Tech, Money & Sports: Detroit's Last Stand

It's fitting that on baseball's big Opening Day, one of the stories that looms large over today's big day is, obviously, the still-not-hit-the-bottom economic collapse that's shaking America to its foundations. While the American Southwest (especially three states -- California, Nevada and Arizona -- that have been hit hardest by the housing crisis) has a long way to climb out of this mess, no other state in the Union has been hit harder in the totality of this economic crisis than Michigan -- a formerly industry-heavy state staring down the once unthinkable, now very real possibility of fiscal insolvency.

But the real tragedy in this entire debacle is not just the state of Michigan. It's Detroit -- a city that, within the next 15 years, could effectively become a ghost town. This is a scenario that will have profound implications not just for the citizens of this moribund city, but of its sports franchises.

This being said, it's not as if this economic collapse isn't already having a major impact on Detroit's sports scene. This is just the beginning.

The full measure of how desperate the situation is when it comes to sports in Detroit really hit home today with the unsettling revelation that the Tigers have lost half of their 27,000 season ticket base in less than one season. With the auto industry hanging on for dear life and barely able to post monthly payrolls at this point, it's understandable that frills like baseball games are going to take a back seat in a city that posts a shocking 13 per cent unemployment rate. Never mind the fact the MLB has become overly reliant on ticket revenues due to poor planning and bad economic decisions; what does this all mean for the Tigers' bottom line?

Economics aside, this is not a happy time to be a professional sports fan in Detroit. Aside from the permanent success that is the Red Wings (more on that later), you don't need to be reminded anymore of the jaw-dropping disaster that is the Detroit Lions or the non-contending nature of the Detroit Pistons. Professional sports -- as has been argued by yours truly on this blog, no less -- are a form of escape from the harsh realities we all face everyday, but what happens when the malaise in your 'real life' ends up in the sports world too?

(Aside: oh, right. Well, at least there's growth here).

In terms of background, it's important to understand why Detroit in particular is in the condition it is. For the city of Detroit proper, this economic collapse and automotive crisis have only helped to speed up an urban decline that has been ongoing since the 1970's. As the surrounding suburbs of Detroit have actually flourished as more families migrated out of the city to escape growing crime rates (or at least, the perception of growing crimes rates, as well as a certain unspoken topic in Detroit's less-than-pretty recent history) , the city's overwhelming dependency on the Big Three automakers has created a perfect storm for a metro area that is analogous to a donut: economically diverse, low crime rates and successful on the suburban fringes and a hollowed out urban mess at the centre. While Detroit has been encouraging new forms of economic growth -- Information Technology and Biotechnology to name a few -- the city of Detroit proper has, in recent years, been forced to go to two options that no economically healthy city would dare touch as primary sources of city revenue: legalized casinos and heavy duty promotion of tourism. I don't know about you, but since when would you ever go to a city now known more for this rundown, detritus-filled public image than this nostalgia-fueled one?

While it's generally verboten to talk about this in 'post-racial America' -- a strange, very false point of pride many American commentators have used in the Age of Obama -- and I don't want to bite off more than I can chew here, but it's nearly impossible to not view all this distressing economic and sports world problems through the prism of race. White flight to these suburban zones aside, there's a real sense that in spite of a post-racial President and the fact no one from any nationality is truly safe in America now in light of this economic collapse, it's hard to ignore how race and racism in America remains very much alive. It's not spoken about often enough, but it's something to ponder when it comes to both the economic and sports decline of Detroit.

Sports is a window into a lot more than just fun and games. As I've said here before, it's a business too, and the business is not healthy in Detroit.

In spite of the fact sports is ultimately about money in the end, the pro sports franchise is a community bond that very few public works projects, art galleries or museums enjoy. It's one of the few places where everyone of all walks of life (sorry, but if you believe an art gallery is where 'all walks of life' go, you haven't spent time at the Art Gallery of Ontario recently) go and enjoy themselves. Detroit can ill afford to lose these institutions. It's a clear sign, once a pro sports team leaves, that something profound and truly tangible has been lost.

