Who asks the players?
It's a very good question, and one that Marcus Spears asked when the discussion on Mike Greenberg's morning show turned to expanding the FBS playoffs from four teams to eight.
Commercially, it makes sense. More revenue for college football, loosely defined.
Competitively, it makes sense. The Lords of College Football can end the debate that sometimes pops up when the fourth of four teams gets selected, thereby leaving out a worthy team. Few, if any, will care, if there is a controversy about the eighth and ninth teams, if only because it would be unlikely that any of them can get to the championship game and, also, because the Lords of College Football presumably would have gotten the selection of the first seven teams right.
But let's turn to the vantage point of the student-athletes. One more game means, as Marcus Spears so capably put it, one more chance to get injured. One more chance to get hurt and hurt one's stock in the draft. One more chance to get banged up enough not to be able to be at one's best for the evaluation processes for the draft that start almost immediately after the college football season ends. Implicit in this conversation is that college football players do not get paid, so the risk is all theirs. Oh, sure, they get a "free education," but what does that really mean and what is that really worth? Why? Because some outstanding players are not great students or afforded the time to major in subjects that they can leverage into well-paying jobs after football. Many are shoehorned into majors whose courses will not interfere with the football program and many get credit for playing football. Why is this relevant? Because the conversation is about economic risk -- it is all on the player.
Spears makes compelling arguments against expanding the playoffs. Another pillar of his discussion is that the season once had 10 games in it, and now all of a sudden it's 12, 13, 14 and even 15 games. That is a lot -- each additional game increases the chance for a life-altering injury for those who have the chance to play at the next level.
Perhaps the answer is to shorten the "regular" season to 10 games and then have playoffs. In this fashion, NFL teams will get plenty of film on each player, the playoffs still can be meaningful, but the economic risk is no worse for the participants. Of course, the whole equation changes if the players were to get paid beyond their one-year renewable scholarships or have money put away for them for a life after football. But right now, the risk is all theirs.
So, despite how compelling an eight-team FBS playoff might be, right now the motivations for it are money and, yes, greed. Until the risk profile changes, it is all about the schools' adding to their coffers with little regard for the young men who play the game.
That is not right and most certainly contrary to the mission of every university -- which is to help provide and improve the public good, and not to grab as much money as they can because it is easy to do so.
Friday, December 21, 2018
Monday, December 10, 2018
Why Soccer's Popularity is Growing at Such a Fast Clip in the United States
There are so many reasons:
1. You don't have to be a giant to play the sport.
2. More kids play soccer than football or baseball.
3. Soccer is easier to understand than football or baseball.
4. Climate change has made watching baseball difficult given the length of the game.
5. Commercial breaks have made football and basketball much less watchable than they have been in the past.
6. Kids play the FIFA Soccer video game, which is the best team sports' video game out there.
7. You can get most major European leagues' games live in the U.S.
8. Those games require a time commitment of less than two hours.
9. It is a global game. The winner of the World Cup is the best in the world; the winner of the World Series is the best in the U.S.
10. Baseball's post-season games usually go past most people's bed times and sometimes start after potential young fans' bed times.
11. The violence within football that potentially maims the participants for life is disturbing and not a positive factor for the NFL.
There are many other reasons. The average age of a fan of MLB is 55 years ago. My family went to one game this year -- to say goodbye to Chase Utley -- whom we watched in his prime -- in July. My 19 year-old son says that baseball was the game that I went to with my father; he goes to basketball and soccer games with me. My 21 year-old daughter likes baseball; it's a dad-and-daughter thing, and we go a couple of times a year. We like the sounds, the smells, the sight lines, and all of the things that go into the atmosphere of a baseball game. Besides, with the ball's being in play for only 15 minutes out of the three hours plus you are at the stadium, you can catch up on life.
And soccer is diverse. The fans are diverse. and what a better way to bring people together than to celebrate a truly international game? Basketball at times can come close, but you cannot make the same arguments about football or ice hockey.
Baseball and football have serious issues. Their leadership should remember that about 45 years ago among the most popular sports were boxing and horse racing, the latter because the track was the only place one could place a bet legally outside Nevada. Fast forward to today, and whither boxing (a shadow of its former self and suffering in comparison to MMA) and horse racing (you can bet anywhere, and tracks are fewer and farther between; the sport lives for its major events)? This is not to argue that football and baseball could suffer the same fate, but it also is not to argue that such a fate is impossible. Baseball should consider shortening its games; football should consider all sorts of technology to protect its participants. And both should do it fast.
Just look at Atlanta -- the soccer team there is more popular than the Braves, and the Braves had a great season with some of the game's rising stars. And yet. . .
Pick a soccer team, learn the game, relate better to your neighbors and co-workers, and your kids. You will be glad that you did.
1. You don't have to be a giant to play the sport.
2. More kids play soccer than football or baseball.
3. Soccer is easier to understand than football or baseball.
4. Climate change has made watching baseball difficult given the length of the game.
5. Commercial breaks have made football and basketball much less watchable than they have been in the past.
6. Kids play the FIFA Soccer video game, which is the best team sports' video game out there.
7. You can get most major European leagues' games live in the U.S.
8. Those games require a time commitment of less than two hours.
9. It is a global game. The winner of the World Cup is the best in the world; the winner of the World Series is the best in the U.S.
10. Baseball's post-season games usually go past most people's bed times and sometimes start after potential young fans' bed times.
11. The violence within football that potentially maims the participants for life is disturbing and not a positive factor for the NFL.
There are many other reasons. The average age of a fan of MLB is 55 years ago. My family went to one game this year -- to say goodbye to Chase Utley -- whom we watched in his prime -- in July. My 19 year-old son says that baseball was the game that I went to with my father; he goes to basketball and soccer games with me. My 21 year-old daughter likes baseball; it's a dad-and-daughter thing, and we go a couple of times a year. We like the sounds, the smells, the sight lines, and all of the things that go into the atmosphere of a baseball game. Besides, with the ball's being in play for only 15 minutes out of the three hours plus you are at the stadium, you can catch up on life.
And soccer is diverse. The fans are diverse. and what a better way to bring people together than to celebrate a truly international game? Basketball at times can come close, but you cannot make the same arguments about football or ice hockey.
Baseball and football have serious issues. Their leadership should remember that about 45 years ago among the most popular sports were boxing and horse racing, the latter because the track was the only place one could place a bet legally outside Nevada. Fast forward to today, and whither boxing (a shadow of its former self and suffering in comparison to MMA) and horse racing (you can bet anywhere, and tracks are fewer and farther between; the sport lives for its major events)? This is not to argue that football and baseball could suffer the same fate, but it also is not to argue that such a fate is impossible. Baseball should consider shortening its games; football should consider all sorts of technology to protect its participants. And both should do it fast.
Just look at Atlanta -- the soccer team there is more popular than the Braves, and the Braves had a great season with some of the game's rising stars. And yet. . .
Pick a soccer team, learn the game, relate better to your neighbors and co-workers, and your kids. You will be glad that you did.
Tuesday, December 04, 2018
Kaep
Mark Sanchez.
The Redskins signed Mark Sanchez to back-up Colt McKoy after Alex Smith broke his leg. They also signed troubled and perhaps felonious linebacker Reuben Foster after the 49ers released him owing to additional charges of domestic abuse. Sanchez has participated in most teams' rodeos, that is, teams looking for insurance QBs have thought of him, worked him out, or even signed him. He has become the Harry "Suitcase" Simpson of the NFL.
The reason that teams sign him is that they believe he is predictable (sure he is -- he has thrown as many interceptions in his career as touchdowns) and accepts the role of a backup quarterback. That and he is still young enough to function but old enough to have more reps as a starter than anyone else available.
The problem is that he is not any good. Teams keep recycling him, but he just does not play any better than his past statistics suggest he would. They sign him because he led the Jets to road playoff wins -- plural -- when he was their starter. But he is no longer that quarterback, and when he was that quarterback he wasn't THAT good.
Last night, Mark Sanchez was thrust into action after McCoy broke his fibula against the Eagles. What also exacerbates the Redskins' situation is that their offensive linemen seem more injury prone that octogenarian widows walking to the corner store for bread during an ice storm. Sanchez, well, looked like Sanchez and not, say, Frank Reich off the bench for the Bills (you can Google what he did), and the Redskins lost. He is not even as good as the proverbial "replacement player" anymore.
Which brings us to Colin Kaepernick. In golf they have a saying that someone is "the best player never to have won a major." Right now, Kaep is the best available QB who does not get signed. Remember, he did QB his team to a Super Bowl (even if his performance in a subsequent season or two was among the worst in the league). By the logic that gives Mark Sanchez additional opportunities to play quarterback in the league, teams should be shoving each other out of the way to sign Kaep. But they don't.
Why not? Is it because he is a run-pass-option quarterback and some teams don't run that offense? Is it because his last body of work was not good? Is it because of his role in leading NFL players in kneeling to protest racial injustice? Is it because he once wore socks that portrayed policemen as pigs? Is it because of the looming media feeding frenzy that might ensue if a team signs him? (Some respected pundits suggested that this was the case with Tim Tebow -- that teams refrained from looking at him because they did not want a media circus -- that is, until Tebow proved that he could not play quarterback well in the NFL). Some say it's because management won't want to be called racists if they sign Kaep and then bench him or let him go.
It could be a little of all of the above. If you want a pure dropback passer, Kaep probably is miscast. If you base it on his recent body of work, you have a point, but remember, the question is not one of whether he can start for your team as the #1 quarterback for a full-season, but whether he might be able to vie and hold a back-up's job (with the possibility -- perhaps -- of someday becoming a starter again). Many back-ups are back-ups precisely because they did not fare well as starters; Kaep is no different. The kneeling? For me, this is a serious issue -- as the President of the United States threw down a gauntlet to the NFL about saluting the American flag. Some owners will not want to draw that criticism; others must disagree with Kaep's point of view and just wouldn't want him around. The socks? They are a corollary to the kneeling, go hand in hand. The feeding frenzy? Another compelling reason. It's hard enough to coach an NFL team let alone field endless questions about a back-up quarterback. Typically, in a league as conservative as the NFL, the back-ups are expected to be seen and not heard. Draw too much attention to yourself for non-football reasons, the argument goes, and they will find someone who is lower maintenance.
With all that said, the Redskins are desperate. Kaep has shown he can run and at times pass very well. Who are the alternatives? The team was willing to take a chance on Reuben Foster, so why not be willing to take a chance on Colin Kaepernick. The Redskins are well-equipped to handle all the attention from the media -- after all, they are in Washington.
The Redskins signed Mark Sanchez to back-up Colt McKoy after Alex Smith broke his leg. They also signed troubled and perhaps felonious linebacker Reuben Foster after the 49ers released him owing to additional charges of domestic abuse. Sanchez has participated in most teams' rodeos, that is, teams looking for insurance QBs have thought of him, worked him out, or even signed him. He has become the Harry "Suitcase" Simpson of the NFL.
The reason that teams sign him is that they believe he is predictable (sure he is -- he has thrown as many interceptions in his career as touchdowns) and accepts the role of a backup quarterback. That and he is still young enough to function but old enough to have more reps as a starter than anyone else available.
The problem is that he is not any good. Teams keep recycling him, but he just does not play any better than his past statistics suggest he would. They sign him because he led the Jets to road playoff wins -- plural -- when he was their starter. But he is no longer that quarterback, and when he was that quarterback he wasn't THAT good.
Last night, Mark Sanchez was thrust into action after McCoy broke his fibula against the Eagles. What also exacerbates the Redskins' situation is that their offensive linemen seem more injury prone that octogenarian widows walking to the corner store for bread during an ice storm. Sanchez, well, looked like Sanchez and not, say, Frank Reich off the bench for the Bills (you can Google what he did), and the Redskins lost. He is not even as good as the proverbial "replacement player" anymore.
Which brings us to Colin Kaepernick. In golf they have a saying that someone is "the best player never to have won a major." Right now, Kaep is the best available QB who does not get signed. Remember, he did QB his team to a Super Bowl (even if his performance in a subsequent season or two was among the worst in the league). By the logic that gives Mark Sanchez additional opportunities to play quarterback in the league, teams should be shoving each other out of the way to sign Kaep. But they don't.
Why not? Is it because he is a run-pass-option quarterback and some teams don't run that offense? Is it because his last body of work was not good? Is it because of his role in leading NFL players in kneeling to protest racial injustice? Is it because he once wore socks that portrayed policemen as pigs? Is it because of the looming media feeding frenzy that might ensue if a team signs him? (Some respected pundits suggested that this was the case with Tim Tebow -- that teams refrained from looking at him because they did not want a media circus -- that is, until Tebow proved that he could not play quarterback well in the NFL). Some say it's because management won't want to be called racists if they sign Kaep and then bench him or let him go.
It could be a little of all of the above. If you want a pure dropback passer, Kaep probably is miscast. If you base it on his recent body of work, you have a point, but remember, the question is not one of whether he can start for your team as the #1 quarterback for a full-season, but whether he might be able to vie and hold a back-up's job (with the possibility -- perhaps -- of someday becoming a starter again). Many back-ups are back-ups precisely because they did not fare well as starters; Kaep is no different. The kneeling? For me, this is a serious issue -- as the President of the United States threw down a gauntlet to the NFL about saluting the American flag. Some owners will not want to draw that criticism; others must disagree with Kaep's point of view and just wouldn't want him around. The socks? They are a corollary to the kneeling, go hand in hand. The feeding frenzy? Another compelling reason. It's hard enough to coach an NFL team let alone field endless questions about a back-up quarterback. Typically, in a league as conservative as the NFL, the back-ups are expected to be seen and not heard. Draw too much attention to yourself for non-football reasons, the argument goes, and they will find someone who is lower maintenance.
With all that said, the Redskins are desperate. Kaep has shown he can run and at times pass very well. Who are the alternatives? The team was willing to take a chance on Reuben Foster, so why not be willing to take a chance on Colin Kaepernick. The Redskins are well-equipped to handle all the attention from the media -- after all, they are in Washington.
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Princeton's First Undefeated Football Season Since 1964
Okay, so truth be told I wasn't planning on going. Yes, it was Penn, and yes, Penn had a winning record and if you live in the Philadelphia area one of life's pleasures is to beat Penn, which has many more alums than your school. Penn alums abound, not as much as the "We are Penn State crowd," but they do make their presence known. Your own school rose to the top ten in the FCS rankings, somewhat meaningless in that football is the only sport where the Ivies forbid teams to compete in the post-season. The reasons are hard to fathom, but as with legislation, once a group makes up its mind, it's hard to get them to change it. The "they' in this case, of course, are the presidents of the Ivies, who, perhaps when pushed hard, would tell you that the lobbying they receive on sports issues at allegedly some of the most prestigious schools in the country is a royal pain in the posterior. But I digress. . .
A good friend called on his ride home the night before and thought it would take a lot of convincing for me to go to the game. Quite frankly, I hadn't thought about it, what with Thanksgiving coming up and both kids away at college. And it was going to be cold, and I thought that I had sworn off cold-weather events since going to many football games as a kid with my dad and then through college, watching my kids play spring sports in February and going to the Eagles' parade last winter. Then again, I had watched Arsenal in North London at night a few weeks ago in 45-degree weather and the forecast was for about 46 degrees and sunny at game time. My friend thought it would take more convincing; I said yes in a heartbeat.
I mean, we had to go watch some history, right? We were at the best game played at the prior stadium, Palmer Stadium, in the fall of 1981 when Yale marched into Tigertown undefeated and ranked 19th in all of Division I (there was no BS about FBS and FCS then) and Princeton scored with 4 seconds to go to upset the Elis 35-31 and end a 15-game losing streak to Yale. We were at the Palestra in the mid 1990's when Penn went up 29-3 with a few minutes to go in the first half and was up 40-15 with about 15 minutes to go, only to have the Tigers storm back and silence the red-and-blue faithful with a 50-49 victory that marked at the time the fifth-best comeback in NCAA men's basketball history. This time, though, the Tigers were the favorites.
They had not always fared so well as favorites, and in the Ivies for the most part any team can beat any other on any given day because, well, that's what usually happens. Okay, except this year when the Cornell Big Red came to Central New Jersey and lost 66-0; it would have stood to reason that Cornell did not have much of a chance going into the contest. as 66-0 is usually a score one associates with Alabama when it plays its cupcake pre-season schedule, paying half a million to some mercenary school without a chance in heck to win in Tuscaloosa, so as to give a chance for the first three units to get a tuneup and the alums to tailgate. Was that game evidence of the gridiron hegemony of Princeton this season? Or did they just beat a bad Cornell team?
