Weekly Sporties

-Monday was finally the day Major League Baseball got around to suspending the dozen players named in the Biogenesis steroid scandal. Most players were hit with 50-game bans which are standard for a failed first test but, due to what MLB claims in an abundance of evidence and a history of impeding their investigation, New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez was hit with a suspension lasting 211 games (the rest of this season and all of next year). Unlike most of the players who were happy to escape with a slap on the wrist, Rodriguez had previously promised to fight any suspension and under the rules in the collective bargaining agreement, he is allowed to play until his appeal is heard. The thing is that his appeal probably won't be put in front of an arbitrator for a month and that arbitrator can take another month to deliver a ruling, which means Alex will most likely be able to finish the season before he learns his fate. I have to say, nothing sums up how poorly MLB handed this whole scandal more than Alex Rodriguez getting suspended at noon and making his season debut for the Yankees seven hours later. I mean, isn't the point of a suspension supposed to be that the player doesn't get to keep playing? And even though the Yankees don't want him out there any more than the Commissioner's office the team doesn't have any better alternatives, so A-Rod will continue to be in the line-up and every single one of hits at-bats is a story. To me, this is exactly why the two sides needed to sit down and hammer out an agreement that Rodriguez would have accepted. I know Bud Selig wanted to "send a message" and took Alex's constant lying about his steroid use personally but how absurd is this whole episode going to look the first time Alex hits a homerun while his appeal is waiting to be heard? As it stands now every time he is in uniform it keeps the Biogenesis story on the front pages, which is why the wiser course of action was to find a number of games which A-Rod would have been willing to sit and then getting him off the field immediately. Reportedly Rodriguez was willing to take a 100-game ban which I think MLB should have agreed to. Sometimes you have lose a small battle to win the war and right now MLB is too focused on one guy to notice their credibility is going down in flames.

-But while we're on the subject of witchhunts by organizations which look increasingly powerless, this week a report surfaced contending that Texas A&M quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel was paid $7,500 to sign memorabilia while attending the BCS Championship Game in January. As you probably know this would be against NCAA regulations and if the allegations are proven Manziel will be ineligible for this season. But I feel like Aggie fans can relax because I doubt the NCAA can prove a thing since it is a he said/he said story and the broker has already said he wouldn't cooperate with the NCAA's investigation. So unless Manziel incriminates himself that should be the end of it. But, this story did lead us back to the larger discussion which has been going on this year regarding whether college athletes should be allowed to profit from their own name and images. I'm not in favor of schools paying players simply because I wonder what it would do to all the non-revenue-producing sports. (If a bunch of athletes from the rowing team show up and start demanding money most schools would simply cancel their rowing programs.) However, if someone wants to pay a college athlete for a signature I feel like that player has earned the right to make a little money for it. The NCAA's stance on this issue was further hurt when ESPN's Jay Bilas started going through their official store and found several examples of the NCAA selling merchandise with a player's likeness on it, making them appear firmly in the "do as we say, not as we do" camp. (The NCAA has since said they will get out of the jersey business but the damage has been done.) This is why I will once again propose the concept I have been touting for years - why not allow players to get a cut of the money from selling merchandise with their names on it, but put it in a trust which would be given to the players when they graduate (or if they leave school early they have to wait until their class graduates). Not only would this encourage people to stay in school a little longer, it would protect those guys who aren't going to go on to have pro careers. Unfortunately, that is probably why my idea would never work because the NCAA stops caring about athletes as soon as they stop making them money.

