Aug

19

The IOC is completely ruining the Olympics.  Although I don’t mind the recent commercialization of the Olympics because it has brought and kept higher quality athletes, the IOC has gotten too obsesed with making money on the Olympics. 

Here is my prediction: Greco-Roman (and possibly Freestyle) Wrestling’s last Olympics will be in 2020.  That’s right, I think the oldest and one of the most traditional of Olympic sports will be dropped from the modern Olympics after the 2020 games.

First, some background.  Unless you have wrestled or have been part of a wrestling family, you probably won’t find wrestling entertaining to watch.  It’s a simple fact of life that wrestling can not be a spectator’s sport short of turning into WWF….oops….WWE.

The basic rules have been in place forever: three rounds of wrestling, score points for moves, if there is no fall during the match then the wrestler with the highest score wins.  The IOC felt that there wasn’t enough ACTION and SCORING in the sport so they insisted that FILA change the rules.  Now, you win rounds and instead of just wrestling each round you split up the round into three parts.  First minute of a round you wrestle.  Then 30 seconds of mat wrestling with a random wrestler chosen to decide his position.  Final 30 seconds of mat wrestling where the other wrestler has his choice of position.  Tie round goes to the last wrestler to score.

Not only are these rules terrible but they do exactly the opposite of what the IOC wants; they decrease scoring and action.  Only having a minute of standing wrestling is usually not enough time for greco wrestlers to setup and perform moves. 

Most of the greco matches I saw had no action in the first minute of the rounds.  Just a bunch of hand slapping.  That means that the round was decided through random chance and low scoring mat wrestling.  It gets worse.  Some scoring for escape moves was removed, which decreases the motivation for one of the wrestlers to even try a move during mat wrestling.  Finally, since the last one to score wins then wrestlers who felt they could win in the last part of the round would basically stall (i.e. try not to make any moves) so that they could score in the last round, get the tie and win for being the last one to score.

Finally, these rule changes made/make it very easy for the best wrestler to lose.  This happened in a match beween a Chinese wrestler and an American wrestler.  Chinese wrestler score 6 points in the first round with some great moves.  Round goes to he Chinese wrestler. Second round the American scores last in a boring 1-1 tie and wins the round.  Third round the American wrestler scores last in another boring 1-1 tie.  The Chinese Wrestler kicked the American’s butt by out scoring him 8-2 AND LOST THE MATCH!!  Many favored wrestlers were beat in the qualifying round of wrestling and had no chance for a medal.

I think the IOC decided that wrestling wasn’t bringing in enough money, force rule changes they knew would mess up the sport and the next step they will take is to remove the sport since it is so messed up now.

Oh yeah……there have been some weird things going on in Women’s Gymnastics, too.

Jan

8

I have discussed previously that if keeping Mark McGwire out of the MLB Hall of Fame meant that we could keep Bary Bonds out of the Hall of Fame then it was a sacrafice I was willing to make.  My basic premise was two-fold.  1) We shouldn’t let steroid users into the Hall of Fame.  2) I think Bary Bonds is a jerk so I don’t want him in the Hall of Fame.

I am here to state today a complete reversal of my position.  I made this decision a couple of weeks ago and decided to sleep on it a while.  I have slept on it and decided that it’s the right way of thinking.  My primary motiviation isn’t to find a way to allow Mark McGwire into the Hall of Fame because I think he is a nice guy.  I’m not sure that even if he didn’t use steroids he belongs in the HoF.  My primary motiviation is to find a reasonable way to judge this era in baseball.

Anything that lasts a hundred years won’t stay the same over that time.  Baseball is no exception.  One of the problems of comparing players of vastly different time periods is that the game was different and was played different in those time periods.  When looking at who belongs in the HoF and who doesn’t we don’t try to equate the periods.  We decide whether the specific player was a HoF player during his era.

Right or wrong, good or bad, pretty or ugly, the recent era in baseball will be known as the “Steroid Era”.  There is simply no going back.  This era in baseball is marked with the knowledge that some players had an unfair advantage over others because they used performance enhancing drugs.  They’re not all clean but I doubt they are all dirty either.  That is the simple fact of the era.  So, given what happened during the era we have to decide “who was best and deserves HoF status?”

The fact is Mark McGwire (might have been) one of the best of the “Steroid Era”.  Barry Bonds is one of the best of the “Steroid Era”.  They deserve consideration for the HoF independent of whether they used steroids or not because they were some of the best of their “era”.  Does that mean that some will not be considered because they chose to play by the rules?  Yes.  Could they have been considered if everyone was clean?  Yes.  Is that unfair to them?  Yes. When deciding who is the best of an era we simply cannot play “what ifs”.  We don’t have the ability to go back in time and re-calculate performances based on “what ifs”. It would all be speculation with a wide margin for error.

So, we look at what really happened and judge it from there.  It’s all we can do. 

You don’t know how much it pains me to come to this conclusion because it pretty much, in my mind, puts Barry Bonds in the HoF.  But I think it is the only reasonable way of judging people of the era available to us.  We’ll never know the whole story of who did and who didn’t.  The only reasonable options are to drop steroid use from consideration or not to let anyone in from the era.  I think the second choice is a lot more unreasonable than the first choice.

