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| Thursday, July 19, 2007 |
As everyone knows by now, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has been indicted for various federal charges related to dog fighting. It may take a year or more for all this to play out in court but there’s not much dispute that Vick lied to the commissioner and that he’s seriously involved in the dog fighting, which took place on his property.
The Associated Press reports that “the NFL has decided to let Michael Vick play football for the ‘foreseeable future’ as the legal process determines the facts.”
That’s a shame. We know enough to know that Vick is a thug, a liar, and a disgrace to the National Football League. Many sportswriters are urging Roger Goodell to suspend Vick now, rather than allowing him to tarnish the league’s reputation while this all plays out. I’m 100 percent behind them.
Jennifer Floyd Engel, Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
Falcons QB Michael Vick is allegedly a vicious, disgusting criminal who murders dogs by hanging, drowning, electrocuting and body slamming them to death. That allegedly gets kind of lost, huh?
What is not lost is his employer, the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League, or the ugly. He has linked his employers to heinous and abominable acts. And as established by “The Pacman Precedent,” the NFL has to discipline him as a result.
So suspend him, Roger. Right now. Immediately.
Prove that your tough-on-crime policy applies to everybody — even players who sell more jerseys than everybody else, who are sponsored by Nike, who are franchise quarterbacks.
Vick’s conduct certainly has brought embarrassment and ridicule upon himself, his club and the NFL and has damaged the reputation of players throughout the league — or exactly the wording you used when explaining to Adam “Pacman” Jones and Chris Henry what led to their lengthy suspensions.
Jean-Jacques Taylor, Dallas Morning News:
It took no courage for NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to give Pacman Jones, Chris Henry and Tank Johnson the lengthy suspensions they deserved for disgracing the NFL on a regular basis. Henry and Johnson were hardly household names, and Jones’ notorious off-the-field escapades made him an easy target because the court of public opinion wanted him punished.
It will take courage and conviction to suspend Michael Vick, one of the league’s stars.
But if we’re going to take Goodell’s tough stance on player conduct seriously, that’s exactly what the commissioner must do after federal authorities handed out an 19-page indictment Tuesday that charged Vick with competitive dogfighting, procuring and training pit bulls for fighting and conducting the enterprise across state lines.
Terry Frei, Denver Post:
I tend to be a contrarian, and I tried not to join the bandwagon on this one. Among many other things, I was going to ask: Didn’t the Duke lacrosse mess remind us that charges in a grand jury indictment aren’t automatically true? In a market in which many of us justifiably excoriate Barry Bonds as a disgrace, yet many fans and (even more disgracefully) newspaper writers still portray Bill Romanowski as a charming rogue, can’t we at least wonder about our adjustable standards?
Those still are points to ponder. But the disturbing information in the federal grand jury indictment against the Atlanta Falcons quarterback and three others is overwhelming.Those still are points to ponder. But the disturbing information in the federal grand jury indictment against the Atlanta Falcons quarterback and three others is overwhelming. Vick is convincingly linked to the horrific dogfighting operation on his property in rural Virginia, mocking his “Who, me?” claims of innocence.
This is not a dishonorable district attorney taking advantage of a malleable local grand jury. It stems from a careful federal proceeding, and the paucity of leaks was such that there were erroneous reports in recent days that Vick wouldn’t be indicted.
Nancy Armour, Associated Press:
Way to go, Michael Vick.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re innocent or guilty of those federal dogfighting charges, you’ve just trashed your reputation. From now on, when people see you, they’re going to think of electrocuted puppies.
The NFL affords you fame and riches galore. In return, you have certain responsibilities — to your teammates, to your organization, to the league and, most important to the fans, the people who make your charmed life possible.
Nothing too oppressive. Just that you behave like the law-abiding citizen you should be anyway. That you’re not on a first-name basis with the local D.A.
Meanwhile, the NFL and the Falcons are hedging their bets.
Falcons owner Arthur Blank said Thursday the team is “exploring our options” in the wake of Michael Vick’s federal indictment on dogfighting charges. “We know you’re anxious to hear more from us regarding the indictment of Michael Vick and its implications to the Falcons,” Blank said in his first public comment on the matter, issued as a “statement to fans.”
“Please be assured that we are working diligently on exploring our options and getting the right people involved in this situation,” Blank said in the statement. “This is an emotionally charged and complicated matter. There are a wide range of interests and legal issues that need to be carefully considered as we move ahead, including our need to respect the due process that Michael is entitled to. Also, this situation affects everyone – our club, our players and associates, our sponsors, our fans and the Atlanta community among them – so we must consider all of our customers in making any decisions.
“Given the differing perspectives and strong feelings around this issue, we probably won’t make everyone happy, but we are committed to doing the right thing. As the owner of this club that’s, ultimately, my responsibility,” Blank said.
