We heard it all last season. Boy, are the New York Mets the team of the future. Look at all that pitching. . . Harvey, de Grom, Syndergaard, Matz, Colon, with the first four being young, hard-throwing and very good. Look out, NL East. Washington, they said, had a tougher lineup, but the Mets' pitching, well, that was the difference. It was fun to be a Mets' fan last season.
Going into this season, there remained reason to be very optimistic. The starting pitching staff was intact, even with Jon Niese going to Pittsburgh and Zack Wheeler not ready. But I cautioned a friend that any time you predict a dynasty, funny things can happen. I offered that if the Mets were to have a starter or two go down -- and they inevitably do -- there could be trouble. Well, Harvey has been erratic, Matz looks to be done for the year, and Syndergaard has a supposedly non-threatening bone spur. Meanwhile, the ageless wonder, Bartolo Colon, at 43 is perhaps the squad's best starting pitcher. Right now, Mets are in third, slightly behind the usually confounding Marlins. It is not the season that Mets' fans had hoped for. Atop that, they lost Daniel Murphy, the clutch-hitting second baseman, to rival Washington, and replaced him with the good but not-as-good Neil Walker. The biggest blow was losing David Wright to season- and perhaps career-ending surgery.
Ouch.
Roll back the clock about eight years ago and Phillies' fans had every reason to be optimistic. They won it in '08, and they had everyone back, most of whom were at or slightly before their primes. In '09, they should have won it again, but somehow Brad Lidge, who was all-world in 2008, blew up to an ERA of about 7.50, the worst ever for a full-time closer, and the Phillies lost the Series to the Yankees. Had Lidge just had half as bad a season, the Phillies would have won it all. In '10, the team suffered injuries, still had a good year until they ran into the red-hot Giants' pitching in the NLCS. In '11, with players more healthy than in '10, they won over 100 games, beat the Cards in Game 1 of the NLDS, only to have ace Cliff Lee blow a 4-0 lead after 1 inning in Game 2, and lose that series in 5 games, with Cards' ace Cris Carpenter outdueling Roy Halladay and Ryan Howard blowing out his Achilles' tendon on the last at-bat of the series. Arguably, that team should have won two World Series in those four years. And while few will complain about winning "just" one, I'm sure many Phillies' fans will express disappointment that they didn't win another. They were built to, and they probably should have.
The moral of the story is enjoy it when your team wins, hope that they win again soon, because the game changes, players change and adjust, players age and get hurt. The Mets were awesome last year, but they also were two iffy wings away from a mid-division finish. The Nats by no means are invincible, but it will be hard for the Mets to win their division without a healthy rotation. That can be said for almost any team, of course, but it goes to show you the fine line between having a team that goes to the World Series and having a team that doesn't make the playoffs.
All that said, you would figure in this day and age and with the rise of elite sports performance institutes that there would be better theories about developing and maintaining good pitchers and avoiding the gruesome types of injuries that seem to befall them. It is 2016 already, and pitchers and the art of pitching isn't much more evolved than fifty years ago. Yes, there is more specialization, but the pitchers continue to get injured. That is what makes the game so unpredictable, as it is hard to figure out what a pitching staff will look like year after year. In contrast, you will know what your basketball team will look like next year, even if players might slip a little, because you have very little risk of a basketball player blowing out his shooting hand and being out for a year. Baseball generates a lot of money, so you would figure that they should be working on some programs to help add more certainty to a pitcher's career and a team's future.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Best Sports Month in Cleveland?
The Cavs win the NBA title.
The Indians have won twelve straight and lead the AL Central.
Clevelanders -- enjoy it!
The Indians have won twelve straight and lead the AL Central.
Clevelanders -- enjoy it!
Thursday, June 09, 2016
The Stanford Rape Case
Much has been written and said. It's hard to imagine how Judge Aaron Persky gave former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner the light sentence that he did. We expect more out of the judicial system and the hypothetical average kid that goes to an elite institution such as Stanford.
