The Economic Case FOR Steroids in Baseball

Everyone who is a sports fan could not escape the news over the weekend that Alex Rodriguez, 3B for the NY Yankees, tested positive for two banned substances (both steroids) in 2003, when he was playing SS for the Texas Rangers. His name was one of 104 that appeared on a list of players who tested positive during that season, and the ramifications of all those positive tests was increased and public enforcement of drug tests in MLB the following year. The fact that A-Rod's name was leaked to the public by four anonymous sources and published by Sports Illustrated was not all that shocking; enough allegations had been made against A-Rod throughout the years that he had to defend himself by denying his steroid use in an interview with Katie Couric.

No, the surprising thing for me was that A-Rod almost immediately went on air in another interview, this time with ESPN's Peter Gammons, and admitted he cheated by taking steroids in 2001, 2002, and 2003. Well, he claimed to be off the juice in 2003, but then there's the case of his failed drug tests that year.

Even more surprising for me was the reason why A-Rod said he cheated:

"When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I felt
like I had all the weight of the world on top of me and I needed to perform, and
perform at a high level every day."

Why did A-Rod feel all the pressure to perform? When he left Seattle and signed the richest contract in the history of Major League Baseball, it was for 10 years and $252 Million to play SS for the Rangers. That's an awful lot of pressure, an awful lot of zeros to justify on a yearly basis. For the first time, a player came right out and admitted what everyone always understood as the underlying reason for taking performance-enhancing drugs (PED): ECONOMICS.

Keep in mind that A-Rod had all the tools necessary to play and be a star at the MLB level. He was not some no-power, good glove middle infielder in the years leading up to 2001. In 2000, A-Rod was one of the last stars left on a Mariners team that previously dealt LHP Randy Johnson and CF Ken Griffey Jr. to other teams. That season, he hit 41 HR, had a .316 BA, and became the only SS to have 100 runs, RBI, and walks in a single season. This is not some player past his prime or struggling in Double A or Triple A to make it to The Show; in 2000, A-Rod was in the prime of his career.

Much the same can be said of Barry Bonds, as well. Bonds, of course, has already been convicted of using PEDs in the eyes of the baseball public, despite his protestations otherwise. Bonds, even before he sought out the services of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO), was one of the all-time best outfielders in MLB.

Why on earth would these guys risk their reputations, their long-term health, and their shot at immortality (the MLB Hall of Fame) when all those things were in reach? I think economics has a great deal to do with it.

Baseball, when it comes to player contracts and guaranteed money, is somewhat between the extremes of the NBA and NFL. In the NBA, players have truly guaranteed contracts that will pay them for the life of the contract, even if the player is sitting on the bench. In the NFL, no contract is guaranteed past a given Sunday. I'm fairly well convinced that was why Shawne Merriman tried to tough it out and play on two bad knees in September, even after he was told by several doctors that he needed season-ending knee surgery to save his career. In MLB, player contracts are fairly well guaranteed, but either side can request salary arbitration to either increase or decrease the salary based on the past season's performance.

Baseball is not like some sports, when an athlete might have just one really good shot at winning a gold medal and securing lots of money in endorsement deals. How many track and field stars did we see in Beijing who came up just short of achieving their lifelong dreams? I would argue the economic case for cheating in track and field is far, far greater than it is in baseball or football.

Cycling is another case where the athletes have been doping for decades, but for different reasons. Sure, the leader of a cycling team can make several Millions of dollars while on contract with the team. The domestiques, however, make far less, although I think their salaries are still in the six-figure ranges. This article from WSJ sheds some light on cycling salaries, which typically are closely guarded (subscription req'd). No, the real reason why cyclists abused EPO for so many years, and why they still look for ways to cheat the system today, is because it is such a grueling sport. The attitude has been, "everyone else is doing it; if I want to survive in the peloton, I have to do it, too."

