For no other reason, I need to share a picture for a class I'm in.  Please disregard this post.

and another.

What "is" and now what "was" at Penn State

"is" and "was" personified.

 I don't want to pretend that I will be sharing an opinion that is at all new.  It isn't.  There have been 12 bazillion stories and opinions written about the atrocities at Penn State (and I think that's an appropriate word) and I'm sure that what type won't be in any way new.  But blogs create an opportunity to, if nothing else, put opinions in the ether.  Hence this post.

Penn State has done nothing well in handling this situation.  Nothing.  They stood by their people in the face of a grand jury indictment and continued to, up and until they were thrown out the back door.  They kept a regular 12:20 Tuesday press conference slot open with a "football questions only, you guys" mandate on the books until 10 minutes before when it was cancelled.  They have been all too quiet as the New York Times goes to press with news of the head coach's eventual, if not imminent, ouster.  And their President, a man that no one outside of State College knew of until Saturday, has been the "leader" of a place where there was clearly no leadership to be found.

To say things are running afoul at Penn State is the understatement of the decade, if not this young century, as far as sports are concerned.  What Jerry Sandusky is accused of doing (I'm not going to link to the Grand Jury indictment, maybe the most disgusting 24 pages I've ever read, and as sickening as Human Centipedes 1 & 2 combined) is the worst of humanity.  He is the worst of humanity if any of the myriad charges sticks to him in the eyes of the law.

I cannot, however, say that the actions of several Penn State officials are the same.  They are not and they cannot be.  What Graham Spanier, Gary Schultz, Tim Curley and Mike McQueary did is awful but, Jesus, how would you react if you heard a school's employee, former coach and legend had been accused of reacting?  At the very lease, you would probably pause, as Timothy Burke said yesterday on twitter.  And he's right. 

But that pause lasted years.  YEARS.  An alleged sex offender roamed the Penn State football campus, facilities, even their Internet access freely, while using a charity to rape children.  You can't pause anymore.  What the four PSU officials mentioned above did was just short of criminal in an of itself.  Eventually, the human code has to supersede anything else.  For these men, for whatever reason, it did not.  And that's indefensible.

I've left one notable cog out of this post until now.  I am of course referring to Joe Paterno, the legendary coach of the Penn State football team.  I should note that I am a Buckeye fan and I love Ohio State.  But I love Joe Paterno, as far as sports go.  I have always been in awe of his leadership, his abilities, even his wit in the face of still coaching despite doing so more as the Queen of England than as the Field General.  Joe Paterno is the model, in my mind.

Or at least he was.

Joe Paterno is going to end his tenure as Penn State's head football coach maybe today, maybe next week, but definitely sooner than he (and a lot of PSU fans) had wanted.  He is right now living the second line of his eulogy. He made a decision, black and white in the face of the law, but very, very gray in the eyes of humanity.  It will cost him his job, it will cost him a large part of his legacy and it will cost his school in unknown quantities for years to come. 

I will put aside, if I may, the disgusting allegations levied upon Sandusky, and the beyond awful fates of the victims involved.  But watching this whole thing go down has been incredibly difficult because of how highly I held Joe Paterno in my mind.  This is no way for a legend to pass, but I realize that there is simply no other way for this to happen.  It is awful, tragic and, above everything else, necessary.


This is the two hour's traffic for Penn State, its fans, its detractors and for college football fans everywhere.  And as a college football fan, I am truly sad to watch this story unfold.

It Begins Tomorrow...

My buddy is getting married in September of next year.  I'm going.  Nice.  Weddings kick ass.  And it's not only over a long weekend, it's a destination wedding in beautiful Pentwater, Michigan.  Don't let the website, probably designed as a school project by a Councilman's son (or Councilwoman's daughter blah blah blah gender equity), fool you.  This is going to be a kickass wedding.  It also happens to happen on my 27th birthday. While this has a number of "meh" qualities, I can't think of a better way to spend my birthday than with an open bar.  Can you?

