Bern, Baby, Bern

The Yankees have invited Bernie Williams to spring training as a non-tendered player. That means that he would be coming to camp to basically try and secure a spot on the roster. Bernie has already said that he doesn't want to play for another team and so this is apparently his last hope to continue to play major league baseball.

I think that it's a shame that the Yankees are treating one of their greatest players this way. Bernie has accepted that he's not an everyday centerfielder anymore, but as he proved last year he can fill the job of 4th outfielder very well. Bernie no longer hits like an all-star (as his .436 Slg % showed), but he certainly hits well enough to still have a job on the Yankees. His "replacement" is the much younger Melky Cabrera. Melky brings youthful enthusiasm to the clubhouse and is a decent fielder. His hitting leaves a lot to be desired however. If the Yankees complain about Bernie's slg %, how do they explain the fact the person they have picked to replace him had an anemic .391 slg % last year? Bernie hit five more home runs and drove in 10 more runs than Cabrera in about 40 fewer at bats last year.

Bernie is 16 years older than Cabrera and while his best days are definitely behind him, that doesn't mean that the he needs to be discarded for a newer model. The Yankees have already replaced him in CF and now they are saying that he doesn't even deserve a guaranteed spot on the team. I am no fan of players hanging on long after their skills have eroded, but that is not the case with Bernie. He proved last year that he can still be a very effective major leaguer as long as he doesn't have to play every day. Will he get to every ball that he used to? No, of course not, but he can still do a very respectable job in the outfield (and I defy you to show me how Matsui is a better defensive outfielder). At the plate he has shown himself to be superior (at least last year) to the player who is now supposed to replace him.

Bernie showed in up in '92 as a shy 22 year old kid from Puerto Rico. He didn't look the part of the major leaguer. He wore big glasses and he never seemed to be paying attention on the field (my friend Mike and I still joke about him getting picked off at first base and trying to call time). He used to get picked on the clubhouse by the likes of Mel Hall. The Yankees were terrible and Bernie really wasn't much better. The fact that George Steinbrenner was banned from baseball at the team probably saved Bernie from being traded. But with the addition of players like Paul O'Neill and Jimmy Key, the Yankees started to turn things around and so did Bernie. He eventually matured into one of the best outfielders in the game and a leader on the Yankees dynasty of the 90's. He's won a batting title, multiple gold gloves , a silver slugger award and was a big part of four world series winning teams. He also ranks in the top five of many of the Yankees career hitting lists.

The Yankees make a lot of noise about history and tradition. They always boast about how all their great players come back to the team and the stadium. They are the only baseball team that still has an old-timers game. The past means a lot to the Yankees and to it's fans. How they treat their great players at the end of their careers should be just as important as how they treat them after their careers are over. One day Bernie Williams is going to be and ex-Yankee. He will eventually have a plaque in monument park, his number will be retired and he will have his own "day" at the New Yankee Stadium. So why are the Yankees treating Bernie Williams like he's Danny Tartabull?

Bernie deserves better than this. He can still play and he can still play at high level. Bernie still hasn't decided whether to accept the Yankees offer to come to spring training, but I think that he eventually will. It must be hard for someone with his pride to swallow such a bitter pill. The Yankees are making him beg for his supper. Bernie will come back not only because he knows that he can still play, but mostly because he still thinks that he can help the team win. That's the kind of person Bernie Willams is. He's always played the game with a quiet class and dignity. It's just a shame that the people that he's dealing haven't seen fit to treat him in kind.

Red Devil

Major League Soccer (MLS) has built itself a fairly comfortable niche in the sports landscape. The have built up a 12 team league that includes the major media centers of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas. They have a contract with ESPN for regular season games and their championship game is broadcast on ABC. Some of the teams play in new soccer-only stadiums that seat between 15,000-25,000. They have a very comfortable place in the spectrum of American sports. The best thing about the league was that it seemed to be managed by people who understood that soccer was not going to be able to compete with the established pro sports in the US right away. They understood that it would be better to take more of a grass roots approach to the sport. They were patient in waiting for all those suburban soccer playing kids to grow up and become able to buy their own tickets to the games. They courted the growing Hispanic population by importing the Chivas team name from Mexico and Real team name from Spain. They seemed to be doing everything right. Until yesterday.

