Vindication?

Editor's Note: I have been convinced by a reader to create a Twitter Account. I have avoided the jump forever but I guess i'll hop on. It is not a personal account it is only related to this blog. I will post random sports things on it besides my blog posts from time to time. If you are interested follow me on twitter @IfItHasBalls. 

So it was a slow sports news week for most of the weeks and now I am rushing to sneak a blog post in on the weekend on you guys. Honestly, without Ryan Braun's arbitration ruling I was going to be stuck making chink in the armor jokes for 10 paragraphs. More on that later. The biggest news this week, and honestly if you follow sports at all it's the biggest news in a long time was Ryan Braun winning his arbitration appeal and having his 50 game suspension lifted. 

Why is this news big? First it's a groundbreaking decision, no player has had his performance enhancing drug usage suspension reduced in this new era of baseball. He's the first. What makes it even bigger is the means to the end and the context in which it occurred. Ryan Braun won his appeal chain of custody grounds, in other words he won on a technicality. To expose my nerdery and quote a line from one of my favorite shows, Futurama, "you are technically correct, the best kind of correct." In case you aren't familiar with the hearing, it has come out that Braun's attorneys focused on the tester's failure to immediately send Braun's urine sample via FedEx to Montreal and instead kept it in his refrigerator or something. Apparently they never even addressed the validity of the positive test, just that the chain of custody was improperly followed. How this decision answered any questions about Ryan Braun is beyond me.

For what it's worth, I'm a big Ryan Braun fan. I think he's a fantastic ballplayer and I was among the most shocked at his positive test, but winning an arbitration hearing on chain of custody grounds in no way addresses why he had such elevated testosterone levels in the test in the first place or what substance was found in his test. Why is this important? I mean after all he was cleared to play and that should be the end of it. When, the context of the decision is important.

Baseball's drug testing system is still in its infancy and is still battling an image that the sport is rife with steroids. For good reason too, baseball intentionally looked the other way for a decade while its players obviously juiced in order to get viewers back following the '94 strike. It worked for a little while and then it blew up in Major League Baseball's face with the Mitchell Report. Now baseball has its premier athletes of the 90s: McGwire, Sosa, Clemens hauled in front of Congress to answer about steroids, and its Home Run King****** (I don't think that's enough asterisks) hauled into Federal court on obstruction of justice charges related to Federal investigations into BALCO. The MLB is now coping with questions relating to the legitimacy of much of its recent history book, hall of fame votes are influenced by drugs, and any time a pro player breaks out (read: Jose Bautista) its an automatic assumption that he's on the juice.

Obviously, baseball has a lot of work to do to recover consumer confidence that its product isn't tainted and that the sport has taken every measure to virtually guarantee the cleanliness of the sport. This was what made the Ryan Braun test so important. Ryan Braun has been held up by the management of his sport as the glowing example of a fantastic talent who doesn't require PEDs and then the world came crashing down. Now while baseball struggles with the legitimacy of its testing, it gets its highest profile case thrown out not because the test was inaccurate but because a guy didnt mail it off in time. Now the decision throws MLB's testing into chaos and they basically have to start from the ground floor in its quest for renewed legitimacy. The final outcome in this saga is harmful for baseball only because of the way it ended. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised either way if he really did or really did not take any banned substances. He's a tiny guy compared to the steroid goliaths of the last decade, but Andy Pettitte used them to speed recovery. Given it was the end of the season when he failed the test, I wouldn't be surprised if he was aching or injured and was trying to get healthy quick for his team's playoff run. Either way, I don't think any questions were really answered and all it led to were more questions regarding baseball's testing.

In other news, the inevitable happened: someone crossed the line with the puns in the ever growing Jeremy Lin story. In case you missed it, a headline writer for the ESPN Mobile service wrote the following headline "Chink in the Armor" following Jeremy Lin's poor performance against New Orleans and then it was repeated by an ESPNews anchor on TV. If you don't get the pun, "chink" is a derogatory term used to describe an Asian person. Honestly, I find the whole situation hilarious.