I don't know why I am so focused on that game given that it was lopside and Cornell was the worst team in the league. The Tigers scored at will as if the Ivies were Madden Ivy 2018, throwing, running at will and doing much more on defense than a depleted squad last year could do. They beat Dartmouth in a battle of wills, a game which Dartmouth led most of the way before Princeton scored late a few weeks early to pull out a 14-9 win at home, the type of game that the Tigers had trouble closing out in some prior seasons. The week before they could have scored 85 on Yale before they took their foot off the pedal, only to have the Yale QB have a memorable day where he looked like Dan Fouts from the old Charger Air Coryell days and racked up 460 yards passing despite throwing four picks. This after the Tigers led 21-0 four minutes into the contest.
Tiger fans tailgated, donned their orange and black, some beige, and wondered whether the Tigers could close out the season in fine fashion. Penn needs no extra motivation to beat Princeton and to ruin any opponent's undefeated season, but it turned out to be not much of a contest. The Tigers went up 14-0, then were up 21-7 at the half before Penn scored on a long play at the beginning of the second half to make it 21-14. But then Princeton scored three unanswered touchdowns to make it 42-14 in a game where the defense forgot the troubles of the prior week against Yale and the offense showed that the QB could run well and that the star wide receive could run by and behind the Penn secondary. That receiver -- Jesper Horsted -- also a fine baseball player -- set the Tigers' career record for receptions in a season, breaking a 34-year old record held by a crafty, wonderful receiver named Kevin Guthrie, who did not play varsity ball his freshman year because back then freshmen were not eligible to do so. Guthrie was in the end zone, and friends joked that with the offense that head coach Bob Surace has deployed he might have had 250 catches in his career; as it was, he had 194 in three seasons. The crowd in the end zone -- always the heartiest of fans -- gave him a rousing ovation for his accomplishments.
And then it ended. The Tiger players and staff fan onto the field, sang the alma mater, "Old Nassau," in front of the Princeton band near the tunnel leading out to the stadium, and the players, their families, the coaches and alums partied into the evening. The last time Princeton won the league while going undefeated was in 1964, when Lyndon Johnson was President and before things like personal computers, the internet and smart phones were on the scene. Many seasons and good memories have come and gone for Princeton football, but this season ranks among the finest accomplishments since that year.
It would be nice to say that the sun shone brightly, that the stadium was packed, that the crowd was loud, that the home fans wore only orange and black, but that is not the essence of Ivy League football. There are no "card alignments" in the stands, no 350-piece synchronized marching bands (although I do love Ohio State's and Bethune-Cookman's) no "orange outs," no "Game Day" from ESPN (although the fellahs once covered Amherst-Williams and Harvard-Yale). My guess is that more than half the students did not go to this game, because the Ivies being the Ivies they got in because of their unique talents that require them to spend time elsewhere on Saturdays (after all, as some Ivy snoot once said, you don't get offered admission being a spectator). I don't know what to think of the overall lack of student support, save that the kids so have a lot more to do while aging alums look for comradery in the stands (and perhaps at some point in life it is okay to watch and not to participate). Beside which, with all of the discussions regarding joint replacements, sitting in the standings offers a better alternative for most than over-50 sports leagues.
Again, I digressed, as when you have something to celebrate one is wise to remember all that was right about the day -- a nice, innovative coach, a team that dusted its opposition this season and rose to the occasion against its toughest opponent (okay, not a dusting, but a true revealing of character), bantering with friends in the end zone and enjoying a crisp day. It really doesn't get much better than that, and if you wear warm socks, bring a good pair of gloves and hat the weather actually can be quite enjoyable.
Tiger, Tiger, Tiger! as they say on campus to start the "locomotive" cheer that Princeton alums are so fond of. To seal the championship at home, in front of friends, family, classmates, alums, to win convincingly, to leave no doubt. . . a very memorable day.
A good friend called on his ride home the night before and thought it would take a lot of convincing for me to go to the game. Quite frankly, I hadn't thought about it, what with Thanksgiving coming up and both kids away at college. And it was going to be cold, and I thought that I had sworn off cold-weather events since going to many football games as a kid with my dad and then through college, watching my kids play spring sports in February and going to the Eagles' parade last winter. Then again, I had watched Arsenal in North London at night a few weeks ago in 45-degree weather and the forecast was for about 46 degrees and sunny at game time. My friend thought it would take more convincing; I said yes in a heartbeat.
I mean, we had to go watch some history, right? We were at the best game played at the prior stadium, Palmer Stadium, in the fall of 1981 when Yale marched into Tigertown undefeated and ranked 19th in all of Division I (there was no BS about FBS and FCS then) and Princeton scored with 4 seconds to go to upset the Elis 35-31 and end a 15-game losing streak to Yale. We were at the Palestra in the mid 1990's when Penn went up 29-3 with a few minutes to go in the first half and was up 40-15 with about 15 minutes to go, only to have the Tigers storm back and silence the red-and-blue faithful with a 50-49 victory that marked at the time the fifth-best comeback in NCAA men's basketball history. This time, though, the Tigers were the favorites.
They had not always fared so well as favorites, and in the Ivies for the most part any team can beat any other on any given day because, well, that's what usually happens. Okay, except this year when the Cornell Big Red came to Central New Jersey and lost 66-0; it would have stood to reason that Cornell did not have much of a chance going into the contest. as 66-0 is usually a score one associates with Alabama when it plays its cupcake pre-season schedule, paying half a million to some mercenary school without a chance in heck to win in Tuscaloosa, so as to give a chance for the first three units to get a tuneup and the alums to tailgate. Was that game evidence of the gridiron hegemony of Princeton this season? Or did they just beat a bad Cornell team?
I don't know why I am so focused on that game given that it was lopside and Cornell was the worst team in the league. The Tigers scored at will as if the Ivies were Madden Ivy 2018, throwing, running at will and doing much more on defense than a depleted squad last year could do. They beat Dartmouth in a battle of wills, a game which Dartmouth led most of the way before Princeton scored late a few weeks early to pull out a 14-9 win at home, the type of game that the Tigers had trouble closing out in some prior seasons. The week before they could have scored 85 on Yale before they took their foot off the pedal, only to have the Yale QB have a memorable day where he looked like Dan Fouts from the old Charger Air Coryell days and racked up 460 yards passing despite throwing four picks. This after the Tigers led 21-0 four minutes into the contest.
Tiger fans tailgated, donned their orange and black, some beige, and wondered whether the Tigers could close out the season in fine fashion. Penn needs no extra motivation to beat Princeton and to ruin any opponent's undefeated season, but it turned out to be not much of a contest. The Tigers went up 14-0, then were up 21-7 at the half before Penn scored on a long play at the beginning of the second half to make it 21-14. But then Princeton scored three unanswered touchdowns to make it 42-14 in a game where the defense forgot the troubles of the prior week against Yale and the offense showed that the QB could run well and that the star wide receive could run by and behind the Penn secondary. That receiver -- Jesper Horsted -- also a fine baseball player -- set the Tigers' career record for receptions in a season, breaking a 34-year old record held by a crafty, wonderful receiver named Kevin Guthrie, who did not play varsity ball his freshman year because back then freshmen were not eligible to do so. Guthrie was in the end zone, and friends joked that with the offense that head coach Bob Surace has deployed he might have had 250 catches in his career; as it was, he had 194 in three seasons. The crowd in the end zone -- always the heartiest of fans -- gave him a rousing ovation for his accomplishments.
And then it ended. The Tiger players and staff fan onto the field, sang the alma mater, "Old Nassau," in front of the Princeton band near the tunnel leading out to the stadium, and the players, their families, the coaches and alums partied into the evening. The last time Princeton won the league while going undefeated was in 1964, when Lyndon Johnson was President and before things like personal computers, the internet and smart phones were on the scene. Many seasons and good memories have come and gone for Princeton football, but this season ranks among the finest accomplishments since that year.
It would be nice to say that the sun shone brightly, that the stadium was packed, that the crowd was loud, that the home fans wore only orange and black, but that is not the essence of Ivy League football. There are no "card alignments" in the stands, no 350-piece synchronized marching bands (although I do love Ohio State's and Bethune-Cookman's) no "orange outs," no "Game Day" from ESPN (although the fellahs once covered Amherst-Williams and Harvard-Yale). My guess is that more than half the students did not go to this game, because the Ivies being the Ivies they got in because of their unique talents that require them to spend time elsewhere on Saturdays (after all, as some Ivy snoot once said, you don't get offered admission being a spectator). I don't know what to think of the overall lack of student support, save that the kids so have a lot more to do while aging alums look for comradery in the stands (and perhaps at some point in life it is okay to watch and not to participate). Beside which, with all of the discussions regarding joint replacements, sitting in the standings offers a better alternative for most than over-50 sports leagues.
Again, I digressed, as when you have something to celebrate one is wise to remember all that was right about the day -- a nice, innovative coach, a team that dusted its opposition this season and rose to the occasion against its toughest opponent (okay, not a dusting, but a true revealing of character), bantering with friends in the end zone and enjoying a crisp day. It really doesn't get much better than that, and if you wear warm socks, bring a good pair of gloves and hat the weather actually can be quite enjoyable.
Tiger, Tiger, Tiger! as they say on campus to start the "locomotive" cheer that Princeton alums are so fond of. To seal the championship at home, in front of friends, family, classmates, alums, to win convincingly, to leave no doubt. . . a very memorable day.
Monday, November 12, 2018
Naming Rights for the Palestra
It is as silly as it sounds. An Ivy League school, has tons of money, home to THE iconic arena in college basketball. Sorry, Dookies, but this is so. And what does Penn do? It sells the naming rights to the court at the Palestra to an Australian investment firm named Macquarie.
A few things jump out. First, what the heck are the Aussies thinking? Who in the Palestra will care one iota about this naming event, except for those who are offended that Penn decided to sell the naming rights to a sacred place? Will anyone be influenced to park his nest egg with this group? If I were a shareholder of Macquarie, I'd grill the management team hard as to why they ponied up monies to name the court at the Palestra.
Second, it could be worse for Penn alums, Penn fans, hoop fans. Oh, yes it could be. Given that universities tend to name buildings after famous people, it could have been the case that a certain real estate conglomerate in New York wanted to pony up the bucks to name the facility after its organization or the 45th President of the United States. Think Trump Court at the Palestra. Has a certain ring to it, doesn't it? That would not have been beyond the realm of the possibilities, even if the President probably has a popularity problem in University City. The possibilities there would be endless. Would recruits turn down the Quakers because of the naming rights? Would players want their teams to play Penn on the road so that they could take a knee during the national anthem?
The Palestra is iconic, classic, a great place to play and to watch a game. Why on earth did Penn go out and feel compelled to sell naming rights to the place? Even its rival Princeton, which seems to sell naming rights to everything too (and let former eBay CEO Meg Whitman pay a paltry $35 million or so to name a residential college after herself when it could have gotten more), named the basketball court at Jadwin Gym after legendary coach Pete Carril. So why couldn't Penn have gone that route and named the court after one of Dick Harter, Chuck Daly or Fran Dunphy?
The naming rights and commercialism surrounding all things sports remind me of a scene in the movie "Wall Street," which is an apropos reference because of Penn's highly regarded Wharton School of Business. There is one scene where Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) and Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) are talking, and Gekko says to Fox, "It's all about the bucks, kid."
Touche. Nothing more, nothing less.
It could have been Dunphy Court at the Palestra. Instead it is Macquarie Court at the Palestra. What's next, the Aeroflot Penn Relays?
A few things jump out. First, what the heck are the Aussies thinking? Who in the Palestra will care one iota about this naming event, except for those who are offended that Penn decided to sell the naming rights to a sacred place? Will anyone be influenced to park his nest egg with this group? If I were a shareholder of Macquarie, I'd grill the management team hard as to why they ponied up monies to name the court at the Palestra.
Second, it could be worse for Penn alums, Penn fans, hoop fans. Oh, yes it could be. Given that universities tend to name buildings after famous people, it could have been the case that a certain real estate conglomerate in New York wanted to pony up the bucks to name the facility after its organization or the 45th President of the United States. Think Trump Court at the Palestra. Has a certain ring to it, doesn't it? That would not have been beyond the realm of the possibilities, even if the President probably has a popularity problem in University City. The possibilities there would be endless. Would recruits turn down the Quakers because of the naming rights? Would players want their teams to play Penn on the road so that they could take a knee during the national anthem?
The Palestra is iconic, classic, a great place to play and to watch a game. Why on earth did Penn go out and feel compelled to sell naming rights to the place? Even its rival Princeton, which seems to sell naming rights to everything too (and let former eBay CEO Meg Whitman pay a paltry $35 million or so to name a residential college after herself when it could have gotten more), named the basketball court at Jadwin Gym after legendary coach Pete Carril. So why couldn't Penn have gone that route and named the court after one of Dick Harter, Chuck Daly or Fran Dunphy?
The naming rights and commercialism surrounding all things sports remind me of a scene in the movie "Wall Street," which is an apropos reference because of Penn's highly regarded Wharton School of Business. There is one scene where Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) and Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) are talking, and Gekko says to Fox, "It's all about the bucks, kid."
Touche. Nothing more, nothing less.
It could have been Dunphy Court at the Palestra. Instead it is Macquarie Court at the Palestra. What's next, the Aeroflot Penn Relays?
Thursday, November 01, 2018
Wallace Loh Should be Your University's Next President if There is an Opening
He has made mistakes; people at the top of the leadership pyramid frequently do.
But when it came to investigating the death of Eric McNair this summer at a pre-season football practice, University of Maryland's President, Wallace Loh, went by the book. He placed his athletic director and head football coach on administrative leave. He compelled the severing of the university's relationship with the school's strength and conditioning coach, for it seemed that even a preliminary investigation demonstrated that the coach should not be working at Maryland any more (that is a polite way of saying that the coach's behavior at a minimum left a lot to be desired and at a maximum was grossly negligent). He hired investigators to dig deeply into the death of a 19 year-old young man, the types of investigators who know that you keep turning over rocks until there are no more rocks to turn over. Those investigators provided a 192-page report that expressed reservations -- some serious -- about the culture within the football program at Maryland.
Loh, displaying an appropriate sense of, if not adherence to, good university governance, shared the report with the Board of Regents, and the inference here is that he intended to fire the football coach. That led to a donnybrook apparently with the Chair of the Board, who ostensibly told Loh that he couldn't do that. Loh perhaps said, "well, if that's the case, let's negotiate my exit from the university. I cannot work here anymore." (Whether because he thought his authority was undermined or because the Chair's judgment was so poor remains an open question to me). So, the Regents and Loh put together a statement that said the A.D. and Durkin would be reinstated, and that Loh would be leaving in say eight months. Put differently, Loh probably thought, "This is bleep, and if that's how they want to run this place, I'm out of here." Both the Regents and Loh put as good a face on his exit as they could have, motivated, perhaps, by Loh's desire to get good severance from the university (in other words, he had motivation not to torch the reputation of the place). That's how these things work.
What Wallace Loh did was speak truth to power. What Wallace Loh did apparently was stand up for the harder right decision. What Wallace Loh did was make a statement that character matters in the short and long runs and that a student's life is more precious than winning a football game or games with a certain coach. What Wallace Loh also did was ensure that if a university employee created a culture that led to a death under these circumstances, he/she would not have a job with the university. Wallace Loh did the right thing.
And it cost him his job. That said, who would want to work for a Board of Regents or a Chair who felt so compelled to restate D.J. Durkin that he put the university's relationship with its president on the line? Who would want to work at a university where the football coach's future was more important than straightening out a culture that he perpetrated than a young man's life. Of course, no corrective action will bring back Jordan McNair. But what it can do is set an ironclad tone that will ensure that players are cared for on and off the field, in real time, and are not bullied or shamed. Challenging them is one thing, but mistreating them is another.
Wallace Loh can work at my university, were I to work at one. He can be its president because what he did was to take a stand for doing the right thing over, well, the omnipotence of the football program, a football program that struggles almost yearly and is an arms race to be a championship team with little chances of doing so. It is about time that a university president focused on character and integrity at the expense of a revenue-producing program. And that's a Division I problem. You know, in Division III, the coaches don't make a ton and they certainly don't make more than the college president. But where you pay them millions in Division I, they own the school (like the old banker's line -- "lend someone $100 dollars, you own them; lend someone $100 million, and they own you). Loh said enough is enough.
Okay, it wasn't perfect. Why didn't he stick with his plan to fire Durkin the day before, consequences with the Board chair be darned? Only he can tell us that. And, yes, there was a huge outcry from students, faculty, alumni about Durkin, mostly totally negative. Even some players refused to meet with the reinstated coach, and some walked out of the meeting. So you can argue that he watched the wind and blew with it. Mostly a fair point, except that he did not rescind his agreement to resign, which is telling because it means that Loh had little to gain by sticking to his principles a day late and terminating Durkin.
But he reclaimed his conscience and the moral authority of the President of the University of Maryland to have one of the last words, if not the last word, on matters of principle that matter the most.
Wallace Loh did the right thing. So will another university when they hire him as president.
