World Cup

On the eve of the World Cup we are at the point every four years where anticipation meets reality. The usual suspects Italy, Germany, England, Argentina, and Brazil are around to compete for the exclusive trophy. This is one of the truly global sporting events everyone watches. I have met people whose national team wasn't even in the tournament who cared. Among the teams that can be considered as candidates to win the world cup are Spain, France, Ghana, Cameroon, and the United States. Every analyst who claims that the US and England should qualify from Group C could be in for a suprise. I am calling this group the group of surprise. The US and England with extensive World Cup experience are the favorites, but Slovenia and Algeria are very strong teams and could easily knock one of the favorites out of the tournament at the halfway point. This group in some ways reminds me of the 1998 World Cup for America where it was an absolute nightmare coming off the '94 World Cup. The American squad is a very good team with plenty of good players, but we will be missing the speed of Charlie Davies from last years Confederations Cup runner-up team. Hopefully in four years he will be there to help our title defense. If Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley, Ricardo Clark, and Oguchi Oneywu are playing well success should follow. I don't even think we have to worry about Tim Howard in goal as he could easily be the best net minder in the Worlds top domestic league.

RIP John Wooden

coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.
John Wooden

Ability is a poor man's wealth.
John Wooden

Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.
John Wooden

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
John Wooden

Be prepared and be honest.
John Wooden

Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.
John Wooden


Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
John Wooden

Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
John Wooden

Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.
John Wooden

Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.
John Wooden

I'd rather have a lot of talent and a little experience than a lot of experience and a little talent.
John Wooden

The Argument for Instant Replay

Last night was a great night for sports. The Stanley Cup game 3 was being played in Philadelphia while at the same time a perfect game was being thrown by Armando Gallaraga in Detroit. Yet there were stark differences in these two events. Gallaraga was robbed of a perfect game by a badly blown call after 26 consecutive outs as you can see in the video.
Look at the video for yourself and you will see that he clearly made the out before the runner tagged the base.
In contrast the Stanley Cup used instant replay to review two possible goals to make the right call. The first call was proven to be a goal as shown in the video.
This goal was not obvious to the referees or the viewing public, but it is indeed a goal since the puck was on edge. The nice part about instant replay is the multiple camera angles allowed for the referee to see the puck cross the line completely in all three dimensions. The second goal that was reviewed was equally important and ended up being reversed. It was of outmost importance that the winner be the team that legitimately scored the most goals. This policy is in force during the entire season.
The same cannot be said for MLB. Baseball has been particularly slow to adopt instant replay whereas the NHL adopted it in the early 90's. Baseball has suffered recently from some pretty bad calls made by umpires in the right location. Last year in the divisional series the Twins were subjected to a bad call that affected their chance at making the world series. Last night a base runner was called safe when it seems that he was out with the umpire in a position to make the right call. It is time for Bud Selig to institute instant replay on most major calls not just home runs. The only area where instant replay should stay away is on strikes and balls. The system would be instituted very simply by having a war room that would monitor all the games and if a call is blatantly bad the umpires would be called to instant replay. If umpires are not good enough maybe they should be replaced by robots using computer vision to identify the players an the ball. I don't want the game to devolve into a set of reviews for each play because that would destroy the game.
Every time that the expansion of instant replay is brought up there is a discussion of how to institute it. The simplest and fairest method would be to have reviews of calls decided by a war room in the commissioners office. I intend for instant replay to be a method of correcting egregious officiating errors. I don't intend for it verify whether every runner is safe or out. This would make the game too long due to numerous and lengthy reviews. Also the umpires will get the call correct about 90% of the time and a few bad calls are always going to be part of the game. I absolutely abhor a challenge method as that requires strategy on the managers part as to when to use the allotment of reviews. More importantly we, the baseball fans in America, cannot let a squabble over the method of instituting instant replay delay its implementation. If Bud Selig would like I am more than willing to write the press release to announce the implementation of instant replay.

