Weekly Sporties

-No one seemed to be particularly upset or surprised when Denver Broncos linebacker Von Miller was suspended four games during the offseason after testing positive for a banned substance. At this point apathy is the typical fan reaction to finding out a football player is take some kind of drug, performance-enhancing or otherwise. However, more than a few eyebrows were raised a couple of months ago when the suspension was increased from four games to six without any explanation as to why. The only thing the NFL said was that Miller did not fail a second test but he had committed a violation while on probation. Of course, no one was going to let such a vague explanation go unchecked, so people started digging. That was when someone uncovered that Miller had tried to convince a star-struck specimen collector to have his tainted urine switched with a clean sample so he could have his suspension overturned on appeal. What is even crazier is that the collector had agreed to go along with it but hadn't thought it through because a second collector (clearly not a Broncos fan), notice that Miller was in a different section of the country on the day the first collector claims to have gathered his sample. (Obviously, not the brightest partner Miller could have picked.) Now, karmic justice aside, I have to say I think Miller got off rather easy here. An NFL player failing a drug test is not something to take lightly but at the same time no one is about to get up in arms over it either. All he had to do was serve his time and as long as he didn't fail another test the matter would have been forgotten as soon as he recorded his first sack. But trying to manipulate the system feels like it takes his cheating to an entirely different level. It is one thing to cheat but it is another to keep trying to cheat after you have been caught (believe me, I know how insane this logic is). Also, it shows that Miller obviously hasn't learned his lesson and is probably still taking a banned substance so he should (rightfully) expect to be tested frequently for the rest of his career. Also, rather than being one of the dozens of players who will miss a few games this season he is now a punchline and his entire career has to be looked at differently. The lesson, as always, is that the cover-up is usually worse than the crime.

-Of course, the premise that the NFL wants the game cleaned up in the name of player safety took another laughable hit this week when it was revealed that after dropping the matter during the last labor negotiations, the NFL is once again quietly pushing to expand the regular season to 18 games. I've said before that I am against this planned expansion and my mind hasn't changed. I think that is more punishment than these players should be expected to take and also the current system of 16 games feels like the perfect number, so adding more is only going to mess things up. All that being said, I am slightly intrigued by the twist the NFL is reportedly considering, in which players would only be allowed to play in 16 of the 18 games. The extra bye week would probably do the players some good but the bigger issue would be how coaches would decide to handle their rosters. What players do you sit and against which opponents? I'll say this, if I were a fan of a bad team I would want this proposal to go through because it would give my team a fighting chance if for example the Patriots decided they were going to try and beat me without Tom Brady. This rule would definitely add a new dimension to the sport. However, I still don't think it will end up happening for two simple reasons. The first is that the rosters would have to expand exponentially to make room for extra players because you certainly couldn't expect coaches to use this system with only 53 players. That would mean the salary cap would have to go up and I just can't see NFL owners agreeing to that. But the second reason is because fans would get screwed two games every season. Think about it - they are never going to announce which two games each player will be sitting out until the very last second so the opponent doesn't have time to prepare. That is fine from a football standpoint but if I paid all this money to see the Patriots and discovered that was one of the games in which Brady was benched I would be pissed. It would be like going to Red Sox game and discovering Ortiz had the day off, only 10 times worse. Not seeing big stars play the whole game is the reason we all hate the preseason so much and now the NFL wants to bring that feeling to the regular season? Do not they not remember there is a reason we were all so anxious to have fewer preseason games? Sadly, I have a feeling I may be shoveling against the tide on this one. Throwing an idea out there once can be considered talk but the fact the NFL keeps bringing up the idea of an 18-game season means it is just a matter of time before it happens. Someone needs to remind them that more does not always equal better and that some times it actually does more harm than good.

