Back after the 'Morning Drive' experience; Thoughts on the goings on -- World Series, Moneyball, BCS, Stern and Gumbel, and Notre Dame

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I took last week off from the blog for the simple reason that I was waking up at 4:30 each morning in Orlando to co-host ‘Morning Drive,’ on The Golf Channel and I found it difficult to do the show, spend some time out at Disney (for the golf tournament not for Mickey Mouse—sadly) and THEN sit down and write. Twenty years ago I probably could have pulled it off; maybe even 10 years ago. Now, not so much.

Actually I had a choice most afternoons: I could swim or I could blog. I opted to swim. That probably worked out best for everyone.

Life’s back to normal now—or at least my definition of normal—and I have a number of thoughts on all that’s going on in sports, which is a lot.

Let me start though, with the ‘Morning Drive,’ experience. The 4:30 wake-up calls sucked (I’m one of those people who always wakes up before the alarm or the call regardless of the hour. I’ve always wondered how that works, but I swear to God I rolled over in bed at exactly 4:25 each day) but the rest of the experience was fun. Everyone I worked with could not have been more welcoming and I like the way the show sets up: the hosts talk a lot. I like to talk.

If you’ve ever watched the show you know the hosts dress casually, no jacket and tie. I was told to wear whatever I wanted but NOT Golf Channel gear. So, the first day I showed up in a Richmond basketball shirt that Jerry Wainwright gave me years ago after I spoke at the team’s pre-season banquet.

The Richmond shirt got far more attention than anything I said all morning. Kevin Streelman, who is a Duke graduate, was an in-studio guest. “What’s with the Richmond shirt?” he asked on-air.

Fred Couples, who came on to respond to Greg Norman criticizing his pick of Tiger Woods for The Presidents Cup team, answered my first question about what Norman had said this way: “Didn’t you go to Duke University?”

“Yes,” I said. “They gave me a degree if I promised never to come back.”

“So why are you wearing a Richmond basketball shirt? What’s your connection to Richmond?”

“Duke never sends me stuff,” I answered.

I thought wearing an Army shirt two days later would get a lot more comment than the Richmond shirt but it didn’t. I guess people DO know my connection to the military academies even though it isn’t what it used to be.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience. I wish we’d had more time with Kelsey Grammer, who was doing a satellite tour to promote his new show and undoubtedly looked at his schedule and said, ‘Golf Channel, why the hell am I doing Golf Channel?’ I still watch Frasier most nights when I’m home and I still think Niles is one of TV’s all-time funny characters. Trivia: Did you know that Frasier was originally created for a six-show stint on ‘Cheers,’ and was supposed to be written out after Diane left him at the alter? The producers liked the character—and Grammer—so much they kept him in the show and he ended up playing Frasier for 20 years, winning Emmys for playing him on THREE shows—he won one as a guest-star on ‘Wings,’ in addition to ‘Cheers,’ and ‘Frasier.’

Okay, enough of that. On to some real stuff.

--The World Series. Riveting. Four games out of five have been terrific and the one blowout had the Albert Pujols three home run performance. I truly hope that Pujols stays in St. Louis. Great baseball towns deserve great players and Pujols is clearly that. For the record though, Tony LaRussa’s explanation that no one told Pujols that the media wanted to talk to him after his gaffe in game two doesn’t hold even a little water. No one wanted to talk to him after game 2 of the World Series? Seriously? Oh wait, maybe it’s that he’s not an important player. No. That doesn’t work either. Come on Tony, you’re better than that.

Pujols should stay in St. Louis and Prince Fielder should stay in Milwaukee. The latter isn’t likely to happen. Fielder’s going to go where he gets offered the most money and one of the big-money teams will probably come in with a blow-away offer. Too bad. Milwaukee is also a wonderful baseball town.

--On another baseball note I saw, ‘Moneyball,’ on Saturday. It’s good theater. Michael Lewis is brilliant and Aaron Sorkin is a genius so that’s about as good a writing combination as you can have. That said, I’d recommend people read my friend David Maraniss’s op-ed in the Tuesday Washington Post because it sums up pretty well how I feel about the whole ‘moneyball,’ concept. In the movie, Miguel Tejada, Tim Hudson, Barry Zito and Mark Mulder essentially don’t exist.

I’m not saying there isn’t merit to the whole ‘moneyball,’ way of thinking. I think the best organizations combine good scouting with all the Bill James stuff. I also think if Dave Roberts hadn’t stolen second base in game 4 of the ALCS in 2004, the whole concept would not be glorified the way it is. And the A’s and Beane haven’t looked quite so brilliant since the above-named players left town. Still, I enjoyed the movie just like I enjoyed the book although I couldn’t help but feel badly for Art Howe. (Philip Seymour Hoffman was great. He was also superb in ‘The Ides of March.’ I’m on a roll seeing movies of late).

