Why BCS Has an Extra Letter

Once again college football season has flown by, and once again I feel like I’ve barely had a chance to watch any games. That feeling is of course despite spending nearly every available Saturday planted on my couch in front of my TV watching college football. But as the regular season winds down we start approaching the most unfulfilling time of year – Bowl Season.

Mind you, I’m not talking about games like the Humanitarian Bowl, which should feature Bowling Green vs Idaho. I love the smaller bowl games featuring teams consisting of players who know they’ll likely never make it to the NFL and thus leave it all on the field. It makes for great football.

No, the most unfulfilling part of the bowl season is the big bowl games, or more specifically the big bowl games we don’t get. Surely there will be a couple of great big bowl games, but the one that matters, the BCS Championship Game, will be contested by two teams selected by a couple of polls and a few computer algorithms.

Most any college football fan knows that the system of selecting a national champion is ludicrous. I can’t think of another college level (or even high school level) sport that operates in this fashion, selecting its top two teams based on a beauty pageant. But yet there are still far to many that defend this system, including some people that I otherwise respect.

When these BCS defenders make their arguments, they spread at least one, if not all, of the following three lies:

Lie Number 1: The BCS ensures that every game in the regular season matters.

This is probably the biggest lie of them all. This season is likely to be the biggest proof of how false this lie is. Barring something catastrophic, there will be 5 undefeated Division 1A^[1] teams at the end of the regular season. When a one loss team gets snubbed from the championship game, the argument is simply, “Well, just win them all.” Five teams will have done exactly that – won them all.

Chances are, the two teams that will play in the championship game (Texas and the winner of the Florida/Alabama game) are the best two in the nation. But there’s really no way to judge that for sure without actually settling this on the field. And frankly I think TCU is probably the best team in the nation.

Although when confronted with the fact that a team can run the table and still be rejected, the defenders of the BCS move on to the corollary to the above lie, that the mid-majors (Boise St. and TCU this season) need to play a tougher schedule. That argument is also rife with misunderstandings.

First, mid-majors have a difficult time at best scheduling a top tier school. The top tier schools have nothing to gain by playing the likes of Boise St; just ask Oregon who went to Boise St. only to lose. A major school playing a mid-major is expected to win, so gains next to nothing if they do, and will drop precipitously in the rankings if they lose.

Second, there is one other undefeated team, Cincinnati, who is a member of a BCS conference. They’re not a member of one of the mid-major conferences looking to crash the party; they’re a member of one of the conferences chosen as worthy enough to be a part of the BCS. Yet despite this they’re going to be on the outside looking in.

Since the inception of the BCS, many teams have gone out in the regular season, won every game, and been denied any chance to play for the national title. How does “every game matter” if we’re going to turn away teams who win every game?

Lie number 2: Having a playoff system will cheapen the bowl system

This is the most laughable lie of the three. People making this argument seem to believe that if suddenly there’s a playoff system that we’ll realize that the GMAC Bowl doesn’t mean anything.

News flash: The bowls don’t mean anything! They’re exhibition games. They’re a reward for the team for having a winning season, a chance to play one last game, a chance for the school to potentially make a little money, and an excuse for students and alumni to (generally) leave for warmer climes for a few days.

Having a playoff system isn’t suddenly going to change this fact, or make people realize the fact that any other bowl besides the BCS Championship Game doesn’t mean a thing.

If you’re so concerned about preserving the bowls, then seed the 8 teams^[2] across games in the top 7 bowls. Rotate it so every 7 years the bowl gets the national title game. Problem solved.

Lie number 3: The players need to study for finals

This is the most uneducated lie of the three. Division 1AA, Division 2, and Division 3, all of which feature little to no sports scholarships, all have playoff systems. These are the real student athletes, ones that attend their schools strictly to attend school. Yet they manage to find the time to study for and take finals. I think the kids that attend Division 1A schools can manage as well.

Truth: The reason the system exists is because of money

The BCS bowl games are big money makers. One of the rules about the BCS system is that the conferences that send teams to the bowl games share the money they make by attending the game. There are only 6 conferences that are official BCS Conferences, and thus are the only ones guaranteed to send at least one team each (if not more) to the 5 BCS bowl games. As a result, this is a guaranteed money maker for the conference every year. Outside conferences are allowed to send teams to the BCS bowl games only in certain scenarios; basically only if they are in the top 12, and even then there’s only one guaranteed slot.

