Weekly Sporties

-A couple weeks ago I told you about the rumors that LeBron James was thinking about making a run at President of the players association. At the time I said I thought it was a bad idea because James is going to be a free agent after this year and focused on growing his brand globally, which means he really won't have time to be an effective leader for guys fighting to stay on a roster. After all, there is a reason the majority of player Presidents have been well-known role players rather than the biggest star in the game. Well, James ultimately came to the same decision I did and elected not to make a run for office. However, the players association still decided to elect a superstar as their President, selecting the Los Angeles Clipper's Chris Paul. On the surface this decision appear to have the best of both worlds - Paul is well-liked throughout the league and he is a star, but not on the level of a guy like James so he may be able to better understand where the middle-of-the-roster guys are coming from. Plus, he is in a large media market and just signed a large contract extension which means he will be able to focus on the issues of the day rather than worry about his own future. However, I have concerns about this selection due to one of the same reasons I had questions about James - if there is an issue between the owners and the players (and let's be honest it is only a matter of time before that happens) there is a chance the fans are going to come down on the side of management because they known too much about Paul's history. For some reason in this country we tend to do that anyway but if the player President is a guy who got a coach fired, whined until he got traded from a small market team to one of the biggest in the league and then got a second coach fired once he got there, all why publicly claiming he had nothing to do with it even though we all know he did, that is not exactly the figure a lot of NBA fans are going to be in a hurry to rally behind. Sometimes it is just better to let the less-famous person take the stage and deal with all the crap. Unfortunately, like all politics, I am sure a huge part of this has to do with ego and Paul wants to show everyone how smart he is. I don't know about you but that is not exactly the first quality I look for in a guy running any organization.

-It is always sad when a once-great player reaches the end of his career but that day gets a little bit sadder when the player is the last one to see it. This week former NBA MVP Allen Iverson announced he was retiring. Given that Iverson was always one of the most polarizing players in the NBA (beloved for the tough-as-nails way he played, getting everything he could playing a big man's game in a small body and yet vilified because he was seen as the poster boy for the NBA-players-as-thugs movement which took over the league in the late 90s) this should have been a much bigger news story. However it barely registered with the national media and that has to do with the fact that Iverson hasn't played in the NBA since February of 2010. After getting released by the 76ers in the middle of the season to deal with a bevy of personal issues, Iverson tried playing overseas but continues to maintain he would be a good fit for the right NBA team. There was even talk the Celtics would bring him in to solidify their second unit during the 2011 season but at the end of the day the team was too concerned he would have trouble in that role and the fact that he is just now getting around to announce his retirement confirms that. Iverson's greatest strength was that he never listened to the doubters and willed himself into being one of the best players in the NBA. But that strength was also a weakness because Iverson probably could have extended his NBA career if he would have accepted coaching a little better as well as admitted to himself that he had lost a step and needed to come off the bench but he was just too stubborn to do it. When you add in that Iverson also has one of the more complicated off-court lives of anyone who has ever played in the NBA (overbearing former addict mother, rocky relationship with the mother of his children, a posse of yes-men on his payroll who unsurprisingly disappeared when he ran into money problems as well as problems with gambling and alcohol) it is actually a surprise that he didn't burn out well before now. He is still going to make it into the Hall of Fame the first year he is eligible, but part of me is always going to wonder what could have been if only he had a better support system around him. Considering it took him 3 years to finally realize what everyone else knew in 2010 it certainly doesn't like his decision making has improved in his years away from the game.

