guess what time it is?

This weekend is the signature weekend of the fall season in college football. The BCS which stand s for the Bowl Championship Series, unveils its first poll which goes a long way in determining who will play for the national championship. Every year, we sit at home and wait for the debate that drives every college football fan crazy. We get the match up on paper that we want but the game usually makes you wonder if other teams should be involved. Last year, Oklahoma and Florida played for the Championship. The game was pretty good for it matched the reigning and previous Heisman Trophy winners. Most people felt that USC vs. Florida would have been the better game but the game lived up to its hype and Florida won in a close fourth quarter game. Do I like the BCS no. I think that there should be a playoff to determine an undisputed champion. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!!!!.
There are several reasons why the playoff system wont work. Number and most importantly, Notre Dame. Since Notre Dame does not play in a conference and has its own network, the school would be crazy to pass up the millions of dollars it earns from NBC. They are on television every week because they draw millions of fans and all of the games they play are always sellouts. Notre Dame kills the BCS when it is good because they will take a spot from any school because they draw huge crowds. In fact if Notre Dame wins out this year they will be in a BCS game over Boise St., TCU, or any one loss team from any conference who is not the champion. So until someone convinces Notre dame to join a conference no playoff.
Second reason a playoff wont work is the pollsters can not help themselves from voting improperly or without bias. I heard someone say yesterday that Boise ST. could beat every team in the country except Florida and Alabama. I am positive that USC, Texas, and Virginia Tech would love to play them and prove that theory wrong. The voters form each region of the country would protect their constituents and definitely try to make sure their teams get favorable match ups. Plus how does one judge the impact of when a team lost one game. Oklahoma has two losses this year, but lost both games without their quarterback in each of them. USC lost to Washington without their quarterback and best defensive player, why should they be punishes if Florida some how loses a game to a lesser opponent, or Boise State who doesn't play a team ranked for the rest of the season how do the stay ranked higher than teams that play tougher opponents? How does one value a victory?
How many teams make it to the playoff? 8? 16.. What if the team left out has defeated a team that is in and has the same record?
The third reason is that bowl games pay out ridiculous amounts of money to schools for showing up. The current BCS bowls pay around 17 million dollars per team for attendance. One reason why bowl games love Notre Dame is that they will travel enough people to fill up a stadium if necessary. No one wants to remove the bowl system because they have been a part of college football for over 75 years. Determining what to do with the teams who not playoff worthy could be a problem because players may not want to risk themselves for the love of the university. SO FACE IT FOLK, THERE WILL NEVER BE A PLAYOFF!!! The BCS is the best they could come with and we have to spend our Saturdays debating the merits of the decisions made by computers over the "eye test". In this economy, NO UNIVERSITY IS GOING TO PASS UP THE OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. CHAMPIONSHIP OR NOT!!!

Can you imagine living 99 years? We all want to live forever, but when you put a number to it it gets a bit creepy. Today, the greatest college coach to grace a sideline turns 99. John Wooden does not mean much to this generation and it is a shame. We all could learn ten things or a hundred from this legend. All coaches apply some form of his teaching in some way or fashion. I saw an interview of him recently and he said he that had 3 rules to follow. 1. Never be late to anything. Be on time and you may learn something. 2. Never talk badly about your teammates. They are your family. 3. Don't use profanity. How funny is that? The one thing we glorify is the use of profanity. Ever since you were a kid, everyone of us wanted the ability to use the same colorful vocabulary of our parents or what we heard in a movie or television program. The other two rules may be the most under used policies in this country. If you don't bash your teammates, you don't get on T.V. and if you are late often the team usually understands because you are probably the star of the team. Allen Iverson is famous for his "practice" news conference. He is a warrior during the games but showing up on time for practice and actually practicing another story. T.O. got great fame because he bashed Jeff Garcia in San Francisco and then took it to another level by chiming in about Donovan Mcnabb. Plaxico Burress apparently was late to several of Tom Coughlin meeting with the Giants, But we give him a little slack because the head coach would say a meeting would start at 10am and actually he wanted everyone there at 9:40.
Coach Wooden won 10 basketball championships. His team had a streak of 88 games won in a row during his tenure and he coached the greatest college player ever in Lew Alcindor. There are two coaches that gets as much credit for their greatness as he does is Pat Summitt from Tennessee and Dean Smith. Pat Summitt is the winningest coach in college basketball history. She has 8 championships to her credit. She could coach any team and get results. She will probably pass Coach Wooden in championships someday because she has shown no signs of burning out and because she still gets the top athletes. Dean Smith has to be the most influential coach in my generation. Not only does he have so many of his former players and assistant coaching and succeeding around the globe, he has had some of the greatest players play for him too. Most coaches employ his techniques today and he may have been the first coach to understand how racial harmony can help lead you to victory. He was the first coach to bring in African American players to the ACC. Charlie Scott. Coach Wooden would be proud of the the successes that these two coaches have had. Today in the men's game, the game seems to be more about the coaches than the players. You have to be able to communicate at level where you have to get a players attention quickly. Kids today leave college too early and believe they have the goods to go pro. Coach Wooden coached during an era where freshman were ineligible to play. If you are 19 you can go pro. I wonder how Coach wooden would have related to the Kids today. The coaches today, Coach K at Duke is highly revered but doesn't get the great recruits like he did when the rules were different. Coach Pitino probably relates to players best because of his New York style on and off the court. Coach Williams seems to be the person who gets the blue chippers these days. Happy Birthday Coach Wooden.. we look forward to seeing you next year..

