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.
Friday, October 31, 2008
WANNA BET?
For most of the year I’m content to watch games without mercenary incentive, but that changes in the fall, when foot meets ball. There’s something about point-spread betting that makes handicapping football irresistible—especially the National Football League variety. I take rating the games as a personal challenge, one that spices my every week from the beginning of September until Super Bowl Sunday in February.
When I tell people I bet on the NFL the first question I get is “How much?” “None of your business,” I reply, but I add that it’s not nearly enough to alter my standard of living, win or lose.
The second question usually concerns with whom I bet. Same answer as the first, but I will say he’s a great sportsman and fine fella who serves a societal need. In that capacity, at least.
If it were up to me sports gambling would be legal in this land in places other than the great state of Nevada. People are going to do it whether or not they’re supposed to, and the activity might as well benefit us all by being taxed. Just about every state already allows casinos and horse and dog tracks, and runs dressed-up numbers games called lotteries, for heaven’s sake, so we voters long ago signed off on the moral issue.
Among sports betting’s loudest foes is the NFL, which, interestingly, also is among its greatest beneficiaries. The league decries anything that would divert fan attention from the simple question or winning or losing while publishing the sort of detailed weekly injury reports only gamblers require. It revels in the title of “America’s Sport” while failing to acknowledge that much of the fervor its contests arouse stems from betting interest. When a team is leading late in a game by two touchdowns and its fans are screaming for it to score again, you know the spread is 14 points.
You can bet on other pro sports, too (I leave the college kids alone), but it’s not like betting on the NFL. Baseball games often are decided by a run or two so the point-spread treatment doesn’t work; rather, it’s commonly bet on a money line that makes one team, say, a 5 ½-6 favorite over another, meaning that a $1 wagered on the underdog returns $1.10 while someone betting the favorite has to put up $1.20 to win $1. It’s a game of small differences that prove out over a 162-game season, but are very hard to predict day by day.
Pro basketball’s 82-game regular season is about half as long as baseball’s but the sport’s one-night-stand travel is brutal and its physical pace is demanding. Even good teams take nights off on court but, of course, don’t announce them. Gambling on basketball and baseball are specialized arts that require agility, stamina and deep pockets. The “don’t try this at home” warning fully applies.
By contrast, the 32 NFL teams play just once a week, which allows us plungers plenty of time to analyze the matchups beforehand and heal our wounds afterward. Further, football’s scoring is ideally suited to equalizing games through point spots, or spreads. The league’s best team may be playing the worst but the spread can turn the game into a challenging betting proposition.
To bet football right you have to do what the people who set the spreads do. That’s to maintain what’s called a “power rating,” which quantities the differences among the contestants. Give each team a grade, or score, with the best ones getting the lowest numbers. Update it at least weekly to reflect the teams’ latest performances and their injury situations, as best as you can figure them out.
Say that your PR puts the Giants at 3 and the Bears at 10. That would make the Giants a 7-point favorite on a neutral field. Then plug in the home-field advantage, usually three points. Playing in New York the Giants would be +10, in Chicago +4. If your number differs from the bookie’s by 3 points or more, or if it’s on the opposite side of such “key” numbers as 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 14, 17 or 21—point margins by which many games are decided—you’ve got a bet.
At this point I suppose you’d like some betting advice. My record over the last couple of seasons forces me to demur on grounds of modesty, but I can do better by passing along some tips from the estimable Mr. Lem Banker of Las Vegas, my mentor in this regard. Lem is a gen-u-wine expert, maybe the smartest sports bettor ever. He and I collaborated on a 1986 book on the subject (“Lem Banker’s Book of Sports Betting”) that’s considered a classic. Honest.
Sez Lem:
--Don’t be afraid to bet on underdogs. Most people like to back favorites and the spreads reflect this.
--Favor teams with good rushing attacks over those that mostly pass. Football’s a rough-and-tough game and the teams that run best are the roughest and toughest.
--Injuries to quarterbacks, running backs and pass receivers are overrated. Injuries to offensive linemen and defensive backs are underrated.
--If a team has an extraordinarily good or bad game one week, look for it to revert to form the next.
--Most important, bet what you can afford to lose, not what you’d like to win.
And, hey, what are you going to do with your money these days, put it in the stock market?
When I tell people I bet on the NFL the first question I get is “How much?” “None of your business,” I reply, but I add that it’s not nearly enough to alter my standard of living, win or lose.
The second question usually concerns with whom I bet. Same answer as the first, but I will say he’s a great sportsman and fine fella who serves a societal need. In that capacity, at least.
