Weekly Sporties

-The biggest news of the week came when Major League Baseball announced it had broker a deal with former Biogenesis owner Anthony Bosch, who is now prepared to name the players to whom he sold steroids and among those expected to be on his client list are Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez. You may remember Biogenesis as the anti-aging clinic the Miami Herald claimed was a front for a steroid dealer once they got a hold of their client list and Major League Baseball demanded the Herald turn over their sources, which they did not. The entire saga eventually took on the feel of a witch hunt because MLB was so desperate to get their names on Biogenesis' client list they eventually agreed to pay a former Biogenesis employee to leak it to them. Well, in keeping with that witch hunt theme, MLB has told various reporters they intend to seek 100 game suspensions for any player they link to Biogenesis. Normally the ban for a first offense is 50 games and you don't get 100 game suspensions until a second offense, but MLB contends just talking to this guy and then lying about it (as all the named players have done so far) should count as two strikes. I may not like the guy, and A-Rod may have admitted to taking a banned substance in the past, but it was before MLB had strict drug testing and he hasn't failed a test since. Additionally, Braun was cleared in his first failed test and you can argue that it was over a technicality, but innocent is innocent. Obviously I want sports to be drug-free, but I have to say I really find it disingenuous that MLB is getting all high and mighty about steroids now after years of reaping the benefits of homeruns resulting in pack stadiums. Their false sense of urgency seemed shady then and their willingness to believe the steroid dealer (because those guys always turn out to be such upstanding and reputable fellows) seems even shadier now. (The least-surprising news in the days following this announcement was that Bosch had first gone to A-Rod seeking money to cover his legal fees and it was only after he refused that Bosch reached his agreement with MLB.) I simply think Major League Baseball needs to be careful with this one and remember that it is really hard to claim the moral high ground when you associate with people who are down in the dirt.

-Despite their best efforts to get people to pay attention, Major League Baseball just can’t seem to get people to pay much attention to their amateur draft. (It’s good for the league’s GMs because people forget their mistakes, but it is really bad for the sports TV station.) I feel like the main problem is that there are just too many players and too many rounds, plus it does not help that half of the players drafted will choose to either attend college or play in the minors for years before getting called up (and that is if they even make the majors at all) for people to get excited about which person their team picks. That is why at this point the only time you hear about a draft pick is if it is bad and/or embarrassing. Well, it was the second option for pitcher Ian Clarkin, a left-handed high school prospect who was the 33rd pick in the first round of the New York Yankees. Immediately after he was drafted, the MLB network rolled a video of Clarkin from a previous interview in which he said he cannot stand the Yankees and the day they lost in the World Series against Arizona was his favorite baseball memory. This meant he had to spend the first few minutes of his introductory press conference apologizing to the team and its fans, while trying to tell everyone his words were taken out of context (at least he’s already a pro at making clichéd athlete excuses). I guess you could chalk it up as a good learning experience for the kid, as long as he recognizes that the lesson is once you start to get serious about playing professional sports your day as a casual fan of the game are over. You have no control over where you start your career and teams don’t care whether you grew up rooting for the other guy as long as they think you can help them win now, so the most likely scenario is that you will play for a team you rooted against at least once. The good news for Clarkin is that even though he is a high-rated pitching prospect, he could still choose to honor his commitment to San Diego State and get drafted again in three years. If I were him I would seriously think about doing that instead, because the fans and media in New York are not the type to forget this kind of thing and will be very quick to bring it up with every bad outing. Skipping a few years and re-entering the draft could be worth any lost money. Then again, that may be the most important lesson in all of professional sports – money buys a lot of loyalty.

