Today will tell us everything about who major college football's Final Four will be. No doubt, there will be one or two schools, just like last year, who will have a legitimate beef. There is talk that the Final Four should be an Elite Eight. It stands to reason that such a format would ensure that at least the best six teams in the country will have a chance to contend for the national championship. Among the ideas thrown about would be to take the champions of the five major conferences and then three at-large teams. That would seem to honor the regular seasons of the major conferences and give strong second-place finishers, strong teams from another conference and Notre Dame in a great year the chance to participate.
This seems to be a high-class problem, and one that the powers that be, along with the advertisers and networks, can address to their satisfaction.
Today, we will find out whether Alabama will go through (they should beat Florida), whether Clemson can keep its hold on being Number 1 (they could lose to Alabama) and whether Stanford can keep its dreams alive (they should beat USC, but the Trojans have been a team on a mission since the firing of Steve Sarkisian). And, of course, the winner of the Big 10 Championship Game should go through, too.
All of this begs a few questions that continue to trouble me. First, the issue of concussions and their long-term effect on players. Second, the issue of measuring academic progress and ensuring that the players, who make significant efforts, get fair value for their contributions. That means either that they are true student-athletes who make meaningful progress toward degrees, get the ability to finish should they exhaust their eligibility and get post-college medical care should they need it.
The first issue is very troublesome. That data is bad at best and challenging at worst. I predict that the game will change dramatically over the next twenty years or become extinct. Either teams get larger and players' number of plays in a game gets limited or the rules get significantly changed about hitting both in practice and in games. Or a combination of both. The risks to one's health are so great that something must change, given the data that is out there about life well after football. It just isn't natural for overweight men (and, yes, almost all football players are overweight when you compare their weights to what the Federal government's suggestion for weight is) are banging into each other for so much of the year.
The second issue is bothersome. The purists and traditionalists argue that there isn't much to be done in this area because every scholarship player is getting a free education and that this is a very significant payment for their playing football for the college. What that suggests, though, is a view that football is an extracurricular like any other, and that it doesn't require either a substantial commitment during the season or year-round. But it does. And what happens is that coaches want players to take courses that end at a certain time of the day and that, well, are easy enough not to distract them from helping win football games. Now, this doesn't happen at all institutions, but at many coaches are more interested in keeping their jobs and winning than they are about educating their players, regardless of what they say publicly or what they say in a recruit's home. The data bear it out. And because of that, it is hard to argue that we as a society are not condoning herding kids into this system and chewing them up for our own entertainment -- and that it is up to them to argue and negotiate for an educational pathway that leads to a meaningful career after college. It just is not always that simple. And let's not forget that a bunch of these kids gain admission not because they are ready for college but because they have the potential to do spectacular things on a college football field.
So, as we go into the playoff season, bowl season and the holiday season, college football gives us a lot to think about. And even if it gives us things to pull for and cheer about, we also must ask ourselves the question -- "at what cost?" And if we wince or want to shake it off or want to ignore it, then that means we are acknowledging that all is not right and that we should do something about it.
Saturday, December 05, 2015
Friday, November 27, 2015
Princeton versus Lafayette in Men's Basketball -- Night Before Thanksgiving
Okay, so it wasn't Monmouth upsetting both UCLA and Notre Dame, but it was something of a spectacle at Jadwin Gym the other night. Princeton was playing its home opener, and without senior center Hans Brase, who is out for the year with a torn ACL. On a night when Yale was giving Duke a battle at Cameron Indoor Stadium and Lehigh tangled with UVA in Charlottesville for about 15 minutes, most observers would have thought this game to be a "ho-hum" affair. An Ivy League team hosting a Patriot League team, blah.
You couldn't tell that the Tigers had lost their leader. They were athletic, explosive, moved the ball around well, shot the three, hit the gaps in the Lafayette defense for a few dunks and won the game by fifty, scoring over 100 points for the first time since probably the Gerald Ford administration. A mixture of upperclassmen and underclassmen led the way, and Coach Mitch Henderson probably could have seen little in the way of flaws from this Tiger team. The bigs could shoot; the guards hit the glass. The bigs passed the ball to open men, everyone tried to block shots and the help defense was there. If there were any flaws, perhaps one could argue if he is trying hard that the interior help defense was a bit slow to develop, but it is early in the season. Still, as early-season games go, the Tigers looked very crisp. The Tigers hit 17 3's and by my count about four dunks.
Henderson was able to play everyone in his lineup, many scored in double figures and there were two double doubles -- by starters who played so little in the second half that it was hard to remember that they had such good games. Now, it is a long season, and Harvard has its recent history, Yale is the favorite, and Penn is always a formidable opponent, but. . . the Tigers did look very crisp.
For what it was worth, a few of us speculated whether the scoreboard at Princeton actually could hit triple digits, given the stinginess Pete Carril's teams were known for on defense and patience on offense. But the scoreboard does go to three digits -- we confirmed it -- and that compelled a few of us to chide former Athletic Director Gary Walters why the athletic administration hadn't cut a deal with a local fast food joint for a free burger if the Tigers were to score 100 points. Walters was on a team that scored 118 points when he played for the Tigers in the mid-1960's -- and that was without a shot clock and the three-point goal.
Fun times at Jadwin Gym to start a holiday weekend.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Ronda Rousey and Holly Holm
I think it was in 1905 that a horse came from out of nowhere -- literally and figuratively, to upset the favorite for the Kentucky Derby. The horse's name was Upset, and that's how, I recall, that verb (which had meant to turn over, as in to upset a table) became associate with the sports and political worlds.
Well, in the wee hours in Australia, for something called the UFC Women's Bantamweight title, a fighter named Holly Holm stunned the very much touted and acclaimed Ronda Rousey, perhaps the Babe Ruth of women's UFC or the Michael Jordan of it, or simply the Ronda Rousey of it, with a kick to the head in the second round that knocked Rousey out. That Holm got out of the first half a minute let alone the first round probably gave her some Rocky-like satisfaction, and I wonder if she has her own significant other worthy of a "Yo Adrian" like shout when the fight concluded.
Everyone anointed Rousey. One commentator on ESPN said we would never see another fighter like her ever. We saw that fighter last night, in Holly Holm. Does that make Holm the real Babe Ruth/Michael Jordan of women's UFC fighting? Or does that mean that on a given day, everyone is beatable, including Ronda Rousey.
I recall when Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's record for the most hits in a Major League Baseball career, that the reporters asked him how it felt to have had more hits than anyone else. Rose, unimpressed, said he would bet that if they checked, he probably made more outs than any other hitter too. The reporters checked, and Rose was right. Show me someone who has an unblemished record, and I'd offer that either they are truly great or that they haven't taken enough chances. Data without context is dangerous, and it was dangerous to anoint Rousey as some uber-Super Hero without a deeper body of work. That said, Rousey was the best and is great. Certainly not the best ever.
On a weekend where major college football teams turned their worlds upside down with a lot of upsets, most of us thought that the one constant would be that Ronda Rousey would win last night. She didn't.
Now the spotlight probably is on the New England Patriots, with the question looming -- can they be that good?
Well, in the wee hours in Australia, for something called the UFC Women's Bantamweight title, a fighter named Holly Holm stunned the very much touted and acclaimed Ronda Rousey, perhaps the Babe Ruth of women's UFC or the Michael Jordan of it, or simply the Ronda Rousey of it, with a kick to the head in the second round that knocked Rousey out. That Holm got out of the first half a minute let alone the first round probably gave her some Rocky-like satisfaction, and I wonder if she has her own significant other worthy of a "Yo Adrian" like shout when the fight concluded.
Everyone anointed Rousey. One commentator on ESPN said we would never see another fighter like her ever. We saw that fighter last night, in Holly Holm. Does that make Holm the real Babe Ruth/Michael Jordan of women's UFC fighting? Or does that mean that on a given day, everyone is beatable, including Ronda Rousey.
I recall when Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's record for the most hits in a Major League Baseball career, that the reporters asked him how it felt to have had more hits than anyone else. Rose, unimpressed, said he would bet that if they checked, he probably made more outs than any other hitter too. The reporters checked, and Rose was right. Show me someone who has an unblemished record, and I'd offer that either they are truly great or that they haven't taken enough chances. Data without context is dangerous, and it was dangerous to anoint Rousey as some uber-Super Hero without a deeper body of work. That said, Rousey was the best and is great. Certainly not the best ever.
On a weekend where major college football teams turned their worlds upside down with a lot of upsets, most of us thought that the one constant would be that Ronda Rousey would win last night. She didn't.
Now the spotlight probably is on the New England Patriots, with the question looming -- can they be that good?
The Problem with College Basketball
Much has been spoken, and some things have been done, but over the past several years, the game has become, well, unwatchable.
Some point to the 35-second shot clock as being the villain, but teams took an average of 18.5 seconds to get their shots off.
Others argue that the referees call too many fouls, but if they only called three more per game than in the prior season, it's hard to contend that this is the issue.
Even others argue that the "one and done" rule robs the colleges of their best players for more than a season, even if not all that many players take advantage of the rule. How many, about ten? I also would argue that to compel players to stay longer, the way they must in college football, smacks of a paternalism that is hypocritical at its best and arguably racist at its worst. Tennis players can go pro when they are fourteen, and there have been teenage golfers in the LPGA and PGA. Atop that, there are many teenagers in the elite soccer leagues in the world. No, the lament about the stars leaving perhaps derives from the networks who can demand less for advertisements, this after they ponied up huge dollars to get the broadcast rights.
I would contend it's the timeouts.
There are just way too many of them. It seems like there is a stoppage every four minutes for a TV timeout and then the teams get x number per half, and when you look at the NCAA rule book it offers well over four condensed pages of rules that rival a bill in the legislature in terms of complexity. It seems like the NCAA has reduced the number of timeouts and has indicated that if a team calls a timeout close to the timeout intervals for television (read: at the four, eight, twelve and sixteen minute marks) that timeout will count as the TV timeout so that you won't have two timeouts, say, within thirty seconds of one another. It's hard to get a sense of the before and after picture, but suffice it to say that college basketball has a problem akin to that of Major League Baseball -- the games get so slow that they are unwatchable.
Here's the thing -- let the players play. Let them move the ball down the court, give the teams a reasonable amount of timeouts and let the game flow. The glut of timeouts has devolved the game into a chess match between coaches, almost a defensive war of attrition that seems to risk causing the fans to migrate to another form of sports entertainment. The powers that be should study what worked well during the glory years (and there were many) and try to reprise them. I'm all for change and innovation, but the changes that have been made over the past couple of decades have not made the game better.
I am sure that others who study the game more closely can point to other items that contribute to the problem. But the crux of the issue is to put the ball back into the hands of the players -- without too much interruption.
Some point to the 35-second shot clock as being the villain, but teams took an average of 18.5 seconds to get their shots off.
Others argue that the referees call too many fouls, but if they only called three more per game than in the prior season, it's hard to contend that this is the issue.
Even others argue that the "one and done" rule robs the colleges of their best players for more than a season, even if not all that many players take advantage of the rule. How many, about ten? I also would argue that to compel players to stay longer, the way they must in college football, smacks of a paternalism that is hypocritical at its best and arguably racist at its worst. Tennis players can go pro when they are fourteen, and there have been teenage golfers in the LPGA and PGA. Atop that, there are many teenagers in the elite soccer leagues in the world. No, the lament about the stars leaving perhaps derives from the networks who can demand less for advertisements, this after they ponied up huge dollars to get the broadcast rights.
I would contend it's the timeouts.
There are just way too many of them. It seems like there is a stoppage every four minutes for a TV timeout and then the teams get x number per half, and when you look at the NCAA rule book it offers well over four condensed pages of rules that rival a bill in the legislature in terms of complexity. It seems like the NCAA has reduced the number of timeouts and has indicated that if a team calls a timeout close to the timeout intervals for television (read: at the four, eight, twelve and sixteen minute marks) that timeout will count as the TV timeout so that you won't have two timeouts, say, within thirty seconds of one another. It's hard to get a sense of the before and after picture, but suffice it to say that college basketball has a problem akin to that of Major League Baseball -- the games get so slow that they are unwatchable.
Here's the thing -- let the players play. Let them move the ball down the court, give the teams a reasonable amount of timeouts and let the game flow. The glut of timeouts has devolved the game into a chess match between coaches, almost a defensive war of attrition that seems to risk causing the fans to migrate to another form of sports entertainment. The powers that be should study what worked well during the glory years (and there were many) and try to reprise them. I'm all for change and innovation, but the changes that have been made over the past couple of decades have not made the game better.
I am sure that others who study the game more closely can point to other items that contribute to the problem. But the crux of the issue is to put the ball back into the hands of the players -- without too much interruption.
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Stamford Bridge, We Have a Problem
Chelsea continued to look in disarray today, an aggregation of stars that seems to be waiting for some individual to grab each highly paid starter by the lapels, shake him say follow me and, in the best tradition of World War II movies, lead them up a hill and toward an enemy position to take it. Sadly for them, their leaders are failing them.
Owner Roman Abramovitch needs to talk sternly to his manager Jose Mourinho and have him be both accountable and responsible for Chelsea's woes. Instead of seemingly working diligently to instill some life into his team's leadership, Mourinho likes to point fingers. At his team. At the officials. At other managers, such as Arsenal's Arsene Wenger, with whom he has had a running battle of epic proportions. Mourinho for the post part stood pat going into this season, and it looks like he overrated the ceiling for form and fitness for his returning veterans or perhaps his ability to mold them to a return visit to the top of the Premiership table. Make no mistake, the talent is there, but the coordination doesn't seem to be, nor does the ultimate will to win.
Today, the Blues imploded against a game West Ham squad, a team that hadn't beaten them in such a long time that perhaps it was when Winston Churchill was Prime Minister. The Hammers took it to the Blues, and then Nemanya Matic drew two yellow cards at the first half that saw him and an assistant coach for the Blues sent off. And then Mourinho was kicked out of the game for allegedly trying to get into the officials' locker room at half time, ostensibly to assail referee John Moss for a) disallowing what looked to be a Cesc Fabregas goal, b) tossing his assistant, c) tossing Matic or d) not counting a ball that looked to have gone over the goal line (but the replay showed that it did not go over entirely).
A star holding midfielder ejected. The top assistant manager ejected. The manager ejected. Chelsea is off to such a bad start that no team in Premiership history has qualified for Champions League play (a top-four finish) with such an awful record after the first ten games. That said, if any squad can recover, it is probably the Blues, but they are what their record says they are, and that is most troubling at Stamford Bridge. Men in Blazers joked that they could be the first team to win the Champions League and get relegated in the same season. It does seem that everyone gets up to play Chelsea perhaps more than anyone else. That doesn't help their ability to regain ground, either.
On paper, they look extremely formidable. On paper, they have everyone back from a team that easily won the Premiership last season. Oh, City has a ton of people on paper and Arsenal rallied later in the season as they customarily do, but last season was Chelsea's.
One sign of trouble this year even came in a victory. Star attack Diego Costa pulled off a few dirty tricks against Arsenal, elbowing and poking defender Laurent Koscielny in the face when referee Mike Dean (who had a match that day that resembled Chelsea's season thus far) was not looking and then goaded defender Gabriel Paulista into retaliating against him that prompted Dean to give the defender a straight red card (the Football Association reversed the ruling, reversed the automatic three-game suspension provided Gabriel and suspended Costa for three games). That game painted Chelsea as the Darth Vader of the league this season (as if they needed any more prompting), and made them look just plain ugly.
At the center of this storm is Mourinho, who hasn't last more than three seasons in any job save one, and who looks to be uninterested at worst or unable to muster the energy to do what's necessary at best. Money isn't an issue -- Chelsea is so wealthy that they have more players out on loan than probably the worst six teams in the Premiership combined, and their loaner players probably would finish in the top 16 in the Premier League and not get relegated. Most teams tweak their rosters annually; Chelsea pretty much stood pat. It's hard to argue with success, but they are realizing that their back line isn't what it used to be, their midfield lacks leadership and one of the top five players in the world, Eden Hazard, looks lost. Before last season City took a similar approach; they didn't win the title, but they didn't implode, either.
It's hard to count Chelsea out, though. If there is an example in American sports, it is the Seattle Seahawks, who won the Super Bowl two years ago, got off to a rocky start last season, had a series of meetings to clear the air and ended up one questionable play call away from repeating. So there is hope for the Blues and the Blues fans -- they just have too much talent to throw in the towel and the season is much too early.
But their ownership must act quickly to hold itself and everyone underneath it accountable. Typically, that means that a managerial change could be in the offing, assuming that someone better than Mourinho is out there waiting for a position, Juergen Klopp, who did a good job at Dortmund, was, but Liverpool smartly snapped him up a week or so ago. And even if Chelsea were to hire a new manager, it will take some time for them to regroup and come up with a sense of purpose. Right now, opponents are taking Chelsea's best shots early (and there still are signs of beautiful play) and then persisting in taking it to the Blues. Their leaders need to emerge and remind the rank and file of the "Chelsea way." It doesn't seem that this is happening, but it needs to.
Fans of other Premiership teams no doubt are rejoicing that the big-spending team is having a rough time of it. The prediction here is that rejoicing will be short-lived. The ownership didn't get to where they are in life by waiting for things to happen and by avoiding problems. The Blues will have a resurgence. Whether that will be enough to get them back to the Champions League next year remains to be seen.
