletics as a whole.

Perhaps they are listening to a voice, but it is the ghostly howl of dead presidents, not the admonishing din of their collective consciences.

By allowing the five suspended Buckeyes to play in the Sugar Bowl and by sweeping the allegations against the sport's biggest star, Cam Newton (who you may remember from a couple posts back...), under the rug because of his team's appearance in the National Championship Game, the NCAA and the BCS are ignoring the cause of morality and justice in order to garner the highest possible ratings and reap the continuing financial gains that are a direct result of the on-field ability of the student athletes involved in the games in question.

There are now generations-old debates about whether student athletes (especially those involved in the two big money-making sports - basketball and football) should be paid a stipend in addition to their scholarships while attending school, but I don't think I've got time to sort all of that out in a book, let alone a blog post. All I will say is that if you're going to make near-criminal amounts of money off of these kids and expect them not to do a bit of paper chasing of their own, you're delusional at best and outwardly hypocritical at worse.

Sure, my knucklehead Buckeyes didn't heed the voice, but they only learned that ignorance from their NCAA and BCS parents, who never stood on the kind of moral ground necessary to offer that sage piece of the old man's advice.

LESS IS MORE

2010-12-16T02:04:00.007-05:00

The biggest name in baseball free agency decided not to sign a contract with the New York Yankees this off season.

I know, right?

Instead, Cy Young award-winner and certified ace Cliff Lee opted to sign a five year, $120 million contract with the Philadelphia Phillies, who already own one of the the most talent-laden starting rotations in Major League Baseball. That rotation, which already includes Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels, has just transcended the formidable and is now bordering on the historic. The Lee-to-Philly deal is intriguing for a lot of reasons, but I think the most important thing we can take away from Clifton's decision to play for the Phillies and not the Yanks (or the Rangers) is that sometimes, money isn't everything.

That's a pretty amazing thing to consider with the way professional sports (and especially baseball) usually works, where the highest bidder offering the most lucrative contract nearly always gets their man. The Yankees have made a living off of this heretofore certainty of the paper chase, reeling in big name free agent after big name free agent year-in and year-out. The Yankees always pull in proven talent through free agency because they are one of the most powerful franchises in all of sports with one of its biggest checkbooks.

The fact that Lee spurned the Yanks and the Rangers to play for the Phillies says a lot about the guy if you ask me, and as a die-hard Yankee-hater, it damn near warms my heart. There's an old saying that only two types of people like the Yankees: those from the Bronx and complete assholes. I've always subscribed to this theory, especially growing up a Detroit Tigers fan, because up until realignment and the advent of the wild card spot in the MLB playoffs, the Yankees shared a division with my Tigers in the old AL East. I don't like the Yankees and I never have. I don't like the way they try (and often succeed) to buy World Series titles and their big money bullying tactics -- tactics they use to consistently rob small and mid-market teams of a shot at big name free agents.

It's why Lee signing with the Phillies is such a wonderful off season baseball headline. Lee went where he wanted to go, leaving around $30 million on the table and taking fewer years on his contract to play where he wanted to. He's bounced around quite a bit over the last few years, including a stop in Philadelphia two years back, where he buoyed the Phils to a World Series appearance against the Yankees and was then traded away to the Mariners in the off season. The Mariners shifted him to the Rangers during last season, where he again found himself in the World Series, this year against the Giants.

The Rangers also did their damndest to keep one of baseball's best post-season pitchers around, but Lee turned down more money from them as well, doing what was best for him personally and career-wise instead of chasing more money in Texas or New York. Athletes so rarely go this route, and so rarely spurn the Yankees, that Lee's landing in Philadelphia is equal parts surprising and refreshing.

I have always maintained that I think it unfair to characterize all athletes as money-hungry jerks because I don't think that folks in other professions would turn down more lucrative positions and career paths in favor of their best personal interests either. We tend to criticize athletes for pursuing the opportunity to make the most money, but people in all walks of life and in all professions behave in much the same manner for the most part. Following your bliss can often be derailed by the lure of the almighty dollar, and athletes are not alone in succumbing to it's siren song.

Following what you want to do and not what your bank statements say you should is a tough decision to make and one I can do nothing but commend Cliff Lee for. He has recently stated that he never wanted to leave Philly in the first place and is happy as a clam to be back with the Phillies. If you look at the starting rotation he is a part of now, it isn't hard to see why.

Halladay, Lee, Oswalt and Hamels could all occupy (and in the past have occupied) the top spot in just about any rotation in baseball if they wanted to, but now they all find themselves wearing the same uniform. This is a scary thought for any team in the NL East and probably the entire National League, with many a sports pundit already proclaiming the Phils the prohibitive favorite to reach the World Series in 2011.

Halladay is arguably the best pitcher in baseball (for those with short memories, he's the dood that threw a no-hitter in this year's playoffs), and is now surrounded by three other pitchers (and Joe Blanton in the five spot, I see you big fella...) that are also among the league's most dominant arms. Baseball analysts like Tim Kurkjian (whom I love) and Bob Costas (whom I don't so much, but is one of the sharpest minds baseball has to offer) are already calling the Philadelphia rotation one of the greatest in baseball history, which makes Lee's decision an even more eye-grabbing headline.

I think that Lee's move to Philly is going to pay dividends during baseball's long regular season for all of the obvious reasons, and I'll go one step further to say that it will only make the Phillies a more dominant force in the postseason. I just don't buy the argument that you need four or five solid pitchers during the season, but only three in the post season.

Having Hamels as the number four option during a playoff run can eliminate many tough decisions that might present themselves should one of the other three starters be looking at pitching on short rest. The Phillies not only have a dominant staff in this sense, but a flexible one to boot. The rotation's depth can alleviate headaches that scheduling and travel can create, and make skipper Charlie Manuel's job all the easier in 2011.

So the Phils are freaking loaded now (sheesh, we haven't even talked about their line-up, which is also laden with All-Star talent like Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard...) and the Yankees are in big, big trouble. They lost out on free agency's other big name too, that being Carl Crawford, who signed with the rival Boston Red Sox (who also added All-Star Adrian Gonzalez) and are now a team without the bat they wanted and the front-line pitcher they desperately needed.

