The Common Sense Coordinator

Decade Retrospective: What events will we remember 10 years from now?

2010-01-02T13:43:00.008-05:00

With yesterday marking the start of the new decade, seemingly every news outlet has their own lists regarding events in the '00's. You can pretty much find a broad array of lists spanning every category you can think of.

As you know with me, I like to do things differently. I do have a list, but its not a best or worst list. My list contains the five events and movements that will have a continued impact on the sports landscape for years to come. In 2019, these events will still be talked about.

5) The 2004-05 NHL Lockout

Despite being considered one of the four major sports in the United States, the NHL has always been looked at as the Red-Headed step-child of the American Sports landscape. Baseball was America's pastime, Basketball was founded in America, and Football dominates the sports landscape between September and January.

Quietly, the NHL had grown from 17 teams in 1979 to 30 teams by 2001. Commissioner Gary Bettman wanted to spread the love of hockey to non-traditional markets, such as Tampa Bay, Phoenix, and Nashville. While not as high as the other three major American leagues, revenue was growing and the players were benefiting from the good economy, as salaries were steadily increasing.

A labor impasse was looming prior to the 2004-05 season. According to a report by the Securities & Exchange Commission, NHL teams spent about 76% of their revenue on player salaries, much higher than the other three leagues. Many of the smaller-market teams had to trade their best players or their talented youngsters out of fear that they couldn't pay them when free agency came around.

With no deal in place, the NHL owners decided to lockout its players the day after the old Collective Bargaining Agreement expired. What transpired was a 10-month lockout, which completely wiped out the '04-05 NHL season. Though the lockout was resolved in the summer of 2005, the damage continues to remain. ESPN did not renew their television deal, and the NHL had to go to VERSUS, which at the time, was more known for their Tour de France coverage than team sports. Many of the non-traditional markets have struggled to keep their teams afloat, with the most notable example being the Phoenix Coyotes, who had to declare bankruptcy after last season.

4. The Malice at the Palace

The Indiana Pacers/Detroit Pistons game from November 19th, 2004 was a rematch of the previous years' Eastern Conference Finals, in which Detroit beat Indiana to advance to the NBA Finals. Indiana pretty much had control of the entire game, and were on their way to victory. With the game in hand, tempers started to heat up between the two teams.

With 45 seconds remaining, Pistons Center Ben Wallace was fouled by Pacers Forward Ron Artest. There was some shoving between the two players, and soon more players started pushing and shoving. Once the confrontation was cleared, Artest moved over to the scorer's table and for reasons only known to Artest, he decided to lay down on it. While laying down, a fan threw a beverage at Artest, who responded by jumping into the stands and attacking someone who he thought threw the beverage at him.

Soon thereafter, teammate Stephen Jackson also ran into the stands and started attacking fans. Eventually players from both teams entered the stands while many fans spilled out on to the court to escape the altercation. Fans threw debris at the players, and some fans even tried (foolishly) to instigate players on the court. The remaining 45 seconds of the game was called off, and the incident was an ugly black eye for the league.

The short term effects of the incident were harsh. A total of nine players were suspended without pay for a total of 146 games. Artest was suspended for the remainder of the year. The NBA also instituted rules further regulating alcohol sales at arenas, with the selling of alcoholic beverages ending after the third quarter.

The long-term effects of the brawl are still lingering. The Indiana Pacers, who won 61 games in the '03-'04 season, won 44 games during the '04-05 season. To distance themselves from the incident at Auburn Hills, they overhauled their roster, shipping out perennial headcases Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson. Since that season, the Pacers have not finished a season better with a .500 record and have missed the playoffs three seasons and counting.

3. The hijacking of Major League Baseball

The start of the decade looked promising for Major League Baseball. The Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa Home Run Race of 1998 helped erase some of the lingering bad feelings over the 1994 Baseball strike. In addition, the New York Yankees added to their legend by winning three World Series in a row from 1998-2000. Baseball was also there after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and provided an escape from the tragic events of that date.

While there have been some feel good moments this decade, such as the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, and Philadelphia Phillies breaking years of futility to win Championships of their own, Major League Baseball has sustained several public relations hits during the decade.

In 2005, Jose Canseco published "Juiced", which described how rampant steroid use was during his playing days. He outed several players who used Performance Enhancing Drugs. On top of that, the Mitchell Report co-signed the rampant use of PED's in baseball and named more names. Soon, the search for PED-users resembled 16th Century witch-hunts. The first person suspended for PED use was Rafael Palmeiro, who ironically waved his finger at a congressional hearing and stated under oath that he never used PED's.

When the smoked cleared, the greatest hitter and the greatest pitcher of a generation, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens respectively, had been revealed as avid PED users and have been pretty much run out of baseball.

If that wasn't enough, the past few years have seen the playoffs go deeper into the year, now ending in the beginning of November. Because of the television contracts, the postseason has become more drawn out and subject to not the best interests of baseball, but the best interests of FOX and TBS, who have to know when games are to determine their own tv schedules. The New York Yankees and LA Angels played eight games in a span of 20 days in October, which is absurd considering the kind of schedule MLB teams play in the Regular season.

On top of that, with the advancement of technology this decade, more cameras are showing each game, which means better angles on close calls. Unfortunately for MLB umpires, this means their flaws and controversial calls are that much more apparent. There were several blown calls in the MLB playoffs, and despite their errors, MLB umps are not held accountable for their mistakes. To compound these mistakes, MLB owners decided not to expand instant replay in the playoffs, allowing these mistakes to continue.

In response to these events, and others including the infamous 2002 All-Star game tie, Bud Selig has been passive aggressive at best. The picture above seems to describe best his assertiveness.

2. The Growth of the UFC

The UFC, which had been generating much controversy since it first launched in 1993, was close to tapping out. Many states banned this kind of "no holds barred" fighting, and they could not secure home-video distribution for its events.

In 2001, Dana White, along with Station Casinos Owners Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, decided to buy the UFC as it was preparing to head to bankruptcy. At first they struggled, but soon started to pick up steam though corporate sponsorship, the return to cable pay-per-view and being able to find production companies to distribute their fights on DVD. Still, in 2004, the UFC was $34 million in the red.

Their rapid rise to popularity jump started when in conjunction with Spike TV, they debuted "The Ultimate Fighter", in which 16 fighters competed for a chance to be a contracted fighter with the UFC. In addition, Spike TV aired other UFC programming and occasional live fights.

The biggest move that opened the floodgates for the UFC was regulation. With their sport now regulated, many State's Athletic Commissions decided to allow MMA to be held in their states due to the sport being regulated. this allowed for the UFC and other MMA promotions to hold various events throughout the country, not just in Las Vegas.

Because of their growth, the UFC was able to acquire World Extreme Cagefighting and Pride Fighting Championships. Additionally, they have been able to fend off rival promotions that aimed for a slice of the pie, such as Affliction and EliteXC (and currently Strikeforce). In 2008, they signed sponsorship agreements with Harley-Davidson and Anheuser-Busch InBev.

The future remains bright for the UFC. In December, Massachusetts became the latest state to regulate MMA. The UFC is rumored to be bringing a Pay-Per-View event to Boston sometime in the summer of 2010. Their next mission, which might be happening soon, is to bring regulated MMA to New York.

1. Death of Traditional Sports Media

The biggest sports story of the past decade is what you're reading now. Ten years ago, the way news and opinions were reported were vastly different. Most people got their local sports news from the newspaper and their national news from ESPN. Most of the time, breaking news was reported exclusively through television reports and they could choose to break a story whenever they felt it was relevant.

Today, sports fans have several options to receive their news. They could still get it from a newspaper or ESPN, however, with many more sites on the internet to choose from and ways to receive news, reporting and breaking stories has changed dramatically.

With the rise of the internet and the ability to access the internet through your cell phone, many newspapers have seen revenue decline dramatically and in some cases, some newspapers have ceased publication because of the decline in readers. Sports fans want their news immediately, and with the ability to get alerts on your phone instantaneously, the need for a daily newspaper suddenly is diminished. The biggest mistake newspapers made was having their daily editions online for free. They opted not to make their online content exclusive and have paid the price for it.

The reporting of the Ben Roethlisberger Sexual Assault case is an example of how there are many more options to get your news. If this happened in 2000, you might have read a blurb about it in the USA Today, but you wouldn't have heard it on ESPN. In 2009, the story spread like wildfire on the internet, and everyone picked up on it and reported it EXCEPT for ESPN. In this era, what is newsworthy is much different than it was in 2000.

While ESPN still have the monopoly of Sports on television, they are taking a hit in their online presence. With the popularity of sites such as Deadspin and SportsbyBrooks, many sports fans are getting their news based on tips and rumors, and with their readership increasing, ESPN has started to report on issues they may not have done in the past. With the Tiger Woods scandal, the details of it were so juicy, TMZ, which is well known for their coverage of celebrities, has decided to launch TMZsports, which will use their "journalistic" skills to cover athletes the same way they cover Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton.

ESPN may look at these sites as more gossip than actual news, but the fact remains that these sites will tell the stories ESPN won't, including some of the antics of ESPN personalities, which Deadspin flaunted his year. These sites have, and will break major stories that ESPN will only report because their readers are getting the scoop from elsewhere. But even with Deadspin, ESPN has even more competition for breaking of news, which comes from an unlikely source.

The athlete themselves.

In the past, if you wanted to get an athlete's take on something going on, you would most likely have to go through a publicist, agent, or team. In 2009, athletes are bypassing traditional ways of releasing statements and are doing it themselves on Twitter. Sports fans can now get their favorite athletes' take (in 140 characters or less) on things going on, whether it be a movie they saw or current events. In the case of Kevin Love, he tweeted last summer that Kevin McHale would not be coming back as their head coach. The thing that made it newsworthy was that he was the first one to report his coach was not coming back; the media had not reported the story and the team had not sent out a press release.

The athlete to take advantage of this the most was Chad Ochocinco. He has used twitter to not only promote himself, but to also interact directly with his fans, including meeting them and even launching an iphone application to give fans insights on life. His most ambitious plan, in conjunction with Motorola, is the "OchoCinco News Network". This would equip players with Motorola phones and have them Tweet out news before the major networks get wind of it.

What will the new decade have in store for sports fans? My thoughts, and a surprise, are going to be coming Sunday night.

The 2nd Annual FBS Playoff Braket

2009-12-19T19:11:00.003-05:00

With the FCS playoffs wrapping up last night and the FBS Bowls underway tonight, it is time to unveil my 2nd Annual FBS Playoff Bracket.

For those not in the loop, the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) does not have a playoff system. Instead, it has a computer determine which two teams are the top 2 teams in the country and have them play in a "Championship" game. This year, the computer picked Alabama and Texas as the teams to play for their Championship. They were both 13-0, however there were three other undefeated teams (Boise State, TCU, and Cincinnati) who aren't getting a shot at a title.

In every other NCAA sport, there is a championship tournament. March Madness is a multi-billion dollar event. A FBS playoff would be equal to, if not exceed the hype of March Madness. In honor of the BCS' ineptitude, I came up with a plan to overhaul FBS football and create a playoff system that would make sense and keep bowls a part of college football.

My plan calls for a 16-team tournament with the 11 conference champions and 5 at-large teams. Seeding of the teams would be based on their regular season records. The tournament would start the day after Thanksgiving and conclude with a Championship Game at the end of December.

To determine the outcomes of the games, I used What If Sports to simulate the games. For more accurate results, I ran multiple simulations for each game. For the first two rounds of the playoffs, I simulated each game 10 times. For the semi-final round I simulated each game 15 times, and for the championship game, I ran 20 simulations.

Here is how the teams were seeded:

1) Alabama
2) Texas
3) Boise State
4) TCU
5) Cincinnati
6) Georgia Tech
7) Central Michigan
8) Oregon
9) Ohio State
10) Troy
11) East Carolina
12) Florida
13) Iowa
14) Penn State
15) BYU
16) Houston

It's a decent selection of teams. Ironically, these 16 teams are the only FBS programs that won 10 games or more this season. Having these 16 teams compete for a National Championship makes the most sense. There is little debate as far as the teams involved.

Here's how the first round match-ups would look. Next to the match-up is the projected winner, the percentage of the simulations they won, and the average score of the game.

(16) Houston at (1) Alabama: Alabama, 100%, 63-7
(9) Ohio State at (8) Oregon: Ohio State, 70%, 21-17

(12) Florida at (5) Cincinnati: Florida, 70%, 37-25
(13) Iowa at (4) TCU: TCU, 100%, 32-7

(11) East Carolina at (6) Georgia Tech: East Carolina, 90%, 46-31
(14) Penn State at (3) Boise State: Boise State, 100%, 34-12

(10) Troy at (7) Central Michigan: Central Michigan, 80%, 38-26
(15) BYU at (2) Texas: Texas, 90%, 33-12

Outside of East Carolina dominating Georgia Tech, there was nothing surprising about the first round, even with the way Alabama handled Houston. There are some intriguing second round match-ups, including Florida and TCU. Here's how the Quarterfinal Round played out.

(9) Ohio State at (1) Alabama: Alabama, 100%, 32-3
(12) Florida at (4) TCU: TCU, 70%, 23-13

(11) East Carolina at (3) Boise State: Boise State, 100%, 53-18
(7) Central Michigan at (2) Texas: Texas, 100%, 38-7.

The second round was less than spectacular to say the least. Three of the games were decided by 29 points or more, and all of the games were decided by at least 10 points. The four top seeds remain, and surprise, they're all undefeated teams. Maybe the BCS should take note of how all the undefeated teams have a shot at a Championship. Here's how the Semifinal Round played out; keep in mind this round featured 15 simulations of each game instead of the 10 used for the first two rounds.

(4) TCU at (1) Alabama: Alabama, 80%, 32-12
(3) Boise State at (2) Texas: Texas, 86%, 31-18

Interestingly enough, the final two teams are the same two teams that the BCS chose in their "championship". The difference between a legit playoff and the BCS circus is that 16 teams had a chance to compete for the right to play for a title. For the championship game, I ran 20 simulations, and here's how it played out.

(2) Texas vs. (1) Alabama: Alabama, 90%, 20-7.

Alabama wound up dominating Texas, winning 18 of the 20 simulations. Mark Ingram was chosen as the player of the game for 17 of the 18 wins. I'm sure the BCS game will be exciting to watch, but unfortunately, we're stuck with a Bowl System that discriminates against half of the FBS conferences and denies them a legit chance to participate for a National Championship.

Tiger Trap

2009-12-01T19:19:00.007-05:00

As sports fans might be aware, Tiger Woods got into a minor car accident early Friday morning. The "official" story is at 2:30am, he lost control of his car and hit a tree and fire hydrant. His wife had to break the rear window to help free him from the car. He was taken to the hospital, treated for his injuries, and released. Tiger Woods admitted everything was his fault, but the accident was a "private matter"

Unfortunately for Woods, when the police and paparazzi get involved, your life is going to become everything but private.

Woods had delayed meeting with the police on three separate occasions before they cited him for careless driving. On top of that, TMZ and Deadspin have been reporting for the past few days that Tiger Woods had taken part in extramarital affairs. It was originally reported he had an affair with Rachel Uchitel, a New York-based party planner who has emphatically denied any sexual relationship with Woods.

TMZ revealed this afternoon that in the upcoming issue of USWeekly, another woman has come forward to admit she had an affair with Woods lasting close to three years. The woman, Jamiee Grubbs, claims to have over 300 text messages, along with photos and voicemails from Woods.

Grubbs knew that if Tiger was going to cut off any affair, she was going to have a major payday if she went public with her allegations. It says a lot about what kind of person she is to sell someone out like that. It's also a little creepy that any woman would keep hundreds of text messages and photos for years.

The ironic thing about her is during her rumored trysts with Woods, she appeared with her boyfriend on the VH1 show "Tool Academy" because of the attention he craved from other women. If he was trying to be less of a tool by going on the show, she should have confessed her indiscretions as well.

Tiger Woods needs to publicly come out and address everything. He released a couple statements to the press, however with the whirlwind of negative publicity surrounding him, he should call a press conference to set the record straight about everything. Woods' private life has been fiercely protected and his public image, carefully crafted by the PGA and his sponsors, presents him as someone who would be immune to this kind of attention.

Kobe Bryant was in a similar situation back in 2003. He was the face of many sponsors and of the NBA, and when he was arrested in connection with a sexual assault complaint, he adamantly denied he did anything wrong. When the truth of his affair came out, Bryant held a press conference with his wife by his side, and tearfully admitted he made a mistake in cheating on his wife. He got some negative press, but six years later, basketball fans are talking about how great he is on the court and rarely mention what happened in Eagle, Colorado.

He also needs to set the record straight because the more silent he is, the more people will want to know. For someone as private as Tiger Woods is, it will not be thrilling to be followed wherever he goes by tabloid reporters and paparazzi photographers on top of sports reporters. Some sort of explanation needs to be told, otherwise people will continue to fill in the blanks and create their own Black Friday theories about why Tiger Woods got into an automobile accident at 2:30am.

I know Tiger probably doesn't hear the media way up high on his pedestal, but here's my advice. Whether you had an affair, no affair, or 20 affairs, you need to address the public and tell the truth. This isn't the 1960's, where public figures had their private lives shielded by the media (i.e. President John F. Kennedy); we're living in a 24/7 news cycle where Twitter posts have the potential to grab headlines on ESPN. Tiger, if you're forthcoming about what happened, and if you're truthful and honest about mistakes you've made, most likely fans will forgive you in the long haul.

Back To The Future

2009-11-28T15:55:00.008-05:00

Three days ago, Stephen A. Smith released an exclusive statement on his website from Allen Iverson, in which Iverson announced his retirement from the NBA. In his statement, he thanks people that were instrumental to his career. The last thank you he wrote was to the city of Philadelphia.

"And finally, to the city of Philadelphia: I have wonderful memories of my days in a Sixers’ uniform. To Philly fans, thank you. Your voice will always be music to my ears."

Ironically, the whispers coming from Philadelphia lately are not from the fans; rather, its coming from Philadelphia 76ers front office. This morning, Stephen A. Smith dropped another Iverson exclusive, claiming the Sixers have talked about bringing back Allen Iverson.

For those familiar with my blog, you know I am not a fan of Allen Iverson. He's certifiable proof that a shoot-first point guard who regularly clashes with Head Coaches will never win a NBA Championship.

Not only that, when you look at the track record of teams that got rid of him, all of them made the playoffs after he left. Even with Memphis, they have won three of their last five games and Grizzlies Guard O.J. Mayo recently told Yahoo! Sports the team has begun to show a greater willingness to trust each other.

Back to the Sixers, the split between the team and Iverson was not the cleanest. Iverson had clashed with several coaches, and despite the Sixers' fan base rallying behind him, they were intent on moving him. Ed Snider told ESPN in December of 2006 that Iverson had probably played his last game in a Sixers uniform. The only problem with Snider saying that was it happened live during a Sixers game in which Billy King, General Manager at the time, denied they were looking to move him half an hour prior to Snider's interview.

So why should the Philadelphia 76ers want to bring back Allen Iverson? There are two main reasons.

First, Lou Williams, who was one of the biggest beneficiaries of Iverson being traded away, recently broke his jaw and will be out for eight weeks. Looking at their roster, the only other options at the PG spot are Jrue Holiday, who is a rookie still adapting to the NBA, and Royal Ivey, a backup who won't be scaring any opponents on tape. Given the team's lack of depth for the next two months at Guard, bringing back Iverson, who is not afraid to shoot the ball and move it down the court, would be an immediate improvement over what they currently have.

The other reason is economical. The Sixers are one of the worst draws in the NBA. As Smith pointed out, they are second to last in attendance this season. Even when Iverson was in Philadelphia, the Sixers have had attendance problems.

Average attendance for 76ers games dropped from 20,560 during the '01-'02 season (the year after they made the NBA Finals) to 14,870 during the '07-'08 season. Average attendance did go up the following year to around 15,800, but when your arena has a seating capacity of 21,600, having that many empty seats is fairly noticeable.

And why did attendance drop off so dramatically? The one responsible for the current state of the Philadelphia 76ers is former General Manager Billy King.

It started in the summer of 2003 when he committed 7 years and $50 million to Kenny Thomas, a role player who had a couple decent playoff games. Luckily for the Sixers, Thomas and his horrendous contract were traded away shortly thereafter to the Sacramento Kings in the Chris Webber deal.

King's propensity to throw money at players who don't deserve huge contracts continued. In the summer of 2005, he signed Samuel Dalembert (6 years, $58 million), Kyle Korver (6 years, $27 million), and Willie Green (5 years and $17 million, this after he had recontstrucitve knee surgery) to contract extensions. Because of Billy King's lunacy as a GM, the Sixers are still stuck with Dalembert's and Green's respective contracts and the fact no other NBA team wants to have those contracts on their books. For the record, the Kings and Jazz are both currently stuck with Kenny Thomas' and Kyle Korvers' contracts respectively.

Take into consideration the $80 million contracts current Sixers President and General Manager Ed Stefanski gave Andre Iguodala and Elton Brand, there is a lot of money tied into mediocrity and limited room to add players that can help this team compete. With the Sixers averaging only around 12,000 per game in attendance, they need some help at the box office, preferably the kind that comes relatively cheap.

Allen Iverson might be "The Answer" to this situation and kill two birds with one stone. He signed a $3.1 million contract with Memphis prior to the season and could sign a similar deal with the Sixers. The Sixers need an experienced starting PG who can bring similar offensive numbers to the injured Louis Williams. Additionally, they need someone to boost their fan base. He would not only increase attendance, but would increase merchandise sales as well.

Most importantly, Sixers fans are fiercely loyal to Allen Iverson. Even though he hasn't been with the team in close to three years, many of the Sixers jerseys that fans wear to Sixers games are Iverson jerseys. The fan base looked past his coach-killing, practice-dissing mentality and supported him through his many ups and downs with the organization. They watched him grow and almost lead them to a title.

If it plays out like Stephen A. Smith thinks it could, Allen Iverson could be enjoying the music once more.

Feasting on some Turkey

2009-11-26T10:57:00.009-05:00

First of all, I hope all of my readers are having themselves a very Happy Thanksgiving. It's been a tough year for me personally for a number of reasons, with the latest being a couple posts down, but now everything has calmed down a little bit and I can get back into the swing of things.

In honor of Thanksgiving, I'm starting a new tradition with my blog. On every Thanksgiving, I'm going to be giving out my Turkey of the Year award. This will be presented to a person, group of people, organization, entity, etc. in the sports world that makes a complete mockery of themselves and deserves to have the world know about their foolishness.

There were several candidates for the award this year, such as Allen Iverson, the Oakland Raiders, and Daniel Snyder. The original winner was Major League Baseball, due to the umpiring and the fact that the owners pretty much cosigned such horrific playoff umpiring by voting not to expand instant replay use. It would have taken a lot to take the crown away from Major League Baseball. Somehow, MLB is of the hook because another entity, with a long track record of monopolizing a sport, took it to the next level.

Ladies and Gentleman, I present to you the 2009 Turkey of the Year: The Bowl Championship Series.

The BCS has instituted a full media campaign to combat the annual tradition of BCS bashing from college football fans. They have launched Twitter and Facebook pages to promote their agenda and (attempt to) defend themselves and how their system is run. I don't have a problem with these pages, since it actually shows they listen to college football fans a little bit and engage in a conversation with them.

My main problem with the BCS, and why they have earned the Turkey of the Year Honor is because of a corresponding site they produced to show why the BCS is the only logical solution to crowning a champion. This site, which you can find here, offers so many ridiculous defenses for the BCS. It shows their ignorance towards finding a legit, viable solution to a playoff system and maintains that the status quo is best.

The error in their ways begins on their home page, which criticizes an eight-team playoff bracket which is the most common idea among college football analysts to creating a legit playoff system. In it they pose hypothetical questions about which teams would make it and which teams wouldn't. The ironic thing in all this is that none of the teams mentioned, even though they could win their respective Conference Championships, would not be eligible to play for a National Championship because of their records.

Another problem I have is the assertion by the BCS that a playoff system would "guarantee bigger problems, more controversy, more disappointed teams and more frustrated fans." I hate to inform the BCS this, but like Herm Edwards said once, you play to win the game. You don't see NFL coaches complaining after playoff losses about how unfair the playoff system is. Their team lost, and their season is over; you reflect back on the past season, learn from your mistakes and move on to next year.

I admire the BCS for the feel-good "lets make everyone happy" approach. Unfortunately, you cannot take their point of view seriously when only half of the FBS Conferences are automatically eligible to play for a National championship under the BCS guidelines. If the BCS was truly fair to all FBS schools, Boise State (the winningest Division I football program of the past decade) and TCU would have the same chance to compete for a National Championship that Florida and Texas do.

Their "Facts" and Figures page is another source of ridicule for the BCS. This page is more opinion and figures than actual fact. For example, one of their "Facts" is that college football fans and players love bowls. In literal terms, it is a fact; how it relates to the BCS being a viable solution to determining a national champion is something I'm still trying to figure out. And yes, college football is more popular nowadays, but don't you think a true national championship games, featuring teams that actually earned the right to play for the national championship, would be a ratings blockbuster over two teams that were chosen by a computer?

The biggest issue I have with the BCS' attack on common sense, is their assertion that a playoff system would weaken the importance of the regular season. I do agree that just like in the NFL, if a team wins their conference early, they could get complacent and interest might ween until the playoffs.

The one thing that the BCS doesn't take into account is that many conference battles take place later in the regular season. Also, some schools have long-running rivalry games that will draw interest regardless if it is played in the first or last week of the season. The BCS is implying that if Texas plays Oklahoma or Ohio State plays Michigan late in the season it would be meaningless because playoff berths have been determined.

Are you kidding me? Using the BCS' logic, the 1982 Stanford-Cal game would have been meaningless and neither teams' fans would care because both teams were not playoff eligible, downgrading the overall importance of The Play. This might be a shocker to BCS officials, but it is possible to have great regular season games and not have it diminish the importance of a playoff.

It's these nonsensical arguments that makes the BCS a running joke in the sports world. The worst part about this is their ignorance that any other way of doing things could work; that in their words "The BCS is the best format ever devised to match up the nation’s top two teams in a bowl game."

The reality is that two options were presented within the past year that are not only light-years ahead of anything the BCS could come up with, but offer a viable playoff solution with a National Championship being determined on he field. Sports Illustrated launched their own 16-team bracket, with teams being voted upon by their writers. It's a start in the right direction, but its no match for the other plan, which could not only implement a playoff system that gives every conference a fair chance at a National Championship, but also keep Bowls alive. That would be my plan, which I pitched about a year ago. You can read my plan for a FBS Postseason here and view what a 16-team tournament would have looked like using my plan here.

So here's to you, Bowl Championship Series, on winning the Common Sense Coordinator's Turkey of the Year award. They're not going to change next year, but maybe if they stop with their ridiculously moronic campaign to defend their monopoly on college football, it will at least be a step in the right direction.

The Numbers Game

2009-11-22T21:59:00.006-05:00

Ten days ago, LeBron James announced that next season he would be wearing the number 6. He decided to make the move from #23 to #6 to honor Michael Jordan and all that he has done for the game (on the court). He also decided to urge other players in the NBA to do the same and called for the NBA to retire the #23 league-wide in honor of Jordan.

Now, I grew up idolizing Jordan and those Chicago Bulls teams. Jordan elevated the game of basketball both on and off the court during his playing days. His on-court achievements are well known, but he also brought a sense of professionalism and business to a sport that it hadn't seen prior to his arrival. Jordan's business sense was the blueprint for the modern athlete.

There are two problems I have with James' announcement. First, Michael Jordan is already in the Hall of Fame, which is the pinnacle of a great athlete's career. As great a player as Jordan was, retiring the number 23 is excessive.

Major League Baseball retired the number 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson, who happened to break the color barrier. Jordan, while his achievements are lengthy and his business-sense paved the corporate road for James, Carmelo Anthony, and Dwyane Wade among others, did not have to go through anything like Jackie Robinson had to go through.

Second, LeBron making this pronouncement while switching to the number 6 makes him look uninformed and a hypocrite. If you're going to demand that Jordan's number be retired league-wide, you should switch to a number that doesn't have as rich a history in the NBA as the number 6. Julius Erving (who was Jordan and James' predecessor) and Bill Russell, two members of the 50 Greatest NBA Players of All-Time list, also wore the number six.

Bill Russell's resume includes 12 All-Star Game appearances, 11 NBA titles, and 5 MVP awards. Last year, David Stern announced that the NBA Finals MVP Trophy would be renamed after Russell. Julius Erving, between his time in the ABA and NBA, has 16 All-Star Game appearances, 3 Championships, and 4 MVP awards.

If LeBron James is really a student of the game, he would not have said anything about a league-wide retirement of the #23 after deciding to don the #6. Michael Jordan reacted to James' announcement last week on Ahmad Rashād's show on NBATV, and mentions that if his number is retired league-wide, there have to be others as well.

"Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Bill Russell, all those guys should have their jerseys retired, too," Jordan said, "I understand his gesture, but I am in the same group as those guys so I wouldn't want to see my jersey retired unless you retire those guys. It is a compliment. I totally understand that. I appreciate LeBron for doing that and it is very thoughtful."

The NBA was built by more athletes than Michael Jordan. There were great players before Michel Jordan made his debut and there are great players that have emerged after his retirements. Glancing into my crystal ball, many young basketball players are probably going to be influenced by LeBron James, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, and others.

If we go with retiring the #23, arguments will pop up about different numbers, such as #13 (Wilt Chamberlain's number), #32 (Magic Johnson's number), etc. Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy painted an interesting scenario of what NBA jerseys would look like if the NBA started the practice of retiring jerseys league-wide.

“Pretty soon our players will be wearing 373. All the two-digit numbers will be taken."

Forgot To Mention...

2009-11-09T23:50:00.004-05:00

I forgot to mention this in Quick Hits, but my third professional piece has been published. I was at the Penn Quakers football game on Saturday and wrote a mini feature on the Philadelphia sports scene along with a wrap-up of their demolishing of the Princeton Tigers 42-7. You can find the article here.

Quick Hits (11/9)

2009-11-09T23:29:00.001-05:00

First, I'd like to apologize for not having any columns written within the past week and a half. I was on a roll with four in five days, and still have some more I want to write. That idea came to a halt (literally) when I was on my way to work and this happened:

Someone took a turn too wide and slammed into me. Luckily neither the other driver or myself were seriously hurt in the accident. But because of the amount of pain and the pain medication I was given, writing a column with a full head of steam would have been difficult. Now that I'm back, I have to cover some lost ground. I do have columns lined up and ready to write, such as the UFL review and the god-awful umpiring in the MLB playoffs. As you can already tell, the Tim Donaghy piece I wrote Friday was originally going to be for this edition of Quick Hits, but it would up turning into its own article.