Better Pack your Closer...

In 1996, The New york Yankees reinvented a position in Baseball that had not been highly thought of since 1990. The Cincinnati Reds had the "Nasty Boys" in their bullpen and teams new that if the game got to them, it was a wrap. I have wondered what was it like in the 20's, 30's 40's etc.. until the 70's why teams never really valued their closer. Mike Marshall in the 70's had like 100 zillion appearances in a 2 year span allowing the Dodgers to compete for world championships. Rollie fingers and his fancy mustache helped the A's win several world series. The Yankees had Sparky Lyle and Goose Gossage who closed games for them. Kent Tekulve for the pirates.In the 80's Bruce Suter was one of the studs for the Cardinals. Dan Quisenberry for the Royals, Willie Hernandez for the Tigers and Lee Smith for several teams. Every team had a closer who had a nickname. The mad Hungarian, Senor Smoke, just to name a few off the top of my head. Not until 1990, with the reds did teams have a format that they believed signified the end of a game.
This past week we saw three teams lose playoff games because their closer couldn't hold leads for them. Jonathan Papelbon had not given up a run in any postseason game that he had pitched in. He gave up three runs to the Angels which ended the Red Sox season. Huston Street found out that the Phillies will scratch and claw until all 27 outs are recorded. Joe Nathan who had only given up a home run to a right handed batter once all season, gets rocked by an "A-Bomb from A-Rod". So what does that hold for us in the next round of the playoffs?
Each of the 4 teams have a closer that is impressive. Mariano Rivera is the greatest closer of all time in the postseason. He has blown only a handful of saves in several opportunities. He did make his only mistake in a game 7 that cost the Yankees a world series win but he has been a model of what the closer should be. Jonathan Broxton from the Dodgers is a beast. He throws 102 m.p.h. and is the baby of this bunch. Brian Fuentes is the only left-hander in the group and he led the A.L. in saves this year and Brad Lidge saved every game he pitched last season including the clinching game in the world series. The thing that separates these teams from one another in the bullpen is the setup man. Ryan Madison i a former starting picture who has great stuff but is very hittable. The Angels and Dodgers use several different men to set up Broxton and the Yankees will use Hughes or Chamberlain to set up Mariano. Each team has the same type of starting pitching. what I mean by that is they each have one guy who they believe can pitch 9 innings if the need them to. They have one guy who they will keep a pitch count on because he strikes out a whole bunch and one guy who knows how to pitch well and keep his team in games until their offense wakes up.
Now the architecet of this in recent years is Joe Torre. He is due to win a title and wouldn't it just slap the Yankees in the face for given up on him. He used to manage Joe Girardi so obviously Girardi uses a lot of Torres' techniques. Mike Scoscia is a former catcher and has bought into the Torre style of managing. Last season his closer Francisco Rodriguez set a major league record for saves. Charlie Manuel wishes he had the same bullpen performance like he had last year. This post season will be determined by each teams bullpen. So get ready for 3 hour games, head scratching moves and dramatic finishes.

new years day!!!

