Category: Sports

* Sure it was self-serving, but (Dallas Mavericks’ owner) Mark Cuban’s comments on the NFL’s seeming ubiquity on television resonates. I can watch some Bucs’ games because I live here and I like football.  But as for watching many of those hundreds of NFL games routinely televised from September through the Super Bowl, no thanks.

I’m reminded that I’m watching a show-business product–from the talking-head shills to the show-boating players. But, then, I can remember when “Monday Night Football” seemed like overkill.

* Defending national football champion Florida State wasn’t overly impressive in its opening win against Oklahoma State. Maybe it’s more psychological than physical. Maybe it’s everybody fawning over the Seminoles as defending champions because of all that returning talent.

Maybe they need to focus more on head coach Jimbo Fisher’s slogan for 2014: “Don’t eat the cheese.” It’s a Joe Maddonesque way of suggesting that they deflect praise.

* Speaking of FSU, it recently (along with Ohio State) offered a scholarship to Peter Hayes of Orlando’s Avalon MIDDLE SCHOOL. It so happens that Hayes is the brother of Jacques Patrick, a running back from Orlando’s Timber Creek High School, who is ranked No. 2 in the nation at his position.

* One final postscript to the NFL’s recently revised domestic violence penalties. Sure, Ray Rice got off easy after being charged with assault when caught on video dragging his fiancee, Janay, off a casino elevator. That 2-game suspension “punishment” was criminal. And as for the victim? She is now Mrs. Janay Rice.

* Should things not go well (enough) this season for the Gators, it will cost UF $6 million to buy out Will Muschamp (through 2017).

* A 13-member, NCAA selection committee will ultimately choose which four teams will make the playoffs to determine this season’s national champion in football. It’s an interesting mix–ranging from Mississippi’s Archie Manning and Nebraska’s Tom Osborne to Stanford’s Condoleezza Rice. Really.

* Thousands of students recently moved into residence halls on the USF campus. Among those doing the heaviest lifting: volunteers from the USF football team. Nice touch. It’s also a way of saying: “We like  it when you support us at games. Well, it works both ways.”

Joe Maddon, as we know, is about so much more than baseball. He can talk fine wines, vintage rock ‘n roll and immigration issues, for openers. Now add JFK assassination conspiracy. He’s a total Warren Commission disbeliever.

So it was no surprise that during the Rays’ recent trip to Arlington, Texas, Maddon found time to do something other than manage three wins against the Rangers. He also visited nearby Dallas and checked out Dealey Plaza and the Texas School Book Depository. But he didn’t just do a tourist drive-by. That wouldn’t be the Maddon MO. He also managed to meet up with Buell Frazier, an acquaintance of Lee Harvey Oswald, who drove Oswald to work that fateful day of Nov. 22, 1963.

Back to baseball, Maddon’s comments after a recent (sold-out) home loss against the Yankees had an uncharacteristic edge. It was about crowd support for the visitors that was much more than polite shout-outs for the retiring Derek Jeter, who will be back again next month. In fact, Jeter said the crowd dynamic made it “almost like a home game.”

Maddon was not pleased–especially about the cacophonous roar greeting Jeter’s game-winning hit and the booing directed at Jake Magee for an up-and-in pitch to Jeter–and not nuanced about the displeasure. “I’m not going to sit here and defend all of that noise in the Yankees’ favor in our ballpark,” he noted.

Maddon’s pique is understandable.

The hybrid market that is Tampa Bay still has its Yankee and Red Sox loyalists. It’s one thing for visitors from New York or Boston to come down here in non-tourist season and stay in our hotels and dine in our restaurants and then go to a Rays-Yankees game and root against the Rays. We get the trade-off and, frankly, we’re grateful for summer visitors–even those with tell-tale Northeastern accents wearing Pedroia and Jeter jerseys.

But for those who live HERE–as opposed to there–and still carry that high-decibel allegiance, however acquired, it’s beyond annoying. Especially if you’re sitting around them.

* Looks like the long-shot Carillon Business Park in the Feather Sound area of Pinellas County is now all but officially off the table as a potential site for a new Rays stadium. In the two years since Darryl LeClair unveiled his plans to shoehorn a facility amid a mixed-use development (“Echelon City Center”), the Rays have never deigned to respond. Now it appears LeClair will be moving on with Echelon sans any Rays scenario.

