Weekend discoveries

Things I learned this past weekend...

One - It's early yet, but the Yankees pitching looks about how I expected - not much beyond Chien-Ming Wang. Phil Hughes was battered for six earned runs in two innings and Mike Mussina's outing doesn't even qualify as a quality start (defined as six innings completed with no more then three earned runs allowed), completing five and two-thirds while giving up four earned runs.

The irony of the weekend is that the Red Sox turned in two quality starts for the weekend series, but won only one of them - Josh Beckett's start on Saturday night.

Two - The Yankees' issues go far beyond starting pitching.

I know the Sox have more speed on the base paths than they used to, but when has anyone ever heard of the Red Sox stealing six bases? SIX?! Ten, fifteen years ago that would have been the team's total for the first two months of the season, and they did it in one game.

If the Yankees don't shore up the catching, the team could be cooked early.

Three - Boy...the Detroit Tigers are a special sort of bad right now. With the second worst batting average (.235), and the worst ERA (5.94), Detroit has put together a grand total of two wins through the first 12 games. The next worst team, the Washington Nationals, has still managed at least four wins.

Considering no team that has started 0-7 in the history of baseball (the Tigers started 0-7) has even made the post-season, it might just be time to start thinking about next year in Mo-Town.

Four - I'm always trying to introduce my daughter to women's sports and female athletes in an effort to give her healthy female roll models in athletics to look up to. To that end I watched yesterday's broadcast of one of the big gymnastics tournaments.

We had the opportunity to be introduced to Nastia Liukin, a 19-year old Olympic hopeful.

Liukin might be the most impressive gymnast I have seen since Mary-Lou Retton. If she doesn't garner multiple gold in the games in Beijing, I'll be shocked.

Five - I often forget about athletes that aren't involved in what we consider sports. My wife sent me this youtube video of The Great Chinese State Circus. This might be some of the most incredible athletic stunts I've ever seen performed...

Language Lessons

What's in a word?

There are a lot of phrases common to sports analysis...

They choked.

It was a lot closer than the score indicated.

It wasn't as close as the final score.

"X" didn't win the game, "Y" lost it.

They gave the game away.

This is just a small cross section of some of the statements commonly made. But how much is just the idea that people are justifying the way a game was played? Sure, there are cosmetic points scored in garbage time, but some of those "not as close" sort of statements come from someplace else.

Do we make these comments sometimes to demean a team?

People talk about the Patriots losing the Super Bowl this year as one of the biggest choke jobs in the history of professional sports. But by saying the Patriots choked, aren't we then also saying that the Giants got lucky that the Pats didn't bring their A-game? I, for one, watched what I thought was great execution by the Giants of a game-plan that was perfectly designed.

Did the Oilers choke in Buffalo those many years ago, or is that just a way of minimizing the Bills' accomplishments that year?

Language can be a powerful thing, and the statements are direct and have a specific meaning, but what can be implied by a given statement? Sure, teams will win in butt-ugly fashion from time to time, but does that actually make a win any less a win? It still counts in the win column - and as Bill Parcells used to say, "You are what your record is." It doesn't matter if the wins were ugly - it's not how you got there, it's the fact that you got there.

Choke jobs exist in professional sports.

It's a fact.

But at what point does the failure of one party to perform become their own responsibility versus the opponents' rising to the occasion?

In 1986 Calvin Schiraldi blew a lead in game six with the Red Sox up three games to two over the Mets long before Bill Buckner let an errant ground ball go through his legs in a tie ball game. Somehow Buckner became the goat when Schiraldi deserved the blame.

Watching the game, you could see it in his eyes - Schiraldi choked. He didn't have the balls to shut the door with the biggest game of his career on the line.

I don't mean to take anything away from the Mets who fought back with consecutive singles to tie the game up, but I firmly believe that if the Sox had someone on the mound like the Mets' Roger McDowell or Jesse Orosco on the mound, then the team would have won in 1986 and no one would ever have talked about the Buckner gaffe because it would never have happened.

Take the Yankees post-season fiasco of 2004. Yes, it is possibly the biggest choke job in the history of baseball. No team in the post-season had ever been up 3-0 in the ninth and failed to seal the deal. No team has ever let an opponent win four straight after being up 3-0.

Does that take away from what the Red Sox did? No. They came back against a pitcher who was widely believed to be the best closer in baseball en route to their first World Series title since Babe Ruth was on the team. Of course, the flip side of that is that the Red Sox owned Mariano Rivera that season, and for much of the time since.

In the end, the media has a job that it doesn't always do very well - and that's to balance what we write with making sure that credit is still given where it is due.

And sometimes that's as difficult a job when it comes to working language as any other job out there.

Back in the Fens

Of the 15 years I lived in Boston, three were in the shadow of Fenway Park. I could hear the crowds from my apartment.

I lived there during the team's dark days of the early 1990's. The Billy Hatcher years.

I was a solid four blocks from the stadium and could still hear the crowds in spite of the fact the Sox were fielding sub-standard teams.

Today the World Champion Red Sox started their opening homestand against the Tigers with a 3-4 record - good enough for last place and 2.5 games behind the AL East leading Blue Jays. The Tigers themselves, expected to take the Central by most pundits, have started the season off with a big, fat Oh-fer. After six games the Tigers entered the Fenway opening with a big Donut in the win column.

By the end of the game the Sox had worked their way back to .500 while Detroit remained a big Oh-fer in the win column. Considering that only two teams in the history of baseball have even made the post-season after starting the season 0-6, and none have made a dent in the World Series, Detroit fans should be gearing up for a season of disappointment.

For Sox fans the first eight games has been a mixed bag.

The first four against the Athletics were filled with promise as the team went 3-1. When they got smoked in the next three by a Blue Jays team that was significantly better than the Athletics, the hope was that the team was just jet lagged from their trip to Japan. With the Dice-man on the mound the Sox bounced back to win 5-0.

While Matsuzaka's pitching performance was encouraging as he shut down what should be a potent Detroit line-up for six and two-thirds, there were other places that were either cause for concern, or that presented questions that won't be answered for sometime.

For the first eight games Big Papi has been David Outiz. Is something wrong with the hitter who for a two season stretch was the best clutch hitter in the game? Or has he just been affected more by the travel than the other players on the team? Right now the Sox clean-up hitter is batting an anemic .103. Currently Ortiz is batting 147 points lower than Coco Crisp.

The Sox leading hitter is JD Drew, currently batting .368.

Scott Boras would have Sox fans believe that this is Drew and what we saw last season was the aberration, that the guy who knocked in 100 for the Dodgers just before joining the Sox is the real Drew.

The real Drew is what we saw last season. He batted .270, only 15 points below his career average, but was right in the wheelhouse with run production, batting in 64 (career average of 57), and scoring 84 runs against his career average of 69. Expect a drop off.

The question now becomes, which team should we expect today? The one that shut down the Tigers, or the one shut down by the Jays?

True Crime, NFL style

The NFL draft is around the corner.

That means a lot of things for NFL teams. Once it just meant identifying the best player available in the draft. Now, with free-agency, it's about the best player available at a position of need...accounting for the potential future player passing a background check - the impact of living in the information age, and one of the costs of the growth of the sport.

As the sport has grown its fan-base, and tightened its grip on the hearts of the hardcore fans, the NFL owners have found significant profits to be made with the casual fan. In order to keep those dollars flowing, the days of the outlaw football player have become numbered.

It used to be that talent trumped all.

There has been a shift.

Talent might keep a player on a roster in spite of criminal behavior, but with the likelihood of suspension and the loss of a significant player with no cap relief, teams have begun to weigh the merits of whether or not that talent is worth the trouble.

The Cincinnati Bengals, once thought to be a talented team on the rise, now a cautionary tale about what could happen to a team should it ignore those character issues, just parted ways with chronically troubled wide-out Chris Henry. With both Henry and former college teammate and NFL bad boy Adam "Pacman" Jones in the news recently, I decided to do some research into the criminal behavior of NFL players.

Approximately one year ago there was a fascinating article in the San Diego Union-Tribune regarding the subject, providing some telling numbers.

From 2000 to 2007 there were 308 incidents in which active NFL players had run-ins with the law, approximately 40 percent of the violations were committed by 50 players with multiple offenses and two teams stood out with as having the most multiple offenders - the Vikings (pleasure boat, anyone?), and the aforementioned Bengals.

It notes that defensive back and wide receiver accounted for 130 of the incidents while offensive line and quarterback only 41.

This jives with an anecdotal review I did of a random sampling of 64 players who have been arrested since 2000. The breakdown of what I found just based on 64 players identified in random Internet searches was that 18 defensive backs, 11 wide receivers, 10 defensive linemen, 8 linebackers, 7 offensive linemen, 5 running backs, 2 quarterbacks, and one kicker were represented in the random sampling.

Twenty-nine of 64 players were either wide-outs or defensive backs, or 45 percent of the offenders...anecdotally speaking, that is. Going by the SD-Trib's numbers based on the number of offenses rather than the number of players at the position, the numbers remain fairly even with receivers and DB's accounting for 42.2 percent of the offenses.

Interestingly, the NFL has averaged overall about one offense per 45 players per year - well below the national average for the general population. This fact is highly touted by the NFL when defending criminal activity in the league.