The Los Angeles Galaxy agreed to pay David Beckham $250 million to play for them for five years starting in 2008. There is one word that comes to mind. How can they be so f**king stupid? OK, that's seven, but you get my drift. MLS as a whole isn't worth the $50 million a year that they are supposedly going to pay Beckham for his services. MLS hasn't even generated a profit for most of it's clubs at this point. Do you think the NY/NJ Red Bulls, who play in front of 12,000 people a night in the cavernous Giants Stadium, generate a profit? The MLS agreed to pay the richest contract in sports history to a 32 year old midfielder who is clearly on the downside of his career. Beckham was recently cut loose by the English national team. He doesn't even start the majority of games of Real Madrid, the team for which he currently plays. And even when he does play, Beckham is not the kind of dynamic performer that would make casual sports fans want to watch the sport. Beckham is not Pele. He may be the most famous soccer player in the world, but that has more to do with marketing than his skills on the pitch.

When the Texas Rangers agreed to pay Alex Rodriquez $250 over ten years, it sent shock waves through the sports world. It was the largest contract ever signed by an athlete in the history of North American sports. Of course Arod was only 25 at the time and was widely considered the best player in baseball. Beckham, as I stated earlier, will be 32 by the time he starts fulfilling his contract and will be at least six or seven years removed from being even considered one of the best soccer players in the world. This signing reminds of the then staggering $40 million deal that Steve Young signed with the USFL after leaving BYU. He signed with the LA Express and played one year with the team before the league folded. I have no idea how much of that money he actually saw, but it was probably a lot less than $40 million.

Beckham's deal has to be tied to the future of the league. There is no way that one team in the league would be allowed to spend 50 times more than the next highest paid player makes without it being a league wide decision. The deal as announced is probably unworkable. More than likely Beckham's potential future earnings will be tied to the growth of the league in the long run. Beckham, in agreeing to come to the MLS, probably became the biggest shareholder in it's future. The league will now live or die based on this deal and Beckham's $250 million jackpot is wholly tied into the league not only surviving, but thriving.

This a bold move by the MLS. It could signal a big future push to attract more star players to the US and bigger crowds to the stadiums. This could be the beginning of a soccer revolution here in the US! Nah, I'm not buying it either. If Pele couldn't make soccer stick in this country, I'm pretty sure that David Beckham isn't going to be able to. I fear this is the beginning of the end for major league soccer. The NASL tried this tactic and failed. The dollars spent to bring stars over from Europe just didn't match the money coming in from the fans. At least the Cosmos used to attract 70,000 back in the days of Pele, Chinaglia and Beckenbauer. The MLS doesn't even have that to hang it's hat on.

This is just another example of a league reaching too far too soon, just like the USFL did. The USFL was doing OK playing football in the summer. Sure they had smaller crowds, but they had just started and it takes time to build a loyal audience. America is football crazy and I have no doubt that if Donald Trump had just been a little more patient, the USFL's legacy would have been much different that it is today. But Trump couldn't wait and he sued the NFL for unfair labor practices. His goal was really to force the NFL to merge some of the USFL's franchises into the NFL (namely his own NY Generals). This way he could get a NFL franchise for the fraction of the cost of actually buying one. They won their lawsuit, but the damages awarded were only ceremonial. I believe it was one dollar. They won the suit, but they lost the league. They reached for the brass ring and failed.

Perhaps under the current scheme, the MLS would remain a minor player forever. Perhaps the owners saw a chance to take a big leap forward and decided that they couldn't pass up on this opportunity. However, they have leveraged the entire of future of professional soccer in America on one aging mid fielder, who isn't even good enough to play on his own national team anymore. That is the truth of the matter, because if the MLS goes under, it's going to be a long time before anyone else is going to try this again. It took 20 years after the NASL went under before we got pro soccer in the US again. How many years will it be this time before the US has professional soccer after the MLS goes under? Because given this contract, it's not a matter of if they're going under, but when.

Prince Albert in a Can

I believe that the Hall of Fame voting produced a great injustice yesterday. And I'm not talking about the fact that Mark McGwire wasn't inducted. Nor am I talking about the fact that 13 voters decided not to vote for Tony Gwynn (although for the life of me, I can't figure that one out). No, I'm talking about a player who received 19 votes and was dropped from the ballot forever. I'm talking about a player who's numbers are much better than the almost elected Jim Rice. Of course I'm talking about the always popular Albert "don't call me Joey" Belle.