One interesting final, somewhat uplifting point: in spite of pro sports' troubles in Detroit, college basketball is doing surprisingly well. There's the news that tonight, at the cavernous Ford Field (talk about sad irony), the underdog University of Michigan State will square off for the NCAA national title against the favoured North Carolina Tar Heels.

It's fitting that Michigan is the underdog. After all, the state and the city of Detroit have been underdogs many times. Right now, both of them are staring down odds of survival that are even at best right now.

Let's hope they beat the odds again.

Political football: Jeer, jeer for old Notre Dame

This is a little rich coming from people affiliated with a school which employed crookeder-than-a-dog's-hind-leg Lou Holtz as its head football coach for 11 years. University of Notre Dame folk, claiming the school has "chosen prestige over principles, popularity over morality," are trying to block President Barack Obama from being its commencement speaker, because he lifted the ban on U.S. federal funding for stem cell research. And here you thought it was because the Irish football team didn't get a bailout after going 10-15 the past two seasons. (Fifteen losses used to be a bad decade for the Irish in Ara Parseghian's day.)

It's not really about sports, but feel free to see use it as a reason to hope Notre Dame never wins another major bowl game in our lifetime. You have to see the big picture.

I am not a political being (while maybe I am, which is why I'm hiding over in sports). A debate over stem cells, to this self-described South Park Democrat (not a conservative, but hates liberals in a we-can-smell-our-own kinda way), just seems so foolish. Everything you need to know about the lunacy of the debate is furnished by a Family Guy episode where Peter is maimed in a car wreck. He goes to the stem cell clinic, comes out good as new, and exclaims, "Why are we not funding this?"

Anyway, apologies in advance for being a Grade-A, ass-talking pot-stirrer ... Keith Josef Adkins from The Root had some words worth sharing:

"Have these folks lost their minds?! I was raised Catholic. My great-great grandmother was the only black woman who attended Cincinnati's St. Rose Catholic Church and they wouldn't let her take Communion or have Confession. Why? Blacks weren't good enough to eat the body of Christ. Yeh, that was nearly 100 years ago, but the Church still hasn't said Boo about that. I digress ... Look, it blows me away that the Catholic church can make an aggressive effort to shut down Obama because of federal funding that comes out of all of our pockets."

It's not the whole Notre Dame community (apparently Obama beat John McCain in on-campus straw polling), but all it takes is a few bad apples, says I.

You would never see, say, people at Syracuse University, be so high-handed (as far as we know; SU doesn't get the same kind of scrutiny). You'll probably never see Syracuse win a major bowl game in our lifetimes, either, but that's another post.

Related:
Obama's Banned from Notre Dame (Keith Josef Adkins, The Root)

Tech, Money & Sports: George W. Bush, The End Is Near

Writing a coda to the presidency of George W. Bush is surprisingly tough. Almost every major publication in the United States has written and published their final laments for a presidency gone so terribly, horribly wrong.

None of you need to hear again the litany of horrors Bush and his inner circle have inflicted on America and the world: 9/11, two major wars with no real end for either in sight, Katrina, New Orleans, Gitmo, the use of torture, Abu Ghraib, alienating nearly every political ally of the United States, the emboldening of America’s enemies like al-Qaida, the Taliban and the Muslim Brotherhood, national debt set to exceed $10 trillion, the near-collapse of what was once known as the world’s most powerful economy. It's Mission Accomplished alright.

Even Osama bin Laden probably couldn’t have imagined this kind of endgame back on Sept. 11, 2001. Hell, when comedians like Jon Stewart can barely contain their anguish, anger and outright indignation on The Daily Show, no longer interested in generating laughs vis-à-vis irony or sarcasm, it's gotten pretty damn bad.

Bush is about to spend his post-Presidency years in the wilderness of seclusion and near-universal hatred around the world. There will be no lasting tributes. There will be no Presidential Library. He is spending his remaining years as a dark vision of enmity for Americans - a man who personifies the worst characteristics of the American Dream turned nightmare.

