A-Hole

Look At Me!!!!

I’ve never had much of a problem with Alex Rodriguez. I suppose if he was choking on all of my team’s post season chances I might think he’s overrated but you can’t lay a post season egg if you don’t get to the playoffs and A-Rod has been an integral part of that equation for the Yankees.

I also don’t really have much of a problem with his bush league antics. Slapping the ball out of a wayward glove and calling off a fielder with an “I got it” is low but hardly a disgrace to baseball. It’s more childish than cheating.

There’s no question that A-Rod is vastly overpaid. In the minds of most fans athletes are all overpaid but when you consider the revenue they generate quite a few professional athletes are actually underpaid. LeBron James and Tiger Woods come to mind as two guys who should get paid just for breathing. Both are single handedly responsible for generating at least ten times the revenue they are paid. Tiger’s mere presence at a PGA event doubles patronage and LeBron has increased the overall value of the Cavaliers by nearly 200 million dollars.

Even by those standards A-Rod is overpaid. Because of salary cap provisions A-Rod can push a team over the limit and incur a luxury tax. That makes the real cost of signing A-Rod a lot higher than his total contract value. Teams with the assets to afford this financial impact have to win a championship to avoid losing money on the year. Even the endlessly wealthy New York Yankees struggled to stay in the black while shouldering just a portion of A-Rod’s deal. People sometimes forget that part of A-Rod’s contract was being paid by the Rangers. Another caveat in that contract was a player option. That’s where A-Rod proved what a jerk he is.

He doesn’t owe the Yankees a damned thing. Opting out of that contract doesn’t make A-Rod an A-hole. He’s got every right to pursue a better deal with a team that will appreciate him more. The Yankees are a calculating organization and Yankee fans are myopic brats who lack any semblance of class. Screw them. A-Rod is a better defensive shortstop than Derek Jeter but the Yankees refused to slide Jeter over to the hot corner for fear of offending him. If Jeter was half the leader everybody makes him out to be he would have volunteered to move over but Jeter’s ego is almost as oppressive as A-Rod’s. A big part of the reason A-Rod never really seemed to fit in with the Yankees is because Jeter happily fostered the idea that A-Rod wasn’t a “real” Yankee. So be it. It’s also worth pointing out that Jeter’s heroic post season performances are ancient history and his lackluster play in the ALDS was even more atrocious than A-Rod’s. Jeter’s a loser too.

But A-Rod trumped everybody. He could have waited until a few days after the World Series to announce he was terminating his contract. It wouldn’t have made him any more or less valuable on the open market to declare his intentions next week. But A-Rod couldn’t do that. He waited until the deciding game was well under way to tell the world that he was pursuing free agency. Of course the sports outlets started reporting it immediately and it became a topic of conversation throughout the game.

A-Rod’s move was a calculated attempt to steal the spotlight. It reveals a lack of respect for the game and its fans. It should weigh heavily on the minds of his future employers but it won’t. People will talk about his timing and his selfishness but over the coming months the bidding will begin and A-Rod will ink a 300 million dollar contract. He’ll put up great stats, break records and eventually land himself in the hall of fame because nobody will stop to investigate the story behind the numbers.

And that’s where baseball goes bad. Pick a sports hall of fame and you can name at least a dozen players who have been inexplicably snubbed but baseball sets the standards for unworthy honorees. Baseball writers are notorious for hiding behind the numbers and avoiding making and decisions about a player’s personality, leadership and overall character. A-Rod might prove to be so outstanding that his numbers will transcend the intangibles but the fact that they won’t even be discussed is why baseball is such a joke. We know A-Rod’s a jerk, but nobody will dare hold him accountable.

Another BCS blunder

The Ohio State Buckeyes have looked impressive so far this year. Granted, they didn’t exactly obliterate Youngstown State and they struggled to get their offense on track when Akron came to town but they convincingly beat Washington on the road and laid the wood to their early conference foes. Ohio State looks like a strong contender of the national championship.

But looks can be deceiving. Ohio State hasn’t really played anybody of consequence just yet. They boast a perfect record, have put up impressive stats and have a considerable average margin of victory but they haven’t beaten a top 20 team. By the time the season finally wraps up Ohio State might find themselves unbeaten, untied and untested. Does that make them worthy of a title shot?

South Florida stumbled into the number two spot and a lot of people are second guessing them but the Bulls have impressive victories on their resume. Early in the season South Florida shocked a highly ranked Auburn team with a gritty overtime win. A few weeks later West Virginia found themselves unable to move the ball effectively against a quick South Florida defense. At the time WVU was ranked number four in the country.

Ohio State’s highest ranked foe so far is Purdue which had just cracked the top 25 before getting worked over by the Buckeyes. Purdue might have reclaimed a top 25 ranking if it hadn’t fallen to Michigan a week later. People joked about Ohio State starting its season with a YAWN (Youngstown State, Akron, Washington, and Northwestern) but now the Big 10 schedule looks weak with Ohio State facing only one more ranked opponent when it plays Michigan in November. If Michigan continues to win the Wolverines could prove to be a formidable foe but right now nobody sees Michigan as a force to be reckoned with.

The odds are in Ohio State’s favor and if they run the table in a big conference there’s no question that the Buckeyes would be worthy of a shot at the BCS title but the current ranking is premature. Ohio State has not proven that it’s the best team. A perfect record can be impressive but only if the teams on the schedule were competitive. Right now the poll-makers are saying that Ohio State is better than everybody else but if we matched Ohio State up against Kentucky would the Buckeye defense hold? Is that Ohio State offense good enough to get vertical against that LSU defense? Florida humiliated Ohio State by putting Tim Tebow in to pick up tough yards, has Jim Tressel come up with a plan for Superman?

Nobody can answer these questions. That’s why they play the games. USC had too many weapons and Texas only had Vince Young but somehow the Longhorns walked away with a BCS Title in 2005. Last year the BCS Championship was played a month and a half early when unbeaten Ohio State outlasted unbeaten Michigan in a barnburner. Then Florida hung 41 points on the Buckeyes during a rout of the greatest college team ever assembled. Play the game.

Ohio State should not be rewarded for playing a soft schedule. There are those who would say that its unfair to punish the Buckeyes since the schedules are filled years in advance but it’s not as if Akron, Washington and Kent State were top-ranked teams four or five years ago. Nobody forced the Buckeyes to play Youngstown State. The Buckeyes can’t control how competitive their conference is year to year but they certainly have control over the number of in-state patsies they book.

The easy solution is playoffs. The BCS system is a beauty contest that rewards perfection. The polls are supposed to be subjective because the people voting in the polls are supposed to consider each team on its own merits, not just run down the schedule and see who has the most wins. LSU would be ranked ahead of Ohio State if not for one loss; a hard fought overtime heartbreaker to a very tough Kentucky team. While LSU was fighting a tough opponent to the bitter end, Ohio State was enjoying a leisurely stroll to the end zone over a Kent State team so outmatched that the Kent State coach admitted he would be resting his starters. Cal moved up in the polls two weeks ago for no other reason than having a bye week when other teams lost.

Dumping the BCS in favor of playoffs would not make the regular season mean less it would make quality opposition mean more. Coaches wouldn’t want to enter the playoffs having cakewalked through a soft schedule only to get massacred in December. Tough non-conference opponents would be the best way to prepare a team for a championship run through a playoff field.

The best part about playoffs is that post season match ups would no longer be determined by selection committees. For once the NCAA Division 1-A championship would be determined on the field not in some conference room.

Something's Bugging Yankee Fans

eek!

After watching the Yankees fall three games to one in the ALDS people can’t help but wonder what might have been. The Yankees seemed poised to steal home field advantage from the Indians in game 2, regrouping from a 12-3 beat down in game 1, only to have their efforts derailed by a swarm of flying insects known as midges. Refer to your local entomologist for more details.

The bugs were thick and players on both sides were struggling to cope with the waterborne pests but the Indians prevailed. Fausto Carmona had just as many midges crawling around on his face as Joba Chamberlain but it was the pampered reliever who struggled with the infestation. Fausto tuned out every distraction and threw 9 innings of lock down baseball while Joba fell apart. At least he didn’t make excuses for it after the game.

That hasn’t stopped others from throwing a tizzy. Roger Clemens whined about the bugs and said that the umpires should have delayed the game. George Steinbrenner took a break from threatening Joe Torre long enough to call Bud Selig and cry foul. Everybody seems to think that the bugs cost the Yankees the game and now that New York has lost another divisional series you can bet the innocent midges will take the heat for that. Never mind the fact that A-Rod sucked out loud yet again, or that Derek "God" Jeter played poorly in every aspect of the game.

Forget about Rocket laying an egg in game three and forcing Torre to exhaust his bullpen early. Thanks, pops. Now about that 18 million...I didn't see any insects forcing Wang to post an ERA so inflated it can only be quantified with exponents. And can we think about blaming Steinbrenner for applying undue pressure? By putting Joe Torre’s future on the line, Steinbrenner made it impossible for the players to relax and play naturally. Every mistake was another nail in Torre’s coffin. Maybe the Yankees lost on purpose just so they could get a break from Big Stein. Sometimes the owner needs to shut up and let the players play.

By the way, the umpires did delay the game. Everybody got to soak themselves in copious amounts of OFF. Unfortunately the unseasonably warm temperatures triggered a massive hatch and the bright lights of Jacobs field attracted millions of the harmless bugs. The lush grass drew the bugs to field level and the sweaty players rendered the repellant moot. Umpires aren’t supposed to stop play unless safety becomes an issue and the bugs, though annoying, did not pose any threat. Delaying the game for an extended period of time probably would have made matters worse as more midges became active throughout the night. Were they supposed to throw the entire post season into disarray because a couple of Yankees had got a case of the heebie jeebies?

