Black Ball Sports

…and in Tampa???  Yes, as improbable as it seems, there is a World Series beginning tonight between Tampa (perennial AL East doormats) and Philadelphia (a franchise with 10,000+ losses).

Does anyone really care?

Philly does.  The city of brotherly love and constant losing hasn’t seen a major professional championship since 1983.  Oh, and to make it worse they’ve had chances in each sport.  Since June, 1983 when Dr. J and the Sixers defeated the Lakers for the NBA title.  The major franchises are 0-7 in the finals of their sport, each of them having at least one appearance.

Philly bleeds Eagle green, but they are also immensily driven to win in all sports.  When there is belief of an opportunity the fans come out of the woodwork in droves.  The city is awash in Phillies red, which means they will likely erupt into the street if they win this series.  Heck, they did it just because they advanced to the Series.

Tampa cares.  At least this week they do.  I really don’t care to hear from anyone who claims to be a Rays fan.  Just admit you fell in love with the story and their players about two weeks ago.  Only roughly 22,000 fans showed up on average, which was higher than all but their debut 1998 season.  Many casual baseball fans will now stick to the Rays, and good for them.  You have to appreciate their young talent.  BJ Upton, Evan Longoria, Scott Kazmier, Carl Crawford, David Price etc.

The rest of the sports watching world, likely won’t care much.

Which leads me to some of the ridiculousness of MLB.

Team Building and Payroll

The disparity in payrolls has been discussed at length, but it is insane to consider the Rays payroll is in the range of $43 million, while the Phillies is in the range of $95 million.  Thats more than double…oh, but wait, the Rays rise to the top corresponded with a fall from grace by the New York Yankees who’s payroll is about $207 million or about 5 times as much.

The other 3 major sports all have caps, but baseball in it’s infinite wisdom sees no logic in a cap.  All they have is a luxury tax.  And sure there is some reasoning to conclude that the Yankees as the most profitable organization deserve the right to spend the money as they see fit.  But really $160 million difference?

One must appreciate the team building philosophy of these teams.  They arrived in the world series primarily due to their acquistion and development of their own talent.  Other than Brad Lidge, the Phillies stars (Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Pat Burrell, Cole Hamels, Brett Myers and Ryan Howard) are homegrown.  The rest of the team was low rent signings and minor trades.  No major theft’s from the poor teams of the leagues.  GM Pat Gillick (and give some credit to the prior regime) amassed the team smartly.  The prime reason even for the $93 dollar payroll is the  fact that $47 million of that comes from contracts for Rollins, Utley, Burrell, Myers and Howard.

Meanwhile, the Rays feature a roster of young stars who haven’t even struck their first pay day.  They have used desperate moves from high payroll teams such as the Mets to acquire players like Scott Kazmir.  They have traded away talented by troubled players such as Josh Hamilton, Elijah Dukes and Delmon Young.    Their highest paid player, Carlos Pena, was aquired as a minor league free agent prior to the 2007 season.  He responded with 46 HRs (no apparent failed drug test, but I have my suspicions).

Seeing either one of these teams win a championship this way is a shot to the ego of the Yankees, who of course “took advantage” of the Phillies in a salary dump move two years ago in acquiring Bobby Abreu.  Consider that Abreu’s $16 millon dollar salary this year equates to the salary of Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley.  Will the Rays and Phillies be able to keep their salaries within these meager by comparison salaries?  Of course not, some of these players will be due for raises.  But it is easy to get the sense the GMs of these teams recognize the folly of the Yankees, Detroit Tigers, Mets and LA Dodgers (who gave Andruw Jones a 2 year $36 million contract despite being noticeably overweight and coming off a .222 BA season and responded by hitting .158, 3 HR and 14 RBI in 75 games).

The DH

I don’t care which way the league goes, either DH or no DH.  The traditionalists want no DH, the modernist feel it is long past the time of pitchers hitting.  Who really cares?  The problem is the two sets of rules.  The Rays have an addtional advantage at home because they’ve played all year with a DH, Cliff Floyd.  He’s no longer a major player, but he’s received regular at bats all year.  The Phillies will trot out their 4th outfield or some other part time player who receives 6-8 at bats per week.

Consider if other sports had similar rules, like the AFC playing without kickers.  Each team would be used to having to convert two pointers and fourth downs.  The NFC with kickers would have to bench a weapon, and be forced to convert plays they’d normally do rarely.  Or if the NBA had no 3 point shot in the East.  The West would have it’s usual 3 point specialist or even additionals because the East would have little need for such players.  Then in the finals, you’d have players gunning for extra points on shots they’d normally not take.  This might seem extreme, but really is it any more ridiculous to have significant separate rules for leagues.

