XXI Winter Games IV

A couple final notes on the Vancouver 2010 games, which ended over a week ago.

A. I am in withdrawal.
B. Although the summer games are incredible, my true love is for the winter sports.
C. Wang Meng, as dominant as she is, and she's arguably the single most dominant athlete in the world when compared to the rest of her sport, does NOT belong in the pantheon of the greatness occupied by people like Gretzky, Jordan, Tiger Woods and Shawn White. Those men transformed their sports, Meng is incredibly dominant, but hasn't transformed the game. Courses were altered for White and Woods. Teams changed their entire strategy to deal with Gretzky, and Jordan brought basketball to the world with his skill and popularity. Meng, who might be more successful than all of them, comparatively speaking, hasn't changed short-track at all.
D. China is set to become a global superpower in athletics. Don't be surprised if they win more medals at London 2012 than they did in Beijing 2008. They're leveraging their home-games success quite nicely. Sports is an opiate for the masses?! NO WAY! (Duh.)

XXI Olympic Winter Games III

And the awesomeness just keeps coming...

14) The South Korean women finished first in the 3k Meter Relay on the short track. HOWEVER, they were disqualified by the judges after the race, which gave China the gold and bumped the United States into bronze. Does it get any better than that?! YES! The Chinese were also credited with a world record time, even though they crossed the finish line in second! I should probably apologize for the inappropriate joy I feel at this whacked out turn of events... but I won't.

15) Speaking of whacked out: Lindsey Vonn crashed on the Giant Slalom, which hurt because she was in the lead by over half a second (that's like a 20 pt. lead in an NBA game--huge, but not impossible to beat). However, since the weather was so poopy, race officials had already sent the next skier down the hill. Standard procedure, and they got her stopped in time, but by random chance that second skier was defending gold medalist Julie Mancuso. Aaaggh! No way ANYBODY get jacked up like that in the middle of a run and comes back to repeat the same quality of performance. Julie finished the run in 18th and wept profusely. Sad day for U.S. Ski Team. AND, it looks like Ms. Vonn may have broken a finger, which seriously effects her chances in the slalom. "Oh no, we suck again!"

16) Silver for the United States in Nordic Combined Team?! NO WAY! But it did happen.

17) Job opening! Dutch speed skating coach Gerard Kemkers pulled an All-Time Olympic blunder in the Men's 10,000 meters race when he yelled at Sven Kramer to switch lanes with eight laps left to go. Kramer is the world-record holder and 3-time defending world champion at that distance. The only person he was competing with for gold was himself. Thanks to Kemkers advice however, he was DQ'd. Not a lot of love lost between athlete and coach afterwards. This might not have been so bad, but speed skating is to Holland what television is to America.

18) Women's Ski Cross? Seriously, wasn't the men's event embarrassing enough? In the 7 heats they showed in prime time there was exactly ONE lead change past the first 50m. There were only about 3 position changes in the back of the races, and only once in the competition did the leading qualifier in each race NOT win. (YAWN!) Where's curling when you really need it?

I am a ski fanatic. I have no problem following other freestyle events, alpine, biathlon, Nordic combined, jumping or cross country races, but ski cross--AND I REALLY HOPE THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE IS READING THIS--SKI CROSS HAS TO GO!

19) This is what makes the Olympics great: Marjan Kalhor. Marjan Kalhor is the first woman from Islamic Republic of Iran (the official Olympic designation of that country) to compete in a Winter Olympiad. She will finish dead last in the women's Giant Slalom and has to wear a head scarf under her helmet to comply with Islamic dress code, but she's there. Kudos to her and all the other athletes like her. And kudos to Iran for allowing her to compete. There is always a group of athletes that come from nations sending only a small handful of representatives (often as few as one), who's biggest victory is marching in the opening ceremonies, and I wish them all the best. I hope their Olympic experience is everything the rest of us dream about.

XXI Winter Olympic Games II

A few more personal thoughts on the 21st Winter Olympiad...



7) Ski Cross. Loooooser. I love skiing, truly I do, but this is the first (and hopefully last) time we've seen this one at the Olympics and it's a real stinker. Snow Cross is a two-thumbs up awesome event, but just because it works on a snowboard doesn't mean it should be done with skis. Like the X-games' new "High Air" event, it begs to be cancelled.

8) Yeah, those South Koreans are still running their mouths and still backing it up. Dang!

9) This is the sloppiest television coverage I've ever seen at an Olympics. Seriously. Yesterday they spliced in an interview during the Men's Super Combined that featured a graphic of the final results. OOPS! Hope you weren't watching that... And the announcers apparently all took stupid pills before flying in to Vancouver. I say that because at nearly every venue I've seen they make incredibly dumb remarks that make me wonder if they're watching the same competition.

10) Doubles luge. Seriously?

11) You have to love Bode Miller. Even HE admits he's a tub of goo. The guy is totally out of shape (for an Olympian) and he STILL has three medals in three events. Rarely do you wonder if an athlete will have a heart attack during an event, but Bode makes you wonder. AND, although his lackadaisical attitude was really awful in Torino, he's cleaned up his act enough to be downright cool.

12) Kudos to Johnny Spillane AND Todd Lodwick for giving the United States real respectibility in the Nordic Combined. Spillane's silver is our first EVER medal in the event, Lodwick's fourth shows it wasn't a fluke. These guys are legit!

13) Simon Ammann, you are da' man! Guy can't jump out of a paper sack for eight years... eight years between double Olympic golds! And now he'll fade back into nothing, at least until Sochi 2014.

XXI Olympic Winter Games

Still addicted to the games. Can't help it. They are sports par excellence and nothing else comes close; not any sport's World Championships, not football's Super Bowl, not soccer's World Cup, not anything. And I'm especially fond of the winter olympics. I love mountains, I love snow, and let's face it, halfpipe blows beach volleyball right out of the water. Not saying the summer games are inferior, just that the winter games, for me, are more exciting.

What stands out to me in this olympiad so far?

1) Nodar Kumaritashvili: Luger who died in a practice run, forcing race officials to lower the start line, which caused competitors to use words like "boring" to describe the course. Absolutely tragic, but he died doing what he loved and at the absolute pinnacle of his sport's competition. (You'll go four years before you hear anyone mention luge again after the winter olympics.)

