On the Phillies' Firing of Charlie Manuel

Here are some things to consider:

1.  Under GM Ruben Amaro, the team has declined, from a WS appearance in '09 to missing the playoffs in 2012.  Last time I checked, the GM and the front office selects the players, not the skipper.

2.  As I have written many times before, the team got progressively older under Amaro's tenure.  Apparently, his nickname among fellow GMs is Ruben "No Tomorrow" Amaro.  Statistics demonstrate that as team age, performance declines and players get more injured.  The Phillies' teams over the past several years have borne that out.

3.  When the Phillies won it all in 2008, they had almost no one under a big contract.  They gave a pretty good-sized deal to closer Brad Lidge, whose performance fell off the table.  Big contracts, long-term contracts, have hurt the Phillies.

4.  Had the Phillies won it all in '09 (and had Lidge not had the worst season in the history of closers, they might have) or in '11 (up 1-0 in the NLDS, Cliff Lee blew a 4-0 lead after one inning to the Cardinals, who got re-born and endued up winning it all), we might not have had this decision or conversation.  Two WS wins in five years smacks of a dynasty.

5.  Give Charlie Manuel credit.  When he got here, the press ridiculed him.  Daily News columnist Bill Conlin dubbed him "Elmer Befuddled" because of his West Virginia style.  By 2008, he was the most beloved skipper in Philadelphia since Dick Vermeil (who resurrected the Eagles when he arrived in the mid-1970's and was beloved).  He did a good job here.  Yes, he had some good players, but he helped get them to the top.  No one can take that away from him.

6.  Ryne Sandberg won't make much of a difference unless he has the players, the team gets younger and it can stay healthy.  I do not believe that the aging DP combo of Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley, both of whom have done a lot of good work in this town, will age well.  Their injury history is too vast.  Also, no one knows what the team will get out of a very disappointing/declining Ryan Howard.  Once he signed the big contract, that was it.  His case is not unique around the Majors, as many who have signed big contracts have not performed well.  Managers in baseball don't make nearly the difference as, say, NFL coaches, so the root cause of the Phillies' problems is not the manager.

7.  The team is negotiating a new TV contract, TV viewership is down, attendance is down, Carlos Ruiz was busted for Adderrall late last year and set-up man Antonio Bastardo was busted in the Biogenesis sting.  Roy Halladay has an iffy wing, Cole Hamels is having a bad year, Jonathan Papelbon says silly things and looks like he's in decline.  None of that is Manuel's fault.

8.  This decision is window dressing,  The Phillies want to get "younger," when they should have been doing so right after they won the WS.  Ironically, the decisions they made when they were on top came back to haunt them.  While Amaro gets credit for the Ibanez signing, the likable LF had one-half a good season in his three years in Philadelphia.  He got off to a great start and then had an overall terrible OBP, despite late-season clutch heroics for the Yankees last season and his defying time for the Mariners this season.  I've beaten that horse before, but the decisions were ownership's and Amaro's, and not Manuel's.

9.  For what it's worth. . . Manuel looks ten years younger at the press conference.

10.  Prediction:  He's the next manager of the Washington Nationals.  And he will lead them to victory in the World Series.

In Advance of the World Cup 2014, a Few Observations and Questions

1.  Who are the favorites?

2.  Can Spain repeat its magic (although it did not win the Olympics), or will Father Time demand that someone else take over?

3.  Can Brazil host the World Cup and then the Olympics without a hitch?

4.  Will the U.S. realize that until its best athletes a) play soccer and b) start for the major European teams, the best they can hope for is getting to the elimination round?

5.  Will France regroup after the horror show that they staged in South Africa?

6.  If there are questionable calls in games, will people attribute them to the organized crime magnate in Singapore who is alleged to have fixed matches in Serie A and elsewhere in Europe?

7.  Am I wrong to predict a Germany-Brazil final?

8.  The oddsmakers will predict a Brazil win, right?

9.  Can Belgium, with some serious talent, be a dark horse?  Can the Belgians make it to the semifinals?

10.  Will England try to pick its best players and not just its biggest names, some of whom are past their prime?

11.  Can the Dutch make another deep run, and, if so, can they play a bit cleaner than they did in 2010?

12.  Is there anyone else who I am missing, outside having not mentioned Italy and Portugal?

Food for thought.

Thoughts?

That the Phillies Have Played Michael Martinez in CF for the Past Four Games

tells you all you need to know.

They are not a good baseball team.

To quote Bill Parcells, who knows a little bit about excellence, "you are what your records says you are."

Who knows how good the position players are in the farm system, other than to know that by most accounts many of the good ones are far way.  Which means that some will utter the fateful line, "Mom, I'm coming home.  They're throwing curves."

Martinez is not a good baseball player.  That it took him a long time to make it to the Majors and that the rising Nats let the Phillies grab him several years back in the Rule 5 draft ought to tell all fans something, that the Phillies are (still) trying to turn someone else's junk into their own brand of joy.  But it's just not working.  For those who remember Mike Easler, a slugger for the Pirates who didn't come up until his late twenties and then hit the cover off the ball, guys like him are few and far between.  There was a reason that Martinez took so long to make it to the Majors and there's a reason why his numbers aren't very good.  The quality of his play is what the "standard" numbers says it is -- terrible.

Let's also not get giddy about the newly re-signed Chase Utley's confidence in GM Ruben Amaro and his ability to reload the team and have it contend soon.  Utley made a business decision.  He and his wife split their time between a multi-million dollar condominium in Center City Philadelphia and San Francisco.  He's won his World Series, and he probably got a better deal from the Phillies than he might have gotten elsewhere, especially risking a blown knee or hip in the last several months of the season.  Also, it stands to reason (perhaps) that none of the West Coast teams offered enough value or were interested in him.  The Padres just aren't that good, and the Giants have foundered.  The Angels have problems, and the Dodgers already have a huge payroll.  That left the A's, but, then again, Amaro decided that he wants Utley to be a cornerstone and to teach the younger guys what it's like to be excellent and win.

Which means that if they keep shortstop Jimmy Rollins, they'll make a latter-day run of reprising the noted and very good double play combination that Detroit ran out there in the 80's and early 90's -- Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker.  But, let's also remember that that duo won one and only one World Series -- in 1984, when they helped their team get off to a 35-5 start.  They had very good careers, but no more titles.  History suggests that Rollins and Utley will have okay seasons throughout, but unless new talent helps lead the team offensively and a sad bullpen gets rebuilt, the team will not have the success that Amaro and perhaps Utley think that they will.  Then again, if you watched the press conference with Utley, his eyes were looking everywhere but at the camera or the interviewer, suggesting either a) he's just uncomfortable with the media, b) he's uncomfortable talking about himself or c) the proffered reason for re-signing -- that the Phillies can win -- isn't the real reason (which is it's convenient, a good deal, and I'd like to finish my career with one team).

The Braves are overachieving, but their core is younger and their bullpen terrific.  The Nats have greater potential than the Phillies and are one of the biggest disappointments this year.  But the future bodes better for them than it does for the Phillies -- they are younger and have many more exciting prospects than the Phillies.  And, lest anyone forget, the Phillies team than won it all in '80 was a very disappointing fourth in '79, and that was with the newly signed free agent, Pete Rose.  Which means that with a baseball version of a chiropractic realignment, the Nats could be just fine in 2014.

But Michael Martinez?  An aging core?  Hoping that Roy Halladay has something left in the tank?  A bullpen that seems bereft even if Baseball Prospectus had indicated in its yearbook that the Phillies discovered a lot of live arms in the latter half of last season.

Sorry, Charlie (and really Ruben and Dave), but the formula might just not work.  History and the numbers suggests that you're pushing a big rock up a big hill.

Michael Martinez starting four straight games in center field?

Where are Steve Jeltz and Ricky Otero?

An American Original Passes Away

And some of the best things about him was that he was kind, generous and humble.  

His name:  Dick Kazmaier.  I won't write more about him, as the writing in the linked piece is much better than I could muster.

A friend was at a Princeton alumni event once.  He himself had played football at Princeton, albeit thirty years after the Heisman Trophy winner did.  My friend was recruited by big-time schools, but went to Princeton instead (something about getting the chance to play quarterback along with the academics).  He and a few classmates of his were talking to this very nice older alum, who shared his experiences about attending Princeton, studying there and playing sports there.  The conversation lasted about a half hour, and not once did the older gentleman talk about his own accomplishments, which were vast.  It was only at the end of their conversation that the men exchanged handshakes and caught each others' names, with the older gentleman offering his name last.  "It's nice to meet you," he said.  "My name is Dick Kazmaier."