Home Field Advantage

Again with the ridiculousness.  MLB in it’s infinite wisdom thinks it is better to tie the most important set of games in the season to a mid-season exhibition game.  No, they can’t come to a consensus on the DH, but it makes perfect sense to have the winner of the All-Star game win home field advantage in the World Series.  I don’t care what the reasons are, this is stupid.  The Rays deserve home field advantage because they had the best record between the two series teams.  There are 162 regular season games, and another potential 12 post season games, but MLB has come to the conclusion that the All-Star game is integral to determining a teams’ destiny.

My Phillies

I won’t deny it, I’m rooting for the Phillies.  I grew up in South Jersey, spent 10 years across the river from the Vet in Camden.   My first memory of professional sports, came from the 1980 World Series.  It wasn’t from a play or a hit.  I remember the crown scoreboard at Kauffman field.  I don’t remember the Eagles, Sixers or Flyers from that time period, despite their all being in Finals.  I remember attending a Phillies game probably in about 1983 against the Padres and became a fan of Tony Gwynn.  I used to have a Pete Rose bat from a promotional game.  I was insane over the 1993 Phillies, and their misfits of likely heavy boozing, steroid abusing overacheivers.  By the way, even at 16, 17 years old, I knew something was up with those players.  Lenny Dykstra was a stick before joining the Phils, and the next thing you know he’s got legs like Brian Westbrook.

Like most Philadelphia area fans, I’m a huge Eagles fan.  But I have a soft spot for our loveable losers, the Phillies.  And this years’ special players Howard, Rollins, Victorino are good guys, good for professional sports.  Go Phils.

Here are some random sports thoughts I haven’t gotten much of a chance to post about.

NFL

I still think Brett Farve is a jerk for pulling this, but the Packers have handled this awfully.  The latest move is reminiscent of the Godfather movies.  Apparently they are trying to give him an offer he cannot refuse, $20 million over 10 years to stay retired.  Honestly, that is ridiculous, they basically are spitting on his legacy.  He’s been reinstated by the league, and likely to report to camp on Monday.  The Packers are going to have to eat their pride and get him on the field again.

NFL Hall of Fame

One good thing about the Hall of Fame inductions is by the time a player makes it, he’s been retired for several years.  And as such, you don’t feel guilty for being happy for a rival player.  I’m glad Art Monk finally made it to the Hall.  He’s as deserving as anyone, and unfortunately played the majority of his career in the shadow of Jerry Rice.  Never the scorer Rice was, Monk was the model of consistency.  To make it worse, I also have to give credit to Darrell Green, who for about 20 years was one of the top corners in the league.  Good guys, who for at least one day despite them being Redskins I can be happy for.

MLB

Trade deadline came through with a bang.  Manny Ramirez, Ken Griffey Jr. and Ivan Rodriguez traded within a few hours of each other.  All certain Hall of Famers, all were traded to premier markets.  All three players, should have a big impact on their new teams, but none more so than Manny.  He’s still the most feared right handed hitter in the league and while he’s been flaky at times, he can carry an offense, and the Dodgers needed a guy like him.  Hopefully, he can spark some life back into Andruw Jones.  The Red Sox took a big risk trading him, but I think they did well in getting a young player back, Jason Bay who is an established pro and can help them immediately.

Olympics

One thing we should know by now, is that despite all the hoopla over steroids in baseball, performance enhancing drugs are everywhere.  The Olympics point this out more so than anything.  Think about it, an Italian fencer was flagged.  The Olympics do stringently test, and has more doping rules than the NCAA has recruiting violations, but the mere fact that swimmers, runners, gymnasts etc are all being caught on various rules demonstrates the extent that athletes (and their trainers and supporting organizations) are willing to go to cheat.  So should we be surprised when a baseball player takes HGH to extend his multimillion dollar career?  Oh, and by the way, this is now the fifth Olympics for NBA players, and they have exactly zero disqualifications.

NCAA Football

West Virginia QB, Pat White stated he never joined the WVU baseball team because the coach, Greg Van Zandt, “wasn’t interested” and was “not too high” on having black players on his team.  He came out and apologized for his statements, saying he “overstated” his feelings on the program.  The thing that is overlooked here, is White’s statements are probably due to the perception of black athletes at WVU.  White was unfortunately likely speaking from rumors and gossip he’d heard on campus.  Whether Zandt actually wants or doesn’t want black players will never truly be known, but he should consider reaching out to black players and ensure that this perception is false.

Congratulations to Ken Griffey Jr. on his 600th home run.  I remember being about a 12 year old kid when hefirst hit the bigs, and his sweet swing was something I’d never seen before.  As naturally talented a phenom as Tiger Woods, Junior skyrocketed to being considered one of the league’s best players.  A genuinely nice guy, son of a Major League player, whom he also got to play with.

