Transfer's GPA Should Help New Team More Than His PPG

This one's just too good to resist.

About three years ago, the University of Pennsylvania had recruited two hotshot post players from national HS programs. One, Steve Danley, has turned into a nice center (he'll be a junior in the fall) -- he played his HS ball at the famed DeMatha Catholic program in Hyattsville, Maryland. The other, and perhaps more highly touted, was Ryan Pettinella, a forward from one of the top five HS teams in the country, McQuaid Jesuit out of Rochester, NY. Pettinella didn't do much for most of his freshman year, came on strong at the end, and was in Penn's rotation last year (Penn's rotation consisted of a 6'8" center (Danley), a 6'6" SF and three guards (6'3" and above) and two big forwards, graduated senior Jan Fikiel and Pettinella. Pettinella showed some fire last year, but he still looked unpolished offensively.

And apparently he wasn't happy at Penn, so he announced his intention to transfer. Initial speculation was on A-10 school St. Bonaventure, which is close to his Rochester home. That might have made some sense, as would have a transfer to a school with decent hoops and a good academic reputation.

But both were not to be.

Ryan Pettinella has transferred to the University of Cincinnati.

Now, to be fair, Pettinella is entitled to his decision, Cincinnati has some good academic programs, and Bob Huggins does know how to coach hoops. But, the program has been known as a renegade program, and it isn't as though relatively slow-footed Ivy hoopsters intuitively have a place in a program that is known for having outstanding athletes. You could ask that if Pettinella had such a good game coming out of HS, why didn't he go to a good national school that played a tough schedule and featured solid academics, such as Rice, Tulane, Vanderbilt, and many others. For whatever reason, he didn't do that, and I ask the Penn cognoscenti who sometimes read this blog to weigh in on what Pettinella's choices were coming out of HS. You wouldn't think that Cincinnati was one of them (then again, when kids do transfer, frequently they transfer to schools that did recruit them hard out of HS).

I ask the Cincinnati fans who might read this post (and there are those of you out there) what Cincinnati is thinking by inking Pettinella. Is Huggins convinced that Pettinella is a player, or is he throwing a bone to University President Nancy Zimpfer, about whom I've blogged before, by bringing in a player who definitely is a "scholar-athlete?" (Reports out of Cincinnati is that Zimpfer wants Huggins out, and the two definitely are photographed together frequently -- Zimpfer, reports indicate, wants to enhance Cincinnati's image and doesn't necessarily believe that Huggins helps the school's brand name).

I wish Ryan Pettinella well at his new school. Here's to hoping that he'll find the appropriate balance between basketball and school that apparently eluded him at Penn.

It's just that when you hear of a HS kid's decisions, usually when he's considering to play for Penn he might be considering a few scholarship schools, Princeton and a couple of other Ivies. Cincinnati doesn't usually figure into the mix.

Until now.

Just don't expect that if Frank Sullivan were to leave his post coaching Harvard that Bob Huggins would make the short list (were he in need of employment). True, Harvard did lure Cincinnati's then-outstanding football coach, Tim Murphy, to Cambridge about ten years ago, with outstanding results. Then again, Murphy wasn't compared to Jackie Sherrill in the press the way Huggins occasionally draws a comparison to Jerry Tarkanian.

So watch out, Ivy League, as your top recruits might also be on Cincinnati's list.

When Being #6 Is Something To Cheer About

We live in a country and a world where people always remember who won, but seldom, if ever, remember who came in second. Sure, we'll remember that Joe Frazier fought amazing bouts with Muhammad Ali, that the Celtics and Lakers battled mightily in the 1980's in the NBA (and that Celtic and Rangers battle mightily in the Scottish Premiership -- at least Scots will remember that), but we don't remember who finished second to Lance Armstrong three years ago or who Michael Phelps edged out for his gold medals. It's hard enough to remember the champions if you go back enough years, let alone those who were the runners up.

Which means, of course, that if you're not number one, what does your ranking mean? For starters, it tells you who you have to beat to get to the top. If you're not ranked number two, what does your ranking mean? Again, it tells you what you have to do to get to the finals, if the final game is a two-person or two-team matchup. So, if you're number 6, why should you get excited?

Because we're talking about soccer, that's why. Particularly, U.S. men's soccer. Most recently, FIFA, the ruling body for international soccer, came out with its perioidic ratings. And before you say, "well, there's Brazil, Argentina, England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain and then all the rest," look again. Because in the peleton behind Brazil at #6 is the U.S. national team -- its highest ranking ever.

While some of the perennial bellwethers are ranked highly, currently showing up in the top five are Mexico and Czech Republic, both of which, while historically decent teams, haven't been elite teams. Coming in at #3 is the Netherlands, which, as the tallest country in the world (i.e., its citizens average the greatest height in the world), had fallen on hard times (I might be wrong, but I believe the Dutch national team failed to make the World Cup in 2002), with some suggesting that if your players are too tall, they can't compete as effectively on the pitch. So, does this mean that the ratings are upside down? No.

It's unclear what the ratings actually reflect. Italy, which has some outstanding players, is ranked #14, so it's not clear whether the Italians have fallen off or they simply haven't played their best players in the international matches that contribute to these ratings (meaning that they haven't won as many games as they could have had they played their front-line talent all the time). Still, rankings have to be based on something, and the #6 ranking is nothing to laugh about. What this says is that the U.S. has some a long way in the past ten years in soccer and is a force to be reckoned with.

If the rankings hold and the U.S. team peforms accordingly, look for them to make the quarterfinals of World Cup 2006.

U.S. fans love contenders and winners. If the national team continues to improve and has a chance at competing meaningfully with the titans -- Brazil, Argentina and France, among others -- more and more U.S. viewers will tune in.

We call baseball's championship the World Series, and while U.S. players are the best in baseball, not that many other nations play the game (evidence of this is that the International Olympic Committee just dropped baseball from the summer games). We deem the winners of the Super Bowl world champions, and while they're the best at what they do, football is hardly played in any other country. While basketball is played worldwide, it isn't played on very high levels in that many countries outside the U.S.

But soccer is.

We've watched Lance Armstrong defeat cancer and win the Tour de France year after year. We watched the U.S. men's ice hockey team defeate the Soviets in the 1980 Winter Games en route to the gold. Outstanding accomplishments, both.

But if somehow the U.S. men's soccer team were to win World Cup 2006, well, that would be one of the most amazing stories of them all.

Because then a U.S. team would have beaten the world at its own game.

Best Hockey Player in Ecuador Syndrome

Read this and get a sense of what I'm talking about.

A good (blogger) friend of mine likes to deal in analogies, so he'll use the phrase used in the title to the post when confronted with some information that is less than impressive. For example, if you say someone's the best securities lawyer in Boise, a place not known for securities lawyers, he'll remark "isn't that like saying someone is the best hockey player in Ecuador?" Current sports examples would be "he's the best starting pitcher on the Rockies," "he's the best running back in the Ivy League," "she's the best soccer player in Calgary" and, well, you know the drill.

Which brings us, of course, to the subject of the link -- Penn State basketball. I blogged earlier this year about whether schools in the Big Ten were football or basketball schools (one reader correctly pointed out that Minnesota is neither -- it's a hockey school). It's not a great thing to be the head hoops coach at a football school or the head football coach at the great hoops school. Few know the name of the Penn State hoops coach or the Duke football coach. Especially when compared to the household name that the head football and hoops coaches at those respective schools. And the legacies of the hoops program at Penn State and the football program at Duke are rather small.

