Do part-time NFL refs still make sense?

Another NFL playoff weekend has come and gone, and, as has become all too common in recent years, the officials are at least part of the weekend's storyline. It seems like this happens at least once every playoff season, if not more often - a game where there a couple almost inexplicable calls in favor of one team. The game of choice this week was the Colts/Chargers game. Fortunately for the NFL and the referees, the team that got the perceived slight from the refs ended up winning the game, or it would be a dominant story.

I'm not going to go in blow by blow and analyze the calls in question. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, for one thing. Mistakes happen, and as long as humans are responsible for officiating sports, there will be officiating errors. It's a part of the game, albeit an unfortunate part. And even if actual mistakes aren't made, there will always be officiating controversies, as bias towards one team or another colors the views of fans on various instances. And the simple fact of that matter is that there are very few instances where you could convince me that officiating errors were enough change the outcome of a game. And yet, I've come to believe much more in the last few years that, even at the highest levels of sports, games can turn on good or poor officiating. An NFL football game can often turn (not be decided, necessarily) on a single play, and so a correct or incorrect call on a play can also turn a game.

The point I'm getting to here with the NFL is one I've been harping on repeatedly, ever since the much disputed officiating performance in the Super Bowl two years ago between the Steelers and the Seahawks. Again, I'm not going to dissect the officiating in that game, but the furor that arose surrounding that game led me to the following question: Why would the NFL, a 6 billion dollar industry, leave the credibility of its product in the hands of part-time employees, namely the officials. That's correct, NFL officials are part-timers, unlike the officials in all other major sports. Now, it's a fair point that the NFL only has a 16 game season, compared to the other 3 sports which all have at least 82 games. A few decades ago, it certainly made sense to only employee part-time officials.

However, the times have changed. The NFL is the most popular professional sports league in the US, and as such has millions of eyes glued to it every single Sunday, and hoards of media attention. The level of scrutiny of officials has never been higher. While the NFL can't really have refs work multiple games in a week, or use more time from officials in that sort of fashion, I have to believe that there would be significant value in having the referees focusing solely on officiating through out the week. There would be more time for tape review, for going over clarifications and interpretations. Like I said earlier, I understand that there will always be mistakes, and true consistency on a number of rules will be near impossible to ever achieve. That being said, it only stands to reason that the more times you go over what holding is, the more examples you see of what it is and what it isn't, the easier it would be for you to make the calls. I can't imagine that the extra money the NFL would have to invest to go to full-time officials wouldn't be well worth it in the long run.

My team, the Eagles, has not been a part of any of the major playoff officiating controversies over the last few years, so I've been able to come at them from a relatively unbiased perspective, and I have to concede that there have been serious issues, often seeming to favor one team. Some would have you believe that the NFL is trying to direct outcomes in these games, but I've never bought into that. The potential short term reward of getting a more "favorable" matchup the following week just doesn't seem to me to be worth risking the long term damage that any discovery of such a scheme would do to the league. And yet I have to concede, year in and year out, we play the same story over and over again, and it just doesn't seem like the NFL really is that interested in stepping up and doing everything they can to make sure officiating is as good as it can be. The obvious fact that it will never be perfect should not be justification for being satisfied with less than what can be attained.

Announcement

Okay, I could have technically done this before now, but I wanted to hold off until it really felt right. But since I've gotten hits from both Brazil and the Netherlands thus far today, the time has come.

I just want to thank everyone for visiting my internationally famous blog.

That is all, carry on.

The beginning of the steroids Gestapo?

I said a few days ago that I was disappointed at the way the Roger Clemens saga that arose due to the naming of names in the Mitchell report had deflected attention away from the other findings and recommendations of the Mitchell report. It's been one of the prominent stories in sports for the last several weeks, and likely won't be going away time soon, as Clemens and company will be in front of Congress on February 13th. And, it will likely continue to be the dominant baseball story, despite the fact that today we had the most truly significant development in baseball since the Mitchell report dropped. The commissioner's office announced a number of the recommendations of the report that will be implemented.

The most significant implementation will be the creation of a department of investigations within the commissioner's office to probe drug use. As I said, this was a recommendation of the Mitchell report that has just been sitting out in the open for almost a month now, but due to all the commotion around Clemens and the other names, it's gone completely unnoticed by the mainstream sports media, along with virtually every other recommendation contained in the report.

I'm a huge proponent of cleaning up the game as much as is reasonably possible, but at first glance, this department scares the crap out of me. I'm of the opinion that the only way to truly and effectively clean up the game is by fostering an attitude of cooperation between the union and the league on the issue, and this really sounds like MLB is about ready to go all Gestapo on their players. That is quite possibly the worst thing that MLB could do, aside from going back to looking the other way. I'm going to concede that I've only just seen this article within the last couple hours, so I'm going to reserve some judgment on this implementation for a while, and keep an eye out as more information comes out, but I'm not optimistic given how the Mitchell report was handled in the first place.

There's a simple fact of life at work here - the cheaters are always going to stay ahead of those chasing them, the only question is how far ahead they stay. There's always going to be a window between when a new drug comes out and when there's a test for it. MLB can really only get very aggressive about policing what actually goes on within their walls. Going crazy with investigations is simply going to completely chase steroid use out of MLB buildings, and not out of the game. From the perspective of addressing the issue going forward, the fact that steroid use had been relatively open in the past would actually be a good thing, if MLB were to handle the situation properly. If MLB goes big brother on the players to the extent that I suspect will happen, what it will primarily serve to do is break down what has overall become a rather good working relationship between ownership and the union. I can see a major war at the next CBA negotiation if this department is what I think it's going to be.

Let me be clear, I want to see more done to clean up the game. I'm in favor of independent drug testing. I would like to see the players consent to blood testing, and to allowing test samples to be saved so that they can re-tested as tests for new drugs are developed. I'm for fostering an environment where players feel comfortable working together with ownership on cleaning up the game. Turning clubhouses into police states where players have to be constantly looking over their shoulder is totally counterproductive to cleaning up the game, in my opinion. I wonder if ownership isn't being overly sensitive to the criticism that all this went on under their noses for so long. I don't necessarily believe this department would clean up the game, but it would certainly clean up the clubhouses.

My primary concern in all of this is that fact that it seems quite likely to me that this announcement will go largely unnoticed, as the original recommendation in the Mitchell report did, by the media and the public. If that happens, the media will have failed the public once again. This is the kind of story that the sports media should be pulling out into the light and subjecting to all kinds of scrutiny, but I just don't see that happening until it's too late. The "who juiced" stories are all much more interesting, despite being largely irrelevant to addressing the future of baseball.

Of course, the sad reality may be that the public wouldn't see any problem with this sort of setup anyhow. I'd like to hope that's not the case, however. We'll see.

Overblown Non-Story of the Week (Week of January 12th)

It's that time again folks. Time for the crowning of another ONSOTW. This week's story has actually been around longer than a week, but I've let it go up until now for a variety of reasons. This week, however, my frustration with it has finally reached a level worthy of mention.

If you follow football, you probably know that Dallas Cowboy quarterback Tony Romo is, at present, romantically linked to starlet Jessica Simpson. You likely are also aware that Ms. Simpson attended a game a few weeks back against Philadelphia,, and that Romo played particularly poorly as the Cowboys lost said game. It's also possible that you would be clued in to the fact that last season, Romo was similarly linked to country star Carrie Underwood, and that he also played very poorly in a Cowboy loss to Philadelphia that Underwood attended. As rabid fans often do, Cowboy fans seized on this connection, and the theory that Romo couldn't handle having his famous girlfriends around began to circle. The theory was perpetuated with comments by Cowboys wideout Terrell Owens, which he later said he was not serious about. Playing along, you began to see people wearing Jessica Simpson masks at Cowboy road games, and the media obviously picked up on the idea and speculation began. Simpson has been called Jessica Ono, Yoko Simpson, and, most cleverly, in my opinion, Yoko Romo. (Credit to Dan Patrick for that one.) And then, this week, the story broke that, during the Cowboys' bye week in the first round of the playoffs, Romo went on a vacation to Mexico with Simpson, along with teammate Jason Witten and his wife, and, oddly enough, Simpson's father.

