Mark Byron

The Ghost is Toast

One of my favorite web sites is Get Religion, where a recurrent theme in their critique of journalism is writers missing a clear religious angle to a story; in GRese, such a spiritual elephant in the living room is a "ghost."

I thought I saw a ghost in this Herald Leader story on Morehead State football coach Matt Ballard, who will be coaching barefoot this afternoon.

Ballard, 51, is going without shoes during his team's meeting with Marist so that underprivileged children around the world will no longer have to go barefoot every day.

His shoeless game is being done for Samaritan's Feet, the Charlotte, N.C.-based charity that seeks to provide footwear to children around the globe who have never had a pair of shoes.

During Saturday's MSU football game, fans will be asked to text the word "shoes" to 85944. When they do so, a $5 charge will be applied to their next phone bill that will go toward providing shoes for children without them in South Africa.

Samaritan's Feet. Franklin Graham's poverty-fighting ministry is Samaritan's Purse and Charlotte is where the Billy Graham organization has its HQ. Dollars to donuts that's a Christian outfit, but nary a mention of a spiritual angle is to be found in Mark Story's story. Is there a ghost to bust here?

Well, yes and no. SF is a Christian organization (no connection to the Purse), but they seem to do a lot of efforts that work on getting shoes on kids' feet without a lot of evangelism. For instance, IUPUI's basketball coach did a similar Shoeless Joe shtick as a SF fund-raiser (at least he was inside; it's in the 50s and rainy today) and the whole Detroit Piston team worked at a SF event; Ben Gordon and Will Bynum were washing kids' feet and Rip Hamilton "was the self-appointed shoe tester."

That lets them get access to places like Morehead State. Morehead is in eastern Kentucky where people might be a but more churchy than most, but it's still Morehead State; the ACLU and other critters of the secular left would be on things like white on rice if the football coach were doing something evangelistic with the school's blessing.

SF might either be below their radar or be so non-evangelistic like Habitat for Humanity that they become an honorary Bright and get help across the board without worrying about the Christian roots of the organization.

No ghost here. The spook is SF's downplaying the gospel to get secular help, so Story didn't miss the story.

Promoting Promotion

Here is an idea that will never happen, but it would be interesting if it did.

In European sports, the bottom teams in the major league of soccer or basketball will get "relegated" to the second-division (the top minor league) while the top teams in the second division will get promoted to the first division. That way, teams at the bottom of the league don't mail in the last third of the season, coast their way to a high draft pick, and trade off their free agents for prospects and draft picks; they fight and claw to stay in the bigs.

My brainstorm would apply that to college football. Let's say we paired the 1A conferences thusly, with a big conference paired with a mid-major; since there are only five-mid majors, I split Conference USA in 2.

Pac 10-WAC

Big 12-Mountain West

Big 10-MAC

ACC- Sun Belt

SEC- Conference USA West

Big East-Conference USA East.

That would see Boise State swap with Washington State and we would see how the Smurf Turfers fare with the big boys for the whole season; probably well enough to keep out of the basemant and let another WACCY team up the next year.

Central Michigan and Illinois would swap and give the Chips a shot at OSU and Penn State. Would CMU be able to hang with Minnesota, Indiana and Northwestern well enough to avoid the cellar and a return trip to the MAC? It would be a very fair fight. Illinois would have to the the favorite for the MAC title the next year, but would have a good Western Michgan club to get past in the MAC West and a solid champ in the East to contend with to win the MAC in 2010.

SMU would, in an awkward fit, join the SEC East and Vandy would get a shot at CUSA. Other than the longer-than-normal road trips, that might actually be a fair trade. SMU, Kentucky and Mississippi State would be in an interesting fight to avoid the cellar in year two. Vandy would be no lock to get right back up.

Baylor heads to the Mountain West and a fairly good program (TCU, BYU or Utah) gets to go head to the mountains. Iowa State might join them the next year as the newcomer might hang with the tough Big 12 south enough to stay around.

The Sun Belt might be road kill in this format, for none of their schools are quite ready for prime time. We'll see the creme of the conference, LA-Monroe in Lexington tomorrow night; they are one of three teams undefeated in conference play, although LA-Lafayette is probably the better bet to win the conference; they managed to beat Kansas State when they paid a call to the bayou earlier this year. I don't see the Sun Belt champ being able to hang with the ACC well, but I could see Duke stay in the Sun  for a while.

The CUSA East isn't anything to write home about this year, but Southern Miss has had some out-conference success, beating Virginia and hanging within a touchdown of Kansas and Louisville. None of the other leading clubs have a big-conference scalp to claim this year. USM could easily hang with the second tier of the Big East, while the celler dweller in the Big East might not escape CUSA quickly.

Thus, other than the Sun Belt, the tops of the mid-majors are good enough to hang with the BCS conferences. We could easily see some movement, as some of the weaker big-conference programs float to mid-major levels for the long haul.

That's an interesting thought experiment that might argue for some modifications to our bowl format.

I Can't Drive 0.26- Baseball Remix

This piece on Miguel Cabrera getting dressed down by Tiger GM Dave Dombrowski reminded me of this 2003 post on former Bear QB Jim McMahon blowing a 0.26 DUI.