So what should one make of Penn State's hoops program? Four years ago it made it to the Sweet 16. Shortly thereafter, Coach Jerry Dunn was fired, and he was placed with his former assistant, Eddie DeChellis, a Penn State alum, who had done some distinguished coaching at East Tennessee. DeChellis wasn't the big name eastern hoopsters were hoping for (for example, Penn head coach Fran Dunphy was mentioned as a possible candidate), but he had produced, if at a lower level of competition, he was an alum, and he had been an assistant in Happy Valley.

But in three years he's fared miserably. Worse, he's suffered a significant amount of attrition, and he lost two very good players from last year's squad. He's a positive guy, and he's trying to turn all of his bad news into good stuff, but you can't win without good players. (Mike & Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio featured a good-natured back-and-forth in which Mike Golic doubted that Larry Brown could turn the Knicks into a championship contender in three years, while Mike Greenberg argued that he could; I agree with Golic -- the guy's name is Larry Brown, not Merlin -- he's a coach, not a magician, and without the players Brown won't coach a contender). And DeChellis simply doesn't have them.

And it's hard to get those players to Penn State, too. Penn State is not near a major city, it's relatively rural, it doesn't have much of a hoops tradition to speak of, it's a football school, and so far it hasn't doled out the bucks to the type of name coach that might be able to fashion a winner. Not only is he competing against other Big Ten schools for talent, but also Coach DeChellis is competing against Big East and A-10 schools too. West Virginia had an excellent team last year, as did Pitt and Villanova. The Big Ten disappointed in the regular season, but came up mighty in the NCAA Tourney. There are lots of good players for the asking, but right now their destination isn't Happy Valley.

It's hard to tell from the article whether this is a make-or-break year for Coach DeChellis. But if it isn't this year, it might have to be next year. With the attrition, this year's squad doesn't seem too promising, which means that in the remaining weeks of the summer, Coach DeChellis needs to get oral commitments from a few players with serious game in order to help turn the Nittany Lions into a contender.

But here's the rub for a HS star. Go to Penn State, be the man, be a 20 ppg scorer on a team that goes 10-18 and doesn't play in the post-season. Perhaps get invited to Portsmouth, the first NBA tryout camp (which hasn't turned out that many NBA players when compared to the more prestigious tryout camp held subsequently in Chicago), perhaps play overseas. Be the best hoopster in Happy Valley, err, the best hockey player in Ecuador. Or, go to a team that is a contender, perhaps ride the pine a bit but get better through banging against upperclassmen in practice and then working on your game in the summers, help your school get into the Big Dance, and then have a better hoops experience. If you're that HS star, where do you go?

And that's where Ed DeChellis has to give the best sales pitch of his career.

Decorative Lettuce (and the Power of Patience)

Decorative lettuce, you say?

A friend of mine is a fund manager, and in his job he evaluates the stocks of a variety of companies on a daily basis. Periodically, as an investor or potential investor, he meets with management teams of companies to kick the tires and ask them questions regarding their businesses. Very frequently, he listens in on public companies' quarterly earnings' calls, in which management teams announce the most recent quarter's earnings to the public. Typically, institutional investors and securities analysts populate these calls.

Years and years ago, a major airline held a conference tall to talk about its recent earnings and about its need to restructure and cut costs -- between $500 million and $750 million. The CEO began his presentation with a discussion of the decorative lettuce that was included with the meals that the airline served and how its elimination would save the airline about $1 million a year. The audience gasped, at least metaphorically (because the calls place the listeners on mute), and with whatever quick forms of communication they had in those days, got the word out to traders everywhere that this management team had some interesting priorities (the basic reaction was that the company had to cut between $500 million to $750 million a year in costs, and here they were talking about decorative lettuce). The stock sank rapidly that day and lost a significant amount of its value.

Which brings me to the Boston Red Sox. They announced a couple of deals yesterday, in which they acquired IF Tony Graffanino from AAAA Kansas City, journeyman OF Adam Hyzdu from San Diego (it's his fourth stint with Boston, and his claim to fame is that the's the guy who succeeded Ken Griffey, Jr. as the CF for Moeller High in Cincinnati), and OF Gabe Kapler, who cut short his journey in Japan to rejoin the BoSox. In addition, they let go Alan Embree, a one-time outstanding lefty reliever who had struggled mightily this year. You can read all about it here. Is this serious stuff, or is this just decorative lettuce?

Gotta respect the BoSox organization for what they did last year. But that was last year. And these moves, by any account, are small potatoes (they call into view the scene from "Crocodile Dundee", where a mugger wields a stiletto and, in trying to mug Crocodile Dundee, says "I've got a knife." To which the Aussie outdoorsman shrugs, pulls out a machete from his shirt and says, "That's not a knife. This is a knife." Memo to Theo Epstein: those aren't real serious moves. P.S.: Hope that the Boss of your Evil Empire doesn't acquire the equivalents of Mace Windu or Qui-Gon Jin before the trading deadline is over.

Which brings me to the franchise that still probably isn't sure whether it's a buyer or seller -- Philadelphia. The Phillies have played great since the All-Star break, even if they are pitching- challenged in a ballpark that had to have been designed by someone from Disney's theme parks (the theme here: "Home Run Derby"). They've played well with their big free agent signee, Jon Lieber, on the DL, with solid if inconsistent lefty Randy Wolf on the DL, with their bullpen still figuring itself out, and with Paul Bunyan, err, 1B Jim Thome, on the DL. They have plenty of excuses if they lose, but they're finding reasons to win.

Exhibit A: Ryan Howard. Howard is the 1B prospect who hit 40-plus HRs at AA and AAA last season, and was hitting about .380 at AAA this season, but found himself stuck behind Jim Thome with nowhere to go in Philadelphia, because he's not OF material. There were tons of articles about how Father Time was working against the Phillies, how they should have traded him when he was red hot last year, when his market value was at its highest, how the Phillies were simply failing to leverage on of their best assets -- the right to Howard. The jury is still out on that one, of course, but the Phillies and their fans are grateful when the injury-plagued Thome went down that the organization still had Howard. Last night, he got off to a woeful start, and he struck out the first three times he faced Dodger pitching. Showing the patience of a veteran, Howard hung in there and hit a mammoth two-run homer in the bottom of the tenth to give the Phillies the win.

Now, the Phillies may not have the magical mojo of the Nationals, who seem run-challenged enough that they'll fade like a rabbit in a 1,500 meter race, and they may not have the history of the Braves. But they seem better equipped right now than the Marlins, who can't piece together consistent efforts, and the Mets, who can't seem to take that big step forward. Will they be there in September? Who knows, but for Phillies' fans, it's good to even have this conversation than to start talking about the Eagles in July.

Will they make a move? As buyers? As sellers? It's hard to say. They definitely have some talent to trade, but they have to tread carefully here. They don't have the deepest organization, and trading a Cole Hamels or Gavin Floyd to rent a pitcher for a half season might prove to be a big mistake for the franchise.

Then again, for a franchise that has had a woeful amount to be excited about in its 100-plus-year history, a trade that could land a Jason Schmidt and help the Phillies finish off the Nationals and Braves down the home stretch would be very tempting.

The Phillies' fans have had years and years of decorative lettuce and other questionably appetizing meals (if you had eaten what they called pizza at The Vet, you know what I mean). Now it's time for GM Ed Wade to serve up the big bash and prove to the doubting fans once and for all that when it's time to make a move, the Phillies can.

