Because of today's date, I'd like to begin with a moment of silence…
I have very mixed feelings about the action taken by Chancellor Gee at Vanderbilt yesterday. He has abolished the Athletic Department and folded it into the same university entity that oversees that part of campus life that includes intramural sports and club sports. Gee said that he is taking charge and that he is out to cure the complete separation – I think I saw one place that he used the word “alienation” – between athletics/athletes and university life/ordinary students.
I've ranted more than a few times about the scholar-athlete who would not be able to pick out the inside of a classroom in a photo montage from among the collected works of Ansel Adams. So if Chancellor Gee thinks this is a first step toward assuring that college athletes are in fact also students of the university who actually take classes and actually earn degrees in some field that actually merits academic study and research, then I'm all for it. Do I think that is going to happen? At Vanderbilt, it actually might. It also happens in the Ivy League (I've been there) and in the Patriot League (if you believe John Feinstein's book). Do I think this is likely to spread to the “football factories”? Let me see if I can explain that in unambiguous terms - - not in my lifetime or in the lifetime of any grandchildren that I may have.
I'm going to give Chancellor Gee a pass at the moment because I agree with the underlying philosophy of what he has done. If this opens up a broader discussion among schools and the NCAA gurus and that discussion leads to some kinds of reform, I'll put him on a pedestal. If he uses this as way to stroke his own ego by becoming an annoying presence on TV and radio, I'll try my best to find a way to skewer him. But for now, he gets a free ride. I will observe that Chancellor Gee has said that he is a “naïve idealist” and this action at Vandy stems from that core part of his being. Nonsense. Chancellor Gee is not naïve; he was in charge of Ohio State in the past and never thought to implement this idea there. He was sophisticated enough to know that if he had taken such a pioneering action there, he would have been looking for work – or a safe haven – very quickly.
I'm sure you have seen the ad for Levitra – the one where the guy keeps throwing a football through a tire and then walks off with a young woman arm in arm. Yes, it's a drug for erectile dysfunction; yes, the ad is straight out of a course in Sigmund Freud' view of the human psyche; yes, you have to wonder how the old guy in the commercial got hooked up with the young lady in the first place if he had trouble "saluting the flag" so to speak. At the end of the commercial at the bottom of the screen, you see the NFL logo and words saying that Levitra and the NFL are partners or something like that. Why does the NFL need an official medicine to cure erectile dysfunction? It couldn't have anything to do with steroid use, could it?
For those readers who sometimes tell me that I am too harsh on some of the targets for scorn here, let me give you one line from a column by Mark Kiszla in the Denver Post:
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“The television camera adds 10 pounds. Too bad the camera can't also add 10 IQ points to Lisa Guerrero.”
As you know, I am all in favor of baseball contraction and I would use 24 teams as my first target for the size of the major leagues with the possibility of contracting to 20 teams still on the horizon if there are not enough real pitchers to fill out the staffs on 24 teams. And I still think that the Twins qualify as contraction candidates even though they have been in the playoffs and have been pretty good recently. The reason is that the Twins seem to have maxed out on their attendance in Minneapolis/St. Paul and that will not be enough for them to show a profit even with their compacted payroll.
The Twins attendance is down about 5% this year and it looks as if they will not draw 1.9 million fans for the year. For a couple of games last week – in the heat of the race for a division title – they drew less than 20,000; for one of those games they drew only 12,000. Their payroll is in the $50M range, which is toward the lower end of the payroll spectrum, and the Twins say they will show an operating loss this year even if they make it to the World Series. Oh yeah, their local TV ratings are down too.
If winning division titles the last couple of years and being in the middle of a race for a division title this year produces this level of interest, please just contract the Twins. When Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence and talked about certain inalienable rights, he did not include “a major league baseball team in Minnesota.” If you don't believe that, go check with your high school history teacher. She still has that dusty copy of the Declaration of Independence in the top right hand drawer of her desk…
Meanwhile the Expos and the D-Rays are in a tight battle to see who will finish with the least attendance in baseball. At the moment, each team is averaging right around 12,000 fans per game; the Expos have a series to play in Puerto Rico where they have drawn crowds closer to 20,000 per game. That series – assuming that level of attendance - could give them an insurmountable lead as they seek to avoid last place.
Finally, about a week ago, Bernie Lincicome had a column in the Rocky Mountain News that made me think he accidentally spilled vinegar on his oatmeal that morning. He was listing things you should remember and here are a couple of his notations:
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“As thrilling as was the CU/CSU [Colorado/Colorado State] turkey trot was, what it means is that neither team can stop a moth with a shovel.”
“It is never a bad idea to frisk Bill Romanowski.”
“The USOC promising to reform is as encouraging as Oprah promising to diet.”
“Joe Morgan analyzes baseball as if he doesn't expect you to believe him.”
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