The Bus Arrives - NFL Black Monday, 2012 - Updated

The annual tradition of bloodletting in the NFL is upon us again. No, not the playoffs, but Black Monday.

This is the day when a passel of losing coaches must stand on the curb and be shoved under the bus by team ownership.

Was it their fault that their quarterback stank or their star players got injured? Who cares? We didn't make the playoffs. Start your engines!

Chan Gailey: his team won 16 games in the 3 years he was coach, and the Bills missed the playoffs for a 13th straight season. The pain Chan Gailey is feeling is offset by the fact that he no longer has to live in Buffalo.

Romeo Crennel: a 2-14 season spelled the end for Crennel after just one season as head coach. I've heard it said a few times that everyone likes the guy. Crennel even watched one of his own players commit suicide in the team's practice facility parking lot. After the suicide, here's what the team chairman said, emphasis mine: "I wanted to be there with the team, with the coaches, to let them know I love them and support them and know what they’re going through, and particularly the guys who were present in the parking lot when Jovan took his life. I know this has to be incredibly difficult.” 1 month later: Boo-hoo. Take a hike, Romeo.

Andy Reid: In 2011, backup QB Vince Young called the Eagles a Dream Team. Michael Vick, fresh from a stint in prison for killing dogs, said the Eagles could become a dynasty. Fast forward less than 2 years and Vince Young is broke and out of football entirely, Michael Vick finished yesterday's game on the bench, and Andy Reid has tire tracks on the back of his shirt.

Lovie Smith: There was one person in America watching Minnesota Viking's kicker Blair Walsh closer than anyone else yesterday, and that was Bears head coach Lovie Smith. Walsh had to kick a field goal at the end of regulation in a GB/Minnesota tie game. If Walsh missed the 29 yarder, the game could have gone to overtime, keeping the Bears' - and Lovie's - hopes alive for a playoff berth. Alas, Walsh nailed the field goal, sending the Bears to the golf course and Lovie Smith to the unemployment line.

Pat Shurmur: Who? I know, I know. Okay, it's like this: there's a team in Ohio called the Cleveland Browns. They play football on weekends sometimes. They had a coach named Pat Shurmur. He is no longer their head coach. But he has company: the team also fired their general manager. Happy days around that head office, huh?

Stay tuned, likely more to come.

Update:

And just like that, we have another victim, compliments of the San Diego Chargers:

Norv Turner: I've always thought that he is the quintessential NFL coach. He doesn't win much, doesn't lose much, he's just very good at staying on the NFL coaching merry-go-round, either as a head coach or a coordinator. Every once a while a camera will point at the sideline and you'll go, "Hey, there's Norv Turner." This was Turner's third team as head coach. Watch for him on a sideline near you soon. Incidentally, the team also canned the GM.

You can't turn your back for a second. Here's another one:

Ken Whisenhunt: Football is a harsh, harsh mistress. The Arizona Cardinals were 4 - 0 at the start of the season. This means head coach Ken Whisenhunt must have thought he'd be employed on January 1st, 2013. Nope. The team lost their next nine games in a row. Whisenhunt and GM Rod Graves got canned a few minutes ago.

Down Go the Packers

And that's that.

Looks like we'll have to wait until next year's "Can they go undefeated?" story. There always seems to be a team that flirts with it.

Photo: Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Chris Pronger and The Answer to the Concussion Epidemic

NHL defenseman Chris Pronger is out of the Philadelphia Flyers' lineup for the rest of the season due to concussion symptoms.

I'm not a doctor, but if they're ready to declare the rest of the season a bust, then he must be a wreck.

I've only had what I think were two concussions in my life, both when I was a kid. One hurt like hell and left me dizzy for more than a day. Another left me with a headache for a while, but not much more. I can't imagine what it must be like to stumble through several months with a scrambled head.

The Twitterverse is going bonkers right now, with thousands of tweets discussing a concussion epidemic in the NHL, and what to do about it.

How about: stop playing hockey? And football?

I'm sure any hockey fan or football mom would accuse me of being trite with that answer, but I really don't know what else to say when I see tweets like this:

Expert neurologist Dr. Charles Tator suggests 95% of hockey concussions are preventable. Now let's hear all you hockey doctors make excuses!

That's from a hockey writer named Adam Proteau, who has penned a book called Fighting The Good Fight: Why On-Ice Violence is Killing Hockey.

Here's another tweet from sports agent Adam Walsh: But there is no concussion epidemic in the NHL. RT@BComptonNHL: #Flyers confirm Chris Pronger's season is over. Awful.

If you're not hip to Twitter yet, the "RT" means Walsh was re-tweeting somebody. His own "But there is no...." is tongue in cheek.

I'll give you one more, from Senators reporter James Gordon: Anyone else tired of seeing every good player get a concussion?

I could list dozens of them, but you get the idea.

I wrote many years ago that tens of thousands of concussions are reported in high school football in the United States each year. From little league on up to the pros, guys are getting their heads bashed in all the time. (I also wrote that in 1905, football was almost banned because 18 college students died playing it. In 1908, 33 more were killed. You want to talk epidemics?).

Here's the pertinent part:

What's incredible is that our forebears stood for it, and that college students still wanted to play the game. Helmets, pads, and various rule changes throughout the years have made the game safer, but only safer in the quotation mark sense. Today, about 8 players a year get killed playing football. That's from all levels combined, making it small potatoes compared to the old days, though a staggering number of injuries flood the locker rooms each weekend.

Concussions, for one. 40 000 of them are reported annually among high school players alone, and those are only the kids that get treated. Concussions are such a certainty that NFL teams have a chart for each player. If a player gets nailed in the head, they know what questions to ask that particular man in order to find out if he's still got all his marbles. And even if he does, that's not to say that he'll have them later on. Former players report nausea and forgetfulness well after they retire, a chronic symptom of having your head kicked in. It will be with them for the rest of their lives.

What now strikes me as strange about that football piece is that I never heard anyone talking about a "concussion epidemic" back in 2006. Indeed, the paragraph I wrote about concussions was just that: a paragraph. More or less a footnote. I took it for granted that people get concussions while playing contact sports. It came with the territory.