The Grizzled Veteran

It used to be that baseball rosters were parabolic in nature. While the Sports Economist and those far more advanced in numbers than I can elaborate better (and perhaps tell me if I've got something), rosters had some type of symmetry to them. There were a few rookies, a predominance of players in their prime, and then a few aging veterans hanging in until the end. The latter were around to rekindle some magic on occasion, to teach the rest of the team how to stay focused and get things done, and to do something critical every now and then.

Parabolic, you say? Well, in addition to that type of parabolic phenomenon taking place, the salary structure also was parabolic. The rookies didn't make much, the players in their prime made the most, and the aging veterans, some of whom were one-time stars but most of whom were not, made somewhere in between (of course, I'll concede that the aging future Hall of Famer might have been a drain on the budget, because he still might have commanded top dollar even if his results didn't justify the absolute amount of his deal). Still, the players who did most of the heavy lifting, as it were, got the money.

It was fun to see guys at the end of the line hanging in there, happy to be there, and sticking around because they loved the game, they needed the game, they might have needed the money, and for the life of them they didn't know what they'd do once their ability declined so much that they no longer could make a team. Okay, so perhaps visions of an age-challenged Willie Mays in the '73 Series playing for the Mets cause the purist fan to shudder, but you know what I mean. A veteran bench populated with guys who produced big-time at one time in their careers gave fans more hope that their team could fare well over a tough stretch than a bench of twenty-fifth men who came cheap and weren't likely to be remembered.

That was then.

Nowadays, with the salary structures being what they are, most of the grizzled veterans, in fact, don't stay around, for one of a variety of reasons. First, some make enough money to walk away from the game at a reasonably young age, so that they can spend more time with their families than hang around as marginal players. Second, these folks might typically command more money than your Joe McEwings, Jeff Mantos and David Newhans, to name a few, so if you're faced with a directive from the top to economize and you're a GM, you'll take a McEwing over, say, a Benito Santiago or Robbie Alomar because the latter aren't going to play that much and there's some guy at AAA who'd love the job and make a lot less. You'd rather put your money on the core of your team than spreading it out so that you're twenty-third man is perhaps the highest paid in the league. True, he could help you win a few games, the reasoning goes, but he won't win a pennant for you. He's the twenty-third man for a reason.

Mark McLemore, Mariano Duncan and Tony Phillips, where are you when we need you?

So, instead of watching the grizzled veteran at the end of a nice career (and, in Alomar's case, a Hall of Fame career in all likelihood), you get the Newhans and McEwings of the world, and you love it when they excel because they represent the little guy out there, the kid who wasn't the first-round pick or who didn't go to the University of Miami to play college ball, and when they do well you get that warm feeling. And that's a pretty good feeling, of course. But it doesn't add the same drama of seeing Pete Alexander pitching out of jams for the Cardinals against the Yankees in the World Series, or Joe Morgan and Tony Perez helping the Phillies win a National League pennant in '83 (for example). The large salaries of today probably have ended that phenomenon.

Except in the Bronx. Where a kid who came up with the Yankees just came aboard again, perhaps ending his career where it began. That's right, the Yankees just got Al Leiter from the Marlins, and they're hoping that he can summon up his pitching mojo one more time and help the Bombers overtake the BoSox and make the playoffs again. He's not the pitcher he once was, but he's a veteran, crafty lefty who might have a few key wins left in him.

Part of the move is desperation. The Yankees have used 11 starters this year and have put many pitchers on the disabled list. Part of it is romantic. My guess is that there were other candidates, but not that many. In Leiter, they get a player who won't be intimidated by the legend of the Yankees, and they'll get a guy who will care what the hometown fans think because he's a North Jersey guy (and former Met to boot). He'll want to go out a winner more than anything. He's made his money, he's pitched for a world champion (the Marlins in '97), and he has nothing more to prove.

Potentially great stuff later in the season, the 39 year-old Leiter pitching against a 37 byear-old Curt Schilling on a Sunday against the Red Sox.

What a match-up of veterans.

That's the way baseball should be in the heat of a pennant race.

Another Longstanding Company Going. . . Going. . . Gone

Lots of brands come and go, as do lots of products. I remember as a kid when you'd see tons of ads for Alka Seltzer, Rice-a-Roni, Lestoil, Geritol (with Art Linkletter doing the pitching), Razzles and a whole host of products too many to name. I also remember collecting baseball cards.

I wasn't the type to flip them (I didn't think the game made a whole lot of sense). I didn't put them in the spokes of my bike, because I valued the cards too much. At a very young age, I did draw on them with magic marker, and I stored them, like many did, in old shoe boxes with rubber bands wrapped around them. I'm sure, to save space, that my mother threw out her fair share, because, back then, no one viewed them as an investment, as something to save. Everyone viewed them as something to talk about, something to study, and, yes, we did chew the gum that came with the packs (and had to wipe the powdered sugar from the gum off the cards). We bought them for a nickel a pack, later raised to a dime, and we bought a few packs at a time. Up until 1974, I believe, the cards were printed in series format (instead of all at once), which means in today's market that cards printed in the last series of a year prior to 1974 could be more valuable because there weren't as many of them made as there were of the first series.

It wasn't all that complicated.

Lots of things change, and it's said that those organizations that seize upon change and embrace it are the ones to survive (and thrive) the longest (a look at the companies that made up the Dow Jones industrial average thirty years ago compared to today is testimony to that). Back then, there were seven channels on your TV, three of them UHF, which meant that the picture was hard to get. There wasn't any cable, there weren't personal computers, video games (there was pinball), and there wasn't as much in the form of entertainment. You didn't see your home baseball team that much on TV, and you listened to the games on the radio. For people over a certain age, you learned the game not only from your family members, but from your home city's local broadcasters. And from the stats on the back of baseball cards.

I'll always have a fond place in my heart for Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn. I grew up listening to them broadcast the Phillies (they were a big improvement over an aging Byrum Saam, and out-of-his-element -- in my opinion -- Bill Campbell and an ancient Jimmy Dykes, the shortstop on the great A's teams in the last 20's and early 30's), and they were just first-rate. I recall fondly turning on my radio at bedtime to listen to games from the West Coast, and my then-funky clock radio had its own shutoff switch. I put the timer on for an hour, and I could listen to a few innings. I also would pull out my baseball cards from time to time, wondering all about the players I was hearing about on the radio or, a few times a year, seeing in person.

I read about this the other day, and was reminded of it by skimming Off-Wing Opinion this morning. Fleer, one of the oldest baseball card companies, has gone out of business and is liquidating. A while back they were up for auction, had $40 million in debt, and Upper Deck offered $25 million. As can be the case with failing companies, management sometimes gets too romantic, too stubborn, too optimistic or too much in denial to deal with their problems before things get really bad, and they turned down the bid. The auction is today, and Upper Deck offered just $2 million.

I don't know much about the economics of baseball cards today, about who buys what memorabilia and what items are hot (other than to have some general knowledge that hip-hop stars like Mitchell & Ness's vintage jerseys). And I don't know even if interest in Pokemon and Yugi-Oh cards has cut into baseball's share of the card market. I do know that kids are more scheduled than before, probably have less free time, and, when they do, they're either on-line or playing on their Game Cube or PlayStation 2 or something like it. As Fleer's demise demonstrates, they're not flipping or trading baseball cards like they used to, and they're not putting them in the spikes of their bicycles.

Then again, what kids are permitted to ride to a friend's house anymore without an escort today?

I like looking at my old baseball cards every now and then, and occasionally I'll try to buy some cards on eBay to fill in a set or two that I have. My kids wanted cards this past winter, and I bought a good set for each of them at Target that had cards for a lot of the stars. Name an All-Star, and his card was probably in the packet. They had fun playing with them -- for a couple of days. Now they sit on their shelves, and, no, they're not that interested in baseball.

