I don’t hate the Yankees anymore.
I really, really, really, really don’t like the Yankees, but I don’t hate them the way I used to. From 1998 to 2000 the Yankees won three straight World Series. Now that was an easy team to hate. Not only did they get the better of every team I liked in that era, but every single call went their way.
Today’s Yankees are a little tougher to hate. Their ever-bloated roster and payroll leads only to an enjoyable succession of playoff losses. While before the Yankees’ focus was deep pitching, the team now thinks World Series wins are awarded on the strength of total career All-Star selections. I still root for them to lose-that 2004 ALCS was amazing-but it’ll take a World Series win for me to really care again.
And so, my rankings for Hole Punch Sports’ most hated teams. In the spirit of, um, Saturday and Sunday, we’ll make it an elite eight.
8. The Indianapolis Colts, NFL: The Colts, as a franchise, are tough to hate on the whole. They had Johnny Unitas, who was a great player but who doesn’t really evoke strong feelings today.
They were also one of the worst teams to make it into the original Tecmo Bowl. (And by the way, that’s what real men played, not this sissy Super Tecmo garbage.) That didn’t evoke strong feelings, either, except that I always wanted the randomly-generated computer opponent to be a terrible team like the Colts. When my brother John became clearly dominant at that game we always made him play as the Colts. But even that is hard to be sincere about, because Tecmo Bowl had only the NFLPA license-it used real player names-but not the NFL license, meaning that many of the real-life Colts’ players just happened to play together for a non-descript team in blue-and-white jerseys in Indianapolis. Buncha cheapskates.
Anyway, today’s Colts organization features what is easily one of the sporting world’s most loathsome rosters. I don’t really need to get into detail about my well-documented distaste for the stylings of Peyton Manning, but let’s focus on the fact that this team’s No. 1 goal is to win a Super Bowl with a finesse football team. That’s right, they want to climb the NFL mountain without hitting anyone in the face. Even if they succeed, wouldn’t we all be less American for their having done it?
7. The Los Angeles Lakers, NBA: Like the Yankees, the Lakers were much more hate-worthy in their heyday. You had Shaq committing uncalled offensive fouls every time he touched the ball, ridiculous late-game bounces and officiating, and Teamwork Enemy No. 1, Kobe Bryant. Plus they corrupted Phil Jackson, who went from “condescending jerk associated with MJ” to just a condescending jerk T.O. calls greedy.
Not only that, when it was time to dismantle their title-winning team, they chose the guy who gets questioned by the cops over the actual cop. Kind of weird from a community-relations standpoint if you ask me, which of course no one thought to do. Now they just have a lame roster like any of a number of NBA squads, but the residual “Man, I can’t stand these guys” keeps them on the list.
Plus I used to live with a guy who loved to point out that not only was Kobe better than Michael Jordan, he’s a great family guy, to boot! Yeah, that never got old.
6. The Duke Blue Devils, men’s college basketball: I am surprised to write in March that there are five teams I hate more than Duke, but there it is. Perhaps it’s because Coach K just got me armed for life with my new American Express card. (That’s a joke-I’d get rejected for a debit MasterCard.)
Things I hate about Duke:
-Overrated players celebrated for skills like foul trouble (Shelden Williams) and taking charges (Shane Batty, eh?)
-Silver-spoon fans who’ve somehow managed to become overrated themselves
-Coach Mike Krzyzewski, alternatively spelled Mike Shanahan-sans-fake-tan
-Hype, hype, hype
Things I like about Duke:
-Watching them all fall flat on their face in the NBA, except Elton Brand, who at least got out of there early
5. The Utah Jazz, NBA: Make no mistake, the Jazz have had plenty of obnoxious players over the years, none moreso than their dynamic duo, Karl Malone and John Stockton. And the team managed to surround them with equally spite-worthy role players like Greg Ostertag and Jeff “I Wipe My Sweat To Say Hi” Hornacek. Let’s not forget Jerry Sloan’s constant whining, which I hope has led to his justified absence from the list of Coach of the Year award winners.
Yet it’s the fans that propel the Jazz so high up on my scorn list. Have you ever met a Jazz fan and said to yourself, “Yep, that guy’s a decent human being” or “I may not agree with his choice in basketball teams, but he contributes something to society”? Of course not! Because Jazz fans exhibit none of these decent-person characteristics.
The most entertaining time to watch Jazz fans in action had to be when they broke through and made the Finals, only to be memorialized for posterity on countless commemorative Michael Jordan DVDs. What profound arguments the fans made at the time. Oh, the refs cost you the game, you say? Interesting. Dennis Rodman isn’t half the player Karl Malone is? It’s true, Rodman couldn’t guard Malone in the fourth quarter, but by then the Mailman had usually peeled out of the Delta Center parking lot on his motorcycle to escape the pressure. Great series, though! Maybe next year.
