Blog blast past: Putting Bonds into some perspective

U.S. federal prosecutors on Friday decided not to challenge a ruling that tossed out evidence in their case against baseball's home run king Barry Bonds. Between the World Cup, NHL draft and Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Edwin Jackson throwing a "lame no-hitter," it probably didn't get much coverage. It seems like the case that was supposed to go to trial 15 months ago is flagging. From Nov. 16, 2007, here's a post from when Bonds was first indicted:

Dave Zirin of the Edge of Sports sums up the lunacy and self-serving hypocrisy of the U.S. Department of Justice (or as he calls it, "Just-Us") vis-a-vis Barry Bonds:

"The actual indictment parses in language that would shame a Clinton. It reads, 'During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing substances for Bonds and other athletes.'

"This is idiocy raised to the level of law. It makes me wonder what they're teaching at Jesus-land Legal Academy these days. Did Bonds actually test positive for steroids or were pharmaceuticals only found in these mysterious un-indicted 'other athletes'? And what is a 'performance enhancer'? That's not even a legal or medical term; it's sports radio shorthand. The cortisone shot into Curt Schilling's ankle in the 2004 playoffs was a performance enhancer. The Viagra coursing through Bob Dole's veins is a performance enhancer. Whatever keeps that smile glued to Laura Bush's face is a performance enhancer. It's a colloquial phrase that tells us nothing. It only raises the question whether the indictment was written by Mike or the Mad Dog."

To a serious person, the Bonds indictment is more laughable than anything else. He's a huge jerk, and no baseball fan outside the Bay Area will miss him.

However, there are no white-hat types here; if anything, Bonds' hat is a lighter shade of gray than that of the people trying to put him in jail. (Thirty years? He won't serve a day.) The same U.S. Department of Justice that's trying to take down Barry Bonds is the same one that authorized torture not too long ago. It's the same legal system that, as Zirin notes, drags its feet on hate crimes against African-Americans.

Consider this the denouement, the final unravelling, of Bush-Cheney America. Like Chuck Klosterman wrote shortly before Bonds surpassed Babe Ruth 18 months ago:

"... it's been a half-decade where many long-standing fears about how America worked (and what America represented) were gradually -- and then suddenly -- hammered into the collective consciousness of just about everyone, including all the people who weren't paying attention to begin with.

"Here was a man" -- Bonds -- "accomplishing unbelievable things ... but we did not really believe or disbelieve; we just sort of watched it happen, and then we watched it get out of control, and then we expressed shock without feeling a grain of surprise, and then we tried to figure out how we were supposed to reconcile an alien reality we unconsciously understood all along."

Now the U.S. establishment is going to make up for it on the back of Barry Bonds. Anything's possible, considering all this has already done something seemingly impossible -- make Barry Bonds seem like one of the good guys by comparison. Last word to Dave Zirin:

"The idea that they (the U.S. Department of Justice) have no time for Megan Williams, but invest years in the prosecution of Barry Bonds should make any good person of conscience utterly enraged."

Related:
It was never about Barry, and of course it always was (Deadspin)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

Political footballs: If Zirin's following the money, you may as well

A lot of people, not necessarily those left-of-centre, read Dave Zirin from The Edge of Sports, since is kind of a latter-day "I never played the game" type who will give you something to think about.

All that said, it might not be easy to reconcile reading what was in The Washington Times about Zirin working for a lobby group, excuse me, "coalition that claims to give sports fans a voice on Capitol Hill" but is receiving it "initial funding would come from satellite television and other companies that compete with the rival cable industry." That's a little odd coming from someone whose sell is being incorruptible and uncompromised (something not practised under the CTV/TSN/Globe & Mail corporate umbrella, he did not add as a parenthetical dig). Apparently, Zirin hates the Bowl Championship Series that much; he said he's not taking money and just believes what the satellite providers want jibes with getting rid of the BCS, which is propped by Big Cable.