It's hard to believe, but one of America’s Top Five Worst Presidents (there’s considerable debate if he is the worst, but only future historians will be able to say for sure) is nearly gone.

But since this is a sports blog, I want to talk about what the Bush Era has meant for sports culture in North America.

If there's one tip of the iceberg for what the Bush Era has meant for sports culture, it’s undoubtedly this week’s revelation that FOX Sports’ Troy Aikman, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver have been travelling to NFL games and this year’s World Series accompanied by armed U.S. federal marshals.

In many ways, this is just another in a very, very long line of government abuses of taxpayer funds over the past eight years (let’s not mince words and suggest any Presidency has been squeaky-clean and responsible with taxpayer funds). But what this kind of story suggests is another example of the cynical, abusive, wasteful nature of the Bush Era: Three sportscasters getting the Five-Star Treatment with taxpayer money?

The Bush Era culture of unabashed greed and cavalier attitude towards the public infected professional sports like a virus in the past eight years. The FOX story is ultimately harmless (as Shysterball noted, if something happens to Buck, Thom Brennaman becomes their lead baseball play-by-play man), but it's a window into the soulless, money-hungry nature of the sports-industrial complex that has left us all jaded.

It’s a sentiment that sports, like business and politics, has become divorced from the people these institutions presume to serve. Accountability, leadership and cooperation seem like sick, unfunny punch lines nowadays.

In the past eight years, we’ve seen some truly awe-inspiring moments of selfishness in pro sports. We’ve seen players like Mark McGwire and possibly Roger Clemens either lie or take the Fifth to Congressional committees in front of millions of people in vain efforts to save their own skins from permanent damage (talk about wasted energy).

We’ve seen the inequities of baseball revenues increase to the point of absurdity. We’ve seen rich teams get much, much richer and everyone else barely holding on. The survivial of the fittest mentality America used to use as a quiet turn of phrase to justify its numerous "bad acts," foreign and domestic, metastasized into something else in America during the Bush Years; the utility of saying "I care about me first, screw you all" became particularly self-evident the day sports reporters railed at the lunacy of America’s Most Hated Team, the Yankees, spending $400 million in one week and launching the New Yankee Stadium during a time of economic austerity measures. The Washington Nationals' new ballpark was a prime example of government without representation.

We’ve seen what hubris and hypocrisy can do to an entire sports league with the jaw-dropping decline of the NHL. Case in point: The Phoenix Coyotes –- a team on the verge of bankruptcy due to poor managerial decisions and a market best described as ambivalent. Even after the two-faced parlour game that was the season-killing Lockout of 2004-05, the NHL has fallen into an economic tailspin, has no major TV deal in America and has alienated fans across the continent. In the zero-sum game that is pro hockey, the unabashed greed of players and owners alike have killed whatever goodwill towards hockey there ever was in tenuous markets like Florida or Nashville.

These are just a few examples. And really, listing them all off isn’t going to accomplish anything.

Bush and Co. didn’t make these aspects of professional sports happen themselves. But it’s also naïve to think sports is distinct and separate from politics. If anything, sports and politics got a lot closer (some would say much too close) during the Bush Years. After all, the Rovian Strategy of Win At All And Every Cost, But Just Win It has a lot in common with sports. Even the fact both domains have the tendency to feature, once in awhile, people who will break the rules for the final big score at the end.

But it’s not as if sports are a pointless activity for the people who love it. Sure, sports are a business first and foremost — entertainment for the masses of people who just want something to celebrate about.

But it’s also, quite candidly, something people need to believe in. In a world full of empty slogans, false rhetoric and strange analogies involving pit bulls and lipstick, sports is something a person can have faith in . We can see it, touch it or relate to it unfailingly. It’s real. It’s a place of transcendence, emotion and transformation. It reminds people that no, life isn’t all about living paycheque to paycheque or coming home to a house full of pain and dreams unrealized. It’s something you, your neighbour and someone 3,000 km away can share in.

