Weekly Sporties

-Late in the week a document was released which reported the findings of Louis Freeh, a former head of the FBI, who had been hired by Penn State officials to look into their handling of the Jerry Sandusky affair. The Freeh Report was scathing, damning pretty much everyone involved at every level of Penn State for either incompetence or willful hiding of the truth. Naturally, this has led many people in the sports world to condemn not only the university but the culture of football, saying that none of this would have happened had the school not been involved with high-level athletics. Some journalists have gone so far as to say the school should halt its football program for a couple of years to try and distance itself from the scandal, trotting out such cliches as "sports aren't important at a time like this." I can't stand it when people whose job it is to write about sports for a living try and claim that sports aren't important just to try and look like they are somehow above the heathens who play it for a living. When you compare it to what happened of course sports aren't as important but that doesn't mean you just send them away like football was the one who made Jerry Sandusky abuse those kids. One of the reasons I like sports so much is that they also are a way to bring people back together after tragedies. I'm not saying Penn State is somehow the victim in all this, but at the same time you can't paint the entire school based on the actions of a few seriously flawed people who should (and will) spend a lot of time in prison. You wouldn't condemn an entire family based on one family member's actions, would you? Penn State is going to be forever tarnished by this scandal, but taking away the few hours a week when they may be able to forget about it doesn't do anyone any good.

-There is no easy transition to other sports stories, but here we go anyway: For the last couple of seasons, Major League Baseball has been trying to spice up the annual Home Run Derby by having a couple players pick the sides and splitting the contest up by league. Well, this year it backfired on them after Yankees' second baseman Robinson Cano had pledged to pick a Kansas City Royals player for the derby (the All-Star game was in Kansas City) and then didn't. The Royals fans in attendance booed Cano mercilessly every time he was shown on the JumboTron and they cheered with every failed swing as Cano went through the entire first round without hitting a single home run. Immediately after that Commissioner Bud Selig floated the idea of taking some pressure off the home run captains by designating one player from the host city as the 'hometown hero' and saving them a spot in the derby. Wait, this is what warrants immediate action in baseball? First off, it fails to answer the question of what happens if the host city has no real power hitters. Secondly, would that only apply to the derby team from the league of the host city? For example, next year the All-Star game is being played at the Mets stadium. Does that mean the National League captain can only pick two guys while the American League player gets three? Seriously, we can't get replay without years of discussion, but one guy gets booed in a hitting exhibition and the next day people start changing the rules? If that is all it takes someone tell Bud that blown calls hurt my feelings - we'll have replay by the playoffs.

-While we're on the subject of thin-skinned baseball players, last week Reggie Jackson gave an interview to Sports Illustrated in which he stated that while he considers Alex Rodriguez a friend, he does think Rodriguez's steroid admission makes him ineligible for the Hall of Fame and taints all his numbers. It was not exactly a ground-breaking article, but it was still enough to get Jackson in hot water. Currently, Reggie works for the Yankees in a ceremonial position. He shows up to special team events, signs autographs and gets paid pretty well for the opportunity. Well, his employers didn't take too kindly to Mr. October talking about their third baseman in that tone and told Jackson to stay away from the team until further notice. Even for the controlling Yankees, who have long had policies regarding length of hair and demanding players be clean-shaven, this seems like a bit of an over-reaction. On the one hand I will concede that Jackson works of the team and his job is essentially in promotions, which means he should be expected to only talk about the Yankees in a positive fashion. However, he's not a robot. Just because you work for someone doesn't mean you should be required to agree with them 100% of the time. I know the Yankees are probably freaking out because they had planned to make a lot of money as Rodriguez chased the homerun title and now those dreams are dashed because no one seems very enthusiastic about homeruns these days, but that isn't Reggie's fault. All he did was say the thing everyone was already thinking. You can't punish a man for that.

-There was a fun story out of training camp for USA Basketball this week when guard Kobe Bryant contended that the current team USA roster could beat the original 1992 Dream Team one. First off, Kobe should know better than anyone that comparisons should wait until this team actually wins a gold medal. I think they will, but let's not get cocky. (Ironically, thanks to the original Dream Team spurring basketball interest world-wide, the path will be harder than it used to be.) But with that caveat aside, I have to say I do enjoy these hypothetical sports arguments, even though they can never actually get settled. Everyone has their biases and they will stick with them, no matter what evidence is presented. Personally, I've got to side with the 1992 roster and not just because they have been built up so much through history. I'm looking at it from a pure basketball standpoint. This year's team has very little size: Tyson Chandler and Kevin Love are the only forwards who will go down and fight for rebounds. The 1992 team had David Robinson and Patrick Ewing at center and Charles Barkley and Karl Malone at power forward. That right there should give them enough of a rebounding edge to win the game, but also there is no one on the current roster who had the combination of size, dribbling and passing ability that Magic had (The closest this year's team has is LeBron and he's not nearly as good of a ball-handler in the open court). Not to mention, the '92 team had the best player on the planet in Michael Jordan. Still, it would have been a hell of a game. It is too bad we'll never have the chance to settle this one on the court.