(Then again, perhaps I'm not either. My hometown team is mediocre and has been for years, and I'm busier too. I envy Yankee fans, because for the past ten years they knew that when they were turning on their televisions that they were watching a team that had a chance to win it all. We Phillies' fans haven't had that same experience, and yet, somehow, we're still loyal.)

Does Fleer's demise mean the end of an era?

Not really, because for many that "era" ended a long time ago.

Matt Walsh Signs with Miami Heat

Hot off the presses, so read all about it.

And some of the money is guaranteed, too!

It's a free country, so it's any college player's decision to leave school early and to enter the NBA draft, even if you don't have a prayer of being drafted. Matt Walsh, the swingman from Florida with the good offensive game who was MVP of the SEC tournament, left Florida early, as did teammates David Lee and Anthony Roberson. Many questioned why any of them left early.

Lee went to the NBA-sponsored workouts in Chicago and impressed the scouts so much that he made his way into the first round, being the last pick of the first round. Roberson flopped in his workouts and went undrafted. Walsh worked out for a lot of teams -- but he didn't go to the pre-draft camp in Chicago. Even so, on the eve of the draft was confident that he was going to be selected between 18th and 30th in the first round.

He went undrafted. And because he signed with an agent after declaring for the draft, he became ineligible to return to Florida.

Someone gave Walsh bad advice, at least as to the part about being drafted in the first round and most likely about electing not to go to Chicago. Walsh and his camp (his agent and his father, particularly) are defensive on the overall point of what advice Walsh got and whether it was bad, arguing that the critics don't know what they're talking about. Whether Walsh had a shot at making a pro roster -- even if going undrafted -- well, it's obvious that some people, including Matt Walsh himself, liked his chances.

There is more to this kid than the frilly haircut and headband that he fancied while he played at Florida (and there's more to him than the Playmate girlfriend he had, too). He played hard, has a good offensive game, is pretty quick and is an excellent shooter. He's relatively slight in build and has to get stronger, but he does have the potential to be a good player on a professional team -- somewhere. Clearly, he'd like his next team to be an NBA team, and not one in Spain or Italy.

I thought Walsh would have benefitted from another year in college, a year in which he could have gotten stronger and better on the defensive end to solidify his status with an NBA team and, importantly, to get serious playing time. It's unclear how Walsh will develop even if he makes an NBA team, because most likely he'll be a thirteenth, fourteenth or fifteenth man, and it's unclear how much playing time, let alone roster time, he'll get in that spot.

Hard being a kid, and hard to filter advice when the lights are so bright. Let's just hope for his sake that in pursuit of those bright lights, the heat that they give off doesn't melt a promising pro career that begins, from most estimates, prematurely.

A Story That Just Doesn't Make Sense (Updated)

This was first posted on July 8, 2005

Former Mavericks forward Alan Henderson, an Indiana grad and to the best of my knowledge the son of a cardiologist, was arrested in NYC because he had a handgun in his luggage. He currently is an unrestricted free agent who, according to the article, could get 15 years in jail for this transgression. My guess is that he won't get anywhere near that and probably won't get jail time, but this one leaves me puzzled.

How did the gun get there?

Assuming it was Henderson's, what could he possibly have been thinking?

Clearly there's more to this story than has already been reported. I don't want to make jokes at Henderson's expense, speculate as to what drove him to do this (if in fact the gun wasn't planted) or scold him when he hasn't been convicted of anything.

Which leaves me with the same question: how did this happen?

And why?

Update (July 13): One of my many readers is closer to this situation than most. He has advised that many athletes in the public eye fear for their safety and carry guns for their own protection. Apparently, Henderson was carrying the gun for his own protection, had it properly secured in his luggage, and then ran afoul of New York's strict gun laws in the process. He is a very solid citizen from all reports, and here's to hoping that the NY District Attorney views this case as simply a bad mistake and let's Henderson go without processing this case any further.

How Did This Guy Get His Nickname?

Kids can ask the most confounding questions. In a roundabout way at the breakfast table this morning, we got to talking about various nicknames (one of my angels asked what a "pinhead" is). My wife and I tried to explain, and then I mentioned that a baseball player for the Phillies years ago had the name Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones. Call it an extension of nicknames, call it a stream of consciousness, call it that Philadelphia has had champions only in 1915, 1950, 1980, 1983 and 1993, so the champions are memorable, even if they date back 50 years.

And he just wasn't any old ballplayer. He was the third baseman, a good third baseman, for the 1950 "Whiz Kids" team that took the NL by surprise, won the pennant and then lost four straight (albeit close) games to the Yankees in the World Series. True, the team had future Hall of Famers Robin Roberts and Richie Ashburn on the team, but it also takes players a notch or two below, like Del Ennis, Dick Sisler, Eddie Waitkus, Bubba Church, Curt Simmons and, yes, Puddin' Head Jones, to get you there.

So the question arose at the breakfast table, "What does 'Puddin' Head' mean?"

Quite frankly, I didn't have a clue. I can only speculate that either Mr. Jones liked to eat pudding or that people thought he was a bit batty, err soft in the head, and since pudding is soft, well, you can make the connection, I suppose (sorry for the Yoda-like sentence). But those are only guesses.

If any of you can enlighten me, such as the Sports Curmudgeon, I would be grateful.

Thank you.

A Minor Leaguer's Odyssey (Baseball)

Great article in today's USA Today about Ryan Zimmerman, the (high) first-round pick of the Nationals, and how he's making the adjustment from being an all-American at UVA to playing in the minors.

You might recall Jim Bouton's line from Ball Four -- "the minor leagues are very minor." He had a point.

The college kids go from a relatively pampered college experience -- flying to games and staying in nice hotels -- to a situation where they have to mesh with 25 guys who are new to them, live in cramped quarters, not make (at least for most of them) a ton of money and have to adjust quickly to a higher level of talent. It's not easy, and the Darwinism that goes on here proves that it's not just talent that wins out, it's also the ability to act maturely and cope.

One of the best points Buzz Bissinger makes in Three Nights in August is about former Cardinal (and Orioles' and Phillies') pitcher Garrett Stephenson. Stephenson frustrated Cards' skipper Tony LaRussa because he really hadn't figured out how to pitch. Instead, he relied way too much on his fastball, usually with bad results. The reason was simple, really. While Stephenson could get away with blowing his fastball by hitters in high school, his fastball just wasn't good enough to accomplish the same results in the majors. And Stephenson, of course, is far from the sole example of this phenomenon. In fact, it's the rare Major Leaguer who doesn't have to make adjustments constantly as he climbs the ladder to the big leagues. What worked in HS doesn't necessarily work in college, and what worked in college doesn't necessarily work in the pros. You not only have to work hard -- you have to get better.

The adjustments start in two major ways. First, living-wise, you're on your own. I recall phone calls from one of my closest friends while he was pitching in Rookie-League ball in the Appalachian League years ago. He called at dusk while sitting on a milk crate at a pay phone from a parking lot at the local supermarket (there had been a day game that day). He lived in a trailer with another player, and he had an old Toyota that barely got him around. And he didn't complain. At all. He loved what he was doing, and he knew he was paying his dues. Some of the kids straight out of HS didn't fare so well. This was their first time away from home, they came from small towns, they didn't know how to deal with failure well, and they ultimately didn't make it.

The guys who adapt are the ones who make it. It doesn't matter whether they're staying at a 4 Seasons or Super 8 or in between (which, yes, might be a Motel 6). All that matters is that they have a shot at their dream, they're playing a kids' game, and they are getting a chance to do what they've always done.