Traditionally New years day around the world is January 1st. I am born January 3rd, so in years past my New years celebration didn't end on the 1st, it went to the 3rd and beyond. So because of my love of sports, New years day for me is September 1st. The leaves are changing, the smell of fireplaces burning around town put me in a mental place that i cannot describe. The baseball pennant races are heating up. The pro and college football season is just getting underway. The U.S open tennis tournament is winding down. Hockey and basketball camps and seasons are opening. The Golf season is winding down with either the President Cup or Ryder Cup matches. There is usually a prize fight that i want to see. The beauty of living on the west coast is you can start your weekend at 9am and watch 12 hrs of sports and still be able to gout on a Saturday night. Of course before i was married and with child i would get up and do this and the n go to work and talk about what i had seen that day. I would do it again on the next day. The bonus of having a baby now is she gets up that early so I can let mommy sleep while we play and watch college football or what is on television. And that is just September.
October opens up with the breeders cup in horse racing, rivalry weekend in college football. Notre dame and USC, Oklahoma and Texas, LSU and Florida just to name a few. The playoffs and world series happen in this month and yes there is usually another prize fight. The NBA starts usually on Halloween and Hockey and the NFL are in full swing. My poor wife huh? October also is the month when the BCS is announced and the debate about who should be playing in the national championship game starts. Then "midnight madness" starts where teams dreaming of cutting the nets down in college basketball happens in the second week. Dickie V baby!!! Awesome with a Capital "A"!!! My three "S" man. Super, Scintillating and Spectacular. I forget all of my problems in these two super months only to be reminded of them in November. Now the only problem with October is i hate Halloween. Dodging eggs and shaving cream as a child, bags of candy being stolen, plus when i was a bouncer, working some of these parties out here just make me hate the date. I hope with having a child i can begin to heal on this date but we shall see.
November is reality month. The games are really meaningful in football in both college and pro. There is usually a huge prize fight. Baseball is over, although recently the world series was played in November. Hockey, College basketball has pre-season tournaments that some may say sets the tone for the entire season.Turkey day is loaded with sports and food and fun. So why is it such a downer? The weather gets crappy. It only rains in California in three months. November, January, and February. When it rains out here it is the lead story on the news. The amount of crashes and mudslides that happen are crazy. There are not as many games on to distract me from my fun life. My wife can finally get me to do the tasks that i have been holding off till a later date.

when did this change..