The reason the umpires didn’t see any risk to the players was because only a few players seemed adversely affected. Doug Mientkiewicz acted as though he was going to die after inadvertently eating one and Joba tried to pitch with his eyes closed. They probably drowned their sorrows in Cosmopolitans after the series and they might take their mind off the loss with a day at the spa. Pedicures for everybody! Most of the players seemed capable of tuning the bugs out when it was time to play. Even her royal highness A-Rod and Dame Derek Jeter sucked it up when it counted. If Fausto Carmona had gone wild as well a delay might have been in order but the call on the field was that the bugs were a distraction that the players simply had to overcome. The conditions were fair and safe. Get over it.

New York fans can bitterly crack jokes about Cleveland but the Yankees will spend another off season trying to figure out where they went wrong. Steinbrenner will bluster, Torre will get the boot and A-Rod will opt out of his contract…he’ll probably end up winning a World Series in a classier city with better fans. Meanwhile Cleveland, swarms of midges notwithstanding, is reveling in a hard fought win. Even if they fall short against the Red Sox the team seems back on track and will remain in contention for a number of years. The Yankees are in trouble. The Boss might not be able to buy them out of the hole they’re in right now so they’ll whine about what might have been if those pesky midges hadn’t made an appearance in game 2. In all honesty, they would have lost anyway. The Yankees have no leadership and no heart.

The bottom line is that the Indians were the better team. They wanted to win more than the Yankees did. The bugs didn’t discriminate in game 2; they bothered everybody. The difference was that the Indians weren’t looking for an excuse. The Yankees came unglued because they aren't a real team. That’s one thing money can’t buy. New York is a collection of gutless prima donnas who don’t know what toughness is. The midges made it easy to give up.

LeBron Demonstrates Youthful Stupidity

It was bound to happen. LeBron's too young not to screw up once in a while and we all know he would do something foolish before long. What would it be... Dog fighting? Dope? Seven kids by way of 10 different women? As it turns out LeBron's first faux pas was a wardrobe malfunction.

I don’t have a problem with LeBron James wearing a Yankees cap. LeBron’s 22 which means he was 12 years old the last time the Indians got to the World Series and what do they do? Choke. Then the Indians unloaded the stars from that team and embarked on several rebuilding attempts. I was so disgusted I took a baseball sabbatical. Yes, I’m back on the Tribe bandwagon but I’m 15 years older than LeBron which means my Indians were the hapless losers of the 1980s who inspired somebody to write the script for Major League. It was a great movie but the fact that I had tears in my eyes at the end speaks volumes. It’s not easy being a Cleveland fan but if you made it through the 70s and 80s you don’t have much of a choice.

I should be a Yankees fan. Everybody from Cleveland should. Blowhard Yankees owner George Steinbrenner is a Cleveland boy who made good so we have a way to connect with the winningest team in baseball history. More than a handful of promising Cleveland prospects have earned championship rings in New York. It’s easy. Why waste time with a team that hasn’t won a championship since 1948?

Still, LeBron didn’t need to sit in Jacobs’ Field during the American League Divisional Playoffs wearing that Yankees hat. It was just cruel. Cleveland is a city that has taken some hard knocks over the years and not just in sports. The Cuyahoga River caught on fire. The city is cold, wet and dirty. Jobs are hard to come by and low paying anyway. The rich side of Cleveland looks like the poor side of everywhere else. Dennis Kucinich.

Sports are important to Cleveland. They are more than a diversion. People get to distract themselves from the drudgery of everyday existence by following their hometown teams but they also draw their self esteem from sports. It hasn’t been good. The Browns have never been to a Super Bowl, last winning a championship in 1964 but the worst was when Art Modell stabbed the city in the back and deprived Cleveland of the Browns for three years. The city fought tooth and nail with Modell and the NFL to retain the rights to a lousy team and since 1999 the new incarnation of the Browns has been terrible.

The Indians were awful for decades. After blowing the 1954 World Series the Tribe devoted itself to embarrassing the city and making a mockery of baseball every year until 1994 when a strong showing by the Indians was crushed by a labor dispute. There was no World Series in 1994 and the Indians might have been in the mix to win it. After winning 100 games in 1995, the Indians handed Atlanta its first World Championship and then relinquished the 1997 title to the upstart expansion Florida Marlins. Rumor has it that the Cavaliers have been a professional basketball team all along but most people can’t recall anything of the sort until LeBron arrived. All of that misery but yet the fans still show up. Nobody needs to rub salt in the wounds.

LeBron is the Chosen 1. He tattooed that sentiment on his back so he has clearly accepted the challenge. Clevelanders are terrified that LeBron will soon leave Cleveland for the fame and fortune of a much larger city. Rumor has it that the NBA is conspiring to put James in a Knicks’ jersey in the near future. So that Yankees hat plays on those fears. If LeBron loves the Yankees he might love New York and that makes it possible that Cleveland’s hero will soon be breaking their hearts. It’s hard to take. We always get screwed.

Of course that’s silly. LeBron might love the idea of building his own dynasty right there in Cleveland the way Jordan did in Chicago. If LeBron jumps ship and heads for a big market franchise with a storied past he’ll be one of many great players but in Cleveland he will be the greatest. Any former Cleveland player who left on good terms will tell you that Cleveland fans never forget. 20 years after hanging it up mediocre players can still get free drinks. Hey, Brook Jacoby! Let me buy you a beer. The money will be there regardless but the glory is greater when it is earned the hard way. LeBron wearing a New York hat has nothing to do with his NBA career.

Nevertheless, it’s in poor taste. He’s a shining star in Cleveland and has committed himself to being a force for positive change in what is essentially his home town. That means he should show support for the Indians, especially during the post season. If he wants to root for the Yankees privately that’s fine but as a high profile figure in Cleveland he needs show solidarity with the Indians.

It goes deeper than psychology. If LeBron shows up in the postseason cheering for the hometown team, the Indians will reciprocate. It’s good for the players from both teams to demonstrate camaraderie on and off the field. LeBron was disrespectful of his baseball counterparts.

Late in the game the Yankees were getting spanked and LeBron sat brooding in his NY cap. The entire city of Cleveland was thrilled to see its Tribe dominating the reviled Yankees for the first time all year and the most recognizable Clevelander was sulking like a petulant child. For the first time in his life LeBron seemed immature. He’s entitled to make mistakes and in the grand scheme of things this one is pretty minor but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth calling him out. The real problem is that LeBron drew considerable attention to himself when it was the Indians’ time to shine. He made himself the center of attention and looked a bit like a jerk in doing so.

Fans will forgive him. As long as LeBron shows up at the Q in a Cavaliers uniform, LeBron will continue to be the King. It’s just unfortunate that the King did have the good sense to be magnanimous.

Somebody get Grandpa his meds

Every October old school baseball fans finally put in their dentures so they can denounce the wild card. They wax philosophically about “the long haul” and how the wild card "rewards mediocrity". Then they get sleepy and take a nap. If they could keep their eyes open and actually watch the playoffs it might open their minds to the fact that this is good baseball.

Look, Pops, the wild card is the best thing to happen to the game since Jackie Robinson. It’s given teams the opportunity to overcome injuries and inexperience during the course of a season and still have a chance to win it all late. It has also put the pressure on the early divisional leaders to stay fresh and find an edge down the stretch. That means better baseball late in the season and the best team having a chance to win it all. Instead of deciding the championship based on record alone, we throw the best eight teams into the post season and see who wins on the field. That means the hottest team in baseball can upset the winningest team. If it upsets you that the playoffs are open to too many teams, do away with the pretense of playoffs altogether and just hand the championship to the team with the best record.

Look at the way things shaped up this year. The Yankees were dead and buried back in May but they fought through their struggles and now they get to face a team they owned all season long. If the Indians get past the Yankees we’ll know they’re for real but if the Yankees continue to dominate the Tribe it will prove that the AL Central was a joke. In the NL the Phillies set their sites on the Wild Card and managed to pass the free falling Mets in the process. As it turns out, the NL wild card could feature the scorching hot Rockies who will face the Padres for a one game play-in today. If the Rockies get in they will be the hottest team in baseball and a real threat to get to the World Series based on momentum; are you telling me that’s a bad thing?

Before the wild card format was created, the old timers complained about the short series. The old timers always have something to complain about. They complained when the league opted to keep the balls clean and again when the league banned the spitball. Old football fans screamed bloody murder when the NFL replaced leather helmets with plastic and again when the face mask was added.

Apparently the World Series used to be a 900 game affair with triple headers finishing up well into the wee hours. Pitchers threw 400 pitches per game and were required to bat…blindfolded. Bats weighed 40 pounds and gloves were no bigger than an oven mitt. Maybe it wasn’t that strenuous but I still remember listening to my grandfather complain about the “short” seven game series back in the 70s. How dare they?

It happens in every sport. My dad will sit there with a straight face and tell you that Otto Graham would make Peyton Manning look like a cheerleader if he played today. The reality is that Otto Graham wouldn’t be able to wrap his mind around a typical two minute package. Joe Montana would have a stroke if he tried to process the information today’s QBs internalize. Times change, just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s for the worse.