The time has come for the NCAA to stand up and do what’s right for college football, and what’s right for all schools. It’s time to end the system that tells certain teams right from the beginning of the season, “Sorry, you don’t have a chance to win it all.” It’s time for a real playoff; a real championship.

^[1] Sorry, I’m not bringing myself to call it the FBS.
^[2] In my plan, all we need is the top 8 teams. 16 is nice, but a bit of overkill.

What Exactly Do We Know About Steroid Use in MLB?

A wise man passed on a philosophy that I firmly subscribe to - “trust is given; distrust is earned”. Put simply (in deference to you, Kent), I’m willing to trust you right up until the point where you give me any reason at all not to, at which point we have problems.

In case you missed it, Alex Rodriguez* has been lying to us. Probably his most public lie was 17Dec07 when he lied to the American public (with Katie Couric asking the questions), saying he never took any performance enhancing drugs. Then, of course, we find out he tested positive for steroids in 2003. Alex responds by issuing the most carefully crafted “admission” since Jason Giambi’s*, when Jason apologized for everything and nothing. Alex admitted to taking a particular steroid, while denying he knew what it was, knew what he was doing, and limited the years in which he admitted to taking it to 2001-2003 – the years when it was “safe” to take steroids in MLB. I want to believe that, but it turns out Santa Claus isn’t real and Elvis isn’t cutting records anymore.

The fact of the matter is that Alex lied. As time goes on, the known list of baseball stars who took steroids continues to grow. Recently Miguel Tejada was added to the list, and Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens will almost certainly find their way onto the list soon. As each star is added to the list, all we’ll know is that they took steroids.

Unfortunately we won’t know for how long they took the drugs. We won’t know what drugs they took. And we won’t know what impact these drugs had on their performance on the field and the numbers they put up.

And above all, we won’t know those who don’t wind up on any “confirmed” list did or did not take a drug.

People have called for the release of the remaining 103 MLB players on the list of those who tested positive in 2003. While that might help clear things up for some people, the reality of the situation is that the testing done in 2003 was inherently flawed. The way drug testing is supposed to work is tests are administered at random times when the players aren’t expecting it. The MLB Gestapo Players Association agreed to these tests in 2003 hoping to avoid future testing, as the only way future testing would happen is if 5% of the players tested positive. The MLBPA figured if it was announced in advance that testing was about to take place cheating players would clean up. Unfortunately for the MLBPA it turns out that MLB players aren’t quite as sharp as they seem. 104 players tested positive despite being told in advance that they were going to be tested. All the 2003 tests tell us is there are 104 players who aren’t smart enough to cycle off the drugs in time for a test, not every player who was taking drugs in 2003. A player not appearing on the list doesn’t exonerate them.

So here we are knowing little more than we did before with essentially no hope of getting any real idea of the scope of steroid use in MLB over the last 20 years. What players are clean? When were they clean? What do the numbers they put up mean? What have we watched in Major League Baseball that wasn’t in some part touched by steroid use?

Nobody knows. And that’s the biggest crime.

While everyone including Bud Selig has denied responsibility, the fact of the matter is that everyone, including the MLBPA who protected the players, the players who took the drugs, and the owners who turned a blind eye are all culpable. But I don’t want to worry much about pointing fingers. There’s plenty of blame to go around, and plenty of other fingers to do the pointing for me.

My question is – what do we do now? Do we eliminate all the numbers for the last 20 years? Do we prevent players from going into the Hall of Fame who are proven to be steroid users? What about players who are likely dirty but have never tested positive?

The answer is there’s nothing we can do. Unfortunately we are left having to accept the numbers as they are. As I’ve blogged before, we can still choose to decide what numbers mean something to us. But the genie’s out of the bottle and there’s no shoving it back in.

I’m with Bob Costas. There should be a plaque explaining that many things have changed over the years in baseball, including segregation, the pitching mound height and the dead ball. Steroid use is simply another factor that impacted the game.

After all – what else can we do with so little known?

