Blowhard

This windbag rivals Democrat VP Nominee Joe Biden for the honor of biggest blowhard alive. He thinks he's really important. He thinks he has more answers than God. He never thinks for a moment of calling into any national or local sport talk show with his blabber. Yesterday, it was to call out New York fans for cheering Patriot's quarterback Tom Brady blowing out his knee. To say the Yankees suck. He was there when the dynasty ended. He thinks he single-handedly took down the Yankees and flushed their 26 World Series championships. His arrival alone to Red Sox Nation brought their long awaited championship. Curt old boy you have a very serious case of the me, me, me's.

Well Curt, I went door to door in your Paradise Valley, AZ neighborhood and they said stay away away as long as you can. They hate you. Checked with a few of your former Phillie and Diamondback teammates. They hate you. Randy Johnson said bring your gloves next time you meet. That's boxing gloves. He hates you. Talked to Pedro and Manny and Big Papi. They hate you too.

Do you ever get the sense as soon as you hang up with one of those sports talk show jocks, the laughs start and you're the brunt of that laughter. Well, you are and it's time you go away, forever. Your time is up. One last thing, the marketing firm of Schilling, Schilling & Schilling has no chance of Cooperstown. Ha, Ha, Ha. So now take that bloody sock and stuff it... in your mouth.

Winners and Losers for the Week

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3 WINNERS:
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Is there a better player in any sport than Roger Federer? Prepared, precise, articulate, athletic. And well-groomed. Should I have said that?

But I'd have to say that Andy Murray was a major winner this week. He survived two days of Nadal (and Hanna) and then acquitted himself admirably in the finals. His stock is rising.
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The Red Sox of course. It's fun to watch the Sox outspend overtake the Rays.
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The Slovakian women's hockey team. They beat the Bulgarian team 82-0. In hockey. One goal at a time. 82. Think about it.

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3 LOSERS
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The PGA. In the post-Tiger era could there be a worse FedEX cup winner / face of golf than the aloof and sometimes surly Vijay Singh? Where have you gone, Phil?

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The Yankees. Actually GM Brian Cashman. The slide towards mediocrity has been going on for years. Maybe signing Manny is the answer. And the fact that the Yankees may be considering signing him is part of the problem.

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The NFL. The league that says it's all about parity is really all about knocking off the latest mini-dynasty. Without Tom Brady, the Pats are ordinary. Who's left to hate? Who will step up? Forget Eli, he was lucky. Opportunity knocks, Payton. Meanwhile, the TV guys are scrambling to re-do the schedule.

March Madness Goes October

Major League Baseball needs to re-invent its playoff system... NOW.

Stop praying and use just a little genius Bud and give all us sport crazies a second March Madness. Just thinking of filling out a bracket twice a year sends thrills to parts of my body that have long ago lost feeling. A single elimination tournament, a match race, call it what you want but it sure beats the hell of watching a month long crawl to crown a winner.

If I were Commissioner:

1. These games are played on weekends - Saturday and Sunday. I don't give a rats ass about going up against College Football and the NFL. Baseball is the National Pastime, start acting like it.
   
   
2. These games start at 1:00PM...Period - For the Kids and for all of us you can't stay awake past 10:00PM


3. No Fox - How about asking NBC to get back in the game. They damn well helped to invent the World Series. And we use local team announcers. Let's have a little fun with the local yahoo's in the booth. They know these teams and players a lot better than pretty boys sitting in a booth like Bob Costas.


4. We seed these teams just like they do with the real March Madness. Use HOF's as a selection committee. And it doesn't have to be an even split of AL vs NL. If the AL has six of the best teams one year, so be it. Best teams get to play and bad teams go home.


5. Pitchers hit. And we also use the DH. That's right we are now batting ten. Sort of keeps the lineups humming and at the same time allows managers to tinker.