The second adjustment is to the game itself. Put simply, everyone is better. Even if you just played at national champion Texas, you'll find that not everyone on your team is professional material and, also, that the guys you're playing against are very good and very hungry (sometimes literally, depending on where they're from and whether they got a good signing bonus). The starting pitchers might be a little wild, but they can bring it. The hitters can get around on fastballs. The fielders have more range.

For some players, the adjustment takes a little while (not to mention the adjustment to wooden bats). Some never adjust at all. They can't get used to be awaying from their support network, they don't get used to the better pitching (or hitters if they're pitchers), and they can't get used to the accommodations. There are lots of HS and college heroes in every state, but many of those kids aren't multi-dimensional enough or adaptive enough to make it. What works well at home simply doesn't turn into an outstanding road act.

Those who make it are testimony to making the most out of the everyday and not to worrying about what the press writes or what the front office says. Front offices make mistakes, and opposing teams are all eager to pounce upon them. If young players let themselves get defined early, they'll fall victims to the gravity pull of criticism and fail. If young players let the commentary serve as a challenge to show the world that they can do that the critics say they can't, they'll have a shot.

And those players are, in fact, special kids. Because some people don't get it -- the ability to stay calm in the cockpit and be honest in their assessments of themselves (and eager to receive coaching and constructive criticism) -- until they're in their thirties and forties. Baseball players, of course, have to get it in their twenties (with the possible exception of lefty pitchers, who might be able to mature when they're in their early 30's) and get it fast.

Because there's always some player coming up to take their jobs away. Every day, every year.

There's the old saying that "it's the journey," and my bet is that those who focus on the journey and making the most of it fare better than those who lock and load on the destination and fail by doing so, because with each at bat they put pressure on themselves to make the majors. By contrast, those who focus on the journey simply want to have a 2-4 night with an RBI and an extra-base hit in Altoona. And you don't get to play in The Show without having those nights in the Altoonas, Readings and Trentons of the world.

Read the article, read Steve Fireovid's "The 26th Man" and other books about journeys through the minors, because that's where the stars are made and where the stars themselves earn their reputations.

And check out a minor-league game every now and then. It's a good time.

The Iceberg Strikes Back

I've blogged before about the story of the Alabama booster who allegedly funneled money to a HS football coach to have his player steered to the Crimson Tide. This wasn't a $20 "plumber's tip" either (non-native Philadelphians might not get the reference, but the Justice Dept. prosecuted plumbing inspectors in Philadelphia for decades' and decades' worth of taking cash "tips" from builders as a means to getting plumbing plans approved), but a six-figure payoff. The booster was convicted in federal court, a place where allegedly can turn into reality.

Lots of Alabama fans are angry at Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer for creating this situation, when, in reality, all he (and others, as it appears from the article I link to below) told the NCAA of alleged funny business going on at Alabama. To see how ugly this whole affair has really gotten, read not only the linked post under Fulmer's name but an article in yesterday's USA Today on the dismissal of a lawsuit by two former Alabama assistants implicated in the scandal (who sued the NCAA on grounds of defamation). I don't know Fulmer and am not that familiar with the Tennessee program, but a) anyone has the right to report a recruiting violation and b) the booster who was convicted at trial was convicted without the testimony of Fulmer. Seems like someone isn't being totally honest here, and it may be that 'bama fans aren't being totally honest with themselves (if, in fact, they are still seething about this whole affair). Seems pretty convincing to me that their guy, as it were, did something wrong.

Well, now the booster has spoken. He didn't say much, and he didn't say anything you didn't think he would say, either. He's not a happy guy for sure, and deep down it may be the case he's the guy who hoped the "everyone does it defense" would have worked or is puzzled when told that an old way of doing business wasn't legitimate in the first place. Still, you should read the post and decide what to make of it. Maybe there's a whole way of doing business in the SEC that us northerners in college football-challenged blue states just don't understand.

The whole affair is very sad and shows that corruption can exist around any situation where large sums of money are in play, in this case BCS, bowl and advertising dollars, not to mention ticket sales. It does appear that one of the victors here is integrity, and it remains to be seen whether this was an isolated case or whether there are others out there that are under investigation but have yet to surface. It's hard to believe that this is the only case like it -- paying for players.

What I am curious about is that other schools were mentioned as suitors in the sweepstakes for the recruit in question, Albert Means. Did any of those other schools get investigated? Did any of their boosters offer improper inducements? Perhaps there is another series of investigations going on that have yet to surface.

Grand game, college football.

Too bad that on occasion, stuff that goes on outside the lines has to interfere with, or tarnish, the good stuff that goes on between them.

Football is for the players, coaches and students. At times, it can be a very humbling game.

If only the boosters would realize that and act accordingly.

The Next Eckersley?

Doubt it, although Curt Schilling's injection into the BoSox' bullpen mix is intriguing.

Fact: The BoSox need help at closer.

Fact: Keith Foulke, the BoSox' closer, didn't pitch well recently.

Fact: Keith Foulke is on the disabled list.

Sounds promising for Schilling to play the role of the terminator, doesn't it?

Fact: Schilling struggled through this last rehab start in Pawtucket and couldn't make it through five innings.

Not quite that promising, huh?

Sounds more like Schilling will pitch himself back into shape out of the bullpen than be the primary closer in Foulke's absence. Alan Embree and Mike Timlin are top-drawer setup men, and each probably can fill in at closer for a short while (neither is a long-term solution). That said, Schilling is a gamer, a guy who loves the attention, and the prospect of being the guy to close out a game has to thrill him.

He's proven that he's one of the best Stopper's in the game.

Can he also be an effective Closer?

Let's watch and see.

For Those of You Wondering About Bernie Carbo

read this.

Some of you won't remember Carbo, because if you're say younger than your late 30's you won't remember the big-haired (some would say "bad hair day") journeyman outfielder who hit a dramatic three-run homer in Game 6 of the epic 1975 World Series to tie the game and set the stage for Carlton Fisk's home run in the 12th that gave the Red Sox the game and sent the Series to Game 7.

Fisk, of course, is someone everyone will remember because he's in the Hall of Fame. He was one of the best catchers in the history of the game, and he deserved his enshrinement in Cooperstown.

The Bernie Carbos of the game don't make it into the Hall of Fame, but they contribute to making the game what it is. (Red Sox fans, as Carbo points out, will never forget him).

True, you can't extend the Hall of Fame to cover all of the role players who have had their brief moments in the brightest spotlights of baseball, but perhaps there should be a section (and, who knows, there might be) dedicated to players like Sandy Amoros, Al Gionfriddo, Tom Lawless, Bernie Carbo and the countless number of other players like them who did something memorable -- either making a defensive play or getting a key kit -- that sprung their teams on to greater heights.

We usually focus on the greats and how they fare in the post-season. If they did well, some would shrug off their results by saying it was expected. If they flailed at pitches and failed, well, those failures get put under the magnifying glass. The most recent example were the position players of the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2004 World Series. There once was a rock group years ago called Men Without Hats. The hitters for the Cards in last year's Series were either Men Without Hits or Men Without Bats. It wasn't a pretty sight.

While I love watching Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, I also liked the fact that Mark Bellhorn got some key hits last year for the BoSox and that Derek Lowe resurrected his career with two outstanding post-season pitching performances.

The big names fill in the seats and give us careers to admire (as well as some amazing feats in their own right), while it's the role players who sometimes play like big names and give us moments worth remembering. . . Carbo's home run, Amoros's catch, Gene Larkin's single to knock in Dan Gladden to win the 1991 Series.