My dad is also of the opinion that baseball was better when he was a kid; today the “pitching is diluted”. He doesn’t seem to believe that the fact baseball is now a global game and that the pool of talent is deeper than ever. He doesn’t think that training and nutrition make for a better baseball player. Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs and never lifted a weight in his life. Warren Spahn didn’t have a resistance machine in his clubhouse. He sees the numbers and assumes that the pitching is weaker. People will cite the statistics amassed by legendary players like Ty Cobb, Cy Young and Babe Ruth and dare you to find a modern player close to those numbers. Case closed. Numbers don’t lie, right?

Of course they do…because numbers never tell the whole story. And the old timers know it. They use that when the stats are stacked against them. Jim Brown played fewer games, Peyton Manning plays in an era where the rules favor offense. 50 Home runs means less now because seasons are longer and parks are smaller. But then they’ll talk about Chief Wilson hitting 30 triples and fail to mention how that was back in the day when some fields went on forever. It’s funny how nobody seems to mention that the worst player in any professional sports league is thousands of times better than the worst player just 25 years ago. The gap between the best and the rest is smaller than ever because the also rans have closed it. Today’s mediocre player is better than yesterday’s mediocre player. That’s why we need wild cards. Boston’s roster isn’t that much better than New York’s and the separation between contenders in the NL is nonexistent. We need the wild card to ensure that the best teams are playing.

The problem is that people get nostalgic as they get older. They have trouble accepting change because it makes them feel less significant. The past becomes less relevant so they do to. It’s what one might call hateration. Instead of enjoying the game, whatever game it might be, for what it is and embracing the changes the old farts focus on the negatives and raise a ruckus whenever they’re reminded of that change.

And I’m not some 20-something punk taking cheap shots at the old guys. I’m 37. I’ve seen the games I enjoy change tremendously. I still get nostalgic but not at the expense of dissing today. I roll with the punches and if I don’t like something new I’ll voice my displeasure but not at the expense of saying well in my day…I don’t ever want to be that guy, shaking my fist and yelling, “You kids get out of my yard.”

What these old fogies have to wrap their minds around is the fact that nobody cares. Every good sports fan is cognizant of sports history but they recognize it as just that: History. As in over. Bob Gibson WAS good; CC Sabathia IS good. Reggie Jackson WAS Mr. October but he isn’t going to see one pitch this month. It might make for an interesting discussion but no matter how hard you try there’s no going back in time, so just shut up and enjoy the game, whether there’s a wild card team playing or not. If you choose to live in the past you also choose to be irrelevant. Whining about the good old days isn’t going to bring them back and it won’t get you invited to any World Series parties.

Get over yourself, have a beer and enjoy the frigging game.

Or we’ll call the nurse.

Not so fighting Irish

I have to be honest. I love see Notre Dame suffer. It’s got nothing to do with Charlie Weis, although his ego is only rivaled in size by his belly. It’s also got nothing to do with the classless way Notre Dame pulled the rug out from under Ty Willingham. While I think that the color of his skin made it easier for the trustees to send him packing before he crossed that fifth year threshold every other Irish coach had been afforded to that point, I don’t think race was the reason he was fired. A factor? Sure, but not the reason.

My hatred of Notre Dame goes way back and has cultural implications. I grew up in the Cleveland area. Catholic high schools dominate the football landscape throughout Ohio but in Cleveland they seem untouchable. Somehow the Catholic schools always had the best athletes in every sport. Cleveland St. Ignatius high school was among the top five ranked high schools in the country for five years straight.

To those from outside the area the run seems impressive but people living in Cleveland understand the corruption involved. Football is a big deal in that part of the country and every year there’s a scandal involving some outstanding player changing schools. Public schools have to follow pretty strict rules regarding sports recruiting but Catholic schools are private entities who do not answer to public administration. It’s no secret that these schools offer scholarships to standout players but it goes deepe: parents are offered administrative jobs, siblings get scholarships and other financial considerations are presented.

Although he didn’t play football, Lebron James was implicated in a high profile example of this sort of tomfoolery. James didn’t come from a family that could afford parochial tuition but somehow he managed to attend Akron St. Vincent St. Mary’s for four years. Before he signed an NBA contract, James drove to school in a brand new Hummer. The car was in his mother’s name but his team…his high school team…was traveling around the country playing in NBA venues to sold out crowds. His school got a huge portion of the gate. Even with such a remarkable player most public schools would not be able to absorb the expense of marketing their basketball program and if they did it would draw the attention of public officials. A Catholic school, however is part of a much larger organization that doesn’t have to answer to the same people. In the end the diocese invested in marketing Lebron James and reaped massive financial rewards. Make no mistake, they paid him. They had to. Good luck proving it.

High school football players are rarely so publicized but the top recruits heading to big time college ball seem to come from large catholic schools. In Cleveland you’ll see kids transfer from a rough inner city high school to a posh Catholic campus just weeks after completing a break out season. Sometimes the transfer will entail a move of 40 or 50 miles. Where does a family scraping by on food stamps come up with the money to make that happen? Other private schools join the fray as well but in the Midwest the Catholic schools have a stranglehold on athletics.

This is a big part of the reason Notre Dame was so successful. NCAA recruiting rules are designed to level the playing field and give each program a fair chance to make a pitch to a promising high school athlete but for decades Notre Dame had its hooks into the very best players long before any other college could consider them. By using the Catholic diocese to funnel top athletes to Catholic high schools, Notre Dame was able to exploit the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to contact players about playing for Notre Dame.

Notre Dame saw its fortunes turn for the worse when the NCAA imposed scholarship limits on the major programs. That leveled the playing field. Before those scholarship limits were imposed players prestigious programs could hide great players on the bench strangling other schools. Well endowed schools could offer countless scholarships while less known programs scraped by. Now those lesser programs are starting to shake things up. That’s why Boise State and Rutgers are suddenly contenders while Notre Dame struggles to establish some consistency.

Another factor in Notre Dame’s demise is that the NCAA is allowing for much earlier contact between high school players and college coaches. Players are verbally committing as juniors and contact can start as early as junior high school thanks to skills camps and other events coaches are allowed to participate in. Notre Dame has lost its advantage. The Catholic high schools are no longer a safe haven for Notre Dame recruiters.

Notre Dame’s biggest problem is that its trustees refuse to change with the times. They still approach recruiting as though Notre Dame is doing the athlete a favor. While it’s true that Notre Dame does have more stringent academic requirements, the problem is that Notre Dame is arrogant enough to believe that its legacy sells itself. That is no longer the case. Today’s players don’t care about Knute Rockne, Bear Bryant or Woody Hayes. And they shouldn’t because it ancient history. They care about playing time and media exposure. Nobody wants to sit on the bench for three years…not even if its at Notre Dame.

The final problem Notre Dame faces is the expanded media coverage. Notre Dame enjoyed a national television contract and gleefully crammed its product down the throats of a sports-watching public that simply didn’t have a choice. Now there’s plenty of choice. Credit the Big East and the MAC for leaping at the opportunity to play weeknight games on ESPN. Now they have an advantage in recruiting players because they get prime time exposure. Notre Dame and other traditional powers balk at the idea but a high school player dreaming of playing on Sunday would be wise to eschew regional coverage on Saturday for prime time coverage on Thursday. It won’t be long before USC loses a top recruit to West Virginia and then you’ll see the mad dash for weeknight games.

Notre Dame used to be the only show in town, now Saturday is a blitz of intense coverage. Games are analyzed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Fans aren’t easily fooled and everybody knows Notre Dame isn’t the best show in town. Fans are smart and they are getting smarter. Failing to recognize the changing market place has put Notre Dame at a severe disadvantage. People are no longer enamored with the Irish.

And I’m loving every minute of it.

Polls or Playoffs?

As you look up and down the two college football polls one has to wonder what people are thinking. Ohio State certainly hasn't performed like a top 10 team, nor has Texas but yet they remain fixed in their places because they won. USC looked flat in its opener but held on to its top ranking in spite of taking a week off while LSU spanked Virginia Tech. West Virginia is entrenched in the top 5 even though the Mountaineers feature a defense that couldn't stop a Pop Warner team from scoring. Never mind that five or six teams ranked outside of the to 10 look much better than half the teams in it,.the preseason poll determined the national champs before a game was played.

BCS advocates will tell us that the BCS rankings take much more into account but the polls carry quite a bit of weight in the final tally. The polls wouldn't be so bad if the people casting their ballots watched every game or at least analyzed the stats to appreciate how teams win. If I'm being objective I can't justify Ohio State being ranked ahead of Oregon at this point in the season and I certainly couldn't leave USC ranked ahead of LSU simply because USC didn't lose. But even if the polls did a better job of analyzing each team, there are still fatal flaws in the system.

Champions should be determined on the field. BCS proponents warn that there would still be controversies over who got into the playoffs and some erroneously argue that playoffs would diminish the importance of the regular season. The enormous success of the NFL proves that theory wrong and while there would be a handful of people crying foul over one or two of the playoff selections, the fact that pretenders and contenders would run a gauntlet to win it all would dry those tears in a hurry. You can't say the same for the BCS.

Arbitrary champions winning paper titles? That's not football.

Michigan seals fate of NCAA Football.

Michigan put together a nice run last year that was capped by a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of a talent laden Ohio State squad that could only be stopped by its own complacency. Coincidentally, that is precisely why Florida won a so called national title. Even after the loss Michigan was very close to getting another shot at Ohio State and a chance to be crowned BCS champs. Ultimately the Wolverines fell short of enough points to qualify for that title shot.

Ironically Michigan chose to play a team that won a legitimate national title last year. Appalachian State is a division 1 AA college which means it is considerably smaller than Michigan but somehow the NCAA has no problem with organizing a playoff system for the smaller programs. Appalachian State didn't have to worry about computer points and polls because in division 1 AA champions are determined on the field.

