We are five months from the beginning of the Olympic Games in Beijing. There is still plenty of time for scandals and corruption to surface relative to IOC officials and/or staffers. There is still plenty of time for drug cheats to flunk blood tests. Moreover, there is more than plenty of time for nonsense. Consider:
The Chinese government is concerned that the Dalai Lama will work to undermine the Beijing Olympic Games. I’d put that threat about at the same level as worrying that Al Gore will show up with his overhead projector and some new vugraphs and put the entire country and all of the Olympic athletes to sleep with a new lecture.
The water pollution problems in China have reached such a proportion that one river has turned red in color and developed a persistent froth. Keeping athletes hydrated with that kind of “water supply” might be tricky.
Air pollution in Beijing typically makes US cities such as Los Angeles look like pristine wilderness. That should be fun for the marathoners.
The Chinese have passed “No spitting” ordinances and plan to enforce them stringently during the lead-up to the Olympics and during the Games. Public spitting can result in a fine of 50 Yuan (about $16). Now, imagine what would happen if baseball were an Olympic sport and Major League Baseball sent its players there to compete…
Scott Ostler wrapped things up succinctly in the SF Chronicle recently with regard to these upcoming games:
“Fearing rain during Opening Ceremonies in Beijing, Chinese officials will seed the clouds with silver iodide. Peachy. The city already has deadly smog, so why not use rocket launchers to bombard the air with more chemicals?”
As the Iditarod draws to a close, there was a recent story in USA Today that was interesting. The dogs are subjected to urine tests for “steroids, stimulants, opiates, muscle relaxants” and other stuff that might mask pain or increase endurance. This testing has been in place since 1992. Obviously, the head of the Malamute Players’ Union never took any tutorial sessions with Donald Fehr with regard to fending off drug testing of his clients. Talk about invasion of privacy; I’ll wager that the collection of those urine samples isn’t done in private. Interestingly, that same story in USA Today intimated that the mushers sometimes blow marijuana smoke at or near the dogs as a way to calm them down.
The Iditarod bills itself as “The Last Great Race”. Well, if the mushers are packing a two-week stash of marijuana “for the dogs” as part of the victuals, I guess it could indeed be a great race…
No doubt, you have seen by now the video of the streaker who interrupted an Australian cricket match and who was decked by one of the cricket players. Somewhere, Mike Curtis is smiling and toasting that particular cricket competitor… But what I liked most about that story was the phraseology of the charges that will be brought against the streaker; he will be charged with “willful exposure”. Well, when you run stark naked onto a field and across a large piece of that field, I would venture to say it was not “accidental exposure”.
Here is a warning for my Canadian friends; I intend this with a full measure of the milk of human kindness. The NCAA is considering a “pilot program” that will allow Canadian universities to apply for NCAA membership at the Division II level and they could start play by 2009 and eventually become part of NCAA Division I activities. Here is my warning to my Canadian friends:
You do not have NCAA nonsense in Canada at the moment.
You are better off for that.
Think long and hard before you allow these goofs to have any dominion over your lives and your activities.
It seems that several schools in Western Canada (Simon Fraser University, the University of Alberta and the University of British Columbia) might have the most interest in becoming aligned with the NCAA. I am sure that there are some benefits that might accrue to those schools. But there will be monetary and social costs associated with allowing the NCAA, a group of nit-picking nitwits, to become part of the fabric of collegiate athletics in Canada. Be afraid; be very afraid…
In NFL news, Larry Fitzgerald announced on his website that he has redone his deal with the Arizona Cardinals and he will be getting a whole bunch of money ($30M guaranteed) over the life of the deal. Good for him; I doubt that he is worth all of that, but he is a really good receiver. There is one part of the reporting on this contract that I just do not understand, however. Supposedly, the contract gives Fitzgerald a unilateral veto over any trade. That’s not new in the world of sports but normally a no-trade clause is there to prevent a player from winding up on a sorry-assed team that exists halfway between oblivion and obscurity and is going nowhere fast. The problem here is that Larry Fitzgerald plays for the Arizona Cardinals; most players would use such a clause in their contracts from winding up on the roster of the Arizona Cardinals…
I said before that I liked the idea of the soon to be formed AAFL where pro teams would be located in areas that are hotbeds of college football enthusiasm. Evidently, I was alone in those positive sentiments. It appears as if the AAFL will fold before it plays its first game unless it gets a new majority owner AND a significant TV deal. Supposedly, this putative “new majority owner” had better bring $50M in mad money that he/she would not mind losing to the party. That could happen. Francis the Talking Mule might win American Idol too; you just never know…
Here is an idea that might save the AAFL. Suppose they interest Will Farrell in making a dumb-assed sports movie about a fledgling football league – - well you get the drift here – - and use the profits as a way to fund the league. Oh, wait. They need $50M right away; it might take such a movie loads of years to generate that kind of money in revenues let alone profits.
Arena Football has begun and the TV ratings have started out in the dumpster. For the opening game, the national ratings on ABC were 0.8. When the XFL was in its death throes, it still drew better on network TV on the weekends than 0.8.
Finally, here are comments from two sports columnists about the same sporting event. I do not think there is a whole lot more that anyone really needs to know here:
Nick Creme was recently inducted into the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame, and it’s about time. In 1949 Creme revolutionized bass fishing by creating the first rubber worm. Facing extinction, the bass retaliated by inventing beer. (Scott Ostler, SF Chronicle)
Nick Creme of Texas, inventor of the rubber fishing worm, is among new inductees to the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame. Creme previously had been honored as man of the century by the Society of Live Earthworms. (Greg Cote, Miami Herald)
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…