snookered tiger

Here's my theory on Tiger Woods and his golf game: kids.

It's not a bad thing, but there is some precedence for the idea. Let's draw a parallel to snooker's most decorated player, Stephen Hendry. Hendry dominated the game like no other in a spectacular career - winning seven World Championships and and 17 Majors (with 6 other finals) in an eleven-year run. The last of his major wins came with he was only 30. Hendry married in 1995 and his first child was born in 1996 - he won only a single major title after that point.

Woods had his eleven-year run (interesting?) where he won 13 of his 14 majors through the age of 33. He married in 2004 and his first child was born in 2007 - he won only a single major after 2007.

Neither Hendry nor Woods was particularly young when their first born arrived - certainly not of the sports they mastered. But these two sports require an unbelievable amount of practice time and and mental focus. I remember early stories of Hendry and the hours he spent mastering the baize of snooker - single. focus. When you are king of the World, turn 30-ish, and have children, that focus becomes blurry. That one single drive that defined you becomes less interesting. The hours of practice become more taxing.

I know what your thinking - what about Phil Mickelson? Phil didn't have the 'major' success of Woods. Yes, he has drive, but by the time he was 33 - at an age when Woods was wrapping up his 14th major - he hadyet to win his first major; he was chasing the elusive. Mickelson didn't even win his first major until after the birth of his third child. It's been a completely different process for him.

I can't actually explain Michael Jordan's drive.

a union of none

I’ll come clean to start: I think all colleges and universities should do away with scholarships for athletes. I also despise the NCAA. 

The recent talk about the Northwestern football players unionizing is interesting on a number of levels. First, it appears that the adjudicating NLRB court for the Chicago area determined that since the players are paid (read: scholarships) they are considered employees and now have the right to unionize. That unionization leads to negotiating contracts, pay, and working conditions for players. Assuming this idea carries forward, where do both the players and universities end up? Well, if I’m a university I can simply withdraw all athletic scholarships – and the included training facilities, supplied food, provided housing, etc., and then enter into negotiations with the union. As a university overlord I can come to some pay structure and then the athletes can pay for each piece of football pie: training, food, housing, physio, travel, money to eat on the road, hotels, uniform rental, etc. As a player, what are you getting in the deal right now? You are getting the training required in order for you move forward in what is most likely your chosen profession (even if you are dreaming way too big…). In order to do that training the university is providing you with at least three years (football) of tuition (whether or not you attend), room, board (at BCS schools probably a private dining facility), travel expenses, per diem when travelling, private physio facilities and trainers, uniforms, etc. Excluding private BCS schools, my back-of-the-envelope calculations say that you’re getting (being paid) somewhere around 60k per year to be trained; over three years we’ll call it about $200,000. (This number assumes a BCS-level, state school, with players coming from outside the state.) Not bad, right? Go to the first half of this paragraph – I’ll pay you $65,000 per year to play here – and you then pay for the training, just like every other student at the university (barring academic studs).

Second, and I call this the “Reggie Bush” syndrome, is the idea that somehow a player is more than the university. Until very recently I couldn’t come up with an example of a player that made or created a big money NCAA football program – lately, Johnny Manziel made me think he may the one, but honestly, Texas A&M was a Big 12 program and had already moved to the SEC by the time he showed up, so even he doesn’t count. Reggie Bush felt that USC was making oodles of money from his likeness, or his jersey. This is a hollow argument – USC was a massive program before Bush showed up, it is a massive program after his departure. The horse is USC; Bush is a wagon. Nobody was knocking down the door for Reggie Bush jerseys prior to his star turn at USC.  Even for superstars, they aren’t making the university money, the university is the already created monster that they simply ride.

Last, and most importantly, athletic departments don’t make money. There are loads of sites that cover reported expenses and incomes, but beyond a small percentage of universities, athletics is a financial loser. Here’s a link to a shortish report from economists at Holy Cross that addresses the issue – even big-time football and basketball programs lose money. Sure, this is three years old, but the ideas haven’t changed.  

I don’t know where this will end up. The NCAA can go away for all I care. Universities can drop athletic scholarships. The can drop athletics for all I care. It’ll be fun to watch.

where have you gone....?

While X cavorted with others in her field last night, I watched a 30 for 30 about Bo Jackson.