Let's get back to baseball. When all the talk about PEDs in sport revolved around Barry Bonds, I wondered whether it made economic sense for him to sacrifice his long-term health for a few more seasons of muscle. When Bonds left the Pittsburgh Pirates to sign as a free agent with San Francisco, his contract was a then-MLB record $43.75 Million over six years. That's a paltry $7.29 Million per year. When Bonds re-signed in 2002 (during or shortly after the time he is suspected of using PEDs), SF gave him a five-year, $90 Million contract. That's an average of $18 Million per year. In 2005, Bonds earned $22 Million, second only to A-Rod. In 2006, he earned $20 Million, and in 2007, he earned $15.8 Million. That's an awful lot of money that can be used to pay for any type of health issues Bonds might face (if any) as a result of using PEDs. The cost-benefit analysis is pretty straightforward here.

A lot of the MLB players who have been outed for using PEDs, either by Jose Canseco's books or by The Mitchell Report, have said they used PEDs only to help come back from an injury faster. Andy Pettitte was one of the players who took that path. Many of the players suspected of using have only denied the allegations, despite any evidence to the contrary. Roger Clemens and Rafael Palmeiro fall into that camp. Before A-Rod, however, no one admitted that one reason they used PEDs was due to financial or economic concerns.

On a macroeconomic level, the supply and demand of hugely talented baseball players is partly to blame for the high salaries for star players. There is little doubt that Tom Hicks, the owner of the Rangers, overpaid to secure the services of A-Rod in 2001. But the price he was willing to pay was driven up by the perception that A-Rod was the centerpiece of the World Series championship-winning club he wanted to build. Put in microeconomic terms, the marginal utility Hicks expected to receive by employing A-Rod must have far outweighed the opportunity cost of hiring other free agents.

There is little doubt, after listening to A-Rod's confession yesterday, that he felt the pressure of all those expectations to perform. He didn't put it in economic terms, per se, but he did say he felt the "weight of the world" on his shoulders.

Another way of looking at the same issue is to view a player's performance in the year leading up to free agency, often called the "contract year." Almost invariably, the player in a contract year performs far above his statistical averages, all in hopes of landing a bigger contract worth more money at the end of the season. In MLB especially, free agents who just landed a new contract with a new team tend to disappoint during the life of that contract. Kevin Brown and Mike Hampton jump to mind.

What's the alternative, then? Can we ever get back to a time when player salaries did not engender such on-field performance swings? I don't think so, and I don't think we necessarily want to see players earning the pauper wages they once did, way back when. About the only thing that can be done, and what MLB is finally doing, is setting up strict drug enforcement regimens to catch and punish the cheats. The MLB drug testing policy could be much stronger, yes. But at least they now realize how far-reaching PEDs were in baseball, and how damaging to the sport they are.

The Death of Jazz... ...and Baseball, Too?

Over the weekend (if you consider that the weekend starts on Friday; long gone are those college days when youthful exuberance demanded the weekend start on Thursday!), I finished reading Joe Posnanski's excellent book, The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America. Did I mention it is an excellent read? O'Neil had such a zest for living, I'm now sad I never got to meet the man before he passed away. Posnanski was lucky enough to spend a year traveling with O'Neil, and there are wonderful life lessons* learned every step along the way.


* My favorite life lesson? When O'Neil schooled Posnanski with, "Son, in this life, you don't ever walk by a red dress."

One thing stuck with me after reading the book, however. O'Neil often compared baseball to jazz. He also compared living to jazz, but he insisted that the rhythms of baseball most closely matched those of jazz. I do think he was right about that.

What, then, do we make of the premise that jazz is dying, or perhaps that it died with John Coltrane in the late '60s? My wife was watching the Grammys last night, and she mentioned the same thing, that jazz is dead. Perhaps someone on the show said as much, I don't know.* The only part I watched last night was when Neil Diamond took the stage to sing "Sweet Caroline." How he could pull that off without any hint of irony, I have no idea. The only worthwhile part of the show immediately followed his performance, when they paid tribute to those musicians, producers, and even one music photographer who passed away last year, followed by an excellent rendition of "Who Do You Love?" as a tribute to Bo Diddley.

* I can't stand the incredible proliferation of awards shows -- too much self-congratulatory back slapping can't be good for any industry, and it's not like the folks in Hollywood or the music industry really need any more attention. So I boycott all of the award shows, even the Oscars, on general principle.