And Then There Was Nothing

On the whole, I’m really a two sport kinda guy – football and baseball. I’m not into the NBA in the least. I am starting to follow college basketball more, but it doesn’t really pique my interest until March Madness starts. I used to enjoy the NHL until the stoppage and they left broadcast television^[1]. NASCAR and golf are enjoyable ways to spend a Sunday, but it’s really just that – just a way to spend a Sunday and not something I follow that closely.

Watching the Super Bowl is always a bit of a double edged sword for me. I of course enjoy the game, but there’s always the knowledge that the season is coming to a close when the final gun sounds. All the build-up, and then boom – nothing^[2]. Over. Done. No football until late August.

On top of that, baseball is still a couple of months away. But to add insult to injury the Padres have traded away Green, let Hoffman leave and are doing everything in their power to jettison Peavy, meaning that the Padres will be lucky to get to 60 wins this season. So once baseball season does start, we’re going to be looking at a Devil Rays-style season^[3].

All-in-all, it’s going to be a long few months waiting for football to start back up again.

---

^[1] There are rumors it’s on some channel called OLN or Versus or some such nonsense. All I know is that it’s never on the TV in the hotel room I’m in.

^[2] Yes, I know the Pro Bowl is still to come, but the Pro Bowl is not football.

^[3] Notice I said Devil Rays, not Rays.

Tampa Bay Rays

Back on April 2nd, I said in a baseball post:

If you're lucky enough to be in one of the cities where your home team can actually compete for the title (read: not Tampa Bay or Kansas City), you have great expectations. The entire season lays before you, waiting to be written.

Clearly I was proven wrong on half of that statement. The Rays had an amazing season, and last nights loss in Game 5A doesn't diminish that one bit.

To the Rays, the region of Tampa Bay, and a certain commenter who took me to task when I first said that, I'm sorry.

And I like my crow medium rare.

Yankee Stadium

I had been wanting to post something earlier about Yankee Stadium, but as you’ll read tomorrow (today?) it’s been a crazy week to say the least.

In any event, this week baseball buried one of its most treasured possessions – Yankee Stadium. I’m not going to try to wax poetic about the stadium itself and what it means for baseball, many others have done that with a level of eloquence that I can’t hope to achieve. But what I can do is tell the story of the trip Karin and I had to Yankee Stadium.

The experience itself actually started at the hotel at breakfast. We were seated at a table next to a Japanese couple who were in town to watch Hideki Matsui who had just landed. We spoke a little bit with them, as they could speak some broken English – broken English that included the phrases “baseball”, “day game”, and, of course, “Yankee Stadium”. Something very cool when the small vernacular you have in English includes baseball terminology.

We knew enough to get to the stadium early to roam through Monument Park, but we didn’t realize how early we needed to be there. By the time we got to the line for the park it snaked up about 4 different ramps. As it turned out, we were the last group to be let in. Fortunately, you’re not rushed through the park, so we got to spend plenty of time checking out everything.

There is an aura to the stadium. You hear that a lot and it sounds cliché, but it’s true in this case. Those are the same grounds (if not the same configuration) that so many of the game’s best roamed.

The game itself was incredible, but that goes without saying – it was Yankees/Red Sox. While the rivalry is often overplayed, I can tell you it is as intense as advertised. The crowd was present, loud, and into it the entire 9 innings – all the way up to the Byung-Hyun Kim blown save.

I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to attend any game there, let alone Yankees/Red Sox.

RIP, Yankee Stadium.

(Note – the link above (and here) is for an excellent SI article that eulogizes the Stadium. An absolute must read.)

Just Walk Away

I hate this time of year. NFL training camps don't start for another couple weeks. NBA and NHL are finished. And MLB has a collective one game scheduled over three days. This means that ESPN and every other sports media outlet is starved for stories. As a result, they wind up attaching themselves to anything that's quasi news related, or taking something that is news related and blowing it out of proportion covering it 24/7 and to a level of detail that nobody really cares about.

Enter Brett Favre. Again. Brett has decided he wants to play again. Which means that the media is going to cover this until something else happens, and since there's nothing else that's going to happen because everything else is out of season, we're stuck with story after story about Brett Favre.

And now you're stuck with a blog posting on Brett Favre.