--The BCS. Oh please. Or, as my good friend Bill Hancock said over the weekend, “good grief.” I’m hoping and praying for four undefeated teams so the politicians in two states can go ballistic when ‘their,’ teams don’t make the championship game.

--The NBA lockout, David Stern and Bryant Gumbel. The lockout is getting uglier by the minute. More and more people I talk to think the whole season is going by the boards. I’m still not buying it. I think both sides will cave after New Year’s; they’ll agree on something close to a 50-50 split on revenue and a harder though not totally inflexible cap. Stern is a tough guy to play poker against but he’s also smart enough to know he needs the playoffs on TV. Kobe Bryant isn’t getting any younger. For that matter, neither is LeBron James, believe it or not. I wonder how a second round pick like Maryland’s Jordan Williams, who hasn’t yet seen a penny and isn’t guaranteed a penny once the lockout ends, feels about leaving school right about now.

Gumbel is a very smart guy and you can bet he knew exactly what he was saying when he compared Stern to a plantation owner who is ‘treating men like boys,’ in his commentary on HBO’s ‘Real Sports.’ Gumbel knew what the reaction would be when he said what he said but he was clearly tired—as many people are—of Stern’s tactics and wanted to be SURE he got that message across.

I’m a Stern guy. I think he’s been a great commissioner. Can he be imperious? You bet. But I also know that implying in any way that what he’s doing has racial connotations is ridiculous. This is business, pure and simple. Stern’s been charged by the owners with getting them a better deal and he will do and say what has to be said and done to get that deal. Charles Barkley—of all people—brought up a telling stat: Since Stern became commissioner in 1984 the average player salary has gone from $300,000 a year to $5.1 million a year. And that’s in a league not nearly as successful as the NFL where there are STILL no guaranteed contracts. If Gumbel should have a problem with a commissioner or a group of owners for the way they treat their players he should focus on football.

Finally: Did Brian Kelly REALLY say the following when he was asked if he was concerned about quarterback Dayne Crist’s mental state after Crist fumbled a snap on the one-yard line with Notre Dame trailing Southern California 17-10: “No. I don’t have to worry about it he does.”? Seriously? He said that?

Wow. Talk about standing up for your players. Kelly also threw his whole team under the bus for a poor first half but refused to second-guess himself for his team’s preparation for the game coming off a bye week. Kelly cited his record coming off bye weeks the last 20 years as the reason he KNEW he didn’t do anything wrong.

So what’s his record coming off a bye week THIS year? Does this guy take responsibility for ANYTHING?

NFL wildcard weekend at its finest; Looming labor issues; Plead to AP football voters

I am not the biggest NFL fan in the world by any stretch of the imagination. I pay attention—you can’t do what I do and not pay attention—and I think the season I spent with The Baltimore Ravens in 2004 has left me with a pretty decent understanding of what players and coaches go through during a season and how the league works.

But it isn’t as if I build my fall Sundays around being at a game or making sure I’m in front of the TV from 1 p.m. until midnight. I still make it to Baltimore when I can to see the Ravens play and to stay in touch with the people up there. I wouldn’t be caught dead going to the stadium formerly named for Jack Kent Cooke because getting in and out is so painful and because sharing a stadium with Little Danny Snyder just isn’t something I need to do at this point in my life. (Note to Redskins fans: I am awed by your loyalty. Many of you showed up for the completely meaningless finale against the Giants and when I was picking my son up two hours after the game ended I heard a traffic report that said, ‘it’s still pretty heavy getting to the Beltway on Arena Drive and Central Avenue.’ TWO HOURS! You people really deserve much, much better than you are getting).

All of that said, it is impossible not to acknowledge just how damn good the NFL is to watch. Once you wade through the un-ending hype and build-up and expert projections and all that other garbage that is dispensed during the week, the GAMES are fabulous—even with the never-ending barrage of TV timeouts. Serious question: How do YOU occupy yourself when a team scores, TV goes to three minutes of commercials, the scoring team kicks off and then TV goes to another three minutes of commercials? If Tony Kornheiser was here he’d say I write a book. He exaggerates. Maybe a chapter or two.

This past weekend the NFL began its playoffs with four wild card games. One produced a stunning upset of The Super Bowl champions; one produced an amazing finish; one was compelling until the final seconds. Only Ravens-Chiefs was a dud and as someone who likes the Ravens, I was fine with that.

My pal Kornheiser—yes Tony this is your day to appear in the blog—was chortling on the radio last week about the fact that the Seahawks making the playoffs at 7-9 is proof that the BCS isn’t as bad as people like me saying it is. Bad teams shouldn’t play for the championship and in the BCS that never happens. Talk about missing the point. To begin with, there’s almost no way a sub-.500 team would get into an eight team playoff in college football or even a 16 team playoff. There are 120 teams in Division 1-A, not 32.

