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.

Bible Stories it ain't

I don't know what Roger Clemens was thinking.

He had a choice about yesterday. He chose to go forward with the hearing when chairman Henry Waxman was ready to call it off.

I'm not what one would call a religious person...in any way, shape, or form...but I'm about to make a correlation here...

It was like he thought the result of yesterday would be that he were Abraham's son, saved from the knife on the sacrificial altar at the last minute. It didn't happen yesterday.

What happened yesterday -

• Clemens appeared to have engaged in perjury, trying desperately to contradict the stories of Brian McNamee, Andy Pettitte, Pettitte's wife, his own nanny, and even his own story at times - while successfully discrediting his alibi - Jose Canseco - by admitting that he did spend some time at the party at Canseco's, in spite of Canseco's sworn affidavit to the contrary.
• Clemens might have engaged in witness tampering, and, when called on it, had the arrogance to tell the committee that he had done them a favor.
  
• McNamee was revealed to be nothing more than what he is - a liar and a drug distributor. No more so than what anyone already knew - but no one was able to determine what McNamee would have to gain out of an action that has effectively ruined his professional career? Everyone knew going in and coming out what Clemens had to gain.
• We learned that Clemens, in his desperation, would throw everybody - including his wife, legal representation, and agents - under the bus in order to avoid culpability for his mistakes.
• We found out that Clemens wouldn't fire his agents in the face of what would have to be gross incompetence and negligence, if what he claims about notification of George Mitchell's investigation is true, and he wasn't notified.
• We now know that, if what the Rocket says is true about not knowing that Debbie Clemens dropped trou in her bedroom for McNamee, a man once accused of rape, that her judgment is as questionable as her husband's. I, for one, know no women who would be caught alone in a room with someone even suspected of that crime, if they could help it.
• We found that the republican contingent of the contingent seemed more interested in pontificating about how untrustworthy McNamee was while engaging in blatant hero worship in the direction of Clemens.

What we found out today, is why Clemens and his lawyers...and the Republicans on the committee...would engage in this farce. For those who have forgotten - the Rocket is a friend of the Bush family.

McNamee's lawyer believes that Clemens' handlers allowed him to participate in this farce because the Rocket could get a pardon from W. Unfortunately, it's not that far fetched an idea.

I, for one, am hoping that if this does end up in front of the judiciary, it extends into next year, and beyond the reach of Bush.

That might seem harsh to some, but this is, as I said before, someone who hasn't been able to explain why his former trainer would do this beyond "a cheap stunt," and "the feds were targeting me." This is in spite of the fact that McNamee's lawyer has noted that the feds never mentioned Clemens and were perfectly professional, and that if McNamee has lied then he goes to jail, and if he hasn't, his professional career is shot to hell. Hardly cheap.

This is also someone who, as I also noted, has demonstrated nothing but arrogance and a sense of entitlement somehow believing, through the whole process that he's above reproach - trying to convince everybody that he is more reliable than George Mitchell, the man who put together the Northern Ireland Peace Accord. The man who repeatedly tried to contact Clemens before the report came out.

It is looking more and more like there is no doubt that Clemens did indeed do something illegal, and that he cheated...and he needs to be held accountable.

No new contracts, pro-rated, or otherwise.

No Hall.

No freedom.

At this point, in my opinion, the man is a cheat and a criminal and should be treated as such.

And on a final note - I think I'm going to miss this when it all goes away...and it will. I mean, really, this has been the best soap opera on television in recent times.

Select fraternities no one wishes to be in...

There are several select and growing fraternities among the professional athlete set.

None of which are ones you want to pledge if you are an athlete.

Okay, the first is one no one wants to be a part of and it has a new pledge.

It's the one with a membership that includes Lance Armstrong, Jon Lester, and Joe Andruzzi now includes Vikings defensive end Kenechi Udeze. According to a report in the Mineapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune that hit the Internet at about midnight, Udeze has been diagnosed with leukemia, a cancer of the blood that originates in the bone marrow.

According to reports, Udeze spent time at the Mayo Clinic last week.