Apropos of that, at least a bit, I woke up today and got ready for work and noticed my pants put up more than a bit of a fight to button this morning.  I got it to work, sure, but these were, not a few months ago, my "relaxing work pants".  Now they're my "these are slightly uncomfortable work pants".  Not nice.  Not nice at all.  I've been a fat guy since college, the result of beer, dining hall food and a rec center that was juuuuuuust a bit too far away to walk to.  And there was no free parking, so I couldn't even drive there if I wanted to.  As a result, it was 12oz curls and 12-slice lifts throughout college.  This added up to a lot, particularly in the donations bin of my local charities because none of my clothes fit anymore.  It has also added up to more buying clothes with that second "X" on the size.  And they charge you another fucking $2 for that at some places.  Assholes!

Anyway now it's time to change all of that.

The wedding is in about 280 days.  That's a long time from now.  Plenty of time to lose a shit load of weight.  At least I hope it is.  How am I going to do it?  Fair question.  I don't have all the strategies in line but they will, for the most part, consist of adding a few things to my life and subtracting a few more.

Adds:

• Some kind of fitness routine!  
• This will mean I'll have to pony up the cash to join a gym.  The cheapest, lowest rent, no free sweat rags, likely filfthiest gym I can find.  But if they have a treadmill, some free weights and a TV (the last is not a deal breaker) then I'm good.

• Portion control!  
• This may be the thing that got me to where I am.  Fuck, I love food.  I love good food, bad food, Indian food...food is fucking great.  So I eat a lot of it.  And now I look like I do.  So it's time to enjoy food with a little less frequency and a little less gross tonnage.  

• Goals!  
• I'm running the Cleveland Half Marathon with another friend in May.  I want to be able to finish without walking too much.  Well, fuck that, I want to finish before the sun goes down.  That's a goal, is what that is.

• Public Humiliation Diet!  
• Hey, it worked for Drew Magary.  Wow, do I look too much like the pic on the left.

Subtracts:

• Fast Food! 
• I noted that I love food.  Boy, do I.  And I really love fast, cheap food.  Time to limit this as much as possible.  Sure, if time's are tough and if the muse strikes me, maybe I get a JBC from Wendy's.  But not every day, and not a JBC, fries, a 5 piece and a drink.  

• Chipotle! 
• I love Chipotle, too.  Surprising.  The meal of choice there is a Fajita bowl with a lot of crap that adds up to 855 Calories, 2100 mg of Sodium and37 Grams of fat.  Jesus.  That adds a stretch mark for everyone one of those I have.  Au revoir, Chipotle.  I will miss you.

• Being really fucking lazy on the weekends! 
• It's winter and sitting on the couch, drinking a beer and watching football is damn appealing.  But so is fitting into clothes.  I do aproxamately 7 minutes of physical labor on the weekends and about 2738 minutes of watching TV and sleeping.  That needs to change.

There will be more and I'll be updating this shit on this here blog from time to time and on my twitter feed each day with a weight check-in, beginning tomorrow.

Time to be less fat.  Here we go.

Actual Email from a boss

Management structures are retarded.  Especially when they're not clearly defined.  This is the case in my office where, of course, since it is a government office, there's no rhyme nor reason to anything.  So, at 2pm on a Friday, I get this email from one of my 47* bosses...

 

Staff,

I wanted to make everyone aware that I am leaving at 3:00 today and [other boss] will be in a meeting this afternoon from 2:30-4:30 with [Director of Operaions].  [Yet another boss] will still be here if you need help and if it is something that needs management attention, you can call or text [other boss from above] @ ###-####. Please remember that just because we are not in the office, you are still expected to conduct yourselves in a professional manner. Everyone is expected to work until their scheduled time to leave. Thanks for the great work that you all do and have a great weekend! Go Bucks! J

 

I'd FJM this, but that would qualify as not conducting myself in a professional manner.  What a crock.  I'm totally leaving early.**

 

* I don't really have 47 bosses.  It is closer to 52.

** I'm also a pussy, so I'll probably end up staying here until 5.

FJM'ing The Miami Student

Hey, guess what?!?  I haven't written on here in months!  Had a feeling that was going to happen.  Anyway, time to take my talents to ripping apart some schmuck college kid trying to call out Corey Pavin for picking Tiger Woods.  Yes, I'm 26 and ripping apart someone at least 5 years my junior.  But I'm fine with that.

Tiger Woods is the number one golfer in the world rankings. On paper, it would make sense that U.S. Ryder Cup Captain Corey Pavin would pick him with one of his four captain's picks to be on this year's squad when the team takes on the Europeans at Celtic Manor Resort in Wales.