2) Crappy Vancouver weather. I don't think anyone would argue that the weather has been maybe THE story of the games so far. It's caused course conditions to stink at pretty much every outdoor event so far and thrown athletes off their game at multiple venues.

3) However, weather ALSO caused the women's downhill to be postponed which gave Lindsey Vonn enough time to recoup from injury to be able to embarrass the rest of the field. Most dominating women's world cup season ever? So far! (six wins in seven downhills)

4) Two reasons to hate South Korean short track skaters: First, they're talking trash, and second, they're backing it up. Gotta love Lee Ho-suk's ALL-TIME biggest blunder in the 1500m though. They had the sweep locked! But he just couldn't leave it be, so Apollo Ohno and J.R. Celski took silver and bronze when he crashed into his own teammate. Thank you Lee!

5) Shaun White is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! His win in the men's halfpipe was the stuff of legend. I truly believe he belongs in the pantheon of sport next to men like Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan. He has truly transcended snowboarding. And he has a great nickname too. Who doesn't love "The Flying Tomato?"

6) Wang Meng. Yep, a female Chinese short track skater. She's probably the most dominant athlete on earth in comparison to the rest of sports. I mean, the Flying Tomato is cool, but Meng is 101-1 since her gold medal in Torino in the 500m. 101-1! AND the only loss was because she tripped, she beat herself. The woman hasn't been legitimately beaten in over FOUR YEARS! And, yes, her victory in this year's games was every bit as dominant at White's was in halfpipe. Epic. If she skated more distances, she'd be in the pantheon as well.

NCAA Football: A sport without a champion V

My friend Chris Martin, perhaps the last unpaid defender of the BCS, sent me a Facebook message recently. I felt I had to reply. Here's Chris's message, me reply follows...

I said to myself, self let's see if Jon is right about Boise deserving a shot at the Title.

OU(average by OU standards) 45 Tulsa 0Bosie St 28 Tulsa 21

CollegeFootballNews.com ranks all 120 major college teams. Here is the breakdown for Boise

They play this year, 7 teams that are ranked between 100 and 120. Their overall average for their 12 team schedule? 90.6. Let me say that again 90.6. So let's blow off their regular season schedule and Tulsa comparison and talk Bowl games.

Last 5 years? 1 win 4 losses. Dominating? Their only win was by 1 point in overtime. Not a great resume' for Boise.

Let's compare vs. oh say Texas. Their average schedule rank is 58.6. They are 4-1 in thier last 5 bowls. Not fair to compare the Big 12 to the WAC? OK. Let's go to that Joke of a conference The Big East. Cincinnati. Their average schedule rank? 58.5. 58.5. Let's look at that again Texas 58.6 - Cincy 58.5 - Boise 90.6. Oh by the way, Cincy 4-1 in their last 5 bowls.

Boise is a joke. They don't belong in the top 10. They don't belong in the BCS. They don't belong in the National Title conversation. I give them credit they beat the best the pac-10 has to offer in the first game of the year, when that team was clearly not playing their best running back.

The BCS works in this case. It Keeps posers like Boise out of the Title game. Thank you BCS!

Chris,

All very intriguing, but utterly meaningless. If ANY team, regardless of strength of schedule (which is dictated TO the school, not determined BY the school), finishes the season undefeated, it is a ridiculous statement to say that "every game counts" or that there is a true national champion out there. I think, secretly, you know this. The fact that SIX other teams finished with records similar to or better than LSU's championship winning 12-2 tells me that every game counts only IF the judges say so, but those judges are pretty fickle. That year several BCS conference champions were denied a chance a the title because they simply weren't ranked high enough.

The FCS division of NCAA football is little better than ice dancing when it comes to crowning a champion. Teams are ranked before the season begins based on educated human OPINION, not performance on the field. Its a beauty contest, pure and simple. Teams are judged before they ever face an opponent. If a great team happens to appear from an unexpected quarter (i.e., the Big 12 north, or the WAC), they face the imposing obstacle of impressing the judges who deemed them unworthy before the season began. If the system "works," then how did Michigan ('97), Tulane ('98), Marshall ('99), Auburn ('04), Utah ('04), Boise State ('06), and Utah AGAIN ('08) all finish unbeaten without a championship? The answer is simple, the "champion" is crowned by vote. The trophy goes to the team VOTED by the judges (coaches, reporters, etc.) to be the best in the country. Just like ice dancing.

I know, I know, computers. What about the computer rankings, you ask? Don't those eliminate the human element? Once again, no. The computers do the same thing the other voters do, they rank teams who have never faced one another on the field based on their subjective programming and spit out a list of who's-better-than-who. Once again, it's a beauty contest.

Equally sad is the "common opponent" argument you routinely fall back on. Although, I do appreciate that you always bring it back to Oklahoma... The first problem with "common opponent" is that teams change all the time, developing for better or worse due to coaching, injuries, etc, at different paces all the time. Who cares if OU punished a team that another school barely squeeked by. At the end of the day, a win is a win. The second and more serious issue is that it undercuts sportsmanship. Common Opponent is a margin of victory comparison. If you're going to use margin of victory as a component to measure a team's worthiness or ranking, you offer incentive to coaches to run up the score on their opponents. (Incidentally, that is the single reason why margin of victory was removed from the BCS formula in the first place!) SO, if no respectable coach will use common opponent, why do you? Sportsmanship matters, which is why common opponent doesn't. No one cares how much stronger OU or Boise State or anyone looked against Tulsa. All that matters is DID THEY WIN?

And while we're at it, let's address the so-called "popularity" argument. If the system is so bad, why is college football so popular? Simply put, it isn't. The overwhelming majority of fans out there screaming their heads off around the country are not fans of NCAA FCS football, they are fans of their local university team. Being from Oklahoma (where football and Jesus are neck and neck in popularity), I know this will be hard for you to understand, but most people could care less about what's going on elsewhere in the country football-wise. I bleed green and yellow, and will gladly watch Oregon play at 1am if I have to because its a west coast game, but that's only because I'm from there. The Ducks are MY team. And that's pretty typical. Honestly, I don't know anyone who watches college football if the game doesn't feature their local favorite or alma mater. As for bowl games, its pretty much the same. I might watch the majors, I might not. I'm not going out of my way to watch anything without Oregon in it. That's for sure. The so-called "BCS championship game?" Yes, I'll watch it, but only because I want to be able to talk about it intelligently with friends. Last year I missed it completely. No big deal. If Oregon canned their football program, would I watch some other teams play? Nope. Do I spend any time watching teams here in the Midwest, like Oklahoma and Missouri, since Oregon isn't often on? Nope. And I don't really miss it.

