A little over a year ago, following a game between the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium, a Giants fan named Bryan Stow was beaten into a coma by two Dodgers fans that attacked him because of the team he supported. While we will probably never know all of the details about the confrontation, the result of it is all that really mattered. Stow was in a coma for several months following the attack, and is still today not fully recovered. Lawsuits and court cases have ensued, with accusations flying in all directions, and the entire event was a black eye for a Dodgers organization that, at the time, was already a mess for more than a few reasons.
What did come from the attack was a pledge from the Dodgers organization that security would be increased at all games, and nothing like that would ever happen again. And when it finally seemed like the event was in the past, we all got a reminder that it surely was not this past weekend when the Dodgers played the St. Louis Cardinals. What was categorized as a "minor fender bender" in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium, turned into an attack on one man by another four. Thankfully, this time, the victim was not as seriously injured as Stow was, but that isn't the real point. The point is that Dodgers fans have obviously not learned much from the attack on Stow last March.
Whether or not players and/or executives like it, the fans of a team are just as much a part of an organization as anyone with a suit or a jersey on. I actually believe that fans have the right to claim that they are the most important part of an organization. Players, coaches, general managers, and other people that sit in an owner's box or put on a jersey come and go.
Of course, this isn't true in all cases, but in many cases it is. The Mara family is, and always will be, more a part of the New York Giants organization than any living fan or player can be. From Wellington Mara, one of the men at the forefront of the creation of not only the Giants, but the entire National Football League, down to John Mara, and into the future, the Mara family is literally, the New York Giants. The same can be said for the Rooney family and the Pittsburgh Steelers. However, the Dodgers are not one of these rare cases.
The attack on Stow occurred when the team was owned by the McCourt family. Following the recent sale of the organization to a group including Los Angeles legend Magic Johnson, it seemed as though the Dodgers were on an upward trajectory. Major League Baseball had finally seen one of its most storied franchises come out from under the black cloud that the McCourt family had cast upon the Dodgers. Johnson's group had seemingly injected a new life into a team that had been floundering in mediocrity lately. Despite the presence of reigning National League Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw, and one of the best players in the game, Matt Kemp, Dodger Stadium was full of a lot of empty seats over the past years.
However, this year Kemp got off to a blazing hot start, Kershaw has been just as great as last year, and the team has the best record in all of baseball. It seemed like an entirely different organization was on the rise in Los Angeles. Yet despite all of this success, another event like we saw this weekend still managed to occur and seriously damage what seemed like it could have been a milestone year for the team. Even after the Dodgers organization said we would never see an attack like the one on Stow last year happen again, it happened. And like I said before, even though this attack had nothing to do with Matt Kemp or Clayton Kershaw or Magic Johnson, it is still a very poor reflection upon the Dodgers entire organization.
Events like these do not happen often. Every team in every sport has fans that get unruly, some more so than others, but we have now had similar incidents occur within 14 months of one another in the same place, with the same fans, and that is impossible to ignore. Dodgers fans will be around longer than any of the players or executives, and until the organization can prevent these things from occurring, the team will walk around with a black eye no matter how well the team on the field might be performing.
Daily Rangers Update: The puck drops in Newark for Game 4 against the Devils tonight in about 90 minutes. Henrik Lundqvist is coming off his second shutout in the three games that have been played in this series, and is playing like a brick wall protecting the net. However, he had to face a ton of shots in Game 3, so it would be nice to take some pressure off him by controlling the puck a little bit more and not trying to play defense for two and a half periods while we wait to score a goal. It would also be nice to win this game and possibly be able to prevent this series from going the distance, because the Kings seem like they will be able to rest for a long time if they close out the Coyotes in Game 5 out west. A 3-1 series lead sounds a heck of a lot better than a 2-2 series, so a win tonight would be awesome. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: Well it took a trip to Kansas City, the team with the worst home record in baseball, to finally get the ship righted somewhat and at least moving towards the right direction, but the results are all that matter. Now it's back home to take on the (as mentioned before) first place Dodgers. It's far too early to start looking at the standings, but I don't care, I'll do it anyway. 9.5 games is a big deficit. The best way to cut down that number is to beat the team you're chasing though, so hopefully that starts tonight. Patrick Corbin has been very good since being called up from the minor leagues, Chris Young is back, and hopefully Daniel Hudson won't be far behind. Taking this series could be very big, so let's hope it starts well tonight.
Daily Giants Update: Continuing the trend of reaping the rewards of a Super Bowl championship, a few members of the team got to ring the closing NASDAQ bell last week. More importantly though, the team got their Super Bowl rings as well, and as would be expected, they were much nicer than any piece of jewelry I could ever hope to own. Lawrence Taylor also, sadly, announced that he would be auctioning off one of his Super Bowl rings, but that's another story for another day. On the field though, some teams have opened their full squad minicamps. The Giants will begin soon, and the quest to repeat will be officially underway.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Monday, May 14, 2012
Drama on the pitch
I have played soccer my entire life, and always been a huge fan of the game. In my opinion, the World Cup is the greatest sporting event in the world, and when it comes around every four years, I am sure to watch as much of it as I can. However, the United States is not the best place to live if you want to watch world class soccer every year. The MLS has always been, and probably always will be (at least for the near future), a second class league in comparison to leagues in Europe, and even in South America. Former stars come play in the MLS after they have played out their prime years in Europe. Guys like David Beckham and Thierry Henry come to the United States to play because they can be stars here and make more money at the later stages of their careers than they would in Europe. And who could blame them really? Instead of being hassled endlessly by the soccer "hooligans" in Europe as their careers wind down, they can come here and make one final splash and earn one final paycheck before they ride off into retirement.
So I can't say that I am a follower of the MLS. However, a few years ago, ESPN started broadcasting English Premier League games in the United States, and I was thrilled for a few reasons. First, obviously, is that we would get to see what is probably the most popular soccer league in the country at least once or twice each week. Also, because of the time zone difference, the latest an EPL game will be on television is about 3:00 in the afternoon. Each Saturday morning though, there are games on nice and early to watch live right around the time I wake up. Instead of having to stay awake until 1:00 in the morning to watch an entire Diamondbacks game, I can watch EPL games nice and early when I am wide awake and don't feel like watching SportsCenter 300 times in a row.
Now the network chooses the games that will be broadcast, so each week we get different games. Most of them involve at least one of the top-flight teams like Manchester United or Arsenal or Chelsea, but I'm okay with that because I haven't followed the league closely enough to have a favorite team, I just enjoy watching the games. So paired with the Fox Soccer Channel, which will usually broadcast a live game or two each week as well, we get to watch a heck of a lot more live, world-class soccer than we did only a few years ago.
Over the course of this season, I became somewhat familiar with some of the teams, and who was at the top and the bottom of the standings. I knew this past Saturday was the final day of the season, and unlike professional leagues in the United States, there are no playoffs. The full season standings determine the champion. Going into the day, Manchester City was tied atop the standings with Manchester United, with Manchester City holding a significant lead in the tiebreaker (goal differential). Manchester City needed to have an equal or better result than Manchester United, and Man City was playing Queens Park Rangers (QPR), one of the teams at the bottom of the standings. It was expected that Manchester City would win somewhat handily and be crowned champion for the first time in 44 years. However, as sports seem to be more often than we expect, the result was far from a formality, and we got one of the most dramatic few minutes that I ever remember seeing, in any sport.
Manchester City got off to a good start, taking a 1-0 lead in the first half that it seemed as though they would be able to hold. QPR was getting nothing as far as a sustained attack, and Man City was in control. However, early in the second half, QPR mounted one of the few attacks they would have all day and evened the score at 1. As this was happening, Manchester United had gained a 1-0 lead in their game, and were in complete control. Man City caught a break when a QPR player was sent off with a red card, and QPR would play the rest of the match down one man. Despite this, Manchester City could still not create the breakthrough they needed, and QPR desperately defended and kept the score knotted at 1. Then, QPR was able to counter a Manchester City mistake, go down the field, and playing 10 against 11, get a goal to put them ahead 2-1. With Manchester United still leading 1-0 and in control of their game, Manchester City fans sat in stunned silence as the clock wound down, and their title chances were slipping away (think Red Sox fans prior to 2004 expecting the worst to happen against the Yankees when it mattered most).