The Yankees' rotation is as shaky as Philly's is solid, with CC Sabathia anchoring a staff that might have to follow him with only Phil Hughes and A.J. Burnett if Andy Pettitte decides to hang up his cleats. The Yankees are now forced to turn to the trading block, and will most likely have to part ways with many young prospects (most notably catcher Jesus Montero) in order to do so. They also recently signed Russell Martin, another catcher, which leads this writer to believe that Montero and many other fine young players will get the ol' Austin Jackson treatment and find themselves in another team's farm system post-haste.

Oh yeah, the Yanks just signed Mark Prior (of the glass-armed Priors) too. Panic, thy name is Brian Cashman. It looks like Cliff Lee's decision to skip the Bronx is going to have some very interesting aftershocks in New York and if you can't tell from the previous body of this post, I am smiling a very large smile as a result.

Clifton gets what he wants, the Yankees don't, and I'm talking baseball in the middle of football and basketball season. Gotta love the hot stove.

NEWTON'S LAWS

2010-12-10T01:20:00.001-05:00

So I've been holding back my opinon on Auburn QB phenom Cam Newton all year, but after watching him on the sidelines during the SEC Championship game and seeing the interview he just did with Chris Fowler for ESPN today, I just have to spout off.

I've said before that it's important not to be too hard on college athletes. They're young and inexperienced when it comes to the spotlight, the media, and their athletic prowess, so they're bound to slip up here and there and we should all treat them with a lower level of scrutiny than the pros that get paid to do what they do.

All that said, this kid is really starting to wear on my nerves.

There is no question in my mind that he's the best player in college football right now and that he is deserving of the Heisman Trophy, which he will undoubtedly win in a landslide on Saturday night in New York. The kid is doing things on the field that no one else is capable of right now (and yes, as an OSU fan and Terrelle Pryor apologist, that is hard to say), and the fact that his team is in the National Championship game with an undefeated record is testament to that.

What I don't like about Newton, and what I can't help but criticize the kid for, is his attitude. Everyone has heard the stories (and allegations) by now: he was caught buying a stolen laptop and then throwing it out the window when the cops showed up while playing for Florida, he had to high tail it out of Gainesville because he may or may not have cheated his way through school, his father openly shopped his services to schools like Mississippi State (and probably Auburn too) to the tune of $200,000 after Newton spent a year in Junior College.

That's a lot of heat on a guy who is barely old enough to drink a beer and is only in his Junior year of college. It's especially eyebrow-raising considering the size of his star on the football field and the profile that comes with being on one of the best teams in college football. Now, if it were me, and I was facing all of this media attention and was the subject of allegation after allegation about things that happened off the field, I think I would have a little bit of perspective. Even at that young age, I think I would realize that I needed to keep my head down and be as humble and as unassuming as possible for the duration of my career as a college quarterback.

Cam doesn't seem to feel the same way. He's been playing to the crowd all year after Auburn victories, strutting around the field and hamming it up for the student section (and cameras) with the whole world watching. That's all well and good I suppose, but "Cammy Cam Juice"? Come on dood. If you aren't familiar, that's a little concoction that Cam made on the sidelines during Auburn's rout of South Carolina in the SEC championship game. I guess it was some blend of Gatorade flavors. You know, the kind ten year old kids make when Mom leaves them alone at home with their buddies. Not only will Tracy Wolfson never live that one down, but it's also extremely lame, and nothing short of arrogant and attention grabbing.

Then there's the aforementioned interview with Fowler on ESPN, in which Newton repeatedly refers to himself in the third person and seems completely out of tune with the way folks are looking at him right now. Psst...Cam! Uh, it turns out you're in deep shit bro, so you might want to look up "contrite" in the old dictionary and see if you can act more like a man facing a laundry list of allegations and less an egomaniac who walks between the raindrops.

I'm sure he's being coached on what to say and more importantly, what not to, but he comes off like a guy who doesn't think he's done anything wrong and will never face any repercussions for the money his father was trying to squeeze out of Mississippi State (and who knows what other schools) during his second recruitment. Newton might be innocent, but I just can't believe that he had no knowledge of what was going on as far as the pay-for-play stuff. He had to have known something, if not everything, and if that's the case I would once again encourage a low profile. That means not talking about yourself in the third person and making "Cammy Cam Juice" on the sidelines. Ugh.

All of this amid the backdrop of what just happened to USC and Reggie Bush, who were stripped of a National Championship and a Heisman Trophy respectively for the gifts that Bush and his family received while he was playing at Southern Cal. Newton, the alleged $200,000 man, seems either to not have seen what happened to Bush, or not to care, and that just irks me to no end. It's possible he knows that he isn't coming back to play out his Senior season at Auburn next year and therefore doesn't give a rat's ass what happens once he's playing in the NFL, but that again points to a dizzying level of arrogance and an unabashed ambivalence towards the fate of the Auburn football program that are both equally galling.

As Bush could (and perhaps should) tell young Cam, it's not what happens to you, but the lasting damage you can do to your school when the dust finally settles and all of the wrongdoing comes to light. There are kids playing for USC right now that don't get to compete for a National Championship or go to a bowl, and they were playing high school football when Bush was taking money from agents and getting his parents set up in a cushy new house in southern California. At the end of the day, it is exactly this kind of disregard for the fate and feelings of others that I see in Cam Newton's actions that really grinds my gears.

Newton is a fantastic college quarterback and one helluva a fine athlete, but he seems to fall very short of what I would call an upstanding young man. He's cocky, brash, and bold, and while that might be all well and good for the country's best player under normal circumstances, in the wake of all the smoke that continues to build around his tenure in college, I think it's a bad M.O. to carry. The fires of controversy only seem to get warmer with each passing day for Cam, and he only seems to grow more defiant. I don't care if the NCAA has given him a bogus bill of good health as far as his eligibility is concerned, I flat out don't like the way he carries himself and I had to let the world (or at least the handful of folks who read this blog) know about it.