“In the meantime, know that I’m saddened and distressed about this – not for myself, but for our fans and community who have been so loyal to us. We will do our very best to continue to earn your support,” he concluded.
Then disassociate yourself from this dirtbag.
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The Florida Masochist linked with The Knucklehead of the Day award
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The Bullwinkle Blog linked with The Knucklehead of the Day award
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| Wednesday, June 27, 2007 |
Clay Buchholz is drawing rave reviews while plowing through the Eastern League this season. He’s Boston’s top pitching prospect, and is showing signs of being capable of making the leap to the big leagues in 2008. The Red Sox may have an opening, depending on how Curt Schilling feels about coming back next year, and how Theo and company feel about him coming back. With all that hype, denizens of Red Sox Nation already know who Clay Buchholz is, and some are ready to name their next born after him.
So this week, when Buchholz shut down the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, the folks in New Hampshire gave Buchholz a standing ovation. The Fisher Cats, who were ostensibly the home team, were not amused.
Some Fisher Cats felt slighted. One player, who requested anonymity, said he felt like vomitting during the ovation.
“When I came to the dugout after that standing ovation, players were not happy. I just think it rubbed my team, and especially myself, the wrong way,” New Hampshire manager Bill Masse said yesterday after a day of reflection. “These guys are out there competing every night and giving the fans some awesome games, and they came away feeling like they were the visiting team.”
This is the nature of locating a minor League affiliate in New England when you are not the Red Sox. Washington’s New York-Penn League entrant – the Vermont Lock Monsters – no doubt hear a fair few more cheers for the opposition when Boston’s NYP farm team – the Lowell Spinners – comes to town. Of course, those guys were likely disappointed when Spinners players got a lot of cheers during games. The Fisher Cats (and the Lock Monsters) have reason to be disappointed. Nobody wants to hear cheers from “your” crowd for the guy you’re trying to beat.
Buchholz may be destined for greatness, or perhaps his tremendous talent will not pan out. He is being managed carefully by the Red Sox, but still has managed to post 111 Ks in 80.1 IP. He’s got a microscopic 1.79 ERA and a OBA of .187. Those are numbers that will get you mentioned with Yovanni Gallardo, Philip Hughes and Homer Bailey. Red Sox fans are understandably excited. And they will not be denied an opportunity to declare, “I was there when…” about any once, current or future legend. My advice to the Fisher Cats: earplugs and and perseverance.
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| Friday, June 22, 2007 |
A story yesterday morning about a trade of minor players between the Braves and Tigers got me thinking again about an issue that has crossed my mind from time to time: the ability of sports teams to “trade” players like commodities.
There aren’t many lines of work where you sign a contract with one company in one location and can be suddenly be shipped to another company, forced to move across the country–or even to Canada–and suffer the family disruption, tax implications, and other consequences at the whim of ownership. There have been instances where a player is traded three times in a single season.
Presumably, the argument is that players have agreed to those terms of employment as part of the collective bargaining process. Still, professional sports leagues operate as closed shops and there’s simply no way to earn a living in one’s chosen line of work without being subject to those rules, making their “voluntariness” dubious.
In the course of my research, I stumbled across the excellent Sports Law Blog but was unable to find the answer to this question by searching their archives. I emailed one of its contributors, Mississippi College of Law assistant professor Michael McCann, and got a very interesting and helpful response:
I have addressed this topic in a couple of my law review articles, including “The Reckless Pursuit of Dominion: A Situational Analysis of the NBA and Diminishing Player Autonomy,” which was published in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Labor and Employment Law last year. You have identified a legitimate criticism of how leagues operate, and one that, I believe, fans often miss when their minds fixate on the high salaries players earn. For similar reasons, I think people miss how prospective players in leagues have no sway over the terms and conditions that are bargained for by existing players. I wrote this:
On one hand, the rookie wage scale has proven strikingly effective: Since its implementation, there has not been one draft-pick holdout. Moreover, and quite obviously, rookie NBA players still earn considerably high salaries when compared to the general population; $ 1.5 million for three years would likely satisfy most people’s needs and wants, although many of us would still prefer to choose our employers and location of employment – choices unavailable to rookie players.
. . .
Despite reflecting unequal bargaining power for all NBA players and an absence of any bargaining power for those players not yet in the NBA, collectively-bargained rules tend to receive automatic, almost reflexive endorsement by courts and much of the public. In essence, we tend to automatically conclude that if it was collectively-bargained, then it must represent the free will of the parties, so we should investigate no further. This opinion appears characteristic of the fundamental attribution error, a term used by psychologists to describe the tendency of humans to “look at any setting and make casual attributions [so that] certain key features of that setting – the observable actions of individuals – exert disproportionate influence over their evaluations.” Put more simply, we tend to focus on the easiest, most readily-understandable aspects of any relationship, such as two parties in negotiation and how they ultimately divide rights and obligations, while ignoring the more nuanced and less-observable aspects, such as the absence of certain parties in the negotiation and the situational pressures on all parties. For that reason, we prefer to see relationships as between dispositional or “rational” actors rather than between situational characters, even when this preference is uncorroborated.