It still does, but the epidemic label is very recent. I am not convinced that more men are getting concussions, only that it seems like more men are getting concussions. I can't prove that. Yet. But I suspect that a) we see it more because we're looking for it. b) a rash of concussions have affected star players, with the bigger pay cheques bringing a greater focus. c) concussions make good copy right now, and sports reporters talk about it endlessly. d) teams are now ordered to look for a concussion and keep a man off the field/ice if they remotely suspect that he has one.

That last one is critical. A 'dinger' that you shook off ten years ago is now a 'concussion' that gets you pulled from the game. When's the last time you heard the words "mild concussion?" You don't hear them anymore, because our whole perception of concussions has changed.

I'm not arguing that the new perception is a bad thing. Concussions are an awful injury. But when I hear people talk about the brutal nature of the game in such broken hearted tones, I am reminded of the scene from Cinderalla Man where Braddock says, "What are you going to tell me? That boxing's dangerous?"

In the scene, several people are showing Braddock a film clip of his opponent, and telling him that there's a good chance he's going to get killed in the ring. His attitude is, "When did this become news?"

When I read the sports pages, I'm sometimes left to wonder if someone is taking a gun, putting it to a player's head, walking him out to center ice, and ordering him to stand still while someone else smacks him in the temple with a sledgehammer. The concussion stories read like reports of innocent people getting hit by lightning.

Nothing could be further from the truth. These men are going onto the ice to do one of two things: score points, or hit someone. When they are hoist on their own petard, the least surprised person in the arena should be that player (and make no mistake, if you Google Chris Pronger now, you'll find a lot of heartfelt stories about concussions; Google him a month ago, not so much; a bunch of suspensions and being booted out of playoffs games kind of ruins the tragedy narrative, so you can read up on your own time).

So yes, concussions are bad for a player's health, and seemingly everyone in North America wants to make sure that no one suffers another concussion ever again. But what to do?

Simple. If you want to play professional football and hockey, but do not want to receive a concussion, then you cannot play professional football and hockey. If you want to make hockey and football safe from concussions, then you must completely remove hitting from the games, or ban the games outright.

There. Problem solved. Until you do either of those things, there will be concussions in the game. You might as well get used to it or turn off the TV.

The men that play these games know the risks. They just do it anyway. That is why they are the toast of the town, have massive bank accounts, and get to meet pretty girls. Physical danger is the price of doing business.

If the NFL was flag football, nobody would give a damn about it.

Pronger Photo: Andre Ringuette/Getty Images

Matt Millen - Expert. Right.

The Onion uses this piece as a send up of Matt Millen, of course, but let's be honest: Matt Millen doesn't have enough football credibility to fill a coffee cup anymore.

The nation's 14 million unemployed persons experienced a combination of rage, disbelief, and near-suicidal depression after seeing former Lions CEO Matt Millen—long regarded as one of the most resoundingly incompetent failures in management history—working as a football analyst on Wednesday's SportsCenter...

"Does ESPN hate football? Do they hate their viewers? Because I know about 40 unemployed guys down at the sports bar who could do that job better than Matt Millen."

It's The Onion, but boy does the story reek of truth.

Grey Cup, Grey Hair, Black Eyes

Two CFL players finally did something worth watching.

Unfortunately, they're both over 70 years old.

Yahoo! Sports: The action starts almost immediately when Mosca and Kapp are both invited up on stage. Kapp holds a flower out towards Mosca, Mosca responds "Stick it up your a##," to cheers, Kapp then does stick the flower right into Mosca's face (as claimed in Mosca's version of events), then Mosca hits him with a handheld mike. Mosca then delivers the titular cane to the face a couple of times, and hard, while Kapp returns fire with a bull rush and a couple of punches and knocks Mosca through the curtain.

Talk about bearing a grudge. Apparently they've hated each other since a Grey Cup in 1963.

Unfortunately, the Yahoo! guy decides to get sappy: Someone could have been badly hurt here, and given these guys' ages, the danger of serious injury is even higher. It's also not the best advertisement for the CFL to have two of its legendary alumni engage in an all-out brawl like this.

Please. Like the CFL is going to get any better publicity than two old dudes throwing a fight made for YouTube.

"It's Not Every Day They Get To Hang Out With Actual NFL Athletes."

The Detroit Lions haven't won a game this season.

If that has a familiar ring to it, it should. They didn't win a game last season, either.


NFL Players Mentor Troubled Detroit Lions

The National Felony League

Bear with the quotations for a minute.

Me, on July 24, 2007: The sycophantic sports writers are in quite a dilemma over this. Dog beats athlete for America’s heart every time, and the sports writers are in a pickle. They are, after all, writers, not reporters. There is no such thing as a sports reporter. Like me, emotions run their version of typing. They have steadfastly refused to investigate steroids in baseball (have you seen Jason Grimsley’s name lately), or football. While Barry Bonds cheats his way past Henry Aaron, the sports writers go whistling through the locker room as if nothing’s amiss. Now they have a problem: America likes dogs.

Me, on May 28, 2009: The sports shows are slowly leaning towards a reinstatement of Michael Vick.

He was released from prison a couple of weeks ago and has given no press appearances, but the sycophants that make up the sports media are already bending. Funny, that. He doesn't even have to say "whoops" or "prison sucks," and already they're kneeling.

Yahoo! Sports writer Jason Cole, July 27, 2009: In short, how many people could commit a crime punishable by prison or jail time, lie to their boss and the owner of the business repeatedly, continue to embarrass the employer and somehow think they could return to their job as soon as the sentence ends?

Realistically speaking, that’s a very unrealistic notion.

To be clear, this is not an argument that Vick, who repeatedly lied to Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell two years ago, shouldn’t play football again. On the contrary, Vick deserves another chance.

Just not right away.

That's a sports writer. Once he has his nose in the backside of an athlete, there's no way he's going to pull it out again.

Cole goes on to say, "In this case, Vick brought more punishment on himself by how he treated his employer along the way."

Cole's either an idiot or insane. Only in the strange world of the shameless sycophant will you find a man describing big pay checks as punishment.

