Weekly Sporties

-The most incendiary story of this week came when someone unearthed a cellphone video which showed Philadelphia wide receiver Riley Cooper (who is white) hurling racial slurs and threatening to fight a group of black security guards who wouldn't let him go backstage at a Kenny Chesney concert because he didn't have the right passes. As you would expect in this day and age of increased racial sensitivity the media pundits were quick to condemn Cooper's actions and the Eagles announced they would fine Cooper an undisclosed amount of money. Cooper swiftly issued what seemed like a sincere apology and most of Riley's teammates on the Eagles came out and said the right thing in support of him. However, there were a few teammates who said they would never quite be able to view Cooper in the same light and I have to say that I would tend to side with those players. Cooper said he was drunk when that video was shot (having worked more than my fair share of country music festivals in my day I have no doubts this is true), but to me that is no excuse. I can't stand people who get drunk and say hurtful things, then claim it 'didn't count' because they were drunk when they said it, even though the reality is that many people are at their most honest after they have had a few. Cooper is 25, which means he has been out of college long enough (seriously, this has not been a good offseason for University of Florida alums) that he should know how to hold his liquor by now. That means that even if he isn't a racist Cooper still has issues with alcohol. Not surprisingly, a few days later the Eagles excused Cooper from team activities to go and seek sensitivity training and how long his absence will last is open-ended. It's not often that NFL teams face crucial moments for their season in August, but how new head coach Chip Kelly will handle this will go a long way in determining his tenure in Philadelphia. If he screws this up he could lose the locker room and, unlike in college, when a pro head coach loses a locker room he is the one that leaves. I know the Eagles already have some issues at wide receiver thanks to injuries and were counting on Riley to have a big season, but they may be forced to get rid of him for the greater good. Kelly can recover from a bad first season, but he needs to keep his job long enough for that to happen and if that means Riley Cooper gets cut then so be it. Hey, at least then he would have a story with all the makings to write a really good country song.

-All last year I was convinced that we had seen the end of the Pro Bowl in the NFL. The annual All-Star Game is a meaningless exhibition and is only a shell of football in which no one tries very hard and rough tackling is nearly outlawed, which is why almost no one watches it or cares who wins. However, many players have bonuses tied into whether or not they make the squad and because of that the game will carry on even though the league would like to do away with it. But, rather than fight the players on it, the league decided to get creative with the marketing of the game and this week they announced a few new rules changes. The first is that there will be no more kick-offs and instead the ball will be placed at the 25 yard-line to start each possession. I have to say, if you are trying to increase interest in the game eliminating the play which can have the most interesting result is not a good start (also anyone who doesn't think this is a test balloon for putting it into the regular season is fooling themselves). But, the more interesting rule change is about how the teams will be formed in the first place. Rather than go the usual route of having fans, players and coaches assemble the rosters by voting, the teams will be picked sandlot style with the side determined by a team of the highest vote-getters, a couple of Hall of Fame players in Deion Sanders and Jerry Rice and two champion fantasy football players. I have to say even though I know this idea is gimmicky as hell, it's kind of interesting. I mean, you could conceivable see teammates going up against one another or longtime rivals on the same squad. Plus I think we all want to know who gets picked last. Still, here's the problem - while the way the teams will be put together just got a lot more interesting it doesn't do anything for the quality of play, which is the biggest issue facing the Pro Bowl. I will probably watch how the draft unfolds, but there is still almost no chance I will sit down and watch more than five minutes of the actual game. So until the league can come up with some rules changes to fix that problem the Pro Bowl will continue to be must-miss TV.

