In Lahman's Terms

Moving On

2011-01-01T17:34:00.004-05:00

It has been almost four years since I started this blog here on Blogger.com. In recent years, my web presence has been scattered across several different locations. There was Baseball1.com (The Baseball Archive), which I created during the spring of 1995... my effort to cope with a baseball strike that didn't seem close to ending. In the 2000s I launched SeanLahman.com, a site to promote my books (and myself, I guess). And then this blog, a few years later, when I needed an outlet for writing outside of the newspaper I was working for, my freelance magazine work, and my scattered book projects.

I was in California in December, doing a fellowship at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, when I got an email telling me my baseball website was down. A quick check revealed that the site had been hacked. While I have no way of knowing whether it was someone with malicious intent or just an opportunist who found a hole in my security, the vandal wrecked the joint. I had backups, but rebuilding it was going to be a huge chore.

My baseball site was born in the earliest days of the web. There were no off-the-shelf content management systems. There weren't even any WYSIWYG editors. I built hundred of pages by hand in Windows Notepad, crafting a site that at it's peak got over a million page views a month.

But the site languished. When I became editor of the baseball encyclopedia, I stopped making daily updates, and pretty soon those days of inactivity turned into weeks, and then into months and years. The site still draws a ton of traffic even though some of the content is horribly out of date.

But the hacking was a blessing in disguise. It forced me to tackle the task I'd put off for too long, pruning those outdated pages from the site, bringing the good stuff back out into the light, and putting everything into a nicer looking and easier to manage package using WordPress.

And now those three sites are merged into one: my blog, my archive of baseball reference content, and my book/author site. There all under one roof now at http://baseball1.com. I hope that those of you who have visited any of my satellite websites will find everything you're looking for at this new site, and hopefully even find something new.

If you're following this blog in an RSS reader, please follow my new feed at http://baseball1.com/feed/.

There will be no more posts or updates at http://seanlahman.blogspot.com/

A Video History of Every Book Ever Written

2010-06-07T07:03:00.000-05:00

Fun video from the Wall Street Journal.

Imperial Bedrooms

2010-05-24T11:23:00.000-05:00

Esquire has published an excerpt of the new novel by Bret Easton Ellis, a sequel to his classic Less Than Zero.

Sunshine

2010-05-21T08:52:00.003-05:00

Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.

-- Louis Brandeis, from his 1914 book "Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It"

As relevant today as when he wrote it.

Investigative Journalism

2010-05-13T14:33:00.004-05:00

Filmmaker Errol Morris, in his commencement address at the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism last weekend.

I have often wondered why we need the phrase investigative journalism. Isn’t all journalism supposed to be investigative? Isn’t journalism without an investigative element little more than gossip? And isn’t there enough gossip around already?

I became involved in one investigation after another – even on occasion working as an actual private detective. (And yes, journalists are detectives, and vice versa, as well.)

But despite the job descriptions – filmmaker, detective, journalist – the enterprise that I was involved in was always similar. Asking questions: What is going on here? What does this mean? What really happened?

Other journalists have expressed similar thoughts to me over the years. Recently, I interviewed Josiah Thompson, an ex-Kierkegaard scholar at Haverford and Yale, who became obsessed by the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination. He quit his job in philosophy and wrote an exceptional work of journalism, Six Seconds in Dallas. And subsequently became a private detective. But it all started with his puzzlement over details – details that didn’t make sense. To me, he is the quintessential journalist-investigator.

The World At Your Fingertips

2010-03-06T15:26:00.006-05:00

In his classic book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", Douglas Adams imagined a reference source that would serve as "the standard repository for all knowledge and wisdom." Could Google be fulfilling that vision?

I ask not because of the ubiquitous role that their search engine plays in everyday life, but because of their efforts to put books, magazines, and newspapers online and make them freely accessible.

Just this week, they've gone live with the entire archives of Popular Science... every page from 137 years of the magazine. It's fascinating to see how the publication chronicled the work of the Wright brothers, the beginning of the personal computer era, or even less mainstream advances such as the 1933 robot cow.

In November 2008, I wrote about Google's efforts to put the photographic archives of Life Magazine online, including thousands of images that had never been published before. They also have the entire run of Baseball Digest. You can either browse through it issue by issue, or run a search query to find articles that interest you. With the touch of a button, I found a 1977 article about Cesar Geronimo, one of my favorite players when I was a kid.

Of course, Google also has undertaken the task of scanning thousands of older books that are out of print. Books like the Reach Baseball guides or Walter Camp's football books from the turn of the century are a valuable resource for researchers, but often too rare to be affordable and too fragile to be put into circulation at the libraries that own them.

Google has also worked with publishers to put the full text of more recent books online, turning your computer into a virtual library. You can click right now and not only start reading great books like Moneyball, The Numbers Game, and When Pride Still Mattered -- but you can search through the text to read what each author has to say about a particular subject.

Other publishers have put their archives online. Some, like the New York Times, ask you to pay for that access, while others, like Time Magazine, offer it for free. But Google is making quantum leaps with their work. There has never been so much information so readily available, and the body of published material online is only going to grow.

Baseball Historians Get Their own Hall of Fame

2010-03-03T10:56:00.003-05:00

From my friend Alan Schwarz of the New York Times...

For almost 40 years, the Society for American Baseball Research has painstakingly unearthed and saluted the accomplishments of long-forgotten contributors to the game. Now it will honor the stars of its own: by creating, in effect, the Baseball Historian Hall of Fame.

SABR announced on Monday the inaugural class of winners of its new Henry Chadwick Award -– (fittingly) nine people whose work is far better known, even among casual fans, than most realize.

Among them are Lawrence Ritter, author of The Glory of Their Times, and Bill James, whose Baseball Abstract series shaped a whole generation of curious fans. But I was particularly heartened to see two other names on that inaugural list: David Neft and Pete Palmer.

Neft put together the first real baseball encyclopedia, which was released in 1969. Baseball writers dubbed it "Big Mac" because it was published by Macmillan and because it contained almost 2500 pages. Neft led a team that painstakingly reconstructed the historical record by computerizing the day-by-day records of every man who had played in the majors. It was groundbreaking work. Today, we take for granted the minute detail of baseball's record at our fingertips. No other institution of human existence is so well documented. Neft went on to found his own company and publish annual encyclopedias for baseball, football, and basketball that stood as the gold standard in their respective fields. In football, Neft once again reconstructed the game's early history. The NFL did not keep any statistics before 1932, so Neft and his team slogged through old newspaper stories and built the historical record one game at at time, eventually publishing the first football encyclopedia that contained any player statistics in 1978.

I've never met David Neft, but his work influenced me in profound ways. I bought a copy of his Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball in 1985, picked it up at a used book store for a couple of dollars, and for the first time immersed myself deeply in the game's history. Much of what I know about the teams and the players came from the countless hours I spent flipping through that book, and my first attempts at building a baseball database used that dog-earred book as the primary source. That book also prompted my fascination with the sports reference genre, and over the years I have accumulated a large collection of sports encyclopedias, several hundred, many of which bear his name.

I was also very glad to see Pete Palmer's name among the inaugural nine. I had the great pleasure of meeting and working with Pete when I was with Total Sports, but his work had a profound impact on me long before that. I still remember the day when I stumbled across his book The Hidden Game of Baseball at a local bookstore in 1984 (written with John Thorn). I was 16, and in those days before Amazon and Barnes and Noble, the "sports section" of the bookstore consisted of about 15 titles. You think you know everything when you're 16, but as I skimmed through the first few pages, I felt the world change, and suddenly I was looking at the game I loved in a very different way. More than any of the concepts that Palmer wrote about, just the idea that there were other people who gave deep thought to analyzing the game and making sense of the numbers... it opened a whole new world for me.

Hidden Game was the bible for statistical analysis, and a few years later I carried that book with me to college, where I tracked down all of the old books and articles in the bibliography. That book unlocked the world of baseball research for me and invited me into a great fraternity of like minded folks.

Neither Pete Palmer or David Neft will be enshrined in Cooperstown, but this is the next best thing. They deserve the highest praise, along with the seven other inductees. I'm not only happy for them to receive this honor, but proud that we as a group could honor them.

Happy Birthday Ickey

2010-02-28T09:11:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite players of all-time, Ickey Woods turns 44 today. His touchdown celebration captivated the nation, but folks forget he scored 15 touchdowns as a rookie and led the league with a 5.3 yard rushing average in 1988, helping to lead the Bengals to Super Bowl XXIII.

The clip above is from the 1988 AFC Championship game. It was the first of two touchdown runs by Woods en route to a 21-10 win.

Pat Metheny on Kenny G

2010-01-21T10:34:00.003-05:00

When you do something for a living, you have a certain skill set that lets you appreciate the quality of your colleagues' work. A reporter can read a story by another reporter and appreciate the legwork that went into the investigation, or the ability to find an interesting angle in an otherwise mundane story. Filmmakers see nuances in the work of other directors that are lost on the rest of us. They can tell the difference between someone who's great and someone who's just faking their way through it.

With my fellow writers, I've found that much of our conversation centers around great examples of strong writing that we've found... whether it's a new book, or a magazine article, or a lost nugget we've dug out of a musty archive. We usually just ignore bad writing. There's usually no reason to bother commetning on it.

All too often, there's someone whose lack of talent doesn;t stop them from being a commercial success. It's a sad truth in the publishing world that most books don't sell more than a few thousand copies, but a television personality or syndicated radio host can use his platform to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of a poorly written, poorly researched collection of paragraphs. That's just the way it is -- not just in the book business but in business overall. We grumble about it amongst ourselves and keep plugging away.

Occasionaly, one of these examples reaches a point where someone needs to speak out, because it's undeserved success attacks the credibility of its genre. Comedian Joe Rogan felt obliged to speak out against what he felt was plagarism by fellow comic Carlos Mencia, because "no one defended the integrity of this great art form."

And then there's this. Jazz musician Pat Metheny -- winner of 17 Grammy Awards -- was asked what he thought of saxaphonist Kenny G. He gave a scathing 1500 word response, which included a criticism of Kenny G's basic musical abilities, his knowledge of the genre, and his artistic choices. Here's a small sampling.

I first heard him a number of years ago playing as a sideman with Jeff Lorber when they opened a concert for my band. My impression was that he was someone who had spent a fair amount of time listening to the more pop oriented sax players of that time, like Grover Washington or David Sanborn, but was not really an advanced player, even in that style. He had major rhythmic problems and his harmonic and melodic vocabulary was extremely limited, mostly to pentatonic based and blues-lick derived patterns, and he basically exhibited only a rudimentary understanding of how to function as a professional soloist in an ensemble - Lorber was basically playing him off the bandstand in terms of actual music.