That's what makes baseball special.

It's good to see that Bernie Carbo has turned his life into something more than a "one-hit" wonder.

Even though that particular hit was something to behold.

Here's the Thing: No One Seems to Care

I always enjoy reading who made the All-Star team (and who didn't) and how internet voting from other countries affects who gets elected to the All-Star game. I'm particularly thrilled to see David Eckstein get a starting spot in the All-Star game, as I saw him as a minor-league second baseman more than five years ago for the Trenton Thunder when they were a Red Sox affiliate (the year I saw him play, he hit .330, stole 50 bases and had an above-.400 OBP). Eckstein personifies the term "winner" (despite this, the BoSox let him go after the following season, and Baseball America didn't have him in their Top 10 Red Sox' prospects after that great AA season -- OF Michael Coleman, who turned down a football scholarship to either Alabama or Auburn, and the late 1B Dernell Stenson, topped the list). He makes things happen, and it's great that not only does he make the All-Star team as a starter, but he does so from the best baseball city in the U.S., St. Louis.

If you'd like to see a kid with electrifying stuff, vote for Brett Myers, the Phillies' starter, for the 32nd player on the NL team. When the kid is on, he is lights out, showing the talent that enabled him to become a top draft pick several years ago.

Finally, and here's the who cares part, Barry Bonds isn't an All-Star. And no one seems to care. At all.

Which goes to show you that no one player is larger than the game, and that the game can survive the loss of one of the best players in its history (it helps when he has made himself unapproachable and, as a result, unlikeable to most).

There will be many great, young stars for you to watch at the All-Star Game, and a few older ones as well. Barry Bonds will not be there, but not many will notice.

Which is as is should be, to a certain degree. Let's rejoice in those who made it and not worry too much about those who are not there.

Or, at least, those who never showed the fans even a small fraction of the attention (and sometimes affection) that they showed him.

They say it's a game for the fans, and, if that's truly the case, the fans will get to see a great game, without having the arrogance of one of the all-time greatest rubbed in their faces.

We do miss your prodigious talents, Barry Bonds, but somehow the All-Star Game will feel a bit better without your being there, as much as I want the all-time greats to participate in the game.

I hope that wherever you are doing your rehab, you are bummed that you're not in the All-Star Game, and that you actually miss the festivities.

Because, if you do, then you'll start to get it.

Moneyball versus Three Nights in August

The link between this school of thought and this one, both of which have been well articulated, is hurt. Again.

The link is J.D. Drew, the guy who fulfills the Moneyball criteria of having a good on-base percentage but who flunks the Three Nights in August criteria because he's too brittle, puts up numbers but doesn't seem to be at the heart of his team, and, well, doesn't come up when you use the term gamer.

Now, Moneyball is, to a degree, an elegy for the numbers crunchers and, to a large degree, supports eschewing the porkpie hat-wearing, fried-foods eating grizzled old scouts who still liked to grade prospects, in part, on whether they had the "good face." (Click here for a captivating book on the topic of baseball scouting.) Moneyball implies that the numbers matter a ton, and that if you get the players with the right numbers, you should win a lot of ball games.

To a degree, the Moneyballistas have a point. I mean, why carry a shortstop with an OBP of .284 even if he's a good fielder when he gives you two automatic outs at the end of a National League lineup? Put differently, the Moneyball theory proves why certain players who seemingly always have gotten the job done get it done -- because they have good batting eyes. A major argument in support of a strong Moneyball policy is the 2004 Boston Red Sox, who actually hired stats guru Bill James as a consultant. Then again, the Red Sox had the second highest payroll in the majors, and that's a somewhat un-Moneyball number because one of the basic premises of Moneyball is that teams with less money had to figure out how to win more games -- and that's where the numbers crunching came in. Another strong supporting argument are Billy Beane's Oakland A's, from which we got the Moneyball moniker. But those A's fall victim to former Michigan State football coach Duffy Daugherty's line about potential ("Potential means you ain't done it yet."). The A's, put simply, haven't done IT yet.

To a degree, though, the LaRussaistas have a point, too. The LaRussaistas might grudingly concede with the strong Moneyball wonks argue -- that a good manager doesn't mean that much to his team's performance, perhaps as many as 6-10 games a year when compared to the role coaches in other sports (particularly football) play. That said, those games are critical games and could make the difference between making the playoffs and not making them or getting to the World Series and not getting there. And before you think that the LaRussaistas don't care about numbers, read the book. They most certainly do, and they watch tons of film and crunch tons of numbers, all with the hope of getting the right matchups.

So what's the difference?

The principal difference between the Moneyballistas and the LaRussaistas is type of player that should be emphasized. The Moneyballistas look at the numbers so much that they probably overlook other characteristics, such as work ethic, leadership, ability to get along with 25 other guys, coachability, etc. Mathematically, to them, the numbers matter a lot more than, say, whether the .250 hitting first baseman with 35 HRs and an OBP of .370 whom the numbers love backbites the manager or is such a hard partyer that his bad habits are wearing off on the rookies. The LaRussaista would like to have that player too (but definitely would like him less), but would be happy to trade him for a more team-oriented player with slightly less skill but a better work ethic because, in the end, he believes that the qualities of a person that cannot easily be reduced to a mathematical formual matter a lot.

That's not to say that the Moneyballistas are the free-love advocates in baseball, don't have standards, are blue-state America haters who don't take our nation's traditions seriously. Hardly, and it's also not to say that they'd advocate having players of so-so character on the team. But what it is to say that at the forefront of advocating change, they're locked in on the numbers at the expense of almost everything else. Their metrics have shown them to be a very creative bunch, and there are teams out there who have adopted the Moneyballista metrics and have succeeded.

It's also not to say that the LaRussaistas think Moneyball is totally without merit. How could they? Anyone who played APBA or Strat-o-Matic years ago (in leagues where you drafted teams) could tell you the value of OBP for a hitter and OBP yielded for a pitcher. That's what made the Darrell Evanses and Frank Tananas of the world so valuable (even if the former hit .240 and the latter had a .500 pitching record at times), not to mention the Mike Schmidts and Joe Morgans. LaRussa and his guys know all about the numbers, and they work them to death to try to get the best matchups within games. Moreover, they're not even the neandarthals that some of those in the modern baseball camp try to make them out to be. They're not solely searching for huge HR hitters or 92 plus flamethrowers. To the contrary, they're looking for situational hitters, hitters who know the strike zone and know when to pounce on the pitcher's first pitch and when to make him work. They'd rather have pitchers who torture hitters with pitches in the 80's that have movement than with throws in the 90's that don't.

So who's right -- the Moneyballistas or the LaRussaistas? There are merits to both sides, and both sides probably have a good degree of overlap. One thing is for sure, guys like LaRussa prove that a good manager can make a difference, and we'll all realize that when he's inducted to the Hall of Fame and he joins Sparky Anderson, who managed the great Reds teams in the 70's and the outstanding Tigers' team in '84, there. Part of being a good manager is staying out of the way of talented players and letting them go to work. But the other part is, as Dusty Baker would say, trying to turn on the light bulbs inside them to get that little bit of extra out of them that can make them something special. As Three Nights in August points out, that's not such an easy thing to do.

Both are excellent baseball books, as is Lawrence S. Ritter's The Glory of Their Times, an oral history of baseball in the 1900's and 1910's that should be a must read if you haven't read it yet (if you click on the link, you can buy it right now -- you will not be disappointed). People sometimes talk about matchups between ballplayers then versus now, and, I think, despite evolution and advances in training, I'll take the ballplayers back then if there ever could be head-to-head competition.

