TOO FAT

 

               Another National Football League season is here—goody-goody—and as usual I’ll be spending an inordinate amount of time watching it on the tube. I’m hard-pressed to explain this. Basketball players are better athletes than footballers and the numberless hours I spent on Chicago’s softball diamonds gave me a mental and visceral connection to the parent sport of baseball. By contrast, as a too-little kid I steered clear of the “F” sport, my participation pretty much limited to autumn games of "touch" in the alley behind my Paulina Street home.

               In recent years I’ve also developed moral qualms about football. Beyond a doubt it’s a gladiatorial sport that requires players to roll the dice with their health. I tell myself they’re volunteers, and adult pros accept the risks they face, but I doubt if many make the choice with the full understanding of what could be in store for them. Neurological injuries caused by the game’s incessant head butting are the main danger; a recently reported survey of 3,500 retired NFL players, average age 53, showed that 12% said they were suffering with “severe” cognitive issues, and 25% said they had symptoms of clinical depression or anxiety. That probably understates the true extent of the situation, because self-reporting usually minimizes such things and neurological damage can manifest itself many years after the causative blows.

On top of that is the damage to bones and joints that football brings. Rare is the NFL player who hasn’t gone under the knife at some point as a high-schooler, collegian or pro, and multiple surgeries are the rule for veterans. Mark Schlereth, who spent 12 seasons as an offensive lineman with the Washington (then) Redskins and Denver Broncos (1989-2000), underwent 29 operations, 20 on his knees (15 left, five right) and the rest on his back, shoulders and arms. A connoisseur of such things, he’s said “If I could take back the back surgery, I’d take another 20 knee surgeries instead.”  

Joint injuries generally aren’t life-threatening, but even when corrected surgically they tend to get worse over time. Joints that have been injured are more prone than others to arthritis and other ravages of age. I recall seeing Dick Butkus, the personification of football ferocity, hauling himself around stiff-legged 25 years after his playing days ended. As a result of his football injuries he has a metal knee replacement, and other surgeries left one leg 1 ½ inches shorter than the other.

But while brain and joint damage stem from the nature of football and, thus, are inevitable, another important football health issue isn’t. I mean the sort of intentional obesity to which some players, especially linemen, subject themselves. In brief, most of those guys are too fat, and have to be to keep their jobs.

 There was a time when a “big man” playing at or near his natural weight could have a fine NFL career; the starting O-Line of the 1965 Green Bay Packers, a great team by any measure, consisted of center Ken Bowman, guards Jerry Kramer and Fuzzy Thurston and tackles Forrest Gregg and Bob Skoronski, each of whom weighed in at between 230 and 250 pounds. Today, they’d have to buy tickets to get near an NFL field at those weights.

As late as 1985 300-pounders were considered freakish in football; remember the fuss when William Perry, a defensive lineman nicknamed “The Refrigerator” for his blocky build and love of food, debuted with the Chicago Bears at that weight? It turned out he was a pioneer. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the average weight of starting offensive linemen in the league jumped from 254 pounds in 1970 to 277 pounds in 1990, to 309 pounds in 2000 and to 315 pounds today.

The reason for the increase is simple: the bigger a lineman is the harder he is to move. Some of the increase may be muscle, but most is fat. One study I came across reported that the average body fat of an NFL lineman is 24.8%, 0.2% short of the clinical definition of obesity. That was about twice the body-fat average of players at the other positions.

Football players work hard and maintaining their weight is about as much trouble as gaining it. A case in point was Joe Thomas, a perennial All-Pro offensive tackle in his 11 seasons with the Cleveland Browns, ending with his 2018 retirement.  He played football in high school at about 240 pounds, bulked up to 300 at the University of Wisconsin, and added about 25 pounds more as a pro. His 6-foot-6 frame enabled him to do that without loss of mobility, but it was not without effort. A piece last year on overweight football pros on the ESPN.com website described his typical daily playing-days menu thusly:

               Breakfast—Four pieces of bacon¸ four sausage links, eight eggs, three pancakes and oatmeal with peanut butter.

               Lunch—Pasta with meatballs, cookies and “a salad maybe.”

               Dinner—A whole deep-dish pizza, a sleeve of Thin Mint Girl Scouts cookies and a bowl of ice cream.

               On top of that came a couple of daily protein shakes and between-meals and bedtime snacks. “If I went two hours without eating I’d want to cut off your arm and eat it,” he told the ESPN reporter. “We got weighed on Mondays and if I lost five pounds my coach would give me hell.”

