Why Sports?

Posted by sparty99

As a lot of you (translation: my dad) have noticed, I haven’t written in a while. There are a lot of reasons for this. Work doesn’t like it when I spend time writing for my personal blog, I like to drink, TV has some really cool stuff going on, I like to drink and I’m also pretty damn lazy. Also, I like to drink. But in reality, it might come down to one damning thing.

Sports just aren’t as fun anymore.

Let’s do a little history lesson. First off, I didn’t get “big” into sports until my dad had moved away to Illinois. This isn’t any criticism, but there really wasn’t any history of me sitting on the couch watching my dad get pumped up about the Bears, so a lot of my loyalties have varied and the start of my histories with certain sports tie in to when local teams were good.

Now that you know that…

I got off to a good start. My first sports memory was the 1984 Tigers winning the World Series. I didn’t have much of a memory of that team, but I do remember the end of that final game. From there it was on to the ’85 Bears, whom I picked up with my dad and will still argue are the best team of all time. In ’87 Michigan State’s football team went to the Rose Bowl for the first time in over 20 years. In ’88 the Pistons should’ve beaten the Lakers in the NBA Finals, and in ’89 they did. That same year Michigan fired their basketball coach then won the NCAA basketball title (at that age you could switch collegiate loyalties as often as you changed underwear, so at least once a week). In 1989 the Lions drafted the greatest running back not named Jim Brown; in 1991 they were a win away from the Super Bowl.

And those were just the local teams. For some reason I liked Jose Canseco, so I watched the A’s win the Earthquake World Series in ’89. That same year – as with all summers from the time I was 10 until I was 16 – I spent the summer at my dad’s place in Illinois and watched the Cubs on WGN every afternoon. They went to the playoffs that year and I’ve been a fair weather Cubs fan ever since. I loved Joe Montana, and I watched the 49ers win Super Bowls 23 and 24 as Montana cemented his legacy as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. My brother picked up hockey and the New York Rangers in 1994, so I learned the sport along with him (while wondering why Chris Osgood left the net). And perhaps the biggest “betrayal” for any Michigan sports fan: in 1993 I discovered my dad was a Bulls fan and picked them up when the Pistons were down. I stuck with them through the 72-win season in ’96, although the Dennis Rodman pickup helped me justify that one.

By 1997, the Red Wings had gotten off the schneid, beaten the shit out of the Colorado Avalanche, and would win 4 Cups in just over a decade. The Pistons got over the teal era, and won one of the more unexpected titles in NBA history while going to 6 Eastern Conference Finals in a row. The Tigers got over 13 consecutive losing seasons – including the worst year in American League history – by going to the World Series on a walkoff home run by Magglio Ordonez. Michigan State’s basketball team capitalized on sanctions at Michigan and went to 4 straight Final Fours and won the national title in 2000 (my collegiate loyalties were locked in when I decided to go to East Lansing to study journalism for 6 weeks before I found out what journalists make). The Spartan football team became a power and we’ve won 10+ games 4 times in 5 years, won a Rose Bowl, don’t measure our success on whether or not we beat Michigan, and talk about national titles without being called delusional.

I even gave up on the 49ers and shed my fair weather reputation when they fired Steve Mariucci and became a full-time Lions fan. Then the Lions hired him and I completely understood what the 49ers were doing. But while the Lions went through a stretch that would rival or even exceed the stretch the Tigers put us through, they weren’t contracted or moved, they didn’t have the Thanksgiving game taken away from them and they’ve even made the playoffs.

Things were good.

But dig deeper and it’s not hard to poke holes in the facade. For a sporting society that lives on the idea of “Second place is the first loser”, a 4-team city (not counting the 2 Big 10 schools in the area) that hasn’t won a title since 2008 – with no teams that scream out that they’re favorites to win anytime soon – doesn’t leave a fan happy. The average title drought for the teams in this city is over 26 years (the Lions surely don’t help that average), and within those droughts are some painful sporting legacies:

Tigers: David Ortiz’s grand slam in the 2013 ALCS, six total runs scored in 2012 World Series, pitchers forget how to field in 2006 World Series
Lions: only team to go 0-16
Pistons: team wide mutiny after starting 37-5 in 2006 Eastern Conference finals, destroyed by LeBron games in 2007 ECF, utter disaster of Charlie Villanueva and Ben Gordon deals
Red Wings: blew 3-2 lead to lose 2009 Stanley Cup Final

But that’s not it.

Should the Tigers have won a World Series by now? Probably. Should the Wings have repeated in ’09? Possibly. Could the Pistons have won more than 1 title in their 6-year run? Definitely. Should the Lions…hmm…um…

Every city’s got one of those teams.

And yes, these things start to wear on fans. This isn’t the World Cup where a tiny country can be thrilled that not only did they qualify, but they also played a powerhouse to a scoreless draw. Or the Olympics, where we watch a guy almost drown while simultaneously celebrate his ability to complete. This is America. We don’t just go to enjoy the games, we pull for our teams to win championships and we know exactly when the last time it happened for all of our states (1957, 1984, 2004, 2009).

But no, it’s not the woulda-coulda-shoulda that takes the fun sports. In fact, to a large extent that’s exactly what makes it fun.

But it’s not that either.

Everyone in America watched the Great Home Run Chase of 1998. We watched as this man who seemed destined for years to break the most hallowed record in American sports fought off a personable upstart, and then hit the magical mark of 70, a mark that seemed almost as unbreakable as the 60 that Babe Ruth hit in 1927.

Then 3 years later someone else hit 73.

I, like everyone else, was blinded to the fact that Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds were chemically enhanced when they broke the record. And as the years went on I didn’t much care, because it turned out that everyone in the game was juiced. I care that it was clear that those chemical enhancements cheapened that magical summer, that 73 isn’t anywhere near as romantic as 60 or 61*, that there are many who still believe that 755 is the home run record.

But no, that’s not quite it either.

It’s who I’m giving my money to.

As I’ve said before, I believe sports owners to be among the most despicable people on earth. The history of professional sports is littered with stories of owners doing whatever they could to pay the players – the people the fans are coming to see – as little as possible, to treat them as chattel, to restrict their rights, to control what they wear. It continues to this day, with the NFL fining players $10,000 for wearing Beats headphones to mandatory post-game press conferences. “Guys, we know Beats is the big thing now, but we’ve got a contract with Motorola which, believe it or not, is still in business.” And yet somehow the fans paint the players as greedy whenever there’s a work stoppage.

But no, we’re still not quite there.

No, it’s the fact that these people I give so much money to – and I’ve given a ridiculous sum of money to professional sports owners over the years – not only don’t give a fuck about anyone to whom they’re responsible (fans, players, employers, families, etc.), but they think we’re stupid enough to buy their shit.

That’s it.

I started thinking about this post as I boatgated before the first game of the Lions’ season. It was that day that the infamous video of Ray Rice knocking out his now wife went public. The Ravens acted quickly, cutting Rice. The NFL was in a bit of spot, because they’d already determined that watching a guy dragging his unconscious fiance out of an Atlantic City elevator was only worth a 2-game suspension. Nevertheless, the League suspended him again, a suspension that has been reversed because it turns out that you can’t suspend a guy for the same action when the only thing that changed was that the whole world saw what you’ve already clearly known.

Over the next few weeks I watched intently as Roger Goodell insisted they hadn’t seen the tape when they clearly had. As Vikings ownership suspended Adrian Peterson for beating the shit out of his 4-year-old son, then activated him, then suspended him again when advertisers yanked their support. As the NFL somehow made people who had beaten their wives and children into sympathetic figures.

Sports just didn’t really feel great anymore.

That was over 3 months ago. I sat there watching that video thinking to myself, “Do I really want to support this company anymore?” When does the NFL become Wal-Mart, or Apple, or GM?