6. No Replay. If we need to use a dozen or so umpires to get it right then that's what we do
   
   
7. Finals are played at a neutral site. Big doings. This allows us to make this an EVENT, something those bigwigs at the networks drool over. Bet they can even come up with a snappy new name for the World Series. Insures the best pitchers are on the mound.
   
   
8. Here are my seeds: 1.Rays, 2. Angels, 3. Red Sox, 4. Cubs, 5. White Sox, 6. Mets, 7. Brewers, 8. Yankees (did you think for a minute they wouldn't make the cut).

I'm sure there's plenty more that I'm forgetting, so all you bloggers, send me your list of what you'd do if you were commissioner for a day.

701??

Biking is more popular and probably less safe than ever. According to a story printed on the Rails to Trails website, more than 700 bicyclists die in an average year on America's roads. While the number is tiny in comparison with auto deaths, it's still sobering.

The picture to the left is a "Ghost bike", a memorial to the victim of a biking tragedy in DC this summer. And it's a reminder that there are individual tragedies behind large-number statistics.

The Rails to Trails conservancy is doing great things. Turning abandoned railroad rights of way into multi-use recreation trails are generally welcomed by most communities.

However, there are times when the only place to ride is on a roadway. With more and larger cars on the road (even with the current energy crisis, there are plenty of large vehicles out there), danger is a constant. I live on what was once a country road but is now a busy suburban street. But its evolution hasn't made it any wider. But ironically, it's at intersections where cars slow down that the greatest danger exists.

Cars looking for an expedited path through intersections often pull into breakdown lanes to go around cars ahead of them, cutting off bikers. In addition, right-turn-only lanes create a particularly nasty hazard as drivers look left entering the intersection and rarely to the right where bikers and pedestrians are found. I've had countless near-misses with cars looking to save a few precious seconds by disregarding my presence.

I really don't want a 'ghost bike' memorial in my name.

Coaching and Sports

Yesterday, Rafael Nadal defeated Mardy Fish in the US Open. The four-set match took about 2 hours, forty minutes. Earlier, Andy Murray needed almost 4 hours to win his match against JM Del Potro. No player was allowed a formal visit with a coach during either match. In fact, tennis does not allow in-match coaching during sanctioned events at any time. It's an idea that resonates internationally and should be more widely considered in the US.

In tennis - like soccer - athletes are charged with the responsibility to face their opponent, size up the situation and make appropriate changes based on their own skills and fitness. What a concept. Yesterday the no-coaching rule resulted in two intriguing matches with plenty of ups and downs for each player. In fact, tennis often produces incredible drama and tension during its major events. Tennis coaches, it would seem, have done their jobs very successfully without having to thrust themselves onto the stage with their athletes. Not that they wouldn't, given the chance.

Try watching sports, American-style. A pitcher walks a batter, and now we get to see some manager or coach lumber out of the dugout with the sole purpose of telling the pitcher, "you have to get this next guy out". Really? 50,000 fans in person and possibly millions on television find that compelling drama? Think what it would be like if the managers were forced stay out of the game, except to make lineup changes.

And football? basketball? It's become unusual to see a football or basketball game clock run off even 2-3 minutes without a timeout. The insertion of coaching into the flow of games has gotten to the point of ridiculous. It just seems silly for athletes to be told to "throw strikes' or 'play better defense'. What happened during practices that those messages weren't delivered and received?

Fun with numbers: The East is the Beast

Manny before he left the best division in baseball to go to the worst.

The lack of balance in MLB is clear when you tease apart the records of all the teams. And it may produce - as it has in the past - an unfair end-of-season result.

It's clear from today's standings (Sept 2nd) that the AL East is far and away the best division in baseball, even with the Yankees completing their five-year swoon. They never did recover from Josh Beckett's masterpiece in 2003, did they?

At any rate, the AL East stands at 58 games above .500 (370-312). The only division close is the NL Central, 34 games above .500 (429-395). Each team in the NLCentral averages 6.8 games above .500, while teams in the AL East - a division with fewer teams - average 11.6 wins above .500.