But when it came to investigating the death of Eric McNair this summer at a pre-season football practice, University of Maryland's President, Wallace Loh, went by the book. He placed his athletic director and head football coach on administrative leave. He compelled the severing of the university's relationship with the school's strength and conditioning coach, for it seemed that even a preliminary investigation demonstrated that the coach should not be working at Maryland any more (that is a polite way of saying that the coach's behavior at a minimum left a lot to be desired and at a maximum was grossly negligent). He hired investigators to dig deeply into the death of a 19 year-old young man, the types of investigators who know that you keep turning over rocks until there are no more rocks to turn over. Those investigators provided a 192-page report that expressed reservations -- some serious -- about the culture within the football program at Maryland.
Loh, displaying an appropriate sense of, if not adherence to, good university governance, shared the report with the Board of Regents, and the inference here is that he intended to fire the football coach. That led to a donnybrook apparently with the Chair of the Board, who ostensibly told Loh that he couldn't do that. Loh perhaps said, "well, if that's the case, let's negotiate my exit from the university. I cannot work here anymore." (Whether because he thought his authority was undermined or because the Chair's judgment was so poor remains an open question to me). So, the Regents and Loh put together a statement that said the A.D. and Durkin would be reinstated, and that Loh would be leaving in say eight months. Put differently, Loh probably thought, "This is bleep, and if that's how they want to run this place, I'm out of here." Both the Regents and Loh put as good a face on his exit as they could have, motivated, perhaps, by Loh's desire to get good severance from the university (in other words, he had motivation not to torch the reputation of the place). That's how these things work.
What Wallace Loh did was speak truth to power. What Wallace Loh did apparently was stand up for the harder right decision. What Wallace Loh did was make a statement that character matters in the short and long runs and that a student's life is more precious than winning a football game or games with a certain coach. What Wallace Loh also did was ensure that if a university employee created a culture that led to a death under these circumstances, he/she would not have a job with the university. Wallace Loh did the right thing.
And it cost him his job. That said, who would want to work for a Board of Regents or a Chair who felt so compelled to restate D.J. Durkin that he put the university's relationship with its president on the line? Who would want to work at a university where the football coach's future was more important than straightening out a culture that he perpetrated than a young man's life. Of course, no corrective action will bring back Jordan McNair. But what it can do is set an ironclad tone that will ensure that players are cared for on and off the field, in real time, and are not bullied or shamed. Challenging them is one thing, but mistreating them is another.
Wallace Loh can work at my university, were I to work at one. He can be its president because what he did was to take a stand for doing the right thing over, well, the omnipotence of the football program, a football program that struggles almost yearly and is an arms race to be a championship team with little chances of doing so. It is about time that a university president focused on character and integrity at the expense of a revenue-producing program. And that's a Division I problem. You know, in Division III, the coaches don't make a ton and they certainly don't make more than the college president. But where you pay them millions in Division I, they own the school (like the old banker's line -- "lend someone $100 dollars, you own them; lend someone $100 million, and they own you). Loh said enough is enough.
Okay, it wasn't perfect. Why didn't he stick with his plan to fire Durkin the day before, consequences with the Board chair be darned? Only he can tell us that. And, yes, there was a huge outcry from students, faculty, alumni about Durkin, mostly totally negative. Even some players refused to meet with the reinstated coach, and some walked out of the meeting. So you can argue that he watched the wind and blew with it. Mostly a fair point, except that he did not rescind his agreement to resign, which is telling because it means that Loh had little to gain by sticking to his principles a day late and terminating Durkin.
But he reclaimed his conscience and the moral authority of the President of the University of Maryland to have one of the last words, if not the last word, on matters of principle that matter the most.
Wallace Loh did the right thing. So will another university when they hire him as president.
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
The Maryland Debacle
University with a spotty football history (perhaps attributable to Bear Bryant's leaving the place over 60 years ago) and an unquenched thirst to hit the bigtime.
Hires aggressive young coach with pedigree. University hires aggressive strength and conditioning coach. All universities do it -- musclehead motivators who are employed by the athletic department and can have contact with the players all year round. In contrast, team coaches have limits as to when they may be in contact with players. Strength and conditioning coaches are well paid; I would submit that there are a few out there who make more than their university presidents. They have a lot of power, in essence serving as the eyes and ears and factotums for the head coaches when the head coaches are not permitted to be in contact with players. These strength and conditioning coaches are not shrinking violets.
Young kid is big, gets a reputation for being able to move opponents around against their will on a football field. Many coaches sweet talk his parents. If the parents have been around the block, they realize that their kids' reality will change markedly once they join a football program. They will go from the romanced to bound by a strict regimen, a class schedule that must not conflict with football and a commitment to be on campus year-round so that they can benefit from the oversight of the nutrition and fitness efforts of the university. They get a full scholarship for this commitment, a laughably tiny stipend for incidentals, all the while the head coach makes millions, the assistant coaches make very nice livings and at times the kids don't have money for pizza. Each recruiter, including many a head coach, promises the parents -- and at times there is only one in the picture -- that he will take care of their son and help him grow into a better person through the development of strong habits and character. So goes the story line.
Jordan McNair died on a practice field in blistering Maryland summer heat in the summer of 2018. He was 19 years old. He wasn't feeling well in practice. Instead of adhering to protocols to make sure that he was not suffering from dehydration or an overly high body temperature, the athletic trainers were absent and the strength and conditioning coach bullied him. He died a few weeks later in a hospital. The university suspended the head football coach, head athletic trainer and strength and conditioning coach. They subsequently let go the strength and conditioning coach, paying him a settlement to take his talents elsewhere.
Yesterday, the University of Maryland shocked the world. The university president wanted to terminate the athletic director and head coach after a 192-page report that the board of regents had commissioned painted a dire picture of the culture within the football program at Maryland. The board of regents felt otherwise. Perhaps because they love the head coach and think he is a good fit and that what happened was a lamentable aberration. Perhaps because they got legal advice that they do not have a case for terminating the head coach for cause and that they would have to pay him over $10 million to part company were they to want to negotiate a settlement. Perhaps because in this day and age they figure that the next scandal will eclipse this one, everyone will forget about their decision and the storm will pass and that they have enough power and support to weather it. Perhaps because, while football parents protested and several players walked out of a meeting with the newly reinstated head coach, a larger core threatened to pull their kids out of school and off the team if the head coach were not reinstated. It is hard to know. The university president, by the way, lost the political and was forced out, announcing his retirement at the end of the year. He should have quit on the spot and sued the university for everything it has.
This episode further buttresses my long-standing maxim that I never wanted to send my kids to a school where a coach has too much power and makes more than the university president. Universities are supposed to educate kids meaningfully and to set standards for good behavior and the building of better character. What happened yesterday with the decision of the board of regents abandoned those lofty goals and revealed that the board of regents does not have much character at all. The death of a player -- in a toxic culture -- happened on the watch of this athletic director and this head football coach. It should not have happened. The entire football program owes a responsibility to all its players and it let not only the family of the deceased player down, but also the players who remain and their families. How can they trust this athletic director, this coach, this board of regents?
The answer is that they cannot. The University of Maryland has made a mess of this situation and has demonstrated that something is rotten within it and its culture. They should have cleaned house, they should have read the report more carefully and they should have realized that the culture this head coach created was so bad that someone died. Yes, this coach is worth a second chance somewhere in some type of job -- he made a grave mistake, many grave mistakes. Just not at Maryland and not right now.
The very sad truth right now is that had the head football coach put his hand on the breast of a cheerleader he would have lost his job. But create a harassing culture that causes a death?
He gets to keep it.
How does that make any sense at all?
Hires aggressive young coach with pedigree. University hires aggressive strength and conditioning coach. All universities do it -- musclehead motivators who are employed by the athletic department and can have contact with the players all year round. In contrast, team coaches have limits as to when they may be in contact with players. Strength and conditioning coaches are well paid; I would submit that there are a few out there who make more than their university presidents. They have a lot of power, in essence serving as the eyes and ears and factotums for the head coaches when the head coaches are not permitted to be in contact with players. These strength and conditioning coaches are not shrinking violets.
Young kid is big, gets a reputation for being able to move opponents around against their will on a football field. Many coaches sweet talk his parents. If the parents have been around the block, they realize that their kids' reality will change markedly once they join a football program. They will go from the romanced to bound by a strict regimen, a class schedule that must not conflict with football and a commitment to be on campus year-round so that they can benefit from the oversight of the nutrition and fitness efforts of the university. They get a full scholarship for this commitment, a laughably tiny stipend for incidentals, all the while the head coach makes millions, the assistant coaches make very nice livings and at times the kids don't have money for pizza. Each recruiter, including many a head coach, promises the parents -- and at times there is only one in the picture -- that he will take care of their son and help him grow into a better person through the development of strong habits and character. So goes the story line.
Jordan McNair died on a practice field in blistering Maryland summer heat in the summer of 2018. He was 19 years old. He wasn't feeling well in practice. Instead of adhering to protocols to make sure that he was not suffering from dehydration or an overly high body temperature, the athletic trainers were absent and the strength and conditioning coach bullied him. He died a few weeks later in a hospital. The university suspended the head football coach, head athletic trainer and strength and conditioning coach. They subsequently let go the strength and conditioning coach, paying him a settlement to take his talents elsewhere.
Yesterday, the University of Maryland shocked the world. The university president wanted to terminate the athletic director and head coach after a 192-page report that the board of regents had commissioned painted a dire picture of the culture within the football program at Maryland. The board of regents felt otherwise. Perhaps because they love the head coach and think he is a good fit and that what happened was a lamentable aberration. Perhaps because they got legal advice that they do not have a case for terminating the head coach for cause and that they would have to pay him over $10 million to part company were they to want to negotiate a settlement. Perhaps because in this day and age they figure that the next scandal will eclipse this one, everyone will forget about their decision and the storm will pass and that they have enough power and support to weather it. Perhaps because, while football parents protested and several players walked out of a meeting with the newly reinstated head coach, a larger core threatened to pull their kids out of school and off the team if the head coach were not reinstated. It is hard to know. The university president, by the way, lost the political and was forced out, announcing his retirement at the end of the year. He should have quit on the spot and sued the university for everything it has.
This episode further buttresses my long-standing maxim that I never wanted to send my kids to a school where a coach has too much power and makes more than the university president. Universities are supposed to educate kids meaningfully and to set standards for good behavior and the building of better character. What happened yesterday with the decision of the board of regents abandoned those lofty goals and revealed that the board of regents does not have much character at all. The death of a player -- in a toxic culture -- happened on the watch of this athletic director and this head football coach. It should not have happened. The entire football program owes a responsibility to all its players and it let not only the family of the deceased player down, but also the players who remain and their families. How can they trust this athletic director, this coach, this board of regents?
The answer is that they cannot. The University of Maryland has made a mess of this situation and has demonstrated that something is rotten within it and its culture. They should have cleaned house, they should have read the report more carefully and they should have realized that the culture this head coach created was so bad that someone died. Yes, this coach is worth a second chance somewhere in some type of job -- he made a grave mistake, many grave mistakes. Just not at Maryland and not right now.
The very sad truth right now is that had the head football coach put his hand on the breast of a cheerleader he would have lost his job. But create a harassing culture that causes a death?
He gets to keep it.
How does that make any sense at all?
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Gabe Kapler Should Hire a Lawyer; Phillies Should Be Worried About Future of Their Skipper
The Department of Justice is conducting an extensive probe of international activities of Major League Baseball teams. You can read one report on that probe here. You can ready another report on the alleged activities and what has prompted DOJ (as those in the legal biz refer to the Department of Justice) to investigate heavily, this one from Sports Illustrated.
Here are some things to think about:
1. DOJ turns away prosecutions in 80% of the matters that it looks into.
2. Allegations are, just that, allegations.
3. Shady and unethical behavior does not make it criminal.
4. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act came about in the late 1970's after a bunch of international scandals involving U.S.-based companies (somehow the name International Telephone and Telegraph comes to mind). Essentially, it makes it a felony to provide anything of value to foreign governmental officials to enable your company to get business.
5. It is unclear to me right now how the FCPA could be implicated in the signing of Latin American baseball players, unless teams offered payments to government officials to enable them to sign certain players.
6. The information that has emerged from the Dodgers is particularly troubling. My guess is that the Dodgers have lawyered up and are cooperating with Federal prosecutors to avoid a subpoena and to respond to whatever questions the government has at this time. Where it will get tricky for the Dodgers is the line between good cooperation designed to gain favor with DOJ when it comes to a remedy (that is a fine, a consent decree, a corporate integrity agreement, etc.) versus asserting the attorney-client privilege and ceasing their willingness to cooperate. That said, internal documents and e-mails that the business people created are not privileged, including the document in which someone in the Dodgers' front office assessed the ethics and compliance of various of the international operatives. Some of what is contained in that report should have prompted those executives to elevate the problem to senior management and the team's general counsel. (Of course, perhaps a reason for not doing so was that whoever created the report was worried that had he reported the concerns, he might have been terminated for hiring too many rogues or for not running a tight enough ship).
7. Gabe Kapler was the head of player development for the Dodgers for a few years, and perhaps for during the years that the DOJ is looking into. If that's the case -- or if he had anything to do with the assessment of the compliance and ethics of his colleagues -- at a minimum the DOJ will want to talk with him. My guess is that the Dodgers will offer to pay for his counsel and indemnify him up to a point, but there could be a point where the Dodgers give him the corporate version of the Miranda warning and advise him to get his own counsel (whether the Dodgers ultimately pay for that counsel could depend on whatever written agreement they have with Kapler about such things, if any, or what their policy is about such things, if any). All of this assumes, of course, that Kapler was in the middle of the alleged conduct.
8. The DOJ will dig in hard on matters like this. The more time it spends on this investigation, the greater the likelihood that it will want to come away with a settlement. And with MLB it could be easier pickings, because if they find violations of the FCPA it strikes me that they also could find that no team has an effective compliance program when it comes to its foreign business practices. And, if this is the case, it could be hard for MLB or its teams to try to isolate the behavior to a few rogue individuals because the teams themselves lacked policies, auditing, training, oversight. These, again, are big assumptions; it could be that MLB teams do all of that and that a few rogues "left the reservation" and behaved badly. But it also could be that the teams had an attitude of "get it done, beat the competition, just don't tell us how you got it done." The documents uncovered in one of the linked articles suggest a rather loose culture.
9. So, circling back to the focus of the investigation, or the apparent focus, the Braves and the Dodgers. Both teams should be worried, as should the individuals who ran the operations within those teams that are under scrutiny.
10. And if you are the Philadelphia Phillies, trying to rebound from many years of sub-.500 performances, you want to make sure that you have a manager with a clean record and without any distractions. Again, allegations are just that; we do not try people by newspaper on FCPA matters. The distractions, though, are another thing. Then there is the waiting -- the teams will turn over information to the DOJ and, mind you, this matter is far from the only one the Assistant U.S. Attorneys on the matter are involved with. It will take them time, along with their staffs, to review information. Then they will go back to the teams with questions and requests for more information and keep on turning over rocks until there are no more to turn over. They will interview many people in and outside baseball, mainly without the knowledge of the teams. And it will be a long and expensive process; it will not conclude until the DOJ is done.
At many levels this is a sad state of affairs for Major League Baseball. Latin America historically has been like California during the beginning of the Gold Rush, lots of activity, not a lot of rules, and now MLB has a big mess on its hands, at a minimum in terms of publicity and at a maximum if teams are charged and individuals indicted. MLB has an opportunity to clean this up and put in much more structure in this area. Whether the owners are willing to do so remains to be seen.
As for the Phillies and Kapler, well, neither need this problem at this time. The Phillies were about 15 over .500 on August 5 and had the worst record in baseball after that, a complete collapse that makes fans wonder whether the team can improve on a 78-win season or whether the team is a bucket of average players with a superstar pitcher atop the pecking order. Kapler presided over the good and, at the end, the bad and the ugly. That should be enough to worry about.
And now there is this.
Here are some things to think about:
1. DOJ turns away prosecutions in 80% of the matters that it looks into.
2. Allegations are, just that, allegations.
3. Shady and unethical behavior does not make it criminal.
4. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act came about in the late 1970's after a bunch of international scandals involving U.S.-based companies (somehow the name International Telephone and Telegraph comes to mind). Essentially, it makes it a felony to provide anything of value to foreign governmental officials to enable your company to get business.
5. It is unclear to me right now how the FCPA could be implicated in the signing of Latin American baseball players, unless teams offered payments to government officials to enable them to sign certain players.
6. The information that has emerged from the Dodgers is particularly troubling. My guess is that the Dodgers have lawyered up and are cooperating with Federal prosecutors to avoid a subpoena and to respond to whatever questions the government has at this time. Where it will get tricky for the Dodgers is the line between good cooperation designed to gain favor with DOJ when it comes to a remedy (that is a fine, a consent decree, a corporate integrity agreement, etc.) versus asserting the attorney-client privilege and ceasing their willingness to cooperate. That said, internal documents and e-mails that the business people created are not privileged, including the document in which someone in the Dodgers' front office assessed the ethics and compliance of various of the international operatives. Some of what is contained in that report should have prompted those executives to elevate the problem to senior management and the team's general counsel. (Of course, perhaps a reason for not doing so was that whoever created the report was worried that had he reported the concerns, he might have been terminated for hiring too many rogues or for not running a tight enough ship).