But he did show a knack for connecting to the basest impulses of the large crowd by deploying his two or three most effective licks (holding long notes and playing fast runs - never mind that there were lots of harmonic clams in them) at the key moments to elicit a powerful crowd reaction (over and over again). The other main thing I noticed was that he also, as he does to this day, played horribly out of tune - consistently sharp.

It gets much, much better...

Art Without a Frame

2009-08-10T06:06:00.000-05:00

Think you could be a scout? If I sent you coach's videotape from a high school football game in, say 1980, would you be able to tell me which quarterback went on to be a star in the NFL and which never even made it as a college player? There's no sound, the uniforms don't provide any insight, and neither kids puts up statistics that would reveal his future stardom.

I ask this question a lot. I ask casual fans. I ask writers. I ask pro coaches and personnel guys. What's most fascinating is that the closer I get to guys that actually have to make these kinds of decisions, the less likely they are to say "yes."

It's a question that interested me as I began to work on my football book, which came out last summer. I wanted to challenged the conventional wisdom about who the great football players of all time were. If Dick Butkus is the greatest linebacker of all-time, then it ought to be obvious to anyone who watches film of his games. Maybe film doesn't exist, or doesn't tell the full story. Fair enough, but then you at least ought to be able to give me some reasons why a player was so good. Tell me what it is about Red Grange that made him stand out. Explain why Jim Otto was the best lineman of his day.

It's a question that transcends sports. We learn about great works of art in the same way. Why is the Mona Lisa a great painting? What makes "Citizen Kane" one of the most important American films? If I think it's boring, am I just too unsophisticated to understand what I'm seeing?

All of these questions point toward the same issue? To what degree is "greatness" a measure of collective opinion and to what degree is "greatness" inherent. If you watch Citizen Kane for the first time tonight, will its greatness be obvious? Or is its greatness more about familiarity? Is it great because "people" have always said it was great.

I'm not the first to raise this question. In fact, it's one of the oldest epistomological debates. Is beauty a measurable fact (as Gottfried Leibniz asserted), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)?

In the spring of 2007, Washington Post reporter Gene Weingarten wanted to probe that ageless question in a modern setting. He convinced Grammy award winning classical violinist Joshua Bell to play at the entrance of a Washington D.C. subway station, posing as a run of the mill street performer. Bell isn't as recognizable as, say Brad Pitt, but he was a child prodigy who has, at the age of 39, becmone an internationally acclaimed virtuoso. His 2003 CD Romance of the Violin sold more than five million copies and remained at the top of classical music charts for 54 weeks. Bell's instrument was a 300-year-old Stradivarius violin, for which he had paid more than four million dollars. He played Carnegie Hall at 14. He has played for Kings and Queens. The cheap seats for one of his concerts go for around $100. Would folks walking past think he was just another busker, or would they recognize and appreciate the quality of Bell's performance?

Violinist Joshua Bell playing at the L'Enfant Plaza subway station
in Washington, D.C. on January 12, 2007. Bell is at far left.
Full video available at Washington Post website.

Weingarten started by posing the question to Leonard Slatkin, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra. What did he think would occur, hypothetically, if one of the world's great violinists had performed incognito before a traveling rush-hour audience of 1,000-odd people?

"Let's assume," Slatkin said, "that he is not recognized and just taken for granted as a street musician . . . Still, I don't think that if he's really good, he's going to go unnoticed. He'd get a larger audience in Europe . . . but, okay, out of 1,000 people, my guess is there might be 35 or 40 who will recognize the quality for what it is. Maybe 75 to 100 will stop and spend some time listening."

Slatkin was wrong.

Bell played for 45 minutes and more than a thousand people passed by. Just seven stopped to listen. The vast majority of folks didn't react at all to one of the world's greatest musicians playing a few feet away from them.

Of course, this phenomenon is not limited to music. Weingarten also interviewed one of the leading experts in the world of art.

Mark Leithauser has held in his hands more great works of art than any king or pope or Medici ever did1. A senior curator at the National Gallery, he oversees the framing of the paintings. "Let's say I took one of our more abstract masterpieces, say an Ellsworth Kelly, and removed it from its frame, marched it down the 52 steps that people walk up to get to the National Gallery, past the giant columns, and brought it into a restaurant. It's a $5 million painting. And it's one of those restaurants where there are pieces of original art for sale, by some industrious kids from the Corcoran School, and I hang that Kelly on the wall with a price tag of $150. No one is going to notice it. An art curator might look up and say: 'Hey, that looks a little like an Ellsworth Kelly. Please pass the salt.'"

Weingarten won a Pulitzer Prize for the article.

Thoughts on Health Care

2009-07-30T10:25:00.004-05:00

After my daughter spent a month in the hospital this spring, I have a whole new perspective on the debate raging over health care reform.

A fascinating new study helps to illustrate, the urgent need to move away from the for-profit health insurance model. According to a joint study by Harvard University and Ohio State University, sixty percent of US bankruptcies in 2007 were driven by medical bills. What's really alarming is that 75% of those folks had health insurance.

"Unless you're Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," Harvard's Dr. David Himmelstein, an advocate for a single-payer health insurance program for the United States, said in a statement.
"For middle-class Americans, health insurance offers little protection," he added.

And why is that? Because if you do get sick and need significant treatment, odds are your policy will simply get cancelled. According to the report, a quarter of people lose their insurance coverage immediately when they suffer a disabling illness, and another quarter lose it within the first year. Insurance companies (or employers who offer their own plans) save money by dropping you if you're too expensive.

Critics of reform scream about the possibility of rationing health care under a single-payer system, but the reality is that we already have rationing. Insurance companies protect their profits by dropping folks who need expensive care, or putting artificial limits on how many days you can spend in the hospital, how many times you can visit a doctor, or even annual caps on how much they'll spend for your care. All of those things that the Fox News crowd warn us could happen under "Obama Care" are exactly the things we have right now.

Vincent and Theo

2009-06-01T22:38:00.001-05:00

This article originally appeared in the March 2005 issue of "Overlooked Gems."

Several films have been made about the life of Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, and most people know the broad strokes of his life’s story. Robert Altman’s 1990 film “Vincent and Theo” goes beneath the surface of a man who became a pop culture icon and probes the complex issues. Altman avoids the easy clichés of the tortured artist, focusing on the two bitter realities of the painter’s life: Vincent Van Gogh was tremendously passionate about his work, and nobody wanted to buy it.

The film opens in 1987, where one of his most well known paintings is on the auction block. As the bids rise quickly into millions of pounds, the image shifts to a destitute Van Gogh a hundred years earlier, a young man desperate to escape the misery of his own life. Tim Roth brings a fresh perspective to the role of Van Gogh, revealing a man who is tormented by his lack of success in life, personally as much as professionally.

Kirk Douglas portrayed Van Gogh in the more popular biopic, “Lust for Life,” but in that 1956 film, the artist’s principal influence was fellow painter Paul Gaugin. In that version of the story, Gaugin overshadowed Van Gogh in many ways, and it’s not surprising that Anthony Quinn won a Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal. In Altman’s version, Van Gogh’s mentor and chief supporter is his brother, Theo, a Parisian art dealer.

Theo (played by Paul Rhys) recognized his brother’s talent, encouraged him to pursue his art, helped him to meet and collaborate with the top painters of his day, but in the end, was unable to help his brother. He could never sell any of his paintings, couldn’t help him escape the self-destructive behavior of his personal life, and ultimately, couldn’t help him overcome the mental illness that led to his suicide.

The relationship between the brothers is the core of the film. Both struggle desperately for their own measure of fulfillment, and both are raging at their own failures. In each other, they find both solace and support, but neither can help the other to overcome the obstacles that doom them to lives of unhappiness.

As with all of Altman’s films, “Vincent and Theo” is about characters, not plot. It’s not a story of the events of their lives so much as it is an account of who these two brothers were and how they saw the world. One of the great achievements here is how Altman and cinematographer Jean Lépine show us the world the way that Van Gogh saw it. We see the mundane scenes of his life that we recognize from his paintings... his bedroom, the café at night, the church, even the countryside. It’s one thing to know the facts of a person’s life; it’s another thing altogether to feel as if you’ve inhabited his world.

This film received only a limited theatrical release, and as of this writing has never been available on DVD. [Editor's note: the film was finally released on DVD in August 2005.] It received no award nominations and remains largely unknown, save for the occasional airing on cable television. It was a breakthrough performance for Roth, and one of the best films in Altman’s fifty-year career. Most significantly, it is a fascinating portrait of a complex and contradictory genius... and his brother the painter.

New Photos of First MLB Game in Canada

2009-05-08T07:05:00.005-05:00

On their web site, the Archives of the city of Montreal recently posted a collection of color photos from the first home game of the Montreal Expos. That game took place on April 14, 1969, and it was the first Major League Baseball game played outside of the United States The images capture some of the game's greats, including Maury Wills, Rusty Staub, and Curt Flood. I like the photo above, which shows (from left to right) Expos manager Gene Mauch and Cardinals' players Bill White and Joe Torre. A quick look at the Retrosheet website shows that after the Expos jumped to an early 6-0 lead, the Cards came back with seven runs in the fourth inning, capped by Torre's two-run homer. The Expos tied the game on a wild pitch in the bottom of the fourth, and took the lead on an RBI single by relief pitcher Dan McGinn in the 7th, winning 8-7.

Most of the photos are from batting practice and the pregame cermonies. There are some great shots of Jarry Park, which was just supposed to be a temporary home but served as the Expos home until 1977. The text at the site is in French and the folks from the city archives haven't correctly identified some of the players in their photo captions, but the images are fantastic.

Update: I heard from Mario Robert, head of the archives, who read this blog post and accepted my offer to help identify some of the Cardinal players in the photos. Although he wasn't at that inaugural game, Mario told me an all too familiar tale of he and his schoolmates secretly listening to the game on a tranistor radio during class.

Radio Friday

2009-04-29T20:45:00.000-05:00

Back on the radio, Friday from 7-8 pm on WHAM-1180 with Bob Matthews Bob and I will be discussing the current baseball season, and the greatest players of all time at each position. We'll also be taking phone calls.

Is 50-50 good?

2009-04-21T06:16:00.004-05:00

I heard two different sports radio hosts last week make the proclamation that taking a quarterback in the first round was a 50-50 proposition. One went down the list of the guys taken in the last ten years and figured that 8-10 of the 18 players on the list were busts. Another looked at all of the quarterbacks taken number one overall and came to the same conclusion.