Compare that with the NFL. The Super Bowl. Ahhh... Football at its finest. Or any other level of the college game, where the champion receives a plaque from the NCAA and knows that NO ONE can dispute their claim. And no one does. Last year in the NFL the Patriots went 11-5 and missed the playoffs. Did anyone cry foul? Of course not! The system works. Last year in the FCS, D-II and D-III the NCAA crowned champions who won their titles on the field. Did anyone cry foul? Of course not! But then there's the Football Bowl Series, where "every game matters" (unless you're from a non-BCS conference, then none of the games matter), but somehow almost every year there's an argument over who should be in the championship game and half the time someone goes undefeated but isn't allowed to play for the crown. Hmm...

Don't get me wrong here, football is an amazing sport, but football is only football. That is, whether its FBS or high school or the NFL, football is football, but the FBS is still the worst system for determining a champions that exists in the game today. Of course it's still popular, its football for crying out loud! That doesn't mean the system works. If anything that proves the greatness of a sport that can survive in spite of its inadequacies. Or perhaps because of the strength of its other

In conclusion, as long as polls exist to determine the national championship game, controversy will continue. It's a lame system. Period. In fact, and there's nothing personal here Chris, but outside of you and Bill Hancock, I don't know a coach, player or fan who appreciates the FCS as a championship format. And frankly, I pity the fool who has to try to defend it. Wait, I take that back. Bill Hancock is no fool. He is, however, highly paid to take a fool's position. What's your excuse?

In 1994, Penn State was moved from 1 to 2 in the national rankings because they put scrubs in during the fourth quarter of a blowout game against Indiana and gave up a couple of garbage time TDs that made the final score look closer than the game actually was. They still won by 6 points, but people who didn't watch the game who saw the score were tempted to believe that PSU actually struggled to win. They went on to finish 12-0 and were voted second in the AP and USA Today polls. Ouch. Had they run up the score some more they'd have won a championship. It was that finish that spurred the Bowl Coalition, which in its failure spawned the Bowl Alliance, which gave way to the current system. The fact that they changed it all signifies that the system didn't work well for producing a satisfactory champion. That they've changed it repeatedly since and 50% of "fans" still want a playoff indicates the further failure of that system.

Having said all that, however, I must admit that there is a playoff-free solution that I'm frankly surprised no one has touted thus far: INTEGRITY. If the BCS would simply admit that all they want to do is guarantee the most money they can for their member schools, and that that money will be used to produce better scholars and athletes--CITIZENS--for the United States, I think they'd hear a lot less whining. All they need to do is tell the truth; that they aren't interested in the fairness or purity of the game as they are about financing the future of the students at their member schools. THAT would sell. People would believe, they would recognize the value of sacrificing the need to crown a true champion in favor of creating a generation of champions that will carry America into the future. Who could argue with that?!

NCAA football: a sport without a champion IV

Well, the BCS hired a new mouthpiece last week. And he immediately went to work by hiring a prominent public relations firm to start touting the positive aspects of the worthless system. In my last commentary on the BCS, I said, "at least they're honest" in reference to the money grubbing reasons for avoiding a playoff system. Bill Hancock is out to change that. Gone are the public concerns for money money money, which could at least be defended by stating that it was all going to the education of our future leaders. Now its back to scheduling and tradition, neither of which is truly denfensible. Sad days continue, and this year looks like it could be an even bigger failure than ever for the pathetic efforts to determine a true champion. With a month left in the season there are still six unbeatens in the division formerly known as D1 (now the FBS). Scheduling will reduce that number by one or two, but the season may very well end with multiple unbeaten teams who never got to play for a championship... Maybe congress will step up and intervene.

Letter to the Editor: Joplin Globe: MSSU Baseball

Thank you Joplin Globe, for helping me support the MoSo baseball program...

Has anyone else noticed that the Missouri Southern State University baseball team has been winning a lot lately?

Seriously, these guys can flat bring it. Yet the stands are typically empty. What’s up with that? Come on, Joplin, this is your team. Your university. Your chance to have a great time for free.

Coach Darnell is putting a quality product on the field day after day, and it seems like the community is just ignoring it. I mean, there’s always a few parents, and the obligatory girlfriends, but shouldn’t there be more support for a program that’s winning games, entertaining, and free to the public?

I would think that given the current state of economic affairs that last bit would get some attention.

I know, I know... it’s soccer season. And this is football country. And, and, and, whatever. Can the excuses. The ’dogs are on the grill at Joe Becker Stadium (I dare you not to salivate), the field is ready, the team is good.

Check it out while there are still a few games left!

BCS Chokes Again!

It's no secret that I despise the BCS and all it stands for. SO you can imagine my joy at discovering this article by ESPN's Rick Reilly:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3815656

And so we can add Utah (again) to the list of teams the BCS has failed to account for in its system. I am beginning to wonder at the intelligence of the men and women who call it a "National" championship game. Apparently the word 'nation' in their minds does not include the state of Utah.

College football continues to revolve not around the character of the athletes, their education and morals, not around the quality of the programs, their wins and losses, but around the value of the dollars those programs can bring in. This sad state of affairs is so lamentable that I don't really watch D-I (FBS) football anymore. I'd rather read a book or go for a hike with my son that watch a "sport" that eliminates half its teams from championship contention before the season starts automatically (via conference ties) and another quarter through opinion polls. The only real exception I make for that, obviously, is the the Oregon Ducks, for whom I will gladly bleed green and yellow forever.

Live green, Yell-O!

Summer Olympics XXIX: Beijing 1

I LOVE THE OLYMPICS. Summer, winter, it doesn't matter. I love the Olympic games. All the events, the medal ceremonies, the pomp, the grandeur of it all. It is pretty much the epitome of sports, and in many ways the pinnacle of humanity. Sort of like World Cup Soccer, only better.



