Dear Commissioner Goodell

Hi Roger,

     Watching the NFL network today I was treated to a recap of the brilliant rookie QB's of 2012.   I am a credit reader, so when I saw who was narrating, I thought, "not a great idea."   The rapper Ludacris provided the voice overs.   You do know you have an image problem, right?   Using someone who was fired by Pepsi due to lyrics in his pieces that glamorize drugs, violence, and disrespect of women just doesn't seem to be a wise move.  Distancing yourself from this sort of crowd might be the thing to do - just a thought.   Besides I would have done it for a fraction of the cost that he charged.   Think about it....call me....

                 Sincerely,




















PS, how about that new sports agent, Jay Z?   There's a nightmare waiting to happen....

Idiots vs Heroes

Overshadowing Tiger pitcher Max Scherzer's 14th victory was the announcement that Ryan Braun has been suspended for the rest of this season. 

Mad Max scatters 4 hits and leads the majors in victories, but all the buzz will be about a lyin' cheat who used PED's. 





Yankee manager Joe Girardi had a great statement, "Everyone should do things the right way, but that’s not the world we live in. You get tired of talking about it. There’s a lot of guys that are doing it the right way and I respect those guys.”

Hey Ryan, seems like you might have a credibility problem now.

We love to dwell over every detail on our heroes fall from grace, but after a while doesn't it get old?  Journalists love these kind of stories, the kind that just fall in their lap.   No work, just watch the story like a movie and paraphrase the character as he falls victim to his own deceit. 





Maybe it won't get enough views, but how about a story that has an upbeat theme? 
I dunno, just an idea....
Duck Commander, Phil Robertson (former Louisiana Tech QB) likes the idea!




 

Here's one, how many Duck football players have been in trouble with the law this summer?   NONE (well, that I know of).  They got a slap on the wrist from the NCAA and kept their noses clean all the way through June!   Yikes, I hope I didn't just jinx them.

Motown Cat Chatter

Tigers looking good.

Currently leading their division.
   Cabrera on a tear, again.

                                                                                          Scherzer 14 - 1!

Team leads the AL in batting average.

Looks like a playoff run, if they pick up some relief pitching 

and Verlander regains old form.

Looking forward to my daughter's Christmas gift of Tiger's gear

....maybe a World Series winner sweatshirt?

Lions, Meh.

Way too early predictions have them at the bottom of their division. Vegas has them at 40-1 to win the Super Bowl.  Schwartz is on the hot seat, 2 years to go on his contract, but unless they make the playoffs he will be making tee times instead of practice schedules in 2014. 



 Even though he has a new 5 year contract, Matthew Stafford needs help.

I know Lion Faithful, you think he walks on water, but he has flaws and they need to be corrected if the club is going to move forward.  Ron Jaworski has the best analysis  “Too many forced throws. Overall, he just threw too many passes with poor balance and bad footwork, with a tendency to fall away from the throws,” Jaworski said. “He needs more consistent mechanics to play at a higher level week in and week out.”  These adjustments aren't being addressed by the current staff.  The kid is only 25 and easily could benefit from some expert tutoring.

I say if you have a gripe, you should have a solution - got one.   Former Cal coach Jeff Tedford is an outstanding QB coach and needs a job.

Aaron Rogers seemed to do all right under Tedford's direction at Cal, maybe worth a look.




I'm still not convinced they are set at running back.   Free agent Reggie Bush should help - and I know what they are thinking....run blocking is sub-par, so toss little passes to Bush and let him do his thing in space.
Could work, but you still have to be able to run the ball inside the tackles to open up this portion of the passing game.  Who do they have to get that done?   Nobody from their current roster.

 They have a few "stars", but not enough support players.  

Detroit fans remember the Red Wings Grind Line?  The Lions need some football players with the grit of Draper, McCarty, and Maltby, so far not seein' it.

ESPN, You Got It Wrong!

 

Make no mistake, I don't like pro basketball.   Too many showboats, too many "I" guys, and too little defense.  It wasn't always this way, I was a die hard Trailblazer fan when they had players like Drexler, Porter, Hollins, Twardzik, Kersey, Lucas, Williams, Robinson.......

But time passed and the team evolved into the Jailblazers.

Add to that the overriding arrogance of the league and my support to the NBA died.

Now to my gripe, to have the ESPY for the best male athlete of 2012 go to lebron james instead of Miguel Cabrera shows the network's bias to all things NBA.   Sure, Cabrera is a Tiger - and I am a die hard Tiger fan, but let's look at the facts.   Cabrera won the Triple Crown in batting in the major leagues, a feat that hasn't been accomplished in 45 years!  Hmmm, must be hard to do...   Add to that his American League MVP.   The historical significance of the Triple Crown should have easily tipped the scales to votes for Cabrera.