If it were up to me sports gambling would be legal in this land in places other than the great state of Nevada. People are going to do it whether or not they’re supposed to, and the activity might as well benefit us all by being taxed. Just about every state already allows casinos and horse and dog tracks, and runs dressed-up numbers games called lotteries, for heaven’s sake, so we voters long ago signed off on the moral issue.
Among sports betting’s loudest foes is the NFL, which, interestingly, also is among its greatest beneficiaries. The league decries anything that would divert fan attention from the simple question or winning or losing while publishing the sort of detailed weekly injury reports only gamblers require. It revels in the title of “America’s Sport” while failing to acknowledge that much of the fervor its contests arouse stems from betting interest. When a team is leading late in a game by two touchdowns and its fans are screaming for it to score again, you know the spread is 14 points.
You can bet on other pro sports, too (I leave the college kids alone), but it’s not like betting on the NFL. Baseball games often are decided by a run or two so the point-spread treatment doesn’t work; rather, it’s commonly bet on a money line that makes one team, say, a 5 ½-6 favorite over another, meaning that a $1 wagered on the underdog returns $1.10 while someone betting the favorite has to put up $1.20 to win $1. It’s a game of small differences that prove out over a 162-game season, but are very hard to predict day by day.
Pro basketball’s 82-game regular season is about half as long as baseball’s but the sport’s one-night-stand travel is brutal and its physical pace is demanding. Even good teams take nights off on court but, of course, don’t announce them. Gambling on basketball and baseball are specialized arts that require agility, stamina and deep pockets. The “don’t try this at home” warning fully applies.
By contrast, the 32 NFL teams play just once a week, which allows us plungers plenty of time to analyze the matchups beforehand and heal our wounds afterward. Further, football’s scoring is ideally suited to equalizing games through point spots, or spreads. The league’s best team may be playing the worst but the spread can turn the game into a challenging betting proposition.
To bet football right you have to do what the people who set the spreads do. That’s to maintain what’s called a “power rating,” which quantities the differences among the contestants. Give each team a grade, or score, with the best ones getting the lowest numbers. Update it at least weekly to reflect the teams’ latest performances and their injury situations, as best as you can figure them out.
Say that your PR puts the Giants at 3 and the Bears at 10. That would make the Giants a 7-point favorite on a neutral field. Then plug in the home-field advantage, usually three points. Playing in New York the Giants would be +10, in Chicago +4. If your number differs from the bookie’s by 3 points or more, or if it’s on the opposite side of such “key” numbers as 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 14, 17 or 21—point margins by which many games are decided—you’ve got a bet.
At this point I suppose you’d like some betting advice. My record over the last couple of seasons forces me to demur on grounds of modesty, but I can do better by passing along some tips from the estimable Mr. Lem Banker of Las Vegas, my mentor in this regard. Lem is a gen-u-wine expert, maybe the smartest sports bettor ever. He and I collaborated on a 1986 book on the subject (“Lem Banker’s Book of Sports Betting”) that’s considered a classic. Honest.
Sez Lem:
--Don’t be afraid to bet on underdogs. Most people like to back favorites and the spreads reflect this.
--Favor teams with good rushing attacks over those that mostly pass. Football’s a rough-and-tough game and the teams that run best are the roughest and toughest.
--Injuries to quarterbacks, running backs and pass receivers are overrated. Injuries to offensive linemen and defensive backs are underrated.
--If a team has an extraordinarily good or bad game one week, look for it to revert to form the next.
--Most important, bet what you can afford to lose, not what you’d like to win.
And, hey, what are you going to do with your money these days, put it in the stock market?
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
MONEYMONEYMONEYMONEYMONEY
Almost every morning I scan a number of sports pages on the Internet and a story (several, actually) in the Chicago papers caught my eye a week or so ago. It was about Ben Gordon, a guard for the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association, and his salary struggles with the team.
Gordon is entering his fifth NBA season and will be eligible for free agency at its end. Teams often try to tie their better players to long-term deals before they gain their contractual freedom and the Bulls did this with Gordon last season, reportedly offering him something around $50 million over five years. Gordon said uh-uh and played out the campaign. More negotiations ensued and the Bulls changed their offer to $58 million over six years, a bit of a drop on an annual basis. Gordon, who is said to have sought an annual paycheck in the vicinity of $12 million, said uh-uh again.
When the new season approached with no deal in sight, the Bulls made the young man a “qualifying” offer of $6.4 million that would retain his services for this season only, after which he’d be free to try to better his lot elsewhere. Gordon wound up taking it, but not with good grace. “I can go into a long list of things I’m surprised about that didn’t happen,” he remarked upon his appearance at training camp, using the elliptical language with which jocks often express themselves these days.