That blood test reminded me of Dick the Bruiser, who'd do a low-rent Weird Al thing on one of the Detroit rock stations (WRIF, if memory serves) back in the early 80s. One of his send-ups was a redo of I Can't Drive 55 as I Can't Drive Point-Two-Five.

Off by one-hundredth, but give me some poetic license.

Well, Carbrera blew a 0.26 after the police arrived after a scuffle with his wife. He managed to get home, but went 0 for the weekend as the Tigers lost the AL Central.

Something's wrong, but at least Dombrowski is referring this to the Tigers' EAP program; that can be helpful in helping deal with problems that Cabrera might be "self-medicating."

More Popular than Jesus

We've been in Lexington for a bit over two years now, but it still amazes me how folks here absolutely bleed University of Kentucky (I almost went with UK from the get-go but some foreign readers might think we have a bunch of Anglophiles here) blue and white. Since there are no major league sports in Kentucky, all the local devotion tends to flow to UK.

A great example was a guy we were tailing on Man O' War (our main southern drag in Lexington) yesterday. Right above the license plate, he had a normal-sized Jesus fish medallion. Off to the right, he had a UK sticker roughly four times the size of the fishy, and to the left, a blue-and-white cat claw twice the size of the fish.

Even when you're never more than shouting distance away from a Baptist or Christian church here in Lexington, it would be uncomfortably fair to say that UK is more popular than Jesus, to borrow from John Lennon. At least it appeared to be for that one guy, where the UK hardware outpaced the holy hardware by about 6-1 in square-footage.

Caster Rated #1

Usain Bolt's jaw-dropping bashing of the record books in the 100 and 200 meters in this week's world track championships has been pushed to the back burner by the saga of South African runner Caster Semenya, who smoked the field in the women's 800.

One interesting side point is that I remember all too well when South Africa was banned from international competition due to apartheid, so that white Zola Budd had to run for the UK (she had a British grandfather) and black Sydney Maree had to run for the US after being here long enough to get US citizenship. Maree was being punished for what the powers that be were doing to keep him and other folks of color disenfranchised.

Now, the issue isn't apartheid, but whether Caster has a Y chromosome kicking around. She looks rather manly for a woman, but seems to have the proper equipment for a woman.

However, there are some folks who, due to some hormonal mess-ups in the womb, are genetically male but have a female anatomy save a lack of a uterus and ovaries. Such a person would look female, but would test as male if you checked their DNA. However, when you are dealing with Third-world medicine where DNA checks aren't part of the health care package, it would be likely that such a person wouldn't be noticed as abnormal until later in life, if at all.

It doesn't appear that this is a fraud case like some athletic versions of Tootsie that happened before sex testing was started in the 1960s; dad claims that she's all girl. It could be that she's just an outlier with a lot of muscle; with 3 billion women out there, a few might be honest Amazons.

WTMI in Louisville

Would you want your kid playing for Rick Pitino after this episode? After-hours sex at a restaurant followed by financing an abortion followed by an extortion attempt by the gal. That sounds like a Law and Order SVU episode except that the gal didn't wind up dead. I could see SVU do a rip-and-read of this case where she does wind up at ambient temperature and figure out who offed her; the coach, the AD, the husband or someone out of left field.

That's Way Too Much Information. As the cowboys in the Clydesdale football ads would say "Didn't need to see that." "Nope."

Saving the Day

Here's an interesting story from the sports pages; The White Sox's Mark Buehrle pitched a perfect game this afternoon with help from CF DeWayne Wise here in the ninth inning.

Wise took over in center field from Scott Podsednik, who shifted to left. With the count 2-2, [Tampa Bay's Gabe] Kapler hit a drive to deep left-center. Wise sprinted, jumped and got his glove about a foot above the 8-foot fence to rob Kapler of a home run.

The ball almost came out when Wise caromed off the fence, stumbled, fell to the ground and rolled. But he steadied it with his chest and bare left hand and bounced right up, proudly displaying the ball for the crowd.

You could say that Ozzie Guillen made a Wise move in making that defensive substitution.

That reminds me of a game a quarter century ago when the Tigers' Jack Morris pitched a no-hitter against the White Sox. Sparky Anderson had put good-fielding Dave Bergmanin at first late in the game, replacing a slower-footed Darrell Evans. Bergman proceeded to rob Jerry Hairston of a double down the first base line with a diving stop, saving the no-no.

Doing what would headline the ESPN Web Gem reel is great; doing it to save a perfect game is priceless.

With Friends Like This....

Here was an interesting passage from a piece on David Beckham's return to the LA Galaxy; he was on loan this spring with Italian soccer powerhouse AC Milan and grudgingly came back to LA after failing to buy out his contract.

The fans weren't happy and Beckham got into a trash talking match at halftime with a drunk fan from the "Riot Squad" rowdy section.

Riot Squad member Bob Ramsey, a theology professor and minister from Glendora, said he talked to fans who were closest to where the fan jumped the wall. "I haven't talked to everybody, but no one remembers hearing anything beyond 'scum,' 'traitor,' those kinds of things. Nothing about his family," Ramsey said.

Ramsey said he thought what triggered Beckham's reaction was a fan abusing a Beckham jersey, according to the report.