Unfortunately, Junior’s career was damaged almost the day he arrived in his home city of Cincinnati.  Prior to 2000, he launched 40 plus home runs in 6 or 7 seasons for Seattle, the only season in which he didn’t was the strike shortened 1995 season.  Additionally, he was generally healthy missing no more than 20 games since his rookie season.  But for some strange reason, his career in Cincinnati has been marred by injuries.  In 2000, he was typical Jr hitting 40 home runs over 145 games.  But until 2007, he didn’t again return to playing over 140 games, missing 698 of a possible 1134 games.  Naturally, his numbers dipped, and saw him passed over by the younger stars.

Despite his constant injury troubles, Jr continued to press on and while it took him 7 seasons he finally reached 600.  We’ll never know how many records he’d have made if he’d never run into the injuries, but one thing is pretty certain, he’s done it naturally.

Bonds and Griffey Jr. are amazingly similar players.  Sons of former ball players, they’ve been friends from youth.  They both grew up in the ball parks and seemed to be naturals on the field.  But according to media reports, roughly around 1998 Bonds took a different path, and forever tarnished his image, despite breaking Hank Aaron’s home run record.

For Junior, his career was forever altered through no decision of his own.  We’ve seen athlete after athlete throw away their talent through nothing more than stupidity, Michael Vick, Len Bias, Rae Carruth etc.  But Griffey, like Bo Jackson, was stymied by the one thing no one can outrun.

Bo Jackson and Ken Griffey Jr. should have finished their careers being known as the best player ever at their position.  They both had it all, everything that could be asked of them they could do. Neither will ever reach the heights which they seemed so destined to attain.

For Junior, I can only hope that at this stage of his career he can find some magic left in his aging body.  I can only hope, that the Reds finally find a trading partner who is on the cusp of a championship, and Griffey can have his chance to shine on the greatest stage.  And if there is any Karma in sports, I hope it leads him to a World Series Championship.

Decisions takes a look at a few recent organizational and coaching decisions evaluating the good and bad.

Good

• Cowboys extend Terrell Owens contract.  The NFL has non guaranteed contracts, and the Cowboys can ensure they don’t have to deal with a potential TO headache.  If he melts down, then worst they have to do is take him to court for prorated signing bonus money and move on.  They learned from the Eagles situation.
• Pistons fired coach Flip Saunders.  Since they won a title with Larry Brown in 2004, the Pistons have been both successful, but underachieving.  They’ve been to the finals, and conference finals, but have moments where they appear disinterested.  Clearly, the team is too talented and experienced for these type things to happen.  The lack of a second championship wasn’t Saunders fault, but he never had a solution.

Bad

• Yankees to start Joba Chamberlain.   Joba came up to the majors last year, as a late inning bridge to closer Mariano Rivera.  He might be a future starter, but they are rushing him to fix their own blunders.  He didn’t even start 20 games in the minors, and now they are starting him without giving him an offseason to stretch out and properly prepare for the challenge.  They made the mistake of overvaluing young starters Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, hence passing on a chance to acquire Johan Santana.  If Joba fails, then they’ll have two problems, bad bullpen and possibly damaged young ego.
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Looking around the sports landscape you see teams in all sports that say that we “are rebuilding.”  Which is a nice way to say we aren’t winning this year, next year and possibly the year after that.  But you can’t be upset your team isn’t good because they have told you “we are rebuilding.”  At its core I have no problem with teams undergoing a so-called rebuilding.  But this means the product is lackluster yet the prices remain the same.  What other company can readily admit that they are now putting out a sub par product but still expect the same price.  When you pay for 93 Octane you are paying for that quality.  So if a team goes from 93 Octane to 87, why don’t their prices drop?  Realistically, if you are telling me that we aren’t winning now and are planning to win a couple of years from now, then I will tell you I will see you when you are trying to win. 

 Take for example the Washington Nationals who moved from Montreal in 2005.  When the Nationals first came into existence they moved to an old outdated stadium.  So they told the fans enjoy the fact that you have baseball back and if we get a new stadium the team will get better.  Basically they announced that until they got a new stadium the money spent on the field wouldn’t allow the team to be competitive.  Ok, understanding it was a franchise move and things might take a little while to take off.  So the fans are asked to not expect a quality product, but pay similar prices as people who are going to see the Red Sox and Yankees.  Now take us to today the Nationals new stadium has opened and yet the payroll for the Nationals hasn’t drastically increased.  So a lie was told to the fans who supported the team with the promise of a better product and more spending on the team when the new stadium opened.  So this year the payroll increases slightly but the product on the field has remained the same.  It’s probably because the owners realize they can wait another couple of years to spend money on the team, because the fans are going to come to the new stadium.  So once again the fans are being taken advantage of.

I’m not calling for an outright boycott of bad teams.  Because teams will got through their cycles of being bad and good.  But if the team is not making an effort to spend money to improve why are we taking money out of our pockets.  How long are baseball franchises like Pittsburgh and Kansas City going to hold their fans hostage.  At some point fans have to say we as a group aren’t going to continue to support losing franchises that aren’t making a legitimate effort.