First, besides your freedom of speech what compels you to use that headline? You work for a U.S. media conglomerate that has to respond to whims of the masses no matter if it thinks the masses are right or not. Why would you think that headline would fly on ESP freaking N. Someone is going to see it. Someone is going to get it. Someone is going to call the FCC and your boss at ESPN on you. Moron. The ESPNews anchor is probably just a Ron Burgundy clone and reads whatever was printed on the teleprompter.

Second, I think it's hilarious that the Asian American Journalist Association released a "How To" guide on reporting on Jeremy Lin. People can say what they want and they face the repercussions, but one journalist group telling another journalist group how to write its story is ludicrous.

Third, I'd like to believe that I live in 21st century America where we no longer fear that usage of derogatory terms towards different races will set a certain group of people back centuries. If a stand up comedian used that line most of us would laugh. Don't be a ashamed, that's the point. These terms are so ridiculous in modern speak that they should be laughed at.

Should the headline writer have been fired and the anchor suspended? Sure. Companies like ESPN have to deal with irrational consumers and so they have to walk on eggshells. But we do live in the United States of America in the 21st century, where talent will always win out. So the usage of this phrase is not going to belittle Jeremy Lin's accomplishments or create a glass barrier to more Asian American basketball players. Words are only given the power that we give them. If a headline incorporates redneck, or whitey, or cracker, or something I'll probably laugh and move on. They are simply words and in this day and age they wield such little power. Learn a lesson here and lets move on and not throw our hands up outrage every time we see one.

As it turns out we are in fact seeing a chink in Lin's armor (see what I did there?). He does not hold up well on the second game in back to backs. In his last four second games (Minnesota, Sacramento, New Jersey, Miami)  he has performed statistically worse. It's not unexpected, you have a guy go from little NBA experience in his first two seasons to 40 minutes a game in a meat grinder season with limited days off. He's going to get tired. But so is Kyrie Irving and Ricky Rubio and they seem to be doing fine and they've played the whole season. I think the media circus is what is really weighing on him. News came out that hes renting some high rise apartment in a hotel and when trying to eat at the downstairs bar and grill he was mobbed. He hasn't had a normal life for an NBA player for 3 weeks and he has no experience dealing with the circus. It will subside, but it will never be the same for him. The quicker he gets used to it the better off he'll be.

He's a fine player in this system and those looking for him to fail will probably be disappointed. He is settling into his 14/10 role which is all New York needs him to be to be a dangerous team. The playoffs will be fascinating, but its not out of question for New York to cover the 5 game deficit needed to pass Indiana for a home court advantage in the first round.

One last thing: Tiger Woods needs to go to Happy Gilmore's school of putting. His display in the 4th round of the Pro-Am at Pebble Beach was disgusting. In the second round of the match play championship this week he was down 1 hole on the 18th and after nailing a 180 yard second shot, he had a 6 foot putt to win the hole and send it to extra holes. He didn't even get close. He's become the anti-clutch. It's like he's getting rattled by the heartbeat like players do in his video game. I don't know that we've ever seen a guy who was so clutch in his sport like Michael Jordan or Mariano Rivera all of the sudden become a quivering mess when the chips are down. He has rediscovered his stroke and he is playing the best golf of the last 3 years but he isn't Tiger Woods yet. I'm starting to wonder if he ever will be again.

How Linvincible is he?

Yeah, I succumbed to the asinine word play with his name. So a week ago, the sports world was sitting around after the Super Bowl wondering what it was going to do for the next 6 weeks until Opening Day. NBA was offering up its worst product since Jordan retired for the second time. (No one really remembers this but he was just as bad as Brett Favre in terms of retirement by retiring three times in his career), baseball was weeks away, college basketball isn't entertaining until conference tournament time, and golf is still months away from the Masters.

