Warriors Don't Always Win

Indulge me a moment to talk about baseball on a hot summer day, and to in particular focus on the team I follow most closely; The Texas Rangers.

The Rangers made news (and some noise) when they acquired Cliff Lee, a stud pitcher who last year was 4-0 in the playoffs, to help them win their first division title since 1999. When the Rangers acquired Lee, they led the American League Western Division by 5 1/2 games.

Tonight, Lee pitched his second game for the Rangers. In his first game, he went a full nine innings, taking a loss as the Baltimore Orioles touched him up for six runs. The Rangers lost, 6-0, and their division lead slipped to 4 1/2 games. Lee also pitched a full nine innings tonight, and thru 8 2/3rds of that, he was winning. He led the game 2-1 and was one out away from beating the Boston Red Sox in Boston's fabled Fenway Park. The Rangers, who have a closer that has notched 25 saves, opted to let Lee finish out the game instead of bringing in their fresh, untired arm to close it out.

Lee gave up a hit that tied the game. WITH TWO OUTS!!! The Rangers would eventually lose the game in 11 innings. Their division lead now down to 3 1/2 to the Anaheim Angels (no, that's not a mis-print -- to me, they are NOT and will never be the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim... who came up with that???).

Lee has gone the distance twice since the trade. He has battled and scuffed thru 18 innings to try and give his new team's bullpen a rest while trying to get wins. It has not worked out. There is no doubt he is a warrior out there on the mound. But it's baseball, and the ball takes funny bounces, and so the much bally-hoo'd trade so far is but a mere whimper almost lost in the hot days of summer. Not a titanic game-changer that will lead the Rangers to a championship, as has been predicted by many.

A tip of the hat to Mr. Lee for showing a resilient nature. But a word of advice (like I really know anything about this stuff, but...) to Texas: next time, bring in your closer when you have a chance to end the game. Because if I have to live thru another year of the Angels making the playoffs, I'd just as soon not watch the playoffs at all!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Finally checking in to my own blog after a month of silence. I have some things to muse on, in the very trivial and diversion-stealing worlds of entertainment and sports. Just some quick thoughts...

THE GOOD

I beat "Red Dead Redemption's" single player game. It was the best game I've played since "Mass Effect 2," and now I am addicted to the multi-player aspect of it as well. I have found myself many a times at 2 in the morning cleaning out gang hide-outs as if I were a true "lawbringer" in the Old West. So if you're ever on XBox playing Red Dead Redemption's multi-player, look for Rogue Pilot 2 (my gamertag on XBox Live) and I'll be the Lawbringer dealing out justice with my trust .45...

Also, I was very happy to see that finally, after four seasons, "Friday Night Lights" has received the worthy recognition it has deserved since the beginning of its run on television. Its lead actors, Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, received Emmy nominations for Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively, in a Drama Series. The series was also nominated for a Best Writing in a Drama Series Emmy as well. This has been a show that has been a favorite of mine since it first came on the television stage, and it always puzzled me that its quality was seemingly unrecognized. But not anymore. Good luck to them! They are all competing in tough categories.

Ditto, by the way, to the nominees for HBO's "The Pacific." The mini-series received a total of 24 Emmy nominations, but I am particularly focused on the Best Director in a Mini-Series category, as the directors for Episodes 8 and 9 of "The Pacific" are going head-to-head against each other. While I think that Part 9 was an exceptionally powerful piece, I was more moved by the humanity of Part 8, and it's slight detour from war drama to character introspection and romance.

THE BAD

The unbelieveable circus created around the "where will LeBron James go?" The All-Star NBA player made himself bigger than the sport he plays in, and was aided in this by a television network (ESPN) equally willing to elevate itself above the sport it covers. Both conspired to milk and unravel a drama that at its core was about all the things in human nature we seldom applaud: selfishness, greed and hypocrisy. For two weeks of the "open free agent period," James held court to several teams that came callng to him, seemingly on hands on knees, to beg for his commitment to play for anyone of them. His contract was up at Cleveland, and while the Cavaliers were willing to pony up a lot ... I mean, A LOT... of money to keep him, James wanted to see if he could find a shinier toy to play with. Never mind that Cleveland was his home town, that the fans loved and identified with him after seven years of his playing there, or that the team he played for did everything to cater to his every need and whim -- down to asking his advice as to how to decorate the team's locker room. No, James wanted to see if he could find a new place to play where he could have a better chance to win a championship. ESPN agreed to do a one-hour, prime-time television special that would cover James' final decision. Really? It's as if the movie "Network" was suddenly a reality. The whole thing just left a real sour taste in my mouth for what the business of sports has turned into. It's a "me-me!" world and let's all rally to support that.