It doesn't hurt to be American either. Being a world sports powerhouse, it gives you plenty for which to cheer.



Yesterday I heard the story of Lin Hao and nearly cried. All hail the Chinese for brilliantly placing the 9-year-old life boy next to the 7-foot 6-inch basketball hero Yao Ming during the opening ceremoies (which I missed). Yao might be the biggest celebrity in China, but even he should be humbled by the hero of the Sichuan earthquake. (When asked why he went into the rubble of his collapsed school twice to pull out classmates (2/3 of whom died in the quake), Hao said, "I was the hall monitor, it was my job to look after my school mates..." Kid's got more courage in his little finger than most people have in their whole body. The contrast between sports celeb and life hero was staggering.



Then there's American swimmer Dara Torres, at 41 she's still winning Olympic medals and so concerned about the issue of a drug scandal she's volunteering for extra testing and requested that samples of her blood be frozen so future tests might be run as the technoogy becomes available. 41? Are you kidding me?!



Or how about the 33-year-old German female gymnast Oksana Chusovitina. I say German, she won a gold medal for the Unified team in, get this, 1992! Later she competed for Uzbekistan. When her son needed chemotherapy for Leukemia, she immigrated to Germany for better medical treatment. WAY TO GO MOM!!! A thirty-three-year-old gymnast?! She's old enough to be the mother of an olympic gymnast. AWESOME!!!



Of course, there's always the pool. I was literally screaming at my television today during the 4X100 freestyle. A member of the French team, Alain Bernard, shot his mouth off before the meet saying, "The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for." Well, the American B-team set a world record in the prelims, and then the A-team got the job done in the final that saw five teams eclipse that record. M. Alain had a body length lead going into the final leg, then choked like a... Frenchman... and lost the race by .08 seconds. HA! (I told you it was great to be an American.)



Cullen Jones. Just another random athlete? No, he's an Olympic swimmer who very nearly drowned as a kid. They pumped a pint of water out of his lungs before he started breathing again. Oh yeah, and he's only the second black American to win gold in a swimming event (the above mentioned 4X100 freestyle.



With stories like these, how can anyone not love the Olympic Games?

Tiger Woods: Human?

Now, like most rational human beings on planet Earth, I am a monotheist; Southern Baptist by flavor. Let me just say that up front. But has anyone noticed that Tiger Woods seems to be something other than human? I mean, he's won 10 of his last 13 tournaments on a ruptured ACL, hasn't finished worst than 5th in any of them, and just stole his 3rd U.S. Open on a fractured tibia. I'm not saying he's a god, but that certainly challenges the limits of believability if you think he's human. I'm not a golf fan by any stretch of the imagination, but Tiger is simply a joy to watch. I mean, really, if God did play golf, how much better could He be? Which brings up an interesting point. I know Jesus was fully man and fully God, but was He fully Tiger? At this point I'm not sure.

Not that Tiger deserves to be worshipped, that would be a sin. Idolatry to be exact. So I guess I'm not really sure how to deal with him. Should we admire him for being such an incredible golfer? Or should we shun him for slumming around here on earth, masquerading as a real person, when he should be off on some other planet or in some other dimension with others of his kind.

I wonder if, wherever he's really from, he's such a good golfer there?

BBWAA and the HOF

Yeah, today is the New Hampshire primary, and that should probably concern me more, but since I don't live there, can't vote there, and know that results aren't in yet, I'm going to write about Major League Baseball instead. Actually, I'm going to write about the Baseball Writers Association of America. You see, this year they voted Goose Gossage into the Hall of Fame, which was good. A smart choice. But they made it fairly clear that they're planning on keeping Mark McGwire out, which is just ignorant. More writers voted for Tim Raines than Mark McGwire? I'm sorry, but that is ridiculous. Stupid. They seem bent on proving that in America you are guilty until proven innocent. Now that the Mitchell report is out I suppose they'll vote against Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and any other Major Leaguer unfortunate enough to be born in the 1960's. As with Bonds, there is not one single piece of evidence proving that McGwire did 'roids, other than personal testimony a former teammate or trainer, but hey, idiots, don't a lack of hard evidence stop you! 'Roids or not, McGwire and Sosa, put the game back on the national map. By themselves. In amazing, inspiring, heart-warming fashion. Their single season and career accomplishments are unquestionably first-ballot worthy. Now, however, their HOF fate is in the hands of a group of men who couldn't hit a fastball with a tennis raquet. Probably never could. Its almost as if they (the writers) want the game to diminish.

At the end of the day, there is no physical evidence that McGwire did steroids. Not one used needle, not one wadded up receipt, not one empty vial. Only his word that he did not, and someone else's that he did. The whole thing boils down to a lot of finger pointing, and the BBWAA have apparently decided that anyone caught up in the court of public opinion must be banished from the Hall before they get there. Asinine! (That means "utterly stupid" for you BBWAA members who might somehow stumble upon this). SHAME ON YOU! You seemed so much more intelligent before you voted.

Hey, if I accused Peter Gammons of using steroids, do you think they'd take his vote away? Gosh, wouldn't that feel good?!

NCAA Football: A sport without a champion III

I'd just like to take a moment now to point out that as Louisiana State University is celebrating their victory tonight over Ohio State in the BCS 'championship' game, that the National Collegiate Athletic Association has still not awarded a championship to any school for the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. Nor will it. Sorry LSU. Not that you're not worthy (although that is questionable), but the NCAA plaque awarded for every other recognized sport will not be handed out to you or anyone else. Why? Because there's too much money at $take. That's all... So while the confetti is still streaming and the state of Louisiana is reveling in an amazing drunken debauchery to celebrate, just keep in mind that the crystal trophy you cherish so much came from Sears. Oh well.

Hey, at least they're honest about it. They used to lie and call it a schedule issue: too much time, too many games. Then they added Conference Championships, a twelfth regular season game, pre-season kick-off games, and realized that even Forest Gump wasn't buying that crap. Pathetic.