Before I go much further, I have to make it clear that I'm not a Romo fan. First of all, I'm an Eagles fan, so no one that plays for the Cowboys is going to be someone I jump to defend as an instinct. I respect his abilities and what he's done on the field. I'd also respect him as a man for his ability to pull the likes of Simpson and Carrie Underwood, except that in the case of Underwood, he was scamming on my girl. That's right, I just called Carrie Underwood my girl. I do so even though she isn't technically my girl at the moment, since the only reason that's true is because she has no idea I exist. (Unless of course, she's one of the people who read this blog anonymously and never chime in. Carrie, if you're reading this, drop me line!) Once we clear that one minor obstacle, I'm golden. But I digress. Anyhow, I would have been willing to overlook Romo's betrayal once he dumped Carrie, had he not wound up with Simpson. You might think I have some claim on her as well, but this is not the case. Making the move from Carrie to Jessica lowered my opinion of him, because it convinced me that he's an idiot. I mean, perhaps Carrie was too beautiful, intelligent, and talented for him and he felt intimidated and needed to find someone who was a downgrade in all three areas, but come on man! Show some better judgment. I digress again. The point is, I don't like Romo.

Anyhow, ever since word broke of the Romo/Simpson excursion to Mexico earlier this week, I've been bombarded with endless discussion about whether his relationship with Simpson is distracting Romo, whether this trip was really the best idea, etc. I understand that this is a famous couple, and thus I'm not surprised or at all offended that I know when and where they vacationed. But come on, seriously? The guy had a week off and he went to a tropical location with his girlfriend. I can't believe he was the only Cowboy (or Patriot, or Packer, or Colt) to do something similar. In fact, I know he wasn't, since his teammate Witten was along on the same trip. And yet somehow, this particular trip merits daily mention and discussion with every football related guest that visits every sports talk radio show I listen to, in addition to similar treatment on ESPN and the like. I know we as fans sometimes like to think that our favorite players should spend every spare moment preparing for and thinking about the next game, but that's just not reality, and really, it shouldn't be.

The great irony of the whole story (I'm such a sucker for irony) is that the endless discussion about whether this relationship is a distraction for Romo only serves to create another potential distraction. Rather than answer questions about the upcoming game with the Giants, Romo (as well as his Cowboy teammates) have faced an endless barrage of questions regarding Simpson. It's crazy, and in a way, it almost because a self-fulfilling prophecy. If there is a distracting nature to this relationship for Romo, it almost has to be all the scrutiny and questions around it, rather than the actual relationship itself. Call me nuts, but I doubt you become the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys without having to deal with a few women throughout your football life. Simpson definitely is not the first girl he's had watching him the stands, and I'd be rather surprised if she turns out to be the last. I'm fairly comfortable that the guy could get the job done with Simpson around if he was just left alone, and I'm guessing he can probably do it anyhow.

Now, don't read me wrong here, I don't have a ton of sympathy for Romo on this one. He'd dated a star once before, and so he knew what he was getting into here, and could have chosen to go in a different direction. But seriously sports media, we're in the midst of the NFL playoffs. Is there really a need to create stories like this, rather than just reporting what's out there? I guess the upside for Dallas fans is that they have a scapegoat all ready if things don't go well for them this weekend.

A trip to the lighter side of things.

Okay, so I've been dealing with some pretty serious stuff in the world of sports over the last few entries. Today, I'm in a much lighter mood, so I thought I'd head back to the lighter side of things. Like for instance, this article, which is at present linked from the front page of ESPN.com: Seahawks kicker to wear heated pants vs. Packers. Now, I really didn't need to know what Josh Brown plans on having in his pants this weekend when he plays Green Bay. The fact that this was front page news indicates to me that it's been a rather slow news day. And yet, now that I am aware, I can't help but think of the possibilities.

Suppose it rains in Green Bay this weekend. Are his pants waterproof? If they aren't, are the battery powered devices he's going to put in the pants waterproof? What if it's raining or the field is wet? I can just see it now - the game comes down to a critical kick. The ball is snapped, Brown comes up to kick, and then one of the devices shorts out, with the resulting leg spasm causing him to send the kick hurtling into his long snapper's rear end, while nearly ripping his holder's arm off.

What if he has to make a tackle on a kickoff return, and the impact breaks open one of the batteries, causing battery acid to leak into his pants? I'm visualizing him being caught on camera dancing around the sidelines uncomfortably, while the commentators speculate on just what might be going on. Nature calling? Icy Hot in the jock strap? A sudden, uncontrollable urge to do the mambo?

Or maybe the devices malfunction and overheat, first causing him to break into an inexplicable sweat in the midst of the sub-freezing air at Lambeau, and then searing his legs and his uniform pants. I can't even begin to imagine what the announcers would do when the camera focuses on the smoke pouring from his pants. They are used to seeing steam rising from player heads during cold weather games, but this would be something entirely new and different. Unfortunately, John Madden won't be doing this game, because I'm not sure how we'd be able to get through this particularly without Madden going to the telestrator and circling the exact source of the smoke, while saying "I'm not sure Al, but it looks like smoke to me."

The reality is that none of these occurances is in any way likely, and the game will proceed without any of these humorous incidents. But darn it, if something were to go wrong, I can safely predict that Monday morning would be the best day in sports talk radio history.

Bowl Championship Silliness - The Third

Today I bring you the third (and hopefully final) entry in my tirade against the hypocrisy of those who hold the reins of major college football. You might have expected some analysis or insight into last night's BCS national championship game between LSU and Ohio State (LSU won 38-24), but no, you'll have to go elsewhere for that.

If you tuned into the sports world today, you should know by now that that quest for a championship playoff in Division 1A football has a new ally, University of Georgia president Michael F. Adams. Adams released his proposal for an 8 team playoff, to begin after the current BCS contracts expire in 2010, this morning, only hours after fellow conference member LSU raised the 2008 BCS championship trophy. As I've said in my previous entries on the BCS, I prefer a playoff system, so you might expect me to talk about what a positive development this is. And in some ways, perhaps it is. There's really very little of his commentary on the BCS that I disagree with. When he talks about how the system has lost public confidence and doesn't work, I'm right there. And yet, on a larger level, this proposal, coupled with its source and the timing of its release, really just serves as another perfect example of why the leadership of college football is a mess, and any progress towards making it less of a mess has been and will continue to be mind-numbingly slow.

I'm sure that even if you don't follow college football that much, based on the information I've given you thus far, it wouldn't surprise you to know that Georgia was the school that saw itself as being the most "wronged" by the system this year. Here's a brief rundown on what happened. Georgia lost two SEC games early in the season, and as such did not win their division and did not qualify for the SEC title game. However, they finished the season on a roll, winning their last 6 games and leading many "experts" to suggest they might be playing better than any other team at season's end. They were ranked 4th in the BCS standings going into the last week of the season, and so when #1 Missouri and #2 West Virginia both lost as Georgia sat idle, it would have seemed natural for Georgia to move up into the #2 spot, behind #1 Ohio State. However, voters were clearly uncomfortable putting a team into the national championship game that hadn't even qualified for their conference championship. LSU, the SEC conference champion, moved above Georgia into #2 in the final polls, and as a result into the #2 spot in the final standings.

So, call me a skeptic regarding Adams' motivation for his proposal. The fact that he couldn't even wait until 24 hours after the BCS title game doesn't exactly ease my skepticism. While virtually everything he cites in his proposal is true, it's been true since the BCS came into existence. For all the ceremony and bluster about the BCS rankings, and the various components that have been used in the rankings throughout the history of the BCS, the simple fact of the matter is the system has always been designed so that the human voters decide who they want in the championship game. The computers are there and used, but they are really only a deciding factor if the 2 human polls don't agree on who #1 and #2 are, since the human polls are 2/3 of the ranking. That's the system, that's how it's been, and that's how those in charge want it. Witness the 2003 season, after which USC, who was #1 in both BCS polls, was left out of the BCS title game in favor of the #2 and #3 teams. Outcry all over the place, and the rankings revised to place more emphasis on the human polls. The participants in the BCS title game being subject to the whims of the voters is not an accident - it's by design. The only improvement that the BCS offers over the way things were done for decades in college football is that it presents a defined #1 and #2 prior to the bowls, and ensures that those two teams play. None of this should be news to anyone who has been involved in college football for any length.