Thing is, belief is a precarious thing. If the Bush Years accomplished one cerebral, indefinable truth these past eight years, it's this: Bush made people stop believing.

People stopped believing in a lot of things during his Presidency: Government run by people for people, businesses that didn't so brazenly and publicly act with contempt and ignorance of average people –- the list goes on and on. When people lose faith in their leaders, it won’t be long before people lose faith in the institutions that support them.

But there's hope.

Two great aspects of American Life came into their own during these eight years of tumult that may help restore faith in sports: The Internet and Barack Obama.

Back in 2000, the Internet and blogs were largely ineffectual to the way things were done in politics, business and sports (the dot-com crash now looks like a small-time correction compared to today). While it’s important to not overstate the case at the risk of OOLF's own potential for hubris, blogs and the Web have become powerful tools to keep our leaders in check, balance power and report stories that can change things.

Even the 44th President, Barack Obama, has done more before his inauguration to restore hope to Americans than Bush could ever achieve in eight years. He’s brought back the idea that the ideas of accountability, leadership and vision have places in government; let’s hope that it also filters into areas of business and sports. It has more to do with the economy than any talk about change, but the Cleveland Indians, coming off a sub-.500 season, are holding town hall-style meetings to try to rally their core fans.

Obama’s even ventured into one of America’s most precious sports institutions —- college football -- and inspired the possibility of change in one of the most hidebound sports institutions. Did anyone really swallow whole the notion that the Florida Gators were national champions after that unwatchable BCS title game broadcast on FOX Sports with the heartbeat-away Thom Brennaman mucking up the call? (Brennaman is the son of a long-time baseball broadcaster, Marty Brennaman, so how appropriate that it was graced by someone who has been legacy pick all his life -- like Bush!)

At the end of the day, Bush’s Reign of Error has instilled a lesson into all of us: Ideas about the world are meaningless if you can’t back them up with responsibility and action. Cynicism is only possible when we allow it to happen, for taking control of ourselves and our democratic institutions means more than just concerning yourself with just yourself.

The sports world has seen some rough times during the Bush Era. It is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

Of course, keeping the faith is important. As goes one of the lines in The Dark Knight — perhaps the single most defining film of the Bush Era —"people deserve to have their faith rewarded."

Enjoy Inauguration Day next Tuesday.

That's just Ill

No one's 15 minutes of shame is complete until it's been commemorated by a minor-league sports franchise.

The Las Vegas Wranglers are going to wear "prison-style uniforms to pay tribute to recently disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich" during a game next month (Las Vegas Sun, via Gapers Block). Leaving aside the irony that a team whose NHL parent employs Todd Bertuzzi would wear prison stripes, it's a stroke of brilliance.

"The Wranglers' uniforms will feature broad, horizontal black and white stripes with mock prison numbers on the back of each jersey that begin with 'ILLGOV' followed by the players' actual number.

"Following the game, the Las Vegas players will autograph their uniforms and auction them to the public to support the team's various charities.

The Wranglers previously held a Dick Cheney Hunting Vest Night. One wonders if a Tom Cruise Blackberry Giveaway Night or Sean Avery Jaw-Wiring Night is in their future.

Related:
A little jail house fun; Wranglers to host Gov. Rod Blagojevich prison uniform night

Oh, that Bob!

If you were listening to Prime Time Sports Wednesday you just knew that Bob McCown's comments about the U.S. presidential election were going to cause controversy.

Your best bet is to listen to the comments yourself, but basically McCown made the argument that Barack Obama may not have won if he was white--that his massive popularity with African-Americans drove the participation up in that demographic and helped Obama overcome his inexperience (he isn't that much more experienced as a single term senator than Sarah Palin is, yet Palin's inexperience became a major issue).

