Jason Giambi's Lucky Gold Thong

From the category of, "you're probably revealing too much information than the public should or really needs to know" department, Jason Giambi revealed that he wears a lucky gold thong under his uniform pants when he tries to snap out of a slump.

Girly man? Crazy man? Silly man?

If the back story were that he took it off a Bangkok stripper in a game of Texas hold 'em at 2 a.m. on a cruise near Cabo San Lucas while partying with Guns 'N Roses and doing flaming shots with the Dixie Chicks, well, that would make it more interesting. The story didn't reveal where Giambi sourced the undergarment. Perhaps Brian McNamee procured it for him. After all, you doubt that Major League Ballplayers would purchase XXL skimp undergarments themselves in Manhattan, where many worship the Yankees more than their religions. Somehow, news would have gotten out.

But, no, Giambi had to tell the whole world about his superstition and his cure for the common batting slump. Okay, so it's not a common batting slump, for him at his age it could be a career batting slump. Teams simply don't let mid-thirties first basemen who can't field a lick hang around when they're hitting a buck eighty and only have warning track power.

The New York Daily News apparently broke the story, and they've been good at digging up the dirt on many a New Yorker. In this case, they'll be fervent about digging up the gold, as in gold underwear. Apparently, Giambi, the owner of the garment, might have loaned it to other teammates when they were in slumps.

Male bonding at its finest, wouldn't you say?

So, Mr. Giambi, if you have any other secrets, rest assured that they won't remain safe in New York for long.

Are Labor Troubles Brewing for the NFL?

It appears that the NASCAR-like appeal of the NFL (in that each time has the same amount of money to spend and there's a hard salary cap) might end, and soon. The owners are reported to be seriously considering opting out of the collective bargaining agreement with the players. There wouldn't be any immediate effect, but things could get mighty interesting after the 2009 season.

For the teams with the big bucks, opting out has serious appeal. For those without, well, doormat status could be perenially upon you.

Ryan Howard and a Megabucks Long-Term Contract

All we heard in spring training was about the Phillies' going head to head with Ryan Howard and trying to hold the line on salaries. Howard, eligible for salary arbitration for the first time, was asking for $10 million; the Phillies' countered with (what some fans considered was a miserly) $7 million. During the time leading up to the arbitration, we heard fans and pundits offer that the Phillies' ownership was being predicably cheap, that holding the line on this rare slugger was a mistake and guaranteed to put him in a Yankees' uniform in 2012. Howard won the arbitration, and, to both parties' credit, they handled the matter (at least publicly) with dignity.

The season then began, and people began to forget about Howard and his contract issues. After all, he did just win $10 million, and the beginning of the season transcended contractual matters. Then a funny thing happened -- Ryan Howard looked like he forgot how to hit for the first say 35 games of season, waving at all sorts of junk and hitting a paltry .174, or roughly his weight in the eighth grade. Suddenly, all of those folks who had challenged the Phillies' wisdom of not giving Howard Miguel Cabrera-like numbers (and, after all, Cabrera showed that he couldn't lay off the junk food last year, while Howard has a nutrionist who helps keep his big-boned physique in check) grew silent, about as silent as they were loud when the Phillies disagreed with the first baseman's arbitration number.

Instead of advocating that the Phillies open up their vault for Howard, they were silently praying that their slugger would return to form. Thankfully, within the past 10 days, the slugger has started to hit. Put Howard's recovery along with the return of Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino, and the Phillies somewhat dormant bats (yes, they have been hitting homers, but their team batting average was among the worst in the NL) are going to start making quite a racket (witness last night, when OF Jayson Werth cranked 3 home runs and knocked in 8). All of this, of course, is positive for the Phillies.

But then there's that lingering question of a long-term deal for Howard and what he's worth. Current Phils' GM Pat Gillick doesn't like long-term deals. Then again, Gillick is retiring after this season and his heir apparent, Assistant GM Ruben Amaro, might feel differently. Still, the bright folks at Baseball Prospectus have been consistent in their belief that Howard doesn't project for consistent production over the course of say, a seven-year deal, because players with his size historically don't play well into their mid-30's (especially without the assistance of performance enhancing substances). Names such as Bobby Bonilla and Mo Vaughn, among others, come to mind. The former got heavy, and the latter got so heavy that he had orthopedic problems (ankle) that rendered him unable to play. Atop that, Howard is (very) streaky, and then you wonder whether at 28 (Howard will be 29 in November), Ryan Howard is worth a 7-year, $140 million deal (Chase Utley a year ago receive a 7-year, $84 million deal -- while Utley hasn't slugged the way Howard has, he's more likely to be productive -- very, perhaps -- at 36 than Howard is). Finally, there's the Barry Zito albatross, which is that no GM wants to give a long-term deal to a hitter who turns out to be the hitting version of Zito, the Giants' hurler who got $126 million in a long-term deal a few years ago only to fall off the cliff.