Persons invited to serve on the coalition's main board of directors include Brad Blakeman, a Republican political consultant; Ed Garvey, a lawyer and former executive director of the NFL Players Association; Dave Zirin, the sports editor of the Nation magazine; Gigi Sohn, executive director of Public Knowledge, a nonprofit digital advocacy group; Mark Walsh, the chief executive officer of marketing consultant GeniusRocket.com; and Burt Emmer, a lawyer." (Emphasis mine.)

No doubt some of Zirin's fans are as disappointed as his critics on the right are delighted, just as some Canadian chatterati are stunned about TSN's Brian Williams and Michael Landsberg and globesports.com's Stephen Brunt — along with Carol-Ann Meehan from CTV Ottawa — being Olympic torchbearers. Honestly, it should be in one ear, out the other, really.

Hate to say it, but it's the way of world. It just old-media thinking writ large to think those on the editorial side should be isolated and cut off from the dollars-and-cents side of the equation. It's a sacred cow, and you can't drag along sacred cows, except for that Stephen Brunt is awesome, regardless. Brunt should have benefit of the doubt.

That thinking is a big part of their broken business models; you have all these people working in the media who have never had to figure out whether their product is selling (and Brunt's words sell very well). They're cocooned from supply and demand. It's more honest to have people who are part of selling the Olympics -- do you think for a second it would be in Canada if Big Media wasn't interesting in making a buck off it -- taking part in it. I don't have a problem with it.

It comes back to Chuck Klosterman's line about the media, as a whole, having more ethics and less common sense than the average Joe. The ethics side is you shouldn't be promoting an event you're covering, blah blah blah. For every journo and media junkie pointing this out, though, there are three useful people who would say you're crazy to pass up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be in the Olympic torch run.

The only reason to be irked about CTV putting media personalities in the torch run is that it means fewer athletes (active and past) and community organizers, the essential people in the grand equation get to participate. That and only that is valid.

It's understandable where it's coming from. Williams has been around long enough to get the venerable tag. Brunt is a god walking among mere mortals, as his new book Gretzky's Tears confirms (as a personal branding exercise, this means I will post a review tomorrow). How can they be out there shillin' for the Olympics? As William Houston writes, "They’re supposed to be journalists. They will be at the Olympics as reporters and commentators. They’re expected to be objective and independent. They are not supposed to be part of the Olympic cheerleading torch procession.

"Nevertheless, over the next few months, off they’ll go, boosting the International Olympic Committee and VANOC as they prance across the country, torch in hand."

Independent? As Barney Stinson used to say, Please. Williams works for a commercial network. Brunt, God love him, is the best there ever was, bar none. He's thrived beyond most wildest dreams within an institution like the Globe. It doesn't take a Malcolm Gladwell to know that's a game-changer. It's easier to get noticed. Brunt would be Brunt at the Hamilton Spectator or any place, but not as many people would notice.

Really, with what Brunt, Williams, et al., have done bringing the corporate billboard that is the Olympics home, maybe this their just desserts, the same way a company might send its top-selling sales rep to Hawai'i. Why shouldn't the get it? They lend the the Olympics gravitas, which is a bigger part of its sell than who's going to win the two-man skeleton and all those other events you don't care about for the three years and 348 days in between Olympiads. If anything, they are aware of the optics and know they'll get scrutinized closer by some obsessive media consumers, which might make it more likely they'll be objective and independent come February. (The same can't be said of some people with a lot less talent and self-awareness.)

Look at it this way. Even in journalism, you're selling something, to some extent. You're convincing someone to buy a Globe instead of an Ottawa Sun or Toronto Star, or listen to your podcast instead of the other person's. It's business. People should not get hot and bothered at blending the two, when acting like it's separate is part of why traditional media is struggling.

A businessperson wants to sell something, she visits more clients, whatever. A writer wants to sell something, well, it's exceedingly more difficult, you have to sit down at the keyboard and open a vein, as Red Smith said. A guy who does it as well as Brunt has should be trusted on this one.

Far as anyone should be concerned, we're all compromised to an extent, except for Dave Zirin, who could leave himself open to being called a corporate waterboy. If Zirin seems willing to bend on where the money is coming from to fund a coalition, the rest of you can follow the money. It's called being adult about the whole thing. Go, Canada, Go.