It's an exercise I've engaged in myself, but it misses the main point. Even if you take the 50-50 measure as gospel, how does that compare to draft choices at other positions?

To answer that question, I looked at all of the first round draft choices from 1979-2003 -- a twenty-five year period that excludes guys who are too young to pass judgment on, and here's what I found.

1) The overall success rate for first round picks is 59 percent. That's how many of the players drafted went on to spend at least five season as a starter. Thirty-seven percent of the first-round picks went to at least one Pro Bowl.

2) Running backs are the riskiest pick, but they're boom or bust. Only 41% of them taken in the first round spend five seasons as a starter -- the lowest for any position. However, the highest percentage of them go on to become Pro Bowl players.

3) Quarterbacks are boom or bust, too. Fifty percent don't make it, but you've got a better chance of getting a superstar at quarterback than any other position. Forty percent go on to become Pro Bowl players. What's more, eight percent of QBs taken in the first round go on to the Hall of Fame, and that number's deflated when you consider that there were at least three HOF-caliber QBs active last year (Favre, Manning, Brady).

4) Teams use more picks on defensive linemen than any other position. Over the 25 year period, they accounted for 21.3% of all first round picks -- even though they only account for 3 or 4 of the 22 starting positions. The success rate for them (62% 5-year starters, 32% Pro bowlers) isn't much better than average, suggesting that teams make more reaches at these positions than any other.

5) Teams use fewer picks on offensive linemen, even though they are by far the safest pick. Seventy percent of them become five-years starters, by far the highest total for any position. It's 72% for guards, 70% for centers, and 69% for tackles. Only 17% of first round picks are used on offensive linemen, even though they account for almost a quarter of the starters.

6) Defensive tackles are also overlooked. Seventy percent become starters, and 43 percent of the DTs taken in the first round end up going to at least one Pro Bowl.

7) Kickers and punters shouldn't go in the first round. Two teams have used a first round pick on them in the past 25 years. The Raiders selected kicker Sebastian Janikowski in 2000, and the Saints tabbed punter Russell Erxleben in 1979. Neither guy ever went to a Pro Bowl, which seems like the bare minimum you can ask for a kicker taken in the first round. (I hate to play the "who else could they have picked" game, but Erxleben went two spots ahead of Hall of Fame tight end Kellen Winslow, and Janikowski went two spots ahead of RB Shaun Alexander.)

Here's the raw data:


    Percentage by Position    Total
    ProBowl  5+ St    HOF     Picks
OL   37.9    70.2     3.2      124
LB   38.8    66.3     2.5       80
TE   39.1    65.2     4.3       23
DL   31.8    62.3     1.3      154 
DB   38.9    61.1     2.8      108
WR   35.0    52.5     2.5       80
QB   40.0    50.0     8.0       50
RB   41.6    40.6     3.0      101
K/P   0.0     0.0     0.0        2

Tot  37.2    59.0     2.9      722

I think it's important to point out that this is not predictive data... it doesn't mean that every team should take an offensive linemen, because there are never going to be 32 linemen worthy of being drafted in the first round. This is historical data that should serve to provide some parameters for what constitutes success. Thirty percent of O-Linemen are busts, fifty percent of quarterbacks, and sixty percent of running backs. Let the buyer beware.

Athletes and Taxes

2009-04-15T06:40:00.000-05:00

It's income tax day across America, and if it's not your favorite day of the year, just be thankful you're not a professional athlete. A recent article in the LA Times explains that 20 of the 24 states with major league franchises (the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball) have laws that require visiting athletes to pay state income tax for each game they play there. Kevin Baxter of the Los Angeles Times took an in-depth look at the issue.

Considering that top-level athletes in football, basketball, hockey and baseball now make an annual average salary of $2.9 million, that means big bucks for states such as California. Home to 15 major professional teams, the state raked in $102 million in taxes from visiting athletes in 2006-07, the last year for which records are available.

Ryan Howard of the Philadelphia Phillies will play in 16 different states this year, plus the District of Columbia and the Canadian province of Ontario. How'd you like to be the accountant in charge of that tax return?

"The book's like this big," says Angels' pitcher Darren Oliver, holding his thumb and index finger a couple of inches apart, says of the tax documents he filed this year. Each April, he pays a small army of accountants to file more than a hundred pages of returns -- and sometimes checks -- to as many as a dozen states and one province in Canada, covering taxes on income he earned on the road.

Award Winner

2009-04-03T07:54:00.001-05:00

Word came earlier this week that my book, The Pro Football Historical Abstract, has won the Nelson Ross Award. It's presented annually by the Professional Football Researchers' Association for "outstanding achievement in pro football research and historiography." I'm grateful and humbled by the honor, particularly since it comes from a group of dedicated folks who really know their stuff.

Why Million Dollar Athletes Go Broke

2009-03-25T07:53:00.000-05:00

Warren Buffett is good at managing his money. So is Bill Gates, apparently, and so is Mike Bloomberg.

You know who's not great at managing their money? Guys who leave college to play pro sports.

Sports Illustrated has a great piece this week about how and why these guys who sign million dollar contracts almost always end up broke. We've all read the anecdotes. Just this year, ex-Broncos running back Travis Henry was jailed for failure to pay child support. Panthers receiver Mushin Muhammad put his house up for sale after being sued for outstanding credit card debts. Saints running back Deuce McAllister filed for bankruptcy protection for the Mississipi based car dealership he owns.

In his article, Pablo Torres goes beyond the random stories and compiles some hard data:

By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce.
Within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke.
Numerous retired MLB players have been similarly ruined, and the current economic crisis is taking a toll on some active players as well.

Torres documents scores of Major league players who have lost their savings or had their assets frozen because of fraudulent investment gurus like Bernie Madoff and Robert Allen Stanford. But it's not just the big crooks who come after the athletes. These athletes fall prey to "advisors" that come recommended by friends, many of whom are completely unqualified. According to the NFL Players Association, at least 78 players lost a total of more than $42 million between 1999 and 2002 because they trusted money to financial advisers with questionable backgrounds.

Aside from shaky investments, what are the other reasons why most pro athletes end up broke? Some of it is just lavish spending. Young kids with little impulse control suddenly have more money than they ever imagined. They buy cars and Rolex watches and spend $20,000 on a big night out at a nightclub. Many of them find it hard to say no to friends and family members who want to share in the newfound prosperity.

But Torres relates a story told by Raghib "Rocket" Ismail, who described a conversation he had with Panthers' owner Jerry Richardson, a former NFL player turned succesful businessman. "What's the most dangerous thing that could happen to us financially?" he asked. "Without blinking an eye," Ismail recalls, "Mr. Richardson said, 'Divorce.'"

In a survey reported by the financial-services firm Rothstein Kass in December, more than 80% of the 178 athletes polled—each with a minimum net worth of $5 million and two thirds under the age of 30—said they were "concerned about being involved in unjust lawsuits and/or divorce proceedings." By common estimates among athletes and agents, the divorce rate for pro athletes ranges from 60% to 80%. In divorce proceedings, of course, husbands routinely lose half of their net worth. But for athletes there is an aggravating factor: when the divorce happens. Most splits occur in retirement, when the player's peak earnings period is long over and making a comparable living is virtually impossible. Such timing is no accident.

It's a great piece, and I think it helps to explain why, in an era when guys can earn hundreds of millions of dollars in their careers, none of them ever end up on the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans.

The Difference Between Bloggers and Journalists

2009-03-04T20:30:00.009-05:00

Newspapers are dying. The closing of the Rocky Mountain News last week was a sign of how bad things have gotten in the business. I spent five years writing for the New York Sun before they stopped printing last September, and like it or not, many other and bigger papers will suffer the same fate. The current economy doesn't help, but the root cause of the problem is a business model that just doesn't work any more. Paper and ink dailies just don't make sense.

But I firmly believe that journalism is still vitally important, and that there will continue to be a market for good writing, good reporting, and that inquisitive drive to chase down a story. Too many bloggers are just guys that stay at home and spout their opinions. There's a role for that, I suppose, just like there's a role for local sports radio call-in shows. But we need people like Selena Roberts who will travel across the country to ask questions. We need folks like Alan Schwarz who'll pursue a story that nobody else is giving a voice to. We need writers like Jeff Pearlman, who will do the leg work to tell a story that gives depth and context to current events.

Pearlman filed a story for Sports Illustrated today, a kind of sidebar to the tragic story of three friends who presumably drowned in a boating accident over the weekend, two of whom were active NFL players. He recalled a story that hadn't made it into his book about the 1986 Mets, where one of that team's young pitchers had been involved in a similar incident.

Over the past few days, as news outlets relay the saga of the four athletes recently lost in the waters off of Clearwater, Fla., a handful of people have found themselves sent back through time, to a nightmare eerily similar in geography and circumstance to the one of present day.

On Feb. 28, 2009, two NFL veterans, Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith, along with former University of South Florida players Will Bleakley and Nick Schuyler, were anchored 38 miles offshore, fishing, when rough waters capsized their 21-foot boat.

On Oct. 30, 1983, three Red Sox minor leaguers, [Tony] Latham, John Mitchell and Scott Skripko, along with Mark Zastrowmy, a native Floridian and owner of the boat, were roughly 10 miles offshore, fishing, when rough waters capsized their 17-foot boat.

In 2009 three of the men were apparently lost, while the fourth, Schuyler, survived by holding on to the side of the boat for more than 30 hours.

In 1983 two of the men, Latham and Zastrowmy, were lost. Skripko, an outfielder, survived by holding on to a cooler for 20 hours, while Mitchell, a pitcher, survived by holding on to a bucket for 22 hours.

It's a gripping story in it's own right, but it helps to bring the tragedy of this weekend's events into sharper focus. Pealrman goes a step further at his own website, talking about how the events in Florida this weekend jogged his memory about that incident 25 years ago, and how he did the research to build that into a story. Starting with just the name of one person, he worked the phones until he tracked down the players involved and their surviving relatives. He describes each of the steps he took to go from the kernel of an idea to a fully-formed story.

STEP 8: I again turn to Nexis, and look up people named “Latham” in Robersonville, N.C. Forty-three names pop up. I call the first, ask if she’s related to a Tony Latham who played baseball. “I wish,” she says. “I could use the money.” I call the second. An older woman answers. “My name is Jeff Pearlman,” I say, “and I write for Sports Illustrated’s website. I am looking for anyone related to a baseball player named Tony Latham.”

“Well,” says the woman, “I don’t know a Tony Latham—but Anthony Latham was my son.”