Manchester United is the most decorated team in the English Premier League, and one of the best in the world, and they have been that way for decades. Manchester City was always the second tier team in Manchester, and Manchester United had the trophies to prove it. So, with Manchester United only minutes away from winning their game 1-0 and taking over the lead in the standings, Man City needed two goals to equal United's record, and win due to the tiebreaker.
It was at this point that sports proved once again to be the greatest, and most dramatic, soap opera we could ever imagine. As the minutes ticked away and the game entered stoppage time, Man City earned a corner kick and were able to tie the game at 2 with only about three minutes to play. The tie would still leave them in second place though, and Manchester United fans and players watched from the field they had just won on, and believed that the title was still theirs because Manchester City still needed a goal and didn't have much time to get one.
QPR kicked off, moved the ball down to Man City's end of the field, and the clock kept ticking. Man City earned a throw in, and as the clock continued to run, they came forward with everything they had (goalkeeper included). After a scurry outside the penalty area, Manchester City got the ball to a man named Sergio Aguero, he beat a defender about ten yards from goal and buried a shot in the back of the net with about one minute left in the season, and it was the 2004 Red Sox all over again. Down three games to none in the playoffs, nearing just another collapse, the Red Sox did the improbable and came back to win four straight games against the Yankees on their way to their first World Series title in almost 90 years.
After Aguero scored, the Man City players and fans went into a frenzy as Manchester United could only watch the final seconds tick away, and the title be snatched out from under them. After 44 years of playing second fiddle to the "big brothers," Manchester City had finally finished the season atop the Premiership and lifted the trophy. In five minutes, the mood in the stadium went from despair to elation, and the party began.
As a fan of neither team, I was able to watch this all happen with no loyalties toward either side, and just a simple appreciation for the history that had just been made before the eyes of the world. Soccer will always be bigger in Europe than it is in the United States, but at least for one day, one of the most thrilling climaxes in sports history stole the headlines from everything else in the sporting world. The underdog had come back from what seemed like the dead, and did it (literally) as the entire sports world watched it happen.
Daily Rangers Update: The puck drops for Game 1 with the New Jersey Devils in about 10 minutes at Madison Square Garden. The winner of the series goes on to play for the Stanley Cup, and the loser goes home. The Devils were the opponent in the conference finals back in 1994 when the Rangers won their first Stanley Cup since 1940, so maybe that is a good sign. If a repeat of 1994 is in order, then that means the next month will be a great time for Rangers fans. It starts tonight though, so a strong start to the series is the first step. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: Winning one game out of every three is not the recipe for success in baseball. Last year the team got off to a slow start and finished the last few months strong, so hopefully that can happen again, because the first month and a half has been far from last season. Things don't get any easier tonight, as the Diamondbacks start a series in Los Angeles and the 2011 National League Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw is on the mound. No one is great every time out, so hopefully that time for Kershaw is tonight.
Daily Giants Update: Three undrafted free agents were signed today and rookie minicamp has begun. The season is still a long way from beginning, but at least the defending champions can find out a little bit about how their draft class looks in the coming weeks.
So I can't say that I am a follower of the MLS. However, a few years ago, ESPN started broadcasting English Premier League games in the United States, and I was thrilled for a few reasons. First, obviously, is that we would get to see what is probably the most popular soccer league in the country at least once or twice each week. Also, because of the time zone difference, the latest an EPL game will be on television is about 3:00 in the afternoon. Each Saturday morning though, there are games on nice and early to watch live right around the time I wake up. Instead of having to stay awake until 1:00 in the morning to watch an entire Diamondbacks game, I can watch EPL games nice and early when I am wide awake and don't feel like watching SportsCenter 300 times in a row.
Now the network chooses the games that will be broadcast, so each week we get different games. Most of them involve at least one of the top-flight teams like Manchester United or Arsenal or Chelsea, but I'm okay with that because I haven't followed the league closely enough to have a favorite team, I just enjoy watching the games. So paired with the Fox Soccer Channel, which will usually broadcast a live game or two each week as well, we get to watch a heck of a lot more live, world-class soccer than we did only a few years ago.
Over the course of this season, I became somewhat familiar with some of the teams, and who was at the top and the bottom of the standings. I knew this past Saturday was the final day of the season, and unlike professional leagues in the United States, there are no playoffs. The full season standings determine the champion. Going into the day, Manchester City was tied atop the standings with Manchester United, with Manchester City holding a significant lead in the tiebreaker (goal differential). Manchester City needed to have an equal or better result than Manchester United, and Man City was playing Queens Park Rangers (QPR), one of the teams at the bottom of the standings. It was expected that Manchester City would win somewhat handily and be crowned champion for the first time in 44 years. However, as sports seem to be more often than we expect, the result was far from a formality, and we got one of the most dramatic few minutes that I ever remember seeing, in any sport.
Manchester City got off to a good start, taking a 1-0 lead in the first half that it seemed as though they would be able to hold. QPR was getting nothing as far as a sustained attack, and Man City was in control. However, early in the second half, QPR mounted one of the few attacks they would have all day and evened the score at 1. As this was happening, Manchester United had gained a 1-0 lead in their game, and were in complete control. Man City caught a break when a QPR player was sent off with a red card, and QPR would play the rest of the match down one man. Despite this, Manchester City could still not create the breakthrough they needed, and QPR desperately defended and kept the score knotted at 1. Then, QPR was able to counter a Manchester City mistake, go down the field, and playing 10 against 11, get a goal to put them ahead 2-1. With Manchester United still leading 1-0 and in control of their game, Manchester City fans sat in stunned silence as the clock wound down, and their title chances were slipping away (think Red Sox fans prior to 2004 expecting the worst to happen against the Yankees when it mattered most).
Manchester United is the most decorated team in the English Premier League, and one of the best in the world, and they have been that way for decades. Manchester City was always the second tier team in Manchester, and Manchester United had the trophies to prove it. So, with Manchester United only minutes away from winning their game 1-0 and taking over the lead in the standings, Man City needed two goals to equal United's record, and win due to the tiebreaker.
It was at this point that sports proved once again to be the greatest, and most dramatic, soap opera we could ever imagine. As the minutes ticked away and the game entered stoppage time, Man City earned a corner kick and were able to tie the game at 2 with only about three minutes to play. The tie would still leave them in second place though, and Manchester United fans and players watched from the field they had just won on, and believed that the title was still theirs because Manchester City still needed a goal and didn't have much time to get one.
QPR kicked off, moved the ball down to Man City's end of the field, and the clock kept ticking. Man City earned a throw in, and as the clock continued to run, they came forward with everything they had (goalkeeper included). After a scurry outside the penalty area, Manchester City got the ball to a man named Sergio Aguero, he beat a defender about ten yards from goal and buried a shot in the back of the net with about one minute left in the season, and it was the 2004 Red Sox all over again. Down three games to none in the playoffs, nearing just another collapse, the Red Sox did the improbable and came back to win four straight games against the Yankees on their way to their first World Series title in almost 90 years.
After Aguero scored, the Man City players and fans went into a frenzy as Manchester United could only watch the final seconds tick away, and the title be snatched out from under them. After 44 years of playing second fiddle to the "big brothers," Manchester City had finally finished the season atop the Premiership and lifted the trophy. In five minutes, the mood in the stadium went from despair to elation, and the party began.
As a fan of neither team, I was able to watch this all happen with no loyalties toward either side, and just a simple appreciation for the history that had just been made before the eyes of the world. Soccer will always be bigger in Europe than it is in the United States, but at least for one day, one of the most thrilling climaxes in sports history stole the headlines from everything else in the sporting world. The underdog had come back from what seemed like the dead, and did it (literally) as the entire sports world watched it happen.