International incidents of epic proportion, indeed

Our own Duane Rollins has a first-person account of the "gong show" (his term) that occurred after the Toronto FC-Columbus Crew match last Saturday.

Duane makes a pretty salient point when he saw a much smarter approach to crowd control when he was covering the Grand River land dispute in Caledonia, Ont., than he did last Saturday. Think about. There's centuries-old simmering tensions present in the first instance. Toronto and Columbus have only been opponents for barely two years and it got out of control (we'll thank you to not say it was due to the bumbling of the Officer Bartlebys working security at the stadium).

"The police were everywhere, they did not appear to be communicating with each other and 'hands on' was a matter of first response rather than last resort. About all they accomplished was to further enrage the group and to put those not involved at risk – at one point two police cars took chase after a fleeing Toronto fan. Driving about 60 km/h they weaved their way through a crowded parking lot."

A couple TFC fans who happened to be off the wrong skin colour, in the cops' eyes, were also targeted. That's brutal, but not shocking if you know about who can be licensed to carry a badge and a gun in the U.S. That story about NFL running back Ryan Moats having a cop draw a gun on him when he was trying to get inside a hospital to see a dying loved one is, well, not atypical.

This is not about doing the smug Canadian routine or being a cop-basher (two in my extended family, thanks). The mind does reel when you're presented with how the U.S., in some precincts, just has a different concept of law and order, compared to its backwards neighbours in countries which astonishingly manage to not have more than one in every 100 adults in prison. That mindset is probably best expressed by the twitbag who covers the Columbus team, but thankfully not the local courts:

"The highlight from my vantage point on the concourse had to be the perp running toward the railroad tracks who eventually ran out of gas and was taken down with a perfect form tackle by one of the city's finest."

That's hilarious.

Related:
Sober second thoughts: Send in the clowns (The 24th minute)
TFC fan Tasered, others arrested after U.S. game (Lance Hornby, Sun Media)
"Like We Were Dogs": The Story of Ryan Moats (Dave Zirin)

A Vikings fan should have little to say about Super Sunday

That is ex-Minnesota Viking Mewelde Moore in the foreground as Santonio Holmes taps his toes to make the Super Bowl-winning touchdown official.

Talk about a symmetry. There was a replay review after Holmes' catch to see if he got both feet down in bounds before any of the three Arizona Cardinals defenders in the vicinity knocked him into the boundary. That was necessary since the NFL, a while back, changed the force-out role. That is the very same force-out rule which once conspired to deny the Vikings a playoff spot in a season finale against, wait for it, your older brother's Arizona Cardinals. ("Damn!")

None of you need any reminder it was an entertaining Super Bowl or that the Vikings, who will always have the distinction of being the Steelers' first Super victim ("No one denies this!"), will never know such joy, especially if there is anything to talk Brett Favre wants to come to Minnesota. There are some day after thoughts that just need to be shared.

(As an aside; For anyone wondering why CTV made that abrupt jump into its post-game programming, they were trying to get the drop on Global. It didn't work.)

• A gossip site is reporting that Patriots quarterback Matt Cassel was urinated upon during a Super Bowl party. You may take that as an omen of what awaits him in Kansas Cityor some other NFL backwater once Tom Brady retakes the job as New England's starting QB. That last sentence will self-destruct if he ends up with the Vikings.
• To err is... The real goofup the Cardinals committed before James Harrison's 100-yard pick-six at the end of the first half was using their final timeout with 18 seconds left, instead of spiking the ball to stop the clock. Not having a timeout meant the Steelers knew the next play would be a pass (a run risked having the clock run out). Harrison dropped into coverage and made the play of the game's first 52 minutes.
  
