Late April on the calendar signifies a lot of things to sports fans: the first round of the NBA playoffs are here, the NHL playoffs are back (after a year-long hiatus) and Major League Baseball's getting in the swing of things with the first month of play wrapping up . . . But none is higher on the intrigue list for me this week than the two day frenzy in New York known as the NFL Draft.
It's the single biggest event in any NFL fan's off-season. Sure there's free agency and cuts day and the first day of training camp, but the Draft is make it or break it time for most clubs. (Especially if you're a beleaguered Jets fan coming off of a terribly-disappointing 4-12 year like myself.) The impact of a successful draft on a team's future success cannot be overstated. Maybe that is why most teams are now more reluctant than ever before to part with so much as a second or third round pick, even in exchange for "big-name" players like Dante Culpepper or Terrell Owens. The impact of players taken in later rounds can be tremendous (i.e. Tom Brady by New England in the 6th), while wasted selections can trigger the downfall of almost any front office.
Pressure anyone? And I'm not even talking about the players involved in this thing yet! Imagine the myriad thoughts running through the minds of Reggie Bush, Mario Williams and Vince Young just as I write this . . . Will it be the first pick where I get selected or the second? The fourth or the tenth? Will I get twenty million dollars guaranteed or five? And where will I be putting down roots for the next six to ten years of my life? Houston, Texas? The Big Apple? Green Bay?
And that's just for the big names in the draft. The megastars can at least feel confident about being drafted, which is to say, they at least know their names are going to be called at some point, whenever it might be. But how about the lesser known players, the guys just praying for someone to tab them---anywhere, it doesn't matter---fifth round, sixth round, seventh . . . To those borderline draft hopefuls, never has the idea of being Mr. Irrelevant sounded so good.
Yes, indeed. The NFL draft is as thrilling a non-game sporting event as there is, particularly in the world of football. (On that note, it's way more thrilling than the actual Pro Bowl game as well. But then, what isn't?) The draft is the pulling up of the curtain, the revelation of long-rumored decisions, the main course of the mythic meal. And most of all, it's fun. Although the fifteen minutes between picks thing has definitely got to go. How about ten minutes between picks in the first two rounds and five minutes between the rest of the way? Wouldn't that make the whole thing just a tad more digestable?
Bring on D'Brickashaw, baby.
-JAB
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Baseball's Steroids Era is Mostly Selig's Fault
The credibility of America's national pasttime is in serious trouble. The many eras of baseball history have always been difficult to compare, whether you were talking about the pre-Ruth or post-Ruth time frames, the World War II stretch or the Deadball run in the 1960s . . . Still the fact remained that you could always compare the players within a particular era to one another, and as far as the Hall of Fame was concerned, that was enough to judge the best of every era's bunch.
This trend of self-sustaining eras has come to a crashing halt with Bud Selig's tenure as commissioner, however. Selig has presided over what will now forever be known as the Steroids era, a time in baseball when the lack of rules governing players' use of performance enhancing drugs severely damaged the credibility of a game held sacred for so long by so many.
Science and technology reached a point in the last couple of decades where the realm of sports was no longer safe . . . Human beings---and in this particular case---athletes had reached the point of alteration, which is to say, they could be manipulated into bigger, stronger, faster, more machine-like creatures. And competition in the sports world logically suffered because of it: no longer was the idea of man versus man applicable. It was now man versus man and whatever chemicals he or she was using.
Most sports associations seemed to be aware of this scary trend, if a little behind the curve. The Olympics, the NFL and the NBA all created tougher, more stringent drug-testing programs, and while these policies were far from perfect, they at least sent the message that cheating was not okay, it would not be allowed, and if an athlete was caught, there would be consequences. But baseball's higher-ups either never got the message or just plain didn't care. After all, baseball suffered through a nightmare of a player's strike in 1994 and was doing all it could to win back the bulk of its fan base. The way then-interim Commissioner Selig and his cronies had it figured: what better way to win back baseball's fans than by letting the players have free reign over their physiques? Forget testing these guys, forget checking them at the proverbial door, why not allow them, or more so, encourage them to take down some of the sacred marks of the game for the sake of popularity?
You see, for all his faults as a commissioner, Bud Selig is not a bad businessman. He and his cronies were right about the assaults on the record books: McGwire and Sosa's '98 chase at Maris brought baseball right back to the center of the national sports map. And Bond's '01 run at 73 didn't hurt things much in that regard either.