My friend walked away from the conversation about as impressed as he'd been from a conversation.  For it's not every day that you meet a legend, and it's even less frequent when the legend exceeds what you might have thought he would have been like.

It seems like with many of his actions, Dick Kazmaier grew his legend through a form of everyday greatness that we do not see enough of.  It wasn't like he was anointed from the start; he joined a great program as fifth on the depth chart at his position, applied himself, and then broke out as a star.  Through it all, through what he did, through the little things, he showed how special he really was.

P.S.:  I was away on vacation when the news of his passing reached me, but I would have been remiss not to mention it in these pages.

Report from England: The Football Culture

We don't have anything like it in America, I don't think, probably because our geography is so vast and teams and their fans are so spread out.  Atop that, where teams are in the same city, they aren't in the same league, and, when they play each other, it's not all that frequently. 

In contrast, England is a much smaller country, having about one-fifth the population of the United States.  The English Premiership has twenty teams, eighteen of which are in England (two, Swansea and Cardiff, are in Wales).  Atop that, six Premiership teams -- Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea, Fulham, West Ham and Crystal Palace -- are in the London area (a few more -- Queens Park Rangers, Charlton Athletic and Watford -- have been back and forth between the next level down and the Premiership over the years, and, being an American who has newly found international soccer, I am totally sure that my knowledge is incomplete, sometimes wrong and not so infrequently naïve).  That said, everyone has a favorite team, and there are lower-division teams in the London area as well.  Many of them.

Your taxi driver might root for Chelsea.  Someone working at Heathrow Airport might be a Manchester United fan, even though Manchester is on the other side of the country.  Your tour guide for the Rock 'n Roll hotspots in London might root for Tottenham, while the guy who works a ticket booth at your local Underground stop might root for Arsenal.  Moving toward the Liverpool Street tube stations and Spitalfields Market, you could find more West Ham fans (for some reason I do not know yet, West Ham is on London's East End, will inherit the Olympic Stadium and perhaps draw a rich suitor from the United Arab Emirates or Russia who will want to vie with United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, and Liverpool to see who gets one of four coveted Champions League spots). 

Imagine you live in New York, a city that has twenty million people living in the area.  Imagine that there's a team called Greenwich Village, a team called Gramercy, a team called Manhattan West, another called Manhattan East (the former located on the Upper West Side and the latter located on the Upper East Side), a team called Bronx, a team called Brooklyn and one called Staten Island, not to mention Long Island and, well, you get the picture).  Put them all in the same elite league, have a next-level league to which the worst three of twenty teams gets relegated for the poorest of performances, and have people all over the five-borough area rooting passionately for their different teams.  Have this league be among the best in the world, drawing the elite players from South America, Europe and Africa, and have this sport be the sport that everyone cares about the most -- more than baseball, American football, basketball (in England's case, cricket and rugby), and you'll develop an intensity that doesn't exist in America. 

It's not because it's about soccer, though.  It's easy for Americans to disregard soccer, say it's not coming hard to America, say it's not going to threaten baseball.  But what's hard to dispute is that there is one sport that almost everyone places above all others (save, perhaps, when a Brit can win Wimbledon) in such a concentrated area.  So, couple the sport that everyone agrees upon with compressed geographical proximity (even Liverpool, which has several Premiership teams in the area, is only about a two and a half hour train ride from London) and you'll see an intensity that cannot happen in America because we're so spread out.  I will be open to arguments, however, that Philadelphia's Big Five in college basketball before, say, the mid-1980's, the ACC on North Carolina's Tobacco Road (basketball only) and the SEC for football perhaps can match this intensity.  Sometimes, but not always.

So when NBC Sports features the Premiership, assuming that the announcers are totally ensconced in the English soccer culture, sample, watch, appreciate the skill, and try to capture the intensity.  It's a great game because there are 45 minutes of action twice in a game, no time outs, no clock stoppage, no out of bounds, no innings, no huddles.  The fans chant, attend no matter what, and carry on their rivalries all over the country.  The Underground is speckled with ads indicating how you can access the Premiership on your mobile phone, pubs all tout that you can watch the Premiership there, and Skyy sports advertises all over the places that the games are coming.

All I ask is that you read a little bit, try to discern the difference between Man U and Man City, know what "Better Dead Than Red," might mean in the United Kingdom, can identify Arsene Wenger, Roman Abramovitch, Wayne Rooney, Joe Hart, and soak it up a little bit.  Not at the expense of your football Saturdays or Sundays or the World Series or Midnight Madness in October.  Just arise a bit earlier on Saturdays or Sundays and catch the Premiership -- and the intensity -- when you can.

You might just enjoy it.

College Football's Arms Race, Part II: Oregon's Facilities

Take a look at this.

I am not sure that the owners of the St. Regis, Four Seasons, the Connaught in London or even the legendary Cesar Ritz could have come up with something like this.  And if they had, people would have remarked, "That's pretty neat and something you would expect from a luxury hotel chain that specializes in small details and the best comforts for its guests -- guests who are in the top 0.5% of the earners in the world and who like the best of the best -- and the latest -- in accommodations."  Save the mention of income, and you could imagine that the marketing departments of those chains would come up with copy that would tout all of the wonders of this facility. 

But take away the luxury hotel chains and think about this -- this is a college football program. 

And think about how expensive college is for the average family.  Think about how much debt some kids incur.  Think about how the albatross that that debt can be can stratify a society, can cause kids to marry later and perhaps not have kids and therefore not fortify a society that has done some amazing things in a relatively short time period.  An innovative society in so many ways, starting with a sustained form of government that is relatively young for the history of the world.  Think about what the purpose of colleges should be, versus what some have become.  And think about revenue-generating college athletic programs.

(I won't delve into the raging debate about whether college athletes should receive stipends or a share in the revenue of the sports in which they participate.  That will be for another post because there are big-time, BCS schools and Division III schools, and my guess is that ultimately if revenue is shared we'll have a greater separation between the big-time schools and everyone else.  There are interesting arguments on both sides, but let's put them in the proverbial parking lot for the moment.  I would submit -- and have you think deeply about -- whether the professionalism of college sports is a good thing given the magnitude of the problems our society needs to face, from an aging population, an expensive healthcare system and poorly funded public pension funds, among others).

So now we have Oregon's Ninth Wonder of the World -- this amazing complex that leaves nothing to the imagination, because both Phil Knight and Chip Kelly seemingly thought of everything.  And that underscores the question of the day -- whether, when historians write about the decline of the American influence on the world, they will point to tangents like this that overtook our society to such a degree that we neglected to put our best minds on problems that matter a whole lot more than whether a team that has not been a historical power can become a dominant one?  To me, something like this is evidence of just that.

Phil Knight is an American original and innovator and in many ways should be admired.  Chip Kelly is a football innovator who has done some amazing things with football.   But what I question is the extreme emphasis placed on this game.  Sure, Knight is free to donate the money as he wishes, and perhaps Oregon would have been foolish to decline the gift.  But doesn't this seem excessive?  Couple facilities with this with the non-coaching "staff" that I blogged about recently and that has become another arms race (Nick Saban has 24 of such "staff" at an average salary of roughly $75,000 a year)?  Is that wise?  Is that good?

I expect football fanatics to wholeheartedly disagree with me, and I expect alums of these big-time schools who love football and the overall experience to chastise me, too.  Sure, I'm from Pennsylvania, and Penn State has not done stuff like that (yet, perhaps), and holds itself out differently (and at great cost, and, yes, something terrible happened around that program over the course of the past decades).  And I am not jealous of Alabama and Oregon or trying to "dumb them down" so that Penn State and others won't fall too far behind.  But can't there be a medium here?  I know that the NCAA is cumbersome, ineffective and sometimes misses the point, but this arms race doesn't seem to bode well for anyone in the long run.

Especially the communities the universities are supposed to serve and the students the institutions are supposed to serve.   With the excessive and almost criminal costs of college in this country, we owe our students a lot more than beer parties, tailgates and a euphoric feeling that one can say, "I met Nick Saban at a coffee shop" or "yeah, I was there when they won three titles in four years."  Sure, some memories like that are fun, but isn't college supposed to help prepare us for our careers, to be better members of society and to better society?  While it is true that alums from generations ago might have been less specialized and that their careers didn't necessarily derive from their majors, the difficulties in finding a job and the expense of college have compelled students and parents to take a much different look at college, far from looking at where junior can have a good time and go into the family business to where junior can best prepare for her and his next steps in life, such are the costs and such is the competition. 