While it is something to be proud of considering the NBA has been unable to make the same claim, it also must be noted that the NFL population is a population sans poverty - the highest crime demographic in the United States.

One of the interviewees for the article noted that he believed that many of the offenses occur because so many athletes are held above personal accountability and thus feel they are above the law. While I believe there is some truth to this statement, I also think that it vastly simplifies a much more complex issue.

Yes, the players in the NFL make obscene salaries. Even those making the minimum for a year are still making well over six years worth of the highest salary I have ever made. That doesn't mean that poverty doesn't play a part. People like Mike Vick, Chris Henry, and Pacman Jones all come from high-crime, low-income neighborhoods. This is not an excuse for their behavior, just a search for a deeper reason why someone smart enough to remember a phone-book sized play-book would be dumb enough to repeatedly do the same stupid thing, whether illegally fighting dogs or assaulting people at strip clubs.

The question that I did not address when looking at the list I compiled was filial finances while growing up. However, it is easy to note that a number of the players who have been arrested - Vick, Jones, Henry, Rae Carruth, Ray Lewis, and Sean Taylor among them - came from among what would be considered the disenfranchised.

What the numbers do present, however, is another question. Assuming for an average of five wide receivers and eight defensive backs per 53-man NFL roster: how is it that 24.5 percent of the players in the NFL account for almost half of the league's criminal activity? What is it about those positions that is the problem? For that I have no answer.

Wrapping up the weekend...

The Red Sox finished up an absolutely brutal road trip in brutal fashion. After a solid showing, taking three of four from the Athletics, the Sox got their hats handed to them by the Blue Jays, getting swept in a three game set at the Rogers Center in Toronto.

In dropping their first three of the 2008 season to Toronto, there was little good that the Sox did. In three games the Sox had nearly half as many errors as they did runs - four errors and nine total runs. The team batted .220 north of the border with the heart of the line-up - David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, and Mike Lowell - batting a combined .206 (7 for 34) with two RBI's. Pair that against the fact that the Jays scored 23 runs, with 22 earned, it becomes obvious that this was a whole team breakdown - the Sox sputtered on offense, defense, and with their pitching.

Hopefully it's just a case of jet lag from covering Japan, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Toronto in the last two weeks.

Hair today...

The NFL owners mulled over a proposition regarding penalties for hair that obscures the nameplates of player jerseys. I don't care one way or the other that a player wants to grow his hair long - he just needs to understand that if the locks are long, then they're fair game for tackling.

But beyond that, there has been rumbling from certain quarters that this idea might be racially motivated.

The irony, of course, is that the idea came from Chiefs coach Herm Edwards, an African-American.

The moral - before people begin yelling that this is just another case of the white aristocracy trying to keep the black man in his place, maybe, just maybe they should check the actual source.

I'm not saying that things don't happen for racist reasons. Things like that happen all the time, and vigilance is required. All I'm saying is that people need to make sure they know where an idea comes from before they begin claiming that it's another case of white ownership trying to control the black players.

Three down and Celtic Pride...

Celtic pride...there's a term I haven't heard in a while. But the team has earned it.

Maybe at not time more so than this weekend.

On Friday night the Celtics added to team legend by accomplishing the greatest single-season turn-around in the history of the NBA when they won their 61st game of the season. With six games still left on the schedule, the team has already won 37 more games than they did last season.

On Friday they did it without their new Big Three, without Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, or Kevin Garnett. What's more, it was never close.

The names leading the charge? A veritable "Who's that" of the NBA. With names like James Posey (19 points), Leon Powe (22 points, 9 rebounds, 2 steals), and Eddie House (16 points, 2 rebounds, 1 steal), the casual basketball fan is going to look at this line-up and wonder how this team destroyed a Charlotte team that features Emeka Okafor and Earl Boykins by 23 points.

And going into the season the weakness of this team, said analysts, would be the bench.

So much for conventional wisdom.

Thoughts and observations

Evidently in football terms it's five strikes and you're out.

The Bengals finally cut troubled wide receiver Chris Henry after what is really his sixth run-in with the law, fifth arrestable offense, since being drafted in 2005. That included four arrests in a twelve month period.

Henry, a player with an enormous amount of potential, has not been able to stay on the field in any of his three seasons due to legal and behavioral issues. In three seasons he has averaged 11.67 games per season, each year - playing in fewer and fewer games each progressive season, going from 14, to 13, and finally to eight games.

The latest charges, essentially assault, are added to a list that includes corruption of minors, DUI, concealed weapons, and possession of marijuana charges.

Bottom line, Henry is, for all intents, the offensive version of Pacman Jones without having shown quite the same talent level. Will he get another chance? Possibly, but it is likely that chance will be, like Pacman's, his last.

T.O. Redux

Over the years there has been a lot of defense of Chad Johnson's antics because he hasn't been the divisive force in the locker room that Terrell Owens has been. I've always felt they were closer in personality than most of the apologists did.

It could be seen at times on the sideline last year as the Bengals struggled, and Johnson, at times took shots at Carson Palmer during the post-game.

Now Johnson appears to be trying to engineer his exit from Cincinnati a-la TO from Philly.

For my money, I hope the loudmouth gets suspended. I'm sick of these spoiled players - wide-outs in particular - whining about the contract they signed and the situation they put themselves into.

This is a problem the NFL needs to address at some point.

The Pawtuckett Express...

Pitching insurance policy Bartolo Colon had a more than solid outing in Pawtucket facing one batter more than the minimum in a five inning start. He gave up only one hit.

With the Red Sox poised to activate Josh Beckett for a Sunday start, two things happen. The Sox once again have depth in the rotation with seven potential starters -

Beckett
Matsuzaka
Lester
Wakefield
Tavarez
Buchholz
Colon

I expect that Clay Buchholz will be the odd man out with Beckett about to be activated. That puts Buchholz on the Pawtucket express unless someone like David Aardsma has options left. Otherwise expect Buchholz to head to Rhode Island for more seasoning while Julian Tavarez takes the fifth spot in the rotation.

It would surprise me if the P.E. wasn't active early and often this season as Theo Epstein and Terry Francona work to get the right mix between the pen and the rotation.

Just a wild guess, but if Kyle Snyder doesn't work out his issues, I believe that we're looking at Snyder designated or released, Tavarez going back to the pen and a rotation from one to five of Beckett, Matsuzaka, Colon, Wakefield, and Lester by the end of May.

Puzzling Predictions...

Sports Illustrated and a number of other outlets have picked the Yankees to win the American League East this season.

After what the team did last season with a suspect pitching staff, I will not rule them out for post-season contention. However, I have to question the wisdom of picking a team to win whose best, most consistent pitcher, Andy Pettitte, against whom opponents batted over .280 for two consecutive years.

Their potential ace, Chien-Ming Wong, has put up back to back 19-win seasons, but has been plagued by inconsistency, getting smacked around at times by the better teams, or failing to come up big when needed. Number three starter Mike Mussina, once an innings eater and solid number two, has approached 200 innings only once in the last four seasons, had an ERA below 4.40 only once during that same span, and seen opponents bat below .276 only once in that span, with a high of .311 last year.

The other two pitchers are Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy who may or may not be ready for the glare of the bright lights of New York.

Even with the line-up the Yankees have, that's a lot to overcome.

East Coast Bias

There is, quite often, an accusation leveled at the national sports press of an East Coast bias in the corps' reporting.

There is probably some truth to favoritism of the East Coast teams, not because of proximity to the New York offices of Sports Illustrated, or the Connecticut offices of ESPN, but because the teams on top of the pile draw the most attention. East Coast teams in the major team sports, except for basketball, have won or represented more than half of all championship contenders for an extended period of time.

Starting from the low end of the totem pole, over the last 14 seasons in the NHL the East Coast has been represented in 12 of the 28 potential contestants for the Stanley Cup. Teams from states that abut the Atlantic (in the US) have represented six of the sport's winners. Those totals go up when eastern Canada is in the mix.

Since the Bills started their run of four straight appearances in the Super Bowl there have been 34 teams that have vied for the Lombardi trophy. Twenty teams from the states on the Eastern Seaboard have been among the 34 fighting to raise the silver trophy each January or February and nine of the winners have been from the East.

Since 1994 in Major League Baseball 14 of the 26 teams that have made it to the 13 World Series held over that span. Nine of the winners have been from the East.

Out of the 44 pro championships noted above, 24 have had a champion from the East - 54.5 percent of all the winners. Forty-six of the 88 contestants have come from the East accounting for 52.3 percent of the teams represented in the games. The teams have won at a rate of 52.2 percent.

In recent years divisions like the NFC West and the NL West have cycled into down periods, sometimes producing division champions that barely breaking a .500 winning percentage.

A simple rule in sports has always been that winning garners attention. The more you win, the more attention you get. It is why great players on bad teams have difficulties with Hall of Fame recognition.

There are players and teams off the East Coast deserving of attention, but until the winning percentage swings the other way, the focus is going to stay on the old powers like New York and Boston.

The quick and the dead...

There's a lot to be said about setting up a salary cap structure for Major League Baseball.

Even with one in football, there's a lot of dead money under the caps of a lot of teams. Sometimes it's because of players no longer on rosters, sometimes you can consider the money dead even with the player on the roster.

The San Francisco 49ers project to have $3.64 million in dead money under their cap next season.