I suppose I could be led to believe that the overt manipulation of the polls to avoid an unpopular scenario is something that would have drawn Adams' ire even had Georgia not been involved. The problem is that a very similar situation occurred last year. Ohio State and Michigan entered their final game of the regular season both at 11-0, and ranked #1 and #2 in the country. That meant that the winner would be #1 and 12-0, and the loser would have only one loss, which would have come at the hands of the #1 team in the country. No other major conference team would be undefeated. When Michigan lost the game, a 1 loss USC team jumped them to #2 in the polls. Not particularly shocking given the way the rankings usually work. However, when USC lost the following week, SEC champ Florida and their one loss jumped idle Michigan in the polls, avoiding the "unpopular" scenario of the OSU/Michigan rematch in the title game. So, where was Adams at after that "injustice"?

Adams can dispute this publicly all he likes, but the simple fact of the matter is that, had Georgia been in the BCS title game this year over LSU, there would have been no playoff proposal from Adams. The system "failed" Georgia, and so in Adams' eyes, it must broken. It's that kind of blatent self-interest that has kept the current system in place, and until those attitudes are stemmed, any system put in place is likely to be flawed - even a playoff.

On witch hunts and blood lust

And so it begins....

As you might know, last night Roger Clemens, the highest profile baseball player who was implicated by the Mitchell report for the use of performance enhancing, appeared in an interview on 60 Minutes. The interview was the beginning of any real public efforts by Clemens to clear his name. Yesterday, just prior to the interview being aired, news dropped that Clemens had filed a defamation lawsuit against Brian McNamee, his former trainer and the source of the allegations against him contained within the Mitchell report. Clemens also held a press conference today, and will likely be testifying in Congressional hearings regarding the Mitchell report next week.

As you might imagine, the sports media, which has been all over the story anyhow, has totally pounced now that their are new developments. You might be expecting me to analyze Clemens' statements and pontificate at length about my beliefs regarding Clemens' guilt or innocence. I won't be doing that here. The media has been and will continue to dissect everything coming out, gleaning whatever worthwhile insight they can out of it, and a lot of less than worthwhile insight out of it. I can't pretend to offer much new or special to that discussion. I would suggest though, that if you are truly interested, make sure you've seen the 60 Minutes interview for yourself. I've already heard his statements misrepresented in both directions by various media sources today. The bottom line though is this: If you believed the allegations against Clemens prior to last night's interview, you're going to still believe them after watching the interview. The reverse is also true. There is nothing as of yet in the way of physical evidence linking Clemens to steroids, and so we're basically left to decide which voice we deem more credible in this discussion

What I really want to highlight is that the whole Clemens debate is the chief example of why I become more convinced on an almost daily basis that it was an absolute mistake to name names within the Mitchell report. The stated goal of the Mitchell investigation was to come to grips with the breakdowns that led to the prevalence of steroids in baseball, and to recommend the best course of action for cleaning up the game in the future. Despite the fact that the report has been very prominently on the lips of the media in the weeks since it was released, I can pretty much guarantee you that the average sports fan has zero clue as to what the report had to say regarding those stated goals. I heard one media figure today state that if McNamee's testimony wasn't true, then the report was a waste since the allegations against Clemens were the only real revelations it contained. And it's sad that perception has swung that way.

The truth of the matter is that whether Clemens juiced or not is only relevant as a matter of public curiosity. By itself, the question of whether Clemens is clean neither aids nor detracts from the quest to clean up baseball. However, feeding Clemens' name to the media and to the general public was successful in continuing to fuel and demonstrate the level of blood lust the public at large has on the issue. It seems that to the mob, cleaning up the game going forward isn't enough. We need to identify and retroactively punish the cheaters. Mr. Stevens used the term witch hunt when I made my first post on the Mitchell report, and I agreed that it was an apt term. The unfortunate thing is that the public at large has made it rather clear that they support this particular witch hunt, which means we can expect the media to be a willing accomplice. That puts a huge amount of pressure back on MLB to proceed in a manner that creates an environment in which the game can be cleaned up. While I think that the players could be more cooperative anyhow, the kind of decision-making that the commissioner demonstrated with the Mitchell report is not going to have the union knocking down Selig's door begging to help him clean up the game. It seems clear to me that in this instance, Selig caved to short term whims of the public, at the expense of progress towards the long term good of the game.

The simple fact of the matter is this - baseball will not make significant strides until both the owners and the players can put aside adversarial attitudes on this one issue. For that to happen, the commissioner is going to have to make a conscious decision not to throw players under the bus for their past transgressions. The way the Mitchell report has been handled leaves me serious doubts as to whether he's prepared to do that.

Bowl Championship Silliness - Part Deux

As you might remember, I expressed some rather pointed opinions about college football and the BCS back in early December. Well, it's BCS bowl week at last, and quite frankly, I really don't care. I'm a Notre Dame fan, so I haven't had any real rooting interest in the college football season since about mid-September. So I have no real investment in the outcome of any of these games. My primary concern is to be provided with compelling, and entertaining football, and once again, this year has convinced me that the BCS is basically powerless to even provide that on a consistent basis.

Take for instance, the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl was blessed with an automatic hold on USC as the Pac 10 champion. USC is the marquee program in college football right now, and after some midseason struggles was thought by many to be playing the best of football of any team out there by the end of the season. Whether that's true or not is a matter of opinion. Furthermore, since the Rose Bowl lost the Big 10 champion (#1 Ohio State), and thus had the first pick from amongst the remaining teams who were eligible for the BCS. Sitting out there was Georgia, who along with USC was widely regarded to be playing the best football in the country after a couple of early season losses. No brainer, right? Nope. According to BCS rules, since the Sugar Bowl lost the SEC champion to the national title game (LSU), the Rose Bowl was not allowed to pick another SEC team unless the Sugar Bowl consented. And then, rather than grab another compelling team like a West Virigina, the Rose Bowl decided to preserve the traditional Pac 10/Big 10 matchup by picking Illinois, a 3 loss team that was at the low end of the BCS eligibility rankings. So, instead of an incredibly compelling matchup between USC and Georgia, we were all blessed with two absolute yawners, as USC blew apart Illinois and Georgia routed Hawaii, who, perfect record aside, had no business going to a BCS bowl. The wonder that was last year's Boise State/Oklahoma game aside, the rule that forces the BCS to take a team from a non-BCS conference if they finish in the top 12 of the final BCS rankings is going to do more harm than good to the BCS in the long term, in my opinion. Lastly, the Orange Bowl, for reasons I can't begin to comprehend, chose to take a Kansas team that had beat exactly no one all year, over the Missouri team that had given them their only loss at the end of the regular season, giving them a Va Tech v. Kansas matchup that has all the intrigue of watching paint dry. It may end up being a great game, but I guarantee you, no one not associated with either of the schools involved is getting excited by it. So, of the 4 non-title game BCS bowls, exactly one, the Fiesta Bowl between WVU and Oklahoma, featured a truly interesting matchup.

This is the end result of a system where the parties sit down and do their best to provide equal protection to everyone's financial interests, rather than focusing on putting the best overall product on the field and allowing everyone to benefit from that. The rules are setup to make sure each bowl (the bowls being individual players in the system) gets one prime drawing card as often as possible, and to make sure the 6 BCS conferences are treated roughly equally from year to year.

As I said in my previous entry, I'm not really offended by the lack of a playoff, I'm bothered by the hypocrisy I hear coming from those who are BCS proponents. However, if we're going to be given this system, is it really that much to ask that it be designed to provide compelling matchups more often than not?

As an aside, I have gotten a laugh or two at the hypocrisy of some BCS proponents in the media who have been pushing the idea that either USC or Georgia, or both, should have gotten a shot at the title game, since they are playing the best football right now. One of the key arguments that people in favor of the BCS make is that it makes the regular season the playoffs, and makes every game important. Suggesting that team A should go over team B simply because team A is playing better at the end of the season completely invalidates that argument, because it makes the games at the end of the season more important. USC had a terrible loss to Stanford, and lacked any real signature wins. Georgia lost two games early, and didn't even play in the title game of their own conference. If there was a playoff, they'd probably have gotten a shot, but the simple fact is that they didn't earn their way into the top 2 spots with their entire regular season, and for a BCS proponent to give them bonus points for the way they finished is laughable at best.

More Grocery Store Trials

You know, I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent individual, most of the time. And then, there are times like today, when I'm just not sure I'm all that bright.