"We were giving him the business as soon as he came out for warmups," Ramsey said, according to the Times. "His first reaction was to give us a thumbs-up and I thought, 'OK, he's going to play along with it and just realize that we're going to kind of give him a hard time here and he's going to have to play through it.'

That's not a great Christian witness, going out of your way to "give him a hard time." I know that we can get that way in a sports context, where we'll act jerkier when were in a stadium than we're in a grocery story. However, that doesn't make it right.

I googled Mr. Ramsey, and he has a stale blog not updated since last August. He's a pastor at Garden Grove Friends Church. Friends are what the rest of us oft call Quakers; the branch of Friends that GGFC is affiliated with is one of the more evangelical branches of the Friends. They're conservative on theology but lean left on other issues, as they are pacifists and poverty-fighters, so they don't fit the Southern-Baptist style evangelical paradigm.

What's a nice pacifist Friend doing in the Riot Squad?

The Great Adventure

Here's an interesting piece of sports news; top Cuban pitcher Aroldis Chapman defected during a tournament in Holland. He only pitched so-so for Cuba during the World Baseball Classic, but's he only 21 (although ages in Latin players can be fudged either up or down) and has a 100MPH fastball, which has pro scouts drooling.

My question; how did a Cuban guy get the surname Chapman? This baseball reference piece notes his mom's name is de la Cruz, so at least madre has a Hispanic sounding name, but padre is a puzzle.

Bo-Rail and John Henry 2.0

Last year, I mentioned that I was picking Dennis of Cork, a 20-1 shot, to place in the Kentucky Derby, because "with last year's winner Calvin Borel aboard. I have a hunch that Bo-rail will have him in the hunt at the end." I did that before the race, and would have made $11.60 on a $2 bet, for DoC did come in third.

Before yesterday's Derby, my mythical trifecta had favorite Friesan Fire to win, Bob Baffert trained Pioneerof the Nile (that's not a typo, they had to merge Pioneerof to get it into the 18-character limit) to place (I look for good trainers, and he's one of the best) and Borel-packing Mine that Bird, a 50-1 shot,  to show.

Well, like last year, I went 2-for-3. Last year, I missed Eight Belles tragic run to second place before breaking two legs and being "put down." This year, I missed Friesan Fire getting smothered in the Churchill Downs clay, coming in next to last. However, Pioneerof The Nile did come in second and ...

...Bo-Rail struck again. He brought Mine that Bird along the rail, doing a worst-to-first run that included a how'd-he-do-that burst on the inside past the lead trio.

What is interesting is that Mine that Bird is a gelding, so he has the prospect of a long career, unlike, ahem, fully-functional colts who go to stud right after their three-year-old season. He may make a run at John Henry's career as a great gelding who got to race for many years due to the lack fo stud value.

Horsey-Town

Eileen will be working on Alysheba Way on the east side of Lexington for the next couple weeks. The street's namesake, the 1987 Kentucky Derby winner, passed on yesterday.

The charismatic star, dubbed "America's Horse" by racing fans, Alysheba was euthanized Friday night following a fall in his stall at the Kentucky Horse Park's Hall of Champions, where he was buried Saturday.

We've been here in Lexington just short of two years; I'll be starting up my 8th quarter at Sullivan on Monday. We've yet to be out to the Horse Park on the NE side of town, where they have a number of interesting exhibits and also some free horse-related activities for viewing on most weekends; the major events, like the Rolex Three-Day, will cost a pretty penny, but a garden-variety visit is museum-affordable. They'll be having the World Equestrian Games, with all the horse-related stuff you'd see in the Olympics, out there next spring; it's a every four-year event in the mid-term election year between the Summer Olympic years.

We'll have to see the Horse Park one of these Saturdays, or maybe a Friday afternoon when Eileen's free. Also, we might want to make our way out to Keeneland, where they have the main thoroughbred actions and horse race meets; they have their spring meet there next month, with the Blue Grass Stakes being their signature event, frequently a tune-up for Kentucky Derby horses.

Tuesday Musings

It's spring break, and the livin' is easy. Other than a bit of work getting my on-line ECO 510 ready for next term, I'm on an at-home vacation.

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The Tiger's long-time TV announcer, George Kell, passed on at 86. He was an all-star third baseman and Hall of Famer before he hit the booth, but I remember him for his TV work-"After he retired, Kell broadcast Tigers games from 1959 to 1996."

He did the play-by-play, rare for an ex-player. Pat Summeral in football is about the only other guy I can think of who was an ex-player doing play-by-play rather than color. He wasn't the greatest announcer; my grandma would routinely turn down the TV sound and put on Ernie Harwell on the radio broadcast.

My best memory of Kell was in 1979 when he and Al Kaline were (a rare treat for a baseball fan when only 40 or so games were on TV a year) calling both halves of a twi-nighter at the White Sox. At least it was scheduled to be a double-header. Bill Veeck, the owner of the Pale Hose, was the master of the promotion, but that night he had the mother of all promotion blowbacks (with the possible exception of a Cleveland ten-cent-beer night), the now-infamous Disco Demoliton Night.

The idea was that rock fans (who were being primed to hate disco at the time) would get in for a buck and a disco record, which the rock DJs would blow up in center field in between games. Fans started frisbeeing their records onto the field during the first game, much to the consternation of the hopelessly old school TV team of Kell and Kaline. The fans made such a mess of the field between games that the White Sox had to forfeit the second game.