So far, so good.  I agree with those points.  Tiger should, after all, be ont he the team because he's the best golfer on the planet, even when he's not getting him some strange every night in Florida.

It all looks fairly logical on the surface, until you consider a few things.

And here, my favorite journalism technique that is ever so often duplicated and still horrible everytime: THE ONE LINE PARAGRAPH!

First: "Wait, isn't this the same guy who was always indifferent toward the Ryder Cup?" Yes, it is. 

Way

And: "Wait, doesn't he have an all-time record of 10 wins, 13 losses and two ties in this very event?" Yes, he does.

To

Oh, by the way: "Wait … isn't his life still in shambles right now?" Mmm … pretty much.

Fill

This year, Woods has expressed an unprecedented desire to play on the team, and apparently did enough to convince Captain Corey to pick him.

Column inches!

Let's be honest … this sends a bad message.

Let's remember: this is sports we're talking about here.  This isn't the UN, this isn't the Presidency, this is sports.  We continue.

Why do people around the world often take issue with the United States? Mainly because many of us Americans choose to live very excessively, and rightfully so, but guess what? Our greatest global ambassador-athlete hybrid has become the poster-child for what happens to people in America when they feel a sense of invincibility, entitlement and have more net worth than most people could ever imagine.

/facepalm. 

Jesus.  We're talking about sports here, fella.  Tiger Woods isn't the model for the American dream.  Most Americans are fat, lazy morons (myself included!) who can't hit a 7 iron 212 yards with a bit of draw and spin it back to the cup. 

In America, we also like to think we possess the best of the best and that we always win. Well, four of five Ryder Cup teams with Tiger Woods (the best of the best) on the roster wound up losing, and the one exception took a miraculous 45-foot putt by Justin Leonard. In 2008, the United States finally took the Cup back from Europe for the first time since 1999 … without Tiger.

But every Ryder Cup is different from any other.  The courses are different, the players are, typically, different, and the approach is different.  A few years back, Tiger and Phil Mickelson were paired up with one another on Day 1, with disastorous results.  Was this because Tiger was no good?  Because Phil was no good?  Not in the least.  It was because the strategy was bad, and Curtis Strange took full blame for that.

The '08 U.S. team had a swagger that was absent in recent years...

Watch, as the world genuflects to KENNY PERRY!

...which could have been partially attributed to the fact that they didn't have the number one player in the world hovering over them. It seems more likely now than ever that Woods would create an awkward team dynamic...

The only awkwardness Tiger brings is the fact that he'll be walking a different blonde Perkins waitress down to team breakfast every morning.

Never mind the fact that Woods still faces the full forthcoming brunt of the European media, which is sure to be all over him with the United States being the road team. You don't think that might affect his mental game a little bit? As we've seen all year, even Tiger can't mentally block out all the personal turmoil he has gone through off the course since last Thanksgiving.

Like hell he can't.  The British media is filled with toothy curmudgeons who actually give a shit about this kind of stuff.  They put nudity in their papers, for the love of the Queen!  Now, I'm in favor of this, of course, but its a region of a continent that has the brain capacity of 40-year old white soccer moms with two kids at school and nothing better to do than read fucking US Weekly and Cosmo to feel good about themselves thinking that celebrities are, in fact, JUST LIKE US!  If you think people like that affect Tiger Woods, then you should probalby stop writing for the student and go back to reading US Weekly yourself.

And the second point is even more complete and utter bullshit.  Do you really think Tiger Woods gives two shit about a random PGA tournament?  About the $10M bond he can win if he wins the FedEx Cup?  He's alaready won it TWICE.  Shit, the FedEx Cup winners thus far are Matt Kuchar, Dustin Johnson and Charley Hoffman.  Who cares, choke artist and I still don't care, respectivley.

Tiger could block out a freight train running behind him and stripe a drive 350 down the pipe at a moment's notice.  But he hasn't played much this year, he's still probably a bit injured from two years ago and he's got to watch over his shoulder for irate sweedish au pairs coming at him with a 2x4.  THAT's why he's not on his game.  It sure as shit isn't the pressure of the FedEx Cup, or the media.