Brett's selfish decision has put the Packers in a lose/lose/lose situation. They don't want him back because of the distraction he would cause, and the fact the team has moved on. They don't want to trade him because they'll get next to nothing for him. They don't want to release him for fear that he'd play for a divisional rival such as the Bears or Vikings. Brett wants to do what Brett wants to do regardless of the impact it will have on the team who treated him so well for well over a decade.

Players not being able to walk away is not a new phenomenon. For decades now the graceful exit (Strahan, Elway) has been by far the exception rather than the rule. Even players like Unitas and Namath couldn't walk away at the right time. I'm sure if we started going back through history there's some ancient Greek discus thrower who competed in an Olympic Games only to be a shell of his former self.

Players play past their prime for many reasons.

For many their sport has been their entire life for 20-30 years, from pop-warner to their late 30's. They can't leave it as they don't know what else to do.

Some can't make the transition into a normal life. What do you do after being adored by millions of fans for your entire adult life?

Some can't convince themselves they've lost their abilities. Their brain is convinced their body can continue to respond as it did when they were 25. (That's of course not limited to professional athletes as anyone who's hit their mid-30's will tell you.)

Some simply need the money.

With that said, it's hard to blame Brett here. He loves the game. He can't bring himself to leave it behind. Certainly he's being selfish. But he's human.

I hope for everyone's sake that he walks away. Brett coming back won't tarnish his legacy just as the couple of seasons Emmitt Smith played for the Cardinals at the end of his career or the couple of seasons Michael Jordan played for the Wizards didn't tarnish theirs. But nobody wants to see Brett playing until he's 49, struggling to play to the level of Tavaris Jackson.

Brett - retire. I know it's not the emotional thing to do. But it is the right thing. For you, and for your teammates.

Strange Stats

Entering Thursday night's game, the Padres had scored 3 runs in their last 35 innings at home. I'm not quite sure what the most amazing part of that stat is - that over 4 games worth of innings they've only managed to plate 3 runners, or that those 35 innings were only 2 games (a 22 inning epic and a 13 inning quickie (in comparison)).

After Thursday's game, that number went to 44 innings, and still 3 runs.

Maybe it's time to bring the fences is a tad. Just a thought.

Today is sponsored by the number:

42

Hope Springs Eternal

Baseball season has started.

Let me just say that again so it can settle in.

Baseball season has started.

There's something about the beginning of baseball season. Winter is coming to a close. Spring is at hand. Summer is just around the corner.

If you're lucky enough to be in one of the cities where your home team can actually compete for the title (read: not Tampa Bay or Kansas City), you have great expectations. The entire season lays before you, waiting to be written.

Now is the time to focus on the sport, and not on the scandals. Discussions of Barry and Roger are for another time.

It's comforting to have baseball back on the television. On almost every night from now until October you can find a game on.

I love football. By far it's my favorite sport. But there will always be a special place in my heart for baseball.

Play ball!

This is your own fault, Roger

Arlen Specter, the Senior Senator from Pennsylvania, has decided to pick today, 48 hours before the Super Bowl to call out Roger Goodell for his handling of the Patriots' cheating. In particular, he wants to know why the NFL just destroyed the tapes without actually addressing them, and wants an investigation to possible cheating by the Patriots in Super Bowl LX, which was the one the Philadelphia Eagles lost to said cheaters.

Before I go anywhere, I want to say that I believe this is an NFL matter that Congress shouldn't be involved in. In fact, if Arlen wants to investigate any tapes being destroyed, he should be calling the CIA out on to the carpet for their destroying of torture tapes. This isn't where Congress should be spending its time.

With that said, the blame for this falls squarely on the shoulders of Roger Goodell. Contrary to his spin, he was not open about the investigation, was not forthcoming, and did not conduct a full investigation. Destroying the tapes was a colossal mistake. It left uncertainty and doubt in the heads of everyone who follows the NFL, except, of course, Patriots fans, who are now on par with Raiders fans. The only difference here is that someone with authority as finally called him out on this.

Sorry, Roger. You made your bed here. You didn't suspend Bill Belichick. You didn't take away both of the Patriot's first round draft picks. You dished out a rather week penalty. And, to top it all off, after touting your plan to obtain all materials from the Patriots, you simply swept it under the carpet, hoping it would all go away. This is what you asked for. Good work.