7. Gabe Kapler was the head of player development for the Dodgers for a few years, and perhaps for during the years that the DOJ is looking into. If that's the case -- or if he had anything to do with the assessment of the compliance and ethics of his colleagues -- at a minimum the DOJ will want to talk with him. My guess is that the Dodgers will offer to pay for his counsel and indemnify him up to a point, but there could be a point where the Dodgers give him the corporate version of the Miranda warning and advise him to get his own counsel (whether the Dodgers ultimately pay for that counsel could depend on whatever written agreement they have with Kapler about such things, if any, or what their policy is about such things, if any). All of this assumes, of course, that Kapler was in the middle of the alleged conduct.
8. The DOJ will dig in hard on matters like this. The more time it spends on this investigation, the greater the likelihood that it will want to come away with a settlement. And with MLB it could be easier pickings, because if they find violations of the FCPA it strikes me that they also could find that no team has an effective compliance program when it comes to its foreign business practices. And, if this is the case, it could be hard for MLB or its teams to try to isolate the behavior to a few rogue individuals because the teams themselves lacked policies, auditing, training, oversight. These, again, are big assumptions; it could be that MLB teams do all of that and that a few rogues "left the reservation" and behaved badly. But it also could be that the teams had an attitude of "get it done, beat the competition, just don't tell us how you got it done." The documents uncovered in one of the linked articles suggest a rather loose culture.
9. So, circling back to the focus of the investigation, or the apparent focus, the Braves and the Dodgers. Both teams should be worried, as should the individuals who ran the operations within those teams that are under scrutiny.
10. And if you are the Philadelphia Phillies, trying to rebound from many years of sub-.500 performances, you want to make sure that you have a manager with a clean record and without any distractions. Again, allegations are just that; we do not try people by newspaper on FCPA matters. The distractions, though, are another thing. Then there is the waiting -- the teams will turn over information to the DOJ and, mind you, this matter is far from the only one the Assistant U.S. Attorneys on the matter are involved with. It will take them time, along with their staffs, to review information. Then they will go back to the teams with questions and requests for more information and keep on turning over rocks until there are no more to turn over. They will interview many people in and outside baseball, mainly without the knowledge of the teams. And it will be a long and expensive process; it will not conclude until the DOJ is done.
At many levels this is a sad state of affairs for Major League Baseball. Latin America historically has been like California during the beginning of the Gold Rush, lots of activity, not a lot of rules, and now MLB has a big mess on its hands, at a minimum in terms of publicity and at a maximum if teams are charged and individuals indicted. MLB has an opportunity to clean this up and put in much more structure in this area. Whether the owners are willing to do so remains to be seen.
As for the Phillies and Kapler, well, neither need this problem at this time. The Phillies were about 15 over .500 on August 5 and had the worst record in baseball after that, a complete collapse that makes fans wonder whether the team can improve on a 78-win season or whether the team is a bucket of average players with a superstar pitcher atop the pecking order. Kapler presided over the good and, at the end, the bad and the ugly. That should be enough to worry about.
And now there is this.
Monday, October 08, 2018
Could a better financial model help all elite European football leagues?
Too few teams can contend for the title. Too many teams are "average" or a step ahead of relegation. While it might be fun to be a fan of Bayern Munich, Juventus or Barcelona, how much fun is it to see them beat up on weak opponents for most of their seasons? And how can those weak opponents sustain interest in their franchises over the long term if they realistically have zero chance of winning?
I believe that while studies have shown that higher payrolls do not guarantee championships, they also reveal that if a team is not in the top 5-10 in spending it will have a hard time qualifying for Champions League play. As Val Fitch, Nobel laureate in physics once put it -- "Excellence cannot be bought, but it must be paid for."
Suggestion to the European Leagues -- take Financial Fair Play a step further. Examine the salary caps in the National Hockey League, National Football League and National Basketball Association, along with their collective bargaining agreements, and also the luxury tax system in Major League Baseball. And come up with something that will give the Hudderfields, Real Betises, Sampdorias and Hoffenheims a real chance of winning your league.
That would make for more interesting weekends, better football, and a better experience for everyone.
I believe that while studies have shown that higher payrolls do not guarantee championships, they also reveal that if a team is not in the top 5-10 in spending it will have a hard time qualifying for Champions League play. As Val Fitch, Nobel laureate in physics once put it -- "Excellence cannot be bought, but it must be paid for."
Suggestion to the European Leagues -- take Financial Fair Play a step further. Examine the salary caps in the National Hockey League, National Football League and National Basketball Association, along with their collective bargaining agreements, and also the luxury tax system in Major League Baseball. And come up with something that will give the Hudderfields, Real Betises, Sampdorias and Hoffenheims a real chance of winning your league.
That would make for more interesting weekends, better football, and a better experience for everyone.
Tuesday, October 02, 2018
Goalkeepers
How can soccer experts tell that Jan Oblak of Atletico Madrid is the best keeper in the world (assuming that Bayern Munich's Manuel Neuer is rusty or lost something after missing most of last season)? For that matter, how can the experts tell which goalies are better than others.
Here's my thinking: Goalie A plays for the team that gives up 2.5 goals per match in the Premier League. He also has more saves than any keeper because his team's defense is porous and he gets more chances. Goalie B plays for the team that gives up 0.83 goals per match in the Premier League. He also ranks at the bottom of the save tally because his team's defense is the best in the league. Is either goalkeeper the best keeper in the league? And if not, who is?
Of course there is plenty of empirical evidence about the quality of footwork or not, the quality of the reactions on set pieces, the quality of positioning, and the quality of the pass that starts a counterattack. And those facts have to contribute. And perhaps today with all of the cameras and collection of data conclusions are much more than anecdotal -- they are factual. It would be helpful if the pundits should share that data to provide us with a measuring stick as to why Oblak, Becker, Courtois and De Gea are better than, say, Ederson, Lloris and Buffon. And if they are better, by how wide a margin?
Here's my thinking: Goalie A plays for the team that gives up 2.5 goals per match in the Premier League. He also has more saves than any keeper because his team's defense is porous and he gets more chances. Goalie B plays for the team that gives up 0.83 goals per match in the Premier League. He also ranks at the bottom of the save tally because his team's defense is the best in the league. Is either goalkeeper the best keeper in the league? And if not, who is?
Of course there is plenty of empirical evidence about the quality of footwork or not, the quality of the reactions on set pieces, the quality of positioning, and the quality of the pass that starts a counterattack. And those facts have to contribute. And perhaps today with all of the cameras and collection of data conclusions are much more than anecdotal -- they are factual. It would be helpful if the pundits should share that data to provide us with a measuring stick as to why Oblak, Becker, Courtois and De Gea are better than, say, Ederson, Lloris and Buffon. And if they are better, by how wide a margin?
On General Electric's Firing of John Flannery
Jack Welch was a GE legend. He definitely changed GE. He introduced concepts of Lean Six Sigma and basically trying to streamline operations, eliminate wasteful steps, make things more efficient. Retrospectively, what he did not do was to provide GE with a sustainable process for assessing businesses or a vision as to how GE could harness and own part of the future. In contrast, IBM, which once mastered the business of mainframe computers and then switched to PCs, had half of its income come from artificial intelligence this past year. So, was Welch the Alex Ferguson of GE? Or was he more the Arsene Wenger? Both are legends; the former, though, accomplished much more. The former has proven hard to succeed; the latter just left after last year, had a great run of qualifying for the Champions League (if not doing much in it) but last won the English Premier League in 2004.
Jeff Immelt succeeded Welch and last 16 years. During that time GE continued to focus on its "operational excellence," did not evolve, had dinosaurs for some business units that turned into albatrosses. It did not innovate. At all. Yet, Immelt survived for 16 years and had he put up Wenger-like results he would have been hailed as a hero. Instead, he fell somewhere in between Connie Mack (post-1932) and Jeff Fisher. The former had some of the worst teams in baseball after having some of the best; some suggested that July 9 be called "Jeff Fisher Day" because of the propensity for his teams to go 7-9.
So, you would have figured that after years of Immelt, GE would have permitted his successor, John Flannery, some time to rip things apart, create a new vision, put GE on a course with all of its resources and learning to become part of everyone's future, the same way IBM did. Okay, perhaps it won't be an Amazon or a Microsoft or a Google, but it could have owned some portion of the future. After all, it was not as though Flannery was replacing a Hall of Fame skipper. So what happened? They canned him after about a year, turning him into David Moyes but he wasn't replacing a guy like Ferguson. He was replacing someone whose stock was among the worst investments over a 15-year period, missing out on some big bull runs.
I am not an expert on GE. Hardly. And from the Wall Street Journal's account the board, after tolerating Immelt for 15+ years, grew impatient with the pace of change and some unforeseen writeoffs that Flannery sprung upon them. Fair enough. They also went outside their succession plan for the first time ever to tap a guy who ran a more successful conglomerate (Danaher) in Larry Culp, who became in essence the board's bench coach a year ago when he joined as "lead director." What he really was, in retrospect, was the head coach in waiting. He should remember that if the board he just joined lost patience with his predecessor, it could lose patience with him, too.
What GE needs to realize is what Jeff Bezos did. It isn't so much that you have industrial might; it is more so that you need algorithmic, analytic and algebraic might. Harness your data and math and figure out a way to transform yourself from a clunky conglomerate that makes good products and has offered at times some decent services into a real player into the future.
Just don't expect that vision or the radical change that is needed to occur in the same time they gave John Flannery to try to begin to turn things around.
For if the board does, it will change CEO's again, and then Culp turns into Louis van Gaal and GE will be searching for its version of Jose Mourinho. And last time I looked, the Hall of Fame skipper was having a rough time of it at the bellwether franchise.
Messes take a while to clean up. What is needed is not a passion about leaning things out and fixing things, but plotting a course for the future. IBM did it.
Can GE?
Jeff Immelt succeeded Welch and last 16 years. During that time GE continued to focus on its "operational excellence," did not evolve, had dinosaurs for some business units that turned into albatrosses. It did not innovate. At all. Yet, Immelt survived for 16 years and had he put up Wenger-like results he would have been hailed as a hero. Instead, he fell somewhere in between Connie Mack (post-1932) and Jeff Fisher. The former had some of the worst teams in baseball after having some of the best; some suggested that July 9 be called "Jeff Fisher Day" because of the propensity for his teams to go 7-9.
So, you would have figured that after years of Immelt, GE would have permitted his successor, John Flannery, some time to rip things apart, create a new vision, put GE on a course with all of its resources and learning to become part of everyone's future, the same way IBM did. Okay, perhaps it won't be an Amazon or a Microsoft or a Google, but it could have owned some portion of the future. After all, it was not as though Flannery was replacing a Hall of Fame skipper. So what happened? They canned him after about a year, turning him into David Moyes but he wasn't replacing a guy like Ferguson. He was replacing someone whose stock was among the worst investments over a 15-year period, missing out on some big bull runs.
I am not an expert on GE. Hardly. And from the Wall Street Journal's account the board, after tolerating Immelt for 15+ years, grew impatient with the pace of change and some unforeseen writeoffs that Flannery sprung upon them. Fair enough. They also went outside their succession plan for the first time ever to tap a guy who ran a more successful conglomerate (Danaher) in Larry Culp, who became in essence the board's bench coach a year ago when he joined as "lead director." What he really was, in retrospect, was the head coach in waiting. He should remember that if the board he just joined lost patience with his predecessor, it could lose patience with him, too.
What GE needs to realize is what Jeff Bezos did. It isn't so much that you have industrial might; it is more so that you need algorithmic, analytic and algebraic might. Harness your data and math and figure out a way to transform yourself from a clunky conglomerate that makes good products and has offered at times some decent services into a real player into the future.
Just don't expect that vision or the radical change that is needed to occur in the same time they gave John Flannery to try to begin to turn things around.
For if the board does, it will change CEO's again, and then Culp turns into Louis van Gaal and GE will be searching for its version of Jose Mourinho. And last time I looked, the Hall of Fame skipper was having a rough time of it at the bellwether franchise.
Messes take a while to clean up. What is needed is not a passion about leaning things out and fixing things, but plotting a course for the future. IBM did it.
Can GE?
Friday, September 21, 2018
NFL Owners and Healthcare
The Dallas Cowboys just were valued at $5 billion.
About 20 years ago Jeffrey Lurie bought the Philadelphia Eagles for $185 million, and the team is worth billions today.
The owners rely upon a flawed collective bargain process to avoid paying long-term healthcare for those whose labors create the value in the franchise. The process has an inherent flaw because careers are so short; players cannot afford to sit out a season in exchange for long-term benefits for past and present players. The best players would give up too much money in the prime of their careers to do so and historically have not been willing to hold out for a very long period of time. The owners know that, so they wait out the players. And then the owners anesthetize themselves that it is okay not to provide these benefits because they negotiated in good faith and the players did not insist upon them.
A friend once said, "business is business, don't judge," and I think that is just flat out wrong, especially when, in his case, he is an unapologetic liberal. He did so in the context of defending his best friend from high school, who is wont to question, challenge and attack competitors despite the fact that his own organization has many shortcomings. A mentor who negotiated big transactions for a living once offered, "It's always best in a deal to live a little extra on the table. It's a partnership, and you'll get more out of it if you don't negotiate down to the last penny. Because if you do, and you get too good of a deal, the other side will figure it out and things could go badly." That logic is better.
The owners don't win by being right all the time. Their logic works as far as it goes, but they should take my mentors' advice and leave a little more on the table. Be magnanimous, offer the long-term healthcare. Relations with the players' union are awful for many reasons, and I think part of the reason is the anxiety that the players have for what might happen to them after they are done playing. The owners, who are very wealthy, should do the right thing. Imagine what the gesture will do for the long-term relationship of the players and owners and correspondingly the fans and the league. And, then, go one step further, invest heavily in research to help make the game safer.
It's hard to pinpoint why ratings are down. The games have a lot of interruptions. The overblown flag controversy contributes. As, perhaps, does NFL Red Zone, which cannibalizes game viewership because why watch a game with all of its fits, starts and stops when you can just watch the highlights. Fewer kids are playing the sport; more are playing the soccer video game and watching international soccer. I have not studied the issue the way a marketing company or academic would, but the NFL has some serious issues.
No fun. Cold, Heartless. Greedy owners. Insensitive toward, and uncaring of, those who get maimed for life. Arrogant. Self-congratulatory.
Take care of the guys who make your franchises worth what they are, owners. Suppose those players were your family, your kids.
What would you say then?
About 20 years ago Jeffrey Lurie bought the Philadelphia Eagles for $185 million, and the team is worth billions today.
The owners rely upon a flawed collective bargain process to avoid paying long-term healthcare for those whose labors create the value in the franchise. The process has an inherent flaw because careers are so short; players cannot afford to sit out a season in exchange for long-term benefits for past and present players. The best players would give up too much money in the prime of their careers to do so and historically have not been willing to hold out for a very long period of time. The owners know that, so they wait out the players. And then the owners anesthetize themselves that it is okay not to provide these benefits because they negotiated in good faith and the players did not insist upon them.
A friend once said, "business is business, don't judge," and I think that is just flat out wrong, especially when, in his case, he is an unapologetic liberal. He did so in the context of defending his best friend from high school, who is wont to question, challenge and attack competitors despite the fact that his own organization has many shortcomings. A mentor who negotiated big transactions for a living once offered, "It's always best in a deal to live a little extra on the table. It's a partnership, and you'll get more out of it if you don't negotiate down to the last penny. Because if you do, and you get too good of a deal, the other side will figure it out and things could go badly." That logic is better.
The owners don't win by being right all the time. Their logic works as far as it goes, but they should take my mentors' advice and leave a little more on the table. Be magnanimous, offer the long-term healthcare. Relations with the players' union are awful for many reasons, and I think part of the reason is the anxiety that the players have for what might happen to them after they are done playing. The owners, who are very wealthy, should do the right thing. Imagine what the gesture will do for the long-term relationship of the players and owners and correspondingly the fans and the league. And, then, go one step further, invest heavily in research to help make the game safer.
It's hard to pinpoint why ratings are down. The games have a lot of interruptions. The overblown flag controversy contributes. As, perhaps, does NFL Red Zone, which cannibalizes game viewership because why watch a game with all of its fits, starts and stops when you can just watch the highlights. Fewer kids are playing the sport; more are playing the soccer video game and watching international soccer. I have not studied the issue the way a marketing company or academic would, but the NFL has some serious issues.
No fun. Cold, Heartless. Greedy owners. Insensitive toward, and uncaring of, those who get maimed for life. Arrogant. Self-congratulatory.
Take care of the guys who make your franchises worth what they are, owners. Suppose those players were your family, your kids.