Incredibly, 4 of 6 divisions in baseball are below .500 and the AL Central is only 3 games above even. So excellence is concentrated in just a few teams and a couple of divisions. But while it seems inconceivable to think that the NL wild card will come from anywhere but the Central division, it's possible that the best division in baseball will produce only one playoff team. It hardly seems fair, especially in baseball with its unbalanced schedules. Some credit should be given to the teams that battle at a high level all year. It would be an unfitting end to the year if Boston did not make the playoffs or if the Dodgers, currently just 2.5 half games back in the worst division in baseball, somehow did.

Useless Elements in Sports

On the useless theme, there are inconsistencies, traditions and and anomalies in sports that should be banished to the "ash heap of history" (Thank you Ronald Reagan. Although he MAY have been referring to something a little more serious).

Get rid of:

• Second serves in tennis (a "do-over" in pro sports? C'mon)
• Off-sides in hockey. The most exciting play in hockey - the breakaway - is virtually banned. Why? Do what soccer does, make the last non-goalie defender a moving 'blue line'.
• Offensive goal-tending in basketball.
  
• Time-outs in any sport in which coaches are allowed to talk with players. What were they doing in practice that they need a refresher every five minutes? It's an insult to the players and it's totally changed the game. I think all the time-outs that have been added in recent years only help teams with deeper benches. Which is why the BCS basketball teams love them.
  
• The 'two club-length' rule in golf. How many times have we seen a golfer hammer a drive wide of the rough and behind a tree only to determine the lie to be unplayable. The they get rescued by the two-club length rule which gives them plenty of distance to find a better lie. I seem to remember Ernie Els winning a US Open this way. These guys get free clubs ... hit it where it lies.
  

What do you think?

Most Useless Player

Who do you think is the Most Useless Player in baseball?

Andruw Jones?

Change for the Worse

What a week: The LPGA threatens to kick non-English speakers off the tour. Baseball gets ready for instant replay. Barak Obama is the Dem's pick for President.

Is there a connection? Try this: we don't trust ourselves. Or at least the powers-that-be think that we can't tolerate ambiguity or personal frailty. So their answer is to add controls in the form of technology, rules, or governmental oversight. The latter is the most odious. And frankly the most easily dismissed.

But the fact that the LPGA thinks that Americans can't relate to foreigners is ridiculous. What the LPGA is missing is an interesting game. Why copy men's golf? Aren't there variations on the game that might make it more interesting or encourage personalities to emerge? The way women's golf is structured now just begs it to be compared with men's golf - and in any comparison it's always going to come up short. So change the game. Make it a team event. Or just match play. Play all par 3's. Or widen the cup. Or put a clock on it. Believe me, the language of the players is not the problem. Americans understand excellence.

Baseball's instant replay is just wrong. Baseball is a sport that has plenty of rules that encourage arguments, which are inherent to the game. At the same time, it's always amazed me how often umpires are right on faster-than-the-eye can process calls. And when they're wrong, let's talk about it. That's baseball.

I have to believe that instant replay will make umpires second-guess themselves and in that moment, lose their certainty and their accuracy. Paralleling football, in five years fans will say, "See, look how many times the umps are reversed which shows we needed instant replay all along." We don't need it.

Let's re-build trust, not add oversight.

NBC...King of the "Tape Delay" announces Apollo 11 has landed on the Moon. Coverage in prime time starts at 8:00PM EST.