I thought I would explore the thought that jazz died with Coltrane a bit more, since people still practice and listen to jazz in great numbers. I have friends who are dedicated to the genre, and who still travel great lengths to attend the annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Of course, as soon as I opened their website, I saw a picture announcing the scheduled performance of Jon Bovi. Maybe jazz really is dead, after all.

I also found this very recent article from a musical magazine called The Walrus (with an obvious reference to The Beatles, no? Actually, probably not.), in which the author talks about jazz and how it might slip into the same category as classical music: no composer creates anything fresh and new; performers just put their own interpretation on the classic pieces of the genre. Alexander Gelfand actually makes a convincing argument that many musical genres hit similar walls during the '60s, when new musicians revolted against standard elements of music such as meter, harmony, and tonality in attempts to push the boundaries of music. Nothing new there. People in all walks of life were revolting against the Establishment during that time frame.

Personally, I am ambivalent towards modern jazz for all the same reasons why people describe jazz as dead today. As much as I love swing, big band, bebop, and other earlier forms of jazz, I detest the random, meandering improvisational form that took hold on jazz in the '60s. Too many of the sounds are discordant, and the songs don't seem to go anywhere. Everything is too loose, if you will. How can anyone tell if a truly improvisational effort that goes on for 25 minutes is any good or not?

Very good rock-n-roll, on the other hand, is invariably tight musically. There should be no random notes, and a three-and-a-half minute performance does not allow for any wasted effort.* Think about the signature songs of Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and even The Ramones. All of their songs were tight and to the point. I do remember being introduced to a small college band's sound by a fellow traveler on an airplane ride back in 1993. I remember thinking, "Wow. This sound is tight!" That was The Dave Matthews Band, just getting ready to release their first commercially successful album, "Under the Table and Dreaming."

* Obviously, lots of songs played on classic rock stations ("In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," "Hotel California," and virtually anything by Chicago, Boston, the Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, etc.) do meander and take up unbearable amounts of time. I don't listen to those, either.

Back to the question: what to make of the death of jazz, if jazz is so closely tied to baseball? I would be remiss if I failed to include in this discussion the contributions of Ken Burns, who did two very extensive documentary series, one on Baseball, and one on Jazz. Clearly, O'Neil was not the only one who saw the connection between these two very American pastimes.

This discussion could get way out of hand at this point. The rise of rap and hip hop culture affected the style of play in the NBA, and there is a great intertwining of hip hop attitude in American culture at large (yes, even in the suburbs) these days. I don't want to get into all of that.

Drawing just one parallel to the jazz-baseball pairing, rock-n-roll could be associated with football. The rise of rock music in the early '50s and beyond coincided with the rise in popularity of the NFL and college football, and the NFL tends to get artists for the Super Bowl halftime show from the ranks of rock-n-roll (the early days of using Up With People notwithstanding), so I do think that case is strong. The rise of football also coincided with the rise of television, and there is a lot to be said about changing media and changing tastes, as well.

Baseball has its own issues that have led to declining interest among the American public. The litany goes on and on:

• The players strike of '94 that forced the cancellation of the World Series just about killed the game.
  
• Sadly, it was not until the Steroid Era home run bashers brought people back into the seats in '98 that baseball seemed strong again.
  
• Now, we all wonder how to deal with the statistics from the Steroid Era.
  
• Starting times for playoff games are too late for the next generation of fans to stay up and watch their heroes play the most meaningful games.
• Many of the playoff games that used to air on one of the big four networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox) now are being shown only on cable stations like TNT or TBS.
  
• Kids don't get out and play sandlot games with their friends any more, depriving kids of the pure joy of playing outside the regimented structure of organized baseball leagues.
• A major drawback to organized youth baseball is the constant pressure to win imposed upon the kids by their coaches and parents; it often leads to burnout.
  
• Ticket, parking, and concession prices for a family of four hover close to $200 at most MLB ballparks, making the possibility of regularly taking a family to see a game nigh impossible.
• Actually going to the ballpark is still the best way of seeing the game and taking in all the rhythms, the sounds, and the music of baseball, as O'Neil described it.
• Watching a game on TV still leaves a lot to be desired, since you cannot see the action on the entire field at the same time in any camera view, unlike football and basketball.
• The MLB "salary cap," in which teams spending well above the cap limit pay a relatively small payroll tax, does not have the same effect as does the NFL cap, which significantly levels the playing field for free agents, thereby ensuring competitive balance.
  