Let me elaborate. If you've been around since the beginning, you know that I have major grocery store issues. You would think that someone with these documented grocery store issues would be smart enough to avoid the grocery store on the afternoon before the biggest party night of the year. You would think that, and you would be wrong. To my credit (maybe), it did occur to me that today might not be the best day to go to the grocery store, but I get off of work at 3 and went right after work, and I told myself it wouldn't be bad until later in the day.

Perhaps at some point it would have been even worse, but good grief. It all started in the parking lot, which was of course jammed. The sheer volume would have been bad enough on it's own, but one of the corollaries to my theory on grocery stores is that people forget how to drive when they enter a crowded parking lot. Today would have been all the proof I ever needed for that one, and the slush left over from last night's snow didn't help matters. Regardless of all the craziness, I managed to tuck myself into a parking space back behind the store, a long way from the front door. I was hoping that would be the end of my struggles, but that was just wishful thinking on my part.

As I walked into the store, I noticed that they were out of the mini-carts, which are like my favorite grocery store related item ever. That, coupled with how mobbed the place was, led me to decide to just grab a basket and only get the stuff I absolutely needed within the next couple days. Apparently, when you are a basket shopper, you become virtually invisible to the people with the big carts, because I was nearly clipped several times, and came the closest I've ever come to actually being completely run over by a cart. I was walking along, in front of one of the aisles, which meant I couldn't move to my right. There was a woman coming the other direction who clearly wasn't paying attention, but she was lined up to pass to my left, so I wasn't that concerned. However, to my horror, the cart started to drift towards me without her noticing. My only move was to stop in an effort to delay the inevitable, which I did. Thankfully, the woman noticed she was about to kill me right before impact, and stopped, and which point she said to me "Oh, sorry. I wasn't paying attention." I was less than comforted by that apology, but thankful to know that she wasn't trying to run me down with her cart.

Then it was time to check out, which led me to a massive line at the self-scan stations. I really think you should have to go through training classes to be allowed to operate those things, because I invariably get stuck behind someone who had never been through them but was scared to them by the long lines at the regular registers. Not fun.

Anyhow, I survived, as you can plainly see, and I learned another valuable life lesson.

On Quiet Strength

Okay, it's book report time again. I just finished Tony Dungy's autobiography, Quiet Strength. This is easily the quickest that I've gotten through any of my books so far. The holidays afforded me some extra reading time, and after two Yancey books, and also being in the midst of reading Tolkien, Tony Dungy's intelligent, yet simple and straight forward style made for a rather easy read, especially since I was really enjoying the book anyhow.

As I said back when I mentioned I was starting this book, I really respect Tony Dungy, and so I was expecting to enjoy the book, and I was not disappointed. One of the things that has always really marveled me about the coach is how highly everyone I've ever heard talk about him speaks of him. Former players, current players, opposing players and coaches, etc. Until he finally won the Super Bowl last season, you might have found people to criticize his coaching for his inability to win the big game, but you'd be hard pressed to ever find someone to criticize him as a leader, or as a person. The book really demonstrated to me why that is. Now, I know any autobiography is going to come off one-sided in favor of the author, but his story lines up so well with what I've heard said about him by others. He's a man of strong character, integrity, and of faith. He's someone who commands your respect, not with loud or forceful words, but with the manner in which he conducts himself.

I really appreciate his approach to leadership, and his commitment to his principles in the face of scrutiny. He fell short of the ultimate goal so many times, but was convinced that his approach was the right way, and he stuck to it when others would have started making changes in order to "get over the hump". He mentioned a quote from Chuck Noll, his coach during his brief playing career with the Steelers, "Being stubborn is only a character flaw if you're wrong." At so many times during the book he told his team after a tough loss that they were going to continue to "do what we do", only we were going to do it better. Honestly, I think the title of the book probably should have been Do What We Do, but they didn't ask me.

Something he said early in the book really stuck with me throughout: "most people have a better chance to be uncommon through their efforts than through their natural gifts". That, coupled with the mantra he inherited from Chuck Noll for his team "Do the ordinary things better than everyone else" really hit home for me and is something I want to carry forward into my approach to all aspects of my own life. I also really appreciated the extent to which he views football and his current position as a temporary thing, and something that fits into the grander purpose of his life, rather than something that defines his life and who he is. He seems to take everything in that context, even the tragic death of his oldest son at the end of 2005. Assuming you take him at face value, and I certainly do, he considered walking away from coaching on his own accord at least once because he was concerned that it was taking too much time away from his family. That's not something you hear a lot of in this day and age.

Anyhow, it was a great read, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who has an interest in football, Dungy, the Colts, etc. It would probably come off as rather preachy to someone who doesn't share Dungy's faith, but that the same time, if you have any context of Dungy coming into the book, you'll understand that it's a pretty genuine thing for him. He's not all in your face about it, but he is not at all shy about his faith either, and he brings it into his work unashamedly.

Next on my stack of non-fiction books is Game of Shadows, the famous expose on Barry Bonds, the BALCO scandel, and the like. As a die-hard baseball fan, I'm looking forward to digging into the steroids saga in more detail than I ever have before. This should be an interesting start, since as I've mentioned in a previous post, I do not approve of a number of the methods these authors used to get their information.

Overblown Non-Story of the Week (Week of Dec. 29th)

Ah yes, it's OBNOTW time once again. And if you follow sports through the week, and know me, you have to know where I'm going this week. In case you weren't already in the know, the New England Patriots are 15-0 and will take their shot at the first 16-0 regular season in NFL history against the Giants on Saturday night. I'm technically awarding co-OBNOTWs this week, because there are actually two distinct stories I'm about to discuss, but since they both center around this one game, I'm okay with that.

First of all, the ongoing controversy regarding the NFL showing games on its own NFL Network, which is only in about 40 million homes nationwide hit the forefront again, as this game was originally slated for the NFL Network exclusively. However, with the threat of Congressional intervention hanging over their head, the NFL caved this week, and the game will also be shown nationally on both NBC and CBS. If you've been paying any attention to me at all, you know just how much I love it when Congress sticks their nose into the business of professional sports, and this is, of course, no exception. At some point it apparently became an inalienable right for Americans to see NFL football on "free" TV. I was not consulted. I'm not going to go into depth about the whole dispute between the NFL Network and several major cable carriers, but the bottom line is that it's a market issue that will work itself out given time, and Congress sticking its nose into the middle is probably about the worst thing that could happen for all parties involved, including fans, in the long run. The level of furor about the whole thing is hilarious to me, since the local markets have to be provided with a network feed when games are on cable, and no one that doesn't get the NFL Sunday Ticket package can get every NFL game on their TV anyhow.

The other overblown story as it relates to this game is the "controversy" surrounding whether the Giants, who have already clinched a playoff spot and have nothing to gain or lose based on the outcome of this game, will play to win the game, or rest their key players in preparation for their playoff game next week. The "controversy" seems to stem from some idea that, since the Patriots have a shot at history, the Giants have an obligation to make them earn it. I'm not going to give a blow by blow of the whole saga, but at this point it seems that the Giants will oblige those want them to give the Patriots their best shot.

That there's even a debate here is an absolute joke. I'm sorry, but no NFL team has any obligation to pursue anything but their best interests in winning a championship. To suggest that the Giants should be honor-bound to do something that is counter to those interests because their opponent has history on the line is ridiculous. Football is a contact sport. Players get injured in virtually every game, and virtually every player is banged up in some way by the end of the season. The Giants played well enough in their first 15 games as to render the 16th game meaningless to them in the standings, and so they've earned the right to allow guys who are banged up to get some rest, and to keep other guys who may not be hurt out of harm's way. If Tom Coughlin does decide to go all out to win on Saturday night, I sincerely hope it is because he genuinely believes it's in the best interests of his team today, and not because he's bowing to external pressures. Coughlin doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would do that, but you never know.

Coughlin really needs to win the first playoff game now, regardless of what he decides to do on Saturday. If he goes all out to win on Saturday, and then loses next weekend, the media will rant about how he should have rested his guys. If he rests his key players, and loses next weekend anyhow, a large segment of the media will probably suggest that he somehow broke the momentum of a team that had won 3 of their last 4 games by resting everyone. That's the glory of our media when it comes to coaches - the only "right" decisions are the ones that look good in the rearview mirror. Let me personally go on the record now and say that I think it would be foolish for the Giants' starters to get anything more than token minutes, and it would be crazy for guys like Plaxico Burress and Brandon Jacobs, who are already fighting injuries, to see the field at all.