4. The Detroit Red Wings, NHL: Who doesn’t hate the Red Wings? Perennial Sportswriter of the Year Rick Reilly’s best line ever may have come near the end of this piece about the Red Wings (look for the Iraq joke).
What can I say about them now? Not much, considering I don’t follow hockey until the playoffs start, and maybe sometimes not even then. The Avs are definitely my favorite hockey team, don’t get me wrong, but I just can’t follow them with the same passion I give, say, the Broncos.
3. The New York Yankees, MLB: The highest-ranked team on this list with no rivalry tie to any of my personal favorites, the Yankees are one of sports’ finest villains. Have you ever tried arguing their huge payroll advantage with one of their fans? Yes, it’s totally a fair system, the other teams just must not want to win as badly. Never mind that a) the other teams don’t get to play in New York and that b) teams can’t exist in vacuum-where would the Yankees be without a league to play in?
Plus, like Duke, this team suffers from incredible hype. Take Derek Jeter. A hard-nosed player, embodies the qualities we all want young players to emulate, plays well under pressure, and is, by all accounts, a good citizen. But when he, A-Rod and Nomar were clearly the class of major-league shortstops, he couldn’t match up with the other two on power or defense. Yet if you only knew what you heard from announcers, you’d think Jeter was the next Ozzie Smith in the field. Isn’t overrating a player really just a way of saying that as good as he is, it isn’t really good enough?
2. The Nebraska Cornhuskers, college football: I graduated and currently collect checks from the University of Colorado, but I’ve never considered myself a particularly enthusiastic CU football fan. Nonetheless, I hate the ’Huskers.
What’s surprising is that no matter what the Cornhuskers do to make themselves worse-like retaining head coach Bill Callahan, a man so inept he didn’t even think to, you know, mix up his team’s plays when he faced the previous season’s coach in the Super Bowl-my reservoir of disgust never suffers from drought.
Plus, this team benefited from one of the greatest matchup mistakes of the BCS era (and that’s saying something) when it advanced to the 2002 Rose Bowl. This despite a 62-36 dismantling at the hands of Colorado, a game that remains one of my favorite moments as a sports fan. You can’t blame the fans for being emotionally invested in the team-after all, they do live in Nebraska, what else is there to believe in?-but could anything beat watching the looks on their faces as time ran out?
1. The Oakland Raiders, NFL: This team could forfeit entire seasons by starting, say, Kerry Collins at quarterback, and I’d still hate them the most.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Upsets
What is an upset?
Webster’s defines upset as “emotionally disturbed or agitated”. Wait, wrong word. Okay, we don’t need no stinkin’ dictionary-especially not in March-to tell us what, in sports, an upset is.
It’s easy. An upset is when the team that isn’t supposed to win a game does. But who decides who’s supposed to win the game? The media? The fans? Las Vegas?
The most recent Rose Bowl, which was this year’s college football national championship game, pitted USC against Texas. Texas won-in an upset. Sort of. I still don’t see why the outcome of that game should have surprised anyone. Yes, USC had some championship history over the last few years, but if you looked at the numbers and the relative dominance of each team for just that season-which was the period we were finding a champion for, after all-it’s hard to say Texas wasn’t at least as good. O,r more accurately, it’s tough to say USC was really as good as Texas.
Not to turn into Hines Ward here, but calling Texas’ win an upset, in a way, diminishes the dominant regular season they put together. Sometimes upsets tell us we didn’t know the teams as well we thought. But sometimes, what we call upsets don’t tell us anything at all.
When the Colts lose in the playoffs-theoretically speaking, of course-is it really an upset? Doesn’t being good at offense and defense make Colts’ opponents generally more well-rounded and, therefore, better football teams? You wouldn’t call a better team winning an upset, so have the Colts ever been upset in the playoffs? I don’t the Colts are good enough to be upset (unless my Broncos ever beat them when it counts-that would be an upset).
Every sports fans claims to root for upsets, but most fans downplay the victory later if it wasn’t easy to see it coming. I still remember when a friend of mine told me the day after the Broncos upset the Packers in Super Bowl XXXII that if the Super Bowl had been a seven-game series-instead of just one game-that the Packers would have won. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he had a point, but I have no idea what it was. Of course, football takes such a toll on the players that a long series is completely impractical. But like the Rose Bowl, that game didn’t feel like an upset. The Broncos had just a 12-4 record to Green Bay’s 13-3, but that’s hardly conclusive, considering how close some of the losses had been. The AFC had lost like 13 Super Bowls in a row, but that was hardly relevant.
Pointless conference comparisons, of course, bring us back to this month’s basketball tournament. March Madness, of course, is all about upsets, isn’t it? But then, what is an upset in March? Commentators and bloggers and real sportswriters will often say after a lower-seeded team’s victory that the victor showed they belonged in the tournament, or they were the better team. If they’re really the better team, then the game wasn’t much of an upset, was it? Besides, who’s to say that the selection committee is infallible and that the seeds are all perfect indicators of how good teams actually are anyway?