-A couple days after their season ended rumors started flying that Denver Nuggets' coach George Karl could soon be out of a job. I thought this talk was crazy because Karl has been with the Nuggets for 9 years, seemed to have a good relationship with the owner and has been a perennial contender even as the team traded away its best players. By any reasonable standards he has been a great coach for the Nuggets, so you can imagine my surprise on Thursday when the rumors turned out to be true and the Nuggets fired him with one year remaining on his deal. Both sides are trying claim it was their idea, with Karl saying he wanted out once the team allowed General Manager Masa Ujiri to leave and take the same job with the Toronto Raptors. The Nuggets are saying they thought the team had gone as far as Karl could take them and needed a new voice to take them to the next level. But, the truth of the matter is that this was about the same issue it always is – money. Karl is looking for work right now because he wanted a raise, the Nuggets were in no hurry to give him one and the two sides got into a staring contest where no one blinked. While I normally hate it when coaches try to get a new contract despite their current deal having time remaining on it, this time I have to say I think I am with Karl on this one. I know George has never won a title, but his teams are always better than experts expect them to be and he gets more out of his rosters than almost any other person would be able to. I mean, if Denver thinks they got better with this move they are sorely mistaken. On top of that if they think they will be able to bring in a better coach they could be in for a rude awakening. Denver may be a great city, but they are not exactly a free agent destination for basketball players and the top-end coaches know they got their reputations to that point by having the best players. The Nuggets are going to have to bottom out and get some high draft picks if they want to improve and no high-level coach is going to be looking to ruin his resume with a couple of losing seasons. They may have to try and find and up-and-coming assistant coach to take the lumps for a few years. I know Denver is mostly Broncos country, but making the playoffs and potentially making a run certainly sounds like it would be the more profitable plan. Having no coach or GM certainly doesn't seem like a step in the right direction.

-I know a lot of basketball fans were annoyed when Bulls' guard Derrick Rose decided against trying to come back from a knee injury this season even though he had been cleared by the team doctors. Rose simply didn't want to come back until he was 100% confident in his knee and if he was looking for support from the basketball community I can only hope he called Grant Hill, who retired on Saturday night. Hill will go down as one of the league's best players from the late-90s and may eventually make it to the Hall of Fame, but more importantly he will go down as the poster child of why you should never rush back from an injury. For the first six years of his career Grant Hill was as good a player as the NBA had but hurt his ankle early in the 2000 NBA playoffs. Despite impending free agency, Grant decided to play on his bum ankle and even got his team to the second round before he simply couldn't play through the pain anymore. His ankle never fully recovered after that and several surgeries followed. Even when he was finally on the court (which was rare) he spent the next several years a shell of himself, never able to get back to the promise he showed before his injuries. He had a mini-revival once he got into the hands of the Phoenix Suns' training staff (I don't know what they put in the water in Phoenix, but they get more out of oft-injured players than any other organization) before being a role player with the Clippers last season. In some ways, the fact he was able to stretch his career this far is an achievement because I don't think many NBA fans thought he would make it to double-digit seasons in his career. Still, he will go down as one of the greatest 'what-if' debates of my generation because his career was on a really impressive arc and then stopped so suddenly. It is one of the few times in sports everyone wished an athlete had been a little more selfish. That is why unless Derrick Rose (or any player from this current crop) wants to be included in that discussion they should shut out the noise and remember it is their career and no one else's.

-As the NBA Finals are finally underway the rest of the NBA teams not involved in the Championship have to figure out a way to get fans excited about next season to get them to buy season tickets. Usually that means making outrageous claims about how they plan to improve the team while offering as few specifics as possible so they can’t later be accused to coming up short of those goals. Well, the Atlanta Hawks may have gotten a little too specific because in their letter to season ticket holders they referenced the names of free agents Chris Paul and Dwight Howard. Technically those two players are under contract with their respective teams until July 1st and by mentioning they planned to make a real effort to bring them to Atlanta the Hawks could be seen as tampering. Tampering is usually one of those things every team does but no one talks about, but this was too public for the NBA to ignore. Atlanta could get fined for this or even have a draft pick taken away, which is extra dumb when you consider they aren't going to get Howard or Paul. Yes, Atlanta has a ton of money to spend in free agency and could offer both players plenty of money. On top of that Howard has ties to the area because he is originally from Atlanta, so the Hawks believe if they could just convince one to come the other would follow. The problem is that neither is coming, ever. The simple fact is that Atlanta is not a great sports town despite being a fairly large media market and even when they are winning the Hawks are never the number one draw. I know that may not be a deciding factor to a lot of players but when you are trying to get free agents to come to your town and reverse the very culture of your team, every sales pitch would help. On top of that they can't even claim to have no income tax like Texas or Florida, but offer just as much heat and humidity. Atlanta is aiming high, which is fine, but you shouldn't risk real-world penalties when you do so. Free agency is often like a dating game and teams like the Hawks need to remember just like when you are on a first date, some things should only be said inside your head.