I live on the West Coast for TV purposes and NBC seems to think they can delay us broadcasts of "LIVE" events shown for the East Coast. Gathered around the TV Sunday night to watch Michael Phelps chase his pursuit for 8 Gold metals my sons made their case to me not to miss the race. More than once might I add. But all I saw in our west coast time slot were 10-year old Chinese gymnasts. I could see it if they were showing American gymnasts, but who the hell really cares about the rest of the putrid world. I wanted to see the race. So instead I did what any modern well informed American would do given today's technology...I checked the Internet and sure enough ESPN had what I wanted. It was called one on the great races of all-time and because I live on the left coast, I missed seeing it live. Had to wait to see replays Monday
Do you think NBC forgot Al Gore invented something called the Internet? It's full of great info... Like Olympic Results in Real Time.
I do have one thing suggestion for NBC to tape delay...McCain vs Obama. Let me know say in ten or twenty years.

West Africa Wins Again

This is what the Olympics is all about. Benjamin Boukpeti won Togo's first ever Olympic medal when he finished third in the men's white water kayak race. Boukpeti will be hailed as a national hero as soon as the West African nation he represents figures out who he is.

I visited Togo twenty -five years ago as part of a trip to visit International Schools there and in Kenya. It was a poor nation then, and presumably a poor nation now. Simply flying into the Lome, Togo airport was a risky proposition. Looking out the window as we landed a quarter century ago, I was astonished to see a jet nose-down into the ground next to the runway. I soon found out that it had crashed just a week or so earlier. It was still sitting (standing?) in its crash-position because there were no funds for removing it. When I asked a person at the airport what happened, he said, "WAWA" or "West Africa Wins Again". The expression meant that there are seemingly inexplicable things that occur that can only be attributed to the curse / charm of living in West Africa. The nose-down plane didn't seem that charming to me at the time. I actually thought of Maxwell Smart ("I was this close").

But the airport experience aside, the trip to Togo was intensely enjoyable and to this day I sit up when I hear news from that country. So it was with great interest when I heard that Togo had won its first-ever Olympic medal. Every country deserves one.

Like a number of Olympians through the years, Benjamin Boukpeti decided he could not make the national team of his home country, France. And like so many French, when the going gets tough, he got going. After finishing 18th at the Athens Olympics in 2004, Boukpeti assessed his chances of making the French team. Apparently not feeling confident, he made effective use of his heritage and chose to represent Togo.

This year, he won the African Championships in Kenya which qualified him for the Olympics. Subsequently, he won the first medal in white water kayaking by a non-European. Togo has now joined the countries of the world with an Olympic medal. Next time, I hope the athlete is home grown or at least better known in the country he's representing. Regardless, when they win again, I'll be the first to say WAWA.

1. I never ever thought in a gazillion years I would utter this. "Hurry back Tiger...Please".

I'm no Tiger lover, Phil's my guy but after sitting at home resting my weary bones watching yesterday's final round of the Bridgestone Invitational I can now draw a pretty easy conclusion. Phil you, STINK.

The next time you have a swing lesson, how about having the guy start with how to hit it straight. Those trees you see on each side of the fairway are in fact hazardous to your game, not some hiking path to pack a lunch and wonder aimlessly. I know you're from San Diego and love the beach, but sand on a golf course is not a place to take your pail and build sand castles. Stay out at all costs

Who dresses you? Those shirts you wore on Saturday and Sunday! No man alive and maybe that's your problem would be caught in. It's also time to get rid of that "YES MAN" on the bag. You need someone to hammer you over the head with a 1 Iron whenever you want to pull a "Phil" and hit one of those only Phil can hit shots. It's all about winning pal. Tiger had to be home laughing his ass off waiting for you to hand another tournament away. This time to Vijay. Did you notice this guy had a little difficulty with the watermelon caught in his throat making 3-4 foot putts.

It's PGA week and a major. Remember "Tin Cup" Fairways and Greens.

I Hate Cell Phones

I was sitting home in my comfy chair watching the Yankee/ Twin game last night and low and behold the camera seeks out a shapely gorgeous blonde. What a sight....every red blooded American male dream.

But it stops there. She's on a "cell phone" talking to Suzie or Lizzy about who knows what. Head down gabbing away like she's hearing the latest sale items at Bloomingdale's.