• Run-ning game? One nagging thought during Arizona's playoff run was that people still cling way too much to this idea a team needs a battering-ram running game in the playoffs, which is the Cardinals were counted out before every game. Stampede Blue blew that belief to bits:

  For all those who think a team simply MUST run the ball to win in the playoffs, you can kindly STFU now. The Steelers gained a stellar 58 yards rushing, averaging 2.2 a carry. The Cardinals gained 33 yards, averaging 2.8. In this league, you must throw to win. Running the football is important, but highly over-rated. And people who swear that running the ball is more important than great QB play know nothing about modern football.

• Another bit of outdated thinking is that there's a randomness to who wins the Super Bowl. The 2007 Giants upset New England, but that was about it.
  
  Counting back from Sunday, the Steelers, a historically solid team, have won twice. The Bill Belichick New England Patriots have won three times, the teams Tony Dungy assembled in Indianapolis and Tampa Bay each won once, the 2000 Ravens (one of the best defences ever) and 1999 Rams (one of the highest-scoring offences) each won.
  
  
• It was strange there was no replay review after the sack-fumble on Kurt Warner in the dying seconds. Good thing that fate didn't befall the New England Patriots (or, ahem, the Vikings), you would never hear the end of it. The Cardinals were just happy to be there.
• Irony: Holmes and Larry Fitzgerald, the best players on each team Sunday, have each had domestic violence arrests. Meantime, Michael Phelps is getting his peepee whacked by the media for being a midnight toker at a college party. No doubt, in newsrooms across North America, there were people pointing out this was not news, but they ran it anyways (guilty as charged). Why?
  
  It's even more ridiculous to hate on Phelps for a few bong hits on the biggest beer-drinking day on the sports calendar. Alcohol, to quote the late, great Bill Hicks, is only the No. 2 killer drug, while marijuana "kills no one, and let me put this in a historical timeframe, ever."
• Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is the third former Vikings coordinator to guide a team to a Super Bowl title since 2000. Damn.
• The Detroit Free Press noted that none of so-called analyst Matt Millen's patter made the quote sheet that NBC sent out after the game. No wonder a Detroit TV station ran a news scroll across the screen every time he was on: ""Matt Millen was president of the Lions for the worst eight-year run in the history of the NFL. Knowing his history with the team, is there a credibility issue as he now serves as an analyst for NBC Sports?"

Twenty-nine will be the Vikings' year. You betcha.

Related:
National Februuary League (Pacific Viking)
The QB Who Saved Pittsburgh (Slate)

Right side of history, wrong side of the scoreboard

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers' Barack Obama tribute on Saturday seems to have gone mostly uncommented upon.

Early in the game, which Edmonton won 29-21 to end the Blue Bombers' season, Romby Bryant took advantage of a busted coverage (all together now: Maciocia!) for a 78-yard touchdown.

In the end zone, several Blue Bombers lifted their jerseys to reveal T-shirts bearing the president-elect's name. It was no big deal. The Blue Bombers' players (and cheerleaders) have a penchant for cheeky public displays, and if they want to have some fun, by God, we're happy for them. Sportsnet Connected did not even show the celebration during its recap, since it wasn't part of the larger narrative of Edmonton winning the actual game.

It is quite a contrast between the flak NFL wide receivers Chad Ocho Cinco and Brandon Marshall have taken of late.

(Update: Dave Zirin has columns on this in New York Daily News and Washington Post, for anyone who is interested. It is not so much forcing politics on people, as acknowledging there are a politics in sport.)

Ocho Cinco admitted he had Obama banners stashed in either end zone during a recent game. That was dodgy, considering that his team is sucking out loud, but at the end of the day, he is an entertainer. Still, people called him an idiot.

Marshall had the idea that on Thursday, in the first NFL game since the election, he would hold up a black-and-white glove symbolizing unity if he scored a touchdown. When he did score, it came in the final 90 seconds of the game to put his team up by four points. His teammates, not wanting to get a 15-yard penalty stopped him. The chattering class whomped Marshall but good for even considering the gesture.

Dave Zirin noted, "Someone should tell the suits and ESPN: Some things are actually more important than sports."