(On a quick side note, as far as I'm concerned, North Dakota's Roger Maris is still the single season home run champ. His 61 dingers in '61 were the product of talent, hard work and unbelievable focus under heavy media scrutiny and pressure. They had nothing to do with human growth hormone, andro, the "clear" or any of the other performance enhancers science has lofted into our athletic world in recent years.)
But even all-night parties don't last forever: baseball's steroids' bubble has been in a constant state of burst over the past few years as players have gotten blatantly bigger and bulkier to the point where ignorance---from the fans, from the media, from our nation's Congress---was no longer an option. Certainly last March's Congressional testimony fiasco (triggered by Jose Canseco's apparently dead-on claims of widespread steroid use) was a final damning blow. The lid was off the whole shebang: baseball was filled with cheaters, from the top right on down.
So feel free to be angry with Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds. Feel free to call Rafael Palmeiro a liar. Feel free to make the leap of non-doubt on your own. Sure we don't have 100% proof that these guys (amongst many, many others) were using performance enhancers; we will likely never find the evidence to be be so assured. But let's use some common sense here: these guys doubled and tripled in body mass as they got into their late thirties, and that's not even remotely realistic.
When you're focusing your fury and disgust or shedding a tear over what these players have done to our nation's pasttime, do me a favor and make Bud Selig the focus of at least some of that emotion as well. It doesn't matter that he never used a performance enhancer himself; his inept command of the sport in an era that needed toughness and guidance and firm leadership is mainly to blame for the current predicament of the game. Isn't it time for Bud to go now? Wasn't it time for him to go yesterday? Selig's party is long over, folks.
-JAB
This trend of self-sustaining eras has come to a crashing halt with Bud Selig's tenure as commissioner, however. Selig has presided over what will now forever be known as the Steroids era, a time in baseball when the lack of rules governing players' use of performance enhancing drugs severely damaged the credibility of a game held sacred for so long by so many.
Science and technology reached a point in the last couple of decades where the realm of sports was no longer safe . . . Human beings---and in this particular case---athletes had reached the point of alteration, which is to say, they could be manipulated into bigger, stronger, faster, more machine-like creatures. And competition in the sports world logically suffered because of it: no longer was the idea of man versus man applicable. It was now man versus man and whatever chemicals he or she was using.
Most sports associations seemed to be aware of this scary trend, if a little behind the curve. The Olympics, the NFL and the NBA all created tougher, more stringent drug-testing programs, and while these policies were far from perfect, they at least sent the message that cheating was not okay, it would not be allowed, and if an athlete was caught, there would be consequences. But baseball's higher-ups either never got the message or just plain didn't care. After all, baseball suffered through a nightmare of a player's strike in 1994 and was doing all it could to win back the bulk of its fan base. The way then-interim Commissioner Selig and his cronies had it figured: what better way to win back baseball's fans than by letting the players have free reign over their physiques? Forget testing these guys, forget checking them at the proverbial door, why not allow them, or more so, encourage them to take down some of the sacred marks of the game for the sake of popularity?
You see, for all his faults as a commissioner, Bud Selig is not a bad businessman. He and his cronies were right about the assaults on the record books: McGwire and Sosa's '98 chase at Maris brought baseball right back to the center of the national sports map. And Bond's '01 run at 73 didn't hurt things much in that regard either.
(On a quick side note, as far as I'm concerned, North Dakota's Roger Maris is still the single season home run champ. His 61 dingers in '61 were the product of talent, hard work and unbelievable focus under heavy media scrutiny and pressure. They had nothing to do with human growth hormone, andro, the "clear" or any of the other performance enhancers science has lofted into our athletic world in recent years.)
But even all-night parties don't last forever: baseball's steroids' bubble has been in a constant state of burst over the past few years as players have gotten blatantly bigger and bulkier to the point where ignorance---from the fans, from the media, from our nation's Congress---was no longer an option. Certainly last March's Congressional testimony fiasco (triggered by Jose Canseco's apparently dead-on claims of widespread steroid use) was a final damning blow. The lid was off the whole shebang: baseball was filled with cheaters, from the top right on down.
So feel free to be angry with Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds. Feel free to call Rafael Palmeiro a liar. Feel free to make the leap of non-doubt on your own. Sure we don't have 100% proof that these guys (amongst many, many others) were using performance enhancers; we will likely never find the evidence to be be so assured. But let's use some common sense here: these guys doubled and tripled in body mass as they got into their late thirties, and that's not even remotely realistic.
