2 May 2008 

Horsing around

Saturday marks the 134th running of the Kentucky Derby. For most of my life, I never paid much attention to it. I had watched it a few times on television, but never really understood its appeal — until I lived in Louisville, Kentucky for six years.

The first spring I was there, I worked part time with nearly half of my weekly hours falling on Friday (I had no classes so I could work all day). On the Thursday before the race, I made and off-hand comment about work tomorrow, and my boss looked at me like I was crazy — we were not going to be open on Derby Day!

The local schools were closed too, I soon found out (on Friday, a race called the Kentucky Oaks is run at Churchill Downs). Apparently, the school system couldn’t find enough substitute teachers to replace all the teachers who would take off for the race. Rather than give all the students (and teachers) detention for skipping school, the schools decided not to fight it.

My better judgment (not to mention my sheer amateurism) has kept me from ever putting money down on a race, but I do like to pick ‘em and watch. Last night my wife and kids decided to get in on the game too, so here are our picks to win (with odds at time of posting):

• My pick: Colonel John (4-1)
• My wife: Undecided (note: this not the name of a horse)
• My son, age 3: Bob Black Jack (20-1)
• My daughter, age 1.5: Big Brown (3-1)

What are your picks?

 10 September 2007 

Gator Hater Week 2007

One point.

That’s the margin by which the Florida Gators won in last year’s game against Tennessee. Does such a slim margin mean that we should hate the Gators any less?

Absolutely not! There’s still plenty of hatred to go around.

One of the questions that I’m most often asked regarding the Gators is this: “Do you hate the Gators any less now that the Ol’ Ball Coach has moved on to the chicken coop?”

By no means! That would be unfair to the Gators to put all my hatred in to one visor-wearing coach.

Yes friends, this is the week that hatred reigns supreme. The Tennessee Vols take on the Florida Gators this Saturday in that completely asymmetrical arena they call the Swamp.

This week, do yourself some favors: hate the Gators.

 11 July 2007 

All-Star Sideshow

Perhaps the only thing more disheartening than watching the National League lose its 10th straight All Star Game (though the late comeback attempt was exciting) was the attitude by the Fox broadcasters who assumed its audience wasn’t actually interested in the baseball playing part of the game. Instead of the action on the field, we were treated to such interesting side shows such as a life-jacketed “journalist” on a boat in the bay who sent his likewise life-jacketed bulldog into the water to fetch a baseball.

Or, instead of watching the pitcher’s wind-up, we’re treated to a clip of a microphoned Tony LaRussa uninterestingly reviewing the inning’s lineup with the umpire. During another player’s at-bat, we were forced to endure an interview with Jimmy Leyland about his feelings toward Barry Bonds. Anything to keep from having to show the game.

Baseball isn’t the only sport that suffers from what I like to call “sideshow syndrome.” If you’ve ever been to a minor league hockey game, you’ll know what I mean. It’s as if sports producers naturally assume that 90% of their audience has ADHD. After all, many do have HDTVs, so ADHD couldn’t be far behind.

Just let me watch the game.

 19 October 2006 

Alabama Fans

I love Alabama fans. I have to. After all, an entire branch of my family tree comes from the Southern state that stars fell upon. Growing up as a Tennessee fan with an Alabama-alumnus father made for an interesting time come football season. I and my brothers were forced to wear crimson clothing as young children, the photographs of which popped up at inopportune times like wedding receptions.

In case you’re not from the South, you may not know that the Third Saturday in October traditionally plays host to the Tennessee-Alabama game. And traditionally, Alabama fans lead up to game day with a grand chorus of downplay and self-doubt.

No matter what the Tide’s record, Bama fans always set themselves up for a loss. “Alabama is sorry this year,” they’ll say, “it’s a wonder that they’ve even won a game.” And so the the naysaying will go. Every. Single. Year.

And yet Alabama leads the historic rivalry 44-37-7.

This year, the #7 Vols outrank the unranked Tide in the polls. Tennessee (5-1) has a better record against better teams than does Alabama (5-2). Ostensibly, the Vols have better players — and we all know that Tennessee head coach David Cutcliffe can outsmart Bama coach Dennis Franchione with ease.

Just this once, I’ll agree with the Bama fans. Alabama really is “sorry.”

And yet…

And yet it is still the Third Saturday in October. The slate is cleared every time — and every time, I hope the Bama fans are right.

 10 July 2006 

Penalty Kick Blues

I’m happy that Italy won the 2006 World Cup. Well, not really happy, just happier than if the Gauls would have taken the prize. C’est la vie, mes amis.