-If you still need more proof that the NCAA has no real power, you can look down at LSU. Back in July the Tigers' star running back Jeremy Hill was arrested for assaulting a man outside a bar. He plead guilty (probably because there was clear video of the incident in which Hill walks up, sucker-punches a kid and then laughs about it to his friends) and was sentenced to a couple of years probation (even though he was already on probation from a guilty plea a couple of years). So, Hill was lucky enough to stay out of jail but he still could have been kicked off the team by head coach Les Miles. However, instead of making such a heavy decision on his own (you know, like a head coach is paid to do), Miles left it up to his players and allowed them to vote on Hill's future on the team and, shocker, they voted to reinstate him to the team immediately. I've heard that Les Miles considers himself a player's coach but this is ridiculous. TCU coach Gary Patterson immediately blasted the decision and Miles saying this kind of leadership isn't going to help these kids learn about real-world consequences. And while you could easily point out that Patterson has a conflict of interest because TCU is playing LSU the first week of the season, I still have to agree with him that this shows a real lack of integrity not only by Miles, but by LSU as a whole. Seriously, what did you think was going to happen when you allowed a group of teenagers make such a serious decision? I understand that they play in the SEC and football is all-powerful in that part of the country but at some point you need to remember that this kid is eventually going to stop being a college football player and need to start being a productive member of society. Also, while I am for treated college players like men every now and again you have to remind them they are not actually in charge. I'm not saying Hill needs to be locked up for the rest of his life, but if we have learned anything from the Aaron Hernandez situation it is that allowing people to get away with a series of bad behavior over a period of time leads them to think they will be able to get away with worse behavior later in life. I know this much - there is no chance in hell Hill ever ends up a member of the Patriots.

-Since we're already talking about 20 year-olds making bad decisions, this week the NBA had its annual Rookie Transition program. These mini-conferences, which have been adopted by nearly every professional sports league, are when veterans come in and talk to the new players all about the dangers of fame, give them tips about managing their money and overall tell them how to act like a professional. You can learn a lot if you pay attention but before you do that you have to make it all the way through, which won't happen for Minnesota Timberwolves forward Shabazz Muhammad, who was kicked out of the conference for bringing a girl up to his hotel room when guests were forbidden. This is the kind of story you would expect to hear about from an AAU team and not guys who are about to become professional athletes. There are some who are defending Muhammad, saying he is an adult who should be treated like one and if he wants to have a "friend" come and visit than he should be allowed to do so and, admittedly, it is kind of hard to justify holding a conference in which you are trying to explain to these players how it is time to act like men when you have rules in place which still treat them like children. But still, I find myself on the other side of this fence, feeling like if you can't follow rules for a couple of nights than it raises a red flag regarding how much an organization can trust you going forward. I mean, yes, it would be annoying to not have any guests allowed when the offseason is so short but it is also just a couple of nights and part of being a professional athlete is remembering that it doesn't matter who you are, rules are rules. There will be plenty of time for "visitors" in the future. Muhammad still has to complete the program, but since they only do it once a year that means he will have to go through it next year with the 2014 rookies. That is not exactly the kind of thing I would want my first round draft pick to be a veteran at. But the good news is that if he screws it up a second time I'm pretty sure gets to speak at next year's conference during the "Don't be stupid like me" portion of the proceedings.

-As so often happens when two people decide to end their relationship, the Los Angeles Lakers are currently going back through what happened during their break-up and see if they can figure out what caused free agent Dwight Howard to choose to leave the team in favor of signing with the Houston Rockets and decide if they could have done anything differently. Some are saying the "Stay Dwight" billboards were a tad too desperate while others contend they should have fired head coach Mike D'Antoni as Howard reportedly requested but Lakers VP Jeanie Buss has a different theory. On an interview with a local radio station, Buss said that the biggest problem was that her late father was not around to make a personal connection with Howard and she is confident that if Dr. Jerry Buss were still alive today Dwight would have stayed in Los Angeles. I'm not totally sure if I believe that, but if I were a Laker fan that revelation would scare the crap out of me. The Laker fans already have plenty of skepticism regarding some of the decisions new team President Jimmy Buss has made since his father's death and to hear that he isn't even as charismatic as the old man is just another sign the Lakers could be headed in the wrong direction. There is nothing worse as a sports fan than when a child inherits your favorite sports team from a parent because you just don't know if they have what it takes to be successful. Too many rich kids have that 'born on third, act like they hit a triple' level of arrogance and the number of times that has blown up in someone's face far outweighs the number of success stories. Now they have to worry whether Dwight deciding to leave Los Angeles was just one player deciding the situation wasn't the right one for him or if it is the sign of what is to come. After all, the Lakers will always be a free-agent destination but the days when you could automatically assume they will get every marquee name they want are clearly over thanks to the Clippers deciding to spend money and teams in Texas finally figuring out they should exploit the fact their state has no income tax. Players have options so it will come down the intangibles. The bad news for Laker fans is that no amount of famous people sitting courtside will be able to make up for the fact that the guy running the team might have no idea what he is doing.

