Sports

Following Mark Buherle’s perfect game last week, the 18th perfect game in the history of the sport, there has been a discussion about how great of a pitcher Mark Buherle has been. Much of the discussion revolves around the idea that Buherle has thrown two no-hitters in his career. While no-hitters are a rare event (as any Met fan will begrudgingly tell you), typically a handful will be thrown every season. This got me thinking… why are no-hitters celebrated? AJ Burnett once threw a no-hitter but walked nine batters. Why don’t we celebrate no-walkers? At least that would put Burnett’s feat in historical context…

“Yeah… AJ has a no-hitter… but come on… Cliff Lee had seven no-walkers”

After I made the earlier post outlining how the integrity of the NBA was at question due to poor and somewhat questionable officiating, I came across a conversation between Bill Simmons aka The Sports Guy and Malcolm Gladwell.

Please tell me you’re following the current officiating debacle. The two most-watched regular-season games (both Celtics-Lakers games) were ruined by officials. Game 7 of a classic Boston-Chicago series was ruined by officials. The Mavs’ season was ruined by officials. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to flagrant fouls and how they are called, just that the ongoing indecision has compromised the quality of the games. Bill Kennedy had such a heated incident with Doc Rivers in March that both were fined; somehow, Kennedy worked two Boston playoff games (both must-wins on the road). Dallas went 1-14 in its past 15 playoffs games that Danny Crawford officiated; somehow he worked one of their 2009 playoff games (inevitably, a loss for Dallas). Joey Crawford got suspended two years ago for baiting Tim Duncan, then blew last season’s season-ending Spurs call … and somehow, he worked a must-win San Antonio playoff game in 2009. And the number of competent refs is so bad that Violet Palmer worked a Round 2 game last week. For a league that vowed to clean things up post-Donaghy, why haven’t we seen any real results yet?

And how can you explain a system that relies on officials in their 50s and 60s — well past their physical peak, with undeniable deterioration (however slight) in motor reactions and eyesight — to successfully perform in a profession that hinges solely on motor reactions and eyesight? Shouldn’t this job be performed by people in their 20s, 30s and 40s? You’re telling me Dick Bavetta (69), Bennett Salvatore (59) or Joey Crawford (57) can run around for 150 minutes, then remain at peak physical capacity to make a game-changing call on a split-second reaction? My father is two years older than Salvatore and we won’t let him push a baby stroller for three blocks. I don’t get it. How would you revamp this moronic system? A little birdie told me the NBA’s crew chiefs (the lead official for each game) consist of referees who were hired at least 10 years ago. In other words, the league hasn’t hired an official competent enough to run a game in more than a decade. How is this possible?

Growing up, I was huge a fan of the NBA. Year after year, my team was fighting in the playoffs for the chance to win the title of World Champions. However over time, my interest waned and I became more apathetic towards the league. Once I got to college and had the chance to witness the same sport, but played by unselfish kids who wanting nothing more than to excel and win as a team, my love of the NBA was officially dead.

I remember a playoff game between the Knicks and Heat, where the Knicks were down thirty points going into halftime. My friend, with whom I was watching the game, wanted to turn the debacle off. Instead, I was able to convince him to continue watching the game by uttering the popular sentiment, “The game is on NBC… the refs will make it close with two minutes left.” The Knicks went on to win the game.
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Yet another World Baseball Classic has come and passed, and yet no one seemed to care. Japan defeated Korea for a second time… woo?

For scheduling purposes, Major League Baseball decided to stage the WBC during Spring Training, whilst the players are working on improving their conditioning for the upcoming season. During each round of the tournament, pitchers are held to strict pitch counts and positional players rarely get to see a full game of action in order to prevent injury. In a tournament that should represent the best the world has to offer, instead is featuring players who are no where near the peak of their game and will not be for months. (more…)

While Congress grilled Edward Libby, the CEO of AIG, over the distributed bonus money that amounted to less than a tenth of a percent of the $170B of the TARP funds that AIG received from the US Treasury, the Federal Reserve pledged to purchase over one trillion dollars worth of mortgages and long term bonds. In elated exuberance, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped two percent in a matter of minutes. Much to the media’s delight, they reported about the strong positive reaction the markets had to the actions by the Fed. However, there was much more to the story that was going unnoticed; the Dollar was crashing.

The Dollar fell four percent against the Euro, four percent against the Sterling Pound, three and a half percent against the Yen, and three percent against the Candian Dollar. If you were a foreign investor and invested in the American markets Wednesday morning, a day in which the markets rose two percent, you would have actually lost money by the end of trading. This example could eventually become the end game for our recent economic woes. While the worry should be on the collapsing of the housing markets and the freezing of the credit markets, the long term health of the Dollar should be of the utmost importance and it is not.

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Does Alex Rodriguez deserve to be in the Hall of Fame after he finishes his career? The answer to this question is an unequivocal yes.

Baseball has been around for over a hundred years and it will be around for another hundred. The game has changed over time and has endured what could be described as different eras. The players of the “Dead Ball Era” cannot and are not compared to the players of today. How can one expect any pitcher of today to break Cy Young’s records when pitchers are used differently. The game itself is just too different…

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Yet another baseball star has been implicated in the steroid scandal that has consumed the sport for the last decade and this time it’s the game’s biggest name. Ever since Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record, Major League Baseball has looked upon Alex Rodriguez as the man who will one day restore dignity to the hallowed mark. However, with the announcement that Rodriguez used steroids in 2003, will baseball ever be able to escape the shadow that is the steroid era?

In 2003, Major League Baseball, in conjunction with the Player’s Union, enacted a steroid testing policy that would eventually get them ridiculed by Congress. The agreement called for anonymous testing (without the threat of penalty) during its first year and if the percentage of players caught exceeded five percent, then steroid testing would become permanent and punishment would be enacted. Without much surprise, 104 players were caught, far exceeding the five percent threshold. It was official… baseball had a steroid problem.

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Last night, the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Arizona Cardinals in the closing minutes of Super Bowl XLIII. Almost immediately, the media began to fawn over the perceived greatness of the game.

Sports Illustrated writer Peter King, described the game as “the best Super Bowl ever.” Joe Henderson of the Tampa Tribune felt the game was so good that there is no further need to ever watch another Super Bowl again. Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, not only lauded game in great esteem, but exclaimed that it also featured the “best play” and “best catch” in the history of the Super Bowl. Gary Henderson of the St. Petersburg Times felt that in a hundred years, Super Bowl XLIII “will be the finest of them all.” The praise did not stop with the media. According to ESPN’s Sportsnation, fifty six percent of those polled, thought that last night’s game was better than its predecessor. I am inclined to think that those same fifty six percent are greatly mistaken.

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