And because of that, I would submit that our universities owe everyone much better leadership and stewardship than to permit sports programs from becoming bigger than any institution.  The Oregon facilities are spectacular, but can anyone convince me that Oregon's football program does not have a disproportionate influence on all things at Oregon?  And why is that good for anyone save those intimately involved with the Oregon program?

The advent of non-coaching staffs and facilities that rival St. Regis resorts is not a good thing.  It's the beginning of a destructive arms race that suggests are society's priorities are (somewhat) warped.  That's not to say that college athletics cannot do a bunch of good things; they do.  It's just to say that in the case of BCS football programs, some are out of proportion to the overall educational mission and many will get that way. 

And we should question whether that's the type of society we want, and whether this emphasis is what our society needs.

Thank You, Donovan McNabb

Thanks for all that you did for the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Biggest Lies are the Ones that We Tell Ourselves

Phillies GM Ruben Amaro should heed this advice.  As one area columnist put it this morning, quoting Bill Parcells, "You are what your record says you are." 

So Ruben Amaro is telling himself that despite a frequently anemic offense and a bullpen that has Venus de Milo stand-ins are members, the Phillies somehow can contend for a wild-card berth.  Rest assured, Amaro is not alone in his thinking.  Callers into local sports-talk radio stations who either don't follow the Eagles or cannot admit that their baseball season will have an unhappy ending also are arguing that with a few of the right additions the team can contend.  They point to 2007, where the team unloaded veteran OF Bobby Abreu near the deadline and actually played a lot better.  They think that the starting pitching will continue to toss quality starts, that the bullpen will improve and that the offense will get better.  So, they want to be buyers, and they don't want to give up.

It's admirable that no one wants to give up, so to speak, and it's better to be a buyer than a seller, because that means that you are in contention.  But with ESPN's Jayson Stark offering that this year is one of the worst buyer's markets in history, it makes all the sense in the world to evaluate whether it makes sense to be a seller and the effects on the near- and long-term if the team is a big seller now or not.  So, here goes.

1.  Reasons to be a big seller.  First, the team already is at a disadvantage, because one of the best opportunities they could have had was to try to peddle Cliff Lee to a desperate Rangers' team whose window is closing for a title.  The Rangers gave up at least one very good prospect (3B Mike Olt) to the Cubs for Garza.  It says here that the Phillies would have gotten more from the Rangers, perhaps not the mother lode they coveted in 2012, but more.  Having dispensed with that, let's look at the problem statement -- the team is trying to rebuild itself so that it can contend again as quickly as possible.  It's had a steady decline since '08, going from World Series champion to not making the playoffs in '12 (getting older and more injured).  Its offense has declined, its starting pitching has improved, but its bullpen has plummetted. 

So, you have a nucleus of the following few:  OF Domonic Brown, SS Jimmy Rollins (he's still one of the best SS's in the game) and starting pitcher Cole Hamels.  You also have some very nice parts in C Carlos Ruiz (whose contract expires after this year and who, despite not-so-great results, still has enough reputational value to draw serious interest), 2B Chase Utley (a rumored Utley to Oakland deal could bring 3 prospects, and his contract expires, too), 3B Michael Young (viewed as a nice piece and veteran leader), P Cliff Lee (he could really make a difference for any team and could put the right team over the top) and closer Jonathan Papelbon (in a bit of a slump, but still a very elite closer who could draw several prospects).  Doing the math, you could draw for this crowd 9-12 prospects, at least half of whom could be in the Baseball Prospectus top 101 (even if at the back end).  That nucleus -- a good mix of position players and pitchers -- could leave you fortified to rebuild quickly, assuming that some of the few minor-league prospects you have actually pan out.  You'll also have a lot of money available, as you won't have the contracts of Lee, Utley and Papelbon (who make a collective $45-$50 million a year).  And, perhaps you'll have a (finally) healthy Ryan Howard to begin next season (after two years of struggling).  Sure, Howard won't be the Howard of old, but at least he'll be healed.   In two years, you'll have great competition for jobs and a chance to do some damage.  Clean house, the reasoning goes, shed contracts, get prospects, perhaps sign a few free agents, and, voila, you'll get younger and more formidable.

Yes, you might suffer at the gate.  You're already suffering this season, and you'll definitely suffer next season.  But. . . you're going to suffer this season more most likely anyway.  And, if you do that, you'll suffer next year under the other scenario because you'll be a year older and creakier.  So, the gate should not be a huge consideration -- it's going to be bad for a number of years.  Under this scenarios, perhaps fewer than under the next one.

2.  Be buyers.  You only go around once in life, so you should go for it, and building for the future is for the teams that never get there.  You have a fan base to honor, a loyal fan base, and one that will walk if they have to watch Freddy Galvis and John Mayberry, Jr. in the lineup too much together.  Buy veterans, who cares if you get older now, and who cares if you give up some of the top prospects (they aren't that good, anyway, as only one is in the top 101 of Baseball Prospectus).  Fortify the bullpen, get another bat, and then watch the Braves and Nationals wilt and then win enough to get to 86 wins and get the second wild card.  Then toss Lee, Hamels and perhaps a healthy Roy Halladay out there, and you'll have a good chance.  Look, the Cards teams that have won it recently got hot at the right time and weren't all that good, so this team will have a chance, even if it means getting nothing for Ruiz and Utley and keeping Michael Young.  Yes, you will not get all of the prospects suggested above, but you'll keep your gate in check, make a good run, keep the fan base excited and worry about the next three-to-five seasons after this season.  Ruben Amaro always has something up his sleeve, you'll still have a lot of room on the payroll, and perhaps we can pick the right cornerstone free agents and build a new team with just them and not with all of the additional prospects we could get, too. 

No, we cannot suffer at the gate this eason, and next season is a different day.  We have a great stadium and good fan base, so we don't expect to fall much below the loss of 8,000 fans per game we suffered this year, even if the team is older, creakier and worse.  We'll still get a pass for a few years as we straighten things out, and who says that we'll have a drought of more than a year or two anyway? 

There are some big assumptions with both strategies:

1.  Who knows which free agents will be available and whether ownership can lure them to the Bank?
2.  Teams will be willing to trade very good prospects for some of our pieces.
3.  If we trade Cliff Lee, the team to which we trade him will take all of his salary.
4.  If we make trades now, we'll be able to get some bullpen help without giving up a lot.
5.  People will give us serious prospects for each and every piece.
6.  Lee's and Papelbon's most recent (and disastrous) performances haven't diminished their value.

There also aren't some big assumptions, but some givens:

1.  The Phillies' farm system is not very good.
2.  The gate has suffered, so it stands to reason that if there is no significant improvement, it will suffer worse.
3.  The team is getting older, and, as it has aged in the past, injuries increase.
4.  The Phillies will have much less in contract obligations after this season.
5.  It's vague as to which Roy Halladay will return in August and whether he will return this season.

So, which way do you go?  You're in second place, but you're about 7 out, and that's just in your division.  The wild card spots seem to be more of a reach.  You're older, but the NL isn't that strong a league.  It's a seller's market, so you could get overpaid for your players. 

It's a tough call, but Ruben Amaro gets paid to make them.  If he were to ask me, I would advise "sell," because I think that it's somewhat delusional to think that as currently constructed this team can make a serious run for a World Championship.  And, given it's age, it's time to sell and start the rebuilding process.  I don't think that when Pat Gillick unloaded Bobby Abreu in '07 that he figured he'd win the World Series that quickly (in '08).  Correspondingly, it stands to reason that the sooner you move forward, the faster you'll have a chance to make a deep run in the post-season.

The Next Wave of Baseball Analytics

I really like all of the stats that the baseball math experts have come up with.  The sport is so rich with data that good mathematicians can have a field day with analyzing who is an effective performer and who is not.  While my friends and I did not come up with nearly the detailed analysis that the current crop of experts has (we were in high school at the time), in the 1970's we came up with some numbers -- on-base percentage for hitters and on-base percentage yielded for pitchers) that helped us figure out who were the best players to take in our annual mid-summer Strat-o-Matic draft.  Around the same time, a great high school athlete in California, Billy Beane, was doing the same thing. 

