The World's Commissioner Of Sports

This was the last entry I wrote for my column at CBS2.com back in March.

March 31, 2008

Today is my last day writing for CBS, so I thought I would give a list of some of the many things I would do if I were named World Commissioner of Sport.
-Introduce the following sports into the Olympics: lacrosse, golf (four-person teams, best ball, round-robin tournament), ultimate Frisbee, rugby, baseball (no, it is not in the Olympics anymore),
-Each team gets three video-appeals on ball/strike calls per game, plus one every three extra-innings. They can use the same triangulation technique that is used in tennis, with the results shown instantly on the jumbotron.
-Institute a home run trot clock. If he doesn't make it in time, it is a ground-rule double.
-Shorten and enforce the pitcher's clock, and put it on the scoreboard somewhere.
-Allow immediate group celebrations in football, but don't televise them.
-Any player who holds out while under contract is automatically ineligible for a raise in next contract (all sports).
-Any player that I determine tanked in order to force a trade will be suspended for one year (all sports).
-A single positive performance enhancing drug violation will result in a two-year ban (all sports)
-The New England Patriots forfeit their season-opening win over the New York Jets for cheating.
-If a league finds a positive test for an illegal substance, it must hand the evidence over to the police for prosecution.
-All athletes who make more than $1,000,000 must give at least 5% of their after-tax salary to charity.
-College athletes will not be paid or compensated in any way besides academic scholarships, housing, equipment, on-campus meal plans, and priority class registration.
-The Division IA college football champion will be determined the same way that the champion of every other level of college football determines its champion – tournament. In this case, a 16-team tournament of the top 16-ranked teams at the end of the season.
-The NCAA men's basketball tournament will be comprised of 64 teams.
-Major League Baseball umpires will have access to instant replay for home runs, foul balls and catches.
-Television timeouts are hereby banned. If the teams don't want timeouts, they should not have to take them.
-Volleyball must use the side-out rule, not rally scoring.
-NBA officials will enforce the no-complaining rule, as well as traveling and carrying-over.
-Dunks are worth 1 point.
-The Olympics are only for amateur athletes.
-Public colleges and universities may only give scholarships to American citizens, unless voters in that state vote to allow it.
-All athletics venues must offer a hamburger/hot dog, soda and desert combo for no more than one hour of minimum wage.
-All venues must allow tailgating in their parking lots.
-Car racing, poker and fishing may not be called sports.
-No one can be disciplined for missing work the day after the Super Bowl.
-The football national championship game will be played on January 1.
-Announcers who repeatedly use improper grammar will be fired.
-More swimsuit editions

I'm Back...What Did I Miss?

So it has been nearly a month since I last added any new posts to this site but that is just because not much has really been happening in the sports world, plus that photo of the guy getting hit with a soccer ball was too spectacular to replace as the top story photo. Here's a quick, cursory glance at the insignificant stories and events that have taken place since my last post:

The Summer Olympics
I suppose that the fact that NBC is airing 216 hours of coverage per day (I did not make that up, that is their official number) means the Olympics are kindof a big deal. A few months ago, I wrote that the best Olympic rivalry is the U.S. and Australia in swimming. After Michael Phelps (ever heard of him?) tied the Aussies with eight gold medals through the end of the swim meet, I think the rivalry may be no more. Ian Thorpe looked more and more pissed every time they showed him on T.V. as the meet went along. It was wonderful.

Team Handball has once again become my favorite Olympic sport that no one knows about. In the Winter Olympics, it is usually the biathlon because the fact that they race around while armed, having the full capability to shoot their competitors gives me a great thrill. There should be an open-water swimming obstacle course in which the athletes are armed with harpoon guns. That's how to make the most out of those underwater cameras. Tell me you wouldn't watch.

Chris Kaman has taken a lot of flak for playing for the German National Basketball Team in the Olympics from seemingly everyone in the United States, including the Clippers and his own father. But at least Kaman is of German descent. Becky Hammon is playing for Russia because she was a free agent!

Because there is no women's professional basketball league anymore, you may not know about her, but the 2007 WBNA MVP was not selected to the U.S. National Team. (Wait, 2007? Oh, I guess the WNBA does still exist. Oops.) Hammon, who has been about as big a star as anyone not named Lisa Leslie, wasn't chosen to be among those trying out for the U.S. team. She plays for the WNBA's San Antonio Feminine Sounding Mascots, but in the off-season played for a Russian team coached by their National Team coach who offered her a chance to play with them for cash.

