SamSaid!

SPORTS II

     The University of California Golden Bears will not be going to the Rose Bowl. Instead they will travel to a second tier Bowl, the Holiday Bowl, in San Diego to play a 4 time loser, Texas Tech. Through a highly suspect ranking system Cal was downgraded at the last minute so that The Univerity of Texas Longhorns will go to Pasadena and play in the much more prestigious Rose Bowl. The season records of Cal and Texas were the same.

     There are three parts to the ranking of Colllege football teams  –  a computer analysis, a poll of college football coaches, and a poll of sportswriters. After the final game of the season (Cal won and Texas did not play), several sportwriters changed their votes and placed Texas ahead of Cal in the rankings. Some of the changed rankings came from Texas newspaper writers (surprise?). In addition to the big bucks involved, Cal fans and their team felt cheated out of the season long goal of playing in the Rose Bowl. Hard to blame them.  

     I guess we can be generous and say that no ranking system is perfect and subjective judgments are made from week to week. But the appalling part of this last minute switch to leapfrog Texas over Cal was the active public campaigning by  Texas Coach Mack Brown who solicited both writers and coaches to change their votes to advance the cause of Texas  –  specifically at the expense of Cal. That doesn't say much for sportsmanship, to say nothing of the impartiality of the ranking system and the selection of Bowl participants.

      Brown's tactics were below the belt and should not have been rewarded. I hope Michigan cleans their clock on New Year's Day.

SPORTS I

     The world of baseball has discovered that some of its big name heroes have been using steroids. Will wonders never cease!  Many of baseball's hallowed records are going by the boards, broken by players who have been transformed from 2X4s into fireplugs in just a matter of 2-3 years. And these remarkable physical changes, of course, are due to diet and exercise  — right? Now everyone right up to the US Senate is clamoring for steroid (chemical) testing of Major League baseball players, most of whom have multi-million dollar contracts.  

     Of all sports, baseball is the one that has a fan base strongly attuned to statistics and records  –  batting average, home runs, base hits, runs batted in, earned run average, strikeouts, etc., etc.,etc. For 60 years or so these records were complied over a season of 154 games. Then the season was stretched by 8 games to be 162 regular season games. When Roger Maris (162 games) broke Babe Ruth's home run record (154) games there was a huge debate over whether Maris's record should bear an asterisk to account for the longer season. I personally think the asterisk was merited, but baseball leadership felt otherwise. So the baseball records and statistics do not differentiate between the shorter and longer seasons.

     Now we will have another hassle over the “asterisk”. Barry Bonds is almost assured to break the all time home run record set by Hank Aaron. But Bonds is an admitted steroids user. Should his eventual total be accompanied by an asterisk to show that he used performance enhancing drugs? Again,I think the use of an asterisk is merited. To me, comparative records should be apples to apples to apples. Without proper differentiation, they become useless. Bonds cheated and broke the rules. Should we just look the other way and “move on”?. I think not.

     And when it comes to drug testing of players, don't hold your breath waiting for Union President Donald Fehr to go to great lengths to uphold the sanctity of the game. While giving lip service to the evils of drugs, he will try to minimize the testing program and reduce any penalties to the lowest possible level. Unless baseball management and Congress are adamant, the whole testing issue will be come a sideshow without great impact. It will result in a slap on the wrist,  “don't do it again”, and ” rehabilitate.

     And no asterisks.