-I like to give baseball players a lot of grief for missing games with excuses like hangnails and sunburns, but the truth is most of them are tremendous athletes. You simply can't reach that level without having an unbelievable skill set combined with natural talent and that is why I am never surprised when they start playing other positions and do it quite well. (After all, it is not like they are putting me out there.) With that in mind the story that Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander has a habit of hitting impressive batting practice homeruns was totally expected. What was not was the news that Verlander enjoys hitting so much he wants to be in this year's homerun derby at the All-Star Game. Personally, I love this idea. I haven't watch the homerun derby in years because I find the entire event boring and think it has passed its usefulness just like the NBA's dunk contest. Seeing a pitcher out there swinging would be just the kind of anomaly that would cause casual baseball fans such as me to turn in for at least a few minutes, which is more than I am currently planning to watch it. However, while I'm fine with it, I can also totally understand why the Tigers would not be. Verlander is the reigning Cy Young winner and if the Tigers are going to get back to the World Series they will need Verlander to do so. I mean, the extra muscle people try to put behind every swing in the homerun derby has been known to mess up power hitters for the rest of the season, so who knows what it would do to a pitcher? The last thing the Tigers want is him pulling a random muscle or something even more serious messing around in an exhibition regarding a skill he doesn't even practice outside of interleague play. They are in the business of winning games, not entertaining people who only see Detroit once or twice a year. Still, Kevin Love being in the 3-point contest gave a boost to that usually boring event and given the low ratings of last year’s All-Star Game, it probably wouldn't hurt baseball to open this contest up to other position players. They've tried everything else, so what is the harm? It is not like anything they tried would make me watch less.

-Monday was the last day of sectional qualifying for the US Open, also known as "Golf's Longest Day." The chance for any golfer in the world who has a low enough registered handicap to play his way into a major, some say these sectional tournaments can be more pressure than the Open itself and they always produce a couple of dramatic stories. However, this year the biggest story out of the sectionals was that two-time US Open champion Lee Janzen was disqualified from his attempt to make it back into the Open because he wore metal spikes at a course which does not allow them. For those of you who may not be golfers, metal spikes used to be standard equipment but can cause a lot more damage to the greens than the soft plastic spikes which are more in-favor today (not to mention what they can do to the clubhouse). While there is no hard and fast Tour-wide rule regarding metal spikes, individual courses have the right to ban them at the owner's discretion. The course Janzen was at does not allow metal spikes and it said so in the local rules letter which was mailed to every competitor. Unfortunately for Lee he didn't read it. I am just curious as to which marshall was the one who noticed and who got to deliver the unfortunate news. This just goes to show you that no matter how many times you may have gone through a tournament or other competition it always pays to check and see if something has changed since last year. The good aspect for Janzen (I guess you could call it good) is that he was playing fairly poorly and it wouldn't have much mattered if he finished or not. I guess the bad news is that now everyone knows Lee Janzen still wears metal spikes. It just feels dated. I mean, it would be like a football player showing up with no mouth guard – if you want to do this for a living why not use the best equipment? I am sure Janzen has bought himself new clubs in the past few years so clearly he is willing and able to embrace technology, so why not all the way down to his feet? If nothing else it brings new meaning to the phrase, "It’s got to be the shoes."