Even worse, of course, are the absurdly retarded conference-based comparisons. Let’s say, for example, that a team from the much-maligned Missouri Valley Conference beat a team from the mathematically toughest conference, the Big “Ten”. Well, that proves it-small schools have caught up with the big schools and we have achieved parity. Yet is there any reason to think that one single team from the MVC can’t be better than one single team from the Big Ten? Especially if they have to be better for one game?
Do upsets prove that the lower-seeded team is better? Does it say something about heart, effort, and work ethic? Or is it just part of the randomness you get when you extract results from such small sample sizes? Or, in other words, does Japan actually have the world’s best baseball team?
I thought the World Baseball Classic turned out pretty well. While I only saw some parts of some games, it was exciting and had great atmosphere-just like college basketball. But it’s hard to fault the United States team-which wasn’t necessarily the most loaded roster in the tournament anyway-for not being immediately dominant in such a short stretch of games. Watch who’s leading each division eight games into the major league baseball season this year and see how many of them actually wind up winning their divisions. Baseball especially seems to need long series to showcase true ability.
Of course, no one thinks a single-elimination tournament is the best way to determine a “true” basketball champion-the team that is, on some fundamental level, actually the best. That takes nothing away from the tournament, because a huge part of its appeal is that it’s so wide open. But if upsets are just bad teams beating good ones-well, what’s so great about that?
Webster’s defines upset as “emotionally disturbed or agitated”. Wait, wrong word. Okay, we don’t need no stinkin’ dictionary-especially not in March-to tell us what, in sports, an upset is.
It’s easy. An upset is when the team that isn’t supposed to win a game does. But who decides who’s supposed to win the game? The media? The fans? Las Vegas?
The most recent Rose Bowl, which was this year’s college football national championship game, pitted USC against Texas. Texas won-in an upset. Sort of. I still don’t see why the outcome of that game should have surprised anyone. Yes, USC had some championship history over the last few years, but if you looked at the numbers and the relative dominance of each team for just that season-which was the period we were finding a champion for, after all-it’s hard to say Texas wasn’t at least as good. O,r more accurately, it’s tough to say USC was really as good as Texas.
Not to turn into Hines Ward here, but calling Texas’ win an upset, in a way, diminishes the dominant regular season they put together. Sometimes upsets tell us we didn’t know the teams as well we thought. But sometimes, what we call upsets don’t tell us anything at all.
When the Colts lose in the playoffs-theoretically speaking, of course-is it really an upset? Doesn’t being good at offense and defense make Colts’ opponents generally more well-rounded and, therefore, better football teams? You wouldn’t call a better team winning an upset, so have the Colts ever been upset in the playoffs? I don’t the Colts are good enough to be upset (unless my Broncos ever beat them when it counts-that would be an upset).
Every sports fans claims to root for upsets, but most fans downplay the victory later if it wasn’t easy to see it coming. I still remember when a friend of mine told me the day after the Broncos upset the Packers in Super Bowl XXXII that if the Super Bowl had been a seven-game series-instead of just one game-that the Packers would have won. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he had a point, but I have no idea what it was. Of course, football takes such a toll on the players that a long series is completely impractical. But like the Rose Bowl, that game didn’t feel like an upset. The Broncos had just a 12-4 record to Green Bay’s 13-3, but that’s hardly conclusive, considering how close some of the losses had been. The AFC had lost like 13 Super Bowls in a row, but that was hardly relevant.
Pointless conference comparisons, of course, bring us back to this month’s basketball tournament. March Madness, of course, is all about upsets, isn’t it? But then, what is an upset in March? Commentators and bloggers and real sportswriters will often say after a lower-seeded team’s victory that the victor showed they belonged in the tournament, or they were the better team. If they’re really the better team, then the game wasn’t much of an upset, was it? Besides, who’s to say that the selection committee is infallible and that the seeds are all perfect indicators of how good teams actually are anyway?
Even worse, of course, are the absurdly retarded conference-based comparisons. Let’s say, for example, that a team from the much-maligned Missouri Valley Conference beat a team from the mathematically toughest conference, the Big “Ten”. Well, that proves it-small schools have caught up with the big schools and we have achieved parity. Yet is there any reason to think that one single team from the MVC can’t be better than one single team from the Big Ten? Especially if they have to be better for one game?
Do upsets prove that the lower-seeded team is better? Does it say something about heart, effort, and work ethic? Or is it just part of the randomness you get when you extract results from such small sample sizes? Or, in other words, does Japan actually have the world’s best baseball team?
I thought the World Baseball Classic turned out pretty well. While I only saw some parts of some games, it was exciting and had great atmosphere-just like college basketball. But it’s hard to fault the United States team-which wasn’t necessarily the most loaded roster in the tournament anyway-for not being immediately dominant in such a short stretch of games. Watch who’s leading each division eight games into the major league baseball season this year and see how many of them actually wind up winning their divisions. Baseball especially seems to need long series to showcase true ability.