FINNEGAN'S WAKE

2010-12-02T00:27:00.003-05:00

While I try to keep Bo Jackson's Hip a place where variety is the norm, I can't help but write a second straight post on the NFL, considering what went down on Sunday afternoon in Houston, Texas. The Texans played AFC South rival Tennessee and while the headlines should have been about the battle for a divisional win and the wide-open race for the AFC South championship, all anyone can talk about is the on-field brawl that happened between Texans' wide receiver Andre Johnson and Titans' cornerback Cortland Finnegan.

Personally, I've never seen anything quite like the fight in my years watching football. Sure, corners and wide receivers like to go at it, but when helmets are ripped off and punches are thrown, we've definitely got something new on our hands.

Here's what it looked like, in case you missed it:

There's that old saying that familiarity breeds contempt, which is an apt description for the way a lot of teams in the same division begin to loathe one and other as the years and seasons go on in the NFL. Playing the other squads in your division twice each year leads to rivalries between teams and individual players, and the fight between Johnson and Finnegan could have happened a lot of places in the NFL. The fact that it happened between these two players is kind of expected, but also very surprising.

If you aren't familiar with Finnegan's ways, he is consistently bratty, physical, and cocksure. He's one of those athletes that lives to get under the other guy's skin, an attitude that is not rare for anybody that plays the cornerback position. Finnegan however, seems to revel in his bad boy persona. A year ago, when Sports Illustrated polled NFL players on who were the dirtiest guys in the league, Finnegan finished sixth. This wasn't surprising to most, and the kicker here is that ol' Cort made it known that he'd do his damndest to finish atop the poll the following year.

Not only is he a dirty dood, but he likes being that way and tries to use it as a psychological advantage against the receivers he covers week-in and week-out. Those sort of prodding tactics work against a lot of guys, but I never in my life thought I would see Andre Johnson be goaded into ripping Finnegan's helmet off and pounding him in the back of the head. Johnson is among the top three wide receivers in the league (you can shuffle among AJ, Larry Fitzgerald and Randy Moss as far as I'm concerned), and over eight seasons with the Texans has proven himself the epitome of class and high moral character.

At a position that is filled with outspoken divas throughout the league (T.O., Ochocinco, Randy Moss, Brandon Marshall, Braylon Edwards, et al), Johnson is a rare combination of freakish talent as a pass-catcher and unshaking modesty as a person. His teammates often comment on his lack of spotlight lust and his demure personality, so ruffling this big bird's feathers seems a particularly daunting task. But I guess when you're Cortland Finnegan (who is looking more and more like a redbone Pauly D these days), the power of your own brackish personality can try the patience of even the coolest of customers.

Okay, so the fight happened. The hockey-like, OMG, text your friends, "we're going to be watching video of this all week on ESPN", did-you-see-that fight, happened. Now, though it had a definite hockey feel to it, that sport condones fighting, if not outwardly encouraging it. The modern NFL is a horse of a different color though, if you look at recent fines and suspensions under commissioner Roger Goodell. We've seen this season that suspensions and big fines await anyone who cracks a defenseless receiver or leads with their helmet. Goodell and the NFL brass have made it very clear not only this season, but over the past few, that the Shield stands for something and that there's certain shit you just don't do on the gridiron these days.

So these two are definitely sitting out at least a game for all of this nonsense, right? Wrong.

Amazingly, each player was fined just $25,000 and neither will miss any game time (other than the quarter or so they already missed when ejected from Sunday's game) as a result of the fight. This has to be one of the most hypocritical decisions I've seen come out of the NFL front office in a very long time, and if you'll recall, I just made a very similar statement about a month ago when their new "policy" on big hits was "reinforced." If the aim of the league is to protect players and downplay the violent nature of the game, in what way does a light punishment for an all out slugfest help to do either?

The NFL has absolutely no excuse for not benching both of these guys for a game (at least) and doubling the amount of the fines levied. If you're going to take $25K from James Harrison almost every other week for the way he tackles people, you have to shut both of these players down for at least a game for ripping each others' helmets off and throwing down in the middle of the field of play--end of story.

Johnson in particular, though provoked by Finnegan, was raining haymakers with no concern for anyone watching in the stadium or at home, and for a league that has proven that it wants to polish it's violent image as much as possible as the years push on, there's just no way to justify this slap on the wrist. Slap on the wrist actually gives the action taken by the league too much credit. This was a kiss on the forehead, gift wrapped in cotton candy, and floated in on a cloud.

Johnson has a sterling reputation and apologized immediately for losing his cool, but the fact remains that he ripped a man's helmet off and started beating him senseless on the football field. You can't just let that go Roger Goodell, I don't care how you want to justify it. Some pundits are already pushing forth conspiracy theories that since the Texans play in the Thursday night game on the NFL Network, the two players were let off the hook so Johnson could let his star shine on the league's big money maker (obviously, letting Johnson out of a suspension left the league no choice but to do the same for Finnegan).

I'm personally not buying that, but I am buying the fact that the NFL just doesn't know what to do with itself these days. The league seems to be stuck between nostalgia for a bygone era where men were men and players were true gladiators, and a more tempered, safety-first, cuddly form of football that to this writer seems nothing short of nausea inducing. The NFL wants to protect the quarterback, rob defenses of their ability to be aggressive, and prevent the cloud of concussion related brain damage from tarnishing the league's image forever, but two guys fist fighting and trying to rip each others' heads off in front of a national audience is pretty much condoned? I don't get it, and I don't think a lot of other fans do either.

Make up your mind Mr. Goodell, because the fans already know why they love football, and it's got nothing to do with suspensions and fines. It's got everything to do with the ability of increasingly talented athletes and the violent contests they choose to take part in. We all know what we're getting into here--whether it be fan, player, owner, whatever--and we all keep coming back for more. The NFL needs to quickly decide what brand of violence it would like to market and to what degree it can continue to do so successfully.