But let’s just say for the sake of argument that The Sun Belt champion got into the playoff with a 5-7 record. So what? Even if they somehow won a game, so what? There have been sub-.500 teams in the NCAA Tournament and last I looked it was a pretty good event. There have been sub-.500 teams in the NBA playoffs and—until they changed the rules on doling out points in overtime games—in the NHL playoffs too. The Mets made The World Series in 1973 with an 82-79 record.

Maybe—maybe—the NFL should tweak the system so that the team with the better record always gets home field. You can certainly make the case that the 7-9 Seahawks should have played AT New Orleans and the Saints almost certainly would have won playing at home. But two other road teams with better records managed to win this weekend so it certainly isn’t entirely unfair.

The point is that the magic of postseason is the underdog who gets a second chance. You think it’s BAD for the NFL that the Seahawks won on Saturday? I don’t. Is it BAD for college football that TCU went 13-0 and had no chance to play for the national title? Of course it’s bad. It’s a joke. (Note: This is the part in the blog where I annually plead with my brethren who vote in the AP football poll to PLEASE vote for TCU regardless of who wins tonight to send a message to the frauds running the BCS. Like last year with Boise State I will be ignored. What ever happened to the days when reporters were willing to take a stand or go out on a limb? Nowadays everyone just wants to play along with the power brokers so they can get hired someday by ESPN).

Back to the NFL: The long-winded point here is there has never been a sports gold mine in history like this league. For all its faults and issues, it has put together a product that the public finds irresistible. That’s why, in spite of all the sabre-rattling on both sides, I do not think there will be a serious work stoppage next summer or fall. Maybe a few days of pre-season camp or even an exhibition game or two—losing two exos might be Roger Goodell’s way of proving they are un-needed in his bid for an 18-game season.

Goodell has become a lightning rod because, unlike Paul Taglaibue who never met a serious decision he couldn’t find a way to run from, Goodell has been out there since he became commissioner. People may not like everything that he does and he’s clearly management-oriented (why not, they pay his huge salary) especially when it comes to doling out punishments.

But he’s a very smart guy. So is DeMaurice Smith, the new head of the player’s union. Both men have exchanged some fairly strong rhetoric in public but I honestly believe when they get into a room together and the golden goose is in any kind of serious jeopardy, they’re going to find a way to keep the golden eggs coming. Management will find a way to get richer while the players will find a way to stay rich and save face.

That’s the interesting thing about all these collective bargaining disagreements. It is ALWAYS management that wants to rewrite the rules, that insists it needs more money while the players make less. You see, for all the talk about how selfish and greedy players are, what they really want to do is PLAY. Sure, they want to play for as much money as possible and they will always take the best deal—which they should. Their window to make huge money is a small one—especially in football.

Owners always want more. In most case that’s how they got so impossibly rich in the first place, by always wanting more, by always getting the best deal for themselves. After that first billion you really MUST make the second billion. Whenever there’s a work stoppage—and more often it is a lockout and not a strike—the public screams about the selfish players. More often than not, the players are just trying to hang on to what they’ve got. It is the owners crying poverty and screaming for cutbacks. Have you listened to David Stern moan about how much money his owners are losing and how contraction is possible? You think that’s NOT sabre-rattling at its finest?

The NBA might have a work-stoppage simply because it wouldn’t cost the owners that much money and might (ala hockey in 2005) save them some money. That would not be the case in the NFL. Everyone would lose if any part of the regular season was lost.

I don’t see it happening. I think Goodell and Smith know that they’ve been given a license to print money. My guess is they won’t stop the presses when it really matters anytime soon.

One things is clear, one-and-done rule doesn't work -- time for players and owners to change rule

You may or may not have noticed this but the deadline for underclassmen to declare themselves eligible for the NBA draft was Sunday. The list of players who put their names into the draft was officially released yesterday.

There were 61 names.

There are two rounds in the draft. A total of 60 players will be drafted. I understand that some players will withdraw between now and May 8th when they find out they aren’t going in the first round—where the money is guaranteed—or that they may not be drafted at all. But most of the big-name players whose names are on the list will stay on the list. And quite a few players will leave their names in, not get drafted and then begin nomadic lives that may take them overseas; may take them to the NBA’s Development League and, in a few cases, will land them in the NBA.

I will grant you that this year is not a good one to use as an example because some players have been convinced by agents that they MUST get into this June’s draft because a player strike or lockout is a virtual certainty in the summer of 2011. Even so, I have reached a conclusion that isn’t based solely on the number of underclassmen who have put their names into the pool, but was crystallized when I read the list yesterday morning: The one-and-done rule doesn’t work. It has to go.