Owner Roman Abramovitch needs to talk sternly to his manager Jose Mourinho and have him be both accountable and responsible for Chelsea's woes. Instead of seemingly working diligently to instill some life into his team's leadership, Mourinho likes to point fingers. At his team. At the officials. At other managers, such as Arsenal's Arsene Wenger, with whom he has had a running battle of epic proportions. Mourinho for the post part stood pat going into this season, and it looks like he overrated the ceiling for form and fitness for his returning veterans or perhaps his ability to mold them to a return visit to the top of the Premiership table. Make no mistake, the talent is there, but the coordination doesn't seem to be, nor does the ultimate will to win.
Today, the Blues imploded against a game West Ham squad, a team that hadn't beaten them in such a long time that perhaps it was when Winston Churchill was Prime Minister. The Hammers took it to the Blues, and then Nemanya Matic drew two yellow cards at the first half that saw him and an assistant coach for the Blues sent off. And then Mourinho was kicked out of the game for allegedly trying to get into the officials' locker room at half time, ostensibly to assail referee John Moss for a) disallowing what looked to be a Cesc Fabregas goal, b) tossing his assistant, c) tossing Matic or d) not counting a ball that looked to have gone over the goal line (but the replay showed that it did not go over entirely).
A star holding midfielder ejected. The top assistant manager ejected. The manager ejected. Chelsea is off to such a bad start that no team in Premiership history has qualified for Champions League play (a top-four finish) with such an awful record after the first ten games. That said, if any squad can recover, it is probably the Blues, but they are what their record says they are, and that is most troubling at Stamford Bridge. Men in Blazers joked that they could be the first team to win the Champions League and get relegated in the same season. It does seem that everyone gets up to play Chelsea perhaps more than anyone else. That doesn't help their ability to regain ground, either.
On paper, they look extremely formidable. On paper, they have everyone back from a team that easily won the Premiership last season. Oh, City has a ton of people on paper and Arsenal rallied later in the season as they customarily do, but last season was Chelsea's.
One sign of trouble this year even came in a victory. Star attack Diego Costa pulled off a few dirty tricks against Arsenal, elbowing and poking defender Laurent Koscielny in the face when referee Mike Dean (who had a match that day that resembled Chelsea's season thus far) was not looking and then goaded defender Gabriel Paulista into retaliating against him that prompted Dean to give the defender a straight red card (the Football Association reversed the ruling, reversed the automatic three-game suspension provided Gabriel and suspended Costa for three games). That game painted Chelsea as the Darth Vader of the league this season (as if they needed any more prompting), and made them look just plain ugly.
At the center of this storm is Mourinho, who hasn't last more than three seasons in any job save one, and who looks to be uninterested at worst or unable to muster the energy to do what's necessary at best. Money isn't an issue -- Chelsea is so wealthy that they have more players out on loan than probably the worst six teams in the Premiership combined, and their loaner players probably would finish in the top 16 in the Premier League and not get relegated. Most teams tweak their rosters annually; Chelsea pretty much stood pat. It's hard to argue with success, but they are realizing that their back line isn't what it used to be, their midfield lacks leadership and one of the top five players in the world, Eden Hazard, looks lost. Before last season City took a similar approach; they didn't win the title, but they didn't implode, either.
It's hard to count Chelsea out, though. If there is an example in American sports, it is the Seattle Seahawks, who won the Super Bowl two years ago, got off to a rocky start last season, had a series of meetings to clear the air and ended up one questionable play call away from repeating. So there is hope for the Blues and the Blues fans -- they just have too much talent to throw in the towel and the season is much too early.
But their ownership must act quickly to hold itself and everyone underneath it accountable. Typically, that means that a managerial change could be in the offing, assuming that someone better than Mourinho is out there waiting for a position, Juergen Klopp, who did a good job at Dortmund, was, but Liverpool smartly snapped him up a week or so ago. And even if Chelsea were to hire a new manager, it will take some time for them to regroup and come up with a sense of purpose. Right now, opponents are taking Chelsea's best shots early (and there still are signs of beautiful play) and then persisting in taking it to the Blues. Their leaders need to emerge and remind the rank and file of the "Chelsea way." It doesn't seem that this is happening, but it needs to.
Fans of other Premiership teams no doubt are rejoicing that the big-spending team is having a rough time of it. The prediction here is that rejoicing will be short-lived. The ownership didn't get to where they are in life by waiting for things to happen and by avoiding problems. The Blues will have a resurgence. Whether that will be enough to get them back to the Champions League next year remains to be seen.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
The Phillies Fire Ruben Amaro -- and That is Not the Real Story
Good columns abound in the Philadelphia papers on this topic, including one in today's Philadelphia Inquirer (Bob Ford might have been the author) that suggested (rightly) that Ruben Amaro was a product of the Phillies' culture. Bingo!
Amaro grew up in an ownership that for the most part was one of benign neglect. Sure, the Giles-era ownership will argue that they made some big signings, going all the way back to Gregg Jeffries (remember that future Hall of Famer?) and built the city a new stadium, but they seemingly only did so because they had to and, unlike the Yankee regime in New York, didn't have the burning compulsion to win.
Vilified were the now disgraced Curt Schilling and, before him, stellar third baseman, Scott Rolen, who called ownership to account publicly and somehow managed not only to infuriate the Giles group, but also the fans. Why? Because the team spun the story in a way that both players had insulted the good, hard working people of the city. Nonsense.
The reason why what Schilling and Rolen said hurt so much because it was true and pointed out inconvenient facts that other franchises were more committed to winning, not only by upgrading stadiums but also farm systems and rosters. At one point it seemed that you got a front office job if you new the Carpenters or the Giles' family and perhaps went to certain Philadelphia area private schools. It also seemed like you got jobs in the organization if you once played for it, and, given the Phillies' rather tepid history, seemed to help perpetuate a team that resembled a geyser -- every now and then by happenstance it would erupt into something fantastic, but otherwise it would sit there sleepily from season to season, unexciting and unproductive.
That's, of course, not to knock the Whiz Kids, the Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt era, even the oddball '93 team and most certainly not the Charlie Manuel/Rollins/Utley/Howard/Hamels Phillies' teams of recent years. But those were the eruptions. In between were some of the worst eras known to baseball. It isn't by accident, after all, the the franchise was the first to lose 10,000 games. That takes some doing -- benign neglect and worse.
The columnist was accurate because it struck me years ago that the team didn't need a managerial change (sure, perhaps it was time for Manuel to retire, but he was great when it counted) or a GM change (even though it was baffling that while the awful Astros were improving markedly through analytics the envied Phillies would have taken a leap forward had they at least hired a few nerds from Drexel with slide rules). They needed an ownership change. Forget the wealthy Main Liners who enjoying owning a baseball team. We needed someone like Josh Harris of the 76ers, someone who just wants to win (even though his patience at this point is somewhat perplexing), the Cardinals' history of excellence, the Steinbrenner family's passion, something, somewhere, to shake this ownership group out of its malaise. No analytics today yields no talent yields huge drop-offs at the box office. What a difference seven years makes!
So fast forward to 2015. Well-liked president David Montgomery is a few years gone, and the guy who gets credit for rebuilding the Orioles, Lee MacPhail, has replaced both him and ostensibly his interim sub, the Hall of Famer Pat Gillick (Gillick gets too much credit for the success of the 2008 team; former GM Ed Wade gets way too little, perhaps because he was so bland and humorless in dealing with the media). But even that advent of MacPhail is not the big story. More than that, I'd submit that the firing of Ruben Amaro isn't the biggest news.
Yes, Amaro did some good and bad things. He gets credited for signing Raul Ibanez, which I believe is one of his worst moves as GM, followed by his inking the following season of Placido Polanco. My reasoning is simple -- demographics. The Phillies' core in 2008 was about the same age -- 29 to 31. So, at a time when they needed to reload by getting younger, the Phillies got older. Ibanez had one good half season and two and a half bad ones, and Polanco was often hurt. The team signed him when he was 34. Getting Cliff Lee was great; trading him was awful, and signing him as a free agent again was brilliant. Sadly, concurrently, the farm system was a very dry well. Peddling Hunter Pence to the Giants was a big mistake, and while Amaro gets credit for trading for Roy Oswalt, Oswalt pretty much was a disappointment and the front office goofed by somehow letting promising outfielder Domingo Santana be on the player-to-be-named list, and the Astros snapped him up.
To examine the stats, the team won the World Series in 2008 and by 2011 lost in the first round of the NLDS. Cliff Lee, paid to do exactly this, failed to hold a four-run lead after one inning in the second game of the series with the Phillies up 1-0. If Lee were to hold that lead, the Phillies, who had a great regular-season record, would have been on their way. Instead, the Phillies couldn't hit Cris Carpenter, who outdueled Roy Halladay in a gem in Game 5, and saw Howard rupture his Achilles in the game's last at-bat. By 2015, they have had consistently worse records and attendance. To quote Bill Parsells, "you are what your record says you are."
But even with all that -- and Amaro was held accountable -- there was something more vexing about the team -- ownership. It made poor decisions and it made late decisions, after the damage was done. It seemed like whoever controlled the group only made decisions after bad facts popped up and had festered into an antiobiotic-resistant infection.
Until, perhaps, now.
Enter John Middleton.
He is vocal, and he seems decisive. and he seems to want to break the back of the "noblesse oblige" type of ownership that has plagued the team for decades.
The man wants to win.
The man does not want to be part of a group that presides over a pastime and is content to sit back and not be involved. It was Middleton who took over the ownership group, it was Middleton who got MacPhail hired and it was Middleton who helped terminate Amaro. It will be Middleton who helps revamp the farm system, it will be Middleton who will be instrumental in hiring the new general manager and it will be Middleton who helps the new GM effect change and get him the resources he needs to succeed.
And all of that is more important right now than who sits in the dugout writing out the lineup card (Pete Mackanin is doing a good job) and who the general manager will be. Because without a strong, vibrant owner who is committed to winning, the team doesn't have a chance against every other organization in the majors, all of whom who have evolved and adapted analytics long before the Phillies did.
The firing of Amaro might draw the headlines, but it is the emergence of Middleton that should get the fans very excited and has the potential to bring them back into Citizens Bank Park.
This is long overdue. This is something for the Phillies to get excited about.
Amaro grew up in an ownership that for the most part was one of benign neglect. Sure, the Giles-era ownership will argue that they made some big signings, going all the way back to Gregg Jeffries (remember that future Hall of Famer?) and built the city a new stadium, but they seemingly only did so because they had to and, unlike the Yankee regime in New York, didn't have the burning compulsion to win.
Vilified were the now disgraced Curt Schilling and, before him, stellar third baseman, Scott Rolen, who called ownership to account publicly and somehow managed not only to infuriate the Giles group, but also the fans. Why? Because the team spun the story in a way that both players had insulted the good, hard working people of the city. Nonsense.
The reason why what Schilling and Rolen said hurt so much because it was true and pointed out inconvenient facts that other franchises were more committed to winning, not only by upgrading stadiums but also farm systems and rosters. At one point it seemed that you got a front office job if you new the Carpenters or the Giles' family and perhaps went to certain Philadelphia area private schools. It also seemed like you got jobs in the organization if you once played for it, and, given the Phillies' rather tepid history, seemed to help perpetuate a team that resembled a geyser -- every now and then by happenstance it would erupt into something fantastic, but otherwise it would sit there sleepily from season to season, unexciting and unproductive.
That's, of course, not to knock the Whiz Kids, the Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt era, even the oddball '93 team and most certainly not the Charlie Manuel/Rollins/Utley/Howard/Hamels Phillies' teams of recent years. But those were the eruptions. In between were some of the worst eras known to baseball. It isn't by accident, after all, the the franchise was the first to lose 10,000 games. That takes some doing -- benign neglect and worse.
The columnist was accurate because it struck me years ago that the team didn't need a managerial change (sure, perhaps it was time for Manuel to retire, but he was great when it counted) or a GM change (even though it was baffling that while the awful Astros were improving markedly through analytics the envied Phillies would have taken a leap forward had they at least hired a few nerds from Drexel with slide rules). They needed an ownership change. Forget the wealthy Main Liners who enjoying owning a baseball team. We needed someone like Josh Harris of the 76ers, someone who just wants to win (even though his patience at this point is somewhat perplexing), the Cardinals' history of excellence, the Steinbrenner family's passion, something, somewhere, to shake this ownership group out of its malaise. No analytics today yields no talent yields huge drop-offs at the box office. What a difference seven years makes!
So fast forward to 2015. Well-liked president David Montgomery is a few years gone, and the guy who gets credit for rebuilding the Orioles, Lee MacPhail, has replaced both him and ostensibly his interim sub, the Hall of Famer Pat Gillick (Gillick gets too much credit for the success of the 2008 team; former GM Ed Wade gets way too little, perhaps because he was so bland and humorless in dealing with the media). But even that advent of MacPhail is not the big story. More than that, I'd submit that the firing of Ruben Amaro isn't the biggest news.
Yes, Amaro did some good and bad things. He gets credited for signing Raul Ibanez, which I believe is one of his worst moves as GM, followed by his inking the following season of Placido Polanco. My reasoning is simple -- demographics. The Phillies' core in 2008 was about the same age -- 29 to 31. So, at a time when they needed to reload by getting younger, the Phillies got older. Ibanez had one good half season and two and a half bad ones, and Polanco was often hurt. The team signed him when he was 34. Getting Cliff Lee was great; trading him was awful, and signing him as a free agent again was brilliant. Sadly, concurrently, the farm system was a very dry well. Peddling Hunter Pence to the Giants was a big mistake, and while Amaro gets credit for trading for Roy Oswalt, Oswalt pretty much was a disappointment and the front office goofed by somehow letting promising outfielder Domingo Santana be on the player-to-be-named list, and the Astros snapped him up.
To examine the stats, the team won the World Series in 2008 and by 2011 lost in the first round of the NLDS. Cliff Lee, paid to do exactly this, failed to hold a four-run lead after one inning in the second game of the series with the Phillies up 1-0. If Lee were to hold that lead, the Phillies, who had a great regular-season record, would have been on their way. Instead, the Phillies couldn't hit Cris Carpenter, who outdueled Roy Halladay in a gem in Game 5, and saw Howard rupture his Achilles in the game's last at-bat. By 2015, they have had consistently worse records and attendance. To quote Bill Parsells, "you are what your record says you are."
But even with all that -- and Amaro was held accountable -- there was something more vexing about the team -- ownership. It made poor decisions and it made late decisions, after the damage was done. It seemed like whoever controlled the group only made decisions after bad facts popped up and had festered into an antiobiotic-resistant infection.
Until, perhaps, now.
Enter John Middleton.
He is vocal, and he seems decisive. and he seems to want to break the back of the "noblesse oblige" type of ownership that has plagued the team for decades.
The man wants to win.
The man does not want to be part of a group that presides over a pastime and is content to sit back and not be involved. It was Middleton who took over the ownership group, it was Middleton who got MacPhail hired and it was Middleton who helped terminate Amaro. It will be Middleton who helps revamp the farm system, it will be Middleton who will be instrumental in hiring the new general manager and it will be Middleton who helps the new GM effect change and get him the resources he needs to succeed.
And all of that is more important right now than who sits in the dugout writing out the lineup card (Pete Mackanin is doing a good job) and who the general manager will be. Because without a strong, vibrant owner who is committed to winning, the team doesn't have a chance against every other organization in the majors, all of whom who have evolved and adapted analytics long before the Phillies did.
The firing of Amaro might draw the headlines, but it is the emergence of Middleton that should get the fans very excited and has the potential to bring them back into Citizens Bank Park.
This is long overdue. This is something for the Phillies to get excited about.
Friday, September 11, 2015
Patriots' Games
We all liked the hippie chick teacher in high school. She was cool, she was cute, she drove a VW bus. One day in tenth grade she walked in with her arm in a sling, had a shiner in one eye and looked pretty banged up. She offered up a car accident the reason. Fast forward to the middle of twelfth grade, and she had told us that she had been in three more car accidents. Each time, she looked pretty banged up.
My father offered the following advice. "Son, if you have one car accident, chances are you had an accident. But if you have four in two years, you have a driving problem."
If the New England Patriots hadn't had all the noise surrounding them -- Spygate (which just got uglier thanks to reports in both SI and ESPN the Magazine), Deflategate (prediction is that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals will overturn the District Court's ruling) and now the headphones in the game versus the Steelers' last night -- we could chalk up what happened to last night to a combination of bad systems and bad weather. But, because of all the other incidents, it looks very suspicious.
Right now, the New England Patriots do not deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to character matters. Right now, everything funny that happens in that stadium or with that team must be fully scrutinized. As Steelers' coach Mike Tomlin said in last night's post-game news conference, something always happens when they play New England.
And you don't hear that about every other team. You hear it about New England.
Many refuse to believe it, of course. The Patriots are the gold standard, they're too good to have cheated, they're too well-run and well-coached. (These fans also thought that Lance Armstrong was winning all of those Tour de France races without using performance enhancing drugs). Patriots' supports adopt classic bullying tactics -- their owner fires before aiming at Commissioner Goodell and the Wells Report, and their star -- their version of Lance Armstrong before the fall -- goes on the attack (and, look, I will be the first one to say that the team and the player are entitled to a defense). Then their fans mock the commissioner. Some might call it rightful, others aggressive, others bullying. But at the end of the day, it's hard to convince anyone that the Colts and the Steelers are joining forces to bring down the Patriots. It seems like the Patriots are doing that to the Patriots.