We proceed to speak for 30 minutes (or so). She is a wonderful interview—sad and reflective, good memory. She gives me the number of her second-oldest daughter, Vickie, who I call shortly thereafter. She, too, is excellent—and even provides photos.

In the span of, oh, an hour, I’ve gone from having nothing about Tony Latham, to having his entire life story.

Pearlman is a great writer, and he reminds us why good reporters will always find an outlet, even if (when) newspapers disappear completely. At the end of the day, it's not about the medium. It's about telling compelling stories.

Twenty Years Ago Today

2009-02-20T00:01:00.000-05:00

It all started with this... Pete Rose being summoned to New York by the Commissioner in February 1989. It was the public's first inkling of the story that would dominate the rest of the year.

No Experience Necessary

2009-02-06T17:30:00.003-05:00

Todd Haley was introduced as the new head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs today. Since the start of the 2008 season, eleven teams have changed head coaches. That ties the record for the most coaching changes from one opening day to the next, set in 1997. Collectively, the NFL teams have made 32 new hires over the last four years, with six teams having changed coaches at least twice (and that's not even counting interim coaches).

This level of turnover is unprecedented. In addition to the eleven first year coaches, the league will have 13 other coaches with three full seasons (or less) at the helm of their current team. Only eight coaches will have been with their team for more than five seasons. Here's the list:

Yrs   Coach, Team
15    Jeff Fisher, Tennessee
11    Andy Reid, Philadelphia
10    Bill Belichick, New England
8     John Fox, Carolina
7     Jack DelRio, Jacksonville
6     Marvin Lewis, Cincinnati
6     Lovie Smith, Chicago
6     Tom Coughlin, NY Giants

The 15 in that first column means that if he makes it to opening day, it'll be the start of Jeff Fisher's 15th full season as the Titans head coach.

I think we're seeing a couple of different things at work here. One is clearly a lack of patience. Most of the guys who were fired were first time head coaches who had been on the job for just four years or less. For most teams, if you can't win after three years, you're going to lose your job. Only one NFL coach -- Buffalo's Dick Jauron -- kept his job after posting a third straight losing season.

That's a fact that the folks in Buffalo are finding hard to stomach, especially in an environment when coaches with winning records are being fired simply for missing the playoffs. The Jets dumped Eric Mangini even though his team improved from 4-12 to 9-7. Jon Gruden was ousted in Tampa after back-to-back 9-7 seasons. The Broncos fired Mike Shanahan after a late season collapse meant his team would miss the playoffs for a third straight season.

Gruden and Shanahan each had more than ten years of head coaching experience, as did both Tony Dungy and Mike Holmgren, who retired. What's striking is that with eleven openings for head coaches, nine of them went to a young assistant who've never held the top job in the professional ranks. As a group, the 11 departing coaches combined for 84 seasons of head coaching experience. The incoming group has just six.

Team    OLD COACH       NEW COACH
NYJ     Mangini (3)     Ryan (0)
CLE     Crennel (4)     Mangini (3)
IND     Dungy (13)      Caldwell (0)
KC      Edwards (8)     Haley (0)
OAK     Kiffin (2)       Cable (0)
DEN     Shanahan (16)   McDaniel (0)
DET     Marinelli (3)   Schwartz (0)
TB      Gruden (11)     Morris (0)
SEA     Holmgren (17)   Mora (3)
STL     Linehan (3)     Spagnuolo (0)
SF      Nolan (4)       Singletary (0)

As others may have noted, this leaves just three active coaches with Super Bowl wins (Tom Coughlin, Bill Belichick, and Pittsburgh's Mike Tomlin), There are twice as many Super Bowl winning coaches on the open market right now (Bill Cowher, Brian Billick, Shanahan, Gruden, and the "retirees" Holmgren and Dungy).

Shanahan is one of 12 coaches with 2 Super Bowl wins, and just the second to be fired by that same team. Tom Landry was the first. When the legendary coach was unceremoniously dumped by new team owner Jerry Jones, it had been six years since Landry's Cowboys had been to the playoffs and 11 since his Super Bowl XII win. (If you consider Tom Flores "promotion" to the Raiders front office a firing, he'd also be a coach with 2 Super Bowl wins who got the ax. Coincidentally, his replacement was Shanahan).

Through today, 26 head coaches have won Super Bowls, and 13 of those guys eventually left the team they won a title with to lead another team. The table below shows how well they fared with the new team.

Team  Coach      Hired  Record  Playoffs   SB
Was   Lombardi    1969   7-5-2   0-0      0-0
Det   McCafferty  1973   6-7-1   0-0      0-0
Sea   Flores      1992   14-34   0-0      0-0
NE    Parcells    1993   32-32   2-2      0-1
Mia   Johnson     1996   36-28   2-3      0-0
NO    Ditka       1997   15-33   0-0      0-0
NYJ   Parcells    1997   29-19   1-1      0-0
Car   Seifert     1999   16-32   0-0      0-0
Sea   Holmgren    1999   86-74   4-6      0-1
KC    Vermeil     2001   44-36   0-1      0-0
Dal   Parcells    2003   34-30   0-2      0-0
Was   Gibbs       2004   30-34   1-2      0-0

The only guy who found continued success was Bill Parcells, who took the Patriots to the Super Bowl during his next stop. He also turned around moribund franchises in New York, Dallas, and Miami. Holmgren took the Seahawks to a Super Bowl but also endured a number of lean years. Johnson's record in Miami looks impressive, until you realize the team actually fared better in their last four years under his predecessor, Don Shula (39-25, with three playoff appearances). Ditka and Seifert were disastrous.

I think this illustrates one of the reasons why many teams weren't clamoring to hire these coaches with proven track records. There's little evidence that that success can translate from one organization to another.

But more than that, I think if you look at the coaches who were shown the door, a common thread for many of them is that they commanded complete control of the football operation. There was a trend in the 90s towards giving coaches that sort of authority. Parcells once complained, "If they want you to cook the dinner, at least they ought to let you shop for some of the groceries." He eventually was given that level of control, as was Holmgren when he went to Seattle, and as were Gruden and Shanahan. None of the new hires -- including the ones with previous head coaching experience -- are being given that kind of authority, and that may be why some of the Super Bowl winning coaches find it difficult to even get interviews for job openings. Teams look towards the model of success in places like New England and Pittsburgh, where a skilled and professional front office team focuses on stocking the roster with talented players and lets the coaches focus on coaching. Those two teams account for five of the last eight Super Bowl championships. Whether other teams can duplicate that success remains to be seen, but that's certainly the path they've chosen.

And there's no reason to expect that will change anytime soon. The Cardinals and Steelers both got to the Super Bowl this season with a second year head coach, and the Falcons and Dolphins both had remarkable turnarounds with a rookie coach. They've all shown that you can win right away, and that you don't have to wait years for a coach to get things turned around.

Unless you're in Buffalo.

Why Newspapers Will Disappear Sooner Than You Think

2009-02-03T02:00:00.001-05:00

Nicholas Carson of Silicon Alley Insider runs the numbers to show just how much it costs to print an ink-and-paper version of the New York Times, and he reaches this conclusion:

It costs the Times about twice as much money to print and deliver the newspaper over a year as it would cost to send each of its subscribers a brand new Amazon Kindle instead.

Carson estimates the figure is $644 million per year, with a subscriber base of about 830,000. That works out to about $745 per subscriber, which is a problem, since the $8 per week subscription fee works out to $416 a year. That means they have to generate $300 million a year in advertising revenue just to break even, and we're still just talking about printing costs. We haven't factored in delivery costs or salaries for reporters, photographers, and other content creators.

How can that type of business model ever compete with an electronic alternative?

Well, It's Groundhog Day... again

2009-02-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

One of the great films of all-time.

Updike on Williams

2009-01-28T05:46:00.001-05:00

John Updike died yesterday. The prolific author published more than fifty books, and won the Pulitzer Prize twice. He also wrote regularly for the New Yorker since 1954, often about baseball. One of his best known columns described the last game in the career of Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams. It was intended as a rebuke to a Boston columnist who noted the occasion by saying, essentially, that Williams was overrated. Updike countered that argument, not with statistical analysis but with an examination of the love that New Englanders had for their hero. He wrote:

"The affair between Boston and Ted Williams has been no mere summer romance; it has been a marriage, composed of spats, mutual disappointments, and, toward the end, a mellowing hoard of shared memories."

In that final game, in his final time at the plate, Williams capped his 22-year career by hitting a home run. Updike described the scene:

Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran around the square of bases at the center of our beseeching screaming. He ran as he always ran out home runs—hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn't tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept, and chanted "We want Ted" for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he never had and did not now. Gods do not answer letters.

Updike was 76.

The Call to Canton

2009-01-27T01:00:00.011-05:00

On Saturday, the Pro Football Hall of Fame's 44-man Board of Selectors will meet in a hotel conference room in Tampa. When they emerge, they'll announce their selections for the Hall’s class of 2009. Their process for selecting new members is as mysterious and shrouded in secrecy as the selection of a new pope. I'd like to say that I can use by profound understanding of the game's history, my keen insight into the minutiae of the process, and my inside knowledge of specific voter behavior to make a prediction about the outcome. But all any of us can do is make a wild guess. With that caveat, I offer up this quick overview of the candidates and my best speculation as to who will be getting a happy phone call on Saturday afternoon. And invite you to participate as well. Click here for details about my first annual PFHOF prediction contest.

Let's start with a quick overview of the process. In August, the nine-man Seniors Committee nominates two candidates. Anyone who has been retired for at least 25 years is eligible. This year, the Committee gave us Bob Hayes and Claude Humphrey. Following that, the Hall begins with a list of nominees from the modern era. Anyone -- including you and me -- can nominate a player by submitting their name to the Hall of Fame. That list of nominees (133 this year) is released in October and whittled down to 25 semi-finalists in November. This task is handled by a 44-member Board of Selectors, which is comprised of a beat writer representing each of the 32 NFL teams, 11 at-large delegates, and a representative of the writer's union, the PFWA. In January, they slim that list down again to 15. The board meets in person on the Saturday before the Super Bowl to consider seventeen names... the fifteen finalists and the two Seniors' nominees. The rules specify that they must pick between four and seven candidates, but that no more than five can be chosen from the modern era list. Someone will stand up and speak on behalf of each candidate, the assembled members will discuss the candidacy, and then they vote.

I wrote about this process at length in my book, and I don't want to dwell in it too much here. But it's important to understand that the nature of the process has as much to do with determining the candidates as does the consideration their individual merits. Let's start by considering the Seniors Committee. (It was originally called the Old Timer's Committee, but Chuck Bednarik complained about being called an "old timer," forcing a name change. Bednarik is 83, but I suspect he could still whoop me, so I'm not going to use the word "Old Timer" again.) This sub group was formed in 1972 to address the concern that players from earlier eras had been passed over and were not being properly considered. They nominated one candidate each year (although they opted not to put anybody's name forward in 1975) until 2004, when they were asked to nominate two candidates per year.