I say that not for the reason that some people do: that it makes a mockery of the term, ‘student-athlete.’ That shipped sailed so many years ago that I’m not sure Columbus had learned to sail yet. In fact, in some ways the one-and-done has cut DOWN on the hypocrisy. Now, when someone who is clearly in college only because the rules say he must be there for a year, doesn’t go to class and makes little or no attempt to even stay eligible in his second semester, there’s no faking involved.

Years ago, the work that went into keeping players eligible for three or four years often involved things like having others take tests and write papers for them; getting grades changed and sometimes sending them to bogus summer school classes so they could keep playing—among other things. With one-and-done, it’s a whole lot neater because you don’t have to keep someone afloat academically for more than a semester. Sure, there’s still cheating going on, but less of it involves the very best players.

They’re in, they’re out and then they’re replaced by the next group. John Calipari won 35 games at Kentucky this season with four freshmen whose names are in the draft pool. He’s gone out and signed a brand new crop, most of whom will probably be in next year’s draft pool after Kentucky wins another 30+ games next season. If you don’t like it, don’t blame Calipari. He didn’t make the rules, he just taking full advantage of them. He’s well worth the $4 million a year Kentucky is paying him. My only request is that he not use the term, ‘student-athlete,’ when talking about his players.

Here’s why I initially thought one-and-done was a good idea: In my own naïve way, I believed it was better for kids to be exposed to college for a year, regardless of how many classes they actually took part in. I thought it was better for them to spend a year on a campus as opposed to a year on charter airplanes. I thought exposing them to other teen-age kids was better than exposing them to 30-year-olds who had been bouncing around basketball for 10 years or more.

I still think that’s all true. But I don’t think this is the way to do it. The NBA and the players’ union—remember these are NBA rules, not NCAA rules—need to fish or cut bait in the next collective bargaining agreement. The old CBA has one year left. Sadly, getting this done appears not to be a priority. NBA commissioner David Stern has been pleading owner poverty since the All-Star Break and, naturally, the players don’t want to hear it. So, a money war—which may or may not lead to a work stoppage; my bet is it won’t—is going to break out. The issue of when a player may try to enter the NBA is likely to be an afterthought.

It shouldn’t be, especially for the union, which is supposed to protect basketball players--past, present and future. Basketball needs to put in the same rule that currently exist in baseball: When a player graduates from high school he can put his name into the draft. If he is drafted he can sign with the team that drafts him or he can go to college. If he DOES go to college though, he can’t go back into the draft for three years.

What that does—especially in a two-round draft—is ensure that an NBA team must REALLY want a player to draft him. It should be the player’s option to choose between the NBA and college rather than forcing players to commit to the draft without knowing whether they will be drafted or not. If, however, he makes the decision to go to college, he can’t jump back in the pool again after one year. He has to stay in college and has to pass enough courses to stay eligible through his junior year.

Will there be some fraud involved in keeping some players eligible? Sure. No system is ever going to be perfect. In many cases though, players will at least be somewhere close to a degree if they leave after three years or if they stay for four. What’s more, they will have a much better idea of their real NBA potential after three years in college. Some will find out they weren’t quite as good as they thought they were in college and might even understand that they NEED a degree.

What’s more, it will put a stop to colleges being revolving doors, one-year way stations en route to the NBA. If a player is good enough to be drafted coming out of high school and that’s his dream, why delay it for one year of college he will see only as a burden? In the case of the occasional kid who really wants to continue his education after turning pro, no one will stop him from enrolling in summer school classes and he’ll certainly be able to afford to pay his own way. In most cases, the kids will end up in college and, like their brethren in football and baseball, will stay at least three years. In 95 percent of cases, that will be a good thing. And, if the players and owners sign off on that sort of rule, it will almost certainly stand up to any court challenge.

I thought one-and-done was a step forward when the rule was passed. It was, in fact, a step sideways. It is time for the players and owners to put an end to the current charade and at least attempt to take a step forward.

*****

A couple of notes based on posts and e-mails from yesterday: A few people asked if The Big Ten’s money per school would go down if it went from 11 to 16 teams. Probably not because the revenues would go up so much: More schools will mean more people paying for The Big Ten Network; more ad revenues; more cable systems taking on The Big Ten Network; a more lucrative national TV contract. It will mean The Big Ten can hold a championship game if it so desires. All that will probably double the gross revenues, which will almost certainly mean more than $22 million net per school each year.

As for Notre Dame, it makes far more than that on football each year between NBC, the BCS—remember it doesn’t have to split any BCS or bowl revenue it makes with other conference members--and neutral site games. Plus, it can control its schedule so that if Brian Kelly is even a decent coach it is almost impossible not to win at least nine games a year.

And finally on the Anna Kournikova-Natalie Gulbis comparison: If anything I was being hard on Kournikova, kind to Gulbis. Yes, Gulbis has won an LPGA event, but Kournikova was a Wimbledon semifinalist who was ranked in the top ten on a number of occasions. If Gulbis goes on and wins a major, I’ll change my assessment. As of now, I think the comparison is more than fair.

