Weekly Sporties

-I know that it feels like the only sports news this week involved Manti T'eo or Lance Armstrong, but I promised other things did actually happen. For example, early in the week we got the first couple of excerpts from Terry Francona's new book. Now, so far we don't know if it delves into his exit from Boston in 2011 and the subsequent character assassination by ownership but a few interesting tidbits have come out. One such item is that Francona contends Red Sox ownership is more concerned with the image of the team than the actual baseball product. According to Terry, once the team won their second World Series the Sox owners only cared about local TV ratings and whether or not the players were 'interesting' enough. This has been a common complaint in Boston over the last two years - fans wonder if the team was put together for style over substance and that is why they have under-performed. To me this is a bit of revisionist history. No one seemed to be complaining when the team went out and signed all those big names. It was only after they collapsed at the end of the 2011 season that people started to wonder if the players weren't the right fit for one another. Still, it does raise the oldest and worst kind of fear if you are a sports fan: is the owner of your team in it to win championships or make money? So far you would have to admit that Sox ownership has done a pretty good job of doing both. They won more Championships than the previous 80+ years worth of owners, so if they wanted to make some money on top of that shouldn't Sox fans just be happy they won a championship before they started to be all about the money? I understand not wanting them to rest too much on their laurels, because otherwise that is going to lead to another extended championship drought, but I feel like these owners have earned a little more leeway than they are getting. While I have no doubt Francona is telling the truth, I am still going to give Sox ownership the benefit of the doubt on this one... for now.

-Every now and again a professional sports league will announce a new rule and the only thing you can think is, "Wait, wasn't that already a rule?" I know that was going through my mind when I read that starting this season Major League Baseball will allow managers to bring interpreters to the mound to communicate with pitchers more easily. I know that baseball has not had the best history when it comes to integration, but considering how many players now come from overseas to play in the best baseball league in the world, I guess I just assumed this adopted along the way. After all, interpreters are allowed in the dugout and baseball usually treats that area as though it is more restricted than the FBI building. But what this rule really does is make me question just how important pitching coaches really are. If they needed interpreters this whole time, what exactly were they saying during all those mound visits? Was it just a lot of hand gestures and pointing? Here we assumed they were going over strategy and the reality may have been closer to the pitching coach saying things like, "Throw... more... strikes" and the pitcher responding with the two or three English phrases he knew. This also confirms my suspicions that pitchers are never actually listening to what anyone says, they just throw what they feel like. You know, I used to think bullpen coach was the easiest job in sports - all you do is pick up the phone and tell the correct guy to start warming up (ironically, bullpen coaches are also the subject of a new rule, as they will be allowed to carry cellphones instead of using landlines - given the cellphone reception in a lot of stadiums there is no way that ends well), but now I see that almost every job on a baseball coaching staff is pretty easy. If they didn't require watching so much baseball I may have thought about making a career change.

-About a week after turning down several offers from the NFL and vowing to stay in college, Oregon coach Chip Kelly changed his mind and decided to take the job as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. I'm not totally surprised Kelly made the jump, because I thought he would have done it the first time around. After all, there were many teams who felt spurned by the way Kelly seemed to drag out making a decision last year before ultimately going back to Oregon and there was a feeling around the league that if he didn't take a job this time he may not get asked again. Plus, you have to remember that just a few years ago this guy was the offensive coordinator at New Hampshire. To make it to as lofty a job as he had from where he started showed tremendous ambition and guys with that much ambition simply don't stop at the college level. To cap it off there are rumors the NCAA could be about to hit Oregon with sanctions after uncovering some rules violations. That may have been the thing which finally forced Kelly to pull a Pete Carroll and get out before the posse. The good news for Oregon is that they already have an in-house replacement and the smooth transition should lessen the number of recruits they lose. The question now is how will Kelly's run-and-gun style of play work in the NFL? Well, the Patriots have adopted some of it this season and it has worked very well, but it probably helps that they have Tom Brady, which the Eagles do not. They do have a lot of fast receivers and running backs, but need the right guy to get them the ball. And they play in a tough division with a lot of solid defenses. I know several college coaches have had immediate impacts lately, but count me among those who think Kelly's transition to the big leagues is not going to be a smooth one.

-Speaking of NFL hires, when Bruce Arians was named the newest head coach of the Arizona Cardinals on Friday, it meant that every open head coaching vacancy in the league had officially been filled. I guess that means it is time to figure out which team made the best hire. Here's a sentence you aren't going to see in print too often - I really like what the Cleveland Browns did. First, they brought in Rob Chudzinski as their new head coach, who grew up in the area and rooted for the Browns as a kid, so you know he wants to win very badly. Also, he was a position coach there a few years ago and should be familiar with some of the personnel. But the bigger get for them was hiring former San Diego Chargers head coach Norv Turner to be the offensive coordinator. Say what you want about Norv's coaching style (and I have), but there is no question he makes a much better offensive coordinator than head coach. Let him just worry about grooming Brandon Weeden (or whomever the team brings in as his eventual successor (Alex Smith, who had one of his best seasons under Norv?)) and concentrate on building up the defense. As for the worst hire? I'd have to say Jacksonville. I don't know much about Gus Bradley, except that he is a defensive-oriented coach. I simply have doubts that those kinds of coaches will succeed in today's offense-first NFL. They simply get too conservative when the games get close. I'm not saying you want a coach who goes for it on every 4th down, but you do want a guy who will try to get some field position with :30 seconds and 2 time-outs (looking at you, John Fox). If you aren't going to stop anyone (which Jacksonville won't) you'd better at least try to match points with them and you can't do that if you are taking all the air out of the ball. Usually there is something to be said for going against the crowd but when your business is as copy-cat and cliched as the NFL, sometimes it is better to remember that if you can't beat them, you should join them.