Currently, Udeze is undergoing tests at Fairview Southdale Hospital to determine the grade/severity of the particular type of leukemia with which he is afflicted. For more information on leukemia, and its four different varieties, visit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Web site.

Kenechi, Joe...get better soon guys.

The other fraternity...

Pi Epsilon Delta...PED, the performance enhancing drug users.

As much as Roger Clemens is desperately trying to make it look like he hasn't already pledged this group with a defense that pretty much amounts to, at this point, "what I say is right, what everybody else says is wrong."

His agents want to compare him to other pitchers, but when Ivy League statistics professors point out the errors in the methodology of the Clemens camp, and present their own report, they're wrong and "The professors make the mistake of thinking that his career arc should look like the arc of every other pitcher in their selected group," Hendricks said in a statement. the professors, of course, didn't use a small cross section, and they likely got the age ranges of their pitchers right. But no, according to the Clemens camp, the statisticians are wrong.

Now it's beginning to come out that Andy Pettitte's version of events appears to back Brian McNamee's story (never mind the fact that the Clemens camp still has failed to explain why McNamee would be telling the truth about both Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch).

Even more amazing - why wasn't there an immediate denial from Clemens and his people in regards to his wife getting shot up before an SI shoot? Is it because of the physical evidence that has surfaced? Are they now concerned that they've backed themselves into a corner over the Rocket, and are worried about painting the corner smaller?

He may be fighting tooth and nail to not be a member of Pi Epsilon, but, by all appearances, he's already a member - along with the likes of Marion Jones, Barry Bonds, and the whistle-blower - Jose Canseco.

Thoughts and observations at the end of a season

The Patriots took us for one hell of a ride. Eighteen straight before losing in the Super Bowl.

Sure, right now that's a Pyrrhic victory.

But as I have previously noted, this will, one day, be reflected on in the same manner as the Buffalo Bills achievement of making it to four straight Super Bowls.

Now that it is over, however, the Patriots have to look to the future.

Someone out there, probably the Jets, is going to vastly overpay for free-agent corner Asante Samuel's services. There's also a chance that the Jets will pursue free-agent Randall Gay as well, although I can see him potentially taking less money (than he would get from the Jets) to stay with the Patriots due to the potential of an expanding roll with the Patriots with the impending absence of Samuel. A side note - for all the negative that has been said about Ellis Hobbs by New England fans, he actually had a solid year statistically.

First published in the Providence Journal -

According to Stats Inc., an independent sports information and statistical analysis company, opposing teams threw in Hobbs’ direction 106 times this season, ranking him 13th, but Hobbs gave up only four touchdowns. There were 44 defensive backs in the league who gave up more touchdowns than Hobbs.

Receivers caught only 58 passes in those 106 pass attempts (54.7 success rate), which is a low ratio compared to other defenders in the league. Among defensive backs thrown against at least 30 times, 156 of them were less successful than Hobbs...

Rodney Harrison, who is under contract for another year has announced his intention to play at least one more season - meaning that Eugene Wilson is the likely odd man out in the safety rotation.

The fate of Tedy Bruschi and Junior Seau are still in question on the defensive side of the ball, and Rosevelt Colvin is scheduled for a jump in salary.

I wouldn't be surprised to see at least two of the three back in uniform next year, with one of them very likely being Colvin.

On the other side of the ball, the only major change I see is the team terminating their contract with Donte Stallworth. While I have my doubts that Stallworth will wear a Patriot uniform next season, it wouldn't surprise me if he renegotiated his deal.

Texas toast revisited...

I love agent and lawyer speak...it's a lot like marketing speak. It's not a doll...it's an action figure (dolls are for girls). It's not a "used car" any more...it's "certified pre-owned." It's no longer a retirement home, it's "an active seniors community."

By now everyone knows that Roger Clemens agents, the Hendricks Brothers, have put out their little piece of propaganda in an effort to show there was nothing unusual in an athlete getting better in his mid-thirties after three straight years of health issues and declining performance...you know, the time period when no player in the history of any sport got better without the aid of performance enhancing drugs?