Review of a six item news morning – Arenas, Hall of Fame, Redskins, Cornell, PGA Tour and the Islanders

News Item 1: David Stern finally gets mad—justifiably—and suspends Gilbert Arenas indefinitely.

News Item 2: Andre Dawson is voted into The Hall of Fame—good job by the voters. Robert Alomar is not—he should have been but will be next year. Bert Blyleven is not for the 13th straight year. I just don’t get it.

News Item 3: Mike Shanahan is introduced as the new Redskins coach. He deftly ducks questions about who will be in charge and does everything but kiss Dan Snyder on the lips during his press conference. Of course for $35 million most of us would kiss almost anyone on the lips.

News Item 4: Kansas comes from eight points down AT HOME to beat CORNELL. I was a little stunned at game’s end based on the way the fans were acting in Allen Field House that they didn’t storm the court.

News Item 5: The PGA Tour begins the 2010 season today on Maui. Hallelujah. It might be possible to talk about golf for at least a sentence or two without using the words Tiger Woods.

News Item 6: The Islanders come from behind in Colorado, then blow a lead but beat the Avalanche 3-2. They are now at .500. Okay, this may only be a news item to me but what the heck. I went to bed happy.


Now, to review.

Item one--I have no doubt that David Stern would have preferred to wait for the legal process to move further along (he is, after all, a lawyer) before taking action on Gilbert Arenas. But after Arenas’s idiotic behavior on Tuesday in Philadelphia, he had no choice but to act.

The photo of Arenas pretending to ‘shoot,’ his teammates with his fingers—while they all stood around laughing—may have been the most damning moment in this entire debacle. Arenas then made it worse (if possible) with his postgame comment that, if he felt as if he’d done anything wrong, then he’d apologize.

There are some guys in sports who need John McEnroe following them around repeatedly saying, “You cannot be serious!.” (Quick aside: Years ago I was in a hotel room with McEnroe after a match. Mary Carillo was also there as was a friend of McEnroe’s whose name I honestly can’t remember. Room service had been ordered and hadn’t shown up after 45 minutes. McEnroe finally told his friend to call and find out what the hell was going on. The friend picked up the phone and said to McEnroe, “do you want me to just ask what’s going on or, you know, give them the ‘You can NOT be serious,’ bit?’ McEnroe opted for the latter. The food showed up about five minutes later).

Once Stern saw the photo and the quote he had to get Arenas off the court right away. If he hadn’t, he would have looked foolish. Flip Saunders looked pretty bad not taking action right away in Philadelphia but Stern seems to be covering for the Wizards and their inaction by saying he had ordered them not to take action until he did.

My guess is Arenas doesn’t get it and isn’t going to get it. He still thinks his mistake in bringing guns into The Verizon Center was akin to forgetting to slow down in one of those camera speed traps—pay the 40 bucks and move on. It’s pretty clear his teammates haven’t gotten it yet either even though they tried to act as if they did in Cleveland Wednesday night. Still, you could hear them clinging to the, “when the truth comes out it won’t be so bad,” line.

Wrong. This is already really bad and, in all likelihood, the more truth that comes out the worse it is going to be for Arenas.

It’s truly a sad story because this was a guy who lit up a bleak sports skyline when he first came to Washington. And, as if so often the case, the reaction to the mistake has been at least as costly as the mistake itself. If Arenas had instantly thrown himself on the mercy of the court of public opinion and said, ‘My God, what was I thinking, I’m so sorry,” and NOT twittered jokes and NOT shrugged it off as no big deal and NOT still been playing it off as a joke the day after his lawyer released his clearly insincere apology, people would be saying by now, ‘hey, leave him alone, he made a mistake and he acknowledged it.’

Now, even the perpetual jock-defenders are shaking their heads and saying, ‘what was he thinking?’

We all know the answer to that question.


Item Two: I’m happy Andre Dawson made it to the Hall of Fame. In the years that I voted, I always put him on my ballot. (The Washington Post no longer allows writers to vote for Halls of Fame which I think is silly but, hey, they’re writing the checks and I’m cashing them so I don’t vote). He was a great two-way player for a long time, a superb base runner who had a long, productive career. I think his batting average (.279) held him back but all his other numbers were so good—including eight gold gloves—I thought he was deserving.

Alomar is a lock Hall of Famer. The only reason he came up just short this time (73.7 percent of the votes when 75 percent is needed) is because some voters are still punishing him for the 1996 John Hirschbeck spitting incident (Hirschbeck BTW has forgiven him and endorsed his candidacy) and because there are some guys who will not vote for a guy his first time on the ballot.