Who knows what is the biggest reason why the reaction is apparently muted in Canada. Football is not connected to the power structure the way it is in the States. Hockey is the game that the business and political elites have sunk their teeth into in this country. We also like to believe we are a more liberal nation and above all else, are pretty live-and-let-live to the point of lameness.
There also seems to be a greater consciousness that in other countries, it is no big deal when sports figures are politically active.

Unfortunately for the Blue Bombers, they lost, but fortunately for them, their got their tribute in before shows of Obamania at sports events might have become dated. Sadly, its best-before might have passed during the first half of the Yates Cup on Saturday, when a VBWS (Very Blond Western Student) appeared on camera holding a sign that read, "Obama + UWO: Yes We Can!"

Granted, if any football team epitomizes the spirit of the 44th President's victory, it would be the Western Mustangs, who have the largest football budget in their conference, have been winning championships for decades and and represent a preppy party school where as one student once put it, "I saw enough Hollister and American Eagle (on campus) that my brain was starting to hurt."

Granted, Obama's triumph is far less relatable for CFL players. There is no way they could identify with "the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on" as pro athletes who sweat and bleed for less than $100,000 a year and grew up as black men in the United States of America.

No, it is more relatable for some 20-year-old who was there for the long lines outside The Ceeps, the time the Sex and The City movie was sold out and the housemates whose feet are too wide to wear a pair of Manolos. Point being, you should be glad the Bombers did their thing when they did.

Related:
The Blue Bombers Support Barack Obama (TotalProSports.com, which got the pics)
No Obamamania for Brandon Marshall (Dave Zirin, The Nation)
Did Tiger Woods pave Barack Obama's path? Are you joking? (New York Daily News)
Missing the Campaign? Try the Politics of Sports (Washington Post)

The whiff of desperation

It's been an exceptional fortnight for the gang of idiots on Madison Ave. who run the NHL.

Start the season in another continent. Have Gary Bettman show up at the New York Stock Exchange only too happy to ring the opening bell the day after a global financial meltdown. Have the frontman of some relic of a 1980s hair band mistreat the Stanley Cup ("it's upside-down, never mind" might be a great epitaph for the Bettman era). Top it off by having Gov. Sarah Palin's appearance in Philadelphia reduce a Rangers-Flyers game "to a prop in a political campaign." (Puck Daddy) Oh, and broadcast the fact that one of your Sun Belt teams is giving away tickets for free. The Palin puckdrop wasn't even that bad, who knew?

"This is yet another example why hockey is the worst-marketed game on the planet. It's like inviting PETA to a barbecue. Palin's negatives are almost Bushian. Outside her narrow base of nationalist bigots, the country is recoiling. Yet (Philadelphia Flyers owner Ed) Snider and the NHL reasoned her presence would be a big publicity coup. All the while, NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly insisted this was not about politics: 'Governor Palin is a supporter of the sport, which she has proclaimed publicly. As a public figure who has a very public connection with hockey, her recent associations with the Flyers and other NHL franchises is not surprising and, in our view, not inappropriate.' " -- Dave Zirin and Daniel Denvir

Those comments from Daly have been called "delusional."

It's been said many times, many ways, but hockey must be the greatest game in the world to have survived the fools who run it. My hat is off to the people who carry on as if all of the above has nothing to do with the game itself. I'm just not wired that way.

Lest you question the bona fides as a hockey lover, when I read Denvir/Zirin's assertion that, "A Google search reveals that Palin may have nearly coined the term 'hockey mom,' " an e-mail was fired off near-instantly to call them on a bit of American exceptionalism. "Hockey mom" has been in use in Canada for decades; we're not about to let the Yanks take credit. Maybe we did with insulin, the telephone and the First World War, but not with "hockey mom."

Anyway, there probably is a spin-off post here. It's plainly obvious that the Canadian teams basically subsidize the U.S. teams and Gary Bettman's (and Philip Anschutz's) agenda, thus making sure that Canadians have less access to watching top-notch professional hockey (and pay much more to see it). The more the six NHL teams become a cash cow for a dozen or so struggling U.S. franchise, the less the chance of Canada getting two more teams in Southern Ontario and one more in Western Canada, which could easily be supported (especially if the salary cap goes down). Does that not sound like taxation without representation?

