Here's hoping all my readers enjoy a happy and safe celebration tonight. I'll catch you again on the other side of Midnight.
Archive for December, 2002
December 31st, 2002
On Race And Baseball
Over at Blissful Knowledge, Dr. Manhattan has published some thoughts on baseball's legacy on race, and how it's still affecting the way one franchise, the Boston Red Sox, still does business today (which is something both Jim Rice and Mo Vaughn could tell us something about):
Why have the Boston Red Sox not won a World Series in 84 years...and counting?In an effort to keep warm through this longer-than-usual (for a Yankee fan) baseball winter, I recently paged through a book that offers a partial answer to that question. In Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston, Howard Bryant (a sportswriter for the Bergen Record who grew up in Boston) details how, for many years after Jackie Robinson entered major league baseball, the Red Sox did not attempt to sign black players and passed up chances to sign players such as Willie Mays. Even after the Red Sox integrated, Bryant describes how, into shockingly recent times, the team has often made life difficult for its black players. Others such as Glenn Stout have also described how the Red Sox
December 31st, 2002
Parcells Deal Nearly Done
Well, if both Chris Mortensen and Will McDonough say it's true, then it must be true that Bill Parcells is on the verge of signing a four-year contract to return to the NFL and coach the Dallas Cowboys. Why do I say that? First of all, Mortensen is the one figure in the national sports media who consistently gives Cowboys owner Jerry Jones an even break, and it certainly doesn't hurt that he works with Parcells week in and week out on ESPN's NFL Sunday Countdown. Something tells me his sources on this are pretty solid.
As for McDonough, here's what he had to say:
Bill Parcells is on the verge of finalizing a deal that will pay him $16 million-$17 million over four years to replace Dave Campo as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, a source with personal knowledge of Parcells's thinking said yesterday.
An unnamed source with "personal knowledge of Parcell's thinking," is a common device used in the press that can only indicate that the source is Parcells himself. That's not a surprise, as McDonough probably spent plenty of time developing "Charlie Tuna" as a source during the coach's stay in New England.
What continues to puzzle me is how in the world Jones and Parcells can actually get along. Over the past several seasons, Jones has made no secret that he is the man pulling the levers behind the scenes when it comes to personnel decisions. Whether it was in front of ESPN cameras in the Cowboys "War Room" on draft day, or mugging for the folks at NFL Films as he led the dicussion on the Cowboys' final roster cutdown in the pre-season for HBO's Hard Knocks, it's clear that when it comes to decisions off the field, Jones is the one in control.
Fast forward to the 2003 NFL Draft next Spring: Am I the only person in the world who envisions seeing Parcells tear Jones a new one during a dispute over a draft pick? Then again, that might be the sort of drama that people would tune in to see.
But don't count on it. One of the first things Parcells will probably do will be to put the kabosh on stuff like that. Remember, Parcells, unlike many NFL coaches, bans any contact between the press and his assistant coaches. He runs a tight ship, and we should all expect the Cowboys ship to get a whole lot tighter with Parcells on board.
UPDATE: Parcells has told ESPN he's going to Dallas. While this is good short-term (3-4 seasons) news for Dallas, it's bad news for the rest of the NFC East.
Instead of counting on 2 gimme wins on the schedule, you can bet Parcells will have the Cowboys more competitive right off the bat. Just a tip of one or two games on the schedule means that Philadelphia, New York, or Washington will have that much tougher of a time qualifying for the 1 or 2 seeds in the playoffs, as well as a bye and homefield advantage.
December 31st, 2002
The Price Of Secession
Back in 1861, as the nation was rent asunder by Civil War, my current home state of Virginia was torn apart as well. Not wanting to go along with a pro-secession majority, a number of the Western counties of Virginia bolted from a pro-secession convention with the intent of forming a pro-Union state. After a few fits and starts, and with considerable help from the Union Army, they did just that, eventually being admitted to the Union as the state of West Virginia in 1863.
Safe to say, some folks around these parts never got over it, and West Virginia and its rural character have been the butt of jokes for the better part of 140 years. Case in point, the half time show of Saturday's Continental Tire Bowl in Charlotte, N.C. where Virginia played West Virginia:
West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise wants an apology from University of Virginia President John T. Casteen after a halftime show by the school's pep band in the Tire Bowl lampooned West Virginia's rural image."This type of performance merely perpetuates the unfounded stereotypes that we in West Virginia are fighting so hard to overcome," Wise said Monday in a letter to Casteen. "The incident on Saturday was conduct unbecoming of the University of Virginia."
Virginia's independent pep band at halftime of Saturday's game between the schools staged a parody of "The Bachelor," with a male Virginia student choosing between two female contestants.
One female, purported to be from West Virginia, had blue overalls, pigtails, a talent for square dancing and a dream to move to Beverly Hills, Calif. -- a reference to "The Beverly Hillbillies."
Oh those rascals from Charlottesville! How could they be so cruel, or at least as cruel as ESPN was to the state of Tennessee earlier this year.
But wait, there's more. Seems like this wasn't the first time that UVA's pep band, known for its "unconventional performances" in the words of the Bowl organizers, got into West Virginia's kitchen to rattle some pots and pans. As the AP reported:
The pep band also lampooned West Virginia at halftime of a 1985 game in Charlottesville, Va. That performance, a parody of "Family Feud," included derogatory references to indoor plumbing and birth control in West Virginia.
Needless to say, the UVA's Pep Band has been uninvited from any future Continental Tire Bowl festivities. Not that they would care anyway.
POSTSCRIPT: While doing some background research for this post, I stumbled upon this quiz about the Mountaineer State. Though I'm at a loss to explain it, this New York native somehow scored ten out of ten. If that doesn't sate your appetite, there's always this fact sheet on the state, which includes the revelation that West Virginia is also known as the "Switzerland of America."