My friends and I did not pursue our interest in baseball numbers.  At the time, baseball was full of gruff, mistrusting guys without college degrees who didn't like anyone who wasn't like them and who were more concerned with tools and the "good face," than with numbers that would have made someone with a body along the lines of a Kevin Youkilis stand out (that Youkilis became a star and one-time Phillies first-round draft pick, an OF from Chicago named Jeff Jackson who was taken fourth overall did not must gall many any old-school scout, including those in the Phillies' front-office at the time).  There just didn't seem to be a market for that type of stuff, and we just didn't have the sophistication to market it. 

Of course, we were far from alone.  Sabremetics came into existence around that time, Bill James too.  Still, we didn't have the internet then, and we didn't know who else was doing what except that the one guy who belonged to the Society for American Baseball Research kept us informed. 

Fast forward to today, where the world is rife with all sorts of data, the culmination of which is the annual publication of Baseball Prospectus.  That book is great at predicting outcomes and great at analyzing data.  What it doesn't touch upon is whether a player is so wired that his performance cannot change regardless of whether he changes his behavior.  The data suggests that both front offices should change their behaviors behind drafting (my hometown Phillies love toolsy players, great athletes, but name one outside Domonic Brown who has emerged in the past thirty years) and that players should change their behaviors regarding hitting and pitching . . . so that they will change trends, reverse them and, as a result, steer their careers from the inevitable career graveyards of hitters who cannot get on base and pitchers who walk too many batters or get hurt too much.

As for hitters, let's look at Brown, who, up until this year, was a big disappointment.  Projected to be a hitter in the heart of the order, Brown struggled.  That is, until he worked tirelessly with Phillies' hitting coach Wally Joyner (who, ironically, went to the same high school as Brown years earlier) to shorten his swing (taking a page out of teammate Chase Utley's book) and become a demon at the plate.  It probably was clear to the Phillies' brass and Brown that were Brown to have continued with his long, loopy swing, he would have had a mediocre career as a fourth outfielder whose power numbers belied his size and athleticism.  So, Brown, in a way, used his data to change his approach.  Smart thinking.

Pitchers are a different breed.  To his credit, a middling prospect named Charlie Morton of the Pirates wasn't satisfied with his results, so he tried to copy Roy Halladay's motion.  The good news for Morton was that at the beginning (say a third of a season) he put up Hallday-like numbers.  The sad news was that, thereafter, he got hurt, imploded and performed, well, like an injured Halladay performed before he went on the DL this year (or worse).  Morton's decisions perhaps were a bit extreme.  His numbers prior to adopting the "Be Like Roy" strategy did not project success in the Majors, but perhaps he needed to change his approach versus imitating someone else.  So, for example, Morton might have adopted a different training regimen (yoga, flexibility training a la the 49ers) and concentrated more (such as perfecting a changeup), and that might have worked.  In the end, though, he's been another oft-injured starter, and the window for him shut pretty quickly.

Perhaps where Major League teams stand today is that they need to do something with the data other than characterize players as also rans or trade them.  They invest heavily in prospects, so they might want to invest heavily in changing approaches.  It shouldn't take much, for example, to get a kid who has struck out 150 times a season for the past two seasons at AA to change his swing, especially if he walks enough and his power is decent.  That type of change might dictate whether he becomes another Crash Davis or has a successful Major League career.

When You Are Not Entitled to Fundraise for Your Travel Sport

I was driving through my town today after a great workout at the gym, en route to the local Starbucks for a simple indulgence of a soy mocha and a breakfast wrap.  At every street corner, I saw girls and parents with signs hailing that the "local" soccer team (the blast, explosion, tornado, cyclone, whatever) is going to nationals!  And, they have open cans to let you show your appreciation and support them, too.  What a joy to face during your "me" time early on a Saturday morning.

I walked by them with such a sense of purpose that they knew I wasn't interested.  I also didn't want to engage them in a dialogue regarding why I wouldn't think of giving them a plugged nickel, unless the circumstances for a single player were so unique that she alone warranted support (more on that later).  Put simply, they have a lot of nerve asking for anything from anyone.  Here's why:

1.  If they are from the town, then they really are selfish.  Why?  I won't give you my zip code, but suffice it to say that we are well above the poverty level.  So, translated, you want to go to some godforsaken, overheated place in the midwest to play in "nationals" (which is a euphemism because, as with many sports, there are many such "national" tournaments), then pay for it yourself.  You have the money to do so, and, if for some reason this is a tight economic year for you, then don't go out for dinner so much or don't take your family for a week at the South Jersey shore.  In other words, sacrifice one comfort or luxury for another.  You just don't warrant my support.

2.  If they are not from the town, then they fail to realize that I am support them enough (and they really don't care about my town, it's just that the local organization recruited them and they are mercenaries benefitting from our taxpayer-support fields, too).    Yes, that's right.  Travel has cannibalized all local rec leagues, the poor justifications being a) that everyone else is doing it, b) that college is expensive so let's try to give our kids the advantage by perhaps getting a college scholarship (although the money is not nearly as available as people think) or c) (actually no one says this), but mom and dad don't have the most thrilling lives so this gives them something to do, something to brag about, something to have some power over or in, by being the head of some local athletic association or a coach.

But I have digressed.  Local towns will try to tell taxpayers that their "user" fees make sure that they more than break even from local "athletic" associations and that non-residents pay a lot more, so that local kids are preferred.  But they're not really telling you everything.  First, when's the last time they've asked those associations for an accounting?  Perhaps never, even though at least once a year you see a newspaper article reporting that a local treasurer of an association in the area was charged with siphoning funds to pay for European vacations, a boat or Eagles tickets.  Second, they have no clue as to the breakdown of the township kids who play and the non-township kids who play, for whatever reason (in one case where I live, both travel's cannibalism of rec leagues and the egos of the travel bosses have shrunk the matriculation in the rec leagues, and the sad irony is that the state is giving the local association, which is politically connected, a grant to build more fields -- even where they are not needed!)  Third, the "out-of-town" user fees are not a deterrent to keeping out wandering Hessians and preferring local kids; yes, they can be more, but not by a staggering sum.  (To me, charging $1,250 for a resident and $1,650 for a non-resident doesn't present a deterrent; charging $1,250 for a resident and $3,000 for a non-resident might).

All of this -- emphasis on travel, kids quitting the sport because they cannot afford travel, their parents don't have the time to commit or they are not good enough and suffer from neglect from the organizations, rec league's being left barren or just being dissed by travel families -- is in the face of the fact the the world is fatter and getting more obese and diabetic.  Too many kids are inactive, the U.S. is the second most obese country in the world (Mexico just  beat us out for first), and we're worried about fielding "elite" travel teams populated with non-residents?  Why?  Not for the good out a town's kids or for the good of the town, but for the good of the egos that have hijacked the local organization for their own purposes.  But if you're not from my town, you really don't give a rodent's rear end what town's name is on the front of the jersey so long as the team gives your kid a good chance to get to the next level.  And that means that a local kid isn't getting a chance, and that also means that my tax dollars already are supporting you.  And that means you are as equally unentitled to my donation as a township resident with a kid on the team.

And, finally, so as to show that I am not a total grump on this point:

I would contribute in the following circumstances:  show me a kid whose living in a single-parent family, who is a very good talent and kid, whose single parent works more than one job to support the family.  I'll give you a lot more than a token buck or two to help you get halfway across the country, because you deserve the help.  That said, if that kid does exist, then the other parents of kids on the team should step up and help pay for that kid, especially the ones who drove the BMW SUVs to the street corners where they were asking for money.

But, somehow, people who show up to these corners in vehicles that cost $50,000 or more aren't worth stopping for.  That doesn't mean that they aren't good or caring people.

It just means that they're making a mistake here.

Charity is for the needy.

And not for already advantaged, entitled reasonably affluent travel athletes.

Rome fell, and I would suggest that we all study why, because stuff like this suggests a significant erosion of values and priorities.

Why Do So Few Care About Professional Tennis?

Going back 30 years, there weren't as many choices on TV.  Almost no one had cable TV, and we weren't as crazed with kids' sports as we are now.  Wimbledon and the U.S. Open riveted us -- McEnroe, Connors, Borg, Gerulaitis, Orantes, Vilas, Nastase -- they played roles, some had outsized personalities.  They wore white, used wooden rackets, and the balls had just changed over from white to optic yellow or green.  People liked watching the women, too -- first, Billie Jean King, the pioneer (few remember that her brother, Randy Moffitt, was a very good closer for the San Francisco Giants), then Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova.  Billie Jean was talented and determined, Chrissie was everyone's cutie, and Martina was a force of nature. 