Then along came Jeremy Lin. If anyone had been following the Knicks, you knew they were 8-15, had zero point guard play (crucial in a D'Antoni offense) and Carmelo was acting like the league's biggest black hole. Carmelo went down, Amare's brother died and the stage was set for end of the bench Jeremy Lin to get his opportunity. Honestly, when i saw those stats from his first start: 25 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds I did a triple take. I watched Lin play some garbage time on New Year's Eve against Sacramento in a game where the Knicks led by 20+ points almost from the start. Lin got in the last 4 minutes of the game and was matched up against Isaiah Thomas, a backup PG for the Kings. Thomas torched him. I mean torched him. Lin looked so lost, i wouldnt have been shocked if he was back in the D-League before the game was over. He went 0 for 2, 2 turnovers and 4(!) personal fouls in 4 minutes. He looked terrible and i never gave him a second thought.

Now all of the sudden he is the greatest thing in the NBA since sliced bread. A lot of debate has swirled around his popularity. He has been compared to Tim Tebow, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. played the race card, and Madison Square Garden was savvy enough to pick up on "Linsanity" within the first couple of games. First thing's first. He is not comparable to Tim Tebow. The stories are totally different. Sure Lin has exposed his spirituality to the world as well and he was a player with little to no expectations, but he came with absolutely no hype. I mean none. Tebow was the talk of the NFL Draft in 2010, and more was debated about his potential successes and failures in the NFL than any other subject. Most casual NBA fans had no idea who Jeremy Lin was 14 days ago. It's not the same story.

So why the hype? I don't think Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is very far off playing the race card. If it was say Bismack Biyombo of the Charlotte Bobcats going off for 25 and 12 rebounds with 3 blocks a game the hype machine wouldn't be nearly as revved up. Sure Biyombo was a lottery pick this, but expectations of his success were pretty low this year. The fact that he is Asian is surely the number one causal factor of his extraordinary fame the last 10 days. You can just see David Stern in his office in New York breathing a sigh of relief and helping the hype machine along. Not only did this finally help take away some of the funk from the season but he does it internationally, a market Stern also has one of his little snake eyes looking at. Despite European and South American successes in international play, China is the biggest international market for basketball. With Yao Ming's retirement, the NBA lost its Asian ambassador. It couldn't be happier for Lin's success and I wouldn't be surprised if Stern was pulling strings behind the scenes making sure the hype stays there for a while. I mean you can just see it. That first game itself was a top story line. You never see that for a lot players who get a 25/7/5. I know Tyreke Evans did it a bunch as a rookie, but his first 25/5/5 game didnt get this same press.

Sure he is flashy, and sure he went to Harvard, and sure he has that whole undrafted, end of the bench storyline going for him. But thats not why he is so hyped. He's so hyped because he's of Asian descent. It's not a bad thing, but let's not be afraid to call it as it is. I'm not sure that he continues success or even settles in as a 16+/8+ assists, but i will say this to the naysayers, it doesn't matter who you play in the NBA, even if NY has had an easier schedule, not a lot of players can even put together the kind of statistical week and a half hes had.

Besides Jeremy Lin's outstanding play acting as a resuscitator for this year's NBA season and grabbing the spotlight in the current sports vacuum, the NBA has been chugging along at its breakneck pace and we are already upon the All Star break in just one more week. As always there were snubs and players who didn't deserve to make it. Obviously Dirk, is the goat on the Western Conference team. I remember reading article just a few days before the lockout ended that he was just now starting to consider playing basketball overseas to start to get into shape after months off. This whole first half of the season, with the exception of the last week he was awful by his standards and definitely not an All-Star. No other major star has had to miss an entire week's worth of games doing cardio to get into shape. I was pretty disappointed by his first half. It's similar to Paul Pierce making the East. He was pretty sloppy for most of this first half and even though Rondo was hurt Rondo has definitely been better than Pierce. Granger has also been a very strong presence for the Pacers who right now in the mix for the 4th seed with Eastern stalwarts Orlando and Atlanta.

The idea of an All-Star game seems silly to me and im curious to see how the players approach it. These players have spent this first half rounding into shape and half-assing it on back to backs to preserve themselves for the stretch run. I think they salivate at the opportunity to sit on their ass during the All-Star game. They should have just taken the four day break and used it to help chop up the schedule a little better and maybe even avoid teams having back to back to backs. No one really cares about the game this year as most players are pretty undeserving.
 