Well, maybe Switzerland minus Geneva, Zurich, Swiss Chocolate, precision timing devices, and easy access to modern methods of birth control.
Ok, ok, hold off for a moment, defenders of "The Panhandle State". Like Tony Kornheiser says, we kid because we love, and there's plenty to love about West Virginia.
In my family, we came to know West Virginia over the airwaves via WWVA Radio -- the station that introduced my Dad to Country and Bluegrass music. I've been to Morgantown, home of WVU, twice, and loved every minute I was inside one of America's great college towns.
But most of all, the reason we need to be thankful for West Virginia is that if its five electoral votes had gone to Al Gore, he'd be President right now.
Maybe we ought to be nicer to these folks?
UPDATE: Charles Kuffner has his own ideas on the "controversy."
December 29th, 2002
Welcome To The Cold And Flu Season
There's all sorts of stuff going on, starting with an incredibly exciting final weekend of the NFL regular season, but I'm afraid I don't have enough energy to blog about it. I tried all week long to fight off a head cold that wound up developing into a full blown case of the Flu, and I need some more sleep if I want to have a reasonable expectation of recovering in time for New Year's Eve.
Stop by again tomorrow, I might feel better by then.
POSTSCRIPT: That was one heck of a choke the Dolphins pulled off today. Whew!
December 28th, 2002
R.I.P. George Roy Hill
It's with a heavy heart that I have to report the passing of George Roy Hill, director of Slap Shot, truly an Off Wing film favorite. Hill died of complications from Parkinson's Disease. He was 81.
Funny, but as much as we love Slap Shot today, it was considered a flop when it was first released in 1975. As the ESPN obit noted:
Nor was "Slap Shot," a coruscating view of minor league ice hockey, starring Newman. Swearing on the screen was new, and audiences and critics were turned off by the locker-room language. But in recent years the film has been recognized by Sports Illustrated and ESPN as among the top 10 sports movies of all time.
Besides Slap Shot, Hill also directed Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, The Sting, and another Off Wing favorite, The Great Waldo Pepper.
Pepper starred Robert Redford as an ex-WWI flyer making a living barnstorming his way (literally) across the country in the 1920s. It's a nice little romp, one leavened by a scene with Susan Sarandon that haunts me to this day.
POSTSCRIPT: Though most people don't know it, the screenplay for Slap Shot was written by a woman, Nancy Dowd. She traveled along with her brother Ned, during a season where he played minor league hockey for the Johnstown Chiefs -- something which helped Dowd come up with the salty, but true-to-life, locker room dialogue.
December 28th, 2002
The BBC: Brits Broadcasting Carelessly
With the Celtic-Dundee match replay over with, I settled in to watch WNVC's nightly feed of BBC World News from London. About two-thirds through the broadcast, the anchor introduced a piece from Correspondent Jon Leyne that purported to show that world support for the U.S. war on terror was weakening, while global resentment of American power and prestige was growing.
Case in point, the story of Quebec resident Michel Jalbert. Apparently for the last 20 years Jalbert and plenty of other Canadian residents have been driving to the U.S. to fill up their cars with cheaper gas (the price of Kyoto, I guess). Though immigration rules say that you have to check in at a border station, Canadian residents have been regularly ignoring the requirement for years -- something that U.S. border officials have begun to clamp down on. But one day, as Leyne reported, things didn't go as usual:
Then as he explained to us, U.S. immigration agents lurking in the woods, pounced on him at the pertrol station. He ended up spending 35 days in an American jail.Jalbert, speaking French and narrated into English by Leyne:
People round here aren't angry at the United States, just the authorities, he said. I've done nothing to harm them. I've been doing this for 15 or 20 years. That's what hurts people.
Unfortunately, there are a few details that the BBC left out. Let's just say Jalbert is hardly innocent. According to Canada's CTV:
Jalbert was arrested Oct. 11 after failing to stop at the local border crossing. U.S. officials noticed a hunting rifle on his front seat and a subsequent computer search by American authorities revealed that he had a criminal record in Canada related to a 12-year-old incident."He had a shotgun in his possession and of course, without reporting for inspection, that's very serious," David Astle, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol, told Canadian Press.
Pohenegamook straddles the U.S.-Canada border. Residents regularly cross 15 metres into the U.S. side of town to fill up their cars with gas.
It's a practice American customs officers used to overlook, and Jalbert's lawyer says U.S. officials are trying to use his client to demonstrate their seriousness about clamping down on border security.
"The border patrol people want the word to get out that they're no longer going to tolerate people moving back and forth without passing through the border checkpoints," John Haddow said from Portland, Maine, where Jalbert is being held.
Astle said Jalbert had been repeatedly warned on previous occasions not to cross the border without stopping at U.S. customs, and that agents have been instructed to be more vigilant since the Sept. 11 attacks last year.
"Things along the border are changing," Astle said.
So, a man with a criminal record, carrying a rifle, who had been previously warned not to skip checking in at the U.S. border was actually arrested? Glad to see it happen.
But there's another reason why America is wary of its border with Canada, and it predates September 11th. Back on December 14, 1999, Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian member of Al Qaeda, was arrested at a border crossing in Port Angeles, Washington, on his way to explode a car bomb at Los Angeles International Airport. The attack was timed by Al Qaeda to coincide with a series of operations around the world that targeted both U.S. and Israeli citizens.
As the Seattle Times outlined in a massive report, Ressam nearly made it past border guards in a Chrysler packed with some deadly cargo:
They took him back to the terminal and handed him over to the Port Angeles police, who put him in the back seat of a patrol car.Johnson took a sample of the white powder from the trunk to test. Was it heroin, speed, cocaine? Negative on each. As he shook the jars of brown liquid, Noris (Ressam's alias, EMc), who could see Johnson from the patrol car, ducked down to the floor.