Without further ado...

1) This afternoon it was reported that Allen Iverson is contemplating retirement. The "official" word is that he took a leave of absence from the team to handle a family issue, however unofficially, Iverson is miffed about having to come off the bench and would rather retire than not be in the starting line-up.

I have been an Iverson critic for well over 10 years. Though he can put up a lot of points, he has not fully grasped the concept that basketball is a team game. He came from the era that produced several me-first players such as Stephon Marbury, Glenn Robinson, Tracy McGrady, and Isaiah Rider among others. For all their individual accomplishments, what's the one thing they have in common?

Zero Championship Rings.

With Iverson turning 34 in June, he basically had two options. He could have taken the aging veteran role and accepted a bench role for a team with a realistic chance of winning a championship. Rasheed Wallace signed with the Celtics and is currently coming off the bench for the team with the best record in all the NBA.

The second option was the path he took; pouting and complaining about a team not offering him a starting position on a silver platter and willing to cope with his attitude. He's lucky that the Grizzlies offered him a contract; even Donald Sterling, who, outside of putting together a talented team that can win, will do just about anything to put people in seats, wouldn't offer him a contract.

Pulling this stunt only hurts his value. His best option may be to go overseas for a Josh Childress-like contract and an opportunity to start. The NBA has as much young, talented, and marketable players nowadays and the style of play has changed greatly. Undersized, shoot-first point guards like Iverson and Marbury have been phased out and point guards such as Chris Paul and Deron Williams, who can score AND make their teammates better, have become the new norm.

2) The latest BS, I mean BCS standings came out, and while its good to see that TCU is getting some love, its unfortunate that Boise State is sliding because of their conference opponents. For those of you, who like me, think the BCS discriminates against talented teams stuck in below-average conferences, a smoking gun may have emerged to prove that the BCS conferences are blacklisting Boise State.

An article posted on Yahoo! Sunday morning highlighted an interesting dilemma Boise State has for the 2011 season. All the critics of Boise State and non-BCS teams say that because Boise State doesn't play many competitive teams, they should not get as much BCS consideration as teams within the BCS conferences.

Well, Boise State, the winningest Divison I football program of the past decade, has decided to call the critics bluff. They have an open date and according to Yahoo!, they have reached out to top FBS programs to schedule a game. They have offered to travel to any of the major FBS programs WITHOUT asking for a return game in Boise. You figure that teams such as Florida, Texas, or USC, who are regular at the top of the standings, would jump at the opportunity to prove this team is a fluke and not worthy of being in the discussion as a FBS powerhouse.

Thus far, according to Yahoo!, there have been no takers. ESPN has even thrown their hat in the ring, promising a Prime time game on the World Wide Leader. Still, no response. Florida may wear orange and blue and Texas may wear Orange and White, but those two schools, along with the rest of the BCS schools that have declined this invitation, are showing their true color: yellow.

The collusion and blacklisting that Boise State is facing is proof positive of 1) a conspiracy to prevent non-BCS schools from succeeding in the FBS and 2) a playoff system is desperately needed to level the playing field for all FBS schools and determine a true national champion on the field, not by way of a computer.

Speaking of a playoff, last year I proposed a playoff system and showed how effective it could be with a mock playoff bracket. This column will return in December before bowl time, but to give you a preview of what it'd look like, here's what the rankings would be.

1) Florida/Alabama (depends on who the SEC Champion is) 2) Texas 3) TCU 4) Cincinnati 5) Boise State 6) Georgia Tech 7) Iowa 8) Houston 9) Oregon 10) Central Michigan/Troy (if Central Michigan wins the MAC, they'd get the higher seed) 11) Troy/Temple (If Temple wins the MAC, they'd get the lower seed) 12) Florida/Alabama (depends on who loses the SEC Championship) 13) Utah 14) Pittsburgh 15) Ohio State 16) LSU

3) On Thursday, the Florida Times-Union reported that the city of Jacksonville has resurrected their "Touchdown Jacksonville" campaign. Now, this campaign was the driving force behind Jacksonville being awarded an NFL franchise in 1993. It has been revived this time around because of the lack of interest in Jaguars football. They are regularly blacked out in the region and are last in the league in attendance, even with the third-lowest ticket prices in the league.

Part of the problem has been poor player personnel decisions. They have only had a handful of marketable players who could draw a more wide-spread fan following. The other part of the problem is that Jacksonville is just not a professional football market.

Failure in a city is a tough thing to deal with for commissioners of professional sports leagues. For the NFL, it is an especially tough pill to swallow because football is the most profitable of the four major sports. According to Forbes, 19 NFL franchises are worth at least $1 billion or more.

The problem commissioners have is that some markets are just not compatible with different sports. Professional hockey is a sport that can't succeed in the south because hockey is not among popular sports in the south. Just because there's a professional hockey team in your town doesn't mean you're required to follow them.

The Phoenix Coyotes have been in the red ever since moving to the desert from Winnipeg, and are currently property of the NHL. Gary Bettman, Commissioner of the NHL, is so desperate to keep the team there that he turned down a potential buyer, who would have paid the city of Glendale $50 million in addition to buying the team, because the team would have moved to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Flat out, Jacksonville has proven that it is not a viable NFL market. They have been unable to draw in Jacksonville and should relocate to a market that will not only increase the value of the franchise, but feature a fan-base that actually cares about the success of their franchise.

4) Finally, because an athlete's career is shorter than the regular person's working career, they have to find other ways to make ends meet. Some athletes go with what they know and enter the broadcast booth. Others go onto reality television shows or commercials to promote themselves or other products. For J.J. Redick and Jon Koppenhaver, they have decided to go off the beaten path to bring in some income.

A week and a half ago, news leaked that J.J. Redick was releasing a rap album. While no details have been released about what label his group is signing to or even what his group is called, Redick is hoping to release the first single by the end of the year.

J.J. Redick needs to focus on being a consistent basketball player first before working on his rhymes. In fact, his album should wait until after the NBA season; his focus should be more on improving his free agency value than picking beats for an album. If his rapping abilities are like his poetry writing abilities, he should stick to playing basketball.

On the other end of the spectrum is Jon "War Machine" Koppenhaver. For those unfamiliar with him, he was on the sixth season of "The Ultimate Fighter" and appeared briefly in the UFC after that before being let go. He has amassed a 10-3 record as a professional fighter, not too bad, but he is not contracted with a promotion, so he has been fighting at independent shows. In need of some cash, Koppenhaver decided to get a second job. Like Redick, he chose a path not many would have seen coming.

Porn.

On Halloween, he announced he signed with an agency and started making "movies". Just like John Q. Citizen, he has been hit by the recession and is looking to bring in some extra income to pay the bills. Unlike Redick's schedule, because of the sporadic nature of MMA fights, he actually has the time to perform in scenes while he is training. Just like Redick, he's used to performing in front of large crowds. The only difference now is the kind of fans that recognize him and come up to meet him might be a little more creepy than in the past.

Return of the Rat

2009-11-06T08:57:00.008-05:00

Tim Donaghy, disgraced former NBA referee and certified snitch, was released from prison on Wednesday after serving a 15 month sentence for his role in a gambling scandal. Prior to being sent to prison, Donaghy, in response to the NBA changing their mind and asking for restitution, ratted out the NBA for supposed crooked officiating (the formal legal document can be found here). He was found guilty and sentenced to prison.

While he was in prison, he was attacked with a paint roller by someone associated with the New York Mafia. You figure after cooperating with authorities and having the world know you were a government informant, that you'd try to avoid the headlines and move forward with your life after prison.

Guess again.

While in prison, he started writing a tell-all about his involvements with gambling off the court, and more disturbingly, on the court. As snitches usually do, they go into great detail about other people and their misdeeds. In this case, he talked about how other refs had vendettas against certain star athletes and they made in-game bets with each other, such as whoever called the first foul would have to buy dinner after the game.

His book, "Blowing the Whistle" was supposed to be published this week, however Random House decided against it after the NBA complained about the book's content. This did not stop excerpts of the book from leaking online; Deadspin posted passages from the book last Wednesday.

A couple things. First, if I'm the NBA, why should I be concerned about a fiction book being a best seller? If NBA refs were stupid enough to make these in-game bets and affect the outcome of games, don't you think this would have been discovered a long time ago? Unlike Major League Baseball, NBA refs are subject to review, punishment, and in rare cases, open criticism from David Stern. In fact, according to Stern, the FBI looked into his allegations after his deposition and found NOTHING. Here's what Stern had to say about the situation.

"He turned on basically all of his colleagues in an attempt to demonstrate that he is not the only one who engaged in criminal activity...The U.S. Attorney's office, the FBI, have fully investigated it, and Mr. Donaghy is the only one who is guilty of a crime. And he's going to be sentenced for that crime, regardless of these desperate attempts to implicate as many people as he can."

Second, if these allegations were real, don't you think the Federal Government would have looked further in-depth into the NBA when Donaghy initially gave his deposition? Although our government has their plate full with trying to get the United States back on track, affecting the outcome of sporting events is a pretty serious crime, especially when tax payers are often the ones footing the bills for stadiums and arenas.

If there was any merit to the book excerpts that leaked, I'm sure one member of the United States government, especially one from the Sacramento area, would have spoken out publicly and called for an investigation. After all, Congress provided us with some entertaining baseball steroid hearings. In fact, Bob Delany, who was one of the three referees that worked the infamous Game Six of the 2002 Western Conference Finals, was never contacted by David Stern or Federal Authorities about his role in potentially fixing that game.

Third, Tim Donaghy owes a lot of money to a lot of people. He and the two other co-conspirators owe the NBA $217,000. They also have to pay another $149,000 in fines. Donaghy himself has to pay an additional $46,000 in fines. As someone once said, controversy creates cash. Having a book published with salacious details about gambling and fixing games would be a great read and would peak peoples interest. The juicier the details, the more books are sold, and the more Tim Donaghy profits from the situation, even if it involves making things up

Bob Delany, the referee I mentioned earlier who worked as a New Jersey State Trooper prior to becoming a basketball referee, dealt with many snitches as a State Trooper and put it best when interviewed by ESPN last year.

"This is not the first time a known or convicted criminal has lied about me before the judicial system. I have an extensive law enforcement background and still train police officers. I have dealt with criminals and informants, and I know full well they are capable of doing and saying anything."

If Tim Donaghy wants to peddle his novel around to gather the cash needed to pay people off, he's more than welcome to. However, if I were Donaghy, I'd invest some of that cash in having some full-time security. Ratting out the NBA is one thing, but if he's going to go in-depth about the gambling connection in this, that prison attack will be like a slap on the wrist compared to what could be coming his way.

The Infamous 30 Words or Less NBA Preview: 2009 Edition

2009-10-26T20:50:00.006-04:00

This has become a yearly feature on blogs I have written for. Every year, you have entire magazines and pages of websites dedicated to previewing and forecasting each NBA team and how they will perform in the upcoming season. For NBA junkies like me, it's great, but for casual fans, it can be a lot to digest. This is where I come in.

My column was the original "get right to the point" sentence fragments, years before Twitter took off. Sometimes I'm on the money, such as predicting 12 of the 16 playoff teams, pointing out LeBron James won't win a championship until he gets a better front court, and how old San Antonio was getting. Other times, I'm way off base, such as predicting the Los Angeles Clippers to make the playoffs, the Atlanta Hawks to miss the playoffs, and the Philadelphia 76ers being the second best team in the Eastern Conference.

This year I'm going to do things a little different. Instead of going through alphabetically, I'm going to rank them by conference, one through fifteen. I won't be predicting records this year, but I will be providing my predictions on who will win awards at the end of the year.

Without further ado...

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Cleveland Cavaliers: LeBron James, Contract Year. Those words alone make them top three in East. Addition of Shaq will prove more beneficial in postseason than regular season.

Boston Celtics: Very talented with deep bench, but majority of team getting up there in age. Marquis Daniels signing most underrated move in the off season.

Orlando Magic: Vince Carter has never been on a team this talented. Deep front court will come in handy when battling to return to NBA Finals.

Atlanta Hawks: Solidified bench with Jamal Crawford and Joe Smith. Still a young squad with room to develop. They are improving but have a ways to go before being considered conference elite.

Toronto Raptors: Bringing on Turkoglu and his playoff experience will benefit this team. Make or Break year for Chris Bosh. He's in contract year and needs to prove he's a leader.

Washington Wizards: Miller and Foye bring shooting depth to team. It's scary when your $111 million man has played only 15 out of 164 possible games in past two season.

Miami Heat: Dwayne Wade should have been MVP last year and will put up similar numbers this contract year. He needs significant help from rest of team for them to be successful.

Chicago Bulls: Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah need to keep developing. Last year's classic with Boston gave them experience, unfortunately top of the conference got better. Could be players at trade deadline.

Detroit Pistons: Overhauled most of the roster between start of last year and this season. Need some time to gel. When Kwame Brown is your starting Center, you are in trouble.

Philadelphia 76ers: Louis Williams is no Andre Miller. Andre Iguodala is not someone you build a team around. This team is not deep or talented enough to sneak into playoffs this year.

Charlotte Bobcats: Tyson Chandler was a good pickup and could be trade bait due to being in a contract year. Larry Brown finally has his team, but it won't be good enough.

Indiana Pacers: Danny Granger and T.J. Ford will keep them competitive. They have a lot of long-term money tied up with mediocre players. Going nowhere fast.

New Jersey Nets: Have a talented and young nucleus with Devin Harris, Brook Lopez, and Courtney Lee. Unfortunately not enough talent to compete for next season or two.

New York Knicks: Fun to watch? Yes. Talented enough to make a playoff run? No. The summer of 2010 can't come fast enough.

Milwaukee Bucks: Michael Redd is a great shooter but not someone to build a franchise around. Going to be a long winter in Milwaukee.

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Los Angeles Lakers: Ron Artest in Los Angeles is going to be fun to watch. On the court? He and the Lakers should have no problem going deep in the playoffs.

San Antonio Spurs: Smart drafting and picking up Richard Jefferson helped them get younger and deeper. If they can stay healthy, they have the best shot at dethroning the Lakers.

Portland Trail Blazers: This is the year they get over the hump and win the division. Greg Oden needs to step up and prove he was worth the years of hype he received.

Dallas Mavericks: This team is not getting younger and they should be playing with a sense of desperation. Marion and Gooden were solid additions. Could give the Spurs a scare.

Denver Nuggets: Have the confidence from last season, but when others in the Conference made moves, they stayed pat. That could come back to haunt them come playoff time.

Utah Jazz: Boozer will put up numbers in a contract year. If he's in Utah for the entire season is debatable. Will have to overachieve to make an impact in playoffs.

Phoenix Suns: Will be running again without having Shaq slow them down. Didn't help them win a title before Shaq and won't help them win one now.

Los Angeles Clippers: They had talent to compete before injuries decimated them last season. With Blake Griffin in the fold, they can raise some eyebrows this season...if they stay healthy.

New Orleans Hornets: Chris Paul will keep this team competitive. Okafur puts up good numbers but hasn't had time to gel with new team. Lacks the depth for a playoff run this season.

Oklahoma City Thunder: If their potential doesn't scare teams, their youth and talent will. Need a vet or two with postseason experience before they make it there.

Houston Rockets: Ariza is a suitable replacement for Artest, but no replacements for production Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady provide. Team reminds me of '96-97 Spurs, which might not be so bad.

Golden State Warriors: They have a talented team and some youth. Unfortunately with Stephen Jackson wanting out, Nellie still the Head Coach, and questionable ownership decisions, dysfunction reigns in the Bay.

Memphis Grizzlies: Tale of two teams. The younger players have the talent to compete every night. The two egomaniacs, Randolph and Iverson, kill any chance of strong locker room chemistry.

Minnesota Timberwolves: If David Kahn's horrendous draft didn't destroy any hope they had of being competitive this season, Kevin Love breaking his hand did.

Sacramento Kings: Tyreke Evans and Kevin Martin make a good backcourt. Too bad the rest of the team lacks their talent. Going to be another long season for the Kings.

EASTERN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP: Cleveland Cavaliers over Boston Celtics
WESTERN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP: Los Angeles Lakers over Portland Trail Blazers
NBA FINALS: Los Angeles Lakers over Boston Celtics

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER: LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers
COACH OF THE YEAR: Nate McMillan, Portland Trail Blazers
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Blake Griffin, Los Angeles Clippers
SIXTH MAN: Lamar Odom, Los Angeles Lakers
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Dwight Howard, Orlando Magic

Reviewing the "Next Gambling Mecca"

2009-10-25T19:37:00.007-04:00

In May, I wrote about the possible effects of legalized sports betting in Delaware. In the article, I wrote about sports betting being legalized in Delaware and the possibility of Delaware becoming a future hot spot for gamblers.

Well, five months later, while covering the college football game between the University of Massachusetts and University of Delaware (which you can read my recap here), I had some time to kill before the game and decided to pay a visit to Delaware Park Racetrack and Casino and check out the sports betting parlor to see if it lived up to the hype.

The first thing I noticed immediately as I walked into the casino was that it was smoke free. Not just the lobby, but the entire inside of the building is 100% smoke free. This was a sigh of relief considering many of the casinos I have been to in the Philadelphia area and in Connecticut allow smoking pretty much anywhere. Being able to walk into and out of a casino without smelling like an ash tray was a definite plus. The building itself is a very deep building. The part of the casino containing slots is fairly narrow, but the length of the casino is pretty long. This normally wouldn't have been an issue, but I had broken a toe the week before, and thus moving around was not my strong suit at that time.

One of the more disappointing aspects of the casino was the lack of diversity among the gaming options. Granted, there were several varieties of slot machines, but unlike Philadelphia Park, which has a decent collection of video Roulette and Blackjack, there were very few non-slot options. They did have an actual computer-controlled roulette wheel, but very limited video machines.

Another issue I had with the gaming options was their video poker area. Delaware Park's video poker area is set up on a stage towards the back of the casino, near their entertainment stage. Their video poker area had a nice selection of video poker options, however the machines were packed together, and would have been uncomfortable had it been more packed.

One good thing about Delaware Park was their selection of food. Unlike Philadelphia Park, where the food options are fairly hidden from the public view, Delaware Park's food options are in the middle of the gaming floors, making it easy to grab a snack or sit down for a meal in between gambling.

As I walked towards the end of the casino, I approached the room that caused a National uproar earlier this year. As I walked into the Sports Book the first thing I noticed was how spacious it was. Compared to the Gaming area, the Sports Book had a lot of room to maneuver. On one half of the room, there was the horse betting, and the other half featured sports betting. Now, because single-game betting is not (yet) legal in Delaware, they have parlays. To place a bet, you not only have to pick a minimum of three games, but you have to win every bet you make in order to collect any winnings.

They have three different options to choose from: Half-Point Parlay, Teaser, and Super Teaser. The Half-Point Parlay is betting on the spread, whether a team will cover or not. For the Teaser Card, favored teams have to cover fewer points in order to win any money. In addition, Underdogs teams receive more points. Super Teasers are essentially the same as the regular teaser except the lines are more narrow than Teasers.

I decided to try my hand at a four-team and seven-team parlay. The cards you use to place the bets are similar to scan-tron tests used in school. Every team is assigned a number, and you fill out the team numbers at the bottom of the card, along with the number of teams you are betting on and the amount of money you are betting.

On the Saturday I went, there were about 4 lines open for sports betting, each having a decent amount of people waiting to make their bets. When you get to the front of the line, they take your card and insert it into their machine, where it reads the numbers you filled out at the bottom of the card. When it is finished reading your selections, you receive a lottery-ticket like paper which has your bets on it.

Unfortunately for me, both cards I had were losers. If I had hit both the four-team and seven-team parlays, I would have won close to $1,000. To get a true gauge on how busy it gets, I'll have to return on game-day, when they have every game on for people to watch. Given that this is the first year of NFL betting, there is plenty of room for Delaware to develop more betting options, and for that matter, more sports to bet on. Being barred from authorizing single-game betting is a drawback, however in time I have a feeling this will change once the books are opened and show what kind of revenue sports betting can bring. If Delaware Park can improve the non-slot machine options on the casino floor, it might be able to live up to the potential I talked about in May.

If You Build It, Will They Come?

2009-10-23T16:59:00.008-04:00

Yesterday, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the signing of a bill allowing the construction of a 75,000-seat stadium in Industry, CA. Industry is about a half hour away from Los Angeles, Anaheim, and Pomonoa. The ultimate goal of this stadium is to lure an NFL team back to the Los Angeles market, which has not had a NFL team since the Raiders and Rams left town after the 1994 season.

Now, ideally for the NFL, One of the three California teams (San Diego Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Oakland Raiders) to Los Angeles. Logistically, it would make the most sense for one of those teams to move, since no realignment would be necessary to accommodate the move. Ironically, all three teams are in the midst of stadium disputes and have been looking for newer venues to play in. Plus, they are on the list of potential teams that Majestic Realty Company, the developer of the stadium, is targeting to bring to Los Angeles. The other four teams are the Buffalo Bills, Jacksonville Jaguars, Minnesota Vikings, and St. Louis Rams.

The good news about all this is Majestic is planning on funding the majority of this venture privately. Of the $800 million it would cost, only about $150 million would be funded by the general public, in the form of bonds to pay for improvements in the infrastructure. Those bonds would be paid off over time with parking and ticket revenue.

There are two issues with this situation that are puzzling. The NFL misses being in the second biggest television market, however the second biggest television market doesn't necessarily miss the NFL. With USC football selling out the Rose Bowl every Saturday and with the resurgence of Los Angeles baseball, coupled with a rising Los Angeles Kings squad and the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, there are plenty of distractions for a Los Angeles sports fan. That doesn't include all of the other pastimes in the City of Angels, such as sightseeing, going to the beach, shopping, and plastic surgery.

The other issue is the people involved with this operation have not learned from the recent past. Tampa, Florida went through this in the 90's with Tropicana Field. The Stadium was completed in 1990, solely on the chance of a Major League Baseball team coming to Tampa. Though the San Francisco Giants and Seattle Mariners contemplated a move to Tampa in the early 90's, the stadium went without a baseball tenant (the Tampa Bay Lightning briefly played there in the mid 90's) for seven years until the Devil Rays started play in 1997.

Because Tropicana Field sat there for seven years, it needed an additional $70 million in upgrades to get it ready for baseball. Unfortunately, by the time the Devil Rays started play there, the stadium was already considered outdated with the emergence of throwback baseball stadiums like Camden Yards in Baltimore.

It's great that Los Angeles wants to build a football stadium, but the state should hold off on a stadium until they know for sure a team can relocate to Los Angeles. This has the potential to backfire on them if none of the seven teams decide that relocation would be necessary to improve the prospects of their franchises.

Quick Hits (10/22)

2009-10-22T19:36:00.009-04:00

1) The first BCS standings were publicly released on Sunday. In one sense, I was surprised at how balanced they seemed. I would have expected several overrated SEC teams to occupy spaces that deserving teams (with this years examples being Iowa and Boise State) being left out in the dust. I'm glad that Boise State and Iowa are getting their shine.

However, as I have pointed out before, the BCS system for determining who gets to play for a national championship is absurd and should be abolished as quick as legally possible. I wrote about how to implement a successful college playoff system in FBS and keep the importance of the Bowl Games. I then proceeded to demonstrate what a FBS playoff would have looked like last year and how exciting it would have been. I will be doing the FBS playoff column again this year, although I will be amending my stance on the Bowl games.

Despite what the major conferences and the networks want you to think, it discriminates against talented teams and punishes them because of the conferences they play in. If the Bowl Championship Series provided equal opportunity for every FBS team to participate in a potential championship game, then the best FBS team in the past decade would have made at least an appearance in the BCS Championship Game.

By the way, what is that FBS team that has the highest winning percentage during the past decade? I'll give you a hint. It's not Florida, USC, Oklahoma, Texas, or Ohio State. Give up? It's Boise State, currently 114-20 since the start of the 1999 season.

2) Last week I wrote about Washington Redskins Owner Daniel Snyder and how he is destroying the Washington Redskins franchise. Unfortunately for Snyder, he did not read my Quick Hits column and has continued to further damage the reputation of his franchise. Last week, the organization decided to strip play-calling duties from Head Coach Jim Zorn and give them to Sherm Lewis, who had come out of a 5 year retirement.

Now, an idiotic move like this speaks volumes for itself; I don't need to go in-depth with it because others connected to the organization have taken some pretty good (and extremely well-deserved) shots at Daniel Snyder.

First up is Steve Largent, who is friends with Redskins Head Coach Jim Zorn. He mentioned on his radio show that he felt Snyder wanted Zorn to quit because then the organization wouldn't be liable for his contract. Then it turned to Snyder and he had this to say:

"I don't know what a 'Dan Snyder coach' looks like, and I don't think Dan Snyder knows what a 'Dan Snyder coach' looks like. And that's fairly obvious now that he's been through about six head coaches in 10 years. The formula that the Redskin owner and the Redskin general manager have for producing a winner on the field is not a winning formula, meaning that they can't make all the decisions on the coaches and on the personnel and then just hire some guy from off the street to be the head coach and win with what they put on the field. Because it doesn't work, and that's been proven for 10 years in a row."

Next up to bat is Washington Redskins legend John Riggins, who took aim at Snyder with this quote:

"This is almost a hostage situation. This franchise has been taken hostage by someone who has the mindset of a child. Because everything revolves around them, and it's going to be difficult until that mental adjustment is made; that adjustment in personality. But that's going to be a lot of sessions on the couch with somebody."

And finally, I saved the best for last. John Kent Cooke, son of former Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke. When Jack Kent Cooke passed away, the team was left to a foundation who were to then sell the team, eventually selling it to Snyder. Needless to say, John Kent Cooke is not happy with the direction Snyder has gone with the franchise:

"Dan Snyder destroyed the reputation of this franchise...I sure as hell don't like the way he gutted the organization after we left. And he commercialized the Redskins like my father would have never commercialized the Redskins. People brought cushions and pennants to the games. You know how they got those? My father gave them out at fan appreciation days...Suing season ticket holders? My God, it's embarrassing. We would have never done such a thing."

Only one time in my column have I called for the banning of an individual from a sport. In that case, the ABA's Joe Newman has destroyed the credibility of his league and of Minor League Basketball in the United States by his actions. Redskins fans, I hope you agree with me that it is time to urge Daniel Snyder to sell the Washington Redskins to someone that truly cares about the game of football and is knowledgeable about what it takes to run a functional NFL team.

3) It's well documented in the Philadelphia area about what Philadelphia sports fans think of Kobe Bryant. Though he grew up in Europe while his father played basketball, Kobe Bryant went to High School in the Philadelphia area.

From the start, he was often criticized for being a primadona. For his Senior Prom, he decided to bring R&B singer Brandy as his date, which drew a lot of criticism from the media at that time. He then forced the Charlotte Hornets to trade him (remember, he was actually the 13th pick of the draft that year) to Los Angeles. In 2001, his Los Angeles Lakers beat the Philadelphia 76ers 4-1 to win the NBA Finals in Philadelphia. The following year, the NBA All-Star game was in Philadelphia and the Philly fans booed him out of the Arena. In the average Philadelphia fan's mind, Kobe felt he was bigger than this city and basically went Hollywood on the locals.

During Game Two of the NLCS, TBS caught up with Kobe Bryant, who was wearing a Dodgers hat and rooting them on. Now, I don't have a problem with him wearing a Dodgers hat and supporting them. He's had a Los Angeles State of Mind for over a decade, and I'm sure Dodgers supported the Lakers when they were in the Finals.

Kobe then proceeded to announce in that interview he was actually a New York Mets fan. Now, most Phillies fans I talked to were outraged by this development, but again, this did not faze me. His favorite player was Darryl Strawberry, and proceeded to root for the Mets. I was a huge Michael Jordan fan in the early and mid-90's and proceeded to root for the Chicago Bulls. It's a violation he's a Mets fan wearing a Dodgers hat, but that's not the problem I have with Kobe. Below is the problem I have with Kobe.

How are you going to go out in public wearing a shirt of yourself? On top of that, you're fist-pumping wearing a shirt which shows yourself fist-pumping. Sorry Kobe, you can get away with rooting for the Dodgers and having the Mets be your favorite team, but wearing a shirt of yourself out in public is on a new level of ego.

4) Kudo's to Deadspin for their coverage of the Steve Phillips controversy. For those not aware, Steve Phillips took a leave of absence from ESPN because of an affair he had with a 22-year old ESPN employee. Deadspin had the story first but, no pun intended, slept on it until details could be verified.

Deadspin went one step further and outlined some of the more lurid details about what happens in Bristol, CT if you work for the "World Wide Leader". As someone once told me, you need to be honest with yourself because what is in the dark always comes to light.

Someone should have told this to ESPN Radio Personality (and overall Tool) Erik Kuselias, ESPN's Senior Vice President of Marketing Katie Lacey, and other involved in numerous other indiscretions happening in Bristol.

Just like the Ben Roethlisberger situation, which I called out ESPN for their late coverage, ESPN issued their own denial of the situation, but the firestorm has already begun. Fanhouse has an excellent piece discussing the legality of the situation.

More often than not, in cases like these, where someone is ridiculously defamed like this, there won't be any lawsuits. Why? Because in these situations, if they were to go to court, there's the potential for it to backfire on the person or company filing the lawsuit. If this kind of information leaks, imagine what could come out in the court of law.

This goes to show that a second major nationwide Sports Network is needed to counterbalance some of the bias ESPN delivers on their media platforms. With Comcast looking to purchase NBC/Universal, they would be smart to jump on top of this situation.

5) As I announced on my Twitter page, I have a slew of columns coming within the next couple weeks. I had thought about doing a piece on the horrible umpiring in the MLB playoffs, but then Game Four of the ALCS happened, and I figure with the way these playoffs are shaping up, there is bound to be some more horrible calls, so that column will be coming after the World Series wraps up.

Tomorrow, I'll post my take on the new NFL stadium that was approved for Los Angeles. Monday I will post the infamous 30 words or less NBA preview. There's also a piece on Delaware State football and their decision to play Michigan that will be posted next week.

Stay Tuned....

Quick Hits (10/14)

2009-10-14T21:31:00.003-04:00

Back in the saddle after my 4th trip to New England in the last two months, so lets get right to the Hits.

1) I led off Quick Hits three weeks ago with my take on Danica Patrick. At the time, she was contemplating making the jump to NASCAR even though she hasn't racked up many accomplishments in her time with the IRL. I felt she wasn't ready to make the jump and should stick around a couple years to further improve her racing.

I applaud Danica Patrick for reading my Quick Hits column and thinking things over. Nine days after I wrote that she should stay with IndyCar, she signed a three-year extension to stay with Andretti Green Racing. Hopefully during the life of that extension, she can win a couple more races and solidify herself as a dominant force in racing rather than someone who can appear in commercials.