When did the sports world change to the players vs. the media? Neither entity can exist without each other but somehow both entities seem to always be at odds about something. Ever since we have gone to these 24hr news services, a rivalry has started over privacy and what is news. Everyday is the same tale. An athlete is accused of something, they hide behind the story, the media draws its own conclusion, and then we have a problem.
In the 40's, 50's, and 60's the press never violated the players privacy in any capacity. They new that without the players they couldn't sell newspapers. Many people in other states who could not see Joe DiMaggio play or listen on the radio would buy the newspapers to see if he got a hit to keep the streak alive. Even in the 20's and 30's how many stories did you read negatively about Babe Ruth or Bobby Jones. Joe Louis was the man in the 30's and 40's and the press absolutely loved him. Can you imagine all of the dish that the press has on the Yankees and the packers in the 50's and 60's. The press absolutely worshipped the Yankees. They knew that if the sold out any of the players they would not be allowed to be at the nice clubs that the players attended. The players also respected the press. They loved the limelight. They loved taking photos with Sinatra and the boys and of course the many starlets that graced the movie screen. I crack up every time i see old movies that show how exaggerated the admiration of the press to the stars of the day. Paul Hornung, Frank Gifford, Mickey Mantle not only graced us with their on field performance but their Madison Avenue smile made them idols for an entire generation. Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Henry Aaron and Jim Brown were icons in every community.But one celebrity out shone them all and we know him as "the Greatest". So how did we go from the "the Greatest" to Barry Bonds?
This is what happened. The greatest sports celebrity to the media in my lifetime after Ali is Reggie Jackson. Reggie couldn't find enough microphones to talk to. He said what he felt and he meant what he said. The press loved him and hated him at the same time but they never trashed Reggie. The athletes that followed Reggie probably needed a class from him on how to handle the media. All hell has broken loose. The questions have changed, the respect is gone, privacy is a joke. The athletes of the 80's did some reprehensible things. They openly did drugs, the admitted to things about their pasts at colleges and universities that offended people. They showed off their excessive wealth and literally made a mockery of the working man. Athletes devalued the the dollars. We will blog another day about how the black athlete has changed sports forever, but in this context, the white faces of the 50's and 60's and 70's were gone and replaced by "air Jordan" and "showtime". The media loved Magic Johnson. He was a bigger than life personality who ruled the west coast. He was different from Reggie because he had respect for his opponents outwardly and inwardly. Micheal Jordan was treated like god until he alleged had gambling problems.
The press will go through your garbage today. They will hide in the bushes, your carports, the local market, even your favorite Starbucks. When the 1996 Yankees decided not to answer questions asked by Jim gray because he chose to ask Pete Rose questions about gambling, NBC nearly crapped its pants. Chad Curtis hit a game-winning home run and with the whole world watching basically told Jim gray to kiss his ass. ESPN sometimes makes it seem like it is company policy to hate Barry Bonds or Terrell Owens. Even new reporters would come on and bash Bonds or embellish stories painting him in negative light. I remember being at Dodger stadium watching him hit two home runs in the year he hit 73 and that night on sports center they reported that the crowd booed when he hit home runs. When he hit 714 against the Phillies and Jon Leiber, Pedro Gomez said that the crowd booed. I watched the game like millions of people and you don't hear a boo in any audio feed. Is it jealousy? The hate fest between both sides rears it ugly head when a player commits a crime. whether a misdemeanor or serious.. Nothing is private anymore. Who you are dating, what you are eating is a matter of public record. In the 50's and 60's that was okay because the press would never cross the line. If you had girlfriends and cheated on your spouse, the press kept it quiet and to themselves. They would never want to cross any of the teams. Today, the press would probably hire the girls to entice you to cheat. The players today don't make easy to like them because of their inflated egos. The media will turn on you faster than a speeding bullet.. Ask O.j.

I wasn't going to do this but...

Here is a scenario: You and a friend go to a nightclub. You tell the bouncer at the club that you are strapped and he says okay. He lets you in. You are sitting at a table with one of your friends. You are eying all of the honeys in the joint. a waitress comes up to you and asks if you want a drink, you decline and then a promoter or manager comes up to you and says "can I take you up to the V.I.P room?" You look at your buddy and say why not? You start walking up the stairs to the room and you feel your gun sliding down your leg and you try to stop it from falling to the floor and you blindly grab the trigger by mistake and the gun discharges. The bullet strikes you in the leg. You tell your friend that you shot yourself in the leg. He laugh and says no way. You show him that you are bleeding on your sneakers. You tell the person that is taking you to the V.I.P room that you change your mind and that you have to go. YOu and your friend leav and head to the hospital. While you at the hospital you give a fake name because you do not want this to turn into a big deal. You get treated. Your friend takes your gun and takes you home. You both cant believe that has happened and you know that you have to tell the someone what has happened because your employer is going to kill you for this. You tell them what happened. They are mad at you but happy that you are alive and that no one else got hurt. They have to tell others that you were hurt and how you were hurt. Now you are in jail. You are in jail because the gun you used was not registered in a different state that it is registered in. You are reckless and have endangered the lives of the people that were in the club. Even though no one at the club knew that you had a gun except security. You decide to have your day in court instead of taking a plea because you believe that what you did was justified and believe that going to jail for any time is ridiculous because no one got hurt but you, you have lost a 35 million dollar contract, and the only reason anyone knew of what happened is your employer told the world. You felt that if you explained that your co-worker just got robbed by a limousine driver and that there has been a string of attacks against people in our profession or people with your wealth. You are in Jail now for 20 months.
I live in Hollywood,Ca. I live right outside of a few areas where gang violence happens daily. I worked as a bouncer here in L.a. for 11 years. What happened to Plaxico Burress really offends me. When Paris Hilton was arrested for one of her multiple D.U.I's, people in this town applauded the judge for making her accountable for her reckless endangerment. Then just before she went to jail, people everywhere was tying to support her. She appeared at the M.T.V awards and was resigned to go to jail because she knew she was wrong. She served 2 weeks and was released because she apparently was breaking down and some people in the community felt that she had learned her lesson and sent her home. I have seen and read about several entertainers who have committed similar and worse crimes and have spent no time in jail. Are laws in New York tougher than laws out here? 20 months in jail for committing a crime that no one would have known about or cared about if he wasn't a famous person. I wrote a blog a while ago that talked about steroids and how if you well liked no one will attack you on the topic. vPlaxico was a huge thorn in the side of the Giants. He had been reprimanded over 45 times for several incidents. One of my favorite sayings is " when you create Frankenstein, eventually he is going to terrorize the city". Plaxico caught the game winning ball in the super bowl for the Giants and maybe he felt like he was Teflon. But i guess he acted more like Frankenstein. His teammates love him. How much more does he has to suffer for committing a "crime" that no one even knew about. I thought you could incriminate yourself in court. This is not a race thing either.. This is just worst example of jurisprudence I have ever seen.