The Patriots have a culture problem and a credibility problem. It will get worse if those recent magazine reports get legs, too. I hope for the NFL's sake that Spygate does not descend into a hellish Armstrong-like story. But with the Patriots, it seems like we never know just what to believe.
My father offered the following advice. "Son, if you have one car accident, chances are you had an accident. But if you have four in two years, you have a driving problem."
If the New England Patriots hadn't had all the noise surrounding them -- Spygate (which just got uglier thanks to reports in both SI and ESPN the Magazine), Deflategate (prediction is that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals will overturn the District Court's ruling) and now the headphones in the game versus the Steelers' last night -- we could chalk up what happened to last night to a combination of bad systems and bad weather. But, because of all the other incidents, it looks very suspicious.
Right now, the New England Patriots do not deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to character matters. Right now, everything funny that happens in that stadium or with that team must be fully scrutinized. As Steelers' coach Mike Tomlin said in last night's post-game news conference, something always happens when they play New England.
And you don't hear that about every other team. You hear it about New England.
Many refuse to believe it, of course. The Patriots are the gold standard, they're too good to have cheated, they're too well-run and well-coached. (These fans also thought that Lance Armstrong was winning all of those Tour de France races without using performance enhancing drugs). Patriots' supports adopt classic bullying tactics -- their owner fires before aiming at Commissioner Goodell and the Wells Report, and their star -- their version of Lance Armstrong before the fall -- goes on the attack (and, look, I will be the first one to say that the team and the player are entitled to a defense). Then their fans mock the commissioner. Some might call it rightful, others aggressive, others bullying. But at the end of the day, it's hard to convince anyone that the Colts and the Steelers are joining forces to bring down the Patriots. It seems like the Patriots are doing that to the Patriots.
The Patriots have a culture problem and a credibility problem. It will get worse if those recent magazine reports get legs, too. I hope for the NFL's sake that Spygate does not descend into a hellish Armstrong-like story. But with the Patriots, it seems like we never know just what to believe.
Tuesday, September 08, 2015
Hallelujah -- Temple Beats Penn State!
I waited my entire life for this.
Like Coach Matt Rhule, I felt a sense of gratification that the team and fans did not "over-celebrate" because they flat out knew that they could win the game. And win the Temple Owls did, because they simply out-hit Penn State on both sides of the ball, sacking the Nittany Lions' quarterback, Christian Hackenberg, ten times. As the game moved further and further toward its end, a groundswell of emotions picked up in me. Part of me had to convince myself that this was happening; the other part convinced myself that this really shouldn't have come as a surprise. Yet, this was the biggest win in Temple's football history (or at least since 1941, the year the Owls last beat Penn State), even though these aren't your father's Penn State teams and, upon consideration, for symbolic reasons too. The gritty urban underdog beat the pampered scenic wealthier cousin. That doesn't happen that often.
The reason I waited my entire life for this is because my father went to Temple and had at least a cup of coffee or a thermos with the football team, playing in the late 40's with, among others, many WWII vets who were a lot older and hardened by the war. From the time I was a little kid, we trekked first to Temple Stadium, then to Franklin Field and then to Vet Stadium to watch the Owls. Temple Stadium was intimate; Franklin Field a great venue but far from packed, and the multi-purpose Vet soulless as it played to mostly empty crowds.
We saw some good players under George Makris, among them quarterbacks Tommy DiFelice and John Waller and wide receiver Jim Callahan. And then entered Wayne Hardin, the coaching brainiac who had coached both Roger Staubach and Joe Bellino at Navy. Hardin could innovate, motivate and recruit -- especially if you were a favorite, and we saw Maxwell Award winner Steve Joachim, future Steelers' tight end Randy Grossman, linemen such as Bill "Skip" Singletary (now a HS coach in Philadelphia) and Jim Cooper, who would go on to play for the Cowboys. We saw what we thought was the best nose tackle known to man, a barroom brawler named Joe Klecko, and we saw a graceful receiver in Steve Watson. The former would go on to star for the Jets, the latter for the Broncos. We also saw the great kicker, Nick Mike-Mayer. Of course, there were many others, and I've probably forgotten a few whom I should not have who excelled and brought many fond memories.
We saw the Owls upset West Virginia in the early 1970's at Temple Stadium, with the team carrying Hardin off the field. We saw Penn State nick them at Franklin Field by a point, even after on one of the first plays from scrimmage Cooper bowled offer Penn State's all-American linebacker Greg Buttle to spring Bobby Harris for a 75-or-so-yard touchdown run. We also saw the Owls lose 10-7 at the Vet late in the game on a field goal by one of the Bahr brothers, this after the game was tied late in the fourth, the Owls were driving and the Owls coughed the ball up. It was in that game that Hardin punted consistently on third down to pin Penn State deep in their own territory, deploying the nation's leading punter, Casey Murphy, deftly.
There were so many memories because this was the father-and-son thing that we did. We went to Temple football games, and, of course, heard many disrespectful comments in the process. We were surrounded by Penn State fans, who view their school and team as superior. As to the latter, well, way back when, in the 1960's and 1970's, it wasn't necessarily bragging if you could back it up. And Joe Paterno's Lions could.
But I didn't care. This is what I did with my dad, and this was our team. We loved the Owls, Hardin's innovative style, the way they played hard and won many more than they lost. Temple Stadium was tiny but intimate, and we trekked their many Saturdays and watched with great interest. I still cherish those days. It was special time that we had together, uninterrupted, eating hot dogs, drinking soda, eating peanuts, talking football.
It wasn't quite the same at Franklin Field or the Vet, and I'm happy to see bigger crowds at the Linc. Dad died in the mid-1980's, and my interested waned. Put differently, I lost my football-watching buddy, and to be honest there aren't many around who, with an increasing number of choices, would select going to Temple football games above them. I kept up my interest, occasionally watching them on television or listening on the radio, and most usually I read the newspaper accounts. I liked Bruce Arians' promise and then was sad as a succession of coaches couldn't bring success to North Broad Street. It was an empty feeling -- not only was my father gone, but the current version of what had created fond memories had cratered.
Then came Al Golden, who resurrected the program, and then Steve Addazio, and now Matt Rhule. My guess is that better facilities and the fact that schools can no longer hoard players has helped the Owls get better ones, as has the current crop of coaches. The buzz got louder, the players and team got better, and that led up to Saturday's game.
I saw the point spread and hoped for the best, liked what I had heard on ESPN that morning and read enough to know that the Owls had a very good defense. As the game played out, my mind raced from here to there, from the time I went to games when I was a young kid (I think I went as far back as 1965) to the mid-1980's, before Dad died. And oh did he love his Owls and going to games. I felt his spirit, as though he were pointing out the gaps in the Penn State line for Temple's pass rushers to exploit. When it came to Temple football, I was a dormant volcano's worth full of emotions. I always had hoped to be able to open that vault and express them, but feared that I never would in my life time.
But then the game happened and ended, and the Owls won. I smiled a very big smile, and had a trace of tears in my eyes. Okay, so the Lions weren't nationally ranked, big deal. To see so many Temple fans at the Linc wearing the cherry and white there to enjoy to watershed moment was something to see. We saw some close calls, but felt like Sisyphus -- our team had pushed its proverbial rock up the hill only never to get there. But on Saturday they did. And it felt good.
I told my son that for my sports-watching and rooting experience, this was like a major shift of tectonic plates, a fault line, a discovery that there is life on Mars, that chocolate can cure cancer or something else that hard to fathom. It was a great thing to see, it really was.
I just wish my father were there to watch it with me.
And perhaps sitting with me on the porch all night, sampling sipping whiskey, talking about all the games we went to until the sun rose.
Temple beat Penn State.
Hallelujah!
Like Coach Matt Rhule, I felt a sense of gratification that the team and fans did not "over-celebrate" because they flat out knew that they could win the game. And win the Temple Owls did, because they simply out-hit Penn State on both sides of the ball, sacking the Nittany Lions' quarterback, Christian Hackenberg, ten times. As the game moved further and further toward its end, a groundswell of emotions picked up in me. Part of me had to convince myself that this was happening; the other part convinced myself that this really shouldn't have come as a surprise. Yet, this was the biggest win in Temple's football history (or at least since 1941, the year the Owls last beat Penn State), even though these aren't your father's Penn State teams and, upon consideration, for symbolic reasons too. The gritty urban underdog beat the pampered scenic wealthier cousin. That doesn't happen that often.
The reason I waited my entire life for this is because my father went to Temple and had at least a cup of coffee or a thermos with the football team, playing in the late 40's with, among others, many WWII vets who were a lot older and hardened by the war. From the time I was a little kid, we trekked first to Temple Stadium, then to Franklin Field and then to Vet Stadium to watch the Owls. Temple Stadium was intimate; Franklin Field a great venue but far from packed, and the multi-purpose Vet soulless as it played to mostly empty crowds.
We saw some good players under George Makris, among them quarterbacks Tommy DiFelice and John Waller and wide receiver Jim Callahan. And then entered Wayne Hardin, the coaching brainiac who had coached both Roger Staubach and Joe Bellino at Navy. Hardin could innovate, motivate and recruit -- especially if you were a favorite, and we saw Maxwell Award winner Steve Joachim, future Steelers' tight end Randy Grossman, linemen such as Bill "Skip" Singletary (now a HS coach in Philadelphia) and Jim Cooper, who would go on to play for the Cowboys. We saw what we thought was the best nose tackle known to man, a barroom brawler named Joe Klecko, and we saw a graceful receiver in Steve Watson. The former would go on to star for the Jets, the latter for the Broncos. We also saw the great kicker, Nick Mike-Mayer. Of course, there were many others, and I've probably forgotten a few whom I should not have who excelled and brought many fond memories.
We saw the Owls upset West Virginia in the early 1970's at Temple Stadium, with the team carrying Hardin off the field. We saw Penn State nick them at Franklin Field by a point, even after on one of the first plays from scrimmage Cooper bowled offer Penn State's all-American linebacker Greg Buttle to spring Bobby Harris for a 75-or-so-yard touchdown run. We also saw the Owls lose 10-7 at the Vet late in the game on a field goal by one of the Bahr brothers, this after the game was tied late in the fourth, the Owls were driving and the Owls coughed the ball up. It was in that game that Hardin punted consistently on third down to pin Penn State deep in their own territory, deploying the nation's leading punter, Casey Murphy, deftly.
There were so many memories because this was the father-and-son thing that we did. We went to Temple football games, and, of course, heard many disrespectful comments in the process. We were surrounded by Penn State fans, who view their school and team as superior. As to the latter, well, way back when, in the 1960's and 1970's, it wasn't necessarily bragging if you could back it up. And Joe Paterno's Lions could.
But I didn't care. This is what I did with my dad, and this was our team. We loved the Owls, Hardin's innovative style, the way they played hard and won many more than they lost. Temple Stadium was tiny but intimate, and we trekked their many Saturdays and watched with great interest. I still cherish those days. It was special time that we had together, uninterrupted, eating hot dogs, drinking soda, eating peanuts, talking football.
It wasn't quite the same at Franklin Field or the Vet, and I'm happy to see bigger crowds at the Linc. Dad died in the mid-1980's, and my interested waned. Put differently, I lost my football-watching buddy, and to be honest there aren't many around who, with an increasing number of choices, would select going to Temple football games above them. I kept up my interest, occasionally watching them on television or listening on the radio, and most usually I read the newspaper accounts. I liked Bruce Arians' promise and then was sad as a succession of coaches couldn't bring success to North Broad Street. It was an empty feeling -- not only was my father gone, but the current version of what had created fond memories had cratered.
Then came Al Golden, who resurrected the program, and then Steve Addazio, and now Matt Rhule. My guess is that better facilities and the fact that schools can no longer hoard players has helped the Owls get better ones, as has the current crop of coaches. The buzz got louder, the players and team got better, and that led up to Saturday's game.
I saw the point spread and hoped for the best, liked what I had heard on ESPN that morning and read enough to know that the Owls had a very good defense. As the game played out, my mind raced from here to there, from the time I went to games when I was a young kid (I think I went as far back as 1965) to the mid-1980's, before Dad died. And oh did he love his Owls and going to games. I felt his spirit, as though he were pointing out the gaps in the Penn State line for Temple's pass rushers to exploit. When it came to Temple football, I was a dormant volcano's worth full of emotions. I always had hoped to be able to open that vault and express them, but feared that I never would in my life time.
But then the game happened and ended, and the Owls won. I smiled a very big smile, and had a trace of tears in my eyes. Okay, so the Lions weren't nationally ranked, big deal. To see so many Temple fans at the Linc wearing the cherry and white there to enjoy to watershed moment was something to see. We saw some close calls, but felt like Sisyphus -- our team had pushed its proverbial rock up the hill only never to get there. But on Saturday they did. And it felt good.
I told my son that for my sports-watching and rooting experience, this was like a major shift of tectonic plates, a fault line, a discovery that there is life on Mars, that chocolate can cure cancer or something else that hard to fathom. It was a great thing to see, it really was.
I just wish my father were there to watch it with me.
And perhaps sitting with me on the porch all night, sampling sipping whiskey, talking about all the games we went to until the sun rose.
Temple beat Penn State.
Hallelujah!
Friday, September 04, 2015
Reflections on Transfer Deadline Day
In no particular order:
1. I wonder what the analytics guys say. There is all sorts of game theory that can go on here, such as it's probably a better idea to negotiate and buy early when no one focuses on whether you have a pronounced need than late, where people will try to gouge you if a) you have a pronounced need and b) what they have is in short supply. Take the case of strikers. Arsenal and United both were looking, the former because Olivier Giroud cannot handle the load alone and is not viewed as elite and Theo Walcott looked exposed in the Gunners' last game and the latter because Memphis is not an elite player and Wayne Rooney hasn't played the position in a few years. So, Arsenal knocked on many doors and came up empty, if only because they found PSG's not-so-very-clutch Edson Cavani to be over-priced and somehow they couldn't get it done for, among others, Icardi or Zaza or Pato and whomever else they discussed. On the other hand, United overpaid and paid for a future dividend in breaking the bank for 19 year-old Anthony Martial, in whom Gunner great Thierry Henry sees a lot of himself. But the question is whether Martial can contribute mightily this year. And the answer here is no. The broader question is whether he projects to be another Henry, and the odds are against that. Henrys don't come around all that often.
2. Why didn't Arsenal do anything more than sign Petr Cech? Perhaps they think they can win with who they have (unlikely that they will win the Premiership without more oomph). Perhaps they kept on getting outbid by teams that are more desperate. Or perhaps they were just too slow on the trigger. Two years ago they landed Mesuz Ozil on deadline day; last year they landed Alexis Sanchez rather early. This year, they landed Petr Cech very early. Fans in North London expected more than a very good thirty-three year-old keeper.
3. What the -- DeGea didn't go to Real Madrid after all? What a strange set of circumstances. Will van Gaal now play him more at Old Trafford? And will Sergio Romero be content if that happens? And what does that say to the keepers in Madrid? That their manager continuously will be looking for someone better?
4. Teams that make too many changes don't gel all that quickly. A few years ago it was Spurs when they signed five players after selling Gareth Bale to Real Madrid. They had trouble finding good chemistry. Could that be a) Liverpool or b) United this year? Lots of new faces in new positions, and if a bad early game is any indication, Liverpool looked lost after a 3-0 defeat at Anfield to West Ham. This is not your father's West Ham. These Hammers are on the rise and perhaps could draw a new buyer when they move into the Olympic Stadium. More oil or oligarch money could pour into London, and then the Hammers too could become a super team. Stranger things could happen.
5. Does Kevin DeBruyne's arrival at City make them the favorites to win the Premier League? Yes. They're miffed that they regressed last year, and they look much sharper getting out of the starting gate. Wins in September count as much as wins in April, and City looks to continue its great start and put pressure on the others to keep up. Sergio Aguero might be the best player in the Premiership.
6. Whither Chelsea? Their defense is a year older, and it is not deep. Their midfield play will crisp up, as will their play at striker, but they are a older. They suffer a bit from too much of a good thing -- they loan more players than the next two or three teams in the Premier League combined. It's hard to figure how they determine whom to play and whom to loan, and they have an embarrassment of riches. Still, it's hard to count them out, although Jose Mourinho usually doesn't stay in one place for more than three years, which means he could be on the move after this season. Love the rivalry between him and Arsene Wenger, too.
1. I wonder what the analytics guys say. There is all sorts of game theory that can go on here, such as it's probably a better idea to negotiate and buy early when no one focuses on whether you have a pronounced need than late, where people will try to gouge you if a) you have a pronounced need and b) what they have is in short supply. Take the case of strikers. Arsenal and United both were looking, the former because Olivier Giroud cannot handle the load alone and is not viewed as elite and Theo Walcott looked exposed in the Gunners' last game and the latter because Memphis is not an elite player and Wayne Rooney hasn't played the position in a few years. So, Arsenal knocked on many doors and came up empty, if only because they found PSG's not-so-very-clutch Edson Cavani to be over-priced and somehow they couldn't get it done for, among others, Icardi or Zaza or Pato and whomever else they discussed. On the other hand, United overpaid and paid for a future dividend in breaking the bank for 19 year-old Anthony Martial, in whom Gunner great Thierry Henry sees a lot of himself. But the question is whether Martial can contribute mightily this year. And the answer here is no. The broader question is whether he projects to be another Henry, and the odds are against that. Henrys don't come around all that often.