The fundamental attribution error may explain why collectively-bargained outcomes, which seem like decidedly explicit manifestations of the human disposition, enjoy broad deference, while we tend to miss that certain parties who are not involved in the bargaining may be more affected than any party to the bargaining. Indeed, premier amateur players, and particularly those on the cusp of entering the NBA, appear to have as much at stake in collectively-bargained rules for future players as do any existing NBA players.
Along those lines, the fundamental attribution error may explain why we tend to overlook the situational influences on existing NBA players during collective-bargaining. Indeed, locked-out NBA players endure intense pressure to capitulate to league demands, particularly given the absence of viably-alternative basketball leagues. That is, the situation they encounter may distort their decision-making in ways that yield undesired “choices.” Nevertheless, because of the fundamental attribution error, external observers may be more affected by the simplicity of collectively-bargained rules than by either their instrumental components or consequential effects. As a result, the NBA enjoys wide latitude in asserting control over players, and in ways unappreciated by external observers.
As McCann notes, it’s unlikely anyone is going to feel sorry for the plight of professional athletes making multi-million dollar salaries. Still, the amateur draft, trade rules, and other limitations on player autonomy are quite unusual. Indeed, the only comparable labor situation that comes to mind is that of military personnel, especially in the days of conscription.
Fans have the expectation that players will display extraordinary loyalty to their teams, including extending taking a “home town discount” of millions of dollars when free agency (otherwise known as, “the right to work for whomever will hire you under whatever terms you can negotiate just like everyone else”) and “putting the needs of the team above personal goals.” Yet these same fans seem to have no problem with trading these players for better ones if the opportunity arises.
Crossposted at OTB
In addition to losing a 2007 home game because of it being played in London England, now League officials are requiring Dolphin fans to pick up their tickets in London the week of the game.
With the Dolphins playing the first regular-season NFL game outside North America this fall, the league is going to unusual lengths to keep fans from profiting off the game.
The NFL has created a policy to prevent season-ticket holders from reselling tickets to the Oct. 28 game against the New York Giants in London. Dolphins season-ticket holders who buy tickets must pick them up in person with photo ID in London the week of the game. They may buy the same number of tickets they have for other home games, but it is capped at 16.
“We don’t want fans re-selling these tickets,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said. “We had to create a system that would accommodate Dolphins season-ticket holders and U.K. and European fans. Without that there’s the potential for fans to have to pay extraordinary prices for these tickets from people in South Florida, who may be selling them.”
The first 40,000 tickets to the game were snapped up in 90 minutes when they were put on sale to U.K. and European fans last month.
As a contingent of Dolphins officials, including owner H. Wayne Huizenga, coach Cam Cameron and defensive end Jason Taylor, visit London this week promoting the game, season-ticket holders have been receiving information about purchasing tickets, ranging from approximately $92 to $183 depending on the exchange rate. Travel packages with tickets run from $1,699 to $3,749, without airfare. Those buying travel packages do not have to pick up tickets in London.
Some season-ticket holders think they should be able to decide whether to use, re-sell or give the tickets away to clients or relatives.
Florida relaxed its scalping laws last year, allowing for the re-sale of tickets at any price.
The change in Florida law took effect in 2006. Where is the NFL’s concern for ticket scalping when the Super Bowl is played. Why not enforce similar policies then? What if a season ticket holder can’t make the trip? Tough luck then I guess.
Maybe its not much of a loss. In my humble opinion, the 2007 Dolphin season won’t be any better than the 2006 season was.
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| Tuesday, June 12, 2007 |
The Magic are offering fans who bought season tickets to see Billy Donovan coach the team their money back.
The Orlando Magic are offering refunds to fans who bought season tickets just after Billy Donovan’s hiring.
More than 200 packages sold within 24 hours of the announcement that the Magic had lured Donovan away from Florida, where he won two straight NCAA titles. Donovan changed his mind a day after his May 31 introduction, deciding to return to the Gators.
The Magic said they were contacting individual fans who bought tickets within 48 hours of the Donovan announcement. So far some have decided to keep the tickets, the team said without specifying an amount.
A very classy gesture.
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| Friday, May 18, 2007 |
Duh! But, is it too late? I for one can’t watch drug enhanced players breaking long standing records of truly Great players. An apology does not fix this. Damage has been done. The question is, can we learn from these mistakes?
New York Yankees slugger Jason Giambi , saying he’s likely tested for illegal performance-enhancing drugs more often than anyone else, believes Major League Baseball should have apologized years ago for its widespread drug problem.
Here is what he had to say before the game.
