Lately I have found myself saying the following: "If you set the bar low, many people will figure out ways to fall beneath it. If you set the bar high, you'll be amazed and how much people can accomplish." Perhaps that derives from John Wooden's, "If you aim for perfection, you'll achieve excellence," but I think that there's some truth to it.
I was working with my son on his overall basketball game, and he's worked hard on the form of his shot, and it's been great to see the improvement. The other day, I suggested that he work on his weaker hand. I asked him to go through a bunch of lefthanded layups, and it was very difficult for him. He had trouble putting the ball up consistently with his left hand. And, yes, he wanted at times to give up.
I got to thinking about people who learn foreign languages. While it's nice to be able to sit in a class room in the U.S., get taught a language and then go home and speak English and not reinforce it, we've all heard the stories of people getting some training on a foreign language and then going to live in a foreign country. They get immersed in everything -- and have no alternative but to learn more of the language in order to live life daily. So, gradually -- and probably with some tutoring -- they become proficient. Translated. . .
We kept going back to the gym, and day after day -- guess what -- my son's left hand got stronger in just one week. Why? Because he concentrated on it and he knows that to play against better competition he needs to develop both hands well. With that sense of urgency and focus, he not only showed improvement, but he looked forward to doing the drills and trying to improve daily. The alternative would be to tell him that he's terrific and doesn't need to change, but then, I think, that wouldn't be fair or honest. No, it's not because I want a superstar or delude myself that he'll be one, it's just about developing good habits, concentration and a sense of trying that understands that before you see gains, you have to put in the work to get there and, to use an overused phrase, you have to enjoy the journey.
So, each week when we coach our team, we set a brisk pace for the kids to keep up. We ask them to defend well, to protect the ball, to steal it and deflect it, to run the break where possible, find the open man and screen where there is an opportunity. We do not settle -- even in a rec league -- for telling them that it's okay whatever they do so long as they are out there. We challenge them a bit more, run plays, and tell them that if they focus on trying to improve, they will have every opportunity to do so.
I figured that I would share this tidbit because sometimes I need to remind myself of it. Emerson wrote that our chief want in life is to have someone push us to become something more, and let's take the opportunity -- with caring, encouragement and thought -- to help make each other -- each coach, each player -- better.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
The Philadelphia Eagles' Big Off-Season
Questions abound:
1. Will owner Jeffrey Lurie fire Andy Reid?
2. If the answer to question 1 is no, will Jeffrey Lurie make Reid choose between being the GM and the head coach?
3. If the answer to question 1 is no, will Andy Reid fire or demote defensive coordinator Juan Castillo?
4. If the answer to question 3 is yes, will perhaps soon-to-be-former Rams head coach, former Giants' defensive coordinator and former Eagles' linebackers coach Steve Spagnuolo become the Eagles' defensive coordinator?
5. Will the DeSean Jackson return to the Eagles?
6. Will the Eagles demand that highly paid QB Michael Vick learn how to slide (unbelievably, he dissed the concept of sliding at a recent post-game press conference, hubris to the initiated because the odds are that if he continues his bold ways he'll become a one-dimensional cardboard cutout propped up on the sidelines and talked of in the "he coulda been a contender" type of way)?
7. Will the Eagles get some leaders who set the tone for the team?
8. Will Asante Samuel return?
9. Will the Eagles get some linebackers?
There are probably more questions than that, but those are the big ones. Lurie is loyal to Reid, and one of the fundamental issues in human resources is that you don't replace someone who has been a good performer unless you can get someone who is better. So, with respect to the biggest question -- the one about Big Red -- who could Lurie get to replace Reid? And before you start that Jon Gruden and Bill Cowher both are available, remember that no coach has won a Super Bowl with two teams (the closest were Dick Vermeil and Bill Parcells). So, if you want an up-and-comer, the best one in a while coaches in San Francisco, and it's hard to say whether Nick Saban would succeed or not. After all, some coordinators for legends have failed, and some relative lesser knowns (Mike McCarthy) have succeeded. So, the bet here is that Reid stays -- gulp -- in both roles.
That leaves an open question about the defense. It's hard to see Castillo remaining, and it would be interesting to find out whether, if Reid were to remain, that a condition was to fire Castillo and hire a veteran defensive coordinator (Jack Del Rio, the deposed Jaguars' coach, also is available). The bet here is that the Eagles have a new defensive coordinator.
Jackson will return, Samuel will go, Vick will learn how to slide for 3 games before forgetting and being turned into one of the pretenders that fought Rocky for the title in Rocky III, and the team will make some moves that will get it some vocal leaders and perhaps a linebacker or two not named Ernie Sims or Takeo Spikes (two guys who were supposed to have the special sauce but failed in Soft Pretzel City). It is hard to believe that for all the money they paid these guys, that neither Nnamdi Asomugha or Michael Vick is a leader. Cullen Jenkins, the DT acquired from Green Bay, is vocal, but the dearth of leaders for such a highly paid squad is striking.
Right now, the Eagles are a disappointing fantasy football team, a team in disarray, a team without any zing and oomph that has enough talent on a given day to beat anyone but a pronounced difficulty to succeed in life's red zone, let alone the NFL's. There are only so many times that you can blow a second half lead before fans will just give up hope that you can close the deal. The Eagles, plain and simple, need finishers. (And I think that DeSean Jackson, for all his warts this year, is one of them, as are Jeremy Maclin and LeSean McCoy).
So the Eagles will play the Redskins this weekend, probably win by two touchdowns, have an 8-8 season, with Reid's trying to take a victory lap of sorts for a strong finish while acknowledging that the failure to make the playoffs starts with him, that it's all his fault and that he failed to do enough before the season to prepare the team for making the playoffs. It will all sound very good, until you do a compare and contrast with teams like the Packers, Saints and 49ers and realize that each of them has twice the giddy up that the Eagles do. Reid and his front office can do all the scouting that they wish, but somehow they miss out on the guys with the "gotta/wanna/have it" as Sal Palantonio of ESPN calls it. (As an aside, they thought that they had one of those guys with 26 year-old first-round pick Danny Watkins of Baylor, who admitted prior to the season that he was overwhelmed. Many fans' responded with a "how hard do they try to find guys like this?").
This season was a train wreck for the Philadelphia Eagles. Normally, I would bet the mortgage money that Jeffrey Lurie would back Andy Reid 100%. But as I write this I have more doubts than ever before. Lurie opened up the checkbook to sign big free agents, gave Michael Vick a big contract, brought in two expensive position coaches in Jim Washburn (defensive line) and Howard Mudd (offensive line) and signed Michael Vick to a big extension. He also acquiesced to permit Reid to hire Castillo as defensive coordinator. In short, he indulged every whim and desire of Andy Reid, with disastrous results. If Lurie were ever to can his beloved head coach, he might be tempted to do so now. It might not be the right move, but it would be a popular one with the fans, most of whom have concluded that while Reid is a good coach, he might not win a Super Bowl, at least not here.
It's funny, when you spend the big bucks, ignore popular wisdom that your perennial shortcomings can bite you (read: this season, safeties, Vick's blind side and linebackers) and you hold yourself out as the team that outfoxed everyone else with respect to having bandwidth for signing free agents after the lockout, that instead of making yourselves the envy of the league, you make yourself the biggest target and the one subject to the most derision when you fail. I hope that in there off-season Jeffrey Lurie and Joe Banner do a root cause analysis -- with a root cause analysis expert -- as to what went wrong and then begin to fix the team based on that analysis.
And I hope, also, that they get some linebackers, too.
Memo to Top 100 Harvard Basketball Recruits: Why?
Several decades ago (give or take one, perhaps), I had a conversation with a friend who was a very good Ivy League basketball player. He had mentioned that his high school, a basketball powerhouse, had a player who had succeeded him at his position and who was drawing national attention. North Carolina, Kentucky, UCLA, to name a few, were hot after this player.
My friend also offered another tidbit: "And the thing of it is, his grades and scores are better than mine."
Which drew the following automatic response from me: "So why doesn't he go to your school?"
My friend laughed. "If you could really play, why would you play where I do?"
I tried to talk about the benefits of an Ivy education, that sometimes an Ivy school could have a breakthrough, perhaps get to the Round of 16, but my friend wasn't buying what I was selling. He had gone Ivy and done well, but he lacked foot speed and a jumper to go to a big-time school, despite the reputation of his high school and its coach.
He just shook his head and offered that if you were that good a player, you had to go where the best players played to see how good you were and to play at an elite level. He also offered that if you were reasonably motivated as a student -- as this kid was -- you could get a good education at any of those schools (my note: back then he was right; today, you have to wonder about a) being "one" and done and b) the pressure put on the kids, so much so that do they have time to progress toward a degree in something other than keeping seaweed off the fine arts' program's batik collection, and, as for a), well, then, you're en route to a pretty good career, aren't you?).
The compulsion, though, was the competition. My friend went Ivy because it suited him and because the combination of aid, academics and basketball was better than say a low-DI school that had offered him a full ride. But the thought -- for an 18 year-old -- of playing in the ACC on national TV against the best competition and for Dean Smith, for example, was very compelling to him. But what of the kids who now populate ESPN's Top 60 for the Class of 2013, three of whom have Harvard on this lists (as do one or do of the Top 100 for the Class of 2012)? What are they thinking?
Sure, Harvard is a great school, perhaps the greatest, but what is Harvard and coach Tommy Amaker trying to accomplish? And will these kids be happy in a place where they pretty much will be kids who participate in just another extracurricular activity and who have to play Columbia and Cornell on back-to-back nights twice, when, legitimately, they could be playing a Pac-12, Big Ten, Big East or ACC schedule? And, presumably, if their academics are that good, get a pretty good education, to boot, depending on how much effort they elect to put into their school work?
In other words, these recruits can really play. They are not a step slow, a few inches too short, have limited range, a weaker left hand, etc. They are the real deal. And forget all the hype about Harvard's trying to do something special. If you're an elite cellist, you'll want to go to Juilliard or Curtis. If you're an elite astrophysicist, MIT, Cal Tech or Princeton, to name a few. And if you're an elite basketball player. . . you'll want to go to . . . Harvard?
Not Carolina? Kentucky? Duke? Ohio State? Syracuse?
Food for thought.
My friend also offered another tidbit: "And the thing of it is, his grades and scores are better than mine."
Which drew the following automatic response from me: "So why doesn't he go to your school?"
My friend laughed. "If you could really play, why would you play where I do?"
I tried to talk about the benefits of an Ivy education, that sometimes an Ivy school could have a breakthrough, perhaps get to the Round of 16, but my friend wasn't buying what I was selling. He had gone Ivy and done well, but he lacked foot speed and a jumper to go to a big-time school, despite the reputation of his high school and its coach.
He just shook his head and offered that if you were that good a player, you had to go where the best players played to see how good you were and to play at an elite level. He also offered that if you were reasonably motivated as a student -- as this kid was -- you could get a good education at any of those schools (my note: back then he was right; today, you have to wonder about a) being "one" and done and b) the pressure put on the kids, so much so that do they have time to progress toward a degree in something other than keeping seaweed off the fine arts' program's batik collection, and, as for a), well, then, you're en route to a pretty good career, aren't you?).
The compulsion, though, was the competition. My friend went Ivy because it suited him and because the combination of aid, academics and basketball was better than say a low-DI school that had offered him a full ride. But the thought -- for an 18 year-old -- of playing in the ACC on national TV against the best competition and for Dean Smith, for example, was very compelling to him. But what of the kids who now populate ESPN's Top 60 for the Class of 2013, three of whom have Harvard on this lists (as do one or do of the Top 100 for the Class of 2012)? What are they thinking?
Sure, Harvard is a great school, perhaps the greatest, but what is Harvard and coach Tommy Amaker trying to accomplish? And will these kids be happy in a place where they pretty much will be kids who participate in just another extracurricular activity and who have to play Columbia and Cornell on back-to-back nights twice, when, legitimately, they could be playing a Pac-12, Big Ten, Big East or ACC schedule? And, presumably, if their academics are that good, get a pretty good education, to boot, depending on how much effort they elect to put into their school work?
In other words, these recruits can really play. They are not a step slow, a few inches too short, have limited range, a weaker left hand, etc. They are the real deal. And forget all the hype about Harvard's trying to do something special. If you're an elite cellist, you'll want to go to Juilliard or Curtis. If you're an elite astrophysicist, MIT, Cal Tech or Princeton, to name a few. And if you're an elite basketball player. . . you'll want to go to . . . Harvard?
Not Carolina? Kentucky? Duke? Ohio State? Syracuse?
Food for thought.
Monday, December 26, 2011
FIFA 12 -- Achieving Goals
I once spoke at a professional seminar, and the topic of creating balance in one's live and having diversions came up. It was a very driven group, so I got their attention by talking about how you can always figure out how to achieve goals on a given day -- even when everything can go haywire at the office.
I told the group that after a long day I would go home into the kid/man cave in the basement, put in the FIFA soccer game (then on PlayStation, but now we have an XBox) and play a very good English Premiership team (usually Arsenal) against a League Two team, play at the amateur level (there are five levels, and amateur is the lowest) and then win something like 12-0. "So," I offered, "if you can't achieve any goals at the office, you can go home at night and score tons of them in this video game." You probably had to be there, but I recall that the audience laughed at my suggestion. Given all of the connectivity we have and the fast pace of the world, I think that it was hard for them to find diversions. Or so it seemed.
Now I have discovered one of the best video games there is -- "Manager Mode" in FIFA 12. Basically, you get a team and a salary and a transfer budget, you get to sell contracts of players, buy them, loan players to other teams for experience, hire scouts to sign teenaged prospects, offer them contracts for the big club and then run your lineups. Players have a bunch of grades -- overall excellence, some subgrades for about 6-8 difference competencies depending on their position and then are evaluated on a color-coded system for morale, energy and form, and they can get suspend for red cards or accumulating too many yellow cards, and they can get hurt. Translated, if you play a 4-4-2 formation, you'll need 2-3 goalies, 9 defenders, 8 midfielders and 5 strikers to get through a season, plus a bunch of junior players whom you loan out to other teams, either with the hope of playing them in your rotation the next season or, alternatively, selling their contracts to create more funds to purchase more or better players. You also negotiate contracts and have to be sure that you have enough budget at all times to extend contracts (or not). Finally, you'll get emails from the ownership about your performance and from players asking for more playing time or telling you that they're tired. And, yes, you'll see newspaper headlines about the major leagues in the world.
Put simply, it's a comprehensive game, and here's what we've learned. First, you need a very solid back line. Sure, you need to score goals, but if you have shutdown defenders the way the NFL has shutdown cornerbacks, it helps. Having one of the best goalies in the world is helpful but not essential. Then again, the top teams's goalies typically rank among the world's best. You need all sorts of players at midfield at up front -- defensive midfielders, playmaking midfielders, speedy wings and strikers who can create shots in very little space. It's probably good to sell players' contracts when they hit a certain age, and it's wise to sell a player for whom you get a significant over-market bid if you are not the best-funded team, because you can parlay that money into 2 or 3 key signings that can help fortify your team. Most goalies and defenders don't sell for as much as young, playmaking midfielders (among the up-and-comers, the Dane Christian Eriksen and the Brazilian Lucas) and strikers with significant potential (Man City's Mario Batelli and Chelsea's Romelu Lukaku come to mind).
As you can see, the realism and the combinations of activities are captivating and a worthy diversion from the rest of your day. Your career can go for 15 years, after which you'll get an e-mail from your management congratulating you on your retirement -- in 2026. At that time you'll still be coaching against Man United's Sir Alex Ferguson, who will be a chipper 82. I took Man City in one simulated career because of the oil money that fortifies the team and won 13 premierships and 12 champion's league titles (hint: it helps if you play the games yourself as opposed to simulate them, because typically you'll fare better). By 2026, when I had a bunch of youth squad players whom I had developed into regulars, the game retired me.
It's a great way to learn the international game, who the key players are, who the established stars are and who the up-and-comers are. During that career, I was offered the top jobs at Inter Milan, Juventus, Athletico Madrid, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Schalke 04, Borussia Dortmund, Newcastle, Arsenal, Paris St. Germain, PSV Eindhoven to name a few. Okay, so perhaps I'm just a kid at heart, but it was fun playing games in the large stadiums with English announcers talking about the pitch, using the word "nil" for zero and marveling about my team's patience and passing ability.
Check out the game yourself -- set goals for yourself as manager, score a few, while you're at it, and have fun. And tell me if you think that this is a good team:
GK -- Manuel Neuer
RB -- Subotic
CB -- Pique
CB -- Hummels
LB -- Criscito
RCM -- Wilshere
LCM -- Bale
CAM -- Fabregas
LW -- Balotelli
ST -- Neymar
RW -- Lukaku, with, among others
Ramsey, Gourcuff, Song, Acerbi, Benedetti, Walcott, Sturridge, Baumann and others on the bench.
Enjoy!
I told the group that after a long day I would go home into the kid/man cave in the basement, put in the FIFA soccer game (then on PlayStation, but now we have an XBox) and play a very good English Premiership team (usually Arsenal) against a League Two team, play at the amateur level (there are five levels, and amateur is the lowest) and then win something like 12-0. "So," I offered, "if you can't achieve any goals at the office, you can go home at night and score tons of them in this video game." You probably had to be there, but I recall that the audience laughed at my suggestion. Given all of the connectivity we have and the fast pace of the world, I think that it was hard for them to find diversions. Or so it seemed.