It would be exaggerating to say that the Seniors’ nominee is automatically inducted, but not by much. Nineteen of the last 21 Seniors’ nominees have been voted through. The success rate overall is 79%, and two candidates that were passed over got re-nominated (Lou Creekmur and Henry Jordan) and made it in. So with that backdrop, let's start with the two Senior nominees on this year's ballot. (Technically, it's not a ballot... but for the purposes of this discussion, that's what I'm going to call it.)

Claude Humphrey was a defensive end who spent most of his career with the Atlanta Falcons. He was Defensive Rookie of the Year in 1968, and would be named first team All Pro five times. Although it didn’t become an official NFL statistic until after he retired, we credit Humphrey with 122 career sacks. He was traded to the Eagles in 1979 and was a key member of a defense that won the NFC title a year later. His candidacy is helped by the fact that the Falcons haven't had a player inducted in Canton (with the exception of brief end-of-career stints by Eric Dickerson and Tommy McDonald). Lahman's prediction: IN

Bob Hayes is a much more interesting case. He's a controversial pick, in part because of the passion with which some of his supporters make his case. They'll say "he changed the game by showing how speed could be a deadly weapon for a receiver." The critics dismiss that argument as hogwash, as if it presumes that nobody thought of using fast players before. Hayes was on the ballot five years ago but wasn't selected, but it says something about the passion for his candidacy that he would be nominated again by the Seniors Committee so soon. Hayes did win two gold medals in the 1964 Olympics, and there's no doubt that his explosiveness made him one of the exciting players of his era. But that argument about his impact aside, I think he belongs based simply on his production. He tallied 7414 receiving yards and 71 touchdown catches. Neither total is enough to make him a slam dunk (or else he'd already be in), but they put him in a healthy conversation. The 71 touchdowns puts him between Hall of Famers Fred Biletnikoff (76) and Ray Berry (68). His career average of 20.0 yards per catch still ranks 11th overall, comfortably ahead of contemporaries like Lance Alworth (18.9) and Don Maynard (18.7). When the voters decided not to put Hayes in the Hall in 2004, longtime Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman resigned from the Senior Committee in protest. (It's a shame, because there is no one more knowledgeable or better able to advocate for worthy candidates). Hayes died in 2002 at the age of 59, and it's too bad that he won't be around to appreciate the honor when he's eventually inducted. Lahman's prediction: IN

There are six candidates on the ballot for the first time this year. Three are long shots. Three are sure things. ESPN's John Clayton, who is one of the 44 writers in the room, says that if they spend more than 90 seconds discussing Bruce Smith's candidacy, they're just wasting time. I have him ranked as the top defensive lineman of all-time in my book, slightly ahead of Reggie White. He's the all-time sack leader and one of the most dominant defenders ever to play. He's as much of a lock as there can be. Lahman's prediction: IN

Rod Woodson also makes his debut this year, and I think he's a lock as well. He retired with 79 interceptions, second-best all-time and 2 shy of Paul Krause’s career record. His 12 interception returns for touchdowns broke Ken Houston’s all-time record of 9, a mark that was later tied by Deion Sanders. Woodson also had 20 fumble recoveries, the 3rd highest total for a defensive back. Like Smith, I have him rated in my book as the best ever at his position. Lahman's prediction: IN

Tight end Shannon Sharpe is on the ballot for the first time, and he's pretty close to a lock, too. Yeah, it's a strong rookie class. Sharpe retired as the all-time leader in catches, yards, and touchdowns by a tight end, all marks which were surpassed by Tony Gonzalez a year ago. The tight end was becoming an endangered species with the rise of the West Coast offense, but Sharpe helped to usher in an era when teams looked at their tight end as the primary pass catcher. He was a key part of three Super Bowl winners -- two in Denver and one in Baltimore. I worry that some voters, particularly the older ones, will complain that Sharpe wasn't much of a blocker. That's like complaining that Picasso was a lousy cook. Lahman's prediction: IN

If you're scoring at home, I've got the first five men in, with 12 candidates competing for the possibility of two remaining spots. And that's exactly how I expect the conversation to go inside the room on Saturday.

Next up, a pair of wide receivers. I'm hearing a lot of buzz about Cris Carter, who was widely expected to make it last year in his first year of eligibility. He even had a camera crew following him around to capture the excitement of the moment. Oops. Carter started his career with the Eagles, and was unceremoniously released after three seasons, despite leading the team in touchdown catches in years two and three. When head coach Buddy Ryan was asked why he'd release a guy who led his team in touchdown receptions, he replied curtly: "because all he does is catch touchdowns." And I guess Ryan was right. Carter went to Minnesota and caught 110 touchdowns, leading the league three times. He retired with 130, second only to Jerry Rice at the time, but since passed by Randy Moss and Terrell Owens, with Marvin Harrison (128) likely to wave by this fall. Carter is also third all-time in receptions and seventh in receiving yards. I can't really explain why those credentials weren't enough to get him through last year, but whatever argument was raised last January will come up again this weekend. Someone in the room will also argue against tabbing two receivers, which could hurt the chances for either Hayes or Carter. But my money is on both men being chosen for induction. Lahman's prediction: IN

Now we're down to eleven guys for one spot, and I'm afraid that these simple mathematics will keep everyone else from getting through. I've been stumping for Buffalo receiver Andre Reed, but his numbers don't make him a better choice than Carter. What's that you say? We should judge each candidate on their individual merits rather than weighing them against the other names on the ballot? I agree, but that's not how it works in practice. If Carter is selected, Reed's chances go right out the window. It's a shame, because the competition is only going to get tougher. Jerry Rice and Tim Brown are eligible for consideration next year, with Owens, Moss, Harrison, and Issac Bruce coming soon. Reed has an uphill climb. Lahman's prediction: OUT

There's another grouping of first-year eligibles: center Dermonti Dawson and defensive tackles John Randle and Cortez Kennedy. There are serious cases to be made for each gentleman, but none has an overwhelming case. It doesn't help that 99% of football fans couldn't pick any of them out of a lineup. What hurts them most, though, is that there are other, arguably better players on the ballot at the same position. That's not a recipe that will lead to success in the first year, but all three deserve to be considered again, and I think that Kennedy and Randle have a pretty good shot of getting it soon. Lahman's prediction: OUT, OUT, OUT

Two more defenders return to the ballot for the fifth time, linebacker Derrick Thomas and defensive end Richard Dent. I would have voted for both guys last year, but instead the call went to Andre Tippett and Fred Dean. I still think my two choices are better, but I don't get a vote, and if they didn't make it last year they won't make it this year. Lahman's prediction: OUT, OUT

The next grouping is a trio of guards: Russ Grimm, Randall McDaniel, and Bob Kuechenberg. I'm not sure why Grimm is stuck in limbo. That Redskins' offesnive line of the mid 80s had four Pro Bowlers (Grimm, Mark May, Jeff Bostic, and Joe Jacoby) and their own nickname... the "Hogs". How many other lines can say that? I like McDaniel a lot, but I'm not sure he'll ever garner enough support. Kuechenberg's biggest hurdle is the fact that two of his linemates (Jim Langer and Larry Little) are already in. It's ridiculous, but it's the same argument that has been used against players like Jerry Kramer, Chuck Howley, and L.C. Greenwood. Lahman's prediction: OUT, OUT, OUT

Finally, we have two contributors to consider. Former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue had the misfortune of following in the footsteps of Pete Rozelle, a man who was more influential and more innovative than any league executive in any sport. Tagliabue was responsible for growing the business in remarkable ways, but I think history will view his biggest accomplishments as avoiding the labor unrest and the doping scandals that plagued other sports during the era. The significance of those accomplishments will become more apparent with the passage of time, and I think he'll ultimately be inducted… just not now. Lahman's prediction: OUT

And then there is Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson. I think the strongest argument to be made on his behalf is the urgency that his age creates. He turned 90 in October, and has owned and run the Buffalo Bills since their founding in 1960. His longevity is admirable, and he was a key voice in the early days of the American Football League. However, I think there's a lot of uncertainty about his legacy. He has complained about the challenges that he faces in generating revenue in a small market, yet he disdained the idea of selling naming rights to his stadium, putting his own name on it instead. He flirted with nearby Toronto for years, launching plans to play at least one regular season game their each year starting in 2008. He has shown no interest in selling the team, but also has no succession plan in place. The folks in western New York are resigned to the fact that the team will relocate after he passes away. For me, it comes down to this question. What makes an owner a Hall of Famer? It can't just be longevity. It has to be significant contributions to the league and to the game as a whole. It has to be innovation, either on the field or off. I know what George Halas did to earn his spot, and Lamar Hunt, and Dan Rooney. Not sure I could make such a strong statement about Ralph Wilson. Lahman's prediction: OUT

So to summarize, I predict six new inductees: Cris Carter. Bob Hayes, Claude Humphery, Shannon Sharpe, Bruce Smith, and Rod Woodson. The actual results will be announced Saturday afternoon.

Hall of Fame Prediction Contest

2009-01-26T06:43:00.002-05:00

The Pro Football Hall of Fame will select the class of 2009 this weekend, and I'd like to know who you folks think will get in. Not necessarily who you think *should* get in, but who you think the board of selectors will actually choose. I'll compile the predictions and post them here after the announcements are made. I'll give a copy of my book (or some other suitable prize) to someone who predicts the results exactly. One entry per person, and I'll post my own predictions later this week.

Here's the full list of nominees. You have to select between 4 and 7 nominees, and no more than five can be from the modern era list.

SENIOR NOMINEES
Bob Hayes & Claude Humphrey

MODERN ERA
Cris Carter, Dermontti Dawson, Richard Dent, Russ Grimm, Cortez Kennedy, Bob Kuechenberg, Randall McDaniel, John Randle, Andre Reed, Shannon Sharpe, Bruce Smith, Paul Tagliabue, Derrick Thomas, Ralph Wilson, & Rod Woodson

More details on the nominees are available from the Hall of Fame website.

Good luck. Email me your predictions by 8:00 am est on Saturday 1/31.

Radio appearance on Thursday

2009-01-20T19:13:00.003-05:00

I'll be back on WHAM-1180 with Bob Matthews on Thursday January 22 from 7:00 to 8:00 pm. This is becoming a semi-regular gig. Bob and I will be discussing the Super Bowl matchup and other topics of interest. We'll also be taking phone calls.