2) With this blog, I dispense common sense where it is most needed. Most of the time I pick overlooked aspects of topics repeatedly brought up over and over again, such as the media's worshiping of Brett Favre. Then there are some topics that I don't even touch because they either a) need more help than I can give them or b) it's so blatantly obvious there's a problem that it doesn't need to be pointed out.

The Oakland Raiders fall into both categories.

The laughingstock of the NFL for the past six years added another black eye to its resume of missteps when Yahoo! reported that Raiders Head Coach Tom Cable could be arrested for assaulting one of his Coordinator's in a meeting during breaking camp. In that meeting, Cable allegedly punched Assistant Coach Randy Hanson in the jaw and subsequently broke his jaw. Hanson later said to Yahoo! that Cable shouted at him "I'll (bleeping) kill you! I'll (bleeping) kill you!"

Al Davis had ran the team into the ground with absurd player personnel moves and operating a Head Coaching Carousel, but this is the icing on the cake for me. Al Davis needs to sell this team to someone that not only cares about winning football games, but putting together a quality team on and off the field. Davis, who was once a pioneer in his early days with the Raiders, has now become completely delusional; you know he's at the point of no return when he says that he won't retire until he wins two more Super Bowls.

If Matt Millen never took a front office job with the Detroit Lions, Al Davis would easily be the worst Player Personnel decision maker in the NFL for the past 10-15 years. I understand that Commissioner Roger Goodell can only do so much to punish an owner, however at some point, he needs to take Old Yeller behind the shed and put him out of his misery. In some cases, it's better to destroy and rebuild from the ground up rather than having the same mentality hang over new decision makers.

3) Speaking of out of control owners that need to face themselves in the mirror, kudos to Carlos Rogers of the Washington Redskins for calling out Redskins owner Daniel Snyder and pointing out he is as much to blame for their early struggles as the players.

Normally, I'd point out how stupid a decision it is to call out the guy that signs your paycheck, but in the case of Daniel Snyder, I'll give Rogers a pass. Snyder is a great businessman who has made the Redskins the most profitable team in the NFL. He has made great business decisions to make the Redskins brand worth an estimated $1.6 billion according to Forbes. But sometimes, you have to call a spade a spade, and point out the blatantly obvious.

When it comes to football related decisions, he's terrible. Flat out terrible.

Daniel Snyder is great at throwing money at big name free agents to fill those seats at FedEx Field. It is ironic though that for such a great business man, he gets zero ROI (Return On Investment) from the majority of his free agent signings. Not to mention he runs a Head Coaching Carousel that's worse than Al Davis. In the 12 years he's owned the team, he's had six different head coaches. Because of the amount of players on a football team, unity is a strong factor in being successful. When you're replacing Head Coaches as often as he is, continuity is not going to be there. history is going to repeat itself this off-season when Zorn will be fired and be replaced by another highly touted head coach who will underachieve like everyone else before them.

Dan, you can blame whoever you want for your organization's underachievement for the past dozen years. You can blame Head Coach Jim Zorn, Jason Campbell, Carlos Rogers, the towel boy, etc. but the fact remains that because you don't have a clue as to what you are doing on the football end of things, and at the end of the day, you're the one who put the team together and signs the paychecks. Maybe you should have a GM in there that knows a thing or two about building a successful football team.

4) The latest edition of "The Ultimate Fighter" premiered last month, and I got to give credit to Kimbo Slice and Dana White. When Slice was Main Eventing for the now-defunct EliteXC, White was his most vocal critic. When the promotion folded, White was asked if he would sign Slice, to which he responded only if he won "The Ultimate Fighter".

Well, Kimbo took Dana White on his word, and he's currently competing on the latest edition of TUF featuring Heavyweights. While Kimbo looked unimpressive in his first fight with Roy "Big Country" Nelson, which he lost by TKO. The remarkable thing about this fight was that even though it was an exhibition fight, it was one of the most-watched MMA matches in U.S. history according to Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports.

I've praised Dana White's business sense multiple times on my blog, and taking advantage of the Kimbo Slice hype to increase viewership even more was another brilliant business decision. Even if Slice does not get that contract with UFC in December, he has increased his exposure and become a better fighter in the process. It also increased the amount of casual fans that would watch UFC programming if it was on television. Dana White knows a good business decision when he sees one, even if he may have to go against his word, and kudos to him for making decisions for the good of the sport.

5) As you know, I've had not one, but two professionally published articles within the past two weeks (if you haven't checked out the second one yet, here it is), which unfortunately has taken its toll on the blog. Luckily, I have a couple columns in the works for the next couple weeks, including the infamous NBA previews. Stay tuned.

Start of Something Big

2009-09-30T20:43:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned in the previous Quick Hits column, my major website debut was going to be in the near future. Well, I'm extremely proud to say that my first professionally published article is finished and online. You can check it out here.

It's about the emergence of the Bryant University football program, which plays at the FCS level. I'm extremely excited that I am finally getting the opportunity to prove that I can take what I bring to this blog and bring it to a news outlet. There are other column ideas I have, which I will write, however they would not get in the way of topics I cover on my blog.

I am heading out of town tomorrow afternoon, so Quick Hits will be delayed until Monday. In that edition, I will touch on Danica Patrick, Kimbo Slice, Phoenix Coyotes, and Florida A&M.

Paving the Road to Redemption

2009-09-26T16:53:00.006-04:00

"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us." - Alexander Graham Bell

Tomorrow afternoon will mark the first time in close to three years that Eagles Quarterback Michael Vick has stepped onto a football field in a meaningful game. This has generated a lot of emotion from both sides of the argument. Animal rights activists protested his signing while Civil Rights groups defended Vick's right to resume a career. Everyone and their grandmother has an opinion about whether he should play football again. My take on the situation goes beyond Michael Vick, beyond the football field, in fact, for the most part, it goes beyond sports itself.

In the eyes of the United State Government and the National Football League, Michael Vick has served his time. What Vick and his associates did to those dogs were cruel and heinous; there's no denying that. Animal Rights activists and the Anti-Vick crowd have been pointing out that because Vick is now gainfully employed, he has shown no remorse towards his actions and only regrets being caught.

If this were anyone other than Michael Vick, they'd probably be right. However, they ignore what he exactly lost. To start, he lost $96 million in potential salary alone, not to mention any bonuses he could achieve on the field that could add to that. Vick had several endorsement deals that either were suspended or terminated including Nike, EA Sports, Coca-Cola, Powerade, Kraft, Rawlings, and Hasbro. He also had to pay back the Atlanta Falcons $20 million of his $37 million signing bonus. Most importantly though, he lost the respect of the football community. He was the face of Atlanta athletics, and over six months, his reputation hit rock bottom and then some. If jail time didn't provide him a reason for remorse, losing everything definitely did.

Since the Eagles signed him a month ago, Michael Vick has been a model citizen in the city of Philadelphia. He has been humble and has shown a greater appreciation for being part of a team than he did while he was with the Falcons. Though he is a backup, he is learning much more on how to be a QB from Eagles Offensive Coordinator Marty Mornhinweg than he had in the past, where he had to rely heavily on his athleticism. On top of all this, he has been out in the community making speeches to inner city schools and reaching out to community activists to stress the importance of having the right people around you and the importance of family.

Despite this, Animal Rights Activists are still on his case. Short of marrying a Golden Retriever, there is nothing Michael Vick can do to redeem himself. To put it bluntly, they need to get over it. I respect their passion over the situation, but at the end of the day, they are animals. They shouldn't be abused, but their lives should not be placed ahead of human beings. This is where I have my problem with the protesters.

My problem is with these people who openly criticize Michael Vick being allowed back in the NFL, but keep their mouths shut about more serious issues that athletes involve themselves with. It's disturbing that more people are outraged with Michael Vick than what happened with Donté Stallworth and Leonard Little.

Though the two incidents were separated by 11 years, they are alarmingly similar. Both players wound up driving drunk and killing people (Little in 1998 and Stallworth in 2009). Vick got 23 months in jail and house arrest for killing dogs. What did Little and Stallworth get for killing someone while behind the wheel drunk?

114 days of prison. Combined.

Not only was their prison time served a joke, but Little was actually arrested AGAIN for a DUI in 2004 and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said he would reinstate Stallworth after this season. Now, ask yourself this question:

Where are the protesters?

Where have the protesters been in St. Louis to protest Leonard Little being a part of the team? Where are the protesters in Cleveland calling for the Browns to terminate Donté Stallworth's contract? Where is MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) protesting the NFL offices calling for harsher punishment for Stallworth?

It's embarrassing that American's have given two people who have killed people while drunk a pass, but are up in arms over Michael Vick getting a second chance. Vick has lost over $100 million in potential income and has paid his debts to the United States and National Football League. People may not forgive or forget what he and his associates did to those dogs, but he has a right to move on with his life.

Quick Hits (9/16)

2009-09-16T23:06:00.003-04:00

Sorry for missing a week. I have been under the weather, and topped that off with a Bachelor Party Road Trip to Foxwoods. Here are the hits, although this time I have 2 big announcements at the end.

1) Last Sunday, sources revealed to ESPN that Danica Patrick was "all but certainly" going to be a part of NASCAR for the 2010 season. She would be participating in Nationwide and Camping World races along with IRL races mixed in. Eventually, she's going to make the jump to the Sprint Cup and become the first woman driver in NASCAR Sprint Cup history.

Patrick is a fairly well-known product endorser and her participation in NASCAR will bring in more casual fans curious to see if she can succeed. The problem I have with her move to NASCAR, even if its just the Nationwide and Camping World Circuits, is that she hasn't accomplished enough in the IRL to warrant making the move to NASCAR. In the close to five years Patrick has been in the IRL, she has participated in 79 races. Of those races, she has won only one race. This season, out of the 15 races thus far, she has only finished in the top five in a third of them.

Danica has improved her driving since she started. Every year since she's started she's improved in the point standings. In 2005, she finished 12th overall in the point standings. In 2009, with two races left, she's currently 5th in the overall point standings. The only thing is that winning one race in 5 years is a glaring weakness for someone looking to make the move to better competition. If she were dominating the IRL like LeBron James was dominating High School basketball, then yes, I'd say she's more than ready to make a jump into NASCAR. However, because of the lack of victory laps, I think she needs another year or two of continued improvement before she starts thinking about jumping to another racing circuit.

2) Last Wednesday, Allen Iverson and the Memphis Grizzlies agreed upon a one year contract. Iverson had not been heavily sought after this offseason due to his age and his high opinion of himself as a contributor.

This has disaster written all over it. For the Grizzlies sake, I hope GM Chris Wallace has a lot of Aspirin in his office. Between Zach Randolph and Allen Iverson, you have two locker room cancers that are not afraid to disrupt team chemistry if they do not see the ball enough. Having cancers like them as your veteran leadership has to potential to have a detrimental effect on the development of their younger talent, such as OJ Mayo, Rudy Gay, and Marc Gasol.

There are two good things I can actually see coming from this situation. One, more fans will start going to Memphis Grizzlies games. They have been struggling for attendance for years, and Iverson is a proven box office draw. Second, once Iverson leaves Memphis, the Grizzlies will perform a lot better than when he was on the team. See Philadelphia and Denver as examples of teams that have done better without Iverson than with him.

As you can tell, I'm not an Iverson fan. Like I've mentioned on this blog before, Allen Iverson, along with Brett Favre and Larry Brown are members of the Common Sense Coordinator's Hall of Sham. One day, I will write the official Hall of Sham piece where I will formally induct them.

3) Yesterday, the Philadelphia Eagles signed Jeff Garcia to backup Kevin Kolb for this Sunday's game against Kansas City. Donovan McNabb has a broken rib and is most likely not going to play. With Michael Vick suspended and McNabb not being able to play, they were left with Kolb as their only active quarterback.

When Kevin Kolb was drafted, I felt it was a mistake. Though McNabb was coming off the ACL tear, he had not even turned 30 yet and the Eagles made it look like Kolb was brought in to eventually replace their star quarterback. Not to mention that Kolb played in a Spread Offense while at Houston, which is much different than the West Coast Offense the Eagles employ.

Kolb has had some opportunities to prove he's a viable NFL Quarterback, most notably last season at Baltimore and last Sunday against Carolina. In the Baltimore game, McNabb was struggling and was benched at half-time, while in the Carolina game, McNabb broke his rib in the 3rd Quarter. Kolb had every chance to prove himself in both games. And what did he do?

17-34, 96 yards, 2 interceptions and 1 fumble.

The Philadelphia Eagles window of opportunity has been closing slowly the past couple seasons, and Jeff Garcia, a veteran who has a track record for success with the Eagles, is a much better choice to back up Donovan McNabb than Kevin Kolb. Plus, Garcia provides another voice of maturity for Michael Vick to help him with his comeback.

On a related note, to make room for Garcia, the Eagles were forced to let go Wide Receiver/Reality TV star Hank Baskett. Baskett was one of their more popular receivers who is good for an annual 80+ yard touchdown reception. The only problem with him was that he was not quick enough to be an every down receiver and not big enough to be an every down tight end.

Most disappointingly, cutting Baskett leaves only one Playboy Wife on the roster instead of two. I guess there was no room in the Eagles Wives' Club for both Kendra Wilkinson Baskett and Carmella DeCesare Garcia.

4) Speaking of the Philadelphia Eagles, their opponent from last Sunday, the Carolina Panthers seem to have some Quarterback interviews. Counting their playoff loss to Arizona, QB Jake Delhomme has had 9 interceptions and 2 fumbles in his last two games. On top of that, his backup, Josh McCown, was injured shortly after, leaving Matt Moore to finish the game.

After the benching, and subsequent signing of A.J. Feeley to backup Delhomme, Panthers Head Coach John Fox rolled out the red carpet for Delhomme. He may have gone too far in his defense though when he uttered this quote.

"It's like Tiger Woods doesn't win every tournament. [Roger] Federer doesn't win every tournament," Fox said.

Jake Delhomme has been an ok Quarterback in his time with the NFL. His two best seasons were in 2004 and 2005, where he led the Carolina Panthers to a Super Bowl and made a Pro Bowl respectively. However, he's not going to be mistaken for an elite quarterback (such as Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Drew Brees) or even a great quarterback (such as Donovan McNabb, Philip Rivers, and Kurt Warner).

To compare Delhomme to Tiger Woods and Roger Federer is beyond absurd. Take a look at Jake Delhomme's career achievements and compare them to Tiger Woods's career achievements and Roger Federer's career achievements. After you're done reading those, ask yourself a question: Does Jake Delhomme deserve to be mentioned in the same paragraph as Tiger Woods or Roger Federer?

5) And now for the two big announcements. First, as a blogger, I have started becoming more popular. How? When your opinion touches a nerve and someone rambles on and on about what a hack you are. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I have my first hater. Check out the comments part of the Ricky Rubio column and check out the long rant by someone who sounds upset that their favorite team uses no common sense in trying to make themselves better.

And about the haters, here's the second big announcement I have. My first column published by a major website will be online and active next week. When it officially gets posted, I will some behind the scenes thoughts about the experience.

Waffling Away From Common Sense

2009-09-04T20:32:00.007-04:00

In the 7/16 edition of Quick Hits, I discussed the Ricky Rubio situation and my take on it. On Tuesday, his rights were traded from his parent team, DKV Joventut, to FC Barcelona. He will be able to join the Timberwolves in the summer of 2011.

Recently, an article was posted recently that took an utterly ridiculous stance on the Rubio situation. In his words, Rubio "waffled with the skill of a seasoned politician" and is "not sure what Rubio's top skill is, his vaunted passing ability or his impressive capacity to change his mind like a tween girl wavering between which Jonas brother she likes the most."

As the Coordinator of Common Sense, I'm calling a violation here on three accounts.

First, he's only 19 years old. How many 19 year old's do you know that are dead set on what they want to do for the next 40-50 years of their life? How many people in the workforce stick with one profession for the rest of their career? The numbers are low. To be disappointed in a 19 year old changing his mind in the year 2009 shows how out of touch some people are to youth culture.

Two, just like people Rubio's age, he has concerns about his economic well being. An NBA team is only allowed to contribute $500,000 towards a contract buyout for any player overseas, which would have left Rubio to pay the rest of the ridiculous $7.6 million. That is a lot of money, especially for a 19-year old who was making around $115,000 per year, so you shouldn't blame him for having second thoughts about a buyout. In the long run, him staying in Spain will be beneficial for him on and off the court. With FC Barcelona, he will play against tougher competition than a 19 year old American typically competes against. Plus, in a couple years, his buyout would be $1.4 million, a much more manageable number to work with. Hmmm, being able to save money and freely join the NBA in 2011, or pony up $7.6 million he doesn't have to leave his family and home country and pay his old team over a period of a couple years?

Third, I don't blame Rubio for flat out not wanting to go to the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Timberwolves are portrayed as the victims in this scenario. David Kahn is trying to change the culture and this immature kid comes in and can't make up his mind and destroys the vision Kahn had for rebuilding the draft.

The reality of the situation is that this whole mess is David Kahn's fault. The Timberwolves had 4 first round draft picks and had the chance to either give the team some young depth or trade a couple picks for a veteran. David Kahn could have drafted Jordan Hill to solidify the front court or DeMar DeRozan to give Rubio a running mate in the back court. Instead, Kahn elected to draft Jonny Flynn, WHO PLAYS THE EXACT SAME POSITION AS THE GUY HE DRAFTED ONE PICK EARLIER. Flynn is a great player, but he's not in Rubio's league as a Point Guard.

I'm glad Rubio had enough common sense to look at the Timberwolves situation and realize how mismanaged this organization is, new regime or not, and decided against joining them. This is the Timberwolves 20th season, and in that time, they have won one division title and accumulated a winning percentage of .424. This is a team that, if you take away Kevin Garnett, has a poor history of drafting and developing homegrown talent.

Ricky Rubio spurning a train wreck of an organization is not waffling; its realizing that his potential employer is a poor organization to work for and deciding to take a better offer that makes more long term sense.

Quick Hits (9/3)

2009-09-03T18:38:00.007-04:00

The column was supposed to come out Tuesday, however this week several stories came about which I wanted to address. One of them was my response to an anti-Ricky Rubio column that was published this week. It developed into a full column which will be posted tomorrow.

In the meantime...

1) The MLB Waiver Trade deadline came and passed on Monday, and while there were several moves made, there was one move that didn't happen that was shocking to me. According to ESPN, Rich Harden and Aaron Heilman were claimed by the Minnesota Twins and San Francisco Giants respectively, however the Chicago Cubs pulled them off of waivers. Keeping Harden was a no-brainer for the Cubs, but as far as Aaron Heilman goes, two major questions immediately came to mind.

If you are the San Francisco Giants, why in the world would you want Aaron Heilman? As I wrote in January, Aaron Heilman is one of the least reliable pitchers I've ever watched pitch a baseball game. San Francisco has the best Starting Rotation in the National League, and I understand that they want to load up their bullpen for a playoff run. However, if you're the Giants, why would you want to take a risk to pollute you're bullpen with Heilman?

If you are the Chicago Cubs, why in the world would you want such a bad pitcher on your team? If I were running the Cubs and found out any team claimed Aaron Heilman, I would have immediately jumped to action. I would call an intern in my office and send him to the Heilman household to pack his belongings, drive him in a stretch limo to the airport, and give him a one-way ticket on a private jet out of town. If someone claims a below average reliever with stats like these, I'd be ecstatic that someone volunteered to take him off my hands.

2) Andre Smith was the second to last 1st round pick to sign with their team (as of this column Michael Crabtree was still holding out). Smith had missed training camp and three preseason games, critical to a rookie who has to learn a new system. He signed his deal (6 years, $42 million dollars with $21 million guaranteed) and reported to practice. Not only did Smith show up in worse shape than he was at the NFL Scouting Combine, he broke his foot two days after signing his contract.

Roger Goodell has done a good job trying to clean up the NFL off the field, now its time for him to tighten his belt and take a stand against Rookies holding their teams hostage for ridiculous contracts. Owners and NFL vets want a Rookie Cap because it is getting out of hand. Players that have not taken one snap in the NFL are making more money than some players that have proven themselves as All-Pro caliber players.

The NBA and NHL have taken stands and have Rookie Scales in place so that they do not miss any practices and can get started with their professional careers. The NFL prides itself in being ahead of the game; in this instance, they need to join the pack. The biggest reason for teams and players to collectively bargain this into the next Collective Bargaining Agreement is the fact that rookies would no longer be demanding ridiculous contracts before proving themselves on the field. They would have no say in the matter, and more importantly to both teams and players, the rookies would be able to get right into camp and workouts and get acclimated to life as a pro.

3) The Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced today they fired their Offensive Coordinator, Jeff Jagodzinski. He is the second Offensive Coordinator to be fired this week, and is the second time he was fired in the past nine months.

He was the Head Coach at Boston College and had just completed year two of a five-year deal he signed with BC when he expressed interest in the NEw York Jets Head Coaching vacancy. BC wanted to send a message to him, as well as other college coaches who jump ship in the middle of their contracts, and said if he interviewed for the job, he would be terminated. Jagodzinski interviewed, and was immediately terminated.

As the saying goes, what goes around comes around. His story should be a warning to all college coaches that decide to switch jobs whenever its convenient for them. Division I football coaches make their sales pitch to parents of athletes that they are going to guide their boys into manhood. However, the NCAA rules allow coaches to jump freely in the middle of their contracts if another position opens up. Not only does it destroy the continuity of the football program, but if the students want to transfer, they either have to sit out a year or transfer to a FCS school if they want to play right away.

Hopefully Jagodzinski's experience shows other coaches that sometimes the grass isn't greener on the other side.

4) The College Football season kicks off tonight. I have shown my disdain in the past for the Football Bowl Subdivision and their refusal to institute a true playoff system. As a voter for the Football Championship Subdivision, it's absurd that the best two teams in football are determined by a computer rather than how they play on the field.

Tonight in Philadelphia, Villanova and Temple face off. While they have played each other in the past, tonight they are playing for the inaugural Mayor's Cup. Temple is a football program that has not had a winning season since 1990 and a grand total of two bowl appearances in the program's 84 year existence. On the other hand, Villanova has been a successful FCS program with seven playoff appearances under its belt. The debate whether to be a strong FCS team or a struggling FBS team is a discussion for another day.

Here's the question: In a strong Pro Football town like Philadelphia, is there any room for collegiate football? The Philadelphia Eagles hold a monopoly over the football scene and even if Temple were to go undefeated or if Villanova won a FCS championship, they would still be overshadowed by an Eagles regular season game. In Pennsylvania, most college football fans are either fans of Penn State or Pitt. You don't see many die hard Temple fans traveling to other cities to watch the Owls play. The FCS history in the area is a little richer given the success of Villanova and nearby Delaware, but the fact remains they would never be able to touch the popularity of the Eagles.

Having the Mayor's Cup is a noble effort to built a college football fan base in the city of Philadelphia. I don't know how effective it will be in creating excitement and carving a niche in the Philadelphia sports scene, especially with a strong Phillies team and a powerful Eagles fan base to contend with.

5) I have been promising a Michael Vick column, and it will come. I am planning on posting it during the first week he is eligible to play, which Roger Goodell made his decision today that Vick will be eligible to play starting in Week 3. There are a lot of insights I want to put into the article, from the NAACP's attempt at a support rally to my feelings on the criticism Vick has faced.

What I can comment on right now is his play. Michael Vick is about to play a full half of football for the Eagles in their final preseason game. Tonight he has been in there for 10 plays, resulting in 5 first downs and a touchdown. The challenge with Vick is that while he is an incredible athlete, he is a below average quarterback. He has never been an accurate passer and has relied more on his legs than his arm to make things happen on the field.

Prior coaches gave him free reign on the field, however with the Eagles, he is learning how to be a pocket QB first before taking off. If Vick can develop a passing game superior to before his prison term, he will be a dominant quarterback in the NFL. Another little talked about factor about Vick's prison term is that while he is 29 years old, he has two years less wear and tear compared to other 29 year old quarterbacks in the league, which is key when you take into consideration Vick's style of play.

Quick Hits (8/26)

2009-08-25T21:33:00.007-04:00

1) The World Wide Leader had a piece on "Outside The Lines" about Pete Rose and whether he should make the Hall of Fame. Mike Schmidt and Joe Morgan speak out for Rose and say he has paid his price and should be allowed in the hall.

I agree with what Major League Baseball did when the initially banned Rose from baseball. Betting on the sport you are heavily involved with, even if you never bet against your own team, hurts the integrity of the game. The fact he never came forward with it initially and admitted he had a gambling problem hurt his chances of acceptance by baseball fans and hurt his chances of making the Hall of Fame. The fact remains though that he never bet on his own team and unlike the 1919 Chicago Black Sox, his teams never threw games, nonetheless World Series Games, so in one aspect his betting on the game was not as bad as other instances.

There are two problems with the ban I have issue with. First, if he's banned from everything, shouldn't his memorabilia from the Hall of Fame be taken out? His name will forever be in the record book, but if you're going to ban him from the game, you might as well ban anything acknowledging him from the Hall.

Second, the language of the banning actually changed after he was initially banned. A year and a half after Rose was initially banned, the Board of Directors of the Hall of Fame extended the ban to the Hall of Fame. You can ban him from baseball, but if their integrity on the field isn't compromised, his accomplishments should be recognized. Ty Cobb was a great player and part of the first Hall of Fame class, yet he was an unabashed racist. Same thing with the first Commissioner of Baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who wanted to maintain the status quo of "separate but equal", even going as far to claim that integrating baseball would damage the Negro Leagues.

In the coming years, the baseball Hall of Fame will have bigger problems to deal with than Pete Rose. We're now reaching the point where several players who have either been suspended for PED use or have been exposed as users of PED will be eligible for the Hall of Fame, including Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. In my mind, because of what these two players, and many others have done by using PED's, they have hurt the integrity of the game more than Pete Rose.

2) New York Mets Pitcher Billy Wagner finally came back from Tommy John surgery, and the Mets immediately put him on Waivers. Starting with the worst team in the majors, any team can claim him. If a player gets claimed, the team with the player can either trade him to that team or pull him off Waivers. Wagner's contract has a No-Trade clause, so he could have a say where he goes.

Prior to signing with the Mets, he was with the Philadelphia Phillies. While he had a good relationship with the players and with Manager Charlie Manuel, he did not endear himself to the notorious Philadelphia fan base. He held himself to a higher standard while he was in town. While Wagner was in Philadelphia, the Phillies were close to making the playoffs for a couple of seasons, however fell short each year.

When Wagner signed with the Mets in 2006, things started to click in Philadelphia. Ironically, the team he left took advantage of his current team's ability to choke under pressure by winning the NL East twice in a row (with a third division title around the corner) and winning the 2008 World Series. You figure that in the twilight of his career and towards the end of his contract, he'd be able to put the past aside and accept a trade to a team that has the potential to win the World Series, right?

Comcast SportsNet asked Billy Wagner if he would accept a trade to the Phillies if they claimed him, and here was his response

“Bleep, no...That was hard enough for two years. You think I’d want to do that for a month? Coming off Tommy John? I’m 38 and coming off Tommy John, besides, they expect way too much.”

Billy, are you delusional? What fan base does not expect their players to play hard and try to win a championship? If you are going to pass up a chance to compete for a World Series because the fans hurt your feelings, you're in the wrong business. The Philadelphia fan base is tough when you lose, however American found out how passionate Phillies fans can be when they won the World Series last year. Like the saying goes, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. When he signed that 4 year, $43 million dollar contract in 2006 he showed his true colors.

In the economic times we're in, he should be thankful to be making that kind of money while hundreds of thousands of people lose their jobs every month. Even though he accepted a trade to the Boston Red Sox, he still huffed and hawed over the stipulations. Wagner's hissy fit shows he doesn't care about winning; he'd rather avoid criticism and watch the playoffs in October rather than suck up his pride and pitch in October.

3) The plan for Sports Betting in Delaware has been brought to a halt. A week before it was to go into effect, a federal appeals court ruled Monday that single-game sports betting in Delaware would violate the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992.

Now, I wrote about what Sports Betting could bring to Delaware three months ago and obviously lawmakers did not read my column to take into consideration what kind of revenue could be brought in if it were legalized.

If this case gets appealed to the Supreme Court, this could have disastrous results. On one hand, professional and collegiate sports could have their worst nightmare come true and the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 could be overturned, allowing sports betting in every state. On the other hand, Sports Betting could be outlawed everywhere. Las Vegas, which was hit hard by the real estate bust and the recession could be dealt another blow if their sports books were forced to shut down. Not only would they lose more revenue, but there would also be more people out of work.

Keep your eyes on this case, it has the potential to get ugly.

4) When you're a football coach with the same bloodline as former Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals Head Coach Buddy Ryan, you're expected to be outspoken and brash. Rex Ryan is no exception, as he has lived up to his fathers legacy of speaking before you think by bringing some swagger back to the New York Jets.

Profootballtalk.com has a problem with this though. In an article from Monday morning, Mike Florio wonders if Rex Ryan is good or bad for the league. In his article, he theorizes that in the same light kids look up to athletes, younger coaches in the league look up to Head Coaches, and with Rex Ryan running his mouth before he coaches a regular season game, he could be setting a bad example for future NFL Head Coaches.

You have a good moral argument, but it is time for a dose of reality. New England Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick is not a model citizen, ranging from Spygate to breaking up someone's marriage. San Francisco 49ers Head Coach Mike Singletary pulled his pants down to emphasize his team was getting their butts kicked. New Denver Broncos Head Coach angered a franchise Quarterback by trying to trade for Matt Cassel. Cassel did a good job filling in for Tom Brady, but was nowhere close to the level of Cutler. Instead, he now has Kyle Orton as his starting QB.

Head Coaches are supposed to win games and win championships. As shown by Rick Pitino at Louisville, moral obligations come second to winning, and the New York Jets have not done much of that. In the past 40 years, they have won one Super Bowl and four Division titles. Not only that, they are second fiddle in the New York/New Jersey football scene to the Giants, who have five times as many accomplishments as their roommates in East Rutherford, NJ.

Rex Ryan is trying to change the culture of the New York Jets. His defense led the Baltimore Ravens to a Super Bowl, so he probably knows a thing or two about what it takes to get to the big game. Jets fans have been accustomed to seeing their team overshadowed in their own division by the Patriots and Dolphins, so what's wrong with trying to bring some confidence and excitement to a fan base?

I guess Mike would rather have a head coach that is there to pick up paychecks and do an adequate job over someone who shows some emotion and cares about trying to turn around the fortunes of a franchise.

Quick Hits (8/19)

2009-08-19T21:16:00.006-04:00

It's been an eventful week in the sports world, especially in the NFL where Michael Vick was signed and Brett Favre decided to further tarnish his Hall-of-Fame Career. Without further adieu...