Now I have discovered one of the best video games there is -- "Manager Mode" in FIFA 12. Basically, you get a team and a salary and a transfer budget, you get to sell contracts of players, buy them, loan players to other teams for experience, hire scouts to sign teenaged prospects, offer them contracts for the big club and then run your lineups. Players have a bunch of grades -- overall excellence, some subgrades for about 6-8 difference competencies depending on their position and then are evaluated on a color-coded system for morale, energy and form, and they can get suspend for red cards or accumulating too many yellow cards, and they can get hurt. Translated, if you play a 4-4-2 formation, you'll need 2-3 goalies, 9 defenders, 8 midfielders and 5 strikers to get through a season, plus a bunch of junior players whom you loan out to other teams, either with the hope of playing them in your rotation the next season or, alternatively, selling their contracts to create more funds to purchase more or better players. You also negotiate contracts and have to be sure that you have enough budget at all times to extend contracts (or not). Finally, you'll get emails from the ownership about your performance and from players asking for more playing time or telling you that they're tired. And, yes, you'll see newspaper headlines about the major leagues in the world.
Put simply, it's a comprehensive game, and here's what we've learned. First, you need a very solid back line. Sure, you need to score goals, but if you have shutdown defenders the way the NFL has shutdown cornerbacks, it helps. Having one of the best goalies in the world is helpful but not essential. Then again, the top teams's goalies typically rank among the world's best. You need all sorts of players at midfield at up front -- defensive midfielders, playmaking midfielders, speedy wings and strikers who can create shots in very little space. It's probably good to sell players' contracts when they hit a certain age, and it's wise to sell a player for whom you get a significant over-market bid if you are not the best-funded team, because you can parlay that money into 2 or 3 key signings that can help fortify your team. Most goalies and defenders don't sell for as much as young, playmaking midfielders (among the up-and-comers, the Dane Christian Eriksen and the Brazilian Lucas) and strikers with significant potential (Man City's Mario Batelli and Chelsea's Romelu Lukaku come to mind).
As you can see, the realism and the combinations of activities are captivating and a worthy diversion from the rest of your day. Your career can go for 15 years, after which you'll get an e-mail from your management congratulating you on your retirement -- in 2026. At that time you'll still be coaching against Man United's Sir Alex Ferguson, who will be a chipper 82. I took Man City in one simulated career because of the oil money that fortifies the team and won 13 premierships and 12 champion's league titles (hint: it helps if you play the games yourself as opposed to simulate them, because typically you'll fare better). By 2026, when I had a bunch of youth squad players whom I had developed into regulars, the game retired me.
It's a great way to learn the international game, who the key players are, who the established stars are and who the up-and-comers are. During that career, I was offered the top jobs at Inter Milan, Juventus, Athletico Madrid, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Schalke 04, Borussia Dortmund, Newcastle, Arsenal, Paris St. Germain, PSV Eindhoven to name a few. Okay, so perhaps I'm just a kid at heart, but it was fun playing games in the large stadiums with English announcers talking about the pitch, using the word "nil" for zero and marveling about my team's patience and passing ability.
Check out the game yourself -- set goals for yourself as manager, score a few, while you're at it, and have fun. And tell me if you think that this is a good team:
GK -- Manuel Neuer
RB -- Subotic
CB -- Pique
CB -- Hummels
LB -- Criscito
RCM -- Wilshere
LCM -- Bale
CAM -- Fabregas
LW -- Balotelli
ST -- Neymar
RW -- Lukaku, with, among others
Ramsey, Gourcuff, Song, Acerbi, Benedetti, Walcott, Sturridge, Baumann and others on the bench.
Enjoy!
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Yale's Football Coach Resigns Amidst Controversy About Resume Misrepresentations
You can read the story here.
My friend Jeff from Philadelphia (not to be confused with Jeff from Manhattan) and I used to wonder over beers whether what some people were telling us about their backgrounds was true. Among the questions were "did this guy really play there?" and "was he all-league?" Some of the boasting we dealt with was before the age of the internet, which has enabled all of us to instantly check someone out. And there were occasions where what we were told differed from the truth. And how did we find that out? Because on occasion we once would come across someone about whom it was well-known that he played there, and we would ask, "well, then, you must know so-and-so, who played there at the same time." When you get met with a blank stare and a "I don't know him," well, you start to wonder.
As Jeff from Philadelphia would have said, "Well, as [former President and Michigan football All-American] Gerald Ford used to say, 'everyone is an All-American more than 50 miles from where he grew up.'" That held true say 20, 20+ years ago, but you would have figured that people who might have been wont to embellish or outright lie would have stopped such behavior because, well, it is easier to check out. That said, the checker outers, as they were, are busier than ever, and, well, most people don't want to assume that they are being lied to, especially by as accomplished a guy as Tom Williams was when he applied and got the Yale head coaching job. It makes one ask the question, "why did do this; did he really need to do it?"
Williams became unmasked when a big wire story circulated that his QB bagged a Rhodes Scholarship interview to skipper the team against Harvard in The Game. It didn't take a Yale graduate to connect the dots between the QB's goal and the coach's representation that he had interviewed for a Rhodes. Heck, that's a pretty cool, feel-good story for a sportswriter to write in so many ways. Except when it didn't exist. Then that same writer gets a pretty hot story to write about how someone claimed to be something that he wasn't.
Why do people do this? Who do they think that they are impressing, and should we let ourselves get impressed by things other than competencies, character and personality? Should that Rhodes cache made one bit of difference for Yale to determine whether to hire Tom Williams as its coach? Probably not. Better yet, would he have gotten the job had he not mentioned that lie on his resume? Probably. (Of course, it's also surfaced that Williams claimed that he was on the 49ers' practice squad 18 years ago, when in truth he was at a 3-day tryout camp).
This is a sad day in so many ways.
My friend Jeff from Philadelphia (not to be confused with Jeff from Manhattan) and I used to wonder over beers whether what some people were telling us about their backgrounds was true. Among the questions were "did this guy really play there?" and "was he all-league?" Some of the boasting we dealt with was before the age of the internet, which has enabled all of us to instantly check someone out. And there were occasions where what we were told differed from the truth. And how did we find that out? Because on occasion we once would come across someone about whom it was well-known that he played there, and we would ask, "well, then, you must know so-and-so, who played there at the same time." When you get met with a blank stare and a "I don't know him," well, you start to wonder.
As Jeff from Philadelphia would have said, "Well, as [former President and Michigan football All-American] Gerald Ford used to say, 'everyone is an All-American more than 50 miles from where he grew up.'" That held true say 20, 20+ years ago, but you would have figured that people who might have been wont to embellish or outright lie would have stopped such behavior because, well, it is easier to check out. That said, the checker outers, as they were, are busier than ever, and, well, most people don't want to assume that they are being lied to, especially by as accomplished a guy as Tom Williams was when he applied and got the Yale head coaching job. It makes one ask the question, "why did do this; did he really need to do it?"
Williams became unmasked when a big wire story circulated that his QB bagged a Rhodes Scholarship interview to skipper the team against Harvard in The Game. It didn't take a Yale graduate to connect the dots between the QB's goal and the coach's representation that he had interviewed for a Rhodes. Heck, that's a pretty cool, feel-good story for a sportswriter to write in so many ways. Except when it didn't exist. Then that same writer gets a pretty hot story to write about how someone claimed to be something that he wasn't.
Why do people do this? Who do they think that they are impressing, and should we let ourselves get impressed by things other than competencies, character and personality? Should that Rhodes cache made one bit of difference for Yale to determine whether to hire Tom Williams as its coach? Probably not. Better yet, would he have gotten the job had he not mentioned that lie on his resume? Probably. (Of course, it's also surfaced that Williams claimed that he was on the 49ers' practice squad 18 years ago, when in truth he was at a 3-day tryout camp).
This is a sad day in so many ways.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
And the Justification for a High Salary for a Low DI Men's Basketball Coach Is?
Princeton beat Northeastern in Boston 71-62.
938 people attended.
My guess is that the Northeastern coach makes north of $250,000 a year, perhaps significantly so.
Why?
Because men's basketball is a revenue sport?
Really?
Could it be that ticket sales and revenues from the concession stands didn't pay for the cost of running the game? I would bet that's the case.
So the justification for a big-time DI program with scholarships and highly paid coaches is exactly what?
A chance to win a low-ranked conference and go to the NCAA Tournament, for the opportunity for a school like Kentucky or Kansas to pound you into the hoops equivalent of dust?
Really?
Remember my adage -- that I don't want my kids to go to any college where a coach makes more than the university president. That still holds, unless, of course, it can be proven beyond a doubt that any coach is worth it.
Bread and circus?
One thing is for sure -- Northeastern's circus doesn't generate enough bread to pay for the program.
Monday, December 12, 2011
A Boy's Best Birthday Present
I've coached my son's team in the rec league for going on five years now, and we've won many more than we've lost. I can joke that it's because of superior coaching, but truth be told we get a bunch of kids who come eager to learn and to play hard. We also have gotten "older" kids who encourage the younger ones, and, yes, I'm sure that the friend with whom I coach and I have something to do with it. But mostly it's the kids who try so hard that make it all happen.
One of the kids we coach asked me before the season began what he could do to improve. I told him that while he's aggressive on defense, we need him to shoot and score more. So, in the second quarter of our first game (the first quarter in which this player saw action), what did he do? He took four shots from fifteen feet or beyond, making only one, and that came when he shot from between the foul line and the top of the key and he banked it in. And, no, he didn't "call" it.
We were up big at halftime, so when he and his unit came off the floor I observed that when I advised him to shoot more during the season, I didn't recommend that he take a season's worth of shots in his first quarter of play. (We all got a chuckle out of that.) I told him and a teammate that there was room to drive and shoot from closer, and, to this player's credit, when he got a pass at the foul line in the fourth quarter he drove the lane and made a layup, a much higher percentage shot. That's a great feeling for a coach, when your kids take the feedback quickly and improve upon their play. It doesn't happen all that often, but when it does, you smile.
Of course, later in that game he was on the baseline and a long rebound made its way to this same player. But instead of driving the baseline (akin to driving toward the basket from the foul line as he did earlier in the game), he opted to put up a fifteen footer -- which missed badly. After the game I said that if he were to see a wide open lane to the basket again, he'd need to take the ball to the hoop. He nodded in agreement.
On Saturday we played our second game of the season, against a tougher and more aggressive opponent. It was a close game -- well-defended -- and we found ourselves trailing by four at the half. The younger players then went out in the third quarter and left it all on the floor and made it closer, but with 30 seconds to go we were down one and got a rebound. I called timeout.
I have a clipboard with a basketball court on it, and I took my marker and drew a play, getting nods from each kid after asking him what he was to do. I designed a "picket fence" of a triple pick for our leading scorer, with the inbound passer to loop behind him for a handoff and shot if our leading scorer was over-defended. The inbound passer was the kid I wrote of earlier, aggressive on defense but sometimes reluctant on offense.
The play broke down immediately. Our big fellah went the wrong way, our leading scorer was hounded, and another would-be screener bumped into the ballhandler. Bedlam. But then, suddenly, a sense of calm and purpose set in, and the ball made its way to the inbound passer, who found himself on the baseline with pretty much was an open lane to the basket. Without hesitation (and unlike just a week earlier), he put the ball on the floor, drove to the hoop, laid the ball up on the rim where it took a soft bounce and dropped through the hoop. We were up by one! Our leading scorer then forced a turnover, and the game was over.
As I wrote, we have won over the years many more than we have lost, but coming from behind and winning that close a game is about as satisfying as it gets. Parents from both teams acknowledged how exciting it was and how hard the kids played. The kid who hit the game-winning bucket -- who has tried hard over the years and received some kudos and missed out on some others -- was all smiles. That morning he turned 12, and he got a few things for his birthday that made him smile widely.
But, perhaps, not as widely as this, because there are times in life when the best gifts are the ones that you work hardest for to earn -- because you've failed before, because you've learned from an error, and because you've picked yourself back up and mastered a skill, in this case, finishing a play properly.
As a coach, this type of situation is a great thing to see.
Especially when that player is your son.
He got many gifts that day, but saved the best one of all for his coach and, more importantly, himself.
It was a great day in many ways.
One of the kids we coach asked me before the season began what he could do to improve. I told him that while he's aggressive on defense, we need him to shoot and score more. So, in the second quarter of our first game (the first quarter in which this player saw action), what did he do? He took four shots from fifteen feet or beyond, making only one, and that came when he shot from between the foul line and the top of the key and he banked it in. And, no, he didn't "call" it.
We were up big at halftime, so when he and his unit came off the floor I observed that when I advised him to shoot more during the season, I didn't recommend that he take a season's worth of shots in his first quarter of play. (We all got a chuckle out of that.) I told him and a teammate that there was room to drive and shoot from closer, and, to this player's credit, when he got a pass at the foul line in the fourth quarter he drove the lane and made a layup, a much higher percentage shot. That's a great feeling for a coach, when your kids take the feedback quickly and improve upon their play. It doesn't happen all that often, but when it does, you smile.
Of course, later in that game he was on the baseline and a long rebound made its way to this same player. But instead of driving the baseline (akin to driving toward the basket from the foul line as he did earlier in the game), he opted to put up a fifteen footer -- which missed badly. After the game I said that if he were to see a wide open lane to the basket again, he'd need to take the ball to the hoop. He nodded in agreement.
On Saturday we played our second game of the season, against a tougher and more aggressive opponent. It was a close game -- well-defended -- and we found ourselves trailing by four at the half. The younger players then went out in the third quarter and left it all on the floor and made it closer, but with 30 seconds to go we were down one and got a rebound. I called timeout.
I have a clipboard with a basketball court on it, and I took my marker and drew a play, getting nods from each kid after asking him what he was to do. I designed a "picket fence" of a triple pick for our leading scorer, with the inbound passer to loop behind him for a handoff and shot if our leading scorer was over-defended. The inbound passer was the kid I wrote of earlier, aggressive on defense but sometimes reluctant on offense.
The play broke down immediately. Our big fellah went the wrong way, our leading scorer was hounded, and another would-be screener bumped into the ballhandler. Bedlam. But then, suddenly, a sense of calm and purpose set in, and the ball made its way to the inbound passer, who found himself on the baseline with pretty much was an open lane to the basket. Without hesitation (and unlike just a week earlier), he put the ball on the floor, drove to the hoop, laid the ball up on the rim where it took a soft bounce and dropped through the hoop. We were up by one! Our leading scorer then forced a turnover, and the game was over.
As I wrote, we have won over the years many more than we have lost, but coming from behind and winning that close a game is about as satisfying as it gets. Parents from both teams acknowledged how exciting it was and how hard the kids played. The kid who hit the game-winning bucket -- who has tried hard over the years and received some kudos and missed out on some others -- was all smiles. That morning he turned 12, and he got a few things for his birthday that made him smile widely.
But, perhaps, not as widely as this, because there are times in life when the best gifts are the ones that you work hardest for to earn -- because you've failed before, because you've learned from an error, and because you've picked yourself back up and mastered a skill, in this case, finishing a play properly.
As a coach, this type of situation is a great thing to see.
Especially when that player is your son.
He got many gifts that day, but saved the best one of all for his coach and, more importantly, himself.
It was a great day in many ways.
Thursday, December 01, 2011
A Vote for Tony Dungy as Penn State's Next Football Coach
It's pretty simple, really.
Urban Meyer?
To Ohio State.
Philadelphia-area native Dan Mullen, the Mississippi State coach (and former Meyer assistant)?
Not interested.
Al Golden?
Signed a longer-term deal at Miami, perhaps opting to stay with a more manageable crisis situation.
Truth be told, Penn State needs a Mr. Clean. Or so that's the perception. Well, DI football, as currently constituted, requires coaches to be aggressive. And that might mean ignoring bad behavior (Jim Tressel), raising money from boosters and being ignorant of bad behavior (perhaps Randy Shannon and Pete Carroll) or embarking upon some recruiting techniques that might push the envelope. That is not to say that all coaches out there are bad actors. But it is to say that whoever Penn State -- the school that has put itself out there as holier than holy -- chooses -- will be subject to great scrutiny.
Scrutiny that turns blemishes into Stage 4 melanoma under the media spotlight quickly. Scrutiny that might have most stakeholders holding the coach to a higher standard than they hold themselves? Pinch a secretary's butt once twenty years ago? Done. Text the #1 recruit in the land 5 times 2 hours before it was permissible to do so, thereby drawing a sanction? You're out. Or something like that.
Which brings me to the most revered man in recent years in football coaching -- Tony Dungy, a man who has won, a man who looks very comfortable in his own skin, a man who has mentored many, including, most notably, Michael Vick. A man who coached in the NFL for so long that he won't have the possible baggage of transgressions while having coached in college. A man who just might have one more gig left in him and who might relish the challenge of helping heal the Penn State community. Tony Dungy would attract top-notch assistants, at least 2-3 of whom, under his mentoring (for coaching, recruiting and good conduct) could grow into successors when he and the powers that be in State College believe that they have done much to help restore Penn State's brand.