The audience and their attitudes toward the game aren't going anywhere, and aren't changing anytime soon, so the league needs to stop leading us down disparate paths and hoping that we'll meet them somewhere in the middle. Football is king in American sports for a reason, even if the NFL doesn't want to admit what that reason is.

THAT'S MY QUARTERBACK

2010-11-23T01:18:00.006-05:00

Quarterback has been called the most difficult position in all of sports to succeed at. It is a position that requires athleticism, intelligence, resilience, and a bevy of leadership skills. If it isn't the most difficult position to master in sports, it is certainly the most important position on a football team, a fact that this season in the NFL has proven in spades.

When your QB is good, it covers up a lot of sins at other positions on the field and if he happens to be a world-beater, your QB can make your team a contender year-in and year-out, no matter how shaky your defense or the offensive weapons that surround him. Likewise, instability and inconsistent play from your quarterback is the surest road to failure and team-wide ineptitude you're likely to find.

All that said, let's take a quick trip around the league's most intriguing quarterback story lines and see why the guy behind center means so much to the fate of a franchise.

TOM BRADY AND PEYTON MANNING

If you're going to talk quarterbacks, these two are where you start. Statistically they're the best the league has to offer over the last decade or so, and the success of their respective teams is a direct result of their brilliance at the position. Lucky for sports fans, they have battled each other in a heated rivalry over the past ten-plus seasons and they also happened to meet on the field this past weekend, when the Indianapolis Colts fell to the New England Patriots 31 -28 in Foxboro Sunday afternoon.

Brady was his typical self - efficient, poised, and accurate - leading the Pats to victory over the Colts and keeping his team in a tie atop the AFC East division with the New York Jets. Brady has been incredible this season, which is typical (maybe he's channeling his inner Samson with that Beiber-like hairdo for even a little extra mojo in 2010...) and Manning has been equally stellar for the Colts, so it's no surprise that the game came down to the final minute as Indy came up just shy of yet another Manning come-back thriller.

Peyton threw an interception with the Colts in range for a game-tying field goal, but the fact that he pulled his team all the way back from a large deficit on the road with a shot to do so in the game's closing moments tells you all you need to know about the man as a quarterback. He was literally sickened as he spoke to reporters after the game and the match-up between New England and Indianapolis was a reminder to everyone around the league about how far your team can go with a great QB. The Pats and Colts have battled inexperience and injury respectively, yet both are among the few real contenders to have a shot at making the Superbowl this year.

MICHAEL VICK

The most controversial of any quarterback we will discuss here, Vick is a comeback story worthy of a Hollywood script. After his fall from grace following a conviction on funding an illegal dog-fighting ring, Vick took two years off to vacation at Leavenworth and spent a year as a back-up in Philly, but is now setting the league on fire and finds himself in the midst of MVP discussion. We've all got an opinion on Vick the person, which I've already been over myself, but you can't knock the man's hustle on the field of play.

His performance against the Redskins last Monday night was one of the greatest an NFL quarterback has ever produced, leading Hall of Fame QB and now ESPN analyst Steve Young to call it "the full fruition of the position", which is both a bit of unexpected poetry from an ESPN talking head and a telling assessment of Vick's abilities. Young is the hero quarterback hero of my youth as a 49ers fan and the absolute best when it comes to being a fantastic passer and a threat with your legs, so his praise carries a great deal of weight and goes to show just how far Vick has come from the guy who used to run first, pass second when he exploded out of Virginia Tech.

Vick and the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New York football Giants in Philly this weekend, taking over sole possession of first place in the NFC East and showing that Vick isn't all big plays and dazzling scrambles. He took a lot of tough hits and was limited to few of his signature big runs by the Giant defense, but was still able to use a new-found poise and control in the pocket to grind out a tough win. The victory over the Giants on Sunday says just as much about his ability as that fantasy football wet dream he dropped on the Redskins last week and has started even more murmuring about his MVP chances. Is he the league MVP? Not yet in my opinion, but if he keeps playing like this, he will be, and the Eagles will continue to fight with the Giants and the Atlanta Falcons in the discussion as to who is the class of the NFC.

BRETT FAVRE

Yep, I'm forced to give the ol' Gunslinger his time on this little piece of the internet, but while it should be in the same vein as Manning, Brady, and Vick, instead Favre is among the QB's who is helping to sink the hopes of his franchise in the 2010 campaign. It was supposed to be all good for Favre and the Minnesota Vikings this year. They were coming off a trip to the NFC championship game in 2009, with weapons on offense and a stout defense. But somewhere between Favre's aging bones and muscles giving out on him and a scandal having to do with pictures of Little Brett, things have completely derailed.

Today, the Vikings fired coach Brad Childress, who Favre has had a pretty much public feud with throughout this season. This comes on the heels of the Randy Moss Experiment going terribly wrong and Vikings players whispering to the media (anonymously and in my opinion completely cowardly) about how much they hated their coach. I'm guessing if Favre was playing like he was last year and the Vikings were 7-3 instead of an embarrassing 3-7, Chili would still have his job and Brett would be all smiles instead of completely devastated.

It proves that with great quarterback play, your team wins and your coach gets a contract extension and with bad quarterback play, your team shits the bed and your coach finds himself polishing up his resume. Favre may not deserve all of the blame in Minnesota, but the combination of his lackluster performance and his off the field drama has just about put the nail in the coffin for the Vikings' season and his career. I can't see Brett coming back for another year of this kind of BS and I can't say I feel bad for the arrogant old prick. I used to hold Favre in high regard, but all of that's gone now and trust me when I say I'm not the only one. Farewell 4, all over again.

ALEX SMITH/TROY SMITH/DAVID CARR/MATT MOORE/JIMMY CLAUSEN/BRIAN ST. PIERRE

The quarterback situation in San Francisco and Carolina is a lesson in what can go wrong when you don't really know who your starting quarterback is. In SF, they thought they had their guy in Alex Smith, but he underperformed and the 'Niners were winless through five games. Then he got hurt and Mike Singletary skipped right past his back-up David Carr (who is perhaps most famous as the Mickey Mouse of the NFL) and gave the keys to the car to former Heisman Trophy winner and Ohio State Buckeye Troy Smith.