What would you say then?
Monday, September 17, 2018
The Importance of Adjustments in Sports
According to Baseball Prospectus, Mike Trout could have retired after the season before last at the ripe old age of 25 and gone down as one of the ten best position players ever to play Major League Baseball. Not only is Trout an amazing talent, he also has been terrific at making adjustments. Early in his career scouts thought he might be vulnerable to the high fastball; Trout adjusted and thwarted attempts to stymie him. Trout was frustrated with his ranking as a centerfielder; he did drills to improve his reaction time to fly balls and rejoined the top third of all defensive centerfielders. That is what the great teams do. Some players and coaches and teams can do this; others cannot. Whether they can do this or not defines their careers.
Juan Samuel was supposed to be the next great Phillies player after Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton and started out his career red-hot. Then opponents figured out a weakness -- the outside breaking ball. Samuel could not lay off it, ending up striking out a ton and playing himself into the role of a super utility players. He just did not remain good enough to be an every day player -- his weakness would get exposed if opposing pitchers saw him too often.
Andy Reid right now is the best coach not to win a Super Bowl. His main flaws -- bad clock management and inconsistencies picking talent in Philadelphia. Every year the team went into the season with a pronounced weakness or two that, despite public statements to the contrary, came back to bite the head coach and his ambitions. Since he has been in Kansas City he only has had the role of head coach -- perhaps this season could be the charm for him.
Chip Kelly dazzled at Oregon in what retrospectively was a relatively short tenure. College coaches have all the power and can be dictators. History has told us that what has worked in college does not necessary work in the pros. Kelly, with his innovative thinking, got off to a good start with the Eagles. But then he kept on doing the same thing, to the point where former offensive lineman Evan Mathis said the rest of the league knew what was coming and when. Sure, the Eagles could get a play off quickly. The problem was that the other team could guess what it was. Chip Kelly is now back in college, trying to rekindle his old magic.
Buddy Ryan was an innovator with the 46 defense with the Chicago Bears. Ultimately, the league adjusted to that scheme, but before it did Buddy's defenses were something to behold. In contrast, Buddy was a lame thinker on the offensive side of the ball and refused to innovate or adjust. He had a unique, transcending talent in Randall Cunningham and couldn't figure out how to make him into the best quarterback in the league. Poor Cunningham played without a running game and with replacement-player-plus level receivers and a tight end with a big reputation who dropped the ball a lot. He deserved better; Ryan ended up out of a job because he refused to adjust his thinking as a head coach and value the offense half as much as he valued his defense.
The Philadelphia Phillies were terrific in the 2007-2011 time frame. Part of their success resulted from their outstanding development of three perennial MVP candidates -- Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. Part of their success resulted from their maximizing the value of retrospectively vastly overrated prospects to land the likes of Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. But the team kept on getting older after their World Series victory of 2008, when the average age of a player was about 29. They added the ultimately underperforming Raul Ibanez when he was 36 and the oft-injured Placido Polanco when he was in his early 30's. They also failed to embrace the type of analytics that other teams, particularly the most innovate ones, were using, teams like Boston, St. Louis and Houston. What resulted was their slide from a perennial contender into a team whose season was over by the All-Star break.
Pick your city, pick your discussion. The Mets loaded up on starting pitchers with a tremendous amount of promise -- DeGrom, Syndergaard, Wheeler, Harvey, Matz, Gsellman. The problem is that when you have so many young pitchers before the age of 25 throwing as hard as they can for long periods of time, they are bound to get hurt. And many of them did. The tragic part for the Mets is that this happened before with pitchers named Isringhausen, Wilson and Pulsipher. Only Isringhausen had any type of career, and that was as a reliever. The other two got so injured -- as did the Cubs uber-talented Kerry Wood and Mark Prior -- that you knew that what portended to be a team that could get everyone out might end up being a squad that would have difficulty getting players off the disabled list.
Failing to adjust or persisting in doing things the old way get management and teams into trouble. Doing something the same way over and over again and expecting a good result but then failing has been called by some the definition of insanity. Teams that truly innovate -- the elite soccer teams are among them -- videotape players and do a computer analysis of their workouts and their repetitive motions to ensure that the work they do strengthens the players and does not put undue stress on one part of the body to cause a recurring injury. They have adopted cryotherapy rooms to take down a player's inflammation after working out and also focus strictly on sleep and diet. Oh, sure, Chip Kelly did that in Philadelphia, I forgot. The problem was that the didn't do enough to get the respect of the players with his communications and style to get them to buy in.
Examples abound. Adjustments are critical. The teams that win, adjust, even if they are Golden State by maxing out their payroll to remain more than very relevant when they inked Kevin Durant. That's an adjustment too.
Juan Samuel was supposed to be the next great Phillies player after Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton and started out his career red-hot. Then opponents figured out a weakness -- the outside breaking ball. Samuel could not lay off it, ending up striking out a ton and playing himself into the role of a super utility players. He just did not remain good enough to be an every day player -- his weakness would get exposed if opposing pitchers saw him too often.
Andy Reid right now is the best coach not to win a Super Bowl. His main flaws -- bad clock management and inconsistencies picking talent in Philadelphia. Every year the team went into the season with a pronounced weakness or two that, despite public statements to the contrary, came back to bite the head coach and his ambitions. Since he has been in Kansas City he only has had the role of head coach -- perhaps this season could be the charm for him.
Chip Kelly dazzled at Oregon in what retrospectively was a relatively short tenure. College coaches have all the power and can be dictators. History has told us that what has worked in college does not necessary work in the pros. Kelly, with his innovative thinking, got off to a good start with the Eagles. But then he kept on doing the same thing, to the point where former offensive lineman Evan Mathis said the rest of the league knew what was coming and when. Sure, the Eagles could get a play off quickly. The problem was that the other team could guess what it was. Chip Kelly is now back in college, trying to rekindle his old magic.
Buddy Ryan was an innovator with the 46 defense with the Chicago Bears. Ultimately, the league adjusted to that scheme, but before it did Buddy's defenses were something to behold. In contrast, Buddy was a lame thinker on the offensive side of the ball and refused to innovate or adjust. He had a unique, transcending talent in Randall Cunningham and couldn't figure out how to make him into the best quarterback in the league. Poor Cunningham played without a running game and with replacement-player-plus level receivers and a tight end with a big reputation who dropped the ball a lot. He deserved better; Ryan ended up out of a job because he refused to adjust his thinking as a head coach and value the offense half as much as he valued his defense.
The Philadelphia Phillies were terrific in the 2007-2011 time frame. Part of their success resulted from their outstanding development of three perennial MVP candidates -- Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. Part of their success resulted from their maximizing the value of retrospectively vastly overrated prospects to land the likes of Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. But the team kept on getting older after their World Series victory of 2008, when the average age of a player was about 29. They added the ultimately underperforming Raul Ibanez when he was 36 and the oft-injured Placido Polanco when he was in his early 30's. They also failed to embrace the type of analytics that other teams, particularly the most innovate ones, were using, teams like Boston, St. Louis and Houston. What resulted was their slide from a perennial contender into a team whose season was over by the All-Star break.
Pick your city, pick your discussion. The Mets loaded up on starting pitchers with a tremendous amount of promise -- DeGrom, Syndergaard, Wheeler, Harvey, Matz, Gsellman. The problem is that when you have so many young pitchers before the age of 25 throwing as hard as they can for long periods of time, they are bound to get hurt. And many of them did. The tragic part for the Mets is that this happened before with pitchers named Isringhausen, Wilson and Pulsipher. Only Isringhausen had any type of career, and that was as a reliever. The other two got so injured -- as did the Cubs uber-talented Kerry Wood and Mark Prior -- that you knew that what portended to be a team that could get everyone out might end up being a squad that would have difficulty getting players off the disabled list.
Failing to adjust or persisting in doing things the old way get management and teams into trouble. Doing something the same way over and over again and expecting a good result but then failing has been called by some the definition of insanity. Teams that truly innovate -- the elite soccer teams are among them -- videotape players and do a computer analysis of their workouts and their repetitive motions to ensure that the work they do strengthens the players and does not put undue stress on one part of the body to cause a recurring injury. They have adopted cryotherapy rooms to take down a player's inflammation after working out and also focus strictly on sleep and diet. Oh, sure, Chip Kelly did that in Philadelphia, I forgot. The problem was that the didn't do enough to get the respect of the players with his communications and style to get them to buy in.
Examples abound. Adjustments are critical. The teams that win, adjust, even if they are Golden State by maxing out their payroll to remain more than very relevant when they inked Kevin Durant. That's an adjustment too.
Friday, August 31, 2018
Season 3 of Last Chance U.
Worth watching if you are the type that watches auto racing for the crashes.
The head coach is an aggregator, a snake oil salesman, but far from a molder of men. A huckster, a hipster, with little in the way of the traits that you like to see developed in your own kids. Zero humility, tries to pass for wisdom what is his unique version of, in his own mind, street smarts. Profane, ill-mannered, uncouth. Makes for good TV, but not for a good life.
Talk about college players having zero leverage. You end up at a football bordello like Independence because you have nowhere else to go. You are desperate to get to the FCS or FBS, you had character or academic lapses or both, and you as a poor kid make your deal with one of many devils -- the dictators/predators who run these banana republic fiefdoms for their own personal glory. The head coaches anesthetize themselves by keeping kids eligible so that they can go on to play at four-year schools. Whether the kids belong in college is open to debate; the "system," as it were is at best paternalistic and at worst exploitative and racist -- using the kids without compensating them meaningfully. These kids can be like cans that get kicked down the road -- all with a view of providing players to the big-time schools. What would be more interesting is to see what happens to them within five years. Do they get their degrees? Are their degrees helping them make a good living? Or does the system chew them up and spit them out.
The head coach tries to come across as the hero, albeit someone who runs his program on his own terms. The junior college president at best is naïve and at worst has prostituted his mission in order to gain some fame for his school that has eluded his other programs. The question is why and at what cost?
It is interesting watching. I feel for each and every one of these kids. They are young, some are desperate, some spoiled, some frustrated, some in need for honest-to-God therapy for what they have gone through in life. But they are kids, mostly poor kids.
They deserve better than this wacky system provides them.
The head coach is an aggregator, a snake oil salesman, but far from a molder of men. A huckster, a hipster, with little in the way of the traits that you like to see developed in your own kids. Zero humility, tries to pass for wisdom what is his unique version of, in his own mind, street smarts. Profane, ill-mannered, uncouth. Makes for good TV, but not for a good life.
Talk about college players having zero leverage. You end up at a football bordello like Independence because you have nowhere else to go. You are desperate to get to the FCS or FBS, you had character or academic lapses or both, and you as a poor kid make your deal with one of many devils -- the dictators/predators who run these banana republic fiefdoms for their own personal glory. The head coaches anesthetize themselves by keeping kids eligible so that they can go on to play at four-year schools. Whether the kids belong in college is open to debate; the "system," as it were is at best paternalistic and at worst exploitative and racist -- using the kids without compensating them meaningfully. These kids can be like cans that get kicked down the road -- all with a view of providing players to the big-time schools. What would be more interesting is to see what happens to them within five years. Do they get their degrees? Are their degrees helping them make a good living? Or does the system chew them up and spit them out.
The head coach tries to come across as the hero, albeit someone who runs his program on his own terms. The junior college president at best is naïve and at worst has prostituted his mission in order to gain some fame for his school that has eluded his other programs. The question is why and at what cost?
It is interesting watching. I feel for each and every one of these kids. They are young, some are desperate, some spoiled, some frustrated, some in need for honest-to-God therapy for what they have gone through in life. But they are kids, mostly poor kids.
They deserve better than this wacky system provides them.
The Early Part of FBS College Football Season is Stupid (for the Most Part)
Silly.
Insulting.
Who cares?
Yeah, Texas A&M beat up on FCS Northwestern State last night in Aggieville. Sure, the alums got to have a few pops and tailgate, the Aggies got to kiss their dates, the home team got a win. But what does the game mean?
Absolutely nothing.
Zilch.
Why? Because no one who counts will give the game any credence when it comes to determining whether premium-paid head coach Jimbo Fisher's team is worthy of a playoff bid. The opponent was an FCS team; the Aggies were supposed to block them all the way into the cheap seats. And poor Northwestern State's players. What good comes out of a game like this? What character is built or revealed when your school gets paid an appearance fee to help its coffers so that you can be a tune-up game for an FBS team?
None.
Zilch.
The game is dangerous enough. The stakes are high enough. It makes no sense to schedule cupcake games. Player fewer games if they have to in order to look out for the physical welfare of the players, who are in a plantation-like system with zero leverage and zero post-playing benefits should they suffer injuries that could be debilitating for them. But playing games like these? There is no purpose.
Period.
Insulting.
Who cares?
Yeah, Texas A&M beat up on FCS Northwestern State last night in Aggieville. Sure, the alums got to have a few pops and tailgate, the Aggies got to kiss their dates, the home team got a win. But what does the game mean?
Absolutely nothing.
Zilch.
Why? Because no one who counts will give the game any credence when it comes to determining whether premium-paid head coach Jimbo Fisher's team is worthy of a playoff bid. The opponent was an FCS team; the Aggies were supposed to block them all the way into the cheap seats. And poor Northwestern State's players. What good comes out of a game like this? What character is built or revealed when your school gets paid an appearance fee to help its coffers so that you can be a tune-up game for an FBS team?
None.
Zilch.
The game is dangerous enough. The stakes are high enough. It makes no sense to schedule cupcake games. Player fewer games if they have to in order to look out for the physical welfare of the players, who are in a plantation-like system with zero leverage and zero post-playing benefits should they suffer injuries that could be debilitating for them. But playing games like these? There is no purpose.
Period.
Thursday, August 23, 2018
On Urban Meyer
What's the standard? What do we want our legacy to be? What do we want others to say about us? How will this conduct -- or absence of action -- look if it makes the newspapers? How would we feel if Courtney Smith were our mother, sister, daughter, friend? How do we deal with colleagues who have significant problems? Is having a criminal record or doing something criminal but uncharged or unpleaded or unproven enough to lose one's job? What is the standard? Is it that there was no cause under a contract to terminate a highly paid professional without paying him $40 million? Was it that key players said they would sit out the season and transfer if the head coach were fired? Was the school worried about losing an edge in recruiting were the coach to be terminated? What does "deliberately lied" mean? Isn't lying bad enough without having to qualify it with an adjective? What is the significance of the cognitive impairment as to the employee's memory? Does it mean that he gets a pass on this situation? Or wouldn't the university be worried that this impairment negatively effects the employee's ability to perform the required roles of his job? What about accountability? Who, precisely, is accountable for what? What about the employee's conduct? Can he talk with his players with a straight face about their accountability? What about his contrition? How can he expect more from his players when he looked like someone who was forced to read something he didn't believe in, as if he were a hostage in a far away land? What if the employee hadn't had the record of success that this employee has had? What if the sport were tennis, one that few pay attention to and one that generates no revenue? Then what?
These questions swirl and swirl and will continue to swirl. There is an idolatry about college football and the men who coach it in certain bastions around the country -- Tuscaloosa, Alabama, State College, Pennsylvania, Columbus, Ohio, among others. What is the brand that the trustees of Ohio State are trying to build, enhance and protect? What is the message that they are trying to send? Did Urban Meyer do enough? And even if he didn't do enough, should he be fired for not doing enough? Is he the first boss who kept a favorite on his team, a favorite with significant character issues? Did those character issues affect that coach's performance? To what degree does what one does outside the workplace read onto the workplace? Are we holding Urban Meyer to a standard that many cannot meet? Does it make a difference that what happened is in a college setting? Does it make a difference that parents put their children into the stewardship of Urban Meyer and his coaching staff -- an autocratic, unforgiving environment in the best of times?
Shouldn't it matter that Zach Smith repeatedly committed character violations? Should it matter that he had problems dating back as far as nine years and that Urban Meyer gave him chance after chance after chance? Did Meyer do it out of blind loyalty to Smith's grandfather, former Ohio State coach Earle Bruce? Or did Meyer keep him aboard because Smith was a good coach and wanted to keep an eye on him and hope to influence Smith to be a better person, to get help, and to supervise him? Didn't Meyer realize that lives were at stake and that one bad character can tarnish the reputation of the entire football program? In two different locations?
Most importantly, what about Courtney Smith and all victims of spousal abuse? Doesn't she matter? Aren't there bigger issues at stake -- such as the safety of the entire university community? And isn't that much more important than the brand of the football team and who is coaching it? And wasn't the safety of Courtney Smith and her children more important than anything else the trustees of Ohio State can think of?