So, there we have it.

Dec

26

First, let’s review my predictions from the first Sports Extravaganza and how close I was:

  1. Joe Torre out, Joe Girardi in. Book it

Correct

  • Cubs won’t be bought by Mark Cuban. They will be bought by an investment group

    • Has this been resolved yet?

  • Tony Romo is an average to above average QB (not another Bret Fare or Hall of Famer) surrounded by good players with a phenom offensive coordinator, Jason Garret.

    • The jury is still out on this one. But he is looking better now to me than he used to. I’ll still reserve judgement.

  • Jason Garret is a phenom offensve coordinator being groomed to be a head coach by Jerry Jones

    • I still think this is gonna happen.

  • La Russa is out. I don’t know who is in but here is a wild pick. . . . . Ozzie Smith

    • I cannot express my joy that I was wrong about this one. I am very happy that La Russa is still the manager.

    Now on to Baseball and Steroids.  As for the Mitchell Report I think it was fine and I don’t have a problem with it.  The biggest complaint I have heard was that there was nothing someone who was accused in the report could do to refute the charges.  I’m sorry but that is simply not true.  The fact is each of them were invited to speak to Mitchell about the accusations BEFORE the report was released.  That was their time to refute any charges in the report.  I know most, if not all, declined to speak to Mitchell.  I’m sorry but that’s their fault.  They had their chance and they “declined”.  Maybe they shouldn’t have followed the advice of he Union on that one.

    The second issue I have heard is that the report does nothing to help solve the problem.  I also disagree with this this assertion.  The fact is it offers up possible solutions and ways to improve the situation even more than the steps taken by baseball the last couple of years.  It provides political capitol to the Comissioner and owners over the union to actually implement these solutions.  I understand the position of the union to protect the players and their privacy but that protection does no good if at best it brings into question the integrity of the sport and at worse make Congress step in to do something about it.

    Speaking of Congress: I have seen comments about “what business does Congress have looking into baseball and steroids?”  The fact is MLB is exempt from anti-trust laws.  They have a legalized monopoly.  Whenever you are “allowed” to do something by the government they can at any time chose to not “allow” you to do it anymore. From that perspective anything that Congress doesn’t like about MLB they can use their legal leverage to change it.  I’m not saying they should or that it’s right, I’m just pointing out the conditions of the situation.

    Finally, the people name in the Mitchell Report:  Basically, the report layed out any information they could legally get their hands on.  They did not have the legal power of supena or search warrants.  The information they got mostly centered around New York teams and people connected to them. That’s because the primary source they had was based out of the New York area.  If they had access to more sources then more people in more areas would have been named.  I have no problem with them being named.  I lays all information that MLB has access to out on he table.  Now you can’t blame MLB for glossing over the problem. 

    Many have brought up the “innocent util proven guilty” phrase and the idea that revealing names does no good.  I disagree.  The fact of the matter is if they hadn’t released the names to the public then we would know that baseball was hiding something.  By releasing the names and the condition of which they aquired those names we know how good or bad the evidence against the named players are and judge it for ourselves.  There is not “guilt” or “innocence” associated the players named in the report.  The report is simply he evidence and it is up to each person to decide how valid the evidence is.  If you assume some player is guilty due to some list you read on the internet then YOU are guilty of ignorance and I (and anyone else for that matter) can’t do anything to stop you from being ignorant.

    I don’t think any official “penalty” needs to occur to the players named.  The evidence of what thay may or may not have done is in the report for people to judge on their own.  There is currently a testing program in place for them to either pass or fail.  Possible improvements suggested in the report may be implemented and they will be under those test improvements.  From here forward when they are considered for the Hall of Fame or any other position then the evidence of their past deeds are known and the individual who has to make that judgement can consider them and weight the accordingly.

    Dec

    12

    So I guess there are some people questioning Falcon’s owner, Arthur Blank, comment that

    There’s a lot of roadblocks to Michael coming back and even playing in the National Football League, Tony. Let’s assume he’s out for three seasons, 07, 08 and 09. If he doesn’t watch himself and eats a lot of fried chicken and fries in prison, comes out 215 pounds he’s not going to be the same athlete he was.

    The charge is that it was a racial remark.  Well, I’m not football expert but I recall hearing that Blank and Vick were pretty good buddies.  So, I wondered “Did Blank use the term ‘fried chicken’ because he knew that Vick actually, well, liked fried chicken?”  I did a simple good search “Michael Vick favorite food”.  I found this from http://www.nflplayers.com/.

     vickprofile.png

    Grant it, it doesn’t say “fried” chicken breast…….but is possible, just possible that Vick had told Blank that he really liked fried chicken?