Somewhere, Pete Rozelle is rolling in his grave.

On the eve of what, exactly?

In a few hours from now the Mitchell Report, the report on steroid use in baseball, will be released. The impact it will have on baseball will be, umm, yeah. I'm thinking very little.

The report was commissioned by inept commissioner Bud Selig, who is currently trying to salvage his legacy by investigating steroids, much like presidents late in their second terms start getting Israel and the Palestinians to sit down and talk. While Senator Mitchell is certainly a very qualified man to conduct such an investigation, one has to wonder what MLB will do with this report.

As for the report itself, it's going to blame both MLB management and the MLBPA for the letting steroid use run rampant. Basically, it will justify anyone who wants to blame the union for resisting testing or blame management for turning a blind eye. I'm a little disappointed that this gives credence to any of those arguments, because at the end of the day it's the fault of each individual player that stuck an needle in their tukus. (Every company I contract with has rules against me showing up high. I don't need to be tested when I walk in the door on Monday to teach my class to prove I'm not doing drugs. It's this little thing called "personal responsibility".)

The report will also list players who allegedly took steroids. This means essentially nothing. There will be players that we all suspected took steroids, there will be players we never thought took steroids, and almost every one of them will deny it.

But the real question is - what about the records? What about the stats? Will any of that change? Probably not. I'm guessing there will be a lot of talk about the report. (ESPN, which is rapidly turning SportsCenter into the Nancy Grace Show, will be covering the release of the report starting at 12N Central time.)

Will Major League Baseball actually suspend any players? Probably not. Most every player was not given any form of due process, so suspending players would face stiff legal challenges. Granted, any legal proceedings could have the added side-effect of forcing players to take the stand, but I still doubt doubt it will come close to that.

Will Major League Baseball take away stats? That would be a completely unprecedented move, and one that a very weak commissioner will be unlikely to take. And even if he did, what stats do you take away? How far back do you go? What formula do you use to convert juiced stats to clean stats? Nobody knows.

So what are we left with then? Well, at the end of it all, I think we're left right back where we started. There's a ton of blame to be spread around, there's players who we all suspect did steroids, and the fans are left wondering if what we're watching at the ballpark is actually real.

Interesting definition of long haul

Bobby Petrino was hired as the coach of the Atlanta Falcons early in 2007, long before the discovery of Vick's dog-fighting operation. When Petrino was hired, Atlanta was at a crossroads at the QB position - either Vick, or an unproven Matt Schaub who had shown flashes of promise. To clear up any possible controversy, the coaching staff and the Falcons decided to trade away Schaub.

Fast forward 11 months to the Falcons being 3-10 (and lucky to have those 3 wins), the team in complete turmoil, and in need of a complete overhaul. Petrino insisted he was in it for the long haul, and would see this team be rebuilt. Apparently long haul meant a couple of hours after he said those comments, as he took the head coaching job at the University of Arkansas.

I understand the concept of taking a job and immediately realizing you made a mistake. I also understand taking a job and having the situation you were walking into completely change - I just did that 6 months ago.

But he made a commitment. He gave his word. How does he walk away from that?

And just to show the level of cowardice Petrino showed during all of this - he didn't even meet with his players before disappearing into the night.

A coward and a liar. What parent would send their son to go play football and be mentored by this man?

Don't blame the officials

Since the dawn of sports, fans and players alike have criticized the officials. Those with an emotional connection to the game often pinning their losses on a couple of calls that didn't go their way.

For those who don't know, I used to officiate high school football games. As a result, I have kind of a unique perspective on this. I'm here to tell you, it's unbelievably stressful, and an extremely difficult task. Unfortunately, I am in a very small minority; very few fans, and even fewer commentators, have ever grabbed a whistle or thrown a flag.

One of the biggest things most fans don't seem to understand is the officials get just one shot at making the call. There is no replay available for the vast majority of calls (all of those that fall under the "judgement" heading are not reviewable). Within a split second, you must decide if the defender did something to impact the receiver when the receiver tried to catch the ball. You don't get to rewind it. You don't get to zoom in. You don't get another angle. You get one shot. And quite often, you're the only official that is looking at that section of the field, so if you boot the call you won't get any help later. Certainly, mistakes happen. But considering the percentage of correct calls under these circumstances, I think we can all agree a little leeway is in order. I challenge anyone who thinks they can do better to find out where their local football officials association gathers and volunteer.