What Gordon really is “worth” in his league is an open question. He’s a quick-draw jump shooter who scores and runs the floor well but isn’t especially good at handling the ball, passing, penetrating or defending. In his mind he’s Allen Iverson, driving the lane and making shots from every conceivable angle, but when he tries an Iverson-like move he usually gets stripped or stuffed. I wouldn’t give him $12 mil per to play on my team.
The point I want to make, though, has to do with Gordon’s apparent disdain for the salary for which he’s forced to labor this season and the fact that his attitude toward it is typical rather than exceptional among today’s big-time professional athletes. Six point four million dollars a year is an enormous amount of money by any standard other than theirs, or, maybe, Angelina Jolie’s. Treating it as chump change boggles the mind.
The jock-salary explosion already had started when I began writing regularly about sports in the mid-1980s, with the average Major League Baseball player’s salary hovering around $500,000 a year. That number seems quaint now but was more than enough for me to note that the typical ballplayer probably was earning more in a year than his father did in a lifetime.
Impressive as it was, the comparison no longer holds. The current average-annual-pay figures— about $3.2 million in baseball, $3.7 million in the NBA and $1.5 million in the National Football League--probably are more than every father on the jock’s block ever will make. Looked at another way, even after taxes one year as an “average” NBA player should be enough to insure that the recipient and his family can live comfortably forevermore, without again needing to work. And that’s for doing something others do for fun.
In good economic years and bad, salaries at pro sports’ upper levels have risen to the point where, I’m sure, the sums involved are abstractions to the people who receive them, losing all relationship to human needs. They’re a source of competition in an already competitive milieu, with players asking for more at least partly because they want to outdo the guy across the locker room. The type of consumption that often goes with the lush pay is competitive, too, which is one reason jock fortunes sometimes disappear quickly. It’s only monopoly money, after all.
What should we make of this? A few in my acquaintance say they’re so disgusted with the big-money aspects of sports that they’ve turned them off, but most of us are able to separate the cash and the games and enjoy the latter anyway. Otherwise, we can invoke wise sayings about life’s unfairness, such as Mel Brook’s “It’s good to be king,” or ponder the line (Babe Ruth’s, I think) about how nobody who works for anybody else is overpaid.
And remember, being a fan ain’t like playing taxes, it’s voluntary. They only get your money if you give it to them.
Gordon is entering his fifth NBA season and will be eligible for free agency at its end. Teams often try to tie their better players to long-term deals before they gain their contractual freedom and the Bulls did this with Gordon last season, reportedly offering him something around $50 million over five years. Gordon said uh-uh and played out the campaign. More negotiations ensued and the Bulls changed their offer to $58 million over six years, a bit of a drop on an annual basis. Gordon, who is said to have sought an annual paycheck in the vicinity of $12 million, said uh-uh again.
When the new season approached with no deal in sight, the Bulls made the young man a “qualifying” offer of $6.4 million that would retain his services for this season only, after which he’d be free to try to better his lot elsewhere. Gordon wound up taking it, but not with good grace. “I can go into a long list of things I’m surprised about that didn’t happen,” he remarked upon his appearance at training camp, using the elliptical language with which jocks often express themselves these days.
What Gordon really is “worth” in his league is an open question. He’s a quick-draw jump shooter who scores and runs the floor well but isn’t especially good at handling the ball, passing, penetrating or defending. In his mind he’s Allen Iverson, driving the lane and making shots from every conceivable angle, but when he tries an Iverson-like move he usually gets stripped or stuffed. I wouldn’t give him $12 mil per to play on my team.
The point I want to make, though, has to do with Gordon’s apparent disdain for the salary for which he’s forced to labor this season and the fact that his attitude toward it is typical rather than exceptional among today’s big-time professional athletes. Six point four million dollars a year is an enormous amount of money by any standard other than theirs, or, maybe, Angelina Jolie’s. Treating it as chump change boggles the mind.
The jock-salary explosion already had started when I began writing regularly about sports in the mid-1980s, with the average Major League Baseball player’s salary hovering around $500,000 a year. That number seems quaint now but was more than enough for me to note that the typical ballplayer probably was earning more in a year than his father did in a lifetime.
Impressive as it was, the comparison no longer holds. The current average-annual-pay figures— about $3.2 million in baseball, $3.7 million in the NBA and $1.5 million in the National Football League--probably are more than every father on the jock’s block ever will make. Looked at another way, even after taxes one year as an “average” NBA player should be enough to insure that the recipient and his family can live comfortably forevermore, without again needing to work. And that’s for doing something others do for fun.
In good economic years and bad, salaries at pro sports’ upper levels have risen to the point where, I’m sure, the sums involved are abstractions to the people who receive them, losing all relationship to human needs. They’re a source of competition in an already competitive milieu, with players asking for more at least partly because they want to outdo the guy across the locker room. The type of consumption that often goes with the lush pay is competitive, too, which is one reason jock fortunes sometimes disappear quickly. It’s only monopoly money, after all.