1) I have praised Dana White as a business man multiple times on my blog and also on my Twitter page. He has successfully made the UFC the elite MMA organization out there, even without signing the world's #1 Heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko.

However, there is one thing Dana White missed the boat on, which not only could have increased viewership, but would have potentially brought in a new group of potential MMA fans. Unfortunately for UFC, Strikeforce jumped at this opportunity and it was shown for the world to see this past Saturday night.

For the first time in MMA history, a major card was headlined by a Women's Fight. Gina Carano and Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos fought to become the first Women’s Lightweight Champion. Carano, who is known as much for her looks as her MMA career, and Santos, who is known as “The Baddest Woman South of the Equator", brought the ground to their feet, and Santos won the fight by TKO with one second remaining in the first round. With the long anticipated fight having taken place, and Santos as the Women's Lightweight Champion, one question remains.

What's next?

If Dana White had capitalized on the hype of a potential Carano/Santos fight, it could have been parlayed into a season of "The Ultimate Fighter" featuring Female contestants. Not only would it increase interest among women in Mixed Martial Arts, but it would also provide a talent pool for future potential fights for Santos and Carano.

Unfortunately for Strikeforce, they do not have the resources yet. Unless they get a network television deal, the quality of fighters they will throw at Carano and Santos might not be up to par with what the UFC could have done had they taken advantage of the situation.

2) What did you do this summer vacation? For most people, it would consist of some sort of vacation, a wedding or two, and barbecue's.

For Quentin Richardson, his answer would be more entertaining. Within the past two months, he has inexplicably been traded four times. On Draft Day, he was traded from the New York Knicks to the Memphis Grizzlies. Three weeks later, he was dealt from Memphis to the Los Angeles Clippers, where he started his career. Three days later, he was traded from Los Angeles to Minnesota. Another three weeks later, he was dealt from Minnesota to Miami.

If you are Richardson, at what point do you stop going to Introductory Press Conferences? I have seen players get dealt twice in a season, but never this much, especially in the off-season. I guess the good thing for Richardson was that unless he gets dealt by the time I finish this column, he will be playing in Miami this year instead of Memphis or Minnesota.

3) When I first heard Brett Favre was coming back (again) from retirement to play for the Minnesota Vikings, it made me thinks of this quote from "Austin Powers; The Spy Who Shagged Me." Make sure you go to the 8:49 mark to get the quote and context.

Enough is enough. I have written about how the Media is obsessed with Brett Favre even though he's tarnished his reputation with horrific interceptions over the years. Now, in addition to those horrific interceptions (which will increase in number for the next two years), football fans have to put up with ESPN and Fox Sports praising someone who flat out doesn't deserve it.

He has single-handedly set back the careers of Quarterbacks Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels, who were going to compete for the starting position in Minnesota. It also sets back the Vikings franchise because just like the Green Bay Packers, they will now be held hostage by the annual Brett Favre "Will I or Won't I Retire" tour.

On top of this, now he has set a precedent for veterans who will decide to flirt with Retirement rather than go through Training Camp. Throwing to high school Wide Receivers in Mississippi is not the same as throwing to your teammates, especially when you're joining a new team so close to the start of the season. How many veterans are now going to be playing the Retirement Card if they are unhappy with their contract situation? You already saw it with Derrick Mason this off-season, and now that Favre has successfully played retirement into a $25 million contract, expect more veterans to do the same.

If ESPN can ignore the Ben Roethlisberger story for two days, they should set the standard and stop talking nonstop about Brett Favre. Football fans would rather talk about the upcoming season than hear that Brett Favre is having a chicken sandwich for lunch. ESPN did get the opinion of someone who is opposed to this signing: Minnesota Vikings legend and NFL Hall-of-Famer Fran Tarkenton. I'll end this week's edition of Quick Hits with his take on the situation.

"We have responsibilities we're just not athletes that are in it all for ourself, football, is it not a team game? Isn't it all about team ... and here comes Brett Favre riding in on his white horse, doesn't go to training camp, doesn't come to off-season workouts and he's gonna come on his white horse and bond with all these players...I think he has been a great flamboyant quarterback, but he has made more stupid plays than any great quarterback that I've ever seen. Look at his final game in a Packers uniform. He blew that game [NFC championship] against the Giants."

Quick Hits (8/11)

2009-08-11T19:48:00.005-04:00

First thing, congratulations to Dana White and the UFC. Last Saturday's UFC 101: Declaration was a success. With MMA not regulated in Massachusetts or New York, Philadelphia can establish itself as an East Coast Hub for the UFC. Also, bringing in $3.55 million at the gate doesn't hurt either. The only complaint about the event I had was that it sold out too quickly and I couldn't be there in person. Onto the hits.

1) I don't watch too much preseason football. Usually if a preseason game is on, I'll catch one or two quarters of the game and shut it off once the 4th stringers are in. I watched the beginning of the Hall of Fame Game, and managed to catch the fake punt that Tennessee pulled off. One question came to mind after the touchdown.

Really?

Really? A fake punt during the Hall of Fame Game? Jeff Fisher is a great coach, but attempting a trick play in the first preseason game is absurd. Preseason games are for evaluating talent and allowing the veterans to work some of the rust off, not to see if a play you saw in Madden '09 could work in real life.

Most importantly though, this decision could come back to haunt them. These two teams play each other in Week 10, right in the thick of the playoff race. If the Titans are fighting for a playoff spot and need a crucial win, don't you think Dick Jauron, Head Coach of the Buffalo Bills, will remember the stunt they pulled in the preseason and have his team prepared for trick plays?

2) The Minnesota Timberwolves hired Kurt Rambis to be their Head coach this week. While the T-Wolves are a couple years away from being serious contenders for a playoff spot, Rambis is the right coach. Not only does he have playing experience, but he has won Championships as a Player and Coach. Hopefully the young T-Wolves can soak up his knowledge like a sponge and build a solid team.

On the flip side, this position was another one that ABC Analyst Mark Jackson was turned down for. If this were a decade ago, Mark Jackson would most likely be a coach by now, however this is a different era for the NBA as a whole. With revenues dropping, many owners are looking for more bang for their buck. Hiring a Head Coach who has never coached a game in his life would not be a financially sound move for any franchise. Kurt Rambis earned a Head Coaching position by paying his dues on the Laker bench and studying under Phil Jackson.

Patrick Ewing is doing the same thing down in Orlando. While Stan Van Gundy won't be mistaken for Phil Jackson anytime soon, Ewing has been waiting in the wings and learning on the job. Not to mention he's also tutoring Dwight Howard, who is the best center in the game and is only going to get better.

So my advice to Mark Jackson: drop the ego, suck it up, and work as an Assistant Coach for a couple of seasons. once you get your feet wet and learn how to be a successful coach, then you will be ready to become a Head Coach.

3) Isiah Thomas landed his first major recruit as the Head Coach of Florida International University. Dominique Ferguson, a top-10 talent in the 2010 recruiting class, verbally committed to FIU last week.

I have taken my shots at Thomas in the past, but the truth is, he's a fairly decent evaluator of talent. While in Toronto, he drafted Damon Stoudamire, Marcus Camby, and Tracy McGrady. In Indiana, he had a fairly decent team, consisting of Jermaine O'Neal (before the injuries), Al Harrington, Reggie Miller, and Ron Artest among others. It's only when he's given the authority to run a business that he sinks the ship. He crippled the CBA and New York Knicks with some of his absurd moves.

At least with FIU, he cannot trade any draft picks or sign players to any ridiculous Jerome James/Jared Jeffries type deals. Plus, he has to answer to not only the Athletic Director, but alumni as well. It will be interesting to see in a couple of years what the FIU basketball program will look like.

4) This is a first for my blog. It's now time to talk some hockey.

(I'll give you a minute to recover from the shock.)

It's not that I don't like hockey. I like watching hockey, however growing up I played baseball and basketball, and when I wasn't playing one of those two sports, I was watching football. I just never really got into hockey.

Anyway, Chicago Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane was arrested for supposedly robbing a cab driver. Now, first thing is that I'm glad to see a professional athlete smart enough to take a taxi after a night of drinking instead of endangering the lives of others by getting behind the wheel while intoxicated.

However, that great decision was overshadowed by a dumb decision to get in a fight with the cab driver over 20 cents. The cab ride home cost Kane $13.80 and he gave the driver $15. The driver did not have 20 cents on him, and that's when the driver was supposedly struck in the head because of it. According to some reports, the incident has been overblown by the media and could be resolved outside of the courtroom.

You know the recession is bad when Patrick Kane, who is slated to make $875,000 this year, not including any incentives, is getting in a fight with a cab driver over 20 cents.

5) Live football is an event. Whether it is tailgating in person or having a fantasy football draft at your house/apartment, there are many traditions that football fans follow. One of them, the Fight Song, is more common in college football than in the NFL. Some NFL teams have them, and usually they are older recordings pumped through the PA system when the team comes out of the tunnel or when they score a touchdown.

The Miami Dolphins are one of those teams that has a fight song. They decided that it was time to update it to reflect the times, and they reached out to T-Pain. He's pretty popular these days and is a regular on the Billboard charts. In theory it was a good idea.

In Theory. Below is the final product.

I think the final result speaks for itself. It's great T-Pain is a Dolphins fan, but after listening to this, I don't think many teams will be following suit. Just a hunch.

Officiating the Officiating: Putting MLB Umpires in Check

2009-08-10T23:02:00.005-04:00

After the Philadelphia Phillies game on Friday night, several Phillies players made the trek from Citizen's Bank Park to the Wachovia Center to watch UFC 101, including Shane Victorino and Jayson Werth. These two I single out because they went the the event and had a less than stellar game the following afternoon. Victorino was picked off of first after Ryan Howard popped out in the bottom of the 1st inning. Later in the game, Werth made two errors that led to four runs for the Florida Marlins.

The big story from this game was Home Plate Umpire Ed Rapuano ejecting Shane Victorino from the game for complaining about Balls and Strikes. It is normal for players to be ejected for disagreeing with an umpire's strike zone, however the unique thing about Victorino's ejection came in the top of the 7th inning while Victorino was in Center Field. He threw his hands up in the air in disgust over a pitch that appeared to be a strike, but was called a ball. In the bottom of the 6th, Ryan Howard was called out on strikes by a similar pitch. Rapuano, flexing his “authority” tossed Victorino from the game for showing his disgust.

I've watched plenty of baseball in the 26 years I've been alive, however I have NEVER seen such an atrocious, waste of time call as this one. The worst part about this situation is that the Umpire's Union feels they are above the game and will not publicly admit when they are wrong. The Union was against the implementation of Instant Replay because it would mean the Umps made a mistake. It's unfortunate Shane Victorino and Charlie Manuel couldn't call a spade a spade at the post-game press conference because of potential fines that could have been levied against them.

With the other 3 Major sports, they have systems in place to hold their referees responsible for their actions. When Joe Crawford ejected Tim Duncan for laughing on the bench, Crawford was rightfully punished for his actions and suspended for the rest of the season. When Ed Hochuli made his now infamous incomplete pass call in last year's San Diego Chargers/Denver Broncos game, he was demoted and the NFL adjusted their rules to expand the use of instant replay in certain situations.

With Major League Baseball, you don't see that. Compared to Roger Goodell, David Stern, and Gary Bettman, Bud Selig does not have the courage to discipline umpires in his sport. Worse, the umpires put themselves on a pedestal and do not feel they can make a wrong decision on the field. Just like the other three leagues, Bud Selig should implement a program to hold umpires accountable for their actions in situations such as the one which transpired Sunday afternoon.

Baseball purists might disagree with me on this one, but it is something that has to be said. Having to deal with a different umpire's ego for each game hurts the integrity of the game more than an athlete's use of performance enhancing drugs. Numbers may be inflated due to PED use, but PED's do not determine fair or four balls, if a runner is safe, or what the strike zone is from game to game. Although it was about a decade too late, Bud Selig got around to punishing players for using PED's. Hopefully it won't take another one to hold umpires accountable for their mistakes.

When Common Sense Goes Wrong: Fedor to Strikeforce

2009-08-05T19:46:00.003-04:00

With the collapse of Affliction's MMA promotion, Fedor Emelianenko found himself a free agent. Emelianenko is ranked among MMA experts as the best pound for pound fighter in the world. He made a legend for himself in Japan as the Heavyweight Champion for Pride Fighting Championships. When Pride was bought out by the UFC, many of their most talented fighters made the jump to the UFC, including Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Wanderlei Silva, and Dan Henderson. However, Emelianenko did not make the jump because his Manager Vadim Finkelstein, who owns his own promotion (M-1 Global), could not get the UFC to co-promote fights with him. Emelianenko wound up fighting for a couple smaller promotions before signing on with Affliction.

With Affliction closing its doors on MMA events, Emelianenko was left with a choice: go to the more established UFC or join Strikeforce, which has a decent roster, but not as talented as the competition he would face in the UFC. Coming off a UFC 100 Pay-Per-View that not hit 1.5 million buys, but saw Brock Lesner establish himself as a force in MMA and a villain to MMA purists. Bringing in Emelianenko would not only please the purists, but would provide a monster PPV Main event with Fedor Emelianenko, the world's #1 Heavyweight challenging Brock Lesner, the #1 Heavyweight in the biggest MMA organization on the planet. Dana White realized how important it was to his business and started negotiations with Emelianenko's management on a contract to bring him into the UFC. Supposedly, Emelianenko could have made between $3 million and $6 million for ONE FIGHT with Brock Lesner.

In the end, Emelianenko went with Strikeforce. The sticking point was that if Emelianenko was to sign with UFC, Finkelstein wanted his M-1 Global to be a partner with UFC. Dana White did not make the UFC the hottest sports entity by making idiotic moves like signing away half his promotion in order to secure a fighter. White had enough common sense not to add that provision to Emelianenko's deal. Because of the stubbornness of his Management, Emelianenko opted to sign with Strikeforce.

If Finkelstein actually cared about his fighter, wouldn't he go where the money is? He could have made a lot more money in the UFC and the endorsements that would have followed had he done the right thing and joined the UFC. Fedor Emelianenko going to Strikeforce is on the same level as LeBron James deciding to skip college and sign with the Albany Patroons of the Continental Basketball Association instead of going to the NBA, then compounding that mistake by saying he'd only join the NBA if the Albany Patroons were accepted into the league.

Like the saying goes, "If it don't make dollars, it don't make sense." Emelianenko's management cares more about their own fledgling promotion than path of their prized fighter's career. While Strikeforce has talent, Emelianenko could have gained much more exposure and endorsements on top of facing better competition if he went to the UFC.

Quick Hits (8/4)

2009-08-04T17:01:00.007-04:00

Prior to heading to Red Sox Nation for the weekend for a wedding, I wanted to write a Quick Hits column. I was going to break down the Cliff Lee trade amongst other topics, however what was supposed to be a quick thought turned into an entire column. There was one thing I forgot to mention in the column, which will lead off this edition of Quick Hits.

1) With the Philadelphia Phillies trading for Cliff Lee at the deadline, this marks the 4th straight year that the Phillies have traded for a pitcher at or near the trade deadline. The Phillies dealt for Joe Blanton in 2008, Kyle Lohse in 2007, and Jamie Moyer in 2006, which all have reaped benefits.

In the 2 1/2 years that Jamie Moyer has been in a Phillies uniform, he has gone 45-28 and provided veteran guidance to a young Phillies pitching staff. Prior to arriving with the Phillies in 2008, Lohse had a 6-12 record. Lohse started 13 games for the Phillies, in which they won nine of them and wound up winning the NL East that year. Blanton was 5-12 for Oakland last year before the Phillies dealt for him. Blanton started 13 games for the Phillies last year in the regular season with them winning nine of those games. In the 2008 postseason, Blanton went 2-0 with a 3.17 ERA, and contributed a Home Run in Game 4 of the World Series. The Phillies have an excellent track record with pitchers they acquire around the trade deadline, and with Cliff Lee's complete game on Friday night, this trend will continue.

2) Brett Favre announced that he will not be playing again this year. I have been an outspoken critic of Favre for years, and this "Will I or Won't I" act year in and year out has reached a ridiculous level. In the past 5 seasons, Brett Favre has been an average QB at best, including leading the NFL twice in interceptions thrown. He is a liability to any team he is on due to his propensity to throw interceptions at the worst possible times. Want proof?

Watch the 2003 Divisional Playoff game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers. In Overtime, Favre was chased by a defender and lofted a pass up to nobody in particular. Thinking back on it, Brian Dawkins fielded the interception more like a punt return than picking off a pass. Also, check out the 2008 NFC Championship Game when Favre threw another bad interception in Overtime and cost his team a chance to compete in the Super Bowl.

Brett Favre is going to be a First Ballot in two Halls: The NFL Hall of Fame and the Common Sense Coordinator's Hall of Sham. The Hall of Sham would consist of players or coaches, who have a decent list of accomplishments, but carry an equal amount of baggage that brings their legacy back to Earth. Other first ballot Hall of Sham members include Allen Iverson, Larry Brown, and Shaquille O'Neal.

3) In a bit of sad news, the Arena Football League will be announcing this week that they will be ceasing operation. They had suspended the 2009 season in order to get their finances straight, however it seems that the books couldn't be balanced and they have no other options but to shut the doors.

For 22 years, it provided a unique brand of high-scoring football that was not only entertaining, but allowed families who might not afford to attend a NFL game, to enjoy a football game at a reasonable price. I'm not sure what is going to happen with the af2, their minor league that played this season and are in the midst of their playoffs, but it would be unfortunate for not only fans, but the players involved.

4) Andy Reid had an interesting Press Conference yesterday. Stewart Bradley, the starting Middle Linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles, was injured Sunday night during practice. Howard Eskin of 610 WIP, who has a long relationship with the Eagles organization, leaked the news of Bradley having a torn ACL. Soon, news spread on blogs, twitter, facebook, etc. about Bradley's injury. Andy Reid normally leads off his press conferences with injury updates. He has done this for every press conference since he was hired in 1999. However, when he took to the stage yesterday afternoon, he was not too pleased about Bradley's injury being leaked to the media. Here is what he said to lead off the press conference:

"I made a pact with you guys when I first got here that I would disclose to you the injuries - just stay away from the players and stay away from other personnel in the organization and I would take care of you with that. That part was breached."

Andy, do you have a copy of this pact? Because last time I checked, it was the job of journalists to not only keep readers informed of what's going on with the team they are covering, but to sell as many newspapers as possible. More importantly though, who is Andy Reid to decide when the media should report a story? As a Head Coach, he has the right to be concerned about news leaks. On the flip side, he should be more concerned with closing leaks than lecturing the media about an imaginary pact where he would be the sole provider of Eagles injury news. This isn't 1999 anymore, where he could get away with pulling a stunt like this. Andy Reid has five children that most likely use Social Media Sites to communicate, so how surprised should he be that news like this leaks out?

5) To wrap up this edition of Quick Hits, I'm proud to announce that Quick Hits will be the first regular feature to my blog. Check out the blog every Tuesday night for my take on issues going on in the world of sports during the week.

The good thing about it is that it will allow for more full-length columns about more important issues. An example of this is the Fedor Emelianenko situation. It was originally going to be a part of this column, however it developed into a full column, which I will be posting tomorrow night. Make sure you keep up with the blog by joining my Facebook Group, where you can discuss my columns, as well as the Twitter page, where I can give smaller doses of common sense to those who need it.

Breaking Down The Cliff Lee Deal

2009-07-29T21:24:00.005-04:00

The big news of the day has been the Philadelphia Phillies trading for Cliff Lee early this afternoon. The Phillies traded Jason Donald, Lou Marson, Carlos Carrasco, and Jason Knapp to the Cleveland Indians for 2008 Cy Young Winner Cliff Lee and Outfielder Ben Francisco.

The Phillies had been in the Roy Halladay sweepstakes until it came to the negotiating table. The Toronto Blue Jays wanted Pitchers J.A. Happ and Kyle Drabek along with Outfielder Dominic Brown in exchange for Halladay. Drabek and Brown are considered to be the Phillies #1 pitching and hitting prospects respectively. The Phillies made a counter-offer with Pitchers J.A. Happ and Carlos Carrasco, Outfielder Michael Taylor, and Infielder Jason Donald, which the Blue Jays rejected.

The one part of this deal that bothers me is the Phillies love affair with Kyle Drabek. They had the same love affair with Carlos Carrasco before he hit a wall in Triple A and was eventually dealt to another team. For Phillies fans, Kyle Drabek needs to be the second coming of Cy Young to justify not pulling the trigger on Halladay. Howard Eskin, a radio personality for 610 WIP in Philadelphia brought up a good point Sunday night.

While the culture of the Phillies have changed over the past couple years, the organization does not have a good track record with pitchers who hold the coveted "#1 pitching prospect" title. This is an organization that has seen Pat Combs, Tyler Green, Wayne Gomes, Carlton Loewer, Dave Coggin, and Adam Eaton have that title. All six of those prospects royally flopped in the Major Leagues. One other thing, just like Kyle Drabek, those six former "can't miss" prospects were all First Round Draft Picks.

At the same time though, the Phillies got a Cy Young award winner in Cliff Lee who was having a fairly decent year on a bad team this year. He is 7-9, however in six of those losses, the Indians either didn't score a run or scored only one run. Since the All-Star break, Lee is 3-0 with an ERA of 1.44.

The Phillies are now in an odd position of having too much starting pitching. Joe Blanton is 3-0 with a 1.21 ERA in his last four starts. Cole Hamels, although he has struggled for parts of the year, has shown flashes of his World Series MVP form. J.A. Happ is 7-1 with an ERA of 2.97. Jamie Moyer has struggled this year, but he's been bailed out by the Phillies offense and leads the team in victories. Rodrigo Lopez, who replaced the injured Antonio Bastardo and Brett Myers, is 3-0 with a 3.09 ERA in his four starts. This doesn't take into consideration Pedro Martinez, who is going to be joining the rotation in the next two weeks.

The part of the deal that is flying under the radar is the Phillies picking up Ben Francisco. He gives the Phillies the right-handed bat off the bench they desperately need, and puts up decent numbers. Francisco is only hitting .250 this year, but has 10 home runs and 33 RBI's. He is an upgrade over John Mayberry Jr., who has struggled to make the adjustment to the majors this season.

Cleveland did get something out of this deal. Carlos Carrasco is only 22 years old and has time to regain his confidence he seemed to lose this year at Lehigh Valley. Lou Marson is probably going to join the Indians the quickest of the four prospects. With Martinez most likely being dealt within the next 48 hours, Marson will step in as their catcher. Jason Donald gives them flexibility in the infield. Pitcher Jason Knapp is the most intriguing of the prospects dealt by Philadelphia. He turns 19 next month and has a 2-7 record, however he has struck out 111 batters in 85.1 innings of work for Single A Lakewood. The biggest winner in this deal for the Indians is Outfielder Matt LaPorta. He was one of the prospects Cleveland received last year in the CC Sabathia deal. Now that Be Francisco is no longer in his path, this opens things up for LaPorta to prove his worth to the Indians.

This is one of those deals that improve both teams in some form. For the Indians, they have loaded up on quality minor league prospects who can possibly make a difference with the big league club within the next year. Plus, once they make the majors, they won't be making as much as some of the veterans they have traded away.

The Phillies not only got the #1 starter they were looking for, but they managed to keep their top pitching and hitting prospect. It is a testament to the Phillies scouts that they have built up their farm system to the point they could pull off a deal for a major impact player and not trade all their top minor league prospects. For the rest of the National League, they need to step their game up. Between the Phillies potent offense and adding a Cy Young Winner to the rotation, the road to the 2009 World Series goes through Philadelphia.

When Is News Not News?

2009-07-22T19:11:00.004-04:00

Last month, I wrote an article about the thinning line between the "old media", such as newspapers and TV, and the "new media", consisting of bloggers. I ripped a blogger for his poor journalistic skills. However, a much bigger controversy is erupting and this time it involves a certain TV station based out of Bristol, Connecticut.

On Monday night, Profootballtalk.com broke the story that Pittsburgh Steelers Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was going to be hit with a Civil Suit. In the suit, Roethlisberger is accused of sexual assault on a woman who worked for Harrah's. The incident happened in 2008, however she opted to file the civil suit recently. You can read the specifics of the suit here.

The Associated Press picked up the story, as well as major media outlets, such as Yahoo!, Fox Sports, CBS Sports, etc. A lawyer for Roethlisberger spoke out in defense of his client. The Steelers commented on the situation saying they were aware of the situation. Today, the NFL's official site posted an article about the cancellation of a Roethlisberger press conference in addition to Commissioner Roger Goodell stating he was going to look into this situation.

The story was pretty much everywhere. I emphasized "pretty much" because one certain news entity has not reported on this story. If you watched their channel for the past two days or checked out their website or listened to their radio programming, you would have never known Ben Roethlisberger was in any legal trouble.

ESPN has not made a peep regarding this story the past two days. The "World Wide Leader" chose not to report this story, even though every major news outlet has done so. At first, I figured they were taking their time to confirm sources, but as word started to spread, ESPN was eerily quiet. Though Michael Vick's prison term ending is a big story, having the QB who just won a Super Bowl being named in a Sexual Assault Civil suit should have been brought up.

Yet it wasn't.

ESPN released a couple of explanations for the lack of coverage. First, here's what ESPN spokesman Mac Nwulu told PFT in regards to the decision:

"At this point, we are not reporting the allegations against Ben Roethlisberger because no criminal complaint has been filed," Nwulu said. "As far as we know, this is a civil lawsuit that Roethlisberger has yet to address publicly."

Keep in mind that PFT was told this after Roethlisberger's attorney spoke about the situation and after the Suit had been filed. That gem of wisdom was followed by this quote from Vince Doria, VP and Director of News for ESPN, who has managed to lower the credibility of ESPN as a viable news source.

"Those are the things that I think are damaging to reputations, and I think you need to know more about them before you report them. As it stands right now, today, we don’t think it meets our standard of reporting."

In addition to reporting news, ESPN is now in the business of protection reputations? ESPN has now delved into FOX News level of selective journalism. Report the news, but if it comes to someone who ABC/Disney, parent company of ESPN, likes or someone that could come work for ESPN after their playing career ends, then completely ignore the story. ESPN claims it is their policy not to report civil suits.

Just out of curiosity, where was this policy when reporting on Travis Henry and his failure to keep up with Child Support Payments in 2007?

Where was this policy when Roberto Alomar was accused of giving a woman AIDS in a Civil Suit in February of 2009?

Where was this policy last month when ESPN reported that a woman was going to sue Los Angeles Lakers Guard Shannon Brown in civil court for a "sex-related incident"?

I do not think ESPN is racist, but ESPN's reporting of these stories but ignoring the Ben Roethlisberger story is suspicious. I think this issue has to do more with ABC/Disney than ESPN. ABC announced yesterday a reality show starring Cleveland Cavaliers Center Shaquille O'Neal in which he will go against top athletes in their respective sports, with one of them being Ben Roethlisberger. I'm pretty sure that if ESPN decided to report the story, there would have been hell to pay from ABC/Disney. I could imagine the meeting between ABC/Disney and ESPN executives looking like the Jonas Brothers/Mickey Mouse encounter shown on South Park in their Season 13 Premiere.

*** Note: I originally had the video of this encounter, however Viacom forced the video to be taken down. ***

As soon as I was about to wrap up this article, ESPN finally decided to post something on this situation, however it is too late. ESPN's credibility for being the "World Wide Leader" has taken a huge hit because of this. They are EXTREMELY lucky they have the enterprise they do, otherwise they could have lost more than just their integrity.

Quick Hits (7/16)

2009-07-16T20:29:00.005-04:00

It's been a hectic couple weeks, but now I have some time to break down some of the events happening in the world of sports.

1) Message to MMA purists out there: please stop crying about Brock Lesner's actions after UFC 100. Yes it was over the top and reminiscent of his days working for Vince McMahon, however he has brought more casual viewers to the UFC than purists want to admit. If it was Frank Mir vs. Randy Couture for the Heavyweight title, there's no way the Pay-Per-View buys touch the buys for this fight.

The important thing Brock Lesner picked up from Vince McMahon is a sense of showmanship. Lesner puts it best in this interview. In the economic times we are in, with people plunking down hundreds and thousands of dollars for seats, he's going to give the fans their money's worth. And another thing, is there much difference between the trash Brock Lesner talked after his fight and what Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson have said after fights? As much as he wants to distance himself from his WWE past, working for them helped him develop charisma with his audience and the ability to be comfortable in front of a crowd. Plus, with his background, he knows how to sell tickets to Pay Per Views.

The scary thing about Brock Lesner is that he's only 5 fights deep into his career and getting better. With the way that MMA is growing and Brock Lesner only being 32, whether MMA purists like it or not, Lesner could be the face of MMA for years to come.

2) For those who regularly read my columns, you know how high I have been on Ricky Rubio for years. And although Spain and Minnesota are as similar as Lysol and Coca Cola, Minnesota needed a solid point guard after trading Kyle Lowry to Washington, and due to Sacramento's mistake in passing up Rubio, he fell into Minnesota's laps. So with Rubio in the fold, the Minnesota Timberwolves did what any team with no direction or focus would do: draft another point guard. Jonny Flynn would have been a great pick...had he not been picked by a team that just drafted a Point Guard with the pick before.

I don't blame Rubio for wanting to stay in Spain. If I were him, I'd stay there for the next couple years. Not only would I not want to join a team that has accomplished nothing in its 20 years of existence, but two years from now, Rubio will not have to pay the $6.6 million buyout that he'd have to pay now if he were to play in the NBA this coming season.

3) Home field Advantage in the NBA and NHL are determined by which team has the best regular season record. So why is it that home field advantage in Major League Baseball is determined by the winner of the All-Star game? For the record, the reason the American League now has home field advantage in the World Series is because Adam Jones (of the Baltimore Orioles) hit a sacrifice fly off of Heath Bell (of the San Diego Padres).

In other words, two teams that are not going to sniff the playoffs determined which league will have home field advantage in the World Series. Makes a whole lot of sense huh?

4) The Philadelphia Phillies made it official yesterday by signing Pedro Martinez to a one year contract. For those that follow my Twitter page (if you don't, do it now), I was the first to report that Pedro was going to be in Philadelphia this season. In the long scheme of things, Martinez is a low risk high reward guy: he's only signed through the end of this year, so if he stinks, they won't resign him after the season. However, he's a three-time Cy Young Award winner, and if he shows glimpses of dominance, it will make the road to a third NL East title easy for the Phillies.

One thing does bother me though. If all the pieces were in place for Martinez, why did it take this long for a team to express interest in him? Keep in mind, there might be a reason why Adam Eaton was on an Opening Day Starting Rotation and Pedro Martinez was not.