Albert played had only 10 seasons in which he had at least 400 at bats. His career was prematurely ended by a degenerative hip disease at the age of 33. However, he terrorized American League pitchers for the decade that he was active. He averaged about 38 home runs and 120 rbi's a year. He had a high water mark of 5o home runs and 152 rbi's. During his run of nine consecutive 100 rbi years, his lowest mark was 103, in his final year, when his hip injury became more debilitating. There are other "short term" stars in the hall of fame and I would dare say that except for Hank Greeberg, Belle has better numbers than all of them. Chuck Klein, Hack Wilson, and Kirby Puckett come to mind. Dizzy Dean was another short term star but he was a pitcher and that doesn't really apply (although Dean shouldn't be in the hall of fame either). Chuck Klein and Hack Wilson were inducted by the veteran's committee years after their deaths, so perhaps I should leave them out of this debate. Kirby Puckett recently died and I guess it's impolite to speak ill of the dead. I personally have nothing bad to say about Kirby except that I just didn't think that he deserved to be a first ballot hall of famer. But this article isn't about Kirby, it's about Albert.

How does someone, who just a short seven years ago was putting together such fantastic seasons in succession, get relegated to trash heap after only two years of consideration by the writers? We can start with the fact that he was at best surly and at worst confrontational when it came to dealing with the press. I doubt that you would be able to find one reporter who shed a tear the day that Albert Belle was forced to retire (the fact that the Orioles still owed him $37 million must have been of some comfort to him though). He did plead guilty to stalking charges this year, which couldn't have helped his case.

The single issue that probably did him in though is the suspicion that most writers have about his steroid use. He never had the great surge in home run power that Sammy Sosa or McGwire did, but there was definitely an upward trend. He went from hitting 36 home runs in '94 to 50 the next year. Even before the whole steroids debate began, I can remember opposing managers wanting to check his bat to see if it was corked. In fact Jason Grimsley (who was at the center of steroids controversy last year) tells a story about climbing through the ventilation system to retrieve Belle's bat from the umpire's locker. The bat had been confiscated because it was suspected of being corked. Grimsley replaced the confiscated bat with a clean one and Belle was never caught. There is also the fact that his body broke down at such a relatively young age. Some would point to that as a clear sign of steroid abuse.

You would be hard pressed to find someone who is going to shed a tear over the fact that Albert Belle won't be in the hall of fame or that he fell off the ballot. I'm sure that Albert himself would probably tell you that he doesn't care. And I'm not really making a case for his inclusion here. I just think that he probably deserved a little more than he got. His numbers are close enough that he should probably have garnered enough votes to stay on the ballot for his 15 years of eligibility. Oh well, it's probably just me. I’m just one lone voice whistling in the wind. So long, Albert. We hardly knew ye.

Members Only

The Hall of Fame voting results were announced today and as expected Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn were easily elected. Ripken got 98.5% of the vote and fell just short of setting the all time record for voting percentage currently held by Tom Seaver. Gwynn garnered just over 97% of the vote. Everyone else will have to wait for next year. There are no new shoo-in hall of famers next year so it's possible that a few of the on-the-cusp nominees will make it in next year.

Most of the near inductees took a step back this year in vote percentages. Only Goose Gossage managed to buck that trend and increase his percentage from 65% to 71%. It appears that barring something unforeseen 2008 will be his year to enter the hall. Jim Rice has only two tries left on the writer’s ballot and took a small step backward with a 1% drop. Next year may be his best chance to get into the hall. Rickey Henderson will be on the 2009 ballot and he is a sure fire hall of famer. Voters don't like to include lesser players with all time greats, so it's next year or the veteran's committee for Jim. Bert Blyleven's percentage dropped by over 5 points. That's not a positive sign for Bert. It appears that about 50% of the voters have concluded that he simply wasn't a hall of famer. He, like Tommy John and Jim Kaat before him, appears to be headed to veteran's committee purgatory.

The most inexplicable decrease in votes is for Alan Trammell. He had a solid 17% of the vote last year, but that dropped to 13% this year. It's a shame really. One of these days, the writers will look back and wonder how so many of them could have overlooked such a fantastic player. Paul O'Neill came and went from the ballot. He didn't get the required 5% of the vote to remain eligible for the next election. The most surprising player to drop off the ballot may have been Albert Belle. His offensive output for his admittedly brief 12 year stay in the majors was amazing. He must have really pissed off a lot of people in his day for only 19 voters out of 545 to deem him hall worthy. There are certainly worse players in the hall and worse people, but Albert didn't do himself any favors during his playing days. Getting arrested for and then pleading guilty to stalking charges couldn't have helped either.