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Billy G may be salvaging his job with a nice NIT run. UK edged Creighton, 65-63 to move on to the NIT quarters at Notre Dame. One of the advantages of just missing the NCAAs is that you have a chance to play quite a few games and get some extra playing time for a young team; all the guys in the rotation are underclassmen, and if Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson decide to stay around for another year, UK has the makings of a top-10 team in 09-10.

I didn't see the game; we were on the road during the game. However, the box score has underwhelming small forward Ramon Harris with 8 assists. Point forward for next year?

The current problem with UK is they don't have a good point guard. Starter Michael Porter can shoot and pass but not penetrate (think John Paxson in the Jordan era, but while Meeks is good, he's not Jordan and there is no Pippin), while freshman backup DeAndre Liggins can penetrate but is at a loss for what to do when he gets in the paint. Liggins might be better suited to play either the 2 or 3 (he's 6'7") and let the new recruit at point guard do the job next year.

Grow a Brain, Not a Pair

"Avery's pair helps Rangers continue East climb." That's one way to describe hockey's bad boy, but one would like him to show some maturity instead.

Oh, he scored two goals? One short of a hat trick instead of a cheap trick?

"Everyone has the right to think about politics."

It isn't often that I'm going to agree with something Hugo Chavez says. This is one of them. Tiger right fielder Magglio Ordonez is a Chavez-supporter, who was getting ripped by anti-Chavez fans in Miami where Venezuela is through to the second round winner's bracket title game against a hot Puerto Rico team who mercied the US 11-1 yesterday.

"Everyone has the right to think about politics," Chavez said after reading an article about the incident from The Associated Press. "This is shameful.

"Viva Magglio, and all our patriots!" Chavez added.

Well, Chavez is half right. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if it's wrong. That doesn't mean that they're immune to criticism. I'm not a fan of booing players in the first place,  but I can see where someone who has been exiled to Miami to avoid the downsides of the Bolivarians would want to give Ordonez both rhetorical barrels.

Here's a question; are those ex-pat Venezuelans booing Ordonez/Chavez or Cuban-American hot-heads? There are a lot of Cubans in Little Havana who may well see Chavez as Fidel 2.0 and may be taking their long-standing dislike of Castro out on Chavez and his fans.

This article notes that there were 17,000 ex-pats in the Southeast eligable to vote in the 2004 presidential election. This piece on an 80K strong anti-Chavez rally in 2002 notes that was "staged by the mostly business- and professionally oriented Venezuelan community in South Florida." How much of that group are people who would naturally gravitate to the de facto capital of Latin America and how many have moved to steer clear of Chavez is a good question.

Carying things to the point of firing people for backing the wrong candidate (or wrong issue, as some CA Prop-8 backers have found) or terrorizing them is wrong, but booing someone for their politics is within the realm of political discourse. Booing them off the stage, as some leftists are want to do, is bad form, but expressing your displeasure is still everyone's right.

At least in the US, it is.

Canada Beats Up on Yankees

Yes, 6-0 in a World Baseball Classic tune-up. After the whole country ganged up on Toronto, they flooded south of the border and took on New York. At least the Jays put up a better fight; the Canucks lit up Joba Chamberlain like a Christmas tree, chasing him without his recording an out.

The US just beat New York the other day; Canada was merely following their lead.

Roider's News

Here's an interesting mix of law and sports; it looks like a Barry Bonds trial won't begin until 2010. A key piece of evidence is under appeal and the Peanut Gallery's favorite federal circuit, the 9th, has it on its docket.

The Administrative Office (AO) of the federal courts, which is the Elias Sports Bureau of the court system, says that the median time to complete an appeal in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit -- where the Bonds case appeal will be argued and decided -- is 19.4 months.

That timetable would have a decision coming down in September 2010.

Prosecutors appealed a ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston, asking the higher court to reverse the order and allow them to present at the trial three positive drug tests, drug calendars and ledgers that Illston barred as evidence. The appeal resulted in a postponement of the trial, which was to have begun with jury selection March 2.

So, not only are they the most liberal and most overturned, they're also the pokiest.

That's double good news for Bonds. First, it will be well into the 2010 season before the 9th gets around to ruling. When they do, that civil libertarian streak will make it more likely that they'll rule in Bond's favor and throw out the evidence.

That should clear out the "am I signing a future jailbird" dilemma that a team might have. Not for 2009 at least and probably not 2010 either.

So, if you can get past the idea that he is the poster boy for the better-living-through-chemistry era, he might be an interesting pickup. If you signed him to a minor league contract with the promise of a quick call up if he could deliver the goods at a AAA level or during pre-season, he might prove to be a valuable DH or spot-start left fielder on the cheap, for few folks are willing to risk the PR hassle of hiring Mr. Roider.

Execution by Media

Forgiveness isn't a big word in the media; Alex Rodriguez is getting lynched at ESPN over the allegation that he tested positive for steroids in 2003, here is the SI.com piece that broke the story earlier today. Maybe the ESPN guys wish they had broken the story.