The National Felony League has now proven to be a complete joke and a great home for liars and lowlifes. League commissioner Roger Goodell says Vick will only be reinstated after 5 weeks of good behavior. 5 weeks. What a test of character. Does anyone seriously think Goodell is not going to reinstate Vick once those 5 weeks are up?

It's a thumb in the eye of every hard working fan that goes to work, does his job, and tries to live a decent life. Michael Vick ran a dog fighting enterprise on his own property, admitted to strangling and drowning dogs himself as well as watching his friends electrocute them, broke several laws, lied to the league, and lied to the cops. Outcome? Business as usual and big bucks, baby. Hell of a lesson for keeping kids from wandering off the straight and narrow.

Vick disgusts me, but sports "journalists" and Roger Goodell disgust me more. Roll over and beg, boys.

Bending to Vick

The sports shows are slowly leaning towards a reinstatement of Michael Vick.

He was released from prison a couple of weeks ago and has given no press appearances, but the sycophants that make up the sports media are already bending. Funny, that. He doesn't even have to say "whoops" or "prison sucks," and already they're kneeling.

On Fan 590 I heard a DJ say, "I'm a dog lover, but..." He went on to ask his listeners if they didn't think that everyone deserved a second chance. A man called in to say Vick should be banned from life let alone football. The DJ repeated that he was a dog lover - "I've had my dog for 17 years and I'm quite attached to him" - and then used the old magic word: "but."

Vick's a scumbag, but...Vick's a criminal, but...

This afternoon on another radio show, I head two DJs interviewing a guy from Sports Illustrated. They asked him if Vick might find a place in the NFL. The SI guy demurred, unsure of anything, but then asked if Vick might find a place in the CFL. The DJs told him that it depended if Vick was suspended from the NFL, since the CFL now recognizes suspensions in any other football league (read: the NFL). So the CFL gambit is a non-starter as far as Vick is concerned, but doesn't it speak volumes that the three men were even discussing it?

Sports "journalists" have no shame. None. They'll forgive anything, no matter how immoral, to kiss a professional athlete's ass. Here's what I had to say about the Vick dog killings a while back. It pertains to the asinine "second chance" comments that sports "journalists" trot out whenever they need to give an athlete a moral makeover:

Remember that this was going on at his kennel, not in some parking lot on the outskirts of town. Vick wasn’t "caught up" in anything. He was chiefly responsible for it. The dead dogs are buried on his property. The kennel, incidentally, was bought by Vick in 2001 for a little over $34000. With a flair for prophesy, these clowns named it Bad Newz Kennels.

The sycophantic sports writers are in quite a dilemma over this. Dog beats athlete for America’s heart every time, and the sports writers are in a pickle. They are, after all, writers, not reporters. There is no such thing as a sports reporter. Like me, emotions run their version of typing. They have steadfastly refused to investigate steroids in baseball (have you seen Jason Grimsley’s name lately?), or football. While Barry Bonds cheats his way past Henry Aaron, the sports writers go whistling through the locker room as if nothing’s amiss. Now they have a problem: America likes dogs.

But sports journalists like players.

Let's read again what Michael Vick did to wind up in the joint:

In the most disturbing account yet of Michael Vick's dogfighting operation, a federal investigative report details how the disgraced athlete killed pit bulls by hanging them from a nylon cord nailed to a tree and drowned others in a five gallon bucket of water...Purnell Peace, who was convicted along with Vick, told federal agents how he, Vick, and a third man had to drown one dog after it did not die when they tried to hang the animal. After Vick agreed last year to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge, he was interviewed by federal agents and claimed that he "never actually killed a dog," though he admitted watching his friends hang, shoot, and electrocute pit bulls. But after failing an October 2007 FBI polygraph test "as it related to the killings of the dogs," Vick recanted his denial and "admitted taking part in the actual hanging of the dogs."

The "second chance" philosophy as it applies to Vick is an obscene lie. Second chances are reserved for people who do something once, regret it, pay for it, and get on with their lives. If Vick had wandered into a room, seen a dog fight for the first time in his life, and been caught there, I would be all in favour of a second chance. But that's not what happened. Instead, he bought a kennel for the purpose of setting these dogs on each other. He watched them be electrocuted. He saw others shot. Some he hanged with a nylon cord. One that we know of he helped drown in a barrel. He watched small dogs get used as "practice" for the fight dogs. Then he and his friends buried the bodies on his property.

Vick has had a hundred chances to change his ways. The only reason he didn't get to 101 is because he got caught and put in prison.

Former QB Jim Kelly was on the radio the other day and said that he would leave it up to the NFL to decide Vick's fate, but in no way would Kelly want Vick to be a member of the Buffalo Bills. Other teams should feel the same way and say so.

The NFL needs to decide if it is a truly a "league," and what kind of league it wants to be. If they allow Vick back onto an NFL football field, they will truly be the National Felony League. Their reputation won't be fit for dogs.

The Bus Arrives - Owens

"He feels shocked and totally betrayed."

That's ESPN's Stephen A. Smith, describing Owens' reaction to being tossed under the bus by the Dallas Cowboys.

Owens would feel that way. No doubt he feels shocked and totally betrayed if a waitress puts too much cream in his coffee.

Owens is a locker room's worst nightmare and a killer of quarterbacks. When Parcells was head coach, the two barely spoke. As for QBs, if Garcia and McNabb couldn't stand him, it shouldn't be a surprise to see that Romo couldn't either. Add Owens' baby ways to the Cowboys' signing of Roy Williams last year for over $50 million, and the writing was on the wall.

How badly did the Cowboys want Owens out of town? Try this: last year they paid him a $12 million signing bonus as part of a deal worth $34 million for four years. By releasing him, ESPN says the Cowboys will now take a $9 million hit on the salary cap.

No one's sure where Owens will end up next. Jim Rome floated the Raiders' name on the air, but then said even Al Davis wouldn't want T.O. near his quarterback. I wouldn't be bold enough to put anything past Davis, but we'll see.

One thing's certain: guys like this always get another job worth big money. Not long ago, Sean Avery was vilified in the NHL. People were talking about his career going in the toilet and that he might have to play in Europe. That was three months ago. Now he's playing for the New York Rangers.