It's not easy to be a GM, is it. Sure, you have to pay for the top talent, because it's hard to have a top team if your payroll isn't in the top third of all of baseball. I believe that the numbers show that, and while the Rays and Marlins are doing well right now with (much) less than the traditional front-runners, it's only mid-May, and novas tend to flame out over the summer. It's an age-old story in baseball. Yes, right now the Rays and Marlins are doing well and the Rays particularly project out well over the course of the next several years, but their current formulas are much more ones as to how to rebuild a team than they are to build a champion now. That digression aside, do you lock up Howard at what he wants, negotiate something in the middle, or keep on taking him to arbitration until he's in his early 30's?

Somehow, so long as Howard continues to do an excellent job of keeping his own middle in check, I think that the middle is where both sides will (reasonably happily, too) end up.

Why Rome Fell, or, The Silliness of College Athletic Programs

Most Division I programs lose money -- only about 15% finish in the black.

And why is this the case?

My theory -- instead of encouraging participation and fielding dozens of intercollegiate teams, those schools bet the farm on football and basketball, the revenue sports, and somehow they get it wrong. Whether they underprice tickets, have more assistant coaches than some departments have professors or their schools have academic and student life deans, spend scary amounts on training facilities and athletic dorms or pay their coaches outrageous sums, they lose money.

Is that a bad thing? I mean, breaking even is probably fine, because you'd expect schools to subsidize the bulk of their athletic programs. After all, if they give swimming or golf scholarships, they're not getting the allocated monies back in the form of ticket revenues. But if they're losing money, they have to assess their priorities and look for the root causes of the issue (note I said issue, and not problem, because some schools might find it okay to lose million on athletics if they believe they breed good will among alumni or if they think that those monies are better allocated than they would be to provide more financial aid or support academic programs).

Still, when you look at some of the expenditures, you start wondering when some schools will say enough. What will be the ceiling on compensation for football and basketball coaches, for recruiting and travel budgets, for facilities? And why spend monies on those line items?

Seems to me that many schools don't have their priorities right. They should encourage participation and good health, and not sitting and watching.

And spending.

How Good is Marcus Camby?

He must be really good to get named to the first-team all-NBA defensive team when his team, the Nuggets, plays matador-like defense as a whole. Then again, the hand-waving by guys named Anthony, Iverson and Smith must give a player like Camby plenty of opportunities to shine on defense.

I confess I laughed at the irony of a Nugget's being named to the all-NBA defensive team, but someone on that team had to play some measure of defense. It's just too bad for the Nuggets that Camby's intensity didn't rub off on the rest of Denver's rotation.

Calling Out Mike Greenberg on the O.J. Mayo Controversy

Mike Greenberg, for all intents and purposes, opined that he really didn't see -- in the abstract -- what was wrong with a sports agent's passing money along to O.J. Mayo. Greenberg offered that the offering and the taking of the money aren't illegal, it's just that a self-appointed regulatory body (the NCAA) and colleges (such as USC) prohibit such behavior. He then offered that in other businesses people offer such payments -- for example, to teenage tennis stars, etc. -- and that such payments aren't illegal if the kids turn pro right away.

To paraphrase Greenberg's on-air partner, Mike Golic, "Greenie, are you kidding me?" Golic took the opposite point of view, which is that such payments start a slippery slope that lead from agents to boosters to paying kids illegally to play.

My take: Greenie, have you heard of ethics? Why is it okay for an agent (allegedly, of course) to hire "street" agents to funnel money to star athletes with the hope of inking them to a contract when they're eligible to sign one that will a) get the kid-turned-star big bucks and b) the agent a good 5% of all sports-related and endorsement-related revenues? It's plain unethical, it's taking advantage of kids, it's potentially rendering them ineligible to play at the best training ground possible to up their market value, all in the name of the aggrandizement of the agent. Do the agents in these circumstances care about the kids? Probably not, because if they have enough street money they're making bets. Dole out, say, $30,000 a year to say 10 kids, and one or two of them might hit and earn you commissions that far exceed this business practice. And why would the kids be selecting you? Because you're good, or because you're buying them and you're acting in your own interests.

Such practices are predatory, and kids don't know any better. It's hard to turn down the perks and the green, especially if you're a kid who's gone lacking for material things and you're a kid whom everyone says is wonderful and therefore entitled to life's good things. Sure, the kid should have a good moral compass and realize that there's no such thing as free goods or free money, but many don't. Humans yield to temptation on occasion, and the thought of a free convertible, free clothes and a free flat-screen TV might be too tempting to turn down. Especially given how minimal the NCAA's monthly stipend is for athletes on scholarship.