Of course, no one thinks a single-elimination tournament is the best way to determine a “true” basketball champion-the team that is, on some fundamental level, actually the best. That takes nothing away from the tournament, because a huge part of its appeal is that it’s so wide open. But if upsets are just bad teams beating good ones-well, what’s so great about that?
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
NCAA Tournament Preview, or Why Would I Help You?
March Madness, of course, was the topic of Hole Punch Sports’ first post a year ago.
Every bracket contest I’m competing in includes at least some readers of this blog. I’m really tempted to lie a lot and try to throw everyone off. I guess you could say that’s what I did last year, when I picked two teams that couldn't escape the opening weekend to make the Final Four.
This year, I’m going to write more of a general preview than any real specific regional predictions (except for the national champion). I am either doing to this to avoid giving up my research edge, or perhaps to avoid being wrong in so public a manner. Plus this gives all of you a chance to experiment and learn. As the old NFL commercials said: You make the call!
I should point out that on ESPN.com’s tournament challenge last year, I started out 13-0 and was ranked No. 1 in the world, at least with one of my five charts (to be fair, I think I was tied for first with literally thousands of other brackets). So if I can give any honest and practical advice, it would be to fill out a lot of brackets, sort of like how Mel Kiper, Jr. makes endless mock drafts.
All right, on to the regions:
Atlanta: Duke (No. 1 seed), thankfully, won't win it all. Why? Because this Duke squad is exactly the same as every other Duke team of recent vintage. Let’s see.
No depth. Check. This is the Blue Devils' annual Achilles heel. Actually, Duke has a decent seven players averaging twenty minutes per game, but at least half of those guys aren’t doing anything when they’re on the floor. And while Duke is clearly one of the nation’s top teams, the squad has faded down the stretch-never a good sign come tourney time.
One-dimensional shooter. Check. I mentioned this last year. Following in the footsteps of Trajan Langdon, J.J. Redick is widely hailed as the best shooter in the land. What the heck, he might even actually be that this year. But whatever you’ve heard about added dimensions to his game is completely overblown. Still no passing, rebounding or defense. I’m no basketball coach-oh, wait, I am-but those seem kind of important. He’s a very good, very valuable player on a team perfect for him, but the best basketball player in the country? That’s ridiculous.
Ignored frontcourt. And check. How can I say Shelden Williams is ignored? With his talents, the Blue Devils could rely on him more than they do. In Duke’s first loss, to Georgetown, Williams shot just 2-for-8.
Of course, there are other teams. Syracuse (5) made an awesome run through the Big East tourney, sparked by senior Gerry McNamara’s amazing clutch shooting. Impressive. But you know what that gets you? A Big East tournament win. While it’d be great to see the momentum carry over and lead to even more of Jim Boeheim’s profane press conferences, I don’t see it happening.
LSU (4) has serious frontcourt toughness that could spark a deeper run. Dur, if you haven’t heard, West Virginia’s (6) Kevin Pittsnogle has a funny name, but I’m more than sick of those guys.
Oh, I probably should mention Texas (2), too. The Longhorns have a gaudy 27-6 record, but sort of got hammered by Kansas in their last game. Daniel Gibson has a ton of talent, but hasn’t really progressed the way I would have expected. That leaves a heavy load on statistically similar forwards P.J. Tucker (16.2 points. 9.2 rebounds) and LaMarcus Aldridge (15 and 9). If Gibson cranks it up there’s no one they can’t beat, but then there’s no reason to expect that, either.
Oakland: This region’s best-known team is the No. 3 seed, Gonzaga. Perhaps you've heard of Communist forward Adam Morrison, a Player of the Year candidate who actually looked like a normal human being as a freshman. Like Redick, Morrison has no pro future. (Granted, both could be solid bench guys on good teams, but neither will approach stardom.) Did you see that Sports Illustrated cover where he stood next to Redick? Let’s just say I don’t think he’s 6-8 anymore. But...Morrison’s kicking in 28.4 points per game, and his team’s on an eighteen-game winning streak dating to last year.
The No. 1 seed is Memphis, which has had an outstanding season (30-3). But something about the phrase “Conference USA” sounds suspicious to me. Memphis has balanced scoring and is second in the nation in rebounding. They are the biggest obstacle to Gonzaga’s hopes for the Final Four. I am also interested to see how UCLA (2) will fare in its opening-round horse race (15).
Washington, D.C. I’ve always liked the Carolina Tar Heels (3), who really stepped up and saved whatever semblance of credibility I had by winning it all last year. They exceeded all expectations with a decimated roster. That said, I expect a solid but unspectacular tournament run.
Their opponents in last year’s title game, Illinois, snagged the fourth seed. That’s good news for fans of grind-it-out basketball and sportcoats you can hunt in. Guard Dee Brown is substantially less special when he’s not surrounded by other perimeter specialists-while he scored more points per game this year, his shooting percentage is down from .499 to an anemic .367.