Including that Monday Night game, I’ve been to 4 NFL games since then. I am the problem.

The NFL handed out painkillers and steroids like they were tic-tacs until Lyle Alzado died of a brain tumor and went public believing that the two were related. They fought the disability claims of players who were living in their cars with dementia caused by constant helmet-to-helmet collisions. They ignored the somewhat obvious fact that concussions could have long lasting impact (you know, beyond the 3 plays that the NFL thought they had), despite the fact that concussion issues were a plot point in Varsity Blues, which came out in 19-freaking-99 (thanks Bill Simmons…asshole). And now they’re trying to convince us they’re concerned about domestic violence while giving a 2-game suspension to a guy who knocked out his wife and then dragged her out of an elevator.

Hell, we can’t even escape politics on the field. When players throughout the country have expressed their Constitutionally-protected right to express their opinions (whether the venue for those opinions were appropriate is for everyone to decide on their own) about high-profile police killings they’ve gotten shot down by fans and police spokespeople. Never mind that it was members of those police departments that led to the demonstrations in the first place. No, it’s the young black man – and it’s always a black man – expressing his opinion who’s the problem.

And yet through this entire mess, the NFL has lost not one single viewer. Not even me. The only Lions games I’ve missed this year were because there were more important Tigers games taking place at the same time. And until they start losing viewers (and, more importantly, money), what the NFL does about these public relations disasters won’t matter.

Sports have just gotten less enjoyable. I’ll get enraged by people at the bar who have differing opinions about trades the Tigers have made. I’ve had the text message equation of a knock-down, drag-out brawl with a friend of mine who suggested I had gone off the deep end because of how I felt about Brad Ausmus’s bullpen usage. I was genuinely afraid he was going to have a stroke, which leads me to believe he’s got a mindset about sports not far off from mine.

Which brings me back to the whole point of this post. Why sports?

And then I think of this picture.

That’s what sports is. That’s a picture taken after the Lions had beaten the Falcons in London on a last-second field goal in October. My friend and I hadn’t been getting along all that great, mostly because I’ve got thin skin and take things personally. But after that game, we just celebrated and chatted with foreign (wait, I guess we were the foreigners) football fans in a magnificent stadium.

It’s an excuse to travel to see faraway friends, like the friend who moved to Germany for business. That’s why we were in London in the first place. Without the Lions, I don’t know if we’d make that trip. You’d like to think that friendships survive thousands of miles, but you don’t know. Having your teams to talk about makes it easier.

It’s complaining with your dad over text about our football teams. It’s a bit hard to be sympathetic to his plight. As bad as the Bears have been, they still have 1985. While I haven’t been a full-time Lions fan since birth, geography has required me to follow them since I’ve been watching football. We don’t talk on the phone much anymore – why bother when texting and email is so much easier – but every Sunday we text about our teams.

Talking to strangers has always been an issue for me. I can’t talk to women. It’s a crippling issue that has kept me single far longer than I’d like. But I can inject myself into a random conversation about the 2002 Fiesta Bowl or whether Roger Clemens belongs in the Hall of Fame like it’s nobody’s business. I spent a long chunk of my life feeling weird about myself, and being involved in a sports conversation makes me feel normal.

So I guess that’s why sports.

Adam Silver Is a Fucking Pimp

Posted by sparty99

Donald Sterling was allowed to run his team in embarrassing fashion for all 30 years of the David Stern era. And today, after less than 3 months on the job, Adam Silver swept away the festering boil and showed more spine than Stern ever did.

So much for the plantation mentality of the NBA.

Let’s do a quick rundown of Sterling’s despicable acts:

In the 1980’s, while interviewing Rollie Massimino while tanked and with a blonde on his arm, he asked Massimino why he thought he could coach those n—–s.
He once told his general manager, NBA legend Elgin Baylor, that he wanted a team of “poor black boys from the South…playing for a white coach.”
Several players complained that Sterling brought women into the locker room after games and said, “Look at those beautiful black bodies.”
He settled a housing discrimination lawsuit for $2.75 million saying that African-Americans were not clean and they smelled and that Hispanics laid around all day smoking and drinking.
He celebrated Black History Month…in March. I guess it’s the thought that counts.

Technically speaking he did nothing wrong…well, except for the housing discrimination thing, but when you’re worth $2 billion, $2.75 million is a drop in the bucket. Still, when you own a team in a league that is predominantly black, you might think the commissioner might want to lay down some discipline. Instead he decided to get tougher on technical fouls, inflict a dress code and “suggest” that Allen Iverson might not want to release a rap album.

Priorities.

But today, 3 days after audio surfaced that revealed Sterling saying that he didn’t want his mistress to bring black people to his games, Silver brought down the hammer. Sterling was banned for life, he was fined $2.5 million (the maximum allowable under the NBA Constitution), and Silver announced that he would seek a vote from the NBA’s owners to force Sterling to sell the team (he needs the vote of 22 of the remaining 29 owners).

After Sterling’s comments broke, players were unanimous in their condemnation, and even Michael Jordan said that Sterling didn’t belong in the league anymore. Considering Jordan once supposedly said, “Republicans buy shoes too,” when asked to campaign against Jesse Helms in his home state, getting such a statement out of Jordan was monumental.

Had Stern been in charge every player that spoke out would’ve been fined or suspended. Probably (cue Homer Simpson voice).

Today was a watershed moment in the NBA and in sports in general, and Adam Silver was introduced to the world as a commissioner the sports world can admire. Considering he just assumed the mantel of “Best Commissioner in Sports” from Bud Selig, this isn’t saying much, but at least he’s not implementing borderline racist policies like his predecessor; or trying to short change brain damaged or dead football players like Roger Goodell; or telling the world that no one wants replay and pretending he wasn’t complicit in the steroid era like Bud Selig; or being Gary Bettman like Gary Bettman.

Unfortunately, while we stand and applaud Silver and the NBA in general, the events of the last few days reveal some unfortunate truths about the entire situation.

For starters, one of the suggestions was that the NBA could force Sterling into selling the team by making each player on the Clippers roster a free agent, which would decimate the team. What no one really wants to say is that only 2 players currently on the roster are on the team without any choice. One player was drafted, one was acquired by trade. The rest either signed as free agents, arrived via sign and trades, or signed extensions (as did superstars Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan). Their coach – Doc Rivers – orchestrated a trade that sent him from Boston to the Clippers. Donald Sterling has been a well-known racist and scumbag for years, at least as long as these guys have been in the league, and a quick Google search would’ve told these guys that Sterling is not a guy you want to play for. They took more money to play for him. At the risk of sounding unsympathetic, well, I struggle supporting these guys or their protest.

Then there’s the matter of a vote by the owners being required to force Sterling to sell the team. My personal opinion is that most professional sports owners are among the worst people on earth, ranking right up there with corporate executives, stockbrokers, politicians and the French. They’ll take money from bankrupt cities to pay for their stadiums; proclaim that they’re not making any money while refusing to open their books; negotiating on the pretense that the players are overpaid, even though no one pays to watch the crusty old white dude in the owner’s box; and most importantly, charge me $8 for a beer. So while the owners were unanimous in their praise for Silver’s announcement today, is it really that difficult to imagine that 8 owners would read the tea leaves and fear for the precedent that a league forcing an owner to sell his team would set? Saying you’re going to vote for something isn’t hard. Actually voting to declare that the league may one day decide that you have to sell your team because you said something they didn’t like is another thing entirely. Mark Cuban wasn’t wrong when he said that such a move was a slippery slope.