A few thoughts to consider about sport and legend. Bo Jackson is only a year older than I am, so his peak of greatness – from Auburn (1982-1985) through about 1991 – corresponds to the strongest portion of my sports following life. I can’t believe it’s been 20 years. Anyway, one of the commentators said during his piece that Jackson was a “what could have been” story, and that we’ll never know how great he could have been in both baseball and football. I understand the question / concern that we never saw the longevity that we’d hoped for back then, and may wish to have film of it now, but I never felt that Jackson’s stamp on the American landscape was ever compromised by his short careers. If anything, the feats of legend are sustained even more by the fact that we think we have precious few when we actually have hundreds. No one of my age will argue that Jackson wasn’t the single greatest athlete of our lifetimes. Do we wish we had more memories? Probably. I guess my only wish is that he could have played longer for the sake of himself. He gave me everything I ever needed to see.

Additionally, long ago we had some debates about Halls of Fame and what defines who is worthy and who isn’t. We seemed to agree that some combination of statistical dominance, championships, superiority at your trade as measured against your peers, and fame, all play a role. It’s simply a matter of determining what combination of each ingredient you find most impressive. We seem to overlook the fame part as we argue whether or not Player X should get in over Player Y.  Prime examples might be Kirk Gibson or Jack Morris. Their fame, and great moments that built that fame, are far more impressive than the actual numbers. It’s not an exclusion of numbers, David Tyree, it’s fame along with very good, if not great numbers. What of Bo Jackson?

(My cat on my new chair)

Of course, he’s using the worst-case scenario to prove a point on that end of the spectrum but there’s certainly the converse on the other end: I’ll call them the home flippers and bankers. Don’t worry, the money will never stop flowing…

We had a logic discussion on another puzzle that was presented by G.’s teacher and that the kids may have understood better than she. I reminds me of something pointed out in the article – we aren’t great with probabilities. Here are the basics from G’s class problem:

1. Two players will participate. One player will have all the odd numbers and the other will have the even numbers.

2. The winner will be the player that matches (odd or even) the final total/sum of two rounds of a random number generator.

3. The first round/iteration of the random number generator will be completely random. This result will be seen but does not mean a player has won anything.

4. The second iteration of the generator is programmed to select an even number two of every three ‘spins’.

5. All of these parameters are known by both players prior to the game beginning.

6. The prize is $20.

7. To play you pay $10 for the privilege.

8. There is no option after the first roll – you can’t vacate the game and have your money back.

9. The only question being asked here is this: Is the game a fair, or equally likely to be won, by either player when they pay their $10 to participate prior to the first number?

On the lighter side, I love Steve Nash. Always have. Having played my share of basketball in my youth I understand a few things. First, when you get to a certain level of repetitive play you sort out angles, distances, and power – or thrust, or whatever ratio we need to use – when shooting. We’ve seen it a million times at the NBA level when players show the innate ability to know where they are, spatially, and where the basket is. Second, for players who are pure shooters there are constants on the court and nothing moves: the three-point line, the free throw line, the basket. What I would anecdotally believe is that if you blindfolded a scorer after putting him at his chosen point along the three-point arc, that he would probably hit the rim 3 or 4 times out of 5 simply because the muscle memory when shooting from point x is pretty much hardwired into his system. But, if you give that guy only one eye – or, take one away – the lack of translation from the optics to your muscles will override what your muscles already know to be true. I don’t know how many shots these guys took during the shoot but, rest assured, NBA players probably only throw up an air ball, when unguarded on a gym floor, once in every 5,000 shots.


Lastly, for the week: they’ve decided to implement a Barnes Dance crosswalk at 7th and H St. NW in D.C. beginning this week. If you hop over and read the story and watch the videos, I’ll give you a bit of visual reconnaissance. In the first video, the Verizon Center – home of the Caps, the Wizards, the Mystics, and endless concerts, is located along the two-block span to the left of the screen. Crossing diagonally from where the camera is, are two blocks of restaurants and bars: hence, the endless pedestrian traffic in the area – all day and all night (there is also a Metro stop underneath the Verizon Center). I have only ever seen the diagonal crossing once in my life and it was in Denver way back in the late 70s; some of the comments to the story imply that it’s happening everywhere but it’s been a rare sight for me. I’m cool with it because I hate that intersection for all the reasons they used to justify the dance; bets on what happens once the traffic cops walk away after on week of keeping it safe?

T

melted

I'm catching the last half of the Super Bowl (can I use that term? Will I be sued by the NFL?) while X and H. play a game of chess and L seems to be making frosting for the chiffon cake that's in the oven. The sport of the day, beyond this, was the Caps v. Pens game in D.C. It felt like a playoff game between two teams that don't much care for one another; it doesn't hurt that the two best players in hockey are meeting. It started out horribly as Crosby scored two early goals and the Caps trailed 4-1 near the end of the second period. Ovechkin came back with a hat trick - he's already scored the Caps first goal - and he scored the third and fourth to tie the game and send it to OT. He then provided the winning assist on a slap shot that Mike Knuble finished. Amazing stuff. The highlights are above. These guys were just hammering away it each other all game. Fantastic. That's 14 in-a-row for the Caps.