Many of the current coaches whose names are bandied about are probably scared. If they're successful, they probably have a very good gig, one where they aren't under a constant microscope for the types of things that any coach in State College now will be. At one point, it would have been an honor to survive the scrutiny to be tapped to succeed Joe Paterno (even if frightening that the comparisons to him would have been harsh). Now, it's not so much an honor as a burden -- a burden of proving what Paterno preached but ultimately failed to live up to -- that he and his program were better than all others when it came to doing the right thing -- playing hard and fair, graduating players, behaving well. That would be a tough set of standards to meet, one that might rival the requirements for canonization.
I don't want to equate Tony Dungy with sainthood, as that's not fair to anyone. But he's a terrific guy with a great track record, someone who is as respected -- if not more respected -- than anyone out there who might be available to coach Penn State. And while he might be comfortably retired and enjoying his TV work, this could be the one challenge that might interest him enough to come back to the sidelines -- to help heal a once-sacred community and set standards of excellence in actions and not, sadly, in just words.
This could be a great match.
Urban Meyer?
To Ohio State.
Philadelphia-area native Dan Mullen, the Mississippi State coach (and former Meyer assistant)?
Not interested.
Al Golden?
Signed a longer-term deal at Miami, perhaps opting to stay with a more manageable crisis situation.
Truth be told, Penn State needs a Mr. Clean. Or so that's the perception. Well, DI football, as currently constituted, requires coaches to be aggressive. And that might mean ignoring bad behavior (Jim Tressel), raising money from boosters and being ignorant of bad behavior (perhaps Randy Shannon and Pete Carroll) or embarking upon some recruiting techniques that might push the envelope. That is not to say that all coaches out there are bad actors. But it is to say that whoever Penn State -- the school that has put itself out there as holier than holy -- chooses -- will be subject to great scrutiny.
Scrutiny that turns blemishes into Stage 4 melanoma under the media spotlight quickly. Scrutiny that might have most stakeholders holding the coach to a higher standard than they hold themselves? Pinch a secretary's butt once twenty years ago? Done. Text the #1 recruit in the land 5 times 2 hours before it was permissible to do so, thereby drawing a sanction? You're out. Or something like that.
Which brings me to the most revered man in recent years in football coaching -- Tony Dungy, a man who has won, a man who looks very comfortable in his own skin, a man who has mentored many, including, most notably, Michael Vick. A man who coached in the NFL for so long that he won't have the possible baggage of transgressions while having coached in college. A man who just might have one more gig left in him and who might relish the challenge of helping heal the Penn State community. Tony Dungy would attract top-notch assistants, at least 2-3 of whom, under his mentoring (for coaching, recruiting and good conduct) could grow into successors when he and the powers that be in State College believe that they have done much to help restore Penn State's brand.
Many of the current coaches whose names are bandied about are probably scared. If they're successful, they probably have a very good gig, one where they aren't under a constant microscope for the types of things that any coach in State College now will be. At one point, it would have been an honor to survive the scrutiny to be tapped to succeed Joe Paterno (even if frightening that the comparisons to him would have been harsh). Now, it's not so much an honor as a burden -- a burden of proving what Paterno preached but ultimately failed to live up to -- that he and his program were better than all others when it came to doing the right thing -- playing hard and fair, graduating players, behaving well. That would be a tough set of standards to meet, one that might rival the requirements for canonization.
I don't want to equate Tony Dungy with sainthood, as that's not fair to anyone. But he's a terrific guy with a great track record, someone who is as respected -- if not more respected -- than anyone out there who might be available to coach Penn State. And while he might be comfortably retired and enjoying his TV work, this could be the one challenge that might interest him enough to come back to the sidelines -- to help heal a once-sacred community and set standards of excellence in actions and not, sadly, in just words.
This could be a great match.
Friday, November 11, 2011
The End of the Innocence: Penn State, Football and Us
Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn't have a care in the world
With mommy and daddy standing by
But "happily ever after" fails
And we've been poisoned by these fairly tales
The lawyers dwell on small details. . .
-- from Don Henley's "The End of the Innocence."
I've waited for a while to comment on the Penn State situation because of two factors. First, as a native Pennsylvanian and Pennsylvania resident, I have gone through many emotions -- disbelief, shock, anger, frustration and sadness, to name just five. Second, I know from experience that it's good to let a difficult situation settle in to gain some perspective before writing on it.
The entire situation is a very sad one and one where there are no winners. Everyone lost, particularly what we'll probably learn are dozens if not hundreds of young boys who were victims of Jerry Sandusky and a culture/system that failed to protect them. My guess is that the situation will get worse before it gets better, because we will learn many more disturbing facts as the investigators continue to turn over rocks. My guess also is that certain powers at Penn State -- most notably Joe Paterno and the higher ups in the university -- knew of Sandusky's "dirty little secret" long before now on-leave assistant coach Mike McQueary witnessed a horrifying act in 2002. Why no one did anything -- other than presumably force Sandusky to an early retirement near the peak of his career perhaps because his secret was coming into their workplace too often -- is a question that we will discuss for a long time. At the core, a culture existed in the now-misnamed Happy Valley that failed to protect some of society's most vulnerable members. We all feel deeply for the victims.
Beyond that, we learned something very disturbing about our society, our belief system, our needs and ourselves. As a Pennsylvanian, I can assure you that I have wonderful neighbors, people who extend many kindnesses to one another. I have among my friends many Penn State alums and friends whose kids have gone to Penn State. Forever, they all have cherished the place -- as some type of haven unsullied by the pace, grime and higher crime rates of big cities, as a haven where goodness rules and where a demigod named Joe Paterno set a morale code on the campus that enabled the university to play its extracurricular games on national stages at a high level while ostensibly not sacrificing its standards of making sure that players both graduate and behave. You could hear the reverence of Penn State, State College and Paterno in the way they talked about the place. Some would watch Penn State games with life-sized cardboard cutouts of Paterno in their family rooms. The whole aura of Penn State -- and their connection to it -- gave them an extra bounce in their step.
And now that's all gone. Here are two pieces -- one from the leading sports talk show host in Philadelphia (a Penn State alum) and a business writer in Philadelphia (also a Penn State alum) that touch upon this very notion. The former suggests that perhaps the gritty town from which he went to Penn State wasn't so bad after all. The latter -- who chose Penn State over Temple because of similar idyllic reasons -- is shaken to the core. Make no mistake -- first and foremost they have expressed sympathy for the victims -- but they too are hurting because they are wondering how their once-sacred alma mater could have let them down and, derivatively, how they -- educated and intelligent people -- could have bought into a system in the first place that let vulnerable kids and our society down so greatly.
And perhaps because so many reporters and commentators have covered so many aspects of this case that I will choose a different angle. Many have commented on the power of Joe Paterno, the culpability of the administration, whether university president Graham Spanier (whose specialty as an academic ironically is family therapy) should have lost his job, whether Paterno should have lost his job, whether assistant coach Mike McQueary should have lost his job (he's on administrative leave), what happened when the university seemingly compelled Jerry Sandusky's departure over a decade ago, why some students rioted after the news of Paterno's dismissal, whether Saturday's game against Nebraska should have been played, whether the remainder of the season should have been cancelled and many other topics related directly to the university, the people there and its alumni. There have been many eloquent pieces written, from Phil Taylor's great piece in Sports Illustrated to dozens of columns particularly in Pennsylvania papers. I would recommend many of them.
But the topic that I would like to address is how and why our society has evolved the way it has, why we need football so much, why we have put it on a pedestal, why people's self-esteem can rise and fall through a connection with a program or an institution and its successes and failures and, correspondingly, the lengths that people will go to ignore problems in order to protect their beloved institutions seemingly at all costs. Is it simply human nature that we don't feel complete unless we align with a group, a school, a team everyday in some way? Does it have to be the case that we can't feel good about ourselves unless those associations are excellent? And when I say "we" I mean people in general, as we all know of someone who thinks that football is silly and that spending a day watching a contest means that you're spending a day not exercising, not reading, not improving your house or volunteering to help others.
One linked writer wrote of all of her Penn State swag that decorates her home and her cube at the newspaper. The other linked writer talked of how he wasn't proud of where he grew up, and Penn State was supposed to be an idyllic, special place. But in the end, does the omnipresence of the swag suggest the worshipping of a golden calf, a lesson that the human race once learned a very long time ago? And does the relative dissatisfaction with where one grew up -- and a thanks that one did not have to endure the gritty streets where Temple University is located -- say something bad about ourselves? That we equate proximity to a factory with bad values and four years in Happy Valley with good ones automatically and without question? More poignantly, should we feel superior about ourselves and our institutions -- and blindly follow them and not question whether sports get emphasized out of proportion -- just because they have "excellent" football programs and coaches who seem larger than life. Maybe we don't give ourselves, our communities and what we do daily enough credit, that maybe all of that stuff is good enough -- without a need to feel better because our gridders beat up on someone else's.
At the end of a day, football is -- or perhaps should be -- an extracurricular activity the same way student government, the band and the school newspaper are. At the end of the day, head football coaches are university employees and should not be more important than the university president or the university itself. In David Halberstam's book on Bill Belichick, the author spoke of how the coach's father, a legendary football scout, responded to comments that his son was a genius. "Genius," the father mused. "All he does is run up and down on the sidelines in a sweatshirt coaching football."
For an institution to be worthy of enduring respect, it must be bigger than any coach, any team, any professor, any department and command the respect of those who work there. Why? Because people come and go, but the institution -- if having the right values -- will and should endure for much longer. Penn State had, has and will have much more going for it than the football team and its coach. None of my friends who went to Penn State had any involvement with the football program other than going to games and all have much to recommend themselves regardless of where they went to school and whether their alma mater had a good football team or a legendary coach. But somehow the football program grew to be bigger than the school and, tragically, forgot why it was there and, as a result, a reasonable measure of accountability.
The entire Penn State affair shows how societies can lose perspective on what's important. I hope and pray that everyone involved with Penn State -- especially its board of trustees and its leadership -- does a deep dive as to what a major university's priorities should be and, over time, reconstitute and re-earn the faith and trust that many placed -- without question -- into Pennsylvania State University. And, in the process, teach us that what we do every day -- by being good neighbors, good friends and good family members -- should give us enough self-esteem that we don't have to blindly protect our institutions and football programs at all costs so that we can feel better about ourselves. If Penn State's leaders can achieve that, then as a public university Penn State will do all citizens a lot more good than Joe Paterno's 409 wins and packed stadiums in State College ever have.
Pennsylvania State University, its football team and its coach were among the things and people that the average Pennsylvanian and alumnus could believe in as some of the best things their society had to offer, shining examples of what a public university, its teams and its leaders should be. The news of the past few weeks ended the innocence of those who were the true believers in everything blue and white, all but a few of whom are decent people, the neighbors and friends of you and me. Yet, that tragic realization is far eclipsed by the stories of the victims, whose innocence ended far too early and far too awfully. Penn State alums would readily trade their current misery -- and the happiness they had while they were in State College -- so that this whole thing would never have happened.
Let's hope and pray that those same decent people will work to heal their community, to do right by the victims, and to work to make Penn State a better place.
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn't have a care in the world
With mommy and daddy standing by
But "happily ever after" fails
And we've been poisoned by these fairly tales
The lawyers dwell on small details. . .
-- from Don Henley's "The End of the Innocence."
I've waited for a while to comment on the Penn State situation because of two factors. First, as a native Pennsylvanian and Pennsylvania resident, I have gone through many emotions -- disbelief, shock, anger, frustration and sadness, to name just five. Second, I know from experience that it's good to let a difficult situation settle in to gain some perspective before writing on it.
The entire situation is a very sad one and one where there are no winners. Everyone lost, particularly what we'll probably learn are dozens if not hundreds of young boys who were victims of Jerry Sandusky and a culture/system that failed to protect them. My guess is that the situation will get worse before it gets better, because we will learn many more disturbing facts as the investigators continue to turn over rocks. My guess also is that certain powers at Penn State -- most notably Joe Paterno and the higher ups in the university -- knew of Sandusky's "dirty little secret" long before now on-leave assistant coach Mike McQueary witnessed a horrifying act in 2002. Why no one did anything -- other than presumably force Sandusky to an early retirement near the peak of his career perhaps because his secret was coming into their workplace too often -- is a question that we will discuss for a long time. At the core, a culture existed in the now-misnamed Happy Valley that failed to protect some of society's most vulnerable members. We all feel deeply for the victims.
Beyond that, we learned something very disturbing about our society, our belief system, our needs and ourselves. As a Pennsylvanian, I can assure you that I have wonderful neighbors, people who extend many kindnesses to one another. I have among my friends many Penn State alums and friends whose kids have gone to Penn State. Forever, they all have cherished the place -- as some type of haven unsullied by the pace, grime and higher crime rates of big cities, as a haven where goodness rules and where a demigod named Joe Paterno set a morale code on the campus that enabled the university to play its extracurricular games on national stages at a high level while ostensibly not sacrificing its standards of making sure that players both graduate and behave. You could hear the reverence of Penn State, State College and Paterno in the way they talked about the place. Some would watch Penn State games with life-sized cardboard cutouts of Paterno in their family rooms. The whole aura of Penn State -- and their connection to it -- gave them an extra bounce in their step.
And now that's all gone. Here are two pieces -- one from the leading sports talk show host in Philadelphia (a Penn State alum) and a business writer in Philadelphia (also a Penn State alum) that touch upon this very notion. The former suggests that perhaps the gritty town from which he went to Penn State wasn't so bad after all. The latter -- who chose Penn State over Temple because of similar idyllic reasons -- is shaken to the core. Make no mistake -- first and foremost they have expressed sympathy for the victims -- but they too are hurting because they are wondering how their once-sacred alma mater could have let them down and, derivatively, how they -- educated and intelligent people -- could have bought into a system in the first place that let vulnerable kids and our society down so greatly.
And perhaps because so many reporters and commentators have covered so many aspects of this case that I will choose a different angle. Many have commented on the power of Joe Paterno, the culpability of the administration, whether university president Graham Spanier (whose specialty as an academic ironically is family therapy) should have lost his job, whether Paterno should have lost his job, whether assistant coach Mike McQueary should have lost his job (he's on administrative leave), what happened when the university seemingly compelled Jerry Sandusky's departure over a decade ago, why some students rioted after the news of Paterno's dismissal, whether Saturday's game against Nebraska should have been played, whether the remainder of the season should have been cancelled and many other topics related directly to the university, the people there and its alumni. There have been many eloquent pieces written, from Phil Taylor's great piece in Sports Illustrated to dozens of columns particularly in Pennsylvania papers. I would recommend many of them.
But the topic that I would like to address is how and why our society has evolved the way it has, why we need football so much, why we have put it on a pedestal, why people's self-esteem can rise and fall through a connection with a program or an institution and its successes and failures and, correspondingly, the lengths that people will go to ignore problems in order to protect their beloved institutions seemingly at all costs. Is it simply human nature that we don't feel complete unless we align with a group, a school, a team everyday in some way? Does it have to be the case that we can't feel good about ourselves unless those associations are excellent? And when I say "we" I mean people in general, as we all know of someone who thinks that football is silly and that spending a day watching a contest means that you're spending a day not exercising, not reading, not improving your house or volunteering to help others.
One linked writer wrote of all of her Penn State swag that decorates her home and her cube at the newspaper. The other linked writer talked of how he wasn't proud of where he grew up, and Penn State was supposed to be an idyllic, special place. But in the end, does the omnipresence of the swag suggest the worshipping of a golden calf, a lesson that the human race once learned a very long time ago? And does the relative dissatisfaction with where one grew up -- and a thanks that one did not have to endure the gritty streets where Temple University is located -- say something bad about ourselves? That we equate proximity to a factory with bad values and four years in Happy Valley with good ones automatically and without question? More poignantly, should we feel superior about ourselves and our institutions -- and blindly follow them and not question whether sports get emphasized out of proportion -- just because they have "excellent" football programs and coaches who seem larger than life. Maybe we don't give ourselves, our communities and what we do daily enough credit, that maybe all of that stuff is good enough -- without a need to feel better because our gridders beat up on someone else's.
At the end of a day, football is -- or perhaps should be -- an extracurricular activity the same way student government, the band and the school newspaper are. At the end of the day, head football coaches are university employees and should not be more important than the university president or the university itself. In David Halberstam's book on Bill Belichick, the author spoke of how the coach's father, a legendary football scout, responded to comments that his son was a genius. "Genius," the father mused. "All he does is run up and down on the sidelines in a sweatshirt coaching football."
For an institution to be worthy of enduring respect, it must be bigger than any coach, any team, any professor, any department and command the respect of those who work there. Why? Because people come and go, but the institution -- if having the right values -- will and should endure for much longer. Penn State had, has and will have much more going for it than the football team and its coach. None of my friends who went to Penn State had any involvement with the football program other than going to games and all have much to recommend themselves regardless of where they went to school and whether their alma mater had a good football team or a legendary coach. But somehow the football program grew to be bigger than the school and, tragically, forgot why it was there and, as a result, a reasonable measure of accountability.
