Some quick thoughts

I've got that sinkin' feeling...

I can't help but think that the Red Sox are going to be one and done in the post season. Over the last month the team has struggled against quality opposition. By the same token, none of the entrants in the American League thrill me. The ones playing the best baseball lately I have to admit appear to be the Yankees, but even they have fatal flaws in regards to the post-season.

Sweet home Chicago...

While I think the benching of Rex Grossman in Chicago is long overdue, I don't think that Brian Griese is the answer. Griese has never been the answer where ever he has played - why should he be the answer in Chi-town?

With Grossman's contract up at the end of the season, what do you suppose the over/under is on the Bears drafting their quarterback of the future (again) next April?

.38 Special...

In the land of prognostication, the plentiful predictors of the pigskin press tend to be calling for a high scoring affair in the Patriots' Monday night tilt in Cincinnati. The last time the two teams played, there were questions as to whether or not the Patriots defense would be able to hold the Bengals high-octane offense. The final of that game? 38-13 in favor of the Patriots.

After successive scores of 38-14 (over the Jets), 38-14 (over the Chargers), and 38-7 (over the Bills), anyone want to predict a result significantly different than what happened the last time these two teams faced off?

Questionable call...

Having coached sports, I was puzzled by the Briana Scurry start against Brazil in the Women's World Cup tournament. I understand why Greg Ryan started Scurry, given her past record against Brazil, but I still see it as a move that is indefensible. As such, the man needs to stop defending the decision, admit he fucked up and move on.

For those of you who don't know - US goalkeeper Hope Solo had beaten Scurry out for the starting position entering tournament play. Solo had a 300 minute stretch going back to the first game in the tournament during which she hadn't given up a goal. Scurry hadn't started and played a full game in over three months.

The United States lost to Brazil 4-0. In soccer terms, a blow-out.

If they had lost 1-0, even 2-0, maybe Ryan's position is defensible. Four-nil? Suck it up and admit your mistake. You benched the hot-hand in order to put the veteran near the end of the line into a game she had no business starting.

For those of you who think I'm being too harsh on Scurry, I just want to say - she was one of the goalies for the Philadelphia Charge when I was a beat writer covering the team for a suburban Philadelphia newspaper. Personally, I like her. However, when she played for Philadelphia, she was inconsistent. Alternately she was the best goalie I had ever seen in the women's game, or she was a definitive second stringer.

The other day the second stringer showed up.

It's a shame the team's greatest Hope in winning was on the bench.

Being Curt and other observations

The writing is on the wall.

Curt Schilling went on the 15-day disabled list with shoulder tendinitis after an MRI showed nothing. The move was made retroactive to June 19. That means Schill was elligible to come off the DL yesterday.

Yesterday the team announced the rotation through July 16. Schill is not part of it.

When the team comes back from the All-Star break, the rotation is likely to be Wakefield, Tavarez, Matsuzaka, Beckett, and Gabbard. While the Sox might expect Schilling back sometime in July, it looks to me like the Red Sox are trying to prepare for life without the hero of the 2004 World Series.

What this is saying to me is that the Red Sox are trying to look at the future now. With a ten game lead they have the option of taking a longer look at Kason Gabbard and Jacoby Ellsbury. They might be looking at either as trade bait, or to see if either merits consideration for tomorrow's team and whether or not they can help down the stretch.

One thing it definitively says to me is that Schilling and the Sox part ways at the end of this season.

Resurrection
I have been following whispers about the Women's United Soccer Association coming back under a different name. As a former beat writer covering the Philadelphia Charge back in 2001 and as the father of a five year-old girl, personally, I think this is pretty cool.

According to the Boston Herald, the Boston Breakers are soon to have try-outs for the new league sponsored by the Women's Soccer Initiative, Inc. The WSI has announced that the reincarnation of the WUSA will have eight teams which includes Washington (playing right down the street from me in Germantown, MD), New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, St. Louis, and according to some rumors, Philadelphia.

While I covered the league, I had the chance to talk to a number of the World Cup players like Kristine Lilly, Katie Sobrero, Lorrie Fair, and Heather Mitts. These women were superb athletes, I'm glad they and those who have followed in their cleat-steps will once again have an opportunity to make a living doing what they love.

Congrats
Hideki Okajima has made the All-Star game, joining team-mates Mike Lowell, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Josh Beckett, and Jonathan Papelbon. While I wouldn't have complained about most of the other candidates making it onto the roster, Okajima has been deserving of the honor.