Enough beating around the bush in this region. UConn (1) will surely advance to the Final Four. They’ve got the coaching, they’ve got the talent, and they have the depth. Five players score in double-digits and a sixth, Hilton Armstrong, chips in 9.8 per. In other words, they’re loaded just like last year’s champions and the UConn team of a year before that. With one region remaining, I’m going to go ahead and call Connecticut as my pick for the national champions.
Minneapolis. The selection committee apparently decided to send every “blah” team to Minnesota. I am definitely pulling for Allan Ray of Villanova (1), who’s coming back from a gruesome eye injury. Also, I want him to play for the Sonics someday. Nevada (5) and Montana (12) should have a riveting contest in the Battle of Open Space.
Ohio State (2) is sort of a baby UConn, with five players in double figures. The Buckeyes have no all-around standout, however. Boston College (4) is getting serious attention in this region as well, but didn’t really separate themselves from the pack when playing against top-tier teams. The best of the Eagles is Craig Smith, a four-year stalwart and potent inside man.
Every bracket contest I’m competing in includes at least some readers of this blog. I’m really tempted to lie a lot and try to throw everyone off. I guess you could say that’s what I did last year, when I picked two teams that couldn't escape the opening weekend to make the Final Four.
This year, I’m going to write more of a general preview than any real specific regional predictions (except for the national champion). I am either doing to this to avoid giving up my research edge, or perhaps to avoid being wrong in so public a manner. Plus this gives all of you a chance to experiment and learn. As the old NFL commercials said: You make the call!
I should point out that on ESPN.com’s tournament challenge last year, I started out 13-0 and was ranked No. 1 in the world, at least with one of my five charts (to be fair, I think I was tied for first with literally thousands of other brackets). So if I can give any honest and practical advice, it would be to fill out a lot of brackets, sort of like how Mel Kiper, Jr. makes endless mock drafts.
All right, on to the regions:
Atlanta: Duke (No. 1 seed), thankfully, won't win it all. Why? Because this Duke squad is exactly the same as every other Duke team of recent vintage. Let’s see.
No depth. Check. This is the Blue Devils' annual Achilles heel. Actually, Duke has a decent seven players averaging twenty minutes per game, but at least half of those guys aren’t doing anything when they’re on the floor. And while Duke is clearly one of the nation’s top teams, the squad has faded down the stretch-never a good sign come tourney time.
One-dimensional shooter. Check. I mentioned this last year. Following in the footsteps of Trajan Langdon, J.J. Redick is widely hailed as the best shooter in the land. What the heck, he might even actually be that this year. But whatever you’ve heard about added dimensions to his game is completely overblown. Still no passing, rebounding or defense. I’m no basketball coach-oh, wait, I am-but those seem kind of important. He’s a very good, very valuable player on a team perfect for him, but the best basketball player in the country? That’s ridiculous.
Ignored frontcourt. And check. How can I say Shelden Williams is ignored? With his talents, the Blue Devils could rely on him more than they do. In Duke’s first loss, to Georgetown, Williams shot just 2-for-8.
Of course, there are other teams. Syracuse (5) made an awesome run through the Big East tourney, sparked by senior Gerry McNamara’s amazing clutch shooting. Impressive. But you know what that gets you? A Big East tournament win. While it’d be great to see the momentum carry over and lead to even more of Jim Boeheim’s profane press conferences, I don’t see it happening.
LSU (4) has serious frontcourt toughness that could spark a deeper run. Dur, if you haven’t heard, West Virginia’s (6) Kevin Pittsnogle has a funny name, but I’m more than sick of those guys.
Oh, I probably should mention Texas (2), too. The Longhorns have a gaudy 27-6 record, but sort of got hammered by Kansas in their last game. Daniel Gibson has a ton of talent, but hasn’t really progressed the way I would have expected. That leaves a heavy load on statistically similar forwards P.J. Tucker (16.2 points. 9.2 rebounds) and LaMarcus Aldridge (15 and 9). If Gibson cranks it up there’s no one they can’t beat, but then there’s no reason to expect that, either.
Oakland: This region’s best-known team is the No. 3 seed, Gonzaga. Perhaps you've heard of Communist forward Adam Morrison, a Player of the Year candidate who actually looked like a normal human being as a freshman. Like Redick, Morrison has no pro future. (Granted, both could be solid bench guys on good teams, but neither will approach stardom.) Did you see that Sports Illustrated cover where he stood next to Redick? Let’s just say I don’t think he’s 6-8 anymore. But...Morrison’s kicking in 28.4 points per game, and his team’s on an eighteen-game winning streak dating to last year.
The No. 1 seed is Memphis, which has had an outstanding season (30-3). But something about the phrase “Conference USA” sounds suspicious to me. Memphis has balanced scoring and is second in the nation in rebounding. They are the biggest obstacle to Gonzaga’s hopes for the Final Four. I am also interested to see how UCLA (2) will fare in its opening-round horse race (15).