Daily Rangers Update: The puck drops for Game 1 with the New Jersey Devils in about 10 minutes at Madison Square Garden. The winner of the series goes on to play for the Stanley Cup, and the loser goes home. The Devils were the opponent in the conference finals back in 1994 when the Rangers won their first Stanley Cup since 1940, so maybe that is a good sign. If a repeat of 1994 is in order, then that means the next month will be a great time for Rangers fans. It starts tonight though, so a strong start to the series is the first step. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: Winning one game out of every three is not the recipe for success in baseball. Last year the team got off to a slow start and finished the last few months strong, so hopefully that can happen again, because the first month and a half has been far from last season. Things don't get any easier tonight, as the Diamondbacks start a series in Los Angeles and the 2011 National League Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw is on the mound. No one is great every time out, so hopefully that time for Kershaw is tonight.
Daily Giants Update: Three undrafted free agents were signed today and rookie minicamp has begun. The season is still a long way from beginning, but at least the defending champions can find out a little bit about how their draft class looks in the coming weeks.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
More collective bargaining trouble for the NFL
A year ago at this time, the NFL and the NFL Player's Association were in the middle of collective bargaining talks. While I never actually thought that the negotiations would lead to the cancellation of any regular season games, teams were not able to go into the year with a full offseason of preparation to work with. All 32 teams had to deal with this though, so it isn't like anyone had an unfair advantage, and all is well that ends well, so when the season ended, I obviously didn't care much about my team missing some parts of training camp.
When the NFL and the NFLPA finally did reach an agreement last year and football had finally returned, normalcy was restored. However, the NFL made a public statement today about more collective bargaining troubles, this time between the league and the referees. The deal between the two sides expires on May 31, and it seems as though there is a good possibility that the two sides will not reach an agreement before that date. If there is no deal, the NFL has said that it will consider locking out the officials just like it did to the players a year ago, and hiring some college and semi-pro officials as replacements until a new deal was signed.
This may not seem like much of a problem to most fans, but I think it is. Officials in most professional sports, in my opinion, do not get enough credit. NFL officials have so much to watch on any given play, and I think that a lot of these new rules that have been implemented in recent years with the intention of making the game safer have made it much tougher for officials, because if they wanted to, they could probably throw a penalty flag on every play.
NHL officials don't get enough credit for the job they do either. Aside from calling penalties and stepping in between players to break up fights, the hardest part of being an NHL official is probably simply getting out of the way of the play on the ice. Unlike other sports where officials can step out of bounds or into foul territory, NHL officials do not have that luxury. Add that to the fact that there are four of them, plus 12 players, and the game moves up and down the ice so fast, and I'm always surprised how rare it is to see them actually get caught up in the middle of a play.
Watching an NBA game or a professional soccer game also makes you realize how tough it is for officials in those sports as well. There is no way I would be able to officiate either of those sports, because every game I would work would be 0-0. I would just call traveling on every play in the NBA and give red cards to everyone on a soccer field for diving and faking injuries that there would never be any goals or baskets made. (Of course that isn't 100% true...only about 95%).
The toughest officiating job in all of professional sports though is umpiring a Major League Baseball game, and the race for second isn't even close. The calls that these guys have to constantly make are usually so close that it seems as though you need to have six senses to get them correct even half of the time. In no other sport does an official have as much impact as a home plate umpire, as he is called upon to make decisions on every pitch. First base umpires are constantly making calls that are so close it is hard to even tell whether or not a runner was out or safe in slow motion. Yet more often than not, they get the calls right, even when it looks in real time as if there is no way the throw beat the runner to the base.
All of these problems would be more than enough for most, yet I haven't even mentioned the fact that the hardest part of officiating any sport has to be dealing with the players, fans, and coaches/managers. According to those people, officials are wrong about 99% of the time. If an NFL referee throws a flag for pass interference, he has the defensive players and coaches in his ear about it being a bad call. When he makes the same call against the other team later in the game, he hears it from both teams. Add the fans into that, and it sometimes makes me wonder why anyone would actually even want to be an NFL official.
Officials in the NBA and college basketball are running up and down the floor right past the coaches of both teams for the entire game. The coaches and benches are all over the officials constantly, sometimes so much so that it seems like they must be making things up to yell at the officials because there is no way he could have blown enough calls to warrant four quarters of harassment. Major League Baseball umpires are the only ones I have a problem with as far as ego and attitude, because some of them make extremely exaggerated calls on balls and strikes, and a lot of them initiate arguments with players and managers and then throw the guys out of games for responding. Granted, a lot of the arguments between managers and umpires are stupid and it seems as though the manager is just arguing for no reason, but the umpires do obviously incite some of the arguments and then try to act like tough guys for the cameras. However, they still have extremely tough jobs, so (in most cases) I can forgive them for that.
Also, as if these downfalls of the job aren't bad enough, most of these guys have to get other jobs during the offseasons
In the end though, this collective bargaining dispute is about what every other contract dispute is about. One side thinks they are worth more than the other side, and it is just a matter of reaching an agreement somewhere in between. As is the case with most things the NFL does though, this will probably work out in the end. If it doesn't though, I just might actually miss Ed Hochuli taking about an hour and a half to explain why he made each call that he did, as well as Jeff Triplette mispronouncing the word "holding" for an entire game. So I hope this dispute can be worked out because at least then these guys can only spend half of their time working their second jobs, and the other half of their time doing what they really love, spending 60 minutes getting yelled at by Tom Coughlin.
Daily Rangers Update: All of the other second round series have ended, so the eyes of the entire NHL world will be on Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, and hopefully there will be more games to come there soon after. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: Well the good news is that there is no chance of losing today because there is no game on the schedule. San Francisco comes to town starting tomorrow night with the Diamondbacks coming off a sweep at the hands of the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals. Offense, defense, pitching...something needs to wake the team up.
Daily Giants Update: Rookie minicamp starts this weekend, so we will get our first look at the newest members of the defending Super Bowl champions very soon.
When the NFL and the NFLPA finally did reach an agreement last year and football had finally returned, normalcy was restored. However, the NFL made a public statement today about more collective bargaining troubles, this time between the league and the referees. The deal between the two sides expires on May 31, and it seems as though there is a good possibility that the two sides will not reach an agreement before that date. If there is no deal, the NFL has said that it will consider locking out the officials just like it did to the players a year ago, and hiring some college and semi-pro officials as replacements until a new deal was signed.
This may not seem like much of a problem to most fans, but I think it is. Officials in most professional sports, in my opinion, do not get enough credit. NFL officials have so much to watch on any given play, and I think that a lot of these new rules that have been implemented in recent years with the intention of making the game safer have made it much tougher for officials, because if they wanted to, they could probably throw a penalty flag on every play.
NHL officials don't get enough credit for the job they do either. Aside from calling penalties and stepping in between players to break up fights, the hardest part of being an NHL official is probably simply getting out of the way of the play on the ice. Unlike other sports where officials can step out of bounds or into foul territory, NHL officials do not have that luxury. Add that to the fact that there are four of them, plus 12 players, and the game moves up and down the ice so fast, and I'm always surprised how rare it is to see them actually get caught up in the middle of a play.
Watching an NBA game or a professional soccer game also makes you realize how tough it is for officials in those sports as well. There is no way I would be able to officiate either of those sports, because every game I would work would be 0-0. I would just call traveling on every play in the NBA and give red cards to everyone on a soccer field for diving and faking injuries that there would never be any goals or baskets made. (Of course that isn't 100% true...only about 95%).
The toughest officiating job in all of professional sports though is umpiring a Major League Baseball game, and the race for second isn't even close. The calls that these guys have to constantly make are usually so close that it seems as though you need to have six senses to get them correct even half of the time. In no other sport does an official have as much impact as a home plate umpire, as he is called upon to make decisions on every pitch. First base umpires are constantly making calls that are so close it is hard to even tell whether or not a runner was out or safe in slow motion. Yet more often than not, they get the calls right, even when it looks in real time as if there is no way the throw beat the runner to the base.