It's a nuanced argument and one that doesn't translate well on talk radio--especially sports talk radio. But, coverage in today's Globe and Mail doesn't seem to be fair. Although McCown is given the opportunity to explain the comments, William Houston's reportage doesn't accurately convey the complexity to what was being discussed. Predictably, the comments section is lighting up with people a little too eager to yell the R-word (usually relying only on second hand information).

Not that McCown needs the help, but I was compelled to defend him in the comments. I wrote:

I'm not sure many here heard the comment McCown made. He was, in fact, suggesting that there were many voters that were drawn to Obama because of race. He never placed a value judgment on it and he consistently said that he was a supporter (of his) throughout the race.

The comment was made immediately after his co-host said that the win represented a shift in American thinking. McCown challenged that by pointing out exit poll data that showed that close to 70 per cent of older, white male Americans did not vote for Obama. When you factor in the increased turn-out among black voters and the near monopoly Obama had in that vote, then you can argue that it was a significant factor in his win.

Mr. Houston's column, and the replies to it, don't at all represent the complexity of what McCown was trying to say. Additionally, there seems to be an inference/assumption that there was an underlying dismissal to the win. McCown didn't argue that Obama "only" won because he was black (and therefore the victory is less legitimate). He argued that his race was a major contributing factor to his win. He also stressed that his win was a good thing for the United States.

McCown's program is available on podcast. The comments were in the first 20 minutes of Wednesday's show. Perhaps people should listen to it before making further judgment.

Brilliant...

"You don't suspend your campaign. This doesn't smell right. This isn't the way a tested hero behaves ... I think someone's putting something in his metamucil."

(OK, it's got nothing to do with sports, other than that Dave has always been a personal hero.)

Playoffs Primer: Chicago Cubs

Eight notes and observations on each of the eight playoff teams ... and now, the Cubs.

1. From 8th to 1st

In 2007, the Cubbies scored 4.6 runs per game, which was middle of the pack in the National League. So far this year, they've jumped all the way to 5.3, way ahead of everyone else. A lot of it is Wrigley Field, but a lot of it isn't. Geovany Soto replaced Michael Barrett, who was traded for nothing terribly useful. An old guy released by the Padres (see below) replaced Jacque Jones, who was last seen flailing away for the Marlins. And Reed Johnson has done his typical part-time thing that he does so well.

2. Z makes history

Carlos Zambrano threw a no-hitter against the Astros recently and there was probably much snickering over the lineup he faced: Lance Berkman and eight...others. It didn't even approach the modern record for pathetic no-hitters, though, and anyway that's not why it's history-making.

Because of one of those hurricanes, this game was the first no-hitter at a neutral site, in front of some 23-thousand Milwaukeeans at Miller Park. And Ted Lilly (oh, you remember Theodore Roosevelt Lilly, no matter how much you try not to) brought a no-hitter into the seventh inning the very next day, meaning we were nine outs away from something that has never occurred before in the history of baseball: a Ted Lilly smile.

Anyway, Zambrano is a horse and a tough one at that. 75% of his stuff is fast, fast, fast, but he can and will destroy you with his slider. He walks guys but gets away with it. Not the guy you want to face in a best-of-five.

3. And now a jamiecampbell moment

"...and Ryan Dempster of Sechelt, B.C. is scheduled to go tomorrow after Rich Harden of Victoria toes the rubber today. And while we're at it, a happy birthday goes out to Gladys Kensington of Flin Flon. She's 80 today and never misses a Blue Jays game! The first pitch from Victoria, B.C.'s Rich Harden is a strike..."

4. Will there be another Crazy '08?

As everyone must know by now, the Cubs have not won the World Series since 1908. Out of Left Field's math guy will confirm that it's been exactly 100 years. It's too easy to list all the things that were true at the time, but it's more enlightening to read Cait Murphy's extensively-researched and wonderfully-written tale from that historical year. Sorry it's not Google-able, but sometimes you have to pay for quality.