Woods has lost his mystique, his air of dominance and seemingly his famous will to win. Unfortunately, his selection suggests that if someone is the best at their profession, they will be accepted in the workplace, regardless of character.

Oh, BALLS!  He's the best player in the World with 5 clubs, let alone the normal 12.  He still has a mean streak and the desire and ability to win (see: day 2, shot 2, hole 18, US Open Championship). 

And whom, aside from Angus McGolfInventor gives a shit about character in golf?  John Daly fucked anything that walked and married most of them.  Phil Mickelson gambles worse than Michael Jordan.  Angel Cabrera smoked 4 packs of Marlboro's en route to two Major championships.  Happy Gilmore routinely swore and beat up Octogenarian game show hosts!  But they golfed, too, and damn well.  Who cares what they do in their personal time?  We shouldn't, because it is just that: THEIR PERSONAL TIME!

And what if Pavin hadn't selected Tiger?  There are 5 first-time Cup'ers on this American squad.  At the very least, Tiger adds a bit of veteran ability to the bunch.  And he's still the single most aggressive, dominating and all together terrifying opponent in the sport.  Period.  While Tiger adds 13 losses and 2 halves to the overall American record, he also adds 10 HUGE wins.  Phil Mickelson has a worse record (10-14-6) and has played worse than Tiger down the stretch, to boot.  Should he miss out, too?  Of course not.  He's a family man, who stands for all that is good in the sport!  Character counts!  More than results!

Yes, another bad American stereotype, especially prevalent in sports. Keep feeding the monster, Captain Corey. They're ready to feast on the Tiger.

No one is ready to feast on anything.  Like the Americans, the Euors have a team with many Ryder Rookies, six to be exact.  Do you really think the likes of Peter Hanson or the Molinari Brothers (collective: "who?") won't be shaking in their FootJoys at the site of Tiger starring them down during the Sunday singles matches?  The only player who has said a damn thing about Tiger is Rory McIlroy, the 21-year old Irish "sensation" whom I could beat on a green with ANYTHING on the line. 

The bottom line, here, is that Corey Pavin picked the best player in the world, perhaps ever, to play on his squad.  Are their questions?  Sure.  The driver is bad.  The flatstick is rusty.  He's not the same player he was 10 years ago.  But he's still Tiger Fucking Woods, character issues or not.  And he'll make more than a few Euros have to change their trousers at Celtic Manor in a few weeks.  Take that to the bank.

What we saw, and why it changed us.

I was at a Columbus Clippers game last night.  It was 8:50 and everyone there could not have cared less about the Clippers up with one out and the bases loaded.  Everyone had their phones out and were squinting at the clock to see when "The Decision" would be revealed.  I was among them.  I have no rooting interest in the Cleveland Cavaliers, other than I am born and raised in Columbus, Ohio and love my city and state.  I wanted to know what LeBron James, perhaps the game's best player (cough Kobe has 5 rings cough) was going to do.

 

But everyone really already knew.  They knew it when Chris Broussard said it yesterday morning.  They should have known it when Stephen A. Smith said it last week (no HOWEVAHs necessary).  LeBron himself said that he had only come up with his answer that morning, or a bit earlier "in his dreams".  But he knew.  LeBron was clear on exactly one thing in the past 2 months: this was a business decision and nothing more.  And to LeBron's credit he probably made the best business decision.  The Heat will be very good next year.  So will their Florida counterparts, the Magic.  And the Celtics.  And the Bulls.  And maybe even the Cavs.  And a few more teams west of the Mississippi.  But LeBron will be on one of the best assembled starting fives in the league and has a great chance to win the championship that makes him a billionaire.  That's good business.

 

But that's not all we sat "witness" to last night.

 

There was a line in Aaron Sorkin's "Sports Night" (and in "The West Wing") where Sportscaster Dan Rydell says, "we've come, more and more, to expect less and less of each other".  That sentiment was given a few names and a few faces last night, more so than I ever thought I'd see in my lifetime.