Smith has had both ups and downs in his three starts, with a 2-1 record as the main man to show for it. He looked alright, then great, then confused - in that order - leaving head coach Mike Singletary steering what appears to be a steadily sinking ship in the 2010 season. He can't seem to decide who his man is and in the NFL that spells disaster. Just ask the fans in Carolina.

The Panthers haven't had any more luck than the 49ers when it comes to solidifying the QB position, dumping starter Matt Moore early in the season to give rookie Jimmy Clausen a shot at the job. Clausen has looked, how should I say, underwhelming at best and prompted head coach John Fox to bring in Brian St. Pierre to start Sunday's game against the Ravens. What's that? You haven't heard of Brian St. Pierre? That's because dood's been a stay at home dad for the last few years and has thrown about as many passes as I have in his short and unmemorable career as an NFL quarterback. St. Pierre got thrown to the wolves this past Sunday, and the results pretty much speak for themselves. The Ravens returned two St. Pierre interceptions for touchdowns, dominating the Panthers and proving once again that QB is king in the NFL.

VINCE YOUNG

Now here's a real doozy. Tennessee Titans' quarterback Vince Young has been through a lot in his short NFL career, going from Rookie of the Year to potential suicide victim to spoiled little brat in very short order. He looked like an NFL superstar in his first year in the league coming out of Texas, (something this skeptical writer didn't think was possible from jump street) but quickly lost his job to veteran Kerry Collins over the ensuing seasons. It's been an up and down road since then, with the two QB's trading the starting and back-up roles because of injury and performance issues.

Young seemed to have pulled himself together on and off the field this season, but the Titans have still underperformed. This all culminated in Young pretty much throwing his head coach under the bus after this week's loss to the Jaguars, a hissy fit that included (allegedly) throwing his jersey into the stands and skipping out on any post-game locker room or press activity and making for the door. He reportedly told his head coach Jeff Fisher that he was walking out on him because he refused to let Young back in the game after he injured his thumb during the Jaguars game.

Today the Titans announced Young has a torn ligament in his thumb, and this is what was told to Fisher on the sidelines. Young is now out for the season and likely wouldn't have been a very good option to go back into the game. The coach wasn't being a jerk and not letting his QB back in the game after an injury because of a poor performance, he was simply listening to what the training staff told him about Young's injury. But, big old baby that he is, VY decided Fisher was being a meanie and acted like a stubborn child. I'm guessing this spells the end for Young in Tennessee, and the end of the Titans' hope of a winning season. Did I mention that this is the team that just signed Randy Moss, too? Ugh.

So that finishes up a very cursory glance at the some of the NFL's quarterbacks, the good, the bad and the fugly. What it proves is that QB really is the most important position on the field in the NFL. Of the teams I talked about, guess which ones are looking at playoff berths and which ones are looking at a high draft pick in the 2011 draft? In ain't hard to tell who brings home the bacon for an NFL franchise, but to finish things up, let's look at the best teams in the NFL this season and check out who's throwing the ball around for them:

Baltimore Ravens - Joe Flacco
New York Jets - Mark Sanchez
New England Patriots - Tom Brady
New Orleans Saints - Drew Brees
Atlanta Falcons - Matt Ryan (Matty Ice if you're nasty)
Philadelphia Eagles - Michael Vick
New York Giants - Eli Manning
Pittsburgh Steelers - Ben Roethlisberger
Green Bay Packers - Aaron Rodgers
Chicago Bears - Jay Cutler
Indianapolis Colts - Peyton Manning

I think it's fair to say that from either their records, their pedigree, or both, these are the teams to beat right now in the NFL. If you run down the list, you're looking at 5 guys who already have at least one Superbowl ring (Brady has 3 and Big Ben has a pair) and a handful of young guys who were first round draft picks and are on the rise. Rodgers is perhaps the cream of the non-ring-having crop and it's no shock that the Packers just dismantled the Favre-led Vikings 31 - 3 on Sunday.

In summary, you need a guy at QB that can pick apart a secondary, make the big play when it must be made, and most importantly, be a leader. Football is a man's game and it requires an alpha-male at quarterback for the right things to happen for a football team.

There's just no way around it: if you want to win, you need a great QB.

GET YOUR FREAK ON

2010-11-03T00:37:00.003-04:00

Now that baseball season is over and the NFL just finished up a few days that show it simply refuses to get less entertaining as the season rolls on, I thought I'd split this post between the Giants' World Series victory and a discussion of some truly bizarre football headlines. Here we go...

MLB

The San Fransisco Giants are World Series Champions. Just let that sink in for a moment baseball fans. After fifty-plus years since their move from one coast to the other, the Giants won the World Series in short order on Monday night, making quick work of the Texas Rangers and their previously indomitable line-up of hard hitting American League bats. The Giant pitching was absolutely dominant this post-season and their ace hurler Tim "The Freak" Lincecum once again stared down the Ranger's Cliff Lee to wrap up the series in five games Monday in Arlington. Lincecum was absolutely brilliant Monday night, pitching a breathtaking 8 innings before allowing the Giants' real freak, Brian Wilson, to slam the door shut in the ninth and bring home a championship for this unlikely squad of Bay Area misfits.

Manager Bruce Bochy calls his club The Dirty Dozen and while his math is a bit off, his summation of their make-up and attitude is spot on. The Giants' barely snuck into the post-season on the last day of the regular season and then proceeded to laugh at any critic who questioned whether or not they should be there by beating the Braves, Phillies, and now the Rangers without breaking a sweat. The Giants' line-up didn't have nearly the pop that Texas boasted coming into the World Series, but they proved the old adage that pitching wins championships is as true as ever over the last week.