The questions are swirling. And they will continue to swirl. This is not the easiest of situations, but after last night it seems that everyone lost. Ohio State lost, the Ohio State football program lost, Coach Meyer and his coaching staff lost. And, sure, no one wins in a situation with facts as ugly as the ones presented. But last night you had an administration suspend a coach for three non-league games, suspend the athletic director (who seemingly has less power than his key employee, Urban Meyer) for six weeks. They avoid a contractual dispute with Meyer to the tune of $40 million, they avoid players transferring and recruits avoiding contact with Ohio State coaches and going to play for rivals. They will continue to fill the stadium. The idolators will continue to wrap their identifies around the Buckeyes, the Horseshoe, their idiosyncratic rationales why the head coach remains on the job and their unchallengeable belief in the institution that is Ohio State football.
And then there is Coach Meyer. He won, didn't he? He keeps his job, gets to pass go and collect his $40 million dollars. He gets to keep one of the top head coaching jobs in the country, gets a chance to build on his number of national championships. He gets to continue to do what he loves. But at what price? Many will not look at him the same way again. Many will believe that Ohio State checked all the boxes on its investigation but that the trustees premeditated that it would come out this way. Many will believe that he relied on a peculiar excuse to get a pass in a very serious situation. And many will have linger doubts every time Meyer talks whether his memory is accurately or what he is saying comes from his mouth deliberately or in some other way.
Urban Meyer thinks he did nothing wrong. He fought for what he believed in -- which is himself, his legacy, his longevity, his contract, the $40 million dollars. He can continue to believe and think what he wants.
But so can everyone else.
Ohio State did not conclude anything here. It just started a raging debate over the absolute control head coaches and football programs have over some boards of trustees and college presidents and what is or is not appropriate conduct by a head football coach.
And does it have to be about laws, charges, what is proven or not proven, convictions, plea bargains?
Or can it just be about culture? A culture of being forthcoming, a culture of accountability, a culture of doing the right thing regardless of whether law enforcement is involved.
Urban Meyer and his supporters won last night.
The question now is -- what did they win and who did they beat?
These questions swirl and swirl and will continue to swirl. There is an idolatry about college football and the men who coach it in certain bastions around the country -- Tuscaloosa, Alabama, State College, Pennsylvania, Columbus, Ohio, among others. What is the brand that the trustees of Ohio State are trying to build, enhance and protect? What is the message that they are trying to send? Did Urban Meyer do enough? And even if he didn't do enough, should he be fired for not doing enough? Is he the first boss who kept a favorite on his team, a favorite with significant character issues? Did those character issues affect that coach's performance? To what degree does what one does outside the workplace read onto the workplace? Are we holding Urban Meyer to a standard that many cannot meet? Does it make a difference that what happened is in a college setting? Does it make a difference that parents put their children into the stewardship of Urban Meyer and his coaching staff -- an autocratic, unforgiving environment in the best of times?
Shouldn't it matter that Zach Smith repeatedly committed character violations? Should it matter that he had problems dating back as far as nine years and that Urban Meyer gave him chance after chance after chance? Did Meyer do it out of blind loyalty to Smith's grandfather, former Ohio State coach Earle Bruce? Or did Meyer keep him aboard because Smith was a good coach and wanted to keep an eye on him and hope to influence Smith to be a better person, to get help, and to supervise him? Didn't Meyer realize that lives were at stake and that one bad character can tarnish the reputation of the entire football program? In two different locations?
Most importantly, what about Courtney Smith and all victims of spousal abuse? Doesn't she matter? Aren't there bigger issues at stake -- such as the safety of the entire university community? And isn't that much more important than the brand of the football team and who is coaching it? And wasn't the safety of Courtney Smith and her children more important than anything else the trustees of Ohio State can think of?
The questions are swirling. And they will continue to swirl. This is not the easiest of situations, but after last night it seems that everyone lost. Ohio State lost, the Ohio State football program lost, Coach Meyer and his coaching staff lost. And, sure, no one wins in a situation with facts as ugly as the ones presented. But last night you had an administration suspend a coach for three non-league games, suspend the athletic director (who seemingly has less power than his key employee, Urban Meyer) for six weeks. They avoid a contractual dispute with Meyer to the tune of $40 million, they avoid players transferring and recruits avoiding contact with Ohio State coaches and going to play for rivals. They will continue to fill the stadium. The idolators will continue to wrap their identifies around the Buckeyes, the Horseshoe, their idiosyncratic rationales why the head coach remains on the job and their unchallengeable belief in the institution that is Ohio State football.
And then there is Coach Meyer. He won, didn't he? He keeps his job, gets to pass go and collect his $40 million dollars. He gets to keep one of the top head coaching jobs in the country, gets a chance to build on his number of national championships. He gets to continue to do what he loves. But at what price? Many will not look at him the same way again. Many will believe that Ohio State checked all the boxes on its investigation but that the trustees premeditated that it would come out this way. Many will believe that he relied on a peculiar excuse to get a pass in a very serious situation. And many will have linger doubts every time Meyer talks whether his memory is accurately or what he is saying comes from his mouth deliberately or in some other way.
Urban Meyer thinks he did nothing wrong. He fought for what he believed in -- which is himself, his legacy, his longevity, his contract, the $40 million dollars. He can continue to believe and think what he wants.
But so can everyone else.
Ohio State did not conclude anything here. It just started a raging debate over the absolute control head coaches and football programs have over some boards of trustees and college presidents and what is or is not appropriate conduct by a head football coach.
And does it have to be about laws, charges, what is proven or not proven, convictions, plea bargains?
Or can it just be about culture? A culture of being forthcoming, a culture of accountability, a culture of doing the right thing regardless of whether law enforcement is involved.
Urban Meyer and his supporters won last night.
The question now is -- what did they win and who did they beat?
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Guilt Watching Football
They say in certain parts of the United States that there are two sports -- football and spring football. Football means big dollars for those universities who play it well and has some, if difficult to define, value at schools whose players play before sparse crowds and have little if any chance to play professionally. But football programs are not moneymakers at most schools; the stats suggest that at FBS schools only one in five make money. And if you look at the costs involved in running a football program at the collegiate level, well, they are high. At some colleges you might see more personnel attending to the football program -- which services say 100 kids -- than there are deans to administer to a student body that can number in the thousands if not more.
The NFL, of course, is a big business.
At colleges and in the pros, fans can turn out to tailgate, bond, have fun, eat, drink, cheer, what have you. They devote entire weekends at times to doing just this. People also bet on games, because the theory is that football is the easiest game to bet on -- there is a point spread. In every other professional sport you get a set of numbers -- you have to bet $2200 on Manchester City to win $100 in a match versus Huddersfield, or $170 to win a $100 if you have the Phillies at home over the Marlins.
Football players suffer horrific injuries. Some end seasons; others can end careers. Players play with injuries that might have a civilian walk with a limp or on medication for a month. The long-term effects are stunning. Pick up a magazine, a newspaper, a twitter feed, and almost every day you read a story about the long-term effects of the game. From Ricky Dixon to George Andrie to Antwaan Randle-El to Kevin Turner to Andre Waters, the list goes on and on. And atop that, the horrors that have persisted for former players and their families to collect funds from the class-action lawsuit settlement fund, whether it be callous, uniformed rejections of claims to unscrupulous lawyers trying to get a slice of the settlements.
Yet, we still root. We go to parades when our teams win, and we adjust our weekends to make sure we will be available to watch our team on Sundays or in the playoffs. Is this a Christians versus Lions thing? A gladiator thing? What urges or needs are we satisfying if we feel compelled to watch young men -- most of whom are carrying way too much weight according to various healthy weight standards -- bash at each other week after week so that one team can get this oddly shaped ball across a goal line to rack up points? Would we, ourselves, want to take the risks that for short-term glory and big bucks (and, yes, the average pro career is about 3 seasons and many players end up broke, depressed or divorced after their careers end) in exchange for long-term damage to our mental and physical well-being? Would we want our friends or loved ones to do this?
I am by no means an expert on how people make decisions, but how they make decisions fascinate me. Some go by reason, some go by feel, others go by experience, and yet others go by impulse or emotion. My sense is that people lie to themselves that their favorite players will be okay or that their fandom is justified because the players know and assume the risks and therefore if they get maimed or cognitively impaired, well, that comes with the territory and it's not their -- the fans' -- problem. Or they just don't think about it, period. But the evidence is there -- young men are getting hurt and impaired for the long-term. That's not an opinion, that's a fact.
The pageantry, logos, uniforms, choreography and physical talent attract, tantalize and enchant the fans. But I, for one, watch with great ambivalence and great reserve. Sure, I like my hometown team, and I want them to beat the teams from other cities, especially those whose fans disrespect the area where I grew up (and there are many, as that is Philadelphia). But I didn't feel the rush when the Eagles won that I felt in 2008 when the Phillies won the World Series or 1983 when the 76ers won the NBA title. Perhaps it's because I like those teams and sports better; I went to those teams' games with my father, who died young. Or perhaps it's because I don't like the fact that impressionable young men are being sacrificed for the glory of wealthy institutions who, in the end, treat them like commodities, especially at the college level, where the Lord-like coaches get paid huge sums while the players are subject to all sorts of ridiculous rules that virtually indenture them to a school with little compensation or recourse.
The facts are there. Young men are getting hurt, and far worse, impaired. This game is hazardous to their health. If football were a cigarette, it would come with a "black box" warning that exclaims that participating in it is hazardous to a player's health and could kill him. Does football at all levels have a better lobbying group than the tobacco industry did? Or does the general population just like football more?
We all should think about how we will feel about our society fifty years from now when more data emerges, data that suggests even more long-term danger for participants. And, given the size and speed of the players, football fifty years from now, if it exists, will resemble a combination of Greco-Roman wrestling (only using the upper body), flag football and rugby -- with almost no hitting allowed.
And, believe it or not, American civilization will survive and might even like the newly configured game.
Because right now, it is hurting former players' quality of live, cutting lives short, and, yes, killing people.
The NFL, of course, is a big business.
At colleges and in the pros, fans can turn out to tailgate, bond, have fun, eat, drink, cheer, what have you. They devote entire weekends at times to doing just this. People also bet on games, because the theory is that football is the easiest game to bet on -- there is a point spread. In every other professional sport you get a set of numbers -- you have to bet $2200 on Manchester City to win $100 in a match versus Huddersfield, or $170 to win a $100 if you have the Phillies at home over the Marlins.
Football players suffer horrific injuries. Some end seasons; others can end careers. Players play with injuries that might have a civilian walk with a limp or on medication for a month. The long-term effects are stunning. Pick up a magazine, a newspaper, a twitter feed, and almost every day you read a story about the long-term effects of the game. From Ricky Dixon to George Andrie to Antwaan Randle-El to Kevin Turner to Andre Waters, the list goes on and on. And atop that, the horrors that have persisted for former players and their families to collect funds from the class-action lawsuit settlement fund, whether it be callous, uniformed rejections of claims to unscrupulous lawyers trying to get a slice of the settlements.
Yet, we still root. We go to parades when our teams win, and we adjust our weekends to make sure we will be available to watch our team on Sundays or in the playoffs. Is this a Christians versus Lions thing? A gladiator thing? What urges or needs are we satisfying if we feel compelled to watch young men -- most of whom are carrying way too much weight according to various healthy weight standards -- bash at each other week after week so that one team can get this oddly shaped ball across a goal line to rack up points? Would we, ourselves, want to take the risks that for short-term glory and big bucks (and, yes, the average pro career is about 3 seasons and many players end up broke, depressed or divorced after their careers end) in exchange for long-term damage to our mental and physical well-being? Would we want our friends or loved ones to do this?
I am by no means an expert on how people make decisions, but how they make decisions fascinate me. Some go by reason, some go by feel, others go by experience, and yet others go by impulse or emotion. My sense is that people lie to themselves that their favorite players will be okay or that their fandom is justified because the players know and assume the risks and therefore if they get maimed or cognitively impaired, well, that comes with the territory and it's not their -- the fans' -- problem. Or they just don't think about it, period. But the evidence is there -- young men are getting hurt and impaired for the long-term. That's not an opinion, that's a fact.
The pageantry, logos, uniforms, choreography and physical talent attract, tantalize and enchant the fans. But I, for one, watch with great ambivalence and great reserve. Sure, I like my hometown team, and I want them to beat the teams from other cities, especially those whose fans disrespect the area where I grew up (and there are many, as that is Philadelphia). But I didn't feel the rush when the Eagles won that I felt in 2008 when the Phillies won the World Series or 1983 when the 76ers won the NBA title. Perhaps it's because I like those teams and sports better; I went to those teams' games with my father, who died young. Or perhaps it's because I don't like the fact that impressionable young men are being sacrificed for the glory of wealthy institutions who, in the end, treat them like commodities, especially at the college level, where the Lord-like coaches get paid huge sums while the players are subject to all sorts of ridiculous rules that virtually indenture them to a school with little compensation or recourse.
The facts are there. Young men are getting hurt, and far worse, impaired. This game is hazardous to their health. If football were a cigarette, it would come with a "black box" warning that exclaims that participating in it is hazardous to a player's health and could kill him. Does football at all levels have a better lobbying group than the tobacco industry did? Or does the general population just like football more?
We all should think about how we will feel about our society fifty years from now when more data emerges, data that suggests even more long-term danger for participants. And, given the size and speed of the players, football fifty years from now, if it exists, will resemble a combination of Greco-Roman wrestling (only using the upper body), flag football and rugby -- with almost no hitting allowed.
And, believe it or not, American civilization will survive and might even like the newly configured game.
Because right now, it is hurting former players' quality of live, cutting lives short, and, yes, killing people.
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
Suggestions for Improving Baseball and Making it More Attractive for a Younger Fan Base
I exchanged texts this morning with a friend who recently retired from a distinguished career in broadcast journalism. We were reminiscing over the days when we went to baseball games that ended in less than two hours. My favorite was when the Phillies beat the Padres at Veterans Stadium 4-2 in less than 1:30 featuring a match-up of Hall of Famer Steve Carlton and ace Randy Jones, who put together several great seasons in the mid-1970's. His featured a match-up in San Diego featuring Jim Kaat, who had a long and distinguished career in the big leagues.
Today, the average age of a fan is 55. The average game takes well over 3 hours to play. The ball is in play less and less thanks to theories involving taking pitches, striking out, launch angles, the value of home runs and the like. Tickets are expensive despite the fierce competition for the average fan's entertainment dollar. Climate change also can make it more unbearable to sit outside for a lengthy period of time.
The most significant changes that baseball made over the past 50 years involved lowering the height of the pitcher's mound in response to dwindling batting averages in the late 1960's and early 1970's, adding the designated hitter in the American League and enforcing the strike zone rule (and holding umpires accountable if they did not do so). The latter meant that effectively umpires had no leeway in calling the lower 18 inches of the zone a strike, and many were reluctant to do so. Again, effectively, that meant that pitchers had a much larger strike zone to play with and developed pitches to take advantage of the more strict enforcement (read: sinkers, splitters). That change took place about 10 years ago.
There are several changes that baseball should consider in order to add more offense to the game and to quicken games, as follows:
1. Enforce time limits in between pitches, in between at bats and in between innings. How many fans have been to minor league games that end in 2:15 or less -- without any sacrificing of the quality of the product?
2. Create the following rule -- every pitcher inserted into a game must pitch to a minimum of three batters in an inning or until the end of the inning (so that a team can pinch-hit for him if it's his turn in the lineup after getting two outs in the prior half inning) and no more than one pitching change per inning (unless a pitcher gets hurt). This will eliminate the specialization of relievers.
3. Consider, for fun, letting a team have a third catcher available in the stands, a la the "emergency goalie" in the NHL that creates good will among the fans. In this fashion, the team can have an "emergency" catcher should the back-up get used as a pinch-hitter or himself have to enter the game because of injury.
4. Study lowering the pitching mound. . . again. . . and what the effect of doing so might have on offenses.
5. Eliminate shifts. Every position must have a fielder in its designated area.
6. Add the DH to the National League. Who wants to see a pitcher hit? You wouldn't want your plumber to try to tear up and re-do your path if he is not a mason, so why have pitchers hit if they hardly practice hitting?
7. Sponsor "The Great American Home Run Hitting Contest" in regions around the country and put up a big prize. You can run regionals at minor-league parks and then culminate the challenge at a fan fest before Game 1 of the World Series. This might spike interest in the game, too.
8. Stop being greedy about the times when you feature post-season games. Do all of them have to start at 8:30 at night? By the time a game might get interesting (that is, after the starting pitcher goes through the lineup once or twice), kids have to go to sleep and get ready for school. Try having games start at 6 p.m. or have an afternoon game every now and then. Even adults who have to get up and go to work might not watch the Series unless their team is involved.
9. Figure out a way to have the average fan not feel stupid and relate to the game. It's great that the teams rely on stats -- they were ignorant for decades, but even fans with advanced degrees cannot make heads or tails of "Baseball Prospectus" or the metrics that teams deploy. In "Men at Work," the late Hall-of-Fame outfielder Tony Gwynn described is approach to being a great hitter thusly -- "See the ball, hit the ball." Today you need a masters in higher math to understand how teams are evaluating players and getting their hitters and pitchers to change their approaches. What's the fun in that?
