Weekly Sporties

-On Thursday Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun, the reigning NL MVP, had his 50-game suspension for failing a drug test overturned on appeal. Braun is the first player to win an appeal of a positive drug test in MLB history. Now, he didn't win because his sample was incorrectly tested, he won because there were questions about the chain of evidence. Apparently, the guy who collected Braun's sample didn't follow normal procedures. I'm gonna quote directly from the ESPN story, because I couldn't make this stuff up: "According to one of the sources, the collector, after getting Braun's sample, was supposed to take the sample to FedEx/Kinkos for shipping but thought it was closed because it was late on a Saturday. As has occurred in some other instances, the collector took the sample home and kept it refrigerated. Policy states that the sample is supposed to get to FedEx as soon as possible." Braun's contention is that anything could have happened to that sample while it was at that guy's house, creating enough reasonable doubt to get his positive test overturned. Since then reports have also surfaced that the collector drove pasted six or seven FedEx sites on his way home, making it all the stranger that he decided to hang on to the sample for an extra 44 hours and raising more questions than answers. As if being the guy who goes around collecting another grown man's urine wasn't a strange enough job, now this collector willing chooses to keep it in his fridge all weekend? Why do I get the feeling this guy's house is the one all the parents make their kids skip at Halloween?

-The other question is what this means in the long-term for Braun? After all, he wasn't exonerated - he was simply let off due to some procedural questions. And as we all know, that won't clear you in the court of public opinion. When it comes to people like the guys who think the Hall of Fame is more sacred than the Vatican, sometimes all it takes it the perception of guilt and you aren't getting passed them. You have to look no further than a guy like Jeff Bagwell, who never failed a drug test his entire career, but had enough enough people questioning him that he probably won't make it into the Hall of Fame on his first few attempts. The only saving grace for Braun is he is young enough to have the majority of his career ahead of him. However, he has to be completely clean from here on out because when it comes to stuff like this once can be excused as an accident, but twice is as good as a conviction. Even so much as a whisper the he has been using a performance-enhancing drug again and people are going to assume it is true. He doesn't face the uphill battle of someone like Alex Rodriguez who failed a test and only admitted it under duress, but Braun shouldn't start preparing his induction speech just yet either.

-There was a small controversy in the NBA this week. The San Antonio Spurs were riding an 11-game win streak when they arrived in Portland to play the Trailblazers on the second night of a back-to-back. Citing his desire to make sure they didn't burn out during the regular season, Spurs coach Greg Popovich decided not to play 3 of his starters and watched the win streak end as the Blazers won by 40. Now, some people wondered just how fair this was to Blazers fans, because they paid good money to see a regular season game and basically, only 1 team showed up. Personally, because the Blazers won I don't think many of them were too upset. There is talk the league wants to fine Popovich or the Spurs, but before they do that I would simply remind them that his job is to make sure the Spurs are healthy enough to make a run in the playoffs, not make sure fans of the opponent get their money's worth. Remember, it was Popovich and the Spurs who won the title the last time the league had a compacted season, so he clearly knows what he is doing. Also, I'll say this to the League Offices: this is what you get when you leave coaches out of the decision making process and cram 66 games into the space where you would normally play 50, just to make sure you make the most money. You sacrificed the quality of play for a money grab and now you're simply reaping what you sowed.

-Staying in the NBA, the New Jersey Nets have made no secret of the fact that they want Dwight Howard to sign with them as a free agent this summer. Frankly, they kind of need him to, because if he goes elsewhere point guard Deron Williams (the Nets best player) is unlikely to stick with the team when he becomes a free agent this summer. Thus, when Howard and the Magic were in town this week, the team went all out to show Howard what kind of classy organization they are: there were pre-game fireworks (which they hadn't done since opening day), a collage of photos of the new arena they are building was placed outside the Magic locker room and the fans even got into the act, chanting "We Want Dwight" at various points of the game. I have to say the entire thing was... pathetic. It is one thing to roll out the red carpet when a player is there as a free agent and touring the place on his own. It is entirely another to try and  woo the guy while he is kicking your ass. The entire thing stunk of desperation. Also, I wonder how effective it is because you know organizations like Dallas and the Lakers (the two teams Howard is more likely to wind up with) would never do this kind of thing. First rule of recruiting: if you want to be a top-tier franchise, act like you already are.

-One more NBA story. Late in the week the Basketball Hall of Fame announced its finalists for this year's class. Now, other than a strong feeling that Rick Pitino should not get in yet, the main thing which caught my eye was the news that Phil Knight, founder of Nike, would be inducted as a contributor to the game. Now, I am not going to fight you that Nike is synonymous with basketball, but I feel like that has a lot more to do with Jordan and his Jumpman Brand than anything Knight did. Sure, you could say that he was very smart to essentially hitch his wagon to the biggest star in basketball, but I don't know if making the same decision that every other shoe company in the world tried to do at one time or another is Hall of Fame worthy. I mean, when I think of basketball sneakers the original Chuck Taylors are what come to my mind way before any Nike sneakers, so does that make Knight any more worthy than the founders of Reebok or Adidas, who have been making the league uniforms for the last decade? I'm not saying Knight doesn't deserve some kind of mention, but just because a guy has been selling you sneakers for 30 years that doesn't put him on the same level as the guy who invented the shot clock.

-A couple weeks ago I told you about some dysfunction in the Pittsburgh Steelers locker room, specifically that Ben Roethlisberger was unhappy his offensive coordinator was fired in favor of Todd Haley. Well, a couple days ago a news report came out which said Roethlisberger and Haley still hadn't gotten together or talked at all since the hiring, but Haley had met with the Steelers back-up quarterback. The sources (probably Ben or at least someone close to him) went on to say that Roethlisberger didn't feel it was his responsibility to talk to Haley and thus would not be making the first move. This led to all sorts of hang-wringing about whether this partnership was doomed to fail before it ever started. However, just two days later another report leaked out that Haley had called Ben and the two had talked on the phone. In other words, Roethlisberger used the media to send a message to Haley and got his wish without having to be the one who caved. You know, every now and again it is comforting to know that no matter how old I get, the rules of high school will always apply.

-There are lots of things about soccer I do not understand, but I think the biggest thing I don't get is the tradition of team captains exchanging gifts before each game. I do not know why one team would want the other team's pennant before playing, but that is what it looks like they give each other. Apparently, it is tradition to exchange presents after the game as well, because in a game last weekend Barcelona's Lionel Messi, considered by some to be the best player in the world, went to give his jersey to one of the players from Bayer Leverkusen - the team they had just beaten. Now, you might see this in the states for exhibition games like All-Star games, but not for a game which counts. The problem arose when another teammate from Bayer stepped in and claimed the shirt first, leading to what I hope is an extremely rare occurrence - a fight between teammates for an opponent's shirt. Messi settled the dispute by giving shirts to both players, as you would expect a pushover uncle to do. The manager for Bayer then stepped in like any good parent would and said that based on how they acted neither player would be keeping their Messi shirts and instead both players would be auctioning the jerseys off for charity. The way this story is going I can pretty much guarantee those players are going to pay whatever it takes to win those auctions and get those shirts back. Soccer players are weird.