Not only Lincecum, but fellow young arms Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner (a truly spectacular athlete name, by the way) proved that the way to the title always goes through the pitcher's mound and are the backbone of a rotation that is going to wreak havoc on hitters for years to come if things shake out right. The Giants' hitters are a lot of no-namers (ahem, Cody Ross) and old pros that most thought washed up (ahem, series-winning home run hitter Edgar Renteria) that proved good enough to compliment their stellar pitching staff all the way to a championship in 2010.

And their hitting wasn't timely, sports media knuckleheads. I swear, if I hear one more talking head use the phrase "timely hitting" to describe when a team with less-than-heralded hitting prowess proves it can score runs I'm going to go straight Michael Douglas in Falling Down and get seriously destructive on my television and radio. What other kind of hitting is there that wins ball games? Hits with runners on base score runs and lead to victories, hits with them empty or swings and misses don't. That seems to me to be what the boys back home call "run-scoring," not "timely hitting". Ugh, the sports' media's reliance on tired cliches used to be charming and folksy, now it just seems unoriginal.

Before I get too bitter, congrats to the Giants on an incredible post-season and many cheers for the city of San Francisco for finally grabbing that World Series ring that has been so elusive all these long years.

On to the gridiron.

NFL

As far as bizarre weekends/beginnings of the week, I can't recall one more obviously head-scratching than what we've witnessed in the NFL over the past few days. There were a few surprises as far as outcomes on Sunday, the most glaring being the Jets goose egg against the Packers, but the fall-out from two losses by the Vikings and Redskins are what's really tilting the balance on the insanity scales right now.

The Minnesota Vikings fell to the New England Patriots on Sunday, a game that left Brett Favre in the fetal position on a cart on his way to the locker room and Randy Moss without a job. Favre got his clock-cleaned by the Patriots Myron Pryor, who caught him right under the chin and left the ol' Silver Fox dazed, confused, and damn near dead. As I watched Favre try to walk and then eventually be carted off the field, Onion-esque headlines danced through my head such as "New England Patriots Win, Kill Brett Favre".

Personally, I thought the injury was more serious, perhaps being a busted collar bone or some other more serious break, but it turns out Favre just needed stitches on his chin and some time to clear his head. I guess some cockroaches just won't die. Oh well, he isn't even the real story coming out of the Vikings loss, because his newly acquired and much needed game-breaking wide receiver Randy Moss was waived by the Vikings on Monday. For those of you who don't follow sports that closely, dood got fired.

And after this rant, it isn't exactly surprising.

Wow. For a guy that just got traded to the Vikings from New England three games ago for shooting his mouth off and an eerily similar rant during a presser after the Pats won in week one, this was a ballsy move. But this is Moss. This is what you get to go along with his hall-of-fame talents, a hall-of-shame mouth. Moss has been mired in controversy since the infancy of his career and he has never been one to shy away from telling the press how he feels, but this is some next-level shit, even for 84. He throws his current team under the bus, glows about his former team that just handed the Vikes a loss, and tells the room that he will be interviewing himself for the remainder of the season, something I hope and pray with all my heart he stays true to. Randy on Randy would be some fascinating stuff.

My take is that Coach Brad Childress and Vikes owner Zygi Wilf (another doozy of a sports name) knew what they were getting when they shipped a 3rd round draft pick to the Patriots to acquire Moss, and they really shouldn't have been too surprised by the things he said, considering. The Pats dealt Moss because of his mouth (though they artfully danced around that fact, as only The Hoody and company can do) and it absolutely blows my mind that Childress waived Moss on Monday, despite his words after the loss.

Not only that, but he didn't even consult Wilf on the move. Not telling the owner of the team that you're firing one of your best players is career suicide if I've ever seen it, and I highly doubt that you'll see Chili on the Vikings' sideline next year following what I'm sure will end up being a disappointing season and this latest head-scratching move. Hey Chili, turns out that Mr. Wilf is the name on the paychecks, not yours. Watch who you give the axe to without fair warning, homie.

Randy's a handful, but the Vikings brass knew that going into the trade. Caveat emptor and I'm out.

Now on to yet another dumbfounding-ly dumb move by a head coach, this time in our nation's capital. Redskins coach Mike Shanahan pulled his starting QB, Donovan McNabb during the last two minutes of Washington's loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday, inserting perennially underwhelming back-up Rex Grossman to try and lead the team down the field for the W. That's right, he pulled a potential hall-of-famer for Rex Grossman.

Yep, that Rex Grossman:

Now if you want to pull your starting QB at the most critical juncture of the game, there has to be a good reason, right? Wrong. Shanahan first cited Grossman's superior knowledge of the two-minute offense they run in Washington, because he was the back-up under offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan when the two were both in Houston together. You know, when Grossman was the, uh, back-up. Now if that doesn't seem at all plausible, just wait, because Shanahan followed that apocryphal explanation with an even more unlikely story, that he questioned McNabb's cardiovascular endurance when running a two-minute drill.

So the guy who led your team in rushing during the game is too out of shape to make it another two minutes at the game's biggest moment? Yeah, I can buy that. Next you'll tell me that JaMarcus Russell is going to get a phone call to come workout with the team. What? They what? They didn't. I give up.

That's right, not only did Shanahan yank McNabb and feed the press two bullshit excuses as to why, but now he wants to give what many consider to be the biggest draft bust in NFL history a shot at the job he doesn't seem to think Donovan is in shape enough to perform. Russell is the guy that damn near broke the scales every training camp he was lucky enough to attend and is more famous for falling on his face professionally and getting his lean on then any kind of accomplishment on a football field. This stuff is absoultely mind blowing. In an NFL season that seems to go from weird to strange to enigmatic with every coming Sunday, week 8 gave us some truly perplexing stuff to digest.

Good thing the 'Skins are on a bye this week so Shanny can get his story straight and I get a little more time to try and make sense of all this nonsense. Did I mention how much I love the NFL?