What should we make of this? A few in my acquaintance say they’re so disgusted with the big-money aspects of sports that they’ve turned them off, but most of us are able to separate the cash and the games and enjoy the latter anyway. Otherwise, we can invoke wise sayings about life’s unfairness, such as Mel Brook’s “It’s good to be king,” or ponder the line (Babe Ruth’s, I think) about how nobody who works for anybody else is overpaid.
And remember, being a fan ain’t like playing taxes, it’s voluntary. They only get your money if you give it to them.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
RED FLAG IT
The baseball playoffs are underway and I’m sure you’re thrilled with the fact the ballparks involved have been wired to permit TV “instant” replay to determine whether home run-like blows are fair or foul, in or out.
I put the word “instant” in quotes because they belong there. Baseball first implemented TV replays on questionable home runs late last month. In each of the few times the system was used, play was halted for about five minutes while the umpires went wherever they did to examine the tapes and reach their decision. While they were out, the paying customers in the stands and the folks at home in televisionland amused themselves as best they could.
But—hey!—the calls came out right, didn’t they? Maybe. As anyone who has seen the movie “Rashomon” knows, reality can be complex, viewpoint is important and seeing isn’t necessarily believing. Often, a replay adds another level of controversy to one that already exists.
Worse, subjecting playing-field doings to microscopic video analysis gives them vastly more importance than they deserve. They’re games, for heaven’s sake, and no matter what the sports crazies think the fate of the republic doesn’t hang on their outcome. Players and coaches make mistakes—plenty of them. Officials can be excused an occasional miscue.
That was why Major League Baseball’s surrender to the replay clamorers particularly pained me. Commish Selig previously had resisted nobly, holding with his sainted predecessors that baseball was played by humans and should be judged by them. No more needed to have been said. But now that the camel has its nose in the tent, can its whole bulky, smelly body be far behind?
The National Basketball Association adopted video replay (on shots or fouls at or near the buzzers) in 2002, but the blame for the mania rests squarely with the National Football League, which adopted it earlier and uses it far more often. This was only to be expected from our most corporate and grandiose sporting entity. It forever gained the latter distinction some years ago when it sponsored a national student essay contest on its place in American history. The subject could have been covered in a single word: none.
The NFL’s bureaucratizing bent is best seen in its handling of pre-game player-injury reports. In the old days teams issued these haphazardly, creating an underground market for the real scoop among the gamblers whose attentions add much to the sport’s popularity. The league responded by requiring public disclosure, but has tinkered with the process so much that the categories have become blurry and the lists bewilderingly long. And guess what? The underground market lives again.
The league already litters its fields of play with seven game officials, all with yellow penalty handkerchiefs at the ready. This contrasts with soccer, where a single referee oversees as many players on a larger greensward. It’s a wonder that the football zebras don’t get tangled up in plays more than they do. Being an NFL umpire (the guy who usually positions himself behind the defensive line) is akin to smoke jumping in terms of dangerousness.
It’s a natural law that if you give someone a job he’ll do it whether or not it needs doing, so many NFL contests are veritable penalty fests. The game encourages players to commit acts against the opposition that would qualify as felonies in the square world, and it’s impossible to loose 22 amped up and overmuscled young men on such missions without some rule being broken. The question then becomes not who is breaking the rules but which violations deserve censure. Knowing that the camera always is watching, and judging, can only prompt officials to be overzealous.
So the hankies flutter down like confetti at a political convention, the worst being the red ones coaches use to seek justice when they feel they’ve been wronged. Off goes the ref to daven under the cover of the replay machine while the TV commentators dissect the play in question and argue about what they see, or don’t see, or think they see.
Throughout the land toilets flush and Sunday newspaper crossword puzzles are revisited.
This is not what Pete Rozelle intended when he invented the game.
I put the word “instant” in quotes because they belong there. Baseball first implemented TV replays on questionable home runs late last month. In each of the few times the system was used, play was halted for about five minutes while the umpires went wherever they did to examine the tapes and reach their decision. While they were out, the paying customers in the stands and the folks at home in televisionland amused themselves as best they could.
But—hey!—the calls came out right, didn’t they? Maybe. As anyone who has seen the movie “Rashomon” knows, reality can be complex, viewpoint is important and seeing isn’t necessarily believing. Often, a replay adds another level of controversy to one that already exists.
Worse, subjecting playing-field doings to microscopic video analysis gives them vastly more importance than they deserve. They’re games, for heaven’s sake, and no matter what the sports crazies think the fate of the republic doesn’t hang on their outcome. Players and coaches make mistakes—plenty of them. Officials can be excused an occasional miscue.