We'll see T.O. in the fall, where he can get started poisoning another desperate team's locker room.

Football Back

The first Sunday of the new football season kicks off today. Here's what I had to say about the great game of 22-men-trying-to-knock-each-other-over a couple of years back:

One thing about football is that it helps you mark the time. From kickoff on Sunday afternoon, to the last whistle on Monday night, all you think about is football. You eat it in the form of chilli and cheese. You drink it in the form of Budweiser beer (unless you had a particularly hard Saturday night, in which case you drink football in the form of orange juice and aspirin). You sleep it in the fitful rest of a man who took a lousy quarterback in the fantasy draft. More...

NY Redemption Song

If Tom Coughlin's face has thawed out by now, he must be feeling pretty damned good about himself and his NY Giants football club. They went into Lambeau Field and won against a Packers team that isn't supposed to lose in sub-zero temperatures.

That isn't why Coughlin should be smiling. He should be smiling because over the past couple of years, Coughlin has been described as a mean guy, a stubborn coach, a man that can't motivate his players to win the big one. Tiki Barber said Coughlin robbed him of the joy of playing football. Nobody had much praise for the guy.

Like Coughlin cares. Now he's put his team in the Super Bowl, winning ten road games in the process. It's an Arizona date with the New England Patriots, a team that the Giants almost knocked off in their last game of the regular season.

I wanted the Packers to win the game, if only to give Favre another (last?) chance at a Super Bowl. He lost yesterday's game in Favre fashion, ripping a pass into the great wide open, only to have in picked off. Seconds later, NY kicker Lawrence Tynes redeemed himself for blowing two previous kicks, and nailed a 47-yarder to give the Giants the victory.

I'm okay with that. Now I can watch the sycophant sportscasters do a complete 180 and sing Coughlin's praises. They've been telling fans and ownership to call for his head the past few years, and now these same hacks will be busy kissing his butt, without a trace of irony. It will be fun to watch.

Photo: Jonathan Daniel/Getty

Perfect Season

The Patriots did it, and they did it well.

Beating the NY Giants last night gave them a 16-0 perfect season, a record that, for me, speaks louder than any individual mark. Football games are the hardest to win, and doing it 16 times in a row is a stunning feat.

Some have accused the Patriots and coach Belichick of cheating. Spygate was the story early in the season, and Don Shula said that an asterisk should be put beside the Patriots' name in the record books. This was sour grapes, pure and simple. Shula was the coach of the 1972 14-0 Dolphins, and he could not have wanted his record to fall.

I always found it a bit pathetic, watching the ex-Dolphins show up at games in the hopes that a perfect team would fail. The Dolphins were there against the Bears and the Colts, praying for their old team to win the day. I found it pathetic because of the word "old." That's what the ex-players were, and watching them strut the sidelines with bad knees was a strange sight.

No one can accuse the Giants of lying down for the Patriots. They played their guts out, and fans were treated to one of the better games of the entire season. The game wasn't a walk for the Patriots, and they deserve their spot in football history.

Most of the Patriots crew were humble. Belichick admitted to feeling great, but it was time to move on to the playoffs. WR Randy Moss had a different view: in a post-game news conference, he told the press that it was just nice to shut them up. Not politically correct but, if you know my views on sportscasters, then you know I won't hold a grudge against Moss for sticking it to them.

I'm not a Patriots fan, but even I can see the very grudging respect that the team has received over the past few years. Brady will never be Montana in the public's eye, and the Patriots will never be the 49ers, Bears, or Dolphins. Yet all they do is win.

I'm sure Belichick is fine with that. I would be, too. Now it is on to the playoffs, where the pressure will be back on the Patriots, and big time. The sycophants will be braying for their blood, wanting the team to fail so that they can be accused of choking in the final hour.

I'm neither here nor there on whether the team wins. If they cap a perfect season with a Super Bowl, fine by me. If they lose, it makes for an interesting story. Shula's team will retain the "perfect" moniker because his team ran the table on the regular season and went on to win the Super Bowl.

Whatever happens, it has been one of the more watchable and enjoyable seasons in a decade, not in spite of the Patriots, but because of them.

Photo: Chris McGrath/Getty
Bill Kostroun/AP

Super Bowl in Limey Land?

It looks like the NFL might hold the Super Bowl overseas some time in the future.

The NFL has been pushing the NFL to foreign market for a while now, but this is the first time the Super Bowl's been mentioned. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Wembley Stadium would be a good venue.

On October 28th, Wembley Stadium will host the first-ever regular season NFL game on foreign soil, between the Dolphins and Giants. Tickets are selling well, and it might be a sellout.


I can't see football ever beating out soccer for attendance records overseas, but it would be nice to take a run at them. The rugby guys would be especially ticked. Rugby plays second fiddle in foreign lands, and they never get any credit (not that they deserve any).

A Super Bowl in England would be fine, except for the Limeys running around all over the place telling you, "It's no' bloodeh fooooball, ya wankah!"

Whether Goodell will be able to sell Americans on the idea that the number one game of the American sporting year will be held overseas in a country whose people are notorious for calling Yanks idiots does, of course, remain to be seen.

More on the story here.

Photo: HOK Sports

Short Cuts -- T-BLANK-IF

Playing Doctor

I was driving on the 401 today, one of the busiest highways in the universe. It forms a bottleneck through the province of Ontario, Canada. Everyone trying to get through Toronto has to use it. What's worse, the people that run the highways put their heads together and gave every street in Toronto a ramp onto the 401, allowing people to use it more or less as a city street. Gridlock city.

Anyway, there were the usual traffic jams, and it gave me time to listen to morning talk radio. I seldom do that, as I've found that most morning DJs are embarrassingly stupid.

There's usually two guys and a gal. The guys tell pitiful jokes and the gal tells them that they're pitiful jokes. Then she reads a factoid that says how smart women are, and the guys say, "Was that factoid or hemorrhoid?" and everyone falls down laughing. Nothing is more boring than listening to people that hold a "degree" in broadcasting while they laugh over the airwaves.

Teri Hatcher
On 103.5 today, the gal played a clip from Desperate Housewives. In the clip, Teri Hatcher's character tells a doctor she wants to see what kind of credentials he has, to ensure that he doesn't have a diploma from "some med school in the Philippines."