The biggest part of the joke in all of this is that, other than Patriots shot at history (which seems inevitable regardless of what team the Giants decide to field) the game is completely meaningless in the standings, for both teams. The Patriots, like the Giants, are locked into their playoff position, and if they didn't have a shot at perfection, they'd probably be resting their key players as well (although, given the way Belichick has operated this season, that may not be a safe assumption.) If there was going to be a controversy regarding a team with their playoff position locked up resting key players, it should really center around the Indianapolis/Tennessee game, where Indy has nothing to play for, whereas Tennessee is in the playoffs if they win. Cleveland would get in if the Titans fall. Colts coach Tony Dungy has made it clear that he will be resting players, specifically noting that Peyton Manning will play no more than a half, and possibly much less. If the controversy was surrounding this game, I'd be a little more receptive to it, since the game actually has playoff implications. I still wouldn't really care, because the fact is that Cleveland flopped against a bad Cincinnati team last week to put themselves in this position. They can get mad at the Colts all they want if the Titans prevail against the Colts's second string, but the bottom line is that had they taken care of their own business, they would have clinched their playoff spot last week, and would likely be doing the same thing this week as the Colts are doing. In fact, since the result of their game is actually meaningless, there's a possibility they could be resting their own players in preparation for a playoff game if the Titans fall. Again, a team is obligated to pursue their best interests in winning a championship, and nothing beyond that. Playoff implications wouldn't change that opinion, but at least the controversy would be around something meaningful.

Instead, we have yet another complete non-story in the national spotlight, which is great for this blog, but sucks for the millions of Americans who don't (yet) read it.

Your 2007 NFL MVP..... Randy Moss?

I have to be upfront about a couple things before I get started with today's take. First of all, I have to give credit to Jayson Whitlock of the Kansas City Star for getting me started down this path. He was filling in for Jim Rome today, and expressed the opinion I'm about to expand upon, one that I wholeheartedly agree with. Secondly, it pains me that I share his opinion on this particular issue, because I can't stand the player that I"m about to laud.

Anyhow, the NFL regular season is wrapping up. The New England Patriots seem poised to make history this weekend by completing the first perfect 16-0 regular season, and only the 2nd perfect regular season ever, to go along with the '72 Dolphins 14-0 mark. As the season winds down, you traditionally start hearing a lot of the debate about who is going to be the NFL's MVP. There isn't a lot of discussion about that this season, however, because the overwhelming consensus is that Patriot quarterback Tom Brady will receive the honor. And on the surface, it seems really hard to argue with. Brady is at the helm of the NFL's best team. He has thrown for over 4400 yards, is completing nearly 70 percent of his passes, and has 48 touchdown passes (one shy of Peyton Manning's record 49, with one game left to play) against only 8 interceptions. His season will rank as one of the great single season performances of all-time. He's a very worthy candidate, but not the most worthy, in my opinion. To find the most worthy player, you don't need to leave the Pats, however. The 2007 MVP should be none other than Brady's favorite target, wide receiver Randy Moss.

Moss has been on the receiving end of 21 of Brady's touchdown passes. Should he catch 2 touchdowns in the Patriots' last regular season game, he would eclipse Jerry Rice's single season record. His 1393 yards receiving rank him 2nd in the league, behind only the Colts' Reggie Wayne. He's had an incredible year by any standards, but his raw numbers by themselves just don't do justice to the impact he's had on the Patriots this year. The Pats scored 381 points last season, and have scored over 400 points just once since Brady took over as their signal caller. This season, they have 551 points going into the last game of the season, and are poised to break the all-time single season record for points scored by a team, incidentally set by Minnesota back in 1998, when Moss was a rookie sensation. (The Vikings scoring total was up about 200 points from their previous year that season as well)

Or perhaps we should look at Brady's numbers. Let me first be clear - Brady is a great quarterback - deservedly in the discussion as one of the best ever. He didn't need Randy Moss for that to be true, and I'm not about to bash Brady. But just look at the production spike this year. He had never thrown 30 TDs in a season, in 2007 he's got a good look at 50. He's looking at throwing for 500-600 more yards this year than he ever has before (perhaps more notably, he's averaging a half yard more per attempt than his previous best season in that stat, and more than a yard better than his career average), and his passer rating should wind up about 25 points higher than his previous career best. Now, guys have career years, and there may be other factors here, but quarterbacks who have success with Moss that they've never duplicated without him is a marked trend at this point. Randall Cunningham in Moss's rookie year still likely stands as the best example, but Jeff George and Daunte Culpepper also fit the pattern quite well. Cunningham and George stand as particularly noteworthy, because these are guys who given their age, should have been on the downside of their careers, if anything, when they met up with Moss.

Those who would champion Brady as the MVP in the face of an argument for Moss point out that Moss was not the only addition to the Patriots' receiving corp this season, as the Patriots did a complete overhaul, also bringing in Donte Stallworth and Wes Welker. That's a fair point, and I don't want to minimize their contributions, but seriously, does anyone really think those two by themselves represented a significant upgrade for the Patriots? Neither player had enjoyed significant success prior to arriving in New England, and Stallworth really hasn't been that great this year. Welker has been terrific as a possession receiver and Brady's escape guy on 3rd down, but that's a pretty easy job when Randy Moss is dictating coverage all over the field. His yards/catch are similar to what they were in Miami, so the bottom line isn't that he's playing that much better, just that he's been left open more often. Facts are facts - Brady has always been known for doing very well despite not having a particularly strong set of receivers, and if the Patriots' additions this offseason had stopped after Welker and Stallworth, we'd still be saying the same thing. Stallworth and Welker aren't difference making players, and if they are at the top of your receiving depth chart, you don't have a great corp of receivers. Moss, when motivated, is an absolute game changer, and his presence on the field opens up the offense for everyone. The patterns seen throughout his career demonstrate that rather clearly.

The key phrase there is "when motivated", and his stint in Oakland where he was widely known to have been disinterested, and basically shutdown on the team, is what his critics would point to. That's fair, and is definitely an indictment on the guy's overall demeanor and his character (remember, I said at the beginning I can't stand him), but the simple fact is that that has nothing to do with his performance this year, when he has been motivated and sensational, and the Patriots have gone from a good offense to an all-time great one with his presence. To paraphrase Whitlock, we're talking about the 2007 NFL MVP, not a lifetime acheivement award. Again, I'm not knocking Brady, but seriously, I guarantee you I wouldn't have to look that hard to find at 4 or 5 deep balls that Moss caught that he never would have even thrown to a different wideout. Throwing a deep ball into double coverage isn't traditionally a good decision, but when Moss is out there, it works. The guy makes quarterbacks look better than they are. You can talk about Brady as a great quarterback (he is) and Belichick as a great coach (he is), but they'd been together in New England for 6 years prior to this season. What's more likely - that those two suddenly got a lot better at what they do, or that an addition like Moss elevated the team?

Now, this is where I diverge from Whitlock to some degree, as he would have you believe that the primary reason Moss isn't going to win the MVP, or even get serious consideration, is that the writers won't vote for him because of his well-earned reputation. Now, I'm clearly not one to hesitate to call the meida out, and I know the media is more than capable of holding someone's personality and reputation against them, but I don't see that in this case. I'm not going to say that his rep is not a factor, but here's a fact for your consumption - a wide receiver has NEVER been voted as an MVP by the Associated Press since they started the award back in 1957. That's right NEVER. There have been more placekickers (one) than wideouts voted as the league MVP. MVPs go to quarterbacks, running backs, and on a rare occasion to someone on the defense. Perhaps Moss's past would hold him back, but it seems his position will render the discussion moot before the past would come up. It would seem that credit for passing achievement is more readily attributed to the
guy throwing the ball than to the guy catching it. And perhaps for a lot of wide receivers, that's a fair assessment. Moss, however, has made a career out of making the guy throwing the ball look better than they've ever been. Perhaps it's time we take a closer look and realize that football is a team game, and that the guys around the quarterback have a ton to say about how good a quarterback is.