               Fun it wasn’t, he continued, saying he “crushed Tums” nightly but still had constant heartburn, and gulped various pain meds and anti-inflammatories to cope with his aches. In the first two years of his retirement he began eating and exercising “like a normal human,” threw away the meds and lost 60 pounds. “The health benefits were amazing,” he exulted.

               The other side of the coin is grim, as personified by the abovementioned Mr. Perry. His weight crept up throughout a nine-year NFL career (1985-94) and kept climbing in retirement, eventually nearing 450 pounds. He lost most of that later, but not in a healthy way. Now, at age 58, he’s in a wheelchair, suffering from diabetes and circulatory issues, among other things.  One only can hope that the memory of the cheers he received in his prime eases his current condition.

               The NFL’s unhealthful fatter-the-better regime could easily be halted by the league establishing an upper limit on weight. Olympic freestyle wrestling did this in the 1980s after huge men, such as the 400-pound American Chris Taylor, had come to dominate the heavyweight division by size alone.  A top weight limit of 130 kilograms (286 pounds) was put into effect for the 1988 Games and by 2021 it had been adjusted to 125 kg (275).  That’s big enough, dontcha think?

              

 

 

 

BASEBALL ZOMBIES

 

               For some baseball teams September is the month for edgy watching of scoreboards for the progress of the divisional races, or, at least, a lingering hope for same. For others, that hope has been abandoned and the remaining games exist only for the accumulation of gate receipts and individual stats.

               Unfortunately, my home-town Chicago Cubs and my new-home Arizona Diamondbacks are in the latter category, and have been for some time. Indeed, both have been zombies since early summer, plodding along from defeat to defeat with no hope of reward. Such is the downside of baseball’s long, long season. It would have been merciful to put both out of their misery long ago.

               An interesting argument could be made over which of the two teams is worse. The D’backs have an overall edge with a 44-90 won-lost mark as of Monday (9/1) to the Cubs’ 58-75, but the Arizonans have been less terrible in recent weeks. They started the season well enough, posting a 14-12 record in April, but then took a cannonball dive by going 8-48 in May and June, a scarcely believable fall when it’s remembered that baseball is a game in which the best teams win about six of 10 while the worst go about 4-6. Included in that May-June swoon was a 24-game road losing streak, the worst in the sport’s officially recorded history.

               The Cubs have had a weird year, begun with the off-season trade of their best starting pitcher, Yu Darvish, for a passel of pink-cheeked prospects. The message sent out by that deal was clear, but the team began well enough anyway, winning 38 of their 65 games at mid-June. Gravity then set in, leading to losing steaks of 11 and 12 games since, with a record 13-game home losing streak among them. They engineered an epic salary dump at the July 31 trade deadline, erasing just about all human reminders of their 2016 World Series triumph. Since late June they’ve been the worst team in baseball, with no end in sight.

               Nobody expected much of the 2021 D’Backs, so the Cubs’ collapse was the most notable. Pending free agency dictated that they let go some of their World Series core, but few expected that Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez and Kris Bryant all would be jettisoned, along with the ace relief pitcher Craig Kimbrel. That was in addition to the veteran outfielder Joc Petersen, who’d been moved earlier. The haul the Cubs received in return included only two bona fide Major Leaguers, second baseman Nick Madrigal and relief pitcher Codi Heuer, both from the Chicago White Sox, and Madrigal already was out for the season with a hamstring tear.

               It would be nice to report that the Cubs had a bunch of promising young minor leaguers ready to debut at Wrigley Field, but such was not the case. MLB.com’s ranking of minor-league systems had the Cubs 22^nd among the 30 teams before the July moves, and they moved up only four spots afterward. Some of the newly acquired players are pups, too young to be reflected in such rankings, but it can’t be said that that other help from below is near at hand.

Instead, the Cubs have filled their roster with journeyman players with little long-term upside. The prime example of that is outfielder Rafael Ortega, who has played well in Chicago but is 30 years old and with his seventh big-league organization. Frank Schwindel, Matt Duffy and Patrick Wisdom are similar in age and biography. Two of the team’s remaining vets, Ian Happ and Jason Heyward, have struggled all year to get their batting averages above .200, and can’t be counted as assets.  Trusty vet Kyle Hendricks is their sole proven pitcher.