The second reason is a joke: You either are a Hall of Famer or are not a Hall of Famer. I had this argument with Bill Conlin, for whom I have great respect, when he didn’t vote for Nolan Ryan the first (and only) time he was on the ballot. I’ve always believed that if a voter leaves certain players off the ballot for any reason—like a Cal Ripken or a Tony Gwynn to give two recent examples—he should lose his vote for the next year. Seriously, who died and made any of us God?

The Hirschbeck incident is different. The ballot DOES say that a player’s actions as a person can be taken into account. Alomar—surprise—was initially unrepentant when the incident occurred in 1996. In fact, one of the sadder scenes I’ve ever seen was the first game of the playoffs that year when Oriole fans, normally among the best in baseball, booed the UMPIRES when they came on the field because Alomar was going to be suspended to begin the next season.

That was Alomar’s one truly bad moment and you don’t wipe out an entire career for that. (Steroids is another story entirely).

Blyleven is the mystery to me. He came up a little shy of 300 wins—287—but had some other great numbers, notably the fact that he pitched SIXTY shutouts. Just as one means of comparison, that’s more shutouts than Tom Glavine had complete games (57). Sure, different era, but not THAT different—Glavine was in the big leagues for several years before Blyleven retired.

I’m not picking on Tom—obviously—and he is and should be a lock Hall of Famer since he won 305 games. But sixty shutouts? Are you kidding? Blyleven pitched on a lot of bad teams but on good ones too. There are parts of his record you can nit-pick but overall? He should have been in years ago.

For the record, this isn’t personal at all. The couple of times I dealt with Blyleven as a player he wasn’t especially pleasant. I remember in 1992 when I was doing my first baseball book trying to set a time to talk to him when he was pitching for the Angels. I was in Anaheim for three days and asked if he could give me some time on any of those days since he had just pitched the day before. “I’ve done my media for the week,” he said. (He had done Roy Firestone’s show the day before).

So, I went instead to talk to Jim Abbott, who you may remember became a solid big league pitcher even though he was born without a right hand. “I’ll make you a deal,” Abbott said. “I’ll talk to you for as long as you want about whatever you want if you tell me everything you know about Steffi Graf.” (I’d just written ‘Hard Courts.’)

Jim Abbott is a Hall of Fame guy. Blyleven is a Hall of Fame pitcher.


Item three: Shanahan arrives. Building of monument begins. There’s not much to say about this except that everyone knows if Dan Snyder doesn’t get out of the way it won’t matter how good a coach Shanahan is. When Shanahan was asked who was in charge he answered the question as if the issue was whether he or Bruce Allen had final say. Good answer even though that wasn’t the question.

He also kept saying over and over that he had never met anyone who was more enthusiastic about the Washington Redskins than Dan Snyder. Wow, that’s out on a limb. It’s a little bit like saying you’ve never met anyone more enthusiastic about my books than me. Then he said Joe Gibbs had told him no one had been more supportive of him than Snyder. Last I looked Jack Kent Cooke gave Gibbs everything he could possibly want to help him win three Super Bowls AND chose him in a power struggle with Bobby Beathard—which was probably a mistake. Then again, Snyder did FINANCIALLY support Gibbs better than anyone ever did.

Oh, one more thing: Word today is that Jerry Gray may become the defensive coordinator. What a surprise, the guy Snyder used to get around The Rooney Rule, who stood there and stonewalled for three weeks not only keeps his job but gets promoted. So unlike Snyder.


Item 4—I wrote here last week that Cornell is really good. The Big Red came very close to becoming national darlings last night but couldn’t quite hold on against the No. 1 ranked team in the country. ESPN correctly switched to the late stages of the game from a desultory Duke-Iowa State game and I swear I thought I was watching Kansas-Texas the last five minutes based on the crowd reaction to the rally.

No doubt they were relieved at dodging what they thought would be an embarrassing loss. But really it wouldn’t have been that embarrassing: Cornell’s good. Of course now they will be everyone’s first round upset darling in March. That’s IF they can beat Harvard to win The Ivy League. And if you think the committee is giving the Ivy League an at-large bid you should apply for a job at The Fritz Pollard Alliance and oversee the Rooney Rule.


Item 5—I did my Golf Channel Essay this week on the start of the new season and the fact that it would be nice to be able to watch golf and talk about golf without Tiger coming up in every other sentence. I was trying to make the point that while Tiger is no doubt the face of the game to MANY, there are lots of us who liked golf before Tiger and will continue to like it without Tiger—however long that may be during his ‘leave of absence.’ I brought up the fact that when ‘A Good Walk Spoiled,’ reached number one on The New York Times bestseller list in 1995, the name Tiger Woods appeared once—for two sentences.

