All hot and bothered

I gotta say, I'm hot today. And I'm not talking about my appearance. I mean, I'm hot in that regard as well, but that's an everyday reality and thus not noteworthy enough to be specifically mentioned on my blog. I mean hot as in angry, perturbed, pissed off. You may ask why. Well, there are two separate sports stories that have really grabbed my attention over the last 24 hours. And, unlike most sports stories, which only have the ability to mildly irk me due to the fact that I do my best to keep sports in their proper perspective, these two stories have some real life implications that really allow me to get worked up over them.

The first story will be out in this week's Sports Illustrated, and is already up online. The article is an overall look into the kind of over the top negative behavior that is becoming all too common around college basketball these days. 2 stories in particular really caught my attention. The first was that of Kevin Love, an Oregon native who was a highly touted recruit, and now one of the best freshman players in the country, who had the audacity to choose to go to Pac 10 rival UCLA, rather than to Oregon. Apparently this truly horrific act merited his cell phone number being circulated among a large group of Oregon students, and him receiving 30 voicemails the day prior to UCLA's game at Oregon, the first two of which being death threats directed at him and his family. Love didn't check the remaining messages and immediately canceled his cell service. The second story surrounds another highly touted freshman Eric Gordon, who committed the atrocity of switching his (non-binding) verbal commitment from Illinois to conference rival Indiana. His earned punishment for this? Having his mother struck with a cup of ice water during his game at Illinois, along with the other, more standard abusive taunts.

What in the world have we come to here? We're talking about 18-19 year old kids receiving death threats and having their parents requiring security details because they did what? Choose the "wrong" college to play for? Look, I love college students, in general, as sports fans. Their passion for their team just can't be matched. And I'm all for some good, playful, clever banter/trash talk between rivals. I even argued against one conference's rule outlawing profane/taunting coordinated cheers. At some point though common sense has to kick in, and clearly it just hasn't in these cases. These kids (and they are just kids) are being subjected to a level of abuse that you rarely even see directed at professional athletes. Filling up a kid's voicemail with death threats, whether they are serious or not, isn't funny, it's criminal. Throwing something at a mother who is just trying to watch her son play basketball isn't clever, it's deranged. The NCAA made a point of cracking down on coaches and their sideline behavior this season, and yet this kind of thing goes largely unchecked, unless you consider the apologies the schools in question issued after the fact as sufficient. And if you do, well, I might have to yell at you for a while. I know Kevin Love, for instance, doesn't want to make a big deal out of this, but the reality is that he shouldn't have to. Oregon should have been all over this the second it was reported. I sincerely hope they do deal with it on their own. Seriously, everyone, this is just sports. It's not like it's anything of real consequence. Chill out and enjoy it.

The second story is really just the latest development in an ongoing story, so I won't spend as much time on it, but Congress was once again sticking it's nose into the business of drugs in professional sports today. It looks like they might be getting serious about legislating a common drug testing program for all 4 major pro sports. This stuff just continues to make me red in the face. Congress has zero business legislating drug testing policies for a private enterprise, no matter how big and well-known, and yet they are about to officially make it their job. I think it's absolutely comical for a bunch of Washington politicians to suggest that they know better than the leagues themselves how to address performance enhancing drugs. I've said this before, I'll say it again - these drugs are illegal, and if Congress really wants to do something to make sure the leagues get really serious about cleaning up their act, they can instruct the Justice Department to start locking up using players. Short of that, they need to just back off. And if Congress is allowed to legislate baseball's drug testing program, what's to stop them from one day deciding to step in and legislate it's economic structure, or the rules of the game, or any other number of things they have no business touching? And what's to keep them from doing the exact same thing to any other business?

The other reason I'm upset about this is that I didn't know about it until yesterday, because the sports media is spending all its time on the comparatively insignificant matter of whether Roger Clemens is going to be investigated for the lies he's believed to have told to the last Congressional hearing on baseball that should never have happened. At this very moment, the Clemens saga is the featured story on the front page of ESPN.com, while the story about the hearing is just a side link. As has been the status quo since the Mitchell Report dropped, the real developments are being pushed to the back page while the media jumps all over the red herring that is Roger Clemens. There are going to be a lot of baseball fans rather surprised about a number of things once the dust finally settles around Clemens and attention turns to what's actually gone on while we were all looking the other way.

The sports media: Judge, jury, executioner

I've made it clear in previous entries on this blog that I am not a Barry Bonds fan. In fact, I've made it pretty clear that I don't like the guy. And yet, there's something I like even less right now, and that is members of the media who, from where I sit, are basically gloating about the fact that Bonds can't find anyone who wants to sign him this off-season.