As for Persky, he goofed, plain and simple. There are calls for his resignation, his recall and his defeat at the polls in the fall. My guess is that many will remain hot on this topic to mount a serious challenge to Persky. That said, the prosecutor in this case has not called for his resignation. In fact, if you read far and wide enough, the comments that you read about Persky are that he is a good and fair judge. That said. . . it's hard to find many quotes from attorneys that would criticize sitting judges. The reason -- they have to appear before them and so do their firms. As a result, there is no upside to criticizing a judge publicly after any case. And that leads to the ultimate question -- is there a meaningful way to hold the judiciary accountable? We have learned as a society that we have failed to find good ways to hold police accountable, and I think that the same holds true for prosecutors. And now this, this, well, issue, fiasco, travesty of justice, what have you.
Turner made a terrible decision and committed a terrible act. What the heck was he thinking? He picked his sin, and for some reason he was fortunate enough to hire good counsel and then draw a judge like Persky, who was in a lenient sentencing mood. And while he will have to live with those consequences forever -- being registered as a sex offender, having that on his record -- he is far from a victim here. True, there is a lot of pressure on Stanford kids, on recruited athletes, on kids with Olympic ambitions, but almost all of them do not sexually assault unconscious women. Yes, there is a lot of alcohol on campus and promiscuity, but, again, that Turner was drunk should by no means excuse what he did. Most if not all sexual assaults on campus involve alcohol. By imbibing and then overimbibing, Turner adopted some very risky behavior that does not usually lead to happy consequences and in this case led to bad ones. He does not deserve understanding and leniency because he was caught up in a culture of alcohol and sex. Would Judge Persky have been tougher on him had he been sober? If so, why? This was not a case of "he said, she said" or "when does no mean no," and I am sure there are cases that are ambiguous and can be most difficult for triers of fact because, well, the facts are not clear. We all have to allow for the fact that everyone is entitled to a defense and that sometimes the accused did not do it. But here, two witnesses caught up to Turner after they caught him in the act. This wasn't a case of ambiguity -- this was an out and out rape.
Much has been made of the letter that Turner's father wrote. Turner's father might not have written the most eloquent or sensitive letter, but we all would go pretty far to get our child a good defense lawyer and then write to the judge. Anyone who has kids can tell you that. Privately, parents might lecture their children and hold them accountable, but everyone is entitled to a defense and family support. That doesn't mean that a horrible crime did not take place; of course it did. I know that there are some people who would argue that Turner did the crime and should do the time and that his parents only are further coddling him by trying to help him and protect him. Well, parents love their kids regardless of whether they swim in the Olympics or commit a crime. Those who are aggrieved will pick apart the case and focus on this, but I think that their time would be better spent looking at the California judicial system, sentencing guidelines, how the judge came to this decision and what can be done to make everyone more aware of problems like this on campus and how to prevent them. And it seems that they are doing just that.
This one left me speechless. I fully empathize with the victim and her family. Her note -- read aloud on television -- gives us tremendous insight into what a victim goes through and how horrible her experience was. First years in college -- and especially men -- should read it and synthesize it and try as much as possible to avoid situations that could lead to the type of behavior that Brock Turner displayed -- and should remember that any woman is someone's sister, someone's daughter, someone's good friend -- and how would you like that to happen to your sister, your daughter or your good friend? I hope that the victim is getting the help that she needs to recover as best she can; sadly, Judge Persky's abdication of his role exacerbates her pain instead of lessening it. And I hope that society can take a deep look into problems like the one that befell her and take steps so that no one has to endure what she did. We will express our outrage at the system for the lenient sentence, and we will respond to that as best we can. But the victim -- and others like her -- too quickly get forgotten. And the only way we can solve for the broader problems is by never forgetting them, and continuing to reach out to them and embrace them.
Atop that, we are a society that reacts after the fact and attacks symptoms rather than causes. We might be seventy-five pounds overweight and suffer from pre-diabetes and hypertension, but we expect inexpensive pills to help us as opposed to attacking the cause by eating less and more sensibly and by exercising. We abhor the behavior that Brock Turner displayed but yet it still goes on, much of it in all likelihood unreported. Society needs to attack the cause of these attacks -- whether it's putting kids in college who do not belong there, treating recruited athletes like they are entitled, something special and unaccountable, creating way too much pressure on them, making alcohol too available, not offering means of dealing with mental health issues, including stress, teaching them values and ethics and good manners -- the list is perhaps endless. That would help a great deal. And it's very important.