5. Aramis not a miss

I don't get it right often, but indulge me with respect to Aramis Ramirez: In 2005, I said "there’s no reason to believe he won’t improve on [his 2004 season]." In 2006, "he's going to be quite good for the next few years." And he's been pretty damned good every year since 2004. Anyway, Ramirez is the rare hitter with power and without lots of strikeouts. Even though he's only in the NL top 10 in doubles and RBI, he's still a huge part of the Cubs' being #1 in offence. Even if he is defensively slow at third base...

6. "I am thankful for your ignorant attempts to make me feel most welcome."

After everyone got over their giggles on alternate ways to pronounce Kosuke Fukudome, they started showing up with nonsensical Japanese phrases. That's all very well and good, but when you wear T-shirts that make the Indians' logo look okay, maybe it's time to beef up your foreign policy experience.

7. No Es for Lee

In two ways, Derrek Lee is penalized by Albert Pujols. Lee is probably the best defensive first baseman in baseball, but Pujols wins just as many Gold Gloves (not that Gold Gloves are important, but work with me here). Lee is also a heck of a hitter, but again, not the best first baseman in his division.

What Lee does have going for him, aside from defensive brilliance, is that he's certainly made the Cubs the winners in the Hee Seop Choi trade. Who's Choi? Just one of the more embarrassing remnants of the height of the post-Moneyball era, when any player with a decent OBP was relentlessly championed as the saviour of Your Favourite Team, even if he wasn't all that good at, you know, playing baseball. Choi has not appeared in the majors since 2005.

8. Random executive summary of the top Ballhype story as of this moment

"Without beer, I never realized how boring this game was."

Que Sarah, Sarah ...

Lest anyone is questioning Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's bona fides as a hockey mom.

Rest assured, she does bring to mind any number of unpleasant memories of the small-town power-trippers whom you might have had the misfortune to meet in your travels, right down to the propensity for money mismanagement and narrow-minded nastiness tinged with racism.

There's no plan to post about the U.S. election, or the Canadian election. This is a blog about sports. It's presumed people want a little respite when they turn to sports, which in the big box store of life, still is just the toy department.

Related:
Palin's Hockey Rink Leads To Legal Trouble in Town She Led (Wall Street Journal)

Snark break ...

The gauntlet has been thrown down ... for today's edition, every item is a variation on "Riddle me this." ...

... How is that in 1980, Canada and the U.S. boycotted the Olympics in a Communist country because a nation was occupying Afghanistan; but in 2008, Canada and U.S. are attending the Olympics in a Communist country despite occupying Afghanistan?

... How is that anyone believes that Barry Bonds will show up in San Fran on Saturday?

... How is that in Alberta, that republic of outlaws loosely allied with the rest of Canada, Edmonton politicians are looking for public financing for a new arena for the Oilers? Strangely enough, all those other loser provinces which are teeming with tax-and-spend socialist sandal-wearers managed to build new NHL arenas with almost 100% private money. (Glove tap to the Battle of Alberta.)

How can it be that God lives in Saskatchewan ... when the matchless Little General, Ron Lancaster, is fighting cancer and the Saskatchewan Roughriders' best receiver, Matt Dominguez, has a career-ending injury?

(Digression: Please don't take this as an attempt to make light of something that is very real and very scary for Lancaster, his family and anyone who loves the CFL and the people who made it great.

Laughter is the best medicine, right? It's a corny joke, but you can just scroll down to where the italicization ends. A Saskatchewan farmer dies and goes to heaven ... as he's being taken around, it's explained to him that in heaven, everyone gets to pretend to be whoever he or she wants to be.

They pass a hockey rink where a man dressed in a Montreal Canadiens No. 9 sweater is shooting pucks into a net. "That man is from Quebec," the farmer is told. "He thinks he's Maurice Richard."

At the other end of the ice, a figure in a Boston Bruins sweater is weaving around the ice. "That man is from Parry Sound. He thinks he's Bobby Orr."