The story that overshadowed all of the voting this year was Mark McGwire and the steroids controversy. McGwire, as the test case for those suspected of steroid use, did not fare very well. McGwire who used to be considered a sure first ballot inductee, only managed to draw 24% of the voters to his cause. This doesn't bode well for Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmiero and ultimately Barry Bonds. The best thing that those players have going for them is that they don't have to face the voters for a few years. Perhaps by then, opinions will have changed and positions softened, but at this point it doesn't look like any of them will have a plaque hanging in Cooperstown any time soon.

I sincerely hope that in a year I will be writing a congratulatory note to Goose Gossage for his induction. It's long overdue. In the meantime I will say congratulations to Ripken and Gwynn. I've always felt that Ripken's streak was over hyped and his affect on the "rebirth" of interest in baseball after the strike was over rated, but he was a very good player for a very long time. He's a two-time MVP winner and has over 3,000 hits. He's the all time leader in Hr's for a shortstop, and he did play on one championship team. All in all it adds up to the fact that he is one of the best ever to play shortstop. Tony Gwynn on the other hand never won an MVP or a World Series ring, but if my life depended on someone getting a base hit, Gwynn would be the person I would want with the bat in his hands. He was simply a magician at the plate. He hit over .350 seven times, won eight batting titles, has the highest post war batting average of any player, never struck out more than 40 times in a season and struck out less than 20 times in eight seasons, he hit .394 during the strike shortened '94 season, he stole as many as 56 bases in a season and had a 72% career success rate and ended his career with over 3,000 hits. He is the best pure hitter that I have ever seen. He's also a really nice guy and that gets overlooked sometimes.

That's it for the Cooperstown for now. Remember boys and girls, we are only 5 weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training.

The Fat of the Land

Notre Dame lost it's ninth consecutive bowl game last night. They were blown out by LSU by the final score of 41-14. This is fairly indicative of their performance over the past 30 years. The average score of the last nine bowl games that Notre Dame has taken part in has been 35-17. The Irish are basically being doubled up on the scoreboard whenever they take the field in a bowl game. Their overall bowl record over the past three decades is a miserable 7-13.

Notre Dame has one national championship in the last 30 years. The same total as Colorado, BYU and Clemson. During that same period, Alabama, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Penn St., Florida St. and Miami have all won multiple championships. Miami alone won the championship 5 times over a 17 year span. So why are we forced to endure a non competitive Notre Dame team every year in a bowl game. And it's not just that they are just making it into bowl games, they are making it to major bowl games. Notre Dame has played in a New Year's Day bowl game or later in seven out of the last nine years. This seems to have become an annual rite of passage. Celebrate New Year's eve and then wake up and watch Notre Dame get destroyed.

Notre Dame supposedly plays one of the toughest schedules in the country. This year they played three teams that were in the top 20 at seasons end. They lost to them by an average score of 44-20. Notre Dame does their annual dance through the service academies (Army, Navy, Air Force) and then fills the schedule with division one teams that they think can be beaten. They don't even play their "Catholic" rival Boston College every year these days. Notre Dame has only one guaranteed tough game currently on their schedule and that is their annual showdown with USC. The Trojans are back to being a football power under Pete Carrol, and are currently on a four game winning streak in the series. However, Notre Dame regularly schedules the service academies before this game so that they can come into the game riding high in the polls and high in confidence. It hasn't helped them on the field lately, but it has helped them with the voters and has allowed them to squeeze into the BCS bowl games.

I find it almost laughable to watch Notre Dame climb the rankings every year as they roll over opponents with less than .500 records. They were actually ranked #2 in the country coming into this season. Apparently the voters thought that getting spanked in the Fiesta Bowl by Ohio St. in the last game of last season was good enough reason to make them #2 behind the Bukeyes. Notre Dame hasn't been the premier college football power since the 40's, yet somehow they still manage to hang on to that former glory. It would be like the NY Yankees being the only baseball team with a national television contract based on the fact that they had won six World Series championships in the 50's. Notre Dame finished the season ranked 11th and got into the BCS based on the fact that a BCS bowl can pick Notre Dame if they finish ranked in the top 12. Isn't it slightly suspicious that they just managed to make it? Notre Dame had gotten absolutely destroyed in the only two games that it played against ranked opponents during the season, and yet the voters still saw fit to make the BCS bowl eligible. It's amazing what money can do.

