I voted for Barack Obama and was happy when he won, so happy that I exchanged fist bumps with like-minded friends. As far as I’m concerned he needn’t walk on water to be a successful president, just run a competent administration and show some respect for the truth. He’d be a big improvement over the gang we’ve just had on both those scores.
But although The Elected One is almost two months shy of taking office, I already find myself in disagreement with him. That’s over his call for an annual, eight-team playoff to determine a national major-college football champion. What’s he doing messing with that stuff, anyway? Maybe he’s still in campaign mode and hoping to win over some of the Joe Six-Pack types who join the cheers for such things.
Or maybe his proposal reflects a disappointing lack of understanding of today’s college-athletics’ scene. As anyone who has spent much time around them knows, the trouble with the big-time college “revenue” sports—football and men’s basketball—is that they’re too much about sports and not enough about college. School administrators, alums and even some faculty members have bought into the notion that success on the gridiron or hardcourt confers a status that can’t be gotten elsewhere. To that end they’ve created a monster business that’s taken on a life of its own and diverts resources and attention from what should be their real mission.
To support it they’ve built physical plants that match or exceed in grandeur those of the sports pros, down to (or up to) multi-million-dollar workout facilities and the glassed-in “luxury” boxes that line their stadiums’ rims. Their head coaches receive seven-figure annual income packages and perks that mock their frequent self-descriptions as humble educators. These cats typically have a half-dozen secretaries and offices large enough to house an Olympic swimming pool. It’s easier to get a private audience with Condoleezza Rice than with some of them.
The young men who star in the shows the big-timers produce are no more than grist for the mill. They’re recruited with the promise of receiving a proper academic life-launching only to be immediately saddled with a regimen of practice, game-film watching, weight training, games and travel that amounts to a full-time job and then some. Under such circumstances only the brightest and most highly motivated individuals can obtain an education worth the name, but, sadly, most of the kids involved are neither. Most drift away from campus once their athletic eligibility expires or are whisked out the door with a diploma that’s just a piece of paper. Don’t put much stock in the claims of schools that purport to have high athlete-graduation rates; for my money that means their athletic departments have too much sway over their academic counterparts.
Like those of the pros, college revenue-sport schedules only change in one direction: longer. Hey, if you don’t open the store you can’t do business. Back in the Stone Age, when I went to college, the college-football regular season was nine games and there were maybe a half-dozen New Year’s Day bowls. Now the NCAA-sanctioned Division I regular season is 12 games and there are enough bowl games to provide ESPN with nightly programming from middle December through the first week in January.
That’s not all, though. “Pre-season” games, usually connected to some charity but with the schools getting their shares just the same, aren’t counted in the 12. Neither are the championship contests held by conferences that have been split into divisions. Throw in a bowl and 14-game seasons aren’t uncommon.
Even incorporating present bowls into the mix, the eight-team playoff Obama espouses would tack on another game or two for the teams that qualify, often running their seasons to 15 or 16 outings. Sixteen games is the length of an NFL season, isn’t it? It’d extend the college season through January, making it six months in duration. And this in a sport where the players get the stuffings kicked out of them weekly.
As Obama pointed out repeatedly in his campaign, the U.S. educational system’s many shortcomings have caused us to fall behind other nations in preparing our youth for the knowledge-based economy that’s developing worldwide. Encouraging the further growth of the college-sports behemoth wouldn’t help us a bit there.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
AHHHRIZONA
Most people who visit Phoenix and vicinity from the North do so between New Year’s Day and Easter, the better to escape the frigid weather in their regular habitats. It’s nice here then—except for the summers it usually is—but that’s not my favorite time in my adopted home area. If I were coming I’d pick October or November.
Unlike in winter, it almost never rains here during those months, and while early-October temperatures regularly top 90 degrees the business about “dry” heat actually is true and makes conditions far more pleasant than with similar readings elsewhere. By November average highs have dropped into the 70s, perfect by any standard. The sunshine, light air, gentle breezes and deep-blue desert sky conspire to create a Chamber of Commerce dream.
Best of all, October and November are when the Arizona Fall League holds forth in the Valley of the Sun. The AFL is baseball’s—and Arizona’s—best-kept secret, and persists in that distinction even though it’s regularly advertised as such in the local news outlets. That’s fine with me because I like it just the way it is.
The AFL consists of six teams of 35 players each, seven from each of the 30 Major League clubs. It’s a minor-league finishing school for the top Class A and AA prospects in each team’s farm system, with a few AAA players and an occasional young Major Leaguer in need of additional innings thrown in for leavening.
The teams play 38-game schedules, this year beginning Oct. 7 and ending next Saturday, Nov. 22, with daily bills usually consisting of two day games and one at night. The venues are the nicest little ballparks you’ll ever see—the spring-training homes of the Cubs (in Mesa), Giants (Scottsdale), A’s (Phoenix), Padres and Mariners (Peoria) and Rangers and Royals (Surprise). Admission is cheap: $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and kids.
Spring training baseball in Arizona has come to mean crowds, traffic jams and ticket scalpers. Not the Fall League. The parks each seat between 8,000 and 10,000 people but daily attendance rarely tops 300, including the scouts hunched behind home plate aiming their radar guns. That means you can sit just about anywhere, with extra seats for elbow room and foot-propping.
You can park for free right in front of the stadiums, rarely more than a few yards from the gates. Your chances of taking home a foul ball are good, especially if you’re willing to leave your seat to pick one up. If you’re proud of your opinions about the action on the field, you can share them with the players, coaches, umpires and fellow fans merely by raising your voice.