When the clip was finished, the DJs jumped on the PC bus. One of the male morons said, "Why the racism?"

It turns out that this has become a controversy, with people in the Philippines saying that their medical degress are as good as anybody else's. The DJs backed them up, skewering ABC.

My reaction: get over yourselves. For one, the show is a comedy about ditzy chicks. For another, the comment isn't racist. Hatcher's character was not saying that Asian people make bad doctors. Her character is a dope, and as such, she thinks anything outside of her home town might as well be on Mars.

A furor in the Philipines because of an ABC sitcom? Get real. And besides, from everything I've heard, the Philippines don't have good medical facilities. A buddy of mine split his foot open while he was there. He saw two separate doctors. They gave him such great care that the wound went septic and he had to finally have it dredged out when he got to Vancouver.

The Desperate Housewives non-story once again shows me where the media stand when it comes to race. If Hatcher's character had said Somalia, Kenya, or Rwanda, nobody would have batted an eyelash. Just as they don't drop a tear when they hear about another thousand mutilated in Darfur.

The DJs eventually got off their race soapbox and moved on to Britney Spears and her parenting issues. They riffed on her and chortled with delight. Now I get it: Philippines good, single moms bad.

And if they don't?

Jerusalem Day has rolled around again. That's the annual celebration where Iranians march through Tehran and chant "Death to Israel, Death to America," and burn the Israeli flag. It's not as big a news story as Filipino medical degrees, which is why I didn't hear about it on the radio.

Ahmadinejad wants a referendum held in Jerusalem as to where Jews should be allowed to live. His take:

"Let a referendum be held in Palestine. It is our clear proposal to European countries [to have the] settlement of Zionists in Europe or in big lands such as Canada and Alaska so they would be able to own their own land."

See, he's not all bad. He's got some hot leads for Jewish real estate agents.

I especially liked this bit from Breitbart.com regarding the days' festivities:

"Although he subsequently toned down his rhetoric slightly, Ahmadinejad has still repeatedly predicted that Israel is doomed to disappear and questioned the scale of the mass slaughter of Jews in World War II.

The Islamic republic however insists that its nuclear programme is solely aimed at generating electricity for a growing population whose giant oil and gas reserves will eventually run out."

Oooooo-kay.

God? Who's that?

I'm in danger of being labelled a one-trick pony if I keep this up, but hear me out. I have another example of our culture changing direction. Whether it's for the good or bad is for you to decide.

During yet another traffic jam today, I heard this on the radio:

"TGIF! That's right, thank goodness it's Friday."

Just to make sure I heard them right, they repeated it: "Thank goodness it's Friday!"

Sigh.

All right, I get it. You're trying to remove God from the language and the culture. I'm not a religious guy, so I won't rant and rave from that point of view. But please, if you're trying to kill off our heritage and belief structure, try to be more creative. Exchanging "God" for "goodness" makes no sense. They come from the same root. What do you think people mean when they say, "Thank goodness."

If this keeps up, the next ten years are going to look and sound very strange. The American quarter will say, "In goodness we trust."

The Canadian national anthem: "Goodness keep our land..." (Incidentally, when are the PC weirdos going to change the "all thy Son's commands" bit?; then again, these jackasses probably think it's a reference to the "sun.")

The British anthem: "Goodness save the Queen."

They may even have to re-dub the Sex Pistols' version, and that would be a crime. Perhaps the punk rockers will rise up. If so, I'll be there to cheer them on. Honestly, who would you bet on? An enviro-boob with an "EARTH FIRST" sign, or a pissed off punk rocker?

That may be the answer to our ills. Mark Steyn has pointed out that if the 9/11 hijackers had tried to take down a sports bar, they would have had the crap kicked out of them. I say we tell punk rockers and Raiders fans that Al Queda called football a game of sissies and Sid Vicous a no-talent loser. They'd find bin Laden in no time.

Brand New Season

College football is back on the airwaves, and not a moment too soon. I was missing football quite a bit over the summer. Having overdosed on baseball, I needed something new to occupy the sports-side of my brain.

Here's a couple of quick takes from the first day:
(Photo: AP/John Raoux)

Virginia Tech beat East Carolina 17 - 7, and they needed the victory. A little good news on campus might go a long way. The school had a mass murder 4 months ago, and their hero alumnist Michael Vick just pleaded guilty last week to killing dogs.

I enjoyed the game, but the constant references to 'tragic events' was irritating. They even threw up a graphic of the number of killed and wounded, plus the major (English) of the mass murdering student. I found this a bit weird in the middle of what they were calling a 'healing' football game. Dead students aren't football stats, and the murderer wasn't a wide receiver; who cares what his major was?

For the record, mass murder is not a tragic event. It's murder. 9/11, 7/7, the Virginia Tech shootings, all of them have been labelled 'tragic.' They're not. Tragedy is a 3-year-old girl fighting leukemia, or a church roof collapsing on a wedding party.

Murder is murder. To call it a tragic event makes it seem accidental, and that the murderer was merely on the scene. It does a disservice to the victims: they were not victims of accident or circumstance. They were victims of a scumbag lunatic, and we need to remember that lest we let it happen again: "Oh, dear. Another tragic event. What can you do?"

Another thing I noticed during the game was a camera shot inside one of the athletic buildings. There's a room named after Michael Vick. His name is emblazoned on the door. I wonder how long it will stay there. It could remain there forever for all I care; I'm just interested to see which way the school goes.

Michigan lost to Appalachian State, 34-32. Appalachian who? I had to Google the school to find out where it is on the map (Boone, North Carolina; apparently they have quite a music program).

It was a hell of game. It's the first time in college football history that an under-division school has beaten a top-25 ranked team (Michigan was ranked #5). Further, Appalachian State won on Michigan's home field. This pretty much assures that Michigan will be knocked out of the top 25. The rest of their season will be a fight for pride. A conference championship is remote at best, and as for the national championship, you can forget it.

This game is the epitome of the old saying, "That's why you play the game." The game was played in Michigan, and it should have been a walk. The only people more embarrassed than the Michigan coaching staff are probably the gamblers in Las Vegas.