2. Why didn't Arsenal do anything more than sign Petr Cech? Perhaps they think they can win with who they have (unlikely that they will win the Premiership without more oomph). Perhaps they kept on getting outbid by teams that are more desperate. Or perhaps they were just too slow on the trigger. Two years ago they landed Mesuz Ozil on deadline day; last year they landed Alexis Sanchez rather early. This year, they landed Petr Cech very early. Fans in North London expected more than a very good thirty-three year-old keeper.
3. What the -- DeGea didn't go to Real Madrid after all? What a strange set of circumstances. Will van Gaal now play him more at Old Trafford? And will Sergio Romero be content if that happens? And what does that say to the keepers in Madrid? That their manager continuously will be looking for someone better?
4. Teams that make too many changes don't gel all that quickly. A few years ago it was Spurs when they signed five players after selling Gareth Bale to Real Madrid. They had trouble finding good chemistry. Could that be a) Liverpool or b) United this year? Lots of new faces in new positions, and if a bad early game is any indication, Liverpool looked lost after a 3-0 defeat at Anfield to West Ham. This is not your father's West Ham. These Hammers are on the rise and perhaps could draw a new buyer when they move into the Olympic Stadium. More oil or oligarch money could pour into London, and then the Hammers too could become a super team. Stranger things could happen.
5. Does Kevin DeBruyne's arrival at City make them the favorites to win the Premier League? Yes. They're miffed that they regressed last year, and they look much sharper getting out of the starting gate. Wins in September count as much as wins in April, and City looks to continue its great start and put pressure on the others to keep up. Sergio Aguero might be the best player in the Premiership.
6. Whither Chelsea? Their defense is a year older, and it is not deep. Their midfield play will crisp up, as will their play at striker, but they are a older. They suffer a bit from too much of a good thing -- they loan more players than the next two or three teams in the Premier League combined. It's hard to figure how they determine whom to play and whom to loan, and they have an embarrassment of riches. Still, it's hard to count them out, although Jose Mourinho usually doesn't stay in one place for more than three years, which means he could be on the move after this season. Love the rivalry between him and Arsene Wenger, too.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
The Buzz and Vibe of a Winner -- the New York Mets
I had great seats at the Phillies-Mets game last night at Citizens Bank Park, so good that I could see into the Mets' dugout and get a good sense of the team, the team that is leading the National League East over the heavily-favored Washington Nationals.
The Mets went into the season with great pitching -- everyone knows the story of how this pitching staff has the potential to out-Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz the Atlanta Braves teams that were so great in the 90's and early 2000's. The question mark was hitting, and for a while the Mets were the worst-hitting team in the National League. Fast forward to right now, and they have been on a tear, thanks, in part, to the Quadruple A pitching staff that the Phillies have assembled in their poor man's style of trying to rebuild a franchise (I say "poor man's because it would appear that there are, in contrast, rich man's versions in the Cubs, Pirates, Astros and Royals). The past three days have been glorified batting practice for the Mets, who set a franchise record the other night by hitting eight home runs against the Phillies in a come-from-behind 16-7 victory.
That victory perhaps was a statement on two fronts. First, that the Mets can hit and can sustain their hitting. Second, that the Phillies' surprise surge right after the All-Star break was just that, that the carriage turned into the proverbial pumpkin, and that a no-name bullpen with an anonymous group of hitters not named Howard or Francoeur only can take you so far before it craters.
But what was more compelling to me last night was the buzz in the Mets' dugout. I had seen that type of vibe in recent memory in the Phillies' dugout from say late 2007 through 2011 and particularly in 2008, when the Phillies won the World Series. Roll back the tape, and you would see Shane Victorino energizing the whole dugout, Jimmy Rollins talking hitting with Charlie Manuel, Ryan Howard and his outsized smile, the intensity of Carlos Ruiz and Chase Utley and for a time, the Old Master, Jamie Moyer, holding court over a young pitching staff, and particularly the precocious talent of Cole Hamels. The team, collectively, was standing on the balls of its toes, ready to jump in, ready to battle from behind (which it did masterfully during the glory part of Manuel's tenure), and was talking shop the entire time. That energy was something to see, and its an energy borne of success and confidence in knowing that you have control over your destiny and enough talent in the dugout to take control over it.
Last night, I saw David Wright as the sun in the Mets' universe, the rallying point for his teammates. Players gathered around him as though is their sage, their sensei, their oracle, and Wright, to his great credit as a leader, didn't seem to pull rank or have an arrogance about him at all. To the contrary, he looked comfortable in his own skin and more than ready for the role as the first among an increasingly talented squad that is primed to make its mark in the NL East for years to come. Among those joining Wright in a small cadre of those talking shop was star pitcher Jacob deGrom, who was near Wright for most of the night, pitcher Jonathan Niese, who seemed to keep his teammates loose, the recently acquired veteran infielder Kelly Johnson, second baseman Daniel Murphy, pitcher Matt Harvey, and catcher Travis d'Arnaud. Sitting behind the dugout it is hard to see who else might have been around, and I also give credit to third-base coach Tim Teufel, who seemed more than happy to engage the players when the Mets were in the field.
In contrast, while some Phillies were up on the small fence that serves, among other things, to keep foul balls from plunking unsuspecting players, they didn't appear to be gathered around any leader, didn't appear to be talking shop, and appeared basically in personal silos, watching the game and left to their own thoughts. That's not the fault of anyone in particular, as manager Pete Mackanin is doing a fine job and the front office has finally figured out that they need to rebuild and reload in a big way. It's more testimony to a franchise that got drunk on its own glory, failed to plan for the future, and now has a lot of names that are new to one another. Ruiz is a leader by example but not a rallying point, and his career is almost over. Howard is a shadow of his former self. Hamels, Rollins and Utley are gone; Victorino and Jayson Worth long gone. Cliff Lee is on the disabled list, his career presumably over. There just do not appear to be any leaders yet ready to rally the team around them. Mikael Franco came up this year, is very young, and on the disabled list. Odubel Herrera has shown some promise, just joined the team this year as a Rule 5 draftee and is still figuring out how to play center field. Right fielder Domonic Brown's body language suggests that he'd rather be somewhere else; Francoeur, while energetic, is a journeyman, so much so that the outfielder actually pitched in eight games in the minors last season.
Going back to the Mets, it seems that despite some major injuries much is going right for them now. They have good pitching, and they have started to hit. And it's a fine time to get hot bats at the end of August, where the games count the same as they did in April but have more attention paid to them and more incremental meaning as the teams march toward the playoffs. That Wright has returned gives them their veteran presence; that players are rallying around him is exciting. They look confident, and their body language and interactions in the dugout show it. As did the humor of veteran pitcher Bartolo Colon, who in one at bat stood there with the bat on his shoulder, took three strikes, walked back to the dugout with an amused smile on his face and sat down. His teammates smiled, too -- they know that the cagey old veteran was saving his energy for throwing strikes, which he did masterfully last night.
It's a tale of two teams, and what a difference eight years makes. The Mets started their decline at the end of 2007, when they blew a 7-game lead with 17 games to go and ran into a freight train called the Philadelphia Phillies, who blasted Tommy Glavine on the last day of the season to win the division. That last month of the season gave birth to a great run for the Phillies and the (always temporary in baseball) decline of the Mets. Fast forward eight years, and the Phillies look like the one-time boomtown with empty storefronts abounding, while the Mets look like the new development with all the modern amenities. Mets' fans should enjoy the journey here and now. Their team looks primed for a good run.
The Mets went into the season with great pitching -- everyone knows the story of how this pitching staff has the potential to out-Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz the Atlanta Braves teams that were so great in the 90's and early 2000's. The question mark was hitting, and for a while the Mets were the worst-hitting team in the National League. Fast forward to right now, and they have been on a tear, thanks, in part, to the Quadruple A pitching staff that the Phillies have assembled in their poor man's style of trying to rebuild a franchise (I say "poor man's because it would appear that there are, in contrast, rich man's versions in the Cubs, Pirates, Astros and Royals). The past three days have been glorified batting practice for the Mets, who set a franchise record the other night by hitting eight home runs against the Phillies in a come-from-behind 16-7 victory.
That victory perhaps was a statement on two fronts. First, that the Mets can hit and can sustain their hitting. Second, that the Phillies' surprise surge right after the All-Star break was just that, that the carriage turned into the proverbial pumpkin, and that a no-name bullpen with an anonymous group of hitters not named Howard or Francoeur only can take you so far before it craters.
But what was more compelling to me last night was the buzz in the Mets' dugout. I had seen that type of vibe in recent memory in the Phillies' dugout from say late 2007 through 2011 and particularly in 2008, when the Phillies won the World Series. Roll back the tape, and you would see Shane Victorino energizing the whole dugout, Jimmy Rollins talking hitting with Charlie Manuel, Ryan Howard and his outsized smile, the intensity of Carlos Ruiz and Chase Utley and for a time, the Old Master, Jamie Moyer, holding court over a young pitching staff, and particularly the precocious talent of Cole Hamels. The team, collectively, was standing on the balls of its toes, ready to jump in, ready to battle from behind (which it did masterfully during the glory part of Manuel's tenure), and was talking shop the entire time. That energy was something to see, and its an energy borne of success and confidence in knowing that you have control over your destiny and enough talent in the dugout to take control over it.
Last night, I saw David Wright as the sun in the Mets' universe, the rallying point for his teammates. Players gathered around him as though is their sage, their sensei, their oracle, and Wright, to his great credit as a leader, didn't seem to pull rank or have an arrogance about him at all. To the contrary, he looked comfortable in his own skin and more than ready for the role as the first among an increasingly talented squad that is primed to make its mark in the NL East for years to come. Among those joining Wright in a small cadre of those talking shop was star pitcher Jacob deGrom, who was near Wright for most of the night, pitcher Jonathan Niese, who seemed to keep his teammates loose, the recently acquired veteran infielder Kelly Johnson, second baseman Daniel Murphy, pitcher Matt Harvey, and catcher Travis d'Arnaud. Sitting behind the dugout it is hard to see who else might have been around, and I also give credit to third-base coach Tim Teufel, who seemed more than happy to engage the players when the Mets were in the field.
In contrast, while some Phillies were up on the small fence that serves, among other things, to keep foul balls from plunking unsuspecting players, they didn't appear to be gathered around any leader, didn't appear to be talking shop, and appeared basically in personal silos, watching the game and left to their own thoughts. That's not the fault of anyone in particular, as manager Pete Mackanin is doing a fine job and the front office has finally figured out that they need to rebuild and reload in a big way. It's more testimony to a franchise that got drunk on its own glory, failed to plan for the future, and now has a lot of names that are new to one another. Ruiz is a leader by example but not a rallying point, and his career is almost over. Howard is a shadow of his former self. Hamels, Rollins and Utley are gone; Victorino and Jayson Worth long gone. Cliff Lee is on the disabled list, his career presumably over. There just do not appear to be any leaders yet ready to rally the team around them. Mikael Franco came up this year, is very young, and on the disabled list. Odubel Herrera has shown some promise, just joined the team this year as a Rule 5 draftee and is still figuring out how to play center field. Right fielder Domonic Brown's body language suggests that he'd rather be somewhere else; Francoeur, while energetic, is a journeyman, so much so that the outfielder actually pitched in eight games in the minors last season.
Going back to the Mets, it seems that despite some major injuries much is going right for them now. They have good pitching, and they have started to hit. And it's a fine time to get hot bats at the end of August, where the games count the same as they did in April but have more attention paid to them and more incremental meaning as the teams march toward the playoffs. That Wright has returned gives them their veteran presence; that players are rallying around him is exciting. They look confident, and their body language and interactions in the dugout show it. As did the humor of veteran pitcher Bartolo Colon, who in one at bat stood there with the bat on his shoulder, took three strikes, walked back to the dugout with an amused smile on his face and sat down. His teammates smiled, too -- they know that the cagey old veteran was saving his energy for throwing strikes, which he did masterfully last night.
It's a tale of two teams, and what a difference eight years makes. The Mets started their decline at the end of 2007, when they blew a 7-game lead with 17 games to go and ran into a freight train called the Philadelphia Phillies, who blasted Tommy Glavine on the last day of the season to win the division. That last month of the season gave birth to a great run for the Phillies and the (always temporary in baseball) decline of the Mets. Fast forward eight years, and the Phillies look like the one-time boomtown with empty storefronts abounding, while the Mets look like the new development with all the modern amenities. Mets' fans should enjoy the journey here and now. Their team looks primed for a good run.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Must Read: ESPN the Magazine Article on Chris Borland
This article brings out the Nostradamus in me.
ESPN calls him the most dangerous man in football. Perhaps to try to be more grammatically precise, they could call him the most dangerous man to football. Either way, his retirement after a great rookie season because of a fear of doing long-term damage to himself based upon current empirical (and walking) evidence should scare anyone who has anything to do with football. You also might recall the comment of future Hall of Famer Ed Reed, who offered that he played football so that his children wouldn't have to. And then there's President Obama, who stated that he wouldn't have encouraged his kids (if they were boys) to play football.
For some kids, football is the reason they go to school, it is a way out, but then that way out ends. Why? Because most cannot earn scholarships. And, for some who do, they quickly realize that they might not like studying much after high school. Others get hurt, and scholarships are "one year renewable." And for those who play well, they might be able to play professionally in the Arena League or CFL or NFL. But then for how long? And then what? It would be interesting to see the statistics on what players do after they football careers end and the breakdown of earnings based upon who has a college degree and who does not. There are other metrics out there -- perhaps related to health -- that should be measured, too.
The Nostradamus in me says that what protects football are the fans' need for violence, the fans' need for an event that is easy to bet on because of the point spread, and those who played it years ago who are defending a culture because they cannot bear to admit that what they participated in is harmful long-term to those who participate in the game. How many "I love football" types do you hear on the sports talk shows and on the major networks? And they get paid to talk about the product on the field when they know from experience and from friends who played who just are not well now what the cost of that product is in terms of human health. It can be staggering.
Theodore Roosevelt was courageous enough to reform the game at the turn of the 20th century, when people were dying in games because of flying wedges and the ability to get a running start from the backfield toward the line of scrimmage. He called the powers that be together and told them to fix their problem, and rules evolved, as they have over the years and as has the equipment. But now the game has morphed into where there is a long-term health problem. Players are not dying on the field like they were in the early 1900's; instead, they are doing things to themselves that accelerates a deterioration in their health and the dying process. That's more subtle, but that doesn't mean the problem is not as pronounced. And for every person who played in the NFL who gets publicity about his problems, there have to be tenfold more who are feeling the effects of playing football from Pee Wee through high school or college, too.
Perhaps there is no one with the courage to address this problem. Sure, the NFL has a committee, and a group of former players resolved litigation, but is the Federal government, the NFL and each college taking it as seriously or simply treating this issue as a risk management issue and a cost of doing business? Perhaps there is a need to innovate equipment, to compel players to wear a bodysuit that combines breathing technology, airbags and Kevlar to protect players from the worst of its, so that the hits get absorbed in a different way? Perhaps there is a need for massive rule changes, where football becomes more like flag football. It's hard to know what is getting done, but it makes me wonder what those who study societies will think about ours when they look back 100 years from now and ruminate on this game of football.
Will they think it was civilized? Will they think it was like Christians and lions in a coliseum? Will they think that people must have been crazy to do this voluntarily? Something tells me that advancing medical science will say affirmative to the last question. And, if that's the case, why not take measures to reform the game dramatically now?
How many suicides or cases of ALS or dementia must there be? Of people in so much pain and so disabled that they have trouble functioning at way too early an age to have such troubles?
Chris Borland is trouble for the NFL. He did his own research and did not like what he found. Sure, he won't be able to walk around and say he's a member of an NFL team and have all that cache. And, he won't walk away now and make NFL money doing something else right away.
But at least he can walk, and his walking away now gives him a much better chance of being able to walk well when he's in his sixties and seventies, will give him a much better chance of being able to know where he's walking, and will give him a much better chance to live a long and healthy life.
He is giving up the opportunity to "be a football hero."
But history probably will tell us that his walking away will help add to the quality of the lives of many and perhaps save some.
He is a dangerous man to the football industry.
And he is just one of the first.
More are coming.
ESPN calls him the most dangerous man in football. Perhaps to try to be more grammatically precise, they could call him the most dangerous man to football. Either way, his retirement after a great rookie season because of a fear of doing long-term damage to himself based upon current empirical (and walking) evidence should scare anyone who has anything to do with football. You also might recall the comment of future Hall of Famer Ed Reed, who offered that he played football so that his children wouldn't have to. And then there's President Obama, who stated that he wouldn't have encouraged his kids (if they were boys) to play football.
