Weekly Sporties

-Early Thursday afternoon came the very expected news that Bobby Valentine had been fired from his job as manager of the Boston Red Sox after just one season. In my mind the move is justified because while Valentine never had the roster he was expecting when he took the job thanks to injuries, he still didn't do a very good job of trying his best with the players he had left. This year's team appeared to give up rather easily, which might be the most damning thing you can say about a professional sports team. The only good part about this story was that at least the Sox didn't make Bobby V squirm and put him out of his misery quickly. I think the question now for a lot of people is whether we ever see Bobby Valentine as a major league manager ever again. My first inclination is to say no, because after 10 years away from major league baseball it looked as though the game may have gotten away from him. Plus, he's pretty good on TV, so Valentine could simply be content to go back there and make a fine living. However, I can't help but wonder if some part of Valentine is competitive enough for this to not be the final item on his resume. Much like Pete Carroll left a pretty cushy situation in college football to try once again to prove himself in the pros, coaches have just as much ego as their players and I believe Valentine won't want this Red Sox failure to stick with him. Also, he is enough of a name some franchise looking to create a buzz may take a chance. The only difference is that before he was seen as a guy who was only coming out of TV for the right job and you were lucky to have him. Now, the shoe is on the other foot and if Valentine wants to manage again he may have to take a job which is not as glamorous or high-profile as he thinks he should be getting. I'll be interested to see if he goes that way.

-This Red Sox season was so bad the karma spread to former players as well. Thanks to the massive debt Curt Schilling racked up in his video game company, it was revealed the former playoff hero may have to sell the famous bloody sock he wore during the 2004 World Series run, along with several items from his personal collection of sports and World War II memorabilia. Now, I don't have a ton of sympathy for Shilling who simply took on too many loans while not being very good at running his video game company. (Honestly, what video game takes 7 years to develop?) But what struck me from this story was the report that auctioneers are estimating the bloody sock would only fetch $100,000 at auction. I got out of buying sports memorabilia a long time ago, but even I know that figure feels really low. During the home run boom people were spending three times that for baseballs which cleared the walls at record numbers and those are essentially worthless right now. Not only is this a one-of-a-kind item, it is pretty much guaranteed not to go down in value. There has to be some millionaire with too much money and no more toys to spend it on. (I know times are tough, but people buy stupid things at auctions every day so they can't be that tough.) Of course the people who need to buy it are the Red Sox themselves. It would be a show of good will towards the fans after a tumultuous season and they could display it at Fenway, where it truly belongs. C'mon, Red Sox fans paid some of the highest ticket prices in baseball for a season which was over in May and the team dropped a quarter-billion in salaries, so they can't pretend they don't have the money. The Sox need to get this one right.

-I'm almost always among the first to make fun of Major League Baseball when they get things wrong (which is most of the time). Still, I am man enough to admit when I am the one messing up and I was clearly wrong about the new playoff format. I didn't think adding a second wild-card would make that much of a difference, but it has had phenomenal results this season, keeping more teams in the running and making teams play important games until the very last day of the regular season. That being said, the system is still not perfect. Due to their haste to get the format implemented, MLB didn't work through the entire scheduling issue, which means they only left a day between when the two wildcard teams play and the division series starts. So, to ease travel, they have decided that this year the top seeds will play the first two games on the road, then come home for the final three games of the series. What this did was actually make it be a disadvantage to be the top-seed in your league. For example, a young Washington Nationals team will have to travel to the very tough baseball town of St. Louis for two games against the defending World Champion Cardinals and could very well come back down 0-2, which means if they lose the first game at home their season is over and after 96 wins they will have had 1 home playoff game to show for it. Now, MLB plans to fix this for next year, but my point was that they really should have worked on this before it got this far. I like the second wildcard, but not at the expense of the teams which worked hard all season to have home-field. I think they should have left the format for the division series as they were and if wild card teams didn't like all the travel they had 162 games to make sure they were never in that position. At least that way the regular season records don't feel quite so meaningless.

-NBA training camps kicked off this week and with that comes the usual questions about moves other teams made, some of which occasionally includes former teammates. For the Celtics, that meant a lot of questions about Ray Allen signing with the rival Miami Heat. Most of the players answered diplomatically, but Kevin Garnett took it to his usual level of hyperbole, saying he no longer has Ray Allen's phone number. One of the reporters called Allen and confirmed his number hasn't changed, which means Garnett erased it from his phone. (Cue heavy sigh.) Once again we showcase one of those things which can occasionally make Kevin Garnett hard to root for. Now, I'm all for being competitive, but at some point point you need to also be professional. Garnett has literally been in the NBA for his entire adult life. Surely he must know by now that the NBA is a business and sometimes players need to change teams, even if that means going to a squad which just eliminated you. Ray Allen didn't want to take what amounted to a demotion to stay with the Celtics and even though he will be coming off the bench for the Heat the same way he would have in Boston, at least this way it was his decision. You would think that if anyone would appreciate a veteran wanting to do things on his own terms it would be Kevin Garnett. If the majority of fans can understand Allen's move, why can't Garnett? (We aren't happy about it but we can understand it. Again, don't assume the people who call sports talk radio speak for us.) Supposedly the two grew tight over the last couple of years, so KG needs to pick up the phone and give Ray a call. It would be a shame to lose a friend over something this childish.