Those are players no longer on their roster.

The Patriots will consistently put players on IR for the season, starting at the end of training camp. That's money that counts against their cap, not counted as dead, but it may as well be.

Then there are those players who just take up space on rosters. Usually they don't stick around
and the dead money hit on an NFL team is minimal.

Baseball is different.

In MLB there are players that just don't live up to their contract, sometimes receiving contracts they haven't earned. Other times demonstrating the requisite talent, however, fail to stay on the field due to injury issues or a lack of toughness.

JD Drew will come to the mind of Red Sox fans - a player who received a fat contract from the Sox who essentially were in a bidding war with themselves for his services.

While the owners need to be protected from themselves. Fans need to be protected from the owners. Teams like the Marlins should not be allowed to spend fewer dollars than they receive from their cut of the Yankees luxury tax.

Teams and fans of teams that aren't the Red Sox or Yankees whine about the spending of those teams, but the Orioles are carrying $11 million in dead money into this season over one player. Just before the season started, the team cut oft injured outfielder Jay Gibbons. While it's admirable that the team would cut its losses with a player that has a hard time staying on the field, it should be noted that they evidently feel they can eat an $11 million salary without a problem.

If that's the case, then why can't they spend in a way that keeps them in the neighborhood of their division rivals?

Honestly, other teams have proven it's not the spending itself, but how you spend.

That said - what about the ridiculousness that the Brewers engaged in during this off-season...

Gagne, baby Gagne...

After a season during which Eric Gagne, once the premier closer in the majors, blew a number of hold for the Red Sox down the stretch, the Milwaukee Brewers signed Gagne to a one-year $10 million contract. This signing happened before the Mitchell Report essentially said that his couple of years of domination came out of a syringe.

On opening day Gagne blew the save in a 3-0 game, getting smoked on a three run shot by a rookie. Gagne later got the win, but showed nothing to merit the Brewers' $10 million worth of faith in him.

If Gagne doesn't break, at the very least, the 20 save margin,or a combined 30 saves and holds, that's just more dead money on a major league roster.

The people that look at contracts like this and don't think it's time for a salary cap should go get professional help. Lord knows, if I'm a fan of a team like a Kansas City or a Milwaukee that decides to go out and make a big splash in free agency by signing someone like Gagne, and then hearing the party line that my team can't compete with the big-markets...well, I'm just gonna be really pissed.

A Raiders GM, A Lions GM, and a Knicks GM walk into a bar...

Once these people were at the top of their respective games.

Al Davis was Jerry Jones long before Jerry Jones was even a blip on the NFL radar. The maverick owner of the Raiders liked to cultivate his outsider's personae, often flipping a metaphorical finger at collectively bargained NFL deals.

The difference was that Davis was a football guy rather than a businessman like Jones.

He wasn't just any football guy, either. He was, once, highly respected both as a coach and a talent evaluator. After working his way up through the college ranks, he took over a Raiders franchise that had only nine wins in its first 42 games. That translates to a pitiful winning percentage of .214.

In Davis' first year at the helm the team went 10-4 and was unanimously voted AFL Coach of the Year for his efforts. In three seasons as a coach he put together a respectable 23-16-3 record, an increase of .333 over the team's previous winning percentage.

For roughly two decades (ending 1985), the Raiders, under Davis, won the division 13 times, and have for Championship rings (one AFL, three Super Bowls). Like him or hate him, he was once one of the foremost football minds in the NFL.

Matt Millen, picked in the second round of the 1980 draft by the aforementioned Davis, was among the best inside linebackers during a 12 year career in the 1980's and early '90's, mostly with the Oakland Raiders. He made the Pro-Bowl once (1988), was a two-time All-Pro('84, '85), and walked away from the game with four Super Bowl rings. Of the 180 games that he appeared in, he started 166. Not quite Hall of Fame, but it was good enough for people to remember who he was years after he retired.

From 1981 until his retirement in 1994, Isiah Thomas was one of the best point guards in the business. The leader of the Detroit Pistons, Thomas was as good as they come, being named one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history when the league celebrated its 50th anniversary.

The point guard was an integral piece to the puzzle in Detroit, making the All-Star Game 12 straight years while donning two championship rings and being named MVP of the Championship Series in 1990. Among his other honors is Olympic Gold and enshrinement in the NBA Hall of Fame.

Pundits speak of him as being part of a Golden Age of basketball, along with peers Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Larry Bird.

Now, all three of these people are both joke and punchline.

While Matt Millen might finally be showing some signs of growth as a general manager, a hint of learning, he now owns a record that no football insider believes will ever be approached - he has more seasons of double digit losses than any GM in the history of the sport.

The reason it's believed that Millen will always have that dubious honor? None of the insiders around the sport believe that anyone else can last this long without getting fired.

Since Millen's hiring, the Lions have compiled a 31-81 record, worst in the NFL. Last season was the team's best showing with him selecting the players and coaches. They won seven games. Previous to last season, his teams averaged a paltry four wins per season.

Since the Raiders loss in the 2002 Super Bowl to the Buccaneers, Davis has played musical coaches and made questionable player moves...at best.

The amazing thing about Davis' personnel moves is that they were questionable when he made them. With the exception of the acquisition of Randy Moss, there were virtually no moves that Davis made that weren't followed by the phrase, "what's he thinking, giving that guy that sort of contract?"

And he appears to have done it again, committing an obscene amount of money...the money you spend on difference makers, on middle of the road sort of talent - has beens and never will be's.

The result? Nineteen wins over the last five seasons. Less than four per season.

Thomas? Since coming to New York, he's been an absolute train wreck of an executive.

Twenty years after being presented the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award, Thomas was found guilty of sexual harassment, and did nothing to help his image with his testimony in the case, and subsequent comments to the press. During the course of the trial, it was also testified that Thomas made racist comments on more than one occasion in regards to white people.

He has finished with 42 or fewer wins in five of his six full seasons as a coach, and has put together a brutally bad Knicks team with the highest payroll in the NBA. That team has gone a combined 52-100, with only 19 of the wins coming this season. They are on a pace for 22 wins and 60 losses. Only Miami is on pace for fewer wins in the East.

If the entire NBA finishes on the current pace, that will be the highest payroll in the league with fourth worst record, and average of only 27.5 wins per season for Thomas as GM and coach.

While a joke, even a pitiful punchline to fans of other teams around the respective leagues, these guys have been nothing more than nightmares to fans of the Raiders, Lions, and Knicks.

The error cost them the game, and other observations

A [satellite] dish best served up cold...

This morning I woke up and turned on the television with the expectation that I would be getting the Red Sox season opener live from the Tokyo Dome on ESPN2. For those without DirecTV, that's channel 209 on my dial, direct from what my receiver calls satellite 2.

Rather than the game, I was receiving a message that I was not receiving signal from that particular satellite.

At first I thought the issue might have been my recent attempt to upgrade to HD and the replacement of my dish...that is until I began receiving a placard with the following message on all the affected channels...

"No need to call us. We are aware this TV station is temporarily unavailable. We'll have this channel back as soon as possible. Sorry for the interruption."

Based on that message I could only conclude that there has been some sort of technical glitch at DirecTV's end of things. With the satellite that carried Major League Baseball's inaugural game of the 2008 season. Someone somewhere screwed the pooch on this one.

The future is now

The opening day line-up for the Red Sox included four starters (not including the pitching) that were under the age of 30, three of which had a year or less service time at the major league level. Including the starter and relievers, the Sox had eight players that were either under the age of 30, or with a year or less service time appear in the game - Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, Brandon Moss, Jacoby Ellsbury, Coco Crisp, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Hideki Okajima, and Jonathan Papelbon.

While the speculation is that Crisp isn't long for the Red Sox, the tandem of Moss and Ellsbury could be a glimpse of the future of the Boston outfield.

For all the fanfare that has followed Ellsbury into the season after bursting on the scene with a memorable post-season, Moss was the hero in the opener. On a day when David Ortiz and Jason Varitek combined to go 0 for 8, and after the bullpen blew a one run lead, Moss led the way. Down to their final two outs, Moss launched a solo home-run to tie the game and send it into extra innings.

With JD Drew signed for the next couple of years, and Manny Ramirez's contract coming due, is it possible that the future of the outfield is Moss, Ellsbury, and Drew?

Guts and glory...

Okajima, the old-timer of the players entering only their second season (he's 32), struggled in the opener. The set-up man got the win while throwing 19 pitches, giving up no runs on no hits. However, he walked one and nine of his pitches were balls. Those 19 pitches garnered three outs and the win.

To put that into perspective, in last season's ALCS, Okajima had a 1 2/3 inning appearance, getting five outs on 18 pitches.

Bad pitchers give up the ghost when they don't have their A-game. Good pitchers find a way to win when they don't have their best stuff. Oki didn't have his best stuff, but still did his job.

That's the early season for you...still working out the kinks.

Land of the Rising Sun

It is a great public relations gimmick.

Send at least one of the league's premier teams from the previous season overseas, or to another country on the same continent to help cultivate the game in a country that's already baseball crazy.