And then there’s perhaps the most uncomfortable aspect to Silver’s announcement today. Donald Sterling, before he became an NBA owner and before he became a slumlord (although probably not before he became a racist), was a divorce and personal injury attorney. As part of his settlement with the Justice Department, he paid almost $5 million in attorneys’ fees and costs, with the judge noting “Sterling’s’ scorched earth’ litigation tactics, some of which are described by the Plaintiffs’ counsel and some of which were observed by the Court. The Court has no difficulty accepting Plaintiffs’ counsel’s representations that the time required to be spent on this case was increased by defendant’s counsel’s often unacceptable, and sometimes outrageous conduct.” Simply put, if you think Sterling is going to sell his team without a judge telling him to do so, I’ve got a basketball team in Los Angeles to sell you.

Finally, the Clippers will not come at a discount. They’re a team with promise in one of the two biggest markets in the country. According to Forbes, as of January 2014 they were valued at $575 million. Sterling bought the team for $12 million. The old despicable scumbag will be walking away with a lot of money.

So while we can watch today’s press conference and see a commissioner we can stand behind and breathe a sign of relief that the plague that is Donald Sterling may finally be going away, the reality is that this saga is far from over. Today reminds you of the great things that sports can do, and the horrible things that sports allow.

Fixing the NFL

Posted by sparty99

It’s Thanksgiving weekend and that means food, family and football (and perhaps shopping for the truly psychotic). Of course, I didn’t start this blog to discuss food or family, and I damn sure didn’t start it to talk about shopping. So today we’re going to look the disaster that is the NFL and figure out how we can improve it.

(You will notice I’m posting this the weekend between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. I’d like to pretend that’s because I’m timing this perfectly when we need some football in our lives, but really I’m just that lazy.)

Now, before we begin, let’s discuss the 2 elephants in the room: the concussion disaster and the relatively recent hazing mess in Miami that’s become all the rage. Now, almost anyone who knows me I fall somewhere close to the bleeding heart point on the political spectrum, so they’d probably expect me to say the NFL should start playing flag football and anyone found to haze a player should be banned permanently. Not so.

See, I understand that the NFL is an entirely different beast from pretty much any other profession on earth. If these things were happening at a Wall Street brokerage…ok, bad example. If this were happening at a public accounting firm or a newspaper, the employees would be fired on site. But the NFL thrives on violence and manliness, and to pretend that you can just turn that off once you hit the locker room is lunacy. At the risk of sounding like a, “Durrr…foobaw” cretin jackass, football comes with a certain amount of collateral damage. Countless dead players, Michael Vick’s dogs, Jovan Belcher’s girlfriend, Aaron Hernandez’s victim(s)…sadly, this is the price we pay for being entertained on Sunday afternoons.

And sure, when a game starts to rack up a body count, people in today’s world tend to think that the game won’t be the same in 20 years. Here’s the problem: no one has stopped watching. Super Bowl ratings break records every year. Every week the NFL’s games are the highest rated in the country by millions. A Monday Night Football game between two of the worst teams in the league barely lost the ratings battle to a World Series game. And the first blackout of the year didn’t take place until Week 13.

So we have to accept the premise that until someone dies on the field – and I’m not talking about Junior Seau killing himself because of repeated head trauma but rather something along the lines of Ray Chapman – the game isn’t going anywhere. With that in mind, here are my thoughts on how to make the game more enjoyable/less stupid.

The Kicking Game

Field goals are boring. Punts are boring. That said, to some extent they’re necessary at certain points. But we’re going to de-emphasize them.

–Field Goals: There’s nothing that drives me crazier than a team getting first and goal on the 5 only to see the drive stall and them taking the guaranteed 3 points. And they will take the points, because football coaches are pussies who won’t get fired because they kicked a field goal instead of going for it on fourth and 2. The problem is that field goal kickers (well, other than David Akers) have become ridiculously accurate with legs that can kick a ball 70 yards on the fly, so a field goal isn’t as much of a risk as it was in the ’70s and ’80s.

So we’re de-emphasizing the field goal at a certain point. Or rather changing their value. It doesn’t make sense that a field goal from 50 yards out is worth the same as a field goal from 20 yards out. Here’s how it works:

Any kick inside the 20 (basically, you’re giving up inside the 3-yard line): 1 point
Kicks between the 20-30: 2 points
Kicks from the 30-45: 3 points
Kicks from beyond the 45-yard-line: 4 points

Also, any missed field goals from beyond the 45-yard-line will see the ball spotted at the original line of scrimmage, not the spot of the missed kick.

Fun, huh?

–Extra Points: Since 2011, kickers have missed 18 extra points. Out of 3,709. That’s a 99.5% success rate. That, my friends, is pointless to watch. So we’re getting rid of them. Touchdowns are worth 7 points. If you want to go for the 2-point conversion, you take the point off the board and you go for 2. It’s a little clumsy, but I’m tired of watching something so automatic. There’s no challenge in it.

(Note: I started writing this post over the Thanksgiving weekend in 2013. In January 2014 Roger came out and suggested a plan practically identical to the one suggested above. You’ll have to take my word for that one. The lesson: if I wasn’t so damn lazy, I’d have grounds to sue the NFL.)

–Punting: No problems with punting, but it’s the easy play. Also, fans don’t pay to watch punters. One small alteration to be made: no punting if the offense has passed into the defense’s territory. If a coach wants to waste two downs to get behind the 50-yard-line so he can punt the ball away, that’s his right. But I’d rather see him try for one of those cool 4-point field goals.

–Goalposts: Raise them at least 10 feet. I’m tired of hearing Adam Carolla whine every time a kicker kicks the ball over the top of one of the goalposts. It happens several times a year.

By the way, it should come as no surprise that I hate defense.

Penalties

–Automatic First Down: Third down, 17 to go, cornerback holds the wide receiver 7 yards past the line of scrimmage, pass falls incomplete, ref calls the hold, 5 yard penalty, automatic first down. Stupid. Let the penalty yardage determine first down. The only exception is personal fouls, which are called because they could cause bodily harm, in which case you get the fifteen yards and the first down.

–Offsetting Penalties: Imagine a play where the defense gets called for a 5-yard defensive hold, but the left guard holds a guy 3 yards behind the line of scrimmage. By rule those are offsetting penalties and the down is replayed. This is asinine. Somehow the NFL has decided that a 5-yard penalty and a 10-yard penalty are worth the same if they happen on the same play. On the play in question, apply the 10-yard penalty (which is actually a 13-yard penalty because of where the hold took place) and then walk off the 5-yard defensive hold. One team doesn’t get bailed out because the other team committed a lesser penalty.

–Celebration/Taunting: I don’t watch football for sportsmanship, I watch it to watch outstanding physical specimens compete at the highest level. I don’t give a damn if a guy gives a Riverdance performance after scoring a touchdown or gives a throat slash gesture after sealing the game winning interception. It’s an amped up game played by physical monsters sweating adrenaline and testosterone. Let them celebrate without repercussions.

Instant Replay

–Number of Challenges: Under current rules, every coach gets two challenges per game. If he gets them both right, he gets a third. If he gets only one of the two challenges correct, he loses his potential third challenge. This essentially penalizes the team for the referees’ mistake. Change the rules so that incorrect challenges are tied to timeouts. If you have 3 timeouts left, you get 3 incorrect challenges (since the penalty for an incorrect timeout is the team losing a timeout). If that means the officiating crew has 8 calls overturned during the game, so be it. I want the calls right, and I don’t care how long it takes. Challenges are not so time-consuming that they justify allowing the wrong call to stand. Plus we just shaved a bunch of time getting rid of extra points, so we’ve got time to make up.

–End Zone Challenges: All touchdown calls are automatically reviewed. You know what aren’t automatically reviewed? Questionable end zone calls that aren’t called touchdowns. This is not an insignificant distinction. A few years back, the Lions (after using their two challenges, one of which was a correct challenge, if my memory serves) had a touchdown ruled an incomplete pass. Had the call been ruled a touchdown, it would’ve been reviewed. It was ruled incomplete, the call was not reviewed, and since the Lions had no challenges remaining, the call stood. They settled for a field goal, lost by 4, and dropped from the 5th to the 6th seed in the playoffs.