-Everyone knows that the unofficial nickname for the NFL is the No Fun League due to their insistence on cracking down on minor things like end-zone celebrations and especially uniform violations. Seriously, they will wait as long as possible to act on serious issues, hoping the teams will self-discipline when it comes to things like DUIs but they will barely wait until the game is over to fine a player for wearing the wrong color cleats. Well, this week we learned just how far they think their uniform policy should extend after Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III was fined $10,000 for wearing a non-conforming shirt during warm-ups. Allow me to give a little back-story: Griffin is currently coming back from a knee injury suffered in a playoff loss last season. He claims he is ready to go, but Redskins coach Mike Shanahan wants to take things very slow (ironically if he had shown this much restraint in the playoff game Griffin never would have gotten hurt in the first place). This has lead to a few verbal jabs between Griffin and Shanahan through the media which would not be a story in any other city but, just like everything else which happens in Washington DC, this minor controversy has been blown totally out of proportion. I don't care how good the back-ups look in the preseason, there is no way anyone but Griffin will be starting as soon as he is healthy. But, the long wait has made RGIII and his fans impatient so he took to the field before a preseason game with a shirt on which said "Operation Patience". The league said it has no problem with the message, just that the shirt was made by Adidas and the NFL's current contract is with Nike, so all on-field apparel has be to made by them. This is clearly bullshit because you see guys warming up in non-Nike gear all the time, but the league says its uniform policy extends to both pre- and post-game. Now, it is entirely possible the Redskins themselves went to the NFL and asked them to fine Griffin because they perceived it as a shot at their management but didn't want to create an even bigger rift between Griffin and Shanahan. But the fact that no one questions whether or not the NFL would have done this on their own should tell you all you need to know about their reputation among football fans.

-Since we are talking about large organizations which don't appear to understand that sometimes you need to allow a small amount of leeway with the rules, let's move to the NCAA. Early this week it was reported that the NCAA wasn't going to let a Steven Rhodes, 24 year-old former Marine who walked on at Middle Tennessee State, play this year because he was part of an intramural football league while he was enlisted. You see, under NCAA bylaws any player who participates in an organized team activity, even if it is something as informal as an intramural league, loses a year of eligibility and must wait a year before playing college athletics. It doesn't matter how informal the football league Rhodes played in may have actually been, they wore uniforms and kept scores, so in the NCAA's mind that made it an official league. Of course, this decision was idiotic and the NCAA rightly got plenty of scorn heaped down upon it. Obviously Rhodes should have been allowed to play immediately and the fact that he was a walk-on should have told the NCAA that this was not Middle Tennessee State's attempt to circumvent the rules. I am sure the spirit behind this rule came from a good place and was designed to prevent athletes from getting paid to play in rec leagues run by boosters because as we know those guys are everywhere and constantly trying to involve themselves in college athletics. However, situations like this are exactly why the NCAA needs to pull back every now and again and look at each case individually. This rule was probably put in place to combat some problem they were facing at the time and since it was rushed into action they didn't stop and think about putting in a few provisions for extenuating circumstances. It doesn't make them evil it just makes them stupid and the fact that they were doing this to a kid at Middle Tennessee State just added another dimension for the people who think the NCAA is too quick to punish the little guy while the megapowers can do whatever they hell they want. The good news is that after getting blasted my the local (and eventually national) news, the NCAA admitted they were probably sticking a little too close to the letter of the law and overturned their ruling on appeal, meaning Rhodes can play this season. They have even said they will look into re-writing the rule and add a provision for students coming out of military service. It may be full of slow learners but maybe there is hope for the NCAA after all.

-A couple years ago I coined the phrase the "Sympathy Boomerang". This is the social phenomenon in which people are sympathetic to a public figure we think has been wrong in some way but after a while we get sick of hearing them whine about it and go the other way, eventually understanding the point of view of the other person involved (for example, every break-up Taylor Swift has ever been a part of). Usually the person in this situation starts out as the victim, but it can go the other way in which the person starts out as the bad guy but eventually we have some sympathy for them because we think people have begun to pile on. The easiest way to reverse public opinion is to physically go after someone, which is why I was so annoyed last weekend why Red Sox pitcher Ryan Dempster continually threw at Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, before eventually plunking him on the fourth try. First off, I don't quite know who told Dempster he was the judge and jury for baseball justice. I'm sure there are plenty of baseball players who are mad at Rodriguez for sullying the game and casting suspicion on all of them, but A-Rod has been suspended and will probably miss all of next season so there is really no need to add your own personal level of outlaw justice. But the more annoying part was that by doing this Dempster somehow made A-Rod sympathetic. Suddenly no one was talking any more about the failed drug tests or the allegations that he leaked the names of other players to deflect attention from himself - they were all talking about what a jerk Dempster was. And when Rodriguez hit a big homerun later that game it was as if the Yankees had rallied around A-Rod which is not something any Red Sox fan wants to see. Even worse is that it may have caused a small fraction in the Red Sox clubhouse as David Ortiz has said he sides with Rodriguez because Dempster was wrong to keep throwing at him. (In his defense, if the Yankees were to retaliate they would have thrown at Ortiz, so his comments were probably in the interest of self-preservation. Also, Ortiz has said he and Dempster have talked it out.) It just adds a layer of intrigue which didn't need to be there. The only good news for Dempster? This is Alex Rodriguez we are talking about, so give him a few days and he will manage to do or say something which will cause 90% of the population to start hating him all over again.