The man has been virtually unhittable since coming across the Pacific as an afterthought in all the Matsuzaka hype.

With the limited space, it's a shame that Matsuzaka couldn't have made it as well as Kevin Youkilis who has been having a better year than Ortiz.

Random thoughts from a random mind...

Who let the dog out...
Even with plausible deniability involved, it seems that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is seriously considering suspending Michael Vick anyway. According to a report from Don Banks at Sports Illustrated, Goodell essentially told Vick, "your house, your responsibility."

Personally, I have to admit, in my opinion - and let me stress that last word - Vick is guilty as sin in this, but will manage to avoid legal culpability. The suspension, given the fact that he has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately, I think looms as a very real possibility.

A suspension would certainly be a wake-up call for Vick. The question is, would it work?

Interesting conversation...
In light of Amanda Beard's decision to pose for Playboy, my wife and I had an interesting conversation...particularly in regards to gratuitous nudity and roll models. I won't go into the heavy details, but it lead me to an article regarding the marketability of athletes and women's athletics.

According to a poll of 65 businesses around America by Street & Smith released earlier this year, only Maria Sharapova breaks the top 10 (ninth). Other women to make the list, or be determined marketable:
Michelle Kwan (skating - retired)
Mia Hamm (soccer - retired)
Anna Kournikova (tennis - retired)
Chris Everett (tennis - retired)
Michelle Wie (golf)
Swin Cash (WNBA)
Heather Mitts (soccer)

In recent years others have made the list, such as Venus and Serena Williams, and Gabi Reece, but why such a short list? Is it tied to the lack of popularity of women's sports? Is it tied to something else?

The saying that everyone hears in regards to advertising is "sex sells," yet efforts of the WNBA to make attractive players such as Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson the faces of their franchises don't seem to help draw in the larger fan base that the WNBA has hoped to attract. Is it due to a long standing misperception that the women's locker-room is merely the jock "closet," a haven packed solely with athletic-minded lesbians and a homo-phobic United States stays away?

Is it that women's sports hasn't tried hard enough to market to a lesbian fan base that does indeed exist?

All of these are plausible explanations. But I have one other - it's the markets that women's team sports feel they need to be in. These Joanie-come-lately leagues insist on trying to compete with already established men's teams for the same dollar.

Look where the WNBA has situated their teams - New York, Seattle, Detroit, Houston, etc. Many of those teams are in markets where they are competing with Major League Baseball's longer established Yankees, Mets, Mariners, Tigers, Astros, etc, for the fan dollar. That's not a winning proposition. The reason - the NBA, the WNBA's parent corporation, wanted to be in the biggest television markets.

It might have been wiser, however, to move into the secondary markets. Pensacola, which is a top 45 television market, but has precious little in the way of professional sports, is the home town to the women's football team Pensacola Power. It is one of the few venues for that sport that regularly attracts over 4,000 in attendance for its games. By way of contrast, in their second seasons Pensacola regularly attracted several thousand fans and was covered by the local newspaper, Philadelphia, competing against the Sixers and Flyers (when the two made the playoffs), as well as the Phillies, were lucky to attract 1000.

Yes, the female athletes you see hawking products tend to be the prettiest - lord knows that Kournokova had moments, but was never at the top of the game, never won a major tournament and never ranked higher than eighth, but was at the time the most marketable face in tennis. Not just women's tennis - but tennis as a whole. Even sitting on the sidelines she continues to make millions.

Are there exceptions? Sure - Mia Hamm wasn't the prettiest of the pro-soccer players, but she's not unattractive and she was the best at what she did.

The question all this leads to is - what's the answer? How can women's sports be more marketable and draw bigger crowds? If I could answer that, I'd have a whole lot more money than I do now.

What is Clemens real impact?
Assuming Kei Igawa was still getting used to a new leagues, batters, umpires, etc., it's probably safe to project him for somewhere between eight and eleven wins over the course of the season and about a 5.00 ERA. With a maximum potential of about 23 starts and a move to a tougher league than he pitched in last season, chances are Clemens will produce between ten and fourteen wins with around a 4.00 ERA.

For an additional $26 million (figuring for luxury tax), that's really not much additional bang for the Yankee buck, if all the assumptions above are really true. Also, they can not figure that a 45 year-old pitcher who averaged six innings per game in the weaker National League is going to do the same in the American League...and isn't part of their problem right now their overtaxed bullpen?