It took me about 1:45 to get the car dug out this morning and then X headed out to recover H. from his two-night sleepover; she made it there and back only getting stuck on our unplowed road about ten feee from my well-shoveled parking box.

The schools have already cancelled for tomorrow so my tuition for L. is being well used!

Nothing more to report from the homestead. Quiz night tomorrow.

by the tail

There’s always a lot of bantering about the Sports Illustrated athlete of the year. The result, Michael Phelps, was announced months ago but today’s events merely highlighted a name someone threw out during that discussion so long ago: Tiger Woods. I don’t watch much golf anymore, nor do I play, but I will still tune in online to follow Tiger and the Majors. The idea that Tiger was athlete of the year in 2009 – particularly when Phelps won eight Olympic golds – seemed strange until you put his six months in perspective. First, dude won the U.S. Open with a torn ACL (MCL?) and a broken leg. He walked all five rounds (it went to a one-round playoff on Monday) and applied an unimaginable amount of torque to a busted up leg and still managed to beat the world’s best golfers in golf’s toughest test. Second, when he announced that he’d miss the rest of the season and undergo surgery, the PGA Tour basically became non-existent. I don’t have the numbers for TV viewership or tournament attendance but they were no doubt devastated. In fact, I’d venture to say that no sport, at least in America and probably globally, is so wholly dependent on one athlete. Don’t get me wrong, Phelps was amazing, but if you removed him from swimming (and he’ll be retired soon enough) the Olympics would have gone on without missing him, globally, in the slightest. Tiger was back in competition today, eight months after departing, and won his opening match play challenge. All eyes will once again be focused on August the first full weekend in April. If he wins the Masters this year then we can simply remove him from any athlete of the year competition: he’ll have moved beyond comparison to mere mortals.

There's your sport for the week.

frittering while it burns

All the tired seems to finally be wearing off and I’m almost recovered from a very long Tuesday – a twenty-hour day takes much more out of you at 43 then at 29. It also takes much more out of you when you’re massively out of shape. I’ll begin to remedy that very soon.

My old pal Buzz came to town last night and we plopped ourselves down in the front row of the club section at the Verizon Center for the Capitals v. Hurricanes game – he’s a ‘Canes fan; not much can be done about that. No talk of politics, just a hockey game and an exciting finish with the home team winning on a great goal with ten seconds remaining. When Alexander Semin scored the winner the place erupted and I sensed that all of D.C., so intense and divided over the last two years, was plenty happy to just cheer for a home team and not worry about anything for a few hours. It was quite nice.

Now, about baseball. I’ve made little secret of my lack of respect for the performance of Bud Selig as commissioner of baseball. Unfortunately, my calls have not been heeded and Sire Bud is still sitting in the commish’s office in NYC. Is my blog not powerful enough to bring down anyone? What we’re dealing with now is the endless ‘for sale’ sign hanging off the façade of my beloved Wrigley Field. It’s no surprise that the politburo of baseball owners would feel threatened by Mark Cuban’s ownership of the Cubs. Why? Because there’s not a single one of them that has any idea how to market the game, bring back the fans, or kick Bud Selig in the shins. Did anyone watch the World Series? Would I want to hang out with Cuban at the house on a Friday night? Nope. Would I want him to own the Cubs and re-energize MLB? Damn right. Under whatever rules exist (or were written by the oligarchy in charge) in baseball, there is a requirement for two-thirds owner approval before a team can be sold; Selig and his Great Lakes boys, who took over the game in the early 90s, can certainly hold off any real chance of Cuban winning the bidding war. Don’t think for a single minute that Selig isn’t the driving force behind keeping Cuban out of the club. David Stern can handle Cuban in the NBA after years of butting heads with him; Stern is a very smart man and could easily see that he’d have to find middle ground with the Mavericks owner. Selig isn’t smart enough to do that and he’d rather not have to use his limited skills in dealing with an aggressive and very successful owner. I don’t know what’ll happen in the end – maybe Chicago’s own Jerry Colangelo will win the beauty contest – but the Cubs and baseball will be worse off for not having Cuban in the league. Of course, Selig’s modus operandi is to do everything he can to ruin the game while making money. Nothing new. I’ll miss not seeing Baby Steinbrenner yapping at Cuban during some Winter meeting and getting smacked down for being a fool…I can dream, can’t I?