But it still confounds that the “Echelon” plan seemed viable to many–even though Rays owner Stu Sternberg has been adamant about a “pitch perfect” location. Parking would have been problematic–and impossible for day games. Rush-hour traffic is a mess and heavy rains flood nearby streets. And there was no public support from incumbent Carillon corporations. “Pitch perfection” this was not.

And there was always this: Would enough people be willing to live in apartments and stay in a hotel that shared walls with a baseball stadium?

* Now that Major League Baseball has named a new commissioner–Rob Manfred–speculation is spiking about what priorities he will–or should–have. Among them: length of games, steroids, revenue disparities and competitive balance.

While this doesn’t rank with the above, here’s a suggestion that would make the game a bit more appealing for TV viewers.

Start with an MLB memo to all players reminding them of the ubiquity of television cameras and what that means for coverage. Because baseball is a pedestrian-paced game with too much down time between pitches, at-bats, plays, outs and innings, those cameras are always looking for reaction shots–in the stands, in the dugout, on the field. Too often they inevitably fix on players in the process of cup adjustments and nostril probes.

And if memos don’t work, go to replay.

* I typically don’t watch the Little League World Series. The ESPN coverage is a reminder that everything’s a product–including adolescence. Pre-teens with Major League mannerisms. Even spitting. More to the point, it’s a lot of pressure for kids.

But I flipped on ESPN while on the treadmill at LA Fitness recently and took in part of the Pennsylvania-Tennessee game that featured the female pitcher from Philadelphia. She threw a two-hit shutout. Beyond impressive. Great story.

Then I looked in on Pennsylvania’s next game against Texas. I was reminded why I don’t typically look in.

It was cringe-inducing to watch the Texas pitcher crying on the mound as the pressure–despite his manager’s (microphoned) pep talk–was getting to him. It was everything that is wrong with the overly hyped, nationally televised Little League World Series. I turned it off. I didn’t want to see a 12-year-old melt down over not being able to control his split-finger or his cutter.

* Nice to see Seminole’s own Brittany Lincicome–she’s 29 now!–back in the hunt at the LPGA Championship last weekend. She hadn’t won a tournament in three years and came ever so close before losing in a playoff to LPGA tour star Inbee Park of South Korea. But there was a major consolation for the former Seminole High golfer: Second place was worth $207, 791.

* I know it’s a familiar refrain, but why are there published point spreads for NFL pre-season games? Are people actually betting on games that will typically be decided by those who don’t even make the teams?

The year was 1989. My wife and I were living in Evansville, Ind. It’s a long story.

But hearing Patsy Cline on the jukebox at Joey’s Bar and watching Hoosier high school basketball was a treat. And something else was a pleasant diversion from life entirely too close to corn fields: the Evansville Downtown Quarterback Club.

It met once a month and often brought in big names: among them two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin of Ohio State, and Major League Baseball all-star (and current Los Angeles Dodgers manager) Don Mattingly, an Evansville native.

The one I remember most was Dick Schultz, the former University of Virginia athletic director who was then the president of the NCAA. He spoke about the state of the NCAA and the growth of opportunities for student-athletes, most notably women, to compete in intercollegiate sports.

He also addressed student-athlete misperceptions. He underscored how athletes–in some quarters still denigrated as “dumb jocks”–actually graduated at higher rates than the student body at large. I still recall his pause for emphatic effect.

His presentation was well received. He then fielded questions ranging from TV-network deals to dealing with those student-athlete stereotypes.

And then there was some friendly fire.

Someone asked if he could break down those graduation rates among student-athletes. Setting aside cross-country, tennis, golf, soccer, field hockey and the like, what were the rates for the two big revenue sports, football and men’s basketball? Moreover, any way of parsing that further? Say, by race? And by status? For example, any notable disparity in the SATs, GPAs and graduation rates of stars, starters and bench-warmers?

The QB Clubbers turned as one to see where that heat-seeking query had come from. And, yes, I had fired it off.

Schultz demurred and then said he didn’t have such specific data. With a forced smile and a “Who-the-hell-are-you?” look, he then acknowledged that the graduation rates for field hockey may, indeed, be higher than for football and basketball.