The Mitchell Report

The Mitchell Report. The Mitchell Report on steroid use in baseball came out yesterday, and already we have polls out of Hall of Fame voters and whether they'll vote for anyone named. Of course the biggest questions swirl around Barry Bonds, baseball's greatest hitter, and Roger Clemens, its greatest pitcher. And what I don't understand is, WHY?! For the love of all that's holy, give it a rest already! Steroids or not, these guys deserve to be in the Hall. What's the case against them? They cheated? Assuming for a minute that that's true (the report rests on personal testimony, not the most reliable form of evidence), SO WHAT?! THIS IS BASEBALL! EVERYBODY CHEATS! Pitchers threw juiced balls with their juiced arms to juiced hitters with juiced bats, and the game still got played. In fact, in the court of public opinion, I'd say fans voted with their wallets in attending more games than ever over the past decade, and the verdict is--WE LOVE STEROIDS! We love 100 mph fastballs and monster home-runs, and we don't give a squirt of Yoo-Hoo whether players juice or not. In fact, since baseball pays bigger money to better players, and steroids clearly make players better (if not, then we need to all shut the heck up and pretend not to be so stupidly fixated on this thing), the argument can be made that we the fans actually want players to juice up. Heck, if steroids will guarantee greater viewing pleasure for my favorite players, then of course I want them to juice! And if steroids will give my favorite team a better chance to win, then of course I want their team trainers all have pharmacology degrees!

Listen, am I advocating steroids in sports? Actually no. I'd love nothing more than a pure game with pure athletes. But the reality is that every pro in every sport is looking for every edge he or she can get. Punishing them after their playing careers are over is ridiculous. If they've broken the law, let the government mete out just punishment after a fair trial. If they are caught by the governing bodies of their respective sports, let them be banned form playing. But let's not pretend the games weren't played, the records weren't set, the results weren't recorded in history. I mean, c'mon. Let's say Clemons did juice. Are YOU going to be the one to take the World Series away from the Yankees for cheating? I didn't think so. SO, if by some miracle you happen to be reading this and you happen to be a HOF voter, sit down, shut up, and vote YES. Keeping guys like McGwire, Clemens, Palmiero and Bonds out of the Hall isn't just, but it is stupid. This isn't the first time I've written about 'roids in baseball, I hope it is the last. As a fan, I'm tired of hearing about it, but I have the common sense to know that the best players, regardless of how they got to be the best players, deserve their place among the game's greats.

NCAA football: a sport without a champion II

So the BCS pairings came out today, and as expected, chaos and nonsense ruled the day. BCS. I think the 'B' stands for Bad, and the 'C' stands for Call, but I'm not sure what the 'S' is for. I can think of several vulgarities that might fit, but nothing I'd care for my children to read. 11-2 LSU in the title game? Over 10-2 USC? 11-2 Oklahoma? 11-2 Virginia Tech? 10-2 West Virginia? 12-0 Hawaii? (All five of whom won their conferences.) What about 11-1 Kansas? Is it a bad call to have LSU in the title game? Maybe. Maybe not. The point is we don't know!!! At least five teams have a legitimate beef for not being included. Wouldn't it be nice if NCAA Bowl Series football conformed to the rules that regulate every single other NCAA sport, wherein participating athletes know who the champion is because they play for a title within an NCAA sanctioned playoff format? I hope Hawaii kicks the pooh out of Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, thus ending their unblemished seasoned with a real nice trophy and a legitimate argument that they are the 'real' champions. I mean, who can argue? They would be 13-0 with a win over a top five BCS team in a major bowl.

And while I'm ranting, kudos to the Associated Press for having the wherewithal to stay above the BCS joke, er, system by not allowing their own poll to be used in it. BTW, six different teams received No. 1 consideration in the AP poll this week. Ha!

Peace out.

NCAA football: a sport without a champion

So last night the Ducks lost Dennis Dixon to injury and along with him, the chance to play for the BCS title. At this point, as much as I hate to say it, I think we'll be lucky to win another game. Still, considering we were picked to finish 6th in the PAC-10 at the start of the season, we've had a great ride, garnered national attention, and might still leverage that into a stronger recruiting class. My hope now is that Hawaii finishes the year unbeaten, Kansas loses once, and we wind up with a one-loss "Champion" and an unbeaten "Also-ran." Why is this so important? Because the BCS is a sick joke perpetrated upon college football fans everywhere. They've been tinkering with the system since 1995 (when Penn State finished 12-0 without a title to show for it) and they haven't got it right yet. How far off are they? Consider this: Beginning in the 2007 season, they changed their language from D-I and D-2 to 'Football Bowl Series' and 'Football Championship Series' to more adequately reflect that D-I programs do not compete for an NCAA-recognized title. Yes, that's right, there is no such thing as an NCAA Championship in D-I football. Why? It would require a playoff. Why i$n't there a champion$hip for D-I football? I'll give you two gue$$e$, but you'll only need one... Which is ridiculous. The sooner they surrender to a playoff system, the better off the sport will be. That the NCAA doesn't correct this situation is pathetic. Consider the following list of BCS 'Losers', none of whom was beaten on the gridiron...

2010 Texas Christian University (13-0)

2009 Boise State University (14-0)
2008 University of Utah (13-0)
2006 Boise State University (13-0)

2004 University of Utah (12-0)

2004 Auburn University (13-0)
1999 Marshall University (13-0)
1998 Tulane University (12-0)
1997 University of Michigan (12-0)

Consumer Science (continued)

So, I'm not really sure I got my point across last time. Maybe this will help. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that 'science' is a good thing, but is just as susceptible to corruption as anything else in this world. It is often abused, mistreated, corrupted and falsified by people who ought to know better, i.e., the scientists themselves. It is also horribly abused by pastors and popular media, politicians and professors, but while I'd like to forgive them because they're mostly just ignorant, I can't do so without also holding them accountable for the pathetic mess they're making out of it, science, that is. I mean, everyone has their own agenda, which exists not because of scientific evidence, but mostly human desire (a.k.a. 'lust'), and yet they use science as a tool to justify it. And if the science is bad, wrong, incorrect or just plain contradicts what they have to say, they just say it louder and louder until someone listens, preferably a 'bitter and unsuccessful' scientist.

So, to review, science in and of itself is GOOD. (If it weren't for science, there are a thousand reasons you wouldn't be reading this!) People who twist it around to justify a personal or political agenda are BAD.