Around the same time, some of the golfing greats were aging just a bit -- Jack Nicklause, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Lee Trevino.  Ben Crenshaw didn't quite emerge as the next great one; neither did Tom Kite.  The Big Four, as it were, enjoyed great popularity, but at the time one might have predicted that tennis would have taken off and golf might have waned.  Why?  The simplest reason of them all -- the lack of a superstar that people would have wanted to follow.  Tom Watson was good, but he didn't have the people pushing him that the Big Four did.  Johnny Miller was great for a while, but he was somewhat irascible to Watson's bland style.

But what happened was entirely different.  Sure, in both sports the training methods became more sophisticated and the equipment "better".  "Metal" woods have taken over in golf; graphite racquets in tennis.  Courses got longer in golf so as not to be rendered a joke through long drives and short irons into greens.  Tennis courts didn't get bigger, but serve and volley players who could rocket 140 m.p.h. serves became a norm, too.  Sampras, Federer and Nadal are all great players, but it seems now that tennis only has room for a single great one, and if he doesn't have a temper like McEnroe or fire like Connors or hair like Borg, well, he doesn't pack 'em in (unless the 'em are already part of the initiated who were raised on tennis and will love it no matter what).  For a U.S. fan, there are a lot of foreign women, and, truth be told, many Russians and Eastern Europeans for whom English cannot be their first language and whose names are hard to announce and even harder to remember.  Fans remember Anna Kournikova, but for her looks and bald-faced attempts at sex appeal, not for her game. 

It's probably the case that the USGA did a better job attracting juniors than the USTA.  It's also probably the case that golf is more of an event to play and perhaps has some allure, whereas tennis might involve playing on local courts that need to be swept, dried out or resurfaced to take away the ability of weeds to grow in cracks.  On a more serious note, kids get scheduled for team sports quite a bit, so perhaps after academy soccer, rec league basketball and club lacrosse, there isn't a whole lot of time for anything more.  Many parents seek out teams so that their kids know what teamwork is and eschew the solitude that tennis guarantees, especially if you are any good.  It's just hard to become buddies with the kid whose brains you have to crush in order to climb the ladder and get a better ranking.  Finally, the advent of video games hurts, too, as many kids would rather play Madden and talk about it over a wireless mike to their friends than actually get out there and rally on a tennis court.

But the biggest reason is that it seems that the USGA has done a much better job of  branding golf than the USTA has done with tennis.  First, golf courses can be beautiful and set at destination locations.  Almost all tennis courts look the same.  Second, the USGA seemingly does a better job of branding its stars.  Third, the USGA seemingly does a better job of branding, period.  But, to me, the stars are the thing. 

A McEnroe-Connors match was a thing to behold.  A Sampras-Agassi had some of that because of Agassi, but the latter had so much difficulty beating Sampras that you really couldn't have called the rivalry a great one (and, sadly, sometimes the greatest get anointed so because of the quality of their competition -- Muhammad Ali beat many great fighters; his former sparring partner and a successor as world champ, Larry Holmes, fought very few if any, so it's hard to tell how good he really was).  After Federer and Nadal, it's hard to get interested in anyone, and it's doubly hard to get interested in any tournament that's not a major.  Sure, those tournaments fill ESPN's air time at curious hours, but that's about it. 

I still do not know why so few care about professional tennis.  I suppose that in addition to the video games' craze and the ability to watch just about anything on Netflix, Americans are more prone to play golf than tennis because, well, they are heavier than they used to be.  So, if you're 15 pounds overweight, you're still much more likely to play golf than to look silly in tennis whites and risk an injury because you are very much out of shape.  If that's the case, then you're more likely to watch golf in the pretty setting than tennis in some stadium baking in the sun somewhere, unless it's Wimbledon or the U.S. Open (I would contend that the diehards will watch the French and Australian, but that's about it).

So, why do so few care about professional tennis?

1.  Watching rallies is less compelling than watching stock cars circle the tracks.
2.  Fewer people play it because they are out of shape.
3.  People are heavier and can play golf while overweight much more easily than play tennis.
4.  The technology of the rackets makes the players more programmed and robotic.
5.  There hasn't been a great American hope on the men's side for a while.
6.  It's not marketed as well.

Take your pick.  What do you think?

The End of an Era

It wasn't going to last forever.

A Hall of Fame GM figured out over a half century ago that it was best to stay young, sell players right after they peaked.  It was hard to figure out when that was, of course, because players are individuals, but he parlayed good players into good players.  His name was Branch Rickey.

We knew in 2008 that the Phillies couldn't keep it going forever.  Sure, they had a good team, and, yes, they had a good farm system.  But they parlayed it for big-name starting pitchers, and the position players got old fast.  And then they added two old position players, Raul Ibanez and Placido Polanco, and they got hurt.  Big contracts entered, and incentives lessened, despite protests that the players were professionals.  Binoculars were found out, as were steroids in the entire game and, also, amphetamines. Recovering from injuries became more difficult, staying peppy for 162 games all but impossible.

They declined steadily.  World Series win in '08, World Series loss in '09, NCLS loss in '10, NLDS loss in '11 and then a failure to make the playoffs in '12.

It is time to break the team up.

You can't trade Ryan Howard because his contracts is dead weight.  He hasn't evolved, and he's becoming yet another argument against long-term deals.  He was rewarded for past accomplishments, not future ones.  You are stuck with him.

But Chase Utley might agree to a trade out west.  The Giants, A's and Dodgers all could use him.  Carlos Ruiz's contract expires; he'd look good in Yankee pinstripes.  Cliff Lee might be the big prize; teams will line up for him.  He can make the difference between a short post-season run and a championship.  Jonathan Papelbon also looms large -- the Red Sox could use his services as a closer.  Michael Young also could be an extra piece for a contender.

All of the above could bring serious prospects to the team -- position players with good OPS potential, pitchers with upside.  Sure, they can say that they'll keep Lee and then build around him and Cole Hamels, and, yes, few might be able to fathom the Phillies without Chase Utley.  But at some point the whole roster will turn over, they'll get very old and either retire or fade from the game after seasons that become so partial as to be almost non-starters.  Father Time will catch up with all of them, so it's time to cash in.

Before it's too late.

While there remains significant value.

While there remains a chance to garner major prospects to re-build the team.

Okay, so it will be easy to get tickets, and, yes, the team will lose concession sales because attendance will plummet.  But at least the fans will begin to look forward to a new era, as opposed to having box seats to a sad slide.  Sure, they'll precipitate a faster downfall, but, also, a faster rebirth.

It was great in '08, wasn't it?  But what happened in '08 suggests that the formula for winning has your team having the right pieces in the right place at the right time -- an aging pitcher telling a starting pitching staff it was good enough, a bullpen without any holes and with a perfect closer, a bench with clout and position players all looking for big deals, a team on the upswing, and with everyone else being talked about at the outset of the post-season, it was the Phillies who smoked Milwaukee, dusted the Dodgers and then finished off the Rays.

Sure, there is a crisis, as the team is struggling, and the potential for awful attendance looms.  But lurking behind the bad news is opportunity -- an opportunity to trade value for future value, and to build for the future.

It is July, and there are 30 more days until the inter-league trading deadline.  It is time for GM Ruben Amaro to put up the "For Sale Sign."

It is time to close the chapter on the Chase Utley Phillies.

It is time to begin the next one.

Sam Hinkie, Genius

4.0 at Oklahoma.

MBA from nationally recognized school.

Challenged the status quo, traded an All-Star for "the best defensive prospect in 15 years," then drafted one of his best friends.  All in the name of rebuilding.

Fans are excited.

Fans are starving for a winner.

Fans are looking for hope everywhere.

Jury is out.  Let's see what the team looks like in 3 years.

And let's see how happy ownership is if a) a franchise with among the league's worst attendance sees that attendance drop by 4,000 fans a game, b) New Orleans doesn't play badly enough to make the pick gotten in the Noel/Holiday trade a non-protected lottery pick (or they play poorly enough to achieve protected lottery pick status, thereby denying the 76ers a much counted on elite pick in next year's draft) and c) if the team signs free agents who (i) don't augment attendance but (ii) cause the team to play well enough to put the team at the bottom of the lottery or worse (for rebuilding purposes).