First of all, we have an unnamed source leaking classified information; the information was supposed to be kept private by union-MLB agreement, but the Feds got a hold of the information as well through the BALCO-Bonds investigation. So, someone in that list was leaking information, if it is even true that A-Rod was in the better-living-through-chemistry crowd.

Personally, I'm more upset with his fling with Madonna than this news, if proven true. 104 players tested positive in that 2003 sweep, roughly 13% of the league, and that's only the people who had drugs in their systems at the time. If true, A-Rod has a lot of company.

Do we put up a steroid-free defense perimeter around the Hall of Fame? Mark McGwire bounced off of that force-field last year, despite a 500-HR career that has been an automatic ticket to Cooperstown in the past. Bonds, Clemens and Sosa would seem to run into similar issues in the 10s when they get Hall-eligible. Only 23.5% of voters voted for McGwire, putting him right between Tommy John and Jack Morris in the voting; as much as I'll Tiger-homer for Morris, McGwire deserves better.

So does A-Rod when the time comes. It's fairly low on the sin list and something that could be forgiven, especially when it was commonplace at the time.

Does it make A-Rod look like a major hypocrite? Yep, but the tag of A-Fraud was already making the rounds. Compared to the boozing womanizer Babe Ruth and the clinically racist and sadistic Ty Cobb or the foul-mouthed, self-centered Ted Williams, A-Rod's a choir-boy. Even Mickey Mantle was getting illicit medical care during his career. We'd clear out the HoF quick if sins on the steroid-taking level or higher get cleared out.

Anyways, Spring training's only a few weeks away; the first games are slated for the 25th. We could live without this stray cinder from the Hot Stove League.

Turkish Delight, SEC Style

It's tough in the SEC, where ADs seem to have become George Steinbrenner all of a sudden. Georgia canned Dennis Felton earlier today after the Dawgs won the conference title last year. That was the conference tourney and they made a quick exit from the Big Dance as a 14 seed. However, a 0-5 SEC start got the itchy trigger finger activated.

Earlier this week, Alabama's Mark Goffried jumped before being pushed, resigning under pressure. A come-from-behind win for Kentucky was his last game.

It's that type of environment in basketball, where teams don't wait to the end of the season to have the Turk come a-calling. The NBA has had seven coaches get the scimitar since the beginning of the season, with Memphis' Marc Iavaroni being the most recent last week.

It's a real tough sports economy.

Annus Horribilis

Here's a worthwhile quote for the evening via John Daly

"This has been the worst year," he said in the New Year's Eve interview. "One day left."

Well, we're down to about 100 minutes in the Central Time Zone where I'm stationed tonight. A lot of people would agree with Daly's statement, and they weren't looking at six months of EuroTour exile.

I'm still not sure that 2008 was the worst year in recent memory. 1980 sucked worse than 2008 did, with stagflation, the Iranian embassy crisis, a boycotted Moscow Summer Olympics due to Afghanistan. The three redeeming things that came out of 1980 were the Winter games, where Eric Heiden swept the speed skating golds and a team of US amateurs beat the Soviets in hockey, the emergence of Nightline and the election of Ronald Reagan (even though yours truly voted for Carter as a wet-behind-the-years 19-year-old; when I want to rip Eileen for voting for Clinton in her first vote in 1992, I remember that one).

What good came from 2008? Not much in the stock market, to be sure. Conservatives in the Peanut Gallery will morn the election of Barack Obama and a thumping in the Senate and we're looking at another call-and-response across the Israeli-Gazan border as we close the year.

However, there were quite a few good sports memories, from the Tampa Bay Rays World Series run to Michael Phelps' octet of gold necklaces to a Red Wings title post-Yzerman.

As a whole, the Todd Bently revival/fiasco was a net plus, as it reminded a lot of people of a need for sound doctrine along with any move of the Spirit. Even if an Obama administration may raise the hackles of conservative churchmen, the church seems a bit stronger as we end the year.

Two good voices on the Christian right-of-center, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin, came onto the scene, and the emergence of Rick Warren as Billy Graham's de-facto replacement as chaplain-in-chief gives evangelicals a largely apolitical (Prop 8 notwithstanding) and upbeat face to offset some sourpusses like Pat Robertson and James Dobson.

So, we're closing in on the end of 2008. One more year of the 'oughts to go; that is starting to become the consensus to what to call this decade that has a year and a hour to go.

Pulling Out a New Chair

Bobby Knight got started at West Point; I always thought that Kevin McHale should have gone to Annapolis and have some great McHale Navy teams. As is, he's kicking himself downstairs to coach the T-Wolves; you traded Garnett, you coach 'em.

You know you're getting old when the stars of your youth are coaching and GMing. I can still remember the classic Piston-Celtic duels of the 80s, where McHale would be playing bumper tag with Rick Mahorn.

Mahorn's favorite trick was to "pull out the chair." McHale would back in trying to establish post position, bump, bump, bump. Just before the lastbump, Mahorn would step aside or back away just as the entry pass was coming. McHale would stumble due to lack of resistance, fall on his keister, the pass would fly out of bounds and Mahorn would let loose with one of his patented Chessy-cat grins; "Who, me? Didn't touch him." And he'd be exactly right, he didn't touch him.

Sports Musings

My John Rocker analogy fit nicely; Rocker got two weeks, and Avery gets six games, which is about two weeks worth of the season.  That's about right.