-For all the grandstanding baseball does in regards to things like traditions and the sanctity of the game while going for decades ignoring steroid use, I think the thing I hate the most is when someone gets high and mighty regarding baseball's "unwritten rules". A couple weeks ago the Braves took exception when Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez took a little too long to admire his first homerun and catcher Brian McCann told him so when Fernandez reached home plate. The benches emptied but, as so often happens in baseball, it just resulted in a lot of talking. At the time most people were on the Braves side, but could understand why Fernandez would have been a little bit excited. Well, apparently this half-assed show of support emboldened the Braves into thinking they were the baseball police because the other night Brian McCann strolled up the third baseline to block the plate and admonish a Milwaukee Brewers player who talked the whole way around the bases. The whole things started a couple months ago when Carlos Gomez was hit by pitches thrown by Brave Paul Maholm on two separate occasions. When they faced each other on Tuesday Gomez got the best revenge by taking Maholm deep. He used his entire trot to first to point this out to Maholm, but when he got to first Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman decided to interject his opinion the matter. Gomez kept going but was now yelling at Freeman and Maholm as he made his way around the bases. Before he could get home McCann took it upon himself to interject. Once again benches cleared and a Freeman and Gomez were ejected. While I think it is admirable that Freeman and McCann felt the need to stick up for a teammate, the reason I am sick of the Braves is that afterwards McCann said he was doing it because he wants to show kids watching the proper way baseball should be played. This is laughable for two reasons. 1) this is Atlanta so no one was watching. 2) no one asked McCann to be the defender of baseball's code of conduct. Seriously, McCann is a nice player but who is he to tell anyone how to act because as near as I can tell this was his second fight in less than a month which doesn't exactly paint him as the picture of restraint. What he should have done instead was not sink to Gomez's level and start a bench-clearing fight, because I would say is the far worse thing for kids to see.

-Unlike the NFL which has 53 players on each team they can market and create merchandise for, an NBA roster only has 12 players to choose from and the average fans is only going to want about 3 of those players' jerseys. That numbers game is why I am more willing to accept the fact that the NBA rolls out new styles of jerseys every two weeks, even though I typically find the idea of 'alternate jerseys' more annoying than interesting. However, this week the NBA may have gone a little too far as some people are reporting they are playing with the idea of using nicknames on the back of jerseys, specifically for a Miami/Brooklyn match-up during the regular season. So, rather than "James" on the back of LeBron's jersey it would read "King James". I am not a fan of this idea. First of all, I am wondering just how they will handle the players who don't have a nickname. On top of that there is the issue of players who have nicknames which aren't specific to them. For example, Shane Battier has said he wants his jersey to read "Batman", only the people at DC Comics have a copyright claim on that name. Or what about Brooklyn's Andrei Kirilenko, whose nickname is "AK-47"? Do you really think the NBA wants to sell that jersey? But, my bigger issue with this is that it leads to one of my least-favorite things in the world, which is people giving themselves nicknames. I have a long-held belief that people don't get a say in their nicknames, so when someone suddenly declares that they want to be called by a moniker I actually become inclined to call them anything but that. (For all the reasons Kobe Bryant has given me to not like him through the years, the main reason I am not a fan is that he started calling himself "Black Mamba." Dwayne Wade, who is coming up with a new nickname for himself every week at this point, is starting to nip at Bryant's heels.) You also can't ignore that the NBA has an image problem right now because after years of things like "The Decision" and the Dwight Howard free agency tour, many casual fans see NBA players as selfish babies who only play when they want and where they want. Putting nicknames on the backs of jerseys like a glorified AAU team is only going to reinforce that image. Remember, older sports fans love it when coaches do that cliched move of removing names from the backs of jersey because it is, "about the name on the front of the jersey, not the one on the back." This is pretty much the antithesis of that. That's fine if you want to appeal to the kids but you have to remember the kids won't be the ones buying the jerseys, their parents will, so hopefully this idea will be out back on the shelf, just like anyone who seriously considers calling Wade by the name "WOW".

-There is a storm brewing in college athletics. After years of players complaining about things like merchandising rights and the billion dollar TV deals these conferences are signing but not actually doing anything about it, college athletes are starting to get organized. Last weekend players from Georgia, Georgia Tech and Northwestern took the field with a simple "APU" written somewhere on their uniforms. It stands for "All Player Unite", the rallying cry of college athletes everywhere and it is expected to continue on various fields across the country until the players see some radical rule changes. [Sidebar: they may have gotten their first victory this week as video game maker EA sports settled a lawsuit with them for $40 million. It will only work out to about $340 per player, but it sets a precedent regarding organizations using an amateur player's likeness without permission or compensation.] As you would imagine, the NCAA is not in favor of any of this and claims that it will take immediate action if it sees this again because these players are breaking the rule the NCAA has regarding writing personal messages on your uniform.( I don't think the NCAA quite knows how protests work. Still, there is no better example of how messed up the NCAA is right now than them telling kids who are rebelling against the very principle the NCAA was founded on that they should respect a uniform rule. Let me know how that works out for them.) While I have my doubts that this will ultimately be good for college athletics (I have long contended that when athletes from lesser sports start demanding to be paid schools will simply disband that sport), I support these players' right to protest. Sadly, I am not hearing much support from the schools themselves. I never expect coaches, who despise anything which could be seen as a distraction, to be on board with them, but I would have thought the institutions would have been proud of these kids of standing up to the powerful NCAA. Sadly, that is not the case. For example, Northwestern has said they will check players before they take the field from now and and discourage them from writing "APU" on their uniforms. I would have expected more from a forward-thinking school who despite being in a major conference actually appears to put education first, but I guess this just shows that even at schools where learning is supposedly more important than athletics, money is put above them all.