Rice and Henderson In: Quick Reaction to 2009 HOF Voting

2009-01-12T14:15:00.002-05:00

The Baseball Hall of Fame released the results of their 2009 balloting moments ago, and as I predicted, the writers have selected Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice for induction later this summer.

This was the first time that I've published predictions for the actual vote totals. A quick look at the results shows that most of those projections for the vote totals were pretty close. My forecast for 16 of 23 players was within 3 percentage points. Here's a quick peak at the results, with the actual results first and my projections second.


Actual  Lahman  Player
95      95    Rickey Henderson *
76      77    Jim Rice
67      62    Andre Dawson
63      60    Bert Blyleven
45      46    Lee Smith
44      41    Jack Morris
32      38    Tommy John
23      29    Tim Raines
22      27    Mark McGwire
17      19    Alan Trammell
12      15    Don Mattingly
15      14    Dave Parker
 4      12    Mark Grace *
12      11    Dale Murphy
 4       9    David Cone *
 6       7    Harold Baines
 1       5    Mo Vaughn *
 1       4    Matt Williams *
 0       3    Jesse Orosco *
 0       3    Greg Vaughn *
 0       2    Ron Gant *
 0       2    Jay Bell *
 0       1    Dan Plesac *

It's heartening to see that my projections were a little low for the guys like Dawson and Blyleven, and that (as I expected) my estimate for Mark Grace was way too high. After I've had a chance to digest the data, I'll make another post and talk about why I think some of my totals were off.

The Yellow Line is Better

2009-01-07T17:30:00.010-05:00

It's been around for so long that we take it for granted, but that doesn't mean it isn't one of the coolest innovations of our era. I'm talking about the computer generated first down marker that appears on most football games broadcast for the last ten years.

It seems like a pretty simple concept, but actually making it work is a complex challenge. According to the website HowStuffWorks.com, "it takes a tractor-trailer rig of equipment, including eight computers and at least four people" to pull it off.

It requires both GPS and CGI technology. special camera mounts, 3D models of the field, and special color palletes to help the system understand how to draw the line over the field but not over a player (see image above).

The company behind this technology is called "SportsVision," and they've extended their capabilities into other sports as well. If you've watched a NASCAR race, you've seen the little pointers that identify which car is which, along with real-time telemetry to show the car's speed, lap time, or distance behind the leader. In NBA games, they overlay a shot chart on the floor. For MLB games, you've seen how they track the motion of the pitch and show where it ended up in the strike zone. They've developed applications for golf, hockey, horse racing, soccer... even bowling. They're even responsible for the virtual ads that appear on the screen but not in the ballpark.

During the research for my football book I spent a lot of time watching footage of NFL games from the fifties, sixties, and seventies. I missed having that yellow line across the screen to show me unequivocally where the first down marker was. Growing up, watching games in the seventies and eighties, I don't recall ever feeling that my viewing experience was diminished because we lacked those things. But now, the enhancements are obvious.

ESPN recently re-broadcast the 1958 championship game, and Major League Baseball launched their new network with a showing of Don larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Watching both of them, I was struck by how much better the broadcasts are today. There are more cameras and they're able to get you closer to the field with their zoom lenses. The angles of the shots are better, which is probably not the result of a technological advance so much as it is just learning what looks better. The quality and quantity of in-game data is better... I could go on and on, but the overall experience of watching a game on TV today is vastly superior. The contrast is just as dramatic as comparing the production quality of an episode of the Honeymooners with an episode of Heroes. Whenever you start longing for "the good old days," make sure you know what you're getting.

A Fresh Look at The Godfather

2009-01-05T06:00:00.004-05:00

Francis Ford Coppola's newly restored version of The Godfather and the Godfather, Part II have just been released on Blu-ray and DVD. The director oversaw a frame-by-frame restoration of his films' original negatives, which were in pretty rough shape. The result is a fresh new look at the work of cinematographer Gordon Willis and a pair of classic films that haven't looked this good since they first played in theatres more than thirty years ago. As Fred Kaplan wrote at Slate.com:

The original DVD box set, released by Paramount in 2001, was a huge disappointment. Dark scenes were murky, bright scenes were washed out, and several shots were marred by the video equivalent of pops, ticks, and static. For instance, in Part II's opening close-up of Al Pacino standing in his darkened office, it looked as though mosquitoes were swarming down his face. Paramount's executives were loath to admit it at the time, but the problem was that the original negatives for both films were in terrible condition, the result of studio neglect and technical mishaps in an era before film preservation became a concern, then a cause.

One of the leading centers for that cause is here in Rochester, at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. It's the home to one of only four film conservation centers in the United States, and to the first school of film preservation in the United States. I went there Sunday for a special screening of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, and it was a great treat to see the two films back-to-back on the big screen.

Separately and collectively, these two films are almost universally regarded as among the greatest films ever made. The first film, released in 1972, ranked #2 on the American Film Institute's 2007 list of the top movies of all-time. Part II ranked #32. The films are ranked #2 and #3 by users of the Internet Movie Database on their list of the top films of all-time.

Why are these great films? I think the main reason is their timeless story about how power corrupts people, and how the lust for power can become a downward spiral. For Michael Corleone, power is not a tool to be used for some other purpose, it is his main pursuit. He is driven by a relentless desire to extend his power and tormented by the fruitless effort to retain it. All of his efforts are in vain. He sees himself as a creator and protector, but he destroys everything he comes in contact with, including those closest to him, and eventually even himself. It's a compelling lesson made more powerful by the backstory provided in the second film, a series of flashbacks to young Vito Corleone from his youth in Italy to his re-birth as a powerful figure in New York city's immigrant neighborhoods.

As the restoration makes clear, the cinematography in this film is also a major reason why this film remains so popular. It's full of memorable imagery. The Godfather opens with a tight closeup of Bonasera who begins with the simple declaration, "I believe in America." As he continues to tell his story, the camera slowly pulls back. It's a long zoom shot that lasts for three minutes, gradually revelaing the room in which the scene takes place. The use of color and light, particularly in the second film, adds another layer of storytelling. It's quite simply a wonderful film to look at.

Part of The Godfather's enduring popularity owes to the tremendous performances by veteran actors, most notably Marlon Brando, Lee Strasberg, and Sterling Hayden. There are remarkable appearances by some great character actors, including Abe Vigoda, G.D. Spradlin, Troy Donahue, Dominic Chianese. Alex Rocco, Bruno Kirby, and John Cazale.

But more than anything, the Godfather buzzes with the energy of its younger cast members, an astonishing collection of talent unmatched in the history of the cinema. The stars of the films were a group of six relatively unheralded actors:Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Robert DeNiro, Talia Shire, and Diane Keaton. Duvall was 41 when the film debuted; the other five ranged in age from 26 to 32. None had yet been nominated for an Oscar, but each of them would receive the honor for their work on the Godfather films, and as a group they would go on to earn 27 nominations in their careers.

Coppola had already won on Oscar for co-writing the screenplay for Patton (1970), and he won Best Director Oscars for both Godfather films. He would receive 14 total nominations over the next 25 years.

****

There is a lot of testosterone on screen in the Godfather films, but most reviewers have overlooked the pivotal performance of the two female leads, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire. Each is repulsed by Michael's corruption, but respond to it differently. Keaton plays Kay, the young school teacher who opens the film as Michael's girlfriend. She's frustrated by the way that the circumstances of Michael's life keep them from being together, but she seems to understand and accept Michael's loyalty to his family. When Michael proposes marriage to her, he insists that he's not going to end up like his father.

Michael: I'm working for my father now. He's been sick, very sick.

Kay: But you're not like him, Michael. I thought you weren't going to become a man like your father. That's what you told me.

Michael: My father's no different than any other powerful man, [Kay laughs] any man who's responsible for other people. Like a senator or a president.

Kay: You know how naive you sound?

Michael: Why?

Kay: Senators and presidents don't have men killed.

Michael: Oh, who's being naive, Kay? Kay, my father's way of doing things is over, it's finished. Even he knows that. I mean in five years, the Corleone Family is going to be completely legitimate. Trust me.

But of course, Michael's efforts to become "legitimate" prove impossible, and Kay realizes that in the final shot of the the first film. Michael's sister Connie (played by Talia Shire) accuses him of arranging the murder of her husband, which he cooly denies. As viewers, we know that Connie suspicions are right on the money. Kay asks him about this, and he repeats his denial, and for a moment, we see her relief. But a moment later, Michael's new caporegimes enter to pay their respects, and as they close the door, Kay realizes the truth about what her husband has become.

She sticks with him at the start of the second film, despite an assassaination attempt at their house, when someone opens fire on their bedroom. She's faithfully at his side as he's called before Congress to testify about his role as a leading organized crime figure. And she's dutifully submissive when she's confined to the grounds of the family home while he was away on business.

But eventually Kay has enough, and can no longer stand by and support Michael in a life that she can't defend. She tries to take the children and leave, but Michael stops her. He can't see that she's fed up with the lies, the hypcorisy, and the descent into immorality. He thinks she's simply upset because she'd recently suffered a miscarriage.

Kay: Oh, Michael. Michael, you are blind. It wasn't a miscarriage. It was an abortion. An abortion, Michael. Just like our marriage is an abortion. Something that's unholy and evil. I didn't want your son, Michael! I wouldn't bring another one of you sons into this world! It was an abortion, Michael! It was a son Michael! A son! And I had it killed because this must all end! I know now that it's over. I knew it then. There would be no way, Michael... no way you could ever forgive me, not with this Sicilian thing that's been going on for 2,000 years.

Kay leaves but the children stay, and Connie helps her to sneak in to visit them while Michael is away. When Michael discovers Kay during a secret visit, he doesn't express any anger. He simply and silently closes the door in Kay's face, an echo to the final shot of the first film.

Shire's performance as Connie is also powerful. She is alternately defiant and submissive. Connie

stands up to her husband Carlo in the face of his infidelity, but endures his wrath and his physical abuse, and defends him from her brother Sonny's retaliation.

What options does she have? As a young woman in the 1940s, that's about the only choice available to her. Her brothers inherit some measure of power as their birth right, simply because they are sons of Don Corleone. The daughter doesn't get that. Her husband gets a job in the family business as a courtesy, but Connie isn't even allowed into the outer circle. When the brother's discuss how to retaliate for the attack on her father, she's not invited to the room. She has no role in that aspect of family life because of her gender.