 

Again, I'm not going to pretend that I know what Clevelanders are going through today (a friend asked me if this would be like Jim Tressel leaving Ohio State for Michigan.  It would not, you see, because Tres at least won a championship) but I can say that, as a sports fan, LeBron James may have taken a step forward in the business, but many steps back in terms of who and what he is.  His "Decision" was methodical, calculated and, in a lot of ways, mean.  He told the Heat of his decision a few minutes before telling the world, leaving the Cavs and the other suitors very alone in making the realization that they had lost.  It was a cold move, a low blow, and one the Cavs, the team that made him a superstar, the team that nursed his seemingly indefatigable talent thorough thick and thin, didn't deserve.

 

And maybe that's who LeBron James is.  Maybe that's who he's been since he was wearing bandages over his tattoos in Akron.  It was his show; it always has been.  And that's precisely what we were shown last night on ESPN.  The superstar with neither a ring nor a sense of how deep his basketball talent could be, had a night to himself, on national television before a human meat shield of Boys and Girls in Connecticut. 

 

And he needed it.  His ego needed it.  He didn't say he was going to play for the Heat and for Pat Riley and the fans in Miami, he said, "I'm taking my talents to South Beach..."  He couldn't have sounded any more conceited if he had called himself "The King" in that sentence.  What we saw was the ultimate ego trip, and we saw it on national television and we couldn't look away.

 

And ESPN is complicit in all of this.  When Jordan made his decision to come back, he didn't get an hour of live television with a personal interview (more on Jim Gray later) and a round table with wraparound coverage.  When ARod signed with Texas several years ago, it wasn't anything more than the lead on SportsCenter and a second-day story after.  The only person ESPN has covered as much as (if that) was Tiger Woods, winner of 97 professional championships, 14 of them Majors.

 

The proliferation of ESPN is a double-edged sword in my mind.  On one side, it means the best coverage of sports, with the manpower and ability to tell us more than any of us ever thought possible.  But the other side is equally sharp.  ESPN gave up coverage of the world's biggest sporting event, just days before its championship (one of which, in basketball, LeBron has none) and gave LeBron 3 hours of SportsCenter and an hour on their air.  It was unprecedented and showed how sharp the other side of that sword is.  It showed not only how strong ESPN is, but how weak they are, too.

 

The whole setup was the most bizarre and unprofessional thing I've ever seen watching sports on TV in the last 20 years.  Norby Williamson, Executive Senior Vice President of Studio and Event Production, said ESPN would have the "Decision" in the first 15 minutes.  It took almost 30.  And had two commercial breaks (tangent: the presenting sponsor, if an event like this can have one, was for an online college and it was sponsoring "The Decision" of a guy whose only time on a college campus was for prime time Prep basketball games).

 

And Jim Gray doesn't get a pass.  I can handle ESPN's talking heads putting forth more effort into this show than they did to the draft, but Jim Gray should have his journalism degree taken away.  I thought professional softball ended when Larry King decided to retire, but Jim Gray elevated it to an art form.  I'm not Walter Cronkite, I'm not Anderson Cooper, I'm not Christiane Amanpour (at least I hope not) but Jim Gray proved last night that he isn't, either. 

 

Question 1: "LeBron, where are you playing next year".  It should have been as simple as that.  But Gray let LeBron do what he wanted and eased him into the interview with a collection of follow up questions before THE question was even asked.  It was a pathetic turn and exactly what LeBron, Inc. wanted from Gray.

 

Which brings me back to the point.  Last night was totally, completely and fully about LeBron James and what and how he can command what he wants to the Nth degree.  Miami Heat fans (joke time: all 7 of them!) are running through the streets of Dade county because of their starting three, but they should know that "The Decision" spoke volumes.  Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade had better see that their newest teammate needs the spotlight.  He can't live without it, because he's never had to.  And he may not get it. 

 

What we saw last night was a dagger in the hearts of a great number of people.  LeBron made the strike, and ESPN turned the blade.

UPDATE - Apropos of nothing else

I am not a Cavs fan.  I don't even like pro basketball that much.  But I can't, for the life of me, after the sports life I've lived through, see LeBron James going through with tonight's event ("The Decision" is a rather stupid name - ed.) and not stay in Cleveland.

I have no sources, I have no reason to believe he hasn't been signed, sealed and delivered to any of the other suitors.  But I can't see him leaving for anywhere else and completely curb-stomping the City of Cleveland.  It's 5:38pm on Thursday July 8th.