Before I continue, let me first be clear about something. It is neither surprising nor at all disheartening to me that Bonds is as yet unemployed. Bonds is 43 years, and the combination of his age and his bloated body have left him with a range in the outfield roughly equivalent to that of the statue of his godfather Willie Mays that graces the grounds of AT&T Park in San Francisco. Okay, that might not be totally fair, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the real-life, almost 77 year old version of Mays could probably get to more balls in the outfield than Bonds these days. Additionally, his body has become fragile enough that he likely can't be more than a part-time player, if he has to play the field. That's just what happens over time, no matter how long you try to put it off with steroids. So, realistically, there's only 14 major league teams who have a position he can play, those being the 14 AL teams and their designated hitter. Several of those teams already have younger players who are comparable hitters to man said position. On top of that, Bonds is noted as a questionable (at best) clubhouse presence, is exceeding polarizing among fans, and, having made 17 million dollars last year, isn't likely looking to play for the minimum this year. Oh, and there's also that slight issue of the pending perjury trial. So, if Bonds doesn't find a team to play for this year, it won't be because he's been blacklisted, or the result of some other conspiracy theory, it will simply be because not one of the 30 MLB teams felt he was worth devoting a roster spot to, at least not under terms Bonds would accept.

And yet, over the the last day, as word broke that the Tampa Bay Rays, one of the laughing stock franchises in the majors since their existence began back in '97, had at least engaged in some internal discussion about bringing Bonds in, I couldn't help but detect an air of victory amongst some of the media as they reported it. It was like "hah, look, even they don't want him." That, of course, isn't even necessarily accurate. The Rays said the talk hadn't gone anywhere, not that they didn't have interest.

I don't generally have a ton of sympathy for Bonds in terms of the how the media portrays him. He's made his bed in this area to a large degree, with his attitude, and the fact that he chased down the venerable Hank Aaron's record while being the most notorious (and probably best documented) steroid cheat in the game. I don't expect the media to like the guy, and I don't expect them to go out of their way to be nice to him. What I would like to see is them stop short of finding some sort of glory or vindication in the guy's downfall.

The sports media, in general, treats Barry Bonds (and Roger Clemens has recently moved into this territory) as if he has somehow personally and individually wronged them by his cheating. This, of course, would be the same sports media that, along with everyone else, turned a totally blind eye to drug use in baseball for years. It's as if Bonds, by being the "biggest" cheater in an era that we now believe to have been full of cheaters, has singlehandedly damaged baseball forever. The media, as "defenders of the game", now feel obliged to make sure this guy gets everything that's coming to him, in the name of baseball fans everywhere. Those same fans whom Bonds has apparently robbed, by the way, have continued through the gates in record numbers long after the steroids bubble burst. Could it be that they don't care about this nearly as much as the media does, and as much as the media believes they do?

Look, steroids are bad. They are illegal, and they are potentially dangerous, and they should have no place in the game. I support all appropriate efforts to clean up the game. And yet I'm completely tired of the media's passion for punishing offenders over and over again (well, at least the offenders they don't like, that is) after the fact. Barry Bonds (at least for the moment) and Roger Clemens are no longer major league baseball players. It may just be time for the media to start devoting more time to guys who are.

Taking the phrase "diaper dandy" too far

Okay, so I'm dutifully making my weekly journey through the current issue of Sports Illustrated, when I come upon this article. It's a rather standard feature/human interest piece on twin brothers Brook and Robin Lopez, who are both 7 feet tall and are currently sophomore members of the Stanford basketball team. The article in and of itself wasn't particularly noteworthy for me, save one passing reference to an SI piece on high school recruiting back in 1990. The article referenced their older brother, who was in 8th grade, and also alluded to the fact that the twins, who were 21 months old at the time were already drawing attention from recruiters because they were projected to reach 7 feet tall.

Yes, that's correct - 21 month old kids were attracting attention from recruiters - in 1990. I don't know about you, but my own personal skill set at a few months prior to my 2nd birthday didn't offer much indication into my potential as a basketball player. I had mastered walking, and was only beginning to master talking in words that weren't utter gibberish to anyone but me. I might have been able to palm a Nerf basketball, but only by squeezing the thing into oblivion. Oh, you know, I might have been able to feed myself to some degree back then - a very useful skill for a future basketball player.

Now, I understand that the reality was that, since the boys projected to be 7 feet tall, these recruiters weren't likely concerned about anything else at that point, especially given that they came from athletic roots. And the simple fact of the matter is that there are some 7 footers in the NBA today who I sometimes doubt have total command of the 21 month old skill set I just described. But the very simple fact that anyone felt they needed to keep an eye on these kids by the age of 21 months is quite disturbing to me. I know Dick Vitale (shudder) has been using the term "diaper dandy" for years on years to describe excellent freshman basketball players, but I'd really never read of anyone taking the term so literally before.

A few years back, 2 D-III All-American soccer players from Messiah (one male, one female, of course) dated, got engaged, and then were married. I remember suggesting at the time on a D3 soccer fan forum that the Messiah coaching staff had approached the couple about signing an agreement binding their children, of either gender, to play soccer at Messiah. This was, of course, totally tongue and cheek, and meant solely for humor's sake. However, knowing that almost 2 decades ago there were recruiters putting 21 month old kids on their radar due to height projections, such a scenario doesn't seem nearly as far-fetched as it did when I made the comment.

I mean, seriously, how far are we (or might we already be there already) from the day where kids are being basically recruited in utero based on genetics? I can just see recruiters (well, maybe not official recruiters, NCAA regulations being as they are) standing outside delivery rooms with school logo onesies to bestow upon the minutes old child, just hoping to get that early foot in the door. I have visions of parents bringing their newborn home to find their nursery repainted in Duke royal or Carolina powder blue. Heck, why wait until the child has already been conceived to start the process? Let's start matching couples and genetically engineering our athletes.