Appalachian State had little hope of beating #5 Michigan. Michigan was loaded on offense and only needed to tune its defense to march through the season unscathed. Nobody gave Appalachian State much of a shot and starting the season off with a beating at the hands of a division 1 A powerhouse was not going to hurt Appalachian State's chances of repeating it's championship run. Michigan, however couldn't afford to lose a single game this year. Under the BCS system perfection is the only sure way of getting a title shot which means its better to be lucky than good.

Appalachian State is not better than Michigan and if they played 100 times Michigan would win 99. Appalachian State simply caught Michigan asleep at the wheel. Everybody knows this but that won't stop Michigan from free falling in the polls. Now Michigan, a team capable of beating anybody in college football will have to hope that other top-ranked teams lose later this season if they have a shot at playing in the BCS Championship game. Appalachian State, on the other hand, gets nothing but a pat on the back for pulling of the massive upset. Later this year Appalachian State will have to run a gauntlet of top caliber teams on the road to a real championship game while Michigan waits for reporters, coaches and computers to award it with enough points to play for something meaningful.

Lost in this story is the fact that Michigan did what every other top-ranked team in D1A did this year. Everybody scheduled a D1AA opponent in order to pad the schedule with an easy win while still collecting ticket revenue. The NCAA realized that there was more money to be made with a 12th game but nobody wanted to give up a home game so they opened the door to the newly dubbed Championship subdivision. It sounds better than D1AA.

While everybody is snickering at Michigan's misfortune the policy makers in the NCAA office are thrilled. This upset legitimizes the scheduling of D1AA foes and increases the marketability of these games. Who will be the next to fall?

The problem is it won't be anybody of Michigan's caliber anytime soon. Michigan was looking past this game and down the road at key match ups such as its November grudge match against Ohio State. Appalachian State went out hoping to catch Michigan by surprise. In the end it was all about motivation. What happened to Michigan will serve as a wake up call to the rest of college football. Coaches will have a tangible example of what can happen on any given Saturday and getting players motivated to play their best against a weaker opponent will no longer be a struggle.


Sadly that game will keep the critics at bay for a few years too. The NCAA can point to this upset anytime somebody questions a soft schedule. People will claim that parity has equalized the balance of power but when you ask why the Western Athletic Conference doesn't get an automatic BCS bid they'll change the subject. In the end it's all about the money and though Michigan will pay the price for this loss in the polls all year, this game has secured the financial future of the NCAA for the next decade.

Best Damn Fans In The Land?

I was born and raised a Buckeye fan but living in Columbus, Ohio is starting to drive me away from the scarlet and gray. People around here think they’re great fans and they pat themselves on the back regularly. The fact is, they are pretty avid and the revenue generated by the Ohio State football program is pretty phenomenal but they leave much to be desired.

First, it’s all football all the time. In case you missed it, Ohio State plunged deep into the NCAA Tournament last year. That’s basketball for the reader in Columbus. The round orange sphere tall guys shoot through a hoop. Ring a bell? The men’s hoops team made it all the way to the championship game before getting clipped by a loaded Florida squad. They put up a fight but in the end Florida’s depth was too much to overcome. Buckeye fans didn’t take much of an interest until about halfway through the Georgetown game. What did they do during the regular season? Obsess over football.

Buckeye fans also have a reputation for inhospitable behavior. It’s often dismissed as a few “bad apples” giving the rest a bad name but I’ve been on Lane Avenue before a game and there are a lot of people behaving badly. The problem is exacerbated by the self-proclaimed good fans that stand idly by while their reckless counterparts run amuck. And the abuse isn’t limited to opposing players, coaches and fans. Ohio State football players who put in a lackluster performance are subjected to intense ridicule, personal insults and even death threats if the stakes are high enough. Most don’t condone personal attacks but the rest of the abuse is regarded as the price a player pays for playing big time college ball. Never mind the fact that these are kids who are trying to juggle big time college ball with full time college course work.

It goes deeper than that. Fans around Columbus are so obsessed they lash out at anything not scarlet and gray… literally in some cases. One of the area high schools, the one that produced All American wide receiver Terry Glenn, no less, happens to sport colors similar to those worn by Michigan. Wouldn’t you know those kids get harasses around town if they do something crazy like wear their letter jackets? And heaven forbid somebody taking an objective point of view and paying a compliment to a Michigan player. In fact, the Columbus Dispatch received bags full of angry letters expressing sheer outrage that Michigan Wolverine Braylon Edwards was depicted on the front page of the sports section after the Cleveland Browns made him their top pick a few years ago.

Former Buckeye hero Kirk Herbstreit routinely gets lambasted by local fanatics who can’t accept the fact that he has to be objective when breaking down games nationally. When he drops by to contribute to his local radio show he plays to the home crowd just a little bit but if he does something crazy such as rank a loaded Michigan team over Ohio State in a preseason poll the pitchforks come out. Keep in mind that this guy was the face of Buckeye football when he played in the early 1990s.

With the Buckeyes getting ready to kick off their 2007 campaign with a leisurely romp against Youngstown State, analysts aren’t lining up to praise Ohio State’s strength of schedule. Buckeye Nation is starting to get defensive. Fans are pouring over schedules looking for punch lines as comical as YAWN but the reality is that Ohio State won’t face a test until well into October.

The Big Ten looks weak, Ohio State doesn’t have to play one of the conference rivals that might be respectable which leaves two formidable opponents out of the 12. Now there’s a chance that Michigan State or Penn State will surprise some people and prove to be a challenge but as of right now the Big 10 looks more like the Big Easy and Ohio State looks like Homer Simpson hoarding all the cream puffs.

I hope the Buckeyes do well and believe that they’ll be a lot tougher than people think. Even though they lost all of their firepower from last year the people stepping up to fill those holes are capable. The Buckeyes will have a solid line and Chris Wells will be a more dynamic running back than Antonio Pittman. Pittman left Ohio State early because he was going to lose his starting job to Wells. Troy Smith leaves behind a Heisman-sized crater at quarterback but Todd Boekman has been a diligent understudy since 2003. He should be just fine and if he’s not, Tressel needs to take the heat for not developing his prized recruit over such a long period of time.

In spite of my high hopes and fervent belief that the Buckeyes will be serious contenders I can’t take offense to those who doubt Ohio State. This is a team coming off an embarrassing performance in the BCS championship and I have serious questions about the coaching staff. Jim Tressel might be a god in Columbus but I see a stodgy old man who doesn’t adapt very well and his loyalty to idiotic assistant coaches, like Jim Bollman, worries me.

Until I see this team prove to me that it can win creatively I’m dubious and I can’t argue with those who predict a 9-3 season. Tressel has had a great start to his career but he has a long way to go and this year’s team is where he’ll have to prove something. Anybody could win with the talent he had last year and 2002 had fluke written all over it. I loved it, but looking back with objectivity I can’t say that it could happen again. That offense was pitiful!

My doubts don’t make me less of a fan but in Columbus it’s dangerous to say these things. People have been punched out for less. That’s why I think Ohio State fans leave a lot to be desired. Overall I they go too far. There’s nothing wrong with taking your football seriously but you have to have perspective. That’s a foreign concept in Columbus and that’s why I’ve retired my Buckeye regalia. I don’t want to be counted among the nuts.

It's just business, baby.

It looks like Michael Vick won’t be making things easy for the NFL. Reports indicate that Vick will plead guilty to interstate commerce charges but when it comes to killing dogs and gambling he maintains his innocence. That means there’s a possibility that Michael Vick will be available to play next season.

Michael Vick was essentially put on administrative leave by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. It wasn’t a formal punitive action. Simply put: the league couldn’t afford to keep Michael Vick active while criminal proceedings were under way. Technically the NFL had no grounds to do this and Vick could have challenged this decision but he couldn’t afford the additional publicity. A judge and jury would not take kindly to somebody who didn’t have the good sense to step aside when asked. Of course that was when the NFL expected a lengthy trial.

The NFL had it easy. The trial would last well past the point at which Vick could return to his team and the final outcome would absolve the NFL of the responsibility tied to rendering a decision on Vick’s playing status. If found guilty Vick would do a couple of years in prison rendering a return to football a moot point but if he was exonerated in a court of law the NFL could welcome him back with open arms. But the reality of our legal system came back to bite the NFL.

The NFL has no formal policy on interstate commerce or dog fighting. Goodell might be able to impose a short suspension under the conduct provision but it’s important to note that the recent suspensions imposed by Goodell have no legal standing as there is no policy outlining conduct provisions. Chris Henry, Pacman Jones, and Tank Johnson are serving their suspensions because Goodell and other league officials have convinced them that it’s the right thing to do but nobody has challenged them. Yet. That could become an issue if Vick is a free man come next August.

Goodell’s easy out was illegal gambling. If the feds forced Vick to plead guilty to illegal gambling then the league had precedent to suspend Vick for life but Vick isn’t copping to placing bets on the dogs. That means Goodell has to make something up. He’s been pretty good at that to this point but suspending relatively unknown players with a history of poor judgment is not the same as putting the screws to a guy who was once an officially licensed icon. Vick was one of the few players tapped to be the face of the NFL and he probably won’t go down with out a fight.

For Goodell it’s not personal. It’s not even a question of right and wrong. The stiffened disciplinary procedures have little to do with morality. Everything the NFL does is about money. It’s dollars and cents. The league doesn’t care about athletes run amuck unless those athletes create an image problem that hurts the bottom line. Rules aren’t imposed to improve safety or reduce injury, they are drafted to keep revenue flowing. That’s why all of the rules seem to protect quarterbacks. Quarterbacks are marketable because every play runs through them and the casual fan identifies more readily with quarterbacks. That’s why Peyton Manning is the most recognizable player in the NFL. He’s the best player at the most popular position. And that’s exactly why Michael Vick is drawing so much attention now.