The entire Penn State affair shows how societies can lose perspective on what's important. I hope and pray that everyone involved with Penn State -- especially its board of trustees and its leadership -- does a deep dive as to what a major university's priorities should be and, over time, reconstitute and re-earn the faith and trust that many placed -- without question -- into Pennsylvania State University. And, in the process, teach us that what we do every day -- by being good neighbors, good friends and good family members -- should give us enough self-esteem that we don't have to blindly protect our institutions and football programs at all costs so that we can feel better about ourselves. If Penn State's leaders can achieve that, then as a public university Penn State will do all citizens a lot more good than Joe Paterno's 409 wins and packed stadiums in State College ever have.
Pennsylvania State University, its football team and its coach were among the things and people that the average Pennsylvanian and alumnus could believe in as some of the best things their society had to offer, shining examples of what a public university, its teams and its leaders should be. The news of the past few weeks ended the innocence of those who were the true believers in everything blue and white, all but a few of whom are decent people, the neighbors and friends of you and me. Yet, that tragic realization is far eclipsed by the stories of the victims, whose innocence ended far too early and far too awfully. Penn State alums would readily trade their current misery -- and the happiness they had while they were in State College -- so that this whole thing would never have happened.
Let's hope and pray that those same decent people will work to heal their community, to do right by the victims, and to work to make Penn State a better place.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Is Harvard Officially the Evil Empire of Ivy Men's Basketball?
You have to either subscribe to ESPN the Insider or ESPN the Magazine to get the article about Harvard's recruiting efforts, which amount to trying to lure 3- and 4-star recruits to Cambridge. It's pretty amazing as to how a) Coach Tommy Amaker (who still hasn't convinced me that he is a good technical coach, as opposed to a good recruiter) can lure these kids to Cambridge, b) how so many top players are good enough students to play at Harvard and c) how the kid featured in the article said that he liked the concept of Harvard because of the possibility of making good basketball connections and going to "an Ivy." From this article, it also sounds like talent-loaded Harvard has a bunch of recruits who could be the Ivy's version of the "Fab Five" -- AAU teammates who might choose the Cantabs over bigger-time basketball schools.
Too often in my life have I run into situations that seemed too good to be true. Sure, call me a jealous hoops zealot who is lamenting the loss of the vivid Penn-Princeton rivalry and who resents Harvard as a wannabe interloper. I can assure you that's not it. I enjoyed watching the Crimson last year and marveled at the assemblage of talent. (I also think that had Sydney Johnson coached the Crimson, they wouldn't have lost a single game). It's just that it seems hard to believe that having gone 65 years without an NCAA tournament bid and without having put a very good team on the court for decades, that all of a sudden perhaps dozens of top-notch recruits are considering Harvard over scholarship schools with good academics and traditional Ivy basketball titans Penn and Princeton, not to mention recent superpower Cornell, which had about as good a three-year run of any Ivy team in a long time.
I recall talking to a Princeton assistant about six, seven years about a top 100 recruit who had a connection to Princeton. The kid was considering Duke (he eventually went there), but word came through that he was interested in Princeton. The recruit went to the school for a visit, but he ultimately chose Duke. Commented the assistant, "We always lose kids when we go up against Stanford, Duke and schools like that." I'm sure that Penn probably would say the same thing. Yes, the schools get good recruits, but increasingly over the years both Penn and Princeton have lost players to schools that somehow Harvard is now competing against and perhaps winning.
What gives? It's not that Harvard has a winning tradition (it doesn't). It's not that Harvard has a great facility (it doesn't). It's not that Harvard has an outstanding coach (Amaker didn't do well at either Seton Hall or Michigan, and while he's recruited well at Harvard he hasn't won a title yet, although with the talent he has he should mail it in and win a title this year). Sure, Harvard has a huge name, but since when has the huge name simply been enough? Especially when you have schools with storied programs in your conference.
Something just doesn't seem to add up. It could be that Harvard finally has gotten it's men's hoops' act together and corralled the optimal combination of hoops talent that can qualify for Harvard. If so, congratulations for catching lightning in a bottle or something like that. Go on-line if you subscribe to ESPN the Insider or buy the magazine and see what you think. Is it newly found brilliance on the Charles River, or something else? And, if so, what?
Any way you slice it, Harvard is certainly defining itself as the team to beat (perhaps for years) in the Ivies. They'll still have to beat archival Yale (which has a good team this season) and take on Penn and Princeton on back-to-back nights twice this season. That's a tough challenge whether you have three- or four-star recruits -- or not.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
More Evidence That Penn State Football Is Eroding Even More
A top recruit from the Philadelphia suburbs, who once gave an oral commitment to the Nittany Lions, is going to Wisconsin.
The reason offered up is that Wisconsin is Offensive Linemen U., and the recent article in Sports Illustrated -- an elegy to the Badgers' development of offensive linemen -- had to help. Look, if a kid wants to go into a profession (and especially where there is no grad school to gain an extra credential), why shouldn't he look at the school best suited to give him the training to get to that career? Because that's precisely what J.J. Denman is doing, and, yes, Wisconsin is a good academic school too.
But here's the thing for Penn State devotees -- Penn State used to get kids like this automatically just by showing up. Penn State was the default drive, the major aspiration -- good program, kids get their degrees, chance to vie for a national title. But the first is in question and the last hasn't been true for a while. So, recruits like Denman will go to a place where not only to they have a better chance to fulfill their potential, sadly, they also will have a better chance to connect with the head coach (read the whole article and see what I mean).
Penn State fans shouldn't be mad at J.J. Denman. He's doing the right thing for himself. If they're frustrated, they should direct their disappointments and dissent to the Penn State administration, which has let the entire issue of succession planning for Joe Paterno get out of hand. Look, I've written this before -- Paterno's body of work is tremendous in every way -- but how far is the administration supposed to let the program slip because they're honoring the past -- extremely so -- at the expense of the present?
No, of course, Penn State won't put together two consecutive 0-12 seasons and fall off the proverbial cliff, but the Nittany Lions are a far cry from what they used to be -- a dominant presence as to the right way to run a major college program that can win championships. Perhaps Penn State fans are okay with the current state of play, and that's okay if the majority of them are.
It's just that they, the university, Coach Paterno and his friends -- they all can do a lot better.
And everyone knows it.
The reason offered up is that Wisconsin is Offensive Linemen U., and the recent article in Sports Illustrated -- an elegy to the Badgers' development of offensive linemen -- had to help. Look, if a kid wants to go into a profession (and especially where there is no grad school to gain an extra credential), why shouldn't he look at the school best suited to give him the training to get to that career? Because that's precisely what J.J. Denman is doing, and, yes, Wisconsin is a good academic school too.
But here's the thing for Penn State devotees -- Penn State used to get kids like this automatically just by showing up. Penn State was the default drive, the major aspiration -- good program, kids get their degrees, chance to vie for a national title. But the first is in question and the last hasn't been true for a while. So, recruits like Denman will go to a place where not only to they have a better chance to fulfill their potential, sadly, they also will have a better chance to connect with the head coach (read the whole article and see what I mean).
Penn State fans shouldn't be mad at J.J. Denman. He's doing the right thing for himself. If they're frustrated, they should direct their disappointments and dissent to the Penn State administration, which has let the entire issue of succession planning for Joe Paterno get out of hand. Look, I've written this before -- Paterno's body of work is tremendous in every way -- but how far is the administration supposed to let the program slip because they're honoring the past -- extremely so -- at the expense of the present?
No, of course, Penn State won't put together two consecutive 0-12 seasons and fall off the proverbial cliff, but the Nittany Lions are a far cry from what they used to be -- a dominant presence as to the right way to run a major college program that can win championships. Perhaps Penn State fans are okay with the current state of play, and that's okay if the majority of them are.
It's just that they, the university, Coach Paterno and his friends -- they all can do a lot better.
And everyone knows it.
Former Buffalo Bills Center Kent Hull Dead at 50
There have been some wonderful testimonials about Kent Hull.
We all should aspire to have similar things said about us.
We all should aspire to have similar things said about us.
Friday, October 14, 2011
On the NBA Lockout
Required Reading: Michael Wilbon's post on ESPN.com yesterday.
I am not an economist, but in a world saturated with alternatives -- whether in music, theater, movies or sports -- I do wonder how many discretionary dollars are out there for the average person to spend. Tickets are not cheap, and we all go through scaling back when funds become more scarce or, alternatively, when we perceive that in the near future there might be a time where funds might become more scarce.
And it's easiest to cut either the biggest ticket items or the recurring items that add up to be the biggest tickets. You might not take a vacation, make that extra improvement to your home, buy a car or a computer or a sofa, you might eat out less, cancel the health club membership and go to the barest bones cable TV subscription, among other things. You also might give up your tickets, opting to go onto StubHub, Craig's List or eBay to buy single-game tickets. If you live in a town where the team isn't vying for a title, there's a good chance that you might be able to buy tickets for below face value. And for the games that you want. You'll do, in essence, what Apple did to the recorded music business with iTunes. Instead of having to buy an entire album -- one with 1.5 songs that you want and 7.5 songs that make you wonder why they were recorded -- you'll be able to zero in on what you want.
All that is background to a general observation that the NBA is in big trouble. To begin with, it already has too many teams and too many teams make the post-season. Because there are too many teams, there are too many bad teams. A few years ago I was in Washington to see the Wizards play the Pacers, and more than half the luxury boxes were unlit and the arena was less than half full. That situation repeats itself around the league more often than the league would like to admit. And now there's the lockout, and, as Michael Wilbon points out, the NBA pales in comparison to the NFL. A lot of people would have suffered withdrawal symptoms had the NFL not started on time. It seems like few are noticing that the NBA might not start on time. Atop that, there's college basketball, which has a very big following and which many conferences play at a high level. Of course, it's not the NBA, but it's still good basketball, sometimes very good fundamental basketball, too.
I don't know whether this still holds true or not, but I have heard it said that in supermarkets if a bread company misses a delivery, it will lose its shelf space to the company that delivers timely that day. Analogously, if the NBA fails to deliver a product when its season is supposed to begin, the consumers will fill up their time with other entertainment options -- other sports, for example. Now, of course, some will miss the NBA terribly and hurry back, but others will attrite simply because they'll have allocated that time to something that they enjoy -- a different brand, a different flavor, so to speak. And then where will the NBA be?
The NBA is facing a perfect storm -- a lockout, a bad economy, intense competition for the discretionary entertainment dollar, a product that has needed improvement for years and a league economy that has more teams losing money than making it. Unless if figures out a way to have some good come out of this and perhaps turn itself into the basketball version of the English Premier Soccer League, the product that returns after what seems to be looking like a long lockout might be significantly weakened.
Michael Wilbon is right -- there is plenty of money to go around, so the parties should figure out a way to settle the dispute and get back to work.
Where are Bob Lanier and Larry O'Brien when you need them?*
I am not an economist, but in a world saturated with alternatives -- whether in music, theater, movies or sports -- I do wonder how many discretionary dollars are out there for the average person to spend. Tickets are not cheap, and we all go through scaling back when funds become more scarce or, alternatively, when we perceive that in the near future there might be a time where funds might become more scarce.
And it's easiest to cut either the biggest ticket items or the recurring items that add up to be the biggest tickets. You might not take a vacation, make that extra improvement to your home, buy a car or a computer or a sofa, you might eat out less, cancel the health club membership and go to the barest bones cable TV subscription, among other things. You also might give up your tickets, opting to go onto StubHub, Craig's List or eBay to buy single-game tickets. If you live in a town where the team isn't vying for a title, there's a good chance that you might be able to buy tickets for below face value. And for the games that you want. You'll do, in essence, what Apple did to the recorded music business with iTunes. Instead of having to buy an entire album -- one with 1.5 songs that you want and 7.5 songs that make you wonder why they were recorded -- you'll be able to zero in on what you want.
All that is background to a general observation that the NBA is in big trouble. To begin with, it already has too many teams and too many teams make the post-season. Because there are too many teams, there are too many bad teams. A few years ago I was in Washington to see the Wizards play the Pacers, and more than half the luxury boxes were unlit and the arena was less than half full. That situation repeats itself around the league more often than the league would like to admit. And now there's the lockout, and, as Michael Wilbon points out, the NBA pales in comparison to the NFL. A lot of people would have suffered withdrawal symptoms had the NFL not started on time. It seems like few are noticing that the NBA might not start on time. Atop that, there's college basketball, which has a very big following and which many conferences play at a high level. Of course, it's not the NBA, but it's still good basketball, sometimes very good fundamental basketball, too.
I don't know whether this still holds true or not, but I have heard it said that in supermarkets if a bread company misses a delivery, it will lose its shelf space to the company that delivers timely that day. Analogously, if the NBA fails to deliver a product when its season is supposed to begin, the consumers will fill up their time with other entertainment options -- other sports, for example. Now, of course, some will miss the NBA terribly and hurry back, but others will attrite simply because they'll have allocated that time to something that they enjoy -- a different brand, a different flavor, so to speak. And then where will the NBA be?
The NBA is facing a perfect storm -- a lockout, a bad economy, intense competition for the discretionary entertainment dollar, a product that has needed improvement for years and a league economy that has more teams losing money than making it. Unless if figures out a way to have some good come out of this and perhaps turn itself into the basketball version of the English Premier Soccer League, the product that returns after what seems to be looking like a long lockout might be significantly weakened.
Michael Wilbon is right -- there is plenty of money to go around, so the parties should figure out a way to settle the dispute and get back to work.
Where are Bob Lanier and Larry O'Brien when you need them?*
Sunday, October 09, 2011
Reflections on the Phillies' Season and Post-Season
Most Phillies' fans would have told you two things -- that failing to reach the World Series would be a disappointment and that they had their doubts that the team would get there. As to the former, well, the Phillies and the media pumped out that expectation ever since the team signed Cliff Lee in the off-season. As to the latter, forget the ghosts of Chico Ruiz stealing home against them down the stretch in '64 and the pinch-hitting of ageless wonders Manny Mota and Vic Davalillo in the '77 playoffs against the Dodgers, no these concerns were more real -- inconsistent hitting, a young bullpen, and an aging core of position players.
So, was I disappointed that the team lost to the Cardinals? Yes.
Was I shocked? No.
Will it take me a while to get over it? Thankfully, I have other interests, but it stings a little.
But let's go through the roster, the season and the post-season in no great order.
1. The Team Paid Cliff Lee the Huge Bucks To Win Game 2 of the NLDS. I hope that this point doesn't get lost in the vortex of blame that's getting thrust upon Ryan Howard, Hunter Pence and any Phillie not named Rollins, Utley, Victorino or Francisco. The Phillies trashed the Cards in Game 1, just slammed them around, and took a 4-0 lead in the first inning of Game 2 with Cliff Lee on the mound. Check mate was in the offing, not just for the game but for the series, because teams down 2-0 have something like a 4-37 record in the post-season. The Phillies needed Cliff Lee not only to shut down the Cards in the bottom of the first (which he did not do), but for the rest of the game. Win that game, and the series is all but over. Let the Cards come back against a guy who will come in no lower than fourth in the NL Cy Young voting, and, well, the irony is that a Philadelphia team turned the Cards into Rocky. So, as much as Phillies' fans love Cliff Lee, he's among the top of the list for goats in this series.
2. Businesses Make Decisions When They're On Top That Can Cause Them to Lose Their Edge. You have to remember that despite all the accolades tossed Pat Gillick's way (including the accolade to end all accolades, a spot in the Hall of Fame), as Baseball Prospectus has pointed out, all of his big signings failed (see, e.g., Adam Eaton), but his genius lay in the fact that he kept on tinkering to find a piece here and a piece there. So, while to compare Ruben Amaro, Jr. to him right now isn't fair (as Amaro has many years to go in his career), Amaro made some big moves that might turn out to be questionable, such as a) signing Raul Ibanez in the first place (despite Phillies' fans love of chanting his name, there didn't seem to be much logic in adding a 36 year-old player to an aging team) and b) perhaps what will prove to be the biggest error (and might have proven to be even if he hadn't ripped his Achilles) signing Ryan Howard to a huge deal at $25 million per year (when at the time the reports were that the new contract made him untradeable and that most other GMs thought the Phillies seriously overpaid). Look, I like Ryan Howard enough, but in the end, baseball is a stone-cold business, and the Phillies aren't the only team that makes this type of mistake (see, e.g., the Yankees and Derek Jeter). These moves might have foretold the results of this season (but only if you're a sharpshooter of a soothsayer).
3. The Team's Plan Didn't Include Getting Younger. I will be the first to admit that baseball mystifies me, at least in terms of the health of the players. Baseball isn't nearly as physical for its players the way football, hockey, soccer and even basketball are. But position players (save catchers) don't have the physical demands that the other sports' players do. Pitchers do have physical demands, because pitching is an unnatural motion and because of the "repetitive motion" aspects that peck at all sorts of workers (including those who work at keyboards). Yet, even with that -- the swinging and the throwing -- baseball players seem to get nicked up at an alarming rate, with the types of injuries that linger. And it's typically the older players who get hurt more and whose injuries linger. A look at the Phillies' injuries this season would have revealed a damaged infield particularly. By having the oldest roster in baseball, the Phillies exposed themselves to both roster depletions and day-to-day flaws that younger teams (within reason, as a team of rookies won't win much) did not have. Put simply, they need to get younger -- and fast -- or risk suffering more of the same problems in the upcoming years. (Yes, you can surmise all you wish that the elimination of steroids might contribute to the injury problem, but unless anyone can prove anything now, it's probably not worth it because that comment could apply to every team).