Washington, D.C. I’ve always liked the Carolina Tar Heels (3), who really stepped up and saved whatever semblance of credibility I had by winning it all last year. They exceeded all expectations with a decimated roster. That said, I expect a solid but unspectacular tournament run.
Their opponents in last year’s title game, Illinois, snagged the fourth seed. That’s good news for fans of grind-it-out basketball and sportcoats you can hunt in. Guard Dee Brown is substantially less special when he’s not surrounded by other perimeter specialists-while he scored more points per game this year, his shooting percentage is down from .499 to an anemic .367.
Enough beating around the bush in this region. UConn (1) will surely advance to the Final Four. They’ve got the coaching, they’ve got the talent, and they have the depth. Five players score in double-digits and a sixth, Hilton Armstrong, chips in 9.8 per. In other words, they’re loaded just like last year’s champions and the UConn team of a year before that. With one region remaining, I’m going to go ahead and call Connecticut as my pick for the national champions.
Minneapolis. The selection committee apparently decided to send every “blah” team to Minnesota. I am definitely pulling for Allan Ray of Villanova (1), who’s coming back from a gruesome eye injury. Also, I want him to play for the Sonics someday. Nevada (5) and Montana (12) should have a riveting contest in the Battle of Open Space.
Ohio State (2) is sort of a baby UConn, with five players in double figures. The Buckeyes have no all-around standout, however. Boston College (4) is getting serious attention in this region as well, but didn’t really separate themselves from the pack when playing against top-tier teams. The best of the Eagles is Craig Smith, a four-year stalwart and potent inside man.
Tuesday, March 7, 2006
Home Run King
I almost feel sorry for Barry Bonds.
You can check out the latest steroid allegations in an article on the website of Sports Illustrated.
Barry Bonds used steroids-that's still news? Really?
Okay, I don't really feel bad for Barry-he's obviously responsible for his own steroid use and, as a grown man, was fully aware of what he was doing in taking illegal drugs. This is not a "blame society" piece, in which I show how the expectations of fans created pressures so severe that he just had to take steroids, making the man in the stands the true villian. And it's not a tale of how we build up stars just to tear them down, though that runs throughout the Bonds saga.
Yet Bonds is an interesting case, because if the dates are correct in this story-which suggests Bonds started using steroids out of jealousy springing from the fame of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998-he was very clearly an all-time great before he ever cheated.
Somehow Bonds was left off one of baseball's greatest marking gimmicks of recent years, the All-Century Team, a fact that becomes ever more hilarious as time goes on. Bonds, not one of the best players of the last century? Please. By 1999, when the team was named, Stan Musial and Ted Williams were the only leftfielders who could claim to be on Bonds' level, and Musial's grasp was slipping fast. (Of course, in typical all-star fashion, the All-Century Team grouped centerfielders, left fielders and the men in right together into one imaginary position).
Two quotes from the article (which is actually an article about the book excerpt which will run in this week's SI) stood out to me. The first said,
The muscle quality of cattle? The man risked turning himself into livestock for our attention? Sad that he thought it would work; sadder still that it did. Can you even concieve of considering that? Second:
That actually sounds like a pretty good point. Of course, Sammy Sosa got a pretty free ride as well, and not only is his skin dark, he's not even American. So whether "they" are major league baseball or just the sports media, race wasn't the only reason McGwire got a free ride compared to Bonds. A bigger reason, of course, is that Barry Bonds is a jerk to reporters. It's unfortunate that so much of our public perception of athletes is based on how they treat journalists-yet once the star fades, we eventually find out the sad truth about our fallen idols. Does anyone think of Sosa as anything but a con man today?
I also worry about the damage baseball has done to itself by allowing the game for so long to drift away from timely scoring into full-blown offensive fireworks. It was a great temporary fix and threw the sport back into the spotlight during the summer of 1998. But increased scoring lengthens the games and draws further attention to the tedium of pickoff throws and hitters stepping out of the batter's box.
Besides, home runs are only exciting when they're rare. Have you seen baseball highlights the last few years? It's home run, home run, home run, and a weak pop-out to end the game. Lather, rinse, repeat. Home runs aren't that fun to watch outside of the game context-each one looks the same. Isn't a late-game strikeout or a properly-executed double play a more dazzling display of athletic skill? Even high-scoring games can be competitive and exciting, but baseball is fast losing its youthful beauty.
You can check out the latest steroid allegations in an article on the website of Sports Illustrated.
Barry Bonds used steroids-that's still news? Really?
Okay, I don't really feel bad for Barry-he's obviously responsible for his own steroid use and, as a grown man, was fully aware of what he was doing in taking illegal drugs. This is not a "blame society" piece, in which I show how the expectations of fans created pressures so severe that he just had to take steroids, making the man in the stands the true villian. And it's not a tale of how we build up stars just to tear them down, though that runs throughout the Bonds saga.