Science is the pursuit of facts, not truth, but truth is what people live by. That's why I get frustrated watching/listening/reading bilge produced by guys like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris, who are so concerned about their version of the truth that they will co-opt and undermine the scientific process until it produces the facts they desire. Then they sell those facts to the world wholesale. Consumer science: science redesigned to meet the needs of the materialist philosophers waging war on ultimate truth.

Consumer Science

You know, I really do love science. I mean science has given us light bulbs and lap tops, nylon and satellite images of earth, not to mention antibiotics and the internet. If it weren't for science, you wouldn't be reading this right now. Science can be good, very good.

Having said that, it is also true that science can be bad, very bad. How so? Great question. Basically, science is bad whenever it leaves its mother-root of reason and instead pursues an agenda of other value. The best exampls of this are probably found in the pharmaceutical industry where billions are spent researching new drugs that will save human lives, then marketed relentlessly until someone wakes up to the fact that the latest miracle cure actually causes liver cancer, or severe rectal leakage... That isn't "science" anymore, its "commercial science." Another example of science awry can be found in the stream of materialist philosophy. What? Materialist philosophy; atheism; humanism; naturalism, whatever you want to call it. What I mean is that there is a great deal of 'science' out there being hijacked by a materialist agenda. Facts are twisted, or worse, denied outright in an effort to prove a non-science point. Usually what happens is that a scientist or group of scientists, starting with a personal bias or agenda, bends the rules to produce the result they desire, then calls every media outlet they can find. And if that fails, they just say the same thing louder and with more frequency until every gullible mark has been fooled. (Occasionally, they'll alert the media first, then perform their 'science,' which is even MORE unsettling.) Examples of this might include the "God helmet" touted so highly by Michael Persinger at Laurentian Univeristy (Canada), the Jesus Seminar, and meme theory (touted by the renowned atheist Richard Dawkins).

Gotta go, I'll finish this later...

VOTE FOR MARK!!!

Will somebody please fire Bud Selig! Baseball is out of control and in the absence of any alternate candidates, the buck must stop on the Comissioner's desk. My latest gripe (apart from the lack of a salary cap, which is killing MLB) is the silence emanating from the comissioner's office in the face of the maelstrom surrounding Mark McGwire's eligibility for the Hall of Fame.

All over the country Baseball Writers' Association of America are pooh-poohing Mr. McGwire's candidacy for the Hall of Fame and declaring their refusal to vote for one of baseball's greatest stars and one of the most statistically qualified candidates of all time. Why? They claim he 'cheated' by using steroids.

Is there empirical evidence to support such a claim? Nope.

Do his statistics demonstrate circumstantial evidence of steroid use? Arguably, nope. (Several sluggers with similar statistics have never fallen under suspicion, why should McGwire?)

Did he ever, even one little time test positive for steroid use? Nope.

Did he ever admit steroid use? Nope.

Even if he was guilty, would it have been a violation of league rules? Nope.

The plain fact of the matter is that the case against McGwire entering the Hall of Fame is paper thin, and when examined impartially, won't stand up. To keep him from his appointment in Cooperstown, even for a year, is simply ridiculous. He's earned it, let him go in.

And even if he did use steroids like others chew gum, so what? "Cheating" has always been a part of baseball. How could any league that actually tracks 'steals' have a problem with cheaters? Okay, that's not fair. And cheaters shouldn't prosper, but Gaylord Perry's spitball is in the HOF.

My point is this: If you're going to punish people, you ought to be ready to prove they're guilty first. And steroid use in baseball is not something that the BBWAA are capable of proving. In fact, while we're ranting, how do you disprove steroid use? I mean, the BBWAA assumes that you're guilty until proven innocent, apparently, so how do you escape their judgement. It can't be easy. After all, these are the same idiots that can't even agree on whether an MVP can be given to a pitcher, and they've had years to it. Rocket scientists they're not.

For Pete's sake, the guy was Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1998! Name one other baseball player with that credential.
Vote for Mark!

Time's MOY article:

A Mac For All Seasons

Mark
McGwire's 70 home runs shattered the most magical record in sports and
gave
America a much-needed hero

BY DANIEL OKRENT

The choirs that sing of baseball can get pretty moist--green grass,
beautiful proportions, fathers playing catch with sons--sometimes you'd think we
were talking about brotherhood, God and Mom and not some game played with a
stick and a ball. More bad sentences have been committed in its name than in
that of every other sport.

But there have been more good ones too. One of the best is
from A. Bartlett Giamatti, who was Commissioner of Baseball back when there
was still a Commissioner of Baseball. "Baseball is about going home,"
Giamatti wrote, "and how hard it is to get there and how driven is our
need." Certainly that need could not have been more driven, more
powerful than it was in the political plague year just passing. We needed
Mark McGwire in 1998, needed him desperately. He couldn't banish the stain
of sleaze that leached through our public life this year, nor could he
restore civility to our discourse or turn the media's attention to rotten
schools or Serbian brutality. He is, after all, only a baseball player.

But what a baseball player he is, and what a year it was, and what balm
he brought to a nation that seemed to spend the year flaying its flesh. It
may be true that Babe Ruth said, on being asked to justify his earning more
money than Herbert Hoover, "I had a better year than he did." Surely if
McGwire were asked the same question regarding the current occupant of
Hoover's office, he could make the same reply. And we would respond, "Thank
heavens."

Complex societies do not easily find leaders to follow, even
causes to unite behind. If Ronald Reagan was our last widely beloved
President, you'd hardly know it from the depth of antipathy he provoked in
40% of the population. The good war--the universally endorsed war--is a
half-century behind us. Entertainers? Not a chance. Our tastes are too
motley, our options too many. And the entertainer's natural vanity is
implicit in his choice of a career.

But no one could gainsay Mark McGwire. Nor could we have invented him:
he was that close to perfect. He assaulted the most textured record in the most
apposite sport--the sport closest to the American bone and yet most in need of a
rehabilitation of the spirit. McGwire built steadily toward his moment, through
11 seasons marked by astonishing accomplishment and devastating failure. He
remained at once focused on his goal and joyful in its pursuit, during which he
embraced his closest rival. He never bragged, never proclaimed that he was the
great white hope or the straw that stirred the drink. But--and this may be even
rarer in professional sports--neither did he paw the ground in false modesty. He knew he was good, and knowing it made him even better.