All of these problems would be more than enough for most, yet I haven't even mentioned the fact that the hardest part of officiating any sport has to be dealing with the players, fans, and coaches/managers. According to those people, officials are wrong about 99% of the time. If an NFL referee throws a flag for pass interference, he has the defensive players and coaches in his ear about it being a bad call. When he makes the same call against the other team later in the game, he hears it from both teams. Add the fans into that, and it sometimes makes me wonder why anyone would actually even want to be an NFL official.
Officials in the NBA and college basketball are running up and down the floor right past the coaches of both teams for the entire game. The coaches and benches are all over the officials constantly, sometimes so much so that it seems like they must be making things up to yell at the officials because there is no way he could have blown enough calls to warrant four quarters of harassment. Major League Baseball umpires are the only ones I have a problem with as far as ego and attitude, because some of them make extremely exaggerated calls on balls and strikes, and a lot of them initiate arguments with players and managers and then throw the guys out of games for responding. Granted, a lot of the arguments between managers and umpires are stupid and it seems as though the manager is just arguing for no reason, but the umpires do obviously incite some of the arguments and then try to act like tough guys for the cameras. However, they still have extremely tough jobs, so (in most cases) I can forgive them for that.
Also, as if these downfalls of the job aren't bad enough, most of these guys have to get other jobs during the offseasons
In the end though, this collective bargaining dispute is about what every other contract dispute is about. One side thinks they are worth more than the other side, and it is just a matter of reaching an agreement somewhere in between. As is the case with most things the NFL does though, this will probably work out in the end. If it doesn't though, I just might actually miss Ed Hochuli taking about an hour and a half to explain why he made each call that he did, as well as Jeff Triplette mispronouncing the word "holding" for an entire game. So I hope this dispute can be worked out because at least then these guys can only spend half of their time working their second jobs, and the other half of their time doing what they really love, spending 60 minutes getting yelled at by Tom Coughlin.
Daily Rangers Update: All of the other second round series have ended, so the eyes of the entire NHL world will be on Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, and hopefully there will be more games to come there soon after. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: Well the good news is that there is no chance of losing today because there is no game on the schedule. San Francisco comes to town starting tomorrow night with the Diamondbacks coming off a sweep at the hands of the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals. Offense, defense, pitching...something needs to wake the team up.
Daily Giants Update: Rookie minicamp starts this weekend, so we will get our first look at the newest members of the defending Super Bowl champions very soon.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
A sad truth about some people in this country
So of all the sports stories to catch my attention in the past few days, I have to say I was surprised that one of them included Warren Buffett. Last week, Buffett made a public statement in opposition of the policy of what is probably the most prestigious golf club in the country, Augusta National, in Augusta, Georgia. This club hosts what is, in the minds of most, the biggest professional golf tournament in the world, The Masters, once every year.
Winning The Masters is comparable to winning the Indianapolis 500 or the singles title at Wimbledon. You cannot be considered as one of the best golfers of all time unless you have worn the green jacket that is given to the champion. Jack Nicklaus has won the tournament six times. Tiger Woods has won it four times. Tom Watson twice, Gary Player three times, Arnold Palmer four times. If you want to know about the pressure that comes with trying to win The Masters, just ask Phil Mickelson. He was known as the guy that could never make the shots when it mattered most until he finally won a green jacket in 2004.
Being able to say that you have won a green jacket is something that all professional golfers would love to say. Winners of The Masters join a prestigious and select club. What is at the root of the controversy surrounding Buffett's comments is how paying members of The Augusta club feel that their club is even more prestigious and select than the club of professionals with green jackets.
Golf has always been, and for the forseeable future probably always will be, seen as a rich man's game. There are a heck of a lot more baseball fields and basketball courts for kids to play on than golf courses. Plus, most golf courses are only open to club members that pay a fee to be able to play the courses, so that makes the availability of courses to the public even less likely. The Augusta National club takes the phrase "rich man's game" literally though. In order to be a member, you have to be rich, and you have to be a man. To this day, women are not permitted to become members of the Augusta National club. Women are permitted as guests, but they are not allowed to become official members.
The fact that policies like these still actually exist is ridiculous. I have been told before that the difference between living in New York and living in the deep south is bigger than most people think, and policies such as these make me believe that. Augusta ran into trouble recently though when IBM named Virginia Rometty as its new CEO in March. The CEO of IBM is usually invited to join the club, but Augusta held firm in its prehistoric stance despite Rometty being named to that position in March. However, last week Buffett became the first known Augusta National member to make a public statement opposing the club's policy. Due to that statement, Tim Finchem, the commissioner of the PGA Tour was asked about his stance on the policy of Augusta National club.
In the past, the PGA Tour has made it a point to distance itself from golf clubs with any sort of discriminatory policies. In 1990, the PGA Championship tournament (another one of the four major PGA tournaments held each year) was held at Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama. The founder of the club, a man named Hall Thompson, answered a question about discriminatory policies of the club by giving the laughably idiotic response of, "We don't discriminate in every other area except blacks." So, after that remark, the PGA Tour has never held an event at Shoal Creek Country Club since then.
The difference between Shoal Creek Country Club and Augusta National though, and the reason that the PGA Tour can't abandon Augusta is, of course, money. Despite the policies of the club, Augusta National has about 99% of the leverage in this instance. Without The Masters, the PGA Tour loses its biggest yearly event. It would be like asking the NFL to give up holding the Super Bowl. It just simply will not happen. It's just an unfortunate truth. If I were Tim Finchem, I would have to make the same choice. Giving up The Masters is not an option. The history of the tournament, the history of the course, the tradition of the green jacket, and the revenue all of those things combine to create is simply something that the PGA Tour would be foolish to even think about giving up.
Until Tiger Woods came along and took the golf world by storm, Augusta National was reluctant to even allow black males to play at their club. However, the revenue that Woods helped generate for the club was too big for the neanderthal members to turn down. Augusta was at the mercy of a young, African-American phenom, and right now the PGA Tour is at the mercy of a club with antiquated rules and beliefs. Maybe Warren Buffett's statements could possibly start some kind of small movement toward new policies at Augusta, but if history is any judge of that, the process will be painstakingly slow. However, until that process begins, we will all have to live with the fact that there are sadly still too many people that hold on to ways of thinking that were supposed to have been eradicated a long time ago. Either that, or we will have to see The Masters tournament come to an end, and I can tell you without a doubt, that will not happen as long as the game of golf still exists.
Daily Rangers Update: Game 6 ended with the Capitals winning 2-1. The Capitals were clearly the better team on this night, and they did a good job of bouncing back from what would have been too devastating a loss in Game 5 for most teams to overcome. That means Game 7 will be Saturday night back in Madison Square Garden with one team going on and one team going home. There is zero margin for error. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: The only real drama last night was whether or not the Diamondbacks would be shut out. Carlos Beltran drove in 6 runs in his first two at bats, and the Diamondbacks scored a run in the 9th inning to make the final 6-1. It has been a struggle again tonight to get the offense going, as the Cardinals are leading 3-1 in the 6th inning. Something needs to happen to wake up the bats or we could be looking at a seventh loss in the last eight games. There are still four innings left though, so that is plenty of time to turn the tables and avoid being swept.
Daily Giants Update: Stacy Robinson, a former wide receiver that was a member of the 1986 and 1990 Super Bowl champion teams died of cancer earlier today at the age of 50. I honestly have never heard of him, but it's never good to hear about a former player passing away. R.I.P.
Winning The Masters is comparable to winning the Indianapolis 500 or the singles title at Wimbledon. You cannot be considered as one of the best golfers of all time unless you have worn the green jacket that is given to the champion. Jack Nicklaus has won the tournament six times. Tiger Woods has won it four times. Tom Watson twice, Gary Player three times, Arnold Palmer four times. If you want to know about the pressure that comes with trying to win The Masters, just ask Phil Mickelson. He was known as the guy that could never make the shots when it mattered most until he finally won a green jacket in 2004.
Being able to say that you have won a green jacket is something that all professional golfers would love to say. Winners of The Masters join a prestigious and select club. What is at the root of the controversy surrounding Buffett's comments is how paying members of The Augusta club feel that their club is even more prestigious and select than the club of professionals with green jackets.