A mini-snark break ... why pucks and politics don't mix well

Instant joke: After Saturday night, what will Gov. Sarah Palin, Michael Irvin with a broken neck, Eric Lindros and Santa Claus have in common?

... They will have each been booed in Philadelphia.

No doubt most sports fans could care less that the Flyers' Ayn Rand-adoring owner Ed Snider (right in picture), has invited the "most popular hockey mom in North America" (his words) to drop the puck on Saturday. It's a cheap political stunt and it makes little sense.

After all, David Brooks just called Palin a "fatal cancer" in the Republican Party. The Flyers don't want to be associated with cancer -- they fired a coach for having it!

Philly is the Democrats' turf and sports fans there take a certain pride in booing people. Why subject a candidate to that? Republicans tend to fare better in Western Pennsylvania. By that logic, then, it would make more sense to have Gov. Palin make an appearance at a home game of the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Flyers' hated rivals. Ironically enough, the Penguins part-owner, Ron Burkle, is a big-time Democratic donor, so that's probably not happening.

On some level, this is funny and fairly nonsensical. On another level, it is a classic case of "the right-wing edge of the fundamentalist movement that uses sports to mask a political agenda of creationism, bigotry, environmental catastrophe and deregulation." (Dave Zirin, The Nation, Oct. 7.)

Snider absolutely adores Ayn Rand, who was a great author only to people who never read any other authors. He even helped found the Ayn Rand Institute: The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism, whose Wiki notes that (unlike Palin) it is pro-choice and firmly for the separation of church and state.

Professional sports teams are always going to invite politicians to appear at games. People will always claim they're against mixing politics and sports in general, even though they don't say a peep if they support the politician in question.

It is Snider's hockey team and it is his prerogative to invite whoever he chooses. It bears repeating, though, that the beauty of sport is that you can connect with other people as fans without caring or knowing how or if they voted in the last election. Shame on the Ed Snider for spitting on a sacred truth of sports for the sake of his political agenda. People support the Flyers because they're a successful team, not because of the owner's politics.

Snark break ...

• The Leafs trading Bryan McCabe to the Florida Panthers for Mike Van Ryn is so on. Is it a NHL rule that whoever the Leafs can't use ends up in Florida?
  
• One irony of the Bills in Toronto debut: All of Toronto got to see that Steelers rookie Dennis Dixon would make a very good CFL quarterback (him and Seneca Wallace, the perennial Seahawks backup).
  
• Sports Illustrated writer Jon Heyman opines on the Jays' trials and tribulations: "The Blue Jays seemed to have changed their plan a few too many times over the last few years, and maybe their GM is too busy with his radio show."
  
• Honestly, if Béla Károlyi had ever treated dogs like he treated 14-year-old, four-foot-nothing gymnasts, he'd be playing Scrabble with Michael Vick every night ... Dave Zirin's look at the underlying hypocrisy of the Chinese gymnast controversy, so-called, is a should-read. It's funny how Americans act differently when they do it.
  
• Brandon Regier, a 16-year-old junior hockey prospect from B.C., has decided to quit the game, saying hockey "never been my favourite thing to do in the world."
  
  Regier was a a first-round pick in the Western Hockey League by the Brandon Wheat Kings. If this happened to the Kingston Frontenacs, Larry Mavety would be telling everyone that Regier was still coming -- to play on a line with Ethan Werek and Jimmy Hoffa.
  
• The Vikings are still facing the possibility of losing their road-grader left tackle, Bryant McKinnie, for four games, due to a suspenson. Thank god Tarvaris Jackson doesn't have a blind side, as opposed ot the Chicago Bears' Rex Grossman, whose blind side is whatever end of the stadium he's facing.

(Here's hoping, in all sincerity, that Brandon Regier finds a way to enjoy being an athlete again. U.S. cyclist Sarah Hammer quit her sport at age 20 and came back.

Last but not least, it turns out the Spanish basketball team wasn't even the first team from Spain to mock China.

LAZY AFTERNOON LINKIN LOG...