There are many, many reasons why Americans do not watch or play baseball in the same numbers as we once did. The rise of football, basketball, and even "extreme sports" have all crowded the sports landscape. The same splintering of TV viewership that accompanied the rise of cable TV (where there is a niche for any viewing pleasure, meaning we never will have 109 million or so people tune in to a single show ever again) has had an impact on how we play and watch sports, as well.

I would also argue that people's tastes have changed since baseball's heyday in the '30s-'50s. People don't really listen to baseball games on the radio any more; who has the time for that? Forget that listening to baseball on the radio is the perfect medium if you cannot make it to the ballpark in person. Even if you can go to the ballpark, you'll still see fans listening to radio broadcasts while watching the game. It's a powerful connection that exists between radio and baseball.

I grew up listening to Cincinnati Reds games on WLW 700 AM with Joe Nuxhall and Marty Brennaman, primarily because the pizza delivery cars we drove only had AM radios in them. There was nothing better than listening to the games while driving to and from the next delivery location on a hot summer night. A very big reason why I've wanted a satellite radio receiver for the longest time was because I would be able to listen to Reds games on the radio once again, no matter where in the U.S. I lived.

What I'm really trying to say here is that the rise and fall of jazz and baseball fandom does seem to be linked. There are perhaps no more American modes of expression and entertainment than baseball and jazz. But the reasons for the overall decline in popularity for those two pastimes are complex and have to be couched in terms of shifting cultural patterns, as well. It's a fascinating topic, and I thank Posnanski and O'Neil for making me think of it.

A Letter to Roger Goodell

Dear Roger,

I saw this news item just yesterday, so I missed the original announcement from the NFL. Apparently, people in your office are disappointed in the lackluster TV ratings for the NFL Pro Bowl, which is played annually in Hawaii the week after the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl, of course, regularly pulls some of the highest ratings in the United States (90+ million people watched last year's tilt between the NY Giants and the NE Patriots in the US alone), plus perhaps the largest worldwide audience for a live event. National news media covers the Super Bowl in great detail, and the ads for the Super Bowl are projected to sell for $3 Million for a 30-second spot this year.

So, it is understandable that staffers are concerned about the general disdain for the Pro Bowl. No one pays much attention to the game, and certainly no one much cares who plays in the game after the public votes for its favorite players and the sportswriters have had their turn discussing who should have been named to the NFC and AFC Pro Bowl teams. Every year, deserving players get overlooked for other players with higher marquee factor, and that will never change.

Ah, but how do you address the fact that no one wants to watch a meaningless all-star game that happens after the season finishes with the biggest one-day spectacle in all of sports?! MLB has similar issues with its all-star game, except baseball plays its game in the middle of its season. Bud Selig, your counterpart, decided he could spice things up a bit by giving home-field advantage in the World Series to the League that wins the "Summer Classic" every year. And every year since that decision, the American League has won the all-star game. Putting home field advantage at stake has not noticeably improved the ratings for the MLB all-star game, and it has only marginally affected the outcome of the World Series.

Given that the NFL will never move its Pro Bowl to the middle of the NFL season, what was your alternative? I have to say, moving the Pro Bowl to that Sunday in between the AFC and NFC Championship games and Super Sunday is a terrible idea. Why? Two words: Robert Freaking Edwards the Third.

Please forgive me if you are unaware of Mr. Edwards. He didn't play long in the NFL, although he had a very good rookie season playing for the Patriots in 1998. That year, he played in 16 games, started 15 games, ran the ball 291 times, rushed for 1,115 yds and nine TDs, and added another 35 catches for 331 YDs and three TDs. He was a monster in fantasy football terms, although I had another rookie on my fantasy team that year, Fred Taylor of the Jacksonville Jaguars. For comparison, Mr. Taylor played in 15 games, started 12 of them (after a season-ending injury to James Stewart), ran the ball 264 times, rushed for 1,223 YDs and 14 TDs, and added 44 catches for 421 YDs and three TDs. Until 2008, you would be hard-pressed to find another pair of rookie RBs who had such a big (Ginormous!) impact on the game of pro football.