Golf has always been, and for the forseeable future probably always will be, seen as a rich man's game. There are a heck of a lot more baseball fields and basketball courts for kids to play on than golf courses. Plus, most golf courses are only open to club members that pay a fee to be able to play the courses, so that makes the availability of courses to the public even less likely. The Augusta National club takes the phrase "rich man's game" literally though. In order to be a member, you have to be rich, and you have to be a man. To this day, women are not permitted to become members of the Augusta National club. Women are permitted as guests, but they are not allowed to become official members.
The fact that policies like these still actually exist is ridiculous. I have been told before that the difference between living in New York and living in the deep south is bigger than most people think, and policies such as these make me believe that. Augusta ran into trouble recently though when IBM named Virginia Rometty as its new CEO in March. The CEO of IBM is usually invited to join the club, but Augusta held firm in its prehistoric stance despite Rometty being named to that position in March. However, last week Buffett became the first known Augusta National member to make a public statement opposing the club's policy. Due to that statement, Tim Finchem, the commissioner of the PGA Tour was asked about his stance on the policy of Augusta National club.
In the past, the PGA Tour has made it a point to distance itself from golf clubs with any sort of discriminatory policies. In 1990, the PGA Championship tournament (another one of the four major PGA tournaments held each year) was held at Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama. The founder of the club, a man named Hall Thompson, answered a question about discriminatory policies of the club by giving the laughably idiotic response of, "We don't discriminate in every other area except blacks." So, after that remark, the PGA Tour has never held an event at Shoal Creek Country Club since then.
The difference between Shoal Creek Country Club and Augusta National though, and the reason that the PGA Tour can't abandon Augusta is, of course, money. Despite the policies of the club, Augusta National has about 99% of the leverage in this instance. Without The Masters, the PGA Tour loses its biggest yearly event. It would be like asking the NFL to give up holding the Super Bowl. It just simply will not happen. It's just an unfortunate truth. If I were Tim Finchem, I would have to make the same choice. Giving up The Masters is not an option. The history of the tournament, the history of the course, the tradition of the green jacket, and the revenue all of those things combine to create is simply something that the PGA Tour would be foolish to even think about giving up.
Until Tiger Woods came along and took the golf world by storm, Augusta National was reluctant to even allow black males to play at their club. However, the revenue that Woods helped generate for the club was too big for the neanderthal members to turn down. Augusta was at the mercy of a young, African-American phenom, and right now the PGA Tour is at the mercy of a club with antiquated rules and beliefs. Maybe Warren Buffett's statements could possibly start some kind of small movement toward new policies at Augusta, but if history is any judge of that, the process will be painstakingly slow. However, until that process begins, we will all have to live with the fact that there are sadly still too many people that hold on to ways of thinking that were supposed to have been eradicated a long time ago. Either that, or we will have to see The Masters tournament come to an end, and I can tell you without a doubt, that will not happen as long as the game of golf still exists.
Daily Rangers Update: Game 6 ended with the Capitals winning 2-1. The Capitals were clearly the better team on this night, and they did a good job of bouncing back from what would have been too devastating a loss in Game 5 for most teams to overcome. That means Game 7 will be Saturday night back in Madison Square Garden with one team going on and one team going home. There is zero margin for error. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: The only real drama last night was whether or not the Diamondbacks would be shut out. Carlos Beltran drove in 6 runs in his first two at bats, and the Diamondbacks scored a run in the 9th inning to make the final 6-1. It has been a struggle again tonight to get the offense going, as the Cardinals are leading 3-1 in the 6th inning. Something needs to happen to wake up the bats or we could be looking at a seventh loss in the last eight games. There are still four innings left though, so that is plenty of time to turn the tables and avoid being swept.
Daily Giants Update: Stacy Robinson, a former wide receiver that was a member of the 1986 and 1990 Super Bowl champion teams died of cancer earlier today at the age of 50. I honestly have never heard of him, but it's never good to hear about a former player passing away. R.I.P.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Old school baseball?
Cole Hamels was suspended today by Major League Baseball for five games. This past Sunday, Hamels and the Phillies were playing against the Washington Nationals. Washington's newly promoted young phenom, Bryce Harper, came to bat and Hamels hit Harper in the back with the first pitch he threw. Now the fact that Hamels hit Harper wasn't the reason for the suspension, because pitches get away from guys every once in a while, and it is just a part of the game. So after it happened, Harper winced, took a few seconds to walk off the bruise, and went on down to first base. The reason for the suspension, however, was not the act of Hamels hitting Harper, it was for what Hamels did about it after the game.
The act of losing control of a pitch does not warrant a suspension. What does warrant a suspension though, is the act of being an idiot. When asked about the pitch after the game, Hamels admitted to throwing at Harper on purpose, saying, "I was trying to hit him...[the Nationals] probably aren't going to like me for it, but I'm not going to say I wasn't trying to do it."
Baseball is a sport that has all kinds of "unwritten rules." Sliding in hard to second base while trying to break up a double play is acceptable as long as the runner is within reach of the second base bag. Running into the catcher on a play at the plate is okay as long as the play is close and the catcher is in the path of the runner. I never understood the "unwritten rule" of throwing at other batters though. First, you are giving the other team a free base runner. It's as if the pitcher told the hitter, "I don't like you, so how about I let you reach first base?" Then, because it's baseball, and everyone has to follow the secret codes of the game, the opposing pitcher has to come back the next inning and intentionally hit a guy on your own team. If you are a National League pitcher, the next time you step up to bat, you can expect a pitch to be coming straight at you. If you pitch in the American League and don't have to bat, that means someone else will have to step up and take a pitch in the back because of the stupidity of his own pitcher. So you are hurting the chances of your own team to win by giving the other team free baserunners, and also asking for yourself or one of your teammates to get thrown at as well.
Now in some cases, throwing at a guy is at least somewhat understandable. If a guy hits a home run off of you and taunts you as he runs around the bases, I could see the thought process in hitting the guy the next time he comes to bat. I still think this is stupid though, because I always thought that the best way to stop a guy from showing off after hitting a home run was to actually not throw him a crappy pitch so he doesn't get the chance to hit a homer off of you.
This wasn't the case on Sunday though. Harper didn't get a chance to hit a home run off of Hamels because Hamels hit Harper with the first pitch he threw to him in the game. Hamels had never faced Harper before, and most pitchers in the big leagues have never faced Harper before because he was called up from the minors less than two weeks ago. However, Hamels thought he should be the one to "welcome Harper to the big leagues" by hitting him in the back.
As a minor leaguer, Harper was known for being somewhat brash and a bit of a showboat, but he never did anything too bad. And as I said before, if the pitchers in the minor leagues didn't like the way he may have acted after getting a big hit, they should have just thrown him a better pitch instead of complaining about him after he took them deep.
None of that had anything to do with Cole Hamels though. And no other pitchers that Harper has faced so far during his short major league career felt that they needed to throw at Harper because of that. Hamels, I suppose, thought he was the exception, and that he was "old school" in throwing at Hamels for no reason aside from his being a rookie. Hamels himself was a highly touted prospect when he arrived on the scene in Philadelphia, but no pitchers threw at him just because he was a rookie. No batters tried to hit one of his fastballs straight back at him just to "welcome" him into the big leagues.
In the short time that Harper has been a major leaguer, he has done nothing but hustle on every play, and handle himself exactly how a professional should. It isn't as if Harper said something about Hamels or the Phillies before the game to stir up some sort of controversy, Hamels just decided to take it upon himself to hit Harper. Harper actually even came around to steal home and score later in the inning, which was great because it made Hamels look even stupider.
If Hamels didn't say he threw at Harper on purpose after the game, he wouldn't look as bad, even if it was pretty obvious what was going on because Hamels hit Harper squarely in the back on the first pitch he threw to him. However, since he admitted it, he forced the Phillies organization to come out and have to make a public statement saying that they didn't condone Hamels throwing at Harper on purpose, which I'm sure made the Phillies executives happy. Hamels will now also miss his next start because of his suspension, which again, just like giving the Nationals a free baserunner, will hurt his team because whoever pitches in Hamels' rotation spot for that game will not be as good as Hamels.