The reason?

The game meant more to those guys than it does to the average player playing today.

Moneyball or no Moneyball.

Because back then there was a lot more to playing than just the money.

So You Want to be a Star?

Read this, and then think again. (Thanks to Dave Sez for the spotting of this article).

Peter Parker's uncle told him in Spiderman that with great power comes great responsibility. Well, with great talent in a unique area (such as professional basketball), with great power comes great money and great potential wealth. I used the word "potential" because, as you'll see from reading the linked article, many stars blow their money. Big time.

Many years ago, I talked with a significant person within the ranks of a professional sports union once who said to me that the biggest problems that existed were rogue agents, the "idiot sibling" problem and the pressure on players to give money away. The article addresses points one and three rather well, but doesn't necessarily address the second problem (which, in essence, is that a player's parents prevail on him to lend money to a business venture of a sibling who, will surely equally loved, didn't make it to the big-time; typically, the venture is poorly planned and becomes a failure that costs the player tons of money).

The overall issue, in a nutshell, is that kids are coming into huge sums of money. When I say "kids", I mean people who haven't had enough life experience to handle the demands that one gets when he comes into a lot of money. Isiah Thomas, who seems like a pretty savvy guy, had an exceptional mother who didn't play games with him or his money. Many other players haven't been so fortunate. They are easy pickings for those who want a piece of them.

The story is a very sad story, make no mistake about it. No one should derive any glee from the fact that many former players have suffered serious financial problems. Perhaps they were too carefree in their spending, and perhaps they suffered because they relied upon others too willingly instead of taking more of a role in managing their money. Most of all, some suffered this fate just because they were young and inexperienced.

On the other hand, the article also goes to show a reader that you probably shouldn't say you want someone else's life. After all, some of these players and former players have made complete messes out of their lives. So while you can't hit the finger roll after flying through traffic, hit the jumper from the corner or dunk over the other team's center, you also haven't come out of a short-lived career without a nest egg or skill sufficient to do anything else worthy of a good salary for a living. To be done at 29 with not much to look forward to is not how most people want to live their lives.

What's the fix? There is more counseling for younger players in all leagues on important life topics, and there are also veteran players who seemingly have more clues about how to handle their resources. The names Grant Hill, Tim Duncan and Shane Battier come immediately to mind.

Because in the end, all that glitters is not gold.

Unless the players themselves show in their off-the-court personal finances the same discipline that got them big buck in the NBA.

Top HS Hoops Player Commits . . . to Ohio State

Of all places.

Greg Oden, the 7' center from the Indianapolis area who most likely would have become the #1 pick in the 2006 NBA draft but for the newly imposed age limit, gave a verbal commitment to coach Thad Matta, as did his teammate, G Mike Conley.

A few points to consider:

1. The impact of the NBA's age rule on the college scene. Does the 19 year-old rule simply mean that Oden stays in Columbus for a year and then becomes the #1 pick in the 2007 draft? Are colleges who take these one-year players going to be better off in the long run? Those who followed Villanova's program probably would argue a strong "no" given that school's dalliance with one-year player Tim Thomas. Thomas didn't really fit into a veteran team, and that team, with senior G Alvin Williams and senior C Jason Lawson, laid an egg in the first round of the NCAA tournament. It should have gone much further. Oden is potentially a great player, and he'll be good for the gate in Columbus, but I question whether the NBA's rule will benefit the college game at all.

2. The old Lefty Driesell comment that he enjoyed hearing that a recruit gave an oral commitment, because it narrowed down the number of schools he had to beat to get the recruit to go play for him. Does this mean that the recruiting saga is over? Maybe. But if I'm a bigger-time hoops school on the current landscape than Ohio State, I wouldn't give up recruiting him. After all, he's a HS kid, and HS kids, by definition, can be very fickle.

3. The big loser in this seems to be Indiana coach Mike Davis, who couldn't keep the kid at home. How much longer with the Hoosiers keep Davis around? He needs to have a big year. The other two also-rans, as it were, for Oden's services were Wake Forest and Michigan State, and it says here that Oden would have been better off giving his verbal to either Skip Prosser or Tom Izzo.

Ohio State has an excellent hoops tradition -- but not recently. This is a great coup for Thad Matta, if Oden ends up at Ohio State. Still, I for one don't understand why Oden chose Ohio State in the first place. You also wonder whether all of the big-time schools recruited him. Did Kansas and Carolina pursue him too? Or are they reluctant to ink the one-year wonders? To me, it's surprising that the best hoops talent in the HS class of '06 chose a football school.

But if he actually ends up there, look at for the Ohio State Buckeyes.

The Big Ten looked like it had a down regular college hoops season last year, but it rebounded mightily in the NCAA tournament. It had a bad recruiting year, too, and that didn't bode well for the future.

But this news most certainly does.

For All You Moonlight Graham Fans Out There

There's this.

Archie Graham, also known as "Moonlight," was a central figure in the novel "Shoeless Joe" and the movie "Field of Dreams" (this is a case where the movie actually did justice to the book). Burt Lancaster played the grown-up Archie, whose claim to fame was that he got less than a cup of coffee with John McGraw's New York Giants in 1905.

Graham didn't get an at-bat (he played two innings in the field), one of only a handful of position players that has been identified as having played in the majors without getting an at-bat. That attracted him to author W.P. Kinsella, who researched Graham's background before including him as a character in the book (Graham became a doctor).

Enjoy the article at espn.com. Graham is testimony, to a degree, of the adage "they also serve who stand and wait." He was a back-up, yes, but no doubt he pushed others through competition to become better and, of course, he enriched the lives of his patients in Minnesota.

I recall once, years ago, reading the transactions wire, and noted that a utility infielder named Jack Heidemann was making $12,500. That was a long time ago, and my dad asked the rhetorical question, "Do you realize how good someone who is the last man on the bench of a team had to be in high school?"

And he was right. I remember the best players from my high school were a 5'11, 225-pound pitcher who could hit as well as John Kruk and pitch very well too, and a catcher who could beat hitters running down to first base backing up a play and who could hit with authority. The former wasn't college material, didn't have a hard body that some scouts liked and wasn't disciplined enough. That said, he was born with a bat in his hand; he wasn't college material, though. The latter was the all-American guy, a natural leader, and an outstanding player who earned a scholarship to one of the best baseball schools in the east.

What happened? The stocky pitcher was signed out of HS as a pitcher and flamed out as a position player after one season of summer A ball in upstate NY. The word that came back was that he didn't hit well enough, and the organization he signed with didn't think he had enough discipline to be a big-league player. The catcher was converted to an outfielder in college, hit very well, but didn't get signed after college. He remains a good friend to this day, has a great business and a very nice family. Don't know where the stocky pitcher is -- but my bet is that he remains to this day a funny, easygoing guy who would be great to have a beer with.

We all have played the role of Moonlight Graham in our lives, and, more importantly, we've all watched Moonlight Grahams in every aspect of our lives. They are those who don't get the headlines, perhaps, but they help contribute to making our lives better.

As for the kids from my high school, well, they were very good, but, in retrospect, they were great in context. The stocky pitcher wasn't disciplined enough to get to higher levels, and the great-guy fleet catcher wasn't a consistent enough hitter and didn't have a good enough arm to make it. That's not to say they weren't good; they were very good. What is to say is how good the guys who make it to AA and beyond are. Those guys are very good indeed.