It will be the fifth time since 1999 that Major League Baseball will start its season on foreign soil. In 1999 it was the the 1998 pennant winning Padres taking on the Rockies in Monterrey, Mexico. In 2000 the 1999 NL wild-card Mets, winners of 97 games, played the bottom of the NL Central barrel Cubs in Tokyo. Four years later, the capital of Nippon hosted the AL Champion Yankees against the bottom feeding Devil Rays. In 2001 it was the bottom scrubbing Rangers playing a Blue Jays team that missed the AL East title by a mere four and a half games.

This season it's the World Champion Red Sox opening against an Athletics squad that finished only a game out of last place in the AL West and 20 wins behind the Red Sox. Not exactly a marquee match-up.

But this is less about the match-up than about the impact of opening in a different country.

What does it really mean? Is it difficult for the team's involved to recover from the requisite travel? Or is the impact dependent on the team make-up, the manager, and any number of other factors? The numbers are less than telling.

The Yankees in 2004 got off to a horrible start, struggling in April and May, but recovered to win 101 games.

On the other hand are the 1999 Padres, just a season earlier with 98 wins and an appearance in the World Series, dropped to fourth place and 74 wins when starting the season in Mexico. Their opponents, the Rockies dropped from 77 to 72 wins.

In 2000 the Cubs slipped by two games from 67 to 65 wins, while the Mets still qualified for the wild card with 94 wins, down from their 1999 total of 97 after taking their first at-bats of the season in Tokyo. That same year the Rangers and Blue Jays won 71 and 83 games respectively. The following season, kicking off the season in (I know, technically American soil) Puerto Rico, those Rangers and Jays finished 2001 with 73 and 80 games respectively. An increase for the Rangers, but a drop-off for the Jays.

In 2004 the Yankees matched their previous season's win total, while the Rays increased their win total from 63 to 70 after starting it all in Tokyo.

Eight teams, a variety of results. Nothing telling. One team broke even. Two teams increased their win total by an average of 4.5 games, and five teams slipped a combined total of 37 games. Realistically, the Padres skew that number with a 24 game drop-off. Sixty-two-and-a-half percent of the teams experienced a drop in performance reflected in their win-loss record. The average drop, not including the Padres, is 3.25 games per team.

Assuming this is actually indicative of this season's performance, there's a 62.5 percent chance that the Sox will drop to 93 wins from last season's 96-win showing. Last year that would have put the team a game behind the Yankees in the final standings, and given the Red Sox the wild card.

What any statistician will tell you is that eight teams, eight results in over a century's worth of seasons is not a sampling that is indicative of anything.

The Placebo Effect

I don't have any particular issue, as a whole, with the government trying to get to the bottom of a variety of issues in professional sports. There are issues which demand government intervention, and issues which don't.

When athletes, ownership, or front offices cross the line into the illegal, violate federal or state statute...that's when government intervention becomes appropriate.

But sometimes the timing brings into questions the motives of the government officials that are attacking the issues in professional sports quite so fervently.

Based on the timing of a number of even the legitimate issues being addressed by legislators, both liberal and conservative, everything from steroids to cheating is nothing more than a political placebo, the Prestige of a group of second rate magicians that try to distract while they make our education system disappear under a handkerchief. It was the strategy of the Bush Administration during the last election, distract with an inconsequential issue, keep the public from paying attention to a degrading system of education, a health care crisis, and the erosion of the EPA and corporate restraints.

W and his advisers took an action that John Kerry performed in the 1970's, breaking the code of silence after his time in Vietnam, and informing the United States about atrocities committed during the war by American troops, and used it against Kerry. It was one big distraction from any issue of substance that should have been addressed in the election. Away from education, health care, and his administration's mishandling of the budget surplus.

It's not the first time this has been done, but it might be among the most obvious.

Now sports is the distraction.

Arlen Specter who has claimed that he would pursue the president with the same sort of fervor that he is now pursuing the Patriots for possibly filming the Eagles, hasn't. He has shielded an administration that engages in illegal spying on its own citizens, has pardoned criminal activities by friends of the administration, and has been part of a legislative cluster-fuck that has engaged in some of the worst and most bitter partisan politics in the history of the nation.

Now, in an election year, Specter wants to know if the Patriots filmed the Eagles. Not the Rams, not the Panthers. Just the Eagles.

He doesn't want people to remember that Comcast, engaged in a bitter dispute with the NFL Network, is one of his biggest campaign contributors.

He wants you to believe that this is a government issue, in spite of the fact that no law was broken. He wants you to look at his left hand, when the coin is in the right.

While I think the government does have a stake in the issue of performance enhancing drugs in sports, as much as what Specter is involved in, this has become a distraction as well.

All that said, at this point I'm just waiting for one of these idiots, whether Specter, Foxx, or any number of others, to finally pull the rabbit out of his or her ass.

1985 Boston Redux

The 1980's were a good time for Boston fans with all of the city's Big Four sports franchises making post-season appearances. Favorite sons the Red Sox made three post-season appearances from 1986 to 1990, winning the American League East in '86, '88, and 1990, and appearing in the 1986 World Series before bowing to the then Boston tradition of losing in game seven.

The often sad-sack Patriots even made three appearances in the post-season, the first coming in the strike shortened 1982 season with a less than impressive 5-4 record. They then had back to back appearances in 1985, and 1986, including their utter destruction at the hands of the bears.

The Bruins dominated the ice, achieving the a playoff berth every year of the decade, winning the Adams Division three times, but failing to seal the deal in two appearances in the Finals against Edmonton.

Without question, the city's most successful franchise then (and throughout the history of pro sports in Boston), was the Boston Celtics. Like the Bruins, the Celtics appeared in the post-season every year in the decade. Unlike the Bruins, the Celtics won three of their five appearances in the NBA finals, twice beating Houston, once Los Angeles, and twice losing to the Lakers.

I bring this up because this year's edition of the Green and White bear some striking parallels to the 1985 squad.

While the differences are glaring - the Celtics of then already had two championship banners on the decade hanging in the rafters of Boston Garden, and two of the Big Three were drafted by the team - some of the parallels are eerie.

The 1985-86 squad was put over the top with the off-season acquisition of Bill Walton, a future Hall of Famer and, at this point in his career, often injured veteran. Used off the bench, Walton was a key component in bringing that season's banner to the rafters of the Gahden. Walton was brought in out of the frustration experienced at the disappointing end to the '84-85 season.

That team won (franchise second best) 67 games on the backs of Larry Bird, Robert Parrish, and Kevin McHale on its way to that year's title. Roll player starters like Dennis Johnson and M.L. Carr were key, making important defensive contributions to the team, just as Walton made major contributions to the team as a bench player.

In an effort to recreate the magic of the 1980's, then player, now GM Danny Ainge spent the last off-season acquiring Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to give the Celtics a new Big Three. Currently on a pace to win 66 games with 54 wins, the Celtics have an opportunity to at least challenge the regular season record of the 1985 squad. With 15 regular season games left, the Celtics will need to go 13-2 in order to tie that team, and 14-1 to tie the franchise record for wins in a season.

This season, in the Bill Walton roll is the oft-injured veteran (primarily groin issues) Sam Cassell. The 38-year old veteran is at the tail-end of a very solid and respectable NBA career which includes two championships. Cassell, like Walton, has been compared to aliens (though for very different reasons), was brought in to provide an additional veteran presence, and to put the team over the top.

While it's still three months before we will find out if the parallels between this year's and 1985 squad will expand to include a championship, the team's ability to take on all comers thus far, makes it look like there will be more comparisons to be made.

The Cautionary Tale of Numero Uno

The biggest off-season event in any sport happens in little more than a month.

Late in April, football fans across the Nation will gear up for the draft. For the bad teams it's a chance to see the next anointed "savior" of the franchise.

It is as much an exercise in renewal of hope for the gridiron faithful as is Spring Training for those who worship in the church of the Diamond.

For those who know their history, it's also warning as much as the pathway to renewing the faith.

By now, Raiders fans have to be approaching the day with caution.

Realistically, all should...but none more so than those holding the top pick in the draft. Once the prize pick for those scraping the bottom of the barrel, now it's looked at as a curse - an unproven player that demands too much money for being what amounts to the first person hired from a pool of available workers...one that has virtually no resume.

If one assumes that a player generally doesn't come into his own until his third season, here's a look at the last 25 number one picks with enough service time for proper evaluation and their impact to the team that drafted him...

1980 Detroit Billy Sims, RB, Oklahoma - Had short career of only five seasons, but ran for over 1000 yards in three of them, including 1303 yards and 13 touchdowns in his rookie year.

1981 New Orleans George Rogers, RB, South Carolina - A solid seven season career that included over 1600 yards on the ground in his rookie year, and ran for fewer than 900 only twice.

1982 New England Kenneth Sims, DT, Texas - Sims was a solid, but unspectacular defensive lineman for the Pats until 1989, logging 5.5 of his career 17.5 sacks in the 1985 season. Given fore-knowledge of Sims' career in the NFL, it's highly unlikely that he would go any higher than the third round in a do-over of that draft.

1983 Baltimore John Elway, QB, Stanford - The drafting of Elway was not as bad as it often sounds for the Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts. With Elway threatening to sign a contract with the Yankees (maybe that's why I never liked the guy), rather than play for the Colts, the team traded him to Denver. What the Colts got in return is what gets lost in the shuffle - journeyman quarterback Mark Herrmann who didn't stay anywhere long, and starting offensive linemen Ron Solt and Chris Hinton. Solt was the the result of a 1984 pick garnered in the trade and was with the team until 1988 with a pro-bowl appearance in 1987. He returned to the team for one season in the earle 1990's before hanging up the spikes. Hinton played for the Colts until 1989, appearing in six pro-bowls. Seven combined pro-bowls on the offensive front...Not bad production to get for a number one pick.