For some kids, football is the reason they go to school, it is a way out, but then that way out ends. Why? Because most cannot earn scholarships. And, for some who do, they quickly realize that they might not like studying much after high school. Others get hurt, and scholarships are "one year renewable." And for those who play well, they might be able to play professionally in the Arena League or CFL or NFL. But then for how long? And then what? It would be interesting to see the statistics on what players do after they football careers end and the breakdown of earnings based upon who has a college degree and who does not. There are other metrics out there -- perhaps related to health -- that should be measured, too.
The Nostradamus in me says that what protects football are the fans' need for violence, the fans' need for an event that is easy to bet on because of the point spread, and those who played it years ago who are defending a culture because they cannot bear to admit that what they participated in is harmful long-term to those who participate in the game. How many "I love football" types do you hear on the sports talk shows and on the major networks? And they get paid to talk about the product on the field when they know from experience and from friends who played who just are not well now what the cost of that product is in terms of human health. It can be staggering.
Theodore Roosevelt was courageous enough to reform the game at the turn of the 20th century, when people were dying in games because of flying wedges and the ability to get a running start from the backfield toward the line of scrimmage. He called the powers that be together and told them to fix their problem, and rules evolved, as they have over the years and as has the equipment. But now the game has morphed into where there is a long-term health problem. Players are not dying on the field like they were in the early 1900's; instead, they are doing things to themselves that accelerates a deterioration in their health and the dying process. That's more subtle, but that doesn't mean the problem is not as pronounced. And for every person who played in the NFL who gets publicity about his problems, there have to be tenfold more who are feeling the effects of playing football from Pee Wee through high school or college, too.
Perhaps there is no one with the courage to address this problem. Sure, the NFL has a committee, and a group of former players resolved litigation, but is the Federal government, the NFL and each college taking it as seriously or simply treating this issue as a risk management issue and a cost of doing business? Perhaps there is a need to innovate equipment, to compel players to wear a bodysuit that combines breathing technology, airbags and Kevlar to protect players from the worst of its, so that the hits get absorbed in a different way? Perhaps there is a need for massive rule changes, where football becomes more like flag football. It's hard to know what is getting done, but it makes me wonder what those who study societies will think about ours when they look back 100 years from now and ruminate on this game of football.
Will they think it was civilized? Will they think it was like Christians and lions in a coliseum? Will they think that people must have been crazy to do this voluntarily? Something tells me that advancing medical science will say affirmative to the last question. And, if that's the case, why not take measures to reform the game dramatically now?
How many suicides or cases of ALS or dementia must there be? Of people in so much pain and so disabled that they have trouble functioning at way too early an age to have such troubles?
Chris Borland is trouble for the NFL. He did his own research and did not like what he found. Sure, he won't be able to walk around and say he's a member of an NFL team and have all that cache. And, he won't walk away now and make NFL money doing something else right away.
But at least he can walk, and his walking away now gives him a much better chance of being able to walk well when he's in his sixties and seventies, will give him a much better chance of being able to know where he's walking, and will give him a much better chance to live a long and healthy life.
He is giving up the opportunity to "be a football hero."
But history probably will tell us that his walking away will help add to the quality of the lives of many and perhaps save some.
He is a dangerous man to the football industry.
And he is just one of the first.
More are coming.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Random Observations about the Sports World
Here goes:
1. Great to see international soccer return. Curious to see if any of the big teams will make a major move in the remaining two weeks or so until the clock expires on the summer transfer period. Manchester City are playing like they have something to prove. Chelsea have not gotten off to a good start and manager Jose Mourinho has not lasted in any job beyond three years. Could change be coming to Stamford Bridge? And perhaps this could be the year that Arsenal make a breakthrough (note the subject/verb alignment is the way the English do it).
2. Has Jordan Spieth had an incredible run or what? And does Tiger Woods have one more good run in him?
3. Is MLS becoming the Seniors' Tour for great footballers from the major international leagues? Kindly note that all players that come from across the ocean are well into their thirties, which makes them somewhat ancient by international footballing standards. The Kaka of ten years ago only would have been seen in Orlando visiting Disney World, not playing football.
4. Is there anything to make out of the NFL's pre-season? Only that it is two games' too long. Sure, it's fun to watch the younger players battle for roster spots, but the vets are desperately trying not to get hurt.
5. Will history prove that every coach we like/honor/respect now will prove to have significant character flaws that will render him historically unlikable? Bear Bryant and Vince Lombardi ran brutal drills, Adolph Rupp was a racist and John Wooden wasn't as squeaky clean as he would have liked us to believe. Bobby Knight's methods are legendary. What will people say about Rick Pitino, John Calipari, Urban Meyer, Jim Harbaugh and Nick Saban? As for the footballers, perhaps that they didn't care about preparing kids for jobs outside pro football and for their long-term health. Is that possible?
6. Will LeBron win a title in Cleveland? Does Kobe's insistence on making his max deal hamper the Lakers in a way that Tim Duncan's generosity in not insisting on a max deal helps the Spurs? The answers are yes and yes, I think. Basketball is just too far away to contemplate anything more deeply than that.
7. Ah, baseball. Yes, they still play it, but the powers that be should worry about their demographics, how hot it is outside and how long it takes to play games. Was at AAA Lehigh Valley over the weekend and loved the clock for time between pitches and time in between innings. MLB should adopt both and move their games along. Also, for those who deny global warming, just try attending a baseball game in the Northeast in the summertime and 5 p.m. and have the temperature still be 90 degrees. That didn't happen 30 years ago. Baseball needs some more oomph and stars in this world of immediacy. Other sports -- namely football and basketball -- benefit from the speed of media coverage and are more savvy about that coverage.
8. Tennis. Has it suffered in popularity because there are more choices for sports fans that ever before and, well, the equipment is so good that smash and score tennis without colorful personalities makes the sport almost unwatchable? Had Serena Williams played twenty years ago she would have been THE story. Not so today.
That's it from here. Slow news day, slow summer day, watching to see whether Chase Utley allows himself to be traded and whether Sam Bradford's knee can hold up. Yawn.
1. Great to see international soccer return. Curious to see if any of the big teams will make a major move in the remaining two weeks or so until the clock expires on the summer transfer period. Manchester City are playing like they have something to prove. Chelsea have not gotten off to a good start and manager Jose Mourinho has not lasted in any job beyond three years. Could change be coming to Stamford Bridge? And perhaps this could be the year that Arsenal make a breakthrough (note the subject/verb alignment is the way the English do it).
2. Has Jordan Spieth had an incredible run or what? And does Tiger Woods have one more good run in him?
3. Is MLS becoming the Seniors' Tour for great footballers from the major international leagues? Kindly note that all players that come from across the ocean are well into their thirties, which makes them somewhat ancient by international footballing standards. The Kaka of ten years ago only would have been seen in Orlando visiting Disney World, not playing football.
4. Is there anything to make out of the NFL's pre-season? Only that it is two games' too long. Sure, it's fun to watch the younger players battle for roster spots, but the vets are desperately trying not to get hurt.
5. Will history prove that every coach we like/honor/respect now will prove to have significant character flaws that will render him historically unlikable? Bear Bryant and Vince Lombardi ran brutal drills, Adolph Rupp was a racist and John Wooden wasn't as squeaky clean as he would have liked us to believe. Bobby Knight's methods are legendary. What will people say about Rick Pitino, John Calipari, Urban Meyer, Jim Harbaugh and Nick Saban? As for the footballers, perhaps that they didn't care about preparing kids for jobs outside pro football and for their long-term health. Is that possible?
6. Will LeBron win a title in Cleveland? Does Kobe's insistence on making his max deal hamper the Lakers in a way that Tim Duncan's generosity in not insisting on a max deal helps the Spurs? The answers are yes and yes, I think. Basketball is just too far away to contemplate anything more deeply than that.
7. Ah, baseball. Yes, they still play it, but the powers that be should worry about their demographics, how hot it is outside and how long it takes to play games. Was at AAA Lehigh Valley over the weekend and loved the clock for time between pitches and time in between innings. MLB should adopt both and move their games along. Also, for those who deny global warming, just try attending a baseball game in the Northeast in the summertime and 5 p.m. and have the temperature still be 90 degrees. That didn't happen 30 years ago. Baseball needs some more oomph and stars in this world of immediacy. Other sports -- namely football and basketball -- benefit from the speed of media coverage and are more savvy about that coverage.
8. Tennis. Has it suffered in popularity because there are more choices for sports fans that ever before and, well, the equipment is so good that smash and score tennis without colorful personalities makes the sport almost unwatchable? Had Serena Williams played twenty years ago she would have been THE story. Not so today.
That's it from here. Slow news day, slow summer day, watching to see whether Chase Utley allows himself to be traded and whether Sam Bradford's knee can hold up. Yawn.
Thursday, August 06, 2015
The Case for Pete Mackanin
It's hard to hire a top-level employee.
You can hire a nationally known recruiter for a retained search. You can have that recruiter gather references, check with influential people in the industry -- what's the person like as a leader, how does he/she communicate up, down and sideways, do people enjoy coming to work for this person and want to honor her/his leadership? You can look at track records, you can have the person take all sorts of permissible "is this person a fit" tests, and you can have fourteen people interview him/her. You can ask all sorts of questions, the most popular of which today are called "competency-based questions." You can probe about all sorts of things, ask for examples of speaking truth to power, of turning a situation around, about finding a gem inside someone whose prospects others had dismissed.
And all of that might work. Then again, there's the saying, "the person you interview on a Friday is not the same person who shows up on a Monday." Translated, the person puts on his/her makeup and best face for the interview, is rehearsed, says all the right things. His/her references say all sorts of good things, and chances are you didn't miss anything, but chances are retrospectively if you play back those references in your head after a failed hire you'll probably focus on the things that you didn't hear but retrospectively you needed to. It could be that the new position goes to the person's head, that the person is not a continuous improver and learner and sheds the modicum of humility you had thought was necessary for a leadership position. It could be that despite your best intentions, it just plain out did not work.
But there's the question of the old-fashioned tryout. Perhaps you are fortunate enough to hire someone for a junior position that's one level down, with a view toward promoting that person into the higher profile position within a few years. During that time you can give that person all sorts of problems to solve, and watch his/her progress. And if you like what you see, well, jackpot. You can promote the person. Chances are the whole organization will be pleased and support this person. There is a chance that the person will fail because, well, the hot spot differs from the more junior spot -- more pressure, more responsibility and a different dynamic, as the person moves from a senior staff position say to "the" person. But at least you have gotten to know the person and seen him/her develop a track record inside your organization.
Sure, there are great arguments for the Phillies not to remove the "interim" tag from Pete Mackanin. Among them are he is 64 years old (which is, the last time I checked, a cause for action by Mackanin under Federal law) and the fact that he has been an interim manager three times without any team's having made him their permanent manager. In other words, time might have passed Mackanin by, and it just could be that his becoming the manager of a Major League club is not meant to be. After all, there are only 30 such positions, and it's not a shame not to have gotten one by even your 47th years in organized baseball.
What the Phillies seemingly need right now is a good organizational manager, one who has the ego that he can do a good job but one who doesn't have to profile himself before the media or become bigger than the team. The team is not going to contend for years, so they need a mentor who can be patient with younger talent, communicate well with them, nurture them and help foster their growth while fully engaged. He cannot be aloof like Ryan Sandberg or a drill sergeant like Larry Bowa. He needs to be someone more like, well, Pete Mackanin.
Right now, the Phillies are 16-17 in games Mackanin has managed, and this among significant transition that had seen speculation regarding significant player movement and then the movement itself, as the team lost its most reliable outfielder, a stellar closer, and one of the best starting pitchers in the team's history. Under his predecessor, the team was winning only a third of its games. If anything, the Philllies' Major League roster has gotten worse, but the team has played with a vigor and energy that was lacking before Ryne Sandberg realized that there was more to managing a Major League team than just having had a Hall of Fame career and wanting to. It's admirable that Sandberg rode buses in the minors to pay his dues and become a Major League manager; it's just disappointing that he failed to adapt to a dynamic where the players at the top level have much more leverage over the manager than they do collectively in the minors. Managing in the Majors requires a much different skill set, it would appear, from managing in the minors. The minors can suffer a dictator, even an authoritarian one who feels no need to communicate; the Majors demand someone who establishes his authority by using it sparingly and getting the players to want to do things for you and not disappoint you.
And that describes Pete Mackanin, a baseball lifer who has done his apprenticeship in organized baseball in many ways and even at 64 is ready for this job. My guess is that he can ace the batter of tests and in-person interviews that the team will put candidates through. But no candidate can do what Mackanin is doing right now, because none will have a similar opportunity -- to ace the the tryout.
Pete Mackanin is acing the tryout. He merits the full-time job in Philadelphia.
There's a good rule in human resources that people should keep in mind. You might not love the incumbent, but if the incumbent overall is a plus and is predictable there are far worse alternatives out there. Right now, Pete Mackanin is a big plus and a known quantity. Oh, the big club can bandy about a bunch of names and the fans can get excited, but there is no point to that right now. The Phillies have a top candidate right inside their clubhouse. They are getting good press for hiring Mackanin, for what he has done, and for their trades. They should continue the streak, remove the uncertainty, and honor Mackanin and the team now.
Pete Mackanin should be an interim no more.
He's earned the full-time job.
You can hire a nationally known recruiter for a retained search. You can have that recruiter gather references, check with influential people in the industry -- what's the person like as a leader, how does he/she communicate up, down and sideways, do people enjoy coming to work for this person and want to honor her/his leadership? You can look at track records, you can have the person take all sorts of permissible "is this person a fit" tests, and you can have fourteen people interview him/her. You can ask all sorts of questions, the most popular of which today are called "competency-based questions." You can probe about all sorts of things, ask for examples of speaking truth to power, of turning a situation around, about finding a gem inside someone whose prospects others had dismissed.
And all of that might work. Then again, there's the saying, "the person you interview on a Friday is not the same person who shows up on a Monday." Translated, the person puts on his/her makeup and best face for the interview, is rehearsed, says all the right things. His/her references say all sorts of good things, and chances are you didn't miss anything, but chances are retrospectively if you play back those references in your head after a failed hire you'll probably focus on the things that you didn't hear but retrospectively you needed to. It could be that the new position goes to the person's head, that the person is not a continuous improver and learner and sheds the modicum of humility you had thought was necessary for a leadership position. It could be that despite your best intentions, it just plain out did not work.
But there's the question of the old-fashioned tryout. Perhaps you are fortunate enough to hire someone for a junior position that's one level down, with a view toward promoting that person into the higher profile position within a few years. During that time you can give that person all sorts of problems to solve, and watch his/her progress. And if you like what you see, well, jackpot. You can promote the person. Chances are the whole organization will be pleased and support this person. There is a chance that the person will fail because, well, the hot spot differs from the more junior spot -- more pressure, more responsibility and a different dynamic, as the person moves from a senior staff position say to "the" person. But at least you have gotten to know the person and seen him/her develop a track record inside your organization.
Sure, there are great arguments for the Phillies not to remove the "interim" tag from Pete Mackanin. Among them are he is 64 years old (which is, the last time I checked, a cause for action by Mackanin under Federal law) and the fact that he has been an interim manager three times without any team's having made him their permanent manager. In other words, time might have passed Mackanin by, and it just could be that his becoming the manager of a Major League club is not meant to be. After all, there are only 30 such positions, and it's not a shame not to have gotten one by even your 47th years in organized baseball.
What the Phillies seemingly need right now is a good organizational manager, one who has the ego that he can do a good job but one who doesn't have to profile himself before the media or become bigger than the team. The team is not going to contend for years, so they need a mentor who can be patient with younger talent, communicate well with them, nurture them and help foster their growth while fully engaged. He cannot be aloof like Ryan Sandberg or a drill sergeant like Larry Bowa. He needs to be someone more like, well, Pete Mackanin.
Right now, the Phillies are 16-17 in games Mackanin has managed, and this among significant transition that had seen speculation regarding significant player movement and then the movement itself, as the team lost its most reliable outfielder, a stellar closer, and one of the best starting pitchers in the team's history. Under his predecessor, the team was winning only a third of its games. If anything, the Philllies' Major League roster has gotten worse, but the team has played with a vigor and energy that was lacking before Ryne Sandberg realized that there was more to managing a Major League team than just having had a Hall of Fame career and wanting to. It's admirable that Sandberg rode buses in the minors to pay his dues and become a Major League manager; it's just disappointing that he failed to adapt to a dynamic where the players at the top level have much more leverage over the manager than they do collectively in the minors. Managing in the Majors requires a much different skill set, it would appear, from managing in the minors. The minors can suffer a dictator, even an authoritarian one who feels no need to communicate; the Majors demand someone who establishes his authority by using it sparingly and getting the players to want to do things for you and not disappoint you.
And that describes Pete Mackanin, a baseball lifer who has done his apprenticeship in organized baseball in many ways and even at 64 is ready for this job. My guess is that he can ace the batter of tests and in-person interviews that the team will put candidates through. But no candidate can do what Mackanin is doing right now, because none will have a similar opportunity -- to ace the the tryout.
Pete Mackanin is acing the tryout. He merits the full-time job in Philadelphia.
There's a good rule in human resources that people should keep in mind. You might not love the incumbent, but if the incumbent overall is a plus and is predictable there are far worse alternatives out there. Right now, Pete Mackanin is a big plus and a known quantity. Oh, the big club can bandy about a bunch of names and the fans can get excited, but there is no point to that right now. The Phillies have a top candidate right inside their clubhouse. They are getting good press for hiring Mackanin, for what he has done, and for their trades. They should continue the streak, remove the uncertainty, and honor Mackanin and the team now.
