The NCAA loves to crow about the glory of the scholar athlete and has a rulebook thicker than a Braille version of Gone With The Wind to try to preserve the fallacy of this amateur sporting cosmos. Try some data on for size. In 2004 – the last year for which data is available – the Texas football program grossed $53.2M and netted a profit of almost $39M. Remember, that was before Texas won a national championship, so don't expect to see any significant downturn for 2005 in Austin. Texas also showed a profit from basketball and according to a report in the Dallas Morning News there is now a waiting list for luxury suites for the Texas basketball games.
So, shed no tears for colleges with big time athletic programs and do not buy into the nonsense that the NCAA tries to foist on you. What the NCAA is about is money – their non-profit tax status notwithstanding. Now don't expect me to go from here into some kind of impassioned argument regarding the need for college players to get paid. I think they are getting paid in the form of their scholarships; and if they choose not to get paid in that way, they have the freedom to do what any other worker can do in those circumstances – go out and change career paths. The next time you hear about the poor exploited collegiate athlete try to think of the kids on ESPN during the National Spelling Bee. If college athletes are “exploited”, then at least they are beyond the age of 18; the kids in the Spelling Bee are not only exploited, they are child laborers being exploited…
I need to say something about Ozzie Guillen's verbal outrage. In case you missed it, Guillen referred to Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times as a “bleeping derogatory term for a male homosexual”. That's way over the line all by itself, but then he tried to say while in the midst of a less than heartfelt apology that such language was not offensive in his culture. That took his behavior from “way over the line” to “way out there in the cosmos”. If you want to see just how outrageous this is, pretend that the roles were reversed. Imagine Jay Mariotti – a white male – saying that Ozzie Guillen was a “bleeping derogatory term for a person of Hispanic descent” and then explaining that where he grew up that wasn't an unusual or offensive thing for someone to say so that makes it “OK”. In those circumstances, Jay Mariotti would probably lose his job with the Chicago Sun-Times and would probably not be appearing on ESPN's Around The Horn very often.
I'm not advocating that Ozzie Guillen should lose his job over this; I'm just pointing out the disparate punishment levels that exist here. Too many advocates for “equality” get off the train when equal punishment for similar offenses is applied to minority individuals. If you think I'm wrong, consider that some members of Congress think that the minority representative charged with taking bribes was targeted for racial reasons. Excuse me, they had him on video tape taking the money and then found most of that same money in his freezer. That's not being targeted for racial reasons; that's being targeted for being crooked. And Ozzie Guillen should be labeled as a person with some very bigoted views not because of his ethnic background but because what he said and how he tried to apologize shows him up to be a person with very bigoted views.
Maybe someone can tell me when “Moneyball” morphed into “Beerball”. The Oakland A's had pitcher Esteban Loaiza arrested for a traffic incident where he was clocked at over 110 mph with more alcohol in his system than is permitted by law. Then the A's added pitcher, Scott Sauerbeck, who was cut by the Indians after he had a traffic incident involving him allowing someone who was impaired to drive his vehicle and then “obstructing official business” with regard to the people investigating the incidents. I must have missed the chapter in Moneyball that explained the advantages for a team to have folks like this in the locker room all the time…
If anyone wonders how the Braves came apart at the seams so quickly after 14 consecutive years atop the NL East, you need look no further than their bullpen. The bullpen ERA is 5.14; that is atrocious. The bullpen “save rate” is only 50%; that will guarantee the team a slot in the bottom third of the league if it continues. And it isn't that the Braves have a pitcher or two who is getting lit up out there and causing all this ruckus; the Braves have used 15 different pitchers in relief roles already this year.
Someone might be tempted to say that it is the disappearance of pitching coach Leo Mazzone that contributed to this mess. I'd be careful about that until you go and look at the pitching stats for the Orioles where Mazzone now plies his trade. The O's pitchers have a cumulative ERA of 5.19. As is usually the case, the athletic talent is more important to success and failure than the coach.
There is a small reason to root for Germany to win the World Cup. In 1974, Germany won the World Cup and Franz Beckenbauer was the team captain. In 1990, Germany won the World Cup and Franz Beckenbauer was the coach of the squad. Now in 2006, if Germany can win the World Cup, it will be with Franz Beckenbauer as the German Organizing Committee to host the tournament. Now that would be an impressive “Triple Crown”.
Yesterday, I suggested that televising a fantasy league draft live might be a sign of the apocalypse. Fortunately, that hasn't happened just yet. But close on its heels as a sign that not all is right in the universe is this piece of news. ESPN will do a “pay-per-view” and will provide on-line coverage of the World Series of Poker Final Table this August. If pay-per-view poker isn't a sad turn of events, what would be?
Finally, a comment from Jim Armstrong in the Denver Post about World Cup coverage on TV:
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“Latest, greatest oxymoron in sports: soccer analyst. If the match ends 0-0, which every other one seems to do, why would you need an analyst? This just in: Nothing happened!”
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