Within a couple of days, the inspectors would learn that the brown liquid Johnson had shaken was a powerful, highly unstable relative of nitroglycerin that could have blown them all to bits.
Even more disturbing, as the Seattle Times' series noted, Ressam, living under an assumed name, was able to operate out of Montreal with relative impunity. This despite the fact that French intelligence officials continually urged the Canadians to arrest him.
It's also important to note that Canada allows representatives of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Palestinian terror group, to raise money for "humanitarian purposes." Insert the familiar, "money is fungible" argument here.
POSTSCRIPT: But wait, there's a sports angle too. In an effort to get a man on the street perspective for the report, Leyne went to a local ice hockey rink in Quebec where he registered this doozey:
Ice Hockey is a passion the two countries do share. They don't play as rough here as in the United States, and the criticism is phrased more politely too.
So, Canadians play a gentler brand of Ice Hockey, eh? Jeremy Roenick's antics notwithstanding, something tells me most Canadians would scoff at such a notion. But then again, working for the BBC means never having to apologize for playing to the preconceived notions of your audience.
UPDATE: My mistake. Back on December 11th, the Canadian government finally banned Hezbollah completely, among other groups. To be clear, the previous ban only included Hezbollah's armed wing.
December 27th, 2002
A Friday Night With Scots Soccer
After fighting hard all week long, I've finally come down with a cold I just couldn't hold off. Hence, I'm spending Friday night under the covers watching a replay of Glasgow Celtic's 2-0 win over Dundee from December 21st.
Since then, Glasgow Rangers dropped their first game of the season, 1-0 away to Motherwell. Celtic took advantage, dropping Hearts 4-2, and pulling to within one point of Rangers as the season nears its half way point.
In the Scots Premier League, as long as Celtic and Rangers are within 3 points of one another, and they still have games left head to head, the season is still up for grabs. The last thing anyone wants to see is a gap of four points or more, that way, you have to count on the leader to lose or tie sometime before the next meeting in order to have a chance to pull even.
Though I was only able to spend a little more than two days at home for Christmas, I was able to take a few hours on Christmas Day to watch Scots soccer flick,A Shot At Glory once again. This time, my Dad insisted that we use the subtitles feature on the DVD, and boy did it make a difference. As the son of an authentic Scot, I like to think I have an easier time diving the accent than my fellow Americans -- but what a fool I was.
So swallow your pride if you pick up the DVD, and click on the subtitles, the movie is a whole lot funnier.
POSTSCRIPT: Here in the Washington area, you can pick up replays on Scottish Soccer on WNVC-TV -- a UHF station available on most area cable systems. Soccer isn't all they have, as the station provides a pretty eclectic mix of music videos, entertainment, and international fare. In the Spring time, the station devotes an entire weekend to the first round of the NCAA Division I Ice Hockey playoffs.
December 27th, 2002
Broadway Blues
During the NHL's offseason, I was pretty convinced that the New York Rangers had not only spent a lot of cash on free agents, but they had managed to spend it wisely on parts that would turn a team that had evolved into a perennial disappointment into a Stanley Cup contender. Add Bryan Trottier, a coach who seemed to be ready for the big time after paying his dues in the minors and helping Colorado to a Cup in 2001 as an assistant, and the Rangers appeared to be in position to turn things around.
Now, with nearly half of the NHL season gone, it looks like the only way the Rangers will get a shot at the Cup is if they book a trip to its off-ice home at Toronto's Hockey Hall of Fame. The New York Times' Joe Lapointe thinks he knows why:
When he was a promising young player for the Rangers four seasons ago, Aleksei Kovalev was made to feel unwelcome. The coach for much of Kovalev's stay in New York was Colin Campbell, who complained often and pointedly about Kovalev turning over the puck at the opposing blue line. This drove Kovalev to tears, and he was traded by General Manager Neil Smith to the Pittsburgh Penguins.All three men have other jobs now, and Kovalev is the one who's thriving. When Kovalev and the Penguins came into Madison Square Garden last night, Kovalev was the league's third-leading scorer. In a 6-1 victory over the Rangers, Kovalev added two more assists. One of them came when Mark Messier's pass, intended for Eric Lindros, was poked away at the Pittsburgh blue line. Then Kovalev set up a goal with a long pass the other way.
Few Rangers' fans, members of the news media or coaches will try to run Messier or Lindros out of town for their turnover, or any other mistakes they might make. They are key components of the mishmash that Glen Sather, the president and general manager, has assembled for a roster.
The Rangers endured their fourth straight game without a victory, and Kovalev, who has 46 points now, said that "it definitely looks like they were a little frustrated." The Rangers (13-19-5-1) have won only once in their last 10, going 1-7-1-1.
Kovalev gave them the benefit of the doubt, saying that it is hard to play on the day after Christmas. "Your legs are not there," he said. "Your mind's not there."
But this also happens to the Rangers in other weeks. It is an old, expensive and injury-prone team that is sinking in the standing.
Kovalev isn't the only player with potential that the Rangers have run out of town. In fact, you could probably stock an All Star team with players the Rangers traded away in pursuit of turning things around in a hurry. Then again, no one could have foreseen losing Pavel Bure, Brian Leetch and Mike Richter to injury all in short order -- though the team seems stocked with enough talent that they should have been able to ride out their absence and remain competitive.
What to do next? As disappointing as their performance has been so far, I can't see General Manager Glen Sather pulling off anyting too dramatic to shake up the team. With a potential labor impasse brewing after the 2003-04 season, fewer teams seem willing to take on big contracts, making most of the team impossible to move -- at least in exchange for anything of value.