LeBron James is staying in Cleveland.  Mark it down.

UPDATE: um, uhh, or not.

Shut up, Simmons.

I was putzing around on ESPN.com earlier today and happened upon The Sport's Guy's 4,500 WORD 20-question column on soccer.  I read through it but stopped after reading his question and answer below:

Question No. 7: You haven't handled Boston's Game 7 loss to the Lakers very well. What was the snarkiest e-mail or text you sent to a Boston friend after hearing that Kobe was attending the USA-Ghana game?

It was a tie between "Since Kobe is attending this game, does this mean we're gonna get all the calls?" and "Kobe watched only six of the first 24 minutes but was still named MVP of his luxury suite."

Jesus Christ.  You've gotta be kidding me.  This is why I can't stand Bill Fucking Simmons.  I'm fine with homerism, don't get me wrong.  And I re-live bad beats like a bankrupt poker player (see: 2007 BCSNCG; the last two Georgetown Hoyas NCAA tournament games).  But this is getting ridiculous.  The Celtics lost.  In 7 games.  It was a helluva run for team that shouldn't have gotten out of the conference semis.  But they lost to the better team, hands down.  And Simmons has, for the last month, let everyone know that the Celtics got screwed or that Kobe didnt' deserve his MVP (which is true, Gasol should have gotten it, but I digress).  He's let everyone know in his BS Report podcast.  In his column.  On his Twitter feed.  Its incredibly annoying.

So I have this message for Billy Boy:

GET OVER IT! 

Do what the rest of us do and get your put it behind you.  And its not like you've been overwhelmingly victimized by bad beats in your lifetime, pal.  Your teams have won 6 championships in the last 10 years alone:

• 2004, 2007 Red Sox
• 2001, 2003, 2004 New England Patriots
• 2008 Celtics

Its not like you're rooting for the Indians and the Cavs in Cleveland or the Bills and the Sabres in Buffalo, Bill-o.  You've been there for the good quite often.  You even double dipped in 2004.

I know the easy solution is to just not read the column, stop following him on Twitter (I did) and put him out my mind, and I'm going to do that.  But not before I say this.

Shut the fuck up, Simmons.  Go peddle your beantown wares in Quincy Market, asshole. 

FJM'ing Jemele Hill

I'm not a fan of Jemele Hill.  At all.  She's a loves the Race Card and shock writing and when she's not doing that, she is trying to be as clever as Rick Reilly used to be and failing as much as Rick Reilly does currently.  So when I read her latest turd from South Africa, I had to give it the "Fire Joe Morgan" treatment.  Here we go.

 

PORT ELIZABETH, South Africa -- There has been so much petulancy, ego and spoiled behavior at the World Cup that it makes Brett Favre's annual antics look downright magnanimous.

Futbol, meet football.  Americanized!

Diva must be in the water, and drama is certainly permeating the air in South Africa.

And dissension is infecting all the hookers!  Also where can I buy this "Diva" to put in my water?  It sounds tasty!

France staged a protest against its own coach. And the English players and their head man, Fabio Capello, appear to have a deeper split than Jesse James and Sandra Bullock.

There's nothing like bringing a pop culture reference from 6 months ago into the fold.  That takes Rick Reilly's brand of effort. 

No matter how much criticism the U.S. team received, the players maintained their professionalism. Contrast that to France's soccer team, which I've nicknamed The Bold, The Beautiful and The Disappointing. Although, I'm not sure that's quite as clever as the Guardian blogger who called France, "Le Sulk."

Le Sulk?  Doesn't Jay Cutler have that nickname trademarked?  Also, Jemele, you write for a living.  Your nickname isn't anywhere near as clever as a blogger's.  Bested by a Parents' Basement Dweller.  That's sad.

"We are taking note of the indignation of the French people and ... calling for dignity and responsibility," Sarkozy told a French television station. By that logic, Dan Snyder and Mike Shanahan should put in a call to President Barack Obama to help them deal with Albert Haynesworth. Quick, somebody revive the Warren Commission!

Because the Redskins are the national team of America?  I thought it was the Cowboys.  Or Steelers.  Or Patriots.  Or Not the Redskins.  Also:

/Wiki's "Warren Commission"

Yeah, that reference doesn't work, either.