Mr. Goodell, you might be asking yourself why this is relevant to your decision to play the Pro Bowl on the Sunday leading up to the Super Bowl. Let me give you another set of numbers for illustration. After their rookie seasons, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Edwards had vastly divergent NFL careers. Mr. Taylor, or "Fragile Fred" as he is known in fantasy circles, has had an up-and-down career, always productive when he's on the field, but hardly able to remain on it for a full season. He played 10 games in 1999, 13 in 2000, two games in 2001, two full seasons in 2002-3, 14 games in 2004, 11 in 2005, 15 games each in 2006-7, and 13 games in 2008. Still, he has 11,271 career rushing YDs, 62 career TDs, a very strong 4.6 YDs per carry average, 2,361 career receiving YDs, and eight career receiving TDs. Those might not be Hall of Fame numbers, but how many young men are able to play 11 seasons in the NFL, period?

Mr. Edwards certainly did not. After his sterling rookie season, Mr. Edwards played only one more abbreviated season, for the Miami Dolphins in 2002. He ended his career with only 311 attempts, 1,222 career rushing YDs, 10 career rushing TDs, a 3.9 YDs per carry average, 457 career receiving YDs, and only four receiving TDs.

So, the question remains: how or why was "Fragile Fred" able to remain in the NFL for so much longer than Robert Edwards III? After that 1998 season, Mr. Edwards was named to the Pro Bowl while Mr. Taylor was not*. Back in the day, the Pro Bowlers used to play several events in addition to the Pro Bowl game itself. One of those events was a sand football game for the rookie all-stars, and it was two-hand touch, I think. Great fun, right? It was fun for all involved until Mr. Edwards fell and twisted his knee during that sand football game. He was never the same since.

* Taylor was named to the AFC Pro Bowl squad after the 2007 season, so he does have the same number of Pro Bowl appearances as does Edwards.

I ask you, Mr. Goodell, this simple question: what will the NFL do, either in 2010 or whenever it happens, the first time a player from one of the two Super Bowl contestants gets injured during the meaningless Pro Bowl game? You cannot deny that such a possibility exists, and you cannot deny that such an injury would alter the competitive balance of the most important game of the NFL season. Would Super Bowl-bound teams place playing restrictions on their marquee players named to the Pro Bowl, further limiting the value of that all-star game? Would any team really accept the distraction from their game plan preparations in the week leading up to the Super Bowl, even if no one gets hurt? Would you place all the players in protective bubble-wrap uniforms to prevent injuries?

These are questions that you, Mr. Goodell, need to answer satisfactorily before the 2010 Pro Bowl and Super Bowl. I know you are disappointed that regular fans like myself consider the Pro Bowl to be meaningless. I'm sorry, but it is. It doesn't matter in the standings, and it only serves as a nice benefit for those players lucky enough to be named to the squads. A free trip to Hawaii is always a nice benefit, and now the NFL players won't even get that benefit.

Way to go, Mr. Goodell. May I call you Roger? You need to rethink this policy, Roger. Your office won't be able to survive the public outcry or insurance maelstrom should a star QB from a Super Bowl team get hurt in a meaningless game. Pro football is a violent sport. I'm sure you've noticed. It's only a matter of time before disaster strikes, and you need to have a darn good idea of how you plan to respond before it does.

Sincerely,
A Fan

Phony NFLShop.com Ad

So, I have to call B.S. on the ad below from the NFLShop.com guys. I know they need to move product during the busiest shopping season of the year, but c'mon! There isn't a single American household with three adult males in it where each of the three guys supports a different NFL team. And from such different regions of the country, too! It's just not believable to have a Browns fan, an Eagles fan, and a Chargers fan all under the same roof. It just doesn't happen.


People these days might move all across the country after college to take jobs in strange cities, but you can't tell me that someone who was raised on the Eagles would suddenly become a Niners fan if he landed in San Francisco for work. It just doesn't happen. That's what the NFL Ticket on DirecTV is for, so people who find themselves geographically removed from their teams can still root, root, root for the home team on Sundays.