Baseball is a game that has all kinds of history, and I respect players that respect that history. There comes a point though, when you can't just try to emulate guys like Bob Gibson and Ty Cobb. Gibson trying to end someone's career with a fastball up and inside is unacceptable, no matter how great a pitcher he was. Ty Cobb "sliding" into second base with his spikes aimed at the knees of the shortstop is something that you just can't do either.
So in the end, Harper is fine and Hamels looks like an idiot. This will probably be forgotten by 99% of baseball players and fans, but you can bet that it won't be forgotten by the Nationals, so the next time Hamels steps up to the plate against Washington, he might have to pay for his "old school" attitude. At least for now though, we can all cheer for the Padres this Saturday when Hamels' rotation spot comes up and he can't pitch because of his five game idiocy suspension.
Daily Rangers Update: Last night was "one of those games." Down 2-1 with about 20 seconds left, Joel Ward took a double-minor penalty, the Rangers pulled Henrik Lundqvist to get an extra attacker on the ice, and with 6.6 seconds left, Brad Richards tied the game at 2. Then 1:35 into overtime, with Ward still in the penalty box, Marc Staal scored the game-winner. Games like that don't happen too often and they don't happen to mediocre teams. Madison Square Garden has not been that crazy in a while. The series heads back to Washington tomorrow night with the Rangers needing only one more win to get to the Eastern Conference Finals. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: A wild game ended in a loss last night for the DBacks. Joe Saunders came back down to Earth, which had to be expected because he wasn't going to pitch a shutout every time he took the mound. St. Louis was up 7-0 at one point, Arizona had a six run inning to make it 7-6, but Bryan Shaw gave up back-to-back home runs the next inning, and it meant a 9-6 loss. After 30 games, the record stands at 14-16, which is not exactly where I had hoped. There is still plenty of season left to make that better though.
Daily Giants Update: Justin Tuck was in the first row behind the Rangers bench going wild after Marc Staal scored the winner last night, which was really cool to see. Eli Manning supposedly got a bunch of good-natured ribbing for his appearance on Saturday Night Live, which I'm sure he saw coming. Nothing new to report on the field though, except that the defending champs are getting closer and closer to getting back to work.
The act of losing control of a pitch does not warrant a suspension. What does warrant a suspension though, is the act of being an idiot. When asked about the pitch after the game, Hamels admitted to throwing at Harper on purpose, saying, "I was trying to hit him...[the Nationals] probably aren't going to like me for it, but I'm not going to say I wasn't trying to do it."
Baseball is a sport that has all kinds of "unwritten rules." Sliding in hard to second base while trying to break up a double play is acceptable as long as the runner is within reach of the second base bag. Running into the catcher on a play at the plate is okay as long as the play is close and the catcher is in the path of the runner. I never understood the "unwritten rule" of throwing at other batters though. First, you are giving the other team a free base runner. It's as if the pitcher told the hitter, "I don't like you, so how about I let you reach first base?" Then, because it's baseball, and everyone has to follow the secret codes of the game, the opposing pitcher has to come back the next inning and intentionally hit a guy on your own team. If you are a National League pitcher, the next time you step up to bat, you can expect a pitch to be coming straight at you. If you pitch in the American League and don't have to bat, that means someone else will have to step up and take a pitch in the back because of the stupidity of his own pitcher. So you are hurting the chances of your own team to win by giving the other team free baserunners, and also asking for yourself or one of your teammates to get thrown at as well.
Now in some cases, throwing at a guy is at least somewhat understandable. If a guy hits a home run off of you and taunts you as he runs around the bases, I could see the thought process in hitting the guy the next time he comes to bat. I still think this is stupid though, because I always thought that the best way to stop a guy from showing off after hitting a home run was to actually not throw him a crappy pitch so he doesn't get the chance to hit a homer off of you.
This wasn't the case on Sunday though. Harper didn't get a chance to hit a home run off of Hamels because Hamels hit Harper with the first pitch he threw to him in the game. Hamels had never faced Harper before, and most pitchers in the big leagues have never faced Harper before because he was called up from the minors less than two weeks ago. However, Hamels thought he should be the one to "welcome Harper to the big leagues" by hitting him in the back.
As a minor leaguer, Harper was known for being somewhat brash and a bit of a showboat, but he never did anything too bad. And as I said before, if the pitchers in the minor leagues didn't like the way he may have acted after getting a big hit, they should have just thrown him a better pitch instead of complaining about him after he took them deep.
None of that had anything to do with Cole Hamels though. And no other pitchers that Harper has faced so far during his short major league career felt that they needed to throw at Harper because of that. Hamels, I suppose, thought he was the exception, and that he was "old school" in throwing at Hamels for no reason aside from his being a rookie. Hamels himself was a highly touted prospect when he arrived on the scene in Philadelphia, but no pitchers threw at him just because he was a rookie. No batters tried to hit one of his fastballs straight back at him just to "welcome" him into the big leagues.
In the short time that Harper has been a major leaguer, he has done nothing but hustle on every play, and handle himself exactly how a professional should. It isn't as if Harper said something about Hamels or the Phillies before the game to stir up some sort of controversy, Hamels just decided to take it upon himself to hit Harper. Harper actually even came around to steal home and score later in the inning, which was great because it made Hamels look even stupider.
If Hamels didn't say he threw at Harper on purpose after the game, he wouldn't look as bad, even if it was pretty obvious what was going on because Hamels hit Harper squarely in the back on the first pitch he threw to him. However, since he admitted it, he forced the Phillies organization to come out and have to make a public statement saying that they didn't condone Hamels throwing at Harper on purpose, which I'm sure made the Phillies executives happy. Hamels will now also miss his next start because of his suspension, which again, just like giving the Nationals a free baserunner, will hurt his team because whoever pitches in Hamels' rotation spot for that game will not be as good as Hamels.
Baseball is a game that has all kinds of history, and I respect players that respect that history. There comes a point though, when you can't just try to emulate guys like Bob Gibson and Ty Cobb. Gibson trying to end someone's career with a fastball up and inside is unacceptable, no matter how great a pitcher he was. Ty Cobb "sliding" into second base with his spikes aimed at the knees of the shortstop is something that you just can't do either.
So in the end, Harper is fine and Hamels looks like an idiot. This will probably be forgotten by 99% of baseball players and fans, but you can bet that it won't be forgotten by the Nationals, so the next time Hamels steps up to the plate against Washington, he might have to pay for his "old school" attitude. At least for now though, we can all cheer for the Padres this Saturday when Hamels' rotation spot comes up and he can't pitch because of his five game idiocy suspension.
Daily Rangers Update: Last night was "one of those games." Down 2-1 with about 20 seconds left, Joel Ward took a double-minor penalty, the Rangers pulled Henrik Lundqvist to get an extra attacker on the ice, and with 6.6 seconds left, Brad Richards tied the game at 2. Then 1:35 into overtime, with Ward still in the penalty box, Marc Staal scored the game-winner. Games like that don't happen too often and they don't happen to mediocre teams. Madison Square Garden has not been that crazy in a while. The series heads back to Washington tomorrow night with the Rangers needing only one more win to get to the Eastern Conference Finals. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: A wild game ended in a loss last night for the DBacks. Joe Saunders came back down to Earth, which had to be expected because he wasn't going to pitch a shutout every time he took the mound. St. Louis was up 7-0 at one point, Arizona had a six run inning to make it 7-6, but Bryan Shaw gave up back-to-back home runs the next inning, and it meant a 9-6 loss. After 30 games, the record stands at 14-16, which is not exactly where I had hoped. There is still plenty of season left to make that better though.
Daily Giants Update: Justin Tuck was in the first row behind the Rangers bench going wild after Marc Staal scored the winner last night, which was really cool to see. Eli Manning supposedly got a bunch of good-natured ribbing for his appearance on Saturday Night Live, which I'm sure he saw coming. Nothing new to report on the field though, except that the defending champs are getting closer and closer to getting back to work.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
And you thought baseball had a steroid problem...