The next thing to keep in mind, is that the majority of the time the official has the best angle on the play. Cameras are in place to give the fan the best overall view of the game, not positioned to make calls. There are times when a camera particular angle won't be correct, and commentators will start complaining about the call. They don't understand what the official saw because they didn't have the same angle. I can tell you at least 9 times out of 10, the official has the better angle.

And then there's the self-proclaimed experts commentators who think they know everything. I always get a kick out of someone criticizing a call when they don't understand the rule in the first place. I like to think I have a decent grasp of the rules, but I also understand I know less than most NFL officials have forgotten. They've been doing this for years, often decades; I did a couple of years at the high school level, and most everyone on TV has never read the rules. Just because Al Michaels (who I respect a lot) says something doesn't make him right and the official wrong.

At the end of the day, the officials are right almost all of the time. The couple of times they are wrong isn't what costs one team the game. Take last night's game as a perfect example. If the Ravens gain one yard on their possession before the Patriots score, they can effectively run the clock out. If Boller doesn't throw to an area of the field with 3 Patriots and 0 Ravens, they at least add 3 more points to the board, which would have meant the Patriots final TD tied the game rather than winning it. In both of those situations, the calls the officials made (correctly, mind you) don't matter one bit.

In defense of Shula

Recently, Don Shula told the Daily News he thinks if the Patriots go 19-0 there should be an asterisk placed next to their record. That of course opened up two cans of worms - the cheating scandal of the Patriots with the NFL is desperately hoping goes away, and Shula and his cheating.

Let's go in reverse order here.

In 1969, while Shula was still coaching the then Baltimore Colts, the Miami Dolphins signed him to a contract. When this was discovered, the NFL penalized the Dolphins their first round pick in the 1971 draft. There's the full story.

Then, of course, there's the Patriots. I wish I could explain exactly what happened with the Patriots. Unfortunately, Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, has made that impossible.

Quick history lesson:

The Patriots play the Jets on opening Sunday, the same Jets whose head coach used to be a member of the Patriots staff. The Jets find someone taping defensive signals being sent in, a clear violation of NFL rules. NFL security detains the man, and confiscates the tape.

Goodell, who until this point was great at laying down the law, promised to get to the bottom of this. He was quick to act, fining Bill Belichick, the coach of the Patriots, $500,000, and fining the team $250,000 and stripping them of a draft pick.

Goodell then went on national television the following Sunday, and told Bob Costas that he had sent word to the Patriots demanding all related tapes and materials, and that this case was still open.

The following Thursday, the NFL announced the Patriots had complied with their request and all materials received had been destroyed. Case closed.

Huh?

Case closed?

What was on the tapes? Don't know.

What did the Patriots send in? Don't know.

Does this date back to their first Super Bowl? Do the Patriots still have tapes? Did they make copies? Don't know.

And that was Shula's biggest point. We simply don't know.

Goodell won't answer questions, saying the case is closed. Belechick took the cowardly way out, saying before the penalty from the league, "I don't want to talk until the NFL finishes their investigation", and then refusing to "talk about the past" after the NFL levied their fines.

In my mind, and the minds of many NFL fans, questions still exist. If Goodell had handled this properly, completing a full and public investigation, there would be no question. We'd know all the facts and be able to make informed opinions. Or at least just tell us what was on the tapes that were destroyed.

Instead, we're left with uncertainty.

And asterisks, I guess.

Everybody's doing it...

Marion Jones is famous for whipping everyone on the track and having one of the cutest smiles of all time. She's also famous for denying any steroid use, despite her connection to BALCO; denials that even went so far as to include a red-letter page in her book denying ever using something illegal.

And now she's famous for being an admitted cheater.

Of course, she's also claiming that at first she didn't know what she was actually rubbing on herself, stating she thought it was flaxseed oil - which apparently has magical powers beyond any comprehension. If flaxseed oil had half of the impact on a body that athletes seem to believe, they'd all be bathing in it.