Okay, so all of that is an over-dramatization of the issue, but I guarantee you that anyone with an ear to the recruiting scene will tell you openly that, regardless of what the NCAA regulations are, kids are being recruited earlier and earlier. At what point do we say "Enough?" Clearly, whatever that point is, we haven't found yet, and I think that's sad. Kids, no matter how talented in whatever arena, deserve time to be just that - kids. The sooner we suck them into this athletic sub-culture (one that, by the way, pretty much everyone involved assigns far too much importance to), the quicker we take that away.

Sorting through the Meat Market

I just finished reading Meat Market, by Bruce Feldmen. Feldmen was given an insider's seat at the table to follow head coach Ed Orgeron and the Ole Miss coaching staff through the ordeal of recruiting for a year, culminating with the 2007 national signing day. If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know my feelings on major college athletics, and so I was very much interested in getting a behind the scenes look at recruiting.

While I won't say I came away with any particularly thrilling insights, it was amazing to me just how consuming the recruiting process is at a major football school. They really just didn't seem to quit. I was also quite impressed with the extent to which it all seemed to be something of a house of cards at times, or perhaps a real-life game of Jenga, trying to make this move or that without disturbing the overall tower. I was also rather surprised to read about the level of deception and double-talk that went from recruits and those around them to coaches in some cases. The cynic in me expected that sort of thing to be coming from the schools, but I guess I never really thought about the level to which the recruits might be willing to "play the game" as well.

The story in the book that really cast an aspect of the college athletics scene into a new light for me was that of prized recruit Jerrell Powe. I'm not going to go into all the details of the story, but suffice to say that Powe had originally signed with Ole Miss back in 2005, but was unable to gain academic eligibility, and has since been turned 2 more times. Now, on the surface, this seems to be one of the classic things that I hate about major college athletics - a school doing everything they can to get a kid into school who really has no business being on a college campus. And there's certainly some of that there. However, as presented in the book, Powe was a kid who had been basically ignored and allowed to slip through the school system, despite ultimately failing grades when Ole Miss first discovered him. When Ole Miss began setting him up for academic help, he had a 2nd grade reading level. Within a relatively short time, he was up to a 5th grade level. The various complications and ultimate outcome of Powe's case make it such that I certainly can't hold his actual situation up as an example of a kid really being helped academically as a result of the football machine, but it did make me wonder if maybe there aren't situations similar to this that occur, where a kid who would otherwise have slipped through the cracks of a poor school system gets picked up and put on a better path as a result of interest in his football abilities. None of this, of course, excuses the kind of other academic compromises you hear about all the time, but it does bring me some comfort to think that maybe there are some kids who really benefit from the process, in areas other than just on the football field.

It's worth noting that since the publishing of this book, Ole Miss went 3-9 (0-8 in the SEC) and Coach Orgeron was fired after 3 years at Ole Miss, with a 10-25 overall record, and 3-21 in the SEC.

I'm not sure where I'm going for my next non-fiction read at this point, I'll have to make a decision over the weekend. I've got two baseball books sitting immediately on my stack, but both deal with steroids on some level, and I'm a bit saturated with that topic thanks to Roger Clemens. I'm thinking I may acquire another book on college football or basketball this weekend. No such confusion on the fiction side. Still working through Tom Sawyer, but I just got a box from Barnes and Noble yesterday that contained The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Complete Sherlock Holmes, vols. I and II, Treasure Island, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. And thanks to the Barnes and Noble Classic series, my member discount, and a gift card, that all came at an actual cost to me of about 5 bucks :-) Suffices to say, I have plenty of fiction reading for the foreseeable future.

On coaching "the right way"

Before I get started, I have to make clear that there are two things I am NOT looking to do with this entry. First of all, I'm not going to defend current (for the moment, anyhow) Indiana University basketball coach Kelvin Sampson. Secondly, I'm not going to demonize former IU coach Bob Knight.

If you're in tune with the college basketball scene (or perhaps if you just live in and around Indiana), you're aware of the situation that IU coach Kelvin Sampson has found himself in. (summary of the current situation) In short, Sampson, who was already on probation with the NCAA due to improper phone calls to recruits at his prior job at Oklahoma when he was hired at Indiana, was found to have made over 100 improper phone calls since coming to Indiana. Furthermore, last week he was accused by the NCAA of having provided false and misleading information to investigators looking into the violations, and thus Indiana was being charged with 5 major rules violations. Sampson's status at Indiana has yet to be officially sorted out, but conventional wisdom is that he will be suspended within the next few days, and dismissed shortly afterwards.

A recruiting scandal of this magnitude at a storied program like Indiana would be a compelling story all by itself. What has added a little more punch to the discussion in this case has been the proximity of this story to former Hoosier coach Bob Knight's resignation from Texas Tech. Now, contrary to what some Hoosier fans might dream, the possibility of Knight returning to finish out his career at Indiana is quite remote. However, having just come out of a time where Knight was prominent in the news and his legacy was being discussed/debate, this story has offered an interesting opportunity to compare/contrast.