    Oct

    9

    1. Joe Torre out, Joe Girardi in.  Book it
    2. Cubs won’t be bought by Mark Cuban.  They will be bought by an investment group
    3. Tony Romo is an average to above average QB (not another Bret Fare or Hall of Famer) surrounded by good players with a phenom  offensive coordinator, Jason Garret.
    4. Jason Garret is a phenom offensve coordinator being groomed to be a head coach by Jerry Jones
    5. La Russa is out.  I don’t know who is in but here is a wild pick. . . . . Ozzie Smith.

    Jan

    11

    It has begun for Bonds

    January 11, 2007 | 2 Comments

    The beginning of the end has begun for Barry Bonds.

    Earlier in the week the infamous Erik Weibust voice the opinion that the writers were “idiots” for not voting in Mark McGwire into the Baseball Hall of Fame. With all due respect to Erik, he’s wrong. But possibly only slightly. I agree with him that if McGwire isn’t let in that it’s insane to let Barry Bonds in.

    Mark McGwire is one of the nicest guys ever to play baseball. There is no question that he used Androstenedione. When he was caught by a reporter with it, the substance was banned in the Olypics and the NFL. The substance was not illegal by federal standards and was sold at GNC. After people started to question his use of it he stopped. Just before his last season of playing baseball he signed a lucrative contract with St. Louis while having doubts in how well he would play. When he determined that he would not be able to play up to his personal standard he retired WITHOUT SIGNING THE CONTRACT. He had every legal right to that money. How many baseball players take their payout when they retire (I honestly don’t know the answer)? It was very upstanding of him not to sign the contract and eventually walk away from that money when he had doubts about his ability to play.

    Barry Bonds is a jerk. His complaints about being hounded by steroid accusations while McGwire wasn’t due to racism are completely off the mark. He wasn’t hounded due to his race. He was hounded because he is a jerk. As pointed out: McGwire isn’t. From USAToday:

    The most famous block of lockers in baseball might belong to San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds. He has a row to himself, complete with a vibrating lounge chair and TV set.

    I don’t know how many other players have this luxury (maybe more after Bonds got it) but that’s pretty demanding to have that. Bonds has said inappropriate things to the media and fans and others players on his team. No amount of last ditch effort on his part to change the perception of his personality will change that.

    My opinion has been, I can understand if McGwire is not voted into the Hall of Fame due the questions surrounding his andro use. However, to let Barry Bonds into the Hall of Fame with even greater questions would be an injustice no matter what or how many records he breaks.

    A very possible endgame may be in sight now. If it is found before Bonds retires or is eligible for the Hall of Fame that he has definitely used performance enhancing drugs (and it has to be worse than greenies) then baseball’s problem is taken care of. The recent revelation about failing a test is only a hint at what the strategy of “the people who run baseball” might be. Catch him before you have to deal with the question: should Barry Bonds be in the Hall of Fame?

    Nov

    29

    Want to know the REAL reason the St Louis Cardinals won the 2006 World Series? Wasn’t it odd how much trouble the Tigers had hitting and against a bullpen that wasn’t the greatest in baseball this season either? Wasn’t it odd how the World Series games seem to score a lot lower than most regular season games AND the playoffs? What could account for this?

    It was the baseball.

    But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. You’ve heard all the stories of how the modern baseball was “juiced” to help hitting. I’ve even seen internet reports of people doing performance test of old baseballs to new baseballs.

    I don’t recall when or where but over the years I read of the suggestion that the latest “juicing” of the baseball was no actual change to how the baseball was made but what was put ON the baseball. It suggested that the ball wasn’t made to go further but that by putting a big fat blue logo on the baseball the batters could see the spin of the ball better. That sounds good in theory but where is the proof? Practice. Apparently, coaches commonly put black dots on baseballs using permanent ink pens to help train batters to see the spin of the ball (according to this report I read). If that is true then there is no question in my mind that a big fat blue logo on the ball could help major league players spot the spin of the ball better.

    So, I’m laying in bed tonight thinking about the Cardinals and it hits me “Hey…I bet they changed the baseball logo for the World Series this year.” One thought lead to another (as it often does with me) and I decided while laying in bed that the baseball was probably changed to have a less obvious logo. Why? Well, because of the decrease performance of the Tiger’s batting and increase performance of the Cardinals pitching.

    You may well ask “Wouldn’t the logo change affect both teams?” and although the answer is yes, it would affect the Tigers MORE than the Cardinals. Why? Spotting spin is more important to home run hitters than base hitters. The Tigers rely on big hitting more (i.e. more home run hitting). The Cardinals, although they have some big hitters of their own, rely on more base hitting. This is all supported by the fact that the Cardinal’s BIGGEST home run hitter, really didn’t have that great of a performance. In fact, he performed a lot like the Tiger’s hitting. This would also explain the reason for the lower scoring games compared to the playoffs.

    Over the years as I have tried to explain to other fans the impact that adding the big fat dark logo on the baseball had on the sport. They seem to pretty easily dismiss it. However, I am CONVINCED that it DOES have a major impact on the game. I am even more convinced now since I was just laying in bed and though “I bet the baseball for the world series had a more subdued logo on it because of the hitting.” Sure enough, it did.

    2006 MLBaseball          2006 WSBaseball

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