Ask yourself this: would you really want to make a trade for moody underachiever Eric Lindros at a time like this? Maybe, but only if you could steal him from Sather for nothing -- something Sather isn't willing to do.
Firing Trottier after just half a season, even with capable assistants like Jim Schoenfeld and Terry O'Reilly ready to step in and take over, would seem like too great an admission of failure on the part of Sather.
Look for the status quo on Broadway, as Madison Square Garden devolves into madness.
December 26th, 2002
Giving In To The Inevitable
The Atlanta Thrashers showed head coach Curt Fraser the door today, not exactly an uncommon occurence in the NHL, where coaches with far better track records frequently find themelves collecting unemployment. What I found surprising though, was the fact that so many observers seemed surprised at the development.
After all, eventually, every man hired to coach an expansion franchise has been fired -- even the great Scotty Bowman was shown the door in the midst of his fourth season in St. Louis after leading the expansion Blues to three straight appearances in the Cup Finals. More recently, Doug McLean was left looking for work only a few years after leading the Florida Panthers to the Finals against Colorado in 1996.
So, blameless or not, Fraser was a coach living on borrowed time from the day he signed his contract to coach the Thrashers.
POSTSCRIPT: The folks at every AOL/Time Warner sports franchise have been pretty busy in the last few weeks. The Braves have been cutting payroll and restructuring one more time in an effort to stay competitive in the NL East; the Thrashers, before they canned Fraser, made the biggest in-season signing of a free agent in a while when they brought in Byron Dafoe to play goalie; and now the Atlanta Hawks, the only Atlanta team not owned by the struggling media giant, have fired apparent good guy Lon Kruger as their head coach.
December 26th, 2002
An NBA Fix
Darvin and Dana Ham dropped me a line noting that I don't write too much about basketball, and they're right. When it comes to hoops, I just don't have the same depth of knowledge to rely on when I write as compared to other sports. I tend to deal with basketball stories that involve larger issues in business and the media, and leave the analysis to others. This, despite the fact that I'm watching the NBA more often now that ESPN has become the league's main television home.
Right now, the big news is the collapse of the Lakers, and you might want to take a moment to read what Tim Kraus has to say about it. Then there's Skip Oliva, who has his own take on this season's meltdown:
It could be that after more than a decade, other coaches have figured out how to neutralize the triangle offense, which is truthfully the only trick (albeit a monstrously effective one) in Phil Jackson's arsenal. The game has simply assimilated and evolved. And Kobe's talents are largely wasted in the triangle to begin with. That, more than anything, would seem to be at the center of the Lakers' internal turmoil. A healthy Shaq provides a counterweight to Kobe's rational dislike of the offense. Without a full-Shaq, however, Phil Jackson is largely powerless to enforce internal order. That was perhaps Michael Jordan's greatest gift
December 24th, 2002
Merry Christmas
Best wishes for a Merry Christmas to all of my readers. I'm off to New York in a few minutes for an abbreviated Holiday with my family on Long Island. Look for sports blogging to return sometime on December 27.
Enjoy the Holiday everyone.
December 23rd, 2002
R.I.P. Joe Strummer
If you were alive in the 1980s, and you cared about music, you knew about Joe Strummer and The Clash -- the English quartet who along with the Sex Pistols set the tone for the Punk movement. Earlier today it was reported that Strummer died, apparently of a heart attack. He was just 50.
My most vivid memory of Strummer and The Clash comes from the early 80s when the band was opening for The Who on the very first of their multiple farewell tours. After both bands had finished a gig at Shea Stadium, Pete Townsend, Strummer and Mick Jones did a live interview on New York's WNEW-FM -- what then was the metro area's leading Rock station.
Most of the interview was typical post-concert blather, but one comment from Townsend stuck with me all these years. He took time to say that he felt The Clash was the sort of band that The Who looked upon as picking up their mantle.
As it turned out, it would essentially be all over for the Clash not long after the mega-success of Combat Rock. Now, about two decades on, Strummer is dead, and Townsend, the man who wrote, "Hope I die before I get old," is still out on the road and cashing checks.
(Link via Instapundit.)
(more...)December 23rd, 2002
Campo Out
The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has already decided to fire head coach Dave Campo after Sunday's season finale against the Redskins -- paving the way for Jones to hire Bill Parcells to be the Cowboys new head coach.
Like a lot of people, I can't believe this partnership is actually going to happen, given the propensity for control that both men have exhibited during their careers. Listen to this from Jones and you'll know what I mean:
Jones said his hands-on role as owner/general manager, which includes everything from draft decisions to roaming the sidelines during games, won't change."I am what I am," Jones said. "I would have to change what I've been all my life. But I don't know that I'm what I'm perceived to be in terms of operating and functioning.
"I've had some good things happen when there was a lot of give and take and a lot of being receptive to good ideas and being sold on good ideas. I'm a salesman, and there's nobody who can get to me quicker than another good salesman.
Quotes like that leave me convinced that Jones has learned nothing from the downward spiral the Cowboys have found themselves in as the trio of Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, and Emmit Smith aged and lost the extra edge that made them superstars and put the Cowboys on top of the NFL.
The ultimate irony is this: that if Jones really wanted to give his team the best chance to rise back to prominence in the NFL, he would cede all authority to Parcells. It's safe to say that Parcells has forgotten more about football than Jones will ever remember. Just take a look at the last draft Parcells engineered for the Jets, and you'll see what I mean.
After trading Keyshawn Johnson, a looming salary cap problem, to Tampa Bay, Parcells owned four first round picks in the 2000 NFL Draft. With those he took linemen Shaun Ellis and John Abraham, tight end Anthony Becht, and quarterback Chad Pennington. Four picks, four starters, and the bedrock for the Jets continued success for years to come.