5) In addition to my twitter page, feel free to join me on my blog's Facebook page. Here, once people become fans, we can discuss, in more than 140 characters, my columns and other events going on in the world today.

Have a good weekend.

100 Punches and Runnin'

2009-07-11T14:54:00.005-04:00

The last time I wrote a column about an MMA event, the promotion went out of business. I had written a preview for the Ken Shamrock/Kimbo Slice fight 11 months ago, and the fight turned into a nightmare for EliteXC. Shamrock got injured the day of the fight, and was replaced by Seth Petruzelli, who would take down Kimbo Slice 14 seconds into the fight. Petruzelli made suspicious comments about being approached by EliteXC brass before the fight, and 2 weeks after the fight, Pro Elite (the parent company of EliteXC) announced they were ceasing operations.

The UFC was in a similar boat to EliteXC. In 2001, the UFC was struggling to stay alive. Having been branded "Human Cockfighting" by Senator John McCain, they had trouble finding places to stage their events, with 36 states banning "No holds barred" fighting, and difficulty getting the product on Pay-Per-View and Home Video. By 2001 they were on the brink of bankruptcy before Station Casino Executives Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta bought the company and named Dana White President of the company.

The UFC struggled at first, with the company losing $44 million dollars in the first 3 years of owning the product. In the 5 years since then, the UFC has become a billion dollar business, with 37 states now sanctioning Mixed Martial Arts. For UFC 100, experts are predicting over 1 million PPV buys. Take into consideration that UFC 100 goes for $44.99, the UFC will be making roughly $45 million on television buys along, plus gate receipts, which could account for an additional $3 million in revenue from this event. So how did the UFC get this far?

Two Words: Dana White.

Dana White knew what the fans wanted and has delivered. He has legitimized the product and most importantly, has worked hard to have MMA sanctioned across the country. He has taken a page from Vince McMahon and made the UFC THE place for Mixed Martial Arts like McMahon did for the WWE. White is only part of the story. The UFC wouldn't be where it is today without the fighters. And tonight's main event is a great example.

Frank Mir, the Interim UFC Heavyweight Champion has made an incredible comeback after a horrific motorcycle accident nearly ended his career. At the time of the accident he was the UFC Heavyweight Champion, however he had the title stripped when he couldn't face then-Interim Champ Andrei Arlovski in a unification match. He worked his way back from that injury, and after defeating Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira at UFC 92, he became Interim Heavyweight Champion. He earned the right to face the UFC Heavyweight Champion at this event to unify the titles.

That UFC Heavyweight Champion would not be who everyone was expecting. Brock Lesner, who was defeated by Frank Mir at UFC 81, shook up the MMA landscape by beating the legendary Randy Couture at UFC 91. What made it more remarkable was the fact it was only Lesner's 4th professional MMA fight. Lesner was a NCAA Division I Wrestling champion, a Two-Time All-American, and won 106 of his 111 matches.

Lesner then went to the WWE and became a star. Vince McMahon was high on his skills and for a couple years, the WWE world was built around him. At 25 years old, Lesner became the youngest Heavyweight Champion in company history. The grind of being on the road all the time got to Lesner, and in 2004 he quit the WWE and gave pro football a try. He went to the Minnesota Vikings Training Camp, however did not make the cut.

Lesner then started training for MMA, and in 2007, he won his first MMA match defeating Min Soo Kim in a K-1 bout. Dana White weas impressed with Lesner's background, and decided to sign Lesner to a UFC deal at UFC 77. Many UFC fans were upset with White because of Lesner's WWE background, feeling the addition of a pro wrestling star would hurt the image of the UFC.

Whoever wins the Undisputed Heavyweight Championship tonight will be King of the MMA world. For Frank Mir, who nearly had his MMA career shortened by a motorcycle accident, it could be the icing on the cake of his comeback. For Brock Lesner, winning the Championship would not only be a great 32nd birthday present (his birthday is tomorrow), it could be the start of his reign at the top of the UFC. He's young enough to be a force in MMA for the next eight or so years.

If Lesner does win, it means that there will be a Lesner-Mir III, which financially could reap bigger rewards than UFC 100. But for now, we celebrate UFC making it this far considering how close they were to shutting their doors.

The Draft Night Tweeting

2009-06-26T11:56:00.004-04:00

Bill Simmons of ESPN has been doing a draft diary for his site for 13 years. In a similar spirit, I was on twitter for most of the draft tweeting my thoughts, and I present them to you now. Remember, make sure to sign up to follow me on twitter here.

sorry late 2 party...first of all, RIP Michael Jackson about 16 hours ago from web

So far, really liking the Harden pick..the Thunder will be in the playoffs next season...you heard it first from me about 16 hours ago from web

Surprised Kings would pass over Rubio...talk about winning the lottery, Timberwolves can get Rubio AND Curry about 16 hours ago from web

Wow, did not see that one coming...going to be tough for Nellie to pass on Curry...Knicks fans are going to go crazy if they get Curry about 16 hours ago from web

Told y'all it'd be tough for Nellie to pass on Stephen Curry...they just got an Ellis clone about 15 hours ago from web

T-Wolves and Warriors now loaded with Guards...wonder if there are deals in the works about 15 hours ago from web

More important question...Knicks up to pick and Spike Lee is no where to be found. What's up with that? about 15 hours ago from web

Solid pick...I'm sure Knicks fans are disappointed a little bit about 15 hours ago from web

No shock there...everyone had DeRozan going to Toronto about 15 hours ago from web

Accordingt to @hoopshype Curry going to Suns along with Biedrins for Amare Stoudemire about 15 hours ago from web

Vince Carter and Dwight Howard? WOW about 15 hours ago from web

Since Williams is off the board...my best guess is that Gerald Henderson goes to the Bobcats about 15 hours ago from web

While I'm tweeting, make sure to check out my latest column...what would I have done with this draft? http://bit.ly/PG7MQ about 15 hours ago from web

Again, told y'all Bobcats would take Henderson about 15 hours ago from web

@YahooSportsNBA has the pacers taking Hansbrough...and they were right about 15 hours ago from web in reply to YahooSportsNBA

Suns pick Earl Clark...ESPN finally reports on Amare rumors about 15 hours ago from web

@YahooSportsNBA got it right again and @RealSkipBayless Kerr's hands are tied...owner is in financial crunch right now about 15 hours ago from web

Of course Dick Vitale loves Hansbrough...shock of the millennium about 15 hours ago from web

might as well have @YahooSportsNBA do the draft online...they've been on point all night about 15 hours ago from web

Jrue Holiday to the Sixers...if I were the Sixers I'd probably have looked elsewhere about 14 hours ago from web

Rubio, Flynn, and Ty Lawson? There's gotta be a deal in the works about 14 hours ago from web

rt @kevin_love what are we doing????????????????? omg we better trade....what are we doing??????????? i dont even know about 14 hours ago from web

Interesting that Maynor goes to Utah Jazz considering they have Deron Williams there...quitter Larry Brown is on...time for bathroom break about 14 hours ago from web

Hawks finally got a decent PG in there...although CP3 would have been a better selection about 14 hours ago from web

Surprised Collison would go to the Hornets about 14 hours ago from web

Kings get their guy, Omri Casspi from Israel about 14 hours ago from web

Mullens goes a little lower than predicted...probably should have stayed in school for another year or two about 14 hours ago from web

first random pick of the draft...Rodrigue Beaubois from Guadeloupe about 14 hours ago from web

Mullens and Beaubois being traded for each other according to ESPN about 14 hours ago from web

More details...Ricky Rubio to Knicks for Nate Robinson and Jordan Hill...are the rumors true? about 14 hours ago from web

Did I just see Memphis Grizzlies fans on tv? Wow. about 14 hours ago from web

Reminder for those following, make sure you check out and promote my blog http://bit.ly/iYcAs about 14 hours ago from web

Not the trade Knicks fans were hoping for...Darko for Q Richardson about 13 hours ago from web

Toney Douglas is a good pick here for the Knicks about 13 hours ago from web

G'nite David Stern...now comes the fun part with the random prospects hanging out in the crowd about 13 hours ago from web

Adam Silver time...NY showing him some love about 13 hours ago from web

Pendergraph to Sacramento...they get another tough player about 13 hours ago from web

Wizards take Jermaine Taylor from UCF...surprised they didn't go big considering the deal they made to get Miller and Foye about 13 hours ago from web

LOL at players now being referred to by their contracts...kinda surprised with Dante Cunningham going this high about 13 hours ago from web

Non-draft related note, Apollo Theatre in Harlem is PACKED with mourners....RIP Michael Jackson about 13 hours ago from web

Spurs take DeJuan Blair..about time for him....its a blessing in disguise for Blair even if he has bum knees about 13 hours ago from web

Selling picks must be the thing to do, so far 2 of them have been sold (Wizards and Nuggets sold their picks to Houston) about 13 hours ago from web

Jodie Meeks goes kinda high to Milwaukee about 13 hours ago from web

Calling it a night...thanks to those who followed me tonight...make sure to check out and spread the word about the blog http://bit.ly/iYcAs about 12 hours ago from web

The First Annual Common Sense Draft

2009-06-23T18:07:00.003-04:00

I didn't realize how much of a crap shoot this draft was going to be until after posting my draft preview. This time of the year produces many fanatical trade rumors among NBA circles, most of them with little to no merit.

After reading about 10 different deals that were rumored to be proposed to the Washington Wizards for the #5 pick, I came up with a deal that would satisfy both sides. Looking up and down this draft, I know if I was a GM for any of these lottery teams, I could make the best out of this mixed bag of talent.

With that in mind, I now unveil my first Common Sense Draft. This draft represents what each lottery team GM should do if they used a little common sense in deciding what is best for their teams.

1. Los Angeles Clippers - Blake Griffin
Obvious choice here. Probably the safest pick in the draft and will solidify the front line. However, since I'm running this draft for the Clippers, this won't be the last time you hear from them in the Lottery.

2. Minnesota Timberwolves (via Memphis Grizzlies) - Hasheem Thabeet
Early on we get our first trade. Minnesota has 3 first round draft picks, and as the decision maker in this draft, here is the deal I would allow between Minnesota and Memphis. Minnesota would trade the #6, #18, and a future second rounder to Memphis for the #2 pick.

Like Ricky Rubio, Thabeet has made it known he prefers not to play in Memphis. Minnesota desperately needs a Center to allow Al Jefferson and Kevin Love to move back to their natural positions of Power Forward and Small Forward respectively. Minnesota also needs a PG, however with a draft rich in Guards, they should be able to get a quality guard at the end of the first round. As far as Memphis, they get an extra first rounder.

3. Oklahoma City Thunder - James Harden
Thunder GM Sam Presti is smart enough and has enough assets to acquire a quality big man. A nucleus of Harden, Russel Westbrook, Kevin Durant, and Jeff Green will be tough to keep out of the playoffs next season.

4. Sacramento Kings - Ricky Rubio
The Kings need a point guard like a drug addict needs rehab. When Rubio gets accustomed to the NBA, he's going to dominate.

5. Los Angeles Clippers (via Washington Wizards) - Tyreke Evans
This is probably going to raise the most eyebrows since the Clippers are not normally this aggressive, however with the Wizards openly shopping this pick, I'd jump at it in a heartbeat. The Clippers would trade Zach Randolph and a protected 1st rounder to Washington for Etan Thomas, Mike James, Javaris Crittenton, and the #5 pick.

Despite Randolph's attitude issues, he still has averaged 20 points and 10 rebounds per game the past three seasons. Plus, a locker-room with vets such as Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler, he would be put in check quickly. As far as his contract goes, it expires after the 2010-2011 season, thus being a nice bargaining chip to unload him in the future.

The Clippers would get $15.2 million off their books for the 2010 off season. When you take into consideration Marcus Camby's contract comes off the books after next season, the Clippers would have cleared over $22.5 million in salaries. The Clippers might not be the Lakers, however with a team featuring Tyreke Evans, Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, Baron Davis, Chris Kaman, and Al Thornton, it could lure a decent free agent to the city of Angels.

6. Memphis Grizzlies (via Minnesota Timberwolves) - Jordan Hill
Jordan Hill would provide the front court depth the Grizzlies desperately need. He would be able to take some of the pressure off of Rudy Gay and Marc Gasol. In Memphis, he'd be able to contribute and make an impact right away.

7. Golden State Warriors - Stephen Curry
Despite what Monta Ellis thinks, he is not a true point guard. Great shooter, however not the best at distributing the ball to teammates. Even though he is an Ellis clone, Curry is a better ball handler and in true Don Nelson fashion, is not afraid to take shots.

8. New York Knicks - Brandon Jennings
Jennings provides the flash and speed for a Mike D'Antoni team. Once he puts on some muscle and works on his shot selection, the Knicks could have their PG of the future.

9. Toronto Raptors - DeMar DeRozan
The Raptors are most likely letting Shawn Marion and Anthony Parker leave via free agency, so DeRozan would be able to contribute fairly quickly. Having both players leave would also free up money to attempt to resign Chris Bosh.

10. Milwaukee Bucks - Jonny Flynn
The players Milwaukee acquired for Richard Jefferson help fill the front court and shave off some salary next year. With a guard-rich draft, they'd be able to find a PG who can take over for Luke Ridnour sooner rather than later. Flynn is a great leader on the floor and a fairly good shooter.

11. New Jersey Nets - Tyler Hansbrough
They need toughness upfront more than a guard. I'd prefer to take someone that's proven himself in the college game to be fearless under the net. Plus, with Devin Harris and Vince Carter in the back court, a guard isn't a pressing need right now.

12. Charlotte Bobcats - Gerald Henderson
A note here, if I were GM, I'd never hire Larry Brown as a coach. I'm not a Larry Brown fan and would never consider hiring someone who buries young talent, complains to the media about in-house problems, and openly campaigns for other jobs while still employed. However, the Bobcats need a Shooting Guard badly and Henderson would be the answer here.

13. Chicago Bulls (via Indiana Pacers) - Earl Clark
As part of this deal, the Bulls would give up the #16 and #26 picks for the Pacers #13 pick. The Pacers can pick up a decent point guard and a big body later in the round. To take the next step in the East, they need some more consistent production in the low post, and Clark would provide that for the Bulls. If he puts on some more weight, he could develop into a decent contributor.

14. Phoenix Suns - Jrue Holiday
Steve Nash is not going to be productive forever, and now would be the best time to find someone if his production starts slipping, or if he decides to bolt when he becomes a free agent.

Mocking The Draft 2009

2009-06-22T21:29:00.004-04:00

This draft is one of the most intriguing ones in recent years. On one hand, many analysts think this is a draft that could rival the 2000 NBA draft as one of the weaker drafts in NBA history. On the other hand, in a year where the recession has hit this country hard and the salary cap in the NBA has dropped about $1.4 million, finding cheap talent to round out your roster might be a better option than spending $10 million per year on a veteran in the down slope of his career.

Because of the unique situations surrounding this draft, it could potentially be the most unpredictable drafts in history, loaded with trades. Here is how I see the draft unfolding. See the footnotes for my comments on this draft.

1. Los Angeles Clippers - Blake Griffin
2. Memphis Grizzlies - Jordan Hill (A)
3. Oklahoma City Thunder - Hasheem Thabeet
4. Sacramento Kings - Ricky Rubio
5. Washington Wizards - Tyreke Evans (B)
6. Minnesota Timberwolves - Stephen Curry
7. Golden State Warriors - Jrue Holiday
8. New York Knicks - Brandon Jennings
9. Toronto Raptors - DeMar DeRozan
10. Milwaukee Bucks - Jonny Flynn
11. New Jersey Nets - Terrence Williams
12. Charlotte Bobcats - Gerald Henderson
13. Indiana Pacers - Ty Lawson
14. Phoenix Suns - Earl Clark
15. Detroit Pistons - Austin Daye
16. Chicago Bulls - DeJuan Blair
17. Philadelphia 76ers - Eric Maynor
18. Minnesota Timberwolves - B.J. Mullins
19. Atlanta Hawks - Jeff Teague
20. Utah Jazz - Tyler Hansbrough
21. New Orleans Hornets - James Johnson
22. Dallas Mavericks - Darren Collison
23. Sacramento Kings - Sam Young
24. Portland Trail Blazers - Nick Calathes (C)
25. Oklahoma City Thunder - Wayne Ellington (D)
26. Chicago Bulls - Omri Casspi
27. Memphis Grizzlies - Chase Budinger
28. Minnesota Timberwolves - Jonas Jerebko
29. Los Angeles Lakers - Toney Douglas
30. Cleveland Cavaliers - Jeff Pendergraph

A. Memphis is in a tough spot. Because they don't spend money on attracting free agents and are seemingly always rebuilding, the Grizzlies have been spurned by both Rubio and Thabeet. There is a possibility that this pick will be dealt. If not, Jordan Hill actually fits a needs with the Grizzlies. Don't be shocked if Memphis goes local by taking Tyreke Evans.

B. As I've said since the beginning, Washington will most likely trade this pick. The last time they had the #5 pick in the draft, they traded it for Antawn Jamison. Whoever they do draft might want to get acquainted with Etan Thomas, since they most likely will be packaged for a veteran that can actually contribute.

C. Another common NBA Draft theme is the hyperactivity of the Portland Trail Blazers. They have made numerous trades during the draft the past couple years, and this year will not be any different. Look for Portland to make a move for a veteran or take a couple players that can play in Europe for a couple years before coming stateside. Another rumor making the rounds has the Blazers trading into the top 5 this year, possibly trying to make a run at Ricky Rubio.

D. I don't think Oklahoma City is going to keep this pick. I think that Presti will use it to stockpile picks in the future. The same can be said for Chicago, except I see Chicago looking to use the 26th pick to trade up.

Tweeting Your Demise

2009-06-17T17:52:00.003-04:00

As a follow up to my last article about Old and New Media, the new of Kevin McHale not coming back to the Minnesota Timberwolves did not come in the form of a press release. Instead, the media reported on a Tweet Kevin Love sent out saying McHale would no longer be the coach.

Just a reminder, make sure you sign up to follow me on Twitter. Also, I recently started a Facebook group, where I'll be announcing when my new columns will be posted. Make sure you sign up for that as well.

Michael Vick Did Steroids While Killing Baby Pit Bulls!!! (Am I On ESPN Yet?)

2009-06-13T18:46:00.003-04:00

Calm down PETA, Michael Vick did not kill baby pit bulls. And calm down sports journalists, Michael Vick did not use steroids. However, with the line between new media and old media becoming fuzzier, outrageous statements like this could become headline news on SportsCenter in the near future.

Want proof? Take the Raul Ibanez/Steroids issue from this week. For those that do not know, Raul Ibanez ripped a blogger for insinuating his hot start was possibly doe to the use of performance enhancing drugs. Here is the article that touched off this storm. Now, to Jared's credit, the article is well written and he does his research on how Raul Ibanez has taken advantage of weak hitting, hitter friendly parks, and a strong lineup to jump off to a great start. The funny thing is that he did not need to throw in PED's to explain Ibanez's numbers; he already did a thorough job. However, he threw in that magic phrase for no apparent reason other than to draw attention to himself, and he got what he deserved with the firestorm of criticism ranging from the Philadelphia Inquirer to FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal.

This leads to an issue that is bigger than sports. With how connected the internet has become the past couple years, the line between new media (such as bloggers) and old media (such as newspapers) is getting thinner. When you look at the most popular websites on the internet, five of the top 10 websites feature user-created content (Youtube, Myspace, Facebook, Blogger, and Twitter). In fact, more people nowadays get their entertainment information from Perez Hilton and TMZ than they are Access Hollywood and Entertainment Weekly. Pro athletes and entertainers are taking advantage of user-created content by starting to control their own pr moves. One of my favorite websites, Hoopshype, features more and more news stories linked to athletes Twitter accounts than in the past.

Which leads me to Jared. The days that I can sit around and talk online with friends of mine about rumors and not have them spread are numbered. Media establishments are making mistakes by reporting blogs as actual news and bloggers are being unfairly targeted for their opinions. In his case, he had it coming because of how poorly he chose his words. If I were Jared and I were writing my column, I would not have mentioned PED's at all.

Sometimes the direction of the columns I write change as I write them, leading me to adjust the rest of the column to match the point I was trying to make. I assume that Jared was trying to link Raul's hot start, his age, and the era baseball is in to conclude Raul could be using PED's. If he proofread his column, maybe he would have realized that by using the research he did and a little common sense, Raul Ibanez's hot start can be attributed to a stronger lineup and facing weaker pitching.

The time may have arrived where bloggers need to think twice before trying to draw attention to themselves. Don't worry, there will still be idiots who post random updates and thoughts online, however the days where you can accuse a public figure of something without anything concrete and get away with it are numbered.

Expanding The Empire

2009-06-08T21:28:00.003-04:00

I'm proud to announce the Official Facebook page for this blog. If you're on Facebook, make sure you become a fan of the blog. On the page, it has a discussion aread where you can interact with me and discuss my posts. It will also provide a forum to vent about ridiculous things in sports that you think don't make any sense.

Anyways, here is the page.

Minor League Basketball: It Can Be Saved (Part 2)

2009-06-08T19:20:00.002-04:00

Last week, I explained the situation Minor League Basketball has faced the past few years. Although it is going through a rough patch, there are some positives. The Premier Basketball League is fairly well run and focused on putting a quality product on the court for the fans. However, as a whole, minor league basketball needs to be fixed, and luckily, I am here to help.

Before I unveil my plans to save minor league basketball, one thing I would make sure of is that Joe Newman has NOTHING to do with this league. I touched on it last week; for the past nine years, Joe has gone across the country burning bridges and giving minor league basketball a bad name. He and his band of cronies have done such a horrible job running their joke of a league. Joe would be free to run his little league, however it would have no association with my newly formed union of minor league basketball.

Without further adieu, here's how I would save minor league basketball:

1. Found A Governing Body: The name I have floating in my head would be the United Basketball Leagues of America, or UBLA for short. The league would govern over the minor league basketball leagues that are a part of the organization. The way the leagues would be run would be similar to the National Wrestling Alliance.

For those that are not familiar, the National Wrestling Alliance was the governing body for various professional wrestling promotions throughout the country. Each promoter had their own territory, their own champions, etc. however they each followed the rules the NWA put forth.

The UBLA would consist of at least 8 different leagues with 8-10 teams in each league. If the popularity of the system grows, more leagues could be added. Having a central body watch over these leagues would improve the consistency of play and the quality of ownership. Because ownership would be regulated, no flash-in-the-pan owners would be able to operate in the UBLA. If they want to be in business, they can go to Joe Newman's rec league.

2. Each league in the UBLA would be a Single-Entity League: Each of the eight leagues would be run as a single-entity league. This means that the league would own each of its teams and be responsible for paying players. It would allow owners of each teams to use their own money wisely. They could use the money to promote the product, pay their employers properly, and ensure that fans are getting their money's worth. The long-term health of the organization and league would be better suited in a single-entity format.

3. Each league would be regional: One of the main problems with minor league basketball is that travel can be costly. Last season, the CBA fielded teams in Minot (North Dakota), Lawton-Fort Sill (Oklahoma), Albany (New York), and Pikeville (Kentucky). The ABA has teams all over the country that sometimes never get to play each other.

One way to not only fix all this, and to save a lot of money is to have the leagues represent a certain region. With eight leagues (to start out with), they would be in different parts of the country. On top of that, the teams would be within driving distance of each other, saving tens of thousands of dollars that would have been used in the past to fly out to games that may or may not wind up being played.

Within the eight leagues, there would be eight teams in each league to start. Further growth would be dependent on the success of the leagues. The teams in the league would be in markets that are too small to support NBA teams yet big enough to potentially draw well.

Here are a couple examples of how the leagues would be set up:

League 1 (Based in New England)
East Division: Hartford, CT; Providence, RI; Manchester, NH; Worcester, MA
West Division: Albany, NY; Buffalo, NY; Rochester, NY; Binghamton, NY

League 2 (Based in Mid-Atlantic)
North Division: Reading, PA; Scranton, PA; Harrisburg, PA; Trenton, NJ
South Division: Wilmington, DE; Atlantic City, NJ; Camden, NJ; Baltimore, MD

League 3 (Based in the Smoky Mountain Region)
North Division: Charleston, WV; Lexington, KY; Louisville, KY; Cincinnati, OH
South Division: Nashville, TN; Chattanooga, TN; Knoxville, TN; Huntsville, AL

The point is that all of these cities are large enough to support a successful minor league franchise and are close enough together that teams would be able to make day trips for games.

4. All games would be from Thursday through Sunday: By having their games on the weekends, more families would be able to take their kids or take some time away from work to enjoy a game or two. Having games during the work week makes it more difficult for fans to attend games, especially during the school week when kids have school the next day.

5. Playoffs would be similar to the NCAA Basketball Tournament: The playoff format for the UBLA would be similar to the NCAA. Each league would have a championship series pitting the two division winners against each other. The eight winners would be placed in a tournament format. The two teams left would face off in a best-of-five series to determine the best team in the UBLA.

Having a tournament with one team representing each league would be beneficial in a number of ways. It would expose fans to other member leagues and players. Plus, as March Madness shows, tournament basketball where every game is an elimination game is exciting to watch. Plus, it would provide time for the eight leagues to come together to discuss strategy and share ideas on how to improve, maintain, and possibly expand the success of minor league basketball.

By following these pointers, minor league basketball has the potential to flourish. It would provide a financial backbone for team owners, affordable entertainment for families, and a legit opportunity for basketball players to show off their skills to the spectators and scouts.

Puppet Free: The 2009 NBA Finals Preview

2009-06-03T20:36:00.000-04:00

Everyone wanted to see a LeBron James-Kobe Bryant finals. Many fans wanted it, the NBA wanted it, television wanted it, and of course Nike wanted it. Nike jumped the gun and started producing LeBron-Kobe ads featuring them in puppet form in anticipation of them facing each other.

However, Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic ruined everyone's dream scenario by beating the Cleveland Cavaliers 4-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals. If Adidas were smart, they would have already started producing Dwight Howard puppet ads mocking the LeBron-Kobe ads.

This piece is not about puppets; it is about the 2009 NBA Finals. The NBA may not have gotten LeBron and Kobe; however Dwight Howard is just as young and marketable, and arguably just as talented as LeBron James. Howard is as important to the Magic as LeBron is to the Cavaliers. The only difference is that Howard has a supporting cast that actually supports.

This should be a tightly contested series, and playing against LeBron James is a great way to prepare for playing against Kobe Bryant. The main difference though for the Magic is that outside of Howard, they no longer have the size advantage they had against the Cavaliers. Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol, and Lamar Odom (when he decides to show up) are much more talented and versatile than Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Anderson Varejao, and Wally Szczerbiak.

It should be an exciting series to watch, and despite what David Stern, the NBA, and ABC might think, will be more exciting to watch than if the Cleveland Cavaliers had advanced. Orlando will make this series competitive; however, after being embarrassed by the Boston Celtics last year, the Los Angeles Lakers should have the motivation to come out guns blazing.

Los Angeles Lakers in Six.

Minor League Basketball: Can it be saved? (Part One)

2009-05-31T18:16:00.000-04:00

The NBA Finals kick off on Thursday night, with the Orlando Magic and Los Angeles Lakers each needing 6 games to move on to play for the championship. The day after Game One, rumors are circulating that the Continental Basketball Association will announce they are suspending operations for the 2009-2010 season.

For those that don't know, the CBA bills itself as the oldest professional basketball league in the country, founded two months before the NBA was founded in 1946. For most of its history, it thrived on being a minor league, satisfying markets that became too small for the NBA, such as Albany, NY and Rockford, IL. In fact, they were the first professional league to develop and use the 3-point field goal in their games.

However, things fell apart for the CBA in 1999 when Isiah Thomas purchased the CBA as a whole for $10 million. He had hoped to make the CBA the official developmental league of the NBA. The first season was actually quite successful, with the CBA even holding their first All-Star game in three years. The NBA even made an offer to buy the league from Thomas for $11 million dollars.

Foreshadowing the disastrous basketball-related decisions that he would make in the future, Isiah Thomas thought he was being low-balled and declined the offer. Soon thereafter the NBA announces the formation of their own developmental league and Isiah bails on the league, placing in a blind trust, in order to coach the Indiana Pacers. With the league unable to pay player salaries and expenses, the league folds. Eventually they would come back however it would not be able to the reach even the most moderate of success it had achieved earlier in its history.

Of the 4 major sports, minor league basketball is the least successful. Baseball and Hockey have thriving minor leagues, and even teams/leagues not affiliated with the MLB or NHL have been able to operate. Prior to sitting out this year, the Arena Football League had been a popular minor league for fans craving football in the spring.

There are several reasons minor league basketball has failed in this country. First, many basketball fans consider the NCAA as the official minor league of the NBA. More than any other sport, players drafted by an NBA team can step in immediately and become a contributor, or even in the case of a Michael Jordan or LeBron James, a superstar. Because many of the NBA All-Stars never stepped foot in tiny gyms in Albany, NY or Gary, IN, many basketball fans feel that the talent in the minors is not up to par with the NCAA and NBA.

The other reason is the D-League. Though it went through some growing pains, it has started producing some quality role players for teams in the NBA. It also allows younger NBA players who would spend more time on the bench than on the court to get some regular playing time.

Even with these two factors, most of the failure of minor league basketball lies within the leagues itself and the people who run the leagues. For the CBA, PBL, and USBL, most of their failure has to do with financially strapped owners and leagues adding, folding, or relocating teams every year. While these three leagues have dealt with their fair share of economic difficulties, at least they have tried to put the fan first and do everything they can to make a good name for themselves.

The same cannot be said for the "American Basketball Association". The only thing this league shares with the word professional is that one point in time, the ABA was a competitor of the NBA and eventually merged with them in 1976. This joke of a league is run by Joe Newman, who has singlehandedly given minor league basketball a bad name. Backed by hundreds of teams that are now defunct, he gives out franchise rights like supermarket coupons, regardless of if an owner can even afford to run a professional team. Every year, he unveils grand plans for the league, and every year, teams fold and join mid-season, few teams even play the scheduled amount of games, and up until this year, the league did not even keep league-wide statistics. Joe Newman even said at one point this year "If games are missed, it hurts no one." Take a look at the e-mail exchange between Joe Newman and the head of OurSportsCentral (Joe's quote appears in the seventh post, 2nd paragraph), which promotes minor league sports. Does this sound like a guy who really cares about the success of their league?

Joe, do you know who hurts from games that are missed? Sponsors that pay for advertising. Players that get one less chance to show off their skills. Fans that pay for tickets, food, and merchandise for the games. Most of all, it hurts the joke of a league he runs. This incarnation of the ABA makes YMCA Recreation Leagues look like the NBA. Because of people like Joe Newman, many towns that would benefit from having a minor league basketball team and the revenue it can bring decline because of the bridges Joe Newman has burned in pursuit of his ego (normally I'd say the almighty dollar, but in this case, its hard to see this league turning a 10 cent profit).