It is sad, however, that a World Cup final had to end in a penalty kick shootout. I’ve never liked the shootout as a resolution to a tie. It’s almost as if everyone decides that since they can’t resolve the match playing soccer, why not just end it by playing a different game?

My apologies to the players, but I think the game would be best served with a baseball-like finally. Just keep playing overtimes until one team either drops from exhaustion or scores. True, it gives the term “sudden death” a bit of double-entendre, but at least they end by playing the same game they began.

 7 March 2006 

Bonds’ Stock Goes Down

It’s a sad day for baseball. On the heels of the news of Kirby Puckett’s death, what we’ve always suspected about Barry Bonds now seems to be overwhelmingly exposed. Bonds’ years of maniacal performance-enhancing drug use has now been exposed by San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams.

Worse than the news that my 1986 Topps Traded Barry Bonds rookie card will soon be worthless is the fact that yet another of the modern-day “greats” has proven to be a sham. It’s not just a baseball problem either. The behavior of many of the American Olympians at the Turin Games makes one wonder if there are any athletes left who know the meaning of sportsmanship.

 8 August 2005 

Baseball Cards and Belarusian Rubles

I began collecting baseball cards in the summer of 1984, when I was a nine-year-old who knew little of the game. By the time I quit collecting in 1989, I could tell you not only what the letters RBI, SB, and BB on the back of the card meant—I could tell you the stats for most any player in my collection. My first pack was the result of a Fleer 3-pack which was divided among me and my brothers. I ended up with a Greg “The Bull” Luzinski card which I placed at the front of my ever-increasing stack of cards that were wrapped with a rubber band—hardly a way to keep a collectible in mint condition.

I did find one gem among the cards I collected that summer: a Don Mattingly rookie. It’s amazing that this card was so well preserved when Mattingly came to prominence a few years later. For a kid, finding the Mattingly rookie among the commons in your collection was like finding a Picasso in your attic. In the late 1980s, the Mattingly rookie was the hottest card around. The Donruss brand card was worth a bit more, but the Fleer was still a rare find which at its peak was worth anywhere from $75 to $80 in mint condition.

A cursory web search reveals today’s value for the Mattingly rookie at around $30. What happened? Was Mattingly’s short-lived career to blame? He still has been mentioned on Hall of Fame ballots, and despite his back problems in the latter part of his career he is still considered one of the better hitters of all time.

It turns out that the decline in the card’s value has little to do with Mattingly himself. A recent article on the baseball card industry tells the story all too well:

Summertime is when baseball’s pennant races heat up. Too bad the same can’t be said for interest in baseball cards. Fleer, the New Jersey company responsible for breaking the long-running Topps baseball-card monopoly in 1981, went out of business in May, citing sluggish sales and debts approaching $40 million. It was sold at auction last month to rival Upper Deck for $6.1 million. In addition, the Major League Baseball Players Association decided not to renew next season’s card license for cardmaker Donruss – a major blow.

“This is huge news because in the last six weeks we’ve reached a real turning point in the card industry,” says Rocky Landsverk, editor of Tuff Stuff, a monthly collectibles magazine. “For the past 10 years, we had too many cards out there. This should help clean some of that up.”

I’d say it’s more like the past 15 years. I quit collecting in 1989 mainly because it was becoming too expensive a hobby for a teenager to keep up with. I had accumulated around 7,000 cards which at the time was worth around $500-$600. Nowadays it would be difficult to get $200 for the whole lot, if even that much. In the late 80s, the baseball card market became saturated, with new companies popping up left and right, building on the established “big three” companies of Topps, Fleer, and Donruss—of which the latter two were still in infancy themselves. The result of the market saturation (added to Major League Baseball’s own problems) is the baseball card industry’s current decline.

This downturn calls to mind the sordid history of the Belarusian Ruble (BR). When I lived in the former Soviet republic of Belarus from 1998-99, I saw the exchange rate go from 75,000 BR per USD to around 1.2 million BR per USD in just over a year. Throughout the entire increase, the government kept printing more and more money while artificially maintaining its value. The result was a real-world value that plummeted, leaving Belarusians who had large quantities of rubles left with currency that was cheaper than toilet paper in some instances.

While not exactly the same, the situation is similar with the baseball card industry. The once lucrative market became so saturated with different types of cards that the novelty and uniqueness of individual cards wore off. Any collectors who thought baseball cards were a sound investment were left holding many cards that were no more valuable than a noisemaker for the spokes of their bicycle wheels.