 

The first half of the season has gone pretty much according to script. Young hungry teams like Philadelphia, Indiana, Miami, Oklahoma City, and the Clippers are all excelling. Old veteran teams like San Antonio, Boston, Dallas, and the Lakers are all treading water, doing just enough to be in the playoff mix. If you told me on Opening Day that the top 8 teams in the first half in the East would be Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Orlando, Indiana, Boston and New York I wouldnt blink an eye. Those were clearly the top 8 heading into the season and nothing has changed. Ditto for the West, with one exception, Houston in over Memphis. Otherwise I think on opening day everyone expected OKC, the Clippers, San Antonio, Dallas, the Lakers, Nuggets and Trail Blazers to be in the mix. Memphis and the Jazz sitting on the outside is a little more of a shocker but cetainly nothing jaw dropping. I think this has contributed to boredom with this season. Not only is the play subpar, but there just havent been any shocking teams making a huge first half run. This season was designed for a young raw team like the Timberwolves, Wizards or the Warriors to make some buzz and make a playoff run, but none of them have done it thus far. As usual, the NBA season doesn't really start until Round 1 of the playoffs. Thank god I have fantasy basketball to keep me entertained.

Crossing the Line

There are multiple reasons I watching major international soccer leagues. The athleticism of the players, the drama that one mistake in a 90 minute game can cost you, no tv timeouts, the amazing skill some of the world's best display, and the passions and pageantry of the fans. America's aversion to soccer is unfounded. It is not boring, so many Americans watch golf on TV, yet more excitement happens in soccer than golf. Soccer is not ruined by the acting or flopping to get foul calls. If an American uses that as an excuse not to watch then they should have a problem with basketball in general, football players feigning injury for timeouts or even just a breather (also punters flopping), and catchers framing pitches in baseball. Athletes will always find ways to gain an advantage legally, though not ethically, and while soccer is notorious for it, the big 3 in America have their fakers too. Lastly, the sheer excitement of a build up around the goal is worth at least as much excitement as any deep pass in football, a fast break dunk or barrage of 3s in basketball or an inning ending bases loaded double play in baseball.

But what really makes soccer great is its fans. Around the world, soccer fans display more jubilation and anguish per capita than any sports fan here in the U.S. A lot has to do with the volume of professional sports here versus elsewhere. Argentina has some basketball, but mostly soccer. Brazil - soccer, Germany - Soccer, England, - i guess cricket but mostly soccer, Saudi Arabia - soccer, Nigeria - soccer, Egypt - soccer, Koreas - soccer, Australia - soccer and its counterpart rugby. All over the world the professional sports choices are sparse. So soccer is it, either you team wins or loses. There isn't an instance internationally quite like what I have here in America. Oh the Cowboys did make the playoffs? That sucks, but alright my Mavericks are champs and my Rangers are AL champs! This is a little too shallow for the reasoning (also the lack of other diversions or disposable income in many countries make soccer appealable) but it's easy to understand why soccer is so popular and why its fans can be so passionate.

To be passionate is one thing, to assault other fans is another. In case you missed it, 79 people died in a soccer riot in Egypt. 79! I understand the political tensions there in Egypt, but the arena, stadium, or ballpark is not the place to act on your tensions. As stated above, soccer remains one of the only diversions available to Egyptians (and many other parts of the world) whom are experiencing political turmoil, economic collapse, and a general reduction in the quality for their lives. Soccer and sports in general represents a way to escape. Even in my comparably cushy lives, sports offers me that same comfort. When fans cross the line it brings sports back from the realm of escape and puts us squarely back into real life. While fans may complain that leagues themselves are ruining their sports - the NFL cracking down on tough hits, MLBs interleague schedule, the NBAs referee scandal, its really the fans who ruin it for everyone when they cross the line and turn entertainment into violence and crime.

This isnt the first example of fans ruining sports, nor will it be the last. Several recent examples: Dodgers fans nearly beating a Giants fan to death on opening day 2011; 2011 Vancouver riots following game 7 of the Stanley; Lakers fans riot in LA following 2010 NBA Finals, 2005 an Italian league game had to be halted because fans were shooting flares onto the field and hit one of the goalkeepers. 2004 Red Sox riot after their first world series win in 86 years and a college student was killed; Ghana soccer riots in 2001 where 120 people were killed in a stampede. Nothing in sports legitimizes these actions and they are simply disgusting.