That was why Major League Baseball’s surrender to the replay clamorers particularly pained me. Commish Selig previously had resisted nobly, holding with his sainted predecessors that baseball was played by humans and should be judged by them. No more needed to have been said. But now that the camel has its nose in the tent, can its whole bulky, smelly body be far behind?
The National Basketball Association adopted video replay (on shots or fouls at or near the buzzers) in 2002, but the blame for the mania rests squarely with the National Football League, which adopted it earlier and uses it far more often. This was only to be expected from our most corporate and grandiose sporting entity. It forever gained the latter distinction some years ago when it sponsored a national student essay contest on its place in American history. The subject could have been covered in a single word: none.
The NFL’s bureaucratizing bent is best seen in its handling of pre-game player-injury reports. In the old days teams issued these haphazardly, creating an underground market for the real scoop among the gamblers whose attentions add much to the sport’s popularity. The league responded by requiring public disclosure, but has tinkered with the process so much that the categories have become blurry and the lists bewilderingly long. And guess what? The underground market lives again.
The league already litters its fields of play with seven game officials, all with yellow penalty handkerchiefs at the ready. This contrasts with soccer, where a single referee oversees as many players on a larger greensward. It’s a wonder that the football zebras don’t get tangled up in plays more than they do. Being an NFL umpire (the guy who usually positions himself behind the defensive line) is akin to smoke jumping in terms of dangerousness.
It’s a natural law that if you give someone a job he’ll do it whether or not it needs doing, so many NFL contests are veritable penalty fests. The game encourages players to commit acts against the opposition that would qualify as felonies in the square world, and it’s impossible to loose 22 amped up and overmuscled young men on such missions without some rule being broken. The question then becomes not who is breaking the rules but which violations deserve censure. Knowing that the camera always is watching, and judging, can only prompt officials to be overzealous.
So the hankies flutter down like confetti at a political convention, the worst being the red ones coaches use to seek justice when they feel they’ve been wronged. Off goes the ref to daven under the cover of the replay machine while the TV commentators dissect the play in question and argue about what they see, or don’t see, or think they see.
Throughout the land toilets flush and Sunday newspaper crossword puzzles are revisited.
This is not what Pete Rozelle intended when he invented the game.
Monday, September 15, 2008
IT MIGHT BE...IT COULD BE...IS IT?
Okay, people, ‘fess up. Did you think this season would be easy for the Cubs?
I mean as recently as late August, when they were 35 games over .500 and the media mouths were lavishing praise on them and talking about a “dream season.” Did you think they’d float to baseball supremacy after all their years of also-running?
If you said “yes,” you’re not a real Cubs’ fan. Real Cubs fans expect only catastrophe; it’s all we’ve ever experienced. If God had wanted our lives to be happy, He (or She) would have made us Yankees’ fans. Or, at least, Cardinals’ fans.
September brought the cold wind of reality, or should have. The team ended August and began this month by losing eight of nine games, and only the Brewers’ equal ineptitude prevented their divisional lead from evaporating. Cub bats went cold, fielders developed the muffs, pitchers couldn’t hold leads. Just like in the old days.
The boys have strung together a few wins since, and seem sure to make the playoffs, but their recent form indicates that their post-season prospects might not be brilliant. Despite his no-hitter last night, a sore-shoulder cloud hangs over Carlos “Big Baby” Zambrano, their top starting pitcher. Rich “Handle With Care” Harden, starter No. 3, has been as fragile as advertised. He can’t go past six innings and seems to require a couple of weeks’ rest between starts. “Closer” Kerry Wood? Kyra Sedgwick has been better lately.
Derrek Lee, their putative Big Bopper, no longer can get around on good fastballs; he’s been hitting into so many double plays his uniform number should be 643. Kosuke Fukudome, the early-season hitting hero, can’t get around on anything; his batting style would shame a Little Leaguer. Aramis Ramirez takes week-long naps. Any pitcher who gives Alfonzo Soriano anything but an eye-high fastball or slider in the dirt should lose his job.
I knew this was coming because I’m a real Cubs’ fan, which is to say that I always think the glass is totally empty. It’s a defense mechanism, of course; if you expect nothing you’re not disappointed when that’s what you get. Cubs’ fans are said to “live and die” with their team, but that’s nonsense because our shells are so hard armadillos envy us. If I’d have died every time the Cubbies did I never would have made it to my Bar Mitzvah.
I know people who do live and die with the Cubs, albeit figuratively. Eddie Cohen, my classmate at Roosevelt High, got so frustrated with the team that some years ago he started Cubs Anonymous, a 12-step program to rid ones' self of Cubs’ addiction. He’s got a website and would be glad to sell you a t-shirt and membership card if you ask.