Because the sister of an undergrad who goes to a party and makes the mistake of drinking too much should end up walked home to sleep it off and not sexually assaulted on asphalt behind a dumpster.
I hope that some good can come out of the victim's eloquence and her plight, the bad environment at Stanford and on other campuses and the shocking decision from the court in California. This type of stuff has gone on for way too long. It's time for society to hit the reset button and do something about it.
As for Persky, he goofed, plain and simple. There are calls for his resignation, his recall and his defeat at the polls in the fall. My guess is that many will remain hot on this topic to mount a serious challenge to Persky. That said, the prosecutor in this case has not called for his resignation. In fact, if you read far and wide enough, the comments that you read about Persky are that he is a good and fair judge. That said. . . it's hard to find many quotes from attorneys that would criticize sitting judges. The reason -- they have to appear before them and so do their firms. As a result, there is no upside to criticizing a judge publicly after any case. And that leads to the ultimate question -- is there a meaningful way to hold the judiciary accountable? We have learned as a society that we have failed to find good ways to hold police accountable, and I think that the same holds true for prosecutors. And now this, this, well, issue, fiasco, travesty of justice, what have you.
Turner made a terrible decision and committed a terrible act. What the heck was he thinking? He picked his sin, and for some reason he was fortunate enough to hire good counsel and then draw a judge like Persky, who was in a lenient sentencing mood. And while he will have to live with those consequences forever -- being registered as a sex offender, having that on his record -- he is far from a victim here. True, there is a lot of pressure on Stanford kids, on recruited athletes, on kids with Olympic ambitions, but almost all of them do not sexually assault unconscious women. Yes, there is a lot of alcohol on campus and promiscuity, but, again, that Turner was drunk should by no means excuse what he did. Most if not all sexual assaults on campus involve alcohol. By imbibing and then overimbibing, Turner adopted some very risky behavior that does not usually lead to happy consequences and in this case led to bad ones. He does not deserve understanding and leniency because he was caught up in a culture of alcohol and sex. Would Judge Persky have been tougher on him had he been sober? If so, why? This was not a case of "he said, she said" or "when does no mean no," and I am sure there are cases that are ambiguous and can be most difficult for triers of fact because, well, the facts are not clear. We all have to allow for the fact that everyone is entitled to a defense and that sometimes the accused did not do it. But here, two witnesses caught up to Turner after they caught him in the act. This wasn't a case of ambiguity -- this was an out and out rape.
Much has been made of the letter that Turner's father wrote. Turner's father might not have written the most eloquent or sensitive letter, but we all would go pretty far to get our child a good defense lawyer and then write to the judge. Anyone who has kids can tell you that. Privately, parents might lecture their children and hold them accountable, but everyone is entitled to a defense and family support. That doesn't mean that a horrible crime did not take place; of course it did. I know that there are some people who would argue that Turner did the crime and should do the time and that his parents only are further coddling him by trying to help him and protect him. Well, parents love their kids regardless of whether they swim in the Olympics or commit a crime. Those who are aggrieved will pick apart the case and focus on this, but I think that their time would be better spent looking at the California judicial system, sentencing guidelines, how the judge came to this decision and what can be done to make everyone more aware of problems like this on campus and how to prevent them. And it seems that they are doing just that.
This one left me speechless. I fully empathize with the victim and her family. Her note -- read aloud on television -- gives us tremendous insight into what a victim goes through and how horrible her experience was. First years in college -- and especially men -- should read it and synthesize it and try as much as possible to avoid situations that could lead to the type of behavior that Brock Turner displayed -- and should remember that any woman is someone's sister, someone's daughter, someone's good friend -- and how would you like that to happen to your sister, your daughter or your good friend? I hope that the victim is getting the help that she needs to recover as best she can; sadly, Judge Persky's abdication of his role exacerbates her pain instead of lessening it. And I hope that society can take a deep look into problems like the one that befell her and take steps so that no one has to endure what she did. We will express our outrage at the system for the lenient sentence, and we will respond to that as best we can. But the victim -- and others like her -- too quickly get forgotten. And the only way we can solve for the broader problems is by never forgetting them, and continuing to reach out to them and embrace them.