The reality to me is that championships are part of your measure of a player or a franchise. The other is how you play the game and who you are. I know that sounds corny, and certainly there is precedent to show that some players of the past have lacked much in character or commitment to their teams and yet have gone down in history as great players. But they are the exception and not the rule. And sometimes, fittingly, they are victims of their own created karma (how's that interception in the NFC Championship game feeling now, Brett Favre?). The New York Yankees have always been pointed to by those who embrace that sports is a business as a clear of example of "buying a championship." But despite the Yankees' aggressivenss in stocking up free agents, its core was always the heart that kept the team alive. Jeter. Posada. Rivera. Pettit. As much as I don't care for the Yankees, they had a core of players who came up together in the organization and who formed the glue that led them to so many championships. It was not the acquisition of a big name at the trading deadline that got the Yankees their rings, it was the guys that came up thru the years and showed up big-time in big games.

LeBron thinks he is big-time. I think he is small-time.

THE UGLY

After four years of "investigation," the NCAA (the governing body that oversees college football) has determined that the University of Southern California violated rules of amateur sportsmanship and thus has inflicted harsh sanctions on the program. The football team at USC is ineligible to play in a bowl game for two years. They must give up 30 scholarships over the course of the next three years. And they must "vacate" all wins in the 2004 season, including potentially the January 2005 game where USC clobbered Oklahoma, 55-19 and won the national championship. It is well documented by those who follow the sport how this came to pass. One player -- arguably USC's best player at the time, Reggie Bush -- received improper benefits from would-be sports agent trying to sign him up for when he turned professional. Bush's parents had a large home in San Diego paid for by these agents; Bush received some cash and airplane tickets for friends to travel to and from football games he played in. The NCAA concluded in their report that USC should have known about this. Bush was the big-time player on their team, with all sorts of attention coming his way. How could they have not known? And they allege that the running backs coach for the school did indeed know about it.

Never mind that the NCAA decided to come down hard on USC, a glittery and attention-gathering program, in order to show their enforcement teeth -- the level of the crime seemed unfit to the punishment. It was not the school that gave Bush and his family benefits. It wasn't even over-zealous alumni. It was a couple of fringe agents looking to score. The school should have been more aware -- well, Pete Carroll as the head coach should have been more aware -- that this was potentially happening to one of his players. And the school accepts this and complies that taking a year probation without a bowl is a punishment commensurate to this crime. But two years? 30 scholarships? Oh, and an even bigger stipulation by the NCAA associated with all of this -- Juniors and Seniors in the program can leave the school and go to another team without having to do the mandatory one-year "sit" that is part of the rules of transferring. Ouch. It's inviting an exodus of players.

The result of all this is that to date, four players have bolted from the program (none of them starters or front-line players), a very coveted high school recruit has de-committed from coming to USC and will now play for the University of Miami, and the USA Today college coaches' poll will not include USC in their rankings every week. This has just stirred the pot of USC "haters" who can't wait to line up and yell from the roof tops the end of the Trojan dynasty that saw 7 straight PAC-10 championships and eight straight bowl apperances dominate the football landscape. ESPN has at least one story a day about the hard times at USC. UCLA and the University of Tennessee (who lost their coach, Lane Kiffin, to USC after Pete Carroll left for the Seattle Seahawks) are absolutely giddy with excitement at the prospect of somebody else's (a rival's) misery.

What's ugly here? The frothing of the mouth that comes with sheer hatred. It is puzzling to me how in a world where we see so many problems because of lack of tolerence or hatred, that in a sport that is supposed to give us an escape from all that, we just continue to unleash our weaknesses as a people. The venom you read in blogs, hear on the radio and see on television seems more like the diatribe of people on a war rant. Why? At the end of the day, the final score in a football game (or a baseball game or a basketball game) will certainly give you a glow of pride in your association with that team if they win, or a cloud of disappointment in they lose, but it is hardly... hardly... a reason to threaten people's lives. And if you think I am blowing that up, just ask Lane Kiffin's wife about the death threats on her cell phone, or the fires started outside her home, within mere feet of where her children slept. Right.

Sports. The new Roman Coliseum gladiator fights.

Until next time...