Yet Bonds is an interesting case, because if the dates are correct in this story-which suggests Bonds started using steroids out of jealousy springing from the fame of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998-he was very clearly an all-time great before he ever cheated.
Somehow Bonds was left off one of baseball's greatest marking gimmicks of recent years, the All-Century Team, a fact that becomes ever more hilarious as time goes on. Bonds, not one of the best players of the last century? Please. By 1999, when the team was named, Stan Musial and Ted Williams were the only leftfielders who could claim to be on Bonds' level, and Musial's grasp was slipping fast. (Of course, in typical all-star fashion, the All-Century Team grouped centerfielders, left fielders and the men in right together into one imaginary position).
Two quotes from the article (which is actually an article about the book excerpt which will run in this week's SI) stood out to me. The first said,
For instance, the authors write that by 2001, when Bonds broke Mark McGwire's single-season home-run record (70) by belting 73, Bonds was using two designer steroids referred to as the Cream and the Clear, as well as insulin, human growth hormone, testosterone decanoate (a fast-acting steroid known as Mexican beans) and trenbolone, a steroid created to improve the muscle quality of cattle.
The muscle quality of cattle? The man risked turning himself into livestock for our attention? Sad that he thought it would work; sadder still that it did. Can you even concieve of considering that? Second:
According to the book, Bonds, in comments to his mistress, Kimberly Bell, often dismissed McGwire with racially-charged remarks such as, "They're just letting him do it because he's a white boy." But Bonds looked at McGwire and his hulking physique and decided he needed to dramatically increase his muscle mass to compete with him.
That actually sounds like a pretty good point. Of course, Sammy Sosa got a pretty free ride as well, and not only is his skin dark, he's not even American. So whether "they" are major league baseball or just the sports media, race wasn't the only reason McGwire got a free ride compared to Bonds. A bigger reason, of course, is that Barry Bonds is a jerk to reporters. It's unfortunate that so much of our public perception of athletes is based on how they treat journalists-yet once the star fades, we eventually find out the sad truth about our fallen idols. Does anyone think of Sosa as anything but a con man today?
I also worry about the damage baseball has done to itself by allowing the game for so long to drift away from timely scoring into full-blown offensive fireworks. It was a great temporary fix and threw the sport back into the spotlight during the summer of 1998. But increased scoring lengthens the games and draws further attention to the tedium of pickoff throws and hitters stepping out of the batter's box.
Besides, home runs are only exciting when they're rare. Have you seen baseball highlights the last few years? It's home run, home run, home run, and a weak pop-out to end the game. Lather, rinse, repeat. Home runs aren't that fun to watch outside of the game context-each one looks the same. Isn't a late-game strikeout or a properly-executed double play a more dazzling display of athletic skill? Even high-scoring games can be competitive and exciting, but baseball is fast losing its youthful beauty.
Monday, March 6, 2006
Football Labor Stuff
I hope the NFL doesn’t lose its salary cap.
I can’t say I’ve been following the CBA negotiations especially closely, and that’s good, because with all the delays, the suspense would be killing me at this point.
Anyway, I hope the cap stays. I’m a Broncos fan and no cap would actually be pretty good for my favorite team. The Broncos make a lot of money, have pretty smart management, and feature an owner who is probably willing to outspend most of his colleagues. I imagine that with no cap, the Broncos would be able to move into the elite (if we’re not there already) and stay there for a long time. I don’t think we’d have to wait very long for the next Super Bowl win.
But victories would always feel cheap. What do Yankees fans say to themselves when their team wins a World Series? (Or what did they used to tell themselves last millennium when they actually won the Series?) I’d always know the Broncos weren’t really playing the same game everyone else was. Of course, I’d still watch, but it wouldn’t be the same.
Some, like Peter King of Sports Illustrated, point out that football wouldn’t turn into baseball. Which is true, at least right away. As King wrote,
That’s all true, but I think King is basing his predictions for the league’s future too much on current market conditions. I think forecasts of doom become a self-fulfilling prophecy in a lot of ways.
Look at it this way: regardless of the amount of talent or number of franchises, professional sports leagues will always have some teams with losing records. (Since (nearly) every game has a winner and a loser, everyone’s record should add up to .500-yet, bizarrely, sometimes the mere existence of losing teams is presented as evidence of the need for contraction.) Not only that, odds are that some teams are going to lose for a few years in a row, regardless of how fair the player-procurement system is.
Let’s go worst-case scenario here. (Okay, the worst-case is a strike or lockout; technically, I’m talking second-worst.) Let’s say the league eliminates sharing of local revenues and the salary cap. While TV money is still split up, there will definitely be relative haves and have-nots in the league as some teams get to keep more money.
Let us also go on a limb and suggest that for the first few years in which there is no cap, the Arizona Cardinals are bad each year (I know, I am stretching my last remaining shreds of credibility here.).