1984 New England Irving Fryar, WR, Nebraska - Largely a disappointment while in New England, Irving seldom put up the statistics expected of him when drafted. Due mostly to issues with drug abuse and immaturity, Fryar didn't realize his potential until he was on his way out the door, logging his first career thousand yard season one year before he hit free-agency and ended up in Miami. Until then Fryar's numbers were those of a team's third receiver, rather than primary or secondary target. The bottom line, for New England, he was not worth the number one pick. Twice in a decade the team missed in the draft. At least these weren't the likes of Eugene Chung, Chris Singleton, or Ray Agnew - all picked later in the first round, all with less significant impact on the team.

1985 Buffalo Bruce Smith, DE, Virginia Tech - Hall of Fame career as a defensive end for the Bills. 'Nuff said.

1986 Tampa Bay Bo Jackson, RB, Auburn - For Tampa, he meant nothing. Rather than play for Tampa, Jackson, arguably the most talented multi-sport athlete of the last 20 years, played minor league ball for the Kansas City Royals. The following year he reentered the draft and was picked 183rd by the Raiders. Considering his split allegiance between sports limiting his production, the Raiders got excellent production from this seventh round pick who averaged more than five yards per bruising carry before a freak injury ended his NFL career.

1987 Tampa Bay Vinny Testaverde, QB, Miami-FL - A solid, if unspectacular quarterback, Testaverde started his career with one hand proverbially tied behind his back, drafted by the NFL's then laughing-stock. While the man whose name translated from the Italian is Green-head holds the distinction of being the only quarterback to have thrown a touchdown in each of his 21 seasons, he also threw more interceptions than touchdowns in 11 of those (including through his first six consecutive seasons). For Tampa, Testaverde didn't do what is expected of that first pick, but to be fair, the brain-trust failed to put him in a situation to be that guy.

1988 Atlanta Aundray Bruce, LB, Auburn - Bruce played for the Falcons for four seasons, starting 16 games only once. While there he averaged four sacks, 44 tackles, and two forced fumbles per year. Certainly not the numbers you expect of a first pick linebacker. He went on to an additional seven undistinguished seasons playing for the Raiders, starting an average of one per year.

1989 Dallas Troy Aikman, QB, UCLA - One of the building blocks of the Cowboys three Super Bowl teams and Hall of Famer. Pretty much what people expect from the top pick.

1990 Indianapolis Jeff George, QB, Illinois - He was Ryan Leaf before Ryan Leaf. He was Nuke Laloosh...the guy with the million dollar arm and the ten cent head. A coach killer and me-first guy, George had all the physical tools to be everything that a number one pick was supposed to be...everything but the gray matter required to do the job that needed to be done.

1991 Dallas Russell Maryland, DT, Miami-FL - Put together a solid-middle-the-first-round sort of career as a plugger in the middle of the defensive line for the Cowboys championship team.

1992 Indianapolis Steve Emtman, DT, Washington - Cannot be considered anything more than a bust for Indy as Emtman appeared in only 18 games in his three year career in Indy, and appearing in only 16 games once.

1993 New England Drew Bledsoe, QB, Washington State - Bledsoe, like Aikman, was the savior for a moribund franchise. Putting up borderline Hall-of-Fame numbers, Bledsoe led the Patriots to the post-season four times and was instrumental in helping the Pats past the Steelers to make the 2001 Super Bowl. Like Aikman, Bledsoe had a powerful impact on the team, the sort expected of the first pick, piloting the Pats to the post-season in only his second season.

1994 Cincinnati Dan Wilkinson, DT, Ohio State - Quite simply, Wilkinson wasn't a bad player. He was just never the player that the Bengals thought he would be and certainly not worth the number one pick in the draft.

1995 Cincinnati Ki-Jana Carter, RB, Penn State - As much an indictment of Cincy's front office in the mid-1990's as anything else, Carter, even when healthy, never put up the numbers expected of a first round pick. Through his two healthy seasons he averaged 3.3 yards per carry and never broke 500 yards in a season.

1996 NY Jets Keyshawn Johnson, WR, USC - Often knocked as a player who didn't deserve the honor of being a number one, Johnson started his career with seven straight seasons with catches totaling more than 840 yards per season, four times breaking the 1000 yard mark. Only once in his eleven year career was he under 800 yards receiving. He averaged almost six touchdowns per year and averaged seven yards per attempt in his thirteen career rushing attempts. Maybe not first pick numbers, but most certainly first round numbers.

1997 St. Louis Orlando Pace, OT, Ohio State - Pace, in his time with the Rams, developed into one of the premiere offensive linemen in the game, playing in two Super Bowls with the Rams, winning one. A multiple pro-bowler and all-pro, Pace was easily worth the pick used on him.

1998 Indianapolis Peyton Manning, QB, Tennessee - Manning has been the cornerstone on which the Colts have built their team. A perennial contender, the Colts picked a likely future Hall-of-Famer when they picked Manning.

1999 Cleveland Tim Couch, QB, Kentucky - He lasted five seasons and threw 67 interceptions while throwing only 64 touchdowns. All given, his other statistics aren't bad, as he finished five years in the NFL with a completion percentage of 59.8, while being sacked almost three times per game started. Twice Couch was sacked more than 50 times in a season. That said, he was never the savior that quarterbacks are expected to be when drafted.

2000 Cleveland Courtney Brown, DE, Penn State - A terror in college, Brown could never be considered anything other than a bust for Cleveland. He was never the game changing impact player coming off the edge that he was projected to be. Currently he is out of football.

2001 Atlanta Michael Vick, QB, Virginia Tech - Was unable to lead the Falcons to back to back winning seasons during his brief time in the NFL. A supremely talented athlete, he never had the head nor desire to develop himself into the quarterback that the number one pick needs to or is supposed to be because he was too interested in his extra-curricular activities to realize that the money train that is the NFL could go away.

2002 Houston David Carr, QB, Fresno State - Dealt a bad hand with the Texans, going to a team with virtually no offensive line, Carr was little more than a punching bag in Texas. That said, Carr, now a head-case, has never, and likely never will fulfill the potential he showed coming out of college.

2003 Cincinnati Carson Palmer, QB, USC - Arguably one of the top five quarterbacks in the NFL, Palmer has had his talent recognized while languishing on a team beset by players who are sever character issues. Unless the Bengals begin drafting players who can avoid trouble with the law, Palmer could be on his way to being this generation's Archie Manning - the guy who gives the franchise hope, but needs more help to get the job done.

2004 San Diego Eli Manning, QB, Mississippi - The impact of this draft for the Chargers? Quarterback Philip Rivers, offensive lineman Roman Oben, linebacker Shawn Merriman, and and kicker Nate Kaeding, all starters, were acquired as a result of the Manning-Rivers trade. A solid take for the number one pick.

Twelve of the last 25 first-picks (of whom we have enough of a body of work to judge) had negligible impact for the team that drafted them, and at least three others had solid careers, but not first-pick expectation sort of careers. Sixty percent of the picks failed to meet expectations.

Is it any wonder that the team with that pick in recent years has frantically attempted to trade out of that spot? Considering the investment, the pick needs to be a sure thing. With a 48 percent failure rate, and another 12 percent that doesn't quite live up to expectations, the first pick is anything but.

Hope Springs eternal

Spring.

It's a time of renewal, a time for new hope. It's when fans of the Cubs and Indians say things like, "this is the year. This year the [insert team name here] are gonna win it all."

On the surface, it might seem a little ridiculous. There are twelve franchises in Major League Baseball that haven't won a World Series for at least 25 years (some of the teams haven't won since their inception as long ago as 1961...the Texas Rangers/Washington Senators). For Cleveland it's been 60 years and this will mark 100 for the Cubs. As the saying goes...when the sun comes up every morning, you come to rely on the fact that it will rise the next morning.

The Cubs perennially seem to find a way to blow their championship opportunities. The Indians haven't exactly fared much better.

Why should these teams, the fans of these teams hold out hope? Fans of the Cubs, Indians, Giants, Rangers, Astros, Brewers, Nationals, Padres, Mariners, Pirates, Phillies, and Orioles will all have differing levels of hope based on personnel, management, and ownership of their respective teams.

The fans of the Cubs and Indians hope to be this season's 2004 Red Sox, breaking a Championship drought that spans generations. Fans of the Orioles hope for a chance, in spite of the past incompetencies of Peter Angelos' ownership.

Why do they continue to hope, in spite of years of heartbreak?

Why, when there are teams that, on paper, that are better? Teams like the Red Sox, Mets, and Tigers.

It's simple really...

It comes down to two things. One is faith.

I've talked before about the religion of sport and the teams being the different denominations. It's no more evident than at the beginning of a season when, in spite of all proof to the contrary, we believe that the team we root for will be the one standing at the end of the season...whether on the diamond, the court, the gridiron, or the rink.

But the second is a little more tangible.