But the point, he underscored, was that student-athletes were accountable and overall were doing just as well–actually better–than students who didn’t play intercollegiate sports. And that he was proud of what the member institutions and their athletes were doing. So there.

Fast forward to now.

Recent scandals at schools such as the University of North Carolina and Oklahoma have unearthed schemes that enable football and basketball players–with the aid of enabling “learning specialists,” online sleight of hand and dubious majors–to walk away with diplomas they may not even be able to read. Minimal literacy, a degree in African-American Studies and a marketplace not overly enamored of those who were counting on making it as professional athletes is no scenario for success.

So much for that graduation data. As Benjamin Disraeli once noted: “There are lies, damn lies and statistics.”

But 25 years later, we are finally seeing signs of addressing the rampant hypocrisy that is embedded in the incestuous, multi-billion-dollar relationship between the marketplace and big-  time collegiate athletics. The courts are now involved and references to antitrust laws and unions are in the mix.

But you know what? Rather than celebrating that an uber commercialized “amateur” sports system that masquerades as an educational entity will have to share more of its profits, I’m disappointed that more effort isn’t being made to reform.

Apparently there’s no rebottling the gridiron genie of greed. So, some of the spoils will now filter down to some of the players, and life goes on with mercenaries and sham students representing universities that will share a bit more of what they have sold out to TV networks for.

Too bad the winner is modern marketing–not systemic reforming. Too bad uniformly credible academic standards–from admissions through ongoing eligibility–wasn’t the focus. Too bad too many blue-chip football and basketball prospects in need of remedial schooling will still get to prep for the pros on a college campus. And too bad big time intercollegiate athletic programs will still require inordinate time–during the season and “off” season–from their student-athletes.

Too bad we’re not talking about “athlete-students.”

* Could it be? Jeremy Hellickson is now the Rays oldest starting pitcher. He was Rookie of the Year in 2011. He’s 27–but still looks 15.

* Nice touch by the Chicago Cubs last Sunday in inviting Bucs’ play-by-play announcer Dewayne Staats, who used to call Cubs’ games back in the 1980s, to lead the Wrigley Field crowd in Take Me Out To The Ballgame during the seventh-inning stretch. Staats didn’t disappoint–and sported decent pipes. And a “God bless you, Harry (Carey)” shout-out was classy.

* This just in for Florida Gator fans: the Princeton Review’s annual ranking of top party schools has UF at #10. Meanwhile, the USA Today Poll has UF #27 in its pre-season football rankings, and U.S. News’ rankings of the top American universities has UF at #49.

Party on.

* The numbers are tell-tale. David Price, the recently traded Rays’ primo pitcher, had more wins, strike outs and innings pitched than any other Ray. But numbers are not the entire Price legacy. He was an engaging, energizing, well-respected presence in the locker room–as well as elsewhere around the Trop.

Price’s full-page, “Thank You, Tampa Bay” Times ad spoke volumes. Sure, there were shout-outs for the owner, team officials, coaching staff, teammates, fans and the late Don Zimmer. But there was also this: “Thank you, Rays organization. From Vinny in the parking lot, to Berte outside our clubhouse, to Papito, Beans, Champ, T-Wall, Sexy Black, Nasty Nate, and all the many wonderful people who helped and supported me each day I was at the Trop. …”

* Rays pitcher Chris Archer has established himself as different. He’s notably well-spoken and eclectically well-informed. He’s given to quoting author/self-empowerment expert/spiritual teacher Howard Falco.

And this off-season he will represent Major League Baseball in Africa as a goodwill ambassador. He will be in South Africa as a baseball-camp guest instructor.

Because the Rays are last in MLB home attendance, it’s often cited as a key factor in any relocation discussion–either across the bay or out of state. But attendance appears to be driving another scenario. The Rays’ won-and-lost record.

The team, unlike most, has a winning record on the road, but a losing one at home–unless a good-sized crowd is on hand. The Rays (through Monday) were 29-15 at the Trop in front of crowds of 25,000 or more, but 23-39 otherwise.

Yes, these are well-compensated, highly-skilled athletes, but the human element can’t be discounted at any level. Loud cheers and adrenaline rushes matter.