Merry Christmas

So, I really don't have much on my mind in the way of sports today. That may have something to with the fact that Dan Patrick devoted most of his show to having guys call in and confess random "offenses" to get them off of their chest, and Jim Rome was running his year in review show, so I didn't get much in the way of current stories and the like, and no one said anything that ticked me off.

So, I'm just going to use this space to wish my friends and loyal readers a Merry Christmas! I'm leaving shortly to spend the holiday with my folks, and I was informed last night that their internet is down and will not be fixed until after Christmas, so this will be my last post until sometime after I return home on Tuesday night. I know it will be hard, but do your best to go on with your lives without my wit and insight. Although it may seem like forever, it's only 4 days, I know you can make it.

Seriously though, I hope everyone has a great holiday and gets to enjoy special time with family, friends, and whomever else you might share the holiday with. And amid all the busyness and hustle of the time, I hope you find time to relax, refresh, and reflect.

Blessings to you all!

Up to their old tricks

Okay, so I'm coming back to the sports world after a few days away. One of the main reasons I dealt with non-sports topics the last couple of days was because the dominant sports story has continued to be fallout from last Thursday's release of the Mitchell report on steroids in baseball, particularly centered around one Roger Clemens. Frankly, I grew quickly tired of that part of the story, and had little to offer other than a plea for the media to move onto something else. However, there's been a couple of developments in the last day that I need to chime in on.

The first of these developments is the news that once again, Congress will be holding hearings on steroids in baseball in the new year. I can't tell you how pleased this makes me, because there are few things that excite me more than politicians using their time and my money to grandstand about how a private industry polices their employees. I heard Rep. Tom Davis on The Dan Patrick Show this morning stating that the purpose of the hearings were to call MLB and the players' union in and review the recommendations of the Mitchell report, and to make sure that MLB intended to see those recommendations implemented. Seriously? The report dropped one week ago. The hearings are scheduled for January 15th - just over 1 month after the report was released, and 2 1/2 months prior to Opening Day. I'd like to think we could go a little longer before Congress feels the need to peer over MLB's shoulder and make sure they are doing something on this. I acknowledge that baseball's anti-trust exemption makes them a little more intertwined with the government than the average business, but there's just no need for this kind of extra grandstanding. I said this back during the last set of hearings, and it bears repeating: All of the substances in question here are illegal. If the government is so concerned about steroids in baseball, then put the FBI on it, toss a couple of ballplayers in jail, and watch how quickly MLB ramps up its efforts to clean up the game. If you're interested in doing anything more than just winning political points, enforce the laws on the books and let baseball deal with the fallout. I'm very much about increased efforts to clean up the game, but the last thing I want is for that to happen is at the point of a gun, with Congress threatening to impose their will on the game.

The second thing to occur is that Curt Schilling chimed in with his take on the Mitchell report, and Clemens specifically, on his blog. His take, and specifically a small portion of it that related to Roger Clemens, made national news, as quite often happens with Schilling. The blast that got all the national run was Schilling's statement that if Clemens can't clear his name, the 4 Cy Young awards he won after his former trainer alleged he began using performance enhancing drugs should be taken from him and given to "the rightful winners." I assume he means the guys who finished in 2nd in those years. First of all, were I in the mood to focus on this particular piece, I'd be awarding this week's Overblown Non-Story of the Week award to the coverage of Schilling's comments. All he did was apply a standard he's stated for years to Clemens' specific case. I like Schill, and always have. I think he runs his mouth too often, but really, this isn't anything new from him. Secondly, his take highlights for me why I get a little queasy when it comes to talking about putting asterisks by records, taking back awards, and the like. The simple fact is that if we're defining "rightful winners" as guys who played clean, we're never going to know who the rightful winners were. The Mitchell report, 2 other investigations that are ongoing at present, and any further investigations that occur are never going to give us a complete picture of who was clean and who wasn't. Nor do I personally have any real interest in trying to go there. It's totally unrealistic, and honestly not very productive. My only interest in investigating the past on these matters is to inform future action and determine how best to clean up the game going forward. Applying a bunch of retroactive discipline seems counterproductive to me. You can't erase what happened, no matter how much you want to. And in the case of Clemens, is it worthwhile to rip the awards from him and give them to someone who could have very easily been cheating as well, but was fortunate enough not to have their "guy" turn up in the wrong place?

I heard Chris Myers address this issue in the opening of his radio show today, and his response was to go back and just rip all the individual awards in the steroids era and not give them to anyone. If someone who was innocent ends up losing an award they earned, well, that's just the price we pay. That ranks up there with some of the most ridiculous statements I've heard from the media on the whole steroid issue. When I first posted about the Mitchell report, Mr. Stevens and I had some discussion about whether it was a witch hunt, and I had to agree that it was, given that they had named names and the potential existed for disciplining current players. And I do have a problem with that. About the only thing that would be more wrong than indiscriminately investigating everyone would be subjecting everyone to a blanket punishment. Myers has proven to be something of a zealot regarding issues of fair play in the past, so this didn't necessarily surprise me, but it really concerns me to hear that line of thought coming from a rather prominent media figure. I would love to ask him in what year he proposes to start this wiping of the awards, and why he thinks we have any real reason to resume handing out the awards now.

The simple fact of the matter is this: History has a way of remembering and putting things in perspective. The last 10-15 years of baseball are no doubt going to be known as the steroids era, and all accomplishments in the time frame are going to come under a cloud of suspicion, whether there are specific allegations involved or not. History will view Barry Bonds as a cheater, just as it will view Roger Clemens if he is unable to clear his name, along with many others that have come and will come under similar scrutiny. To me, that reality satisfies me in terms of dealing with the past. Any effort to somehow "set the record straight" in hindsight is, in my opinion, quixotic at best, and absent a relatively complete understanding of what went on, which we will never have, is ultimately irresponsible. Let's clean up the game in the present and for the future, and let the past deal with itself.

Progress report

Today is December 19th, which means that tomorrow will be December 20th, unless someone really throws a curveball at the space/time continuum. You may wonder why I would state those two patently obvious facts, and so I shall tell you. December 20th will mark 2 months since I attended my 5 year college reunion. In that aftermath of that reunion, I evaluated a number of things in my life, and made some commitments to changes. 2 months seems a nice place to take stock of how I've been doing, and since there's nothing in the sports world that is compelling me to write about it today, I've decided to subject you as my loyal readership to this report. I know how lucky you all feel right now.

Anyhow, the primary decision that I made was that I was not going to turn my TV on until 8 pm on weeknights. On a normal workday, I get home at around 3:30, so that was a fairly significant decision. I am pleased to say that I have done very well with that commitment. Monday night I did turn a basketball game on at about 7:55, when I was done with everything else I had in mind to do and was just sitting there, but that's the extent of my "cheating". Having the DVR has made keeping this commitment much less of a challenge, because if there is something that starts before 8 that I really want to watch (mainly sporting events), I can record it and watch it after 8, and doing so saves me time spent watching it. However, there was more to this commitment than cutting out TV just to cut out TV. There were things I wanted to pursue with that time, so I'm going to evaluate where I'm at with those things.

Writing - I resurrected this blog on October 22nd, the Monday after my reunion. That means that this is Day 59 in the second life of this blog, and this post will make my 46th post in that time. I'm averaging better than 5 posts per week, and I'm pretty pleased with that number, especially when I factor in that I was gone for the entirety of Thanksgiving weekend and had 5 non-posting days just as a result of that. This is by far the most productive period I've ever had in terms of elective writing. I'd like to see the average climb to 6 posts a week as I move forward (a post every weekday and once over the weekend), and I also need to set aside some time for some non-blog writing, but overall, I'm very happy with what I've seen here.

Reading - In the last two days, I finished my 3rd and 4th book in the 2 months since the reunion. I have two more books in progress, and a 3rd that is a collection of articles that I pick at from time to time. And none of these books were/are exactly tiny. I'm going to guess you'd have to go back at least 2 years to cover the time frame in which I'd read the last 4 books I had read prior to October 20th. It might be longer than that. When I was younger, I was a voracious reader, but got out of the habit as I got older. I've been pleasantly surprised to see how those old tendencies have come back as I've set aside time for reading, and I find my enthusiasm for this particular pursuit to be growing rather than waning with time. I'm much more likely to eagerly extend my reading time, rather than to find myself impatiently waiting to turn on the TV when 8 o'clock rolls. While this wasn't a stated objective, and I don't really track it, I'm pretty positive I now spend more time reading than watching TV, and I don't think it's even that close. It's really a remarkable turnaround for me. I've become a regular at the local Barnes and Noble and on their website, although that will probably change for the near future, only because I already have a stack of books in the house that should keep me busy for at least a couple months.