What I've picked up on in the last number of days has been rather illuminating. I have heard a number of people contrast Sampson and Knight, and talk about how Knight, throughout his 42 year coaching career, did things "the right way" - using that specific phrase. I've really got to take issue with that sort of language, particularly when it's being used to draw a distinction between Sampson and Knight.

When people talk about how Knight did it "the right way", they are no doubt referring to the fact that Knight enjoyed an incredible amount of success, without ever having even a hint of NCAA violations around his programs, and that as a rule, his players graduated and stayed out of trouble. These are all highly admirable, and sadly are all becoming significantly less common in the present day. And yet, to say that Knight did it "the right way" quickly glosses over a very checkered history of his personal conduct. A quick run-down of things that Knight did/was accused of doing throughout his career: Assaulting a police officer in Puerto Rico while coaching at the Pan-Am Games, throwing a chair across the floor during a game, kicking a player (his own son, actually) during a game, berating an NCAA volunteer, choking a player during practice, having to be restrained from going after a heckling Baylor student.

As I said at the beginning, I'm not out to pile on to Bob Knight. I have an immense amount of respect for Bob Knight and his legacy as a coach. I also think that latter in his career, a number of incidents were made out to be much more than they actually were, simply because it was Knight. But the fact of the matter is that, as much as his supporters would like to idealize him after the fact, Coach Knight is far from the gold standard for doing things "the right way". He did an awful lot of things the right way, but he also did many things the wrong way due to a lack of the self control and discipline he preached to his players day in and day out. And to demonize Kelvin Sampson for making a bunch of extra phone calls to recruits, while glossing over Knight's transgressions seems to me to be rather unfair.

As I also said at the beginning, I'm not here to defend Sampson. The guy knew the rules, and he continued to break them even after being caught and put on probation at his last job. He was given a second chance by Indiana, and he threw that away. He deserves to lose his job, and quite frankly, I will be very disappointed if Indiana does not dismiss him. At the same time, it wouldn't be the first time that IU has overlooked a coach's transgressions because that particular coach was successful, and that's something that IU fans need to come to terms with.

The "other" side of the NCAA

If you've been reading this blog fairly regularly over the few months that I've been diligently posting, you'll know that one of my recurrant themes is a strong level of cyncism with regards to the NCAA, mainly relating to what would be termed as the "cash cow" sports, that being major college football and basketball. I feel like that cynicism is pretty well supported by the facts, and I've stated as much on many instances.

That being said, those sports constitute only 2 of the sports and only one of the 88 championships that the NCAA sanctions on a yearly basis. However, unless you have a connection to a lower division school with a solid athletic program, you've probably never really encountered the NCAA at the lower levels. For all my cynicism about major college athletics, I've been exceedingly quick to spout praise for the "real" student-athletes of the lower NCAA divisions in the past.

And for all the evils I see in the NCAA in the cash cow sports, I see so much good resulting at the lower levels and the more obscure sports. I've traveled to 3 men's and 2 women's Division III soccer final fours as a fan, 1 Division III field hockey Final Four as a fan/brother of a player, and seen countless other soccer, field hockey, and basketball playoff games over the last decade. And what I've consistently seen at each step of the road is the NCAA providing a first rate championship experience for these student-athletes whom I have so much respect for.

When people think of NCAA sports, they think of the money making machines that are the NCAA basketball tournament, and college football. And yet the reality is those two sports are just a small piece of the puzzle. Virtually ever other championship the NCAA runs operates at a relatively steep loss. That of course, is made possible by the money that comes in from the cash cows. I've certainly had my complaints for the NCAA regarding D-III tournaments in the past, as occasionally financial considerations clearly do stand in the way of what's truly best for the competition. However, I accept the reality of that, and also see them continuing to make strides to limit those kind of situations. I see, for the most part, a truly geninue effort to reward these athletes for the kind of effort they lay out over their seasons, which, in many cases isn't that much less than their D-I counterparts.

So, while you won't ever see me forgive the NCAA for what I see as fairly dramatic abuses at the highest levels, you can know that I'm not ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater by condemning the entire organization as corrupt and money driven. It's become clear to me through the years that the NCAA system benefits far more athletes than it exploits. This, of course, is not a justification for the exploitation, because I'm relatively certain that the students that are currently benefiting from the system could still reap those benefits without the exploitation of the few. It does, however, bring a little bit of balance to the discussion that I often appear to be so one-sided on.

Where were we?

Okay, so it's been a little while, once again. I had a rather busy, but fun, holiday weekend.

The first event, and most certainly the highlight, was Tim, Amanda, and Nathan's visit. I was greatly looking forward to having them at my house Saturday evening through Sunday morning. My anticipation of their visit momentarily turned to horror several hours before their arrival, when I went to take a shower and had no hot water. Now, I've lived in this house for almost 3 years and have never had this happen, and I have overnight guests maybe 2 times a year, so the fact that these things coincided was just bizarre. Fortunately, the pilot was just out on my water heater, so I was able to get it going again well ahead of their visit.