I would love to say that this latest embarrassing performance by the Irish will bring an end to this charade, but it won't. Notre Dame will be back on NBC next fall beating up on the service academies and other lesser lites. I would love to see how they would do if they were in the big ten and had to face Ohio St., Michigan, Penn St and Wisconsin every year. Or maybe the SEC and have to face the likes of Florida, Auburn, Alabama, LSU and Tennessee every year. Notre Dame, of course, would never join a conference because they are bigger than that. They are bigger than all of college football and they deserve to be given preferential treatment because they won a lot in the 20's, 30's and 40's. Enough is enough. It's time that college football took a harder look at their signature program. It's time to hold them to the same standard that all the other teams have to face. It's time to make Notre Dame earn it's place at the BCS table. We are seven years into a new century Notre Dame, it time to put up or shut up. It's long overdue.

Your Huddled Masses

Boise St. and Oklahoma played an instant classic in the Fiesta Bowl on New Year's day. The game ended when Boise St. scored on a two-point conversion utilizing the rarely seen Statue of Liberty play. It ended what was one of the most entertaining bowl games in recent memory. The game featured an incredible scoring burst in the last 90 seconds. Oklahoma scored twice to erase a seven point deficit and then claim a seven point lead only to see Boise St. score on a desperation 4th and 19 hook and lateral play with seven seconds remaining in the game. It was something out of the school yard playbook, but it worked to perfection on this night.

The Boise St. coach Chris Peterson is probably the hottest coach in America right now. He just lead his team to an undefeated season and put on a great play calling display in front of the entire country. I'm don't know if he was a candidate for the major openings in college football before Monday night, but he certainly is now. I wouldn't be surprised if Alabama came calling if they are unsuccessful in convincing Nick Saban to jump ship from the Miami Dolphins. Peterson not only showed imaginative play calling, but his decision to go for two in overtime also revealed the guts of a true winner. Not many coaches in America would have gone for the win in that position. Most would have kicked the extra point and taken their chances in the next OT period. Peterson displayed not only a great belief in his coaches but also in his players.

Of course the writers and announcers have fallen over backwards to proclaim this the greatest game ever played. Once again the gift of commentators for hyperbole is astounding. It was less than a year ago that Texas beat USC for the National championship in a thrilling game that was then immediately proclaimed the "best game ever". The Boise St. game was thrilling but it didn't have the same stakes as the Texas USC game. It is probably one of the ten best bowl games of the past 30 years, but I wouldn't put it in the same category as some of the games that took place with higher stakes on the line. Tom Osborne at Nebraska once went for a two point conversion on the last play of the game with the national championship on the line. The attempt failed, but those are the kind of stakes required to lift a great game into the consideration for one of the all time best. There have lots of thrilling games over the years in bowl games. I remember Joe Montana leading Notre Dame back from a three touchdown deficit against Houston in the Cotton Bowl. I remember countless thrilling high scoring affairs in the Holiday Bowl. There have last second interceptions and touchdowns that have decided the national champion, so I think it would be wise to maintain a little perspective when it comes to this game.

It was a great game though. I certainly hope that this sheds some light on the inequity in the BCS system. Boise St. finished their season undefeated and untied and yet did not have the opportunity to play for the national championship. They proved, by their victory over a very good Oklahoma team, that they can play with the best teams in the country. Shouldn't the have had the chance to play for a national championship? Could they have beaten USC or Michigan or Ohio St. or Florida? We'll never get the chance to find out because the NCAA refuses to have a playoff. It would have been fun to see them play at least one more game. Boise St. is considered a mid major and they will probably never be in the position to win a national championship unless they upgrade their out of conference schedule. Joe Paterno lead Penn St. to four undefeated seasons without winning a national championship. His team was not affiliated with any conference and would probably have been considered a mid major at the time. He found a way to upgrade their schedule and move them into national championship consideration. Boise St. or any mid major that wants a real shot at the national championship will need to do the same thing.

Of course under my proposed system of the eight top ranked teams being in a playoff, Boise St. (#9) would still have been on the outside looking in. Oh well, no system is perfect.