In the mass of birthdays (WonderTwin2 and G.), elections, traveling readiness for the boys, I neglected to mention that my lovely was notified on Monday night that she successfully passed the Massachusetts Bar. Much like the excitement shown by Pinnochio upon realizing he was real, I think she took a look at herself and realized she was finally, and in fact of letter, a real lawyer. And not a minute too soon as her partner in the firm had already dubbed her impertinent.

t

changing the method

I'm old enough to have vivid memories of The Carol Burnett Show. It was pure joy to watch Tim Conway, Vicki Lawrence, Harvey Korman, and Carol make each other lose the ability to function. I remember her monologues and the ear tug, I remember Mrs. (ah) Wiggins, I remember innumerable skits where Conway got Korman laughing so hard that he couldn’t remember any lines. I think Korman’s death is the first that affects my childhood viewing of TV. Those shows were so goddamn funny – RIP Harvey.

Along more serious lines; I’ve decided that I’ll read no news throughout June. Ripping my attention from the debates and politics of the day is unfathomable yet I decided while standing at the bus stop today that I simply can’t read the heinous poison pervading everything. From American politics to foreign relations – it’s too much. I need a serious f&^king break. Maybe I’ll tone down my rants; maybe I’ll be able to accept the commentary by everyday people that includes language I find incredibly offensive. My bookmarks and podcasts will be limited to sports, literature, etc. My mind is about to explode. Come July I’ll get back in, touch my toe to the pool, and decide whether or not I need to ruin another summer month of my life.

For the month I’ll use the Cubs to track my progress. I’ll use my music to throw out ideas; I’ll talk to everyone much more – I know, you’ve been traded into my life as the player to be named later.

I find looking at the sky, sitting on my porch, and kissing my baby to be much more important.

t

to the bank

Wildcard Weekend

Jacksonville at Pittsburgh – Jacksonville is way better than a wildcard team and if they’d managed to win one game against the Colts than this post-season would look much different. Jax beat Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh last month and will do it again – easily.
Jacksonville 31 Pittsburgh 17

Tennessee at San Diego – I’m tempted to say “who cares?” Aside from LaDainian Tomlinson this game is a dog. Tennessee snuck in under the wire, I don’t think they’re any good, and I guess S.D. will finally win a playoff game. Zzzzzzzz….
San Diego 24 Tennessee 10

NY Giants at Tampa Bay – Boring. Eli Manning in a big game on the road? Lovely. I don’t think either team has a snowball’s chance in the grand scheme but someone has to win the game.
Tampa Bay 21 NYGiants 13

Washington at Seattle – This will be a surprise to many but I think the Redskins will destroy Seattle. Line up the blitz package and pummel Matt Hassselbeck; no worry about the running game.
Washington 28 Seattle 14

Divisional Round

Jacksonville at New England – This is the one team that can stop the Patriots. Smash mouth football captained by the very cool Jack Del Rio. The Jaguars, if they get a lead or stay close, will run the ball all game long and keep the Patriots offense off the field. I’m teetering on this one because I don’t think the weather or personnel are a huge factor but the Jags' inexperience is…
New England 28 Jacksonville 27

San Diego at Indianapolis – Go home Chargers and run your mouths like you seem to do after every loss these days.
Indianapolis 24 San Diego 20

Tampa Bay at Green Bay – Favre wins at home and packs his bags for…oh wait.
Green Bay 27 Tampa Bay 21

Washington at Dallas – Dallas should have played the last game against Washington. Momentum is with the Redskins and I don’t think the Cowboys are that great.
Washington 24 Dallas 17

Conference Championships

Indianapolis at New England – Here we go again. The Pats got the scare from Jacksonville, they get the Colts at home, and they won’t let it slip away like last year.
New England 31 Indianapolis 20

Washington at Green Bay – The Redskins run comes to an end, probably due to conservative coaching and some crazy mistake by the staff, and Green Bay returns to the Super Bowl. It’ll be freezing in Green Bay.
Green Bay 24 Washington 21

Super Bowl XXXII
New England v. Green Bay – I think it’s a bridge to far for the Packers but maybe Favre pulls an Elway and wins the game before riding off into the sunset. Unfortunately I think one of the two QBs implodes and has a miserable game. The more likely is Favre as he struggles to keep up with the Patriots’ scoring machine…
New England 41 Green Bay 21

The Greek