-As Alex Rodriguez and Major League baseball continue to negotiate the terms of his suspension people have had time to sit back and think about the ramifications of this suspension. (MLB is prepared to suspend A-Rod for life under the "for the good of the game" clause but don't want a protracted appeals process while Alex would like his suspension to be significantly shorter than forever and get the money he expected to be paid. You can see why the two sides are having trouble coming to an agreement.) A couple of days ago it finally occurred to people that, off course, this will somehow end up helping the Yankees. Specifically it was Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter who noticed that with A-Rod's salary off the books, even for one year, it would bring the Yankees out of the extreme luxury tax level and save the franchise about $80 million, which Buck thinks will only encourage the Yankees to spend even more money to bring in players sooner rather than later and is the reason why the organization has not been out front in support of Alex at any point in this process. Now, it should be pointed out that Showalter has two axes to grind here: one is that he wad fired by the Yankees a few years ago and two is that he now manages in the same division and thinks one of his best players will be targeted by the Yankees in free agency in a couple of years. And, as much as I would like to agree with him and argue that the Yankees should be forced to carry Rodriguez's salary for as long as he would have remained on their payroll, I just can't do it. I may not like the Yankees, but you have to acknowledge they were just as duped by Rodriguez as the rest of us. They signed that contract in good faith and even though they probably has suspicions A-Rod was dirty he had never failed a drug test. To me it is quite simple - if the roles were reverse and a dirty player was on my team would I want the team to have to keep paying him? Of course I wouldn't. I didn't hear anyone arguing that the Brewers shouldn't get the money back from Ryan Braun's suspension and therefore we shouldn't expect the Yankees to have to do the same, no matter how annoying we may find it.

-I'm sure the issue surrounding how the league will handle the payroll of suspended players is going to be address at some point, but I'm not expecting Major League Baseball to deal with it too quickly, especially considering they still expect people to treat hand signals as if they are sacred communications. The other night against the Red Sox, Seattle Mariner's interim manager Robby Thompson wanted to bring in a right-handed pitcher to face a right-handed batter but accidentally raised his left arm before quickly correcting himself. The bullpen knew what he meant and the righty started out towards the mound, but and the umpire made the pitcher stop and go back, insisting that since Thompson signaled with his left hand it meant he had to bring in the lefty. That pitcher quickly gave up three hits and cost the Mariners the game. Even as a Red Sox fan who benefited from the ruling I find this to be unbelievable absurd. First off, since when does a manager need to clear his moves with an umpire? I have seen plenty of pinch runners go out to relieve a guy and at no point do they go and check in like basketball players have to do at the scorer's table. Hell, I have seen pitchers come in with no signal of any kind. I know baseball has lots of rules in place so that one team does not deceive the other but I feel like as long as the bullpen knows which guy to send out that is all that matters because it is not like the Red Sox didn't also know what Thompson was trying to accomplish. If the wrong guy came out, started warming up and then the manager realized he wanted the other pitcher because that would rightfully be called a delay of game. But if anything the umpire insisting on the lefty coming in slowed things down more than anything the Mariners were doing. Lastly, as an person who still frequently gets my rights and lefts confused I seriously don't think Thompson should have been treated like he caught trying to cheat (and how about the fact that he's the interim manager because the Mariner's full-time manager had a stroke so we could probably cut the guy some slack) for something we have all done once upon a time. Still, it is moments like this where we hear about the sacred 'code of baseball' which remind me of just how far the people who want more replay in baseball are going to have to drag the sport kicking and screaming to get there.

-Late this week we heard a few rumbles that Miami Heat star LeBron James is thinking of running for President of the Players Association to replaced the soon-to-be-ousted Derrick Fisher. Now, to a lot of people this would be a very good thing because James is almost back to his perch as the most popular player in the league and thus anything he said will immediately have most NBA fans behind it (a big change from now, when most fans automatically assume the players are being greedy if they complain about something). On top of that it is nice to see a superstar who appears to be interesting in helping the league continue to grow. However, the more I think about this the less I am behind the idea. If you look at most organizations there is a reason the biggest star is rarely in charge. As an example, think about Hollywood's Screen Actors Guild. Go look at it's list of Presidents - outside of the few years in which Charlton Heston was in charge it is not a list of the highest-paid actors of the time and there is a simple reason for that - they were too busy being movie stars to run the Guild. James always says he wants to build his global brand and appear in more commercials. Well, it is going to be very hard to do that when you are meeting with the league regarding a player's suspension every other week because this is not a ceremonial position. On top of that I question whether or not James would be a good leader because great players rarely make great leaders. Do you think James has any idea of what it is like to be the 9th man on a roster playing for the veteran's minimum? Of course he doesn't so how can he think he is the perfect person to fight for those players' needs? This isn't a knock on James, I am just saying there is a reason guys like Jordan, Bird and Magic never held this position. Look, I am glad LeBron is interested in the health of the league and wants to make sure his union is strong. But he can do that without having to be the President and if he can't understand that concept than that should be more than enough to prove why he shouldn't get the job in the first place.