4. The Team Was Built to Pack a Stadium with Big Names and Sell Merchandise, But the Front Office Didn't Evolve Its Thinking to Include Continuing to Win World Series. Go through the roster -- Howard, Utley, Rollins, Victorino, Halladay, Lee, Hamels, Oswalt -- and those are some pretty big names. You see them on replica jerseys and jersey shirts around Citizens Bank Park, which has had something like 200 consecutive sellouts in a football town in a down economy. At the beginning of the season, fans boasted that if you had a ticket to a game, you had an 80% chance to see one of the "Phour Aces." (The fifth pitcher, Vance Worley, actually outpitched the fourth -- Oswalt -- much of the year). The signing of Cliff Lee -- which came as a big surprise -- the lingering aura of 2008, the four straight division titles -- all of them pumped up the team and the fans. But a deeper dive beneath the surface revealed an untested bullpen (which got old -- fast, too -- with early injuries to Jose Contreras and Brad Lidge and the final falling off the table by J.C. Romero) and a lineup with players whose on-base percentages weren't exactly dazzling if you weren't named, say, Utley or Ruiz. Lots of wild swinging, lots of impatience at the plate, lots of question marks that existed beneath the veneer of confidence, accountability and teamwork. In the end, despite the big names, the one thing that concerned everyone -- consistent hitting -- came back to bite the Phillies. They just didn't have it.
5. Vanity Hurt the Phillies Too. Two years ago, they carried a Rule 5 player on the roster -- David Herndon -- for no good reason, costing more worthy minor leaguers spots on the Major League roster. This year, they "found' a utility player named Michael Martinez on the Rule 5 draft, but, get this, he was 28 and was on the Nationals' roster. And they decided to keep him, despite a weak bat and a glove that got increasingly iffy as the season wore on. Put simply, neither player belonged in the Majors at the time he was there. Worse than that, they carried two players this year with injuries that deprived them of their effectiveness -- pinch-hitter Ross Gload and third baseman Placido Polanco. It's pretty gutsy to think that you can win with folks with bad hips and sports hernias. Sorry, but while a fan can accept that many players have nagging injuries, it's hard to accept carrying players with very much diminished offensive capacities. That hurt the team more than the team let on.
6. For All the Big Money, Ryan Howard Must Evolve. The Phillies had a rookie, many years ago, who hit .198 his first year, struck out about 180 times, showed some pop and walked enough. That player got more selective at the plate, to the point where by the middle and end of his career his strikeouts were "acceptable" and far less than his rookie year, his walks were up, and his on-base percentage -- batting third -- was about .400 every year. Several years later, they had another infielder who had the looks of a Hall of Famer -- he could run, hit for power, hit for average -- but after a few good years he suffered a downward spiral that made him into a super-utility player for other teams, owing to the fact that he just couldn't lay off sliders that were sometimes horribly out of the strike zone. The former player -- a third baseman -- is in the Hall of Fame, a guy by the name of Mike Schmidt. The latter player -- is now the team's third base coach, a guy by the name of Juan Samuel. But ask anyone who saw Samuel in his first year or two, and he thought that he saw someone who would be a very special player.
But Samuel failed to evolve, didn't figure out how to become more selective at the plate, and became exposed as an everyday player. He had a nice career, but baseball requires continuous adjustments. Hit inside pitches, they'll throw you pitches outside and in the dirt. Murder fastballs, and you'll see slop. The greats continue to adjust.
Ryan Howard is between those two players. Unlike Schmidt, he wasn't born with the great batting eye that led to on-base percentages that were dazzling. But Schmidt did get more selective as his career unfolded. Unlike Samuel, while outside "slop" breaking balls do paralyze him, Howard rebounds from downward spurts within a season to seem plateaued with a batting average below .270, an OBP around to slighly below .350 and with similar (and very good) power numbers. That's pretty impressive given that he appears to be the same hitter that he was when he came up, albeit less effective because of injuries and because other teams now know how to pitch him.
So, the Phillies have what they have. A cleanup hitter who is not an elite hitter, but a dangerous one who will continue to put up among the best power numbers. Regrettably, the human mind focuses on memorable failures and spectacular successes, and, with well-known professional athletes, the former seem to stick in fans' minds more than the latter. But if Howard were to try to take a page out of Schmidt's book regarding selectivity and approach, he might be able to put up even better results. It does seem kind of late in his career to do that, though.
7. There are Good Things, Too. So Let's Focus on Them for a Moment. Skipper Charlie Manuel and the team's leaders have created a culture of hard work and accountability. Watch a game and you normally can see the bounce in the players' steps, their passion for the game (both on the field and in the dugout). I don't expect that to change much. John Mayberry, Jr., emerged as someone who might be able to play every day in left field or at first base (to spell the injured Howard, who might be gone until July). The top three starting pitchers are as good as any in baseball. Some of the young relievers -- Bastardo (despite his late-season woes, which should be fixable) and Stutes (despite his late-season fatigue) -- showed promise, as did Herndon in his relatively limited role in his second year in the big leagues. The (rapid) aging of the team might overshadow these developments, but remember that the front office has a lot of money going off payroll and will tinker with the roster in a way to improve it -- by getting younger and signing some hitters who are more selective at the plate. Those sellouts and all that merchandise portend that a bold GM will get the green light from ownership to make more moves to fortify the team.
8. So, Let's Look at the Team.
There are lots of decisions to be made. Presumably, Brad Lidge ($12 million per) and Raul Ibanez ($11 million per) will not be back. The club has a $16 million option for Roy Oswalt, and I don't think that they'd take him for half the salary. He was too inconsistent, and it would look like after Halladay, Lee and Hamels two of Kyle Kendrick, Vance Worley and Joe Blanton will be the starters. Most likely, it will be the latter two, but don't count out the possibility of a trade involving Worley. Also, Kendrick had a very good year (period) and made $2 million last season and is eligible for arbitration again. You have to wonder whether the Phillies will let him go rather than risk paying him say $4 million as a sixth starter and long man in the bullpen.
As for the bullpen, Jose Contreras and Brad Lidge should not return even if for low numbers. Both are up there in years and injury-prone, and their best days are behind them. Ryan Madson in all likelihood will not return, leaving a huge hole in the bullpen (and showing the first break in the "core" group that has been with the team since '08 and before). The reason is simple -- his agent, Scott Boras -- delivers for his clients, and one of the 30 MLB teams out there will overpay for Madson the way the Nats did for Jayson Werth. The rest of the 'pen is relatively young, needs some veteran leadership, but somehow, some way, teams constitute bullpens. Sure, the Phillies' 'pen might not rival Atlanta's, but it won't have to. I have full confidence on this score that the team will have a bullpen sufficient to do the job in 2012.
But pitching isn't the biggest worry. The everyday lineup is.
Catching seems to be in reasonably good shape, even with Carlos Ruiz's failure to hit in the post-season. He has some pop, he has a good on-base percentage, and while he isn't Joe Maurer or Yadier Molina, he is pretty good. Back-up Brian Schneider deserves a return, if only because the team was something like 28-6 or so when he started this year. The Phils don't have a young catcher who Schneider is blocking, as their best catching prospect, Sebastian Valle, is about 21 years old and years away.
Infield is the biggest question mark. Howard, ripped Achillies and all, might be out until July. Utley showed that he's a gamer in the post-season, but he's brittle and seemingly not his old self (his skipper offered in the post-season that he's about 75% of his old self). The leader, Rollins, is 32, had a good year after two bad ones, but is injury-prone. A team like the BoSox, big payroll and all, is likely to overpay for him to provide leadership in the clubhouse. The Red Sox would be wise to do so; the Phillies also would miss Rollins greatly. But the Phillies are in a pickle because of the Howard injury, their commitment to starting pitchers who are here to win now, their need to continue to sell out, their need for leadership and the fact that their best SS prospect (Freddy Galvis) isn't ready. Given the Howard injury and despite the team's need to get younger, look for the Phillies to (perhaps) overpay for Rollins. Placido Polanco at third is the big question mark -- he looks to be through, but the team owes him $8 million for 2012. Clearly, he's not the answer, and clearly, third would be a spot where the team could get younger.
Outfield isn't without its issues. Ibanez will be gone, although some AL team might ink him to a 1-year deal to be a part-time DH, and that would be a good investment. He's also a class act. Victorino is sold in center, but you have to wonder about Hunter Pence. Sure, he was an energy boost after Domonic Brown played fairly at best, but he's a wild swinger on a team that needs to show more plate discipline. Brown should figure in the mix next year, as should John Mayberry, Jr.
Overall, it's an aging lineup, injury prone, with many on the declining side of their careers, and lacking in plate discipline. Ruben Amaro, Jr. is a former Major Leaguer with a degree from Stanford, and he'll need to summon all of his smarts and best instincts to pivot this team into a state where it can contend for not one or two more years, but many. But while Amaro has proven to be a pretty good trader, at some point it also would be nice to see some home-grown talent populate the roster.
My view is that the team can contend for perhaps as many as three more division titles with this nucleus (and particularly with the starting pitching, assuming they ink Hamels to a well-deserved long-term deal), but it might be hard for them to get to or even win another World Series, thereby more so resembling the Braves who won 14 straight division titles but only 1 World Series than the Yankees, who won a fist full of World Series titles in the late 1990's.
This particular off-season will be one to watch closely.
So, was I disappointed that the team lost to the Cardinals? Yes.
Was I shocked? No.
Will it take me a while to get over it? Thankfully, I have other interests, but it stings a little.
But let's go through the roster, the season and the post-season in no great order.
1. The Team Paid Cliff Lee the Huge Bucks To Win Game 2 of the NLDS. I hope that this point doesn't get lost in the vortex of blame that's getting thrust upon Ryan Howard, Hunter Pence and any Phillie not named Rollins, Utley, Victorino or Francisco. The Phillies trashed the Cards in Game 1, just slammed them around, and took a 4-0 lead in the first inning of Game 2 with Cliff Lee on the mound. Check mate was in the offing, not just for the game but for the series, because teams down 2-0 have something like a 4-37 record in the post-season. The Phillies needed Cliff Lee not only to shut down the Cards in the bottom of the first (which he did not do), but for the rest of the game. Win that game, and the series is all but over. Let the Cards come back against a guy who will come in no lower than fourth in the NL Cy Young voting, and, well, the irony is that a Philadelphia team turned the Cards into Rocky. So, as much as Phillies' fans love Cliff Lee, he's among the top of the list for goats in this series.
2. Businesses Make Decisions When They're On Top That Can Cause Them to Lose Their Edge. You have to remember that despite all the accolades tossed Pat Gillick's way (including the accolade to end all accolades, a spot in the Hall of Fame), as Baseball Prospectus has pointed out, all of his big signings failed (see, e.g., Adam Eaton), but his genius lay in the fact that he kept on tinkering to find a piece here and a piece there. So, while to compare Ruben Amaro, Jr. to him right now isn't fair (as Amaro has many years to go in his career), Amaro made some big moves that might turn out to be questionable, such as a) signing Raul Ibanez in the first place (despite Phillies' fans love of chanting his name, there didn't seem to be much logic in adding a 36 year-old player to an aging team) and b) perhaps what will prove to be the biggest error (and might have proven to be even if he hadn't ripped his Achilles) signing Ryan Howard to a huge deal at $25 million per year (when at the time the reports were that the new contract made him untradeable and that most other GMs thought the Phillies seriously overpaid). Look, I like Ryan Howard enough, but in the end, baseball is a stone-cold business, and the Phillies aren't the only team that makes this type of mistake (see, e.g., the Yankees and Derek Jeter). These moves might have foretold the results of this season (but only if you're a sharpshooter of a soothsayer).
3. The Team's Plan Didn't Include Getting Younger. I will be the first to admit that baseball mystifies me, at least in terms of the health of the players. Baseball isn't nearly as physical for its players the way football, hockey, soccer and even basketball are. But position players (save catchers) don't have the physical demands that the other sports' players do. Pitchers do have physical demands, because pitching is an unnatural motion and because of the "repetitive motion" aspects that peck at all sorts of workers (including those who work at keyboards). Yet, even with that -- the swinging and the throwing -- baseball players seem to get nicked up at an alarming rate, with the types of injuries that linger. And it's typically the older players who get hurt more and whose injuries linger. A look at the Phillies' injuries this season would have revealed a damaged infield particularly. By having the oldest roster in baseball, the Phillies exposed themselves to both roster depletions and day-to-day flaws that younger teams (within reason, as a team of rookies won't win much) did not have. Put simply, they need to get younger -- and fast -- or risk suffering more of the same problems in the upcoming years. (Yes, you can surmise all you wish that the elimination of steroids might contribute to the injury problem, but unless anyone can prove anything now, it's probably not worth it because that comment could apply to every team).
4. The Team Was Built to Pack a Stadium with Big Names and Sell Merchandise, But the Front Office Didn't Evolve Its Thinking to Include Continuing to Win World Series. Go through the roster -- Howard, Utley, Rollins, Victorino, Halladay, Lee, Hamels, Oswalt -- and those are some pretty big names. You see them on replica jerseys and jersey shirts around Citizens Bank Park, which has had something like 200 consecutive sellouts in a football town in a down economy. At the beginning of the season, fans boasted that if you had a ticket to a game, you had an 80% chance to see one of the "Phour Aces." (The fifth pitcher, Vance Worley, actually outpitched the fourth -- Oswalt -- much of the year). The signing of Cliff Lee -- which came as a big surprise -- the lingering aura of 2008, the four straight division titles -- all of them pumped up the team and the fans. But a deeper dive beneath the surface revealed an untested bullpen (which got old -- fast, too -- with early injuries to Jose Contreras and Brad Lidge and the final falling off the table by J.C. Romero) and a lineup with players whose on-base percentages weren't exactly dazzling if you weren't named, say, Utley or Ruiz. Lots of wild swinging, lots of impatience at the plate, lots of question marks that existed beneath the veneer of confidence, accountability and teamwork. In the end, despite the big names, the one thing that concerned everyone -- consistent hitting -- came back to bite the Phillies. They just didn't have it.
5. Vanity Hurt the Phillies Too. Two years ago, they carried a Rule 5 player on the roster -- David Herndon -- for no good reason, costing more worthy minor leaguers spots on the Major League roster. This year, they "found' a utility player named Michael Martinez on the Rule 5 draft, but, get this, he was 28 and was on the Nationals' roster. And they decided to keep him, despite a weak bat and a glove that got increasingly iffy as the season wore on. Put simply, neither player belonged in the Majors at the time he was there. Worse than that, they carried two players this year with injuries that deprived them of their effectiveness -- pinch-hitter Ross Gload and third baseman Placido Polanco. It's pretty gutsy to think that you can win with folks with bad hips and sports hernias. Sorry, but while a fan can accept that many players have nagging injuries, it's hard to accept carrying players with very much diminished offensive capacities. That hurt the team more than the team let on.
6. For All the Big Money, Ryan Howard Must Evolve. The Phillies had a rookie, many years ago, who hit .198 his first year, struck out about 180 times, showed some pop and walked enough. That player got more selective at the plate, to the point where by the middle and end of his career his strikeouts were "acceptable" and far less than his rookie year, his walks were up, and his on-base percentage -- batting third -- was about .400 every year. Several years later, they had another infielder who had the looks of a Hall of Famer -- he could run, hit for power, hit for average -- but after a few good years he suffered a downward spiral that made him into a super-utility player for other teams, owing to the fact that he just couldn't lay off sliders that were sometimes horribly out of the strike zone. The former player -- a third baseman -- is in the Hall of Fame, a guy by the name of Mike Schmidt. The latter player -- is now the team's third base coach, a guy by the name of Juan Samuel. But ask anyone who saw Samuel in his first year or two, and he thought that he saw someone who would be a very special player.
But Samuel failed to evolve, didn't figure out how to become more selective at the plate, and became exposed as an everyday player. He had a nice career, but baseball requires continuous adjustments. Hit inside pitches, they'll throw you pitches outside and in the dirt. Murder fastballs, and you'll see slop. The greats continue to adjust.
Ryan Howard is between those two players. Unlike Schmidt, he wasn't born with the great batting eye that led to on-base percentages that were dazzling. But Schmidt did get more selective as his career unfolded. Unlike Samuel, while outside "slop" breaking balls do paralyze him, Howard rebounds from downward spurts within a season to seem plateaued with a batting average below .270, an OBP around to slighly below .350 and with similar (and very good) power numbers. That's pretty impressive given that he appears to be the same hitter that he was when he came up, albeit less effective because of injuries and because other teams now know how to pitch him.
So, the Phillies have what they have. A cleanup hitter who is not an elite hitter, but a dangerous one who will continue to put up among the best power numbers. Regrettably, the human mind focuses on memorable failures and spectacular successes, and, with well-known professional athletes, the former seem to stick in fans' minds more than the latter. But if Howard were to try to take a page out of Schmidt's book regarding selectivity and approach, he might be able to put up even better results. It does seem kind of late in his career to do that, though.