Whenever someone tests positive, this immediately brings up the argument of, "Well, everybody in <insert sport here> is doing it." That argument didn't work with my mother when I was 6, and it doesn't work today.

My first simple question is this - what are we basing that statement on? What proof is being offered that "everybody" (or even a majority or significant number) is doing it? Nothing more than conjecture.

Floyd Landis, Ben Johnson, and Marion Jones are all proven illegal performance enhancing drug users. They all dominated their respective sport's premier events in ways previously unimaginable. This implies to me that either their drug of choice gave them a large edge over the field, or their competitors need to get better "doctors". Seems to me the reason they were so successful is they were playing with a different set of rules than their competitors.

The other argument to try and excuse this cheating is they still need to be world class athletes in the first place, or typically shortened as "Steroids don't make you hit home runs."

I'm pretty sure I ended my short Little League career with a perfect .000 average. I am under no disillusion that injecting my derriere with any cocktail of steroids is going to magically give me the skills to make it to the majors. I'm not saying that a certain slugger who is surrounded by rumors isn't an amazingly talented player. But to argue that taking steroids doesn't enhance your skill, or make that ball that would have had warning track power wouldn't now clear the wall, is ludicrous. Steroids help. Why else would athletes risk potential health problems if not for the edge they gain?

None of these excuses makes cheating in any way acceptable. It's time to abandon that faulty logic.

If a puck drops, and nobody cares, does it make a sound?

I follow baseball, football (pro and college) and NASCAR rather closely. I track basketball just enough to have a conversation about it, and I love March Madness. I watch SportsCenter roughly once a day, and I frequent many sports sites.

In other words, I think I'm a pretty typical red-blooded American sports fan.

Imagine my surprise as I'm watching PTI the other day and they mention the NHL regular season started Saturday. And it started in London. Who knew? (Or, at least, who south of Canada knew?)

The NHL has been struggling for quite a while. Long before the strike that wiped out the 2004-2005 season, the NHL was lagging in US viewers and fans. The fact that the players' union and the owners let themselves get to the point of canceling an entire season is bad enough considering the already thin ice (pun intended) the league was on. Since then Gary Bettman, commissioner of the NHL, has seen his decision making ability degrade from there.

Baseball had a vicious strike during their 1994 season that led to the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years. Once an agreement was made between the union and management, Bud Selig and others realized they needed to market the heck out of baseball and get as much exposure as possible; you could barely turn on a television without seeing a commercial about MLB or a game.

The NHL didn't learn from baseball's lead. There was very little in the way of marketing when play was restored. And in this millennium, quite possibly the most important factor for any sports league is television exposure. In fact, there was many a puck-head pundit who insisted that HD was the one thing that could save the league. So what did the NHL do after the strike ended? Go to ESPN, and give ESPN the best deal in the world to show NHL games, knowing that exposure is the most critical component to recovering after the strike? Nope - they went to OLN Versus, a network that was famous for the Tour de France and very little after that. Couple that with the fact that they're not in every cable market (we only get them on the most premier package here), and until recently did not offer HD.

Now the NHL is attempting gimmicks to raise ratings and awareness. Having their opening game in London will generate more interest in Europe than here, and shouldn't the US be the country the NHL is interested in? And if you're going to hold a big event to open the season, maybe playing the game during prime time on a national television network is a better plan than an Saturday afternoon game on Versus?

And as further proof the NHL still doesn't get it, they've decided to hold an outdoor game in Buffalo. Great idea. I'd love to see hockey played in the elements. But apparently the cold got to Bettman's brain; they're holding the game on January 1st - the day dedicated to recovering from the night before and watching college football until your butt is numb. If you're already a hockey fan you're going to watch; but the NHL needs to grow beyond current hockey fans.

Hockey fans are about as dedicated as soccer fans. And no matter what the NHL does, a puck-head's allegiance will never waiver. What the NHL doesn't seem to grok is they can't sustain a league on this small subset of the population. They need converts. They need to make it easy for the passing fan to tune in and watch what is a very exciting game.

Unfortunately for the NHL, the only people who don't realize this are employed by the NHL front office.

Is This a Great Game, or What?