The son of a friend of mine wants to be a sports agent. Why? Probably because he hasn't figured out that there is much more sizzle than steak out there. Yet, he turned down a summer job with a sports agent in a big city. The job? Running basketball camps in poor neighborhoods. The catch -- why do you think the agent is doing it in the first place? And, it's not as though the athletes you're seeking to represent are grateful, nice or fun to be with. They're a mixed bag, to be sure, just like any other profession, except that the sense of entitlement is probably greater. Be careful what you wish for kid, or else, if you start at the bottom, you'll be the one with the bag of cash.

So, Greenie, please reconsider your thoughts on this one. You're a wise soul in a sea of somewhat frustrated, self-righteous commentators, and you're usually right on the mark.

This time, though, you miss it. Agents who funnel cash to kids just shouldn't be doing it.

Thoughts on Mike D'Antoni to the Knicks

In no particular order:

1. Why would a guy on the cusp of coaching championship teams opt for a four-year sentence in New York? It doesn't matter who coaches this roster, the team really won't be able to contend for a playoff spot for two years and go past the first round for three. Some would say that's optimistic. So why did D'Antoni go to the Knicks?

2. Why would a team that is notorious for overspending ink a coach for a four-year deal at $6 million per (whose recent experience has not been building teams but coaching excellent ones) when it doesn't have the talent to make the playoffs? Put differently, couldn't they have gotten by for a few years by hiring a didactic, solid, young coach, a Lawrence Frank wannabe, say at $1.5 million per for three years? That situation would have offered two advantages. One, the young coach could turn into a keeper. Two, if he didn't, you then could hire a big name coach to come in and take the team to the next level.

3. Why build around an offensive-oriented coach when you know that to win a championship, you had better play great defense. You can only run by opponents so often. Denver learned that, and you would think that by now they've learned that in Phoenix.

4. Back to D'Antoni. Okay, so Jerry Reinsdorf wouldn't have offered you $6 million per, but you would have had the opportunity to coach a team that has some (very) high potential college all-stars -- Deng, Hinrich, Gordon. Instead, you get a team that has a bunch of big-contract, low-production players. What you'll realize, quickly, is that you can't change these guys, and you'll re-learn that in the end it's only so much about coaching. More of "it", as it were, is about talent.

5. As for Donnie Walsh, he mollified the hungry fans by offering them up D'Antoni and showing them that he has the wherewithal to hire the best and brightest. That's fine, but he also sent a signal that under the Dolans, the Knicks still aren't above big-money folly. The proof will be in drafting, in moving big contracts, and in pivoting this bloated roster into a lean, mean fighting machine. We'll see.

The Knicks would have been better off saving their money. Their roster can't play the way D'Antoni's squad played in Phoenix, and help isn't quickly on the way. Sure, Isiah the coach alienated the players, but it was Isiah the GM who created the awful roster of players. Not even coaches like Auerbach and Jackson could (or could have) taken this Knick squad and turned it into a champion.

Keeping Stats on the Most Curious Things (Baseball)

Last week, the Phils' Jamie Moyer got two hits in a game that he won. I heard on ESPN that he was only one of 3 pitchers in the past 75 years who got 2 hits in a game at the age of 45 or over. Which led my wife to ask the following question: how many pitchers over the past 75 years were there over the age of 45? Put differently, what was the denominator? We thought the whole comment was kind of silly, although getting 2 hits at the age of 45 in a game is very impressive if you're a pitcher.

But it's not as rare, apparently, as any pitcher's getting over 350 wins in a career if you starting pitching after 1911. Apparently, only 3 pitchers have accomplished this feat -- Warren Spahn, Roger Clemens and now Greg Maddux. Thousands of pitchers have been eligible, and only 3 have done so. Mike Greenberg was probably right on ESPN Radio this morning when he said that we're probably not going to see another pitcher win 350 games in his career in our lifetime. Much has to go right for any pitcher to do so. To me, this is a better stat to consider, because we're talking about pitchers who are at the pinnacle of the sport.

In any event, if you want to know how many lefthanded first basemen hit 3 or more homers in a game ever or how many Major Leaguers were born in Paris, someone, somewhere, will be able to provide that information, and rather quickly too.

The Bad News Iron Pigs

The Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, the Phillies AAA affiliate based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, are 6-30. That is not a typo.

The Iron Pigs heralded their new stadium as the 31st best stadium in baseball (presumably next to the 30 that are situated in the majors). That's great, but they probably have the worst record in all of organized baseball, a feat that the Phillies -- notorious for underwhelming us with their farm teams -- couldn't have planned if they tried.

What is frightening for the Phillies is that should a few players go down, there isn't much help on the farm. When Jimmy Rollins went down recently, the Phillies called up an infielder (Brad Harman) from AA Reading.