We watch the Red Sox break an 86-year drought to win two World Series titles in four seasons. We watch a Colorado Rockies team that wasn't even supposed to be a contender sweep its way into the 2007 Series. We see a Cardinals team that barely played over .500 ball during the regular season in 2006 win that year's championship.

We see these things and think about our teams, "why not us? Why not this season?" And we believe.

Ultimately, we believe because we're fans.

Go Sox.

Pre/Misconceptions

I have had 399 blog posts leading up to this.

The first was on December 12, 2004...It has been three years and four months since I started this blog. Sometime this year, I expect that I will write my 500th post.

Some posts were merely photos, others were practically treatises. Almost all dealt with sports.

Over the years, sometimes as a paid journalist and sportswriter, sometimes in other arms of the Fourth Estate, and even while I worked as an educator I dealt a lot in pre- and misconceptions. Sometimes it had to do with a thick manila file that followed the student around like a shadow from year to year. Sometimes it had to do with sorting out truth from rumor in regards to an athlete, coach, or organization.

Sometimes the portrayal of a person was as much an exaggeration by the media as it was anything else.

As a reporter I covered the untimely death of an 17-year old athlete who had been shot to death, the memorial basketball game that commemorated a different athlete, and everything from gymnastics and women's football to the X-Games and Red Sox. It's easy to walk into something with preconceptions and, in the end, deal with misconception...or at least distortions of reality.

When death is involved, no one wants to remember the bad about a person. That doesn't mean that the good stuff that is talked about isn't completely true, but people have a tendency to appear saints when memorialized.

When I covered the Red Sox for the Boston Chronicle back in 1996, the Sox had come off a first-place finish in a strike shortened 144 game 1995 season. After finishing with 86 wins in 1995, I went to work on a season preview for 1996. Based on the Sox strong 1995 finish, I predicted the Sox would repeat as AL champs. They finished in third, one game short of their 1995 total.

During the course of last season, after a particularly embarrassing weekend of losses for the denizens of the NFC East, I said that it was a division of frauds and pretenders. I was, admittedly, wrong.

I bring all this up because of something that caught my attention today. Dan Patrick said on his radio show that the media is lazy. They love the easy story.

I will admit this is true.

When I wrote for community newspapers in Bucks County, PA, there were certain coaches that I loved to interview because I knew that their answers would practically allow the stories to write themselves. There were other coaches I dreaded having to deal with. To get a usable quote was like pulling the teeth of a pit bull.

We are given to hyperbole and have short memories.

The media regularly anoints the most recent hot thing the best player ever. Michael Jordan had to be the greatest because he won all those championships, forgetting that no player in any sport in the United States has led his team to more championships than Bill Russell. We successively name quarterbacks as the greatest ever, only marginally acknowledging that the way the position is played is significantly different than it was in other eras, but the guy slinging the ball over the last decade is freshest in our head.

We hear a lot of talk about how Roger Clemens might be the greatest pitcher of all time, but statistics don't even come close to bearing that out. Steroids not withstanding, he fails to have better numbers than a number of pitchers have either better, or at least comparable numbers while pitching almost their entire careers on four days rest rather than the five that Clemens typically enjoyed - Walter "Big Train" Johnson, Steve Carlton, Cy Young, Bob Gibson. But writers have been watching Clemens for the last 20 years. They haven't even seen any of those others for well over 20. That doesn't diminish the skills of the others, it skews our view of the most recent.

This was all really inspired by some questions that Patrick posed in a piece he was doing on Tyler Hansbrough and how he is perceived.

One thing that caught my attention that he mentioned was the term blue collar. A lot of players are called blue collar, lunch pail types. It was pointed out that the term is commonly used for white players, but not black. I tried to think about black players that have been described that way and I came up with Kevin Faulk, and I think I remember Troy Brown getting the label on occasion.

In football it seems to be reserved for linemen. In other sports, the scrappy, hard-working player. But in both, there is a tendency to reserve the label for the white guys.

I don't know that this is completely accurate, but I have to admit to a difficulty in thinking of cases where this isn't true...The blue collar guys on the 2004 Red Sox? Kevin Millar, Bill Mueller, and Trot Nixon. Orlando Cabrera played the game the same way, but didn't really get the same label. Why?

I can't really answer that, except to say that it goes back to preconceptions of what people are supposed to be on the major league level.

Maybe my observations on all of this are right...maybe it's all just one of my misconceptions.

Downtime and the Silver Screen revisited

Anyone that reads my stuff knows two basic facts about me -

1. I'm not too big on sports outside of football and baseball so this downtime between seasons is ...well...downtime.
2. I'm a movie buff. I love movies. Enough of one that I minored in film while in college and was stunt coordinator for a video shot in Rhode Island for the Kelly Deal 6000 back in 1996. I will enjoy films that I recognize as bad films.
   

That said, this is what I wanted to address...

I wanted to do the ten best sports films to hit the silver screen. I've done top ten lists of sports films before, waxing poetic about films like The Natural, Breaking Away, and Chariots of Fire. But I haven't done the list like this. This is going to be a list of the ones not traditionally thought of as sports films.

The most important rule of this list is that it involve some sort of competitive sport, or the link to sports that is integral to the plot of the movie.

And here's the list, along with the relevant sport and a little something about the film...

10. Better Off Dead (Skiing) - 1980's comedy cult-classic featuring a young John Cusak as Lane Meyer. Meyer loses his girlfriend to the captain of the high school ski-team and spends the movie exploring a variety of suicide options. The movie climaxes with a ski race between Meyer and Stalin, the captain of the ski team. For those of you who have not seen the film, there's a great Howard Cosell reference/running joke through the course of the film.

9. Bananas (Howard Cosell, announcing) - This might seem an odd choice, but the early Woody Allen comedy has two absolutely genius scenes with Cosell. The scenes bookend the film with Cosell announcing two wildly inappropriate activities that have virtually nothing to do with sports.

8. The Quiet Man (Boxing, horse racing) - I'm not a John Wayne guy. I just never really got the fascination. I am, however, a fan of John Huston and I have always had a soft spot for this film. Wayne plays a retired boxer returning to his familial roots in Ireland. While the fight choreography is not to today's standards, the brawl at the end is good fun.

7. The Blood of Heroes (Random made-up future sport) - Ah. The sport of juggers. I love this film. It's part of the low-budget post-apocalyptic society movies of the 1980's in the vein of The Road Warrior. The movie focuses on a brutal sport that pretty much entails two teams of five vying to put a dog skull on a stake.

6. Ong-bak: the Thai Warrior (Competitive muay-thai) - Realistically, the plot of this movie is almost a martial arts cliche. The bad guys offend a temple and its greatest student tracks them down to restore the honor of the temple. The martial arts, however, are phenomenal. Some of the best scenes take place in a bar with people betting on matches. Worth a look for any martial arts fan. And if you are a MA fan and have yet to catch Tony Jaa, then you're missing out.

5. Jet Li's Fearless (Wushu, athletic association) - One of the last of Jet Li's martial arts epics, this one is based in the foundation of the Chin Woo or Wushu Athletic Association. The film is shot beautifully, on par with other martial arts epics like House of Flying Daggers or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The film ranges from street fights to tournaments, thus the inclusion on the list.

4. Gladiator (Gladiatorial games) - Let's face it. They were referred to in ancient Rome as "The Games." The blood-sport in which these athletes engaged is at the roots of a number of modern sports from football to boxing.

3. Unleashed (Underground fighting) - Known by the title Danny the Dog in Europe, this little movie is about a man conditioned from boyhood to be a thug's guard/attack dog. This makes this list for two sequences in which Danny is forced into unsanctioned underground fights in order for his "owner" to make a few extra bucks.

2. Marathon Man (Running) - This classic about Nazis in hiding, diamonds, and a guy in the wrong dentist chair at the wrong time could easily have been number one. Featuring Dustin Hoffman as a runner training for the marathon in the Olympics, his studies and training end up horribly interrupted when he accidentally stumbles into his brother's (Roy Scheider) second life. Not for the faint of heart, nor those who already have a fear of dentists.

1. Fight Club (Bare-knuckle brawling) - Clever, this film is largely built around split personalities and illegal blood-sport. Well...that, and soap. If you've seen the film, you understand.

Well...those are my ten. I'm sure I missed a few, and would love to know which ones you think I might have missed. I have to admit, I considered both The Odd Couple, and Mighty Aphrodite as they both feature sports writers.

The Passion

There is a certain child-like excitement and passion that exists with the members of Red Sox Nation that few other fan-bases have.

This is not a knock on the fans of other teams, nor is it all inclusive with the members of The Nation. It does not exist with the Pink Hatters...those whose allegiance to The Nation depends upon the team's ability to stay on top of the pile, those whose allegiance is predicated upon the fact that it's the "in thing," that it's fashionable to root for the Red Sox.

It does exist with Cubs fans and Packer Backers. You see it with Cleveland fans, and the Baltimore faithful who still sting from the move of the Colts to Indy.

These are the people that can speak with authority about team members that played 20 years before they could have witnessed them on the field because the history of the team is important to them.

Most of all, it is notable that these people can be reduced to a child-like I-received-exactly-what-I-wanted-from-Santa excitement over the simple discovery of a piece of memorabilia lost to time.