Even petty fan actions are disgusting. We recall the incident where an Alabama fan poisoned the oak trees at the famous Auburn gathering spot called Toomer's corner last year. Well this year Alabama fans stepped it up a notch and following their BCS Championship win an Alabama fan was caught on camera (moron) teabagging a passed out LSU fan at a restaurant. In case you didnt know, teabagging is where you take your balls and placed them on another person usually on their face. The idea of it is funny and if we saw it in a movie or heard about it through a stand up routine we'd laugh, but the execution of it is embarrassing and disgusting. Just because he happens to attend the university or cheers for their athletic programs does not mean he deserves another man's balls on his face. Rightly so, the perp is going to become a sex offender and found guilty of sexual assault. As I said nothing that happens in sports validates this behavior.

So fans, get into hearty debate, light hearted smack talk, even participate in embarrassing wagers with other fans. But do not cross the line. It takes away from the pelasure of sports and thats really all we have as fans.

In other news we have a champion in the NFL: the New York Giants. I couldn't be more displeased seeing bitchface Eli Manning holding the Lombardi and MVP trophies AGAIN. Again the MVP is as undeserved as in 2007. Eli Manning may have completed his first 9 passes, but they were a combination of West Coast passing and bailouts by his hypertalented wide receivers. In fact, only the pass to Manningham on the sideline in double coverage qualified as an elite throw. He skipped about 5 balls in the ground 10 yards away from his receivers. He routinely threw high, and his touchdown pass to Victor Cruz was a terrible decision but bailed out because Jerod Mayo didnt get around in time. The defense was schemed perfectly, Eli made the bad decision, just poor execution by Mayo. Congrats Eli you continue to perpetuate the fraud. For the record Hakeem Nicks or JPP was my MVP in that game.

I think the better team won. The Giants have just been the more complete team these playoffs and while I'm sure fans of the Packers, Ravens, Saints, Texans, and 49ers would like a first or second crack at them in this playoff tournament the Giants really were the most complete team. New England got exposed on defense in second half when the Giants realized that Hakeem Nicks was being single covered every down in favor of a double team on Cruz. Also Im sure the 2:1 possession ratio hurt the Pats defense in the second half.

Sure the case could be made that but for a couple plays the Patriots are champions. Well thats what NFL is about. The argument couldve been made in just about every major playoff game: Ravens - Pats; 49ers-Giants; 49ers-Saints; Ravens-Texans. The better team is slightly lucky but also they generally just execute more often and thats what the Giants did. So any arguments that the Giants are lucky are unfounded. The Patriots just executed more poorly. And that was clear from the start. They had exactly two good drives. Their first play resulted in a retarded safety. Tom Brady made the same dumb deep throw two games in a row and this time it burned them. The Patriots defense couldnt get off the field in the first half for large stretches and the Patriots offense couldnt stay on the field for most of the game.

The commercials were largely disappointing, especially the Clint Eastwood being as inspirational as possible for a failed automobile company ad. I did enjoy the Coke bears though, especially the one where the bear gets up quietly off the couch goes for a long walk and then roars in disappointment. Ive made that walk twice in 15 months with my Rangers, so i definitely enjoyed that one.

Madonna, like every halftime show is doomed. You simply cant put together a really entertaining product in 15 minutes. I did appreciate the cool projected graphics on the sheets held up around the stage. I thought it looked more professional than having a bunch of United Way kids in ugly polos holding up lights or something like they always have. Like a Prayer was good, but why was Cee-Lo Green in a bedazzled robe that made him look like a "sparkly" emperor from Star Wars.

 The Gatorade bath was PURPLE! Purple wasn't even a choice but it was very close to blue which was 10/1. That was disappointing.

Well now that football has moved on til August (or April's NFL draft if you are sports wonk like me) We have a few more months of shitty basketball to deal with and we get the pitchers and catchers reporting in a few short weeks! So decompress and enjoy watching my boys Tiger and Tony Romo playing together in this weekend's Pro-Am at Pebble!