But the Iron Pigs have the new stadium and an enthusiastic Lehigh Valley (comprised not only of Allentown, but of Easton and Bethlehem) going for them.

And, so it seems, little else.

Relegation, American Soccer Players and the English Premiership

Just when you thought that U.S. soccer was getting better and might have a better chance in the next World Cup, this. . .

9 of the 12 Americans playing in England's top league are on teams that face relegation, a uniquely European soccer-ish concept, which means that if they finish in the bottom 3 in the league, they get dropped down to the next lower league. If you're thinking baseball, that might mean that the Pirates, with 15 straight losing seasons, would be playing in the AA Texas League (or worse). But before you draw any conclusions, it's not really fair to say that the dismal play is the Americans' fault, although one team, Fulham, has five Americans on it. Also, not all of the top-drawer Americans play in the Premiership, so it's also hard to say that the Yanks will have trouble getting either into the World Cup or, if in, out of the first round.

Still, I'm having a hard time believing that U.S.A. soccer will make serious inroads in international competition until dozens of players are playing in the top leagues in Italy, Spain and England, with many of them playing on the top teams in those leagues. If you look at the elite international teams, you'll find that they populate the best teams in the best leagues with their players. The U.S. is not there yet.

Gavin Floyd Update

Could he be this generation's version of Fergie Jenkins, on whom the Phils' gave up as a young hurler over 40 years ago, only to have the lanky Canadian turn into a Hall of Fame pitcher?

Floyd was the number 4 draft pick overall about 7 years back, but he struggled mightily in the City of Philadelphia, a kid with about 2 1/2 pitches who didn't know how to close out hitters and pitch as precisely as you have to in the majors. Did the Phillies rush him? Probably, but patience and an abundance of good hurlers in Philadelphia necessitated the Ed Wade-led front office to rush him to the bigs, hoping that his talent would transcend. As one-time Michigan State football coach Duffy Daugherty was quoted as saying, "Potential means you ain't done it yet." And, despite plenty of opportunities, an ill-prepared Floyd didn't get it done in Philadelphia.

The Phillies traded him to the ChiSox a few years ago for iffy-winged Freddy Garcia, the biggest bust in Philadelphia since Morganna stopped trying to kiss Mike Schmidt. Garcia is history, and now Floyd is pitching very well under Ozzie Guillen. Right now, Floyd is another in a long line of examples of how the Phillies have been inept, historically, at developing young pitchers. (Cole Hamels, in contrast, is a refreshing example that they can develop a young pitcher).

Why did Floyd fail in Philadelphia? Was it because the Phillies were impatient? Was he ready? Was he immature? Did he not listen to coaching? Did he need a change of scenery? Were too many expectations placed upon him too early? Did he think he could get by on too few pitches, on talent alone? Did he fail to realize that he couldn't simply blow the ball by hitters the way he did in high school? Or, was it just a "bad situation" for both the team and the player?

At the time, the Garcia trade looked great for the Phils, a case of the team shedding a disappointing high draft pick and getting a 17-game winner (albeit with only a year left on his contract). Garcia, as it turned out, was hurt, spent almost the entire season on the DL and is now in baseball oblivion. Floyd, meanwhile, looks like he's starting to tap into the great talent that made him such a high draft pick.

I'm happy for Gavin Floyd and wish him well. Somewhere, though, deep in the bowels of Citizen's Bank Park, some folks are shuddering that the team has once again goofed on evaluating and developing pitching talent.

The Problem with Having Rattlesnakes as Pets

is that they can rear up and bite you.

Which is why the MLB Players' Association's concerns about collusion over teams' not signing Barry Bonds is misplaced.

You saw the reports about how much looser the Giants' clubhouse was this spring. This is a polite way of saying that despite random acts of kindness he might have shown to individual teammates, the guy, generally, was not a good teammate in the clubhouse.

You don't know whether he did or does take performance-enhancing drugs.

There's a concern regarding what he did or didn't say to Federal authorities and whether he might have perjured himself.

You also don't know how much he thinks he's worth on the market.

Given all that, why does the word "collusion" need to enter into the equation. Seems to me that each team has made an independent judgment -- a pretty obvious one, at that -- that they don't want Barry Bonds and all of his baggage around.

At least for now.

Come July, come August, when a good team, particularly an AL team, is a bat short, that team might be tempted to sign Bonds to a short-term deal to help them carry the day. If Jason Giambi continues to whiff but the Yankees hang in there, perhaps King Hank I will pay a small king's ransom to retain the Homering Hessian for a partial season. Should the A's get closer and Frank Thomas or Jack Cust go down, Billy Beane might just get tempted to get Bonds to cross a few bridges and commute to Hegenberger Road and the Oakland Coliseum.

But collusion?

The MLBPA needs to do a better job of prioritizing its battles.