 


But no, they rewarded the overly self-promoting james.  Do you recall the 75 minute special called The Decision?  I know, the show raised money for some charities, but seriously, it was all about lebron.








Which leads me to my Red Forman Dumbass Award.   And the award goes to......... 










ESPN for their inability to divorce themselves from the NBA!





You guys suck!

Where Does The Buck Stop?

With the inordinate amount of arrests occurring during the NFL off season, you have to ask why are these numbers up? To possibly understand why, you need to look at how we treat our elite athletes.   From the time they show an ability to excel at athletic feats, they are treated differently than the average Joe.   Early on they learn that their physical abilities will earn them free passes where others are paying full admission.   You may try to muster an argument here, but you really can't in full conscience think that everyone gets the same fair shake.   We foster this invincible attitude among the upper crust of sport and then we gasp when they publicly screw up.  Is there a fix, yes, but not a quick one.   The right attitude has to be instilled at an early age by the right people.   Who?    Coaches who understand that winning at all costs is really losing.   Coaches that put the overall development of the athlete to the forefront and not just emphasize the W's and the L's.  

While the great Vince Lombardi had many truly inspiring quotes, his statement paraphrasing Red Sanders of UCLA that "Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing!" shows a flaw in the effort to develop the proper mechanisms to cope with a defeat.  Defeats happen, they happen to all of us and learning to deal with them rather than dwell on them helps us learn to adjust and move on.  Lessons are learned from both winning and losing, and we know that more often than not, lessons from a loss are the best lessons learned.  What am I getting at here?   We need to educate our coaches and parents that the areas of hard work, team work and good attitude are just as important as the W-L column in the season's standings. Definitely a hard task, but not impossible.  A coach I worked for had a great statement, "All setbacks are temporary", in this, he told his athletes that you learn from mistakes, move on, and get better.  Now I don't want you to think I am a anti-Lombardi kinda guy, I used one of his quotes through out my coaching career, “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.”  

Whoa, this is pretty heavy stuff from a fluff "writer" like me, but that is what happens when you have too much time on your hands and you watch ESPN talk shows.  I hope you will come back when I have regained my usual sarcastic wit and charm....

The Smell of Mown Grass

They say smell is one of the most powerful triggers to memory.   I have to agree, when I pass a baseball field that has just been clipped, my mind immediately returns to the baseball talks my Dad and I shared. 

He grew up in Detroit in an era that saw such icons as Babe Ruth visit Navin Field to battle with Mickey Cochrane's Tigers.






My first memory of the Tigers was Dad and his brothers taking me to a game vs the dreaded Yankees in 1961 at Tiger Stadium.    Uncle Doc, Uncle Jeep, and Uncle Al The Kiddie's Pal loaded us in to the Chrysler and away we went to "the corner" of Michigan and Trumball Avenues. To tell the truth, all I was interested in was the concessions - hot dogs, sodas, pennants.  Far too many distractions from the game for this little boy from Eastern Oregon to hoot and holler when Kaline, Cash, and Freehan came to bat or boo when Mantle, Maris, and Berra walked to the plate. By the way, food choices were limited to popcorn, peanuts, Cracker Jacks, and hot dogs.   The biggest choice you had was "with or without", meaning do you want mustard on your red hot or not?

My favorite memories were from games in 1968 when the Tiger won it all.  We took the 2 day - 3 night train trip to Detroit that year and saw 3 games during our visit.  To this day I can tell you the starting line up for that team.  






My best buddy was a St. Louis fan and we didn't talk for a week after Portland native, Mickey Lolich, beat the Cards in game 7 to claim the title.  Sour grapes on his part, I would have been a gracious winner and would have been sensitive to his pain.........

OK, maybe not - I would have rubbed it in.  Sorry Craig.
 

Sanc U Very Much

     After waiting for what seemed an eternity, the NCAA finally handed down penalties to the U of O football program after 27 months of investigation.   Not too bad, loss of 3 scholarships, 3 years probation, fewer paid visits, fewer evaluatation days - mostly a slap on the wrist.   I have to ask why so little punishment?   The Willie Lyles debacle reads like a bad made-for-tv movie.   It was a little over the top and seemingly worthy of some stiff penance.   But now we are thinking, the violations must not have been that bad.   Hmm, well, we probably will never know the real extent to the Duck misdeeds.  Especially since the documents released by the NCAA had the 3rd violation so heavily redacted that no one can decipher its nature, other than it was a major violation.  Sorta makes you wonder....has the U of O become a darling of the NCAA due to its national stature or are we still a small bird in a big birdbath not worthy of being slammed.   Borrowing a line from C & C Music Factory, "The things that make you go hmmm..."