Thankfully, my collection was always oriented more toward fun and the love of the game than investing. I’ll most likely let my collection continue to age, unless there’s anyone out there interested in a Jose Canseco rookie (once worth $100, now worth $18) who is willing to pay yesteryear’s price. Any takers?

I didn’t think so.

 11 October 2004 

Ken Caminiti: Almost A Hero

The sudden death of Ken Caminiti reminds me of how he was almost one of the baseball heroes of my youth. Sometime in the mid-to-late 1980′s, my parents took my brothers and I to an Atlanta Braves game at Fulton County Stadium. The Bravos happened to be playing the Houston Astros that night, and we were all excited because the “Big Train,” Nolan Ryan was pitching that night.

We arrived at the stadium a couple hours early, and since we were sitting on the Astros side, we went down near the bullpen hoping to catch a glimpse of Nolan Ryan and maybe—just maybe get an autograph. Ryan threw some balls but went inside quickly. Two other Astros were milling around, and I took my brand-new baseball down to the fence, hoping to get it signed. I saw that one of the players was Ken Caminiti, and the other I didn’t recognize. This other person grabbed my ball and signed it, and just as Caminiti got to me, he was summoned from the dugout and he jogged off. No Caminiti autograph for me. Whose autograph did I get? I still do not know to this day. The signature is far worse than any physician’s that I’ve seen.

If I had gotten Caminiti’s signature, it would have undoubtedly made him one of my favorite players. But I didn’t get the signature so my short attention span turned elsewhere. I watched Dale Murphy homer off Nolan Ryan in that game, so Murph retained his “most favored player” status.

Caminiti went on to become an All-Star and an MVP. The tragedy, however was that Caminiti ended his career in shame rather than with the accolades that hard work should reap. He admitted that his 1996 MVP year had been aided by steroids, and that he had been addicted to drugs and alcohol during his career.

Just last week the fallen star admitted to further cocaine use. It’s not a stretch to speculate that this had something to do with the 41-year-old’s death. It’s also not a stretch to say that Ken Caminiti could have done better.

My heart goes out to guys like Caminiti and Daryl Strawberry—guys who have enormous God-given talents, yet time after time, they never can seem to get it together. When I look at them closely enough I realize that they are not all that different from me (save the ability to play baseball on a world-class level!). I stumble just as much, if not more often—though may not be on the same scale, the same source of failure is behind it. It is only by the grace of a loving God that we all do not wander down a path like that of Ken Caminiti. It is only the grace of a loving God that can save us from ourselves. I pray that such grace found Ken Caminiti, and that it finds his family in the time of their mourning.

 14 July 2004 

It Ain’t Right

Forgive this excursion into improper grammar, but it just ain’t right that the National League can’t win an All-Star Game. They haven’t done so since 1996, and don’t even get me started about the 2002 “tie.” I think Roger Clemens must have been working as a double agent, giving up six runs in the first inning.

The only part of the game that I got to watch was Muhammad Ali throwing jabs at Derek Jeter in the pre-game (apparently baseball isn’t just peanuts and Cracker-Jacks these days). After that a storm knocked out our power for the remainder of the night. It’s just as well.

 15 July 2003 

The All-Star Death of Baseball?

First things first, I love baseball. There are few other sports where one can sit back, relax, heckle the opposing team’s player if necessary, and watch without having to worry about doing the wave(I admit, I really dislike doing the wave). I attended a minor league game last month where the wave circuited constantly throughout the game. Recently, however, the wave is not the only poison to make its way into baseball.

In the past decade baseball has taken a nose dive and it continues to drive itself further into the ground. The 1998 McGwire-Sosa homerun duel breathed a short burst of fresh air into the beleaguered sport, but that bubble burst soon thereafter. Strikes, threats of strikes, high ticket prices, commercialization of ballparks, and now players attacking sausages have all contributed to the displacement of our national pastime.

This displacement reached the pinnacle when at last year’s All-Star game MLB commissioner Bud Selig called the game in the 11th inning because both teams didn’t want to tire out their players. Never mind the fans who had paid $100+ to see a game (remember, ties don’t happen in baseball).

Will tonight’s All-Star game be any different? It purports to be. The winner of the game will receive home field advantage in the World Series. As my father said, commenting on the new “incentive” offered to teams to play hard, “Yeah right! The American league players are all going to play hard so the Yankees can get home field advantage!”

I’ll probably watch at least some of tonight’s game. But still I doubt I’ll see anything like the All-Star game where Fernando Valenzuela struck out 7 of the 9 AL batters he faced. The days of the tough-as-nails athlete are dwindling. I suspect that there will be a lot of guy out there wanting merely to take care of themselves. Oh that guts would be brought back to the game…