A very good friend of mine from Ohio State lived in the Baltimore area for a very long time post-graduation. Did she ever cop out and buy Ravens* or Redskins season tickets? Not on your life! She was from the Cleveland area, so she was a Browns fan tried and true. She had Browns season tickets, flew up for the games she and her hubby could make, and sold the other tickets to other fans. That's how I was able to take my wife to see a Browns game in the new stadium in 2002.

* Despite the fact that the Baltimore Ravens happen to be the Browns v1.0, when the Devil Incarnate (Art Model) moved the team after the 1995 season, that team became the embodiment of evil and the antithesis of all that Cleveland Browns fans hold dear. The Baltimore fans were done wrong by Robert Irsay, so I can't really begrudge the fans their Super Bowl victory in 2000, even though THAT SUPER BOWL SHOULD RIGHTLY BELONG TO CLEVELAND!!!

All of which brings up some interesting issues of how people decide to support a given team to begin with. For most people, which NFL team to support* tends to be either handed down from parents or a byproduct of geography. I just recently watched the British version of the movie Fever Pitch (1997), in which the young lad becomes an Arsenal fan because football (soccer to us Yanks) was about the only way he could bond with his absentee dad, who just happened to take him to an Arsenal game for his first match. Very interesting movie, that.

* Since this in a NFLShop.com ad, I'm going to skip any discussion of which college football team people support, which usually is tied to familial traditions or alma maters.

My own NFL fandom was an interesting mix of family and geography. My parents and siblings were all born in Ohio, but we moved around a lot when I was a child. Right around the time I was becoming a fan of pro football, we lived in eastern South Dakota. From there, the natural order of things would have been to support the Minnesota Vikings, as they were the closest to us geographically. They also had some very good teams there in the 1970s, so it might have been a natural fit to support the "local" team. However, we were raised on Ohio teams all.

That meant we supported Ohio State at the collegiate level, the Big Red Machine for Major League Baseball (MLB), and the Cleveland Browns in pro football. To a lesser extent, we paid attention to what the Bengals were doing in Cincinnati, but we never much supported the Indians in Cleveland. Ah, but watching the Kardiac Kids in Cleveland during the late '70s -- Brian Sipe at QB, Ozzie Newsome at TE, Mike and Greg Pruitt at RB, Sam Rutigliano as the coach, Don Cockroft kicking -- yes, I even remember clearly that "12 Days of Christmas" song parody that promised a Rutigliano Super Bowl. That sealed the deal for me, and I've been a Browns fan ever since!*

* Being a student of history, I naturally dug into the Browns team history, and love how fantastic it is! Jim Brown remains the best pure runner ever in the NFL, but I'd stack Marion Motley right up there with him. Lou Groza, Otto Graham, Paul Warfield, and too many others to list all played for the Browns, who also won eight NFL championships before the Super Bowl era. Not too shabby!

The following years of hope and heartbreak throughout the '80s with Bernie Kosar, Kevin Mack, Earnest Byner, Webster Slaughter, Marty Schottenheimer, The Drive and The Fumble, did nothing except reinforce my fandom. I'll never forget the Hated One, Elway, and what the Denver Donkeys* did to my team. Although, given Denver's record in Super Bowls during that time, perhaps it was fine that the Browns never had to be embarrassed by whichever NFC team was in the Super Bowl those years.

* Years later, when I was going to college in Colorado, I took personal pleasure in the Broncos' troubles in the early '90s, when it seemed as if Elway would join the ranks of the most prolific QBs never to have won a Super Bowl. I remember the joke circulating at the time: "Did you hear that Elway can't get into his house? Someone painted an end zone in his front yard!" Ah, but I digress.

I'm actually facing an interesting dilemma with my own children, although they are both too young yet to decide which team they will support into adulthood. I always had my birth in Ohio (plus the fact that we never took a vacation anywhere but Ohio to see family; every Christmas break, every summer break from school, we were heading to Ohio on that interminable 16 hour drive!) to cement my fan roots in the Buckeye State. However, my two children were both born here in east-central Illinois. My wife is from Oklahoma, so I get no support from her side of the family, who are perhaps Dallas Cowboys fans if they support any NFL team. **shudder** They really aren't NFL fans, so maybe I can twist my kids into supporting the Browns yet.