They walk a bit more until they pass a field where a man in a green-and-white Saskatchewan Roughriders uniform, flowing beard protruding over his single-bar facemask, is throwing a football through an old tire.

"That's God. He thinks he's Ron Lancaster.")

... How is that Kingston Frontenacs GM-for-life Larry Mavety can look visionary? The OHL might pull out of junior hockey's import draft. That wouldn't change a thing for the Frontenacs, who haven't participated in it for years.

(Ottawa 67's coach Brian Kilrea says, "Some GMs and owners feel they are being manipulated by the entire process." Now they know how the players feel. Picture Boon and Otter in Animal House. "He can't do that to our pledges!" ... "Only we can do that to our pledges.")

... How is that Paris Hilton could come off as more politically astute than Sen. John McCain's campaign team?

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Great job, Senator McCain. You just let Ms. Hilton hit the reset button on her 15 minutes.

... last but not least, via ShysterBall, how can a building feature "rustic, urban architecture" when rustic and urban are two completely different things?

(Short answer: The thesaurus feature on Microsoft Word exists so dumb people can try to sound important. Not that I'm accusing anyone of that. I'm fired, aren't I? Oh yeah. Well, I don't even really work here. That's what makes this so difficult.)

(Clip via Deus Ex Malcontent.)

Putting Donaghy into some sense of perspective

It's odd how Eight Men Out author Eliot Asinof died on the same day, Tuesday, that jailbird-to-be ex-NBA ref Tim Donaghy's charges of game-fixing gained greater public attention.

This was touched on briefly on Offsides yesterday, but there is a unique historical parallel between the Black Sox Scandal and the Donaghy firestorm. Each took place in an era that was marked by massive public corruption in American life. Bill James wrote once that the Black Sox foreshadowed the Teapot Dome scandal that took down a U.S. president a few years later; it was one among many "purgings and cleansings."

You could extrapolate that something very similar has gone in Sportsland, U.S.A., toward the tailend of Bush and Cheney's administration. It's one thing to pretty make up an election result and act like everything's normal, to rush into war under false pretenses for the benefit of Halliburton, to contract out that war to a private company or put a somewhat dim member of the horsey set in charge of federal disaster relief because he's Bush's buddy.

However, when the New England Patriots videotape their opponents' signals, or ballplayers take steroids so they can hit more home runs, or some people in the NBA cock up a few foul calls in order to win their bets and ensure the league of more revenue, well, that's just going too far.

(Something else that's weird is that, according to his Chicago Tribune obit, Asinof had finished a novel which will be published in September. Guess what real-life figure is fictionalized in the book? George W. Bush. You couldn't make that up.)

As for the refs doing business, this clip posted first at The World of Isaac should give everyone pause, to put it mildly.



(Excuse the total nerd moment, but this is annoying: Asinof's Chicago Tribune obit states he "spent nearly three years researching the book, including interviewing the two members of the team, Joe Jackson and Happy Felsch, who were still alive."

Anyone who read the W.P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe knows "Joe was the first of the Unlucky Eight to die." Four them, in fact, were still alive in the early 1960s when Asinof would have been researching the book. Swede Risberg, the shortstop, was the last one to go. You could look it up.)

Bosh on Leno; the Curse of CB4

Pay special attention around the five-minute mark, Raptors fans. Also, feel free to analyze this line to death:

"I know all of the players personally, and they don't know the meaning of the
words 'give up' -- just like Hillary Clinton."

Is that just an obvious joke by Jay Leno's writing staff that Bosh delivered -- flawlessly -- or was CB4 articulating how secretly P.O.'d Barack Obama supporters are with Hill these days? (Clip via Awful Announcing.)

Who knew you could go too far in wrestling

Apparently, at least in the WCW, there is a line. No murder fantasies.

UPDATE: I've been informed the WCW doesn't exist and this dude was only fired from some radio gig. Still, if you hire a former pro wrestling commentator to do a radio gig, don't you kind of expect him to say really insensitive things? Maybe Hardcore Sports can give the guy a call. From what I can tell an ability to drop the F-Bomb every three seconds is the biggest job requirement there, so he'd fit in.