It’s ironic that Fred McCrary, Algee Crumpler and Stephon Marbury have come out and voiced support for Vick. They wouldn’t attract this much attention if they were facing the same charges. Vick is the victim of his own popularity. He was not only a quarterback in the NFL but he was one of the more marketable quarterbacks.

At one point he was more popular than Peyton Manning but his inconsistent play and reported clashes with coaches made him a little less appealing. Some might point to race but the reality is that Vick was a mediocre quarterback with remarkable athletic ability. Based solely on his quarterbacking, Vick probably would have been cut years ago but his ability to run made him a star. A highly paid star at that.

It’s often stated that quarterbacks get all of the credit when their team does well but that they also take an undue amount of blame when their teams fair poorly. That’s a reality every quarterback accepts. They know that all eyes are on them and that everything they do, on an off the field, will be scrutinized and discussed. Tom Brady stirred up a mild controversy when he was photographed wearing a Yankees cap while shopping with his fiancée. Peyton Manning was lambasted a few years ago for criticizing his linemen after a Colts loss and Dante Culpepper was cut by the Vikings for being linked to the infamous “party boat” scandal. Mind you, Culpepper wasn’t found guilty of anything but the fact that he was there was enough to wear out his welcome in Minnesota.

So it’s not surprising that Vick is drawing all of this attention and that’s what makes this hard for the NFL. It doesn’t matter if the public outrage is fair. The NFL is a business and it has to make a business decision. If allowing Michael Vick back on the field will cost the league millions of dollars they have to try to keep him out. The league has to keep Michael Vick at arm’s length until the public is ready to accept him.

Michael Vick is entitled to due process. He’s entitled to his day in court and after he pays his debt to society he is entitled to a second chance. However, the second chance doesn’t necessarily mean he’s entitled to playing in the NFL again. Playing in the NFL is a privilege, not a right. The NFL has already lost money because it bet on Michael Vick. The Atlanta Falcons traded a pretty solid back-up quarterback to the Texans to demonstrate their commitment to Vick and he betrayed that trust. He associated with criminals and engaged in illegal activity. While he’s the only one facing a prison sentence, the NFL and the Falcons paid a price, why should they be compelled to pay it again?

The NFL is a business. Michael Vick knew that when he became on of the highest paid players in league history. Every player in the league realizes this. The NFL is not interested in justice or morality. Michael Vick is bad for business. Companies all over the country deny opportunities to convicted criminals, often on a case by case basis. They analyze the risks and consider the rewards. Second chances don’t come easy. Why should the NFL be any different?

Ohio State demonstrates need for playoffs with a YAWN.

Youngstown; Akron; Washington; Northwestern

How fitting that Ohio State opens it’s season with a Y.A.W.N. Yes it’s become an old joke already but the fact that the initials of the Buckeyes’ first four foes spells out what football fans will be doing when they watch these games should have driven whoever drafted this schedule to reconsider. Expect the national pundits to beat that dead horse late in the season and watch it send Ohio State’s stock into a tailspin.

The Big 10 takes a lot of heat from commentators around the country thanks to a rotating schedule that often results in conference powers avoiding a meaningful confrontation. Last year Ohio State and Michigan closed out their schedules with a head to head showdown that had national championship implications but Wisconsin squeaked into the BCS picture by avoiding a difficult game against Ohio State and because of this quirk the Big 10 title is often shared. In 2005 Penn State shared the conference title with Ohio State even though the Lions beat the Buckeyes during the regular season. The 2002 Ohio State Buckeyes won the national title but shared the conference championship with Iowa and back in 1998 the conference title was split three ways. It’s ridiculous, but the Big 10 sells it as tradition. It was also tradition that a Big 10 program couldn’t represent the conference in back to back bowls. What happened to that one?

So all eyes are on the Big 10 and this year Ohio State, fresh off a perfect regular season capped by a disgraceful performance n the BCS Championship game, has responded to the challenge by booking a non-conference schedule that opens with Youngstown State. That’s the Division I double-A Youngstown State Jim Tressel coached at prior to starting his stint with the Buckeyes.

Ohio State chases its opening patsy with Akron, takes the road to face a Washington team that is still in the early stages of a major rebuilding plan and then it’s back to Columbus for a contest with Northwestern. Somehow Ohio State managed to maintain the integrity of its bye week by scheduling Kent State on October 13th.

It’s a schedule that Indiana would be sheepish about and it’s made worse by the fact that this is a down year for the conference. It’s not uncommon for Big 10 programs to schedule two creampuffs each year, generally one being an instate rival (that’s a loose interpretation of the term) and another being an at large whipping boy. This practice is normally quite acceptable as the conference has a history of being pretty tough. Not this year; Michigan and Wisconsin are expected to be solid but the rest of the Big 10 would struggle in the M.A.C.

This isn’t exactly Ohio State’s fault. The structure of the BCS rewards perfection over the course of a mediocre schedule. Thanks to the way teams are rated in the system it’s far better to be unbeaten than it is to be good. That’s not true in the case of a program like Boise State which plays in a non-BCS conference but if Boise State wants to have a shot at a national championship they can always move out of the W.A.C. The BCS is inherently flawed but would not be enhanced if the winners of the garbage conferences got a bite at the apple by default.

Why should Ohio State beat itself up with a tough non conference schedule when the road to the national championship is paved with patsies? Why would Ohio State trade the revenue generated by those extra home games when there’s nothing to gain in the BCS by playing on the road? The system rewards cowardice.

Ohio State’s uncharacteristically bad schedule is why the NCAA needs to step in and insist on a meaningful playoff system. Adopting a playoff format for determining a national champion would not eliminate bowls, it would just alter the bowl schedule to accommodate playoffs and those teams failing to qualify for the playoffs would still be able to play in the already meaningless bowls available to them. People would still watch Bowling Green play Utah State in the Crane Plumbing Products Toilet Bowl on December 21. We could still have the Motor City Bowl sponsored by Tampax.

A version of the BCS system would still be necessary for selecting the playoff teams but instead of giving conference champions automatic selections the criteria would be simplified to include the top 12 teams. The idea is that if a team couldn’t play well enough to merit a top 12 ranking it wouldn’t deserve a post season bid.

The top four teams would get a bye while the remaining eight teams played for the right to advance to the first round of eight. The play in round would take place in early December after the final BCS poll was released. The second round could then be played as an extra home game at the respective field of the top four teams and then the subsequent rounds would be scheduled as BCS bowl games on a rotating basis. The championship game could then be played on or around the ninth of January as is under the current system.

Because the additional games would take place over the winter break, the playoffs wouldn’t interfere with academics. No that the academics argument holds water anyway. The NCAA has managed to feature playoffs in the other divisions for years. The sticking point at the Division 1a level is money. University president are afraid that altering the current system will change the way money changes hands. A lot of people get rich off of the current system and they don’t want that to change.

But it will have to change. The integrity of the game is at stake and that will drive fans away in droves. Why would anybody pay money to watch a juggernaut like Ohio State lay the wood to Youngstown State? The fact is they won’t. Sure they’ll put up with it for a little while but as the practice of padding the schedule with soft opposition becomes more widely accepted by university officials, fans will lose interest and the money will stop flowing.

People are already growing weary of the annual ritual of crowning a paper champion. When the BCS system was first introduced fans were excited because traditional post season barriers were torn down. Now that college football is stuck in another arbitrary rut the chants for a better format are getting louder. The next step will be the dreaded “plus one” game but after that something will have to give. As much as the university officials hate to admit it, the fans call the shots.

Hopefully people realize this before it’s too late.

Can Jim Tressel Evolve

Let me tell you a secret nobody in central Ohio would dare utter: Jim Tressel is vastly overrated.

Shhh. Don’t tell the people Columbus. They’re still in love with him. In spite of a coaching disaster in the BCS Championship last year, Tressel is still a God. They won’t lose faith in him because of one game.

But it’s not one game. Aside from 2002 the Ohio State Buckeyes have underachieved. Granted, Tressel has an impressive overall record and he has dominated arch rival Michigan but there are still some pretty big chinks in his armor. These flaws aren’t quirky or easily fixed. They are fundamental problems that have the potential to destroy the entire program.

Jim Tressel was hired because Ohio State needed to clean up its image. John Cooper let his recruits run a little wild and the result was embarrassing for the Buckeyes. Players were getting arrested, struggling in school and displaying personality traits that rubbed fans the wrong way. Jim Tressel was supposed to change all of that when he was hired in 2000. People were concerned as to whether or not Jim Tressel could make the jump from Youngstown State to Big 10 football but Ohio State needed to tighten up its image. Jim Tressel was supposed to do that.

He didn’t. Sure, the players all sing Carmen Ohio after every game but there’s still concern over academic performance and several players have been arrested. As bad as John Cooper appeared to be he never invoked the wrath of the NCAA, but Jim Tressel’s program was worthy of an extensive investigation. Tressel managed to avoid official sanctions but it was under his watch that Ohio State saw its reputation take a hit in the national media. When you compare police blotters, Jim Tressel represents no improvement over John Cooper. Ohio State’s has had more than its share of trouble.