However, from here, people can be an interesting mix of fans. We have plenty of Bears fans, to be sure. We also have plenty of St. Louis Rams fans, probably all the more so since the Rams were the "Greatest Show on Turf" there in the late '90s-early '00s. And now that Peyton Manning finally got the Big Game Monkey off his back, and against the Bears no less, there are plenty of Indy Colts fans in this area, too. On TV, the local games usually consist of those three teams before they show nationwide coverage. Given that Chicago, St. Louis, and Indianapolis are all just about equidistant from our city, I can definitely see getting single-game tickets to see each of those teams play in person.

So, at some point, I will need to let go and allow my kids to decide on their own which team(s) they want to support. If they want to be pro football fans at all, that is. Every once in a while, Matthew will say that he doesn't want to watch football on Sundays. And I'm OK with that. Any time he wants to play with his toys in our play room downstairs, I go with him and play with him. But eventually, those games most likely will transition to tossing the pigskin around the back yard. I'll just be happy to throw the skinny post to him streaking past his uncles and grandfather when the time comes.

Griffey Jr. Released by the White Sox

I saw this news item today, and it makes me sad. For one, Griffey Jr. will no longer be a quick car ride up to Chicago away for me to see him play again. I've been fortunate to see him play numerous times, in many different circumstances, including playing for the Mariners at the KC Royals, at the old Kingdome in Seattle, and for my beloved Reds at Enron Field [when it was still Enron Field!] in Houston. Junior was always a class act, and I saw him flip his $100 Oakley sunglasses to a kid sitting in the first row at Houston after the sun no longer made them necessary.

I do worry that Junior will struggle to catch on with another team next year, although that might be unfounded. I do like what the White Sox GM, Ken Williams, had to say about Junior in that article above. I have to believe that another American League team will pick up Junior as a free agent and make him the DH, if nothing else.

But he is coming off another season shortened by injuries, which have plagued him ever since leaving Seattle. He's just not as durable as he once was, and even Sports Illustrated commented on how Junior, not Barry Bonds, could be the all-time HR king these days if it weren't for all the games he's missed due to injuries. Here's hoping that Junior can continue his magnificent career with some team, and that he can continue hitting home runs the right way, sans performance-enhancing drugs.

The Darndest Thing

Wouldn't you say this is the darndest thing? MLB and Bud Selig adjusted the start time of a possible game six in the World Series to accommodate a half-hour ad buy from the Obama campaign.

Forget for a minute that not many World Series' have made it to six games recently, as that article pointed out. Also forget that since game five was suspended last night due to rain, they will take an extra day in Philly tonight to determine the outcome of that game. There's more rain in the forecast for tonight, so there's no telling if they will actually play a game six on Thursday this week, even if game six becomes necessary. (And weren't they wishing for the indoor comfort of Tropicana Field last night?!)

What really makes me scratch my head is the fact that Obama still feels the ad buy is necessary, with less than a week to go until polls close. What more could he say to the American people that he hasn't already said through campaign stops, town halls during the primary season, his speech at the DNC, and during the Presidential debates with John McCain? Does Obama feel a little desperation creeping in, even though the MSM already crowned him the presumptive next POTUS?

NPR yesterday spoke with some voters in Missouri, a state that traditionally picks the next POTUS. I think they said that the only time (maybe it was the only time since 1900... ?) that the residents of Missouri didn't vote for the next President was in the 1956 election. Missouri this year is split in pre-election polling, almost exactly 50-50 between McCain and Obama.

It just makes me wonder... even with the issues of the crumbling national economy, the meltdown on Wall Street, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and with people's worries about the advancing age of McCain -- even with all of that! -- Obama still hasn't sealed the deal. He still feels the need to make one last pitch to the American populace. Which makes me scratch my head, just a little bit.