The Kentucky Derby took place yesterday for the 138th time at the famous Churchill Downs racetrack. The event is deemed "the most exciting two minutes in sports," and a record crowd of more than 165,000 attended the race. However, each time I watch the derby, it seems like the race matters less and less. All the event really showcases is the extravagent and ridiculous clothing worn by men and women in Kentucky, and the profile of all the horse owners who have spent a bunch of money on the race.
The race begins at 6:30 after about six hours of pre-race festivities, most of which involve cocktails, big hats, and gambling. In my opinion, these horse races are absolute shams. Everyone at the event, and probably about 75% of the people watching on television are only watching to see the horse they bet on. (Some of us, like myself, are just watching because the race happened to occur during a commercial break of the Diamondbacks game). Either way, horse racing is, in my opinion, the most tainted "sport," and the race for the second most tainted isn't even close.
Each year, the same owners and the same trainers find their new horse to try to make a fortune off of. The problem is, most of this "training" involves drugs, and not much of it includes actual running on a track. These owners spend tens of thousands of dollars (the winning horse this year cost "only" $11,000) to try to find the genetically perfect horse. Once the horse reaches the age allowed for competition, the owner enters it in competition and hopes that it maks as much money as possible, in as little time as possible. Once the horse has served its purpose, it is bred with another race horse in hopes of the offspring becoming even faster than its parents.
The path that the owners and trainers take to find this genetic freak of a horse knows no bounds. The horses are injected with all kinds of steroids as they are "trained." As the next race nears, the owners find the smallest jockey they possibly can (because the lighter the jockey, the faster the horse can run), and no matter the finish of the horse, the jockey will only receive a fraction of the winnings. As if the horse/jockey combination isn't already light enough, minutes before the race, most horses are fed drugs that make them urinate enough to lose several pounds (because, of course, the lighter the better). Once the race starts, the horses take off, the bettors cross their fingers, and the jockeys break out the whips. At the end, the horse that has been most effectively drugged and whipped comes out on top, and the old rich white man and his wife in her enormous hat celebrate, and most of the bettors wonder how their "expert" analysis failed. The owner of the winning horse gets to show his face on television, collect his check, and have his five minutes of fame. As far as the jockey and the horse, they still have the rest of the year to prove their worth. Once that year is up, the owner casts them aside and counts his money while his wife buys herself a nice new wardrobe.
When you watch a race, it is clear that it is about nothing but money. The odds are posted next to the names of all the horses, and then winnings are posted right after the race. ESPN employs a man named Hank Goldberg who picks horse racing and football. And he is horrible at both. He never picks the winning horses and each week he picks more football games wrong than he does right. He is just an old man with a gambling problem, and that is why I'm sure he was at the Kentucky Derby yesterday at the front of the betting lines.
Horse racing shouldn't be considered a sport. It's just a glamourous way for rich old men to flaunt their money and get their faces on television and in the newspaper. The horses and the jockeys are the two least important parts of horse racing. As long as the cameras are on and the betting windows are open, no one really cares how the race is won.
And by the way, the winning horse of the race yesterday was named "I'll Have Another." That's actually fitting because that might have been the phrase that was uttered the most during the course of the entire day at Churchill Downs. Whether it was martinis, bets, inside tips, big hats, or any kind of drugs to give the horses to make them run faster, all anyone was saying was, "I'll have another."
Daily Rangers Update: The series is tied 2-2 after four games, which is what I would think most people would have expected. It's back to Madison Square Garden tomorrow night for a big Game 5. If the Rangers don't win, it will be back to Washington with the season on the brink, so that is not something that we want to see happen. The puck drops in about 23 hours. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: R.A. Dickey was throwing a knuckleball today and not many Diamondbacks were hitting it. A late run at least helped avoid the shutout, but it wasn't enough to get the win. After a 5-7 road trip, it's back home to face the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals tomorrow night. The pitching matchup features Joe Saunders and Lance Lynn, both of whom have been brilliant during the first month of the season. A win would be nice to get us back to .500.
Daily Giants Update: Eli Manning hosted Saturday Night Live last night, and I thought he did a pretty good job. The EA Sports motion capture skit and the courtroom skit were my two favorites, but they were all pretty good. For a guy that is far from a stand-up comedian, I liked the show. Minicamp is also around the corner, as some teams have already started rookie camps. That means football is slowly getting closer!
The race begins at 6:30 after about six hours of pre-race festivities, most of which involve cocktails, big hats, and gambling. In my opinion, these horse races are absolute shams. Everyone at the event, and probably about 75% of the people watching on television are only watching to see the horse they bet on. (Some of us, like myself, are just watching because the race happened to occur during a commercial break of the Diamondbacks game). Either way, horse racing is, in my opinion, the most tainted "sport," and the race for the second most tainted isn't even close.
Each year, the same owners and the same trainers find their new horse to try to make a fortune off of. The problem is, most of this "training" involves drugs, and not much of it includes actual running on a track. These owners spend tens of thousands of dollars (the winning horse this year cost "only" $11,000) to try to find the genetically perfect horse. Once the horse reaches the age allowed for competition, the owner enters it in competition and hopes that it maks as much money as possible, in as little time as possible. Once the horse has served its purpose, it is bred with another race horse in hopes of the offspring becoming even faster than its parents.
The path that the owners and trainers take to find this genetic freak of a horse knows no bounds. The horses are injected with all kinds of steroids as they are "trained." As the next race nears, the owners find the smallest jockey they possibly can (because the lighter the jockey, the faster the horse can run), and no matter the finish of the horse, the jockey will only receive a fraction of the winnings. As if the horse/jockey combination isn't already light enough, minutes before the race, most horses are fed drugs that make them urinate enough to lose several pounds (because, of course, the lighter the better). Once the race starts, the horses take off, the bettors cross their fingers, and the jockeys break out the whips. At the end, the horse that has been most effectively drugged and whipped comes out on top, and the old rich white man and his wife in her enormous hat celebrate, and most of the bettors wonder how their "expert" analysis failed. The owner of the winning horse gets to show his face on television, collect his check, and have his five minutes of fame. As far as the jockey and the horse, they still have the rest of the year to prove their worth. Once that year is up, the owner casts them aside and counts his money while his wife buys herself a nice new wardrobe.
When you watch a race, it is clear that it is about nothing but money. The odds are posted next to the names of all the horses, and then winnings are posted right after the race. ESPN employs a man named Hank Goldberg who picks horse racing and football. And he is horrible at both. He never picks the winning horses and each week he picks more football games wrong than he does right. He is just an old man with a gambling problem, and that is why I'm sure he was at the Kentucky Derby yesterday at the front of the betting lines.
Horse racing shouldn't be considered a sport. It's just a glamourous way for rich old men to flaunt their money and get their faces on television and in the newspaper. The horses and the jockeys are the two least important parts of horse racing. As long as the cameras are on and the betting windows are open, no one really cares how the race is won.
And by the way, the winning horse of the race yesterday was named "I'll Have Another." That's actually fitting because that might have been the phrase that was uttered the most during the course of the entire day at Churchill Downs. Whether it was martinis, bets, inside tips, big hats, or any kind of drugs to give the horses to make them run faster, all anyone was saying was, "I'll have another."
Daily Rangers Update: The series is tied 2-2 after four games, which is what I would think most people would have expected. It's back to Madison Square Garden tomorrow night for a big Game 5. If the Rangers don't win, it will be back to Washington with the season on the brink, so that is not something that we want to see happen. The puck drops in about 23 hours. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: R.A. Dickey was throwing a knuckleball today and not many Diamondbacks were hitting it. A late run at least helped avoid the shutout, but it wasn't enough to get the win. After a 5-7 road trip, it's back home to face the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals tomorrow night. The pitching matchup features Joe Saunders and Lance Lynn, both of whom have been brilliant during the first month of the season. A win would be nice to get us back to .500.
Daily Giants Update: Eli Manning hosted Saturday Night Live last night, and I thought he did a pretty good job. The EA Sports motion capture skit and the courtroom skit were my two favorites, but they were all pretty good. For a guy that is far from a stand-up comedian, I liked the show. Minicamp is also around the corner, as some teams have already started rookie camps. That means football is slowly getting closer!