To create any interest among the Cubs’ faithful owner Ricketts will have to open his purse big time in the offseason. A reputed billionaire, and with one of the game’s highest ticket-price structures, he should have ample resources for that, but he does strange things so who knows? If he falls short my friend Eddie Cohen, founder of Cubs Fans Anonymous, is threatening to revive that organization and have followers march on Wrigley with torches and pitchforks.

The D’backs’ prospects are at least as discouraging. This season has revealed several useful young players, including second baseman Josh Rojas, first-baseman-outfielder Pavin Smith and catcher Daulton Varsho, and MLB.com rates their farm system as ninth best. But their pitching is beyond woeful, last week ranking 29^th among the MLB’s 30, and it will take more than minor-league help to correct that.

 The team went the big-money route in 2020, luring the San Francisco Giants’ World Series hero Madison Bumgarner to the desert with an $85 million contract, but he’s been mediocre at best and has three more years and $60 million owing. It got a pick-me-up a few weeks ago, when lefty Tyler Gilbert threw a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres in his first big-league start, but he’s no kid at age 27 and got whacked for four runs on nine hits in five innings in his next start.

I can’t look into anyone’s pockets so I don’t know what resources the D’backs owners can command, but by rep they don’t match those of the Cubs. The team doesn’t draw well even when it wins so much help from that source is unlikely. The team stood pat last off-season, hoping for internal improvement. It’ll take a truckload of that to get it out of its present rut. 

 

 

  

NILISM

 

               The word “nil” means zero in soccer, but capitalized and turned into the acronym NIL it means a whole lot in college sports. The letters stand for name, image and likeness, and sale of the use of them will put legal income in the pockets of some college athletes without altering their competitive status. It’s a change that will revolutionize the games collegiates play, with results we now can only guess at. The saying “watch what you wish for” seems to apply here.

               The new era began legally on July 1 but the money has yet to start flowing in earnest. There will be rules governing what sort of income is and isn’t okay, but as yet they are unclear. Twenty six states have passed laws permitting NIL payouts, creating a hodgepodge of regulations.

The NCAA has given its reluctant approval, and has drawn its own lines, but it and most other actors in the field are hoping for Federal action that will unify and clarify. This in itself is revolutionary; heretofore the NCAA has resisted any Federal involvement in its affairs, the camel’s nose in the tent thing, you know. It’s not an idle fear and I’ll treat it later.

Even at this early time, though, a couple of things about the new era seem certain. One is that it will involve a lot more money than was previously imagined by me and, I’d bet, most other people. The other is that it won’t be distributed equally or nearly so. About 450,000 students in the NCAA’s 1,100 or so member schools are varsity athletes and the soccer-word nil will apply to most of them.  For a lucky few, however, it will be a bonanza, creating a new class of undergrad millionaires. A good thing, huh? Or maybe uhuh.

The magic word is this context is “followers.” Sure, jocks may be able to pick up a few hundred dollars, or even a few thousand, signing autographs at a booster’s auto dealership or being teacher-counselors at summer sports camps. In one deal already announced, a Miami gym owner has pledged to pay each of the U. of Miami’s 90 scholarship football players $500 a month for each year they’re eligible, or $540,000 a year in total, for promotional services.

  Another avenue for spreading the wealth, at least among football and basketball players at the “Power Five” conferences, will be income from electronic-game makers. NFL players reportedly each take in $48,000 a year from those sources, and less-numerous NBAers $400,00 a year. The per-player divisor will be much higher among the colleges, but the haul still should be substantial.

But the real money will come from endorsements on the so-called social mediums. Being elderly, I don’t have much truck with these, but many (maybe most) under-40s do, and reputedly they can be persuaded to buy or do things suggested by the “influencers” that create content for the likes of Instagram and TikToc. According to online sources their followings can be sold to advertisers for annual rates of up to eight cents a year. Multiplied by hundreds of thousands of followers and by several advertisers, those pennies can turn into big dollars. To paraphrase Ev Dirksen, a hundred thousand dollars here and hundred thousand there and pretty soon you’re talking real money.

That’s apparently what’s in store for Spencer Rattler, the quarterback of the U. of Oklahoma Sooners and Heisman Award candidate. With a catchy name, blond coif and strong arm, he’s big on social media, and his agency, led by the famed Leigh Steinberg, is painting quick millionaire status for him. Much the same goal has been set for Bryce Young, the projected starting QB for the U. of Alabama’s always-highly-rated football team, and he’s a sophomore who has yet to start a college game.