After enduring a beating from Carlo, Connie calls her brother Sonny, sobbing. Sonny finds Carlo on a street corner and beats him savagely, warning him, "if you touch my sister again I'll kill ya." In retaliation, Carlo helps the rival Barzini family arrange Sonny's murder. Michael discovers this, but bides his time. After his father has died, and with the rest of the family out of town, he has Carlo murdered. Connie returns and angrily confronts him.

Connie: Michael! You lousy bastard -- you killed my husband! You waited until Papa died so nobody could stop you, and then you killed him. You blamed him for Sonny -- you always did. Everybody did. But you never thought about me -- you never gave a damn about me. Now what am I going to do?

Kay: (puts her arms around Connie, trying to comfort her) Connie...

Connie: Why do you think he kept Carlo at the Mall? All the time he knew he was gonna kill him. (then, to Michael) And you stood Godfather to our baby -- you lousy cold-hearted bastard. Want to know how many men he had killed with Carlo? Read the papers -- read the papers! (she picks up and slams down a newspaper) That's your husband! That's your husband!

She's right, of course but Michael dismisses her, He tells the others in the room that she's hysterical, that they should take her upstairs and get her a doctor.

At the beginning of the second film, we learn that Connie's rage over her husband's murder has caused her to abandon her family completely. She has drifted through a series of marriages and engagements, and seems to have abandoned her children. But after the death of her mother, she straightens up, and seizes the opportunity to become the new matriarch of the family. At the funeral she tells him:

Connie: Michael, I hated you for so many years. I think that I did things to myself, to hurt myself so that you'd know - that I could hurt you. You were just being strong for all of us the way Papa was. And I forgive you. ... You need me, Michael. I want to take care of you now."

In his review of the film, Roger Ebert wrote: "There is little room for women in The Godfather." I don't think that's the right way to look at the movie at all. The women are the key to the story arc, serving as the barometers for a man who is otherwise without limits or boundaries. Because they can not be tempted by the lure of power, they can stand back and look at what unfolds objectively. There may be no role for women in the Godfather's world, but they play a pivotal role in this film.

The Babe Ruth of Football

2009-01-02T17:15:00.003-05:00

Sammy Baugh died a couple of weeks ago. If he'd have been a baseball player, Sports Illustrated would have commemorated his passing by putting his photo on their cover, as they did for Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle. Instead, SI's first issue after Baugh's death had a dog on the cover, and his passing garnered just a single paragraph thrown into a year end listing of other sports figures who had died during the year.

Fortunately, the legendary quarterback wasn't completely forgotten. Some well-written tributes appeared in newspapers across the country, and hopefully you got a chance to read some of them. Several writers made interesting observations about why Baugh and other great football players from before 1950 had faded from the collective consciousness, while that era's great baseball players... like Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio... remained in the spotlight for decades after their playing careers ended.

It's not just that pro football was less popular in the forties. In Baugh's case, he never made an effort to remain on the stage. John McClain of the Houston Chronicle reflected on his 1998 visit to Baugh's at his home in Rotan, Texas, where the quarterback had lived since 1941. He noted one reason why the all-time great quarterback had fallen out of the limelight.

"No matter how hard the Hall of Fame tried to get him to return to Canton or how many award banquets he was invited to, Baugh never went anywhere unless he could return home and sleep in his bed every night."

Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post laments the fact that Baugh's name was largely forgotten in the discussion of "Greatest Quarterback Ever." The main reason, Wilbon argued, was that he outlived most of the folks who'd seen him play.

"You have to be approaching 70 years old to have seen him play for the Washington Redskins, and it almost had to be in person. "

Baugh was one of the inaugural members of the pro football Hall of Fame, and he was one of those rare players who could have qualified for the honor on three different grounds. First, he was a great all-around player In addition to being a great passer, Baugh was one of the best defensive backs of his era, and he still holds the record for highest punting average in a season.

Second, he changed the way the game was played. His willingness and ability to throw the ball invented the modern passing game and redefined the quarterback position. He was the first to make the forward pass an effective weapon and regular part of the arsenal rather than just a tool of desperation to employ when all other options had failed.

But what's often overlooked is the impact he had on establishing the Redskins as a powerhouse franchise. As Matthew DiBiase points out at his blog:

Baugh’s presence on the Washington Redskins made the nation’s capitol into the pro football capitol of America. In 1937 Redskins owner George Preston Marshall moved the team from Boston to Washington and desperately needed a big star who could draw big crowds to watch his team. Sammy Baugh was that star and when he won the NFL championship in his rookie season (only one of two NFL quarterbacks ever to do that if I’m not mistaken—the other was Bob Waterfield in 1945 with the Cleveland Rams). Baugh made the Washington Redskins a viable NFL franchise.

Baugh would lead the Redskins to five title games in his first nine seasons, including NFL Championships in 1937 and 1942.

He should be rememberd as one of just a handful of guys in sports who weren't merely great athletes but helped to change the style of play and raise the stature of their entire sport. For that reason, he stands alongside transformative figures like Babe Ruth and Muhammad Ali. He deserved better than a throwaway paragraph in Sports Illustrated.

***

Baugh was the last surviving member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's inaugural , and his death leaves just one other living Hall of Famer who played during the thirties -- Ace Parker. In fact, there are only nine surviving HOFers who played during the 40s. Here's a list, courtesy of a great website called "Oldest Living NFL Players"

Oldest living Hall of Famers

Name                   Debut/Team           Birth Date
Clarence 'Ace' Parker  1937 Brk. Dodgers     05/17/12  
George McAfee          1940 Chicago Bears    03/13/18  
Steve Van Buren        1944 Phil. Eagles     12/28/20  
Bill Dudley            1942 Pitt. Steelers   12/24/21  
Charley Trippi         1947 Chi. Cardinals   12/14/22  
Dante Lavelli          1946 Clev. Browns     02/23/23  
Pete Pihos             1947 Phil. Eagles     10/22/23  
Chuck Bednarik         1949 Phil. Eagles     05/01/25  
Y.A. Tittle            1948 Balt. Colts      10/24/26  
George Blanda          1949 Chicago Bears    09/17/27

There are another handful of players born in the 1920s who didn't get to the NFL until the 1950s (in some cases because of military service).


Name                   Debut/Team           Birth Date
Art Donovan            1950 Balt. Colts      06/05/25  
Andy Robustelli        1951 L.A. Rams        12/06/25  
Gino Marchetti         1952 Dallas Texans    01/02/27  
Joe Perry              1950 S.F. 49ers       01/22/27  
Lou Creekmur           1950 Detroit Lions    01/22/27  
Bud Grant              1951 Phil. Eagles     05/20/27  
Hugh McElhenny         1952 S.F. 49ers       12/31/28  
John Henry Johnson     1954 S.F. 49ers       11/24/29

The calendar keeps marching on. I wrote about the dillema this poses in my book and in a blog posting on AAFC oral histories. The players from the 1920s and 1930s are mostly gone, and the number of pro football players from the 1940s and 1950s who are still around is diminishing every week.

Looking Back at 2008

2008-12-31T10:38:00.007-05:00

New Year's Eve is a time to reflect on the year that's ending, and it's always a bittersweet exercise. It was a tremendous year in the world of sports, from the Giants' improbable Super Bowl win, to the amazing spectacle of the Olympic Games in Beijing, to Tiger Woods winning the US Open on a broken leg. The Celtics and Lakers renewed their rivalry, Yankee Stadium closed, and Michael Phelps won 600 gold medals. But the sports world also lost some legendary figures. Three NFL Hall of Famers died this year, including Sammy Baugh, the first great quarterback. Legendary sportswriters Bill Heinz and Jerome Holtzman both passed away, and so did longtime Rams owner Georgia Frontiere.

I've put together a list of some of the end of year tributes on the web that I recommend.

Best of 2008 articles

There are two other names that don't show up on most of these sports lists, because their endeavors don't fit into the modern definition of sport. One was Bobby Fisher, the reclusive and eccentric former world chess champion. The other was Sir Edmund Hillary, who along with Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. Hillary's feat came in 1953. Fisher won the World Chess Championship in 1972, but refused to defend his title in 1975 and stopped playing competitive chess.

I wanted to offer up another list of links. In every sport, there are groups of researchers who specialize in keeping track of former players who pass away. When a guy like Sammy Baugh dies, it's on the front page of sports sections across the country. When a less well-known player dies, it can escape notice. This sort of biographical research is crucial to folks like me who create sports encyclopedias and other reference sources.

Sports Necrologies

Happy holidays!

Pink Slips Start Arriving

2008-12-29T11:15:00.001-05:00

It's not even noon on the day after the NFL season ended, and already three coaches have been given their pink slips. In New York, Eric Mangini lost his job after the Jets swan dive cost them a playoff berth.

The Browns fired Romeo Crennel after four disappointing seasons. there were signs of life in Cleveland last year, when the team surprisied everyone by finishing 10-6. This season they fell to 4-12, and by the end of the year weren't even competitive.

Rod Marinelli is out in Detroit, and that'll happen when your teams goes 0-16. He won just 10 games in three seasons and endured criticism for hiring two relatives to his coaching staff.

There will undoubtedly be more moves. During a radio appearance three or four weeks ago, the host suggested that as many as 12 teams might change coaches. I thought that was a rdiculously high number, but that the number of openings still might be as high as seven.

Two other guys are really on the hot seat, and it wouldn't surprise me to hear their names before the day is out. Herm Edwards has a 15-32 record in three seasons with the Chiefs. His job security evaporated when his biggest supporter, Carl Peterson, resigned two weeks ago. Across the state, Jim Haslett has been serving as the Rams interim coach since late September. The team went 2-10 under his leadership, and while the team likes Haslett, GM Billy Devaney may be pressured to make a move.

It's tough to tell what will happen in Oakland and Cincinnati. Marvin Lewis has a year left on his contract, and history has shown that owner Mike Brown doesn't like to pay coaches to walk away. Raiders' Owner Al Davis doesn't have any such qualms... if anything he's been impatient with his coaches. Interim Tom Cable got off to a slow start, but he got a dysfunctional group pulled together and won three of his last six games.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has said "the coaching staff is set," but the team's December swoon and 12-year playoff drought suggest that head coach Wade Phillips could be in trouble.

Buffalo's Dick Jauron reportedly signed a three year contract extension in October, but the team's 2-8 finish has many fans calling for his head. The Bills haven't been to the playoffs since 1999.

I suspect that at least two of those six guys will lose their jobs within the next ten days, and we'll probably see another surprise. Someone who had a good season will get the ax, or someone will retire. That'll put the number of openings at six, which is about what I expected.

Stay tuned.