7. There are Good Things, Too. So Let's Focus on Them for a Moment. Skipper Charlie Manuel and the team's leaders have created a culture of hard work and accountability. Watch a game and you normally can see the bounce in the players' steps, their passion for the game (both on the field and in the dugout). I don't expect that to change much. John Mayberry, Jr., emerged as someone who might be able to play every day in left field or at first base (to spell the injured Howard, who might be gone until July). The top three starting pitchers are as good as any in baseball. Some of the young relievers -- Bastardo (despite his late-season woes, which should be fixable) and Stutes (despite his late-season fatigue) -- showed promise, as did Herndon in his relatively limited role in his second year in the big leagues. The (rapid) aging of the team might overshadow these developments, but remember that the front office has a lot of money going off payroll and will tinker with the roster in a way to improve it -- by getting younger and signing some hitters who are more selective at the plate. Those sellouts and all that merchandise portend that a bold GM will get the green light from ownership to make more moves to fortify the team.
8. So, Let's Look at the Team.
There are lots of decisions to be made. Presumably, Brad Lidge ($12 million per) and Raul Ibanez ($11 million per) will not be back. The club has a $16 million option for Roy Oswalt, and I don't think that they'd take him for half the salary. He was too inconsistent, and it would look like after Halladay, Lee and Hamels two of Kyle Kendrick, Vance Worley and Joe Blanton will be the starters. Most likely, it will be the latter two, but don't count out the possibility of a trade involving Worley. Also, Kendrick had a very good year (period) and made $2 million last season and is eligible for arbitration again. You have to wonder whether the Phillies will let him go rather than risk paying him say $4 million as a sixth starter and long man in the bullpen.
As for the bullpen, Jose Contreras and Brad Lidge should not return even if for low numbers. Both are up there in years and injury-prone, and their best days are behind them. Ryan Madson in all likelihood will not return, leaving a huge hole in the bullpen (and showing the first break in the "core" group that has been with the team since '08 and before). The reason is simple -- his agent, Scott Boras -- delivers for his clients, and one of the 30 MLB teams out there will overpay for Madson the way the Nats did for Jayson Werth. The rest of the 'pen is relatively young, needs some veteran leadership, but somehow, some way, teams constitute bullpens. Sure, the Phillies' 'pen might not rival Atlanta's, but it won't have to. I have full confidence on this score that the team will have a bullpen sufficient to do the job in 2012.
But pitching isn't the biggest worry. The everyday lineup is.
Catching seems to be in reasonably good shape, even with Carlos Ruiz's failure to hit in the post-season. He has some pop, he has a good on-base percentage, and while he isn't Joe Maurer or Yadier Molina, he is pretty good. Back-up Brian Schneider deserves a return, if only because the team was something like 28-6 or so when he started this year. The Phils don't have a young catcher who Schneider is blocking, as their best catching prospect, Sebastian Valle, is about 21 years old and years away.
Infield is the biggest question mark. Howard, ripped Achillies and all, might be out until July. Utley showed that he's a gamer in the post-season, but he's brittle and seemingly not his old self (his skipper offered in the post-season that he's about 75% of his old self). The leader, Rollins, is 32, had a good year after two bad ones, but is injury-prone. A team like the BoSox, big payroll and all, is likely to overpay for him to provide leadership in the clubhouse. The Red Sox would be wise to do so; the Phillies also would miss Rollins greatly. But the Phillies are in a pickle because of the Howard injury, their commitment to starting pitchers who are here to win now, their need to continue to sell out, their need for leadership and the fact that their best SS prospect (Freddy Galvis) isn't ready. Given the Howard injury and despite the team's need to get younger, look for the Phillies to (perhaps) overpay for Rollins. Placido Polanco at third is the big question mark -- he looks to be through, but the team owes him $8 million for 2012. Clearly, he's not the answer, and clearly, third would be a spot where the team could get younger.
Outfield isn't without its issues. Ibanez will be gone, although some AL team might ink him to a 1-year deal to be a part-time DH, and that would be a good investment. He's also a class act. Victorino is sold in center, but you have to wonder about Hunter Pence. Sure, he was an energy boost after Domonic Brown played fairly at best, but he's a wild swinger on a team that needs to show more plate discipline. Brown should figure in the mix next year, as should John Mayberry, Jr.
Overall, it's an aging lineup, injury prone, with many on the declining side of their careers, and lacking in plate discipline. Ruben Amaro, Jr. is a former Major Leaguer with a degree from Stanford, and he'll need to summon all of his smarts and best instincts to pivot this team into a state where it can contend for not one or two more years, but many. But while Amaro has proven to be a pretty good trader, at some point it also would be nice to see some home-grown talent populate the roster.
My view is that the team can contend for perhaps as many as three more division titles with this nucleus (and particularly with the starting pitching, assuming they ink Hamels to a well-deserved long-term deal), but it might be hard for them to get to or even win another World Series, thereby more so resembling the Braves who won 14 straight division titles but only 1 World Series than the Yankees, who won a fist full of World Series titles in the late 1990's.
This particular off-season will be one to watch closely.
Friday, October 07, 2011
What Good Luck Charms are Phillies' Fans Trotting Out Tonight?
My pessimistic cousin -- who despaired mid-season before the Phils were en route to winning 102 games -- says the game's a lock for the Phillies.
The reason?
The steam patters from the red rocks in his sauna somewhere in the desert foretell a Phillies' victory. It's the calmest he's been about the Phillies since the beginning of the season. He said he might not even watch the game. Somehow, I think he will.
At any rate, Game 5's in divisional series are big games, and they are humbling games. They reveal that a journeyman like Don Kelly can be a hero, while a Hall of Famer like Derek Jeter can struggle with runners in scoring position. What's in store for the Cardinals and Phillies tonight?
That's why they play the games. Both are good teams, and their play to date has warranted a Game 5. Based on my sense of momentum, I think that the Cardinals should be favored -- they have played more consistently and have been more patient at the plate. Yet, the Phillies are home, they are trotting out their ace, and all will expect a big game from him tonight. But he's facing his old, good friend in Chris Carpenter, an ace himself, and, unlike in Game 2 where he was pitching on 3 days' rest for the first time in his career, Carpenter will be pitching on full rest. This game has the makings of a great one, as all deciding games do.
The reason?
The steam patters from the red rocks in his sauna somewhere in the desert foretell a Phillies' victory. It's the calmest he's been about the Phillies since the beginning of the season. He said he might not even watch the game. Somehow, I think he will.
At any rate, Game 5's in divisional series are big games, and they are humbling games. They reveal that a journeyman like Don Kelly can be a hero, while a Hall of Famer like Derek Jeter can struggle with runners in scoring position. What's in store for the Cardinals and Phillies tonight?
That's why they play the games. Both are good teams, and their play to date has warranted a Game 5. Based on my sense of momentum, I think that the Cardinals should be favored -- they have played more consistently and have been more patient at the plate. Yet, the Phillies are home, they are trotting out their ace, and all will expect a big game from him tonight. But he's facing his old, good friend in Chris Carpenter, an ace himself, and, unlike in Game 2 where he was pitching on 3 days' rest for the first time in his career, Carpenter will be pitching on full rest. This game has the makings of a great one, as all deciding games do.
Sunday, October 02, 2011
At the Bank on Saturday Night: The Old Masters
Observations:
1. I did learn from the Weather Channel that when they say there's a 50% chance of rain what they mean is that with the weather patterns presented, it has rained 50 times out of 100. Thankfully, we were on the favorable side of that prediction last night.
2. We sat in the second deck in right field, about 10 feet on the "foul" side of the foul pole. Good seats, under cover, although the wind was whipping something fierce.
3. The pre-game environment was exciting, and, yes, Lance Berkman's bomb in the first inning deflated the crowd a bit. I'm not sure that I agree with newspaper reports that the homer sucked the energy out of the place, because it happened so early in the game. Yes, the fans did get quieter, but I didn't hear despair or cursing about Halladay. The fans were patient.
4. Kyle Lohse did his best Don Larsen imitation for the first five or so innings, going perfect for about the first four and dazzling the Phillies with his off-speed stuff. Lohse is a good if not great starter, and while he was outdueling Roy Halladay deep down I felt that the faithful thought that they'd get to him.
5. Credit Tony LaRussa for pulling out the stops on Halladay early. In recent starts, Halladay was vulnerable to yielding first-inning runs before settling down, and LaRussa made sure he maximized that weakness by running leadoff hitter Rafael Furcal early.
6. Lohse was so brilliant that after 5 innings he might have thrown 50 pitches. The Phillies weren't patient, but when Ryan Howard worked the count off Lohse in the sixth and hit his three-run homer, the place erupted about as loudly as I've ever heard it. And then when Raul Ibanez homered two at bats later, the place was just pumped up. Ibanez is in the last year of his contract, and it would behoove some AL team to ink him to a 1-year contract to be at least a part-time DH. Sure, his OBP was bad this year, but he had a bunch of key hits and overcame a terrible start. He has some more gas in the tank. I doubt that the Phillies will re-sign him (even if at 1 year for $1 million), only because they need to make room for younger players.
7. Halladay was the first pitcher since Larsen to retire 21 in a row in a post-season game. Last year, when he pitched his no-hitter against the Reds, he "only" retired 14 in a row. I kept a book last night, and he just kept on mowing the Cardinals down. His rebounding from adversity was impressive.
8. Most Phillies' fans were worried about whether the team would hit in the post-season, given the lapse during the 8-game losing streak near the season's end and what happened in last year's post-season. Well, the team shook off the cobwebs and figured out Lohse and then clobberred the Cardinals. The 11-6 final score was misleading. The Cardinals scored 3 runs in garbage time -- the top of the ninth -- after the Phillies had pummeled them and led 11-3. If the Phillies can hit reasonably well, they'll get at least to the World Series and then will have the chance to win it all.
9. The Cardinals are formidable, as is LaRussa, so one game does not a series make. Remember, this is the same LaRussa that skippered a team that finished 83-79 in the regular season in 2006 to a World Series title. LaRussa has a lot of tricks up his sleeve and will be in Cooperstown some day.
10. It was a vintage night, last night at the Bank. It was like Old Masters were painting their masterpieces -- key hits by the veterans, a future Hall of Fame pitcher pitching brilliant after a bad start, and fun for the home town fans. Still, this series -- and the post-season -- is far from over.
1. I did learn from the Weather Channel that when they say there's a 50% chance of rain what they mean is that with the weather patterns presented, it has rained 50 times out of 100. Thankfully, we were on the favorable side of that prediction last night.
2. We sat in the second deck in right field, about 10 feet on the "foul" side of the foul pole. Good seats, under cover, although the wind was whipping something fierce.
3. The pre-game environment was exciting, and, yes, Lance Berkman's bomb in the first inning deflated the crowd a bit. I'm not sure that I agree with newspaper reports that the homer sucked the energy out of the place, because it happened so early in the game. Yes, the fans did get quieter, but I didn't hear despair or cursing about Halladay. The fans were patient.
4. Kyle Lohse did his best Don Larsen imitation for the first five or so innings, going perfect for about the first four and dazzling the Phillies with his off-speed stuff. Lohse is a good if not great starter, and while he was outdueling Roy Halladay deep down I felt that the faithful thought that they'd get to him.
5. Credit Tony LaRussa for pulling out the stops on Halladay early. In recent starts, Halladay was vulnerable to yielding first-inning runs before settling down, and LaRussa made sure he maximized that weakness by running leadoff hitter Rafael Furcal early.
6. Lohse was so brilliant that after 5 innings he might have thrown 50 pitches. The Phillies weren't patient, but when Ryan Howard worked the count off Lohse in the sixth and hit his three-run homer, the place erupted about as loudly as I've ever heard it. And then when Raul Ibanez homered two at bats later, the place was just pumped up. Ibanez is in the last year of his contract, and it would behoove some AL team to ink him to a 1-year contract to be at least a part-time DH. Sure, his OBP was bad this year, but he had a bunch of key hits and overcame a terrible start. He has some more gas in the tank. I doubt that the Phillies will re-sign him (even if at 1 year for $1 million), only because they need to make room for younger players.
7. Halladay was the first pitcher since Larsen to retire 21 in a row in a post-season game. Last year, when he pitched his no-hitter against the Reds, he "only" retired 14 in a row. I kept a book last night, and he just kept on mowing the Cardinals down. His rebounding from adversity was impressive.
8. Most Phillies' fans were worried about whether the team would hit in the post-season, given the lapse during the 8-game losing streak near the season's end and what happened in last year's post-season. Well, the team shook off the cobwebs and figured out Lohse and then clobberred the Cardinals. The 11-6 final score was misleading. The Cardinals scored 3 runs in garbage time -- the top of the ninth -- after the Phillies had pummeled them and led 11-3. If the Phillies can hit reasonably well, they'll get at least to the World Series and then will have the chance to win it all.
9. The Cardinals are formidable, as is LaRussa, so one game does not a series make. Remember, this is the same LaRussa that skippered a team that finished 83-79 in the regular season in 2006 to a World Series title. LaRussa has a lot of tricks up his sleeve and will be in Cooperstown some day.
10. It was a vintage night, last night at the Bank. It was like Old Masters were painting their masterpieces -- key hits by the veterans, a future Hall of Fame pitcher pitching brilliant after a bad start, and fun for the home town fans. Still, this series -- and the post-season -- is far from over.
Philadelphia Eagles: The Dream Team is a Living Nightmare
The Eagles have blown second half leads in the past three weeks.
They are 1-3.
Some dream team, perhaps a "nightmare" team.
Just because you add all the parts that you did in the off-season doesn't ensure that you have chemistry. The Phillies, who play across the street, have both the big names and the chemistry. The Eagles have the big names, but they lack leadership on the field and have some blind spots off it.
Here is the critique:
1. You don't jettison an All-Star kicker unless you're sure the replacement is better. I don't blame today's loss to the 49ers on rookie Alex Henery, but if you miss two kicks at home of less than 40 yards, you won't have a job for long if you don't figure it out. Perhaps there were chemistry issues with David Akers, but he's a better kicker than Alex Henery.
2. The team lacks leadership on the field. The Phillies abound with leaders -- Halladay, Lee, Rollins, Howard, Utley, you name it, they have them. Who are the leaders on the Eagles? Who helps fire up each of their units -- offense, defense and special teams? Can you name anyone? That's part of their problem.
3. The team lacks judgment off the field. No one stands up to Andy Reid in the organization. I mean, how can they justify moving their offensive line coach to defensive coordinator? Why did that make any sense? And, how can they justify year after year not bolstering the linebacking corps? This team cannot stop the run. I mean, the 49ers came into the game with the NFL's worst offense, and the Eagles couldn't stop them.
4. Don't they practice ball security? I've seen better ball protection in Pop Warner leagues. That's Football 101.
5. And what's with the Red Zone offense? It doesn't matter all that much if you can move the ball before the 20 if you can't punch the ball into the end zone. The team had that problem last year and didn't fix it.
The Eagles seems stuck in being above average. While there might be few coaches with Andy Reid's track record, there are a bunch of them who seem to be able to surpass him. Year after year, his teams have flaws that turn out to be fatal. This year, the flaws were a) poor linebacking, b) question marks at safety, c) question marks on the interior offensive line, d) a bust of a first-round draft pick, and e) whether they'd improve their red zone offense. Reid has done a very good job over the past 10+ year; there's not disputing that. But he also hasn't been held as accountable for his decisions as he should be, and then he was given great leeway off-season with respect to his coaching staff and to personnel moves. And, so far, they have not materialized.
This is clearly a team that can sell tickets. This is a team that would populate a fantasy team well. But it isn't necessarily a playoff team, a team with the "giddyup" to really take it to the other team, get a lead and keep them down. They aren't closers, or at least they haven't shown this much so far. You just cannot blow second half leads and consider yourself playoff material.
Horrible, horrible day for the Eagles.
The dream team right now is a living nightmare.
They are 1-3.
Some dream team, perhaps a "nightmare" team.
Just because you add all the parts that you did in the off-season doesn't ensure that you have chemistry. The Phillies, who play across the street, have both the big names and the chemistry. The Eagles have the big names, but they lack leadership on the field and have some blind spots off it.
Here is the critique:
1. You don't jettison an All-Star kicker unless you're sure the replacement is better. I don't blame today's loss to the 49ers on rookie Alex Henery, but if you miss two kicks at home of less than 40 yards, you won't have a job for long if you don't figure it out. Perhaps there were chemistry issues with David Akers, but he's a better kicker than Alex Henery.
2. The team lacks leadership on the field. The Phillies abound with leaders -- Halladay, Lee, Rollins, Howard, Utley, you name it, they have them. Who are the leaders on the Eagles? Who helps fire up each of their units -- offense, defense and special teams? Can you name anyone? That's part of their problem.
3. The team lacks judgment off the field. No one stands up to Andy Reid in the organization. I mean, how can they justify moving their offensive line coach to defensive coordinator? Why did that make any sense? And, how can they justify year after year not bolstering the linebacking corps? This team cannot stop the run. I mean, the 49ers came into the game with the NFL's worst offense, and the Eagles couldn't stop them.
4. Don't they practice ball security? I've seen better ball protection in Pop Warner leagues. That's Football 101.
5. And what's with the Red Zone offense? It doesn't matter all that much if you can move the ball before the 20 if you can't punch the ball into the end zone. The team had that problem last year and didn't fix it.