Pete Mackanin should be an interim no more.
He's earned the full-time job.
Thursday, July 30, 2015
The Boston Whine Party
Employee breaks rules.
Employer investigates.
Employee destroys information.
Employee refuses to cooperate in investigation.
In most cases, employee gets fired. No severance, no nothing, just a quick and quiet exit.
Unless, of course, you are a star pro football player, your enabling fans and admirers tell you that everything you do is okay, and you are a member of a union that has a collective bargaining agreement with work rules that protect you.
Fine, the union will stand up for the player, and the player has money to fight the punishment. And, yes, everyone is entitled to a defense. But. . .
The NFL hired an investigator with impeccable credentials. The investigator did a thorough job in investigating what happened. The NFL also has major credibility problems, and if professional sports don't enforce rules that affect the integrity of the outcome of any came, what do they have? Most certainly not the fans' trust or belief that the game is credible. Baseball took a huge it because of the handwave it gave to the steroids problem until the public outcry became so loud (as did the bulk of the players). Soccer has problems because of FIFA's bribery scandal. And cycling became a joke when it became clear that international icon Lance Armstrong was a fraud.
Organizations show integrity when they take stands that could cost them money or tarnish their image temporarily, when they admit that they are human and vulnerable and, yes, this star transgressed and will be held accountable. That's the way the system should work. This issue about Deflategate should not be that huge a deal -- Brady did wrong, he made a big mistake, and he should get punished for it. Period. But instead, he's the saint, the league is terrible, the commissioner is Darth Vader, the league is inconsistent on punishment, and Brady is a victim. Wow, that's something.
The fact of the matter is that another team complained and that Brady and some cohorts in the New England organization did something wrong. Look, it isn't even the first time teams in the league did something wrong this past season, as one if not two teams were punished for pumping in extra crowd noise during games this year. And those stories came and went because, well, the behavior was wrong, their was no excuse and perhaps because the stories didn't involve one of the best quarterbacks of all time and the Super Bowl champions. (Yet, steroids issues in baseball involved all-stars and the cycling scandal involved the best rider of all time). Somehow, the whole conversation of this is skewed because of very difficult facts involving domestic abuse cases, the intertwining of off-the-field matters with the league's code of conduct policy, letting the justice system take its course and many tough situations. I am not defending the league's handling of the Ray Rice case. That said, how the league handled those matters should not cloud the league's or anyone's judgment about how it should handle a matter that affects the integrity of the game.
The issue here is that the league must take a stand that no player is above honoring the rules of the game and also fair play. Sure, we can take shots at the league for enforcing "no celebration" penalties and "keep your shirt tucked in" rules. But if the league cannot discipline Tom Brady, what message is it sending? That you need to try to cheat to be great? That if you pile up numbers you are so valuable to us that we cannot hold you accountable?
Again, everyone is entitled to a defense, and Brady and the players' association are well within their rights to exhaust their remedies. And perhaps the investigator and league got it wrong. But if, on its face, Brady had a role in telling those equipment guys to deflate footballs (and especially in light of the fact that the Colts had warned the league about this before) and then perhaps destroyed evidence and failed to cooperate, he should be happy with a four-game suspension and just walk away.
But most people in the workplace would get fired.
Star or not.
There cannot be two sets of rules -- one for Bill Belichick and Tom Brady and the Patriots and one for everyone else.
And that is Roger Goodell's and the league's point.
And it's a good one.
Employer investigates.
Employee destroys information.
Employee refuses to cooperate in investigation.
In most cases, employee gets fired. No severance, no nothing, just a quick and quiet exit.
Unless, of course, you are a star pro football player, your enabling fans and admirers tell you that everything you do is okay, and you are a member of a union that has a collective bargaining agreement with work rules that protect you.
Fine, the union will stand up for the player, and the player has money to fight the punishment. And, yes, everyone is entitled to a defense. But. . .
The NFL hired an investigator with impeccable credentials. The investigator did a thorough job in investigating what happened. The NFL also has major credibility problems, and if professional sports don't enforce rules that affect the integrity of the outcome of any came, what do they have? Most certainly not the fans' trust or belief that the game is credible. Baseball took a huge it because of the handwave it gave to the steroids problem until the public outcry became so loud (as did the bulk of the players). Soccer has problems because of FIFA's bribery scandal. And cycling became a joke when it became clear that international icon Lance Armstrong was a fraud.
Organizations show integrity when they take stands that could cost them money or tarnish their image temporarily, when they admit that they are human and vulnerable and, yes, this star transgressed and will be held accountable. That's the way the system should work. This issue about Deflategate should not be that huge a deal -- Brady did wrong, he made a big mistake, and he should get punished for it. Period. But instead, he's the saint, the league is terrible, the commissioner is Darth Vader, the league is inconsistent on punishment, and Brady is a victim. Wow, that's something.
The fact of the matter is that another team complained and that Brady and some cohorts in the New England organization did something wrong. Look, it isn't even the first time teams in the league did something wrong this past season, as one if not two teams were punished for pumping in extra crowd noise during games this year. And those stories came and went because, well, the behavior was wrong, their was no excuse and perhaps because the stories didn't involve one of the best quarterbacks of all time and the Super Bowl champions. (Yet, steroids issues in baseball involved all-stars and the cycling scandal involved the best rider of all time). Somehow, the whole conversation of this is skewed because of very difficult facts involving domestic abuse cases, the intertwining of off-the-field matters with the league's code of conduct policy, letting the justice system take its course and many tough situations. I am not defending the league's handling of the Ray Rice case. That said, how the league handled those matters should not cloud the league's or anyone's judgment about how it should handle a matter that affects the integrity of the game.
The issue here is that the league must take a stand that no player is above honoring the rules of the game and also fair play. Sure, we can take shots at the league for enforcing "no celebration" penalties and "keep your shirt tucked in" rules. But if the league cannot discipline Tom Brady, what message is it sending? That you need to try to cheat to be great? That if you pile up numbers you are so valuable to us that we cannot hold you accountable?
Again, everyone is entitled to a defense, and Brady and the players' association are well within their rights to exhaust their remedies. And perhaps the investigator and league got it wrong. But if, on its face, Brady had a role in telling those equipment guys to deflate footballs (and especially in light of the fact that the Colts had warned the league about this before) and then perhaps destroyed evidence and failed to cooperate, he should be happy with a four-game suspension and just walk away.
But most people in the workplace would get fired.
Star or not.
There cannot be two sets of rules -- one for Bill Belichick and Tom Brady and the Patriots and one for everyone else.
And that is Roger Goodell's and the league's point.
And it's a good one.
The Phillies Trade Cole Hamels
A few funny things happened on the way to trading Cole Hamels. . .
1. He threw a no-hitter in his last start for the team.
2. The Phillies haven't been winners exactly in development talent or in getting it for star pitchers.
3. It remains to be seen whether they'll have broken their jinx of making bad trades by getting a few future stars in this one. History is not on their side.
We go back to when they traded Fergie Jenkins in the 1960's to the Cubs for a bunch of players, only to see Jenkins become a Hall of Famer. True, the swap of Rick Wise for Steve Carlton in the early 1970's proved to be a stroke of genius. It's hard to argue with that one, as it is that despite a trove of promising starters in the late 1970's/early 1980's (Jim Wright, Tony Ghelfi, Scott Munninghoff, Marty Bystrom), none of them panned out. It's also hard to argue that despite the touting in the mid-to-late 2000's the team had one of the best farm systems in baseball, almost none of those prospects turned into much (example: none of the four vaunted prospects sent to Cleveland in the 2009 Cliff Lee trade materialized into an everyday starter let alone a star, and for all the trades made to other teams in the 2007-2012 time frame you could argue that only Gio Gonzalez has had a career worthy of mention). Atop that, the team is saddled with the wreckage (at least in memory) of getting four suspects for Curt Schilling (who went on to have a close to if not Hall of Fame career) and the poor prospects it received when it traded Cliff Lee to Seattle (the season before they then re-signed him as a free agent -- just witness the struggles of Philippe Aumont). Put simply, the Cole Hamels trade is a triumph of hope over experience.
Yes, they're getting arguably the third, fourth, fifth, thirteenth and twenty-ninth best prospects from a team that is five games below .500 and a starter who won 18 games four years ago and then had two very major surgeries and hasn't been the same, are eating the $34 million remaining on his contract, sent close to $10 million in cash to the Rangers and still somewhat promising lefty reliever Jake Diekman, along with Hamels. Huge trade, reminiscent of around 1983 when the Phillies sent five players, including Julio Franco, to the Indians for then phenom Von Hayes (who would have drawn great praise today for all of his good numbers, especially his on-base percentage). Hayes never materialized into a Hall of Famer, and Franco actually had a better career.
Oh, we'll talk about the stud pitching prospect, the catcher who can throw and hit the ball out of the stadium, the outfielder with the strong and quick wrists and the two other pitchers until we're blue in the face. But the pitcher must not blow out his arm and has to project to be at least the #2 in the rotation. The catcher has to be close to an all-star and at least in the conversation. And the outfielder must be an everyday player who can have an on-base percentage that hopefully is at least ten basis points above the Major League average. If they get anything out of the other two pitchers, fine, but they need regulars, and they need a few who have the potential to be stars. Why? Because the Rangers are getting a big-game pitcher like Schilling was who can help lead them to the ever-elusive World Series title (and they missed their window over the past couple of years).
It's hard to gauge this trade right now. Initially, I was horrified, as early reports did not include the #3 prospect in the organization, the star pitching prospect. Still, in a way, it's sad to note that a star pitcher coming off a no-hitter with a team-friendly contract (why -- because it lasts for 3-4 more years as opposed to the 7 or so that the star free agents are likely to get in the off-season) cannot draw a #1 or #2 organizational prospect from a contender. Perhaps this is the best the Phillies can do, but the pressure is on. The view here is that if this trade fails along the lines of the Schilling deal (or, even along the lines of the Hunter Pence and Roy Oswalt debacles, where Pence turned out to be a mainstay and the key minor-leaguer cannot shake injuries and where they gave up value for Oswalt, including a throw-in minor-league outfielder who is very good) then ownership has to sell the team. It will have zero credibility save among its wealthy buddies on the Main Line, and it will have proven that it cannot regain the culture that it had created on the foundation of the Ed Wade era (as it was Wade who found us Hamels, Rollins, Howard and Utley -- or at least that happened around his watch) about eight years ago. Sadly, you cannot fire the owners, but this trade will say a lot whether this ownership group can rebuild the team and recapture the magic that made Citizens Bank Park a very special place even five years ago.
1. He threw a no-hitter in his last start for the team.
2. The Phillies haven't been winners exactly in development talent or in getting it for star pitchers.
3. It remains to be seen whether they'll have broken their jinx of making bad trades by getting a few future stars in this one. History is not on their side.
We go back to when they traded Fergie Jenkins in the 1960's to the Cubs for a bunch of players, only to see Jenkins become a Hall of Famer. True, the swap of Rick Wise for Steve Carlton in the early 1970's proved to be a stroke of genius. It's hard to argue with that one, as it is that despite a trove of promising starters in the late 1970's/early 1980's (Jim Wright, Tony Ghelfi, Scott Munninghoff, Marty Bystrom), none of them panned out. It's also hard to argue that despite the touting in the mid-to-late 2000's the team had one of the best farm systems in baseball, almost none of those prospects turned into much (example: none of the four vaunted prospects sent to Cleveland in the 2009 Cliff Lee trade materialized into an everyday starter let alone a star, and for all the trades made to other teams in the 2007-2012 time frame you could argue that only Gio Gonzalez has had a career worthy of mention). Atop that, the team is saddled with the wreckage (at least in memory) of getting four suspects for Curt Schilling (who went on to have a close to if not Hall of Fame career) and the poor prospects it received when it traded Cliff Lee to Seattle (the season before they then re-signed him as a free agent -- just witness the struggles of Philippe Aumont). Put simply, the Cole Hamels trade is a triumph of hope over experience.
Yes, they're getting arguably the third, fourth, fifth, thirteenth and twenty-ninth best prospects from a team that is five games below .500 and a starter who won 18 games four years ago and then had two very major surgeries and hasn't been the same, are eating the $34 million remaining on his contract, sent close to $10 million in cash to the Rangers and still somewhat promising lefty reliever Jake Diekman, along with Hamels. Huge trade, reminiscent of around 1983 when the Phillies sent five players, including Julio Franco, to the Indians for then phenom Von Hayes (who would have drawn great praise today for all of his good numbers, especially his on-base percentage). Hayes never materialized into a Hall of Famer, and Franco actually had a better career.
Oh, we'll talk about the stud pitching prospect, the catcher who can throw and hit the ball out of the stadium, the outfielder with the strong and quick wrists and the two other pitchers until we're blue in the face. But the pitcher must not blow out his arm and has to project to be at least the #2 in the rotation. The catcher has to be close to an all-star and at least in the conversation. And the outfielder must be an everyday player who can have an on-base percentage that hopefully is at least ten basis points above the Major League average. If they get anything out of the other two pitchers, fine, but they need regulars, and they need a few who have the potential to be stars. Why? Because the Rangers are getting a big-game pitcher like Schilling was who can help lead them to the ever-elusive World Series title (and they missed their window over the past couple of years).
It's hard to gauge this trade right now. Initially, I was horrified, as early reports did not include the #3 prospect in the organization, the star pitching prospect. Still, in a way, it's sad to note that a star pitcher coming off a no-hitter with a team-friendly contract (why -- because it lasts for 3-4 more years as opposed to the 7 or so that the star free agents are likely to get in the off-season) cannot draw a #1 or #2 organizational prospect from a contender. Perhaps this is the best the Phillies can do, but the pressure is on. The view here is that if this trade fails along the lines of the Schilling deal (or, even along the lines of the Hunter Pence and Roy Oswalt debacles, where Pence turned out to be a mainstay and the key minor-leaguer cannot shake injuries and where they gave up value for Oswalt, including a throw-in minor-league outfielder who is very good) then ownership has to sell the team. It will have zero credibility save among its wealthy buddies on the Main Line, and it will have proven that it cannot regain the culture that it had created on the foundation of the Ed Wade era (as it was Wade who found us Hamels, Rollins, Howard and Utley -- or at least that happened around his watch) about eight years ago. Sadly, you cannot fire the owners, but this trade will say a lot whether this ownership group can rebuild the team and recapture the magic that made Citizens Bank Park a very special place even five years ago.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
A Friend's Lament: Why aren't we as interested in baseball as we used to be?
A good friend e-mailed after the All-Star game asking this question. I offered the following:
1. The strike of 1994 started the decline deep down. How could both sides let the World Series get cancelled?
2. Then there was the Steroids Era. The owners let it happen, the non-using players knew it was going on and did nothing (if this were the Black Sox era, Judge Landis would have banned all of them), and the glorified fans known as many of the baseball writers chronicled and cheered the glorious offensive records that were being set, while conveniently ignoring whispers and the size of the average player. What made it worse is that overall Major League Baseball did not apologize for this travesty. Sure, there was the Mitchell Report and yes, the baseball writers are guarding the Hall of Fame with their lethal keyboards, but let's make no mistake -- that era was awful.
3. Analytics have taken over the game for better and for worse. "Moneyball" was great, showing that a little engine that could could outwit the big spenders. It also showed teams that having a good face and being built like a tight end did not guarantee success in baseball, and that you could be built like Kevin Youkilis and excel. But there are so many analytics today that unless you have a masters in math you cannot figure all of them out or calculate them. And all those analytics do what math is designed to do -- to prove something. Which means that while I might prefer Mays and you might prefer Aaron, there is some PhD in math from MIT who never played Little League who can prove who was better and why. And there's fun in that for the math guys, but not for those of us who like the smell of the grass, the thwack of the bat, the thump of the ball into the mitt.
4. It's hot out there. Even at 7 p.m. in many parts of the country, the temperatures and humidity are high. And that makes it no fun to watch games in such blistering heat.
5. Tickets are more expensive, and so is parking and beer.
6. The games are so gosh-darn long. A game takes 3:30 to play, and the ball is in play for about 15 minutes. There is only so much catching up one can do with friends over that long a period of time. Forty years ago I went to a game at Vet Stadium in Philadelphia, Randy Jones of the Padres against Steve Carlton of the Phillies. Game was over in 1:28. Great game, home team won, hot day, but game was short. MLB should think about that.
7. The offense is terrible. Strikes zones seem bigger, pitchers throw extremely hard on every pitch (and injuries have not abated over time, which is sad given that if front offices can figure out analytics to guide their selection of players, they should be able to figure out physiology enough to keep their pitchers healthy. Long gone are the days when Iron Man Joe McGinnity pitched both ends of long-gone doubleheaders for the New York Giants -- and he did not miss time because of arm injuries). No, I don't want to return to the Steroids/Amphetamines Era, but OBP is the lowest it's been in 35+ years.
8. Even with the fun parks, the game seems antiseptic. There is no Cal Ripken streak, no great recovery by the BoSox after being 3 games down in the 2004 ALDS, no huge names with personality. Sure, there is Mike Trout, but who else is there? Miguel Cabrera is great but doesn't seem to have pizzazz, and Albert Pujols has tailed off. A-Rod is damaged goods; Derek Jeter retired. The newer phenoms don't have the buzz yet.
