Today marks the beginning of the major college football season in the United States. A significant number of people in the South and in the Midwest have been anticipating this day the same way that seamheads look ahead to Opening Day in April every hear. For those folks, today is a day to rejoice. The only downside here is that the beginning of college football season also begins another run of NCAA Mythical Picks from your opinionated – - yet lovable – - keyboard jockey here in Curmudgeon Central. The first iteration of those Mythical Picks follow closely on the heels of this rant.
On a more somber note, exactly 2500 years ago today – - in 490 BC – - Pheidippides dropped dead. He was the Greek runner who was sent from the Plains of Marathon to Sparta to summon help when the Persians landed at Marathon; that run was about 150 miles and it took him 2 days. When the Persians had been defeated at Marathon, he ran to Athens – - a mere 26 miles – - to let the folks there know that the Greeks had been victorious. At that point, he dropped dead from exhaustion. Today, marathons are run at a distance supposedly the same as the run Pheidippides made from Marathon to Athens.
A golfer in California took a swing and his club struck a rock. That generated a spark that landed in the dry grass nearby starting a 25-acre wildfire, which required 150 firefighters and a helicopter to extinguish. When I read that, I had on my clipboard for today a note to say:
“It was so easy, a caveman can do it.”
However, in this era of instant media, I was beaten to the punch. Former Washington Times columnist Dan Daly made this comment on Twitter via Facebook:
“Golfer in California strikes rock with club, causes spark that starts fire. What would the GEICO caveman think of this?”
No, this incident is not going to convince me to open a Twitter account…
Speaking of golf – albeit obliquely – the sport has more than its share of oddball rules and dumb interpretations of many of the oddball rules. In a recent women’s tournament, Juli Inkster was disqualified from the tournament when a TV viewer called in to someone in charge and reported a rules violation. [Aside: I am surprised the LPGA did not issue a press release gloating over the fact that they actually had someone watching one of their tournaments on TV. But I digress…] What rule did she violate, you ask?
The hyper-vigilant viewer noticed Ms. Inkster swinging a club with a weighted donut on the club while waiting at one of the tees for the group in front to clear the hole. That is a violation; she was disqualified. It is OK to swing a club to stay loose on the course; it is even OK to swing multiple clubs to say loose; it is instant banishment if you swing a club with a weighted donut on it. I am sure the golf goofs can explain the serious nature of this rule and how it is there to prevent a player from gaining a horrendous unfair advantage over other players who may have left their weighted donuts in the clubhouse. However, I prefer not to hear anything about that.
Here is what I want to know:
In professional golf tournaments, there are marshals and rules officials and other official/officious functionaries all over the place at every hole. How did all of them miss this egregious behavior only to be shown up by a TV viewer with nothing better to do than drop a dime?
What do those animatronic suit dummies do for a living out there?
Imagine for just a moment if baseball had a similar culture whereby fans at home could “call someone” when they saw something on TV that an umpire got wrong. How would you like to have been the guy at the “call-in desk” in the 1985 World Series when Don Denkinger made his infamous call at first base in the bottom of the ninth inning? Maybe it is time for golf to emulate baseball and every other major sport on this issue.
The word going around is that the Arizona Cardinals are shopping Matt Leinart. Reports say that Leinart believes he should be the starter in Arizona and that he has “outplayed the competition there”. He supposedly wants to be a starter in his fifth year in the league and not a clipboard holder. Understand, that means that Leinart believes he can show up at some other team’s facility and take over the offense with minimum practice and preparation. Color me skeptical there. So, let us first examine his NFL “body of work” to see if he should be a starter. In his four seasons, here are his stats:
Games played: 12
Games started: 11
Comp %: 57.1
Yds per completion: 6.4
TD: 14
INT: 20
Fumbles: 11
QB Rating: 70.8
Those numbers do not bowl me over so perhaps we should look at other QBs and their QB Ratings in the modern (i.e. pass-happy) era to see how Matt Leinart compares there:
Rodney Peete 73.3
Bubby Brister 72.3
Jay Schroeder 71.7
Matt Leinart 70.8
Kordell Stewart 70.7
Trent Dilfer 70.2
Joey Harrington 69.4
That list says “mediocre” and “journeyman” to me far more eloquently than it says “franchise QB”.
OK, so where might Leinart wind up – - assuming that the rosters as they stand now remain as they are at the end of this week?
The Raiders need a back-up to Jason Campbell and neither Bruce Gradkowski nor Kyle Boller is a world-beater.
The Giants have Rhett Bomar and Dominic Randolph on the roster to back up Eli Manning.
The Jaguars have Trevor Harris and Luke McNown backing up David Garrard – - and Garrard is a journeyman starter
The Bills have Brian Brohm, Levi Brown, Trent Edwards and Ryan Fitzpatrick on the roster as QBs; all are journeymen.
If I had to guess, I would say Leinart goes to the Giants.
Finally, it was only a few weeks ago that White Sox manager, Ozzie Guillen, said that MLB treats Asian players better than it does Latino players and pointed to the fact that MLB supplies interpreters for the Asian players but not for Latinos. I do not know if that is sufficient evidence to draw his conclusion but Greg Cote of the Miami Herald made an astute observation regarding Guillen’s statement:
“White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said baseball treats Asian players better than Latino players. Just once I wish someone would ask Guillen a question and have him say, ‘I have no opinion. Sorry.’ “
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…
Comments
Why would Leinart go to the Giants? That’s the team with a young QB with a ring. Manning The Lesser is still the best QB on those teams, and has stayed basically healthy and collected jewelry. Leinart grabs a clipboard in Jersey for sure. Maybe Jax or Buffalo gives him a shot next year at the starter job. If his deal isn’t silly big, which it likely is. Bad point of big rookie deals – you can’t move people easily if they aren’t working for you to give them opportunities elsewhere
Oh, and congrats to Ms. Inkster – she is now the golfer you think of when you hear “donut”, supplanting John Daly
Ed:
Leinart is scheduled to make ~$2.5M this year and $7M+ next. If he is cut and no one takes him off waivers, he negotiates a new deal and there is no way on the planet that he gets more than $7M next year. But if the Giants want to trade for him and make him the back-up, he gets to keep that money – - assuming there is a season in 2011.
Ms. Inkster – - a member of the Women’s Golf Hall of Fame by the way – - really should not supplant or be mentioned in the same paragraph with John Daly. However, the “donut” reference makes that inevitable. Sad…