Jones record as a player personnel director is not quite as sterling. Can anyone really name even one impact player that Jones has plucked out of the draft?
December 23rd, 2002
A Holiday Message
If you're the sort of rabid sports fan who overdoses on any and all sorts of information related to the games you love, here's a word of advice for the next week or so. During this period, you will be bombarded with articles laying out all of the possible permutations for the 2002 NFL Playoffs. Insane scenarios will be layed out for you. Arcane tiebreaker procedures will be described in excrutiating detail. And inevitably, the incredibly obvious will be outlined as well.
Ignore it all.
Rest assured that by next Sunday night, probably well before the 2002 regular season ends early on Tuesday morning in St. Louis, that the NFL will have it all worked out for you. In the interim, be sure to enjoy the Holidays with your family.
Look for Off Wing to go dark sometime later on tonight. Don't worry, we'll be back soon. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everybody.
December 23rd, 2002
To Be A Fly On The Wall
Whenever a group like all of the living member of the Baseball Hall of Fame gets together, it's usually a moment fans should cherish. I'm not sure that's going to be the case the next time it happens, as the AP relates in this dispatch:
The Hall of Fame already has started contacting its 58 living members, hoping to set up a meeting for them with commissioner Bud Selig next month to discuss Pete Rose's possible reinstatement. "The commissioner is interested in hearing on all the myriad issues," Bob DuPuy, Selig's point man on the Rose talks, said Sunday. The target date for the meeting is Jan. 17 in Los Angeles, provided most of the Hall of Famers can make it. Longtime Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda plans to attend, though he didn't want to make his views public. "I'm going to hesitate and not commit myself," he said Sunday. "When the time comes, people will know where I stand."
I think Lasorda votes no on Rose. Here's hoping the rest of the remaining members hang tough, and do a better job of looking out for baseball than Selig and his fellow owners ever have.
December 23rd, 2002
And In The Mainstream Media
If you have the time today, you might want to tune in to the Rush Limbaugh Show where one online friend of Off Wing Opinion is going to get some major media attention. Today in the 1:00 p.m. hour, Casey Lartigue, the Cato Institute's Education Policy Analyst, will be interviewed by Limbaugh's fill in host, Dr. Walter Williams of George Mason University. Besides working at Cato, Casey also serves as a member of the Young Executive Board of the Washington Scholarship Fund, a private voucher program for children in Washington, D.C.
Another Off Wing supporter, Robert A. George of the New York Post, hit the big time this weekend as well, getting a seat next to David Broder on Meet The Press. Congrats to Robert as well on the well deserved attention.
December 22nd, 2002
How About Football At The World Trade Center?
Earlier this evening, Glenn Reynolds proposed that a baseball stadium be placed on the site of the World Trade Center. Although he initially called it a stupid idea, I think he's onto something -- and David Pinto agrees as well. Although I don't think they're thinking of the right sport. It's football that ought to be played on the site.
There are a number of obstacles to a baseball stadium. First of all, which team gets to play there? Splitting a home field means splitting revenues (parking, concessions, luxury boxes) -- something that neither Yankees owner George Steinbrenner nor Mets owner Fred Wilpon will be willing to do. You can count on that.
Then there's the possibility that one team gets to play on the site, while the other has to make do with a second class facility. That's a solution that's bound to backfire, and one that might force the city to overspend on a second stadium in order to keep both teams happy. And with the city in the midst of a massive budget crisis, one that has already led Mayor Michael Bloomberg to reneg on stadium promises made by the Giuliani Administration to both the Mets and Yankees, that's an unlikely scenario as well.
Then there's the transportation question. Sure, it's one thing for 20,000 people to make their way to Madison Square Garden 80+ nights a year to see the Knicks and the Rangers at Madison Square Garden -- something that isn't so tough, as their fan bases consist of larger percentages of corporate clients who can get to the Garden directly by means of mass transit. But it's another thing entirely when crowds of 45,000-55,000 people have to make their way to Manhattan from all over the New York Metro area for a baseball game 81 times a year. Inevitably, some of those people are going to want to get to the game by car, something that putting a stadium in Manhattan makes all the tougher.
There are other transportation considerations -- like the fact that the majority of the Mets fan base comes from Long Island, and that the current site of Shea Stadium, situated as it is along several main highways, is already in the ideal spot to serve them. Moving the stadium just ten miles West into Manhattan forces more of those folks onto mass transit. And while that might be the ideal solution for fans in the outerboroughs of New York City and Northern New Jersey, it would present one heck of a barrier to fans on Long Island.
But football is a different story. There's only one team that could be placed there, and that's the New York Jets (the Giants being locked into a long term lease as the primary tenant of Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands). Owner Woody Johnson has wanted to move the team back to New York City ever since he bought the Jets from the Hess family. Even better, as well heeled as Johnson is, he'll be able to contribute far more to the construction of a football stadium than either Steinbrenner or Wilpon could to a ball park.
Then there's one last consideration: a football stadium in Manhattan, as Mike Lupica foresaw in his comic novel, Bump and Run, would be a lisence to print money. Selling luxury boxes to corporations in Manhattan might just be the easiest sell in professional sports. In one fell swoop, the Jets may very well be transformed into the most valuable team in the NFL, if not one of the most valuable properties in professional sports.
And just because the Jets would be the primary tenant, doesn't mean that the facility wouldn't be able to host other events. In actuality, a number of designs that have been proposed for stadiums in the New York area have included features that would allow them to be instantly reconfigured to host the NCAA Basketball Final Four or even the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus.
This isn't just an idea that could work, it's one that should have sports fans everywhere excited at the prospect.