It's then that it hits me. Whenever they show one of these dizzy broads board beyond tears sitting at a sports event that they could hardly care being at, they need to take a hot line drive to the kisser. That should wake them in a New York minute as to why they're there.

What Do Senators Do?

Quadrennially, numerous senators throw their hat into the presidential race. The word quadrennial can mean either every fourth year or lasting for four years. For many senators, the latter definition seems more apt. They run, threaten to run, recover from running or advise someone else who's running (i.e. travel to interesting places). And yet, these are people with current jobs and, I assume, current responsibilities. But they have no qualms traipsing around the country while accepting the full-time guaranteed salary and benefits and pensions they receive as US Senators.

Connecticut voters in particular have to be confused by the presidential-wannabe-with-no-chance meanderings of Sens Dodd and Lieberman the past few years. Each moved out of state for a while. Lieberman to New Hampshire. Dodd to Iowa. Each may or may not have returned. Who knows and how can you tell. The other day for example, Lieberman was seen in Mexico with Senator Obama. Did he call in sick? Did I miss the memo?

All the while, Dodd may have been at lunch in Washington renegotiating the mortgages on his houses. But who'd know? Senators report to no one.

Several times during the Obama - Clinton cross-country lovefest, each was seen back in Washington to participate in a vote or to make a speech. Nice gesture, but hollow. How engaged could they possibly have been in the debate and the topic leading up to the vote? Their fly-ins make a mockery of the debates and discourse that are supposed to be a core element of being a Senator.

Or is it that the job of a US Senator not full-time? Has the wanderlust of Lieberman, Dodd, Obama, Clinton, McCain etc demonstrated the utter lack of necessity for having full-time Senators? Or any Senators? Let's face it, in midst of this historic economic meltdown, the only thing that kept the Senate's attention was Roger Clemens and Spygate.

Double Fault: Get Rid of the Second Serve

The Roger Federer - Rafael Nadal match will go down as one of the greatest in tennis history. It could have been improved with a rules change.

To anyone watching, the level of play was as great as ever seen, regardless of the circumstances. Given the circumstances - Wimbledon and a changing of the guard at the top of the sport - the two best players in the world put on a tremendous performance.

The defending champion - as great and classy as any player in history - put up a magnificent fight. When faced with match points, Federer conjured up some of his most sublime shots. After losing the first two sets, Federer seemed the better player, but just barely. And when it appeared that Nadal might, just might, crack under the rejuvenated Federer's relentless pressure in the fourth and fifth sets, the Spaniard translated some of his most creative clay-court shotmaking to the slick grass of Wimbeldon. He earned his championship through high-level play and relentless energy.

But as great as it was, the match underscored one of the most fan-challenging aspects of tennis. The length of late-in-major matches often undermines the brilliance of the play. Federer and Nadal dueled for almost five hours. Add in the rain delays, and the match lasted almost 6. In fact, since there are no lights at Wimbledon Center Court, the final point was played in near darkness, a situation not immediately apparent to the audience watching on television due to the ability of cameras to pick up ambient light. It's conceivable that the match could have been suspended, to be continued the next day.

A solution to the challenge of interminably lengthy tennis matches is relatively straight-forward. Eliminate the second serve. No other sport allows a do-over the way tennis does. In fact, there was a time that tennis was dying as a result of the Ivan Ivaniseivic's of the world (the 1980's version of Andy Roddick). Smash and volley tennis was boring to watch and hard for the average fan to enjoy. There was little drama and long periods of what amounted to inactivity. Thank goodness Andre Agassi came back to demonstrate that it was possible to return 120+mph serves. But even at this year's Wimbledon, players ole'd serves knowing that, with two chances, they'd probably win their own.

The risk-reward of a single serve means that the server has to choose to go for an all-out smash or hit a somewhat safer offering. It also means that the returner has every reason to believe he can break his opponent at any time. Without having to wait for second serves, matches will have more action, possibly be shorter and probably have more drama.