I wanted to comment on this because the blogger of Somewhere on the Masthead, evidently a card carrying member of RSN, has a story of just such a instance of child-like excitement.

If you have a few minutes, go over there and read it. Fellow members of the Nation will understand.

Stigma

There are a lot of things that can cause stigma in professional sports - failure to make the big play; cheating; steroid use; lying when caught; gaining a reputation as a bad clubhouse guy; being a thug off the field; being relegated to the bench. These are some of the most common reasons. Often the stigma exists most strongly with the fans, sometimes with coaches, and occasionally with general managers.

Teams gain it for bad personnel decisions, bad coaching decisions, and, often, bad decisions from ownership.

Players like Pacman Jones have painted themselves into a corner with both fans and GM's, likely having to deal with all sorts of specially designed restrictions built into his contract, should he ever get signed again to an NFL deal. Randy Moss will have his Raider years dog him well after retirement, when Hall of Fame voters are asked to look at the body of his work.

The Patriots will have Spygate follow them, primarily with the fans of the game, just as Mike Shanahan, unless he wins another Super Bowl, will be questioned for his inability to get his team back to the big game without John Elway.

To touch a little further on the Spygate stigma - it certainly doesn't seem to have hurt the team within the free agent market, or the team's ability to re-sign its own. Sure, both Randall Gay and Asante Samuel jumped ship, but Samuel was expected to leave (his decision had nothing to do with winning, as much as he might publicly claim otherwise...who out there really believes that the Eagles are closer than the Patriots to getting back to the big game?). But this is what has happened with free agents since the final whistle blew on the Giants' championship season...

• Linebacker TJ Slaughter was signed on February 12
• Wideout Kelley Washington was resigned Feb 29
• Long snapper Lonnie Paxton was resigned Feb 29
• Tedy Bruschi was resigned on Feb 29
• Wide receiver Sam Aiken was signed on March 3
  
• Randy Moss was resigned on March 3
• Corner Jason Webster was signed on March 4
• Jabar Gaffney was resigned on March 5
• Safety Tank Williams and corner Lewis Sanders were signed March 6
  

After all of that, it appears as though Carolina Panthers linebacker Adam Seward expects to receive a contract offer from the Pats.

Of the above, of the five free agents signed away from other teams, almost all have started at one point or another. The others are career special teamers or back ups, including Seward. Seward is the most interesting case.

Sure, Slaughter has been a starter in the league, and adds good depth to an aging linebacking corps with hold-over starters are Bruschi, Adalius Thomas, and Mike Vrabel. But Seward is intriguing.

Seward is a career back up and special teamer coming off his first NFL contract. He never managed to crack the starting line-up in Carolina due to injuries, and a deep linebacking corps on the Panthers.

Seven years ago this March 16 the Patriots signed a linebacker with the stigma of being a career back-up, unable to break into the starting line-up of a Steelers team rife with all-pros at the linebacker position. Mike Vrabel went on to become a defensive linchpin of a team that went to four Super Bowls and won three.

I'm not saying that Seward is the next Mike Vrabel, but it should be interesting to see, if signed, whether or not the 26-year old former teammate of former Patriot Ryan Claridge gets a shot at the starting inside spot next to Bruschi, a shot at shaking the stigmas of special teamer, injury prone, and back up.

There's a lot of speculation that the Patriots will address linebacker in the draft, possibly with their seventh pick, despite the fact that Bill Belichick and his brain trust have not addressed the position with an early rounder since Belichick's Cleveland days. If Seward is signed, that will make two linebackers, three DB's and a wide-out added to the team.

Should the young linebacker sign and pan out, this will be compared to the Vrabel signing. If he is signed, the team overlooks a stud in the early rounds with the intention of giving Seward the job and he doesn't pan out...well, let's just say I can see the "Seward's Folly" headlines right now.

A Tale of Two Cities

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
English novelist (1812 - 1870)

Brett Favre's retirement is about a number of things - it's about one of the most prolific quarterbacks in the history of football hanging up the cleats; it's about the team's failure to land Randy Moss for the second straight year (no matter what might be said publicly to the contrary); it's about a change to the face of a franchise; and, mostly, it's about two cities and the divergent paths they took a little more than a decade and a half ago.

This is about Atlanta and Green Bay.

This is about the 1991 second round pick that became one of the most recognizable and most accomplished passers in the NFL over the better part of the last two decades. He won a Super Bowl, appeared in another, and appeared in 22 playoff games overall. Favre was traded by Atlanta to Green Bay between the '91 and '92 seasons for a first round pick.

With that pick the Atlanta Falcons picked running back Tony Smith. Smith played in 33 games over three seasons with six starts. He was primarily used as a kick and punt returner. His combined yardage for those 33 games - 2,267. That's 68 yards and a little more than two feet per game, almost all on special teams. He averaged fewer than ten yards per game as a tailback.

He had three total touchdowns. One for every eleven games in which he appeared.

Since the trade the Falcons have had eight different quarterbacks lead the team in passing, and at least sixteen different QB's have started at least one game for the team since Favre first started for the Pack in the third game of the 1992 season.

Favre has been great, albeit flawed. While he holds the NFL record for touchdown passes, he also holds the record for interceptions. Most fan bases would take that, I think.

He had his issues with pain killer addiction, but owned up to it in a way that is rare with professional athletes.

Through it all, Favre has had a Hall of Fame career.

There's no guaranteeing that Favre would have gone on to the career he has had would he have remained in Atlanta. I think it's unlikely. However, since Favre took over the starting reigns in Green Bay here are some basic facts about the two teams -

According to ESPN, Green Bay has the best record in the NFL since Favre joined the team. Their record with Favre as the starter - 160 -94. The Falcons during the same time period - 111-142-1.

For the better part of 17 years the gunslinger from Mississippi was the face of the franchise in the Frozen Tundra.

He is likable, and amiable in interviews, coming across with an "aw shucks" country charm that has allowed him to get free passes from the press and football announcers for his questionable decisions on the field. But his easy charm and the way he wears his emotions on his sleeve - shaving his head in support of his wife's battle with breast cancer, talking candidly about the passing of his father during the post game of a contest with the Raiders - made him seem approachable to the fans, not just of the Packers, but of football.

Teams in all sports look for that Face of the Franchise. Someone marketable, someone with star power and ability. In Favre's time, the Patriots had Drew Bledsoe who pulled the team out of the mud and put them on his back for the better part of the 1990's, and then Tom Brady, and to a lesser extent, Tedy Bruschi. The Red Sox have David Ortiz (would Big Papi have become Big Papi had he remained with the Twins?). The Yankees have Derek Jeter. The list goes on - Steve Nash, Peyton Manning, Jason Taylor. You say the names and people automatically think of the teams.

Sometimes the face is indicative of the team. Isiah Thomas was once a face with which teams wanted to be associated with. Same for Matt Millen. And even Michael Vick. All of that is less true now.

The franchise that traded Favre had no true Face of the Franchise until they committed to Vick in 2004. Thirteen seasons after their back-up left to become the face of another, Atlanta finally found their face. Now the face of their franchise is a convicted felon. That face followed them through a season without Vick appearing in a single game. It will likely follow them through one more season, until they find someone charming and marketable and can take the franchise to the next level...someone like a backup quarterback they once had.

Mob Mentallity

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."

-Agent K, Men in Black

I've been inspired to touch on something because of a debate that I've having with Lisa over at A Red Sox State of Maine. I won't rehash that conversation over here, but I do want to touch on the decay of fandom.

It is something I have discussed before, to some extent.

I think that over the last 20 years we have witnessed a decline in etiquette from fans while we have progressively become a society of entitlement. More and more often we are reading about schools and teachers that no longer discipline children because parental reactions aren't, "what did my child do wrong." Rather, most parents' reactions are, "what did you do to my child." Personal responsibility is going out the window.

This is as evident with fans as anywhere else.

With the purchase of a ticket to an event, people feel that their money spent gives them the right to act inappropriately.

As late as 1960 people still dressed in their Sunday best for a day at the ball park. While I understand not dressing to a tee to go to a game, there was enough respect for what was happening on the field that most of what goes on now didn't happen then.

People feel that the money spent gives them the right to throw syringes at Barry Bonds, batteries at JD Drew, beer bottles at opponents in Cleveland, and curse and spit at children and adults wearing opponents' uniforms in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Sure, it gives them the right to cheer or boo accordingly, to show your approval or disapproval of what happens on the field, but that right stops when the actions make other fans feel threatened, or could do damage to...well, anyone.

No batteries. No bottles. No syringes. No threats. No spitting.

In 2003 in Chicago there were four separate incidents of fans running on the field during a White Sox-Royals game. This culminated in the assault of one of the umpires by a couple of the fans. There was also the assault of the Royals first base coach by a father-son tandem in Chicago.

Sports Illustrated has a list of eleven incidents of fan boorishness and assault of which only one incident is before 1974, and eight of them are since 1984. It is by no means a complete list.

The incidents are legion, and they didn't start at the professional games.

Unfortunately, parents and youth coaches are regularly setting a horrible example for future generations, engaging in this same behavior at little league games and pee wee football. Just last year a mob attacked the umpires at a little league game in New Hampshire. There was, in Philly, a man who pulled a gun on his son's youth football coach because he felt the boy wasn't getting enough playing time, or the coach in Pittsburgh who paid his pitcher $25 to throw at an autistic player on an opposing team.