However, I have the solution to fix minor league basketball. My plan would not only make minor league basketball popular, but it would also be financially sound and successful.

Stay tuned for Part Two...

Winners and Losers of the 2009 NBA Draft Lottery

2009-05-19T21:04:00.004-04:00

The NBA Draft Lottery wrapped up about 10 minutes ago, and honestly, I'm still trying to figure it out. This is not a deep draft, so getting that top 3 pick is a huge reward. Without further adieu, here are my winners and losers of the NBA Draft Lottery.

WINNERS

1. The Western Conference: With the first four picks in the draft going to Western Conference teams, an already deep conference will only get deeper. Of the top 4 picks, there's potential for three of them to sneak into the playoff race.

2. Memphis Grizzlies: This would have been the perfect year for Memphis to win the lottery. Blake Griffin fills an immediate need. Plus, with a starting lineup of him, Marc Gasol, OJ Mayo, Rudy Gay, and Mike Conley, they have the potential to be the 2010 version of the Portland Trail Blazers. However, getting the second pick might be a blessing in disguise. If the Clippers go with Blake Griffin, the Grizzlies would be in line to pick up Ricky Rubio.

This benefits them in multiple ways. First, he would get to play with his fellow countryman Marc Gasol. Having played with Rubio on the National Team and the Olympic team, he's familiar with Rubio's style of play. Plus, he would help the 18 year old ease into living in America. With Rubio established as the starting PG, it would allow the Grizzlies to shop Mike Conley and get a decent draft pick or even a Power Forward in return. They also have a second 1st round pick, which could either help with their depth or be used in a deal to get more picks.

3. The Los Angeles Clippers: I caught a lot of flack for picking this team to make the playoffs, but here me out. This team was riddled with injuries last year, and coupled with taking on Zach Randolph's contract, they had a tough year. You factor in the #1 pick to a core of Baron Davis, Eric Gordon, Al Thornton, and Marcus Camby, they'll have the ability to play spoiler in March and April.

4. Oklahoma City Thunder: They lost out on hometown hero Blake Griffin, however they are in a position where they can fill either their need for a center with Hasheem Thabeet or a shooting guard with James Harden.

LOSERS

1. The Sacramento Kings and Washington Wizards: Both teams had the best odds of winning the lottery and both of them end up on the outside looking in. If the Wizards had a top 3 pick, I could see them keeping it, however don't be surprised if they trade the #5 pick. As for Sacramento, they had the best odds of winning the lottery and they desperately needed the help. They desperately need a point guard, and selecting Ricky Rubio would be a huge step forward in rebuilding the franchise.

2. Blake Griffin: The Clippers are one of the worst run franchises in the league. Not to mention that they already have Chris Kaman, Al Thornton, Marcus Camby, and Zach Randolph in the front court. Asuming Camby leaves in 2010 and they find a way to get rid of Randolph and his absurd contract, he'd still be stuck with a franchise that has made the playoffs twice in the past 15 seasons. Griffin should pray that the Clippers pick someone else at number one.

3. The Remaining 11 teams in the Lottery: Other than the New York Knicks, who are rumored to be interested in Stephen Curry, these teams now have the daunting task of trying to find a diamond in the rough that is the 2009 NBA draft. This might be the year where the record for using the word "upside" to describe a player will be broken.

The one thing I'm pretty sure of is this year there will be more trades than normal. This might be the year a lot of teams trade out of the first round in order not to pay guaranteed contracts the 1st Round picks get. The economy is hitting the country hard and sports has not been immune to its effects. Between a weak draft and the mythical Summer of 2010 looming, it's going to be an unusual off season.

NBA Playoffs Halftime Report

2009-05-18T22:00:00.007-04:00

With the second half of the NBA Playoffs set to begin tomorrow night with Game One of the Western Conference Finals, here are some of my thoughts on the first two rounds:

- First, yes I was horrifically wrong in picking the Los Angeles Clippers to be the dark horse to make the playoffs. Eric Gordon was a pleasant surprise, but that was really the only pleasant thing about the 08-09 Los Angeles Clippers.

- If you don't remember the past, you're bound to repeat it. The Denver Nuggets and Cleveland Cavaliers cruised through the first two rounds of the playoffs. They are well rested, and every tv analyst is picking them to go to the Finals.

Guess nobody learned from last year's Los Angeles Lakers.

They had a fairly easy road to the NBA Finals last year (including a sweep of these Denver Nuggets in the first round). They were well rested and were supposed to take advantage of a Boston team that had played 20 games in the past 30 days, including playing every other day starting on April 26th. However, they were thoroughly dominated by the Celtics, including one of the most humiliating defeats in NBA Finals history, losing by 39 in Game Six.

Cleveland and Denver have the talent to make the Finals. However whether they have the determination is another issue.

- I've been on the Chicago Bulls bandwagon for 3 years, and this season they finally showed why. No one expected the Bulls to put up much of a fight against the defending champs, but they went toe to toe with the Celtics. The one thing I've been saying is that the Bulls need to pull the trigger on a trade for a vet who can score on the post. If Chris Bosh decides he wants to leave Toronto in 2010, they might be inclined to get something in return. The Bulls have enough young talent to trade 2 or 3 players and still be a playoff team, however they are too afraid to make a deal because they fear the guys they trade could blossom elsewhere.

- I'll give credit where credit is due. I did not believe Atlanta would even make the playoffs this year, and they proved me wrong. They are a talented team, however unless they get a dominant big man, they won't be able to take down Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic.

- Between November 2nd, 2007 and May 17th, 2009, the Boston Celtics have played 211 games, including the 2008 preseason and both post seasons. It was only a matter of time until the amount of games played caught up with their roster. With the amount of injuries they have endured, their depth was stretched thin. You know its bad when Brian Scalabrine is getting quality minutes in meaningful games.

- LeBron James had a great regular season, and personally, he has the potential to become the greatest player in NBA history (yes, even better than Michael Jordan). However, the MVP award should have gone to Dwyane Wade. Here are their stats for the Regular Season

2008-2009 Regular Season

LeBron James: 28.4 Points, 7.6 Rebounds, 7.2 Assists, and 1.7 Steals per game
Dwyane Wade: 30.2 Points, 5.0 Rebounds, 7.5 Assists, and 2.2 Steals per game

Dwyane Wade literally put the team on his back and nearly carried them to the second round of the playoffs. Check out the stats for the Miami Heat this past season and you'll see that if he were not on the Heat, they'd set the record for fewest wins in a season.

In addition to the second half of the NBA Playoffs starting tomorrow night, the NBA Draft Lottery is tomorrow night. As I have done in the past, my Winners and Losers of the NBA Draft Lottery column will come out tomorrow. This year's class is not projected to be as good as the past couple years, however the best Point Guard in the world, Ricky Rubio, is going to be heading to the NBA next year. Personally, I feel he should be the #1 pick in the draft ahead of Blake Griffin but I'm sure it'll depend on which team wins the Draft Lottery.

Delaware: The Next Gambling Mecca?

2009-05-16T20:14:00.005-04:00

This week, the highly controversial Sports Betting bill was passed in Delaware. This will allow gamblers to participate in a "sports lottery". Delaware, along with Nevada, Montana, and Oregon were grandfathered into a federal law, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, which banned Sports Betting in this country.

While the media has primarily focused on the actual sports betting, there are two major stories being overlooked in all this.

First, there's another part of this Sports Betting bill that is not getting as much attention but is even more important in the overall scheme of things. After sports betting is up and running, the next step is table games. On the surface, it might not be a big deal, however the addition of table games to the "Racino's" will pave the way for larger, more luxurious casinos.

Foxwoods could be one candidate to build a resort casino in Delaware. Foxwoods, which operates two popular casinos in Connecticut, was granted a gaming license by the city of Philadelphia on December 30, 2006 for a slots only casino, along with an entertainment and retail center. No ground has been broken since the license was granted because of a variety of factors ranging from trying to find a suitable location to protest from residents.

If this continues for much longer, don't you think they'd take advantage of a move to Delaware? They would not only have the right to build a casino with Sports Betting and Table Games, but they would be the first real casino in the state. Foxwoods could establish itself as THE casino in Delaware, much like the Flamingo was when it first opened in 1946. If Foxwoods doesn't come in, I'm sure that the big boys such as Donald Trump and Steve Wynn will try to make a splash in Delaware.

Delaware getting Table Games will have a big effect on gaming in the tri-state area, especially on Atlantic City. Before Pennsylvania started issuing licenses for Slot Casino's, everyone in the tri-state area would go down to Atlantic City to satisfy their gambling needs. When slots licenses were granted in Philadelphia, Atlantic City lost a little bit of revenue, however had the monopoly on table games and an edge in terms of nightlife. Next, the State of New Jersey passed a law banning smoking inside their casinos. Then the current recession kicked into full gear, and people started to opt against losing money in AC. Because of the decline in revenue, 4 casino/resorts that were in development have basically come to a halt.

Now that Delaware is going to be the only state east of the Mississippi to offer legalized sports betting, more people are going to be heading to Delaware casinos than Atlantic City. It has gotten to the point that a state senator from New Jersey has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Government to overturn the 1992 Sports Betting Law. He feels that the federal government is discriminating against the other 46 states that are not allowed to have sports betting.

This leads to the other point I want to make. Repealing the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 would bring in additional revenue to states that desperately need a new flow of revenue.

Here's an example of why this could help states. According to the state of Nevada, $92 million was wagered legally on Super Bowl XLII. According to USA Today, $8 billion was wagered illegally on that same game.

Obviously, because sports betting is illegal in 46 states, it's tough to determine an exact number of how much money is wagered illegally on sports. However, most estimates conclude that between $100 billion and $400 billion is wagered illegally on sports in the United States.

There are critics saying that games, such as the NFL and NCAA, that claim sports betting Delaware will influence athletes or referees looking for some extra money on the side. However, as this recession is teaching America, we're in different times. It's a matter of Dollars and Sense. Delaware has a deficit between $750 and $800 million. If sports betting and table games were allowed in the state, it would bring in several million per year in revenue. Having casino's in the state would create several hundred jobs ranging from card dealers to construction of the casinos.

Who knows, maybe legalized gambling is the real stimulus package America needs.

Observations On The NFL Draft

2009-04-30T19:25:00.002-04:00

Now that some time has passed to let this year's NFL Draft sink in, here are a couple of observations from someone that watched the majority of the draft:

- I'm still not sold on the Eagles drafting a Receiver. Don't get me wrong, Jeremy Maclin is a talented receiver, however Brandon Pettigrew would have been the better long-term answer. While Brent Celek is a decent tight end, he can't block to save his life. The other thing about Maclin is that his style is similar to DeSean Jackson. If the Eagles were going to draft a Receiver, they should have looked for a bigger Receiver a la Larry Fitzgerald. Speaking of Wide Receivers...

- The Giants got a steal with Ramses Barden in the third round. It's baffling why the Eagles would trade with a division rival, but the Eagles traded out of this pick and got someone that can fill in Plaxico Burress' shoes pretty quickly. At 6'6", he's a perfect end zone target for Eli Manning. As an FCS poll voter, I also know that the Baltimore Ravens got a steal with Lardarius Webb. He's going to excel in their Defense, take my word for it.

- If I ran a 4.3 40 today, would Al Davis sign me to a multi-million dollar contract? It's great to have a team full of speed, but it's even better to have a team full of talent. Maybe that's why the Oakland Raiders have sat comfortably in the top 10 worst teams the past couple years.

- Was anyone else annoyed with the live feeds into the prospects houses? Part of the excitement of the draft is to watch the kid hear his name called on draft day at the same time as everyone else. ESPN played spoiler this year and showed footage of draft picks talking on the cell phone and putting on their team hats before they were even drafted.

The Long Drive To Heaven: RIP Harry Kalas

2009-04-13T20:07:00.004-04:00

This day was going to come sooner or later.

One day, Philadelphia Phillies fans would turn on their televisions or radios, and Harry Kalas would not be there. For 37+ years, he has been the voice of not only the Phillies, but the city of Philadelphia. Today, the city and the sports world lost a legend.

Harry Kalas collapsed in the broadcast booth at Nationals Stadium this afternoon around 12:30, roughly two and a half hours before the Phillies were set to take on the Washington Nationals in their home opener. At 1:20 this afternoon, the sports world lost a legend.

To the city of Philadelphia, this was more than a loss of a legend, it was the loss of a family member. For fans my age, he was the voice of baseball. Harry had the perfect voice for the national pastime. The game does not have a time limit like other sports and his pace reflected that. He took his time calling the sport that he loved and savored every moment of it. Watching a game with Harry Kalas calling it was like watching a game with your father or grandfather. He genuinely cared about the Phillies and would hearken back to past Phillies accomplishments. Though he broadcast the final out of the 2008 World Series for the radio, it was painful watching a hack like Joe Buck call the final out. Harry's call of that final out will give Phillies fans goosebumps for years to come. Literally 5 minutes after the game ended, Joe Buck's call became irrelevant after FOX did the right thing and replayed the final out with Harry Kalas.

Harry Kalas was as much a part of the team as the Manager or 2nd baseman. He often refered to Phillies players by names they'd be called by their friends, or even family. From "Michael Jack Schmidt" to "J-Roll Jimmy Rollins" to "Mitchy-Poo", he was one of the guys. Former Phillies First Baseman John Kruk recalled on road trips he would often drink beer with the players and even do play by play of their card games.

Jayson Stark put it best this afternoon, the thought of watching Phillies games without that voice is unimaginable. RIP Harry Kalas, 1936-2009.

Two Notes

2009-03-02T13:07:00.003-05:00

1) This is the final name change for the blog. I had been trying to figure out a clever name that hasn't been taken. I was hoping for something involving "Expiring Contract" because of the NBA trade deadline, but everything was taken by people that keep up their blogs less than I do. The name "Common Sense Coordinator" came from Bill Simmons over at ESPN. For years, he has been pushing for a coach to be in charge of common sense. I feel the same way, especially with the way certain teams throw their money around, forgetting it has come back to haunt them in the past (cue the Washington Redskins fight song). Thus the name Common Sense Coordinator sticks. Plus it gives me a forum to post this pic.

2) I've given in and created a Twitter account for this blog. It actually will help out in the long run because I'd be able to update it more often since I'll have it open during the day so I can react real time to stuff that's happening. The twitter link for this blog can be found here.

Accountability 101: It's Ok to Apologize...Really!

2009-02-17T13:52:00.004-05:00

"I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment...I'm 23 years old and despite the successes I've had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again." - Michael Phelps, February 1, 2009

"Back then, [baseball] was a different culture...It was very loose. I was young. I was stupid. I was naive. And I wanted to prove to everyone that I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time. I did take a banned substance. And for that, I am very sorry and deeply regretful." - Alex Rodriguez, February 9, 2008

These two statements rocked not only the sports world, but the corporate world as well. Both Michael Phelps and Alex Rodriguez were stars on and off the cameras. Phelps was the Olympic hero who captured America's hearts and the many endorsements that winning eight Olympic Gold medals will generate. Alex Rodriguez was baseball's last great hope of redemption. The sport has been tarnished by steroids use and allegations of steroid use for this decade, and he was seen by baseball purists as someone that can bring legitimacy to the baseball record books.

And within one week, both were knocked off their pedestals with allegations of drug use.

Michael Phelps was photographed smoking marijuana at a college party, and Alex Rodriguez was identified as one of the 104 players who tested positive for steroids in a 2003 survey done by Major League Baseball to determine the necessity for steroids testing in the sport.

Phelps and Rodriguez could have taken the cue from past athletes and deny their usage at every turn. Phelps could have said it wasn't marijuana in that bong, or that he put his mouth on it, but did it as a joke with his friends. Alex Rodriguez could have accused his urine sample as being tainted and being part of a larger conspiracy to bring him down.

However, both athletes did something even more courageous. They did something that athletes in the past would not dare do. They did something that could potentially kill their careers in the eyes of sports publicists. Most importantly, they did something that our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. have taught us for years.

They told the truth. They apologized and took responsibility for their actions.

Yet somehow, this simple act is being overshadowed. The media would rather focus on Phelps smoking marijuana and Rodriguez doing steroids in 2003 instead of talking about how they were remorseful about their actions and look forward to putting this behind them.

I understand the media has a responsibility to sell newspapers, magazines, website subscriptions, etc., but if they want to stand on their moral high ground about athletes doing wrong, shouldn't they also talk about athletes making ammends for their actions? Shouldn't they talk about how they have learned from athletes past and admitted their wrongdoings publicly?

In Michael Phelps' case, legally what he did was worse than Alex Rodriguez. The United States Government has a vendetta against marijuana, and the fact he did so this openly is a tough spot to be in. Taking this into consideration, I have one question to pose to everyone that has criticized Michael Phelps in the past couple weeks.

So what if he smoked Marijuana?

First, marijuana is not a performance enhancing drug, which is why the Olympic Committee did not strip Phelps of his medals. Second, when you take into consideration his training regiment and the physical effects of smoking marijuana, it's an even bigger accomplishment that he can perform at that high a level while smoking marijuana, although this depends if Phelps smokes marijuana regularly or just once in a while.

I think the most important aspect of this though is his critics. I fall in Michael Phelps age group, and many of his critics are either twice his age, or kids looking up to Phelps. I took D.A.R.E. in 6th grade along with my classmates, but that didn't stop many of them from trying cigarettes or alcohol before we were legally allowed to consume them. Many of the kids criticizing him now will be applauding his openness in a few years. as far as those in the media, they grew up in a time when this country was in the midst of a drug epidemic.

Contrary to what most people believe, this country's heaviest period of drug usage was in the mid 70's until Ronald Reagan became President. I'm willing to bet that anyone in the press that was in their teens and early 20's during that time period who is now in the media is a hypocrite. The drugs back then were more easily accessible and drug education was not nearly as strong as it was today. And, as politically incorrect as this sounds, let us be thankful that it was just marijuana Phelps was smoking. Sports has a sour history of talented athletes that have had their lives cut short because of overdosing on harder drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, or even steroids. Histories of franchises have been altered forever because of athletes dying before their time.

Want proof? You do not have to look further than Len Bias and the Boston Celtics. For those who don't know, Len Bias was an extremely talented forward who was drafted 2nd overall by the Boston Celtics in the 1986 draft out of the University of Maryland. He was one of the first players to be compared in the same level as Michael Jordan and scouts saw superstar potential in him.

Two days after the draft, Len Bias died from a cocaine overdose. This altered the course of Celtics history because with Bias on a team that had just won a NBA Championship, he would have been able to take the pressure off of Larry Bird and extended his playing career and his effectiveness as a Celtic. The Celtics were still a great team without Bias, however with him, they would not have gone 22 years without winning an NBA title. They would have been talked about in the same breath as the New York Yankees and may have even won more championships.

Despite what the media wants you to think, Michael Phelps smoking marijuana was not the end of the world. He could have denied and dug himself into a huge legal mess, but he took the high road and apologized for his actions and learned from his mistakes. Last time I checked, 23 year-olds are not the epitome of the perfect human being. Shouldn't parents be teaching their kids about responsibility and how apologizing for doing something wrong instead of pointing fingers and looking down on someone because of one bad decision?

The Alex Rodriguez case is a little different than Michael Phelps, but Rodriguez has been more vilified than Phelps because of the amount of money he makes and the rich history of baseball. However, when you read between the lines of his situation, there's a lot that is being missed by the mainstream.

To be continued...

Majoring in Accountability

2009-02-13T13:06:00.005-05:00

Just like the youth of America made an impact on this country by helping elect Barack Obama, the youth of the sports world are also making an impact to better the sports landscape. For years, agents and publicists have been in charge of deflecting any negativity that surrounds an athlete.

That accident was caused by the other driver because he/she should have known by the car swerving that they were intoxicated. That woman should have not been in the area when (fill in the athlete) got in that bar fight. The list goes on and on, and for years, new excuses have been dug up to put a quasi-positive spin on the athlete.

In 2009, a new trend has developed. One that parents teach their kids as they grow up. Something that sounds so simple, yet is hard to do because of the repercussions. Something that has been considered blasphemous and outrageous by past generations of athletes.

I'm talking about taking accountability for your own actions; apologizing and taking responsibilities for past transgressions and moving on.

For some reason, people in the public eye have been afraid to take responsibility for what they do because of fear of embarrassment. When you do something wrong, it shows a sign of weakness that critics can take advantage of and use for their own agendas. With Alex Rodriguez and Michael Phelps in the public eye recently for the wrong reasons, they had a choice to continue down the Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens path of denial, or simply come out and admit their wrongdoings.

This has inspired me to produce my first recurring series. I'm going to be teaching Athletes, General Managers, Coaches, and even Commissioners, how to be accountable for their actions and be held to the standards that they themselves set. Deflecting blame has become the norm for many people in sports, and its time to take a good look in the mirror to show what is really wrong with sports today. I'm proud to teach a major in accountability to those that have trouble with truth.

Class is now in session.

The Heilman Effect

2009-01-28T21:13:00.004-05:00

It seems like these days there is a thin line between news and "news". You have sites like ESPN, The Sports Network, CNN, etc. that provide actual news. And then you have sites like TMZ and Perez Hilton that report where the cast of "The Hills" goes on Wednesday afternoons. In the sports world, this line is a lot clearer than in the entertainment world. The only gossip you really hear about athletes is stuff manufactured by the New York Media. However, today there was a news story that really shouldn't be news.

Aaron Heilman was traded again. The tremors are being felt throughout the sports world.

Now granted, he was traded from the Seattle Mariners to the Chicago Cubs before Heilman could throw a pitch for the Mariners, but the story is being reported as if Heilman has won a couple Cy Young's. Here's one for example.

Of all the events that are going on, such as Super Bowl week, Duke losing to Wake Forest, and Bobby Bowden deciding to come back for another year, Aaron Heilman is the lead story.

Are you kidding me? I don't know what's worse, having Aaron Heilman being treated as a major story, or reading about the impact he will have on fantasy baseball teams this season.

Can someone explain the Aaron Heilman phenomenon to me? I'm pretty sure people in the media never saw Heilman work his magic with the New York Mets. This is a guy, who during the last two months of the season, went 2-4 with an ERA of 7.37 and allowed 21 walks in 17.1 innings. When the Mets were on the road, fans would cheer when he came in because they knew their team had a shot at coming back. If you look at his Game Log, you'll notice he only had one month where he had an ERA under 4.40. Aaron Heilman, along with Scott Schoeneweis, Pedro Feliciano, and Luis Ayala, comprised one of the worst bullpen's in the National League.

And to think, two teams coveted him this off-season. I hope the Cubs know what there getting themselves into. Here's a preview of what to expect of the Aaron Heilman era in Chicago.

House Money

2009-01-19T17:42:00.002-05:00

This phrase was tossed around last week by seemingly every NFL analyst. The Arizona Cardinals, because no one expected them to make it to the NFC Championship game, were playing with "House Money". The TV analysts were making the Philadelphia Eagles out to be the best team in the NFC and if they lost, it'd be 10 times worse than if the Cardinals lost.

The funny thing is that the same "House Money" theory could have applied to the Eagles too.

The Arizona Cardinals had the NFC West wrapped up by Week 11. At that point, they were 7-3. San Francisco was in second place with a 3-7 Record, and St. Louis and Seattle both had 2-8 records. After week 11, they had nothing to play for. They were guaranteed at least one home playoff game. Their defense might have been a little bit suspect, but with three 1,000 yard receivers (Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin, and Steve Breaston) and Kurt Warner having a MVP-like season, their offense was explosive.

Keep in mind that after embarrassing games at Cincinnati and Baltimore, everyone with a blog, newspaper column, podcast, etc. wrote off the Philadelphia Eagles. Donovan McNabb should be traded in the off season. It's time for Andy Reid to go. I wrote off Andy Reid as well. With a 5-5-1 record, and an extremely talented NFC East to deal with, there was no shot they would make the playoffs.

The Eagles could have made life easier had they beaten Washington in week 16, but since they laid an egg in that game, everyone in Philadelphia (including myself) wrote them off again. After that game, I felt they did not deserve to make the playoffs. It would have to take an act of God, as well as an Oakland Raiders victory, Minnesota Vikings or Chicago Bears loss, and an Eagles victory against the Dallas Cowboys. With all those domino's falling into place, the Eagles sneaked in the playoffs with a 9-6-1 record as the 6th seed.

Nobody expected the Eagles to make it to the playoffs, and they managed to scratch and claw their way in. Eagles fans were amazed they got in, and further amazed they made it to the NFC championship game considering Andy Reid hates running the football and aside from DeSean Jackson, their receivers probably could not start for the University of Florida football team. They really had nothing to lose because no one expected them to make it in the first place.

The Eagles were playing with "House Money" for these playoffs whether Eagles fans want to admit it or not. They should be proud that the Eagles even made it to the NFC Championship considering the tumultuous season they had. Arizona had an easy path to the playoffs, plus two home games, so for them to be playing with house money is a stretch. The Eagles earned their stripes the hard way this season, and hopefully they can make the necessary off season adjustments to get them over the hump next season.

Jealous Ones Envy

2008-12-28T20:55:00.002-05:00

"Asante's a great player, so it hurts not to have a guy like that. But then again, it's part of the business of the game...He chose money over championships, and that's the way it goes sometimes."

- Wes Welker, 6/29/2008.

Wes Welker made this statement about Asante Samuel prior to the season started. Irony's a funny thing, and unfortunately for Welker, his words are coming back to haunt him. Even though Asante Samuel "chose money over championships", it is funny that now Asante Samuel is going to play for a championship while Wes Welker will have to watch it unfold like many of us, in the confines of our living rooms.

And more bad news for the Patriots, looks like Tom Brady may miss the 2009 season too. Honestly, I had my doubts about Matt Cassel, but now that he's proved he could play, he should take this opportunity and follow Asante Samuel's path and go for the money. Who knows, next season he could be playing for a championship, just like Asante.

And the first domino falls...

2008-12-23T21:47:00.002-05:00

Remember yesterday, when I said that LeBron James could start a trend of star athletes staying put in 2010? Looks like its catching on. According to the Dallas Morning News, not only would Dirk Nowitzki consider staying in Dallas during the 2010 off-season, but he'd even consider taking a pay cut just to stay in Dallas and help bring free agents into the city.

How soon until Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade echo these statements?

When it comes crashing down, and it hurts inside

2008-12-22T20:57:00.002-05:00

I hope Jay-Z, Donnie Walsh, Joe Dumars, and other NBA Executives were reading the papers over the weekend. If they thought all the bad news was about the economy, they were wrong. And that mythical summer of 2010? It could come crashing down worse than the New York Stock Exchange.

Yesterday, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that LeBron James might not even be available in 2010. In fact, if Cleveland keeps this hot streak going, he could sign a long term extension THIS off season, thus destroying the hopes of every NBA team starting to store cap space to try wooing him away from Cleveland.

Two things about this. First, even if he tested the waters in 2010, what people don't talk about as much as they should is that Cleveland would be the highest bidder regardless of who else offers him a deal. This isn't Major League Baseball where teams can throw around any amount of salary at him; with the NBA, the Larry Bird Exception allows teams to exceed the salary cap to re-sign their own free agents, at an amount up to the maximum salary. In other words, they can exceed any other teams' offer to LeBron because of his tenure with the Cavs.

Second, if LeBron signs this extension, it might influence others in that mythical 2010 free agent class to stay put and take the guaranteed money. Keep in mind, back in July 2006, when LeBron signed his first extension, with the next couple months Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Dirk Nowitzki among others all signed contract extensions.

Things get more complicated with Carlos Boozer recently declaring he was going to test the free agent market this summer. He lives in Miami in the off-season, and combined with Pat Riley's man-crush on him, it's a realistic possibility that Boozer could be playing in South Beach next season. If that happens, then Wade will most likely sign an extension to stay in Miami; this in turn, may lead to other free agents in that 2010 class to reconsider their options, especially if the economy starts hitting professional sports a little more than it has thus far.

If these two events happen, the dominoes could fall in a way that would give Donnie Walsh nightmares.

Crowning the True National Champion: FBS Playoffs Follow-Up

2008-12-13T13:58:00.003-05:00

With the FBS regular season officially done, and the 34 bowl games announced, I figure it would be the right time to announce who SHOULD be participating for the fictional FBS National Championship. The NCAA should consider my proposal, and maybe hire me as their Common Sense Coordinator so I can interject some logic when they come up with ridiculous ideas, such as "we don't have enough 6-6 teams in bowls, let's create a couple more bowls".

As I mentioned in my last column, I propose a 16 team playoff with the 11 conference champions and 5 at-large teams. I know this may sound outlandish to college football "experts", but the seeding of the teams would be based on their regular season records. If they were tied, then there would be tiebreakers, such as head-to-head meetings and strength of schedule. If I were running the FBS National Championship, here are how the teams would be ranked going into the tournament.

1. Utah
2. Boise State
3. Oklahoma
4. Florida
5. USC
6. Penn State
7. Cincinnati
8. East Carolina (East Carolina and Virginia Tech had the same record however East Carolina beat Virginia Tech during the season, so they get the higher ranking)
9. Virginia Tech
10. Troy
11. Buffalo
12. Alabama
13. Ball State
14. Texas Tech
15. Texas
16. Ohio State

With this in place, here's what the first round match-ups would look like

(16) Ohio State at (1) Utah
(9) Virginia Tech at (8) East Carolina

(12) Alabama at (5) USC
(13) Ball State at (4) Florida

(11) Buffalo at (6) Penn State
(14) Texas Tech at (3) Oklahoma

(10) Troy at (7) Cincinnati
(15) Texas at (2) Boise State

Looking at these games, there are a couple of intriguing first round match-ups. First, you get a rematch of one of the most lopsided college football games I've ever witnessed: Texas Tech at Oklahoma. Don't you think a rematch of this game and the premise of Texas Tech seeking revenge on Oklahoma on their turf would generate huge interest and ratings? Also, you get the Virginia Tech-East Carolina rematch in the first round. The first time they met this year was exciting and came down to a blocked punt that was returned for a touchdown by East Carolina. Alabama-USC would be another great game to watch as well.