Well, here's a little tidbit from the AP report about some statistics guys at the Ivy League's University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School - one of the most renowned business schools in the world had to say about the little report and the Clemens' party reactions -

His agent, Randy Hendricks, responded Sunday to an article by four professors from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School who criticized an 18,000-word statistical report Hendricks Sports Management issued to rebut accusations that the pitcher's career rebounded about the time he is accused by McNamee of using performance-enhancing drugs.

Hendricks' report compared Clemens' performance during the second half of his career to those of Nolan Ryan, Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson.

"By comparing Clemens only to those who were successful in the second act of their careers, rather than to all pitchers who had a similarly successful first act, the report artificially minimizes the chances that Clemens' numbers will seem unusual. Statisticians call this problem selection bias," professors Eric Bradlow, Shane Jensen, Justin Wolfers and Adi Wyner wrote in Sunday's Times.

They compared Clemens' ERA and walks plus-hits-per-inning with those of 31 pitchers since 1968 with 3,000 innings and 10 or more starts in at least 15 seasons.

"The available data on Clemens's career strongly hint that some unusual factors may have been at play in producing his excellent late-career statistics," they said, while adding, "in any analysis of his career statistics, it is impossible to say whether this unusual factor was performance-enhancing drugs."

Hendricks said the criteria used by the professors was flawed, and that they ignored criteria such as Clemens' ERA margin vs. that of the league and strikeouts. Hendricks' report tried to refute any perceived misconceptions that Clemens' career was on the downside when he left Boston after the 1996 season. While the professors claimed Clemens was in decline in his late 20s, Hendricks pointed out Clemens was an All-Star in consecutive years from age 27-29, finished second in Cy Young at age 28, then won it the following year.

"The professors make the mistake of thinking that his career arc should look like the arc of every other pitcher in their selected group," Hendricks said in a statement. "These 'statisticians' are engaging in precisely the kind of insinuation with their words that they say cannot be proven by statistics."

So...the Hendricks want us to believe that his career compares favorably to other pitchers based only on the statistics they chose for the report...not based on what's considered the accepted methodology for any proper academic study. As long as the general public doesn't get to hear about improper methodology like "selection bias" this is something that might work on a handful of people who have been undecided in this whole charade...people who like to be spoon-fed their facts, and don't want to dig a little deeper for the truth. But to anyone that really sits back and looks at some basic facts of the human body and athletics at the highest levels, this just smacks of more desperation.

On a sadder note...

I would like to take a moment to note the passing of Roy Scheider.

Sure, he wasn't an athlete, and wasn't known for taking rolls in sports films like Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard, or Dennis Quaid in movies like Everybody's All-American and Breaking Away, but he still had his moments - he had a small uncredited part in Paper Lion, the George Plympton bio-pic starring Alan Alda, and of course, for sport-fishermen everywhere, Jaws. Beyond that, I suppose you could make an argument for the movie Marathon Man, in which he plays the brother of Dustin Hoffman who is training for the Olympics.

Scheider was an excellent actor, at the top of his game in the 1970's through to the early 1980's, including a very deserved best actor Oscar nod for his portrayal of Joe Gideon, director Bob Fosse's alter ego, in 1979's All That Jazz.

But the reason I mention him here is this exchange he had while playing Dr. Heywood Floyd with John Lithgow's Walter Curnow in 2010...

Heywood Floyd: I'd love a hot dog.
Walter Curnow: Astrodome. Good hot dogs there.
Heywood Floyd: Astrodome? You can't grow a good hot dog indoors. Yankee Stadium. September. The hot dogs have been boiling since opening day in April. Now that's a hot dog.
Walter Curnow: The yellow mustard or the darker kind?
Heywood Floyd: The darker kind.
Walter Curnow: Very important.

Anyone who spends time at the ballpark gets this.

But, in regards to Scheider, I think it's more appropriate that he be remembered with this exchange from All That Jazz with Angelique, who is symbolic of death...