(I’m not bitter.)

Anything questionable in the end zone should be automatically reviewed. Period. It should not matter if the play is called a touchdown or an incompletion.

–Plays Subject to Review: A pretty substantial amount of plays in the NFL are reviewable. That’s not enough. Everything should be subject to review. Penalties are relatively objective (although not always), and can turn the tide of a game. If a coach wants to spend a challenge because he thinks a pass interference call should be overturned, he should have that right.

Playoffs/Scheduling

–Divisions: This is perhaps my most controversial proposal. We’re ditching conferences for reasons that will be explained shortly. As such, we no longer need an AFC North and NFC North. We’re renaming the divisions to celebrate the history of the NFL:

AFC East: Mara Division
AFC North: Halas Division
AFC South: Thorpe Division
AFC West: Rozelle Division
NFC East: Rooney Division
NFC North: Brown Division
NFC South: Davis Division
NFC West: Hunt Division

You’ll notice that these names have no correlation with any of the teams in that given division. There’s a reason for that. There are historical figures big enough to name a division after in every division except the NFC and AFC South. As such, these 8 names were assigned to divisions they had no relationship with. Owners of AFC teams were assigned to NFC divisions and vice versa, with as much effort being used to keep them in their geographical region as possible.

–Scheduling: Minimal and optional changes. As it stands, teams play 2 games against their division rivals (6 games), a game against every team in another division in their conference (4) a game against every team in a division in the other conference (4) and 2 games against the teams in their conference that finished in the same position record-wise the previous year. This can remain the same, either recalling the traditional conferences or with the other seven divisions rotating where applicable.

–Calendar: The final games of the regular season will always be played the last weekend of December, with the playoffs being played in January/February. There will be no regular season games played in January. This hasn’t been a major issue historically, but we’re putting it into the calendar permanently.

–Playoff Expansion: It’s already been suggested that the league expand the playoffs to 14 teams. I’m adopting that, although for somewhat different reasons. When the NFL restructured their divisions to go from 6 5-team divisions to 8 4-team divisions, they eliminated 2 Wild Card teams. Adding the seventh teams in each conference remedies that issue.

–Playoff Seeding: As I said earlier, we’re eliminating the Conferences and seeding the teams 1-14 based on record, and record alone. Division winners get no preference because they played in a bad division. If a the Packers win the Brown Division at 8-7-1 while the 49ers are a 12-4 Wild Card team, the 49ers get the higher seed and the potential home game. The first tiebreaker will be head-to-head, the second tiebreaker will be division winners, and then the typical tiebreakers apply. If 3 teams are 12-4, and 2 are division winners, the Wild Card gets the lowest seed. Teams are reseeded after every round as they are now. If this means we wind up with a Seahawks-49ers Super Bowl, so be it (and having seen their game last week, I think we’d all be better for it).

(Ideally here is the point where I’d list out the seedings as they would have been this season had these rules been in effect, but I’m too lazy to figure out the tiebreakers.)

There are other things in the NFL that can be fixed. Their overtime rules are generally stupid. There are ways to get the benefit of an 18-game season without actually going to an 18-game season (stretching it out to 19 weeks seems like the ideal fix, but I haven’t figured that out yet). The players are screwed by not getting guaranteed money. And the concussion situation needs to be fixed, but that’s beyond my comprehension. But while some of my suggestions are ridiculous and will never be implemented, other things make a ton of sense and would make the game more fun.

My Confusion with the Steroid Era

Posted by sparty99

In 1998, after a game in which he hit one of his 70 home runs, a reporter noticed a bottle of androstenedione in Mark McGwire’s locker and naturally asked about it. The reporter caught the 5th degree for asking about a substance that was banned by numerous sporting agencies, but not MLB.

Today, 12 players were suspended 50 games, and Alex Rodriguez for 211, for their links to the Biogenesis lab in Miami.

While it’s unlikely that there will ever be a beginning and end of the steroid era in baseball, to me there’s something about these two events that strike me as similar to the Nazis marching into Poland and the Battle of Berlin.

(I realize it’s a horrible analogy…work with me here.)

I’m torn on the PED issue in sports. In the 1960’s, if you tore your ACL, your career was pretty much over. Today it costs you a hear, but your career goes on. When Tommy John blew out his elbow, his surgeon game him a 1 in 100 chance of pitching again. Now the surgery’s named after John (I feel like Frank Jobe got gypped there and it’s forgotten that John won 288 games) and kids in high school and college have the surgery done as preventative measures. Hell, you can get laser eye surgery and have 20/20 vision in a week now.

Can someone explain to me how these aren’t “performance enhancing”?

I get it…drugs are bad. But are they? What are the downsides to HGH? Joint swelling…joint pain…carpal tunnel syndrome…an increased risk of diabetes. It may also be a risk factor for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which sounds a little shitty, but your survival rate is over 80%. My question is this: if those are your potential side effects, and using this drug is the difference between being a career minor leaguer and making the big leagues and pretty much set for life, wouldn’t you at least consider taking it?

I think if you say no you’re lying.

I get that steroids are the scourge of professional sports world, but I imagine that most people who get on their high horse about steroids would quickly take a drug that would put them into their next echelon of their given occupation. If you wouldn’t, you’re a better man than me.

So maybe I’m not torn.

I have no morals when it comes to sports (well, aside from college sports, but that’s a whole other discussion). I’ve long said that if it meant the Tigers would win the World Series I’d root for a team with Hitler as their ace and Stalin as their cleanup hitter. So considering the fact that one of the players suspended today was Jhonny Peralta, the All-Star shortstop for my beloved Tigers, one might take this post as excusing Peralta’s behavior. I’m not. Whether testing has been in place or not, steroids have been illegal in baseball since at least 1991, and Peralta was selfish and unfair to his teammates and fans.

But I find myself thinking back to 1998. Baseball was still recovering from a strike that had wiped out the World Series for the first time since 1903. Cal Ripken chased down Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak in 1995, but it was the home run chase of 1998 that saw the country cheering for Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa to break Roger Maris’s single season home run record. When they both did so, and both soared past Maris’s 61 home runs (with 70 by McGwire and 66 by Sosa), it was chalked up to unqualified pitchers resulting from expansion (not unlike Maris’s own record chase in 1961). McGwire hit 65 in 1999. Sosa averaged 61 from 1998-2001. Even after that breakout, after seeing McGwire’s physique explode and the banned substance in his locker, people were inclined to think the ball was juiced. After all, home runs across the game were up.

It wasn’t until an angry, jealous black man broke McGwire’s record a scant 3 years later that the steroid talk really exploded. Sure, McGwire looks like he’s twice the size of his rookie card, but look at the size of Barry Bonds’s head! He must be juicing! (He was, but so was pretty much everyone else.) It brought us farcical Congressional hearings where Jose Canseco provided the most trustworthy testimony. It brought us the Chicago White Sox (aka Frank Thomas) threatening to boycott investigative testing to trigger actual testing with (toothless) punishment. It brought us the Mitchell Report, which found an employee of the Red Sox performing an investigation into steroids in baseball while – shockingly – going light on the Red Sox. It brought us ridiculously expensive prosecutions of Barry Bonds and Rogers Clemens, neither of whom ever did a day in prison (nor should they have). And it gave us the absurdity of the Yankees clearly orchestrating an extended suspension of Alex Rodriguez because they signed him to an equally absurd contract.

It’s all been quite ridiculous.

Does that make it wrong? Congress called for hearings under the guise of it being a public health crisis. Apparently teens were watching their heroes take steroids, taking them themselves, and the side effects were causing suicides (never mind the fact that these kids were probably troubled in the first place. Don’t get them help, blame the baseball players!). Barry Bonds was convicted of perjury (you can debate the legitimacy of the prosecution all you want, but he was convicted). There was a witch hunt against A-Rod because, well, A-Rod is a massive douchebag. And let’s not kid ourselves. Baseball is cleaner now than it’s ever been.

And to go further, it’s cleaner than every other sport? The NFL voted in HGH testing during the last collective bargaining agreement in 2011. The only problem is that they can’t agree on testing, which pretty much means that the entire league is on HGH. And you’re not going to convince me that hockey and basketball, both significantly more physical games than baseball, have no issues with performance enhancing drugs. Just because we haven’t heard about it doesn’t mean there’s not an issue.

The dirty little secret about performance enhancing drugs is that they work. So does Tommy John surgery and knee reconstruction. Only PED’s aren’t allowed.

And I find that very confusing.

Fixing Team Names

Posted by sparty99

The NBA regular season is over, and since I’m somewhat (completely) fair weathered when it comes to pro hoops and the Pistons don’t just suck but are a complete and total embarrassment to the city, there’s only one thing I care about…and it ain’t LeBron or the Lakers.

The New Orleans Hornets are no more!

It’s always bothered me when teams move to a new city – and have to rebrand anyway – and they don’t go through the trouble of changing the team name. So we get ridiculous names like the Utah Jazz, Memphis Grizzlies and Oklahoma SuperSonics…oh, wait. Theoretically team names are supposed to reflect the culture of the cities they play in, but the closest Grizzly Bear to Memphis is either in a zoo or 1300 miles away, and let’s not even talk about a style of music that is predominantly black providing the nickname for a team in the whitest state in the country.

So I’m fixing that.

Here’s the rules:

We’re only changing the nicknames of teams that have changed during the respective sport’s current “eras”. For baseball, that’s the expansion era (1969-present). For the NFL (1970), NBA (1976-77) and NHL (1979-80), this refers to the time since their mergers. So teams like the Oakland A’s and Los Angeles Lakers lucked out, even if their names make no sense.
Team names stick with the city (a la Cleveland Browns, Seattle SuperSonics, etc.). If a second team comes to that city, they are eligible to adopt that moniker.
They haven’t moved, but we’re going to address Native American names, which means that the Redskins will be getting dealt with.
I don’t have a problem using a nickname that is currently in use in another sport.

That’s it, it’s that simple. It should be noted that while I tried to research some of the cities’ histories in their respective sports to come up with names, but in the end, I’m an accountant with no creativity, and my buddy Jeff came up with a bunch of these names. I think you’ll like them.

MLB

There’s literally no corrections to be made. Only three baseball teams have moved during the expansion era: the Seattle Pilots became the Milwaukee Brewers in 1970, the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers in 1972, and the Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals in 2005.

Good on you baseball!

NFL

Not a ton of movement, but enough that teams require some adjustment. In fact, only one team that’s moved recently has done it right and rebranded themselves, and even that was after the Titans spent 2 years as the Tennessee Oilers (interesting fact: the Oilers nickname has since been retired by the NFL…I have no idea what that means, but I find it interesting).

Also, I’m not addressing the Raiders, since they were originally the Oakland Raiders. And since the San Diego Chargers were originally the Los Angeles Chargers, they can keep their name when they move in 2 years.

Arizona: There are a lot of opportunities here. Vipers, Cobras, Wolves, Rattlers and Pythons all work, but they’d seem to be redundant with the Coyotes and Diamondbacks. The Roadrunners would be an utterly fantastic tie-in with the Coyotes, but I can’t imagine it would ever fly with the stodgy NFL. To me, there are two options: Firebirds (it continues the bird theme from the Cardinals) and Apache/Apaches. And since Arizona is the Apache State, we’re getting permission from the tribe and calling them the Arizona Apache.
Baltimore: Theoretically they’d get to revert back to the Baltimore Colts when they stole the Browns from Cleveland. But in a way, that would be a reward for doing the exact same thing to Cleveland that they spent years bitching to Indianapolis about. Plus, Ravens is a better name and tie in better with the city. They’re staying the Baltimore Ravens and will be the only team in this exercise to keep their nickname.
Indianapolis: There are two options here. One, stick with the horse theme (Mustangs, Stallions, Thoroughbreds, etc.). Two, you go with the racing theme, which is really the only thing Indianapolis is known for (Racers, Fuel, Turbo, Wings, Spoilers, Aeros, etc.). But again, the Pacers already cover that, and I don’t feel like those nicknames really fit with the boring standards of the NFL. So we’re going with the Indianapolis Stallions.
St. Louis: this one’s simple. The Los Angeles Rams are the second (third?) incarnation of the St. Louis Cardinals. ‘Nuff said.
Washington: They moved from Boston in 1936, but that’s not why we’re addressing the elephant in the room. Let’s face it, you can’t do a post about changing sports team nicknames and leave the Redskins out. If the Redskins’ history weren’t so sordid, maybe they’d get a pass on the most blatantly racist team name in sports. But they had to be forced to integrate by the federal government, they proudly played as “the South’s team” for years (back when the South was opening fire hoses on blacks marching for civil rights), and they intentionally changed their team song to reference Dixie instead of D.C. (thank God that’s been changed back). This team’s history sickens me. Let’s just do this quick and easy, change the team name to the Washington Pigskins and be done with it. Tradition is no excuse for bigotry. I’m glad this team is run by an unlikeable prick like Dan Snyder.

NBA

The NBA is just a disaster. The only reason Oklahoma City became the Thunder is because of the public relations disaster that happened in Seattle (again: Oklahoma City…Seattle…Sacramento…do unto others what has been done to you). Let’s just start, because there, I think some pretty good ones.

Brooklyn: theoretically the Nets are just in keeping the nickname, because they were the New York Nets when they came over from the ABA. But that’s no fun. What sucks is that Brooklyn Kings would be a really cool nickname, especially because Brooklyn is in Kings County. But the Kings nickname belongs to Kansas City where the current Kings played before they moved to Sacramento, and we’re not changing the rules. Besides, with the “cool” factor that is Brooklyn and the fact that a rapper helped move them there from New Jersey, we’re calling them the Brooklyn Ballers.
Charlotte: Wait a second! The Bobcats have broken none of the rules. They entered the league as the Bobcats. Why change the name? First, because Bobcats is boring, and it’s rumored that the team was named after the original owner, Robert Johnson. Plus, now that the Hornets nickname has been abandoned, and the Hornets name dates back to the Revolutionary War in Charlotte, we’re giving the name back. We’ve got the second iteration of the Charlotte Hornets.
L.A. Clippers: There are tons of problems with the Clippers, starting with their racist owner who would never spend a penny to go through a massive rebranding effort. But let’s ignore that for now. The first problem with the Clippers nickname is that it’s a great nickname for when they were in San Diego, where there’s a massive sailing community. In L.A. it makes no sense. But the other problem is that by just changing the city name, they’re going up against the Lakers, and you’re never going to top the Lakers in L.A. So we’re taking the Los Angeles out of the Clippers and coming up with a name so awesome that there’s no way I could’ve possibly come up with it myself (and I didn’t). Can you imagine how many units a Blake Griffin Hollywood Stars jersey would move?
Memphis: Memphis Soul and Memphis Blues would be cool nicknames…way cooler than having a name that made more sense in Vancouver. However, we’re sticking it to David Stern with this one. Back when the Grizzlies were planning on moving, they explored the option of selling the naming rights to the team (not just the stadium, the entire team). One of the options was for the team to move to Louisville and be called the Kentucky Colonels (sponsored by KFC). The other would’ve had them moving to Memphis and being sponsored by FedEx. Stern put the kibosh on that, to which I say fuck that. The Memphis Express will be the first team to sell the naming rights to the team (most assuredly not the last).
Sacramento: Theoretically we should ignore the current Kings since they’re likely to move to Seattle next year and become the new Seattle SuperSonics. But that’s no fun, is it? Plus, I think Sacramento has one of the coolest names my buddy came up with. Sacramento, much like San Francisco, was a boom town during the California Gold Rush, so we’re going to call them the Sacramento Prospectors.
Utah: Changing the team’s name is a no-brainer, because if you ask any sports fan in the country what team name needs to be changed the most, Utah Jazz is going to be second (see: Redskins). The tricky part is figuring out what to go with. Saints would be a good shout out to the importance of the Mormon faith in the state, while Miners would be a good marker of an important piece of the state’s economy. I said we would use nicknames that were in use by other teams, but I didn’t say it was required. And the fact that there’s already a Saints team out there means we’re calling them the Utah Miners.