After that momentary stresser, their actual visit was just great. It was so awesome to be able to catch up with old friends, and to get to know little Nathan, who is just about the coolest thing ever. He's really a sucker for anyone who will help him explore by taking him anywhere he points, so I won major points there :) The family also got introduced to my dog, who is uber-hyper around visitors. Chaser was a big fan of Nathan, and Nathan was quite the trooper while Chaser was giving him kisses, until the 2nd or 3rd kiss caused Nathan to lose his balance and bump his head. Needless to say, Chaser was retired to his room for the evening. Thankfully, Nathan was no worse for the wear. He may have learned not to sit on Chaser's pillow, however. Probably not though, it is pretty comfy, after all.

I said goodbye to the Ritters on Sunday morning. Shortly after they left, my new roommate Brad, whose impending presence sparked the remodel of 2 weeks ago in the basement, showed up with all of his stuff, ready to move in. That happened with relative ease, and now we go through the process of adjusting to having 3 guys in the house as opposed to just two. Chaser also has to deal with having a roommate, and I'm not sure he's totally thrilled about the idea at present.

After church in the evening, I treked down the road to Shippensburg to spend the night with my folks, in advance of an early morning dentist appointment. There's no better way to celebrate President's Day than to get a tooth filled, if you ask me. Okay, I might be lying about that. However, I did enjoy the rest of the day, which involved spending time with the folks around the house, and then going out with my sister and brother-in-law to celebrate my sister's birthday. We had been planning on celebrating on her actual birthday last week, but a long standing tradition of bad winter weather occuring on her birthday reared it's ugly head.

So, after all of these various interruptions to my routine, and the corresponding interruption to posting on this blog, I'm pretty sure I'm back for a good long stretch at the helm of the blog. I've got a really awesome commentary on the "other side" of the NCAA that I'm ready to crank out, either later tonight, or tomorrow.

On my night with Carrie.... (and Keith, sort of)

Okay, so I sound terrible today, but I am feeling much, much better. I can take the "playing hurt" designation off of myself.

Anyhow, I had a terrific time at the Carrie Underwood/Keith Urban concert last night. I did underestimate just how bad traffic would be getting to the Giant Center. It's usually a 20 minute trip from my house, I left a little over an hour early, and yet I still wasn't quite to my seat when Carrie sang her first notes. It was a pretty cool feeling when I walked in and handed the guy my ticket and he was like "You're on the floor" and pointed me where I needed to go, and then when the usher down on the floor kept taking me further and further up, till we finally got to the 5th row. Right before we got to my seats she told me "If you go back upstairs for some reason, make sure you keep your ticket stub, because there's no way they are going to let you back up here without it". Awesome. I was probably about 15-20 feet back from the main stage, and similarly far awy from the middle section that led out to a secondary stage in the front. Unfortunately, in my still somewhat ill state, I was foggy enough to believe that when they said "no cameras", they actually meant it, so I didn't get anything in the way of pictures. I tried a few shots with my camera phone, but the lighting just overwhelmed that little camera.

Carrie put on a heck of a show. Not that I didn't know this already, but the girl can flat out sing. There are lots of people that sound awesome on their albums, but she was just incredible live, and I don't know that I had a real concept of just how good her voice is prior to last night. Terrific. And of course, she was rather easy to look at as well. Very classy dress though, which is one of the things I appreciate about her, as opposed to many other female music stars. The crowd was much more subdued for Carrie's set than I would have expected, especially since I was so close to the stage. On a normal night, I think I would have been disappointed by that, but since I was playing hurt, I was grateful that I didn't have to stand for the duration of the concert. I'm sure the woman in my row that was on crutches felt the same way.

I'm not the biggest Keith Urban fan, but the man is a ridiculous performer. The crowd was NOT subdued for his set, and I was on my feet for as long as I stayed. It was interesting being submerged in a sea of middle aged women who all suddenly started behaving like middle school girls when Keith came out. Some people had cut out a ton of construction paper hearts that they wanted everyone to hold up at the end of his first number, for Valentine's Day. I was given a heart, but did not hold it up, because, well, I'm a guy, and I'm not gay. Something about a guy holding up a heart at another guy.... yeah. Lots of people did go along with it though, and Keith was quite amused at the stunt. Like I said though, outstanding performer, seriously rocked the place out while I was there. I left midway through his set, because as I said, I'm not his biggest fan, it was already past ten, I was already feeling tired due to being sick, and I knew if I stayed to the end, it might be close to 1 until I got home between getting out of the arena and the massive traffic jam. Had it been a Friday night show, I would definitely have been there for the duration regardless, but the sensible adult in me took over. By the time I got home, I almost had all of my hearing back.

This was actually the first concert I'd seen at the Giant Center. I'd seen several at the old Hersheypark Arena, and that big concrete silo was just a terrible venue because of how bad the acoustics were. If you didn't know the songs, you were out of luck because you had zero chance of making out the lyrics. Much better experience at the Giant Center.

Overall, a high quality way to spend an evening.

Devean George? Really?

Okay, so I'm still playing a little hurt today. Fortunately for you all, I decided to follow the sage advice of Roger Clemens' mom, and take a B12 shot to keep me going. Can't disappoint my loyal readers, nor can I bring myself to disappoint Carrie later tonight...