Does racism play a part? Yes. Is it the driving force? I have my doubts. I think that it's more the mass stupidity. The heavy drinking. And the belief that a ticket entitles them to be morons.

Tick-Tock

Tick-Tock one...

One last note about Roger Clemens, hopefully for a while.

According to an AP report that hit the wire on Monday night, a letter is being drafted by the lawyers that serve Henry Waxman's oversight committee referring the Rocket and his questionable testimony to the Justice Department. The AP reported that the story was originally reported on the New York Times Web site and cites three unidentified stories.

It also notes that Brian McNamee's lawyers are going to petition the courts for a dismissal of the defamation charges levied against him by Clemens' lawyers.

Unless George W. intervenes within the next eleven months, it appears Clemens has screwed the pooch.

The nanny testified that she was at the party at Jose Canseco's but Clemens was not (why would Clemens' family attend if he didn't, and evidence suggests she was coached), and now it appears there's photographic evidence of his attendance of said party. This doesn't even consider that the golf course receipt that provides his alibi is, by reports, adjacent to Canseco's property. And that's just the tip of the ice berg. There's still his completely unbelievable excuses for having someone who's not a medical professional inject him in his rear for things like Vitamin B, which can be injected anywhere, and lidocaine, which will have no effect on anything but the area injected (don't believe me? Then look it up).

Now the Rocket has to get used to something that doesn't exist in baseball. He's on the clock, and it is now only a matter of time before the clock hits zero.

Tick-Tock two...

I am a football/baseball guy.

We are in that stretch of time between seasons that I look for things to cover; football and baseball transactions, the Ironman, sports history...just the occasional basketball or hockey game. So I spend my sports-allotted coverage time counting down to the start of the baseball season, the draft, and mini-camps.

Tick-Tock three...

It was only a matter of time before this idea was tried.

If this were reported on April 1, I would swear this was an April Fools' joke. The Florida Marlins are holding auditions for their new cheerleading squad. The squad will be dubbed the Manatees.

The squad, which is expected to be comprised of dancing fat men, will perform at Friday and Saturday games during the season.

The combined weight of the squad is expected to meet or exceed the combined weight of the fans attending the Marlins games - and in occasional cases, the combined weights of the fans attending both Marlins and Devil Rays games.

Dirty little secrets

I have become...shall we say...quite cynical in regards to professional athletes.

It started long before now, but it's been coming to a head.

I've spent a lot of keystrokes on this recently.

Cheating, drugs, the sports version of Enzyte...unnatural athlete enhancement. Call for details. Side effects could include acne, shrinkage, and impotence. Long term effects could include cancer.

I have gotten to the point where the benefit of the doubt is no longer afforded.

Hank Steinbrenner can cry all he wants about what he perceives as a drug problem in football, and baseball being picked on. He will get sympathy from precious few out there. He deserves none.

Yes, there's still a performance enhancer problem in football. The difference is that the NFL has at least made an effort for over a decade and a half, or the appearance of an effort. Baseball had to be pushed into it. And the Player's Union is still being dragged into compliance.

Don't believe the last statement, consider that Donald Fehr told his constituents not to talk to George Mitchell. To stonewall the investigation.

What's the dirty little secret of professional sports?

The dirty little secret is that we're watching the games, races, matches and what have you, being contested on an even playing field...in a really twisted way.

While I'm sure that there are many professional athletes that are clean, I have to believe, in light of the numbers in the Mitchell Report, that there's a majority of players out there on the juice. I won't even get into team-related things like Spygate, salary cap violations, allegations of teams in baseball setting up cameras over the centerfield wall in order to steal signs, and so on.

As for those numbers in the Mitchell Report...as I recently noted to someone, there were over 80 players implicated in the former senator's report. Better than three teams' worth of players. That's based largely on the testimony of two dealers/informants out of New York City. Mitchell himself said that his work was not definitive.

It makes me wonder, if the investigators were able to link 80 names based on two guys out of New York, just how many they would have been able to name had they been able to identify the suppliers in Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Seattle, Philadelphia, and any number of other places. Fifty percent of major leaguers? Seventy?

Everyone talks about Hank Aaron's home run record, but how many records are tainted by PED use? We all now know that Eric Gagne was juicing when he set the record for consecutive saves, and anyone that wants to tell me that those drugs have no effect, look at what Gagne was like this past season. Don't tell me it was the injuries he suffered a couple of years ago. He was healthy this year. Based on what he was like last season, Gagne would never have approached the level he was at when he was the most dominant closer in baseball.

I'm not trying to pick on baseball here.

As I mentioned before, Steinbrenner is (I can feel the bile in the back of my throat) right. Football still has a problem. According to transcripts in the BALCO case, the vast majority of players on the Broncos and the 49ers were implicated in the use of HGH.

That doesn't take into account our hometown Rodney Harrison, the members of the Panthers Super Bowl entrant, Bill Romanowksi, Shawn Merriman, and any number of other players who have been nailed since.

I'm not even touching on bicycling, which saw its thinnest competition in the Tour de France last year due to doping disqualifications. Or running, a sport that has seen some of its biggest stars nailed over the course of the last two decades - Ben Johnson, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, marathoner Uta Pippig.

Then, of course, we even saw boxing (big surprise) implicated in the Albany investigation.

It's hard to look at what is happening at the highest levels of athletic competition and not view these people with some level of skepticism.

Heroes

"It's hard to believe you, sir," Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., told Clemens. "I hate to say that. You're one of my heroes. But it's hard to believe."

People all over the place engage in hero worship of professional sports stars.

This is beyond me.

I enjoy sports. I have a great deal of respect for the accomplishments of these people. Hell, I even respect, to an extent, the innate abilities of those like Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Marion Jones. What they did requires a certain amount of physical talent that existed before the cheating, or alleged cheating (steroids/HGH and working out alone are not enough to make a world-class athlete - you have to be close already). However that does not absolve them, and you cannot argue that Bonds belongs in the Hall of Fame due to the fact that he had hall worthy numbers before the cheating took place (not alleged, he admitted to taking the drugs). A voter is supposed to look at the body of work, and the body of his work includes a significant time period during which he cheated the game.

People seem surprised with every new cheating scandal and want to strip teams of titles, ban them from the respective sports - and will even engage in vehement defenses of teams or players they are fans of. To listen to the Clemens and Bonds apologists, these players practically walk on water.

There are levels of vitriol and misunderstanding involved in these things that go far beyond the pale.

People sound off about the Patriots like the team is the only one in the NFL that has engaged in sideline espionage, in spite of the fact that the likes of Jimmy Johnson and Steelers owner Dan Rooney have acknowledged that, not only was what the team did commonplace, but it has no significant impact on the games. Those statements came from football lifers, people who know the game better than any fan possibly could.

Before anyone jumps on my back about this, I am not defending the Patriots. They cheated, they got caught, and they were punished under the rules of the NFL. (Although, I do have issue with the fact that the Jets admitted filming from a place wherein the rules do not provide for in Gillette, and the NFL absolved them of any wrong-doing - I have an issue with the double-standard). If you're going to call for the heads of one, call for them all.

You want the Patriots to give up their championships for filming, fine. Then call for the same for the Broncos who violated the salary cap in order to put together back-to-back championships, or the Yankees for buying up every steroid-laden pin-cushion in MLB in order to put together an impressive run in the late 1990's. As for me - keep the rings, keep the records.

Why?

Cheating is common-place in professional sports - from Rosie Ruiz in the Boston Marathon (I know, technically amateur there), to everything from the performance enhancers used by the Carolina Panthers, Denver Broncos, Rodney Harrison, Marion Jones, Uta Pippig and any number of other professional athletes to salary cap violations, video taping, signal stealing, scuffing baseballs - that it amazes me when people are surprised or disappointed. Name a sport, name a team - there's an infraction to be found.

If you want to look up to athletes, to put someone on a pedestal and use him or her as an example for your kids - look to something, someone a little more obscure.

Look to the Ironman Triathlon Championships. Not to the top finishers.

Look to sister Madonna Buder, an amateur athlete who finished the event for thirteen consecutive years (missing last year's cut off by mere minutes at the end of the cycling stage), breaking her own record each of those years as being the oldest woman to complete the event. Or take John Blais, a man with ALS who completed the Ironman in 2005 in order to raise awareness for the disease. He was in a wheelchair by the 2006 event and didn't live to see the 2007 Ironman. Then there was a competitor in this year's event by the name of Scott Rigsby, a double-amputee who lost both of his legs below the knees. How about Charles Plaskon, a blind 64-year old finisher? Or the story of Dick Hoyt, which you really have to see to believe? Really. I can't do him justice.

There are plenty of athletes out there deserving of that pedestal, for any number of reasons. Just try not to forget that the pros are human too, and generally willing to do whatever it takes to stay at the top of their game. The people I mention above are human as well, with human failings like the rest of us. However, unlike the Clemenses of the world, they're not doing what they do for money...or even personal glory. They see the mountain in front of them and see something to accomplish.

For disease awareness.

To show that you're never too old.

For a son.

To show that there is no such thing as handicapped.

To show the depths and strength of the human spirit - sans cheating, short-cuts, or performance enhancing drugs.

And that is worth our respect and admiration.