I'd write more, but I'm now busy watching Wake Forest and Boston College kick the hell out of each other.

It's a brand new season, and I love it already.

The Beckham Bust - And How Sean Berry Saved Soccer

Last night, David Beckham arrived in Toronto to much hoop-lah, and…nothing happened.

He took to the field in a sharp suit and tie. He sat on his butt throughout 90 minutes of excruciatingly boring play. And then he left. Final score: 0-0. Ninety minutes of professional sport, and at the end of it, all you can say is, “Well, something almost happened. And it was cool to see Beckham. I mean, I think it was Beckham. We were in the top row. But it looked like Beckham. Nice suit, too.”

This is what North America was waiting for? What a bust. Even Beckham must be wondering what he’s gotten himself into. The play of his own team, LA Galaxy, was terrible. He left Europe for this?

The grass leading from the locker room to the field was yellow and dead. Over his shoulder you could see port-a-johns in the background. His team ended with a zero-zero (excuse me, nil-nil) tie (draw) against a Toronto club that hasn’t scored a goal in over 300 minutes of play. I don’t know what the word is for “brutal” in soccer-speak, but I’ll bet Beckham could tell me after watching last night’s fiasco.

To set the record straight for my soccer-minded friends and enemies, I have nothing against the game, per se. I think it is a wonderful way to boost the self-esteem of children that can’t throw a fastball or shoot a puck. It also serves the purpose of getting fat kids to lose weight. But as entertainment I should pay to watch? Not a chance.

I’ve been told many times that if I went to a soccer game, I would have a great time. I don’t dispute that. When I was in South Africa, I went to many a rugby match and had a blast. Not because of the rugby. If a bunch of guys want to run two steps forward and pass the ball one step back, I’m not going to argue. It seems a foolish way of making progress, but what do I know?

The reason I enjoyed the rugby matches was in the stands. I was plastered most of the time, and I yelled at the referee, and once in a while I’d look at the score, and then I’d grab another beer. I didn’t care who won or lost, only that beers in a South African rugby stadium sell for a $1.50 a can. At those prices, I’d go to a tiddly winks tournament.

So yes, if I went to a soccer game, I would have a great time. I have no doubt of it. I would swill beer and check out the hooters on the girl wearing the “Bend Me, Beckham” t-shirt, and I’d holler at the ref for no reason whatsoever. It would be a fine time. But don’t for one minute think that I would pay money to watch the actual game. There is, after all, no reason to watch it. If your team scores once every 300 minutes (about every three games), why bother looking at the field at all?

If last night’s soccer game is how the league is going to present the sport to North America, they are in deep trouble. Perhaps Jesus Christ could put on a pair of cleats and bring soccer to the masses, but David Beckham can’t perform that miracle on his own.

Long story short, soccer is a drag. There’s no scoring. There’s no violence. Soccer fans that complain about the constant stoppage in “American” football should look at their own game first. Every time a soccer player is on a breakaway or even looks like he has a chance of scoring, he falls down and draws a whistle at the first opportunity. The game is one long episode of “let’s go out and pass the ball, dad.”

Three quick suggestions for Major League Soccer. One, put a blue line on the field, as in hockey. The offside rule as it stands now is confusing to novices (the very people you’re trying to attract), and it’s an invitation to tedium. With a soccer blue line, you’ll get more breakaways and more scoring. Once the ball is inside the thirty yard line, offside should go out the window. As with hockey, the players will be in a scoring zone. Let them try to do just that. More shots, more scoring, more excitement. People aren’t paying money to watch the defence put a guy offside by walking forward five feet. They want to see the strikers work their magic. Give them the time and space to say presto.

Two, dispense with the defensive no-rough-stuff philosophy. Sometime in the past, soccer became a sport for wimps. Nowhere in the rules does it say you can’t tackle a man in earnest. So allow hard play. If a guy falls down and rolls around on the ground, let him lie there or throw him out of the game. Bring the physicality back to soccer, and you will draw more fans.

Three, bring in the shoot-out at the end of a tie. Yeah, yeah, I know the soccer types hate the shoot-out, but welcome to the land of winners and losers. None of North America’s sports allows a tie. (Football does after an extra quarter of play, but it happens so rarely, nobody cares. It’s one of those aberrations that makes playoff math interesting from time to time). You can call North Americans unsportsmanlike swine for wanting a winner after every game, but that’s the way it is. We love winners and scorn losers. Give them to us.

I don’t want to hear from any purists that any of the above suggestions would ruin the game, or that it’s not “real soccer.”

So what? This isn’t really soccer country, either. The idea that people somehow have to adapt to a product you’re selling is preposterous. It’s the other way around. Learn it the hard way or the easy way, it’s all the same to me.

Michael Vick - In the Dog House

Photo - Getty/Jonathan Ernst
Michael Vick has found himself in the dog house of the National Felony League. According to Federal prosecutors, Vick and a couple of his buddies were running a dog fighting ring out of his Virginia kennel. The betting was in the hundreds and thousands of dollars. Pit bulls not deemed strong enough to fight were killed either by electrocution, hanging, drowning, or being slammed to the ground. The offence carries a 6-year sentence and a fine of $350 000 dollars.

First, the crime: it’s brutal. If guilty, Vick and his buddies deserve everything that they get.

The uproar from the community shouldn’t come as any surprise. There’s an old rule in the screenwriting business that if you want to show a villain as truly evil, don’t have him shoot the grandma. Show him shooting the family dog. The audience will hate him forever. Having NOW or Greenpeace on your case is as nothing compared to the angry hoards that make up PETA. These people want to burn you at the stake for eating a cheeseburger, let alone hurting man’s best friend.

Second, the penalty: Vick’s celebrity status might work against him on this one if he’s found guilty. $350 000 might sound like a hefty fine for some backwoods dude that runs a two-bit dog fighting ring. For Michael Vick, who earns about ten million dollars a year, that’s less than two quarters of football. By the time he hits the locker room at half-time, he’s earned well over half a million dollars. The judge, weighing this, might throw him a prison sentence just to make a point.