THE HEAT IS ON

2010-10-29T12:46:00.005-04:00

There have been a lot of negative things said about the time in which we live. The rapid expansion and influence of the internet has led us full steam ahead into the Information Age, where data, news, and opinion are created, consumed and disseminated at increasingly faster rates. We want to know what's happening now, why it's happening, and what is going to happen next before a lot of the information that reaches us can be absorbed and digested properly.

Critics of the Information Age will tell you that this is breeding a populace that cannot wait for anything anymore. We want results and we want them fast. We click the mouse, we want the link to work, we enter the Google search, we want the desired information at our fingertips immediately, we go to school, we want the cushy job waiting for us on the other side of the graduation ceremony.

The immediacy of culture is not slowing down, and it can often put us in an uncomfortable set of circumstances when things don't shake out the way we want post haste.

Two things I witnessed this week point to the sort of thing I'm getting at here, and they happened on two opposite sides of the importance spectrum. The first is the debut of the new-look Miami Heat, led by a three-headed monster of basketball talent that features LeBron James (arguably the best player on the planet), Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh. The three teamed-up over the summer to form what is already considered one of the most talented line-ups in NBA history, and this week we finally got to see them play regular season basketball together.

The Heat transformed their roster in what can only be called the most auspicious manner possible, with James announcing he was going to "take his talents to South Beach" in an hour long spectacle on ESPN, which was quickly followed by a WWE-style entrance for the three in Miami, replete with smoke, fireworks and the trio dancing on stage in front of a packed auditorium of their supporters and fans. This unmitigated attention grabbing and the talent of the three players involved has left the sporting world foaming at the mouth with anticipation and critics already setting their sights on the Heat Index, ready to pounce at the first sign of weakness.

That first sign came Tuesday night, when the Heat fell to the defending Eastern Conference Champion Boston Celtics 88-80 in the opening game of the NBA season. Already, the critics are putting forth their opinions. While the more level-headed are pointing to the fact that the season is 82 games long, and one game does not a season make, many are already discovering the cracks in the Miami facade and registering their disappointment.

I am not one to judge a team on one performance (and the Heat did rebound to beat the 76ers one night later in Philly by the way) against the best team in their conference, but it goes to show that when you intentionally fan the flames of hype, folks will try and extinguish that fire in nanoseconds if the result isn't as-promised, even if it is only the first game of the season. The Heat are at the focus of a media electron microscope, and their every move will be shadowed, analyzed and picked apart until the forest is made near invisible by the study of the trees.

I think the Heat will be dominant this season and in many to come, which I mentioned in my post about James' move to Miami, and it frustrates me to no end that sports fans will now have to endure a game-by-game breakdown of their progression throughout the NBA season. The sports media lives to make snap judgments, and the Heat only focused their attention in the off-season, but this is some of the most nausea-inducing "what have you done for me lately" BS that I can remember in my years of watching sports. The Information Age is rearing it's ugly head early this NBA season and shows no signs of tucking it away any time soon.

All of this nonsense is, as I said, at one end of the importance spectrum. The other end of that spectrum is just about upon on us here in the United States, where election day looms on the horizon. The midterm elections are a referendum for any president's policies, especially one whose party controls both houses of Congress. As such, President Obama is surely feeling the heat right now. The country remains economically stagnant to a large degree, with unemployment teetering around the 10% mark nationally and anger growing among the opposition by leaps and bounds (and stomps too, if you happen to live in Kentucky).

The democrats and Obama in particular are feeling the pressure of being the party in power at the midterm, but it seems to me that the Information Age is giving his policies and the administration as a whole a bit of a raw deal. Like the aforementioned Miami Heat, Obama cannot claim that he didn't help create the hype that surrounds him, running on a platform of hope and change and lofty ideals that would have been difficult for any one man to live up to, let alone one that entered the office of president amidst an economic maelstrom not seen since the Great Depression. It's been two years and folks aren't satisfied. Their driveways aren't filled with gold-plated Rolls Royces, their fat rolls haven't magically turned into washboard stomachs and there are still blind folks everywhere whose sight has not yet been restored.

Obviously, our exalted leader hasn't delivered, right? Come on. The man's been given two years to rebuild an economy, create enough jobs to keep the entire country working, and bridge the partisan gap between Republicans and Democrats that has been widening steadily for over a century. I voted for Obama not as the lesser of two evils, but because he was the guy I thought could turn things around. I'm going to give him more than two years to do so, and you can count me among the more pragmatic of his supporters in saying that I didn't expect things to be covered in milk and honey at this point in time. We all knew we were in for a long haul if things were going to start heading in the right direction in this country, both culturally and politically.

It's why President Obama's interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show Wednesday night was a very satisfying half-hour of television for this viewer, and brought to mind some parallels to the sports media's treatment of the Heat. I'm a big Stewart fan and I consider him among the greatest satirists of his age, armed with intellect, sagacity and an indelible wit that acts as a hot knife through much of both political parties' rancid butter.

An appearance on The Daily Show goes a long way towards swaying the opinion of twenty-something America, and Jon Stewart has established himself as an influential voice in American politics, especially on the left. The President appeared before an audience that voted for him in droves in 2010, and it was a big deal that he stepped onto The Daily Show set mere days before the midterm election and before Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. Stewart sank his teeth into Obama, grilling him with tough questions and even mocking some of the President's more pat responses. The host's plucky interrogation is exactly what fans of show should have expected, the President included.

And I think you could tell that ol' Barry knew what he was up against, because his responses proved once again that he is a thoughtful, involved, and perspicacious Commander in Chief. It was clear that he understood Stewart's larger point, that the type of youthful, interested, and enthusiastic folks that watch his show and voted for Obama are among those who feel more than a bit let down after these first two years. The President, while perhaps leaning a bit too far towards pedantry at times, confronted the problems that Stewart presented and preached a mantra of patience and hard work, something that will rub anybody who lives in the Information Age the wrong way.