-Even after a potential trade to his preferred destination of the Brooklyn Nets fell through and the Nets moved on by signing center Brook Lopez to a large extension, Orlando center Dwight Howard reaffirmed his position that Brooklyn was the only team he would sign with if he was traded. However, this declaration hasn't stopped the Houston Rockets from putting together a trade package to present to the Magic to try and essentially rent Howard for the upcoming year. The Rockets think that if Dwight comes in and sees what a solid organization they are he will change his mind about Brooklyn being the only place for him. But to get Howard to Houston the Rockets would essentially have to renounce all their good players, then agree to trade all their young talent to Orlando while taking back every bad contract the Magic have, swapping the majority of their rosters. It is a giant gamble by the Rockets, because if Howard leaves after one year they will have no young players to build around and no cap space to bring in any free agents (basically, they would be where the Magic are now, only without Howard). On top of that, you have to wonder how thrilled Howard will be to find himself in a new city with most of his teammates from Orlando, who he has repeatedly asked to be traded away from. Normally, if you are trying to recruit a guy to a new job, you don't do that by bringing in a bunch of his old co-workers that he wasn't really fond of. While I admire Houston's aggressiveness, I don't think they will be able to keep Howard beyond this season and therefore don't think this is a good idea for them. However, if it gets the Dwight Howard saga over sooner, I'm all for it.

-One contract dispute which was finally resolved was the one between the Saints and quarterback Drew Brees. They had been working on a new contract for months and never seemed all that far apart, but just couldn't work out the final details. Well on Friday the two sides finally reached a deal which reportedly will pay Brees a record $20 million dollars a season. (Of course, we know that it really won't. Anyone who follows sports is aware that NFL contracts aren't worth the paper they are printed on, as players can be cut whenever the organization feels like it. The only thing you should pay attention to is the guaranteed money, which is still a record amount for a player, but is not close to the total amount. Reporting a contract as the biggest possible number is just one of those things where we all agree to let both parties have their moment.) It's a good deal for both sides as Brees gets his money and, because the NFL is a weird place, the Saints somehow get more room under the salary cap. All of this begs the question: why did this take so long? The Saints essentially gave Brees everything he wanted, so what was the point of dragging this out for five months? In the wake of the pay-for-hits scandal the team had been facing, bringing back one of the best players in the league should have been a no-brainer. Sucks to have no leverage, but you take the bullet and move on. Instead the Saints spent the entire offseason annoying their fans and being publicly questioned by every NFL analyst with a camera and a microphone. Moral of the story: if you're going to cave you may as well get it over with, because dragging it out and then caving just makes you look worse.

-After a few years where it could rightfully tout itself as "America's fastest growing sport", NASCAR has hit a bit of a lull. The economic sluggishness of the past few years have been tough on everyone, but it appears to have hit the sponsor-driven sports the hardest. As such NASCAR has been trying anything to make their races more exciting, first by telling the drivers to be more aggressive and then by constantly tweaking the points system to try and wait to decide a champion until the very last race of the season. Recently, track promoter Bruton Smith came up with another idea: mandatory cautions. He thinks that long green-flag runs where one car can get out to a big lead is too boring and that fans would be more interested in races which have a sprint to the finish. For their part NASCAR officials have panned the idea, saying that idea would feel to much like staging and they preferred to keep their sport authentic (ironic, considering every time something good happens in NASCAR people start whispering that it is too good to be true and must have been staged). But, Mr. Smith's idea does bring up one question which I have always wondered about auto racing: why do the races have to be so long? It seems like no one really tries all that hard until their are only 100 miles to go, so why do we need the first 300? Everyone crushes baseball games for taking too long, but it is not like NASCAR is a quick thing to watch. I say if you want to keep fans interested you don't make the last 20 laps more bunched up, you eliminate the first 75 laps when nothing is happening. Considering the cost of gas is on its way back up I would think sponsors would find that a much more enjoyable solution.