-Coming out of college for this year's NBA draft forward Royce White was seen as one of the most gifted players available. He's got great length but also can pass and shoot as well as anyone from this year's class. So, you may be wondering why he slipped all the way to the Houston Rockets at pick 16. It's because White has severe anxiety issues, especially when it comes to travelling. While you or I could probably make it through life without this coming up much, in the NBA it can be a major problem because it's not uncommon for teams to fly across the country two or three times every couple of weeks. White skipped the first day of training camp due to anxiety issues and now wants to talk to the Rockets about taking the bus whenever he can. For their part the Rockets say they will try and accommodate White if they can, but this can't be a long-term solution. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have a hard enough time sleeping on a plane, there is no way I could do it on a bus. Even if you do pass out while travelling, it is hardly restful sleep. Considering the emphasis NBA teams put on guys getting enough rest during a very long regular season, I imagine the Rockets would rather White travel with them and cut down on his travel time as much as possible. At least they luck out a little in that Houston is in a fairly central location compared to the rest of the teams in the league. I know he has a lot of talent, but suddenly I have doubts about Royce White's ability to be a long-term star in the league. I'm not about to tell him to take some drugs to knock himself out or simply get over it and beyond that I'm not sure what the solution is, but I'm pretty sure whatever will be best for everyone won't involve 14 hour bus rides from Houston to Sacramento.

-Last Sunday Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III was trying to lead his team down the field to set up a winning field goal, but was having a problem because he couldn't hear his offensive coordinator as the speaker in his headset wasn't working. Normally there is a radio transmitter which allows coaches to call in plays, but at that moment Griffin couldn't hear anything. Fortunately for Redskins fans it wasn't an issue and the team won the game. However, afterwards the issue took on new life as wide receiver Santana Moss voiced his opinion that the headset wasn't malfunctioning - it was sabotaged. This is hardly the first time this accusation has been uttered. Players and coaches often find it oddly convenient that road teams experience this problem a lot more than the home teams ever do. The "legend of the failed headset" is quickly becoming one of those myths that people repeat so many times you start to wonder if it is true. Now, I don't doubt for a second that every NFL team engages is some form of trickery to give themselves home-field advantage, whether it is piping in fake crowd noise or opening certain windows to create a wind tunnel when the other team is trying to kick a field goal. Still, I'm not sure how much of an advantage this really is. Given that most coaches micro-manage their quarterbacks down to the last second I think some of them are happy when they suddenly don't have someone yelling in their ear. But the bigger problem is that there is no good way to complain about it: bring it up after a win and no one cares because it didn't change the outcome. Bring it up after a loss and everyone thinks you are just trying to make up an excuse to cover your ass. The best way to deal with it may to make sure your quarterback spends a lot of time running the two-minute drill without any input from the sidelines.

-When you are on the fringe of professional sports like Major League Soccer is, you will use any publicity you can find to get your name out there, no matter how wacky the story about you may be. That is why I was hardly surprised to learn that the Seattle Sounders, who quickly grew one of the more passionate fanbases in MLS, are going to allow season ticket holders to vote on whether or not the team should fire its General Manager. Now, the Sounders' GM is also a minority owner, so it is not like he is actually going anywhere should he get the boot and all indications are the fans are happy enough with his performance that he will keep his job anyway, but even for a league like the MLS this seems like a very bad idea. I'm all for letting fans voices be heard because they are the ones who pay for tickets and buy team merchandise, but this is goes over the line. Sure, every fan thinks they could run their favorite teams better than the current regime, but the truth of the matter is that the average fan can't really understand all the various factors which go in to every decision. They use heart more than head and if they were in charge you would see favorite players get inexplicable raises and never get cut. No, that job is best left to the professionals and only the owners should be able to hire or fire the guys running the franchise. So, don't expect to see this implemented into any of the four major sports any time soon and I don't see the Premier League borrowing the idea, either. Then again, considering that when those soccer fans want a coach fired they burn him in effigy and he starts to fear for his life, a simple vote may be the way to go.