-A couple of weeks ago the Phoenix Coyotes and the city of Glendale finally reached an agreement meaning the team would stay in the Arizona with a new ownership group. Not only would this stabilize the league with no more talk of relocation, it would get the NHL out of the business of running their own franchises which is always a huge conflict of interest. However, it appears they aren't quite done with that yet because this week we learned that Jeff Vanderbeek, the principle owner of the New Jersey Devils, lost quite of bit of money in the recession and recently missed the first payment on his new debt settlement agreement, which could mean the team will taken away from him and run by the NHL until a new buyer can be found. I admit that I am not much of a Devils fans but I have to say I found this news pretty shocking. It is one thing when a team like the Coyotes, who are trying to shoehorn hockey into an area of the country which has never shown it is very interested in the sport, have trouble making money but up until this season the Devils were always hanging around and putting out one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference. They have loyal fans, a pretty new arena, they play in a large media market and had no issues attracting key free agents. Honestly, if the New Jersey Devils aren't making money than what hope do the rest of the teams in the NHL have? It makes me wonder if (for once) a professional league wasn't lying when it was talking up all the financial issues its teams had during the lockout. The good news is that since these are the New Jersey Devils, one of the marquee franchises in the league, they should be pretty easy to sell. Already the group which owns of the Philadelphia 76ers have expressed interest but given how poorly the 76ers have been run for the last two season I am not sure I would want to put those guys in charge of anything right now. Then again, new owners have to be approved by the other people who already own teams in the league and if we have learned anything from the Phoenix and New Jersey situation it is that NHL owners do not  have a very good track record of picking the right people to own teams in their leagues. An ownership group which only has a history of making a series of bad personnel decision would probably be seen as an improvement.

-While I may not enjoy participating in extreme activities, I can understand why other people find them appealing. Everyone needs to blow off steam somehow and if you have a particularly boring job where you are trapped inside all day long then rock climbing or white-water rafting on the weekends may be just the release you need to make it through the next five days. Still, you would think that same logic would lend the people who risk their lives at their day jobs to want to take up slower, safer hobbies. But, that is not the case for NASCAR driver Tony Stewart because when he isn't driving 200 mph around paved tracks, he likes to blow off steam by driving nearly as fast around dirt tracks. It's a throwback to the kind of racing he did as a kid and Stewart has said he enjoys getting back to racing which isn't all about corporate sponsors and has even hosted several races at local dirt tracks during the season. This was all well and good, right up to the point early this week when Stewart wrecked while participating in one of these dirt track races and broke his leg in a couple of places, an injury which will keep him out of his car for at least six weeks and pretty much end his chances to compete for a Championship. (Given how much lower the safety guidelines are for these dirt track races Stewart is lucky it wasn't worse.) Now, it is rather common for professional athletes to have clauses written into their contracts which forbid them from participating in dangerous activities at any point during a season to avoid this exact kind of situation (although I don't see how you can tell a guy he can't go surfing when he races cars for a living). The problem for Tony's team is that he is not only their driver, he is also the team owner. That means he can't really get in trouble because it is not like he will fire himself and with no consequences other than not winning a championship (which, to be honest, he probably wasn't going to win anyway) you have to worry that Stewart hasn't learned anything from this incident. The upside is that Tony is going to have plenty of time to think about his actions and also come up with a better use of his free time. I'm going to suggest something a little less dangerous, like fishing. Not only would he still get to drive something with an engine but Tony already has a sponsor with Bass Pro Shop and since he won't be bringing them any attention on the track he may as well see if he can get them some attention away from it.