But while the big majority of social-media money will go to footballing and basketballing collegiate males, they won’t get it all. The Cavinder twins, Haley and Hannah, play basketball beautifully at Fresno U. and maintain a lively online presence for their reported four million (yep) followers. Margzetta Frazier, a UCLA gymnast with show-business aspirations, does likewise for a smaller but still sizable audience. A high-school hoopster, Mikey Williams from San Diego, also is said to be poised to cash in big from people mesmerized by his flying dunks.

Still, the economic prospects of, say, a second-string offensive guard at Purdue aren’t brilliant, and that could lead to difficulties. Income inequality is well established in professional sports, where players earning a measly one or two million per locker next to teammates pulling down 20 times as much, but it might not play as well in the college realm. Will the above-mentioned kid, living in a dorm and riding a bike around campus, go all out to block for his penthouse-living, Cadillac-driving QB?

 Maybe more importantly, playing a big-time college sport while pursuing an education (one hopes) already is a fulltime job and then some, so where will the time come from to make in-person or online commercial appearances? Rich or poor, the number of hours in a collegian’s day is fixed, and there are distractions aplenty as it is.

The NCAA’s retreat from its historic stance on amateurism already has had consequences. It’s both cause and effect of the loss of political clout that led to the retreat; years of its hypocrisy and money-grubbing has alienated even spineless pols who used to support alma mater no matter what.

 Further, no matter what the rules, income opportunities for jocks inevitably will turn recruiting into the Wild West and lead to the survival of the fattest. Traditional conference structures could collapse and “superconferences” form; for evidence see the recent move of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC from the Big 12 and the talks now underway between the Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12. The situation may make the just-pay-‘em folks happy, but everyone doesn’t root for ‘Bama or Ohio State. Like I wrote above, watch what you wish for.

                

O NEWS & VIEWS

 

               NEWS: Simone Biles bows out of Olympics, citing mental health concerns.

               VIEWS: GOAT or “goat”?

               As the Olympics began there was no doubt about which of the 11,000 or so athletes in its various fields deserved to be called the star. It was Biles, the gymnast with the Atomic Ant physique, whose 2016 O Games all-around gold medal, and five other world-championship all-around firsts, stamped her as a performer without peer, the Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) in her demanding sport.

               But then, shockingly, the 24-year-old packed it in after the first event of the all-around final last Tuesday, saying she wasn’t in the right “head space” to continue to compete. Her teammates carried on without her but could muster only a silver medal in the event in which they’d been heavily favored to win. 

               Reaction was swift, and while like just about everything else these days it divided along red-blue political lines, that which came to my attention was mostly positive. No definite diagnosis was offered but it was assumed that the gymnast suffered from a mental illness, and that was apt grounds for her action. USA Gymnastics, her sport’s U.S. governing body, applauded “her bravery in prioritizing her well being.”  The head of the World Health Organization said what she did put the seriousness of mental illness in a proper and overdue spotlight.

               One cannot judge Biles without having lived in her leotard, but a few observations seem in order. One is that she’d embraced her celebrity, even reportedly fashioning a “GOAT” emoji to decorate her texts. Another is that she constantly pushed the envelope of gymnastics by developing new and more difficult twists to her routines, thus bringing her closer to the edge of an already dangerous sport and increasing her possible anxiety about bringing them off.

 And while her leaving took the weight off herself it increased it on the teammates she left behind.  Said Sunisa Lee, the 18-year-old who took over team leadership by default, and whose gritty performance helped the U.S. team gain a silver, “it was the most pressure I’ve ever felt in my life.” Lee went on to establish her own stardom by winning the Games’ individual all-around gold medal.

Biles is a young woman with the biggest part of her life ahead of her. One hopes that her new self-knowledge will guide her future actions.

NEWS: Women make up 49% of 2021 Olympic athletes, bringing virtual gender equity to the Games.

VIEWS: It’s the U.S.’s Title IX at work worldwide.

This year’s sex breakdown compares with 44% women in 2012 and 46% in 2016 and caps a 50-year rise. The boost corresponds to the tenure of Title IX of the U.S. Education Amendment Act of 1972, which decreed that American schools and colleges provide women students with athletic opportunities equal to those of men. While still controversial in some circles, it unquestionably sparked nothing less than a sports revolution. U.S. world domination of women’s basketball and soccer has been one result, but it’s had global implications as well.