Atop that, we are a society that reacts after the fact and attacks symptoms rather than causes. We might be seventy-five pounds overweight and suffer from pre-diabetes and hypertension, but we expect inexpensive pills to help us as opposed to attacking the cause by eating less and more sensibly and by exercising. We abhor the behavior that Brock Turner displayed but yet it still goes on, much of it in all likelihood unreported. Society needs to attack the cause of these attacks -- whether it's putting kids in college who do not belong there, treating recruited athletes like they are entitled, something special and unaccountable, creating way too much pressure on them, making alcohol too available, not offering means of dealing with mental health issues, including stress, teaching them values and ethics and good manners -- the list is perhaps endless. That would help a great deal. And it's very important.
Because the sister of an undergrad who goes to a party and makes the mistake of drinking too much should end up walked home to sleep it off and not sexually assaulted on asphalt behind a dumpster.
I hope that some good can come out of the victim's eloquence and her plight, the bad environment at Stanford and on other campuses and the shocking decision from the court in California. This type of stuff has gone on for way too long. It's time for society to hit the reset button and do something about it.
Wednesday, June 08, 2016
Another Side to Former Flyers' Owner Ed Snider
Joseph Heller once wrote that "all that glitters isn't gold." Snider, who passed away recently, was eulogized as the best sports owner in Philadelphia history and a true visionary in the world of sports. This article here refutes that and reveals some facts about Snider that got whitewashed over the years. When you read it, you can draw conclusions at various ends of a spectrum, either that these are lies, or that they're true but that Snider changed over the years, or that Snider's reputation was based on a foundation constructed of silly putty and wet tissues but burnished by a fawning media and his loyalty to sometimes competent and sometimes not ex-Flyers. Read the article here.
My opinion is that Ted Beitchman's article is true. I had heard some of the stories from family members and what Beitchman writes confirms what I had heard. Look, Snider did develop the loyalty of his ex-players and I'm sure did a lot of good things for them and others. But it doesn't appear that the Flyers were his idea and it seems to appear that he took advantage of Jerry Wolman's difficulties for his own personal gain. What gets lost in the translation is that he was a horrible leader of the 76ers for 15 years and that his refusal to move away from Flyers' alumni and the 1970's style of play has kept the Flyers without a Stanley Cup since the mid-1970's (and some of that style -- the endless fighting, third men in and bench-clearing brawls -- has basically been heavily regulated and penalized).
I'm not a hockey fan per se (I like playoff hockey), don't like the fighting aspects of the game and wonder whether any team has a multiple of fans beyond those who regularly attend the games. The game is hard to follow on television and it's hard to identify with players who wear headgear.
At the end of the day, I thought that the press missed out on the real Snider the way they missed out on baseball's steroids scandal. They referred to him as "Mr." long past when they referred to any other figure as Mr. I just couldn't figure out why. He owned a sports team, cut an unbelievable and virtually unaccountable deal with the Roberts' family and Comcast to maintain control of a team he ceased owning (and running the 76ers horribly and the Flyers in an up-and-down fashion) and would have been fired after a few years of mismanaging the 76ers had there been any modicum of accountability and would have been fired after say five years given his history after the Flyers lack of progress. Instead, he was put on this pedestal and given an entitlement to preside over not one but two sports teams because of what he did in the early-to-mid 1970's. It was hard to believe and hard to take.
That doesn't make him an evil or horrible person, of course, just a person who had his successes (many, some big and all well publicized) and his failures (basically glossed over by a media who either was in awe of him or afraid of losing access or some form of retribution). What Ted Beitchman does is to try to round out the picture of someone who was about as human in character as many others, if at times more so.