UPDATE: Charles Kuffner, who is obviously a Jets fan like me, likes the WTC football idea too:
I like this idea. The Jets have never really had a home of their own - they used to play in Shea Stadium, now it's Giants Stadium. It's time they stepped out of the shadows and formed their own identity in their own stadium.
Here, here. It's time to get this ball rolling.
December 22nd, 2002
Gildea On Retiring Redskins
It's easy to see that the Washington Redskins' 70th Anniversary Season has offered few opportunities to celebrate on the field. But next week, after his last game with the team, the Redskins will retire Darrell Green's No. 28 -- a moment that should provide a nice bright spot to an otherwise dismal season. Green will join Hall of Famer Sammy Baugh as the only members of the team to have ever been honored this way.
But as Bill Gildea of the Washington Post reminds us, there are others who deserve the honor just as much:
The Redskins' intention of retiring Darrell Green's No. 28 is a good one. Retiring 28 would be a deserving tribute. Green's 20 seasons as a Redskin have surpassed even the tenure of Sammy Baugh, whose 33 has been the team's only retired number. But this forthcoming honor also reminds us that the Redskins have a rich history and that several former players should enjoy the same tribute.For me, that list begins, unarguably, with Bobby Mitchell.
And close behind is Sonny Jurgensen.
Here, here. Gildea also recounts how the head of the Department of the Interior at the time, essentially forced then Redskins owner George Preston Marshall to integrate his team -- lest he run the risk of not being allowed to play his home games in D.C. Stadium. It was that threat that forced Marshall to being Mitchell and a number of other African-American players to Washington, thus closing another ugly chapter in American racial history.
As for Jurgensen, his pass happy ways breathed life into a franchise that had been moribund for decades. The love affair that Washington has with the Redskins today really began once Jurgensen came to town, and though he never won any championships, Jurgensen deserves the same honor as Green and Baugh as well.
December 22nd, 2002
Who Really Needs Contraction?
Bryant Durrell over at Population One thinks it's time for the NBA to eliminate a few teams as a way to improve the level of play. I think he's on to something, but the league that ought to consider contraction seriously besides the NBA, is the NHL. There are simply too many teams sitting on a financial precipice in professional ice hockey. And with the collective bargaining agreement set to expire after next season, just hours after the 2004 World Cup of Hockey is completed, the time to take care of these problems is now.
But don't count on it happening. If anything, we're probably looking at a strike or a lockout to begin the 2004-05 season -- one in which a number of teams simply won't survive -- most likely a few North of the border, something the league can ill afford.
December 22nd, 2002
Quoth The Raven: ‘Still Alive’
In just a few hours, I'll be headed up I-95 for the last Baltimore Ravens' home game of the regular season. And as things stand right now, despite their lackluster play at times, the Ravens are still in the position to win the AFC North, and perhaps even secure home field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs.
How can this be? Don't ask me about the math, which has always been one of my weak suits. Suffice to say, this seems to be the way the AFC looks just about every year. Even in the years when the NFL was simply dominating the Super Bowl in the 1980s and most of the 1990s, the AFC playoffs were consistently more entertaining. And now that the AFC has won four of the last five Super Bowls, it's probably instructive to note that only one of those AFC Champs was a number one seed headed into the playoffs.
But there is another non-mathematical reason that the Ravens have been able to hang in there this season, and it's the duo of General Manager Ozzie Newsome and Head Coach Brian Billick. As Michael Wilbon notes in today's Washington Post:
In case you missed it while wallowing in sorrow over the Washington Redskins, the team up the road, the one that lost Shannon Sharpe and Rod Woodson, Jamie Sharper and Jermaine Lewis, is still playing for a division title with two weeks left in the NFL regular season. The team that hasn't had its signature player, Ray Lewis, for six weeks keeps trucking with a league-record 19 rookies, many of them free agents signed for a grand total of $1,000 each.The Washington Redskins entered the season hoping to make the playoffs but are 5-9 and done, appearing now to be a team full of holes. The Baltimore Ravens, rebuilding this year with an eye toward 2004, are 7-7 with a roster full of guys we now know to be unpolished gems. Why the juxtaposition? What have the Ravens done that the Redskins, or for that matter any number of teams, have been unable or unwilling to do?
That's easy. The Ravens have been able to systematically identify better prospects, draft or sign them, then coach them better. The GM credits the coach, the coach credits the GM, and they're both right. Still, after getting rid of all the big salaries from the 2000 Super Bowl team, getting below the cap and starting over completely, Ozzie Newsome had to deliver Brian Billick some players.
And deliver them he did. With a win today and a Pittsburgh loss to Tampa Bay on Monday night, all the Ravens would need to do would be to beat the Steelers on the road in Pittsburgh to close out the regular season. Hello division title and at least one home playoff game.
UPDATE: The first time I remember the Browns being called the 'Cardiac Kids' was back in the days when Brian Sipe was the quarterback. But this afternoon, Tim Couch showed why his version of the Browns deserve the moniker just as much as the folks that were coached by Sam Rutigliano a generation ago.
Today, the Browns scored on their first posession, and their last. In between, they hardly got past midfield. But in the end it didn't matter, as Tim Couch drove his team 92 yards for a touchdown in less than two minutes without any timeouts to lead the Browns to a 14-13 win. And in the process, he virtually ended any chance the Ravens had of making the playoffs. In turn, if Tampa Bay beats Pittsburgh tomorrow, and the Ravens beat Pittsburgh next week, it will be the Browns who will win the AFC North and get at least a home playoff game.
One other thought from today's game: Ravens Tight End Todd Heap made it to his first Pro Bowl in only his second season in the league, recognition that is well deserved. When it comes to the Ravens limited passing game, it's clear that Heap is the best weapon available (though wide receiver Travis Taylor is finally developing into more of a threat.) But for all his talent, he lacks the ability to pick up yards after the catch. Time after time today, Heap would break out one on one with a cornerback or a safety, only to get wrapped up and tackled just as soon as he was hit.