For proof one need look no further than the web site of the University of Southern California, which quadrennially leads the U.S. collegiate pack in producing Olympians. It notes that this year 65 Olympic athletes are present or past Trojans, representing 32 different countries. It’s a bigger contingent than that of 164 of the 205 nations represented in Toyko. Thirty nine of the 65 are female, led by Katinka Husszu of Hungary, a four-medal-winning swimmer at the 2016 Games. Additionally, two USC coaches are in Tokyo coaching foreign teams.

Foreign women (and men) athletes come to U.S. colleges for education (one hopes), but also for the superior sports facilities and coaching the institutions offer. The free room and board that comes with an athletic scholarship is a potent lure—most other countries offer no equivalent aid. Most imported jocks are represented in tennis and golf, but swimming and track and field also rank high. It puts a new twist on the term “home team,” huh?

NEWS: Skateboarding debuts as an Olympic sport.

VIEWS: Ouch!

Daredevil sports are nothing new to the Olympics, but usually when the daredevils crash they come down on soft materials, like foam, sand or snow. Not so in skateboarding. In an effort at verisimilitude the Tokyo Games laid out a “street scene” course of ramps, stairs and railings made of or set in concrete. No soft landings on that stuff.

I suppose that was okay for the male side of the event, where most of the contestants (and all three medal winners) were in their 20s and of the age of consent, but the “women’s” side was mostly teens, and some just barely-- the gold and silver medals went to kids of 13 and the bronze to a 16-year-old. When they crashed I expected their moms to run out to succor them.

   Clearly change is called for, something along the lines of gymnastics, which some years back raised its minimum O age to the year an athlete turns 16. If gymnastics were staged on concrete it’d long since have been banned.

NEWS: NBC’s Olympic coverage enters its 33^rd year, at great cost.

VIEW: Does the network own the Games, or vice versa?

NBC began broadcasting the Olympics in 1988 and its current contract, worth a reported $12 billion, runs to 2032. It’s the Games biggest single supporter by far but one wonders who’s getting the best of the deal.

The network’s previous Summer O anchor was Bob Costas, who sometimes added tart commentary to his hosting. This time it’s Mike Tirico, an affable sort whose style is best suited to one of those happy-talk morning shows.  Event announcing has been predictably rah-rah-USA, the features fawning to their subjects with dollops of pathos. The IOC loves it, I bet.

The worst example of NBC brown-nosing has been it’s parroting of the term “Russian Olympic Committee” in referring to the Russian team. You’d think those athletes compete wearing waistcoats and carrying briefcases. That’s the term the IOC decreed as a fig leaf for its capitulation to Russia’s horrendous cheating in past Games. They’re just Russian, folks, all 300-plus of them, and they look to be having as good a time as any in Toyko, God love ‘em.

 

 

 

 

 

 

              

              

OLYMPICS 'SI,' IOC 'NO'

 

               Let me say from the beginning that I like the Olympics. Indeed, I’m a big fan, having covered eight of them (Summer Games in Los Angeles, Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney; Winter Games at Calgary, Albertville and Lillehammer), and rank the experiences among my most memorable.  For color, excitement and quality of athletic performance they can’t be surpassed. Many a grizzled pro has been touched by the Olympic aura and known to shed a tear on a medals platform.

               What I don’t like is the International Olympic Committee, which puts together the events.  It’s a self-appointed, self-perpetuating body that’s responsible only to itself, and a bunch of boodlers to boot. Its allegiance isn’t to the athletes or to sport in general but to itself—it’s perks, profits and whatever it can plunder. The world would be better off without it.

               For proof one need look no further than Olympiad XXXII (don’t you love those Roman numerals?), set to begin next Friday (July 23) in Tokyo. Already delayed for a year, it’s an Olympics that few really want, proceeding amidst a covid pandemic that has reached crisis proportions in its host country. Foreign visitors have been barred and domestic attendance sharply curtailed. Competitors must be masked and observe social distancing when they aren’t on their fields of play, even among their teammates. They’ve been asked to show up, perform and get out, with mingling or loitering not encouraged. So much for the international amity the Games are supposed to promote.

 Spectators must be masked throughout their visits. No cheering or shouting will be permitted, although one no knows how those edicts will be enforced. Be advised, though, that prime game seats will be filled by the VIP throng that always accompanies the Games— IOC functionaries, sports’ federation bureaucrats and sponsors and their pals. It’s estimated they’ll be more numerous than the 11,500 or so men and women who will compete. There’s no room for athletes’ families but plenty for them, and in Tokyo’s best hotels. The latter perk is ever the case.

The opposition to these Games has been most pronounced in Japan, a wealthy country with a disciplined population but one that was slow to react to the pandemic. Distribution of vaccines was hindered by the government’s refusal to accept international efficacy tests, insisting instead on ones involving only Japanese, and at first it allowed only physicians and nurses to administer the shots. Vaccines finally are widely available but the national vaccination rate of less than 20% lags well behind that of other developed lands, and hospitalizations have risen sharply of late. Ashai Shimbun, the country’s leading newspaper, last month called for the Games to be canceled on public-safety grounds. So did the Toyko Medical Practitioners’ Association.

Local opposition also has an economic basis. Like just about every recent Summer Games Tokyo’s costs far exceeded expectations, reportedly about doubling its $15 billion initial budget. The IOC put up only $1.5 billion, leaving the Japanese government and private interests holding the bag, and the ban on most foreign visitors rules out much recapture through tourism spending.   By contrast, the IOC makes most of its income from the awarded-in-advance sale of TV rights—coming to about $4 billion this time around—and will make out fine if the Games go off on schedule.

IOC members also do all right in the pocket-stuffing department, with bribery instances and allegations attending every recent Games, usually involving the awarding of the host cities. In this one, the chairman of the Tokyo Organization Committee had to resign when a French investigation showed his group made a $2 million payment to a firm run by the son of a prominent IOC member. And that’s just the one that came to light. “Swag bags” at IOC functions are famous for their opulence. No IOC member ever exited an airliner from the rear, it’s said.

It’s no wonder, then, that the “show must go on” mentality that’s long animated the Games also has obtained in this one. Hey, the show went on in Munich in 1972 after terrorists kidnapped and killed 11 Israeli athletes, and merely hiccuped in Atlanta in 1996 after a bomb blast in an outdoor evening concert in Olympic Plaza killed two people and injured more than 100. What’s a little flu compared to that?

The same ethos governs the way Olympic competitions are run. Putin’s Russia made a farce of the 2014 Winter Games it hosted in Sochi by sending out a battalion of doped-up athletes to dominate the medals board. Then it tried to hide its misdeeds with a B-Movie scheme to swap “clean” urine for dirty by passing the samples through a hole in the wall of the Games’ testing lab. It later doubled down on that offense by hindering efforts of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to investigate it.

 A few sports federations, including the one governing track and field, booted the Russians from their events, but the harshest penalty the IOC could muster was to prohibit the Russian flag and anthem from its parades and victory stands.  Russian athletes competed In Rio in 2016 under those terms and will again in Tokyo under the supposedly neutral banner of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC).  Better for business if you keep ‘em in, don’t you know?

Some sports, such as basketball, ice hockey, soccer, skiing, boxing and tennis, are so thoroughly international they don’t need the Olympic platform.  Most of the others stage annual world championships whose titles equal Olympic gold in achievement if not acclaim.  If they seek a bigger stage those activities could combine their events every four years and sell a TV package.

But yeah¸ I know, that probably ain’t gonna happen, so we must hold our noses to enjoy the Games. I suppose it’s possible for the IOC to reform itself, but its scam is too successful for that. Such is life.

   

 

 

NEWS & VIEWS

 

 

NEWS:  A noted track athlete was suspended when a performance-enhancing drug was found in her system. She blamed it on a burrito.

VIEWS: Ay, caramba!

Shelby Houlihan, who holds the American women’s records in the 1,500- and 5,000-meter runs, last month was handed a four-year competitive ban when she tested positive for nandrolone, a hairy-chested steroid favored by weightlifters, after a December race. It eliminated her from contention for this year’s Olympics.

Houlihan reacted with dismay and made a list of everything she’d eaten during the week before the test. She said the likely culprit was a burrito she’d purchased at a food truck near her Beaverton, Oregon, home that might have contained pork raised in Mexico. Some Mexican meat producers are said to use steroids to beef up their animals.

Her contention, rejected by a sports court, caused many eyes to roll, but it had been tried before, and successfully. In 2015 Duane Brown, an offensive tackle for the Houston Texans of the National Football League, beat a 10-game league drugs rap when he produced restaurant receipts indicating he’d scarfed at least 10 hamburgers and two steaks during a pre-test trip to Mexico. Apparently, size counts in such matters.