Tough shit, says this writer. A lot of media-types criticized the Miami Heat players for putting out the tired cliche that "Rome wasn't built in a day" after their loss to the Celtics, and I think if you had to sum up the President's response to Stewart's criticisms, that old adage would be an apt tag line for his administration as well. Sure it's cliche, but by god if it isn't true. Teams need more than one game to prove their mettle in the sporting world and presidents deserve more than two years in the White House during the middle of a financial and economic crisis to show that they meant what they said on the campaign trail.

The phrase that keeps coming to mind for me in both cases is "deferred gratification". It's a pair of words that first hit home when I read Cornell West's Democracy Matters, and it's something that he believes our society lacks more and more with each coming day. Our unwillingness to embrace this idea of delayed fulfillment is a result of a culture that focuses on fame, sex, and wealth more than knowledge, love, and understanding. West tells his readers that if we as a society aren't willing to work hard and wait the necessary time for the best things in life, we might never see them come. Even worse, we might be unable to enjoy those good things when they do finally get here.

Whether it be the fate of a sports franchise or the fate of our country, I hope we can all take a deep breath in the coming year and know that great things are possible through hard work and optimism. A knowledge of our ability to triumph in the face of adversity is one of the most enduring lessons of our humanity and one that we must not forget in the present and near future.

Let's give LeBron and Barack a chance to get things right. I'm willing to bet that neither will disappoint.

MIXED BAG

2010-10-21T01:11:00.001-04:00

There's a few things on my mind right now as far as sports goes, so I thought I'd offer up a little olio this post. With the four major American sports all at some level of activity, maybe we can try and touch 'em all...

BASEBALL

Gotta start where the last post left off, talking about America's Pastime. I mentioned in my ode to baseball that the San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers both faced uphill climbs in their respective Championship Series', but both teams have found a way to take the advantage thus far. The Rangers are up 3-2 on the Yanks as the series heads back to Arlington, and as I strike the keys I've just finished watching the Giants go up 3-1 on the Phillies on a Juan Uribe sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth that gave SF a 6-5 win in game four.

I have to say I'm excited by the idea of a Giants/Rangers World Series, not only to get a couple of fresh teams in the Fall Classic but because both squads teem with exuberance and personality. Brian Wilson (no, not that Brian Wilson) alone has enough charisma to carry a playoff series, but with great stories like Josh Hamilton (who continues what will be a life-long battle with substance abuse) and a couple of pitching phenoms like Cliff Lee and Tim Lincecum to boot, it would be an entertaining and hopefully widely watched series. Sure the MLB would have to get over losing out on two huge markets like Philly and NYC, but the rest of the country might not mind. Although considering how many people skipped watching Cliff Lee's dominant performance Monday night in the Bronx to check out an NFL blowout, who knows?

NFL

Speaking of the NFL, this weekend was a particularly brutal one as far as big hits went, and the league has taken notice. I watched most of Sunday's games with a group of friends around a big old TV, and we were privy to a handful of hits that had more than a few of us turning our heads to wince. Some fools got jacked this weekend, that's for sure, and now the NFL brass is coming forward to try and limit the violence that is so prevalent in the game.

The blows leveled on 5'10", 175 lb. DeSean Jackson and the completely defenseless Todd Heap certainly make the NFL's case if you'd like to go ahead and take a gander...

Then again, you might just be thinking what I'm thinking, that the new policy the Shield is putting forward of fines and suspensions for helmet-to-helmet hits and "devastating" tackles on defenseless receivers runs more than a little counter to the product they've been pushing for decades on end. Most news sources have already pointed out that the NFL was selling pictures on its website of some of the hits called into question this weekend, which takes the cake as far as a two-faced gesture is concerned, but it really is laughable for the Shield to blatantly try and piss on the fans and tell them its raining.

Football thrives because of its violence and brutality. Unlike most sports, where knocking the other guy to the ground is deemed to be an avoidable situation that results in penalty or discipline, football and hockey make it part of the action. Neither sport can claim that they want to limit the amount of big hits or violence, because the defensive side of their games rely on physical play and knocking the other dood on his ass.

I can understand the NFL going to great lengths to avoid any more concussion backlash, considering what science is discovering about athletic concussions and permanent damage, but there's absolutely no way to have the game stay the same and tone down the violence. Football and hockey exist in a violent world and owe much if not all of their allure to the physical nature of the contests.

The audience wants to see guys get decleated, snot-bubbled, and jacked up, and the NFL has never done anything but promote and sell the product the public is looking for. For them to try and change course midstream after a particularly cringe-worthy weekend of hits is the definition of hypocritical. Ray-Ray agrees with me and so do the majority of NFL defenders. Hell, James Harrison says he's willing to retire if he can't play the game the way he's been taught to play it. He's bluffing, but it shows how much these guys think of themselves as one-man wrecking crews when they strap that helmet on. After all, these lads are out to hurt each other, Tommy.

NBA

The closer we get to the season, the more the Carmelo Anthony rumor mill heats up. He's turned down yet another huge offer from the Nuggets to stay in Denver, and he's all but bought his plane ticket out of town, whether that flight happens before, during, or after the season is all that's left to settle. The Knicks now appear to be close to putting together a package that would send Melo to NYC, and after the Nuggets watched LeBron send the Cavs the world's most mean spirited Dear John letter via his "Decision" on ESPN, I'm guessing they want more in return than a bad taste in their mouth for their franchise player.

They'll likely get a bag of garbage from the Knicks, which will include some expiring contracts and Eddie Curry (you make the call as to which is worse) but the more important thing to note here is that this is going to completely destroy the Nuggets chances of remaining a contender. Not only will their best player (and one of the top 10 in the league) be leaving town, but their veteran point guard Chauncey Billups is very close to Melo and Kenyon Martin is already pitching a fit about his new contract. Both players might decide to follow suit and join Carmelo in leaving. So whenever Mr. La La's exodus happens, it will likely set in motion a chain of events that will put the Nuggets back at square one for years to come. Sorry Denver, just remember you do have Timothy Richard to help you through it all.

Well, I suppose that'll do for now. I hit three of the four major sports and at least mentioned hockey, so my work here is done for now. Keep close (Bo Jackson's) Hipsters, I ain't done yet.