It's not so hard to figure out why we look to the athletic arena for
heroes. No ancient Greek dramaturge would turn his back on material like this:
one man tested in crisis; the victor emergent from the sweat and roil of combat;
gifted with superhuman size and godlike strength; and, perhaps most important,
confronted with the brutal and inescapable vulnerability that all great athletes
must face--the daily threat that an inferior force might vanquish them. Athletic
heroism attains the heights of glory through its very proximity to defeat. And
it dramatizes the worth of workaday values we want our kids and our neighbors'
kids to absorb: diligent attention to practice and homework, concentration,
persistence, equanimity, teamwork.

In no sport is this more visible than it is in baseball. The other team
sports, so dependent on the careful knitting of disparate talents for every act,
never isolate the hero quite the way baseball does--especially when it places
him alone in the batter's box and challenges him to perform the most difficult
feat in all of sports. Even off the field, the baseball star has always seemed
to have a more sharply defined persona than other athletes do. Decades pass, and
still we feel we know them. Babe Ruth, the profane if lovable libertine; Mickey
Mantle, the gifted man-child; Roger Maris, the decent citizen victimized and
nearly rendered mute by the crippling weight of publicity. But of all the
baseball titans, Mark McGwire in some ways most resembles Joe DiMaggio,
coincidentally stricken by life-threatening illness just as McGwire was setting
the home-run record. Admired by their teammates, considerate of their foes,
blessed with a spare, natural grace, both men represent the merging of two
traits not always found in close athletic proximity: talent and dignity.

Unlike the almost unknowably silent DiMaggio, however, McGwire was an
accessible and affable presence from the very beginning of his remarkable
career. It was in June 1987 that the Los Angeles Times first put the words
McGwire, Ruth and Maris in one headline. McGwire's major league life wasn't yet
60 games old. Soon he rushed past the rookie home-run record, and crowds of
reporters buzzed around him like so many mosquitoes on a July night in St.
Louis. Still, his mien was so benign that one of his nicknames was McGee-Whiz.
In September of that year--he hadn't yet turned 24--he looked to become only the
11th man in baseball history to hit 50 home runs in a season. Going into the
last day, he had 49. He also had a very pregnant wife ready to enter a
California hospital. McGwire skipped the last game. "You always have another
chance to hit 50," he said, and some might have taken that for either arrogance
or stupidity had he not completed the thought with, "but you'll never have a chance to have your first child again."

McGwire would wait nine long years for his 50-home-run season. Divorce,
injuries, eye trouble, crises of confidence and of desire conspired against him.
For the eyes, he changed contact lenses as often as some people change socks.
For the crises, he sought the help of a psychiatrist, which was rare enough for
a professional athlete; rarer still, he spoke about it in public. In time he
regained his confidence, his health and his unprecedented ability to hit home
runs. When he finally had a 50-knock season, in 1996, he apparently decided to
make it a habit. He repeated the feat in 1997, and now, in 1998, he has shredded
it, performing prodigies unheard of in sport or in most other areas of human
endeavor. Thirty-seven years ago, Maris surpassed Ruth's record by 1.6%;
McGwire catapulted the same record forward by a nearly unfathomable 14.75%.
Here is what a 14.75% improvement over some other well-known marks would
yield: Someone would drive in 218 runs. The mile record would be 3:11.29.
Even so hyperthyroid a measure as the Dow Jones industrial average would
leap ahead to the vicinity of 10,100. In a sport whose progress is
characteristically Darwinian in both style and speed, McGwire not only
collapsed the decades, he invented a new algebra.

The girth of Mark McGwire's forearm is greater than that of a large
man's neck; his biceps look as if they've been inflated with a bicycle pump.
Your hand could conceivably disappear in his; if he chose, it could certainly be
crushed. Yet something other than his pure physicality strikes you about McGwire.
Revealed in his deep green eyes is a self-knowledge as imposing as his size and strength: I am who I am, what you see is what you get, and if I'm going to hit 70 home runs, well, that's what I was meant to do. He actually calls it "karma," which is not a usual baseball-player word, and his acceptance of it relaxes him. And focuses him.

Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa says he's never known a ballplayer so able
to keep his eye on the task. "He has this technique that allows him to totally
tune out distractions," says LaRussa, who has been McGwire's manager, in Oakland
and in St. Louis, for all but 18 months of the player's 12-year career. "And he
did this with the whole world watching." Fifteen minutes or so before game time,
"Mark would withdraw from the clubhouse horseplay and stare into his locker.
You'd see him, and you'd know he was spacing out. It was not a good time to talk
to him." McGwire would simply gaze ahead, concentrating on the game to come,
lost in the intensity of his focus. During batting practice, with tens of thousands showing up two hours before game time simply to watch him propel rockets into the upper deck, he kept his calm. Dave McKay, the St. Louis first-base coach, says McGwire would occasionally want to work on hitting line drives, or ground balls into the hole, and the fans who had come out for BP would boo him.

He didn't much like being turned into a carnival sideshow, but he never
let it distract him. When a reporter spotted androstenedione, a legal but controversial steroid, in McGwire's locker, the slugger explained that he used
it to protect himself from the muscle tears that so often plague finely
conditioned athletes, especially those few so well muscled as he, and he left it
at that. Though he was criticized, McGwire marched ahead, not even pausing to
rip off the head of the reporter who'd gone peeking into his locker. What kind
of a modern athlete would fail to do that? As for "andro," whatever else it
does, it can't help a player's timing, his hand-eye coordination, his ability to
discern a slider from a splitter. But even if andro improved his power by an unlikely, oh, 5%, then instead of 70 home runs, McGwire this year would have hit... maybe 67. Take 5% off a 450-ft. missile, and you've got a 427.5-ft. missile--long enough to
clear any fence save center field in Detroit's Tiger Stadium.

In September, when every game offered the chance for a record, each McGwire
at-bat would be accompanied by the gaudy detonation of thousands of flash
cameras. "It was blinding," says McKay. "I asked him if it bothered him, and he said, 'I don't see them.'" He didn't see what was on the periphery of his concentration because, says LaRussa, "he knew where he was going." This made it easy for the manager, whose only contribution to McGwire's record, he confesses was "making sure he knew what time the game started."