10. Consider shortening games to 7 innings. The average human attention span once was 22 minutes; now some argue it's under 10 seconds. Sure, there are a lot of details here -- from how much to pay players to how this might have an effect on pitchers and rosters, but if the practical effect were to ensure that a game would take only two hours to play, I think that more fans might be attracted to the product.
11. Finally, baseball needs to get out of this rut of strikeouts, walks and home runs, needs to create more situations where there can be two-out rallies and balls hit off the wall. Perhaps some of the changes I outline above might help accomplish this goal. But let's face it, no one wants to go watch a game that ends 3-1 that takes 3:30, that featured 10 pitchers, 23 strikeouts, 8 walks and 4 solo home runs. Sure, a win's a win, but paying $50 a ticket for a family of four plus parking and concessions is a lot to task for that type of product. Especially when there are so many alternatives on which to spend one's disposable income.
Food for thought. Your thoughts?
Today, the average age of a fan is 55. The average game takes well over 3 hours to play. The ball is in play less and less thanks to theories involving taking pitches, striking out, launch angles, the value of home runs and the like. Tickets are expensive despite the fierce competition for the average fan's entertainment dollar. Climate change also can make it more unbearable to sit outside for a lengthy period of time.
The most significant changes that baseball made over the past 50 years involved lowering the height of the pitcher's mound in response to dwindling batting averages in the late 1960's and early 1970's, adding the designated hitter in the American League and enforcing the strike zone rule (and holding umpires accountable if they did not do so). The latter meant that effectively umpires had no leeway in calling the lower 18 inches of the zone a strike, and many were reluctant to do so. Again, effectively, that meant that pitchers had a much larger strike zone to play with and developed pitches to take advantage of the more strict enforcement (read: sinkers, splitters). That change took place about 10 years ago.
There are several changes that baseball should consider in order to add more offense to the game and to quicken games, as follows:
1. Enforce time limits in between pitches, in between at bats and in between innings. How many fans have been to minor league games that end in 2:15 or less -- without any sacrificing of the quality of the product?
2. Create the following rule -- every pitcher inserted into a game must pitch to a minimum of three batters in an inning or until the end of the inning (so that a team can pinch-hit for him if it's his turn in the lineup after getting two outs in the prior half inning) and no more than one pitching change per inning (unless a pitcher gets hurt). This will eliminate the specialization of relievers.
3. Consider, for fun, letting a team have a third catcher available in the stands, a la the "emergency goalie" in the NHL that creates good will among the fans. In this fashion, the team can have an "emergency" catcher should the back-up get used as a pinch-hitter or himself have to enter the game because of injury.
4. Study lowering the pitching mound. . . again. . . and what the effect of doing so might have on offenses.
5. Eliminate shifts. Every position must have a fielder in its designated area.
6. Add the DH to the National League. Who wants to see a pitcher hit? You wouldn't want your plumber to try to tear up and re-do your path if he is not a mason, so why have pitchers hit if they hardly practice hitting?
7. Sponsor "The Great American Home Run Hitting Contest" in regions around the country and put up a big prize. You can run regionals at minor-league parks and then culminate the challenge at a fan fest before Game 1 of the World Series. This might spike interest in the game, too.
8. Stop being greedy about the times when you feature post-season games. Do all of them have to start at 8:30 at night? By the time a game might get interesting (that is, after the starting pitcher goes through the lineup once or twice), kids have to go to sleep and get ready for school. Try having games start at 6 p.m. or have an afternoon game every now and then. Even adults who have to get up and go to work might not watch the Series unless their team is involved.
9. Figure out a way to have the average fan not feel stupid and relate to the game. It's great that the teams rely on stats -- they were ignorant for decades, but even fans with advanced degrees cannot make heads or tails of "Baseball Prospectus" or the metrics that teams deploy. In "Men at Work," the late Hall-of-Fame outfielder Tony Gwynn described is approach to being a great hitter thusly -- "See the ball, hit the ball." Today you need a masters in higher math to understand how teams are evaluating players and getting their hitters and pitchers to change their approaches. What's the fun in that?
10. Consider shortening games to 7 innings. The average human attention span once was 22 minutes; now some argue it's under 10 seconds. Sure, there are a lot of details here -- from how much to pay players to how this might have an effect on pitchers and rosters, but if the practical effect were to ensure that a game would take only two hours to play, I think that more fans might be attracted to the product.
11. Finally, baseball needs to get out of this rut of strikeouts, walks and home runs, needs to create more situations where there can be two-out rallies and balls hit off the wall. Perhaps some of the changes I outline above might help accomplish this goal. But let's face it, no one wants to go watch a game that ends 3-1 that takes 3:30, that featured 10 pitchers, 23 strikeouts, 8 walks and 4 solo home runs. Sure, a win's a win, but paying $50 a ticket for a family of four plus parking and concessions is a lot to task for that type of product. Especially when there are so many alternatives on which to spend one's disposable income.
Food for thought. Your thoughts?
Thursday, August 16, 2018
Signs of the Times -- More Soccer, More Problems for Other Sports in U.S.?
Times change. Demographics change. Preferences change.
There was a report yesterday that not only is ESPN all in for Serie A, the top league in Italy, but it also inked a deal to televise the FA Cup, England's broad in-season tournament that affords opportunities for teams at the lowest club ranks to challenge the heavyweights. And one key aspect of all this is that ESPN was in serious talks with Serie A before Juventus acquired Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid. All these rights are US only.
Fox already televises Germany's Bundesliga in the US, and Bein televises La Liga in Spain in the US. I'm sure at some point someone will purchase the rights to televise France's La Ligue, which basically means the rights to Neymar and the Gang at PSG, Lyon (a fertile ground for developing players) and a few other decent teams (most of the teams in La Ligue just are not all that good, but La Ligue is still the fifth or sixth best league in the world).
More proof that there is pressure on the entertainment dollar in the United States. That pressure extends to how we receive our entertainment, as the investment community focuses on declining enrollment with the major cable companies. Consumer Reports even has gone so far as to advise its readers to move away from cable, get a good internet connection, and then purchase various packages from internet providers -- YouTube TV, Hulu, Netflix and the like, as well as packages from various leagues. Technology increases the pace of change, it increases our options, and it increases the demands on our discretionary spending. All of this means that selective viewers will find ways to avoid the compulsory offerings that come through cable subscriptions and elect to purchase what they really want to watch. That could mean that fewer viewers will watch games that are featured on cable in which they are not interested. My sense is that Major League Baseball could suffer further, as could, among others, college football and college basketball. Ice hockey probably will lead that group.
Oh, I know that football is easy to bet on and will have its watchers, if only because people will seek to recoup from west coast match-ups what they lost earlier in the day. I get that. But imagine a world where you can target what you want to watch and pay for it. Say you live in Boston -- you want a Boston package plus your favorite teams in the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A. My guess is that at some point you'll be able to zero in on those and only those teams. Somehow, the providers will figure out a way to give you only what you want.
The pace of change. . . it will accelerate. Meanwhile, Major League baseball keeps having longer games at a time when attention spans are shortening, keeps on charging more for concessions stands when innovators like Arthur Blank in Atlanta actually cut prices for football and soccer. $100 for parking in Dallas? $10 for a beer in places? $5 for a bottle of water?
The leagues and teams that figure out how to optimize the delivery of their product for those not in attendance will be the ones that thrive in the future. The ones that do not will be left scratching their heads wondering why.
There was a report yesterday that not only is ESPN all in for Serie A, the top league in Italy, but it also inked a deal to televise the FA Cup, England's broad in-season tournament that affords opportunities for teams at the lowest club ranks to challenge the heavyweights. And one key aspect of all this is that ESPN was in serious talks with Serie A before Juventus acquired Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid. All these rights are US only.
Fox already televises Germany's Bundesliga in the US, and Bein televises La Liga in Spain in the US. I'm sure at some point someone will purchase the rights to televise France's La Ligue, which basically means the rights to Neymar and the Gang at PSG, Lyon (a fertile ground for developing players) and a few other decent teams (most of the teams in La Ligue just are not all that good, but La Ligue is still the fifth or sixth best league in the world).
More proof that there is pressure on the entertainment dollar in the United States. That pressure extends to how we receive our entertainment, as the investment community focuses on declining enrollment with the major cable companies. Consumer Reports even has gone so far as to advise its readers to move away from cable, get a good internet connection, and then purchase various packages from internet providers -- YouTube TV, Hulu, Netflix and the like, as well as packages from various leagues. Technology increases the pace of change, it increases our options, and it increases the demands on our discretionary spending. All of this means that selective viewers will find ways to avoid the compulsory offerings that come through cable subscriptions and elect to purchase what they really want to watch. That could mean that fewer viewers will watch games that are featured on cable in which they are not interested. My sense is that Major League Baseball could suffer further, as could, among others, college football and college basketball. Ice hockey probably will lead that group.
Oh, I know that football is easy to bet on and will have its watchers, if only because people will seek to recoup from west coast match-ups what they lost earlier in the day. I get that. But imagine a world where you can target what you want to watch and pay for it. Say you live in Boston -- you want a Boston package plus your favorite teams in the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A. My guess is that at some point you'll be able to zero in on those and only those teams. Somehow, the providers will figure out a way to give you only what you want.
The pace of change. . . it will accelerate. Meanwhile, Major League baseball keeps having longer games at a time when attention spans are shortening, keeps on charging more for concessions stands when innovators like Arthur Blank in Atlanta actually cut prices for football and soccer. $100 for parking in Dallas? $10 for a beer in places? $5 for a bottle of water?
The leagues and teams that figure out how to optimize the delivery of their product for those not in attendance will be the ones that thrive in the future. The ones that do not will be left scratching their heads wondering why.
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
Atlanta as a Microcosm of Baseball's Big Problem
- The average age of a fan of a Major League Baseball team is 55 years old.
- The Atlanta Braves have won 17 out of 20 games and now lead the NL East by 2 games.
- Ronald Acuna, Jr. is one of the Braves' leading hitters. He is an exciting player, is only 20 years old and has hit more home runs at this point in his career and for his age than all but 3 players in Major League history.
- The other night the Braves drew about 6,000 for a home game during this magnificent run and with all this young hitting.
- Major League Soccer's Atlanta United team averages 51,000 per home game.
- Major League Baseball is by far the best professional baseball league in the world.
- Major League Soccer is perhaps the 10th best professional soccer league in the world.
We all know the problems that Major League Baseball faces -- the games are too long, pitchers and hitters dawdle after each pitch, there are too many pitching changes, the ball is not in play all that much, the hitters strike out way too much, the stats make it hard to understand the game, the strike zone, as enforced, has given pitchers too much of an edge, and all of that. The game is a moneymaker now. I went to the games with my father, and some of my memories of those games are among the best I have. One of my kids likes going to an occasional game; the other is a huge soccer and basketball fan and thinks its too much of a time commitment for too little action. Almost all of his friends think the same way.
Sports tickets are expensive. So are cell phones and smart TVs. There is much competition for the entertainment dollar -- restaurants, streaming services, concerts, other sports teams. The next generations will choose wisely; it is expensive to live in this country.
Around 1970 the most popular sports in the United States were baseball, football, basketball, boxing and horse racing. The latter was particularly popular because the track was the only place you could make a legal bet. Boxing fell apart after Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas "Hitman" Hearns and Marvin Hagler aged out of contention (the golden age of heavyweights was gone by the time they emerged). MMA has eclipsed boxing, and horse racing barely hangs on. Baseball has an action issue, football a long-term health issue (although I am concerned that soccer might have similar issues to American football, if not as pervasive, pronounced or publicized). Basketball is going strong and seemingly getting stronger.
MLB has some serious issues that won't go away and won't get better with age. Soccer is here, and it is gaining momentum. Could it be at some point that the U.S. develops a fully blown hierarchy of soccer teams the way they exist in European countries, and could it be before too long that MLS aligns its schedule with that of the rest of the world's leagues -- competing for talent with the likes of teams in Western Europe. And, if that's the case, could it be that MLS takes football and baseball head on -- and wins?
Even if that were not to happen, the problems still remain for MLB. The big question -- what can it do to make its product better and to lower the average age of its fan base?
They need good and creative minds on this -- now.
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Watch Mike Trout at a Stadium Near You
We have more choices than we used to.
Baseball might be the national pastime in name only.
It's hotter outside, the games take too long, the ball is hardly in play, there are too many strikeouts, not enough rallies, too much specialization among pitchers, the mound is too high, it is too far back, the shifts ought to be outlawed, the players make too much money, it's the game you used to go to with your dad but your kid doesn't want to go to with you because he likes something else.
We've heard it all. We also hear how stats can ruin the game because unless you have a math degree from MIT you cannot begin to comprehend the wealth of data that teams have at their disposal.
All interesting points. And yet, amidst all of this noise is Mike Trout.
The Angels' centerfielder, even with some recent slumps, is on target to have the second-best single season for an offensive player ever.
Ever.
Babe Ruth once put up numbers that yielded a 14.1 WAR stat; Trout is on pace for a 13.7 number.
That is ever. Ty Cobb never did that. Ditto Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, Henry Aaron, Jackie Robinson, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, Rod Carew, Wade Boggs, Rogers Hornsby, Joe Morgan, Tris Speaker, Ted Williams. Name all hitters of all time and none of them -- not Gehrig, not Lazzeri, not Cepeda, Banks, Billy Williams, Frank Robinson, the list goes on -- ever put up a season like the one Trout is putting up.
I read somewhere that were Trout to have retired before last season, he would have rated as one of the six best offensive players of all time. That was before last season, where he missed six weeks but still had a top finish in AL MVP voting.
There is an absolutely awesome, special player out there.
Watch him as much as you can.
Baseball might be the national pastime in name only.
It's hotter outside, the games take too long, the ball is hardly in play, there are too many strikeouts, not enough rallies, too much specialization among pitchers, the mound is too high, it is too far back, the shifts ought to be outlawed, the players make too much money, it's the game you used to go to with your dad but your kid doesn't want to go to with you because he likes something else.
We've heard it all. We also hear how stats can ruin the game because unless you have a math degree from MIT you cannot begin to comprehend the wealth of data that teams have at their disposal.
All interesting points. And yet, amidst all of this noise is Mike Trout.
The Angels' centerfielder, even with some recent slumps, is on target to have the second-best single season for an offensive player ever.
Ever.
Babe Ruth once put up numbers that yielded a 14.1 WAR stat; Trout is on pace for a 13.7 number.
That is ever. Ty Cobb never did that. Ditto Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, Henry Aaron, Jackie Robinson, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, Rod Carew, Wade Boggs, Rogers Hornsby, Joe Morgan, Tris Speaker, Ted Williams. Name all hitters of all time and none of them -- not Gehrig, not Lazzeri, not Cepeda, Banks, Billy Williams, Frank Robinson, the list goes on -- ever put up a season like the one Trout is putting up.
I read somewhere that were Trout to have retired before last season, he would have rated as one of the six best offensive players of all time. That was before last season, where he missed six weeks but still had a top finish in AL MVP voting.
There is an absolutely awesome, special player out there.
Watch him as much as you can.
World Cup
The World Cup is upon us and save for some Americans and international golf fanatics (who will be focusing on the US Open through Sunday), the sporting world will be locked in on the World Cup. The Russians are hosting the tournament this year. 32 teams are in, among them Iceland (with a population of 335,000 people), Iran, Morocco, Panama, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Uruguay (with a population of roughly 3 million people). Among the notably absent -- Chile (with Alexis Sanchez and Arturo Vidal), Italy, Netherlands, United States, Wales (the latter, with Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey, enjoyed a top-20 ranking for most of the year).
So what to expect? Perhaps the unexpected. Spain, with its rich recent history, on-the-field leadership and star-studded roster figures to be in the hunt, but just incurred a self-inflicted wound by firing their manager two days before the tournament is to start because he elected to become Real Madrid's manager after the World Cup. That decision cannot help the Spaniards. Germany and Brazil are co-favorites in the minds of the oddsmakers, but, and these are big buts, the Germans would have to be the first team in decades to repeat and the Brazilians, while always wildly talented, might not have the cohesiveness or leadership necessary to win the tournament. The Brazilians might be scarred from the thrashing they took in their home country at the feet of Germany in the 2014 World Cup (the Germans slashed and burned them, 7-1, in an unforgettable performance). Then again, this squad's makeup is different, and that game could serve as a motivator to propel Brazil to the top again.
France might have the most talent of anyone, but question marks arise as to their maturity and their leadership. Les Bleus will need some on-the-pitch leaders to emerge if they are to win the tournament. They certainly have the talent to win it, with a midfielder like Paul Pogba and front-line players such as Mbappe and Griezmann. They have a veteran goalie in Hugo Lloris, and two talent center backs in Raphael Varane and Samuel Umtiti. This team could make a deep run.