Joe Gideon: No, nothing I ever do is good enough. Not beautiful enough, it's not funny enough, it's not deep enough, it's not anything enough. Now, when I see a rose, that's perfect. I mean, that's perfect. I want to look up to God and say, "How the hell did you do that? And why the hell can't I do that?"
Angelique: Now that's probably one of your better con lines.
Joe Gideon: Yeah, it is. But that doesn't mean I don't mean it.

It's showtime folks!

Happy New Year!

For those of you who don't know, we are entering the year of the rat based on the Chinese lunar calendar.

Last night I participated in a Chinese cultural show here in Maryland to celebrate the Chinese New Year (I'm center in the traditional Kung-fu uniform, and the two in the yellow tee-shirts are two of my students).

It was an interesting experience.

It reminded me of something that we, as sports fans, tend to take for granted...

The ability to perform in front of a large group of strangers.

From a young age I participated in organized sports - little league started when I was in Kindergarten or first grade, when I was in third grade I was in youth soccer, by fifth grade I was playing street hockey in a league, by the time I was thirteen I was training in karate and fourteen, participating in tournaments. I ran track in high school, and played football and soccer. There was always some sort of crowd watching the games, at the tournaments, or at the track meets - whether parents, local community reporters, or other family members, or participants waiting between events, it didn't matter who - there were always spectators.

In spite of this, I had an issue with stage fright while growing up. I was horrible at delivering oral reports for this reason. It didn't occur to me at the time that my ability to perform in the athletic arena should have been no different. Except for the fact that execution on the athletic field had always been in front of a crowd. Execution in the academic arena had not.

I digress.

I bring this up because neither of the two students that performed last night were athletes. I spent as much time before the performance assuring them that there was nothing to worry about as I did tweaking their form. And in spite of all the panic and worry they showed before going on stage in front of several hundred people, the two performed well.

I think it's easy to forget that performing at the highest levels in professional athletics in front of huge crowds comes with a pressure most of us never feel.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not making excuses for the highly regarded who fail at the highest levels of athletics when the pressure is on - particularly since that is the living they chose and they have trained to get to that point, usually their entire lives. I can get where a highly regarded prospect coming into Major League Baseball can crash and burn - until they hit the majors, they're never in front of a crowd in the minors like they see in the majors (unless the guy plays for some team in Florida). I'm less understaning of football wherein most division I college teams play in front of crowds larger than the crowds they see in the NFL - which is why I have to tip my hat to Giants tight end Kevin Boss, who went from playing in front of crowds no larger than 6,000, to crowds larger than 60 thousand.

Then you have other sports - like Olympic gymnastics, figure skating, tennis, and sometimes even golf and soccer - where an enormous amount is expected at an unrealistically young age. Then we end up with people like Freddy Adu and Anna Kournikova who are considered disappointments in their respective sports before they even reach the age of 21.

My personal favorite whipping post of the young crowd has been Michelle Wie. But if you go back and look at what I have said about her, it usually relates to the special treatment she gets at the hands of the press and the tournament sponsors who grant her exemptions as though her career has shown that she has earned the special treatment. Ultimately, though, it appears that her problems come from how she has dealt with the pressures that have gone along with the expectations, both internal (from her family), and external (the media and fans) that she has faced.

As for the teams that I follow...

It's a hard thing to play in places like New York or Boston, where the media and the fans will absolutely crush a player - and it takes a special mentality to pull it off.

Perspective

There are much worse things that could have happened in the desert on Sunday than the Patriots loss, according to this story that's not getting a lot of attention.

Thankfully, the man came to his senses and turned himself in.

No Excuses

I'm a little disappointed.

More in my fellow Pats fans than in the game.

I'm beginning to see the excuses surface from Patriots fans. The clock was mismanaged by the refs, the Patriots gave the game away, Arlen Specter brought up Spygate at an inopportune time. It's all a crock.

The Patriots were outplayed, pure and simple.