One of the better regular posters on the blog, Vince, accused me yesterday of being self-serving by bringing up the book. Maybe, but I honestly thought it tangibly made my point. He said if I’d written the book five or six years later with Tiger as a major character the book would have been on The Times list for three years instead of seven months. Again, maybe. But I’ve written golf books since then that featured Tiger and, while they’ve sold well, they didn’t outsell ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ And, for the record Vince, I was making fun of the 50 percent who only watch golf when Tiger’s playing when I said, “50 percent of us who watch golf do so with or without Tiger.”


Item 6—There was a Rick DiPietro spotting on the Islanders bench last night. He’s been out so long his 15 year contract may be up soon. Dwayne Roloson has been great all year but if DiPietro could actually come back healthy…No, not going there, too far out on a limb.

Let’s talk DC area sports – Redskins, Wizards and others…

This has been said before by me and many others but it continues to amaze me just how bad a sports town Washington, D.C. is except on the high school level.

I realize as I write this that a lot of you who live around the country are starting to yawn—although you should find Letterman’s list on Gilbert Arenas’s 10 excuses because it is fall down funny—but it really is remarkable how often things go wrong and how consistently poorly they are handled by the people allegedly in charge.

The town’s obsession is with the Redskins. The way the local media kowtows to the team is remarkable. On Tuesday I was doing a local cable sports show and Redskins rookie Brian Orakpo was scheduled to appear. Five minutes before air time we were told that Orakpo was balking at doing the interview because it was too cold outside.

Let’s be honest, Orakpo wasn’t going to say anything newsworthy: he was going to say Jim Zorn was a good coach but gee Mike Shanahan is a great coach and we’re just SO close to being a really good team. Rather than lose those five minutes with him the producers agreed to let him SIT IN HIS CAR with a mike on while the cameraman shot him through the window of the car.

It was Saturday Night Live parody TV and Orakpo was every bit as predictable as you might expect.

And Orakpo is one of the GOOD guys on the Redskins.

What is most remarkable though is the way every new coaching hire is treated as the second coming. (Of course Joe Gibbs WAS the second coming). People do everything but dance in the streets. No doubt there are Redskins fans checking out flights to Dallas for February 2011 and next year’s Super Bowl, now that Mike Shanahan has been announced as the next second coming.

Is Shanahan a good coach? Based on his track record, absolutely. He won two Super Bowls and I really don’t buy the nay-sayers who say “how many did he win without John Elway?” Okay, how many did Vince Lombardi win without Bart Starr? Bill Belichick without Tom Brady? Chuck Noll without Terry Bradshaw? Don Shula without Bob Griese? Last I looked they were pretty good coaches. The only real exception to that rule might be Gibbs who won Super Bowls with Joe Theisman, Doug Williams and Mark Rypien at quarterback. Only Theisman was much better than ordinary and he wasn’t exactly a Hall of Famer. There are others but for the most part you don’t win Super Bowls unless your quarterback is better than ordinary. The Super Bowl winners in this century have been The Rams (Kurt Warner); the Ravens (Trent Dilfer); the Buccaneers (Brad Johnson); the Patriots (three times with Brady); the Steelers (twice with Ben Roethlisberger) the Colts (Peyton Manning); and the Giants (Eli Manning).

That’s seven wins for quarterbacks who either will be in the Hall of Fame or will come very close to it; one for a young quarterback who may yet become special (Eli) and two for guys considered competent—Dilfer and Johnson. Dilfer was working with arguably the greatest defense in the history (at least statistically it was) and Johnson, who many believe was very underrated) was helped by having his counterpart, Rich Gannon, throw five interceptions.

But I digress. Shanahan can coach—no ifs ands or buts. And let’s all stop with the, “he wasted a pick taking Maurice Clarett,” in the third round. So what? Third round picks flame out all the time—so do first round picks for that matter. He took a gamble and it didn’t work. Big deal.

Shanahan’s not the major issue with the Redskins. The owner is the major issue the same way he’s been the issue since he bought the team in 1999. There seems to be an assumption that because Shanahan and Bruce Allen signed on that Snyder is finally going to stop meddling in every football decision.

I’ll believe it when I see it. So far, Snyder is still acting like Snyder.

He completely humiliated poor Jim Zorn, who handled a ludicrous situation with total class, in his final weeks as coach. Forget stripping him of play-calling duties, that was bad enough. He then “interviewed,” one of Zorn’s own assistants with the season still going on in order to subvert the Rooney Rule so he could hire Shanahan as soon as the season ended. It’s a shame NFL commissioner Roger Goodell didn’t step to the plate and call the sham interview of Jerry Gray a sham, because that’s what it was.

Gray was obviously told by Snyder that if he wants to be considered for employment on the new staff he better keep his mouth shut. Gray initially lied when he was asked if he’d been interviewed; then the Redskins staff put out a written, “he meant to say no comment,” release and then he simply refused to answer questions even after John Wooten, who runs the Fritz Pollard Alliance announced that Gray’s interview had satisfied the parameters of the Rooney Rule (which was a joke in itself).