-Last week I told you how Kevin Garnett and Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony had gotten into a war of words during a game and that Anthony had become so enraged about what was said that he tried to get to get to the Celtic's team bus after the game (should make starting line-ups for the All-Star game kind of interesting). Perhaps in relation to this, a story came out the other day which claimed that James Dolan, who owns the Knicks, had two audio technicians with long-range microphones record every word said to and by Carmelo Anthony during last Friday's game against the Bulls. No one is quite sure of Dolan's intentions on this one. Either he is making the recording to send to the league to prove how much abuse Carmelo takes from other players, or he wants to see if Carmelo is bringing all this trouble down upon himself. (While a giant invasion of privacy, especially if Carmelo didn't know Dolan was going to do this, the NBA weighed in and said that as long as Dolan didn't record the other team's coaches there was no violation of rules.) For Carmelo's sake, I really hope Dolan acted alone in this one and was planning on using the recording to show Anthony how much he needs to reign himself in. As I mentioned last week some people around the league feel like Carmelo is too sensitive for his own good and need to toughen up if he is going to lead the Knicks to any kind of success. Well, having your owner make a tape to bring to the league office to show how much everyone has been picking on you is not exactly a great first step in that direction. Dolan has a reputation as kind of a weird guy, so passing the buck onto him shouldn't be hard to do. All I know is that if Carmelo ever plans to leave the Knicks he had better make damn sure those tapes are destroyed first. There is no telling what people say when they don't think anyone can hear them.

-I know if feels far too early for golf around here, but on the never-ending calendar of professional golf this is actually the third week of the season. And while many pros are playing in California this week, the real money is being made across the sea as the biggest names play in Abu Dhabi. That is where World #1 (Rory McIlroy) and #2 (Tiger Woods) started their weeks and for their sake let's hope the first tournament isn't a precursor for the rest of their years. After a laser-light show announcing his move to Nike on Monday, Rory played poorly in the first two rounds (even ditching his new putter after a day) and missed the cut by several strokes. For a while it looked like Tiger would sneak into the weekend by a shot, but late in his second round he was hit with a two-stroke penalty that landed him one shot over the line. Apparently, he had hit his ball into a clump of vines and assumed he could take a free drop, as per usual. What he forgot was that the entire course was built on a desert and so pretty much every place that isn't green is considered one giant sand trap. A spectator walking with Woods' group noticed a rule violation and alerted an official, who gave Tiger the bad news. As you know, I'm pretty much against the people who call in rules violations, because I feel it is unfair to penalize a player just because he is on TV more. There are dozens of rules people may be a little hazy on and break by accident and if the network never shows them they complete their round none the wiser. It is a little better when it is done by someone on the course, but it still feels like this kind of thing only happens to popular players for a reason. At some point, the governing bodies of golf are going to have to figure out whether or not they will keep taking these amateur rules officials' calls. Something tells me the people running the tournament this week, who just lost their two biggest attractions, would be in favor of people keeping their rules violations to themselves.

-However, the more interesting Tiger Woods news, as it so often has for the last couple of years, is coming from what Woods is doing off the course. It appears that Tiger has never quite gotten over his ex-wife, Elin and recently re-proposed when the family reunited to celebrate Christmas together. Elin, who received over $100 million in a divorce settlement from Woods, is reportedly leaning towards accepting his proposal... with a few stipulations. First of all, she wants a much more favorable prenuptial agreement this time around (funny, I thought $100 million was pretty damn favorable) - one which would include a cheating clause that would award her $350 million if Tiger strays again. Allegedly Woods is ready to sign the papers against the advice of his lawyers. You ever see a total stranger about to make a huge mistake and you aren't sure if you should intervene or butt out since you don't know them and they didn't ask for your opinion? This is where I find myself. Normally I hate unsolicited advice, but I'm not sure I can keep quiet on this one. Look, I'm all for giving love a second chance, but it is not like Tiger made one or two tiny indiscretions. If you remember, he had enough mistresses to fill out a basketball roster. To me that doesn't sound like the kind of guy who will ever be able to settle down with just one woman. If I know that you have to assume the people closest to Tiger do as well. Look, I'm obviously in favor of people staying together or reconciling, especially when children are involved. However, at some point you need to take a good look in the mirror and be honest with yourself. This just feels like a bad idea for everyone involved, with the possible exception of Elin's financial planner. If Tiger is in such a hurry to give away half his fortune, there must be easier ways to do it.