When you're focusing your fury and disgust or shedding a tear over what these players have done to our nation's pasttime, do me a favor and make Bud Selig the focus of at least some of that emotion as well. It doesn't matter that he never used a performance enhancer himself; his inept command of the sport in an era that needed toughness and guidance and firm leadership is mainly to blame for the current predicament of the game. Isn't it time for Bud to go now? Wasn't it time for him to go yesterday? Selig's party is long over, folks.
-JAB
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
$218 Trillion Phone Bill for Malaysian Man
You can't make this stuff up . . . I got the details from the Associated Press wire.
Yahaya Wahab was a very surprised man last week when he received a phone bill for $218 trillion from Telekom Malaysia.
Wahab says he disconnected his late father's phone line in January after he died and settled the then $23 bill in full. Now the phone company has give him ten days to pay in full or face legal proceedings.
Um, I'd take the legal proceeds on this one, Yahaya.
$218 trillion? For what, an intergalactic conference call? I mean, how does the bill ever get that high? If you were to make a phone call to Malaysia and leave the phone line on for a month, could it possibly even cost a billion dollars? Not likely, no matter what kind of ridiculous billing you were getting on your account. Could you get to a billion dollars in three months time? Probably not that way either.
Which begs two questions: first, how in the world does the Malaysian phone company in question come up with a figure almost 100 times greater than the United States' government's annual operating budget? And secondly, why wouldn't the company have demanded payment from Wahab long before the bill ever got that high?
On a side note, I suddenly feel pretty happy with my Verizon phone service. No shameless plug intended.
-JAB
Yahaya Wahab was a very surprised man last week when he received a phone bill for $218 trillion from Telekom Malaysia.
Wahab says he disconnected his late father's phone line in January after he died and settled the then $23 bill in full. Now the phone company has give him ten days to pay in full or face legal proceedings.
Um, I'd take the legal proceeds on this one, Yahaya.
$218 trillion? For what, an intergalactic conference call? I mean, how does the bill ever get that high? If you were to make a phone call to Malaysia and leave the phone line on for a month, could it possibly even cost a billion dollars? Not likely, no matter what kind of ridiculous billing you were getting on your account. Could you get to a billion dollars in three months time? Probably not that way either.
Which begs two questions: first, how in the world does the Malaysian phone company in question come up with a figure almost 100 times greater than the United States' government's annual operating budget? And secondly, why wouldn't the company have demanded payment from Wahab long before the bill ever got that high?
On a side note, I suddenly feel pretty happy with my Verizon phone service. No shameless plug intended.
-JAB
Thursday, April 06, 2006
April Showers Duke University In Shame
Say what you want about the rape allegations being levied at Duke's lacrosse team right now. Maybe you don't believe the girl making the accusations, maybe you think she should've seen it coming, or maybe you feel it's just another case of boys will be boys . . .
I'll hear none of it.
We've reached a point in our society where every time a celebrity or professional athlete does something wrong, he or she gets a load of bad press for it. It's one of the ways in which our up-to-the-second 21st century media operates, but it's also a reflection of the high standard to which we hold our stars.
One would think that the same standard would exist for our collegiate athletes, yet, for the most part, they tend to avoid the major public entanglements that seem to plague our elder sportsters. Clearly, this doesn't make sense. You're supposed to mature as you age and you're supposed to learn from your mistakes . . . If anything, the bad decisions should come when you're younger, if on a much smaller scale. So why does the Duke lacrosse story strike me as so rare and surprising an occurrence?
Probably because this kinda thing usually gets hushed up and covered over a hundred times before it ever makes it to the media's doorstep. You see, the major player Division I athletic institutions in this country (of which Duke University is unquestionably a group member) operate much like Tony Sopranos' crew on HBO: if you speak up or in any way threaten to harm the multi-multi-million dollar bottom line, you're not in enviable situation, to put it plainly. These major player businesses, posing as caring, nurturing sholastic institutions, do a lot more dirty laundry than they are ever credited for, things that are essentially (unspoken) public knowledge, from payments to players to academic fudging to making sure that authorities are "understanding" about certain malcontents' actions . . . This stuff is nothing new to most people, but it doesn't make it much more digestable either.