9. Is baseball losing kids? My son doesn't follow it, and many of his friends do not. They love basketball and soccer (which has grown in the US tremendously, especially interest in international soccer) and football. Baseball is the game that I went to with my dad. Carlton and Schmidt are greats that I refer to. Even I saw Mays, but he was at the end of his career. Many great industries lose their preeminence when they think they are on top, and then fail to save themselves. About 45 years ago boxing, tennis and horse racing were much more popular than they are now. There's a lesson in that somewhere.
10. There are so many choices for entertainment. Baseball used to have fewer competitors. Now there are great restaurants, other teams, big TVs with comfortable chairs and cable in the air conditioning of your own home. Back then, a trip to the ball park was something special and more affordable.
I still like the game. My dad took me to Connie Mack Stadium in North Philadelphia when I was three. I saw Aaron, Clemente, Mays and the hapless Phillies. Parking was strange, the Vet then was new and space-age like, and the Phillies got better. We talked baseball all the time, kept score, and looked forward to our father-and-son outings. And because of that, I'll always be a fan.
But it's just not the same. . .
1. The strike of 1994 started the decline deep down. How could both sides let the World Series get cancelled?
2. Then there was the Steroids Era. The owners let it happen, the non-using players knew it was going on and did nothing (if this were the Black Sox era, Judge Landis would have banned all of them), and the glorified fans known as many of the baseball writers chronicled and cheered the glorious offensive records that were being set, while conveniently ignoring whispers and the size of the average player. What made it worse is that overall Major League Baseball did not apologize for this travesty. Sure, there was the Mitchell Report and yes, the baseball writers are guarding the Hall of Fame with their lethal keyboards, but let's make no mistake -- that era was awful.
3. Analytics have taken over the game for better and for worse. "Moneyball" was great, showing that a little engine that could could outwit the big spenders. It also showed teams that having a good face and being built like a tight end did not guarantee success in baseball, and that you could be built like Kevin Youkilis and excel. But there are so many analytics today that unless you have a masters in math you cannot figure all of them out or calculate them. And all those analytics do what math is designed to do -- to prove something. Which means that while I might prefer Mays and you might prefer Aaron, there is some PhD in math from MIT who never played Little League who can prove who was better and why. And there's fun in that for the math guys, but not for those of us who like the smell of the grass, the thwack of the bat, the thump of the ball into the mitt.
4. It's hot out there. Even at 7 p.m. in many parts of the country, the temperatures and humidity are high. And that makes it no fun to watch games in such blistering heat.
5. Tickets are more expensive, and so is parking and beer.
6. The games are so gosh-darn long. A game takes 3:30 to play, and the ball is in play for about 15 minutes. There is only so much catching up one can do with friends over that long a period of time. Forty years ago I went to a game at Vet Stadium in Philadelphia, Randy Jones of the Padres against Steve Carlton of the Phillies. Game was over in 1:28. Great game, home team won, hot day, but game was short. MLB should think about that.
7. The offense is terrible. Strikes zones seem bigger, pitchers throw extremely hard on every pitch (and injuries have not abated over time, which is sad given that if front offices can figure out analytics to guide their selection of players, they should be able to figure out physiology enough to keep their pitchers healthy. Long gone are the days when Iron Man Joe McGinnity pitched both ends of long-gone doubleheaders for the New York Giants -- and he did not miss time because of arm injuries). No, I don't want to return to the Steroids/Amphetamines Era, but OBP is the lowest it's been in 35+ years.
8. Even with the fun parks, the game seems antiseptic. There is no Cal Ripken streak, no great recovery by the BoSox after being 3 games down in the 2004 ALDS, no huge names with personality. Sure, there is Mike Trout, but who else is there? Miguel Cabrera is great but doesn't seem to have pizzazz, and Albert Pujols has tailed off. A-Rod is damaged goods; Derek Jeter retired. The newer phenoms don't have the buzz yet.
9. Is baseball losing kids? My son doesn't follow it, and many of his friends do not. They love basketball and soccer (which has grown in the US tremendously, especially interest in international soccer) and football. Baseball is the game that I went to with my dad. Carlton and Schmidt are greats that I refer to. Even I saw Mays, but he was at the end of his career. Many great industries lose their preeminence when they think they are on top, and then fail to save themselves. About 45 years ago boxing, tennis and horse racing were much more popular than they are now. There's a lesson in that somewhere.
10. There are so many choices for entertainment. Baseball used to have fewer competitors. Now there are great restaurants, other teams, big TVs with comfortable chairs and cable in the air conditioning of your own home. Back then, a trip to the ball park was something special and more affordable.
I still like the game. My dad took me to Connie Mack Stadium in North Philadelphia when I was three. I saw Aaron, Clemente, Mays and the hapless Phillies. Parking was strange, the Vet then was new and space-age like, and the Phillies got better. We talked baseball all the time, kept score, and looked forward to our father-and-son outings. And because of that, I'll always be a fan.
But it's just not the same. . .
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
From the Ridiculous to the Absurd in. . . Philadelphia
It was bad enough that the Orioles beat the Phillies 19-3 last night, setting a team record for home runs in the process. It is bad enough that the Phillies are having their worst road trip ever, dating back to 1883 and that the team is on pace to lose 108 games. Atop that, the Tonight Show-like jokes keep coming. Inquirer columnist Mike Sielski tweeted that the Cardinals also tried to hack into the Phillies' computer network, but they couldn't figure out how to solve for DOS.
The sad thing is that the 76ers might be creating and drawing worse headlines. On Saturday night at 9:42, the team announced the 2014 first-round pick Joel Embiid suffered a set back in his recovery from a broken foot. When you announce something that late on a Saturday night, it means that you are trying to get people to miss it. Atop that, former coach Larry Brown is lobbying the front office to hire former star Allen Iverson as an Assistant General Manager.
Okay, so OF Jeff Francouer finished the game up in Baltimore last night, laboring through two innings because, among other things, the bullpen phone was off the hook. That was tough enough to watch. But a third straight year of potential awful seasons will be tough to swallow. It's no one's fault, per se, and what's worse is that reports were that Embiid looked great in workouts in Los Angeles prior to this announcement. The truth is -- if and when healthy -- Embiid is a beast. Perhaps now a beast lost or a lost beast or a beached beast, but a beast. The only articulate word is "aaarrgh."
And so the draft looms, and that's a big media event for the 76ers. But what's almost comical is Brown's suggestion -- Allen Iverson as an assistant general manager. What, precisely, would he manage? He had trouble managing himself and perhaps was the worst team captain in the history of professional sports. It was all about Iverson, not about anyone else, and while he was a supreme talent who didn't usually have a good supporting cast, he wasn't a team guy. Ergo, put him in the front office. And Brown's recommendation is curious -- Iverson drove him nuts and had the putative owner (a 1%er named Pat Croce) intervene between him and Iverson.
All that eclipses the many and sometimes puzzling moves of Eagles' coach Chip Kelly, who makes the media darlings often times miss Andy Reid, who somehow missed the training session for coaches who have to deal with the media. The discussion around the release of one-time Pro Bowl guard Evan Mathis was somewhat baffling.
At least the Eagles have a chance to win. . .
At least the 76ers have some hope. . .
At least the Phillies have the memory of 2008.
The sad thing is that the 76ers might be creating and drawing worse headlines. On Saturday night at 9:42, the team announced the 2014 first-round pick Joel Embiid suffered a set back in his recovery from a broken foot. When you announce something that late on a Saturday night, it means that you are trying to get people to miss it. Atop that, former coach Larry Brown is lobbying the front office to hire former star Allen Iverson as an Assistant General Manager.
Okay, so OF Jeff Francouer finished the game up in Baltimore last night, laboring through two innings because, among other things, the bullpen phone was off the hook. That was tough enough to watch. But a third straight year of potential awful seasons will be tough to swallow. It's no one's fault, per se, and what's worse is that reports were that Embiid looked great in workouts in Los Angeles prior to this announcement. The truth is -- if and when healthy -- Embiid is a beast. Perhaps now a beast lost or a lost beast or a beached beast, but a beast. The only articulate word is "aaarrgh."
And so the draft looms, and that's a big media event for the 76ers. But what's almost comical is Brown's suggestion -- Allen Iverson as an assistant general manager. What, precisely, would he manage? He had trouble managing himself and perhaps was the worst team captain in the history of professional sports. It was all about Iverson, not about anyone else, and while he was a supreme talent who didn't usually have a good supporting cast, he wasn't a team guy. Ergo, put him in the front office. And Brown's recommendation is curious -- Iverson drove him nuts and had the putative owner (a 1%er named Pat Croce) intervene between him and Iverson.
All that eclipses the many and sometimes puzzling moves of Eagles' coach Chip Kelly, who makes the media darlings often times miss Andy Reid, who somehow missed the training session for coaches who have to deal with the media. The discussion around the release of one-time Pro Bowl guard Evan Mathis was somewhat baffling.
At least the Eagles have a chance to win. . .
At least the 76ers have some hope. . .
At least the Phillies have the memory of 2008.
Wednesday, June 03, 2015
Sepp Blatter
When I was in high school, the hippie chick teacher came to school with her arm in a sling and a black eye. She offered that her VW van got into an accident. By the time I was a senior, she had four accidents in three years, one of which put her in the hospital for a few months. My father advised, "Son, when you have one accident in a while, it's probably an accident. But if you have four accidents in three years, you have a driving problem."
It would be one thing if FIFA were known as this pristine organization and if international soccer were bribe-free. Today, the FIFA board makes the IOC board look like the College of Cardinals. Scandal upon riddle upon nuance upon scandal make this an ethical meal along the lines that the ethics version of Adam Richman would try (and fail) to eat in an episode of "Man versus Food." There's just too much smoke and fire around FIFA.
Sepp Blatter tried to save himself, and despite his shortcomings realized that it was too little too late and for the game he loves, he had to resign. It was the wise decision, because Sepp Blatter presided over a culture that seemingly became rotten to the core. It would have been hard to expect him to clean it up, given that the apparent rot that occurred over decades happened on his watch. How could any reasonable fan expect him to clean up all of the mess?
That fan couldn't, and now FIFA has to pick someone with the stature to fix things. In a world where deals are made every day and leaders have to make difficult decisions, it will be hard to find someone who hasn't been a part of something that didn't go wrong at some point. Find the person without any blemishes, and it could be that that person didn't lead anything of substance or try and fail at something. There are warts everywhere. The key will be to find someone who found something, spoke up about it and fixed it. Whoever that may be.
FIFA couldn't continue with Sepp Blatter. But who can they find who can help reform it?
Many will want and take the job. The question is who is worthy.
It would be one thing if FIFA were known as this pristine organization and if international soccer were bribe-free. Today, the FIFA board makes the IOC board look like the College of Cardinals. Scandal upon riddle upon nuance upon scandal make this an ethical meal along the lines that the ethics version of Adam Richman would try (and fail) to eat in an episode of "Man versus Food." There's just too much smoke and fire around FIFA.
Sepp Blatter tried to save himself, and despite his shortcomings realized that it was too little too late and for the game he loves, he had to resign. It was the wise decision, because Sepp Blatter presided over a culture that seemingly became rotten to the core. It would have been hard to expect him to clean it up, given that the apparent rot that occurred over decades happened on his watch. How could any reasonable fan expect him to clean up all of the mess?
That fan couldn't, and now FIFA has to pick someone with the stature to fix things. In a world where deals are made every day and leaders have to make difficult decisions, it will be hard to find someone who hasn't been a part of something that didn't go wrong at some point. Find the person without any blemishes, and it could be that that person didn't lead anything of substance or try and fail at something. There are warts everywhere. The key will be to find someone who found something, spoke up about it and fixed it. Whoever that may be.
FIFA couldn't continue with Sepp Blatter. But who can they find who can help reform it?
Many will want and take the job. The question is who is worthy.
Saturday, May 30, 2015
The National Significance of a Relatively Small Sports Headline
About five years ago, Princeton's lacrosse coach, Bill Tierney, announced that he was leaving Tigertown to move to the University of Denver. The lacrosse world buzzed a bit -- on the face of it, this was a curious move because Tierney had built a juggernaut at Princeton, winning 6 national championships in 22 seasons. The East is the lacrosse hotbed; very few schools play Division I lacrosse out west.
But there were two more important subheadings. First, understandably Tierney moved to the best program possible out west because he and his wife were empty nesters and their three grown kids were out west and they wanted to be closer. That made perfect sense. The second subheading had two parts -- one, that you knew that Tierney was going to Denver to bring his all to the program and two, that it only would be a matter of time before he would build a national contender and win a title.
He built a national contender pretty quickly; he just won his first national title at Denver.
The national significance -- for years the lacrosse powers that be and are were trying to give the sport more national appeal, appeal beyond the fact that Notre Dame plays the sport and that Ohio State does. Until Denver's victory, no team outside the Eastern time zone had won a national title. (Still, there are only a handful of Division 1 lacrosse teams outside the east coast). A parallel could be women's basketball, where, for the longest time until perhaps the late 1970's and the early 80's, the national, big state universities had also-ran teams and the likes of Immaculata and Delta State dominated. Well, if you argue that Denver's win might open the eyes of the bigger schools to go bigger time in lacrosse, you might see the likes of Stanford and USC and other big schools starting programs (and figuring out the balance within their athletic programs under Title IX). And that could lead to many more schools playing Division 1 lacrosse -- in all time zones.
So, a veteran coach moved cross country to be closer to his grown children. He builds a better program. He wins a national title.
And now people care about the sport far beyond the East. Denver's 2015 national title could be a defining moment for collegiate lacrosse.
But there were two more important subheadings. First, understandably Tierney moved to the best program possible out west because he and his wife were empty nesters and their three grown kids were out west and they wanted to be closer. That made perfect sense. The second subheading had two parts -- one, that you knew that Tierney was going to Denver to bring his all to the program and two, that it only would be a matter of time before he would build a national contender and win a title.
He built a national contender pretty quickly; he just won his first national title at Denver.
The national significance -- for years the lacrosse powers that be and are were trying to give the sport more national appeal, appeal beyond the fact that Notre Dame plays the sport and that Ohio State does. Until Denver's victory, no team outside the Eastern time zone had won a national title. (Still, there are only a handful of Division 1 lacrosse teams outside the east coast). A parallel could be women's basketball, where, for the longest time until perhaps the late 1970's and the early 80's, the national, big state universities had also-ran teams and the likes of Immaculata and Delta State dominated. Well, if you argue that Denver's win might open the eyes of the bigger schools to go bigger time in lacrosse, you might see the likes of Stanford and USC and other big schools starting programs (and figuring out the balance within their athletic programs under Title IX). And that could lead to many more schools playing Division 1 lacrosse -- in all time zones.
So, a veteran coach moved cross country to be closer to his grown children. He builds a better program. He wins a national title.
And now people care about the sport far beyond the East. Denver's 2015 national title could be a defining moment for collegiate lacrosse.
Friday, May 29, 2015
The FIFA Indictments
I'm all for globalism. I mean, why should the U.S. and Western Europe have all the fun? Plus, if there is more fun and interesting stuff going on everywhere, perhaps there would be less violence. In soccer terms, that means, from a theoretical standpoint, it's good to host the World Cup all over the world.
But when you hear that Qatar was awarded the World Cup in the middle of the summer, it makes you wonder what soccer's main body was thinking. After all, the World Cup in Brazil this past summer took place in weather hot enough that for the first time, play was stopped for the occasional water break. What did FIFA think would happen in Doha? That players will be allowed to play with "camelback" water sacks on their backs to enable during-the-game hydration? Would fans be hooked up to saline IVs in 115-degree temperature.
Sorry, FIFA, but on its face, this award looked suspicious. I mean, hold it in Qatar's winter and explain why and get the buy-in from the world's soccer leagues, fine. That would have been less suspicious. But in the summer -- it just did not make any sense. And, of course, now there are allegations that certain people -- FIFA officials -- made a lot of cents out of the deal and perhaps the award to Russia for 2018.
Let's fast forward to FIFA's head honcho, Sepp Blatter, who has hired a good crisis management communications firm to try to separate himself from this alleged mess. Either he is Sergeant Schultz from Hogan's Heroes reincarnate, suffering from dementia or truly believes that someone he can separate his leadership from what appears to be a culture where handshake greetings are of the "palms up" variety. Or so it seems.
I've written on many occasions that we should not try people in the media and that law enforcement can be wrong, so the FIFA group deserves a good defense and its day in court. That said, if the allegations are proven, Sepp Blatter has to go.
The reasoning is quite straightforward -- if the allegations are true, then all this happened on Sepp Blatter's watch, which would mean that his form of leadership wasn't clear or ethical enough to dictate to his leadership that asking for bribes was forbidden. At many companies, division leaders get terminated when lower ranking employees do criminal things because there is an automatic assumption that the culture was too lose and enable the bad behavior to occur. Those dismissals are fast and not always right or fair, but they do send the message that the culture of the organization and integrity of the brand are more important than any single individual.
For right now, the world will watch the U.S. prosecutions unfold, and we'll all learn enough whether FIFA is really FEE-FA, a nefarious version of "pay to play."