-If the college athletes actually do start to make progress when it comes to getting the NCAA to change some of its policies, perhaps the next thing they should look into is how teams schedule opponents. Last Saturday Louisville, Ohio State and Miami all took the field against teams which were either at the very bottom of the rankings or not even in Division 1. Not surprisingly, the scores quickly got out of hand to the point that to try and be merciful the teams agreed to either shortened the final quarter to 12 minutes or started using a running clocks, but the damage was still done as the three major conference teams still won by 70. Now, we have talked previously about why these match-ups happen: the major programs see them as any easy win before their tough conference schedules start and almost treat them as preseason games. The small schools are there because they need the money. They can be paid upwards of half a million to be a punching bag and at smalls schools like Savannah State being the sacrificial lamb is the only way to make sure the athletic department stays afloat. Occasionally we all get a laugh when it backfires and these small teams manage to keep it close, but no one thought that was going to happen last weekend, as evidenced by the fact the teams had already figured out how to navigate a blowout. (The only one who didn't appear to be in a charitable mood was Ohio State, who went for it on 4th down despite being up by 40 points. It just adds fuel to my theory that Urban Meyer is a dick.) But just because I understand the economics of it, that doesn't mean I think it is right. As Jason Whitlock of ESPN pointed out this week, we all think boxing is morally corrupt, but if college football were boxing these two teams would never have been allowed to step into the ring together. And that is the thing which really irritates me - these college administrators are setting these kids up to get their brains beaten out and never taking the field themselves. Ohio State probably has 20 guys who will eventually find their way into the NFL while their opponent, Florida A&M, is more famous for their band. (That is actually why Ohio State and A&M were playing one another, to have a band competition. A hazing incident kept the band at home, so the football team got whacked for nothing.) If the NCAA keeps allowing these incredibly mismatched teams to keep sharing the same field eventually someone is going to get seriously injured and no amount of money is going to make up for that.

-As a golfer I am always trying to debunk the myth that golf is a sport for nothing but rich guys. I like to contend that golf only requires as much money as you feel like spending because you can always find a cheap set of clubs or green fees if you want to play on the cheap. Still, I admit that it can be hard to keep costs down when you get paired with the guy who has all new equipment and you see how nice and shiny it is. Also, there is no denying that the nicer courses are usually worth the money you spend. So, yes, golf is better if you have more money to spend on it, but that can be true for everything. The good news is that while I really don't have much of a leg to stand on while defending golf I will always have richer, more elite sports to point at and say, "Yeah, well at least golf isn't like that!" To a lot of people the richest of the rich kid sports is sailing. That perception has only gotten worse as the America's Cup, sailings premier competition, has devolved into more of a personal competition between billionaires featuring boats which coast more than your average MLS team. The Cup was contested this week and on one side was the United States team supported by Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison while on the other was a New Zealand squad backed the the United Arab Emirates. Normally I have no problem wrapping myself in the flag when it comes to International competition even when I don't particularly care about, follow or understand the sport (I do it every Olympics) and since I actually like boats and being on the water ("Wind" was a good movie), you would think I would have been all over this competition. Additionally the US team staged an historic comeback to add to the drama but this time I just couldn't bring myself to care. The first obstacle in my way was the fact that this year the America's Cup adopted a bunch of crazy rules to keep 99.999% of people out of the competition and the way I see it if they don't want me to be involved in their sport I am not going to force my way in. But more that was the fact that there weren't actually many Americans on the US team. In fact, the captain was English and all but one of the crew was from New Zealand. Now, I am not stupid, I know that it is not like players on the Celtics have to be from Boston but there is just something different when it is supposed to be International competition and yet the two boats were full of people who probably grew up on the same block. Then again, a victory is a victory so say it with me: U-S-A!