Does anyone expect cheapskate Cardinals owner Bill Bidwell to do anything but call the system unfair and pocket as much money as he can, like “poor” baseball owners do now? (Sure, he can make even more money by spending his cash on a successful team, but there’s more risk, too.)
Look at the Colorado Rockies. While Denver hasn’t lost population over the years, they used to make enough money to spend alongside clubs from some of the biggest markets. But once they started to falter and attendance dropped, the owners lost their nerve and now they don’t spend a dime they don’t have to. And since they don’t care enough to still try and compete through innovation or player development, like the A’s or Twins, they’re just going to be bad for a really long time.
Teams like the Washington Redskins, Dallas Cowboys and, yes, the Broncos, will drive up salaries of the best players so high that some of the smaller-market teams will become either unable or unwilling to compete. It’ll be fun to watch the Redskins throw good money after bad and fulfill their true destiny as the Texas Rangers or Baltimore Orioles of just a few years past-a team with an enormous payroll and bite-sized results.
But it won’t be as fun as the system we have now.
I can’t say I’ve been following the CBA negotiations especially closely, and that’s good, because with all the delays, the suspense would be killing me at this point.
Anyway, I hope the cap stays. I’m a Broncos fan and no cap would actually be pretty good for my favorite team. The Broncos make a lot of money, have pretty smart management, and feature an owner who is probably willing to outspend most of his colleagues. I imagine that with no cap, the Broncos would be able to move into the elite (if we’re not there already) and stay there for a long time. I don’t think we’d have to wait very long for the next Super Bowl win.
But victories would always feel cheap. What do Yankees fans say to themselves when their team wins a World Series? (Or what did they used to tell themselves last millennium when they actually won the Series?) I’d always know the Broncos weren’t really playing the same game everyone else was. Of course, I’d still watch, but it wouldn’t be the same.
Some, like Peter King of Sports Illustrated, point out that football wouldn’t turn into baseball. Which is true, at least right away. As King wrote,
My thought: The sky hasn't fallen. It isn't falling. Football would be different without a salary cap. Different, and definitely not better. But we all need to get a grip. I've heard for the past week how dire a situation it would be if the game lost the cap and the ability to control player costs. I've read in papers and on Web sites, and heard on talk shows how the lack of a cap would be the baseball-ization of the NFL. And I say: Pshaw.
To say that no salary cap would turn the NFL into a league of Yankees (Redskins, Patriots, Cowboys) and Devil Rays (Jaguars, Saints, Bengals) is preposterous. First of all, the Yankees spent $208 million on players last year and the Devil Rays $29 million. In the NFL, a lower-revenue team like Jacksonville is going to take in probably $170 million this year, with the Redskins raking in maybe $310 million. To think Jacksonville would spend $50 million on players and the Redskins $190 million is just idiocy. Won't happen.
That’s all true, but I think King is basing his predictions for the league’s future too much on current market conditions. I think forecasts of doom become a self-fulfilling prophecy in a lot of ways.
Look at it this way: regardless of the amount of talent or number of franchises, professional sports leagues will always have some teams with losing records. (Since (nearly) every game has a winner and a loser, everyone’s record should add up to .500-yet, bizarrely, sometimes the mere existence of losing teams is presented as evidence of the need for contraction.) Not only that, odds are that some teams are going to lose for a few years in a row, regardless of how fair the player-procurement system is.
Let’s go worst-case scenario here. (Okay, the worst-case is a strike or lockout; technically, I’m talking second-worst.) Let’s say the league eliminates sharing of local revenues and the salary cap. While TV money is still split up, there will definitely be relative haves and have-nots in the league as some teams get to keep more money.
Let us also go on a limb and suggest that for the first few years in which there is no cap, the Arizona Cardinals are bad each year (I know, I am stretching my last remaining shreds of credibility here.).
Does anyone expect cheapskate Cardinals owner Bill Bidwell to do anything but call the system unfair and pocket as much money as he can, like “poor” baseball owners do now? (Sure, he can make even more money by spending his cash on a successful team, but there’s more risk, too.)
Look at the Colorado Rockies. While Denver hasn’t lost population over the years, they used to make enough money to spend alongside clubs from some of the biggest markets. But once they started to falter and attendance dropped, the owners lost their nerve and now they don’t spend a dime they don’t have to. And since they don’t care enough to still try and compete through innovation or player development, like the A’s or Twins, they’re just going to be bad for a really long time.
Teams like the Washington Redskins, Dallas Cowboys and, yes, the Broncos, will drive up salaries of the best players so high that some of the smaller-market teams will become either unable or unwilling to compete. It’ll be fun to watch the Redskins throw good money after bad and fulfill their true destiny as the Texas Rangers or Baltimore Orioles of just a few years past-a team with an enormous payroll and bite-sized results.
But it won’t be as fun as the system we have now.
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