-Taking only slightly longer than the Alex Rodriguez/MLB negotiations was Greg Oden's process to pick a new team. Oden, the first pick in the 2007 NBA Draft who has famously battled injuries his entire career and only played 82 games in the NBA since being picked by Portland, announced a couple of weeks ago that he wanted to give the NBA one more shot and, not surprisingly, NBA teams lined up for his services. You can't teach height, teams always love potential and at 25 years old Oden is the ultimate no-risk/all-reward proposition for a team looking to make a leap. That is why it was kind of surprising to me that the list of teams who wanted to sign Oden was full of championship contenders because I was expecting it to be nothing but the bottom-feeders with nothing to lose. I don't care that he isn't going to cost that much money, you wouldn't think smart organizations like the Spurs and Heat would be so desperate to sign a player who can't stay on the court and hasn't played in 3 seasons, instead saving that roster spot for a player who may actually be able to contribute when the playoffs roll around. Yet last week Oden announced he had whittled his choices down to the Dallas Mavericks, Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs. To put it plainly, I would have expected those teams to have better self-control than to fall in love with potential. Still, the fact these guys were tripping over themselves to waste money wouldn't been too bad except that after announcing he had whittled his choices down Oden appeared to be in no hurry to make a final decision. It wasn't until late last night that he finally signed with Miami (which I think we all expected because it offers him the best chance to get a ring even if he gets hurt), but I have to say that while I have never heard a bad word said about Greg Oden the amount of attention given to this story was rather annoying to me. Honestly, does anyone really expect his guy to have much of an impact around the NBA? Even if he stays health (and that is one big if) we have no idea if he can actually play in the league. If it were anyone else with this resume taking this long to decide where to sign we would all be screaming at the top of our lungs about why we should care where he goes. This story should serve as a reminder to all professional athletes out there - what you do on the court isn't nearly as important as making friends with the media.

-I give soccer a lot of crap on this blog, mostly because it is fun to poke at soccer fans. Still, there is no denying that in the last couple of years Major League Soccer has finally figured out the right formula to get the league moving in the right direction. They have started ditching huge football stadiums which are 75% empty for smaller, soccer-only arenas which get close to selling out and are much louder. Additionally they have embraced the local rooting clubs and made them part of the atmosphere so you actually feel like you are at a sporting event. It has really improved the buzz around the teams and while the league may not be about to push to become America's past time, it certainly has found a comfortable niche with diehard supporters. That is why I was slightly concerned when I read that MLS plans to expand with four new teams by 2020. That would bring the league to a total of 24 teams, which feels like way too many. (By comparison, the Premier League only allows 20 teams to play at the highest level and relegates the rest.) I just wonder if this is too much too fast because I don't care how many places could conceivable support an MLS franchise, at some point the talent pool just isn't going to be big enough. Soccer needs to look towards the NHL which over-expanded in the 90s into places which didn't really want hockey and still probably has too many teams, which is why you constantly hear about a franchise like Phoenix potentially moving or contracting. Even football, which could easily expand by another couple of franchises and has never met a market it didn't want to take over, knows it currently has a comfortable number of organizations and is not looking to mess that up by adding new teams. On top of that one of the city mentioned for a potential expansion franchise is Miami, which already had an MLS expansion team and was forced to contract them after three seasons. If a franchise already failed there once what makes you think it would be any better a second time around? Seriously, did the MLS not learn anything from its past mistakes because they seemed rather determined to repeat them. On second thought, maybe this just means soccer is ready to step up and be counted with the big boys because that is exactly the kind of behavior I expect from them.