Third, the choice: I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Like he needs the money,” upon getting the news that Vick might be involved in this crime. But money has nothing to with it. Have you ever seen two dogs fight in the street? It’s scary. Carnal. The sounds alone are terrifying. Now imagine betting on it, cleaning up the blood, and hanging the dog that didn’t do as well as expected. Ask yourself what kind of man could do that, and you will have a better picture of the spirit that burns inside Michael Vick and others that breed pit bulls for battle.

It’s extremely dubious that Vick was doing this for any other reason than entertainment. He wasn’t forced to do it, and he didn’t need the cash. He simply likes dogfights.

We’re always looking for reasons to explain the activities of others. Why did they do it? Why do they feel that way? Sometimes, it’s simply because that’s the way it is. I’m already getting tired of hearing how Michael Vick should have stopped hanging out with his pre-football friends. They are the ones, this theory goes, that led him astray.

Michael Vick was the Atlanta Falcons’ number one draft pick in 2001. That’s six years ago. We’re not talking about some rookie who hasn’t had time to think about his ‘mistakes.’ We’re talking about an adult professional who likes his hobby. In this case, dog fighting.

Pit Bull
Vick could have dumped his friends, or put them through college, or ratted them out to the cops, or told them to go home, or bought them a house in New Zealand, or whatever. But he didn’t. Remember that this was going on at his kennel, not in some parking lot on the outskirts of town. Vick wasn’t caught up in anything. He was chiefly responsible for it. The dead dogs are buried on his property. The kennel, incidentally, was bought by Vick in 2001 for a little over $34000. With a flair for prophesy, these clowns named it Bad Newz Kennels.

The sycophantic sports writers are in quite a dilemma over this. Dog beats athlete for America’s heart every time, and the sports writers are in a pickle. They are, after all, writers, not reporters. There is no such thing as a sports reporter. Like me, emotions run their version of typing. They have steadfastly refused to investigate steroids in baseball (have you seen Jason Grimsley’s name lately), or football. While Barry Bonds cheats his way past Henry Aaron, the sports writers go whistling through the locker room as if nothing’s amiss. Now they have a problem: America likes dogs.

What to do? It’s easy. Become a mouthpiece for the other athletes, the ones that will protect Vick. Emmitt Smith, Allen Iverson, Michael Irvin, they’ve already had their press and their interviews. None of them have talked about crime, only ‘mistakes.’ Emmitt Smith is claiming that Vick is a target because of his fame. And yes, he might have made a mistake. Right. Vick made an ‘error’ in drowning dogs and watching them rip each other’s throats out.

I’ll give Sports Illustrated’s Rick Reilly a break on this. Years ago, in a face to face meeting, he asked Sammy Sosa point blank if he would take a steroids test. There was a great deal of controversy over whether Reilly should have asked the question. Not much controversy, though, over the fact that Sosa did not say yes or no. He still hasn’t. He just ignored it, it went away, and the sports writers let it, just as they let his corked bat slip from memory every time they discuss his homerun totals.

NBC’s Jim Gray also deserves a break. At the 1999 All-Star game, he asked Pete Rose if it was time to come clean about betting on baseball. Pete was not amused, players and fans called Gray a jerk, and the sports networks backed them up. Five years later, Rose published a book about…how he bet on baseball.

That is what is going to interest me about the Michael Vick drama. Not what penalty he pays for it (it will be too stiff for some; not tough enough for others), but how the sports writers spin it. Get ready. You’ll be dizzy by the time it’s over.

I guarantee you this: no matter what happens, if Michael Vick returns to the NFL and wins a Super Bowl, you will hear these words: “What a comeback for Michael Vick. Perhaps this will put the demons behind him.”

Dog beats athlete, but pigskin beats dog.

David Beckham Go Home

Photo/Reuters

Man, that's gotta suck.

That line is reserved for a friend of mine. We were on the phone yesterday and she said that Argentina was going to beat Brazil in some kind of soccer tournament, because Brazil was missing their best players.

News to me. I didn't know that the Copa America (America's Cup) final was even being played. Turns out that Brazil beat Argentina 3-0, even though they were missing Ronaldinho, Lucio, Kaka, Ronaldo, Ze Roberto and Adriano. I just copied and pasted those names from a website because, like you, I don't know who plays for the Brazilian team and nor do I care. I do find it cool, however, that a man can strut around a field while wearing Kaka (pronounced the way children say the word 'shit' without swearing) on his back.

The soccer tournament involved all of the qualifying countries in the Americas, including the United States. Canada didn't make it because Canada is so involved in soccer that they suck at it, ranking out of the top 50 countries in the world. When Bosnia-Herzegovina (28), Morocco (35), and Guinea (50) are better than you at a sport, you know it's time to stop asking when that sport will become popular in your country.

I flicked on CNN this morning and they were talking about David Beckham's arrival in Los Angeles. He used to play for Manchester United and Real Madrid. He's now come over to play with the LA Galaxy. Headlines on Yahoo are asking if he can save US soccer. The rest of us are asking if he can get out of the way so we can get another look at his hot wife.

Every couple of years, this soccer issue rises to the surface, bubbles for a few moments, and then goes back down the drain where it belongs. It is phony-hype, as the Beckham arrival indicates.

I don't know too much about soccer, but it's doubtful that David Beckham is here in order to save US soccer. It's more believable that the guy just needs a job. He was cut as captain from the England team, and Madrid obviously didn't want his services. If he was still the premier player he once was, he wouldn't be coming to the United States to play as Mr. Nobody. He'd be in Europe signing autographs every time he steps out of his house. Him coming here to save US soccer is like saying Matt Lainert should skip the NFL and go play in Germany to save Deutsch Football.

And how, exactly, is David Beckham going to save US soccer? I didn't know US soccer needed to be saved. I thought it was one of those fringe sports. Illegal immigrants and 10th generation English people might want to watch 11 of their favorite players jog around a field for 90 minutes, but the majority of Americans couldn't care less. And again, it doesn't matter if a lot of kids play it when they're younger. That does not mean that they are going to play it when they are older, or even watch it on television. As I said last year:

"To the Euro-weenies, let's put something on the record: the kids who play soccer are there because their parents won't let them play a violent sport. Football and hockey are out, and fastballs scare the hell out of mothers, so baseball's out, too. Unless you're over six feet tall by the time you hit grade 11, basketball is also a no-go. That leaves soccer. Your passionate game of kick-the-ball-around is there to raise the self-esteem of children that wouldn't have amounted to a damn on the grid iron, and to keep hockey players in shape during the off-season.