It's not just France that's getting cheeky. After two consecutive draws and scoring just one goal in 180 minutes of play, England's team looks like it's in need of Ron Artest's therapist.

Because they're going to bust into the crowd and start swinging?  Actually, scratch that, it might happen.

The English players called a team meeting after a 0-0 tie against underdog Algeria, when they were supposed to air their grievances, but Capello had other ideas. Capello reportedly silenced the players ... at their own meeting. He barred them from giving their opinions on what's wrong with the team.

I wonder if there's a good Football analogy for this sentence about Futbol.

Makes Bill Belichick look positively touchy-feely.

THERE it is.

After being booed unmercifully following the Algeria match, England's Wayne Rooney, who might be putting in the most disappointing performance of any major star at the World Cup, looked into the cameras and sarcastically told England's fans, "It's nice to get booed by your own fans. Very loyal." Or words to that effect.

Or words to that effect.  Was he speaking Turkish?  Did his brogue cover up the actual words?  Was it actually The Queen Mum talking? 

Well-paid sports figures who have come up small on the big stage? Millionaires who complain when they don't receive unconditional love after not meeting expectations? We're familiar with that, but the practice is far from being as American as apple pie.

Professor Wuhl agrees!

But as this World Cup has shown, there's no such thing as the "ugly American." Just ugly people.

Ever been to Jersey?  PLENTY of "ugly Americans" there.

So about that Not-So-Perfect-Game...

I know it has been awhile since I last wrote something.  I have something in the pipeline about Miami University, my wonderful Alma Mater, but it isn't ready yet.  So here's my take on Armando Galarrga, Jim Joyce, and The Commissioner's decision.

By now, I'm last to the party, as per usual, to tackle a subject.  But there is benefit to this.  I have seen the reaction of Major League Baseball, of all the pundits, of all the players of all the bloggers and everyone else I haven't yet mentioned.  Having weighed everything, all the opinions, all the "coulda woulda shoulda" of the situation, I would not have changed a thing.

Baseball is a game played and officiated by humans.  Errors occur in baseball (they keep track of them in the box score!) and from time to time the occur by people not wearing a team's uniform.

Such was the case with Jim Joyce's call in the ninth two nights ago.  He blew it.  He said he blew it. He was destroyed in every forum, from a very public boo'ing at the hands of the Detroit faithful in Comerica Park, from bloggers, tweeters and columnists the next day, even his Wikipedia page was edited, re-edited, re-re-edited and now locked because of his call. 

Meanwhile, Armando Galarraga, someone you probably thought retired many years ago, is left with a masterful night that should have, admittedly, been much different.  The kid went out and pitched the 21st Perfect Game in MLB history.  But he didn't.  He's left with a 1-hit, complete game shutout.

And that's exactly what should have happened.

What's the alternative?  What happens if Bud Selig comes out and overturns Jim Joyce's call (yeah, he didn't)?  My informal survey of Tigers' fans would applaud it.  And some (shining example: Olbermann) have pointed to a precedent to change perfect games and no hitters. 

That's all well and good, but those occurrences changed the way we look at statistics.  Change this ruling and then every umpire in the big leagues tightens up their own "strike zones" before every close play.  Would you want to be the umpire with the most league overturns?  Or maybe they start calling the games a little looser because, hey, if they screw up then the league can come in and make it alllllll better!

The argument brought to the forefront in all of this is that for instant replay.  The calls on twitter following the play were very much in favor of it.  Curt Schilling wants it.  The aforementioned Olbermann wants it.  ESPN.com's Senior baseball writer Jayson Stark wants it.  But as a friend of mine posited just hours after the Joyce Call, the likelihood that a call of this magnitude has the chance to occur ever again is minute at the very best.  The knee-jerk reaction is common in the world of the 24-hour news cycle and that's probably why we see opinions like this.

But baseball has never been like this and it shouldn't change because of one freakishly missed call.

Pardon me for tapping my inner George Will but purely from the competitive side of this story, nothing is different from "out 27" to "out 28" two nights ago.  The Tigers still won, Galarraga got said win and Fausto Carmona got the Loss.  Those facts would not change if there were a perfect game.  This is undeniable. 

Joyce got the call wrong.  But baseball got the call, unfortunate though it may be, right.