Unquestionably, McGwire's feats of 1998 were granted a deeper dimension by the presence of his confederate, the ecstatic Sammy Sosa. Here was a joyous,
ebullient counterpoint to McGwire's more sedate self. From the moment in
midspring that Sosa launched a sudden torrent of home runs like none ever seen
in baseball history--he hit 20 in June alone--the two men were flawlessly
scripted antagonists cast in the same play. This was rapture vs. gravity,
spontaneity vs. self-restraint, Latin brio vs. California cool. Their collision
seemed inevitable; yet what ensued was less a crash than a hug. The two men
cheered each other on, praised each other's skills, slapped hands, dissipated
the heat. They became allies in this drama, united against the two-digit foe
that lay blandly impassive in the record books: 61.

The enemy collapsed sooner than anyone expected. By Sept. 8, the record was McGwire's. Sosa, trying to lift his team into postseason contention, didn't flag. On Sept. 25, with McGwire stalled at 65 home runs, Sosa hit a pitch out of
County Stadium in Milwaukee and pulled ahead. And this was the instant in which McGwire's character was annealed. It would have been lovely for him to acknowledge he'd had his moment--the record breaker--and was now generously stepping back and letting his accomplice have his. But heroics aren't made from, or for, loveliness. Three-quarters of an hour after Sosa's 66th home run, McGwire concentrated harder than he had before, focused more intently, more thoroughly blocked out distraction. The last week of his season was nearly unimaginable, a season of its own. In his next 11 at-bats--his last 11 at-bats of 1998--he hit five more home runs. The tenor, having finally hit high C after years of trying, suddenly
leaped to a G. "Reality," wrote Red Smith in a different baseball context a
half-century ago, "has strangled invention." It was not enough for McGwire to be merely excellent. He had to be--he willed himself to be--a wonderful and beautiful beast who just happened to carry a nation on his back.

You could argue--many do--that this was only baseball, McGwire a highly paid mercenary, the home-run chase a convenient contrivance engineered to boost
television ratings and sell magazines. All correct. But don't you think the McGwire we watched during his moments across the national stage last summer would never surreptitiously tape conversations with a friend? Would never defend his behavior by retreating into the technical meaning of innocuous verbs? Couldn't possibly pursue his own fanatic agenda by rooting about in the private peccadilloes of another? Don't you think it's more likely that Mark McGwire would sit in front of his locker, stare intently ahead, think about what he needed to do, knowing that no one could help him, that the task was his alone?

Yes. And then he would slowly rise, pick up his bat and go to it.

--WITH REPORTING BY DAVID E. THIGPEN/NEW YORK

Baseball & Barry Bonds 2

And another thing, while you're out there on the steroid witch hunt, you'd better be ready to go all the way. You'd better be ready to investigate every one of the runs Barry scored off the bat of some other potentially juiced athlete, and to investigate those players whose stats were artificially inflated because a juiced Bonds hit them in. After all, their runs shouldn't count as much either. And, oh yeah, you'd better be ready to come up with a really good explanation of how Barry's alleged steroid use contributed to his patience as a hitter, how his ALL-TIME CAREER LEADER IN WALKS status was also chemically enhanced. Yes, I want an explanation as to how steroids helped him NOT swing, and how steroids helped him to take all those bad pitches.

I mean, seriously, you can't leave him out of the HOF based on hearsay, that would be stupid, and HOF voters aren't supposed to be stupid (although, there are times...) And if you're going to challenge the legitimacy of his stats, you'd dang well be ready to deal with the implications of that challenge. So, again, shut up and vote him in. Steroids or not, he's the greatest offensive force in the history of the game. Leaving him out of the Hall without physical evidence would be a travesty, a miscarriage of justice, and just plain un-American.

Baseball & Barry Bonds

Barry Bonds is a first ballot Hall of Famer, period. I want to state that opinion up front in the off chance that Barry happens to read this blog in between jacking balls 475 feet. I got your back, dude. Now how about an autographed bat? Please?

Seriously though, in the midst of all the accusations flying around about The Man, I'd like to hear just one that is worthy of jerking his HOF ticket. I KNOW you're not dumb enough to try the steroid angle. I mean, the guy has never (that's right NEVER) popped a positive in his career. And even if he does pop positive, that doesn't negate any of his seven (that's right SEVEN) MVP years, just his current performance.

Why not? Good question. First, because the ball itself is juiced. Tests have proven that the average baseball used by MLB started getting harder in the late 80's. Thus, more homeruns. And no one gets banned from baseball. Second, the parks are juiced. The current rage for band box stadiums began in the late nineties, and guess what? Small park = More homeruns. And no one gets banned from baseball. Third, the pitches are juiced. If, as the scions of this Salemesque venture are so quick to point out, steroids are uniquitous in baseball, then a significant number of the pitches that hitters see are chemically enhanced. Faster pitches travel farther when hit. Thus, more home-runs. And yet I don't see any rush to analyze the career stats of hitters who jacked one off of juiced pitchers? Hmm... Fifth, expansion of the game. The addition of the Rockies (whose altitude presents another potential asterisk for stat freaks), the Marlins, the Devil Rays, and the Diamondbacks diluted the quality of pitching more than hitting, thus producing what? Duh, more homeruns. Although it was expected that pitching would eventually catch up with hitting, it never really happened. The homerun totals just kept rising and rising and rising.

And to you naysayers who still don't believe in Bonds, let me ask you, if a juiced batter hits one out off a juiced pitcher, are they still playing baseball? Is it still a home run? Should that home run count less? The fact is that players take steroids in order to gain an advantage on their opponents, but their opponents have equal access to steroids. Illegal, yes, but FAIR. And fairness is what the competition committee is really concerned about.

Regardless of the safety factors involved in taking steroids (and we all know that its a Stupid thing to do), what MLB is concerned about, ultimately, is the integrity of the game. Do steroids threaten that integrity? Not really. If the United States government would legalize them, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Steroid use is a legal issue, not a baseball issue. Barry is right. So, shut up and vote him in... He's earned it.