People who know me know I very rarely read. (One person in particular who frequents this blog keeps trying to get me to read a book she really enjoyed.) For me to finish a book it really has to capture me, and I really need to connect to it. Nick Hornby's books will pretty much always do that for me, and on occasion others will, but those are few and far between.

Enter Is This a Great Game, or What?

I've always been a fan of Tim Kurkjian. He has a very unique voice, and truly loves both his job and baseball. His book is about 300 pages of stories, anecdotes and observations collected over his 25 years of covering the game. While he is certainly biased about baseball being the best sport, and glosses over some of baseball's bigger issues (such as steroids), it's still offers an enjoyable view of this game. His chapter on fear of the ball is required reading for every baseball fan.

Easy read, very engaging. Also perfect reading in the john. Highly recommended.

Hearings aren't the same as solutions

As I've mentioned before, I'm a life-long Chargers fan. Living in San Diego was great for me since it of course gave me the chance to see my Chargers every Sunday. Now that we are in Houston, we need a different strategy. While I'm not opposed to having to go to a sports bar every Sunday, the cost does add up rather quickly.

Enter DirectTV's Sunday Ticket. For those of you who live under a rock, the Sunday Ticket is an exclusive contract the NFL has with DirecTV that allows DirecTV to show every NFL game to subscribers. It's also a violation of the NFL's antitrust agreement.

When the NFL began broadcasting games on television, they were granted an antitrust exemption by Congress as long as they guaranteed equal access to all broadcasts. Since the games were broadcast on over-the-air channels, or cable networks such as ESPN that are available through all cable and satellite systems, they were always in compliance. Their deal with DirecTV, however, flies in the face of this agreement. In order to obtain this package, one must subscribe to DirecTV. Don't want DirecTV? Too bad. Can't get DirecTV due to technical problems? Too bad.

Last year, Congress decided to start holding hearings about this arrangement. Arlen Specter and others promised to introduce legislation to open this package up to the masses. It seemed like finally Congress was going to actually do something. Alas, this same congress that can't balance a budget, pass legislation to reform our immigration policies, fix our health care system,
or solve the pending Social Security crisis, can't even handle something as simple as requiring the NFL to offer the same thing to cable companies they do to DirecTV.

Harry Reid was recently quoted as saying, "We have had 100 hearings on Iraq and we're going to have 100 more, and we're proud of it." That easily has to go down as one of my favorite quotes of all time. Granted, he was talking about Iraq, but I still think it does a great job of summing up the state of politics in the US.

The great thing about holding a hearing is that it will get you on television looking like you're doing something. "Wow - look at the tough questions that Senator is asking him." It plays well to the masses and to the media. It makes you look like you're standing up for your beliefs. Of course, it's not actually solving a problem. As far as I can tell, the one goal a hearing best serves is helping Senators and Representatives get re-elected.

After holding numerous hearing last year the issue has, like many others, fallen off the radar. Did any legislation work its way through Congress? Not that I can tell. But they had hearings - and that's the important part, right?

Meanwhile we're be stuck having to subscribe to DirecTV, and wondering, "If this Congress can't solve the small problems, how do we expect them to solve the big ones?"

Yankee Stadium

This is for those readers who are not in the New York area.

If you have not already made it to Yankee Stadium, do so. Assuming that the mob sponsored union workers complete the new stadium on time, Yankee Stadium will be vacant at the end of the 2008 season. I hate the evil empire as much as the next person, but this is one of those times when the history of the game takes precedence. If you are a baseball fan, you owe it to yourself to take in a game here.

As a side note, Shea Stadium is due to be vacant at the end of the 2008 season as well. I enjoyed Karin's and my trip to the stadium only because I had never been to Shea and my father was a Mets fan when I was growing up.

In the mean time, if you're interested, the links have the pictures from our respective trips.

RIP, Scooter

Phil Rizzuto passed today. It's impossible to have grown up a sports fan anywhere in the northeast and not have heard or watched his broadcasts of Yankee games from the mid 50's through the 90's. His voice was easily one of the most recognizable in all of sports. He was also famous for unabashedly being a homer and his streams of consciousness, as well as his part in Meat Loaf's Paradise by the Dashboard Light.

God must have needed a play-by-play broadcaster for an all-history game. He'd be hard pressed to have picked anyone better.

"Holy cow"