“I was wrong for doing that stuff,” Giambi told USA TODAY on Wednesday before playing the Chicago White Sox . “What we should have done a long time ago was stand up – players, ownership, everybody – and said: ‘We made a mistake.’
“We should have apologized back then and made sure we had a rule in place and gone forward. — Steroids and all of that was a part of history. But it was a topic that everybody wanted to avoid. Nobody wanted to talk about it.”
Here Giambi goes on to say, “That stuff didn’t help me hit home runs”. But, it sure did give him the power to get the baseball out of the park.
“Unfortunately, (the rumors) are going to be a part of it. But that’s OK. I’m probably tested more than anybody else. I’m not hiding anything,” said Giambi, hitting .273 with five homers this season. “That stuff didn’t help me hit home runs. I don’t care what people say, nothing is going to give you that gift of hitting a baseball.”
I believe they should start opening up a little more. If they want the healing to begin.
When asked, “So why did you take steroids?” Giambi said: “Maybe one day I’ll talk about it, but not now.”
source: aol sports
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| Thursday, May 17, 2007 |
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban makes a strong defense of the NBA’s “leave the bench and you’re suspended” rule:
[I]ts incredibly simple to educate players about the rule. Its a rule they fully understand and they understand the consequences of violating the rule. That makes the NBA stronger because it removes uncertainty. Can it result in a game(s) being impacted , yes. However, that impact results from an action a player knew violated the rules and was a mistake. There is no uncertainty about it. All they had to do was not leave the bench.
I actually think that more rules need to be iron clad like the “don’t leave the bench rule”. Whenever we can remove discretion in enforcement from the NBA the game is better for it.
Fans will hate the Suns not having Amare and Boris, but they all know the rule and recognize that the players knew it and fully understood it. What really gets fans, and me upset is when they can’t understand how and why a rule is enforced.
The refs have too much influence over all the major team sports. The more we can take their discretion away, the better.
SOme players dont react to hecklers in the best way, Vernon Wells isn’t one of those players. No he didn’t beat the guy or threaten him, he just reacted with humor of his own when he tossed a baseball to a guy who had been heckling him all game.
Dear Mr. Dork,
Here is your ball! Can you please tell me what gas station you work at, so when you are pumping my gas, I can yell at you!!! Now sit down, shut up and enjoy the game.
- Your favorite centrefielder
Give him credit it, its creative AND funny.
Some took objection when I called the 2007 NBA All-Star Game a “Thug Convention” and criticized the general problems with NBA Players obeying the law. Well guess what, the Chief Executive of MGM Mirage Inc. doesn’t want the NBA All-Star Game in town again because all of the gang-bangers and thugs that came to the game (and ‘activities’ outside of the game) led to violence, scared other guests and in the end hurt their first quarter earnings.
MGM Mirage Inc.’s chief executive does not want the NBA All-Star Game to return to Las Vegas, saying Thursday that the casino’s first-quarter earnings were potentially hurt by the rowdy crowd that turned out for the league’s showcase game.
Terry Lanni made the comments after the company, which owns the most casinos of any operator on the Las Vegas Strip, reported first-quarter earnings that fell below analyst forecasts, sending MGM Mirage shares down more than 4 percent. They rebounded 2.4 percent in after-hours trading.
The company said the earnings shortfall was partially due to a partially problematic crowd that surrounded the All-Star Game in February, which fell on the same weekend as the Lunar New Year — a crucial period for bringing in high-rollers from Asia.
“The gang-bangers and others who came for purposes other than attending the game, they weren’t very good for Las Vegas,” Lanni told The Associated Press.
Lanni said there was little action on the gambling tables the day of the game.
“In talking to our casino hosts, a number of people stayed in their villas and suites. They felt uncomfortable,” he said.
Excluding Beau Rivage, which opened in Mississippi in August, quarterly casino revenues slipped 6 percent from a year ago, and table game revenue, including the baccarat game that Asian players favor, fell 7 percent.
There was a spike in arrests and complaints about rowdy behavior during NBA All-Star Weekend. Five people were shot, including three outside a strip club.
Say what you want about my opinions, but when the guy in charge of maximizing earnings and keeping the shareholders happy says that the criminal behavior associated with the NBA hurt their business it means something is wrong with the image of the league and the detrimental behaviors that league attracts.
In the greatest baseball irony since Chuck Knoblauch hit Keith Olbermann’s mother in the face with a baseball, Jay Gibbons managed to assault his wife during a baseball game, while standing at home plate and batting.
The odds of such an occurrence seem insurmountable, yet Jay Gibbons pulled off the unimaginable feat: He hit a foul ball that injured his wife.
The scene occurred in the ninth inning of the Baltimore Orioles’ game against Minnesota on Saturday. Gibbons fouled a ball straight back over the screen and into the rib cage of his wife, Laura.
All one can say is….”What are the odds?”
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