The Eagles seems stuck in being above average. While there might be few coaches with Andy Reid's track record, there are a bunch of them who seem to be able to surpass him. Year after year, his teams have flaws that turn out to be fatal. This year, the flaws were a) poor linebacking, b) question marks at safety, c) question marks on the interior offensive line, d) a bust of a first-round draft pick, and e) whether they'd improve their red zone offense. Reid has done a very good job over the past 10+ year; there's not disputing that. But he also hasn't been held as accountable for his decisions as he should be, and then he was given great leeway off-season with respect to his coaching staff and to personnel moves. And, so far, they have not materialized.
This is clearly a team that can sell tickets. This is a team that would populate a fantasy team well. But it isn't necessarily a playoff team, a team with the "giddyup" to really take it to the other team, get a lead and keep them down. They aren't closers, or at least they haven't shown this much so far. You just cannot blow second half leads and consider yourself playoff material.
Horrible, horrible day for the Eagles.
The dream team right now is a living nightmare.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
A Tale of Two Sports in One Town
Because every dad seems to know something about baseball, the dads flock to it, and so do their kids. In our town, the dads are all over the sport. They coach it as if each game were a Major League contest, despite the fact that while a Major League GM and a AAA manager live in the area, the area itself hasn't turned out a Major Leaguer in at least 25 years (the town probably never). There are more travel teams than you can count, populated not by virtue of tryouts before disinterested judges and an elevation of the best of the best, but because of who coaches the team, how many of his buddies assist him, how many parents want to say their kids play travel, how many parents can devote the time to 70+ game schedules and how many parents want to foot the bill.
The high school team in the area stinks.
And it's a very big high school.
There is also a regional lacrosse program that draws kids from multiple school districts. The kids who play typically like activity, because when you boil it down, of the hours that a baseball game takes to play, perhaps there are only 20 minutes of action, and each kid isn't a part of the entire 20 minutes. The men who coach typically don't have sons on the team -- they are young guys looking for a coaching credential, dads of kids who are older and don't have kids on the team. The teams themselves don't play against kids from the same town or county, but sometimes drive as far as an hour to play an opponent. The league's elders evaluate the kids at different grade levels each year and place them on a team that's appropriate for their skill levels and upside. Few complain.
The high school team finished in the top 10 in the state and is viewed as an up-and-comer.
I took lots of Latin when I was in school, and liked geometry a lot. My high school geometry teacher used to finish off her proofs with the letters "QED," which stood for quod erat demonstratum, or "that which has been proven."
If I were to put down a blank before my own scribbling of "QED," what do you think would fill it in?
Our local baseball/softball association is about to have a huge, nasty fight about who will head up the organization. On the one side are the softball guys, each of whom has his own agenda, a team to showcase his own daughter(s) on (some of whom are very good, some of whom are not), and each of whom really isn't accountable to the organization or to the town that lets them use the fields, as most of the kids on the travel teams are roaming Hessians who cast their lot with different teams each year, no matter where they live. They could care less about the town. These guys do want to reform travel baseball, though, by making it more of a meritocracy and taking it away from the "appoint a head coach, let him pick 4 assistants, and have 5 of a team's 12 spots get taken by their kids, each of whom gets priority playing time" approach. The other side wants to keep the approach, doesn't care about softball (although if pushed some one admit that the situation isn't good for the town but since each local softball association seems to work this way, the fact that everyone else does it is sufficient justification for our town's not helping its own girls), and wants to build more fields to create more travel teams, thereby cannibalizing the rec leagues even more. Their answer to the lament that the travel culture is bad is to offer a travel experience to anyone who wants it.
It's a classic case of the fact that I'm happy that a) I don't have a horse in the race and b) I hope that both sides lose. I have friends on both sides of the fight, among them a few good souls who first and foremost want to do right by town kids. There are also people on both sides who have their own selfish motives and who have acted badly. The situation calls for Solomon, if one is around. My kids are finished playing in and for this organization. The fight will be nasty and will linger. It's just a shame that the powers that be can't focus on what makes sense, what works, and put out offerings that are for the public good and the good of the town, and not just to fill the needs of the fathers who participate.
QED
The high school team in the area stinks.
And it's a very big high school.
There is also a regional lacrosse program that draws kids from multiple school districts. The kids who play typically like activity, because when you boil it down, of the hours that a baseball game takes to play, perhaps there are only 20 minutes of action, and each kid isn't a part of the entire 20 minutes. The men who coach typically don't have sons on the team -- they are young guys looking for a coaching credential, dads of kids who are older and don't have kids on the team. The teams themselves don't play against kids from the same town or county, but sometimes drive as far as an hour to play an opponent. The league's elders evaluate the kids at different grade levels each year and place them on a team that's appropriate for their skill levels and upside. Few complain.
The high school team finished in the top 10 in the state and is viewed as an up-and-comer.
I took lots of Latin when I was in school, and liked geometry a lot. My high school geometry teacher used to finish off her proofs with the letters "QED," which stood for quod erat demonstratum, or "that which has been proven."
If I were to put down a blank before my own scribbling of "QED," what do you think would fill it in?
Our local baseball/softball association is about to have a huge, nasty fight about who will head up the organization. On the one side are the softball guys, each of whom has his own agenda, a team to showcase his own daughter(s) on (some of whom are very good, some of whom are not), and each of whom really isn't accountable to the organization or to the town that lets them use the fields, as most of the kids on the travel teams are roaming Hessians who cast their lot with different teams each year, no matter where they live. They could care less about the town. These guys do want to reform travel baseball, though, by making it more of a meritocracy and taking it away from the "appoint a head coach, let him pick 4 assistants, and have 5 of a team's 12 spots get taken by their kids, each of whom gets priority playing time" approach. The other side wants to keep the approach, doesn't care about softball (although if pushed some one admit that the situation isn't good for the town but since each local softball association seems to work this way, the fact that everyone else does it is sufficient justification for our town's not helping its own girls), and wants to build more fields to create more travel teams, thereby cannibalizing the rec leagues even more. Their answer to the lament that the travel culture is bad is to offer a travel experience to anyone who wants it.
It's a classic case of the fact that I'm happy that a) I don't have a horse in the race and b) I hope that both sides lose. I have friends on both sides of the fight, among them a few good souls who first and foremost want to do right by town kids. There are also people on both sides who have their own selfish motives and who have acted badly. The situation calls for Solomon, if one is around. My kids are finished playing in and for this organization. The fight will be nasty and will linger. It's just a shame that the powers that be can't focus on what makes sense, what works, and put out offerings that are for the public good and the good of the town, and not just to fill the needs of the fathers who participate.
QED
In Case You Missed It. . .
Metta World Peace was the first person voted off Dancing with the Stars. He used to be known as Ron Artest, who plays in a league that's called the National Basketball Association. That is, when it's functioning.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Penn State 14 Temple 10
I went to the game at the Linc today. I went to root vociferously for Temple, as my father played a few seasons there not too long after the Owls' last victory over the Nittany Lions and because he used to take me to their games -- at Temple Stadium, Veterans Stadium and Franklin Field. We saw some great games, some upsets and some disappointing losses (especially two heartbreakers to Penn State in the late 1970's). So, with the point spread below 10 (it was 7 at game time), I figured this was Temple's best chance in years to beat Penn State, and, to continue a ritual (which turned out to be watching Temple imitate Sisyphus by pushing the big rock up the hill and not getting to the top) of going to Temple games.
That said, I wanted to note the following:
1. I was surprised that the place wasn't packed to the rafters. Franklin Field (for a 31-30 Penn State win) and the Vet (for a 10-9 Penn State win) were packed and very loud. Then again, it was the 1970's, Penn State was a top 10 team, and Joe Paterno was "only" in his early 50's and very much relevant. Now, Penn State is not even a top 25 team, Paterno's legacy is getting tarnished weekly (he made himself bigger than the institution, and both his beloved Penn State and self are suffering). So, Penn State fans don't have the mojo that they once did, because their team is not all that good.
2. On the other hand, where did all of these Temple fans come from? Temple had its largest number of students ever attend an athletic event today -- almost 11,000 (a far cry from the number that go to games in Happy Valley, but, then again, Temple is a smaller school and more importantly for purposes of this paragraph a commuter school). There were lots of people in red at the Linc today, and you'd have to venture to guess that most of them weren't early arrivals for the Phillies' game to be played 7 hours later.
3. The Linc could do a better job for Temple. True, the game lacked the buzz of an average Eagles' game, but the concessions stands and services were somewhat lame in comparison. Perhaps it was just that it was a noon game, the place wasn't packed, and no one -- except for some players on both teams -- seemed to be fully alert.
4. The game was exceedingly sloppy. If I were Penn State's special teams coach, I'd start thinking seriously about stepping up my and my charges' game or else begin thinking about a different line of work. Temple blocked a field goal, blocked a punt and Penn State's kicker hooked a short field goal attempt and then hit the upright on an attempt in the fourth quarter that would have tied the game at 10.
5. After the game, we heard a Temple fan, somewhat irate, shout out to no one in particular, "They should take that offensive coordinator out on North Broad Street and shoot him." To which several Penn State fans responded, "Which one?" That was the funniest moment of the day, and it really spoke the truth. Both offenses were unimaginative, both yanked their starting QBs and then reinserted them late in the game. No QB played particularly well -- Temple's Mike Gerardi made some bad reads and threw too many interceptions, including a few late in the game that were invitations for Penn State to win the game. Temple's Chester Stewart, an option quarterback, didn't show much imagination in his reads. Penn State's Rob Bolden fumbled the ball near the Temple goal line late in the game and was otherwise unspectacular. Penn State's Matt McGloin probably looked the best of the four, but also made a few bad decisions and was yanked for Bolden late in the game. As they say on ESPN, "if you have two quarterbacks, you don't have a quarterback." Touche, for now, for both schools.
6. The two names I heard the most today on the loudspeaker were Michael Mauti (a linebacker for Penn State whose dad, Rich, played for the Lions in the 1970's) and Blaze Camponegro, a sophomore linebacker for Temple. Mauti made a key interception late in the game, seems to be a spiritual leader for the Lions' defense, and at one point had to have gone into the defensive huddle after too many offensive miscues to count and said to his teammates, "Guys, we're going to have to figure out a way to win this game, because the offense can't." Similarly, Camponegro seemed to be in on almost every big play, and it's hard to forget a name like his. And, yes, his first name is Blaze and not "Blaise."
7. Overall, Penn State won the game because they were bigger, quicker and better at pushing the Owls around than the Owls were at pushing them around. Still, I thought that when the FG attempt in the fourth quarter hit the crossbar, the Owls were going to win the game. To Penn State's credit, they stunk the joint out, but they still won the game. That said. . .
8. I don't think that they'll fare very well in the Big Ten. Sure, they should beat Eastern Michigan next week, but it's hard to see this offense doing much against any Big Ten school, and, as a result, winning more than two games in the Big Ten. I just don't see it -- they don't have the QB (and, quite frankly, State College is a place where the careers of outstanding HS quarterbacks have been known to die), they had trouble running the ball for the most part, and their passing game was good enough but not of the type that a fan who hadn't seen them would run away raving about it. Their defense was pretty good, and their special teams were bad (except for kicking off and receiving, where they were okay).
9. Their leadership also is very much at issue. Their top 3 coaches on offense -- the head coach, the offensive coordinator and the quarterbacks coach -- are all up in the booth. That leaves WR coach Mike McQueary, a onetime Penn State QB who is hard to miss because he's about 6'5" and has bright red hair -- as the leading offensive coach on the sidelines. That's pretty hard to understand. McQueary is animated and appears to be a take-charge guy, but you have to wonder what he says to his wife when he goes home after practice. There must be some big-time ventilation, including mutterings such as, "Honey, if I am still here next year, just take me out back during deer hunting season, shoot me, and tell the police it was an accident."
10. And that gets us to Paterno himself. I'm sorry, but I just don't get it, and Penn State alums and fans should say "enough is enough." He isn't Penn State, he doesn't run the place, the football program is a shadow of what it once was, and it's hard to believe that many if any top 100 recruits or their parents want to consider a school with an 84 year-old coach. This is not to say that Coach Paterno isn't a legend, doesn't stand for good principles and hasn't had an awesome career at Penn State. He has. But it's been long since past the time he should have retired, and now the program is suffering. It was plain for all to see today -- just a clunker of a game after another clunker of a game against a program with whom it competed annually for a national title.
You only have to go as far as Tallahassee, where Florida State had to deal with the issue of getting Bobby Bowden to retire. Unfortunately, it wasn't the most graceful exit, but it was time for Bowden to retire years before he did. And, in Jimbo Fisher, the Seminoles got a senior assistant coach with strong recruiting ties who has put Florida State back on the map (they are in the top 10 now) and will keep them there.
Penn State needs to do the same thing and tab a replacement for Coach Paterno after this year. No, it's not his son, Jay, either, as these positions are not a family business. That's not to say that Jay hasn't made valueable contributions to Penn State -- he has -- but there are many head coaches out there who would love the job, among them Al Golden, an alum who was UVA's defensive coordinator before turning Temple around and then taking the head coaching job at Miami, one he might want to leave if the NCAA levels the U with enough recruiting sanctions to turn it into solely a music school. There are other coaches out there as well with outstanding track records, and it's time -- for everyone involved.
Good atmosphere down at the Linc, exciting (if sloppy) game, good weather. Temple should go to a bowl game (if it can spring star RB Bernard Pierce free, which it couldn't do today) and finish about 8-4, 9-3 overall. Penn State will end up 5-7 or 4-8, and I just cannot see it winning more than a game or two in the Big Ten.
It was a Tale of Two State Schools today, and a very interesting one at that.
That said, I wanted to note the following:
1. I was surprised that the place wasn't packed to the rafters. Franklin Field (for a 31-30 Penn State win) and the Vet (for a 10-9 Penn State win) were packed and very loud. Then again, it was the 1970's, Penn State was a top 10 team, and Joe Paterno was "only" in his early 50's and very much relevant. Now, Penn State is not even a top 25 team, Paterno's legacy is getting tarnished weekly (he made himself bigger than the institution, and both his beloved Penn State and self are suffering). So, Penn State fans don't have the mojo that they once did, because their team is not all that good.
2. On the other hand, where did all of these Temple fans come from? Temple had its largest number of students ever attend an athletic event today -- almost 11,000 (a far cry from the number that go to games in Happy Valley, but, then again, Temple is a smaller school and more importantly for purposes of this paragraph a commuter school). There were lots of people in red at the Linc today, and you'd have to venture to guess that most of them weren't early arrivals for the Phillies' game to be played 7 hours later.
3. The Linc could do a better job for Temple. True, the game lacked the buzz of an average Eagles' game, but the concessions stands and services were somewhat lame in comparison. Perhaps it was just that it was a noon game, the place wasn't packed, and no one -- except for some players on both teams -- seemed to be fully alert.
4. The game was exceedingly sloppy. If I were Penn State's special teams coach, I'd start thinking seriously about stepping up my and my charges' game or else begin thinking about a different line of work. Temple blocked a field goal, blocked a punt and Penn State's kicker hooked a short field goal attempt and then hit the upright on an attempt in the fourth quarter that would have tied the game at 10.
5. After the game, we heard a Temple fan, somewhat irate, shout out to no one in particular, "They should take that offensive coordinator out on North Broad Street and shoot him." To which several Penn State fans responded, "Which one?" That was the funniest moment of the day, and it really spoke the truth. Both offenses were unimaginative, both yanked their starting QBs and then reinserted them late in the game. No QB played particularly well -- Temple's Mike Gerardi made some bad reads and threw too many interceptions, including a few late in the game that were invitations for Penn State to win the game. Temple's Chester Stewart, an option quarterback, didn't show much imagination in his reads. Penn State's Rob Bolden fumbled the ball near the Temple goal line late in the game and was otherwise unspectacular. Penn State's Matt McGloin probably looked the best of the four, but also made a few bad decisions and was yanked for Bolden late in the game. As they say on ESPN, "if you have two quarterbacks, you don't have a quarterback." Touche, for now, for both schools.
6. The two names I heard the most today on the loudspeaker were Michael Mauti (a linebacker for Penn State whose dad, Rich, played for the Lions in the 1970's) and Blaze Camponegro, a sophomore linebacker for Temple. Mauti made a key interception late in the game, seems to be a spiritual leader for the Lions' defense, and at one point had to have gone into the defensive huddle after too many offensive miscues to count and said to his teammates, "Guys, we're going to have to figure out a way to win this game, because the offense can't." Similarly, Camponegro seemed to be in on almost every big play, and it's hard to forget a name like his. And, yes, his first name is Blaze and not "Blaise."
7. Overall, Penn State won the game because they were bigger, quicker and better at pushing the Owls around than the Owls were at pushing them around. Still, I thought that when the FG attempt in the fourth quarter hit the crossbar, the Owls were going to win the game. To Penn State's credit, they stunk the joint out, but they still won the game. That said. . .