Sometimes you just have to let it go, as Jerry Wolman did. But other times to clarify the record the entire story should be told. And Ted Beitchman did a good job telling it.
My opinion is that Ted Beitchman's article is true. I had heard some of the stories from family members and what Beitchman writes confirms what I had heard. Look, Snider did develop the loyalty of his ex-players and I'm sure did a lot of good things for them and others. But it doesn't appear that the Flyers were his idea and it seems to appear that he took advantage of Jerry Wolman's difficulties for his own personal gain. What gets lost in the translation is that he was a horrible leader of the 76ers for 15 years and that his refusal to move away from Flyers' alumni and the 1970's style of play has kept the Flyers without a Stanley Cup since the mid-1970's (and some of that style -- the endless fighting, third men in and bench-clearing brawls -- has basically been heavily regulated and penalized).
I'm not a hockey fan per se (I like playoff hockey), don't like the fighting aspects of the game and wonder whether any team has a multiple of fans beyond those who regularly attend the games. The game is hard to follow on television and it's hard to identify with players who wear headgear.
At the end of the day, I thought that the press missed out on the real Snider the way they missed out on baseball's steroids scandal. They referred to him as "Mr." long past when they referred to any other figure as Mr. I just couldn't figure out why. He owned a sports team, cut an unbelievable and virtually unaccountable deal with the Roberts' family and Comcast to maintain control of a team he ceased owning (and running the 76ers horribly and the Flyers in an up-and-down fashion) and would have been fired after a few years of mismanaging the 76ers had there been any modicum of accountability and would have been fired after say five years given his history after the Flyers lack of progress. Instead, he was put on this pedestal and given an entitlement to preside over not one but two sports teams because of what he did in the early-to-mid 1970's. It was hard to believe and hard to take.
That doesn't make him an evil or horrible person, of course, just a person who had his successes (many, some big and all well publicized) and his failures (basically glossed over by a media who either was in awe of him or afraid of losing access or some form of retribution). What Ted Beitchman does is to try to round out the picture of someone who was about as human in character as many others, if at times more so.
Sometimes you just have to let it go, as Jerry Wolman did. But other times to clarify the record the entire story should be told. And Ted Beitchman did a good job telling it.
Friday, June 03, 2016
Cleveland Rocks or Cleveland Bricks?
A few thoughts:
1. Because neither Steph Curry nor Klay Thompson hammer at people physically the way LeBron James or Russell Westbrook do, I suspect that many fans believe that the Warriors are a soft, finesse team. As Kobe Bryant said the other day in an interview on ESPN Radio, both Curry and Thompson are "stone-cold killers." For what it's worth, the NBA is becoming an outside game, which values finesse over the ability to toss the ball into the low blocks to a big man with a big rear end who can back in and put the ball off the backboard into the basket. That big man is healthy, but having guys who can hit the three consistently is now the recipe to winning titles.
2. The Cavs are healthier and deeper than last year. They need to show that depth more in Game Two than they did in Game 1. Some believe that the Cavs will change their game plan and will win Game Two. Somehow I don't think that the lapses that the Warriors demonstrated in the OKC series will recur in this one. Last night, the Warriors had six players score in double figures. They also have two guys who can harass LeBron James enough to make him work for everything. LBJ had a pretty good night last night, but the Cavs bench was AWOL and for large parts so was Kyrie Irving.
3. While I didn't post it here, I told others that I thought the Warriors would win the series in five games. That's not because I think Cleveland is bad or worse than the Spurs or Thunder. The Cavs are a very good basketball team. That also takes into account the strong will and wish of LeBron to bring a title to Cleveland. It's just that I think that the Warriors woke up and hit their stride both in the last five minutes of Game 6 against the Thunder and in Game 7 of that series. They realized that they had to dig a little deeper. Thompson led that effort in the fourth quarter of Game 6, and the team did a much better job as a whole in Game 7. The Warriors are primed. Instead of having a grueling series against the Thunder exhaust them, it sharpened their skills. In contrast, the Cavs hardly had the challenges in the East that the teams in the West faced. That showed in Game 1 last night.