Devotional time - This has probably been the area I've had the least success in, but I have kept at it. Devotional time has always been a struggle for me, primarily because prayer has often been a struggle for me. However, I've done well at reserving at least 20 minutes a day to, if nothing else, sit quietly in God's presence. Reading Philip Yancey's book "Prayer", which I reported on yesterday, gave me a number of insights that have really helped me gain some momentum in this area in the last few weeks. I'm pleased with my 20 minute start, but I'd like to see it grow to 30 in the not too distant future.

Investing in people/relationships - This has been a slower developing area as well, but also one that I've seen some momentum in recently. I am very protective of my free time. I'm never going to be one of those people who is constantly on the run and booked up every night of the week. Not my style, wouldn't be productive for me. However, I've discovered that, because I was actively wasting so much time, I was being protective of way more time than I needed to be. It's funny, these last few weeks, I've probably been about as busy and active as I've ever been, and yet rarely did I feel stressed or tired. I've always had time for people, but now I really FEEL like I have that time.

I think that covers everything I was looking to work on at the outset. I also have identified a few additional areas I want to spend time on going forward. You might say I'm getting a jump on some New Year's resolutions.

Exposure to sportswriting - I've realized I need to be much more intentional about reading sportswriting. One step I intend to take to that end is to subscribe to Sports Illustrated and commit to reading each week's issue cover to cover. I want to identify a few other consistent sources of quality sportswriting to read regularly as well.

Personal finance - For the first several years after I got out of college, I was quite meticulous in managing my personal finance. For the last year or so, I've maintained a very good handle on the overall picture, but have been paying considerably less attention to the specifics of where my money is going. Starting with the new year, I want to get my budget back in order and resume consistent tracking of my expenses.

I'm sure that's all much more than you wanted to know, but I thank you for indulging me if you've managed to get this far!

Thoughts on Prayer

Well, I've a little busier these last few weeks, so it took me longer than I would have expected, but I just finished reading Prayer by Philip Yancey. As I said in my last "book report", Yancey is pretty much my favorite author, and so I was very excited to read his most recent work, especially since it dealt with a subject that I wrestle with quite often. I was not disappointed. One of the comments on the back of the book refers to Prayer as Yancey's "most powerful book since What's So Amazing About Grace and The Jesus I Never Knew." I have read both of those books, and I would definitely put this one in their class.

Prayer is something that I'm sure all Christians struggle with in one way or another, and Yancey gives the subject an incredibly honest and thorough treatment in the book. The result is one of the more balanced views on prayer that I've read in print. He goes neither the route of "name it, claim it" theology or the kind of theology that reduces prayer to an almost entirely earthly act, laying out in a very profound way that prayer changes us, while also acknowledging it's ability to change God.

Yancey's views are back dropped by his understanding that God's preferred method of working on the earth is through His body, the church. As such, he presents prayer as primarily our vehicle for relationship with God, rather than our laundry list of prayers and petitions (not that these aren't a part of prayer). One of my favorite lines in the whole book is where he summarizes Jesus' teachings and practice regarding prayer as succinctly and completely as I've seen: "Keep it honest, keep it simple, and keep it up!" He goes hard after the assumption that there is a certain format or language for prayer, and lays out that prayer is ultimately about having an open and honest conversation with God, telling Him exactly what is on our hearts, given that He already knows it anyhow. So much of the prayer recorded in Scripture is sorrowful, angry, doubtful, and any number of other things that are often though of as "inappropriate". The point, Yancey says, is not so much how we pray, but that we do it.

The "subtitle" of the book is "Does it make a difference?", and Yancey lays out in great depth the differences that prayer does make in our lives, in the lives of others around us, and beyond. He also gives the problem of unanswered prayer what I thought was an excellent treatment over the course of a few of the later chapters. He scored major points with me here by referencing the Garth Brooks song Unanswered Prayers, which if you've never encountered it, contains some of the most profound theology on the matter I've seen.

Anyhow, very good book, and I would highly recommend it to anyone, but especially to someone who has or is currently struggling to make sense of prayer. Yancey definitely had more than a few things to say which have really helped me in my own prayer life.

Next off the non-fiction stack is going to be Indianapolis Colts' head coach Tony Dungy's memoir/autobiography Quiet Strength. I picked up this one at Barnes and Noble on Sunday, and it immediately landed on the top of the stack, as Dungy is probably the current sports figure I have the most respect and admiration for. The fact that he does not have now, and never has had, any connection to my favorite football team makes that quite the feat indeed. Incidentally, on the fiction side, I finished The Hobbit last night, and will now be continuing into Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy for the foreseeable future. I doubt I'll be doing much in the way of book reporting on fiction, especially when I'm reading classics.

The things we take for granted...

Electricity, for instance, and the many things that provides, chief among them being heat. I expect to come home to a warm, well lit house at the end of the day, and never really give it a second thought. I expect a warm shower, easy access to hot meals, and a number of those other kinds of comforts. They just aren't something that are at the forefront of my mind to be grateful for. Well, they weren't until last night, anyhow.

If you live in the Northeast, or pay attention to national weather/news, you know that we in the Northeast got hit with a rather significant winter storm over the weekend. Some of you midwesterners may have seen it before we got it. Anyhow, in southcentral PA, what we got was a rather nasty ice storm. I came through the initial storm just fine. I did lose power for a bit overnight on Saturday night/Sunday morning, but it was back on shortly after I woke up on Sunday morning, so no harm, no foul.

However, the storm left behind a layer of ice on most trees and power lines, which is not a good combination. That alone might not have been the worst thing in the world, however, nightfall last night brought in 30+ MPH winds, which spelled doom for many trees and powerlines that were already much too heavy from the weight of the ice, most of which the day had not been warm enough to melt. My power went off at about 7:30 pm last night, and based on my one clock that remembers the time but doesn't update it during a power outage, it was out for about 19 hours, coming back on about an hour and a half ago, shortly before I got home from work.

Now, in the grand scheme of things, a 19 hour blackout isn't all that significant. There are many folks around here who will be without power into tomorrow, possibly beyond. And I've heard of people being out of power for a week or more in the middle of winter following an ice storm, so in some senses I can count my blessings. However, as one who had never been throught a sustained power outage of any kind before (at least not since I've been on my own), it was a rather disconcerting experience, especially given that it is now winter. Watching the temperature indoors plummet over night and having virtually nothing you can do about it is a less than wonderful time, to say the least, especially when you have no clue when the power will be coming back on. Knowing that the daytime was only going to bring about a 5 degree increase in the outdoor temperature didn't help my mood any either.

It was all a relatively tame reminder of how little control I actually have, despite all my best efforts. A little bit of frozen water (far from the vilest thing nature can throw at me) rendered me rather pathetic and sad. It also brought to light a lack of preparedness for such an occurance on my part. Thankfully, that lesson came rather tamely this time, and is one I don't plan on having to learn again.

The Mitchell Report (Entry 1 of ?)

Okay, so I've started my way through the Mitchell Report. I'm not all the way through, but I'm not sure when that's going to happen so I want to get some of my thoughts on what I've already read out here before we get too far away from the story being put out there. I will say I'm exceedingly grateful that the report dropped on Thursday, it might have been the only story capable of ripping talk radio back away from the Michael Vick discussion for any extended period of time.

As I've read through some of the report, one of the first impressions I have is how unfair this is going to be for a number of players named in the report. I'd love to blame the media for this, but I just can't. I have to blame our short attention span society. The reason I say this is because since word came out that names would be listed in the MItchell report, the public has been clamouring for the "list". The simple fact of the matter is that there's not a page in the report that gives a simple list of all the players that the report implicates. And there's a reason for that - doing so would irresponsibly lump all the players in the report into one pile, when the reality is that the amount and the strength of the evidence against players listed in the report varies greatly. In the case of Roger Clemens, for instance, the evidence spans 8 pages consisting of highly specific testimony from his former trainer. On the other end of the spectrum, the evidence against David Bell is a mere paragraph, and limited to his purchase of a drug commonly used by steroid abusers to counteract the effect of steroids on the body's natural testosterone production. However, the "list" is out there now, and with the exception of a few obvious players who are getting a ton of attention (Clemens, for instance), I see the "lumping effect" at work among the general public. If Player A was in the report, he's a steroid user, and most folks will accept that without even knowing the evidence.