Much of that revolved around the petulant tailback Maurice Clarett. As a freshman Clarett attracted national attention as the only offensive weapon Ohio State had. While the defense stifled opponents it was Clarett’s ability to gain yards at will that made it possible for Ohio State to overcome formidable opponents. He clashed with coaches and struggled with personal decisions but he rushed for over 1000 yards on one of the worst offenses in college football. One could argue that he was the offense.

Clarett was eventually suspended for receiving illegal compensation. Clarett accused Tressel of providing that compensation but it was not substantiated and Clarett recanted. Still, Tressel had to know that Clarett was struggling with the pressures and temptations associated with stardom and Tressel should have been suspicious of how Clarett was acquiring access to clothing, jewelry and automobiles. For some reason everybody seemed to look the other way when the flamboyant Clarett drew attention to himself and it almost cost Ohio State dearly. To be fair Clarett is not the only player to get into trouble at OSU but he was the marquee player on that 2002 championship team. A lot of people around Columbus try to downplay that fact but they don’t downplay the title, even though others do.

Because Ohio State’s 106th ranked offense was so ineffective a lot of people dismiss Ohio States 2002 National Championship as a fluke. Miami fans dismiss the Fiesta Bowl as a whitewash by officials who called the game in Ohio State’s favor. It is true Ohio State did get some calls and some bounces but 14-0 is 14-0. You can’t take anything from Tressel in 2002. The Buckeyes enjoyed plenty of good luck but they didn’t make critical mistakes. That became the hallmark of Tressel ball.

However 2003 was a different story. Ohio State should have been able to repeat. The offense had another year to improve and an entire summer to recover from the loss of the suspended Clarett. Tressel’s team cruised through a weak opening schedule with an offensive attack that was even less impressive than the previous year and the team went 11-2, beating Kansas State in the Fiesta Bowl. A low point of that season was when senior linebacker Robert Reynolds was caught on camera trying to crush Wisconsin quarterback, Jim Sorgi’s throat after a play. The violent act drew plenty of media attention but only a one game suspension. Jim Tressel dismissed it as a mistake by a player who is normally classy. A few years later Reynolds was dismissed from the Tennessee Titans after his wife filed domestic assault charges. Clearly Tressel is not a good judge of character.

11-2 is hardly a disappointment but this was a team that managed to return a lot of good players and the two loses were directly attributable to Tressel’s tentative offensive schemes. The blocking was weak, the plays were unimaginative and in 2003 the defense simply couldn’t hold on. The offense wasn’t holding the ball as long as it had in 2002 and the running game was not wearing opponents down at all.

2004 was ugly. The line was even worse and highly touted quarterback prospect Justin Zwick was getting brutalized. The running game was inconsistent again and the Buckeyes fell to 8-4. The season improved when Tressel replaced the battered Zwick with a nimble Troy Smith and the offense suddenly opened up a little. Play calling seemed to improve either because Smith could buy time with his legs or because 3 straight conference losses made the coaching staff a little desperate. Whatever the case it worked. Fans might have been upset if it had no been for a modest upset of Michigan and a sound beating of Oklahoma State in the Alamo bowl.

2005 was marred by yet another disciplinary issue. Troy Smith got caught taking money from a booster and was suspended for the opener which forced Tressel to capitulate on his starter for an early winner take all showdown with Texas. Tressel rightfully started Zwick who struggled with the more restrained play calling. Ohio State’s defense did a fine job containing the explosive Longhorn offense but Tressel squandered scoring opportunities by changing quarterbacks. The offense simply couldn’t find any rhythm and Ohio State lost a nail biter. Later in the 2005 season the stagnant offense came back to haunt the Buckeyes again and they fell 17-10.

After that Tressel seemed to open things up and Ohio State went on to dominate its opponents. This trend carried into the 2006 season where Ohio State marched through the entire schedule with a perfect record. After beating Michigan in a classic that will be replayed for decades to come Ohio State secured its spot in the BCS Championship game and waited for the BCS to select an opponent. The rest is history. Ohio State simply laid an egg. Nobody was prepared and they never made adjustments. Tressel failed to properly motivate his team and they suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of an inferior team.

On paper it’s hard to criticize Jim Tressel. He’s won five national championships and he owns a career record of 197-71-2 (61-14 at Ohio State). He is 4-2 in bowl games and he has practically claimed ownership of his arch rival Michigan with a 5-1 record. It’s no wonder Ohio State fans love him. He’s a fantastic coach but there’s plenty of room for improvement.

2007 is going to be telling. Did Jim Tressel learn an important lesson last year? He’s not an emotional guy so it’s hard to tell if he’s got any fire. His record indicates that he does but his response to the BCS Championship debacle was a little too reserved. It’s OK to take a loss in stride…sometimes you aren’t the better team...but throwing a game away? That’s not supposed to sit well with coaches.

Tressel will be taking the field with a lot of new faces on offense. He’ll have to trust a new quarterback and try to find reliable receivers. He lost an experienced tailback and while Chris Wells has shown moments of sheer brilliance, there is a question as to whether or not he can hold on to the ball. Will Tressel give these new kids a chance to play or will he take the ball out of their hands and count on his defense to win games?

In Columbus fans are drawing comparisons to 2002. The return of Tressel ball. Unfortunately this is a defense that had some glaring weaknesses exposed when they faced formidable opponents late last season. Michigan and Florida put up a lot of points and gained yards at will. This unit might not be up to the challenge of achieving perfection week after week and Tressel might not get some of the breaks he got in 2002. He didn’t get them in 2003, 2004 or 2005. Sometimes you have to move the ball and score. Punts don’t win football games, points do. Just because it worked in 2002 doesn’t mean it will again. The question is whether or not Tressel has learned that lesson.

So?

756 doesn't mean anything to me because I know that there is more to baseball than hitting home runs. Even if you take away the ugly pall of steroids you're still left with Barry Bonds, a player who has chosen to define his career as a testament to himself. It's fitting that his greatest feats are individual achievements. Not only has he failed to win a World Series, Bonds has been a big part of the reason none of his teams could win it all, alienating players and coaches who could have helped him. He's never played the game the right way...steroids or not.

To be fair, I also don't hold Babe Ruth's numbers in high esteem. Some of the best baseball players of his era were forbidden from playing major league baseball. Ruth set himself apart because he chose to swing for the fences when his contemporaries kept the ball in the park but in the Negro Leagues players were already exploiting the long ball. Would Babe Ruth's record mean anything if he'd faced a pitcher like Satchel Paige or if Josh Gibson had been allowed to compete in the Majors? We'll never know but the very question puts 714 in doubt. It's not Babe's fault but understanding the context of that record makes it hard to honor.

It's subjective but 755 means the most to me. Hank Aaron was a class act who proved himself to be a model of consistency. He was also a true champion batting .393 in the 1957 World Series and leading the way to an important Braves victory. He managed to stay on track in spite of dealing with racial hostility the likes of which Barry Bonds can't begin to comprehend. Aaron actually endured being segregated from his team when he went on the road and maintained his focus in spite of receiving death threats in an era where it seemed much more likely they would be carried out.

Numbers are meaningless without context. No matter how many home runs Barry Bonds finishes his career with, he'll never surpass what Aaron accomplished.

Browns can't win

Brady Quinn doesn’t think his contract demands are unreasonable but he admits that his agent, Tom Condon, is handling everything. We can only speculate as to what is really going on. Quinn claims that the sticking point is the incentive clause he wants included should he become an effective starting quarterback.

Pundits and Browns’ fans seem to think Brady Quinn is asking for too much. Suddenly he is overrated and fortunate that the Browns saw fit to end his draft day free fall. While there were some scouts and insiders expressing concern that Brady Quinn wasn’t perfect, everybody seemed genuinely surprised that he fell to the 22nd spot. The Browns weren’t alone in their quest to secure a second first round pick to acquire Quinn as several teams were actively trying to negotiate a trade after Miami passed on Quinn for Ted Ginn Jr.

The Browns forfeited their leverage in this negotiation process when they made such a fuss over Brady Quinn before the draft. Before Jamarcus Russell wowed everybody with his arm, Brady Quinn was the top-ranked quarterback. People questioned his ability to win big games but when they considered the fact that he wasn’t surrounded by the same talent his chief rivals enjoyed that point became less important. Besides, that was the big knock on Peyton Manning until this past Super Bowl. Quinn would be just fine.

Initially the Browns looked poised to take Quinn. Russell was the top pick and a lot of people thought that Detroit would take Joe Thomas over Calvin Johnson because Detroit had plenty of talented receivers and no means of getting them the ball. The Browns would then be forced to choose between Adrian Peterson and Brady Quinn since they weren’t in the market for a receiver either. The Browns were enamored with Quinn.

Even when it became clear that Joe Thomas would be available the Browns, in spite of dire needs on the line, were still smitten by Quinn. They finally decided that Joe Thomas was the best choice but went out of their way to smooth it over with Quinn by contacting him the night before and explaining the decision to him. It was a classy move on the team’s part.

Then teams passed on Quinn and the circus began. When the Browns finally acquired the pick that brought Brady to Cleveland the front office gushed. They bragged about how highly they had Quinn rated and paraded him around like some kind of trophy. The future was now and Brady was an integral part of it.

So why are the Browns surprised that Brady Quinn is holding out for a better deal than your average 22nd pick would dare to ask for? Could it be because Brady Quinn knows he isn’t the average 22nd pick? Everybody seemed stunned that the Dolphins passed on him with the ninth pick so Quinn’s got to believe he’s worth top 10 money and then the Browns made it clear that they viewed him as valuable a selection as Joe Thomas. This made it easy for Tom Condon.