Ultimately, that background is what makes the Duke lacrosse rape case such an important, albeit horrifying, example of the boundaryless environment in which many of today's major college athletes feel they live.
To quickly recap, an African-American exotic dancer claims she was raped by three players on the Duke lacrosse team at an off-campus party on March 13. No charges have been filed as of this posting date, but sophomore Ryan McFadyen has already been suspended for an email message he wrote shortly after the incident, describing future violent acts he wanted to commit against women. Additionally, authorities say they are pretty confident that a rape occurred and expect to file charges soon.
The school has cancelled the remainder of the lacrosse season and team coach Mike Pressler has resigned, ending a 16-year tenure marked by three Atlantic Coast Conference championships and a trip to last year's national final.
Duke University President Richard Brodhead has been quoted by the Associated Press as calling Pressler's resignation "highly appropriate" but declined to say whether it had been requested by the school itself. Brodhead also promised a "very, very serious self-study" of campus culture and said he will look at the lacrosse team's culture and the school's response to the scandal to uncover any "special history of bad behavior with this team."
Now do you really believe that's going to happen? And even if it does, do you really think the alleged victim is going to benefit from that "self-study"?
Certainly the facts still need to be established in this case, but if they fall in line with what it sounds like happened, a very ugly, very public black cloud has undoubtedly surfaced right over the heart of one of America's most presitigious universities and athletic programs.
My avowed skepticism aside, one can only hope that the aftermath of this incident finally leads to some legitimate changes and improvements in the way these star athletes are taught to view themselves, their schools and other human beings.
-JAB
I'll hear none of it.
We've reached a point in our society where every time a celebrity or professional athlete does something wrong, he or she gets a load of bad press for it. It's one of the ways in which our up-to-the-second 21st century media operates, but it's also a reflection of the high standard to which we hold our stars.
One would think that the same standard would exist for our collegiate athletes, yet, for the most part, they tend to avoid the major public entanglements that seem to plague our elder sportsters. Clearly, this doesn't make sense. You're supposed to mature as you age and you're supposed to learn from your mistakes . . . If anything, the bad decisions should come when you're younger, if on a much smaller scale. So why does the Duke lacrosse story strike me as so rare and surprising an occurrence?
Probably because this kinda thing usually gets hushed up and covered over a hundred times before it ever makes it to the media's doorstep. You see, the major player Division I athletic institutions in this country (of which Duke University is unquestionably a group member) operate much like Tony Sopranos' crew on HBO: if you speak up or in any way threaten to harm the multi-multi-million dollar bottom line, you're not in enviable situation, to put it plainly. These major player businesses, posing as caring, nurturing sholastic institutions, do a lot more dirty laundry than they are ever credited for, things that are essentially (unspoken) public knowledge, from payments to players to academic fudging to making sure that authorities are "understanding" about certain malcontents' actions . . . This stuff is nothing new to most people, but it doesn't make it much more digestable either.
Ultimately, that background is what makes the Duke lacrosse rape case such an important, albeit horrifying, example of the boundaryless environment in which many of today's major college athletes feel they live.
To quickly recap, an African-American exotic dancer claims she was raped by three players on the Duke lacrosse team at an off-campus party on March 13. No charges have been filed as of this posting date, but sophomore Ryan McFadyen has already been suspended for an email message he wrote shortly after the incident, describing future violent acts he wanted to commit against women. Additionally, authorities say they are pretty confident that a rape occurred and expect to file charges soon.
The school has cancelled the remainder of the lacrosse season and team coach Mike Pressler has resigned, ending a 16-year tenure marked by three Atlantic Coast Conference championships and a trip to last year's national final.
Duke University President Richard Brodhead has been quoted by the Associated Press as calling Pressler's resignation "highly appropriate" but declined to say whether it had been requested by the school itself. Brodhead also promised a "very, very serious self-study" of campus culture and said he will look at the lacrosse team's culture and the school's response to the scandal to uncover any "special history of bad behavior with this team."
Now do you really believe that's going to happen? And even if it does, do you really think the alleged victim is going to benefit from that "self-study"?
Certainly the facts still need to be established in this case, but if they fall in line with what it sounds like happened, a very ugly, very public black cloud has undoubtedly surfaced right over the heart of one of America's most presitigious universities and athletic programs.
My avowed skepticism aside, one can only hope that the aftermath of this incident finally leads to some legitimate changes and improvements in the way these star athletes are taught to view themselves, their schools and other human beings.
-JAB
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