I used to love the Olympics..

When i was a kid back in Yonkers, new york, I loved watching the Olympics. I loved hearing stories about unknown, obscure people from tiny town USA or from around the would and how they overcame the odds and became Olympians. Whether it was Eric Heiden, Mary Lou Retton, Sugar Ray Leonard( who is my favorite Olympian of all time) every four years i felt i had some thing to look forward to watching.. For these athletes they had one moment to shine and that was it. I remember reading articles about Carl Lewis before he became a star and wondering if he could be a champion. Even a few years ago reading about Allyson Felix and wondering how a high school star athlete could compete against the big boys and girls of the world. Then all of sudden the Olympics has become not a platform for the unknown, but for the wealthy and embarrassed. I will explain all of this momentarily.
The one thing i enjoyed as pro USA supporter is how we used to kick ass in all of these competitions using amateur athletes. Our athletes were sponsored by our big companies in the country and they got great endorsement deals. Bruce Jenner getting on the Wheaties box was so cool. Then team USA in hockey got the next one and the sponsorship frenzy began. The only money the athlete got amounted to nothing.. I am sure they got a food stipend but no salary whatsoever. I remember reading several articles in those days about amateur athletes refusing to take money because they did not want to lose their amateur status. Then the world started beating us. In 1984 Professional tennis players participated in the games and that opened the door for all other sports to someday attempt to bring their sport back to the Olympics.
We were losing games and track and field meets that just didn't make sense that we were losing. The sprinters from other countries were catching up to us and in the 1992 Olympics, the USOC decided that they had had enough of losing to the professional athletes of the world. When professional tennis joined the Olympic movement in 1984, it became a matter of time before all sports would follow. At first i thought it was a novelty, a once in a lifetime experiment that would not go over well in this country. Then in 1992 the dream team was constructed because we lost in the 1988 games and the rest is now boring history. We got embarrassed because we came in third place so we had to call in the "marines" to save face in this country. We also got embarrassed because the European athletes were getting paid money to represent their country and our athletes got a hand shake from the president and told to go back to the their lives in tiny town USA. So all of our Olympians just simply moved to Europe to compete in world wide events just so they could survive. Now if you won gold medals and Madison avenue came calling then you could have made a living for a little while. To my knowledge the '84 Olympic team did not receive wealth until after they dominated the games.
Today's announcement that golf and rugby are now going to be apart of the Olympics put out whatever Olympic flame i had. Don't the golfers have international events they play in? The Ryder cup, the Presidents cup. and the Europeans have an event when they take on the world also. It is bad enough that soccer is an Olympic sport with all of the pros who in that. They have the world cup, which i thought was the most prestigious tournament in the world. I don't understand why the IOC gets rid of softball as an Olympic sport and brings in golf. Tiger Woods will be 39 when the Olympics comes around in 2016. Why is this so important? What is next, the NFL? The Olympics have basically told the world that if you are not a paid athlete you cannot participate. The United States was the last country to crush the hopes and dreams of amateur athletics. I still believe our amateurs could still compete and succeed against the world. We just have to make sure that our best athletes compete. In 1984, we had an unbelievable team. Both the men's and women's team set standards that have never been matched since. We had great amateurs in 1960, 1956, 1936, 1972, and 1976. Wars and politics aside the United States has had a proud amateurs that have made us the dominant nation that we are. But i know, love is a thrill but it don't pay the bills...