Chuck Brusso, my pal in Scottsdale, so despairs of the team’s day-to-day prospects that he can’t bring himself to watch it play, following its progress (or lack of it) on Sports Center or in the newspapers. He says the last time he peeked at a Cubs’ game on TV-- inadvertently, in a restaurant-- he saw someone named Bartman reach out of the stands and snatch a foul fly from Moises Alou. He still blames himself for that.
But to my mind the ultimate Cubs’ fan was someone much younger than Cohen, Brusso or, even, I. He was Steve Goodman, a skinny North Side kid who played the guitar and sang—mostly his own compositions—in Chicago’s Old Town and Lincoln Avenue folk bars in the 1970s. He was very good at what he did, and although he died young (at age 36, of leukemia, in 1984) made a mark that still remains. If you’ve never heard Willie Nelson’s recording of Steve’s “The City of New Orleans,” about the Illinois Central train, you’re missing a treat.
Steve often performed wearing a Cubs’ cap. He wrote several songs about the team. One of them was the upbeat “Go, Cubs, Go” which is played at Wrigley Field after each Cub victory these days, although it was written to be played before games.
But Steve was clear-eyed about the object of his affections. The chorus of his song “A Dying Cubs’ Fan’s Last Request,” says it all about the team:
“Do they still play the blues in Chicago,
When the baseball season rolls around?
When the snow melts away, do the Cubbies still play,
In their ivy-covered burial ground?
When I was a boy they were my pride and joy,
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave,
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League.”
Even so, Go Cubs!
I mean as recently as late August, when they were 35 games over .500 and the media mouths were lavishing praise on them and talking about a “dream season.” Did you think they’d float to baseball supremacy after all their years of also-running?
If you said “yes,” you’re not a real Cubs’ fan. Real Cubs fans expect only catastrophe; it’s all we’ve ever experienced. If God had wanted our lives to be happy, He (or She) would have made us Yankees’ fans. Or, at least, Cardinals’ fans.
September brought the cold wind of reality, or should have. The team ended August and began this month by losing eight of nine games, and only the Brewers’ equal ineptitude prevented their divisional lead from evaporating. Cub bats went cold, fielders developed the muffs, pitchers couldn’t hold leads. Just like in the old days.
The boys have strung together a few wins since, and seem sure to make the playoffs, but their recent form indicates that their post-season prospects might not be brilliant. Despite his no-hitter last night, a sore-shoulder cloud hangs over Carlos “Big Baby” Zambrano, their top starting pitcher. Rich “Handle With Care” Harden, starter No. 3, has been as fragile as advertised. He can’t go past six innings and seems to require a couple of weeks’ rest between starts. “Closer” Kerry Wood? Kyra Sedgwick has been better lately.
Derrek Lee, their putative Big Bopper, no longer can get around on good fastballs; he’s been hitting into so many double plays his uniform number should be 643. Kosuke Fukudome, the early-season hitting hero, can’t get around on anything; his batting style would shame a Little Leaguer. Aramis Ramirez takes week-long naps. Any pitcher who gives Alfonzo Soriano anything but an eye-high fastball or slider in the dirt should lose his job.
I knew this was coming because I’m a real Cubs’ fan, which is to say that I always think the glass is totally empty. It’s a defense mechanism, of course; if you expect nothing you’re not disappointed when that’s what you get. Cubs’ fans are said to “live and die” with their team, but that’s nonsense because our shells are so hard armadillos envy us. If I’d have died every time the Cubbies did I never would have made it to my Bar Mitzvah.
I know people who do live and die with the Cubs, albeit figuratively. Eddie Cohen, my classmate at Roosevelt High, got so frustrated with the team that some years ago he started Cubs Anonymous, a 12-step program to rid ones' self of Cubs’ addiction. He’s got a website and would be glad to sell you a t-shirt and membership card if you ask.
Chuck Brusso, my pal in Scottsdale, so despairs of the team’s day-to-day prospects that he can’t bring himself to watch it play, following its progress (or lack of it) on Sports Center or in the newspapers. He says the last time he peeked at a Cubs’ game on TV-- inadvertently, in a restaurant-- he saw someone named Bartman reach out of the stands and snatch a foul fly from Moises Alou. He still blames himself for that.
But to my mind the ultimate Cubs’ fan was someone much younger than Cohen, Brusso or, even, I. He was Steve Goodman, a skinny North Side kid who played the guitar and sang—mostly his own compositions—in Chicago’s Old Town and Lincoln Avenue folk bars in the 1970s. He was very good at what he did, and although he died young (at age 36, of leukemia, in 1984) made a mark that still remains. If you’ve never heard Willie Nelson’s recording of Steve’s “The City of New Orleans,” about the Illinois Central train, you’re missing a treat.