We saw from week two that the this team could put aside the distractions of Spygate, and there was nothing unusual about how the clock was run (I saw the film, and all I can say is the guy who did that didn't have a full understanding of how the clock gets run, and maybe he should look up the rules before he starts any conspiracy theory. I won't justify his theory any further by posting a link to it).

The team was lucky that the defense played as well as they did, or this could have been a rout because our offense was smoked. The defense, in spite of two crucial misses in the last minute (the missed sack and the missed interception), kept the team in the game.

As for the excuses - do you, as a Patriots fan, really want to be lumped in with the Ravens fan conspiracy theorists, or the Raiders fans that still whine that they had the game stolen from them based on a rule that's in the books?

Stop the excuses, stop the whining and deal with the pain. After decades of last minute losses by the Red Sox and Patriots, have we really become so soft that we can't recognize the Giants' accomplishment?

Get it together people, I don't want to be embarrassed to be a New England fan. Make me proud and take it like a fan that actually knows the game well enough to know that our team was handed their hats.

The changing face of the sports media

Please bear with me on this - I will get to the sports side of things.

It's more than the sports media. There has been a trickle down effect.

News has become entertainment.

It is why a couple of reporters did something for the Washington Post in the 1970's that could never happen now. It is why the press has failed in its responsibility as a watchdog over politics and industry over the last decade. We read about some nut-job woman from Atlanta who bails on her fiance and runs to Vegas for almost two months, but watch the press treat the current administration largely with kids gloves in spite of the myriad of Constitutional offenses that the current group appears to be guilty of.

The closest we've seen to Woodward and Bernstein in the last 30 years has been Fainaru-Wada and Williams in the case of Barry Bonds.

Hard hitting reporting is a dying breed in favor of the Fox Newsettes, the pretty faces that have taken the place of your Walter Cronkites and Charles Kuralts. The sons of Walter Winchell, the preachers of the gossip column have taken control.

An unfortunate and fortunate side-effect of the overall impact of the Washington Post's Watergate reporting has been that public figures' private lives have become public. It has become more important for the media to cover things like Tony Romo spending a weekend with Jessica Simpson, or the fact that Bill Belichick wears a hoodie on the sideline, than what's happening between the hashmarks. It's more important that we know that Jenna Bush is getting married or publishing a children's book than it is that our vice president may have been directly involved in the dismissal of federal District Attorneys for nothing more than political reasons.

And the reason is that we, as a news consuming public, eat it up. We demand the fluff stories, writing off the important news of the day as boring.

It runs from the hard news through to the sports news.

We call for changes to the games, to the leagues...as long as the team we root for is kept out of it. We revel in the embarrassment of the other teams, and more often than we should, act as though our teams are innocent of wrong-doing. As fans, we have the arrogance to believe that we root for people that are clean.

And when our teams our caught, our favorite players nailed, we circle the wagons. Bonds apologists will claim that steroids have no real impact on the sport, but be unable to explain why, then, players use them.

Fans of other teams go on the attack, in spite of the fact that everything in the history of sport shows us that at the worst possible time that those same teams that people are fans of will have some scandal of their own - multiple criminals like the Bengals, a pleasure cruise gone awry in Minnesota, a number of different baseball players representing almost every team in the majors on a list of steroid and HGH users, a boxer's name being linked to an illegal HGH ring shortly before a title bout.

Sometimes the players are caught in off-field shenanigans like Alex Rodriguez, or going on an innocent vacation with their girl-friend in what should be non-stories for the sports page, but they take on a life of their own because we dig in like jackalls.

People complain about the press, but we keep coming back, because what they give us is what we (as a society) want. It's what sells the papers. The irrelevant. The stupid and innocuous.

Reporting about sports was once about great feats on the field of play, and the occasional trade. Now it's as much about business and gossip as anything else.

Is it jealousy? Possibly. Great resentment festers in the light of great success. It's why in the 1970's there were people who hated the Dallas Cowboys, and, more recently, the Yankees of the 1990's, and right now, the Boston professional sport scene.

I have no problem with the resentment. I just wish we would focus on the sports, on the facts, and tell the press we're done with unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo.