Category: Sports

Headline of the Day

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From the New York Times, we see the obituary for Hall of Frame catcher, Yogi Berra:

Yogi Berra Dies at 90; Yankee Star Built His Fame 90% on Skill, and Half on Wit

Berra was a standout as a catcher, as well as achieving success as a manager, but much of his fame came from his penchant for mangling the English language, with such memorable quotes as, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded,” and, “It’s déjà vu all over again!”

The headline is a fitting homage to Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra.

Put a Fork in Jabba the Governor, He’s Done………

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At the Monmouth Park racetrack in New Jersey, Triple Crown winner American Pharaoh won the Haskell Invitational.

The trophy was presented in the winner’s circle, and as soon as Chris Christie, and as soon as he appeared, a deafening chorus of boos erupted from the crowd of more than sixty thousand.

They continued for as long as he was before the crowd, and returned whenever someone mentioned his name:

It was one long happy celebration at Monmouth Park for the great American Pharoah’s latest victory. At least, that is, until Gov. Chris Christie stepped into the Winner’s Circle to present the trophy.

 And then, the record crowd of 60,983 booed.

 Long.

 Loud.

 Sustained.

Maybe he should have hung around Bill Murray.

The cheering resumed as trainer Bob Baffert and owner Ahmed Zayat addressed the crowd and talking about their famous horse. Then Christie’s name was mentioned again, and the booing started anew.

So not even the popular Triple Crown winner, which went off as such a heavy favorite that a $2 bet won 20 cents, could improve the popularity of the Republican presidential candidate in his home state.

Christie still believes that he can become President.

He should be figuring out how to stay out of jail, because someone is going to roll over him to the US Attorney, and he is going to be under significant legal jeopardy.

It’s over dude.

You won’t be President, and you won’t win another election ……… Ever,

Safe Journey, Roddy.

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“Rowdy” Roddy Piper, nee Roderick Toombs, has died of a heart attack at age 61.

To the degree that I’ve followed wrestling, I had a house mate who was big into it, it was after Piper’s move to acting, so I do not have much of a comment on this, but I do recall his performance in the iconic John Carpenter film They Live:

“Rowdy” Roddy Piper, the kilt wearing trash-talker who headlined the first WrestleMania and later found movie stardom, died Friday. He was 61.

The WWE confirmed the death. The wrestling organization provided no additional details.

Piper, born Roderick Toombs in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, is the second WWE Hall of Famer to die this summer, following the June death of Dusty Rhodes. ………

In addition to his celebrity in the ring, Piper appeared in John Carpenter’s 1988 cult classic “They Live.” In that film, he delivered the memorable line: “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass — and I’m all out of bubblegum.”

If you haven’t seen They Live, do so.

It is a rather irreverent commentary on the Reagan era, and is perhaps even more relevant now.

An Outbreak of Sanity. Now Get the Drivers Some Anti-Psychotic Drugs………

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Boston has dropped their Olympic bid:

Deep skepticism here about whether taxpayers would be stuck footing the bill for the Olympics has doomed Boston’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Games and raised questions about whether any other major American city might be willing to take on the risk.

The United States Olympic Committee said Monday that it was withdrawing Boston as its proposed bid city because resistance among residents was too great to overcome in the short time that remained before the committee had to formally propose a bid city by Sept. 15.

“We have not been able to get a majority of the citizens of Boston to support hosting the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Scott Blackmun, the chief executive of the U.S.O.C., said in a statement as he raised the white flag. “Therefore, the U.S.O.C. does not think that the level of support enjoyed by Boston’s bid would allow it to prevail over great bids from Paris, Rome, Hamburg, Budapest or Toronto.”

Here is the sticking point:

Voters told pollsters that they were most concerned about having to pay for cost overruns. But they were also dismayed by what they considered as Boston 2024’s lack of transparency and the sense that a small cabal of business leaders who stood to profit seemed to be running the show in secrecy. And they questioned whether much-need improvements in transportation, housing and education would get done if the city were so focused on the Olympics.

Mr. Wallechinsky, the historian, said that the U.S.O.C. should “take a good hard look at themselves” and conduct an investigation into “how they could have picked Boston in the first place.” He said one of the worst moments came when the U.S.O.C. watched as Boston 2024 said that its bid, which was not initially disclosed to the public, called for no public financing; the U.S.O.C. knew that was not true, he said, as the public found out later after news outlets obtained the bid.

So, they lied to the people of Boston, and the USOC wanted Boston to guarantee to cover the costs of any f%$#-ups that the looters, “Small cabal of business leaders who stood to profit,” managed to extract from the process.

They are now looking at LA, but the last time that LA hosted, they ignored the bling, and reused existing facilities, and that eliminates the possibilities for graft that drive the International Olympic Committee since Juan Antonio Samaranch (An actual card-carrying fascist, he served in the Franco regime in Spain) took over the presidency of the organization in 1980.

The 2024 Olympics will not be in the US.  Most likely, it will be in a totalitarian state, since the financially ruinous exercises in narcissistic self-aggrandizement seems to built into the DNA of that form of government.

My guess is that the 2024 Olympics will be held in Pyongyang. (Just kidding, but my last joke in this vein was Arisia)

F%$# Them if They Can’t Take a Joke

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Sepp Blatter is still running FIFA, and he just fired FIFA’s public relations weasel for telling a very funny joke about the current scandal:

Fifa communications director Walter De Gregorio has been sacked after sealing his fate with a joke about the governing body on Swiss TV.

Gregorio told Swiss chat show Schawinski: “The Fifa president, secretary general and communications director are all travelling in a car. Who’s driving? The police.”

Fifa announced in a statement that De Gregorio had “relinquished his office”.

But the BBC understands he was asked to leave by president Sepp Blatter.

Sorry, but this is funny, and Sepp Blatter is such a delicate flower.

It’s amazing how sensitive corrupt bureaucrats are.

I Did Not See This Coming

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FIFA President Sepp Blatter has resigned from his position:

Sepp Blatter rocked the world of soccer on Tuesday by unexpectedly saying he would step down as FIFA president in the wake of a corruption investigation that reportedly may include the embattled chief himself.

Citing sources familiar with the case, The New York Times and ABC News reported on Tuesday that Blatter was being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. prosecutors. Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the report. Blatter has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

Blatter, 79, announced his decision to step down at a hastily arranged news conference in Zurich, six days after police raided a hotel in the city and arrested several FIFA officials, and four days after he was re-elected to a fifth term as FIFA president.

Blatter said an election to choose a new president would be held as soon as possible, though a FIFA official said it would probably not take place until at least December.

I have to figure that this is part of some sort of deal with either Swiss or US prosecutors.

My guess would be on the Swiss, because he must be desperate for a deal which prevents his extradition to the United States.

This Is Not The ……… OK ……… It IS Kind of The Onion

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Just when you thought that the FIFA scandal could get any more surreal, or more pathetic, one of the FIFI officials accused of bribery and money laundering has cited an article from The Onion to defend himself from the charges:

Jack Warner, a former vice president of FIFA, was arrested last week in connection with a sweeping United States Justice Department investigation that slapped 14 bigwigs with charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering.

Warner, apparently unfamiliar with The Onion, defended himself against these charges Sunday by holding up an article from the news satire website — “FIFA Frantically Announces 2015 Summer World Cup in the United States” — stating that “all this has stemmed from the failed U.S. bid to host the World Cup.”

“If I was so bad, if FIFA is so bad…why is it the USA wants to keep the FIFA World Cup?…Something has to be wrong,” Warner says.

This is f%$#ed up and sh%$.

It’s also funny as hell, but it’s f%$#ed up and sh%$.

Well, Now We Know What You Have to Do to Make an American Interested in Soccer

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I love New Yorker cartoons


Note that John Oliver did this a year ago

It appears that the juxtaposition bribery, money laundering, and tax evasion is is enough to pique the interest in soccer of some people in America:

With billions of dollars at stake, Morocco, Egypt and South Africa jockeyed in 2004 for the privilege of hosting soccer’s most prestigious tournament, the World Cup. The outcome hinged on a decision by the executive committee of FIFA, soccer’s governing body, and a single vote could tip the decision.

And at least one vote, prosecutors said Wednesday, was for sale.

Jack Warner, a committee member from Trinidad and Tobago, shopped his ballot to the highest bidder, federal prosecutors said. In early 2004, he flew to Morocco, where a member of that country’s bid committee offered him $1 million. But South Africa had a sweeter deal, offering $10 million to a group that Mr. Warner controlled, prosecutors said. He voted for South Africa. South Africa got the 2010 World Cup. And Mr. Warner got his  $10 million payout, much of which prosecutors said he diverted for his personal use.

For decades, that was how business was done in international soccer, American officials said Wednesday as they announced a sweeping indictment against 14 soccer officials and marketing executives who they said had corrupted the sport through two decades of shadowy dealing and $150 million in bribes. Authorities described international soccer in terms normally reserved for Mafia families or drug cartels, and brought charges under racketeering laws usually applied to such criminal organizations.

Hours after Swiss authorities arrived unannounced at a Zurich hotel and arrested top FIFA officials early Wednesday morning, the Justice Department and prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York forcefully declared that their investigation had only just begun and pledged to rid the international soccer organization of systemic corruption.

“These individuals and organizations engaged in bribery to decide who would televise games, where the games would be held, and who would run the organization overseeing organized soccer worldwide,” said Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, who supervised the investigation from its earliest stages, when she was the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “They did this over and over, year after year, tournament after tournament.”

It’s been common knowledge that FIFA is so deeply corrupt that it makes the International Olympic Committee look like Bernie Sanders, so I am not at all surprised that allegations of corruption have finally been made public, though I am a bit surprised that it was the US that led the investigation.

As it stands now, the FIFA president, Sepp Blatter is not among those arrested, but given that these indictments include the FIFA statutes, which cast a very broad net (the phrase “corrupt pattern” comes to mind), if only a few of these people roll, I imagine that he could be a defendant as well.

It appears that these arrests are the proverbial good news for the Jews, as it looks like this will side-track for a while efforts to expel Israel from FIFA:

Israelis were expecting some big news to come out of the annual FIFA Congress this week. But they probably weren’t expecting this.

In a bombshell operation, a Swiss law enforcement team showed up at the Zurich hotel hosting the annual gathering of the international soccer organization — and arrested nine senior officials.

The arrests come after decades of corruption allegations aimed at FIFA. (If you’re unfamiliar, comedian John Oliver’s got you covered.) The arrested officials face charges of taking money in exchange for World Cup hosting bids, as well taking bribes in exchange for media and marketing rights for major international tournaments.

The allegations are damning, but frankly, they couldn’t have come at a better time for Israel. Until Wednesday, much of the coverage of the FIFA Congress surrounded whether delegates would vote to suspend Israel from world soccer.

The Palestinian Football Association is introducing the motion to suspend Israel, accusing it of unjustly restricting Palestinian soccer players’ freedom of movement and claiming that Israel’s West Bank settlement teams violate FIFA rules. Israeli officials have called the effort blatantly political and said that the Palestinians’ complaints all concern Israel’s security forces — not Israel’s soccer teams.

Needless to say, some people are already blaming  the “international Zionist conspiracy” for the arrests.

Personally, I’m hoping that we eventually see similar arrests directed at the NFL, and its head Roger Goodell.

“Concrete” Chuck Bednark 1925-2015

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I always thought that he got a bad rap over this

Chuck Bednarik was the last player in the NFL to play both offense and defense for the whole game throughout his career:

If you were born in 1959 (or later), you missed out on a lot of cool stuff. Here’s Exhibit A: You never got to see the great Hall of Famer Chuck Bednarik play football for the Philadelphia Eagles.

 Instead, a young kid starting to watch the game in the mid-late 1960s felt only the shadow of a legend, looming over the game at a moment when the world was changing so quickly. In that era, NFL TV announcers spoke of Bednarik — who’d retired two seasons after leading the Eagles to their last-ever pro football championship in 1960 — in almost reverent tones. Much of the awe was inspired by Bednarik’s most remarkable accomplishment — playing the entire 60 minutes in a game, as both a center on offense and a bone-crushing linebacker on defense. He was pro football’s last two-way player.

 Also, for all of us latecomers, there was The Picture — Bednarik, looking like an ambulatory slab of granite and exalting after he’d flattened the Giants’ Hollywood-handsome star receiver Frank Gifford (not realizing that Gifford was out cold, and about to spend the next year-and-a-half out of football) during a key game that propelled them toward that 1960 title.

………

Two years ago, I reported that, with little fanfare, Bednarik — along with two other now-deceased Eagles’ Hall of Fame legends Steve Van Buren and Pete Pihos — had joined the NFL’s Plan 88 to pay medical bills for ex-players dealing with dementia or related health issues. This weekend, Bednarik’s oldest daughter voiced anger at the Eagles for the team’s announcement that Bednarik died from “a brief illness.” “He died from dementia from football-related head injuries,” Charlene Thomas told the Express-News newspaper. “It was not brief.”

And, of course, CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) raises its head once again.

Roger Goodell’s Worst Nightmare

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Breakout star rookie linebacker Chris Borland has retired out of concerns for his neurological health:

San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland, one of the NFL’s top rookies this past season, told “Outside the Lines” on Monday that he is retiring because of concerns about the long-term effects of repetitive head trauma.

Borland, 24, said he notified the 49ers on Friday. He said he made his decision after consulting with family members, concussion researchers, friends and current and former teammates, as well as studying what is known about the relationship between football and neurodegenerative disease.

“I just honestly want to do what’s best for my health,” Borland told “Outside the Lines.” “From what I’ve researched and what I’ve experienced, I don’t think it’s worth the risk.”

Borland becomes the most prominent NFL player to leave the game in his prime because of concerns about brain injuries. More than 70 former players have been diagnosed with progressive neurological disease after their deaths, and numerous studies have shown connections between the repetitive head trauma associated with football, brain damage and issues such as depression and memory loss.

“I feel largely the same, as sharp as I’ve ever been. For me, it’s wanting to be proactive,” Borland said. “I’m concerned that if you wait ’til you have symptoms, it’s too late. … There are a lot of unknowns. I can’t claim that X will happen. I just want to live a long, healthy life, and I don’t want to have any neurological diseases or die younger than I would otherwise.”

………

 Borland was expected to be a key part of the 49ers’ defense this season, after the retirement of All-Pro linebacker Patrick Willis last week. Borland replaced Willis, 30, after six games last season; Willis had sustained a toe injury.

Willis’ retirement had no role in his decision, Borland said.

………

 Borland, who is listed at 5-foot-11, 248 pounds, earned accolades for his aggressiveness and instincts at inside linebacker. He had 107 tackles and a sack in 14 games, eight of them starts. He was the NFC’s defensive player of the week for his performance against the New York Giants in Week 11. He led the 49ers with 13 tackles in that game and became the team’s first rookie linebacker with two interceptions in one game. He received one vote for NFL defensive rookie of the year.

His success this past season did not make his decision more difficult, Borland said: “I’ve thought about what I could accomplish in football, but for me, personally, when you read about Mike Webster and Dave Duerson and Ray Easterling, you read all these stories, and to be the type of player I want to be in football, I think I’d have to take on some risks that, as a person, I don’t want to take on.”

Borland was referring to former NFL greats who were diagnosed with the devastating brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, after their deaths. Duerson and Easterling committed suicide.

This guy has one season in the NFL, and he was arguably on a path to a multimillion dollar pay day, and he decided that it was not worth dementia in his late 40s.

You gotta figure that the current generation of teenage jocks, and their parents, are becoming less likely to take up football, and news like this will make them less likely.

The pipeline of new players has to be drying up a bit.

I’m not sure what the solution is to the CTE problem in the NFL, or if there is a solution, but a good start would be accelerometers in helmets and set them at an appropriate level (not sure of the level, I’m an engineer, not a doctor, dammit!*).

Once the sensor trips, the player gets a mandatory few weeks off on injured reserves and treatment.

*I LOVE IT when I get to go all Doctor McCoy!!!

Something is Going Right in Detroit

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The Detroit City Council is passing a law requiring recipients of public benefits for development sign binding contracts as to their benefits:

When Marathon Petroleum received a $175 million tax break from the city of Detroit in 2007, they promised jobs for Detroiters. And, as of last January, the $2.2 billion expansion of Marathon’s refinery on the city’s southwest side had, in fact, created new jobs for tax-paying residents —all of 15 of them.

Now, members of the Detroit City Council want to pass an ordinance that will hold developers seeking public money accountable: They’ll have to work out a community benefits agreement (CBA) with community leaders. A CBA is a legally binding pact covering everything from local hiring requirements and environmental concerns to redevelopment of public space and infrastructure. It’s a way to assuage the fears of current residents wary of displacement and change and ensure the public’s money is put to good use. It would be the first law of its kind in the country.

“We are allowing these large corporations—companies that could build a hockey arena without our money—to get in the corporate welfare line and take resources away from us,” Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan state representative who serves Detroit, told me. “In exchange for what?”

The hockey arena Tlaib mentioned is for the city’s beloved Red Wings, owned by pizza baron Mike Ilitch. The Ilitch family, whose net worth is estimated at $3.2 billion thanks in part to their Little Caesars pizza empire, received $284.5 million in public money to build a new, $450 million arena in the city’s Cass Corridor neighborhood. (They are desperately and vapidly rebranding it as the “arena and entertainment district.”)

While the Ilitch family was finishing up its honeypot stadium welfare deal last year—not to mention a wildly below-market rate $1 land transfer for 39 vacant parcels—they refused to sign a CBA that would ensure a certain percentage of permanent, non-construction jobs at the arena went to Detroiters. A group of locals formed the Corridors Alliance in an attempt to engage with the Ilitches, but their efforts were futile. The Ilitches did, however, agree to a mayoral executive order that demanded 51 percent of construction jobs go to residents and 30 percent of construction contracts go to local businesses. (The mayoral order, like Marathon’s hollow promise, is not legally binding.)

………

The proposed ordinance in Detroit would take what Los Angeles and Pittsburgh have done a step further. It would require developers to engage in a CBA. Under the most recent draft of the ordinance, any project totaling more than $15 million in investment (or $3 million in renovation or expansion) seeking at least $300,000 in public tax dollars—from tax abatements to land transfers—will have to enter into a community benefits agreement. Developments between $3 million and $15 million are encouraged, but not required, to execute a CBA. Developments funded entirely by private money are exempt.

Business leaders—no surprise!—are pissed. It’s another hurdle, they say. Just more red tape, they scream! In October, Rodrick Miller, president and CEO of the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation (DEGC), wrote an irritated and bullying letter to City Council expressing his true feelings.

………

The opposition made it all the way to the state capitol in Lansing during December’s lame duck session, where Republican State Representative Earl Poleski introduced House Bill 5977, which would “prohibit local units of government from creating a ‘community benefits ordinance.'” The bill, which died in December and was reintroduced in January, would ban Detroit’s proposed ordinance outright.

“House Bill 5977 sets up the state as a dictatorship telling local units of government that they cannot do what is best for their community, workers and residents when it comes to wages and benefits tied to economic development in that community,” Tlaib said in a statement.

Of course the klepto-capitalists pretty much all of the Republicans, and quite a few of the Democrats in Lansing, hate the idea, but this should be seen as an endorsement of an insanely good idea.

It’s kind of like being condemned by ISIS.  It means that you are doing it right.

My Thoughts on this Year’s Super Bowl

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Let me ask you, who are you gonna believe, Tom Brady, the greatest man in all of humanity, or a bunch of a**h**** on Twitter?

First, I do not have a dog in this hunt, though Sharon* does, being a die hard Pats fan since before Tom Brady.

I am watching for the ads.

Remember that article by Warren Sharp in Slate that said that the Patriots fumble numbers were mathematically impossible?

Yeah, not so much:

The data science community responded with a number of rebuttals (I put together a roundup of my favorite ones below). Collectively, these posts did a great job of breaking down the Statistics 101 problems with Sharp’s original analyses. But even if Sharp had been less sloppy, it would have been right to take issue with the larger implication of his work — that any major outlier, if shown to be statistically significant, should be seen as evidence of rule-breaking.

 Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong were outliers. But so is Lionel Messi. And Phil Jackson. And the San Antonio Spurs. It would be irresponsible — and depressing — to assume every incredible performance equals cheating. Celebrating outliers is one of the best parts about being a sports fan.

 I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that, in cases such as these, our traditional methods of determining statistical significance can severely underestimate the odds of something happening due to chance. That’s because of the so-called Wyatt Earp Effect, named after the frontier lawman known for taking part in lots of gunfights without getting hurt. Earp’s feat seems improbable in hindsight, but given the sheer number of shootouts in the Old West, it was actually pretty likely that somebody would make it out alive.

 Likewise, it’s difficult to estimate the true odds against a team preventing fumbles to the extent Sharp originally suggested New England did. Knowing particulars about the Patriots after the fact can bias us into computing the odds that a specific team would have a specific fumble record over a specific period of years. But the real question regarding New England’s outlier-ness should surround the odds that any team would post any outlier statistic over any span of seasons. And the probability of that happening, as you may imagine, is a lot higher than the odds of a very specific set of circumstances.

 Here were some of the responses to Sharp’s posts:

 ………

  • The harshest counterargument belonged to data scientist Drew Fustin. Fustin challenged Sharp’s choice to exclude dome teams (Sharp’s own post says outdoor teams barely fumble more often than those based in domes), instead looking at fumble rates across all teams in outdoor games only — whereupon the Patriots don’t even rank first in the NFL at fumble avoidance over the 2010-2014 period. He also questions whether Sharp’s decision to use that 2010-14 period was a case of cherry-picking the timeframe that would make the Patriots look most like an extreme outlier.

(emphasis mine)

Seriously, it’s a tempest in a teapot, and distracting all of us from the true meaning of the Super Bowl:  To sell us useless sh%$ that we really do not need and to pump up the profile of advertising firms.

*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

I Made a Jive Ass Newbie Mistake on “Ball-Gate”

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Last week, I looked at deflate-gate (the Patriots ball inflation “scandal”), and ran some numbers.

I used °F, and figured that if the balls were filled up to 12.7 psi at 70°F, and they cooled to 20°F, you would get a pressure drop of 1.38°F.

Boyle’s law is PV=nRT, where P=pressure, V=Volume, n=the amount of the gas in moles, R=the ideal gas constant, at T=temperature.

Since in the football, volume, amount of gas, and the ideal gas constant remains the same, so we can reduce this to:

P1/T1=P2/T2

Then we can solve for P2: P2=(P1/T1)T2

So, the math looks good, where is the “Jive Ass Newbie Mistake?

Because the pressure in the football isn’t 12.5 psi it’s 27.2 (12.5+14.7) psi.

Boyle’s law is based on absolute pressure, not gauge pressure. Gauge pressure is the difference between the absolute pressure of what you are measuring and the atmospheric pressure.

I am a complete tool for screwing this up.

It turns out that using absolute pressure, a 31 degree ball will be 2.076 psi under-inflated.

So, “Ball-Gate” is largely just an effort by Roger Goodell to make people forget that he is an incompetent and corrupt liar.  (Ray Rice and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, two name just 2)

Full disclosure: My wife is a Patriots fan, though I’m not.

I’ll be watching the Superbowl for the ads.

(On edit)
There also might be water vapor in the air used to inflate the ball that would further exacerbate the pressure drop as it condenses.

(2nd edit)
I just realized that I had not posted this on my blog before, the screw up was on a comment I made on Facebook.

Still, I will apologize here.

This is a Meaningful Description of What is Wrong with Washington, DC Professional Football Franchise

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Sally Jenkins makes a very good point about what is wrong with Washington’s Football team, all while avoiding the use of the clearly racist franchise moniker, though whoever wrote the headline f%$#@ed that up.

The short form of her thesis is that a fish rots from the head, and given the truly pitiful performance of the team since his acquiring the team seems to confirm this thesis.

I will leave you with her last paragraph:

For too long, no one has trusted the basic setup of the organization. So many flatterers and yes men survive while the truth tellers get offed or ignored, and every three or four years everyone gets fired and the club starts from scratch again. Step one for Snyder is to identify some real leaders, not just enablers. And to convince them he’s not out to waste their best efforts and earning years.

She further suggests that, “Snyder would have to listen, really listen, to his staffers and his players. Not to his pets and his stars and top jersey sellers, either, but to those who he has often disregarded and disrespected, the rank and file who show up for work every day and manage to do a professional job in an unprofessional environment.”

I simply do not think that this is in Dan Snyder’s DNA. When he first bought the team, he fired everyone, including secretaries and the like.

Sh%$#ing on the little people who might actually know what is going on has been an essential part of his modus operandi since he took over the team.

He cannot solve the problem, because he is the problem.

If DC fans could stay away from games, not buy merchandise, and decrease his revenue to the point where the debt service would be greater than revenue, which Jenkins suggests as “Plan B”, it might get rid of him, and we might find some resolution regarding the teams ineptitude on and off the field.

Full disclosure: I am a fan of the team, and I have been since 1976.

Global Warming is Clearly a Hoax

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Looks like the Iditerod

 
Still looks like the Iditerod

 
OK, not so much


It appears that they are holding the Iditerod in Arizona

It appears that the Iditarod sled dog race is missing a crucial element, snow:

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is the most popular sporting event in Alaska, and has long been a test of human and animal endurance. Traveling a 1,000-mile path across Arctic tundra from Willow to Nome (with a ceremonial start in Anchorage), mushers and their teams of 16 specially-trained dogs must withstand some of the most extreme winter weather on Earth: blizzards and whiteout conditions, along with freezing temperatures, are commonplace.

The major challenge that mushers had to contend with this year — and that forced many of the more experienced racers out of the event — was not unusual cold and snow. In fact, it was the opposite — a near total lack of snow with ice covering across large stretches of the course. Mushing over snow cover across steep, rugged terrain is difficult enough, but the sleds were not designed for traversing gravel.

I actually saw the opening of the Iditerod in 1968, and the idea that there would be no snow was completely incomprehensible.

In fact, my enduring memory of that day is to walk into a f%$#ing igloo, and thinking how warm it was in there. (There was a sort of a fair at the beginning of the race.)

It was the first time that I was on a (pretty lame, actually) roller coaster.

The two things that I remember are the roller coaster and the start of the Iditerod.

H/t DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

I Approve

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Today, members of the St. Louis Rams football franchise walked out onto the field with their hands up, using the gesture made famous by the Ferguson protesters:

Members of the NFL’s St. Louis Rams came onto their home field on Sunday posing with the ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ gesture associated with the shooting of teenager Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri.

 The gesture has become part of a movement designed to draw attention to the spate of shootings of young African-American men by police officers across the country.

 As player introductions began at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, five players — Stedman Bailey, Tavon Austin, Jared Cook, Chris Givens, and Kenny Britt — came out onto the field first, to the applause of the crowd, before being joined by their teammates.

Rather unsurprisingly, the police officer’s union is calling for disciplinary measures to be taken against these players:

Reacting to five members of the St. Louis Rams coming onto the field for Sunday’s game displaying the ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ gesture, a St. Louis police officers fraternal organization is demanding the team discipline the players, and that the team and league issue a formal apology, reports KSDK.

 In a statement released Sunday evening, the St. Louis Police Officers Association condemned the display, calling it “tasteless, offensive and inflammatory.”

 Prior to player introductions before Sunday’s game, five players — Stedman Bailey, Tavon Austin, Jared Cook, Chris Givens, and Kenny Britt — came out onto the field first with their hands in the air prior to being joined by their teammates.

Notwithstanding some puffery from the union about the 1st amendment, it’s clear that the St. Louis Police Officers Association has no concept of civil rights.

Or, to put it another way, “Why does the St. Louis Police Officers Association hate America?”

Give Me a High 4, Jose

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There are a number of rules to responsible gun ownership.

Number 1 on the list should be, “Make sure that the gun is unloaded before you try to clean it.“

It appears that this bit of common sense has escaped former Baseball all-star Jose Canseco:

Former major league slugger Jose Canseco blew his middle finger clear off his hand while cleaning his handgun at home in Las Vegas.

Jose’s fiancée Leila Knight tells TMZ Sports … he was sitting at a table in their home cleaning the gun when it went off. She says he didn’t know it was loaded — and the shot ripped through the middle finger on his left hand.

Leila tells us 50-year-old Canseco is in surgery right now as doctors desperately try to save what’s left of the finger. She says the bullet tore through the bottom part of the finger and doctors have already said he’ll never have full use of it again … even under the best of circumstances.

Here is a suggestion for gun owners out there, and I am not kidding: create a checklist for yourself for each weapon that you own, much like the one that is used for flying aircraft.

If you use it, one of the early steps will be something along the lines of, “Remove the magazine and confirm that there are no rounds in the chamber.”

Really, I am not being snarky here.

Everyone has a brain fart occasionally, and that is what check lists are for.

Student Athletes, My Ass. It’s Legalized Slavery

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In the middle of the rout of the University of Michigan football team by the University of Minnesota football team, the coach, Brady Hoke not only declined to pull a student who was clearly concussed, but he put him back in the game after pulling him:

But, by the third quarter against Minnesota, things were slipping through Hoke’s fingers. Once again, Michigan’s offense was discombobulated, this time with quarterback Shane Morris rather than Devin Gardner, and the Wolverines looked to be in serious trouble when two turnovers in a span of less than two minutes propelled the Gophers to increase their lead from 10-7 to 27-7. At this point, I finally caved and believed that there was little chance for Hoke to save his job, but I still thought he should finish out the season.

And then this happened:





2:05 – 3:58
Morris remains in the game, and then something happens that we never want to see as college football fans. Morris drops back to pass and rolls to his left. As Morris flings the football, Minnesota defensive end Theiren Cockran closes in at full speed, drops his helmet, and unleashes a dirty and ejectionable helmet-to-helmet hit on Morris. Morris’ pass is overthrown and incomplete, but, when the ESPN cameras come back to Morris after the play, we see him walk around dazed for a few seconds and then this:

………

Morris clearly wobbles and tries to prop his head on Ben Braden’s right arm to remain upright. Braden recognizes this and uses both arms to catch Morris and prevent him from falling to the ground. Braden then keeps his right arm wrapped around Morris’ back to keep him standing. Khalid Hill then walks over and says something to Morris, which prompts Morris to look to the Michigan sideline and wave off a substitution.

………

But, not only does Morris remain in the game for another snap, Michigan allows him to drop back for a pass, which could lead to him being on the receiving end of another bone-crushing hit delivered by Minnesota’s pass rush. Absolutely abhorrent. Thankfully, Morris releases his pass before any Gophers can get in the vicinity to do so.

After the play, the ESPN cameras get a shot of Morris staring at the Michigan sideline, and anyone and everyone with a brain can see that Morris is completely dazed and confused. As Morris drops his head, Hoke and the Michigan staff finally realize that Morris is in no condition to be on a football field and motions for Gardner to replace him.

One play too late, though.

 ………

5:05 – 6:33
At the end of Gardner’s third play on the field, during which he scrambled, his helmet was ripped off by a Minnesota defender. Accordingly, by rule, Gardner must sit out the following snap unless a timeout is called by either team.
The decision here for Hoke should be pretty simple: (1) send out third-string quarterback Russell Bellomy for the next play; or (2) use one of Michigan’s remaining two timeouts and keep Gardner in the game.
But that is not what happens, and what does happen next is a fireable offense.
As Bellomy removes his headset and begins scrambling to find his helmet, Morris, who had finally taken off his helmet, starts walking towards the field of play, puts back on his helmet, and jogs onto the field. No Michigan coach, including Hoke, or any member of Michigan’s training staff stop him. At this point, Bellomy retrieves a helmet — one I do not believe is actually his — and starts to sprint onto the field before halting when he sees Morris is already in the huddle.

 ………

For starters, Morris never should have been in this huddle. But look at the play clock in the graphic above. THERE ARE A FULL 25 SECONDS ON THE PLAY CLOCK. That is plenty of time for Hoke to either: (1) call Morris back to the sideline and sub in Bellomy, who now has a helmet; (2) call a timeout, which still remains an option every second until the ball is snapped; or (3) PUT IN ANY PLAYER — WILTON SPEIGHT, BRIAN CLEARY, ALEX SWIECA, LINEBACKER JAKE RYAN, DEFENSIVE TACKLE WILLIE HENRY, ETC. — THAT IS NOT CONCUSSED.

Even the umpire looks over to Michigan’s sideline and asks Hoke if he wants to take a timeout, to which Hoke declines, before starting the play clock.

Disgusting. Reprehensible. Despicable. Atrocious. Disturbing. None of these adjectives can truly describe just how horrifying it is that Hoke had absolutely no problem reinserting Morris back into this game. None.

(all emphasis original)

People are upset that coach Hoke did this.

I’m appalled that Hoke, and the athletic director David Brandon, whose tenure as a Domino’s Pizza CEO and as a Republican political apparatchik (but I repeat myself) presaged his aggressively capitalist management of his “student athletes”, have not been fired yet.

This is not a just a failing of U. Mich, it symptomatic of the fundamentally abusive nature of top tier collegiate athletics.

It’s not education, it’s not athletics, it’s human trafficking.

If it were anything else, everyone involved in this debacle would already be suspended pending termination.

I hope that the QB, Shane Morris, is talking to a lawyer.