With the help of whatifsports.com, I've simulated the playoffs as I've set them up. I've run 10 simulations of each game to get a better representation of what the potential outcome could be. Here's how the first round would play out:

(16) Ohio State at (1) Utah: Projected Winner - Utah, 19-13 (80%)
(9) Virginia Tech at (8) East Carolina: Projected Winner - Virginia Tech 22-16 (70%)

(12) Alabama at (5) USC: Projected Winner - USC, 27-10 (90%)
(13) Ball State at (4) Florida: Projected Winner - Florida, 49-16 (100%)

(11) Buffalo at (6) Penn State: Projected Winner - Penn State, 45-7 (100%)
(14) Texas Tech at (3) Oklahoma: Projected Winner - Oklahoma, 46-35 (90%)

(10) Troy at (7) Cincinnati: Projected Winner - Cincinnati, 36-16 (100%)
(15) Texas at (2) Boise State: Projected Winner -Boise State, 40-17 (90%)

The first round played out like I figured it would; you had your blowouts (Penn State, Florida) and also a surprise (Texas losing 90% of the time). Now, looking at the average score for the Texas Tech-Oklahoma rematch, don't you think that it would not only be a great game to watch, but provide great ratings? With the first round down, you get some excellent second round match-ups, including USC-Florida and Penn State-Oklahoma. Here's how the second round would shape up.

(9) Virginia Tech at (1) Utah: Projected Winner - Utah, 24-8 (90%)
(5) USC at (4) Florida: Projected Winner - USC, 23-12 (80%)

(6) Penn State at (3) Oklahoma: Projected Winner - Oklahoma, 29-28 (60%)
(7) Cincinnati at (2) Boise State: Projected Winner - Boise State, 40-11 (100%)

The Semi-Finals look very interesting. The lone undefeated teams in the FBS (Utah and Boise State) are in the semi-finals. Hmm, maybe they are as good as advertised. I'm sure if you tried to tell the BCS that a team that is not from one of the Big Six Conferences (Big 12, ACC, SEC, Pac 10, Big Ten, and Big East) could not only compete, but trounce the competition like Boise State has been doing, they'll probably throw more loopholes to prevent a non-BCS school to make it. Also, you get a rematch of the classic 2007 Fiesta Bowl between Oklahoma and Boise State. So far, the results have generally not been close enough to warrant more simulations, however for the Semi-Final round, I've done 15 simulations of each game, and here are the results.

(5) USC at (1) Utah: Projected Winner - USC, 23-7 (80%)
(3) Oklahoma at (2) Boise State: Projected Winner - Boise State, 31-22 (73%)

For the FBS National Championship, I am changing a couple situations. First, the game will be held at a neutral site, just like how the Championship Game is now. Second, there will be 20 simulations for this game to further enhance the accuracy. Ladies and Gentleman, I present to you the TRUE 2008 FBS National Champion, determined by a legitimate tournament.

(5) USC vs. (2) Boise State: Projected Winner - USC, 25-8 (95%)

There you have it, in this tournament, you have USC being crowned as the true national champion. Now, I know critics may have a field day picking this scenario and the way I did it apart. Yes, games are decided on the field, injuries do have an impact, and weather could play a factor. Even though this experiment is not 100% representative of this past college football season, it still proves it is much more effective at providing great match-ups for college football fans, which could translate into higher revenue and larger ratings. Not to mention, it also provides a legit national champion that is NOT decided by computers and decided like it should be: on the field.

Ending the BCS BS

2008-11-25T21:27:00.002-05:00

Pretend you're Tom Brady and the 2007 New England Patriots. You have just finished the regular season without a loss, becoming the first team to accomplish this feat since the 1972 Dolphins. Now imagine if your team, even though it went undefeated, was slated as the number 2 or 3 seed in the Conference, not based on their merits on the field, but because a computer and coaches took into account a weak schedule of games, including six games against inferior AFC East Opponents Buffalo, Miami, and the New York Jets, and the Spygate Controversy.

Sound ridiculous right? Well this is an annual occurrence in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly I-A).

Every year, there are well-deserving teams that should get a chance to compete for a championship but are not allowed to because their strength of schedule is "weaker" compared to the likes of SEC or Big 12 teams. This year is no exception with Utah, Boise State, and Ball State poised to go undefeated and not even sniff a chance to compete for a championship.

Every year people bitch and moan about the need for a FBS playoff, considering it is the only sport that determines its national champions through voting and computers instead of how they play on the field. And yet, there are still people that defend the Bowl system, saying that having a playoff not only takes away importance of other bowl games, but it keeps kids out of the classroom during the time finals are usually administered.

As a voter for the FCS Top-25 poll and someone who went to an FCS school, the above criticisms of a FBS playoff system are absurd. If you use some creativity and common sense, there is an easy way to keep the importance of Bowl Games to college football AND establish a 16 team (yes a 16 team playoff tournament is possible) tournament to determine a champion free of computers and bias.

Ladies and Gentleman, I present my three point plan on how to bring a true national champion to the FBS and make it even more exciting.

1. Shorten the season to 12 weeks: The length of the college football season is one of the reasons why a legit playoff system is not feasible at this time in the FBS. I don't have a problem with the season starting the weekend of Labor Day, but having multiple bye weeks during the season is a little absurd. For example, several teams in the Sunbelt Conference had three bye weeks this season. Seriously, are three bye weeks necessary during a football season?

Here's my solution to this issue. First, the season would be shortened to 12 weeks with every FBS team playing 11 games; no more, no less. Of these 11 games, three of them would be out of conference games and the remaining eight would be conference games. Obviously, for a conference featuring more than nine teams, they would have to play an unbalanced schedule.

If you were to apply this solution to the current FBS season, the regular season would have ended this past weekend with conference championships.

2. A 16 team tournament to determine a TRUE National Champion: Now that we have a shortened schedule, it's time to discuss the tournament. Now many people, including President-Elect Barack Obama, have proposed an eight-team tournament to determine a National Champion. Allowing only eight teams to compete for a title would invite similar criticism that we see now, because ultimately, eight teams would be selected and deserving teams would be sitting at home watching.

Under my plan, a 16 team tournament would feature all 11 FBS Conference Champions attaining automatic births. The remaining five teams would be based on overall records, strength of schedules, and if it so happens two of the teams played each other, how they fared head to head. The seeding of the 16 teams would be based on similar criteria as selecting the at-large teams.

The playoff tournament would begin two weeks after the conference championships are being played. To use this season as an example, the playoffs would start this weekend (November 29th) with all 16 teams playing. The following Saturday, December 6th, the remaining eight teams would play. On December 13th the final four teams would play. To increase interest, the FBS championship game would be held two weeks after the semi-finals; in our example, that date would be December 27th.

During the tournament, NO OTHER FBS TEAMS would be playing. It would just be the 16 teams, eight teams, and so on each week. With most schools, classes end around the second week of December. With our scenario, the weekend that many colleges start taking finals would be the semi-final week. Out of the 119 FBS schools, only 4 of them would still be playing. On a regular FBS roster, there are around 85 players, so when you do the math, only 3% of the student athletes who play football would be somewhat affected by the timing of finals. And even with that, because the championship game would be played two weeks later, it gives those student athletes time to adequately prepare for finals AND the championship game.

3. All Bowl Games would be played AFTER the National Championship Game: One of my college professors used to work for the University of Florida, and I once asked him why he supports the bowl system. As he put it, it's a way for alumni and the students to celebrate the season and what they accomplished during it. A playoff season would end in heartbreak, but going to Florida or California for a bowl game is a more rewarding experience. While I disagree with the previous sentence, the one before it makes sense; alumni donate millions and millions of dollars to these programs and the student-athletes work hard to balance school and the game.

The first thing I'd do though is cut down on the sheer number of Bowl Games. There are going to be 34 Bowl games (including the BCS National Championship Game) being played this year. Over half of the 119 BCS teams will play in Bowl Games; isn't that a little excessive? Seriously, who wants to see 4th and 5th place teams from different conferences play each other? As said earlier, Bowl Games should be rewards for teams that play well, even those that would not get to participate in my proposed tournament.

How to fix this? The number of Bowl Games would be trimmed from 34 to 15. The 15 bowl games would be played the week starting on January 1st. This would allow for teams who played in the National Championship Game, if they decide to participate, to play in a Bowl game. Not only that, all of the athletes would be on winter break and wouldn't have to worry about classes, and could enjoy a trip to reward their hard work.

Now, people will complain about trimming the amount of bowl games, mainly because of how much revenue would be lost. The funny thing is that you can use this argument and flip it. By trimming 19 Bowl Games, the NCAA and its schools would be saving money it'd be normally spending on airfare, accommodations, meals, transportation, etc. This money could be put towards athletic programs that are often underfunded, such as gymnastics, swimming, lacrosse, etc. And given the state of the world economy, I'm sure any way to save a few bucks would be appreciated.

The groundwork has been laid out for a working, logical FBS playoff system. However, because of the history of I-A/FBS football, having a unanimous National Champion will be out of the picture until they find some common sense.

It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday

2008-11-20T18:21:00.001-05:00

Goodbye.

It's tough to say that word. Whether it be saying it to someone who recently passed away, or after an incredible first date with someone, not wanting to leave his or her side. It implies separation from an entity that one would truly care about. I'm writing this piece because I think it's time to say goodbye to something that I've cared for the past 10 years. It's been with me through good times and rough times. When I was on the road, it was there to make me feel good; when I went to work or school the next day, it kept my mind off of the stress of the job or schoolwork. But now it has run its course and I think it's time to lay to rest something important to not just me, but millions of people.

It's time to end the Andy Reid era in Philadelphia.

I've been a staunch defender of Andy Reid since he arrived on the scene in Philadelphia, and have defended many of the moves he has made. He is by far the greatest Eagles Head Coach that has stepped foot in the city of Philadelphia, with the most wins, playoff wins, and winning percentage in Eagles history. His .608 winning percentage is third among active Head Coaches and is among the top 30 of all time. Andy Reid also led the Eagles to 4 NFC Championship games (which no other Eagles coach can boast about) and to a Super Bowl (which only Dick Vermeil can brag about).

One of Andy Reid's first moves was to draft Donovan McNabb. The city of Philadelphia was screaming for Ricky Williams, however drafting McNabb showed Eagles fans what kind of personel were to come in this era. Reid earned the title of Executive Vice President of Football Operations in 2001, giving him control over player moves that are made.

And this is where we start questioning some of the decisions he made.

The first one actually came around the same time he was brought on board. One of Andy Reid's first moves was to convince the front office to bring in Doug Pederson as the Eagles "temporary" starting quarterback. The same Doug Pederson who, prior to his arrival in 1999, had thrown a grand total of 32 passes in his first seven seasons. Luckily for Eagles fans the Doug Pederson era only lasted a few games once McNabb was handed the reigns of the offense.

But once Andy Reid gained ultimate control over player personnel, he slowly started making moves that had Eagles fans scratching his head.

He did redeem himself with some moves. After the first NFC Championship loss, Reid loaded up on DB's, and with the first three picks took Lito Sheppard, Sheldon Brown, and Michael Lewis. Brown and Sheppard still remain with the team while Michael Lewis has turned into a fairly decent player. That was the same draft that the Eagles took Brian Westbrook in the third round. He also found Trent Cole and Omar Gaither in the 5th round of the 2005 and 2006 Drafts respectively. Not to mention drafting DeSean "DeJack" Jackson in the 2008 draft.

But there are many bigger moves that raise some questions.

One of them is why he never went after an All-Pro Receiver prior to Terrell Owens? Why did he wait until the Eagles lost their third NFC Championship to pull the trigger on that move? During the 2001 draft, which was his first year as an Executive VP, he took Freddie Mitchell with the 25th pick. It was an ok move, but when you consider that Reggie Wayne, Chad Johnson, and Chris Chambers were all on the board, it makes you wonder what they saw in FredEx that translated to the field.

When you look at McNabb, he was in his prime from 2001-2005 and he was stuck throwing to wide receivers Todd Pinkston, James Thrash, Freddie Mitchell, and Greg Lewis; not exactly future first ballot Hall-of-Famers. But when Terrell Owens came to Philadelphia in 2004, the Eagles were lighting up scoreboards and McNabb had the best season of his career that season. Ignoring what happened with T.O. for a second, Andy Reid failed to capitalize after 2004 in finding a big-name wide receiver and again prior to this season when he failed to make a serious offer for Larry Fitzgerald.

If the Eagles had found a big-name receiver without a ego, they would have won a couple of Super Bowls. But they did have a chance to win the Super Bowl in 2004, which leads me to another Andy Reid fault which has been seeping through as of late.

Andy Reid's offensive play calling has been anything but reliable the past couple seasons. In that 2004 Super Bowl, had the Eagles run a hurry-up offense towards the end of the game, maybe they would have had time to tie, or even win the game towards the end. Instead there was no sense of urgency on the offensive side of the ball, and they ended up losing that game. Reid also is hesitant about using his running game. This season the Eagles Achilles Heel has been short yardage situation. Reid has insisted on not finding a big, bruising type of running back, like Brandon Jacobs or LenDale White, and they have paid the price. If they had a short yaradge solution, the Eagles would probably be 7-2 or 8-1 by now instead of 5-4-1.

Everyone has their time, and Andy Reid has his. This season they are on their way to missing the playoffs for the third time in four years. He also has the burden of having two sons in prison. Can he be a great Head Coach? He's proven that, however he's also proven that when handed the reigns, he's made more questionable decisions than decisions that would have moved the franchise forward in their quest for a Super Bowl ring.

Andy Reid should consider saying goodbye to all of us after this season, for the sake of his career in the NFL and his family life.

Fact or Fiction? The suspended Game 5 helps Tampa Bay tremendously

2008-10-29T18:33:00.002-04:00

Many baseball analysts are writing the Phillies off because of Game Five being suspended due to weather. To catch those up to speed, on Monday night, it was raining heavily in Philadelphia, and instead of postponing the game until they can play a full game, Major League Baseball decided the game should be played. It was 2-1 Phillies when the rain became too much in the sixth inning. Yet, instead of deeciding to suspend the game after 5 innings, MLB decided to keep the game going.

Unfortunately for the Phillies, Tampa Bay managed to tie it up in the top of the sixth, and when the inning ended, the game was suspended. Now, many people have cried foul over this, and many across the country (according to an ESPN poll, 80% of voters said the suspension helps the Rays) feel the Rays benefit the most from this.

The truth is, believe it or not, that the Phillies benefit more from Game 5 resuming on Wednesday night than Tampa. Want to know why?

1. If the series goes seven games, Cole Hamels will pitch again: Hamels has been dominant in every postseason start this fall, and if the weather wasn't as bad as it was Monday night, that trend would have continued. More than that, in his first four starts, Hamels threw 101, 105, 104, and 102 pitches. On Monday night, he had thrown 75 pitches before the game was delayed. It's almost certain that Hamels won't be leading off the bottom of the sixth, but if the game goes seven games, Friday would be a scheduled bullpen day for Cole. In other words, he'd be throwing in the bullpen to keep his arm fresh. If Moyer goes 5 innings on Friday, the Rays could be seeing Cole Hamels coming out of the bullpen. Having the best pitcher in baseball available to come out of the bullpen to close out a game seven is a scary thought.

2. The Phillies have more chances to pull out a win in Game Five: Game Five was suspended after the top of the sixth. If the score remains tied through the ninth, the Phillies would have an extra chance to pull out a win. With Hamels most likely not leading off, the Rays would be pitching to a pinch hitter, then the top of the order. If the Phillies go 1-2-3 from the sixth through eighth innings, they'd have to face the 9th spot in the order (most likely another pinch hitter) and then pitch to Rollins and Werth again. This brings up another point...

3. The sleeping giants can wake up: The top five batters of the Phillies lineup have gone 1-8 so far in the game with 6 walks, 1 hit batter, one run, and 2 strike outs. The heart of the order (Utley, Howard, and Burrell) is 0-5. A break in the action such as this can help these three get out of their funk. This may be what Pat Burrell needs to get going, considering right now he's 0 for the series.

4. "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Tampa any more": While playing in Citizens Bank Park in front of REAL fans has been discussed, what comes into play now is the weather. In April and September/October, the weather can be fairly chilly at times, and the Phillies, playing all their games outdoors, can adjust a little bit better than a team that plays in a Dome in Florida for half the year, and is normally golfing this time of year. More importantly, for a warm weather team, how will the arms of a pitching staff accustomed to pitching in 70 degree weather deal with pitching in 32 degree weather?

However, the major reason why the Phillies have the upper hand against the Rays in this game and for the rest of the series is this final point.

5. Battle of the Bullpens: In 8 and 2/3 innings, the Phillies bullpen has given up one run and two hits, striking out 12 and walking one batter. In 12 and 1/3 innings, the Rays bullpen has given up eight runs and 11 hits, striking out 13 and walking nine batters. The numbers speak for themselves folks.

Let's see how it all plays out tonight.

The Infamous 30 Words or Less NBA Preview

2008-10-28T17:40:00.001-04:00

This has become a tradition for each of the times I've had my own blog. You get all these well drawn out scouting reports from the "experts" which can get wordy at times. With me, I keep it simple. In 30 words or less, I'll summarize how all 30 NBA teams will do this season.

On a side note, I apologize for the lack of updates recently. Been a very busy time in my life and right now I'm hoping to get back to writing on a quasi-regular basis.

Without further adieu...

Atlanta Hawks: Solid front court with Smith, Williams, and Horford, but really weak bench. Though they retain his American rights, losing Childress makes a weak bench even weaker. Projected Record: 38-44.

Boston Celtics: Losing Posey hurts, but it's better for someone else to overpay for a role player. They have a young, solid bench that needs to step up to repeat. Projected Record: 58-24.

Charlotte Bobcats: Raw, young team that needs sometime to gel. Unfortunately, it won't happen until Larry Brown quits on this team like he did in Philly, Detroit, and New York. Projected Record: 33-49.

Chicago Bulls: Last season was a fluke, they won't underachieve again. The logjam in the backcourt must be fixed; Derrick Rose is too talented to ride the bench. Projected Record: 44-38.

Cleveland Cavaliers: Mo Williams is an upgrade, but other than LeBron, the frontcourt is weak. They won't win a title until they pick up better talent down low. Projected Record: 50-32.

Dallas Mavericks: They could be a title contender...if it were 2004. Unfortunately for this team, the rest of the West is younger, deeper, and more talented. Projected Record: 42-42.

Denver Nuggets: Trading Marcus Camby for two (potential) second round picks and a chicken sandwich was a shocker. Denver missing the playoffs this year won't be. Projected Record: 38-44.

Detroit Pistons: Still talented, but not getting any younger. It's interesting to note that Dumars wanted to make significant changes and had to stay pat. Projected Record: 46-36.

Golden State Warriors: Losing Monta Ellis for 30 games is worse than Baron Davis bolting. They'll be entertaining to watch in the regular season, but won't make an appearance in the playoffs. Projected Record: 34-48.

Houston Rockets: With Artest in the fold, they are a sleeper to win the West. All that depends on if they stay healthy, which is a BIG if. Projected Record: 48-34.

Indiana Pacers: Getting TJ Ford will help Granger be even better, but it won't put them in the playoffs. If they find a way to improve their bench, don't count them out. Projected Record: 37-45.

LA Clippers: Losing Brand is a blessing in disguise. Adding vets like Camby and Davis to the youth already in LA, they have a decent shot to make the playoffs. Projected Record: 43-39.

LA Lakers: With Bynum at 100% and the memories of how they went out with a whimper, they'll repeat in the West. Projected Record: 60-22.

Memphis Grizzlies: Conley and Mayo make a great backcourt, but the team is too raw to make an impact this year. Watch out though, since they do have some cap room available. Projected Record: 27-55.

Miami Heat: Beasley, Marion, and Wade will make them more competative than last season. Unfortunately, they won't be competing for anything after the regular season. Projected Record: 32-50.

Milwaukee Bucks: Redd will continue to shoot the lights out. However, the Bucks will continue to miss the playoffs. Projected Record: 38-44.

Minnesota Timberwolves: Youthful and talented, they made strides to better themselves. Unfortunately, they're in the Western Conference, where they have little chance to make the playoffs. Projected Record: 29-53.

New Jersey Nets: The Nets will make a serious run this year...at getting the number one pick in the 2009 NBA Draft. Might as well forget about the Nets until 2010. Projected Record: 18-64.

New Orleans Hornets: They overpaid for Posey, but he has two rings in the past three seasons. Have the talent and the depth, but not enough to overcome the Lakers. Projected Record: 56-26.

New York Knicks: Donnie Walsh is slowly moving the team in the right direction. They need to shed some of the absurd contracts from the Isiah Thomas Era before they compete. Projected Record: 25-57.

Oklahoma City Thunder: Jeff Green should develop even more and Westbrook gives them talent at the point, and of course there's Durant. Not a threat this year, but watch out. Projected Record: 28-54.

Orlando Magic: Should easily win the Southeast. Pietrus is a great addition, and they'll make a serious run to represent the Eastern Conference in June. Projected Record: 53-29.

Philadelphia 76ers: Brand is a huge upgrade down low, but they lack a consistant outside shooter than can overtake Boston. Projected Record: 54-28.

Phoenix Suns: Just like Dallas, age is going to creep up on them. They'll make the playoffs, but won't be there for long. Projected Record: 44-38.

Portland Trail Blazers: This year is their coming out party. Oden's back and this team has many weapons. Only one they don't have is experience, which comes in handy in the playoffs. Projected Record: 48-34.

Sacramento Kings: This is a rebuilding year, and its not a bad start to rebuild around Kevin Martin. Going to be a long season though. Projected Record: 29-53.

San Antonio Spurs: It is an odd year, so they should be favorites. But this team is getting older and Ginobili's reckless style of play will catch up to him. Projected Record: 47-35.

Toronto Raptors: Jermaine O'Neal is the X-Factor. If he's healthy, they have the best frontcourt in the Eastern Conference. With Ford gone, Calderon can dominate the backcourt. Projected Record: 46-36.

Utah Jazz: They'll make the playoffs again, but one has to wonder if this is Boozer's last year in Utah. Pat Riley's man-crush on him may be too much for Utah. Projected Record: 52-30.

Washington Wizards: They can't stay pat forever. The Wizards have to make some sort of big change or else they'll continue to be eliminated in the first round annually. Projected Record: 42-40.

Eastern Conference Playoff Teams: Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers, Orlando Magic, Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit Pistons, Toronto Raptors, Chicago Bulls, Washington Wizards.

Western Conference Playoff Teams: LA Lakers, New Orleans Hornets, Utah Jazz, Houston Rockets, Portland Trail Blazers, San Antonio Spurs, Phoenix Suns, LA Clippers.

Eastern Conference Finals: Boston Celtics over Orlando Magic

Western Conference Finals: LA Lakers over New Orleans Hornets

2009 NBA Finals: LA Lakers over Boston Celtics

Stupidity Knows No Bounds

2008-08-30T16:34:00.001-04:00

With the election coming up conservatives have been doing everything to destroy Barak Obama's candidacy, including his lack of political experience. With the announcement of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate, it threw a monkey wrench into how they could criticize Obama.

Their main point, that he lacks political experience, was thrown out the window with Palin's selection, considering she's been a mayor of a 6,500 person town and Governor for 20 months. It's great that she has executive experience, but let's be real here: being the Governor of Alaska is like being an All-Star in the Continental Basketball Association. You may be an All-Star, but nobody cares. There's more Caribou in the State of Alaska (approximately 950,000) than there are people (approximately 650,000). Mayors of medium sized cities are more qualified to be 2nd in Command than she is.

The lengths conservatives are going to defend this choice is hilarious and sad at the same time. Fox News promotes itself as in providing "fair and balanced" journalism. And they are "fair and balanced"...if you're a Republican. Steve Doocy, host of Fox and Friends, pretty much summed up the desperation of the Republican Party to defend this pick with one of the most ridiculous statements I've ever heard.

In college I lived on the same floor as football players, thus according to Steve Doocy's logic, I should be able to be the Head Coach of an NFL team.

Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock: Actual Intrigue

2008-08-26T08:03:00.001-04:00

According to Yahoo!, it looks like Internet sensation and street fight aficionado Kimbo Slice will take on Ken Shamrock at Elite XC's upcoming CBS special in October. Now, at first glance, you might say this is another softball thrown at Kimbo Slice to show his "dominance" in Mixed Martial Arts. And you might want to compare this fight to Kimbo's second fight against Tank Abbott, which lasted all of 43 seconds.

Yes, the most recent memory of Ken Shamrock that MMA fans have was his ability to be continually embarrassed by Tito Ortiz in the UFC. And yes, Ken Shamrock has lost eight of his last 10 fights, not having won a fight in over four years. Believe it or not though, Ken does have a pretty good shot at beating Kimbo.

The knock on Kimbo is that besides his striking ability, he has little ground game. Ken Shamrock might not have tasted victory in four years, but he does know a thing or two about how to dominate when getting his opponent on the ground. Of his 26 victories, 22 of them were submissions. Ken Shamrock has also faced much stiffer competition in the UFC than Kimbo Slice has in Elite XC or on the streets of Miami.

This October CBS event has to draw well for Elite XC. They actually have a great crop of fighters and their women's division, lead by Gina Carano, is deep. Their events on Showtime have been fairly decent too. The problem is that the company is facing financial difficulties, which include reportedly $55 million in debt, and considering ratings dropped dramatically with their second CBS special, there's reason to worry.

On top of their financial difficulties, it was announced a month ago that Pro Elite (parent company of Elite XC) President Gary Shaw and Chief Executive Officer Doug DeLuca stepped down from their posts. They helped build the promotion and even made Elite XC the first MMA promotion to be shown on network television. If they don't succeed, it not only solidifies the UFC's position as the premier MMA league, but also opens the doors for up and coming promotions, such as Allfiction.

And The Plot Thickens...

2008-08-08T14:27:00.001-04:00

Seems like I can predict the future. First I called it that Europe could make a serious run at LeBron James in 2010. Now, according to the Associated Press, Kobe Bryant would consider $40 million or more per year from a European squad if offered. Here's what he said about the possibility of playing in Italy once his contract with the Los Angeles Lakers expires:

"I’d go. I’d probably go. Like Milan or something like that, where I grew up or something like that…Because I grew up in Italy it has more significance to me because I’m more familiar with it, I’ve been there and I still have friends there. I’m thinking about buying a house out there. It would be nothing to me to be able to do that.”

Maybe Joel Litvin, the NBA's president of league and basketball operations, should start taking notice of all the Euro's that could be thrown at NBA Superstars in the next couple offseasons.

Stay Tuned...

My NBA Doomsday Theory Gaining Momentum

2008-08-07T19:16:00.001-04:00

Seems as if more and more people are starting to ride my NBA Doomsday train.

First it was Ian Thompson, who decided after reading my article on the possibility of LeBron heading to Europe, wrote his own little article basically stating the same thing, except substituting a Greek team for an Italian team.

Now, it's Chris Broussard. Kudo's to Chris for putting together a well written article about the possibility of LeBron heading to Europe. His story features actual quotes from people and putting together something more professional than what Thompson wrote. The way Thompson wrote his article, it looked like it belonged on a Hollywood Gossip site instead of a sports website.

The scary part in all this is Joel Litvin's continuing insistence that LeBron, or any other major superstar heading to Europe, is of no concern. Here's what Joel said about the possibility of a major superstar leaving for Europe in search of more money.

"I don't want to say it's much ado about nothing, but we think it's overblown a bit. It's not something we're losing sleep over. It would be disappointing to lose one of our star players, but I have no concern at all about the best players playing anywhere but in the NBA for a long time to come. I'd be surprised if one of our top players chose to go to Europe but if it did happen, there are many players who would step up and fill the void."

Considering the televised games are pretty much built around superstars, it is pretty ignorant of Litvin to not be concerned. When looking at the 2008-2009 schedule, the Los Angeles Lakers and Cleveland Cavaliers have 25 nationally televised games apiece. I doubt that if LeBron James were to head to Europe, the Cleveland Cavaliers would be seen on National Television 25 times. Just a hunch.

Brett Favre, The Media, and Delusions of Grandeur

2008-08-07T19:10:00.001-04:00

I speak for humanity when I say that I'm relieved that the Brett Favre soap opera has subsided with his trade to the New York Jets. I don't know how much more media coverage anyone can take on every move Brett Favre makes. There are a couple things that have revealed itself among this media circus that I hope the casual fan can take away from this dramady.

The media has twisted this story in a way to paint the Green Bay Packers organization as the ones that turned their backs on Brett Favre. They wouldn't allow a warrior to come back and lead the team and Aaron Rodgers is the worst possible scenario for the Green Bay Packers. Ted Thompson, the Packers GM, has been painted as a villain by fans and analysts for trading away a legend. But Ted Thompson is not at fault here. Neither is Packers Head Coach Mike McCarthy. There's only one person to blame for all this.

Brett Favre.

Brett Favre is the one that has been changing his mind over and over about whether to retire for the past couple years. He decided to retire after the 2007 season, and the organization was supportive of the decision, and would welcome him back. In fact, he had been approached to unretire and come back to an organization in a "mentoring" position to groom Aaron Rogers, but at the last minute, Brett Favre was Brett Favre and changed his mind again. Eventually, Favre would retire and would no longer be in a Packers uniform.

The media has been lambasting Aaron Rodgers in all this and pretty much putting him on a level similar to Quincy Carter. I have a couple questions for the media.

How do you know Aaron Rogers stinks? Have you every seen him play a full season?

It's not like Favre carried the team. There are several talented players on the team that contributed to the success of the team. And keep in mind, the year Aaron Rodgers was drafted, he was considered a steal and Brett Favre's heir apparent. The only reason he fell to the Packers in the first place was because many of the teams drafting before them had young quarterbacks already. If he were drafted by any other team, we would know by now whether Aaron Rodgers is a good quarterback or not because he would have played a little more than he has thus far in Green Bay. However, for the media to jump up and down criticizing Aaron Rodgers just because his name isn't Brett Favre is absurd and ridiculous.

It's funny that the media is knit picking Aaron Rodgers but overlooking Brett Favre's flaws. Hate to break it to the public, but Brett Favre may be one of the most overrated quarterbacks in NFL history. ESPN's Sal Paolantonio did an excellent job knocking Brett down a few pegs and cited how he has not delivered since he won a Super Bowl in 1997. In fact, after reading Sal's article, He wasn't even the greatest quarterback to play for the Green Bay Packers.

With the exception of the 2007 season, the Packers have struggled on the field despite Favre putting up Hall-of-Fame numbers. At the same time, Brett Favre has thrown some of the most hideous interceptions this century, including one to Brian Dawkins in the 2004 playoffs that looked more like someone catching a punt than trying to intercept a pass. The sad thing is that Brett knows he made a mistake, the viewers know he made a mistake, but when you watched Packers games, it seemed that whoever was announcing the game was watching something different.

“The receiver ran the wrong route.”

“Someone didn’t pick up the defensive end.”

“He just wants to win so badly and tries too hard at times.”