People are not going to watch soccer in North America. It's made up of all the people that got cut from the other sports. Sure, there might be a few kids that played soccer as their first choice, but who the hell wants to watch a guy like that play anything? And just because we did something as kids doesn't mean we're going to keep doing it as adults. Using the old 'you show me yours, I'll show you mine' might have worked while hiding in the cushion fort, but it doesn't go over so well on the nightclub circuit.

This argument is so old that it's no longer an argument. It's more like an article of faith, like the second coming of Christ. When I was a kid, people were saying that more kids playing soccer meant that it would be huge a few years down the road. When I was in high school, they said the same thing. When I was in my 20's, ditto. I'm now over 30. I still don't watch soccer, and neither do my friends. When I am old and decrepit, some damn nurse is going to give me my orange juice and say, "My son plays soccer. So many kids are playing it, it will be huge in a few years." And I will die screaming.

Honestly: when is the last time you said to anyone, I need to get home by 7 o'clock because the soccer game is on? As for me, I use the webpages to see just how popular soccer is. On Yahoo Sports, the soccer tab is tenth in line, right behind tennis and right before boxing. On ESPN.com, soccer comes in the 14 hole, before tennis, but behind such items as women's basketball and NHL hockey, which won't be played for another two months. The Sporting News website doesn't even have soccer on their menu bar. Must have been a misprint.

Here's a nice look at the joys of a game where ties are victories, scoring is non-existent, and it's considered good play to roll around like a wimp when someone comes within five feet of you. Beckham's in this clip, too. He's twelve steps from the goal and misses it by 50 feet. Gotta love the "beautiful game."

Big Bucks - Small Times

AP Photo/Bill Kostroun
Some random musings on a late Tuesday night got me thinking about athletes and money. Roger Clemens is back pitching for the Yankees, and they said that his contract for the rest of this year is a prorated 28 millions dollars.

That’s a lot of cash. You’d think Christ Himself had come down for the final judgement, decided instead to work on his curveball, and Steinbrenner gave him a spot on the roster.

This season is a month over. The Rocket won’t be ready to play for another few weeks. That means he won’t appear until June. That gives him a four month season. With baseball’s five-man pitching rotation, this means he’ll probably play in no more than 24 games.

Let’s be generous and say that Clemens will average 7 innings per game (he’s already stated that he won’t go more than 3 or 4 innings in the first couple of games in order to build up his arm). That makes for 168 innings of baseball. A wildly inflated number, but again, I’m being generous. Now let’s say that he averages a very good 15 pitches per inning. That comes to 2520 total pitches.

So this season, every time Roger Clemens puts his hand past his ear, he will earn roughly 9500 dollars. And change.

Imagine that. Go out in your backyard and pick up a rock. Throw it at the fence 10 times. Now pretend you just made a hundred grand.

When we pay to watch a sporting event, what we are really doing is paying to watch millionaires play a leisure activity. There’s no denying that. I love baseball, football, and hockey, but be real: they’re games. Leisure activities. And the people playing them are rich. We simply pay for the right to watch them play these games. Once in a while, we yell at them, and it feels good, or we get drunk at the bar with our buddies, and that feels good, too. But they’re games.

Not a new argument, and it’s not really my point. What struck me about the Clemens deal is that he brought up his family as part of his decision-making process. And I thought to myself, is he nuts?

Any sports star that gets married and has kids before he retires is an idiot. I really believe that. Because man, if I was making ten thousand dollars every time I threw a ball or passed a puck, the last thing I’d want to do is go home to a bunch of screaming kids.

What the hell are they thinking? Getting a five million dollar-a-year contract at the age of 25 is a license to party your ever-loving brains out. You’d own any club you walked into. You’d be the life of the party, chicks all around. Never mind the Chivas, hand me the bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue so I can bathe in it.

Presidents invite these people over to dinner. Mayors hand them keys to the city. Hell, you can walk out on that field, throw a ball, complain of “elbow stiffness” and go on the 60-day disabled list. Screw working. For the next two months you can rehab that elbow with a bottle of Heineken in one hand, and a blonde in the other for ballast.

A wife and kids when you can own Broadway? Where’s the fun in that? Besides, you’re taking one hell of a risk getting hitched. The groupie you married knows damn well what you’re up to on the road, because that’s how she met you in the first place. Whenever she feels like it she can sic a photographer on your ass and the next thing you know, your contract is chopped in half.

Where did Joe “I like my Johnnie Walker Red and my women blonde” Namath go? Where’s Mickey Mantle lying in the gutter? Sure, their biographies read all sad and sappy later on, but even when you’re reading about their ‘downfall’ you’d cut off your left ear to have the wild times they did.

Watching the baseball All-Star Game is a drag. All of the players in the dugout are holding their children by the hand, pinching their cheeks, tickling their little bellies. Boooooring. Bring on the beer bongs and the dancing girls. I’ll take Babe Ruth over Peyton Manning any day of the week. And sure, twice on Sundays, come to think of it.

I think it was Shaw that said youth is wasted on the young.

The big bucks are wasted on the morons.

The Best Game

Opening Day arrived and it was good to see the greatest game take to the field again.

I know, I know, football fans wouldn't agree with that statement. I feel for them. I love football (and by football, I mean football, not soccer. You can look at what I thought of the difference between football and soccer here.)

So yes, I love football. But baseball is the best game. Earl Weaver summed it up like this:

"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."

I like that, and he's right. Baseball is the only game where you can't screw around in order to win. You can't kick a ball back and forth, can't ice a puck, can't kneel down and kill the clock. In baseball, you've always got to give the other guy his shot. Sooner or later, like it or not, you've got to face him. And you can never tie. Someone's going home a loser, and someone else is going home with the hot chick in row 8.

Isn't that what competition is all about?