Heap ought to hit the weight room in the offseason, with the aim of developing the ability to punish players in the defensive secondary who try to take him down.
POSTSCRIPT: As incredible as the last drive engineered by Couch was, it shouldn't have happened. On the Ravens last drive, they faced a third and seven from the Cleveland 40 when Jamal Lewis rushed around left end for five yards and was run out of bound short of the first down. Unfortunately, replays showed that a Cleveland player clearly grasped Lewis' face mask on the play -- something that normally would have tacked five yards onto the end of the play for a Ravens first down.
If the refs make the call, the Ravens bleed the clock down to zero and walk away winners. But it wasn't to be. And thus, their season was lost.
December 22nd, 2002
Parcells To Dallas
Now that word has leaked out that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones had a meeting with Bill Parcells at a suburban New Jersey airport in the middle of last week, and Parcells has talked about it openly on ESPN, it looks pretty obvious that Dave Campo's days as head coach in Dallas are numbered in the single digits.
I guess it was fitting that in the wake of the news, the Campo-led Cowboys laid down and died in Philadelphia Saturday night, getting pasted 27-3.
But now that we know that the alliance between an Arkansas oil magnate and a football coach from Northern New Jersey has begun, lets take a moment to look into our crystal ball, and try to divine how it's all going to end. And if you ask me, there's only one way things will turn out: badly.
Can anyone really believe that either of these leopards have really changed their spots? Back in New England, Parcells regularly tangled with Bob Kraft, an owner who seems to have a far easier time keeping his ego in check than Jones ever has. And anybody who watched HBO's Hard Knocks before the start of this NFL season, knows that Jones thinks that he's an integral part of the show down in Dallas. Now Jones is going to step aside and cede the spotlight to an oversized personality like Parcells? I don't think so.
Then again, Jones may have learned a lesson similar to the one Yankees owner George Steinbrenner seemed to absorb during his two-year exile from the game as a result of his hiring a dirty private eye to track Dave Winfield's personal life while he was a Yankee. While Steinbrenner was gone, the Yankee organization was actually able to develop a number of players who Steinbrenner didn't have a chance to trade away. The result was only the latest spurt in the team's long history of dominating Major League Baseball.
All I know is this: Parcells must be desperate to get back into the NFL if he's dealing with Jones. After a short period of peace, look for the sparks to fly on a regular basis. At least it will be fun to watch.
POSTSCRIPT: I think it's telling that Parcells chose to give an interview to Chris Mortensen on ESPN. If Jones has one friend in the media, it's Mortensen, who has consistently defended him over the past few years even as his colleagues on ESPN have laid into Jones time and time again. This deal is done. The question now is this: how long will it take to get it undone?
ANOTHER POSTSCRIPT: The Eagles are beginning to remind me of the 49ers on offense. Back when Joe Montana and Steve Young would get injured, it wasn't a surprise to see the offense continue to hum under the control of quarterbacks like Jeff Kemp and Steve Bono. With A.J. Feely and Koy Detmer, it looks like Andy Reid has replicated one of the most resilient aspects of the 49er dynasty. Without a doubt, he should be the NFL's Coach of the Year.
December 20th, 2002
Braves Learn To Live Without Millwood
This hasn't been a very happy offseason for the reigning NL East champion Atlanta Braves. After being uncerimoniously knocked out of the first round of the 2002 playoffs, the team is having to learn to live within a reduced budget brought about by the demands of the bean counters at AOL/Time Warner up in New York (damn luxury tax). Then it lost starting rotation rock Tom Glavine to the rival New York Mets, a decision that came down to money, and clearing away an arm that's great now, but not so great in 2-3 years. In turn, the Braves get to save some cash, and make room for a few more talented young arms in 2004-05.
In the last 24 hours, the Braves put the finishing touches on their rotation, bringing back Greg Maddux. But paying for Maddux meant sacrificing last year's number 3 starter Kevin Millwood. He was shipped to Philadelphia this afternoon in exchange for catcher Johnny Estrada -- the player who stepped in when Mike Lieberthal was lost for the season in 2001.
With Millwood gone, here's how the Braves rotation shapes up for next season:
Greg Maddux
Mike Hampton
Russ Ortiz
Paul Byrd
Jason Marquis
Then there's John Smoltz looming out in the bullpen looking for a chance to start again.
ESPN's Rob Neyer performed a similar exercise earlier this week, and he came away less than impressed. Maddux is coming off an injury; Smoltz hasn't pitched 200 innings since '97; Hampton looks like a train wreck after two years in Denver; Ortiz, despite his record, has all sort of weaknesses; and Byrd, though he's coming off what arguably was the best year of his career, has spent more time on the disabled list than in any starting rotation.
Despite all of these questions, the Braves still have to be the favorite, though David Pinto thinks the Phillies will challenge. I like the Braves too. If there's any place that Hampton can revive his career, it's Atlanta. If you can get 15 wins out of Ortiz, 10 each out of Byrd and Marquis, and then manage to reconstruct the bullpen (no sure thing here), the Braves will find themselves in pretty good shape come September.
Sure, the Braves have question marks. But in the sort of economic era we're heading into in baseaball, everyone is going to go into every season with such questions. And if anybody has the best answers, I'll put my money on the Braves every time.
UPDATE: Futility Infielder says the Braves are in trouble too.
December 20th, 2002
Lewis Set To Fight Klitschko #1
After a couple of months of dithering, reigning WBC Heavyweight Champ Lenox Lewis has agreed to fight Vitaly Klitschko. It's important to note that Vitaly is just one-half of the 'Battling Klitschko' brothers. His brother, Wladimir, is reportedly the better fighter, and is sure to be waiting in the wings for Lewis if he manages to take down Vitaly.