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We're looking at one of the more interesting championship weeks in recent memory, with the SEC Florida-Alabama game essentially being one title game semifinal and the Missouri-Oklahoma Big 12 game being another for Oklahoma.

If Florida and Missouri win those games, is the final a Florida-Alabama rematch or Florida-Texas? Depends on how close the SEC title game is; if it's close, we could see a #2 Alabama and a rematch, but voters will look to bring Texas into the mix.

Speaking of Texas, I don't see the problem with giving Oklahoma the Big 12 South nod as the best ranked team in a three-way tie. Texas fans want the ratings to weed out things to the top two, then let the winner of that game go; I don't see that as a better method.

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Ball State and Boise State are in the top 12, but will be on the outside looking in on New Years, since Utah has the mid-major BCS slot nailed down. That puts two top teams into minor bowl games. Boise might stay home for the Humanitarian Bowl and Ball State gets one of three under-whelming MAC bowl slots.

What might be interesting is to match a mid-major conference with one of the big boys, so that a good mid-major could get promoted to a better bowl when they're punching above their weight. For instance, if we had a MAC-Big Ten alliance, we could see Ball State get a Capital One Bowl slot in lieu of Michigan State, and the rest of the Big 10 teams slide down a slot. You could have the SEC share with the Sun Belt, the Pac-Ten share with the Mountain West, the Big 12 share with the WAC, the ACC share with Conference USA and the Big East share with not just Notre Dame but all the other indies.

Ball State-Georgia would be more interesting fare than MSU-Georgia, even as a MSU alum.

Anti-Rogue and Prorogue

First, let me start with some of the ugly news off of the sports pages. The first that's been on my mind is Plaxico Burress' marksmanship, where he managed to shoot himself in the foot (figuratively) and the leg (literally) at the same time. I recall John Calipari's line from this spring that nothing good happens at a nightclub at 1AM.

I support the right to arm bears, but not jackasses. As a MSU alumni, I'm not thrilled to have one of my fellow Spartans making a fool of himself.

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There is a certain crude phrase that I will abbreviate SS here. It's a phrase that has no good place in my speaking or writing vocabulary; but I recall hearing it on an R-rated comedy tape in my younger, less-edifying days. The only time I recall hearing the phrase on a broadcast was during an XLF game when a tight end wound up catching a deflected pass for a touchdown (one tip driller that normally lands into the arms of a safety for an interception) and the color man used it to describe the fluke reception.

NHL bad boy Sean Avery used SS to describe his exes now on the arms of players from other teams and got suspended for it. I don't follow the NHL that closely, especially when I'm outside of hockey territory and don't get to watch any games, but Mr. Avery has a reputation of being a bit of a lout and a trashy trash talker. Yes, that goes on during games, but don't have me (or kids that you have to explain the orgy-centric term to) listen to such crud on an interview.

How much of an suspension is required? Good question... it's so out of good taste that you're not quite sure where to start. John Rocker's ethnocentric diatribe about New Yorkers comes to mind and he got two weeks from MLB.

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I'm against these rogues, but I'm not sure I'm pro prorogue. That's our vocabulary word of the day-" to terminate a session of (as a British parliament) by royal prerogative." The Canadian parliament got sent home for Christmas by the Governor General in order to give the Conservative government time to recraft a budget and to give a month for the opposition who wanted to kick the plurality Conservative government out and replace it with a Liberal-NDP coalition to think it over and start fighting amongst themselves.

I'd normally be backing the Tories on this one, but I'm surprised that GG Jean backed up PM Harper on this one; it seems like too much of a political maneuver to stop a parliamentary majority from doing something rash. She's a person of the left and has a husband with PQ sympathies, so I'm surprised that she opted for a prorogue rather than letting the Odd Trio take power. The best I can see happening is that the opposition thinks twice and gets a Christmas break to rethink things; the Conservatives have 143 seats and 155 is a majority, so they only need to give 12 opposition members to get cold feet between now and January 26th.

Overhead in the Faculty Cubicals

"The Detroit Lions have a bye this week... the bye is a 6 point favorite."

Suggestion. Take the bye and lay the six.

The Answer is the Question

The big news of the last 24 hours for me is the big trade that the Pistons pulled off, getting Allen Iverson from Denver for Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess.

It doesn't seem at first to be a Dumars kind of trade, getting a self-centered star to fit into a team format. However, the trade might just work better than people think. Rasheed Wallace was viewed as a head-case and a T looking for a place to happen when the Pistons got him. However, he fit into the system rather well and helped lead them to a title. He's still volitile and still gets more than his quota of Ts, but he fit into the system better than people thought.

Iverson is at the back end of his career at an old 32. He's got his quirks, but he comes to play. He's a point guard who's a scorer rather than a passer, but with teamates who are unselfish, that could be a feature rather than a bug. When the starting five is on the floor, you could use Tayshaun Prince as a point forward and run AI off of screens, or bring back the Isaiah-Laimbeer two-man game with AI and Rasheed.

Losing McDyess isn't as big of a problem. With a deep bench and a solid Kwame Brown looking for playing time, having him step into McDyess' part of the rotation might work, or giving Amir Johnson and Jason Maxiell more playing time.