That said, it's about time for the team to do the following:

1.  Be creative, a la San Antonio, who got Tony Parker with a late first-round pick, got Manu Ginobli in the second round, Danny Green off the scrap heap and Kawhi Leonard in a trade; and
2.  Be more international, and find some players who can help from overseas.

In the meantime, he's been bold and he's offered hope.

But if the team doesn't fare better 2, 3 years down the road, few will remember Sam Hinkie.

The 76ers Have Had 18 Head Coaches in the Past 40 Years, 19 if You Count Whoever the New Guy Is

You can check it out here.

That's about one coach every sixth months.  Now, sure, some stayed for longer (Billy Cunningham, Larry Brown), but others did not (Kevin Loughery, Tony DiLeo).  Still, each has had the title "head coach."

Which gets me to thinking that the most recent trade of Jrue Holiday and a #2 for Nerlens Noel and a protected #1 is a bit wishful thinking.  Yes, some have labeled new GM Sam Hinkie bold, daring and smart, while others wonder if he just steered the good ship off the cliff and will have fans desperately wondering whether they'll clinch the best chance for the first pick in next year's draft by Christmas.  They'll also be offering pagan rituals for Thaddeus Young, who deserves a better fate than to play with the team sponsored by the Last Chance Hotel. 

Optimism for the 76ers results from the triumph of hope over experience.  Sure, they had great teams in the mid-to-late 70's to early 80's and got to the finals in 2000, but otherwise they've been an abysmal team at worst (see 1972-1973 and a fair-to-middlin'-to-above average team at best.  This trade suggests that they want to build around Noel, Young, first-round pick Michael Carter-Williams, the enigmatic Evan Turner and perhaps the kid from Kansas who many think is the "next LeBron" (cautionary tale:  Google "Lenny Cooke" and show some measure of concern when you heap all that praise on someone; also Google "Harold Miner," who was touted as "Baby Jordan").  But live in the present we must, and Noel is out until December.  So, you have a lineup consistent of Carter-Williams, Turner, Young, Spencer Hawes and either a two or three to be named later depending on where you put Turner (probably at the 3).  And the bench?  Who will be there? 

This is a recipe for an 18 and 64 team. 

This is a recipe for many empty seats.

This is a recipe for further condescension from the Knicks and Nets fans, and even the rebuilding Celtics could be better.  But if they want to vie for the Wiggins sweepstakes, given NBA history, they'll beat out the 76ers.  Yes, rock beats scissors, and I'll bet on the Grousbeck father and son combination and the Boston karma over Josh Harris and his buyout fund billion. 

The jokes are going around that the 76ers will sign Greg Oden to be a matched pair with Noel, and that they'll hire bad-legged historic big men Bill Walton and Sam Bowie to help coach our bigs.  Of course, they could re-sign Andrew Bynum, too, and have Noel and his limited offensive game play alongside Bynum, whose offense is good.  The possibilities are endless.

But, remember, this is a big bet.  And, with how frequently the head coaching position has turned over, it seems that it will be difficult for the team to gain traction quickly enough to build upon another new, exciting nucleus and go further than the first round of the playoffs.  History dictates that this won't happen, that Harris will get bored, sell the team to a local gazillionaire and buy an NFL team. 

Where hope will triumph over experience once again.  But at least "parity" makes it easier to rebuild an NFL team.

The 76ers Have Fired CEO Adam Aron -- Hold the Phone -- Perhaps Not

I posted the following yesterday after seeing a tweet from local sports media honcho Howard Eskin that he had two sources that told him this happened; the morning papers on June 25 report that the firing didn't take place but opened the door that Aron's role might change.  The original headline was that they fired Aron, and I apologize for jumping on this without letting it marinate.  Eskin has broken some big stories before, but this time either he was ahead of the competition or, upon learning of Eskin's early learning of the story, the 76ers retreated.  In any event, here's what I wrote, and despite the uncertainty for the 76ers and Aron, I'll leave it up for consideration.

Philadelphia area guy. 

Went to Harvard.

Had success in business.

Probably figured that a good way to end a business career would be for a long ride helping bring the hometown basketball team -- in a basketball town -- back to prominence. 

Went to work for a guy with four kids, a hedge fund billionaire, a Wharton grad who made his entry into sports ownership by purchasing a once-storied but now struggling basketball team.  Probably figured it would be a safe bet, working for and with this Wharton guy.  Probably figured that he'd have some rope in helping bring the team back into prominence.

Sure, there would be pressure.  The pressure that comes from the Celtics and Knicks and the  upstart Nets, with their Russian oligarch owner and their somewhat fashionable address in Brooklyn.  They made the big deal, it bombed, the seats didn't fill, and the GM went.  A GM who had spent years in a system that had consistently failed to find gems from among foreign players or overlooked U.S. players playing overseas.   So did the head coach, who was a luxury, a great basketball mind and man coaching an also ran with only a few good players.  His potential for success was doomed when the big guy's knee balked and then balked again. 

So now the third thing happened.  The CEO is gone.  Perhaps owner Josh Harris is taking a page out of one-time "owner" Pat Croce's book (Croce called himself "owner" but owned only a tiny sliver of the team; yet, he was the face of the franchise) by parting company with most of his front office after only one season. 

The coach, a legend for the team as a player, is gone.  The GM, a Big Five hoopster with a son playing in the Big Five (albeit for a different school), is gone.  The local kid who went to Harvard is gone.

Wonder whether Adam Aron still thinks it was a wise move to exit the travel business for the glitz of professional sports? 

I had contemplated a career in it, too, only to have friends talk me out of it because they offered that I could do something more important in my life than watch games and that dealing with athletes -- actually meeting them -- would prove to be a major disappointment .  (I once met Willie Mays, and it was hard for him in person to live up to his legend as a player).  At any rate, what the business people find is that sports is a raw business in terms of sales.  What I mean by that is that you can probably sell a like good to a customer who is considering other like goods.  There are different features and price points, but you probably could sell something to just about everyone.  In sports, though, the won-loss record is so raw that people won't go to a palace to watch an also ran; they will go to a barnyard to watch a champion.  There is so much competition for the entertainment dollar -- cable TV, iPods, iPhones, Netflix, Cable TV, cell phones, gourmet restaurants, other sports -- that if you cannot field a winning team, unless somehow the generation that blows its money on hanging out finds your arena cool, you are doomed.  You don't need to be a Wharton or Harvard grad to figure that much out.  You need a good product -- not a DJ for a P.A. announcer who can't carry half of Dave Zinkoff's microphone, not dancing girls of all ages, not men jumping on trampolines dunking basketballs. 

You need a team that can contend.  You need a front office -- the way Jack McMahon did it finding player after player for the Sixers in the 80's (including, among others, Andrew "The Boston Strangler" Toney) -- that the fan base has confidence in will go to all corners of the earth to find the next great player. 

The owners don't have to be Wharton alums, the CEO doesn't have to be a Harvard grad, and the coach doesn't have to be a Hall of Famer and former Olympian.  It's not that formulaic, but it's pretty obvious what you need -- players, and players whose will to win is so fierce that the money doesn't become a deterrent, that guaranteed money doesn't reduce their will to win.  Capture that talent and that will in a bottle, and you will win a championship.  Signing a guy with a tendency to change haircuts and go bowling while nursing an injured knee might just not cut it.  Sure, he could be a bright guy, but you're looking for the guy who loves winning and hates losing. 

So, the front office parts ways with CEO Adam Aron, making it a hat trick in terms of cleaning out upper management.  The owner doesn't fire players or himself. 

And, the thing of it was, had Andrew Bynum been health and played up to his potential, Adam Aron, Tony DiLeo and Doug Collins all might still be at the Wachovia Center. 

Perhaps looking for just one more piece to make an even deeper run into the playoffs.

So, bright kids everywhere, be careful what you wish for.  Sports is a big business, and it's much easier to tell whether you're performing well or not.  It's both the won-lost record, your revenues and your earnings.  They typically correlate. 

You don't need a Wharton or Harvard degree to figure that out.

And while the product might be a fun thing, it's still a business.

The Protests in Brazil

I am not an expert in Brazilian politics.  I have read that the current Prime Minister is not as good for the economy as her predecessor, and I have read what everyone else has read about the protests.  What does not surprise me is that this seemingly is the first time in a long time that an entire country has protested the huge expense that Brazil has made on soccer stadiums.  Yes, various U.S. municipalities have protested the construction of sporting facilities -- simply by refusing to approve the expenditures on a ballot referendum.  And, while many Olympic games have proven to be financially disabling (among them the Montreal games of 1976), few have protested the expenditures in advance.  Many lament them after the fact.