Hammon defends herself saying that athletes have competed for other countries than their native homelands quite commonly and that naturalization is a common practice. I agree. The U.S. track team's best milers are from Sudan and Kenya and I root for them. The problem I have with Hammon's situation is that it was purely a financial thing. She doesn't live there. She doesn't even really speak Russian. She has no connection to Russia. She wasn't oppressed or forced from her war-torn homeland. She just wasn't good enough to make it here anymore. Basically, she was an aging free agent and signed a deal to play for a club, and that is what is sad about the Olympics now.

I get that the games need to feature pros now because there is too much money at stake for countries to send people they know are not their countries' best. Advertisers would never pay for a college all-star basketball team. The ironic thing is that sports like baseball and tennis are in danger of disappearing from the Games for good (baseball is already out for 2012) because the best athletes...that is, the pros...don't see the value in playing and often sit out in favor of prepping for their professional leagues (baseball playoffs and U.S. Open). So because they may only get amateurs to play in the future, they will be dumped from the Olympics.

In other Olympic news, the U.S. soccer team stunk so badly, and interest has dipped so deeply, that they weren't even on T.V. Well they were on T.V. because again, there is 216 hours of coverage per day, but they were relegated to the midday time-slots on Oxygen or something. Where have you gone Cobi Jones?

Did you know that little girl who sang the song near the end of the Opening Ceremony (I don't really know what I am talking about because I didn't watch it) was lip-syncing? Government censors stepped in minutes before the Ceremony and forced the 'ole switcheroo because the girl actually singing wasn't cute enough and they didn't want an image of Chinese people possibly being ugly beamed out to billions of people around the world. I have seen some of their athletes and I can say that that ship has sailed.

The New York Bretts
The embarrassing Brett Favre mess finally ended with an abrupt and surprising trade to the Jets. That along with a Mets win that day made for the best day in months for my brother Steve. And he got married a week ago! Favre was traded for a conditional draft pick which means that the more he plays, and the better the Jets do, the higher the pick that the Packers get becomes. The thing is, the Jets still would only have to give up one first round pick next year if they make the Super Bowl. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think there is a single sports fan or front-office person for any sport on earth who would not give their next 3-5 first round draft picks for a trip to their league's championship (besides people in Boston who have completely forgotten what being a real fan is like).

Manny Goes To Hollywood
The Dodgers traded nothing for the best hitter in baseball, thus making their need to sign Barry Bonds disappear. Manny has been spectacular since joining the Dodgers, hitting .424 with 6 homers and 21 RBI in 16 games. He has done everything right, including saying he wanted to finish his career in L.A., invigorating a completely stagnant offense, and saying he'd even gladly cut his hair as per team rules (still waiting on that one). And best of all, they have pulled into a tie for the Division lead with the D-Backs. Of course, they were only one game back when he was traded. So after two weeks of everything going their way, they have gained a game in the standings and have only been playing four-games over .500. They'll miss the playoffs and he'll sign with the Yankees for five-years and $100-million.

Late-Season Baseball Packages
For the last few years, I have waited for the last month of the baseball season or so, and then signed up for the MLB.tv package where I get to watch all the Mets games live online (besides the 4-5 games per week that are blocked out because the whole system is corrupt). I wait on this because the entire season is far too expensive at the start and typically I would not have been able to watch 100+ games, thus making it worth it. But they prorate the package and you can get the last month for $15-$20 (right now it is $30 for the premium package, $20 for the basic with 1/4ish of the season to go).

Before signing up, I decided to try the cable company to see what their prorated price is for the same package on TV instead of the internet because I'd rather sit on the couch than in this chair. They don't prorate it after midseason! That's right, for the low-low price of $130, you too can watch the last 38 games for the same price as if there were 81 games left. What a deal! And Major League Baseball wonders why they're losing fans? I can't afford to go to a game or watch it on T.V. anymore. And the games I get for free are mostly on Fox, which means they take twice as long as they're supposed to and I have to deal with fancy space-themed sound effects and graphics every time Tim McCarver misreads a stat sheet.

2012 Olympic Torch To Be Lit At Drive-Through

A classmate of mine from college, Susie Erpelding, is quite deservedly being elected into the school's athletic Hall of Fame for her basketball exploits. I can only assume the letter sent to me outlining the important dates and events for my election has been lost in the mail. There's no way the selection committee forgot about my "Conference Most Improved" award in 1999 (which is the nicest backhanded compliment I ever received..."boy, you sucked last year, but this year you're decent.").