In addition, Iverson is on the last year of his contract. If Rodney Stuckey is ready to take over at the point by the end of the year, they can let Iverson go and be able to have a huge hole in their budget this summer when AI's and Rasheed's contracts expire. Or, they can get Iverson to re-up at a reduced rate if he fits in well.

It will be an interesting year, one that I'll have to settle watching on a twice-a-month or so basis from my Kentucky perch.

Sports Musings

It's an interesting sports season. October, when all four major sports are going at once. Football is in full swing, the World Series is on, hockey has started its regular season and the NBA is fixin' to start its regular season. A few semi-random sports thoughts

• Tampa Bay in the World Series... even in the least mobile of pro sports, a small-market team can turn it around in one year. Baseball needs a few stories like that, especially when you top it off by having a rookie who never had a major league save get the ball in the 9th of game 7 of the league championships. You couldn't write the Ray's script and not be laughed out of Hollywood.
• On the flip side, we have a 2-5 Michigan, with home losses to Utah and Toledo; I had to blush a little when my MBA students at Sullivan asked if I was a Michigan fan, knowing a ribbing was coming. Rich Rodriguez is a good coach, but he doesn't have spread players at UofM. Given UofM Pat White and they're 6-1 at worst...
• ...or give them Terrell Pryor and they're 7-0. I saw him single-handedly dismantle MSU last week; he's scary good and worthy of the lust coaches like Rodriguez and Tressel were showing this spring recruiting him. Even once UofM gets the kinks out of the spread, they'll be getting whupped by the folks in Columbus until Pryor turns pro.
• This is one of the more interesting football seasons in a while; a dozen or so clubs with a legit shot at a national title, and mid-majors playing large with four ranked unbeatens (Utah, Boise State, Tulsa and Ball State) and ranked BYU and TCU. If the ball bounces right, both Utah and Boise could get BCS bids, especially if there are six Big 12 and SEC teams in the top 12 with them.
• The Pistons didn't make many changes, letting Lindsey Hunter go and picking up former #1 overall Kwame Brown to be an extra big body, but that might be enough, along with a blossoming Rodney Stuckey, to give Boston a run for their money for the East title. I won't get to see them for a month from my Kentucky perch, but they should be fun to watch.
• Speaking of Kentucky, we have the makings of a very watchable UK basketball team with stud big man Patrick Patterson. He's got a Ben Wallace 'fro started and is back healthy for his sophomore year. It should be his last, for he'd be in the rotation of most NBA clubs right now.
• Kentucky football isn't quite up to specs, but they're a respectable 5-2 going into a place the stock market hasn't seen in a while, Gains-ville. They'll probably get their sixth win and get bowl eligible, but not against Florida, who looks like they have the Jamaican 4x100 relay team under cover as their wide receiver corps.
• The Lions finally got rid of Matt Millen, who was the biggest living example of the Peter Principle; great studio commentator turned into mediocre (yes, just mediocre with very, very bad luck) GM. However, you can't fire owners unless they do something outrageous to get their team taken away from then (a la Marge Schott), and firing William Clay Ford is what's needed.
• We've been saved from MMA going mainstream for a while longer, the EliteXC group that was putting together the CBS Saturday night fight shows has gone under, now that their poster boy, Kimbo Slice, got sliced up in a blink-and-you-missed-it TKO by a no-name light-heavyweight. That and aligations that they tried to bribe the no-name to keep it a hitting and kicking match and not get Slice into a wrestling match where he's not effective (he didn't need to, he kicked and punched him into submission in 12 seconds) shut down Elite's water. It may become a legit version of pro wresling, but not quite yet.
• We move away from the 0-7 Lions and get treated to... the 0-7 Bengals and their effort to corner the market on players with a rap sheet, adding old fantasy league disappointment Cedric Benson. Last Saturday, during the Michigan-Penn State game, they were profiling one of Penn State's recievers, Deon Butler, who is working on a criminal justice degree; I told Eileen that he should be drafted by the Bengals... to be their in-house parole officer.

Why Not "Chad He Hate Me?"

No, this isn't April 1st. The histrionic wideout for the Bengals is now officially Chad Ocho Cinco per Florida law. Why not go with Chad He Hate Me? Or might the Bengals decide to Ochenta y Sies Ocho Cinco; if he were doing authentic Spanish, he'd be Ochenta y Cinco.

When I was Googling for the proper spelling of histrionic, I got this Wikipedia entry-"Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, including an excessive need for approval." Sounds like our man.

2016 Olympic Baseball... Done Right.

Here's an idea that floated through my brain just now. Baseball is getting phased out of the Olympics after this year, but is a possibility to be brought back in 2016. If the Olympics were to that, it would probably require having major leaguers be eligible to play.

There are two ways you could do that. The first is to let players play hooky from their big league (or minor league for some lesser country players) teams for two weeks; teams could put them on an DL-equivalent and bring up some minor league help to fill out their rosters for a couple of weeks.

The second way is to copy the NHL and take two weeks off for the Olympics. The problem with that approach is that baseball is pushing the edges of habitable climate with their current schedule; northern cities are barely warm enough for baseball in early April and night games in late October are rather wintry. Playing Detroit's opening day in late March or seeing parkas on fans in Game seven of the World Series precludes taking a break.