But when you hear that Qatar was awarded the World Cup in the middle of the summer, it makes you wonder what soccer's main body was thinking. After all, the World Cup in Brazil this past summer took place in weather hot enough that for the first time, play was stopped for the occasional water break. What did FIFA think would happen in Doha? That players will be allowed to play with "camelback" water sacks on their backs to enable during-the-game hydration? Would fans be hooked up to saline IVs in 115-degree temperature.
Sorry, FIFA, but on its face, this award looked suspicious. I mean, hold it in Qatar's winter and explain why and get the buy-in from the world's soccer leagues, fine. That would have been less suspicious. But in the summer -- it just did not make any sense. And, of course, now there are allegations that certain people -- FIFA officials -- made a lot of cents out of the deal and perhaps the award to Russia for 2018.
Let's fast forward to FIFA's head honcho, Sepp Blatter, who has hired a good crisis management communications firm to try to separate himself from this alleged mess. Either he is Sergeant Schultz from Hogan's Heroes reincarnate, suffering from dementia or truly believes that someone he can separate his leadership from what appears to be a culture where handshake greetings are of the "palms up" variety. Or so it seems.
I've written on many occasions that we should not try people in the media and that law enforcement can be wrong, so the FIFA group deserves a good defense and its day in court. That said, if the allegations are proven, Sepp Blatter has to go.
The reasoning is quite straightforward -- if the allegations are true, then all this happened on Sepp Blatter's watch, which would mean that his form of leadership wasn't clear or ethical enough to dictate to his leadership that asking for bribes was forbidden. At many companies, division leaders get terminated when lower ranking employees do criminal things because there is an automatic assumption that the culture was too lose and enable the bad behavior to occur. Those dismissals are fast and not always right or fair, but they do send the message that the culture of the organization and integrity of the brand are more important than any single individual.
For right now, the world will watch the U.S. prosecutions unfold, and we'll all learn enough whether FIFA is really FEE-FA, a nefarious version of "pay to play."
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Big Trouble for St. Joseph's University and Potentially All Colleges -- Hazing Scandal Lawsuit
Imagine that you are a freshman athlete.
You played all sorts of travel ball, invested in private hitting, fielding or pitching lessons, got up at very early hours on weekends for long drives to remote fields on hot days, played three games in a day, got yelled at, got dirty, used Port-a-Potties that sometimes were reminiscent of the sewer pipe that Andy Dufresne had to crawl through during his escape from Shawshank Prison, and your reward was that at some showcase tournament, a college coach came up to you and said, 'Hey, I like your game, would you consider coming to our school?' Imagine the excitement, the rush -- I tried hard, and someone noticed. Someone wants me! And hey, there could be some need-based aid, merit money, other aid, this could help pay for college, too. Maybe, maybe not, on the latter point, but then again you get to play a game you love at the college level. Most people don't get that chance.
You get to the college, and then all of a sudden it's like you're entering a new school in a bad neighborhood where the older girls act mean because, well, they are in charge and they can. They force you to do humiliating things in the name of tradition and team bonding, very humiliating things, things that go against your values and sadly the values of the Jesuits who run the school. Things that would draw tabloid attention.
If you speak up, you're finished. You'll get ostracized. You're a whiner, complainer, not a team player, a loaner, the weird girl, you don't get it, you're not part of the band of sisters, whatever. And why? Because you have good values and you have morals. And God forbid, you tell your parents and they complain, well, that's just as bad if not worse. What, are you not tough enough to stand up for yourself -- you have to go crying to mommy and daddy? Omigod, you are such a wimp, why should we want you as a teammate.
It is this backdrop that freshman softball players at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia seemingly entered into. And now, one of the players who was hazed is suing St. Joe's. You can read the link to the article here.
This is a troubling lawsuit. Presumably, the plaintiff either left school out of anger, humiliation, embarrassment or being ostracized. She will have a variety of claims, and the school will have to answer them. St. Joe's does not want to get to a jury. Where was the Athletic Department? Where was the coach? Was there training of coaches as to how to prevent hazing, teach against it, educate on it, recognize it? Was there training of upperclassmen? Many jurors will be parents. Many also will have read headlines about how various dioceses dealt or failed to deal with allegations of abuse by priests (not the same topic, of course, but perhaps representative of a culture).
If this were to go to a jury, the award could be devastating, as could a judge's opinion as to what the standard should be for a school to educate on and prevent this type of behavior. Both could be very costly, both financially and to a school's reputation. The damage to the victims has been done.
The plaintiff and those like her had to muster courage routinely to challenge and defeat opponents. This time, they have to summon even more courage to challenge a school that was supposed to protect them and teammates that were supposed to be their friends.
Once upon a time, they were young girls in pony tails, singing cheers from the bench, stealing bases and grinning on base hits or good plays in the field. College ball was supposed to be the crowning experience, a reward for their dedication. It shouldn't have to be an exercise in growing up way too fast and experiencing things that one should not be forced to experience.
This case looms more largely than just a hazing incident at a relatively small, regional Catholic university. If it is litigated, both the award and the findings could have widespread implications for athletic programs everywhere. If institutions are smart, they'll examine their programs, policies and training to help ensure that hazing of any form does not occur.
You played all sorts of travel ball, invested in private hitting, fielding or pitching lessons, got up at very early hours on weekends for long drives to remote fields on hot days, played three games in a day, got yelled at, got dirty, used Port-a-Potties that sometimes were reminiscent of the sewer pipe that Andy Dufresne had to crawl through during his escape from Shawshank Prison, and your reward was that at some showcase tournament, a college coach came up to you and said, 'Hey, I like your game, would you consider coming to our school?' Imagine the excitement, the rush -- I tried hard, and someone noticed. Someone wants me! And hey, there could be some need-based aid, merit money, other aid, this could help pay for college, too. Maybe, maybe not, on the latter point, but then again you get to play a game you love at the college level. Most people don't get that chance.
You get to the college, and then all of a sudden it's like you're entering a new school in a bad neighborhood where the older girls act mean because, well, they are in charge and they can. They force you to do humiliating things in the name of tradition and team bonding, very humiliating things, things that go against your values and sadly the values of the Jesuits who run the school. Things that would draw tabloid attention.
If you speak up, you're finished. You'll get ostracized. You're a whiner, complainer, not a team player, a loaner, the weird girl, you don't get it, you're not part of the band of sisters, whatever. And why? Because you have good values and you have morals. And God forbid, you tell your parents and they complain, well, that's just as bad if not worse. What, are you not tough enough to stand up for yourself -- you have to go crying to mommy and daddy? Omigod, you are such a wimp, why should we want you as a teammate.
It is this backdrop that freshman softball players at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia seemingly entered into. And now, one of the players who was hazed is suing St. Joe's. You can read the link to the article here.
This is a troubling lawsuit. Presumably, the plaintiff either left school out of anger, humiliation, embarrassment or being ostracized. She will have a variety of claims, and the school will have to answer them. St. Joe's does not want to get to a jury. Where was the Athletic Department? Where was the coach? Was there training of coaches as to how to prevent hazing, teach against it, educate on it, recognize it? Was there training of upperclassmen? Many jurors will be parents. Many also will have read headlines about how various dioceses dealt or failed to deal with allegations of abuse by priests (not the same topic, of course, but perhaps representative of a culture).
If this were to go to a jury, the award could be devastating, as could a judge's opinion as to what the standard should be for a school to educate on and prevent this type of behavior. Both could be very costly, both financially and to a school's reputation. The damage to the victims has been done.
The plaintiff and those like her had to muster courage routinely to challenge and defeat opponents. This time, they have to summon even more courage to challenge a school that was supposed to protect them and teammates that were supposed to be their friends.
Once upon a time, they were young girls in pony tails, singing cheers from the bench, stealing bases and grinning on base hits or good plays in the field. College ball was supposed to be the crowning experience, a reward for their dedication. It shouldn't have to be an exercise in growing up way too fast and experiencing things that one should not be forced to experience.
This case looms more largely than just a hazing incident at a relatively small, regional Catholic university. If it is litigated, both the award and the findings could have widespread implications for athletic programs everywhere. If institutions are smart, they'll examine their programs, policies and training to help ensure that hazing of any form does not occur.
Monday, May 11, 2015
Buster Olney's "Phillies Mount Rushmore"
You start with Steve Carlton. Hall of Famer.
You follow with Mike Schmidt. Hall of Famer and arguably the best third baseman of all-time.
Then you add Robin Roberts, ace of the Whiz Kids and another Hall of Famer.
And then you add. . . Jimmy Rollins? Who, in all likelihood, will not make the Hall of Fame, even if he has had an excellent career. To do so, you bypass Chuck Klein, an all-time great hitter and Hall of Famer and, also, Richie Ashburn, who, even dispensing with his huge popularity in Philadelphia, also was a Hall of Famer.
I have written before that based on all-time WAR both Rollins and Chase Utley, who hold the record for being the National League's longest standing double-play combination, were borderline Hall of Famers. Put simply, neither has had enough "good enough" years to date to warrant inclusion in the Hall. That doesn't make them bad players, hardly. It's just that they do not belong in the Hall of Fame, based upon where their production stands to date.
I know that you can argue that the requirements for the Hall are flawed, that there are some in there (Rabbit Maranville first among them) who do not belong, but that doesn't mean that Rollins warrants inclusion on this mountain more than either Klein or Ashburn. He probably doesn't.
But Olney didn't seek to write the definitive piece. He wanted to spark many conversations like this one. Truth be told, if the Phillies' could have say seven on their Mount Rushmore, in addition to the top three, I'd add Klein, Ashburn, Rollins and Utley -- and in that order.
And that speaks volumes about the first franchise to lose 10,000 games. The franchise dates back to 1877, and there is hardly a crowd for this club's Mount Rushmore. In contrast, there's such a crowd in New York that pretty soon the stars will be wearing numbers in the fifties because so many will have been retired.
Let the arguments commence!
You follow with Mike Schmidt. Hall of Famer and arguably the best third baseman of all-time.
Then you add Robin Roberts, ace of the Whiz Kids and another Hall of Famer.
And then you add. . . Jimmy Rollins? Who, in all likelihood, will not make the Hall of Fame, even if he has had an excellent career. To do so, you bypass Chuck Klein, an all-time great hitter and Hall of Famer and, also, Richie Ashburn, who, even dispensing with his huge popularity in Philadelphia, also was a Hall of Famer.
I have written before that based on all-time WAR both Rollins and Chase Utley, who hold the record for being the National League's longest standing double-play combination, were borderline Hall of Famers. Put simply, neither has had enough "good enough" years to date to warrant inclusion in the Hall. That doesn't make them bad players, hardly. It's just that they do not belong in the Hall of Fame, based upon where their production stands to date.
I know that you can argue that the requirements for the Hall are flawed, that there are some in there (Rabbit Maranville first among them) who do not belong, but that doesn't mean that Rollins warrants inclusion on this mountain more than either Klein or Ashburn. He probably doesn't.
But Olney didn't seek to write the definitive piece. He wanted to spark many conversations like this one. Truth be told, if the Phillies' could have say seven on their Mount Rushmore, in addition to the top three, I'd add Klein, Ashburn, Rollins and Utley -- and in that order.
And that speaks volumes about the first franchise to lose 10,000 games. The franchise dates back to 1877, and there is hardly a crowd for this club's Mount Rushmore. In contrast, there's such a crowd in New York that pretty soon the stars will be wearing numbers in the fifties because so many will have been retired.
Let the arguments commence!
This Headline Explains a Lot
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/trending/Chris-Christie-spent-82000-on-NFL-stadium-concessions-as-New-Jersey-governor.html
The possibilities for commentary are endless. . .
The possibilities for commentary are endless. . .
Friday, May 01, 2015
Chip Kelly, the Philadelphia Eagles and the NFL Draft
There are coaches who have won multiple Super Bowls.
There are coaches with better records.
There are coaches who are better copy.
Yet, all 31 of those combined do not draw the attention that Chip Kelly draws by himself. The big question before the draft was whether Kelly would offer Tampa Bay or Tennessee a deal along the lines of what the Vikings gave the Cowboys for Herschel Walker. If history is a teacher, the student would avoid giving up a half dozen good draft picks or a combination of very good players and draft picks for a single player. As it turned out, the mother lode the Cowboys got helped form the core of a team that would go on to win three Super Bowls in four years. That fact, in and of itself, should have told Chip Kelly not to offer two or three number ones plus three pretty good players for the rights to draft Marcus Mariota. That fact, in and of itself, should have compelled either Tampa Bay or Tennessee to agree to a package of Sam Bradford, Fletcher Cox, Mychal Kendricks, this year's #1 and perhaps next year's and perhaps a #3 in either year for either team's #1 pick, under the presumption that those two teams need so much that they could fill their gaps much more quickly with a trade like this.
But the GMs in Tampa Bay and Tennessee offered to the media that what was offered wasn't enough; Kelly offered that what was requested was too steep. While many reporters weighed in that Kelly offer specific players, Kelly denies the suggestion. He could well by lying -- now he has to live with those players and win with them. Absent saying that, he risks facing a good player and getting that dreaded look that the coach is suffering his presence because he really wanted someone else.
Now the Eagles and their fans have some certainty, to the point where the Birds should start offering Sam Bradford jerseys on their website. Bradford, who once was an elite prospect, will go into the season as #1 on the depth chart and possibly ready to play. If the Eagles draft wisely and land help on the offensive line and in the secondary, they could have an exciting team again. Whether that team can win more than ten games and make the playoffs or make the playoffs and win at least one post-season game would remain to be seen.
It was good drama while it lasted, but what was interesting was that the player the Eagles drafted (Nelson Agholor) went to USC, so Chip Kelly saw a lot of him in college (and, in fact, recruited him for Oregon). What will happen when Kelly is so tenured that he'll not have had the benefit of recruiting the kid for Oregon, having him play at Oregon or having seen him play in the Pac-10? Then what?
So now, instead of having Mariota mania, Eagles' fans are left wondering with how good their current team can be. Everyone goes back to work, some will watch rounds two and three tonight (and four through seven on Saturday), listen to Mel Kiper, Jr. wax eloquent on each prospect's strengths and shortcomings -- all of that without his being accountable for how well he did or didn't do year in and year out in terms of predicting success. The Eagles and the draft picks will say all the right things, but the proof will be in the team's record at the end of the season. Sure, Chip Kelly and his minions can monitor the players' sleep and their diets, but. well, there won't be much excitement for a while. The draft presented a bunch of "what-if" scenarios. Now that Mariota is but a past fantasy, reality beckons.
And it's fraught with change and uncertainty.
There are coaches with better records.
There are coaches who are better copy.
Yet, all 31 of those combined do not draw the attention that Chip Kelly draws by himself. The big question before the draft was whether Kelly would offer Tampa Bay or Tennessee a deal along the lines of what the Vikings gave the Cowboys for Herschel Walker. If history is a teacher, the student would avoid giving up a half dozen good draft picks or a combination of very good players and draft picks for a single player. As it turned out, the mother lode the Cowboys got helped form the core of a team that would go on to win three Super Bowls in four years. That fact, in and of itself, should have told Chip Kelly not to offer two or three number ones plus three pretty good players for the rights to draft Marcus Mariota. That fact, in and of itself, should have compelled either Tampa Bay or Tennessee to agree to a package of Sam Bradford, Fletcher Cox, Mychal Kendricks, this year's #1 and perhaps next year's and perhaps a #3 in either year for either team's #1 pick, under the presumption that those two teams need so much that they could fill their gaps much more quickly with a trade like this.
But the GMs in Tampa Bay and Tennessee offered to the media that what was offered wasn't enough; Kelly offered that what was requested was too steep. While many reporters weighed in that Kelly offer specific players, Kelly denies the suggestion. He could well by lying -- now he has to live with those players and win with them. Absent saying that, he risks facing a good player and getting that dreaded look that the coach is suffering his presence because he really wanted someone else.
Now the Eagles and their fans have some certainty, to the point where the Birds should start offering Sam Bradford jerseys on their website. Bradford, who once was an elite prospect, will go into the season as #1 on the depth chart and possibly ready to play. If the Eagles draft wisely and land help on the offensive line and in the secondary, they could have an exciting team again. Whether that team can win more than ten games and make the playoffs or make the playoffs and win at least one post-season game would remain to be seen.
It was good drama while it lasted, but what was interesting was that the player the Eagles drafted (Nelson Agholor) went to USC, so Chip Kelly saw a lot of him in college (and, in fact, recruited him for Oregon). What will happen when Kelly is so tenured that he'll not have had the benefit of recruiting the kid for Oregon, having him play at Oregon or having seen him play in the Pac-10? Then what?
So now, instead of having Mariota mania, Eagles' fans are left wondering with how good their current team can be. Everyone goes back to work, some will watch rounds two and three tonight (and four through seven on Saturday), listen to Mel Kiper, Jr. wax eloquent on each prospect's strengths and shortcomings -- all of that without his being accountable for how well he did or didn't do year in and year out in terms of predicting success. The Eagles and the draft picks will say all the right things, but the proof will be in the team's record at the end of the season. Sure, Chip Kelly and his minions can monitor the players' sleep and their diets, but. well, there won't be much excitement for a while. The draft presented a bunch of "what-if" scenarios. Now that Mariota is but a past fantasy, reality beckons.
And it's fraught with change and uncertainty.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)