So, to me it's a surprise that it is taken this long for significant numbers of people within a country to say, "Hey, wait a minute, we're spending all this money on international soccer when we have serious problems with our infrastructure -- with our educational system, with our healthcare, with our government?"  The amounts are staggering, and for whose benefit are they?

For the growth of international soccer?  Perhaps.

For the professional soccer leagues who try to make increasing dollars on merchandise and TV rights?  Perhaps.

For in-country soccer federations trying to sell more merchandise?  Perhaps.

For the people in the country where the tournaments are hosted?  Perhaps not.

Sure, the phenomenon of international soccer created a demand for hosting the Confederation Cup in 2013 and the World Cup in 2014, and that demand compelled Brazil to build soccer stadiums, many of them.  Admittedly, these projects created numerous jobs for those in the building trades, and the tournaments themselves will help tourism.  But what will happen after that?  And could the money have been better spent?  Would Brazil have weakened its international prestige in soccer if it had ceded the stadium turf to Russian oligarchs or Middle Eastern oil barons? 

The answers are "who knows?", "of course it's possible" and "of course, it depends on where you sit."  But if things are as bad as the tens of thousands of peaceful protestors are saying, did Brazil really need to spend all this money on stadiums? 

Sports are fun, they are a good outlet, they promote exercise and teamwork, they are good entertainment. 

But how many Brazilians can afford to attend, and at the expense of more basic needs?

As protests go, it's smart for the protestors to draw attention to themselves while the international cameras are rolling.  It's gutsy, too, as the leaders invite retribution from forces in a country not always known for due process and good justice.  It's risky in that they chose a time to humiliate the government, and people who feel backed into a corner don't tend to play as friendly as people with whom you correspond nicely.  That said, the time for the most polite conversation seems to have ended; the people are frustrated.

Now the whole world knows.

A basic question is before us, one which many of us find convenient to avoid -- how much money do we need to spend on stadiums and leisure time?  And why?

Essays, not to exceed 750 words, are due next week.  But seriously, how much is enough, and when is spending money on structures that won't get a ton of use excessive?

Interesting questions within a soccer-mad country.  One might have figured that Brazil would have accepted this role willingly out of a view that it's the best soccer nation on the planet.  Instead, they are questioning a significant part of their culture -- how many monuments must we build to something we are really good at?  In the U.S., the stadiums probably wouldn't have been built; soccer isn't popular enough, and the people turn down building new municipal stadiums for football and baseball not too infrequently.  But this is one of the biggest soccer countries in the world.

Where people are not happy with something to do with their favorite game. 

Because sometimes too much of a good thing is excessive.

On the Phillies. . . and Leadership

On 97.5 FM, one of the sports talk radio stations in Philadelphia (a commentary on society is that there is more than one of them), former Phillie Darren Daulton talks about problems in the Phillies' clubhouse.  He doesn't specify, of course, which means either he suspects that there are or he knows something but isn't telling.  It's hard to know how connected Daulton is.  He talks in this laid back style and has a nickname for everyone, which means either he has a familiarity with all or just does it because, well, he's Dutch, and deep into middle age, he's still trying to be cool (going so far as to being a radio pitchman for an air-conditioning company and saying that he relies upon them, despite the fact that he also does an ad for the condo building he lives in, which, presumably, means he doesn't need his own personal HVAC contractor).

Today, on the same station, Leslie Gudel of Comcast SportsNet was interviewed, and she offered that it's not so much that there are problems, it's just that there isn't any leadership.  That's probably closer to the case, and, if so, it's sad.

Very sad.

In the mid-2000's, the senior player on the squad was Bobby Abreu, who was a pretty good outfielder despite current musings that he was awful.  The younger players -- Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins -- and others deferred to Abreu because of his seniority.  That led to GM Pat Gillick's trading Abreu to the Yankees for four suspects into order to enable the Phillies to become Rollins', Utley's and Howard's team.  Seemed simple, but with Jamie Moyer providing leadership for a young pitching staff, it was time for the young stars to take over.  

And it worked.  It led to a world championship.

The team was full of energy and gamers and, interesting, no big contracts.  Then Jayson Werth cashed in and hit the jackpot with the Nationals, and, according to Gudel, he lived, breathed and slept baseball.  Ditto former OF Shane Victorino, an energetic player with whom the others seemed to want to keep pace.  Traded to L.A., cashes in with a seemingly over-the-top contract with the Red Sox.   Gudel offered that both are missed.

That may be, but Werth left a few years ago, Victorino was a good player, but even so, Utley, Howard and Rollins remain.  Cole Hamels is more senior, and Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee are deans of MLB's starting pitcher ranks, and Jonathan Papelbon is a premier closer.  And then there's Carlos Ruiz, whose suspension for taking Adderall didn't help matters.    So, is it really the case that there is no leadership?  Is Utley fried?  Is Howard not showing leadership because he's playing hurt?  Has Rollins decided that someone else should step up?  What about Lee?  What about Hamels?  What about Halladay?

Or, is it simply a case of, "well, I have my big contract, I have my awesome condo in Center City and a second home somewhere, so as long as I do my job, I'm fine.  Leadership?  That's for someone else?"

Because that's what it looks like.  It's only been five years, guys.  A few of who have never won a series, so perhaps you'll step it up. For those who have, don't you want to get back there?

Meanwhile, two young commentators were chastising the fans for booing and not being positive.

To a degree, the fans' attitudes reflect the leadership that they see on the field.

The absence of leadership is bad enough.

But the absence of leadership from those who led before or who get paid enough to lead is even more troubling.  

Better leadership won't, in and of itself, get the Phillies to the playoffs.

But the absence of it could make the difference between contending for them or not.

Cost versus Value

The Nobel laureate in physics, Val Fitch, once said, "Excellence cannot be bought, but it must be paid for."

The statistics have shown, particularly in MLB, that if your team is not among the top quarter in payrolls, you will not be a playoff team.  It also tells you that spending into the top quarter doesn't guarantee you that spot, as there are examples of big spenders who have failed.

The statistics also are showing, with some troubling regularity, the decline in performance of stars who get long-term deals, such as Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Vernon Wells, Barry Zito, Aaron Rowand, Ryan Howard, to name just a few.  Translated, if you're a betting person, don't bet on the teams with the long-term contracts, bet on the teams with the players who are about to get them.  Case in point:  The 2008 Philadelphia Phillies.

Ben Cherington, the Red Sox's GM, probably ruined it for all overpaying GMs when he pulled the coup of the century on the overeager Dodgers by not only unloading some very expensive contracts, but also by getting some top prospects in return.  According to one GM, Cherington would have done a great job yielding those contracts (Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez) for nothing, but he should have been named GM of the year for getting good prospects in return.  Because of that deal, it will become increasingly hard for GMs to unload big contracts without including prospects and eating much of their salaries.  At some point, the teams might as well keep the players or eat the contracts.

A recent article in ESPN the Magazine should have made Philadelphia fans cringe.  Each Philadelphia team ranked in the bottom tenth on the spending for wins proposition.  The Eagles overspent on never wases and has beens two years ago.  The Flyers consistently have spent big bucks errantly in their quest to have their first Stanley Cup Champion in 40 years (once they changed the rules on the hard-nosed Mr. Snider, he has been unable to lead his team back to the title).  The Sixers are the anti-Spurs, in that they have spent big bucks but have failed to be creative in locating the good overseas player -- ever.  And then there are the Phillies, who might as well be the free space on the bingo card for these purposes.  After 2008, they opened up the checkbook but failed to achieve another world championship. 

They overpaid for Ryan Howard.  They signed Chase Utley 7 years ago to a 7-year deal which expires after this season.  At the time, it looked like a bargain for the club ($84 million); now it looks like a fair deal if not a disappointment for the club given that Utley will not have the Hall of Fame career that 2007 portended.  They inked Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels to big deals, huge deals, only to now to have to deal with the irony that in 2008, when they won the World Series, their rotation consisted of Hamels, Jamie Moyer, Brett Myers, Joe Blanton and Kyle Kendrick (their bullpen was oh so much better, though).  Carlos Ruiz has been a bargain; Howard a disaster.  They inked SS Jimmy Rollins to a three-year deal last season, but he's a shadow of the guy who won the MVP award about six years back and the effort, sadly, isn't always there (he remains, though, one of my favorite Phillies).  Brad Lidge got a 3-year, roughly $33 million deal in the midst of 2008, only to pitch terribly, really horribly in 2009 and not that well in 2010.  He couldn't have left town soon enough.  Jonathan Papelbon, a good closer, got $48 million for four years a year ago, and he's been closing for a pretender.  For all the money that they have spent, the Phillies thought that they both bought and paid for excellence.  In fact, they did not.