Teams will often take a quarterback with a third or fourth round pick to shake things up and challenge a veteran who might be getting complacent. The Patriots did that with Tom Brady a few years back and look how it turned out. But Quinn wasn’t some diamond in the rough. He was viewed by everybody as a ready made franchise quarterback and the Browns made no effort to disguise their excitement in landing him.

They showed Quinn their cards at the start of the game and now they want to bluff. Romeo Crennel is pretending that he’ll pick his starter after the first preseason game but word out of camp indicates that neither Charlie Frye nor Derek Anderson seem ready to lead this team. The quarterback position in Cleveland is as wide open as it ever was and Brady Quinn isn’t losing any ground by working out in Arizona with other big name players who are holding out for better contracts. How can the Browns win when Quinn knows what he is worth and has veteran NFL players encouraging him to stay firm in his demands?

The Browns have nothing to bargain with. They need Brady Quinn more than he needs them. In fact, Quinn would be better served to sit out the entire year and end up with a good team that needs to replace an old quarterback. Cleveland has already ruined one highly rated QB prospect. If he can’t get the contract he wants in Cleveland he’s better off taking less money to play elsewhere.

Everybody knows that the Browns are going to blink. They want Quinn in camp. They banked their future on him. Next year Dallas is going to have Cleveland’s first round pick and there’s a good chance it’s going to be in the top five. So give Quinn top five money and get him into camp. Phil Savage made this bed and might as well lay in it.

Big deals nobody buys

Beckham and Bonds. These two venerable athletes share the distinction of being part of huge sports stories that people simply don’t care about. Beckham is going to play Major League Soccer which, by global standards, is a misnomer given the fact that the version of professional soccer here in the United States compares to its European counterpart much in the way Arena football compares to the NFL.

Beckham is attracting attention because people are curious as to whether he’ll dominate American soccer the way Michael Jordan would own the court at the local YMCA but the attention will be fleeting. One of two things will happen: he will dominate or he will disappoint. Regardless, people will grow weary of the novelty. It’s unlikely that soccer will ever command more than a niche market here in the states and bringing in global legends won’t change that.

The fact of the matter is that soccer is not a very good spectator sport when compared with the other sports Americans enjoy. It can be monotonous and low scores are the result of many anticlimactic possessions. There’s no question that Americans are conditioned to enjoy more familiar sports. Baseball can be quite boring but it’s much more complex than soccer and every pitch can be exciting when the game is tight. In soccer a margin of victory of just one goal can be the result of a boring, lopsided game. And ties are all too common.

Soccer is a great sport and it is challenging. Players are fantastic athletes who must developed a sense of dexterity most of us can’t even fathom. Soccer can also be a lot of fun to play. But so is bowling. That doesn’t mean anybody wants to watch it on TV. Soccer can produce some outstanding highlights at times but exciting moments are few and far between. The pitch is bigger than a standard American football field, intentional contact is discouraged and the rules certainly favor defense. While soccer is king around the rest of the world it is losing ground to other sports. Basketball has gained international appeal, sports fans in soccer countries are warming up to football and baseball is still huge in Central and South America even though it is no longer the American pastime. Once people become familiar with the intricacies of American sports it seems the American sports become more popular. The more familiar Americans become with soccer the more interested they become in the world series of poker.

So Beckham’s foray into the MLS is big news but it’s falling on deaf ears. Fans will take notice but not nearly as much as the people who forked over all that money expect. As much as everybody would love to see Americans fall in love with soccer, people simply won’t make room in their hearts.

Barry Bonds shook off the rust, found his stroke and has made Hank Aaron’s fall from the record books inevitable. Not only will Bonds hit 755 to tie the record and 756 to break it, by the time the season is over he will be a dozen dingers away from cracking the 800 barrier. A season or two muddling around the AL as a DH for rent will make it possible for the bloated wonder to put the home run title out of A-Rod’s reach for a long time.

The problem is that nobody who has a clue likes Barry. He’s got a healthy throng of idiot fans who simply don’t get it and the handful of people in his camp who seem smart enough to get it simply choose to ignore it. Barry Bonds took steroids. Lots of them. He went from being a wiry free-swinging center fielder to the bubble-headed behemoth he is today over the course of winter. Apologists complain that every time an athlete gets big and strong he gets accused of doping but in Barry’s case he admits that he did take steroids but absolves himself of responsibility by claiming that he didn’t know that he was taking them. Liar.

But even taking the steroids that added a decade of remarkable play to his career out of the equation, Barry Bonds’ assault on 755 would still strike a sour note because of the kind of man he is. We’re talking about a guy who cheated on his wife, cheated on his taxes and hid behind his family when the spotlight glared. Barry Bonds went to a press conference with his son for the sole purpose of using the boy as a prop when people pressed him for answers. If Barry was half the man he claims to be he would have told his kid to stay home so daddy could face the music. Instead he hid behind his kid. Classy.

Bonds has spent a career of alienating his own teammates and rubbing everybody the wrong way. He has struggled to deliver in the post season and his obsession with personal statistical achievements has compromised his ability to make his team better. Barry would rather take a walk than move a runner over with a sacrifice fly. Barry would rather swing for the fences than hit behind the runner to drive him in. Baseball fans can be obsessed with stats but the stats never tell the whole story. The book on Barry is that he is a loser. Always has been, always will be.

People talk about how Barry should be handled. He hasn’t tested positive for steroids in the recently implemented drug test era but it’s clear that the bulk of his numbers came from a bottle. Can he be stricken from the record book? Should he be kept out of the Hall?

Probably not. The record book is about stats so Barry will have his place in it regardless of the allegations. But the Hall of Fame should be different. The balloting is subjective. Some would argue too much so, but that’s where the big picture of a player's career should be taken into account. Instead of looking at stats voters should consider the sum of the player’s career. That includes tangibles such as statistics as well as intangibles such as leadership and disposition. Character has to count for something but unless that player has several titles to his name it never seems to matter to the voters.

Sadly baseball writers don’t like to explain themselves so they hide behind stats. Most will even explain their methodology for analyzing stats to determine a player’s worthiness. Nobody seems willing to take responsibility for making a judgment call. Great players are denied recognition because they fell short of arbitrary milestones such as 3000 hits, 500 home runs or 300 wins. By voters standards a player who lugged a .248 average through a 16 year career to hit 508 home runs is better than a guy who managed to hit .297 with 434 home runs over 14 years.

Defense almost always gets the short shrift in this process because the only stat for defense is fielding percentage and it’s often distorted by a player’s ability. Rangy fielders like Omar Vizquel and Roberto Alomar get charged for errors because they almost get to balls guys like Cal Ripken Jr. could only dream of touching. So Omar deflects a ball in shallow center and his fielding percentage goes down, but Cal’s stats look good because he stood there and watched it land.

So Barry will get in. After five years nobody will care to debate his association with illegal substances and if it is broached the writers will all play dumb and claim that you can’t quantify the impact those substances had on Bonds’ career. The stats will make for an easy argument and nobody will bring up character issues or those intangibles that Bonds refused to bring to the table. They’ll defend Bonds’ lack of championships by blaming the rest of the team even though Barry was the primary reason the rest of the team wasn’t very good. Then they’ll reverse position and give Derek Jeter a pass because he has rings to overcome his lousy power numbers, suspect defense and low batting average. That’s the only subjective aspect of the voting: which seemingly objective method will be employed by the gutless writers.

Until then we have the inevitable breaking of the record. It’s coming but fans seem numb. That wasn’t the case back when Hank was closing in on 715. Babe Ruth’s record was sacred and the entire nation was on pins and needles wondering when it would fall. Some people hated him but most cheered Hammering Hank on. In spite of our national sense of racism Hank was a guy you had to love. He was consistent, hard working and enduring. He was just a good guy. When he rounded the bases after his historic blast it was two white dopes who ran out on the field to be the first to congratulate him. It was a big deal.

Nobody seems to care about Bonds. Hank won’t make an effort to be present when his record falls. He’s been careful to avoid stirring the pot but you can tell he doesn’t respect the way Bonds has played the game. Bud Selig is begging off as well. The commissioner of Major League Baseball doesn’t want to be around when a record that stood for nearly 40 years falls. They aren’t alone. That says a lot about the kind of guy Bonds is. Steroids or not, he’s a jerk and nobody likes to see jerks do well.

Dynasty?

ESPN has a channel that features replays of legendary athletic performances and highlight footage of some of the greatest players in sports. The channel is simply called ESPN Classic. Of course, 24 hours of programming gobbles up quite a bit of archived footage so ESPN producers sometimes have to reach.

One feature they have is a program called “Instant Classic”. Typically this forum is used to replay a recent game of some notoriety. A great example of one of these so-called “instant classics” is the recent Fiesta Bowl where Boise State upset Oklahoma. It was a great game and it more or less proved that the term “instant classic” isn’t quite as oxymoronic as some people perceive it to be.

We’ve all seen sports history in the making. Tom Brady coming off the bench and out of obscurity to lead the New England Patriots through the playoffs and on to a Super Bowl win was one of those moments in time where one can feel the legend being written. You just knew when Tom Brady flashed that million watt smile and hoisted the Vince Lombardi Trophy something special was happening. That wasn’t the case when Kurt Warner led the Rams to a title, his was a feel good story but it wasn’t one of those timeless moments.

We like those moments. Tom Brady took us back to Joe Montana and made everything seem OK. Football would always be football. The more things change the more they stay the same. We want great teams, great players and great moments but sometimes our desire to replicate history overcomes good sense. Such is the case with LeBron James and the San Antonio Spurs.