As you might imagine, sports radio was hot and heavy with talk regarding yesterday's Congressional hearing with Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee. However, I've already spent enough time on that story for my tastes, so I'm going into a different direction, and will instead hit up the NBA.

There's a week left until the trading deadline, and there's been a flurry of activity by the Western Conference contenders. It all started 2 weeks ago, when the LA Lakers snared forward/center Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizziles. That move was followed last week by the Phoenix Suns sending Shawn Marion to Miami in exchange for center Shaquille O'Neal. And last night, the Dallas Mavaricks thought that they had pulled off their big splash deal, agreeing to send a package of players to New Jersey for All-Star point guard, Jason Kidd. They thought that, until word came last night that Dallas reserve forward Devean George, one of the players being sent to New Jersey, had exercised his right to refuse a trade. George does not have a no trade clause, however, an obscure rule allows him to veto a trade because he is on a one year contract with the same team he ended last season with. Were he traded, he would forfeit his "Larry Bird" rights, which impact the amount of money he can make on his next contract.

I sincerely hope that for Devean George's sake, this is some kind of posturing for some leverage, and that he will ultimately approve the deal. First of all, this really doesn't make a lot of sense, since George had expressed a desire to be traded if his playing time didn't increase. Secondly, I understand the financial considerations, but does he REALLY want to stay in Dallas and be the guy who stands in the way of the Mavericks acquiring Kidd? Rightly or wrongly, the Mavs fans clearly believe that Kidd is the missing piece they need to contend for a championship. By standing in the way of that, he's dooming himself to playing in front of a hostile home crowd for the rest of the season. I would also imagine he'll face some difficulty within his own locker room and the organization at large. I know this much, if he's intent on holding firm on this, he's gonna need to do something a little better than last night's 0 for 11 shooting performance.

I have a sense that this is probably just posturing, and that he'll eventually sign off on the deal. If not, he'd better pray that the Nets and Mavs find a way to get the deal done without him. Even then, I'm not sure that will allieviate the ire he draws from the fans. I'm also guessing that, if he ultimately stays in Dallas, the Mavs won't exactly be eager to lay out the biggest possible contract for him in a sign and trade, so those precious Larry Bird rights might not be as valuable as he thinks.

Desperate to move on...

I'm feeling a bit under the weather today, so I didn't know if I was going to make it to the blog tonight, but I feel like I just HAVE to post a few thoughts on what went on in DC today with the Roger Clemens hearing.

First of all, from a Congressional perspective, this hearing was utterly worthless. At least in past hearings, while I never thought Congress should have been involved, it was clear that hearing was meant to investigate the larger problem of steroids in baseball. Today's hearing basically boiled down to an investigation into steroid allegations against one player. Such investigations are what we have the Justice department for, and the reality is that even the Justice Department wouldn't typically get involved in investigating one drug user. In fact, in this case, the statute of limitations has already expired, so there really is no place for the federal government to get involved. Or at least there wasn't. Clearly, someone perjured themselves today. To the credit of the committee, their comments indicated that they were prepared to call off the public proceedings, but Clemens' team insisted that they needed this forum. I would advise Congress in the future to not bow to the wishes of a famous baseball player when determining how to spend their time and my money.

Secondly, for as much as Clemens apparently wanted this hearing to go forward, today's developments weren't positive for him. McNamee is clearly a questionable witness, but the depositions and today's hearing brought probably the most believeable figure in the case (Andy Pettitte) in, and he's backing up McNamee's story. No matter how compelling Clemens is (and that's debateable), the case is quickly becoming one where either Clemens is lying, or everyone else is lying. The medical testimony relative to the abcess that Clemens had on his backside at one point in Toronto wasn't particularly helpful to his cause either. One thing that was clear to me is that he has no chance of winning his defamation suit against McNamee, and I would be surprised if that suit even goes forward.

McNamee's image was not helped today either, however. He admitted to several instances of lying, and conceded that he didn't give all the information he had to the investigators at first. At the same time, we've learned that Chuck Knoblauch, the third player McNamee implicated in the Mitchell report, has said that McNamee was telling the truth, which means that in order to believe Clemens, you'd have to believe the McNamee was telling the truth about everyone except him.

Lastly, it seems pretty clear to me at this point that a perjury investigation is coming from the feds, which is the primary reason why I didn't want these proceedings to go forward. It's time to move on, but that just isn't going to happen. Let's remember, Barry Bonds was hit with a perjury indictment 2 1/2 years after his grand jury testimony, so the chances of a quick resolution seem to be pretty slim. Perjury is a crime, but the bottom line in my book is these proceedings should never have taken place, and so I'm fairly certain there are a number of things I'd rather have the Justice Department looking into than whether Roger Clemens lied about steroid use in the context of a pointless Congressional hearing.

I'm strongly considering moving to a remote island until Clemens' seemingly inevitable perjury trial is over.

Give it up, Roger

So, I'm back, and the world is much the same as it was when I last checked in over here on a sports-related topic: a story I really wish would go away continues to dominate the scene. That story, of course, is the Roger Clemens v. Brian McNamee saga. The major development that occured while I was out was McNamee turning in used syringes with steroid residue and bloody gauze, all said to be used on Clemens and to be likely to carry his DNA. A secondary development has been Clemens' PR tour in Washington, as he has arranged one one one meeting with member's of Congress in advance of this Wednesday's hearing, which of course, will get the full barrage of coverage.