Steve often performed wearing a Cubs’ cap. He wrote several songs about the team. One of them was the upbeat “Go, Cubs, Go” which is played at Wrigley Field after each Cub victory these days, although it was written to be played before games.
But Steve was clear-eyed about the object of his affections. The chorus of his song “A Dying Cubs’ Fan’s Last Request,” says it all about the team:
“Do they still play the blues in Chicago,
When the baseball season rolls around?
When the snow melts away, do the Cubbies still play,
In their ivy-covered burial ground?
When I was a boy they were my pride and joy,
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave,
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League.”
Even so, Go Cubs!
Monday, September 1, 2008
BOBBY LAYNE'S CURSE
The National Football League starts for real this week but I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. That’s because I’m a Chicago Bears fan, and watching those guys play vies with having one’s fingernails pulled as a painful experience.
It’s not just that the Bears are bad, although they certainly promise to be that in the weeks ahead. It’s also that they are dull, and have been as long as I can remember. A good offense—or, more specifically, a smooth-working passing game—is by me what makes football entertaining, and the Bears have no prospect of presenting one.
Indeed, the failure to move the ball in the easiest way—via the air—is so woven into the team’s ethos that it qualifies as a tradition. Some years ago a klutzy edition of the baseball White Sox made a motto of “Winning Ugly.” The Bears always win that way (when they win), and lose that way, too. A typical Bears’ outcome is a score of 16-13, either way. Wake me when it’s over. And never—ever—give the points.
It’s hard to believe but the team’s last great quarterback was Sid Luckman, who retired in 1950. Saint Sid played so long ago that he’s a legend, back there with Jim Thorpe and King Arthur, but he still holds the team records for most passing yards (14,686), touchdowns (137) and yards per reception (8.42). Fifty eight years have passed, along with entire eras of offensive evolution, but they’ve bypassed the Bears’ passing game entirely.
Yes, the team has had a few okay QBs in that span. Johnny Lujack, Ed Brown, Rudy Bukich and Erik Kramer all enjoyed a decent year or two. Billy Wade handed off ably for a 1963 championship team that ran on defense, and Jim McMahon did all right in 1985 when football’s maybe-best defensive unit ever won the team’s only Super Bowl.
Mostly, though, we’ve had to put up with the likes of Bob Williams, Bobby Douglas, Steve Walsh, Dave Krieg, Shane Matthews, Cade McNown, Mike Tomczak, Steve Fuller, Vince Evans, Mike Phipps, Bob Avellini, Gary Huff, Jack Concannon, Jim Miller, Kent Nix, Jim Harbaugh, Rick Mirer, Greg Landry, Virgil Carter and Rusty Lisch. I could go on but I think the point is made.
The Bears’ current quarterbacks, Kyle Orton and Rex Grossman, fit comfortably into the above list. Orton took the Bears to the playoffs in 2004, but mostly by doing little harm; so limited are his aspirations that the Soldier Field crowd cheers every time he throws a pass beyond the line of scrimmage. Grossman can sling the ball, but not always off the right foot or to the right person. His signature play is the fumbled center snap. The Bears got to the Super Bowl with him two years ago, but people still can’t figure out how they did it.
The usual reason given for the Bears’ eternal failure to muster a consistent passing attack is the weather: Solider Field’s often cold and blustery conditions don’t lend themselves to the aerial game, many say. To that I say, “Phooey!” Fran Tarkenton rewrote the NFL’s passing records in colder and blusterier Minneapolis (the Vikings played outdoors in his day) and Brett Favre blew on his fingers, wiped the snow off his faceguard and topped Fran’s marks up in Green Bay. The Bears were a frequent patsy for both.
A better reason is that Bear execs through the years have bought into the team’s rough-tough “Monsters of the Midway” image and eschewed the pass in favor of “D” and the run. While it’s okay if fans spout “real men don’t pass” nonsense, it’s inexcusable from the guys who call the shots.
Another reason, I think, may be the “Curse of Bobby Layne.” If you’re old enough you’ll vividly recall Layne, a quarterback who was short on style but long on results. It was said of him that he never lost a game, time just ran out a few times before he could correct the scoreboard.
Layne originally was a Bear, a first-round draft choice out of the U of Texas who joined Luckman and fellow-rookie Lujack on the 1948 club. Luckman was in his athletic dotage and team owner George Halas, a noted nickel nurser, saw no sense in paying two top prospects to replace him, so after that season he dubbed the handsome ex-Notre Dame hero and traded away Layne. Lujack played three more years, then married a car-dealer’s daughter and quit football to go into his father-in-law’s business. Layne led the Detroit Lions to multiple championships during the 1950s, titles that rightly belonged to the Bears.