4. The James-Love-Irving troika is an impressive three. While different, I'm not sure that it's as impressive as the Curry-Thompson-Green three. It's hard to argue against the comment that James is the best player in the game. But Love disappeared in the Eastern finals in the games in Toronto and Irving, while very good, also can be inconsistent enough that a very good team can exploit his inconsistencies. Curry, when healthy, is at the pinnacle of the game, and Thompson almost singlehandedly in the fourth quarter of Game 6 against the Thunder saved the Warriors' playoff season. Green is volative and voluble, a lightning rod for attention and stress, a player you want on your team but hate playing against, the type of catalyst who can combust your engine or, when he misfires, combust your team's chances with bad moments. Based on last year in the playoffs and this year's regular season, I'll take the Warriors' troika.
5. Of course, it's not just about three players. The Warriors' bench outscored the Cavs' bench 42-10 last night. That cannot continue if the Cavs are to win the championship.
6. The series is far from over. They say in soccer that the second goal in a game is the most important one. Well, the second game in a series might be the most important one. Sunday night's result will go a long way in telling us the type of series we are going to witness.
1. Because neither Steph Curry nor Klay Thompson hammer at people physically the way LeBron James or Russell Westbrook do, I suspect that many fans believe that the Warriors are a soft, finesse team. As Kobe Bryant said the other day in an interview on ESPN Radio, both Curry and Thompson are "stone-cold killers." For what it's worth, the NBA is becoming an outside game, which values finesse over the ability to toss the ball into the low blocks to a big man with a big rear end who can back in and put the ball off the backboard into the basket. That big man is healthy, but having guys who can hit the three consistently is now the recipe to winning titles.
2. The Cavs are healthier and deeper than last year. They need to show that depth more in Game Two than they did in Game 1. Some believe that the Cavs will change their game plan and will win Game Two. Somehow I don't think that the lapses that the Warriors demonstrated in the OKC series will recur in this one. Last night, the Warriors had six players score in double figures. They also have two guys who can harass LeBron James enough to make him work for everything. LBJ had a pretty good night last night, but the Cavs bench was AWOL and for large parts so was Kyrie Irving.
3. While I didn't post it here, I told others that I thought the Warriors would win the series in five games. That's not because I think Cleveland is bad or worse than the Spurs or Thunder. The Cavs are a very good basketball team. That also takes into account the strong will and wish of LeBron to bring a title to Cleveland. It's just that I think that the Warriors woke up and hit their stride both in the last five minutes of Game 6 against the Thunder and in Game 7 of that series. They realized that they had to dig a little deeper. Thompson led that effort in the fourth quarter of Game 6, and the team did a much better job as a whole in Game 7. The Warriors are primed. Instead of having a grueling series against the Thunder exhaust them, it sharpened their skills. In contrast, the Cavs hardly had the challenges in the East that the teams in the West faced. That showed in Game 1 last night.
4. The James-Love-Irving troika is an impressive three. While different, I'm not sure that it's as impressive as the Curry-Thompson-Green three. It's hard to argue against the comment that James is the best player in the game. But Love disappeared in the Eastern finals in the games in Toronto and Irving, while very good, also can be inconsistent enough that a very good team can exploit his inconsistencies. Curry, when healthy, is at the pinnacle of the game, and Thompson almost singlehandedly in the fourth quarter of Game 6 against the Thunder saved the Warriors' playoff season. Green is volative and voluble, a lightning rod for attention and stress, a player you want on your team but hate playing against, the type of catalyst who can combust your engine or, when he misfires, combust your team's chances with bad moments. Based on last year in the playoffs and this year's regular season, I'll take the Warriors' troika.
5. Of course, it's not just about three players. The Warriors' bench outscored the Cavs' bench 42-10 last night. That cannot continue if the Cavs are to win the championship.
6. The series is far from over. They say in soccer that the second goal in a game is the most important one. Well, the second game in a series might be the most important one. Sunday night's result will go a long way in telling us the type of series we are going to witness.
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