We want LeBron to be Michael Jordan and can’t figure out why he hasn’t won six titles yet. Part of it might be because LeBron just finished his third season and hasn’t had enough opportunities to win and part of it might be that at the age of 22 LeBron still has some work to do before he becomes the best player he can be. It’s also reasonable to place some of the blame on the rest of his team. Jordan seemed destined to share space in championship purgatory with Charles Barkley, Karl Malone and Dominique Wilkins until Scottie Pippen showed up. In the King’s defense Jordan had a lot of work to do at the age of 22 as well. One might say that LeBron is better than Jordan was at this early stage in his career. One would have a hard time arguing otherwise. One thing's for sure: LeBron is a better teammate.

We are also pondering whether or not the Spurs are a dynasty. Which begs the question: what is a dynasty in sports? It’s not an official term but subjective opinion seems to maintain that a dynasty demonstrates a consistent level of success over a long period of time. If that’s the case the Spurs might have something going but many feel that their championships are too spread out to qualify them as a true dynasty. The Spurs haven’t won back to back and in the middle of this supposed dynasty the Lakers pulled off three titles in a row. Who has the dynasty?

In my not-so-humble opinion the test of time is what makes or breaks a sports dynasty. The Spurs are a great team right now but what will we think 15 years from now? Will they be held in the same esteem as the Celtics and the Lakers? It doesn’t matter what we think now; that’s a question for the ages but I think the fact that the Spurs allowed a conference rival to pull off a three-peat in the midst of their run will haunt the legacy.

Does a dynasty have to win multiple titles? Some would say so but the word implies some level of consistent dominance. You can't win a title, sleep walk through a season or two and win again. You have to win or be in the position to win year after year. To that end the Spurs aren’t the most dominant team in their conference or division. Since they broke through in 1999 they are 4-0 in the finals but the Lakers are 3-1 and Shaquille O’Neal has been a member of four championship teams with five appearances in the finals. Perhaps the Spurs dynasty will be overshadowed by Shaq’s. It’s hard to argue with his credentials.

Switching back to football one of the most impressive accomplishments is the four straight Super Bowl appearances by the Buffalo Bills in the 1990’s. Talk about consistency! This is a team that won four consecutive conference championships and from 1988 through 1993 made six consecutive post season appearances. And the NFL doesn’t have a playoff field like the NBA It’s hard to make the playoffs; you have to win to get in. The Bills continued to be highly competitive over a period of 12 years. From 1988 through 1999 they made the playoffs 10 times and compiled a regular season record of 124-74. Impressive? I dare you to say no. Dynasty? Well….

You’ve got to finish. Winning titles is certainly part of the dynasty equation but not the only one. A dynasty must demonstrate consistent success over a period of time. Dynasties are generally associated with dominance and that means the success must be significantly greater than a team’s rivals over that period. You can’t just be one of the best teams every year, you have to be the best more often than not. Michael Jordan demonstrated exactly what a dynasty is when he won three titles in a row, took a couple of seasons off and came back to win three more. Six titles in eight years and the Bulls were in the hunt during his two season hiatus. That's one efficient dynasty. You have to dust off the Bill Russell Celtics before you can find that sort of success. Granted that was a much different NBA. The compeition wasn't that impressive.

Go back to the Lakers. Not the Sha-Kobe Lakers that threw a three-peat monkey wrench in the midst of a Spurs dynasty but the Showtime Lakers of the 1980’s; for that matter look at the Celtics of the same era. From the 1979-1980 season through 1990-1991 the Lakers made it to nine finals and won five of them. They made consecutive appearances and won back to back titles in the span but what’s important is that for more than 10 years the Lakers defined the playoffs and the NBA finals. During that stretch the Celtics won three titles in five appearances. If not for the Lakers the Celtics would have ruled the 1980’s.

That’s a dynasty. The Lakers dominated everybody. The Celtics, though often linked to the Lakers as their chief rival and regular foil simply don’t even compare when the results are examined years later. The Celtics were a great team but history proves that the Lakers were better…by far. Dominance.

The Spurs might be like the Celtics. The Lakers could make some moves, win two more titles over the next three years. Then we’ll look back at this era and call it Showtime II. The Cavaliers could get aggressive in the off season and embark on a period of dominance that overshadows everything the Spurs have done to this point. Or perhaps the Spurs will finally pull off that magical repeat next year and put history in a stranglehold. We don’t know how this book ends because there are still chapters waiting to be written.

Perhaps we should stop worrying about how to define the present and simply enjoy what we have. The Spurs are a great team and the Cavaliers clearly have a bright future. It’s hard to put what we’ve seen into historical perspective because we simply don’t have the vantage point of time. Let’s take a breath and wait.

Cavs can't get any love

Everybody loves LeBron James now. At the start of the Eastern Conference Finals James was roundly criticized by everybody for kicking the ball out to his best three point shooter. Ironically one of those critics was Magic Johnson who made a name for himself executing that very sort of play. Apparently the difference between James and Johnson is that Johnson had the telepathic ability to will the ensuing shot into the basket. More criticism followed after the second game where LeBron seemed unable to get his team inspired in the third quarter although he got a little backhanded credit for taking the ball to the rim late in the game. The analysts seemed more intent on patting themselves on the back for being right than they were with giving James credit for taking ownership of the game.

The love affair started in game five. The Cavaliers played well at home and took two games from what appeared to be an uninspired Pistons club but nobody expected the Pistons to fall in game five. The Pistons are dangerous when the pressure’s on. That was where LeBron James stepped up late and didn’t quit until the Cavs won the game. He scored all 25 of the Cavaliers final points and displayed the sort of clutch performance associated with the best players in the history of the game.

Game six was interesting. The Pistons went back to the defense that had stifled James in the first two games and it worked. LeBron couldn’t get his offense on track but the difference was that his teammates were finally hitting shots. Larry Hughes drilled key threes early and punished the Pistons for collapsing on James. Then young Daniel Gibson took over and nailed shot after shot to finish the game. James made key plays but it was the same generosity that he displayed in game one that made it possible to beat the Pistons big in the sixth and final game. It wasn’t even competitive. The Pistons quit with five minutes left to play.

Nobody gave the Cavaliers a chance to beat the Pistons. Most experts speculated that the Cavaliers were fortunate to have drawn such an easy playoff bid. Washington and Miami limped into the playoffs with injuries to key players and the Bulls, by virtue of one ill-times loss ended up drawing a semifinal match with the Pistons. Cleveland, they insisted, was the third best team in the playoffs with Detroit being the runaway favorite to win it all.

Cleveland took it to Detroit in the conference finals. Charles Barkley, who picked the Pistons to win, declared Cleveland the winner by virtue of a 6 game sweep. He elaborates that Cleveland basically outplayed Detroit in the first two games in spite of coming up short on the scoreboard and that LeBron demoralized the Pistons in game five. Cleveland simply rose to the challenge.

Still Barkley and other pundits don’t give the Cavs much of a chance against the Spurs. Everybody sees the Spurs as an unbeatable force even though they lost to the Cavaliers in both of their regular season meetings. Granted that was then and this is the Finals where the Spurs have won before but the Spurs did get a gift from David Stern when the NBA saddled Phoenix with a suspension and that was after receiving the gift of favorable calls all through the playoffs.

The Western Conference was thrown for quite a loop when the heavily favored Dallas Mavericks choked against the Warriors. That gave the Spurs what amounted to a week of practice as they toyed with Utah in the Western Conference finals.

When you compare these teams the Spurs don’t have that big of an edge. The Spurs have no answer for LeBron James. Unless Bruce Bowen manages to get a foot under James when he goes to the rim and send the NBA’s best player to the injured list, James will have a brilliant series. The only players big enough to stop James aren’t fast enough to guard him.

The Spurs also don’t have an answer for Zydrunas Ilgauskas unless they opt to put that burden on Duncan’s shoulders. Duncan can shut Z down but Z’s slippery enough to make him work for it which will undoubtedly detract from Duncan’s contributions on offense. Defensively the Cavs will employ a platoon of the energetic Anderson Varejao, who frustrated Rasheed Wallace to the point of ejection, Drew Gooden and Donyell Marshall to wear The Big Fundamental down.

The Spurs have a big advantage with Tony Parker who could force a double team if Larry Hughes’ injury tightens up and Daniel Gibson gets overwhelmed. A double team will shut down Parker, leaving Manu Ginobli open to do damage but the Cavs managed to handle the depth and versatility of Detroit’s backcourt with consistency. It’s clear that Mike Brown really does know what he’s doing.

And that brings us to coaching. Brown is still pretty new at his job and Popovich is his mentor. The Spurs appear to have the edge in coaching but don’t overlook Mike Brown. Who had the bigger challenge? Brown, who brought his team back from an 0-2 start or Popovich who faced his biggest challenge of the post season with a league-induced advantage? One thing the experts seem to agree on is that the Spurs were on the verge of being eliminated before David Stern sat the Suns’ most explosive player out for a pivotal game six and the Suns almost pulled off the upset. Who’s the better coach?

The real advantage the Spurs have is with the officiating. The Spurs got past the Suns by playing dirty. Roll the tape and you see a team getting away with nasty little cheap shots throughout the entire series. Bruce Bowen hasn’t been reprimanded for maliciously trying to injure players by rolling their ankles and buckling their knees and it’s unlikely they’ll put the screws to him now. Maybe LeBron’s star has risen enough to warrant a little protection from such pedestrian tactics and the plan will backfire. That’s the real issue. Will the Spurs carry their magic blanket of NBA-sanctioned protection into this series or will the Cavs be given a fair shot at taking them down?