The baseball isn’t Major League, but it isn’t far behind. Much of the fun is in watching the 21-to-24-year-olds play and guessing which will be starring in the Bigs, and when. Sometimes, this isn’t difficult: it didn’t take a Tony Lucadello to pick out the likes of Ryan Howard (AFL 2004), Ryan Braun (2006) or Evan Longoria (2007). Usually, though, the players are two or three years short of bloom, so you can puff your chest a bit if you’re eventually right.
The hitters have it all over the pitchers this season but the best-looking prospect I’ve seen is a pitcher. He’s 22-year-old Tommy Hanson, the property of the Atlanta Braves. The 6-foot-6 right hander throws fastballs and breakers the other kids can’t handle. In 23 2/3 AFL innings he’s allowed 9 hits and 2 earned runs while striking out 39. He’s Kevin Millwood a dozen years younger.
At age 21, first-baseman Logan Morrison, a Florida Marlins chattel, already is a man among boys, hitting .448 with 28 RBI in 21 games. Colorado Rockies’ prospect Eric Young Jr., the 23-year-old son of the ex-Big League second baseman, gets on base and then steals some. Hanson has a prospective battery mate in Tyler Flowers, a big guy (6-4, 245) with home run power to match.
The Cubs have a couple of pretty good middle-infield prospects in Darwin Barney and Nate Spears, but they’re both about the size of Mike Fontenot. The White Sox’s Aaron Poreda, 22, is a 6-foot-6 left hander who throws hard and throws strikes, at least while I’m watching. You can’t tell much from seeing a player once but the one time I saw shortstop Gordon Beckham, the Sox’s 2008 No. 1 draft choice, he went 5-for-5 with 2 home runs and 7 RBI. He’s supposed to be a good polo player besides.
Come on down and check it out for yourself. There’s still a week left.
Unlike in winter, it almost never rains here during those months, and while early-October temperatures regularly top 90 degrees the business about “dry” heat actually is true and makes conditions far more pleasant than with similar readings elsewhere. By November average highs have dropped into the 70s, perfect by any standard. The sunshine, light air, gentle breezes and deep-blue desert sky conspire to create a Chamber of Commerce dream.
Best of all, October and November are when the Arizona Fall League holds forth in the Valley of the Sun. The AFL is baseball’s—and Arizona’s—best-kept secret, and persists in that distinction even though it’s regularly advertised as such in the local news outlets. That’s fine with me because I like it just the way it is.
The AFL consists of six teams of 35 players each, seven from each of the 30 Major League clubs. It’s a minor-league finishing school for the top Class A and AA prospects in each team’s farm system, with a few AAA players and an occasional young Major Leaguer in need of additional innings thrown in for leavening.
The teams play 38-game schedules, this year beginning Oct. 7 and ending next Saturday, Nov. 22, with daily bills usually consisting of two day games and one at night. The venues are the nicest little ballparks you’ll ever see—the spring-training homes of the Cubs (in Mesa), Giants (Scottsdale), A’s (Phoenix), Padres and Mariners (Peoria) and Rangers and Royals (Surprise). Admission is cheap: $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and kids.
Spring training baseball in Arizona has come to mean crowds, traffic jams and ticket scalpers. Not the Fall League. The parks each seat between 8,000 and 10,000 people but daily attendance rarely tops 300, including the scouts hunched behind home plate aiming their radar guns. That means you can sit just about anywhere, with extra seats for elbow room and foot-propping.
You can park for free right in front of the stadiums, rarely more than a few yards from the gates. Your chances of taking home a foul ball are good, especially if you’re willing to leave your seat to pick one up. If you’re proud of your opinions about the action on the field, you can share them with the players, coaches, umpires and fellow fans merely by raising your voice.
The baseball isn’t Major League, but it isn’t far behind. Much of the fun is in watching the 21-to-24-year-olds play and guessing which will be starring in the Bigs, and when. Sometimes, this isn’t difficult: it didn’t take a Tony Lucadello to pick out the likes of Ryan Howard (AFL 2004), Ryan Braun (2006) or Evan Longoria (2007). Usually, though, the players are two or three years short of bloom, so you can puff your chest a bit if you’re eventually right.
The hitters have it all over the pitchers this season but the best-looking prospect I’ve seen is a pitcher. He’s 22-year-old Tommy Hanson, the property of the Atlanta Braves. The 6-foot-6 right hander throws fastballs and breakers the other kids can’t handle. In 23 2/3 AFL innings he’s allowed 9 hits and 2 earned runs while striking out 39. He’s Kevin Millwood a dozen years younger.
At age 21, first-baseman Logan Morrison, a Florida Marlins chattel, already is a man among boys, hitting .448 with 28 RBI in 21 games. Colorado Rockies’ prospect Eric Young Jr., the 23-year-old son of the ex-Big League second baseman, gets on base and then steals some. Hanson has a prospective battery mate in Tyler Flowers, a big guy (6-4, 245) with home run power to match.
The Cubs have a couple of pretty good middle-infield prospects in Darwin Barney and Nate Spears, but they’re both about the size of Mike Fontenot. The White Sox’s Aaron Poreda, 22, is a 6-foot-6 left hander who throws hard and throws strikes, at least while I’m watching. You can’t tell much from seeing a player once but the one time I saw shortstop Gordon Beckham, the Sox’s 2008 No. 1 draft choice, he went 5-for-5 with 2 home runs and 7 RBI. He’s supposed to be a good polo player besides.
Come on down and check it out for yourself. There’s still a week left.
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