Looking like a cab with all four doors open...

• If it wasn't so ghoulish, there would be justification to run a pool on who gets ousted first: Raptors coach Sam Mitchell (near right) or Blue Jays manager John Gibbons (far right, with an unidentified former player).
  
  Dave Feschuk's column in the Toronto Star published ahead of Monday's season-ending loss pretty much said once the Raptors are done, the next domino to fall over is Mike D'Antoni in Phoenix. As for Gibbons, so much has been said already. Good men, by all accounts, but both have been on the job in 2004, which is an eternity in pro sports.
• The best advice for when you want to get your screed on is to wait a couple days for Dave Zirin to say it with more credibility and eloquence. He pretty much laid into all the media types who kept repeating the word "character" ahead of the NFL Draft -- like the Evanka Osmaks of the world have a screw's clue of what Darren McFadden has had to overcome just to live this long, let alone be a first-round draft pick:
  
  

  "McFadden's story is a case study in the kind of character a typical 'draftnik' couldn't hope to comprehend. Here is someone who comes from a neighborhood in Little Rock where gangs and random killings are a daily fact of life. Instead of being seen as an indication of the remarkable character and perseverance it took to make it out of a home with eleven siblings, with one brother a Blood and another a Crip, his origins become just another strike against him.
  
  "This is someone from a neighborhood with an incarceration rate that exceeds the graduation rate, but who has never been arrested. OK, so he's been in a couple of bar fights, but imagine if entertainers were held to the same standard. What if Sean Penn couldn't get a movie role because he's been in a fist fight or two? What if any actor who has ever smoked weed or made an ass of himself was somehow deemed unworthy? It's a ridiculous double standard driven by general managers who fear they will lose their jobs if they can't predict the future.
  
  "That's the difference between Hollywood and the NFL. In Tinseltown, celebrities who act out for the paparazzi and our US Weekly fix are
  mainly white and largely forgiven for their wildness. Future NFL players who get poked and prodded like prize horses at auction are almost all working class and predominantly black."

• Point being, it's hard out there for the bleeding-heart sports fan to pick up a newspaper and see a headline, "Wanted: Players with character." The use of wanted is a little too ominious (obviously, whoever was on the copy desk didn't sit around listening to her/his parents' old Richard Pryor records.)
• Junior hockey rumour off a message board that has to be repeated for sheer silliness: Erik Gudbranson, the big defenceman from Ottawa who's expected to be a top-5 draft choice on Saturday, only wants to play where there's a French-language high school.
  
  The Kingston Frontenacs are picking fourth and the city does have French instruction at Regiopolis-Notre Dame, which used to be where the players attended high school. Just saying. Fronts followers would also be well-advised to brush up on the new rules that cover what happens when draft picks refuse to report. It has happened in the past.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

UP AT 6: VIKES MAY MOVE MOUNTAIN

As you were trying to see things from the OmniTouch point of view...

• Daily Norseman ponders whether the Vikings would really cut off their nose to spite their face trade All-Pro left tackle Bryant McKinnie.
• A day in the life of people who produce pirated DVDs. Who knew there was another trick that involved poking a hole in the popcorn bag?
• It is possible to be ribald at a hockey game without making gay fans feel uncomfortable. New York Rangers fans ought to try joining the 21st century.
• Well, that was just dumb: Guy buys raffle ticket and put it's his neighbour's name; neighbour wins the car.
• Dave Zirin notes how Brett Favre embodied an archetype that was restricted to white athletes; that was written here a couple weeks ago, but it didn't seem like such an individious thing. How has Brett Favre-bashing not made it to Stuff White People Like?
• The inaugural Canadian Women's Hockey League championship goes today; the odds it gets a mention on Hockey Night in Canada? (Kingston's own Jayna Hefford is playing for Brampton in the final vs. Mississauga, so go Brampton.)