NHL

The NHL generally does things right. The Quebec Nordiques became the Colorado Avalanche, the Atlanta Thrashers became the Winnipeg Jets, etc. There’s one small exception.

Calgary: The Calgary Flames started out as the Atlanta Flames and kept the nickname when they moved north. I wonder why a team named after the city burning down didn’t work out in Atlanta. How well do you think a team named the Detroit Riots would do financially? If Calgary hadn’t been relatively successful, I’d say the team name was cursed…then again, they did lose the Stanley Cup to the Tampa Bay Freaking Lightning and then the sport did shut down for a year. So maybe. Sorry…digression. There’s only one thing of note in Calgary, and that’s the annual Stampede, which is one of the world’s biggest rodeos. I know there’s already a CFL team named the Stampeders, but (a) that’s the CFL, and no one cares, and (b) the CFL once had teams named the Roughriders and the Rough Riders playing at the same time. They can deal with having a hockey team called the Calgary Stampede.

Wasn’t that fun? Tell me you wouldn’t prefer those names over at least some of the ones we’ve got now.

Fixing the NCAA Basketball Tournament

Posted by sparty99

The NCAA basketball tournament is as close to the perfect sporting event as you’re going to get. Three weeks, 64 (er…65, no wait, 68) teams all playing down to get 6 (ok, or 7) wins before anyone else can. The Thursday and Friday of the first weekend are perhaps the two finest days of sports in the country – 2 days, 16 teams each, with gambling opportunities aplenty.

But it’s not perfect yet.

See, college football claims that their regular season matters more than any other, and they’re absolutely right (that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a playoff, but that’s a discussion for another day). College basketball, on the other hand, requires that a team only have a good week (or 3, or 4…I’ll explain further) to find themselves competing for one of those pretty NCAA plaques.

And the reason is those vile conference tournaments.

It happens every year. A team that’s had a sub-par regular season and otherwise wouldn’t find themselves in the bracket goes on a 4-day run to win their conference tournament and knocks out a perfectly deserving team (likely one that played in a smaller conference and could use the exposure). We’re 4 days into conference tournament week and we’ve already seen a 15-20 Liberty team go on such a run to knock out a bubble team. And keep in mind, they’re 15-20 after their tournament run – they went in at 11-20.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun story, but no one’s going to convince me that Liberty belongs in the tournament. The only conference in Division I that doesn’t hold one is the Ivy League, who actually breaks a tie at the end of the regular season by having a tiebreaker game if necessary. That’s pretty cool, but unfortunately, I’m going to kill that cool little tradition. Knock down tradition for a better system is what sports is all about in the 21st century.

The problem is that these conference tournaments are all massive cash grabs, and if we’ve learned anything through conference realignment, it’s that college sports is all about money (well that and institutional slavery, but let’s not pretend we’re going to fix everything today).

The solution? A bigger NCAA tournament. And no more conference tournaments.

The NCAA tournament currently has 68 teams. Eight teams – 4 playing for 2 16 seeds and 4 playing for 2 seeds somewhere between 12-14 play on the Tuesday before the tournament “starts” (I know technically these are the first round games, but let’s not kid ourselves, they’re play in games). After that, it’s a simple 64-team bracket. Remarkably, that’s not enough.

So how do we do it? It’s really pretty simple.

Eliminate Conference Tournaments

Look, I’m a Michigan State fan. The conference tournament has been the bane of my existence for quite some time (unless we win, then it’s awesome!). The fact remains that in the “Big 6” conferences – Big 10, Big East, Big 12, SEC, ACC and Pac-12 – the tournament only serves to get a team in that doesn’t belong (well, and to cram a bunch of fans paying to watch a bunch of basketball over 4 days and give ESPN a week’s worth of programming). Worse is the smaller conferences who get a single bid. Liberty finished 6 games behind 2 different teams who finished 12-4 in conference. The kids on those teams are going home because they ran into a hot team or had a bad night. Three months of work goes down the drain because of 1 bad night.

So my solution: every conference gets 2 bids. Eliminating the conference tournament leaves basically a week of free games for the conference, which equates to an extra home game for each team.

I’m sure I’m one of the few people who hates conference tournaments, but you can’t tell me that taking the actual 2 best teams from a conference to the tournament is worse than taking a team that went 15-20.

So last year, there were 19 conferences that only had 1 bid. We’ve just added 19 teams to the bracket.

Modify the NIT

The NIT used to be an extremely prestigious tournament. But after opening up the tournament to non-conference champions in the ’70s, the NIT has gone downhill and is now largely irrelevant. Sure, it provides recruiting opportunities for teams who didn’t make the tournament, but really it’s a consolation prize that no one cares about.

But we’re not eliminating the NIT entirely. We’re merging it with the NCAA tournament. After the Final Four has been determined, the NIT will be played between teams who have been eliminated from the tournament. It will be played either by the 4 losers in the Elite 8, or the highest seeded teams to have been eliminated from the tournament.

Expanding the Field

We’ve now added 19 automatic conference bids and (theoretically) 32 NIT bids. However, there is some overlap, so we’re expanding the NCAA tournament to 96 teams. The tournament still starts on Tuesday, but now there will be 8 games each on the Tuesday and Wednesday games prior to the “normal” beginning of the tournament. The games will be played at the same sites of the round of 64. Teams seeded 1-8 will get a bye into the round of 64. Teams seeded 9-24 will need to win 7 games to win the tournament (those 8/9 seedings will obviously become much more important).

Reseeding the Brackets

A few years back the tournament changed so that the top seeds were ranked, and therefore the #1 overall seed would (theoretically) play #4 in the Final Four, and #2 would play #3. Realistically, the better option would’ve been to reseed the Final Four when those teams have been determined, but billions of dollars were at stake in tournament brackets and computerized pools weren’t sophisticated enough at the time to handle that reseeding.

(You’ll never convince me that this isn’t the reason the tournament isn’t reseeded.)

Now, much as I love a good 8/12 match-up in the Sweet Sixteen…wait, I hate a 12/13 match-up in the Sweet 16. It’s fun that one of them will get that far, but more often than not the winner of that game will be the sacrificial lamb to a better team in the Elite 8.

While it’s not feasible to reseed the teams going from the first round to play the teams who have the byes, it is feasible to do it after every weekend. Regional brackets will be reseeded so that the top seeds will play the bottom seeds. Last year, this would’ve seen the following:

South Regional: 1 vs. 10, 3 vs. 4 (was 1 vs. 4, 3 vs. 10)
West Regional: 1 vs. 7, 3 vs. 4 (1 vs. 4, 3 vs. 7)
East Regional: 1 vs. 6, 2 vs. 4 (1 vs. 4, 2 vs. 6)
Midwest Regional: 1 vs. 13, 2 vs. 11 (no change)

The Final Four wouldn’t have changed last year, but based on my experience (i.e., what I can remember in my head), this is a rarity and not the norm (remember 8th seeded Butler playing 11 seed VCU for a chance to go to the national title game?).