The bout is set for April.
December 20th, 2002
Latest Japanese Imports
The news today out of New York has the Yankees signing free agent third baseman/outfielder Hideki Matsui, better known to fans in Japan as 'Godzilla'. With the resigning of third baseman Robin Ventura, Matsui will settle in the Yankees outfield.
Meanwhile, across town in Queens, the Mets are about to announce the signing of one of Matsui's counterparts in Japan, third baseman Norihiro Nakamura -- something which sets up an interesting cross-town rivalry, according to Newsday:
Nakamura, 29, was a feared hitter in Japan, not quite on par with Matsui, who has agreed on a contract with the Yankees, but still intimidating enough to average 38 home runs the past five seasons with Kintetsu. He hit 46 homers in 2001 and 42 last season, leading the Pacific League in RBIs both times."I think he wants to prove he's as good as Matsui," a baseball official said.
Matsui hit over .300 with 50 homers last season, while Nakamura led the Japanese League in RBI. I'm anxious to see how this whole thing shakes out.
How long till pitchers and catchers report?
UPDATE: Apparently, Nakamura changed his mind and he'll be staying in Japan. As a consolation, the Mets have acquired ex-Red Sox outfielder Cliff Floyd.
December 20th, 2002
Did Riley Make His Own Bed?
The NBA fined Pat Riley $50,000 today for his extended tirade earlier this week where he essentially said that the league's referees were out to get him. But according to the AP's Jim Litke, Riley has little to complain about, as he has nobody to blame but himself:
Every official who's worked his games since 1991 holds at least one of Riley's markers. He's made their lives miserable dozens of times. Riley is the single biggest reason so many NBA games have become pushing, shoving, clutching, grabbing, hacking, slapping, groping, slow-dance affairs that are almost impossible to officiate.Soon after leaving Los Angeles behind for New York, Riley decided his future as a coach would depend as much on terror as talent. The artist inside Riley longed for something like his "Showtime" Lakers -- a team that included Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and played with brilliance on both ends of the court.
But the pragmatist knew the talent to do that was in very short supply.
And so what Riley did, first in New York and then in Miami, was overpay the meager talent on hand and fill out his roster with whatever bruisers, hulks, bouncers and punks he could find on the cheap. Then he told all of them, over and over, that every opposing player who drives the lane threatens their manhood and messes with their chances of putting food on the family table.
True enough, but did Riley really have a choice? Like it or not, he came to New York in the midst of Michael Jordan's prime -- a situation that left him permanently trailing in the talent department. Like it or not, Riley was simply doing his best to draw an inside straight with the hand he'd been dealt.
December 19th, 2002
The NBA’s Pacific Age
We've still got a few months to go before Shaquille O'Neal meets NBA rookie Yao Ming on the court, but there's one competition where Yao is already breathing down O'Neal's neck:
Yao Ming is in the running to be an All-Star starter, trailing Shaquille O'Neal by fewer than 10,000 votes to be the starting center in the Western Conference.With balloting available in Mandarin for the first time this year, Yao has 471,107 votes in results released Thursday, just 9,787 behind O'Neal.
Balloting available in Mandarin? How in the world can Yao not manage to win?
December 19th, 2002
PKs Hazardous To Your Health
Try to contain your laughter while reading this item from the BBC:
British scientists have found medical evidence of something every football fan knows - penalty shoot-outs can be heart-stoppers.And researchers suggest the method of deciding matches in knock-out tournaments should be banned "on public health grounds."
The British Medical Journal reports the finding that heart attacks increased by 25% when England lost to Argentina in a penalty shoot-out during the 1998 World Cup.
"These findings support the view that heart attacks can be triggered by emotional upset, such as watching your football team lose an important match - particularly those in which there is a penalty shoot-out," the journal said.
December 19th, 2002
Erasing Fraud From The NFL Record Book
Last January, during the NFL's final week of regular season play, Green Bay Packers quarterback Bret Favre essentially conspired to give New York Giants Defensive End Michael Strahan a sack during the game's final moments and help him set a new NFL record for sacks in the regular season at 22.5. Without Favre taking a dive, Strahan would have been stuck at 21.5, a half-sack behind the mark originally set by New York Jet Mark Gastineau in 1984.
It was obvious from the start that it was a fraud, one that Favre didn't do a lot to hide, even in the moments after Strahan fell on top of him for the record. To add insult to injury, an ad for the NFL's Web site regularly features Strahan giddily using his laptop to look up his own record.
Well, it's one year later, and now there's a real chance to erase this travesty from the record book. With two regular season games to go, Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor has 17 sacks -- 5.5 behind Strahan's record. With a strong finish, a new record in well within reach for one of the NFL's most solid citizens. Here's hoping he gets it.
December 19th, 2002
Last Word On The Bonds Ball
The best quip to come out of the court decision determining the fate of Barry Bonds' 73rd home run ball comes from fellow sports blogger Dan Lewis:
The quip "possession is nine-tenths of the law" came into play today, as a San Fran judge ruled on the Bonds 73 HR case. As Stuart Banner over at Volohk HQ reasons, this redefines property. Why? Because Alex Popov, the complaintant, said that just because he got some leather on the ball (before getting mauled by the crowd), he actually had posession.The judge should have ignored the law professors and consulted the MLB rulebook. Unless line drives off the pitcher's mitt are now "outs" and balls that glance past the catcher are ruled dead, it'd be clear that Popov has no claim.
And I'd hate to see what the NFL has to say about this. Imagine the ref who calls a ball a catch because even though the DB floored the WR after the ball got there, well, the WR got his hands on it. So what if he didn't actually catch it?