We'll all remember the superstars, the guys who grab the headlines and then the supporting players who do something so outstanding for a concentrated period of time that the feat will remain etched in our memory. But who really remembers the Moonlight Grahams, the Larry Coltons, and the many others who hit the big club for such fleeting moments that you hardly knew they were there? Most of us don't, but thanks to W.P. Kinsella, we learned the heartening story of Moonlight Graham, who, in retrospect, represents all of those players for us, forever.

Suggestions for the NBA Draft Telecast

I'm writing this while watching the NBA draft, and I have a few suggestions:

1. The Commish is a tired act. There's little entertainment value in someone who has all of the presence of a Star Wars astromech droid. Instead, hire an entertainer to make this more entertaining. For example, bring in Will Smith and let him host.

2. The ESPN commentators combine to form a human headache. Stephen A. is an audio-narcissist, and Mike Tirico, Greg Anthony and Jay Bilas are rather bland. This team has two participants too many, so I would scrap Stephen A. and Greg Anthony and stick with Tirico and Bilas. The reason: Bilas follows the college game very closely and knows the prospects, so he's a good resource to have. He doesn't have Mel Kiper, Jr.'s hair, and no one knows prospects like Mel, Jr., but Jay is okay.

3. Have a couple of juries (who are prepared) to comment on the draft as it takes place. I thinking a) a jury of former players, including some former greats and b) a jury of current hoops media. For example, the jury of former players could include Charles Barkley, Bill Russell and Bill Walton, and the jury of media members could include Stephen A., Peter Vecsey perhaps, and a few others. Both of these panels could enrich the telecast immensely if handled the right way. Remember, ESPN and NBA, this presentation should be entertaining. Let these guys be the front line on the play-by-play and color commentator for the telecast. Less, especially in this case, is more.

4. Have a few commentators available to talk about draft history, draft oddities, how successful teams have been in the draft, and the types of facts that enrich the telecast. These are the Kiper types, perhaps not well known names, but if you package them right they could develop their own cult following.

This telecast should be a great promotional piece for the NBA. While it comes on the heels of the NBA championship series, it should be a great whetter of the average fan's appetite for the next season.

5. Get rid of the bromides. I like Dick Vitale, but tonight all that's come out of his mouth is that each kid is a "winner." Look, no one will dispute that the kids who get drafted in the first round are talented players, but every fan has a memory of his team's blowing a high pick. For examples, 76ers fans remember the year that the hometown team took Sharone Wright of Clemson with the fifth pick in the first round, and his cup of coffee hardly had a chance to get cold. That doesn't mean that the commentators have to be brutally frank and pick on the weaknesses of the average draftee, but some good analysis and some good storytelling would help make the telecast.

6. I would advocate bringing back Craig Sager and his colorful suits. They added flavor to the TNT draftcasts, and they would add flavor here.

7. Jettison the Coach K "I'm a leader" ads. They lack the humility that we once totally admired Coach K for. They aren't convincing (even if you're positively disposed toward Coach K) and they're presumptuous. Funny juxtaposition: Coach K gets the ads, but archrival North Carolina has four players taken in the first 14 picks of the draft -- Marvin Williams, Raymond Felton, Sean May and Rashad McCants. Coach, I'll take Roy Williams' past season, not yours. Enough.

8. Create a little more suspense at the end of the first round. After all, players who don't get taken in the first round don't get guaranteed contracts, so they're sweating it a bit. Let's hear some of their stories.

9. Look at the early entry list and examine what certain kids were thinking. For example, is Billy Donovan's Florida program falling off a cliff? Otherwise, why would Anthony Roberson, Matt Walsh and David Lee declare for the draft and not withdraw when none is a lock to be a first-round pick? Walsh has been quoted in the Philadelphia papers that he's been told he has "a good chance" that he'd be taken anywhere between 18 and 30 in the first round. I haven't read his name in the first round of any mock drafts, which makes you wonder if it was a relative who told him of his draft possibilities. Roberson is off the radar screen, and while Lee showed well at the Chicago draft camp, it doesn't look like he's pushed his way into the first round. Which makes you wonder what has gone on at Florida. Is it these kids? Is it Coach Donovan? That's an interesting story, and I'm not sure anyone has probed it.

10. Look at the early entry lists of years past and talk about the mistakes that were made. Where are the Korleone Youngs and Ousmane Cisses of the world, good kids who made bad mistakes. Naturally, we don't need a big downer on what should be an upbeat night, but it would be an interesting feature to demonstrate how hard it is to make it in the NBA.

11. Finally, have someone do a feature on NBA rosters and how some players took interesting routes to get there. After all, it's not always the four-year major college star who makes the big time. Some of those guys peter out, while you end up with the Raja Bells of the world from Florida International (or was it Florida Atlantic) who end up making NBA rosters. A few of those stories might be nice as well.

In any event, I'm waiting for the first round to end, to see where the magical line is drawn, and then I'm heading to bed. I don't think it's worth waiting around for the second round, because the show is over by then.

Manchester United, the New York Yankees and You

You might have seen the article today that Malcolm Glazer has completed his purchase of Manchester United, the perennial power in the English Premiership and, quite frankly, in the football (yes, football) world.

So what, you say?

Well, if you're an American, you probably don't care. After all, you call football soccer, might have played it as a kid, your kids might play it now, but you wouldn't pay to see it played, at least not when in competition with American football, baseball, basketball, college football, college basketball and a whole host of other events. You might glimpse at the World Cup every four years, might have thought it was neat that the American women who played soccer did it so well for a while, but that's about it. As for the world football scene, you wouldn't know John Henry, the owner of the Red Sox, from Thierry Henry, the star forward for Arsenal, another perennial power in the Premiership. To you, it's a boring game, and you just don't understand how the rest of the world is so enamored of it.

So you're still not sure why you should care?

It may well be that you shouldn't care, but this branch of globalization could take root in the United States too. What's to say that after George Steinbrenner passes away, in order to pay estate taxes, his family won't have to sell the New York Yankees and his related media empire. And what's to say that the estate doesn't sell to the highest bidder, perhaps by having an investment bank run the auction. And what's to say that a Chinese business magnate, a Russian oligarch or an Indian entrepeneur don't end up owning the Yankees?

Does it matter?

Most likely not. The Glazers are competitive people, so they didn't buy Man. U. for any other reason than to try to establish hegemony over the football world (where, incidentally, there's a much larger consumer market than, say, for their Tampa Bay Buccaneers). That Russian oligarch who owns Chelsea, which right now is leading the English Premiership, didn't buy that football squad for any other reason than to have a totem to brag about (and, as it turned out, to create a top-notch team). After all, when you get right down to it, Chelsea is his team. Which would mean that the Yankees, the Patriots and the Lakers all could end up having owners who live in Beijing, Bombay and Moscow, instead Manhattan (by way of Tampa), Boston and Los Angeles.

So, the locales of the next generation of sports owners could span further and wider than ever before, and my prediction is that it will. After all, it's a big world, and with globalization, more markets are opening up.

But with very wealthy people, it's a small world. There aren't just that many of them, and they compete in ways that most of us cannot imagine, through yachts, show horses, race horses, sports teams, invitations to key events and who knows what else. If one magnate buys one key team, another one is sure to follow.

Even one who's English isn't much better than Yogi Berra's.

One question that intrigues me particularly involves the NBA. What will happen first -- the NBA's starting a league of sorts in China, or a Chinese businessman buying an NBA franchise -- an existing NBA franchise in the U.S.? Sure, many leagues want to take their acts abroad, but many people abroad want to bring their acts to America.

Except, perhaps, in the case of real football.