The combative Layne never was one to hide his feelings. When the Lions traded him to the woebegone Pittsburgh Steelers in 1958 he cursed them, saying they'd never win again. Lo and behold, they haven’t. He was just a kid when the Bears dumped him, so no one was much concerned with his mutterings, but I’ll bet he said the same thing about their quarterbacking future.
It’s not just that the Bears are bad, although they certainly promise to be that in the weeks ahead. It’s also that they are dull, and have been as long as I can remember. A good offense—or, more specifically, a smooth-working passing game—is by me what makes football entertaining, and the Bears have no prospect of presenting one.
Indeed, the failure to move the ball in the easiest way—via the air—is so woven into the team’s ethos that it qualifies as a tradition. Some years ago a klutzy edition of the baseball White Sox made a motto of “Winning Ugly.” The Bears always win that way (when they win), and lose that way, too. A typical Bears’ outcome is a score of 16-13, either way. Wake me when it’s over. And never—ever—give the points.
It’s hard to believe but the team’s last great quarterback was Sid Luckman, who retired in 1950. Saint Sid played so long ago that he’s a legend, back there with Jim Thorpe and King Arthur, but he still holds the team records for most passing yards (14,686), touchdowns (137) and yards per reception (8.42). Fifty eight years have passed, along with entire eras of offensive evolution, but they’ve bypassed the Bears’ passing game entirely.
Yes, the team has had a few okay QBs in that span. Johnny Lujack, Ed Brown, Rudy Bukich and Erik Kramer all enjoyed a decent year or two. Billy Wade handed off ably for a 1963 championship team that ran on defense, and Jim McMahon did all right in 1985 when football’s maybe-best defensive unit ever won the team’s only Super Bowl.
Mostly, though, we’ve had to put up with the likes of Bob Williams, Bobby Douglas, Steve Walsh, Dave Krieg, Shane Matthews, Cade McNown, Mike Tomczak, Steve Fuller, Vince Evans, Mike Phipps, Bob Avellini, Gary Huff, Jack Concannon, Jim Miller, Kent Nix, Jim Harbaugh, Rick Mirer, Greg Landry, Virgil Carter and Rusty Lisch. I could go on but I think the point is made.
The Bears’ current quarterbacks, Kyle Orton and Rex Grossman, fit comfortably into the above list. Orton took the Bears to the playoffs in 2004, but mostly by doing little harm; so limited are his aspirations that the Soldier Field crowd cheers every time he throws a pass beyond the line of scrimmage. Grossman can sling the ball, but not always off the right foot or to the right person. His signature play is the fumbled center snap. The Bears got to the Super Bowl with him two years ago, but people still can’t figure out how they did it.
The usual reason given for the Bears’ eternal failure to muster a consistent passing attack is the weather: Solider Field’s often cold and blustery conditions don’t lend themselves to the aerial game, many say. To that I say, “Phooey!” Fran Tarkenton rewrote the NFL’s passing records in colder and blusterier Minneapolis (the Vikings played outdoors in his day) and Brett Favre blew on his fingers, wiped the snow off his faceguard and topped Fran’s marks up in Green Bay. The Bears were a frequent patsy for both.
A better reason is that Bear execs through the years have bought into the team’s rough-tough “Monsters of the Midway” image and eschewed the pass in favor of “D” and the run. While it’s okay if fans spout “real men don’t pass” nonsense, it’s inexcusable from the guys who call the shots.
Another reason, I think, may be the “Curse of Bobby Layne.” If you’re old enough you’ll vividly recall Layne, a quarterback who was short on style but long on results. It was said of him that he never lost a game, time just ran out a few times before he could correct the scoreboard.
Layne originally was a Bear, a first-round draft choice out of the U of Texas who joined Luckman and fellow-rookie Lujack on the 1948 club. Luckman was in his athletic dotage and team owner George Halas, a noted nickel nurser, saw no sense in paying two top prospects to replace him, so after that season he dubbed the handsome ex-Notre Dame hero and traded away Layne. Lujack played three more years, then married a car-dealer’s daughter and quit football to go into his father-in-law’s business. Layne led the Detroit Lions to multiple championships during the 1950s, titles that rightly belonged to the Bears.
The combative Layne never was one to hide his feelings. When the Lions traded him to the woebegone Pittsburgh Steelers in 1958 he cursed them, saying they'd never win again. Lo and behold, they haven’t. He was just a kid when the Bears dumped him, so no one was much concerned with his mutterings, but I’ll bet he said the same thing about their quarterbacking future.
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