All I have to say at this point is: Give it up, Roger. Here's the thing - I believe Brian McNamee. But really, it doesn't matter what I believe. It really doesn't even matter what actually happened at this point, to a large extent. The reality of this situation is that Clemens has already lost in the court of public opinion. The general public overwhelmingly believes McNamee's story, and I'm becoming rapidly convinced that there's nothing Clemens can do to change that reality. He's in a no-win situation. McNamee has been deemed credible by the public, and thus Clemens is left with the impossible task of trying to prove a negative. A good performance at Wednesday's hearing won't change that. Winning a defamation suit against McNamee won't change that. Nothing, short of Brian McNamee standing up under oath and saying he made the whole thing up, is going to remove the "cheater" mark from the Rocket's resume. Seeing as how doing that would lead McNamee to a jail cell, I don't think that'll be happening anytime soon. The damage is done.

Absent any real ability to prove Clemens' innocent, his lawyers are clearly resorting to an attempt at smearing McNamee, hoping to damage his credibility. There's only one problem with that - McNamee worked for Clemens for about 8 years, and was working with Clemens within a week of when the Mitchell report was released, which means that had NcNamee not been caught up in the Mitchell investigation, he'd probably still be working for Clemens. Underlying any attempts to paint McNamee as a troubled, dispicable human being will be met with the obvious underlying question: "Why was he still working for you then?" For instance, Clemens' team informed us recently about how McNamee was once accused of date rape, only to have those charges dropped. Pretty heavy stuff. Of course, that fact didn't stop Clemens from hiring McNamee shortly after the incident. The other problem with any credibility attacks is the fact that the other players that McNamee implicated have admitted his account to be truthful.

It really seems to me like the Clemens' team is feeling desperate at this point. Why else would they try to compare Clemens to the members of the Duke lacrosse team who were falsely accused of rape in 2006, and the victims of gross prosecutorial misconduct by former Durham County D.A. Mike Nifong? Drawing a connection between Nifong and George Mitchell seems to be more than a little bit of a reach, and even if Clemens is being falsely accused, the cases aren't any more similar than that. In that case, the evidence (or complete lack there of, to be more specific) exonerated the accused. There's no similar outcome available for Clemens in this case. We wouldn't expect there to be evidence available (beyond McNamee's testimony) that Clemens did steroids several years ago, and so even if the evidence that McNamee has come forth with wouldn't hold up in court, it's hardly the same as the woman crying rape having been found not to have the DNA of the accused anywhere on her.

So, once again, I say, give it up Roger. Rightly or wrongly, you've been put in a no-win situation. Go to Congress, tell your story one last time, and then walk away. If you didn't it, live with that knowledge absent any vindication from the rest of the world. If you did, pray that no one can ever prove it in a court of law, because you've already lied to the feds, and they've been known not to like that.

How I spent the past week

Construction began last Saturday at approximately 10:00 AM. The "victory" post last night at 8 pm announced the end of major operations. The time in between was spent taking this:

And turning it into my new office/study/exercise room/guest room, which looks a little something like this:

As you might be able to deduce from the pictures, this room also serves as my dog Chaser's primary dwelling. He had a very, very stressful week while work was ongoing back there, and he's been rather confused/nervous about this new room that took the place of his room. He's adjusting pretty well though, all things considered. I'm pretty sure he likes the couch (complete with hide-a-bed for guest room purposes) better than that plain old bed anyhow.

Victory!

Well, I can't say I've given my final brush stroke, as I'll be doing some touch up work over the weekend, but the serious painting is FINALLY done. I'll post some before/after pics tomorrow after tonight's painting drys up and I can put everything back together for true after shots. Very, very satisfied with the finished product, which makes the craziness of this week worth it.

The room I redid is the room where Chaser spends his time when I'm not at home, and I've managed to do this all without him going completely nuts, screwing something up, drinking paint, or getting paint on him, and that pleases me as well.

So, there's a few final items to put in place, but my life, and as a result, this blog, should be returning to normal in the next day or so.

Still painting...

Yup, it continues. I was intentional about not painting all night tonight though, and I was able to put away two of the three paint cans for good and put most other things in order tonight.

Just one door, the trim around that door, and some touching up to do tomorrow, and then life should return to some semblance of normality.

Update

Yeah, tonight's definitely NOT going to be my last night of painting.

Doh.

Is there anything finer...

than Duke v. Carolina?

I say no, at least not in the world of sports. I've been off remodeling the last couple days, and I still have a good bit of work to do on that, but before I pick my paint brush back up (hopefully for the last time on this project), I had to write about tonight's college hoops clash between #2 Duke and #3 UNC.