The Year-Round Sports Cycle

Does anyone else think it's just a little strange to have hockey players reporting for camp on 16 September? The AP article points out just how short the off-season is for hockey players, and they are just one example of this trend all throughout the '90s and '00s towards longer seasons, more teams, more playoffs, and more games. Which, of course, means more ticket sales, more concession sales, more memorabilia sales, and more chances to win in the postseason.

We even have the current NFL Commish, Roger Goodell, pontificating on an expansion of the NFL schedule from the current 17 weeks (16 games plus a bye for every team) to something like 17 or 18 regular-season games for each team. Goodell, ostensibly, would shorten the pre-season games and replace those "meaningless" games with ones that count in the standings. The owners were already charging regular-season ticket prices for fans to watch backups and players with little hope of making the 54-man roster play their guts out, so I'm not entirely sure what the NFL would gain other than getting more TV revenues from the deal. Which is why the earliest they would make this change would be 2010, when they can renegotiate with the TV networks for the entire package of games.

On the one hand, I enjoy seeing the wildcard in both football and baseball, because more teams alive in pennant races in September means better quality of play on the field. In the NFL, having two teams per Conference able to win a wild card berth means that even week 17 games mean a lot to teams on the bubble. Just ask the Titans and Browns players last year. The Titans were fortunate to play against a Colts team that already locked up its best possible playoff situation, and so was resting key personnel like Peyton Manning, etc., but when the Titans won that game, it knocked Cleveland out of the wildcard.

However, more than just viewer fatigue (which is still pretty darn significant; how many people can say they are excited about watching NHL hockey right now?), there are real issues with how far the sports leagues are pushing their schedules. Players have higher likelihoods of getting hurt, the quality of talent has been diluted through expansion, and increased playoff eligibility makes regular-season games less meaningful. Let's be honest: after four weeks of pre-season NFL, the actual week 1 results were crazy for established players like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, LaDainian Tomlinson, and a host of others.*

*Re-reading that line, it sounds like I would be in favor of Roger's plan to replace meaningless pre-season games with regular-season ones. I don't object to four pre-season games at all, although when they used to play five, that was too much. What I have a problem with is this current practice of not playing NFL stars in pre-season. Yes, the risk of injury is always out there. Yes, that risk actually tends to go up if guys aren't playing at full speed. There might not be a good solution to the problem of star players getting hurt, either in pre-season or regular-season games. It's a violent game, have you noticed?

Just the news cycle alone is almost too much to bear for an average fan. The NFL already operates pretty much around the calendar year, with the April draft, spring and summer minicamps, other training activities (the sometimes dreaded OTAs), and competition committee meetings all generating significant news in addition to the July-February training camp-Super Bowl schedule. Baseball has its Winter Meetings in addition to a spring training to World Series schedule that stretches from late February (pitchers and catchers report) to now potential game 7 finishes in November. I've always thought it was funny that winter sports like basketball and hockey were still having playoff games in June.

Enough is enough already!! Fatigue has set in. I already tune out most regular-season games, and especially in hockey and basketball. Even if you're a fan of a specific team, unless you have tickets to see that team in person, there's not much reason to watch baseball games in April-July. Many regular-season NFL games are snooze-fests, at least through the first half, until the defensive players get tired in the 3rd and 4th quarters. In golf, only the four majors are really all that interesting. I could care less about the FedEx Cup, but I will probably tune in to this weekend's Ryder Cup, if able.

I know we'll never go back to the old days where players couldn't afford to live for a year on what salary they made playing their games, and so they had off-season jobs selling insurance or real estate. There's too much money to be had by selling more tickets and putting more games on TV, even if dozens of new cable channels have to be created to display that content. I just exercise my right as an American to not watch regular-season games until the playoffs are looming and every game becomes more meaningful than the last.

I do worry about the dilution of records, however. More regular-season NFL games means more games that count in the record books, which means more chances to break the single season passing, rushing, receiving, etc. records. We all know what happened to Roger Maris when he passed Babe Ruth's seemingly unbreakable HR record on the last day of the season... after Maris was given 8 more games than it took Ruth to set the record. If the NFL extends the regular season, it will make it all that much more impossible for any future team to tie the 1972 Dolphins as the only team with a perfect record in the Super Bowl era. It sounds like Goodell is OK with that.