Floyd Landis

The admission of doping by Floyd Landis and his allegations on Wednesday through Thursday are having some major repercussions in the cycling community and in particular in the US. These serious and significant allegations are coming at the time that two big multistage races are going on. Landis will face discreditation since he is breaking the code of silence related to Lance Armstrong and the US Postal Service team of the late 90's and early 2000's. Floyd Landis knew this information when he was caught in a drug test at the Tour de France in 2006 and should have revealed it then rather than fighting the charges. The problem is that if you just won the biggest race in the sport you must attempt to protect your financial interests rather than admitting to the offenses committed. If the recent news was released then Landis' credibility would not be under attack like it is today.
It is absolutely necessary that the U S Anti-Doping Authority and World Anti-Doping Authority thoroughly investigate the allegations. This includes interviewing all parties and even trying to get as paperwork to clarify what is happening. For one thing we need to clear up what was happening. This was in the period of cycling where the fight against doping was at its crucial moment. More importantly if the allegations of blood doping by Lance Armstrong are true then we will be understand why it seems to be so ubiquitous in the most recent doping cases.
These allegations put the most scrutiny on Lance Armstrong and his seven Tour de France victories. There have been allegations previously about Lance Armstrong that have never gone very far. In addition many of his former teamates have been caught in drug tests. These include Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton, and Roberto Heras. In my opinion the record books will contain an asterisk just like Barry Bonds because the feat was amazing but the performance enhancing drugs use raises some doubts.

No video of a rainy stage of the Tour of California

I was extremely disappointed with the Versus coverage of yesterday's tour of California stage. They had no footage of the stage because the helicopter could not take off. It was raining yesterday which obviously makes the helicopter pilots job much more difficult, but I can't remember a stage of the Tour de France without any television coverage. They still manage to get the video feed, even if it is broken up temporarily every once in a while. I am not a helicopter pilot, but I can't think of a reason why they could not fly. I will differ the judgement on safety to the Versus team as they probably know better than I why they couldn't fly.

Performance Enhancing Drugs Again

With the news that Brian Cushing failed a performance enhancing drug test last year in the NFL the question has once again become when will American Professional Sports finally be free of these drugs. The real answer is never, but it can be much better. First we the viewing public and the members of congress with oversight have got to make the conscience decision to care about the use of performance enhancing drugs. Then the professional sports will respond and improve their steroid policies.
The most troubling aspects of the recent positive findings in North American Sports Leagues is that the banned substances have been products that are related to medical issues and not a classical steroid or other performance enhancing drug. Manny Ramirez tested positive for a fertility drug that was prescribed to him. The same is true for Edison Volquez on whom I blogged about earlier. From the reports I have read apparently Brian Cushing failed the test since HCG, a female fertility drug, was in his system. I won't speculate on why he had such a drug in his system, but once again the test did not catch him with testosterone or other steroids. The first two incidents can be simplified to the lack of use of the therapeutic use exception. If a doctor with a valid license prescribes a medication to treat a legitimate medical condition then this should not affect the athletes doping controls. The bigger problem that is flying under the radar but has cropped up several times is unintenional ingestion of banned substances in over the counter medicine and nutritional supplements. The nutritional supplements concern me the most since they are absolutely unregulated in the US. A simple solution would be to ban any nutritional supplement that does contain a substance as part of its formula that is on the banned lists of products.
The other thing that really irks me is that Brian Cushing was able to continue to play even though the league knew of his positive test. I understand and fully support the ability of athletes to contest an initial positive test and to even have a hearing to ensure due process to the accusation. In cycling if an athlete is has a positive test for performance enhancing drugs they are immediately suspended by their team. This suspension remains in effect until the second sample is tested and a negative result is returned. This type of suspension ought to be in place in the NFL and other North American professional sports leagues, i.e. MLB, NBA, NHL, and MLS. I should point out that cycling has its own performance enhancing drug scandals that after four years are still not resolved. Maybe my next blog post should be about that.

Monday Morning Report

We are at the nexus of the athletic calendar with the winter sports selecting their champions in the playoffs and the spring sports getting into the meat of their schedule. It is important to remember that we are only weeks away from the start of the World Cup in South Africa.
The way that LeBron James played in game 3 and the Cavaliers sounding defeat of the Celtics told everyone that the elbow may hurt but it won't slow him down. This series will probably still go to seven games as the teams are so well matched. Among the other winners this weekend are the Suns who finally got the monkey off their back in beating San Antonio. I love their style of play, but I have a hard time seeing them winning a championship due to their lack of size.
I want to congratulate Bradley Wiggins and Tyler Farrar for winning stages in the Giro d'Italia. I must also point out that stage two was filled with the most crashes I can remember for a grand tour stage. I just hope that this has not affected the final standing with two weeks of racing left. I want to congratulate the Dutch cycling fans for showing up on the sides of the roads in numbers far greater than most flat stages.
The worst news of the weekend is that Tiger Woods hurt his back. I can only assume that at best he will be back in a few weeks after some rest. If he has surgery I doubt he will be seen on a golf course till the end of the summer. This would be really bad for golf since television ratings double when he plays and sponsorships are hard to get and keep in this post recessionary period. The quality of the competition will only be slightly weaker without him since there are still many great golfers on tour.