You see, while my heart truly belongs to Messiah College athletics, in the arena of major college basketball, I'm a Dukie through and through. I'm not precisely sure why I became a Duke fan. My first clear memory of watching college basketball was as an almost 9 year old, crying after Duke lost to Seton Hall in the 1989 Final Four. This, of course, would seem to indicate that I liked Duke prior to that game. I have some very vague recollections of Danny Manning and Kansas in the 1988 Final Four and title game, and Duke was there as well, so perhaps it happened then. I don't know. But I do know what has come since. I remember the disappointment the following year as they reached the title game only to be brutalized by UNLV. There was the jubilation in '91 when they knocked off that same UNLV team, who was #1 and undefeated, in the semis, and followed it up with their first national championship against Kansas. In 1992, my tears of defeat turned into tears of joy in a matter of the 2.2 seconds it took Christian Laettner to hit one of the biggest shots in NCAA tournament history against Kentucky in the Elite 8, as they went on to successfully defend their title. There was Grant Hill taking the team on his back in '94 and falling just short in the title game, and the horrific year after that when Coach K's health forced him off the bench. There was the disappointment of the '99 title game, the agony and then thrill of watching Duke fall behind by 22 against Maryland in the 2001 semis only to rally for an 11 point victory on the way to the 2001 title, the disbelief of watching them surrender a 9 point lead with under 5 to play against Emeka Okafor and UConn in 2004, and any other number of highs and lows in between. I love Duke hoops.

And as a result, I live for Duke v. Carolina, which thankful continues to come around at least 2 times every year, despite the increase in the size of the ACC. If there's a better rivalry in sports, you'd be hard pressed to convince me of it. You have 2 schools whose campuses are seperated by 7 miles, each with their own very storied history of basketball success, who have been at or near the top of college basketball for years on end. As I already mentioned, both schools are in the Top 5 for this matchup, and that's hardly a rarity in the history of the rivalry. There have been years where one team is #1 for the first matchup, the other for the second. It's all too common.

For all my cyncism about the NCAA and major college athletics, one thing I am not cyncial about are college fans. There are no fans anywhere that are more passionate about their teams than college students, and the Duke and UNC fans are among the best in that category. It's that level of passion that, in my mind, seperates a rivalry like Duke v. Carolina from any kind of professional rivarly. It's just absolutely intense in a way that you just can't replicate on a consistent basis. And, as much fun as it was in the late 90s, early 00s when Duke was absolutley dominating the rivalry as Carolina was down, there's just something fundamentally right in the sports world when both teams come into the gym among the nation's elite, locked in a 2 team battle for ACC supremecy.

Tonight's game figures to have a special level of intensity attached to it, due to the events towards the end of the last game these teams played last season. Duke guard Gerald Henderson broke the nose of UNC All-American forward Tyler Hansbrough with a late, wildly aggressive shot block attempt in a game that was pretty much out of hand. It's been argued back and forth whether Henderson actually intended to hurt Hansbrough, but that's ultimately not relevant. We all know that UNC and Hansbrough haven't forgotten, and you can guarantee that the fans in Chapel Hill, where tonight's game is being playing, haven't forgotten it either.

So: 9:00 tonight. ESPN. Be there, set your VCR/DVR, or whatever else you have to do. You don't want to miss this one.

And now, I must go pick that pesky paint brush back up.

Update

Just want to let my loyal readers know that I've been MIA for a couple days, and will likely be so for another couple. I'm in the midst of a "minor" remodeling of the back room of my basement, and that consumed most of my free time over the weekend and will yet tonight and probably tomorrow.

I spent most of that incredible Super Bowl game last night with the game on my small TV in the back room while "partying" with a paint brush and my new cabinets. Gonna be awesome when it's all done, I just need to get to that point!

Here we go again.

Seriously, as I've said before, there's nothing I like better than Congress using their time and my money to grandstand about pro sports. And of course, right before the Super Bowl, here we are again. PA Senator Arlen Specter wants to talk to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell about why the league destroyed the evidence after the "SpyGate" video taping scandal involving the New England Patriots.

I'll be the first to admit I was never totally at ease with how the NFL handled the situation. I felt that the punishment was a bit weak, especially given that Belichick was not suspended. And the fact that all the evidence collected was destroyed (which was widely published at the time) also seemed quite odd to me.

What seems even more odd, however, is that Senator Specter suddenly decided, about 2 months after the fact, that this was a big deal that Congress needed to get involved in. The article notes his first communication with the comissioner as being dated November 15th. Specter was on The Dan Patrick Show this morning and said that he first became aware of the situation when reading the paper shortly before the Eagles (Specter is an Eagles fan) were about to play Patriots. Seriously? A man who is presenting himself as incredibly concerned about the NFL and its integrity hadn't heard of the story that dominated the sports media for almost 2 weeks at the beginning of the season, until 2 months after the fact? I think there's clearly something else at play here besides genuine concern for the integrity of the NFL.

Look, like I said, I think there are a few things fishy around how the league handled everything surrounding SpyGate, but the bottom line is that these remain league matters. There's not even an allegation of anything criminal going on here, Specter's incredible reach to suggest a possible obstruction of justice aside. At least with the steroids issue, Congress had the excuse of steroids being illegal. There's nothing here that Congress needs to concern itself with. The credibility of the league is in the hands of the league, and if they screw that up, they'll suffer the consequences. That's how it works, and how it should continue to work. So, thanks, but no thanks, Senator Specter.