And while USD may not have won a national championship in any sport since Zuzana Lesenarova in women's tennis in 1999, our women's volleyball team will be represented at the Beach Volleyball Nationals. Only six schools are invited. Alright, so it is technically an exhibition and the NCAA does not recognize beach volleyball as a sport. We're still gonna win and I am totally gonna rub it in the face of my USC family members.

A number of potential US Olympians will play in the tournament, including USC's Taylor Carico. She and her younger sister Lane (Mira Costa High School) will likely compete as a team in beach volleyball in 2012, since Lane is only a senior in HS now. Hopefully the Torch relay for the 2012 Olympics will not be "run" in a van, since I don't think automobiles were part of the ancient games.

Doesn't the idea of the Olympic Torch being hidden kinda go against the entire point of the Olympic Torch? I understand that there were protesters and they were concerned for the runners' safety. So change the route, or go to another city. But the Torch is supposed to symbolize the fire given to mankind by Prometheus that made man closer to the gods. The flame is essentially the eternal flame of competition inside us that makes us achieve great feats. And you aren't supposed to hide that in a warehouse down by the docks (although tell that to Indy after the government guys did the same thing with the Arc of the Covenant!).

In totally unrelated news, the Mets beat the hell out of the Phillies on Wednesday. Hopefully now they will stop talking about how Mets players are "afraid" of the Phillies. They don't get scared of teams they have trouble with, athletes just lose their confidence and then bad things happen. Why aren't sports writers required to have at least been high school varsity athletes?

And finally, speaking of confidence: The Sharks lost their series opener against Calgary last night despite one of the greatest last minutes flurries I have ever seen. Miikka Kiprusoff was spectacular and Jerome Iginla was everywhere for the Flames. However, I think the Sharks were overconfident at the start, expecting their win streak to just carry them into the next round. Don't count on that again. Take away the Flames' first 5 minutes and Iginla's spectacular steal and breakaway goal (actually knocked in by Stephan Yelle), San Jose dominated the game. Joe Thornton will score twice tonight and the Sharks will win by 3 at least.

Stop The Presses: Manny Legged Out A Triple

Manny Ramirez had a triple and Red Sox fans gave Bill Buckner a standing ovation. Seriously. Both of those things happened on the same day. No joke.

I didn't think I would be able to find anything else to write about today after that, but then I read that the Chinese government asked the American government to prevent protesters from interfering with the Olympic torch relay as it passes through San Francisco today. This story is wonderful on a number of levels.

When China asked the U.S. government to prevent protests from occurring when the torch gets to San Francisco, there had already been people staging huge demonstrations in San Francisco (hanging monstrous signs off of the cables on the Golden Gate bridge, for instance). Apparently China thinks the U.S. government doesn't allow legal demonstrations. And best of all, they expect people in the biggest hippy-peacenik city in the country to not protest for Tibet when literally the entire sports and political world is watching? The relay could not go through a worse/better U.S. city (depending on your point-of-view). This is a city that annually holds the world's biggest pillow fight.

I hope the people of San Francisco hold such a spectacular protest that the Chinese are scared into ending the Torch relay and the U.S. pulls out of the Olympic Opening ceremony. And I LOVE the idea of the Torch relay (though I admittedly cannot stand the Opening Ceremony).

Last night I worked at KCAL and had to watch the Lakers game. What is worse: watching a Laker game or listening to a Laker game? Tough call. NBA referees should be ashamed of themselves for the calls they do not make. Kobe Bryant simply cannot dribble without carrying-over. No one can make a layup or dunk or take a first step on a drive without traveling. Every one of them could punch a guy and spin around in disbelief if a foul called. It is sickening.

But the Lakers lost and Brandon Roy torched Kobe Bryant time after time, so it wasn't a total waste of time for me.

Note to NBA teams: if you make a three-pointer, on the next possession whoever gets the ball first between Sasha Vujacic, Vlad Radmonovich, and Jordan Farmar, will shoot a three-pointer to answer. It happens every single time.

Dick Vitale came out with his top five for college basketball in 2009. The season was over for maybe an hour before he taped it. And who knows what players will leave for the NBA before then. Screw Dick Vitale and screw ESPN for airing him.

Finally, I used to not care about the Phillies. They were just another NL East team. I hate them now. And while Baseball Tonight may be my favorite show on television, I cannot watch a single other game's highlights on days when the Mets lose. Those smug jerks and their game-winning hits. I hate them.