But wait, what about all those brackets? How can we gamble all this money on the tournament if we don’t know how the brackets are going to look at the end of the weekend? Well, it’s real simple. Every person needs to have their picks in by noon of the first game on Thursday (because no one cares about the Tuesday games). Well, it’s the same thing, only this time, you need to have your brackets for the first week of the tournament in by tip-off Tuesday. Then, after we’re down to 16 teams and the brackets have been reseeded, players make new picks and have to have them in by tip-off of the Sweet 16 games. Same deal with the Final Four.

Now, you tell me you wouldn’t rather watch that as opposed to what we’ve got now?

Fixing the Hall of Fame

Posted by sparty99

The Baseball Hall of Fame is the greatest Hall of Fame on Earth. There’s no disputing this. The NFL and its fans don’t care about its history; they care more about TV money, fantasy football and gambling than they care about the fact that O.J. Simpson is still in the Hall (he would’ve been banished from the Baseball Hall before the Bronco chase was over). The Basketball Hall of Fame is an embarrassment. If you played more than 10 years in the NBA or won an NCAA championship or an Olympic Gold Medal, you’re probably in the Basketball Hall of Fame. There are people in the Basketball Hall who don’t know they’re in there. The Hockey Hall of Fame is in a mall. That’s not a joke. There is a food court outside the Hockey Hall of Fame. And I bet only die hard sports fans can tell you where all of the various Halls are. Cooperstown is all there is to talk about.

But the Baseball Hall of Fame is broken. Not irreparably so, but it’s in the middle of an identity crisis. It doesn’t know if it’s a museum, chronicling both the good and bad about the game, or its conscience, acting as the final judgment as to who played the game “the right way”. The Hall, and Cooperstown as a town, is a great tribute to the history of the game, but one must never forget that there’s no Hall of Fame without the Hall of Famers.

And last month, for the first time since 1996, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced that no one had been elected for induction. This despite the fact that the class of eligible players included the all-time home run king and a 7-time MVP (Barry Bonds), a 350-game winner and 7-time Cy Young winner (Roger Clemens), the greatest offensive catcher in history (Mike Piazza), a 600-home run hitter (Sammy Sosa), a 500-home run hitter (Mark McGwire), a guy with 3000 hits (Craig Biggio), and just for good measure, a guy with both 3000 hits and 500 home runs (Rafael Palmeiro).

Yes, the majority of these players were not just a part of the steroids era in Major League Baseball, but they were the very face of it. Nothing summarized the steroids crisis in the game greater than the day in March 2005 when McGwire decided not to talk about the past, the affable Sosa forgot how to speak English, and Palmeiro pointed at a panel of Congressmen and declared that he had never used steroids. But that ignores the fact that a great deal of their less accomplished contemporaries were using the same drugs they were, without the same results. That is, these guys were great before they started using steroids; the steroids didn’t make them great.

In order to be elected to the Hall of Fame, a player has to have been retired for 5 full seasons, and have played 10 years in the Major Leagues. The Baseball Writers Association of America currently elects players based on pretty much everything about them, including their character. For a player to gain election to the Hall of Fame, 75% of ballots cast (there’s an important distinction to make here, which I’ll discuss later) must have his name on it. If he gets less than 75% than the vote, he gets carried forward to the following year, for a maximum of 15 years. If a player can’t gain election after that, he’s moved to the Veterans Committee, where current Hall of Famers elect eligible players. If a player can’t get 5% of the vote from the BBWAA, he’s not eligible again until his 15 years are up and he goes before the Veterans Committee.

OK, now that you’re familiar with the voting rules, I’m going to tear them down.

Voting Rights

Currently, writers who have been members of the BBWAA for at least 10 years elect players to the Hall of Fame. It’s worth noting that these writers don’t need to currently write about baseball, and as far as I know, it’s a lifetime gig. There are plenty of senile old bastards who know nothing about WAR or WHIP or OPS who are ranting and raving about those statistics while casting their Hall of Fame ballots.

The Veterans Committee is worse, because they’ll vote in guys who are totally undeserving or, worse, they have standards so high that they don’t let in deserving players who were screwed by the BBWAA.

The solution? Three voting blocs: writers, fans and current and retired players.

Here’s the catch: every voter must pass a test about the game. It will include questions about the history of the game, the current game and statistics (not the exact statistics, other than big ones like 60, 61, 56, .406, 755, etc., but rather the concepts behind current statistics and why wins suck as a legitimate measure of a pitcher). It will not be overly difficult, but it will be timed (to lessen the ability of people to look up the answers on the Internet). It will also be given only at specific times (much like Jeopardy currently does).

In order for a given bloc’s vote to count, their election will be based on a minimum of 100 members (that is, in order to gain election, a player must have at least 75 votes, whether there are 100 eligible voters or not). This will not be an issue for the fans, but it may be for the writers and could be for the players.

To eliminate the possibility of fans stuffing the ballot box, each person who passes the test will be given an ID code, allowing them only one vote.

The Veterans’ Committee is disbanded (or, more accurately, they are now part of the player vote).

Election

Players are elected if they receive any of the following:

   – 75% from any 1 of the 3 voting blocs
   – 67% (2/3) from any 2 of the 3 voting blocs
   – 60% from all 3 of the voting blocs

Voters can vote for as many players as they choose (as opposed to the current 10 player limit). Voters (i.e., writers) may no longer submit symbolic ballots with no players listed; such ballots will be thrown out and considered not cast and not included in the voting percentage calculation.

Additionally, players can gain automatic election based on their output (we’ll call this the Clemens/Bonds Don’t Make the Hall a Farce rule). We’ll discuss this in a bit more detail below.

All ballots are public (the writers have been warned).

Eligibility

The eligibility rules remain the same. Players must have played 10 years in the Major Leagues and be retired for 5 full seasons. The one difference: any retired player is eligible for election. That includes players permanently banished (primarily Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose) and players who have fallen off the ballot, either because their 15 years on the ballot have expired or they never garnered the 5% required to stay on the ballot. In a nutshell, if you’re not in the Hall of Fame, you are eligible for the Hall of Fame.

Voters can vote (or not vote) on players for any reason they choose, including steroid accusations, gambling confessions, murdering their girlfriend (I’m looking at you Cesar Cedeno) or generally being an asshole (pretty much every player who’s ever played).

So now that we’ve fixed how players got elected, what about the Hall as it currently stands?

Current Hall of Famers

Generally speaking I’m a firm believer that once you’re in the Hall of Fame you’re in for life. However, there are some anomalies, players who just don’t belong. Since we’re overhauling the voting system, we’re also doing a one-time review of the players currently in the Hall. The same voting standards apply as listed above. A player will be “removed” from the Hall of Fame if any of the following apply:

   – 75% from any 1 of the 3 voting blocs
   – 67% (2/3) from any 2 of the 3 voting blocs
   – 60% from all 3 of the voting blocs

Hall of Famers will be organized into “tiers”. This will be an objective ranking based upon “career normalized WAR”; a player’s career WAR will be calculated based on his career plate appearances or innings pitched, and normalized to 3000 plate appearances or 1000 innings pitched.

(Note: I realize that WAR has its flaws and is far from standardized, but at this point, it’s the best way to objectively measure a given player against someone else, with all facets of their game included. If anyone has other suggestions, I’m all ears.)

Additionally, these tiers will consist of those players whose careers took place primarily (more than 50%) after 1900. Major League Baseball as it currently exists began in 1901, and players before that time were subjected to a game that is vastly different from what we know today. Members whose careers took place primarily in the 19th century will be members in the Hall, but will be recognized as players from a different game.

(Note: Incidentally, I broke the Hall of Famers up by the number of seasons played in the 19th century; more than 50% of your seasons played before 1901 and you’re in the 19th century wing. Only one player had exactly 50% of his seasons played pre-1901: Cy Young. More than half of his innings pitched were prior to 1901, but considering the award for best pitcher in the game is named after him, I kept him in the “primary” Hall.)