Favre’s iron grasp on the starting QB spot in Green Bay, no matter how many bad games he had, ultimately had a detrimental effect on not only the development of Aaron Rodgers, but also to the Green Bay organization and their fans. The fans are attached to Favre, and fail to realize that this is not 1998. Brett Favre has accomplished a lot, but recently he has shown very little consistency. Flashes of greatness break through when he’s not throwing horrific passes, but analysts won’t acknowledge how much he’s slipping. There’s a big difference between a passion for winning and making extremely bad decisions. Gilbert Arenas going to the gym and shooting around the morning after losing in the playoffs shows dedication and a passion to win. Brett Favre forcing an errand throw that costs his team a victory is not “a passion to win badly”, it’s a mistake. Favre, for the past several seasons, has been a shell of his former self, despite what NFL analysts want you to think.

The best thing about Brett Favre is that he'll realize what a huge mistake it was to make this public once he gets established with the Jets. New York City is a little bit bigger than Green Bay, and the paparazzi are a little more venomous than they are in Mississippi. Favre and his wife will have no privacy and every mistake he makes, on and off the field, will end up in the New York papers and become national news, deservedly or not. For someone that's benefited from television analysts and journalists trying to cover up his mistakes, he's going to be brought right back down from his pedestal when he encounters journalists that are not afraid to report what they see.

Josh Childress: 6th Man or πρωτοποριακόσ?

2008-07-26T23:21:00.001-04:00

"The level of concern is low. This is what happens when you have a global sport and a global marketplace for elite players, and we're confident that the NBA remains the gold standard for professional basketball. Business-wise, it's good for us, because it means more basketball fans will be watching basketball, and those fans will find the NBA because that's where the best of the world plays." - NBA president of basketball operations Joel Litvin

Most years, this would be the case. Many American basketball players that played in Europe went there for one of two reasons. They were either at the tail end of their careers and they couldn't find a job in the NBA so they went overseas. These players include Dominique Wilkins and Bob McAdoo. The other reason why Americans went overseas to play basketball was at the time, they could not make an NBA roster, and since Minor League Basketball in the United States pays very little, they could make more money overseas. Anthony Parker is a good example of this.

Most of the time though, if we're talking about European and American basketball, its about which foreign player is coming to the United States and how they will make a difference. Players such as Vlade Divac, Toni Kukoc, and Manu Ginobili achieved success in the Euroleague and in other international competitions and also made an impact with their American squads. For many Europeans, playing in the NBA is the pinnacle of their careers.

That is until the 2008 off-season, which has seen talented players making the jump overseas because of the lure of playing time and guaranteed contracts.

Some aren't as surprising as others, such as Juan Carlos Navarro. He was a star playing for FC Barcelona, and although he was drafted in 2002 by the Washington Wizards, he stayed in Spain until 2007, where he was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies prior to the start of the season. With the Grizzlies struggling, they shipped Gasol to the Lakers for pretty much nothing, and Navarro decided to test the free agent waters as a restricted free agent. What he found was that not many teams were willing to pay him what he was worth, and instead of chasing the basketball dream with the NBA, he went back to FC Barcelona, signing a 5 year deal worth around $20 million.

Juan Carlos Navarro was a star in Spain, so for him to head back to Europe wasn't a shock. What was shocking were some other players, that would have been contributors in the league, started signing with European clubs instead of with NBA clubs. For example, Carlos Delfino, who made $1.8 million last season with the Toronto raptors and was a contributor off the bench, could have made a weak NBA bench stronger. However on July 19th, he signed a three year deal with BC Khimki of Russia for $13.5 million. The fact that he's making $4.5 million is impressive considering he probably would have been signed around the $3 million per year mark in the NBA, but what's more impressive is that the $4.5 million he's going to make is tax free. Two days later, Bostjan Nachbar signed a 3 year, $14.3 million with Dynamo Moscow, where he'd be taking home roughly $4.76 million tax free.

While Nachbar and Delfino were surprise signings, realistically if they had signed with an NBA team, they would be role players or occasional starters. And so far they three players I mentioned had played international basketball prior to their arrival in the NBA. But two American defections to Europe will hopefully change the way basketball fans start thinking about European basketball.

Brandon Jennings, one of the highest rated high school players in the country, spurned Arizona to join Pallacanestro Virtus Roma of the Italian League for a rumored $300,000 per year. Now this is scary for a couple reasons. One, he's making $300,000 more than he would be making as a student-athlete at Arizona. This presents an interesting option to basketball recruits coming from poor families who could either play at a basketball powerhouse, such as Duke or UNC, or they could play overseas for a season or two, where he would not have to worry about classes and grades and concentrate solely on basketball. Two, any club that wants to draft him would have to buy out his contract.

Now for someone like Jennings who isn't making as much money as some of the other players in Europe, the buyout might not be an issue. But for some players, the buyouts can reach into the millions. If Juan Carlos Navarro hadn't been bought out last off season, his buyout for this off-season would have been in the $14 million range. Considering that the NBA can only contribute $500,000 towards a buyout, that's a lot of money the player has to pony up for the chance to play in the NBA.

And then there's Josh Childress.

Josh Childress was a key part of the Atlanta Hawks run to the playoffs this past season, and was looking to cash in on his success. He was a sixth man off their bench, but for other teams, he probably could have been starting. Because he was a restricted free agent, any contract Childress signed could have been matched by the Hawks. However, with only a handful of teams having significant cap space and the rest of the teams looking to avoid paying the luxury tax, there were virtually no offers for him on the table. Restricted free agents can sign a one-year tender and then become an unrestricted free agent the following year.

Josh Childress created a new option for restricted free agents and opted to sign with Olympiacos on Wednesday, a move which needs to be taken seriously by all 30 NBA owners. Most teams would have offered Childress a salary around the mid-level exception, which is $5.6 million per season, but even with that, there are taxes to be paid. In signing with Olympiacos, he's going to pocket $6.6 million per year tax-free for the next three seasons. Plus, he can opt out of his deal and enter a free agent market where more teams have money to spend. Because of his status as a restricted free agent, Atlanta can tender him for the next two seasons and retain his NBA rights.

NBA owners should be fearful of this move on a couple fronts. Restricted free agents now have some leverage in their contract negotiations. For someone like Josh Smith, who could have made $11-12 million per year had he signed with a team other than Atlanta, the threat of going to Europe might be enough for Atlanta to offer more than the rumored $9 million per season they offered him.

These scenarios, while troubling, can be worked through. Because those players are restricted free agents or draft picks, American teams already own their rights if/when they come to the states, so any negotiations must go through their respective teams. However, there's a much scarier situation that could play out and give David Stern nightmares for years to come.

What happens when an American Superstar, in a year when they are an unrestricted free agent, decides to leave the NBA and play a couple seasons in Europe? Although there are loopholes in it that can be manipulated, the NBA does have a salary cap. International teams do not have one to weigh them down. European basketball is survival of the fittest, where you have powerhouses such as Panathinaikos or Maccabi Tel Aviv who can offer whatever they can to keep them competitive in Europe. Owners don't care about how trying to maximize the revenue from their teams; they care more about winning and pride for their teams.

Let's say you're LeBron James in the mythical summer of 2010. Your good friend and co-owner of the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets Jay-Z is offering you a six year deal worth $120 million to come to the Nets. In most years, it would be a no-brainer and LeBron would be toasting to his millions at the 40/40 Club by midnight.

But let's add a twist to it. What if there's an Italian billionaire, who recently bought a Basketball Club in their native land, and wants to make a splash. And let's say he/she offers a tax-free two year contract worth $90 million guaranteed. Even if the United States economy improves dramatically over the next two years, LeBron would still have to pay taxes on his $20 million per year. For players like LeBron, who want to build themselves into a brand, wouldn't it make sense to expand to Europe and sign a couple of lucrative endorsement deals and take the $90 million tax-free? He's already one of the, if not the most, poplar athlete in the United States, so why not take a chance.

Even scarier for David Stern, what if a rival Italian Club, looking to one-up the one that signed LeBron, decides to offer a similar type deal to Kobe Bryant, who can become an unrestricted free agent in 2011? Kobe's father played professionally in Italy, and considering he's accomplished pretty much everything a pro basketball player can (MVP, Three NBA Championships, Two Scoring Titles, 10-time All-Star game starter) in the United States, why not try to add a Euroleague title?

The NBA might be satisfied now, but Josh Childress opened the gates for future players to jump overseas to take advantage of a strong Euro. These young players would go on road trips to Athens, Rome, Barcelona, Moscow, etc. instead of trips to Oklahoma City, Memphis, and Milwaukee. Levin should have chosen his words wisely, because American teams have not been the “Gold Standard” for anything the past few years in international competition.

(Lack Of) Brand Loyalty

2008-07-09T19:17:00.001-04:00

On paper, everything about Elton Brand signing with the Philadelphia 76ers seems to make a good fit. Brand would be able to play in a conference that lacks the big bodies he'd have to face night in and night out in the Western Conference, and he would get exposure playing for Philadelphia, unlike his time in the Witness Protection Program...I mean playing for the Los Angeles Clippers.

It also propels the 76ers into a top 3 or 4 playoff team in the Eastern Conference, building from a postseason where they had a shot at upsetting the Detroit Pistons. His arrival in Philadelphia means that all of a sudden, players can move back to their natural positions. Thaddeus Young won't have to play the four anymore and will be able to move to his natural Small Forward position. Andre Iguodala will now be able to play the shooting guard position instead of playing as an undersized Small Forward. And most importantly, Willie Green moves from being the worst Shooting Guard in the league to his rightful place as 7th or 8th man off the bench.

As great as this all sounds for the city of Philadelphia, a dark cloud still hovers around this great situation. No matter how much of a good guy Elton Brand may be, he managed to stab a city and a friend who he had known since high school in their backs by an agent driven decision.

Until Baron Davis and Elton Brand opted out, the teams with the most cap room were Philadelphia and Memphis, and because Memphis' ownership wanted to take a "wait and see approach" (aka who can we get for the cheapest amount of money), Philadelphia was able to throw roughly $11 million per year at someone such as Elton Brand or Josh Smith. Personally, I would have made a hard run at Josh Smith over Brand, but that's not the issue at hand.

What is known is that publicly, Elton Brand opted out so that he could renegotiate a new contract so that the Clippers could bring in another stud, such as Baron Davis, who conveniently opted out of his deal after Brand. While what may have happened between Brand, the Los Angeles Clippers, and Davis may have been against the rules, the facts (and according to Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy, the text messages) remain that Brand convinced Davis to opt out of his deal, which would have paid him $17.8 million this season, and sign with the Clippers in hopes that the Clippers could be the Boston Celtics of the '08-09 season.

What happened between then, and when he signed with Philadelphia is debatable. According to Brand's agent, David Falk, the Clippers offered a "take it or leave it deal" which would have been less than what Philadelphia offered. The truth in the matter is that the Clippers had the flexibility of renouncing rights to their restricted free agents to free up cap space, and the Clippers made that known, proving they would do whatever it'd take to bring Brand back into the fold. The only problem was that this gesture came too little, too late. The Clippers may not be the model for efficiency in the NBA, but they made an effort in recent years to build a winner, only to have the cornerstone of the team abandon them. As I mentioned earlier, it was a good business move, however the way he and his agent handled the situation was disgraceful in the long run.

Speaking of the long run, this situation becomes ironic with the deal the Clippers made for Marcus Camby today. The Los Angeles Clippers may actually be better in the long-run than if they had resigned Elton Brand. Camby's contract, which will pay him $15.6 million over the next two seasons, coincides with the highly anticipated 2010 off-season, which will see LeBron James, Chris Bosh, and Dwyane Wade potentially test free agency.

Take into account that Tim Thomas and Cuttino Mobley's contracts come off the books that year, it's not unrealistic for the Clippers to make a run at LeBron James. Although if James elects to join his buddy Jay-Z and sign with the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets, a front court of Chris Bosh, Chris Kaman, and Al Thornton would be pretty decent. Camby makes up for his lack of offensive production by averaging 13 rebounds and 3.5 blocks per game, better career defensive numbers than Elton Brand. As the Celtics showed this year, great defense always triumphs over great offense.

Brand's decision to spurn the Clippers and join the Philadelphia 76ers may be one of those moves such as the Josh Hamilton/Edinson Volquez trade that works out for both parties. However the manner in which it all went down was not the most ethical way for someone with as much character as Elton Brand.

Winners and Losers of the NBA Draft

2008-06-30T20:19:00.001-04:00

With Free Agency coming up in under 3 1/2 hours, its time to look back at the draft that was. I apologize for not getting this out sooner, but a lot of activity happened into the wee hours after draft night that it was hard to keep up with who was moving where.

As tempting as it was to pick OJ Mayo going #2 to the Heat, I was the only one who predicted it, and I stand by that pick. I still feel Pat Riley's man-crush on OJ Mayo will come through and, given the glut of guards Memphis has, there's a shot they'll make some sort of deal. What's funny about this whole situation is that Riley questioned Beasley's character and whether the lights of Miami would be too much of a distraction. Take into account that the guy he wanted, OJ Mayo, has been in the national spotlight since he was 12 and was paid during his one year at USC. I guess being paid illegally in school is better than being a class clown.

Anyways, here are the winners and losers of the 2008 NBA Draft.

WINNERS

1. New Jersey Nets: First, congratulations go out to the New Jersey Nets for kicking off the 2010 "Get LeBron James to Brooklyn" campaign. They dumped Richard Jefferson's salary in the deal with Milwaukee, and if they decide Vince Carter should go, they can throw whatever money they can so that BFF's LeBron James and Nets Co-Owner Jay-Z can be together. Jay-Z owns the 40-40 club, so maybe Bron will have his own club ("Trey Deuce" maybe...for those that don't understand, Trey Deuce = Triple Double) there as well.

As far as the actual draft is concerned, everything fell into their laps. Brook Lopez in explicitly fell to them at #10 and will provide them with the low-post scoring they desperately need. Ryan Anderson is an athletic Forward who can play either the 3 or 4 and will create match-up problems for opponents. Chris Douglas-Roberts may have been the second biggest steal of this draft. For Douglas-Roberts, who everyone felt was a first rounder, to fall to #40 was surprising, and was an excellent value pick. They may not be a force in the Eastern Conference, but they will be in the running for LeBron James in 2010. Not sure if I already mentioned that or not.

2. Portland Trail Blazers: One of the things NBA fans could count on during draft night is Kevin Pritchard, Portland's GM, will burn up every team's phone line wheeling and dealing to make his team better. And Thursday night was another example of why Portland will be wearing championship rings in 2-3 years. I knew their pick wasn't going to end up wearing the hat for long, but they were able to pry Jerryd Bayliss away from Indiana, which was a steal for Portland. Indiana will miss Bayliss running their offense when TJ Ford misses 10 games mid season because of a broken nail. A back court of Bayliss and Brandon Roy along with Greg Oden, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Channing Frye will be a force. All they need is a vet or two (similar to what Boston did when they acquired PJ Brown and Sam Cassell), and they'll be in the title hunt next season.

3. Los Angeles Clippers: You figure for a team that's been in the NBA Draft Lottery 19 seasons that they'd have a few championship rings by now, but I guess being the red-headed step child of the Los Angeles basketball scene will do that for you. Regardless, they are facing a harsh off season if Elton Brand and Corey Maggette both opt out of their contracts and sign elsewhere. They softened the blow by picking up Eric Gordon, who given some time can blossom into a great player, and DeAndre Jordan. At one point, Jordan was projected to be a lottery pick, however as the draft grew nearer, his stock plummeted because of his limited offensive ability and the fact he can't hit a free throw to save his live. However for someone of his athleticism, its unheard of in the NBA draft for 34 picks to go by and no one draft him on upside alone, considering many feel he could be the next Dwight Howard. Then again, Clippers fans could be witnessing the next Keith Closs too.

4. Memphis Grizzlies: They made an excellent move acquiring OJ Mayo from Minnesota, although it cost them Mike Miller and having to take on Marco Jaric's contract. However the move that should give them some credit is picking up Darrell Arthur. Teams stayed away from him like the plague because of a supposed kidney issue, and if this winds up being about nothing (which I think it was in the first place), they got a top 15 guy towards the end of the draft. Not only that, Arthur will take out his frustrations on the 20+ teams that passed on him. The main issue with Memphis is that they have no front court and too many Point Guards.

LOSERS

1. Memphis Grizzlies: Seriously, who else was looking towards to the Gay-Love era in Memphis? Not in that way you sick people, but the fact pairing Rudy Gay with Kevin Love would have made a lot more sense in Memphis because they need some help in the front court.

2. Minnesota Timberwolves: While they may have been right in dealing OJ Mayo, they still need some front court help. Kevin Love does complement Al Jefferson, however Jefferson will still be playing out of position next year and be undersized in a conference that features Tim Duncan, Shaquille O'Neal, Andrew Bynum, Greg Oden, and Yao Ming among others. They would have been better off reaching for Brook Lopez to allow Jefferson to move back to the 4 and dominate. They also lose because they have to take on the abysmal Brian Cardinal contract. Then again, OJ Mayo would have fit in as well in Minnesota as Shaq would at a Bryant family reunion

3. ESPN: My favorite part of the draft was taken away from me this year, when instead of having him analyze every pick, Stephen A. Smith was given interviewing duties. As much as I think Jay Bilas, Jeff Van Gundy, and Mark Jackson did a good job, Stuart Scott was not that impressive as the leader of the crew. Stuart Scott would have been better off doing interviews. Personally, I'd rather have the draft back on TNT because the "Inside the NBA" cast is the best in the NBA and have the chemistry and basketball knowledge to make draft night entertaining. Regardless, back to ESPN's coverage. Stephen A. has provided many entertaining moments ripping teams draft picks and going on extended rants about people...and actually making really good points on the failures of others. You may not like his style, but he is an incredible writer who isn't afraid to tell it like it is, no matter how blunt the truth is. He could have injected some criticism into the draft to stir the pot a bit and get a healthy debate going.

4. Charlotte Bobcats: sometime soon I'm going to write my anti-Larry Brown piece because the guy should not be given anymore chances to make decisions for a professional basketball team. They needed someone in the middle to help take pressure off of Emeka Okafor (a la Al Jefferson in Minnesota) and Brook Lopez had fallen into their laps. What do they do? What every person with no common sense would do: draft a point guard when you already have a pretty decent one in Raymond Felton. No offense to DJ Augustin, who's a great basketball player, but drafting him creates more problems than answers. Now they have to worry about trading Felton and getting back something for him. Yet, they somehow managed to top that by drafting Alexis Ajinca. International prospects are a big part of the NBA nowadays, but Ajinca averaged 5 points and 5 rebounds a game in France, which competition-wise is not quite the level of the NBA. He'll need many years abroad before he can make an impact being buried on Larry Brown's bench.

Mocking the Draft

2008-06-25T20:33:00.001-04:00

With Portland "trading" (should be called buying picks because Portland has been throwing money at teams for draft picks) for the 27th pick in this year's draft, one of the most unpredictable drafts in recent memory kicked off. As was the case last year with Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, the talk about this year's draft has been about whether the Chicago Bulls would select Derrick Rose of Memphis or Michael Beasley of Kansas State. The Bulls are leaning towards Rose, although John Paxton may say other wise. Those believing Paxton is undecided better do their research, since last year Portland's GM Kevin Pritchard said similar statements when it was pretty much obvious Greg Oden was going to be the first pick. The draft was supposed to go Rose and Beasley 1 and 2 respectively.

However, a funny thing happened on the way to the draft. Pat Riley's man-crush on USC Guard OJ Mayo, coupled with Michael Beasley's "character issues" has thrown a monkey wrench into the draft. Though they have some guy named Dwayne Wade at guard, and that a front court of Beasley and Shawn Marion would be tough to defend, his undying love of OJ Mayo's ability has changed the whole complexion of the draft. A hard to predict draft to begin with will be even tougher to decipher if Miami trades out of the pick, or even decides to select Mayo number two.

On top of that, last year's number two draft pick, Kevin Durant, is childhood friends with Michael Beasley and would love for him to join the Seattle/Oklahoma City/Corner of 36th street SuperSonics. Add in the fact the Sonics have 6 picks this year and Chris Wilcox's expiring contract, they could make a move up to select Beasley. A starting line-up of Beasley, Durant, and Jeff Green would be nasty. Now, Seattle would be best fit to pick up a point guard who could get Green and Durant the ball, like a Russell Westbrook or Jerryd Bayless, but if the reports are true, they're set in taking Brook Lopez of Stanford. For those keeping track, here's Seattle's last four First Round Draft Picks:

2004: Robert Swift, 7'1" Center
2005: Johan Petro, 7'0" Center
2006: Saer Sene, 7'0" Center
2007: Kevin Durant, 6'10" Forward

After three Super Busts, you would think they'd learn from Durant and surround him with better back court players. I don't think Sonics fans can take another season of the dynamic duo of Luke Ridnour and Earl Watson at the point.

So what can we expect from this draft? Expect the unexpected. I don't expect the Miami Heat to keep their pick. I don't expect Memphis to keep their pick either. Regardless, here is my mock draft as of now (6/25, 9:30 pm), with no teams trading their pick.

1. Chicago Bulls - Derrick Rose, Guard
2. Miami Heat - OJ Mayo, Guard
3. Minnesota Timberwolves - Michael Beasley, Fowrad
4. Seattle SuperSonics - Russell Westbrook, Guard
5. Memphis Grizzlies - Brook Lopez, Center
*** Note: I do not expect Memphis to keep this pick. They've been dangling this pick to anyone that could pick up Brian Cardinal's ridiculous contract. Don't be shocked if this pick is traded. ***
6. New York Knicks - Erick Gordon, Guard
7. Los Angeles Clippers - Jerryd Bayless, Guard
8. Milwaukee Bucks - Joe Alexander, Forward
9. Charlotte Bobcats - Kevin Love, Forward
10. New Jersey Nets - Danilo Gallinari, Forward
11. Indiana Pacers - Anthony Randolph, Forward
12. Sacramento Kings - DJ Augustin, Guard
13. Portland Trail Blazers - Alexis Ajinca, Center
*** Note: I do not expect Portland to keep this pick. They have so many young players on their roster plus they just acquired the 27th pick, so look for this pick to be shopped for a veteran. ***
14. Golden State Warriors - Donte Green, Forward
15. Phoenix Suns - Brandon Rush, Guard
16. Philadelphia 76ers - Marreese Speights, Forward
17. Indiana Pacers - Kosta Koufos, Center
18. Washington Wizards - Darrell Arthur, Forward
19. Cleveland Cavaliers - DeAndre Jordan, Center
20. Charlotte Bobcats - Roy Hibbert, Center
21. New Jersey Nets - Jason Thompson, Forward
22. Orlando Magic - Courtney Lee, Guard
23. Utah Jazz - JaVale McGee, Center
24. Seattle SuperSonics - Serge Ibaka, Forward
25. Houston Rockets - Mario Chalmers, Guard
26. San Antonio Spurs - Ryan Anderson, Forward
27. Portland Trail Blazers - Nicolas Batum, Forward
28. Memphis Grizzlies - Chris Douglas-Roberts, Guard
29. Detroit Pistons - JJ Hickson, Forward
30. Boston Celtics - Kyle Weaver, Guard

Just as a disclaimer, teams that wind up not doing well next season do have some hope in next year's draft. The past few years have seen the reemergence of the Point Guard as the leader, and next year there is someone coming out, who will be the cream of the crop. I'm not talking about best young point guard; this kid could become the greatest point guard in NBA History.

Everything in New York ain't always what it seems...

2008-06-17T19:24:00.001-04:00

The "city that never sleeps" lived up to its moniker today as the New York Mets announced at 3:14 am this morning that they fired their Manager, Willie Randolph. Now, it's common for teams to fire Managers or Coaches, and teams do issue press releases about events at 3 of 4 in the morning. However the decision to fire Randolph in the manner that they went about it was appalling and lacking professionalism.

Randolph had been on the hot seat for the majority of the season, and there were even rumblings after they choked away the NL East that he could be replaced, but Omar Minaya showed no class in the way he handled the firing of Willie Randolph.

To put it bluntly Minaya lied to Randolph's face about the timing of the firing. In reports coming out today, Minaya told Randolph before the Mets traveled for their road trip on the West Coast, that they'd make a decision on his job status after the road trip. It's understandable, considering the Mets had won three of their last five games after dropping the previous five games.

If Minaya was going to fire Randolph, it should have happened Sunday. It's not the end of the world to be fired on a holiday, ask former Washington Capitals coach Glen Hanlan or former Chicago Bulls coach Scott Skiles, who were fired on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve respectively. But to make a guy fly 3,000 miles, have him Manage a game, and conduct a press conference talking about building upon this win, only to fire him is horrible planning and execution.

Ironically, Minaya said he fired him at 3 am because firing someone while in uniform was "disrespectful". Hey Omar, lying to a guy's face about his job status and firing him the day after flying over the country falls into that category buddy. If the Mets keep up their underachieving ways, you might wind up next to Willie Randolph in the unemployment line considering the team with the highest payroll in the National League ($138 million this year) is a game under .500 right now.

The crazy thing about this situation is that despite Omar Minaya's classless move, it's the 2nd most entertaining baseball story coming out of New York City.

Hank Steinbrenner has thrust himself in the spotlight with his criticism of the National League. As only a Steinbrenner can vent, here's what he said about why the National League is at fault for Chien-Ming Wang's injury:

"My only message is simple: The National League needs to join the 21st century," Steinbrenner said. "They need to grow up and join the 21st century. I've got my pitchers running the bases, and one of them gets hurt. He's going to be out. I don't like that, and it's about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s."

I could talk for days about how absurd this quote is, but Hank, here's some common sense for you. Professional baseball was first played in 1846. The Designated Hitter rule, which was not a unanimous decision when it was implemented, was adopted by the American League in 1973. The National League has never had a DH in non-interleague regular season games. So to sum it up for Hank, in the nearly 162 year history of professional baseball, injuries such as Wang are freak injuries that rarely occur.

Hank Steinbrenner, like Omar Minaya, should be more concerned with his team's performance on the field instead of trying to change baseball's rules to help his pitchers. The Yankees are aging faster in front of our eyes, and the Yankee's of the 90's will soon be a ghost in the dark if things keep up. Although the embarrassing aspect of this season for the Mets and the Yankees is that combined they have spent roughly $347.3 million combined to be in 4th and 3rd place in their respective divisions.

New York will always be known as the city that never sleeps, however for New York baseball fans, there will be many restless nights to come.

Tim Donaghy: Rat or Super Rat?

2008-06-12T20:58:00.001-04:00

With these NBA finals in progress, "explosive" allegations came from Tim Donaghy claiming that refs had agreed to fix a Game 6 of a playoff series so there would be a game seven because "they wanted a certain team to advance", thus providing higher television ratings for that game, and eventually, the one team moving to the NBA Finals that season. The game in question is Game Six of the 2002 Western Conference Finals and the team in questions is the Los Angeles Lakers.

Now much of this game has been rehashed by the media and they are right in a sense that the fourth quarter was the worst officiated 12 minutes of any sport in history. As bad as the 38-10 free throw disparity in Game Two of these finals, the officiating of the Fourth Quarter of Game Six of the 2002 Western Conference Finals was worse. Phantom fouls and a free throw disparity of 27 (for the Lakers) to 9 (for the Kings) IN THAT QUARTER was beyond awful.

People complained about the Kings being screwed, to the point that Ralph Nadar wanted an official investigation into the matter. But the funny thing about this, and this is never brought up when talking about the Kings being screwed out of the series, is that this was Game Six.

There was still another game to be played.

On Sacramento's home court.

Which they lost.

And why did they lose? In the ironies of all irony, Sacramento shot 16-30 from the free throw line and 2-20 from 3 Point Range, and ended up losing 112-106 in overtime. If Sacramento had made a couple more of those shots and not choked under the pressure, no one would care that Game Six was fixed, but because the Lakers wound up moving to the NBA Finals, all hell breaks loose and the Kings were screwed out of competing for the NBA title.

Some truths are really overlooked by the media here. First, as I mentioned, the Kings could have easily won Game Seven on their home court by making a few more free throws. Second, they would have won Game Four had it not been for a miracle shot at the end by Robert Horry. Third, if the NBA were involved in manipulating games, they'd be dumber than anyone in this current Presidential administration. It'd be the equivalent of playing Russian Roulette with a loaded gun considering not only would there be fan backlash, but the government would throw the encyclopedia at them legally, and sports as a whole would take a major image hit.

Fourth, even if the officials helped the Lakers out in Game Six, they couldn't single handedly help them win that game. Here's the box score for Game Six of the 2002 Western Conference Finals http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=220531013.

A couple things really stick out here. First, Shaquille O'Neal shot 76% from the line, making 13 of his 17 free throws. Take into account that at the end of the 2001-02 season, O'Neal was a 53% free throw shooter. For him to miss that few free throws in a game is remarkable, and you figure if he shot for average, making 9 of 17, this game would have been tied at regulation, even with help from the officials. Second, Sacramento had 18 more shot attempts than the Lakers. Even with phantom fouls being called on Sacramento, that shouldn't stop the Kings from making shots from the field. Also, the Lakers turned the ball over more and Kings failed to take advantage of those opportunities.

Since it has been established that the Sacramento Kings lost the series on their own accord, its time to turn our attention to the real problem: a rat named Tim Donaghy. The media has reported what he told the government, however the timing of all this is interesting. The NBA had originally not requested Donaghy to pay any reparations for his actions; however a month ago, they changed their minds (perfectly legal by the way) and asked him to pay $1 million in restitutions for his actions. Mysteriously, all this information that Donaghy sang about leaked after the NBA demanded they be paid for his actions, and all hell broke loose in the sports media world. The document (which if you want to read was filed on June 10th, you can find here http://assets.espn.go.com/media/pdf/080610/donaghy03.pdf) shows Tim snitching on his former co-workers.

One thing that has not gotten as much attention in the Game Six fiasco is that one of the three officials in that game, Bob Delaney, was a former New Jersey State Police Officer who worked undercover to bring down organized crime in New Jersey. Because he knows the legalities of fixing a basketball games from his days as a cop, why the hell would he risk it knowing the consequences? And second, as he said recently to ESPN,

"This is not the first time a known or convicted criminal has lied about me before the judicial system. I have an extensive law enforcement background and still train police officers. I have dealt with criminals and informants, and I know full well they are capable of doing and saying anything."

Tim Donaghy screwed himself over with poor decision making. As bad as this sounds, even if the NBA fixed games, they did it for the good of the game, not to put money in the pockets of referees. He was caught, and he faces 25 years of prison for what he's done, and as any cop can tell you, he's shown no loyalty to his former co-workers, and the only thing worse than snitching on someone is dry-snitching (the acting of making up stuff about other people to let yourself off the hook), and he's starting to sing like a contestant on American Idol.

Some advice to Tim before he starts jail: You can sing all you want, but the fact you are now a government informant will not help you in the long run. You might as well have this tattooed on you.