Or does it? Let's try these modifications.

(1) Skip the All-star game for 2016. That will free up half a week.
(2) Finish the season on Wednesday, October 5th and start the playoffs on Friday the 7th. There's another half-week.
(3) Start Spring Training a week early
(4) Have what would normally be the last week of spring training (March 28-April 3) be Show the Flag week. These will be regular-season games at sites that do not presently have major league teams, have major-league level stadiums and are habitable in that time frame.

San Antonio
New Orleans
San Juan
Santo Domingo
Caracas
Vancouver
Mexico City
Monterey
Beijing
Tokyo
Osaka
Sapporo
Seoul
Sydney

That's 14 sites. Site 15 will be whoever is going to host the Olympics, assuming the stadium is either indoors or habitable in late march.

We'd play six games with teams playing three games as a "home" team in one town and three games as an "away" team in a second town. We'd keep the teams that are in the Asian time zones over their for the week and the teams in the American time zones there for the week. I recommend sending the Yankees to Caracas for their home games; if Chavez is still in charge, it will frost his cookies.

That will free up a two week break for the Olympics and some interesting baseball.

Oh, Henry

Last night, I mentioned to Eileen this piece on the Lions' training camp, where they were playing Sam Cooke's Chain Gang at practice. She quipped back "It would be more fitting for the Bengals." She follows sports more than I realize at times.

She's just one in the long line of folks who make the Bengals "the butt of jokes thanks to the Bengals' bad behavior." as local columnist John Clay put it. The resigning of Chris Henry doesn't help-

The Bengals released Henry after he was accused of punching a college student and breaking his car window with a beer bottle in March. Henry was one of 10 Bengals arrested during a 14-month span -- a local judge referred to the receiver as a "one-man crime wave."

Now, they've resigned him. Couple that with a dinged up Ouch-o Cinco and Bengals don't have that much to root for. Please, let UK have a good start, or the sport section's going to be rather bleak here in Lexington

Manny, Junior and the Dehydrated Frenchman

A big day in baseball yesterday; Ken Griffey Jr. got dealt from the Reds to the White Sox and Manny Ramirez got the left foot of disfellowship from the Red Sox, booting him as far away as possible, to the Dodgers in a three way deal that saw Pirate outfiedler Jason Bay go to Boston and a pair of prospects each from Boston and LA head to the Steel City.

It doesn't seem like it was fifteen years ago that I was watching Ramirez play for Canton, Cleveland's AA club at the time; he was The Player of the Future in the Indians system at the time, and lived up to it that day, hitting a couple of doubles to the gaps, reminding me of Hal McRae. Ramirez turned out to be even better than McRae, with better average, better power and a slightly flightly attitude that occasionally rears its head, as it did in the last few weeks in Boston.

One of McRae's old Royals teammates came to mind as I looked at who Ramirez might be replacing for the Dodgers. Right now, it looks like left fielder Juan "The Dehydrated Frenchman" Pierre. I haven't followed the National League much, being a Tiger fan, so I was thumbing through his stats. No power, a .283 batting average and a lame .328 on base percentage, lame for a fast guy you'd want as a lead-off guy, with 36 steals.

My mind clicked in "Willie Wilson." He played outfield for the Royals for the late 70s and 80s with those Brett-McRae teams  Similar speed, batting average and lame OBP. The batting average and speed make you want to lead him off, but the guy draws a walk once a week at best. Better to have a Rickey Henderson, who may only bat .265, but will draw a ton of walks and have a .400 OBP.

One of the neat features of Baseball Reference.com is a Simular Batters. So, I boot up their Pierre page, and lo and behold, who, of all players in baseball history, had the most Pierresque career as of Pierre's current age 29? Slick Willie.

Really, honest, I was thinking Wilson before that. That's scary.

What's also scary is remembering eighteen years ago, when the Reds released Ken Griffey Sr. so he could play in Seattle with his rookie son. Now, the Reds part company with Junior and let him play for a contender this year as he starts to deteriorate a bit.

It would have to be the White Sox, who the Tigers are chasing. Griffey isn't the five-tool monster he was in the 90s, but he can still play, better than some of the outfielders the Pale Hose are trotting out at present.

Centerfield-Catcher Double-Doubles

I wondered yesterday whether anyone had had played double digit games at center field and catcher in the same year. Brandon Inge has done that for the Tigers this year, playing 23 games at catcher and 11 in center.

Well, I spent some time massaging this database. The list isn't all that big in the modern era; ten times total. Craig Biggio was the last person to do it, playing 34 games in center field and donning the tools of ignorance 113 times for the Astros in 1990. Prior to that, utility man Ed Kirkpatrick turned the trick for the Royals in both 1971 (59 catcher, 16 center) and 1973 (CF=11, C=14).

Prior to that, Wally Schang did it twice, once for the Philadelphia A's in 1915 and once for the Red Sox in 1920. Hall of Famer Roger Bresnahan did it three times in 1902, '03 and '06. Other than that, Tiger Fred Payne in 1906 and the Cardinals' Art Nichols in 1901 are the lone remaining center-field catcher double-doubles in the modern era.

Such C-CF double-doubles were more common in the 1800s; another 36 seasons show up in the database prior to 1900.

Interesting. Seriously geeky, but interesting.