8. I don't think that they'll fare very well in the Big Ten. Sure, they should beat Eastern Michigan next week, but it's hard to see this offense doing much against any Big Ten school, and, as a result, winning more than two games in the Big Ten. I just don't see it -- they don't have the QB (and, quite frankly, State College is a place where the careers of outstanding HS quarterbacks have been known to die), they had trouble running the ball for the most part, and their passing game was good enough but not of the type that a fan who hadn't seen them would run away raving about it. Their defense was pretty good, and their special teams were bad (except for kicking off and receiving, where they were okay).
9. Their leadership also is very much at issue. Their top 3 coaches on offense -- the head coach, the offensive coordinator and the quarterbacks coach -- are all up in the booth. That leaves WR coach Mike McQueary, a onetime Penn State QB who is hard to miss because he's about 6'5" and has bright red hair -- as the leading offensive coach on the sidelines. That's pretty hard to understand. McQueary is animated and appears to be a take-charge guy, but you have to wonder what he says to his wife when he goes home after practice. There must be some big-time ventilation, including mutterings such as, "Honey, if I am still here next year, just take me out back during deer hunting season, shoot me, and tell the police it was an accident."
10. And that gets us to Paterno himself. I'm sorry, but I just don't get it, and Penn State alums and fans should say "enough is enough." He isn't Penn State, he doesn't run the place, the football program is a shadow of what it once was, and it's hard to believe that many if any top 100 recruits or their parents want to consider a school with an 84 year-old coach. This is not to say that Coach Paterno isn't a legend, doesn't stand for good principles and hasn't had an awesome career at Penn State. He has. But it's been long since past the time he should have retired, and now the program is suffering. It was plain for all to see today -- just a clunker of a game after another clunker of a game against a program with whom it competed annually for a national title.
You only have to go as far as Tallahassee, where Florida State had to deal with the issue of getting Bobby Bowden to retire. Unfortunately, it wasn't the most graceful exit, but it was time for Bowden to retire years before he did. And, in Jimbo Fisher, the Seminoles got a senior assistant coach with strong recruiting ties who has put Florida State back on the map (they are in the top 10 now) and will keep them there.
Penn State needs to do the same thing and tab a replacement for Coach Paterno after this year. No, it's not his son, Jay, either, as these positions are not a family business. That's not to say that Jay hasn't made valueable contributions to Penn State -- he has -- but there are many head coaches out there who would love the job, among them Al Golden, an alum who was UVA's defensive coordinator before turning Temple around and then taking the head coaching job at Miami, one he might want to leave if the NCAA levels the U with enough recruiting sanctions to turn it into solely a music school. There are other coaches out there as well with outstanding track records, and it's time -- for everyone involved.
Good atmosphere down at the Linc, exciting (if sloppy) game, good weather. Temple should go to a bowl game (if it can spring star RB Bernard Pierce free, which it couldn't do today) and finish about 8-4, 9-3 overall. Penn State will end up 5-7 or 4-8, and I just cannot see it winning more than a game or two in the Big Ten.
It was a Tale of Two State Schools today, and a very interesting one at that.
Monday, September 05, 2011
Another Reason for Phils' Fans to Boo Joe West
Click here and see what I mean.
For what it's worth, if it's a battle of who's telling the truth -- West or Phillies' skipper Charlie Manuel -- well, given West's history and history with the Phillies, I'd bet on Manuel.
That said, it's hard to win a protest like this, and the ruling on the field in all likelihood will stand.
But what MLB should do is review the rule, generally, so as not to let the home team benefit from the interference rules. Quite frankly, the rule should be construed against the home team, which has a better ability to control the fans than the visiting team. Since the home team has the better ability to control the risk, it should bear the burden of its fans' behavior. So, in this case, Pence's batted ball should have been ruled a hit. The rules committee can further develop the rules to determine what discretion the crew chief would have to call it a double or a home run. But to let the home team benefit from interference seems ludicrous.
Then again, to let the Phillies' benefit from a) poor planning by not having enough relievers because of some noble notion that it doesn't want to deplete its playoff-bound AAA team from glory at the expense of burning its bullpen and jeopardizing a world championship and b) having David Herndon pitch horridly (albeit after the fact) might not be wise either. Put differently, the Phillies had their chances yesterday, but they didn't capitalize.
Still, the rule should be examined in the context of whether to permit the home team to benefit. A shout out to Phil on the morning/afternoon weekend show on 97.5 the Fanatic for emphasizing this point yesterday.
For what it's worth, if it's a battle of who's telling the truth -- West or Phillies' skipper Charlie Manuel -- well, given West's history and history with the Phillies, I'd bet on Manuel.
That said, it's hard to win a protest like this, and the ruling on the field in all likelihood will stand.
But what MLB should do is review the rule, generally, so as not to let the home team benefit from the interference rules. Quite frankly, the rule should be construed against the home team, which has a better ability to control the fans than the visiting team. Since the home team has the better ability to control the risk, it should bear the burden of its fans' behavior. So, in this case, Pence's batted ball should have been ruled a hit. The rules committee can further develop the rules to determine what discretion the crew chief would have to call it a double or a home run. But to let the home team benefit from interference seems ludicrous.
Then again, to let the Phillies' benefit from a) poor planning by not having enough relievers because of some noble notion that it doesn't want to deplete its playoff-bound AAA team from glory at the expense of burning its bullpen and jeopardizing a world championship and b) having David Herndon pitch horridly (albeit after the fact) might not be wise either. Put differently, the Phillies had their chances yesterday, but they didn't capitalize.
Still, the rule should be examined in the context of whether to permit the home team to benefit. A shout out to Phil on the morning/afternoon weekend show on 97.5 the Fanatic for emphasizing this point yesterday.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Kris Humphries Can Afford to Quit His Day Job
Kim Kardashian grossed $18 million on their wedding, netted $8 million after expenses.
Humphries isn't a household name; Kardashian is. Humphries isn't an NBA star, and while Kardashian isn't a star per se, she's perhaps the most famous for making herself famous. Sounds a bit like Yogi Berra, doesn't it?
There's a famous line in accounts about Joe DiMaggio when his then-wife, Marilyn Monroe, recounted to him a trip she took overseas. She told her husband, "Oh, you've never heard cheering like that." To which the Yankee Clipper responded, "But I have."
Don't know if Humphries has heard much cheering since his abbreviated college career (where one could argue that the biggest yelping going on in Minnesota was when he chose Minnesota as his college), and I also don't know if Kardashian has heard such cheers, either. But it's certainly the case that she draws a crowd almost anywhere she goes, while Humphries might draw fans because tall people usually draw the question, "did you play basketball?"
It will be interesting to see how he'll fare playing Mr. Kim Kardashian, as it would be interesting to see his financial statements to determine how much of his net worth he spent on her engagement ring.
The TV special on the wedding airs in October, which is good timing because the NBA season might not start at all. Kris Humphries will get more exposure for this than for his hoops career. But the NBA will get plenty of exposure because he's a hoopster, regardless of whether there's a lockout or not. Sounds like a good deal for everyone.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Crunch Time for Phillies' Farm System
Part of the Phillies' great run from 2007 on has been the strength of their farm system and their ability to replenish it with solid prospects. Otherwise, it's hard to explain how they've been able to pry good players from other teams to fortify their roster.
But it could be that the Phils' magic is running out. Right now, their top two draft picks -- Larry Greene and Roman Quinn -- are unsigned, and they have until Tuesday to sign them.
Having traded top prospects Jared Cosart and Jonathan Singleton to the Astros for Hunter Pence, the Phillies drew upon their deep well of talent to get a good bat for the #5 slot in their lineup. That said, it's not as though any farm system abounds in talent endlessly. And while one scout offered that the Phils' farm system probably dropped back to the middle of the pack after that trade (which is a pretty good thing given the number of prospects they've traded over the past five years), they still need to replenish it. Greene and Quinn -- according to the experts -- would help, and you don't have to be an expert to realize that a team's top two draft picks should help. The question is whether the front office can get the job done.
This story won't be a headline grabber in all likelihood, but it's an important one for a top team looking to remain elite for the next couple of years before Father Time catches up with it.
But it could be that the Phils' magic is running out. Right now, their top two draft picks -- Larry Greene and Roman Quinn -- are unsigned, and they have until Tuesday to sign them.
Having traded top prospects Jared Cosart and Jonathan Singleton to the Astros for Hunter Pence, the Phillies drew upon their deep well of talent to get a good bat for the #5 slot in their lineup. That said, it's not as though any farm system abounds in talent endlessly. And while one scout offered that the Phils' farm system probably dropped back to the middle of the pack after that trade (which is a pretty good thing given the number of prospects they've traded over the past five years), they still need to replenish it. Greene and Quinn -- according to the experts -- would help, and you don't have to be an expert to realize that a team's top two draft picks should help. The question is whether the front office can get the job done.
This story won't be a headline grabber in all likelihood, but it's an important one for a top team looking to remain elite for the next couple of years before Father Time catches up with it.
Much Adu About. . .
Okay, so I couldn't resist, but I didn't finish the headline because Freddy Adu is only 22 years old and still have some of his best soccer left in him. Unfortunately, when he was 14, he entered the soccer world as a Premiership All-Star and, right now, is coming out as a hand-me-down for a second-tier league. He just signed with MLS's Philadelphia Union a few days ago.
Eight years ago this would have been a huge story. Today, it's a bit of "where are they now," and I'm sure Philadelphia Union fans are thrilled to have him in tow (he's no Thierry Henry, but he's a headliner and MLS desperately needs those). MLS has succeeded in grabbing headlines, especially in Philadelphia, where the Phillies have baseball's best record and the Eagles' average pre-season signing makes Adu look like the back-up goalie for your local soccer association's "B" 14 and under travel team.
As for soccer in the U.S. itself, that's probably better discussed on another day and in another blog. If MLS's short-term goal was to grab a headline, they succeeded. If it's to put a world class product on the field, well, they have a ways to go.
Eight years ago this would have been a huge story. Today, it's a bit of "where are they now," and I'm sure Philadelphia Union fans are thrilled to have him in tow (he's no Thierry Henry, but he's a headliner and MLS desperately needs those). MLS has succeeded in grabbing headlines, especially in Philadelphia, where the Phillies have baseball's best record and the Eagles' average pre-season signing makes Adu look like the back-up goalie for your local soccer association's "B" 14 and under travel team.
As for soccer in the U.S. itself, that's probably better discussed on another day and in another blog. If MLS's short-term goal was to grab a headline, they succeeded. If it's to put a world class product on the field, well, they have a ways to go.
Friday, August 12, 2011
"There Goes The Best Hitter That Ever Was"
That's what Ted Williams wanted everyone to say about him. Problem was, Williams was one of those guys who became more appreciated after his career ended. During his career, he ran into all sorts of problems with the media, some self-inflicted, others unfair. Clearly, he wasn't as bad a guy as some of the "knights of the keyboard" (his sarcastic moniker for Boston sportswriters) made him out to be.
Today, there's a AA player in the Nats' farm system about whom much has been written, Bryce Harper. Problem is, the negative reports that we hear about Harper aren't nearly as subjective as the ones that the fans heard about Williams back in the day. The reason -- streaming video, YouTube, and the internet. Harper might be a transcending talent, but he also has a transcending temper and ego. Together, they are a toxic combination, sure to turn opponents and umpires against him. Take a look at this video clip from YouTube about a recent (with the past few days) ejection of Harper to see what I am talking about.
Right now, Harper is both a super talent and his own worst enemy. Part of the issue is that he's only 18 years old, and part of it is that he's been so hyped that he believes a lot of it (of course, if you can deliver, the saying goes, "it ain't bragging."). The world has to be patient with Bryce Harper, for sure, but the Nats need to figure out a way to reach him, coach him better, and turn him into a more solid professional. If they succeed, they could have an achiever for the ages. If they fail, they'll have a head case who becomes more trouble than he is worth.
Monday, August 08, 2011
Real Madrid Signs 7 Year-Old Prospect
I'm sure that this is something that Jerry Jones or the late George Steinbrenner wished he could have thought of.
Read the wire story here.
This is nuts, isn't it? Is there any other way to put it other than to let kids be kids, let them play in various leagues, get more structure as they get older, and then make their way into the professional ranks. Can't they let him grow up outside an incubator? Can't they let him grow up and be "normal" for as long as possible?
Either it's a slow news day and Real Madrid wanted to get back in the headlines in a big way or something is really wrong. Is there anyone who can stop this?
Leave the kids alone.
Read the wire story here.
This is nuts, isn't it? Is there any other way to put it other than to let kids be kids, let them play in various leagues, get more structure as they get older, and then make their way into the professional ranks. Can't they let him grow up outside an incubator? Can't they let him grow up and be "normal" for as long as possible?
Either it's a slow news day and Real Madrid wanted to get back in the headlines in a big way or something is really wrong. Is there anyone who can stop this?
Leave the kids alone.
Saturday, August 06, 2011
Are Baseball Players Like Flood Water?
Flood water will go everywhere you don't want it to go unless you put up barriers. Before Robert E. Lee commanded the Army of Northern Virginia, he was a colonel in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and spent a significant amount of time helping design and build the flood wall that protects St. Louis from the potential ravages of the Mississippi River. At one point, there was a statue in St. Louis honoring Lee for his accomplishments as an engineer. (I do not know whether that statue still stands today).
Try as it can through testing, MLB simply cannot find enough ways to ban performance-enhancing substances. As Jim Bouton wrote in Ball Four, if you told a pitcher that a pill existed that would guarantee him 20 wins in a season, he'd take it, even if it would take five years off his life. The French, you recall, wanted to prevent a second world war, so what did they do? They built the Maginot Line near the border with Germany. So what did the Germans do? They took a page out of a football playbook, made an end run around the Maginot Line and went into France via Belgium.
So what are MLB players doing since they get tested for steroids? Apparently, there's a spray made from deer antlers that has properties to induce the building/regeneration/replenishment/healing of muscles. And, of course, MLB doesn't test its players for deer antler spray. I mean, they don't test players for ingesting hippotamus urine or lyophilized hyena toenails, so why think of testing for deer antler spray?
But that's how tenuous a hold many Major Leaguers have a hold on their jobs, or at least think they do. For every Chase Utley there are handfuls of the Michael Martinezes, Wilson Valdezes and Ben Franciscos, each of which doesn't get that much of an opportunity to distinguish himself before the brass when he gets a shot. The player with sporadic playing time -- and those who get more playing time but who are perpetually fearful (as they should be) of losing their jobs -- need to find an edge. The reason that I say that they should be fearful for losing their jobs is rooted in my reading of the 2009 Baseball Prospectus and counting in my head the number of players still with a team or its organization today from that list. My count is roughly 30-35%. In digging deeper on the team I'm most familiar with, the Phillies, I noted that the core from back then remains intact, but the periphery has changed dramatically. Most of the jobs in the bullpen have turned over, as have a few spots in the rotation and many spots on the bench. That's how tenuous a hold most players have on a roster spot.
Enter Jim Bouton's premise and the advent of deer antler spray. I don't know what the answer is or how to solve the problem, but to point out that it's pretty sad that players will resort to snake oil if they believe that they can make more money and spend more time playing baseball. After all, there are only so many boundaries that MLB can put up to catch bad behavior.
So, if you hear that many more players are going deer hunting in late November and early December, now you'll know why. And if players' stats increase, venison will be on the post-game spread menu in each clubhouse.
Try as it can through testing, MLB simply cannot find enough ways to ban performance-enhancing substances. As Jim Bouton wrote in Ball Four, if you told a pitcher that a pill existed that would guarantee him 20 wins in a season, he'd take it, even if it would take five years off his life. The French, you recall, wanted to prevent a second world war, so what did they do? They built the Maginot Line near the border with Germany. So what did the Germans do? They took a page out of a football playbook, made an end run around the Maginot Line and went into France via Belgium.
So what are MLB players doing since they get tested for steroids? Apparently, there's a spray made from deer antlers that has properties to induce the building/regeneration/replenishment/healing of muscles. And, of course, MLB doesn't test its players for deer antler spray. I mean, they don't test players for ingesting hippotamus urine or lyophilized hyena toenails, so why think of testing for deer antler spray?
But that's how tenuous a hold many Major Leaguers have a hold on their jobs, or at least think they do. For every Chase Utley there are handfuls of the Michael Martinezes, Wilson Valdezes and Ben Franciscos, each of which doesn't get that much of an opportunity to distinguish himself before the brass when he gets a shot. The player with sporadic playing time -- and those who get more playing time but who are perpetually fearful (as they should be) of losing their jobs -- need to find an edge. The reason that I say that they should be fearful for losing their jobs is rooted in my reading of the 2009 Baseball Prospectus and counting in my head the number of players still with a team or its organization today from that list. My count is roughly 30-35%. In digging deeper on the team I'm most familiar with, the Phillies, I noted that the core from back then remains intact, but the periphery has changed dramatically. Most of the jobs in the bullpen have turned over, as have a few spots in the rotation and many spots on the bench. That's how tenuous a hold most players have on a roster spot.
Enter Jim Bouton's premise and the advent of deer antler spray. I don't know what the answer is or how to solve the problem, but to point out that it's pretty sad that players will resort to snake oil if they believe that they can make more money and spend more time playing baseball. After all, there are only so many boundaries that MLB can put up to catch bad behavior.
So, if you hear that many more players are going deer hunting in late November and early December, now you'll know why. And if players' stats increase, venison will be on the post-game spread menu in each clubhouse.
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