Secondly, I'm greatly disturbed that, despite the fact that baseball has been allegedly trying to address the steriod issue for the last several years, the bulk of this report seems to rest on the back of information and informants who were implicated and squeezed as a result of federal investigations. The two "star" informants in the report, Kirk Radomski and Brian McNamee, both fit this description. This especially concerns me given my opposition to the repeated threats from Congress to get directly involved in this issue with baseball. The report brings to light that baseball still isn't doing a very good job of policing their own, and I worry that some grandstanding politicians will seize on this.

However, my strongest initial impression from what I've read of the report so far is a disgust with the way the players' union continues to handle this issue. The report makes it clear that all sides (Comissioner's office, owners, union, players) bear responsibility for the extent to which steroids have become an issue in baseball, and I totally agree. Everybody ignored the problem for years, and they all deserve blame. However, the simple fact of the matter is that now, the Commissioner and the owners have shown a willingness to do something about this, and despite a lot of talk, the players remain as obstructionists. The union refused Mitchell's request for relevant documents, and expressly discouraged current players from cooperating with the investigation. Of 5 players who had previously spoken publically on the issue, only one, Frank Thomas, responded to Mitchell's request for an interview. It's this kind of behavior that leads me to question those players who insist that the majority of players are clean. If that's true, the clean players should be beating the doors down at the union offices insisting that they work with the owners to clean up the sport. This report makes it clear that this just isn't happening. I've heard a number of presumed "clean" players in the media since the report dropped talking about the issue and how important it is that it be addressed, yet it would seem that not one of those players found it worthwhile to sit down with Mitchell and tell him what they know. It's going to be difficult enough to develop a truly effective drug testing program, but it absolutely will never happen until the union decides that the matter is not an adversarial one between them and the owners.

There's my first set of reactions, I'm sure there will be at least one more. I haven't really been a reader in the past few years, so my information on this issue prior to the Mitchell report coming out has been largely coming from what's reported in the national media. Reading the report has inspired me to get more informed on this issue, so I've added Game of Shadows and Juicing the Game to my upcoming reading list.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Not my most creative title ever, but it's perfectly reflective of my mood at the moment. Since I'm a self-proclaimed baseball lover, if you've been paying attention to the sports pages over the last week, you might have tuned in here today expecting to hear my commentary on the Mitchell report on steroids in baseball, a culmination of a 20 month, 20 million dollar investigation conducted by former Senator George Mitchell. The report details baseball's problem with drugs over the last decade or so, and specifically lists 75 current or former players who the investigation linked to performance enhancing drugs.

Trust me, in time, I will have plenty of commentary about the report. Not today, however. You might wonder why. Well, I haven't read the thing yet. It was realized at 2pm this afternoon, and is 409 pages in length. I'm not going to be trying to speak intelligently about something I haven't read. Shocking I know.

That brings me to my title. Once again, the media has managed to drive me to frustration, by acting quite predictably. As I said, the report wasn't released until 2 pm, which at this moment is roughly two hours ago. At this point, it's pretty clear that no media figure who is talking about the report has actually read it in full. Of course, being the media, this would never stop them from reporting on it and discussing it's ramifications. Hell, Jim Rome, whose show runs from 12 to 3 pm, spent large chunks of the first 2 hours of his show discussing the report, before he had even seen it. My favorite part was when he basically concluded "This is nothing new" based on a single sentence that a source had used to summarize the conclusions of the report. When I left work today at 3, The Drive on FOX with Chris Myers was laying out their virtual poll for the day - "Does the Mitchell report change your opinion of baseball?" Really? It's been available for an hour, an hour in which most of America is at work, is 409 pages long, and you think there's some significance to our current reaction to it? Realistically, all anyone listening at that point knows about the report is what you're about to tell them, and you admit you haven't read the whole thing yet.

At this moment, the most the average baseball fan has really seen is a list of the 75 players that were specifically named in the report. And those names are pulled totally out of context, so I'm sure no one has a clue what most of them have been named for. They might have heard some or all of Mitchell's press conference at the release of the report.

Look, I know this is a big story and it merits a lot of attention. I also know that the average baseball fan isn't going to actually read the report, so I'm not really expecting the media to give them time to do so. But, it would be nice if the media would actually read and process the thing before "educating" the waiting public on it.

By the way, if you're interested in actually reading the report, here it is.

Do we care more about celebrity criminals than celebrity victims?

Once again, Mr. Stevens has gotten my thought processes working with a comment to one of my posts. You can obviously read his comment in it's entirety there, but what I jumped off of was his attempt to summarize my view on crime coverage involving famous people: "If I'm summarizing it correctly, you're saying we're more interested when the famous person is a perpetrator of the crime, rather than a victim." That's a pretty fair summary, but I wanted to expand on the point a little more, and didn't want to bury it in a comment.

For background, this line of discussion all started back with my posts about the media reaction to the murder of Sean Taylor. You can see those posts here, and here. In the 2nd post on the topic, I stated that my perception was that one (or more) of the following 3 things were true of any crime story that captured national attention for an extended period of time: #1. The perpetrator of the crime is famous/noteworthy, #2. The crime committed was particularly heinous/out of the ordinary, and #3. The victim is particularly sympathetic or innocent. Note that, as I laid these out, the fame of the perpetrator is contained within the list, but the fame of the victim is not. At the time, I stated that while Taylor was famous, various assumptions led to him being viewed as less than innocent, and thus there was a more muted media and public reaction to his murder.

I was contrasting the coverage of Taylor's death to the coverage of the Michael Vick case, which has once again jumped up this week to dominate the headlines. This story clearly has a ridiculous amount of staying power, as it has received as much or more run on the talk radio programs I listen to over the last 2 days than Taylor's death did, despite now being several months old. As I highlighted in yesterday's post, the events of yesterday didn't really add much new to the story, and yet it had all the buzz back on it again.

Now, it's not totally fair to compare the Vick case to the Taylor case in making a point about us being more fascinated with crimes that celebrities commit than we are with cases where celebrities are the victim of crimes. Vick is a much bigger star than Taylor, and there has been a racial/cultural undertone to his case that has kept things more lively than they might have been otherwise. There are far too many variables to be able to isolate Vick's status as the perpetrator vs. Taylor's as the victim as the primary reason for the difference in coverage. And I don't believe it is the primary one.

Relatively recent history does offer us a case involving an alleged celebrity criminal that is much more comparable to Taylor's celebrity victim case, however. We only need go back to late January 2000, when Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was implicated for murder. That story made and continued to hold a dominant place in national headlines with developments up to the point of the trial in June, and Lewis' eventual plea bargain. I would wager large amounts of cash that the legal proceedings surrounding Taylor's alleged killers will never sustain the kind of national interest that the Lewis case did. We've probably already seen the last time that the Taylor case grabs top billing from the national media.

So yes, I do believe that we are much more interested when famous people commit crimes than we are when they are the victim of crimes. And to be honest, it seems fairly clear to me why that would be the case. In a criminal case involving a celebrity, the celebrity is the person that the media and the general public is going to care about the most. In a case of a celebrity victim, there comes a time pretty early in the case where the story ceases to be primarily about the celebrity. This is especially true in the case of a celebrity murder. In the Sean Taylor case, the person the media and general public is interested in is now dead, and completely out of the story. While I'm sure we all want to see Taylor's killer(s) brought to justice, the simple reality is that we're not that interested in the fate of the unknown suspects that the case now centers on. Even when celebrities are victims of something short of murder, and do stay involved in the case to some degree, their fate is not the one in question. On the contrary, in the Lewis case, or any case with a celebrity criminal (or alleged criminal), the person of media/public interest stays at the center of the story throughout, and it is their fate that is being decided via the legal proceedings. That distinguishing fact keeps the case more compelling to a national audiance.

So, while you could probably make an argument that a crime involving a celebrity would have the same initial interest regardless of whether the celebrity was the accused or the victim, it seems clear to me that a story involving an accused celebrity will, as a rule, have more staying power throughout the life of the case than will one involving a celebrity victim.