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Rest In Peace Junior Seau
Yesterday was a sad and shocking day in the world of the NFL. Junior Seau, former star linebacker for the San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins, and New England Patriots committed suicide in his San Diego home.
When I saw the news I was stunned. I remember Seau as one of the best linebackers in the game. When he played in San Diego, he was fearless and great. Aside from Ray Lewis, I have to say that he was probably the best linebacker that I have ever seen with my own eyes. I remember seeing him running all over the field making plays, scared of no one, and always willing to step in and make a tackle. I think that is how most people remember him on the field.
Off the field, I remember him as a fun-loving and cheerful guy. Whenever the cameras were on him, he was more than willing to talk and it seemed like fans never saw him in a bad mood. He never got in trouble off the field, and he was a guy that it seemed was impossible to hate. His former teammates said the same thing. He was a fun-loving guy in the locker room, always referring to everyone as "buddy buddy." So all of that makes it even harder to understand why he would commit suicide.
One thing I think this does teach us is that our idols aren't always the way them seem to their fans. It's sometimes hard to see them as real people because we put them on a pedestal due to their athletic abilities. Following his retirement, Seau had marital problems, and divorced his wife. He fell asleep at the wheel of a car and drove it down into a ditch as well. It's easy to say this now, but these were probably signs that there were some things wrong with his life that the media and the fans never knew about. He may have put on a happy face for the cameras, but he may not have been truly happy. Retiring from football may have played a part in his unhappiness as well. For his entire life, he had football as an outlet. Sometimes, not just athletes but people of all occupations, are so used to doing what they have done for so long that they become lost once they retire. Instead of being able to go to his teammates or the football field when he might have been unhappy, he had to handle the problems in different ways.
Marcellus Wiley, a former teammate of Seau's, was on ESPN and gave an emotional remembrance of his friend. He said that Seau was always happy in front of everyone, but if he had an injury or another type of problem, Seau would handle it privately, as if he didn't want to let anyone else see any signs of weakness. Team doctors and trainers said that they would be called by Seau at 4:30 in the morning so he could be treated before any of his teammates saw it happening. Now there is no way to know for sure, but maybe this wasn't the only time he hid things from the outside world. When he was at home, without football as an outlet, it may have become tougher to deal with some things because he had no outlet.
Now I am by no means a psychologist, and hindsight is always 20/20, but Wiley said he wished that he could have made a correlation between Seau hiding his problems as a player with Seau hiding his problems at home. Even when he spoke to Wiley, he was upbeat and never gave any indication that anything was truly bothering him. Wiley said he wished that Junior could have just let his friends and family know that if something was bothering him, he had people to turn to that would be more than willing to help him however they could. Sadly though, that was not the case, and it turned into this very unfortunate situation that seemed to be a shock to everyone.
What it teaches us though, is that celebrities that we admire are really just people like us. When the cameras are off, they lead their own lives. Actors and actresses only portray characters in their work, they do not portray themselves. Just because an athlete appears one way on the field doesn't mean he is that way off the field. The causes of this are still a mystery to many, and for now, we can only wonder what Seau might have been dealing with. However, one thing I have learned from all of this is that we need to remember that everyone leads their own life, and things may not always be as they seem.
I will remember Seau as a great football player, and an idol in his hometown of San Diego. It is a shame that his life had to end the way it did, but he can still be remembered for all the positive things he did and all the joy he brought to the lives of his fans, his peers, and everyone that watched him play football and become one of the best linebackers of his era.
R.I.P. Junior Seau
Daily Rangers Update: It took three overtimes, but the Rangers pulled out a win in a marathon game in Washington last night. An extra day of rest means that Game 4 will be on Saturday afternoon. A win for the Rangers means we can close the series out in 5 games at home. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: The Nationals walked off with a win last night thanks to an Ian Desmond home run, so that is pretty much all that needs to be said about the disappointment of the game. Ian Kennedy takes the mound tonight against Ross Detwiler in the rubber match of the three game series.
Daily Giants Update: Eli Manning will represent the defending Super Bowl champions as the host of Saturday Night Live on Saturday night, which I am looking forward to. Aside from that, no news is good news.
When I saw the news I was stunned. I remember Seau as one of the best linebackers in the game. When he played in San Diego, he was fearless and great. Aside from Ray Lewis, I have to say that he was probably the best linebacker that I have ever seen with my own eyes. I remember seeing him running all over the field making plays, scared of no one, and always willing to step in and make a tackle. I think that is how most people remember him on the field.
Off the field, I remember him as a fun-loving and cheerful guy. Whenever the cameras were on him, he was more than willing to talk and it seemed like fans never saw him in a bad mood. He never got in trouble off the field, and he was a guy that it seemed was impossible to hate. His former teammates said the same thing. He was a fun-loving guy in the locker room, always referring to everyone as "buddy buddy." So all of that makes it even harder to understand why he would commit suicide.
One thing I think this does teach us is that our idols aren't always the way them seem to their fans. It's sometimes hard to see them as real people because we put them on a pedestal due to their athletic abilities. Following his retirement, Seau had marital problems, and divorced his wife. He fell asleep at the wheel of a car and drove it down into a ditch as well. It's easy to say this now, but these were probably signs that there were some things wrong with his life that the media and the fans never knew about. He may have put on a happy face for the cameras, but he may not have been truly happy. Retiring from football may have played a part in his unhappiness as well. For his entire life, he had football as an outlet. Sometimes, not just athletes but people of all occupations, are so used to doing what they have done for so long that they become lost once they retire. Instead of being able to go to his teammates or the football field when he might have been unhappy, he had to handle the problems in different ways.
Marcellus Wiley, a former teammate of Seau's, was on ESPN and gave an emotional remembrance of his friend. He said that Seau was always happy in front of everyone, but if he had an injury or another type of problem, Seau would handle it privately, as if he didn't want to let anyone else see any signs of weakness. Team doctors and trainers said that they would be called by Seau at 4:30 in the morning so he could be treated before any of his teammates saw it happening. Now there is no way to know for sure, but maybe this wasn't the only time he hid things from the outside world. When he was at home, without football as an outlet, it may have become tougher to deal with some things because he had no outlet.
Now I am by no means a psychologist, and hindsight is always 20/20, but Wiley said he wished that he could have made a correlation between Seau hiding his problems as a player with Seau hiding his problems at home. Even when he spoke to Wiley, he was upbeat and never gave any indication that anything was truly bothering him. Wiley said he wished that Junior could have just let his friends and family know that if something was bothering him, he had people to turn to that would be more than willing to help him however they could. Sadly though, that was not the case, and it turned into this very unfortunate situation that seemed to be a shock to everyone.
What it teaches us though, is that celebrities that we admire are really just people like us. When the cameras are off, they lead their own lives. Actors and actresses only portray characters in their work, they do not portray themselves. Just because an athlete appears one way on the field doesn't mean he is that way off the field. The causes of this are still a mystery to many, and for now, we can only wonder what Seau might have been dealing with. However, one thing I have learned from all of this is that we need to remember that everyone leads their own life, and things may not always be as they seem.
I will remember Seau as a great football player, and an idol in his hometown of San Diego. It is a shame that his life had to end the way it did, but he can still be remembered for all the positive things he did and all the joy he brought to the lives of his fans, his peers, and everyone that watched him play football and become one of the best linebackers of his era.
R.I.P. Junior Seau
Daily Rangers Update: It took three overtimes, but the Rangers pulled out a win in a marathon game in Washington last night. An extra day of rest means that Game 4 will be on Saturday afternoon. A win for the Rangers means we can close the series out in 5 games at home. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: The Nationals walked off with a win last night thanks to an Ian Desmond home run, so that is pretty much all that needs to be said about the disappointment of the game. Ian Kennedy takes the mound tonight against Ross Detwiler in the rubber match of the three game series.
Daily Giants Update: Eli Manning will represent the defending Super Bowl champions as the host of Saturday Night Live on Saturday night, which I am looking forward to. Aside from that, no news is good news.
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