Further, the burrito defense isn’t the most unlikely ever offered. In 2011 several members of the North Korean women’s national soccer team said their positive pre-Olympic tests stemmed from a native deer-musk remedy they’d taken after being struck by lightning.  American bicyclist Tyler Hamilton said his elevated testosterone level was due to his having absorbed a “vanished twin” into his body in utero.

American sprinter Dennis Mitchell claimed his 1998 ban stemmed from his having had sex with his wife four times the night before the positive drug test. “It was her birthday,” he explained. Another American sprinter, Lashawn Merritt, made an opposite claim, saying he’d taken a penis-enhancing product called ExtenZe just before his 2010 test. “Any penalty I have received will not overshadow the embarrassment and humiliation I feel,” he lamented.

NEWS: Major League Baseball announces a crackdown on pitchers’ use of sticky substances on baseballs.

VIEW: Get a grip!

               Finding itself in an era of pitcher domination, MLB last week instituted 10-game suspensions for pitchers found to be doctoring balls, and said it would actively enforce the ruling. The backdrop to the declaration is several years of declining batting averages and soaring strikeout rates. Not long ago a batting average of .230 and a 100-a-year strikeout pace gave position players tickets to the minors. Today such stats are, um, average.

               Another impetus for the move is the newish baseball stat of “spin rate”, which measures a delivery’s rotations and is much on the lips of the game’s TV and radio announcers. High spin rates allow pitches to better retain their velocity and “break” more sharply. Having a better grip on the ball helps with that. A lot.

               Doctored baseballs go back to the game’s earliest days, with enforcement against them waxing and waning over the years. One notable (and confessed) diamond physician, Gaylord Perry, played hide and seek with the umps over a 21-year career (1962-83) that resulted in 314 wins and a Hall of Fame berth. Apparently, today’s pitchers haven’t needed to be as creative as Perry in fashioning their potions; a browse of the internet reveals that commercial products with names like Spin It, Spider Tack and Gorilla Gold are readily available to stickum seekers.

               The first week of the ban created some interesting displays; Oakland A’s pitcher Sergio Romo dropped (and quickly raised) his pants when approached by umps for an on-the-mound inspection. The first pitcher to be ejected was the Seattle Mariners’ Hector Santiago, in a game last Sunday. He squawked loudly, claiming his only stick-aid was sweat mixed with legal resin.  Expect to hear that defense repeated in days to come amid much sturm und drang.

NEWS: Several pro-team athletes say “no” to covid vaccines.

               VIEWS: Just say “yes.”

               While our professional sports are joyfully kicking the traces of about a year and a half of restrictions caused by the covid virus, rearguard actions are being waged. Among the recalcitrant are Anthony Rizzo and Jason Heyward of the Chicago Cubs. Due to their stances and those of unnamed others, the Cubs say they are unable to reach the 85% vaxxed mark for all personnel MLB has set to allow teams to return all their activities to pre-covid “normals.” As of the last official pronouncement, eight of the majors’ 30 teams had fallen short.

               Rizzo and Heyward are veteran players and reputed clubhouse leaders of their team. Both said they weren’t anti-vax but want to “see more data” before receiving their jabs, although neither specified what that data might be. Their choices will sit heavily on their teammates, who must continue to observe masking and social-distancing protocols in their dugouts, weight and locker rooms and medical and training facilities until the 85% cutoff is met.

               Yeah, I know, not getting vaxxed has become a “freedom” issue with some, although that particular freedom amounts to a willingness to catch and pass on a potentially fatal illness that continues to spread. And yeah, big-time jocks have the same right of expression as the rest of us, whether or not we applaud what they say. But the prominence and wealth their positions command do, or should, carry with them greater-than-usual responsibility, making them role models even if they don’t wish it. They should ask themselves how they’d like to live in a world that follows their examples.             

BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER...AND MORE FRAGILE

 

               It’s universally accepted that today’s American professional baseball players are bigger, stronger and faster than those of any previous era. Richer, too. Much richer.

               But it’s now becoming clear that another adjective should be added to those above. It’s “more fragile.” That is to say they are getting injured at a greater rate than any time in the measurable past, and the situation is getting worse.

               Due to Covid last season was a short one of 60 games, and played after an unprecedented two months’ pause, so comparisons with that season would be misleading. But in the season that began with spring training in late February, and through the first two months of the regular season, the number of injuries that resulted in Injury List stints increased to about 350, 31% over the same 2019 period.