They forget demography and the need to keep re-seeding the farm system with position players and pitchers.  They forget dollar-cost-averaging, in that it's not wise to have most of your good players be the same age.  While GM Ruben Amaro gets credit for the Raul Ibanez signing as one of his best moves, it was one of his worst.  The reason -- the team got very much older at a time when it needed to get younger.  The signing of an aging, injury-prone Placido Polanco the next off-season compounded the aging problem.  Instead, they figured that brute force -- spending for veteran players -- would solve all ills.  Instead, it forged a team that was somewhat complacent, that lacked the spark that up-and-coming players and role-playing aged veterans provided, and the team didn't win another World Series.

All because the GM knew what everything cost.

He just didn't know, really, who was worth it and who wasn't.

And now the team is stuck, facing a big decline, with many starts with big contracts, many on the downside of their careers, with few prospects coming up.

It used to be that fans could sell tickets on StubHub for significantly over face value; today, they have significant trouble recouping their purchase price.

Which goes to show you that if the front office can't figure it out about value, the fans can teach you in a hurry.

Question for NCAA President Emmert: If the Rape Charges are Substantiated Against 3 Naval Academy Football Players, What Will You Do?

You can read the story here. 

The stakes could be big.  After all, you set a precedent with Penn State, you rushed to judgment, and you exacted huge penalties against an undergunned and intimidated Penn State board without giving them any due process and without having conducted an investigation.  You damned them, you fined them, you reduced their scholarships and put various curbs on them. 

All for underlying acts that a current administrator, coach or player did not perpetrate.  By the way, the purpose of this post is not to defend or apologize for Penn State or the Paterno family, as I have written before that Penn State and Paterno didn't handle the matter well.  That said, it is pretty clear what the NCAA did and did not do. 

What the NCAA did puts them in a big bind.

Or should. 

That is, if the NCAA itself had any discipline in its approach and had standards to adhere to.

Because rape is a pretty serious charge.  As is the issue of sexual assaults in the military, which have been a big topic of conversation.  So, for a moment, let's suppose that these three Midshipmen committed sexual assualt, that they raped this female Midshipman.

Then what?

Well, if you adopt Mark Emmert's way of thinking, that's it for Naval Academy football.  You cannot reduce their scholarships, because everyone who goes to Navy gets a full ride.  You probably cannot suspend the Army-Navy game, because the nation wouldn't stand for it and you'd be punishing Army (then again, you did punish current Penn State players, who weren't around when the alleged bad activities and failures to act during the heart of the Jerry Sandusky problems took place).  You probably cannot bust the Naval Academy down to I-AA for a while, but I am not sure whether that would be a punishment.  You could reduce the number of football recruits Navy brings in, but unless there are rules that the USNA follows now, that would be hard counting to do.

No, you could suspend their football program for a period of years.  You, after all, threatened Penn State with the "death penalty," and since it's hard to fine Navy without fining the average tax payer (who wouldn't appreciate the symbol of the fine but would only seethe at the irony), so why can't you do that to Navy?  Okay, so you'd be suspending the Army-Navy game and you'd be elevating Air Force to an equal (which would be equally galling to Army and Navy), but what other choice to you have?  You set a precedent with Penn State.

So, if this is true, you'd have to consider a four-year ban on the football program, elimination of the "football house" referenced in the article (memo to football players who want a good future:  stay way from that #&^*@ house) and mandatory sexual harrassment training that sets the standard for all athletic programs everywhere, among other things.  If this were true, that would have to happen. 

If this were true, Navy football should have blank pages in its history for several years.  And, Mark Emmert, you're just the guy who can and should do it.

Because failing to do it would throw into question your leadership and decision-making on the Penn State matter.  You elected -- rashly -- to take a stand, so you have set a precedent.  You picked on an otherwise honorable institution because you wanted to show that even the most honorable were not above your jurisdiction (and perhaps you were, as many were, tired of hearing from the Paternos and their lionizers about how special and wonderful Penn State was and is), an institution that would have been less prone to fight back than, say, your average SEC school.  So, if you're going to be consistent, you're going to have to fire all the guns on Navy, too.

And, if you're totally consistent, without doing an investigation.

To be clear, I do not want anyone to rush to judgment.  The charges against the three Midshipmen football players are very serious, and these young men are entitled to a vigorous defense.  Everyone should remember that, even if the allegations are harsh and the reports are negative.  They are not guilty until they go through the process (and I admit I do not know whether it's a military process or the same criminal process the rest of us are subject to).

But if it's true, what does Mark Emmert do?  What should he do? 

If he goes after Navy the way he went after Penn State, he'd at least be consistent, but most likely overreaching (at least on the current facts).

If he were not to go after Navy in the same fashion, then he should immediately lift the various sanctions on Penn State and let them off for time served. 

Otherwise, the NCAA would lose all credibility.

It's hanging on a precipice now, or so it seems, at least with the latest article in SI about enforcement.

So, if you're Mark Emmert, what do you do?  The easy way out would be to distinguish this matter from the Penn State matter, say it's not a program-wide matter, let the authorities and school deal with it the way member schools have dealt with numerous felons over the years.  The bet here is that this is the way he'd go.

But remember, President Emmert, the prayer of the United States Military Academy, which, in relevant part, asks God to give the cadet the strength to choose the harder right over the easier wrong.  And use it to guide you in making your decision.

I'll also give you some advice -- the harder right might not be to punt and let the Naval Academy deal with this on its own.  You'll get a lot of pressure to do that, but you should, at all times, remember your prior actions and either be consistent with them or apologize for an overreaction.

Right now, there doesn't seem to be a middle ground if those kids are culpable.

Championship Golf of the Future

Zach Johnson aside, the biggest criticism of Merion was the amount of revenue an Open could generate.  The reason why that's important is that the USGA relies heavily on Open revenues to fund itself.  Have a historic, memorable Open on a smaller track that allows for fewer spectators, generate less revenue.  Forget TV revenue, forget mechandise, think spectators.

And that got me to thinking.  If I ran the USGA, I would. . .build the ultimate golf complex in conjunction (or at least in consultation) with Disney.

Picture this:  1) a huge resort, replete with interactive activities, courses, pools, ranges, golf school opportunities, spas, good food, and 2) the ultimate in stadium golf -- that is, the best championship golf course ever, a course that lends itself to TV, to great photographs, and to the ultimate in stadium golf experience, perhaps allowing 60,000 spectators to attend. 

And here's how you get them there:  you take the best of seating experts, Disney "fast pass" experts, computer programmers, corporate marketing people and the like, and you put together all sorts of packages.  If you pay the premium price, you'll get preferred seating and times in the grandstands of your choice for all four rounds.  Want to be at the first tee and last green on the fourth day, you'll pay X.  Want closer seats during those times, you'll pay 2X, and so forth.  You'll stay on the campus of hotels at a price point you prefer, and shuttles in the park will take you to the course -- access, once you're on the campus, will be easy.  There will be all sorts of restaurants, big-screen TVs, air-conditioned venues, corporate hospitality tents, pre-arranged.  The ultimate championship course will have topography, blind shots, the need to use all sorts of wedges, the need not to use driver on each par 4 -- the designers will get all that.

The "price-point" concept will enable fans to purchase autograph session tickets, with the PGA to provide players at various intervals.  You could sign up for the ultimate experience -- a golf school early in the week, perhaps a few dinners with older pros (a la baseball fantasy camps), good seating at the tournament, various sight lines, you name it.  And then, when the course isn't being used for the PGA championship or another major, it can be used for Q school (whose drama compels televising, given what's at stake), for the U.S. Amateur, for the NCAA championships, what have you, with, of course, various tee boxes depending on who's playing).  The possibilities are endless.

Organized golf needs to find a place to continue the legends of places like Merion, Winged Foot and Baltusrol, but, at the same time, should consider the "mega golf" experience of the next quarter century.  "Golf World," somewhere where the land is cheap but the access is relatively easy, could be an amazing place for the evolution and growth of golf.

But, not at the expense of the grand, old courses.