NOTHING TO DECLARE, EXCEPT GREEDINESS

Dave Zirin's latest on major-league baseball's recalcitrance at setting up what amounts to a transfer agreement with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is worth reading just for this stunner:

"Lou Meléndez, MLB's vice president for international operations, was more than miffed to receive documents that called for instituting employee and player protections and requiring teams to pay out 10 per cent of players’ signing bonuses to the government. Chávez wants to tax MLB for what they take from the country.

" 'We don’t pay federations money for signing players anywhere in the world, and we don't expect to do so. It’s certainly not a way to conduct business,' huffed Meléndez."

Go tell that to the NHL, the English Premiership and every other major domestic soccer league in the world, Lou. Try not to act too hurt if their smiles seem a little condescending.

Yes, to us North Americans, Chávez pretty much is a crazy leftie. He's got a point on this matter.

Related:
Can't Knock the Hassle: Chávez Challenges Baseball (Dave Zirin, The Edge of Sports)

SUPER IDEA...

Dave Zirin hits another one out of the park on the eve of Super Sunday, complete with a nice Public Enemy reference in the headline:

"Here's a modest proposal. Let's start playing the Super Bowl at the home stadium of the team with the best record. Imagine this Sunday instead of playing on the fast tracks of Scottsdale, in front of an audience text messaging in between martintis, the Patriots had to prove their worth in the Frigidaire of New England. Imagine if the fans were those same beautifully hateable minions that have been slogging to Foxboro all year. Imagine the excitement as the Giants would attempt to win a fourth straight game on the road. Imagine Eli avenging the Mannings in front of the Foxboro faithful (and just imagine…I'm from New York). Instead both teams have become scenery, some athletic bursts of poetry around which to sell us erection
medicine, beer, and tires that are allegedly being produced by African child
labor.

"But exhilaration just isn’t part of the program. Like a burly sous-chef pounding a chicken breast into flattened submission, the audacity and excitement of the great game of football have been pummeled out of the contest. A great way to avoid dangerous over stimulation would be to take five hours… and watch the game."

Not that any of you needed a reason to pass on the pre-game hoopla and just turn the game on quarter after six, like any sane and rational person.

Related:
The Super Bowl: Who Stole the Soul? (The Edge of Sports)

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...

All Drug Olympics - More free videos are here

Kind of apropros in the wake of the Mitchell Report. Hat tip to Dennis Prouse for the link.

Food for thought: Did SNL ever have a better glue guy than Kevin Nealon? He did Weekend Update for a time and there were so many sketches that he helped nailed down. Who can forget, "I'm Larry, Larry Bagina."

As for the Mitchell Report... it was worth the wait to see Dave Zirin point out what few in the sporting press bothered to tell people about, even though they deserved to know:

"When not 'saving baseball,' Mitchell works as a D.C. lobbyist carrying water for Big Tobacco and other corporations that traffic in human misery...

"Mitchell's sins are as lengthy as they are hidden. First, there is the senator's drug of choice: tobacco, a substance that has tagged more toes than any steroid. In 1997, Maureen Dowd wrote in the New York Times that his law firm Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand 'earned more than $10 million in fees in 1997 from the five largest tobacco companies.' The work has continued, with big tobacco paying top dollar to make sure they can survive the class-action lawsuit settlements that threaten to bankrupt their industry."

"... Mitchell was (also) hired to stop Congress from labeling candy that may have been picked by child or slave labor. The reports of abuse, confirmed by the Ivory Coast government, were so harrowing that Congress appeared ready to act. The Chocolate Manufacturers of America saw a PR nightmare and called Mitchell. As Susan Smith of the CMA said, 'What better person to give us advice on how to bring different parties together and deal with cross-country issues and global issues?'

"John Aloysius Farrell, in an analysis of Mitchell's chocolate child slave-labor advocacy, wrote in the Globe, 'What the manufacturers paid for was the chance to wrap themselves and their deal in the aura of Mitchell's reputation....' "

So much for Mitchell being beyond reproach, it would seem. Hey, though, if having their Very Blond Anchors report the Mitchell Report as if it was gospel truth with a smug perma-smile on their face helps TV producers get to sleep at night, so it goes.

Related:
The message is in the messenger (Dave Zirin, sfgate.com)