 Pitchers accounted for most of that figure, but the sort of “soft-tissue” injuries (hamstring, groin, oblique or calf-muscle strains or tears) position players usually suffer also rose, more than doubling the 2019 level.  With the presence of names like Justin Verlander, Chris Sale, Corey Kluber, Mike Trout, George Springer and Corey Seager, you could put together a pretty fair All-Star team from the current IL. At just about every point of the season at least a half-dozen of the 30 MLB teams have had a dozen or more players in sick bay at any one time, or about one-third of their 40-man rosters.

Some in baseball attribute the rise to a bounce from the herky-jerky 2020 season, but the trend continues what’s been happening in the Major Leagues for quite a while. Definitions and reporting accuracy have changed over time, but MDEdge, a medical website, has charted a steady annual rise in baseball injuries dating back to 1974. One of its papers counted 8,357 IL designations between 1998 and 2015, or close to 500 a year.

Ironically, much of the increase stems from advances in medical treatment. Exhibit A is the so-called Tommy John surgery, in which a ligament from another bodily part (or from a cadaver) replaces a torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) that binds the body’s elbow bones. It’s named not for the physician who perfected it (Dr. Frank Jobe) but for an early recipient. The left-handed John got the surgery in 1974, 11 years into his career, sat out that year and the next, and returned to add 164 wins to what would be a 288-win, 26-year stand (1963-89).  His success became living testimony for the procedure.

Before the surgery came along, pitchers with severe “sore arms” were flushed from the game, never to return. Sandy Koufax (1955-66) was a prime example. Now, with the operation at about a 90% success rate, they’re back after about a season and a half. It’s estimated that about one-third off all current MLB pitchers have had it, some more than once.

UCL injuries stem partly from the greater elbow strain required to achieve today’s hyper-fast deliveries (the average fastball last year measured 94 mph against 92.7 in 2015) and from cumulative overuse. The latter phenomenon begins in childhood, where talented youngsters are identified early and encouraged by ambitious parents and coaches to concentrate on a single sport and position.

 Back in the day kids played the sport in season, utilizing (and resting) a variety of muscles. Today, between Little League, age-group , school  and “traveling” teams, baseball prospects can play as many as 70 organized games a year before turning 18, plus long and intense practice sessions. Tommy John himself (he’s 78) is a bit of a nut, having spoken out against the covid vaccine from the hospital bed from which he was recovering from the illness, but he made plenty of sense when he declared against too-early sports specialization.

The position-player equivalents to pitchers’ elbow ligaments are the oblique muscles, which stretch across the abdominal cavity and control trunk flexion and rotation.  Maybe it’s me but I don’t recall hearing much about them until a few years ago. Now they are a major injury category, their rise corresponding to the “swing for the fences” mentality of today’s batsmen. Oblique strains don’t match other soft-tissue injuries in frequency but they typically take longer to heal, with IL times often stretching into months. There were 22 of them in the Majors through May, up from 12 in 2019.

The most common muscle injuries in baseball are hamstring, groin and calf sprains. These have always been part of baseball, a consequence of the game’s stop-and-start nature that has players running full tilt after sometimes-long periods of idleness.   Supposedly, these are controllable through exercise, but they continue to rise despite advances in exercise technique.

Part of this problem, I think, is that smart as their trainers might be they don’t teach ballplayers to exercise properly. For instance, a player in the on-deck circle will swing a weighted bat to prepare his arms and shoulders to hit but won’t stretch his legs to prepare to run as soon as he makes contact. Similarly, infielders and outfielders play catch before the start of each inning when, really, they are most vulnerable from the waist down after bench-sitting. Players today look a lot better in their underwear than those of 20 years ago, but they’d benefit from more attention to flexibility and less to muscle.

By me, though, the major cause of the injury surge is the fact that the wealthy ballplayer of today is a jock 24/7 and 365/365, and probably is working out somewhere when he isn’t playing. There’s such a thing as being in too-good shape, especially among adherents to the “no pain, no gain” school of exercise.

Like in other highly lucrative sports, competition for positions and roster spots in baseball is extreme, and players looking to rise, or who feel others nipping at their heels, believe that one more rep at whatever they’re doing will give them an edge. It’s hard to prove, but I think that too often that's what lands them on the IL.  In brief, they need to be protected against themselves.