-To me there is nothing quite so sad as seeing a grown man running after a ball at a baseball game. I believe bringing a glove to a baseball game should have a cutoff age and it should be around 17. So when I see grown men knocking their own children down to catch a ball I not only get sad for them but I feel bad for their entire families. I know the idea of a free souvenir can make people temporarily insane and if the ball in question is an historic homerun it can be worth a lot of money, but can you really put a price on your own dignity? If you want a baseball that much you can go to the store and buy one because it will be cheaper than the seats you are in. But some people just can't control themselves, which is why this week there was a story which claims a man is being investigated by San Francisco police for assaulting a kid to get a homerun ball. The ball in question was a three-run homer hit by Stephen Drew during a Red Sox rout of the Giants. Given the score and the batter I would only have gone after this ball if it was hit directly at me (actually, given the fact that I have bricks for hands I probably would simply duck) but it landed just beyond the bleachers at which point several people went diving for it. Initially a 16 year-old Red Sox fan claims he came up with it, but then a large adult landed on him and twisted his hand to the point his wrist was sprained and the pain forced him to drop the ball. The video of the incident is inconclusive but you can clearly see the two wrestling for the ball, which begs the question of whether or not you can really assault someone in a scrum? I am always saying that anything which happens on the field could not be brought up in a court of law, I am just not sure that should extend to the crowd as well. I am sure this is not the first time someone has gotten hurt going after a ball (some of the fights to catch Barry Bonds' homeruns looked intense), so in my opinion the only reason this is a story is that one participant is a teenager while the other person is an adult who really should have known better. Ultimately I don't expect the guy to be charged with anything but just for the hell of it I looked up how much a Stephen Drew baseball was going for on eBay and you can get an autographed one for between $40 and $70. That hardly seems worth the effort, especially when you consider the ball in question isn't even signed so it is probably worth less than that. You may be able to get a little more because it was game-used but remember this if you are ever at a game when a ball comes your way - there is no way that ball will be worth enough to cover bail money.

-Only slightly lower than adults who bring gloves to games on my annoying sport fans scale sits the golf fans who feel compelled to yell something as soon as the golf ball is in the air. Fans have been yelling for years but it seems the last few seasons the calls have gotten stranger, going from the traditional ("get in the hole") to the random ("mashed potatoes") and the ever-present "Baba-Booey". While annoying, most of the time the yelling is harmless because it has been timed well-enough to come after the player has finished his swing. However, in an effort to be the first person heard on TV fans are getting dangerously close to yelling while the player is still swinging, which is a big breach of golf etiquette. Things may have come to a head a couple weeks ago during the PGA Championship when Ian Poulter took to Twitter to vent his frustrations with the fan tradition, saying he thinks golfers should be given tasers and allowed to shock anyone who yells too early. This was obviously a joke (I think), but it did open the debate as to whether or not fans should be allowed to yell in the first place. Some are saying that the yelling is disruptive while other think as long as the fans are waiting until after contact to yell they are just having fun and this is just another area in which golfers need to lighten up. (As for the people who want to point out that other professional athletes deal with noise I would just tell them to go to a golf tournament. The silence is deafening so every little yelp sounds like it is coming through a bullhorn. Therefore, silence is actually a much better way to break a player's concentration.) At first it didn't sound like the PGA Tour was in any hurry to shut this practice down but then on Thursday the very first person was ejected for yelling "Baba-Booey" during a golf tournament. Not surprisingly it was yelled at Poulter, but the difference was this guy yelled in the middle of his swing. And I think that is ultimately what will be the deciding factor in all this - the PGA can't very well expect fans to remain silent for the entire time they are at a tournament (they already loosened their policy regarding cellphones) so it will have to be more about managing the noise than eliminating it. As long as the fans don't yell before the ball is in the air than the players are just going to have to live with it. It is not a perfect system but if I have learned anything since I started playing golf it's that the game is all about making the best of a bad situation so you would think the pros would know that better than most.