Snyder is paying Shanahan an outrageous amount of money--$7 million a year for five years according to today’s Washington Post. What’s more, he simply HAD to get on his plane and fly to Denver to pick Shanahan up and fly him to DC.

Why? Because he has to be in the middle of all this. He has to show off his wealth every chance he gets. This is an organization that laid close to 100 people off earlier this year citing the need to cut costs. How much did it cost to fly that jet back and forth to Denver? Snyder couldn’t have sent Shanahan a first class ticket and said, “We’ll have a car meet you at the airport?”

No, he had to play his silly game with “Redskins 1,” (oh please) knowing that the DC media would run out to the airport to cover the airplane’s landing. He LIVES for this stuff.

So what makes anyone think he’s not going to be sitting in the draft room talking about, “Redskin grades,” or trailing along with Shanahan and Bruce Allen on scouting trips the way he did ONE MONTH AGO with Vinny Cerrato. Maybe Shanahan and Allen have told him that’s over as a condition of their employment. Maybe.

And maybe Snyder made that pledge like he did with Marty Schottenheimer nine years ago and it will stick for about 20 minutes. We’ll see. The Redskins have the fourth pick in the draft. If they do anything other than draft a left tackle (especially if they take a quarterback instead) then you’ll know Snyder’s still involved in the decision-making and, if you’re a Redskins fan, you better dig in for even more disappointment.

Of course these days—remarkably enough—there is actually a team in Washington in more disarray than the Redskins and that’s the Wizards. Everyone now knows about the Gilbert Arenas guns saga. On Monday, when someone explained to him that he could actually go to jail, Arenas stopped joking about the situation and put out a lawyer-written statement saying he was sorry. That appeared to be a step in the right direction until Tuesday in Philadelphia when Arenas, upon being introduced by the PA announcer, jokingly pointed his fingers at his teammates as if he was shooting them.

My God Gilbert when will you learn? This isn’t funny (okay, Letterman was funny but that’s because he was saying Arenas was a joke not that Arenas’s joke was funny) and every time you act as if it is you look like a dope AND you send a terrible message to every single kid who has ever worn your jersey top—and in DC that’s a lot of kids.

You know what Flip Saunders should have done at that moment? He should have said to Arenas, ‘go sit on the end of the bench and watch the game.’ But the Wizards management has been virtually silent since this whole thing began, only putting out statements about waiting for the investigation to run its course. The given excuse has been that the collective bargaining agreement doesn’t allow a player to be punished twice for a violation of the CBA (which carrying a gun into the arena very much is) and they don’t want to suspend Arenas when clearly Commissioner David Stern is going to suspend him at some point.

You know what, that’s crap. Pick up a phone, talk to Stern and find out what he’s thinking. The facts in the story are clear here. There’s no he said/he said, Arenas has admitted he did it. His guns weren’t even registered in Virginia where carrying a gun is akin to carrying a wallet in most places as long as you register the gun. Even gun-owners will tell you that one of the responsibilities that comes with owning a gun (or guns) is following the laws of your jurisdiction and other jurisdictions if you carry a gun out of state.

If Stern says, “I’m going to suspend him for the season,” the Wizards should go ahead and do that NOW. If he says 20 games, same thing. You can’t just keep sending him out there when he’s admitted his guilt but clearly has no real remorse about it. And let’s not even get into the, “well they could still make the playoffs even at 11-21 because the East is so lousy,” argument. Forget being the eighth place team in the conference with a 37-45 record and take a look at your long-term future—which right now doesn’t look any better than the short term.

Things aren’t a lot better on other DC sports fronts: Tom Boswell, The Post’s superb baseball columnist who may be the all-time Nationals optimist, thinks the moves made so far this winter MIGHT get them to 75 wins. Maryland football is awful. The basketball team looks like it will be fighting for an NCAA bid—again. Navy football is terrific but not enough people understand why they SHOULD be paying more attention—including the editors at my newspaper. Georgetown basketball is very good but it’s hard to wrap your arms around a team that keeps itself shrouded in secrecy all the time.

There are lots of good college basketball programs locally but Georgetown won’t even play in a charity event that has raised almost $10 million for kids-at-risk in the DC area and hasn’t played George Washington in more than 30 years. DC could have local rivalries every bit as much fun as Philadelphia’s Big Five but no one wants to do anything about getting it done.

Heck, even DC United has been so mediocre recently that their fans can’t scream, “what about United?” when someone does a breakdown of sports in DC.

At least the Capitals have a very good team that is filled with appealing people. Fans here have jumped on their bandwagon since they started winning.

Overall though, this is a pretty bleak place. Have no fear though Redskins fans: March isn’t far away and that’s usually the best month of the year for your team. One hint: the less free agents you see Danny having his picture taken with, the better it is going to be for you and for the future of your team.