ZEN DAYLEY: A CASE OF (VANISHING) RUNS

Hey, Roy Halladay only works about every fifth day and that works pretty well ...

• Apparently the Jays' struggles with the bats are just part of a giant league-wide sucking sound.
  
  Bringing this up after a 6-5 game is poor timing, but Baseball Prospectus has provided the context on the league-wide drop in run-scoring across the American League.
  
  (It's topical since Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi mentioned it tonight during his weekly CYB session that this is like the first time since 1974 that the National League has been outscoring the AL. Nate McLouth has more homers than anyone in the AL, for pity's sake.)
  
  Scoring in the AL is down more than half a run per game compared to this point in 2007, when it was also down by about the same amount compared to the same point in '06. All told, it's down 1.26 runs per game from 2006; that's enormous.
  
  That doesn't get the Jays off the hook for not being able to bring home anyone from second with two outs -- just read John Brattain's impassioned analysis for Hardball Times. It explains it in part.
  
  As the Beep notes, teams are trying to get more defence into their lineups, so you see players such as John McDonald end up as a semi-regular. It ends up taking away runs for both teams. The AL also seems to have a lot of pitchers -- Fausto Carmona with the Clevelands, Chien-Ming Wang with the Yankees -- who thrive by 'pitching to contact' and make hitters get themselves out.
• Brattain, by the way, even goes so far to say that Barry Bonds could even use the Jays' numbers hitting with runners in scoring position to build a collusion case.
  
  The Jays signed Kevin Mench and Brad Wilkerson -- nice guys, who can certainly help, but you wouldn't want to mock them by even comparing their 2007 numbers to the 43-year-old Bonds. (Six months later, the gut feeling remains that Bonds won't serve a day in jail -- but those U.S. prosecutors, god bless them, are determined to make something/anything stick.)
  
• Sox & Dawgs has a clip of that Manny Ramirez catch where he high-fives a fan sitting in the first row and then throws back to the infield to double off Kevin Millar.
• There are no master switches, but the Rays' bullpen has an earned-run average of 3.16 -- exactly three runs lower than their major league-worst 6.16 last season.
• Joe Posnanski has a book to sell for only $5.99.
• It figures that a post that would start off talking off about disappearing offence would come on a night when the Syracuse Chiefs scored 16 runs in back-to-back innings.
• It's probably not that amazing that smart people still deny Bill James' work at the same time that it's being used to help explain complex political strategy. A version of sabermetrics might have a hand in determining the next leader of the free world, as this article about a Barack Obama campaign strategist named Jeffrey Berman details:
  
  

  "A glimpse at Berman's, and the campaign’s, detailed, Bill-Jamesesque approach to the game of politics came in a spreadsheet the campaign sent to Bloomberg reporters, it said inadvertently, on Feb. 5. The spreadsheet had estimates of the outcomes and delegate counts in every state; it has called the winner wrong just twice.
  
  "... the heart of Obama’s victory has been technical and tactical — to the frustration and disbelief of (Hillary) Clinton's inner circle." (Emphasis mine.)

  That would make Hillary analogous to Joe Morgan, then. (Link via the very essential ShysterBall.)
• Last but not least, contributors from D-Rays Bay and Drunk Jays Fans have a hand in the AL East Blog, which might become a regular stop. Their Yankees chronicler, get this, is named Hank Sager -- no relation.

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

WE HEART HUCKABEE

It's a couple weeks old... Mike Huckabee's general worldview is a bit wacky, but he's good people.

BARKLEY TAKES ON AMERICA...

Charles Barkley's riffing covers the full gamut of being amusing, topical and reminding us that CNN was once relevant. Question: How's he expecting to get elected governor of Alabama without the religious vote?

On a semi-tangentially related note: A suicide bomber in Afghanistan killed 80 people yesterday at a dog-fighting event, but at least Michael Vick wasn't involved.