And without further ado, I present you with the Sports Czar’s updated Baseball Hall of Fame (players are listed alphabetically within their tier):

Tier 1 (10 hitters, 5 pitchers)

   – Pete Alexander
   – Barry Bonds (automatic induction)
   – Roger Clemens (automatic induction)
   – Ty Cobb
   – Lou Gehrig
   – Lefty Grove
   – Rogers Hornsby
   – Walter Johnson
   – Mickey Mantle
   – Willie Mays
   – Babe Ruth
   – Tris Speaker
   – Honus Wagner
   – Ted Williams
   – Cy Young

Tier 2 (15 hitters, 10 pitchers)

   – Hank Aaron
   – Home Run Baker
   – Roberto Clemente
   – Eddie Collins
   – Stan Coveleski
   – Dizzy Dean
   – Joe DiMaggio
   – Jimmie Foxx
   – Bob Gibson
   – Hank Greenberg
   – Addie Joss
   – Sandy Koufax
   – Nap Lajoie
   – Eddie Mathews
   – Christy Mathewson
   – Johnny Mize
   – Stan Musial
   – Mel Ott
   – Jackie Robinson
   – Mike Schmidt
   – Tom Seaver
   – Dazzy Vance
   – Arky Vaughan
   – Rube Waddell
   – Ed Walsh

Tier 3 (25 hitters, 15 pitchers)

   – Johnny Bench
   – Bert Blyleven
   – Wade Boggs
   – Lou Boudreau
   – Roger Bresnahan
   – George Brett
   – Mordecai Brown
   – Rod Carew
   – Gary Carter
   – Frank Chance
   – Mickey Cochrane
   – Bill Dickey
   – Larry Doby
   – Don Drysdale
   – Elmer Flick
   – Whitey Ford
   – Charlie Gehringer
   – Joe Gordon
   – Harry Heilmann
   – Rickey Henderson
   – Carl Hubbell
   – Fergie Jenkins
   – Al Kaline
   – Ralph Kiner
   – Barry Larkin
   – Juan Marichal
   – Joe McGinnity
   – Joe Morgan
   – Hal Newhouser
   – Phil Niekro
   – Jim Palmer
   – Gaylord Perry
   – Eddie Plank
   – Cal Ripken
   – Robin Roberts
   – Frank Robinson
   – Ron Santo
   – Duke Snider
   – Warren Spahn
   – Bill Terry

Tier 4 (50 hitters, 15 pitchers)

   – Roberto Alomar
   – Luke Appling
   – Richie Ashburn
   – Earl Averill
   – Ernie Banks
   – Chief Bender
   – Yogi Berra
   – Jim Bunning
   – Roy Campanella
   – Steve Carlton
   – Jack Chesbro
   – Fred Clarke
   – Jimmy Collins
   – Earle Combs
   – Sam Crawford
   – Joe Cronin
   – Bobby Doerr
   – Johnny Evers
   – Red Faber
   – Bob Feller
   – Carlton Fisk
   – Frankie Frisch
   – Lefty Gomez
   – Goose Goslin
   – Tony Gwynn
   – Gabby Hartnett
   – Billy Herman
   – Waite Hoyt
   – Monte Irvin
   – Reggie Jackson
   – Travis Jackson
   – Harmon Killebrew
   – Chuck Klein
   – Tony Lazzeri
   – Bob Lemon
   – Ernie Lombardi
   – Ted Lyons
   – Willie McCovey
   – Joe Medwick
   – Paul Molitor
   – Kirby Puckett
   – Pee Wee Reese
   – Eppa Rixey
   – Phil Rizzuto
   – Brooks Robinson
   – Nolan Ryan
   – Ryne Sandberg
   – Joe Sewell
   – Al Simmons
   – George Sisler
   – Enos Slaughter
   – Ozzie Smith
   – Willie Stargell
   – Don Sutton
   – Joe Tinker
   – Bobby Wallace
   – Paul Waner
   – Zack Wheat
   – Billy Williams
   – Vic Willis
   – Hack Wilson
   – Carl Yastrzemski
   – Ross Youngs
   – Robin Yount

(Babe Ruth would’ve been a Tier 4 Hall of Famer based on his pitching stats alone.)

Tier 5 (everyone else and relievers)

   – Luis Aparicio
   – Dave Bancroft
   – Jim Bottomley
   – Lou Brock
   – Max Carey
   – Orlando Cepeda
   – Kiki Cuyler
   – Andre Dawson
   – Dennis Eckersley
   – Rick Ferrell
   – Rollie Fingers
   – Nellie Fox
   – Goose Gossage
   – Burleigh Grimes
   – Chick Hafey
   – Jesse Haines
   – Harry Hooper
   – Catfish Hunter
   – Willie Keeler
   – George Kell
   – High Pockets Kelly
   – Freddie Lindstrom
   – Heinie Manush
   – Rabbit Maranville
   – Rube Marquart
   – Bill Mazeroski
   – Eddie Murray
   – Satchel Paige
   – Herb Pennock
   – Tony Perez
   – Jim Rice
   – Sam Rice
   – Edd Roush
   – Red Ruffing
   – Ray Schalk
   – Red Schoendienst
   – Bruce Sutter
   – Pie Traynor
   – Lloyd Waner
   – Hoyt Wilhelm
   – Dave Winfield
   – Early Wynn

19th Cenury Tier

   – Cap Anson
   – Jake Beckley
   – Dan Brouthers
   – Jesse Burkett
   – John Clarkson
   – Roger Connor
   – George Davis
   – Ed Delhanty
   – Hugh Duffy
   – Buck Ewing
   – Pud Galvin
   – Billy Hamilton
   – Hughie Jennings
   – Tim Keefe
   – Joe Kelley
   – King Kelly
   – Tommy McCarthy
   – Bid McPhee
   – Kid Nichols
   – Jim O’Rourke
   – Old Hoss Radbourn
   – Amos Rusie
   – Sam Thompson
   – Monte Ward
   – Mickey Welch
   – Deacon White

By minimizing the role of the writers and their bloated sense of self importance in terms of serving as the keepers of the Hall, baseball’s Hall will become more fan friendly and Cooperstown won’t likely see an induction-free summer for years to come.

Introducing the Sports Czar!

Posted by sparty99

Anyone who knows sports knows who Bill Simmons is. And anyone who reads Bill Simmons knows that even though he’s turned profoundly annoying and has always had a serious anti-Detroit bias, he’s had some pretty good ideas. Foremost among those, in my opinion, has been the idea of a sports czar who would oversee all sporting issues throughout the land. It’s not a terrible idea. In fact, it’s such a not terrible idea that I’m commandeering it, proclaiming myself Sports Czar, and deciding what needs to be fixed in sports. Because I watch more sports than most and therefore my opinion is completely valid.

Now, will this just be a simple case of me fixing all the problems in sports? Of course not. Some things just can’t be fixed. But a lot of things can, with relatively simple changes. That’s the fun of things. A lot of this will be Detroit focused and discussing what the local teams need to do to fix their problems. Example: cut Titus Young! Done and done. See, some of this stuff isn’t that hard.

There will be no rhyme or reason. Lately I’ve been thinking about fixing the Baseball Hall of Fame and changing certain team nicknames, so those will be coming soon. I doubt this will have any kind of respectable schedule, because I’m lazy, I like my TV, I’m trying to get in shape, and I have a job and friends. I’ll try to be funny, but really, if you’re looking for comedy, read Rogo.

Beyond that, enjoy, and I welcome your comments.

Detroit Sports Czar

A Blog that Was Inspired by Bill Simmons…Written by a Guy Who Hates Bill Simmons

Uncategorized

Why Sports?

Adam Silver Is a Fucking Pimp

Fixing the NFL

My Confusion with the Steroid Era

Fixing Team Names

Fixing the NCAA Basketball Tournament

Fixing the Hall of Fame

Introducing the Sports Czar!