It's hard to discuss the World Cup and the contenders without mentioning the teams that are home to the two best players in the world -- Argentina, a finalist four years ago, with Lionel Messi, and Portugal, with Cristiano Ronaldo. Both could win the cup, but for Argentina, they need to show that they have a balanced team and a strong enough defense to emerge with the title. Up front, they have as much supply as anyone, with Messi, Sergio Kun Aguero, Paolo Dybala and Gonzalo HiguaÃn. For any team to have one of those players would be an accomplishment; to have four is an embarrassment of riches. This team will score. The question is, will they be able to keep their opposition from scoring? Then there are the Portuguese, who won the European Cup a couple of years ago and have Ronaldo and a core of exciting young players. They probably do not have enough to get past the quarterfinals, but with Ronaldo, anything is possible.
Then there is the EPL All-Star team, err, the Belgian National Squad, coached by Roberto Martinez, who is assisted by Thierry Henry. It is an amazing assembly of talent, especially for a country with only 15 million people. Need a striker? How about Manchester United's Romelu Lukaku? Need a winger? How about Chelsea's Eden Hazard? Need a central attacking midfielder? How about Manchester City's Kevin DeBruyne? Need good center backs? How about Tottenham's Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld and Manchester City's Vincent Kompany? Need one of the world's best keepers? You have Chelsea's Thibault Courtois. Oh, and you also have midfielder Dries Mertens, among other non-EPL players, who almost led Napoli to dethrone Juventus in Italy's Serie A. The Belgians are the dark horse in the tournament. If they can play together, they can win it all. Seriously.
There are many others who warrant discussion. England has a young-ish team, led by one of the best strikers in the world in Tottenham's Harry Kane. But overall the English lack the talent of the continent's best teams and also Brazil, and they haven't developed a style or flair that the other countries have. Senegal is a popular pick to get to the knockout stage. The Nigerians have the best uniforms and some good players, including Arsenal's Alex Iwobi. Croatia has an amazing midfield, Colombia could surprise some folks, as could Morocco. Few give, among others, Panama, Australia, Iran and Saudi Arabia much of a chance.
And that leads me to Germany. You probably were wondering why had I not mentioned them, and the truth is that I was going back and forth on my favorites to win the tournament. I had the Spaniards up until this morning, when they sacked their manager, Juan Lopetegui, because he had the temerity to accept the Read Madrid job in a way not to the liking of his nation's soccer federation. Which means that while the new manager is well known to the squad, he is new to the position of leader. And that chance could be the self-inflicted wound that knocks Spain out of the favorites role. Read a list of the top 25 players in the world, and with the exception of England's Kane, Messi and Ronaldo, almost all are from Germany, Spain and France, with a handful of Belgians sprinked in for good measure. I don't think France has the maturity yet, and Belgium has disappointed so much (think the hare in the "Tortoise and the Hare") that my predictions lead to Germany. They won a title last summer with their back-up players populating the squad. They are steady, explosive and they don't beat themselves. In Timo Werner, they might have a breakout striker. They have Manuel Neuer, when the healthy, the world's best keeper, back in goal; and if he is not ready they have Barcelona's ter Stegen to play the role. Strong back line, solid at the midfield, strong in the attack. They will be formidable, and they will wear you down. I look for them to repeat as champions.
Unless. . .
1. Spain shakes off its managerial distraction;
2. France's talent meshes into the juggernaut we all know it can become.
3. Harry Kane dons Superman's cape and has the tournament of a lifetime.
4. The Belgians show up and play more like Man U under Ferguson than Everton in its final months under Martinez.
5. Argentina figures out a way to defend enough.
Should be a great tournament, and I will be there for some of it.
The soccer world comes together once every four years. It should be quite the exciting time.
So what to expect? Perhaps the unexpected. Spain, with its rich recent history, on-the-field leadership and star-studded roster figures to be in the hunt, but just incurred a self-inflicted wound by firing their manager two days before the tournament is to start because he elected to become Real Madrid's manager after the World Cup. That decision cannot help the Spaniards. Germany and Brazil are co-favorites in the minds of the oddsmakers, but, and these are big buts, the Germans would have to be the first team in decades to repeat and the Brazilians, while always wildly talented, might not have the cohesiveness or leadership necessary to win the tournament. The Brazilians might be scarred from the thrashing they took in their home country at the feet of Germany in the 2014 World Cup (the Germans slashed and burned them, 7-1, in an unforgettable performance). Then again, this squad's makeup is different, and that game could serve as a motivator to propel Brazil to the top again.
France might have the most talent of anyone, but question marks arise as to their maturity and their leadership. Les Bleus will need some on-the-pitch leaders to emerge if they are to win the tournament. They certainly have the talent to win it, with a midfielder like Paul Pogba and front-line players such as Mbappe and Griezmann. They have a veteran goalie in Hugo Lloris, and two talent center backs in Raphael Varane and Samuel Umtiti. This team could make a deep run.
It's hard to discuss the World Cup and the contenders without mentioning the teams that are home to the two best players in the world -- Argentina, a finalist four years ago, with Lionel Messi, and Portugal, with Cristiano Ronaldo. Both could win the cup, but for Argentina, they need to show that they have a balanced team and a strong enough defense to emerge with the title. Up front, they have as much supply as anyone, with Messi, Sergio Kun Aguero, Paolo Dybala and Gonzalo HiguaÃn. For any team to have one of those players would be an accomplishment; to have four is an embarrassment of riches. This team will score. The question is, will they be able to keep their opposition from scoring? Then there are the Portuguese, who won the European Cup a couple of years ago and have Ronaldo and a core of exciting young players. They probably do not have enough to get past the quarterfinals, but with Ronaldo, anything is possible.
Then there is the EPL All-Star team, err, the Belgian National Squad, coached by Roberto Martinez, who is assisted by Thierry Henry. It is an amazing assembly of talent, especially for a country with only 15 million people. Need a striker? How about Manchester United's Romelu Lukaku? Need a winger? How about Chelsea's Eden Hazard? Need a central attacking midfielder? How about Manchester City's Kevin DeBruyne? Need good center backs? How about Tottenham's Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld and Manchester City's Vincent Kompany? Need one of the world's best keepers? You have Chelsea's Thibault Courtois. Oh, and you also have midfielder Dries Mertens, among other non-EPL players, who almost led Napoli to dethrone Juventus in Italy's Serie A. The Belgians are the dark horse in the tournament. If they can play together, they can win it all. Seriously.
There are many others who warrant discussion. England has a young-ish team, led by one of the best strikers in the world in Tottenham's Harry Kane. But overall the English lack the talent of the continent's best teams and also Brazil, and they haven't developed a style or flair that the other countries have. Senegal is a popular pick to get to the knockout stage. The Nigerians have the best uniforms and some good players, including Arsenal's Alex Iwobi. Croatia has an amazing midfield, Colombia could surprise some folks, as could Morocco. Few give, among others, Panama, Australia, Iran and Saudi Arabia much of a chance.
And that leads me to Germany. You probably were wondering why had I not mentioned them, and the truth is that I was going back and forth on my favorites to win the tournament. I had the Spaniards up until this morning, when they sacked their manager, Juan Lopetegui, because he had the temerity to accept the Read Madrid job in a way not to the liking of his nation's soccer federation. Which means that while the new manager is well known to the squad, he is new to the position of leader. And that chance could be the self-inflicted wound that knocks Spain out of the favorites role. Read a list of the top 25 players in the world, and with the exception of England's Kane, Messi and Ronaldo, almost all are from Germany, Spain and France, with a handful of Belgians sprinked in for good measure. I don't think France has the maturity yet, and Belgium has disappointed so much (think the hare in the "Tortoise and the Hare") that my predictions lead to Germany. They won a title last summer with their back-up players populating the squad. They are steady, explosive and they don't beat themselves. In Timo Werner, they might have a breakout striker. They have Manuel Neuer, when the healthy, the world's best keeper, back in goal; and if he is not ready they have Barcelona's ter Stegen to play the role. Strong back line, solid at the midfield, strong in the attack. They will be formidable, and they will wear you down. I look for them to repeat as champions.
Unless. . .
1. Spain shakes off its managerial distraction;
2. France's talent meshes into the juggernaut we all know it can become.
3. Harry Kane dons Superman's cape and has the tournament of a lifetime.
4. The Belgians show up and play more like Man U under Ferguson than Everton in its final months under Martinez.
5. Argentina figures out a way to defend enough.
Should be a great tournament, and I will be there for some of it.
The soccer world comes together once every four years. It should be quite the exciting time.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
The Bryan Colangelo Mess and 76ers' Potential Train Wreck
The good news -- that the team won 50 games this season. The other news -- that they did so with an odd assortment of flawed parts and beat up on the weaker portion of the league in the second half to get there. Sure, you play who you play, but it is not as though the team plowed through the guts of the West to get to 50 games.
The bad news -- where to start, so here goes:
1. Boston out-toughed the 76ers, had a better strategy and had more complete players in the NBA semi-finals. Atop that, they beat the 76ers in 5 without their two best players. And the 76ers' head coach, a likeable fellow, was outcoached by the next "superstar" coach in the league, Brad Stevens. By the way, this author grew up loathing the Celtics and still roots hard against them, but let's give credit where credit is due. And Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens merit a lot of credit.
2. The 76ers have a bunch of on-the-court issues to sort out, and, it seems, no player is immune. So, in no particular order, the following:
a. Ben Simmons did not show up in the NBA semis. He is reluctant to shoot, has an odd shot and a bad shot at that. Of course, if he had a good shot, he might be the next uber-star, but right now he is an enigma who good coaches can figure out how to defend. Most great players can shoot the rock; Simmons cannot. Atop that, his coach offered that the team would only make minor tweaks to his shot. No less an authority on good, clutch shooting -- Kobe Bryant -- offered his opinion that the team needs to reconstruct Simmons' shot, period.
b. Joel Embiid presents a high-class problem if he gets healthier, can practice with the team, and gets into much better shape. He is an amazing talent, a very complete basketball player, and compelling because he is so tall and so skilled. That said, he needs to turn the ball over less while the team needs to use him better. Running the offense through him at the high post seems to be misguided. And no one can guard him down low, and, if someone could, that person wouldn't be quick enough to stay with him outside.
c. Markell Fultz right now looks to be a bust. Sure, he's young, and I am empathetic, but he is what his record says he is. He's a talent, he's fast, he's strong, he had a triple double, but he cannot shoot. Period. There are many guards out there who have that talent profile -- most are playing overseas or in the G League. Adding insult to injury, the 76ers traded up to of all teams Boston to grab him, and Boston took Jayson Tatum in the draft, the player that they would have taken had they had the first pick. Put differently, the Fultz situation looks like a bunch of dominos that are knocking each other over, and someone needs to pick up the pieces, rebuild his shot and have him play a lot this summer to test it out.
d. Robert Covington made the first-team all defensive team but lost his way on offense on many occasions. He just had surgery on one of the fingers on his shooting hand, so hopefully the finger was the root cause of the woes. If that's the case, he should improve.
e. The team's bench scared no one defensively. Yes, one had to guard Ersan Ilyasova and Marco Bellinelli and T.J. O'Connell, but they are not lock-down defenders and Bellinelli is a flat-out defensive liability. And J.J. Redick is no defensive stopper, either. It's hard to believe a team can carry Bellinelli and Reddick unless they cannot find a more athletic alternative to Bellinelli.
And then there is the off-the-court stuff, as follows:
1. The Bryan Colangelo affair. No need to repeat what has been blasted all over the sports world yesterday through today. Suffice it to say that if it's true, the ownership will have no alternative but to fire the general manager.
2. The dispute between Colangelo and Brown over whether the team should sign a high-profile free agent. Brown has said yes, Colangelo has been demure. As for the latter, if that's his thinking, it's one thing, but if he's channeling the ownership, sheesh. The fans want a high-profile free agent; they want to contend now.
3. The fact that Simmons has bought two very expensive cars in two years and dropped a girlfriend because she was acting too much like a Kardashian only to start dating Kendall Jenner, who is a Kardashian. Note to Ben: how many of the Kardashians' relationships are private, lack drama and go well?
4. That Fultz might not want to play summer league ball. Say what? There is only so much riding of a stationery bike that one can do to say in shape.
5. That Embiid is playing playground ball in South Philadelphia. I like the grass roots appeal, but Joel, don't step into a pothole when you land after posterizing an off-duty Philadelphia parks and rec official.
What free agent would want to join this team, especially with Colangelo's credibility and integrity on the line? What season ticket holder will be happy if management closes ranks behind Colangelo, risks losing the team in the process? What season ticket holder will be happy if LeBron James or Paul George or Kawhi Leonard does not join the team?
The team should be on the upswing after a 50-win season. Instead, it is doing damage control, big-time damage control, hoping to improve some talented if flawed parts and get ready to take on the juggernaut -- mentally and physically -- that is the Boston Celtics.
This is the most important off-season for the 76ers in recent memory. It's off to a terrible start.
The bad news -- where to start, so here goes:
1. Boston out-toughed the 76ers, had a better strategy and had more complete players in the NBA semi-finals. Atop that, they beat the 76ers in 5 without their two best players. And the 76ers' head coach, a likeable fellow, was outcoached by the next "superstar" coach in the league, Brad Stevens. By the way, this author grew up loathing the Celtics and still roots hard against them, but let's give credit where credit is due. And Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens merit a lot of credit.
2. The 76ers have a bunch of on-the-court issues to sort out, and, it seems, no player is immune. So, in no particular order, the following:
a. Ben Simmons did not show up in the NBA semis. He is reluctant to shoot, has an odd shot and a bad shot at that. Of course, if he had a good shot, he might be the next uber-star, but right now he is an enigma who good coaches can figure out how to defend. Most great players can shoot the rock; Simmons cannot. Atop that, his coach offered that the team would only make minor tweaks to his shot. No less an authority on good, clutch shooting -- Kobe Bryant -- offered his opinion that the team needs to reconstruct Simmons' shot, period.
b. Joel Embiid presents a high-class problem if he gets healthier, can practice with the team, and gets into much better shape. He is an amazing talent, a very complete basketball player, and compelling because he is so tall and so skilled. That said, he needs to turn the ball over less while the team needs to use him better. Running the offense through him at the high post seems to be misguided. And no one can guard him down low, and, if someone could, that person wouldn't be quick enough to stay with him outside.
c. Markell Fultz right now looks to be a bust. Sure, he's young, and I am empathetic, but he is what his record says he is. He's a talent, he's fast, he's strong, he had a triple double, but he cannot shoot. Period. There are many guards out there who have that talent profile -- most are playing overseas or in the G League. Adding insult to injury, the 76ers traded up to of all teams Boston to grab him, and Boston took Jayson Tatum in the draft, the player that they would have taken had they had the first pick. Put differently, the Fultz situation looks like a bunch of dominos that are knocking each other over, and someone needs to pick up the pieces, rebuild his shot and have him play a lot this summer to test it out.
d. Robert Covington made the first-team all defensive team but lost his way on offense on many occasions. He just had surgery on one of the fingers on his shooting hand, so hopefully the finger was the root cause of the woes. If that's the case, he should improve.
e. The team's bench scared no one defensively. Yes, one had to guard Ersan Ilyasova and Marco Bellinelli and T.J. O'Connell, but they are not lock-down defenders and Bellinelli is a flat-out defensive liability. And J.J. Redick is no defensive stopper, either. It's hard to believe a team can carry Bellinelli and Reddick unless they cannot find a more athletic alternative to Bellinelli.
And then there is the off-the-court stuff, as follows:
1. The Bryan Colangelo affair. No need to repeat what has been blasted all over the sports world yesterday through today. Suffice it to say that if it's true, the ownership will have no alternative but to fire the general manager.
2. The dispute between Colangelo and Brown over whether the team should sign a high-profile free agent. Brown has said yes, Colangelo has been demure. As for the latter, if that's his thinking, it's one thing, but if he's channeling the ownership, sheesh. The fans want a high-profile free agent; they want to contend now.
3. The fact that Simmons has bought two very expensive cars in two years and dropped a girlfriend because she was acting too much like a Kardashian only to start dating Kendall Jenner, who is a Kardashian. Note to Ben: how many of the Kardashians' relationships are private, lack drama and go well?
4. That Fultz might not want to play summer league ball. Say what? There is only so much riding of a stationery bike that one can do to say in shape.
5. That Embiid is playing playground ball in South Philadelphia. I like the grass roots appeal, but Joel, don't step into a pothole when you land after posterizing an off-duty Philadelphia parks and rec official.
What free agent would want to join this team, especially with Colangelo's credibility and integrity on the line? What season ticket holder will be happy if management closes ranks behind Colangelo, risks losing the team in the process? What season ticket holder will be happy if LeBron James or Paul George or Kawhi Leonard does not join the team?
The team should be on the upswing after a 50-win season. Instead, it is doing damage control, big-time damage control, hoping to improve some talented if flawed parts and get ready to take on the juggernaut -- mentally and physically -- that is the Boston Celtics.
This is the most important off-season for the 76ers in recent memory. It's off to a terrible start.
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