Predicting the HOF Vote

2008-12-26T07:30:00.003-05:00

For a few years I've been working on a predictive model for HOF voting. Not a method for determining (and advocating for) the players I think *ought to be* in the Hall of Fame, but a way to predict how many votes a player will actually receive, based on a study of actual voting patterns.

I haven't written about it or published any predictions for a couple of reasons. The biggest one is that I don't think many people are interested in it. There's a big market for predicting player statistics, thanks to the folks who play fantasy baseball. But nobody really pays close attention to the Hall of Fame balloting. If anything, they just take note of the new inductees each winter. Even if I could be 100% accurate in my predictions, so what?

Second, the model still needs some work. My approach had been to come up with a model, then to go back and run the predictor for past seasons to see how well it would have performed in predicting ballot totals for those seasons. I keep running through these regressions and refining the model, learning from the anomolies.

We've got a new set of results coming out in a couple of weeks, so I wanted to throw this out there, both to get my predictions on the record and to spark some interest from the handful of people who think about such things.

Some of the rules for the Hall of Fame selection process have changed somewhat over the years, but the basic process has remained essentially the same since the Hall opened in 1936. To appear on the ballot, you had to have played at least ten seasons in the major leagues, and you must be retired for at least five seasons before you can be considered. The voters -- active baseball writers with at least 10 years of service -- can vote for up to 10 players each season, and any player who receives 75% of the votes is put into the Hall of Fame. If a player falls short of that threshold but receives at least 5% of the vote, his name carries over to the next year. If a player isn't selected after 15 years on the ballot, he's dropped from the process, although he can later be considered by the Veteran's Committee.

The results of the voting process have been published each year, giving us a wealth of data to study. I've been primarily concerned with asking three questions.

1) How likely is it that a player will be voted in this year?
2) How likely is it that this player will ever be voted in?
3) What percentage of votes is a first year player likely to get, given his playing record?

Question #3 is the toughest one to study. Subjective factors have a huge influence, and it's almost impossible to measure what sort of impact those will have on voters. Last year was a perfect example, with slugger Mark McGwire appearing on the ballot for the first time. My methodology predicited he'd get around 50% of the votes, but he ended up with 24%. This was due largely to the allegations of steroid use, and his disastrous appearance before a congressional committee investigating the subject. While we're aware of these subjective influences, it's very difficult to measure them.

Questions #1 and #2 are much more straightforward, and while it's not an exact science, the voting totals do reveal some patterns.

Players who get at least twenty percent of the votes in their first year on the ballot have an 80% chance of eventually being voted in. (Another 7% will be inducted by the Veteran's Committee).
Only one player got higher than 35% in his first year of eligibility and didn't eventually make it into the Hall of Fame: Steve Garvey.
If players ever get as high as 25 percent of the vote, their chances of getting in eventually (either through a future ballot or by the Veteran's Committee) are roughly 60%.
Only two players have gotten over 40% on a ballot and not eventually gotten in: Ron Santo and Tony Oliva.

There are 23 players on this year's ballot, and I feel fairly safe in predicting that only two players will reach the 75% needed to get in: Rickey Henderson, in his first year on the ballot, and Jim Rice, in his final year of eligibility. Here are my predictions for the percentage of votes each player will receive. Players in their first year of eligibility are marked with an asterisk.

95 Rickey Henderson *
77 Jim Rice
62 Andre Dawson
60 Bert Blyleven
46 Lee Smith
41 Jack Morris
38 Tommy John
29 Tim Raines
27 Mark McGwire
19 Alan Trammell
15 Don Mattingly
14 Dave Parker
12 Mark Grace *
11 Dale Murphy
9 David Cone *
7 Harold Baines
5 Mo Vaughn *
4 Matt Williams *
3 Jesse Orosco *
3 Greg Vaughn *
2 Ron Gant *
2 Jay Bell *
1 Dan Plesac *

Other than Henderson, there aren't any decent first year candidates. Frankly, I'm puzzled why some of them made it through the screening process, but I suppose I'd rather have more players make it through than less. Let the voters have their say. Here are a few comments about specific candidates.

There's no precedent for someone coming as close as Rice was last year and not making it. Nineteen players have received between 70 and 75 percent on a ballot. Sixteen of them made it the next year. The other three (Nellie Fox, Jim Bunning, Orlando Cepeda) were in their last year of eligibility and had to wait for the VC to put them in.

The voting pattern for Andre Dawson suggests that he's probably a year away from going in, maybe two. Blyleven has five years of eligibility left, and while he's within striking distance (61.9% last year), he's entering into the steepest part of the climb. Bunning was at 65.7% in his 10th year on the ballot and didn't make it. Neither did Gil Hodges, who was at 59.5%.

Lee Smith seems to have reached a plateau in the mid 40s, which is the range in which a lot of the candidates who fall short seem to stall. Ron Santo and Roger Maris are a couple of prominent examples. Smith does have one thing going for him: the voters seem to have broken the bottleneck on closers, inducting Dennis Eckersley in 2004, Bruce Sutter in 2006, and Rich Gossage in 2008. I'd put Smith's chances somewhere north of 50-50 at this point.

Tommy John is in his last year of eligibility and doesn't have a shot. Jack Morris isn't gaining much traction, and I think he is heading down a very similar path. Raines got 24% of the vote in his first year, but he has a lot of supporters from the Sabermetric community, and his is the sort of candidacy that could gain a lot of momentum. If his supporters remain vocal in making an impassioned case for him, I think it will take six years to get him in -- the class of 2013.

McGwire's case is perhaps the most interesting. I'll be curious to see how many people have softened their stance towards him having had a year to put his candidacy into perspective. I'd wager there's a 2/3 chance his vote total will only move by +/-3 percentage points, and a 1/3 chance he jumps up 10-15 points.

Results will be announced on January 12.

More WHAM

2008-12-11T06:28:00.001-05:00

I'll be back on WHAM-1180 with Bob Matthews on Tuesday December 16 from 7 to 8. Bob and I will be discussing the upcoming vote for the Baseball Hall of Fame, and other topics of interest. We'll also be taking phone calls.

UPDATE: I've been bumped to Friday night, same time, same channel.

Golden Age of Passing?

2008-12-05T12:45:00.002-05:00

There's a great piece by Kerry Byrne running at Sports Illustrated this week, calling this "the Golden Age of Passing." Observing the success of rookie quarterback Matt Ryan and first-year starter Matt Cassel (who hadn't started a game since high school), Kerry suggests that this reflects a major shift in pro football.

It's a far cry from the traditional coming-of-age story for NFL quarterbacks, who were expected to struggle for years while they adapted to the speed and picked up the intricacies of the pro game.

But it's also no surprise: after all, the game itself has changed dramatically over the decades, and those changes have only accelerated in recent years, making it easier than ever to pass the ball and easier than ever for new quarterbacks to have an immediate impact on their team.

This echoes something I wrote in the New York Sun in January, noting that our expectations for young quarterbacks had changed, and that we now expect them to be successful right away. Teams used to be more patient, not only allowing them more time to develop but accepting that it would take several years for them to get acclimated to the pro game.

But while Kerry asserts that this shift originates with the stricter enforcement of pass interference rules, I'd argue that it started earlier than that. Ben Roethlisberger led the Steelers to the AFC Championship game as a rookie in 2004, and won the Super Bowl a year later. Kurt Warner made his first NFL start in 1999 and ended that season with a Super Bowl victory. Tom Brady did the same thing two years later, and won a total of three Super Bowls in his first four seasons at the Patriots' helm. Eli Manning seems like a slacker by comparison, not winning his first Super Bowl until his fourth season.

That's why I'm hesitant to ascribe the success of this current crop of young quarterbacks to the 2004 rules changes. I think some of it has to do with the fact that college offenses have adopted more pro-style schemes over the past decade, making these young quarterbacks better equipped to make the adjustment to life in the NFL. I also think the mindset has changed and teams are much more likely to thrust a young quarterback into a starting job than they were even ten years ago.

And for what it's worth, I think the golden age for quarterbacks came in the early 1970s. Ten of the 25 quarterbacks in the Hall of Fame were active then, along with two more guys (Ken Anderson and Ken Stabler) who are likely to go in eventually. Even with a very optimistic appraisal of the quarterbacks playing today, I don't think we're anywhere near that total.

Mea Culpa, Don Beebe

2008-12-03T06:42:00.000-05:00

On the radio last night, host Bob Matthews and I were talking about former Buffalo Bill Steve Tasker and his chances of making the Hall of Fame. Bob's a big supporter of Tasker, but I told him I thought that the lack of statistics for special teamers would keep him out. The one thing that would help, I said, was the big play he made in Super Bowl XXVII, chasing down Leon Lett from behind and swiping the ball out of his hands as he crossed the goal line.

It was a memorable moment, except of course it wasn't Steve Tasker who made the play. It was his teammate, Don Beebe.

Thanks to the eight (yes eight) people who emailed me to set me straight. And of course, thanks to the folks who called up to talk football. I love talking to radio hosts across the country, but I especially enjoy taking calls and fielding questions from listeners.

On the Radio this Week

2008-11-29T13:13:00.004-05:00

More radio appearances this week. I'll be on Sportsradio 1280 Sunday Morning from 11-noon, with my old pal Craig Schaler. Tuesday night, I'll be on WHAM 1180 with Bob Matthews from 7-8. We'll be taking calls from listeners, and you can join the fun at (800) 295-1180.

Thanksgiving in Vietnam

2008-11-26T06:07:00.002-05:00

Recollections from a Thanksgiving day forty years ago, from the website Common Ties.

Thanksgiving 1968, a hill near the DMZ and Laotian border, South Vietnam

By Norman Milliken (second from left)

It was 1968. Thanksgiving Day in Vietnam. We were dug in on a ridgeline, about a thousand meters from the DMZ, close to the Laotian border. There was talk of hot food for the holiday, flown out from LZ Stud in thermal containers. These rumors gained wide currency in a place where food and sleep were the only obsessions worth having. Food, sleep, and rotating back to the world after 13 months in the bush.

The ground was hard digging, and I was tired beyond description. The mountains, the pack I carried, the machine gun, mortar shells, and thousands of rounds of gun ammo - it was all too much. The thought of hot food, real food, tailed off in my mind like a dream. Everyone wanted that food. Potatoes, we imagined. Potatoes with gravy and turkey with stuffing. Cranberry gel and bread. Maybe even butter. Once, in the summer, milk was delivered out in the field. It was sour, but so cold it made your head ache. So, we imagined cold milk, too.

As the day stretched out, we waited for the choppers. Arguments broke out over who would win the game in Detroit. The captain ordered a perimeter sweep. We took a reinforced squad and moved quickly up one side of the ridge and down the other. We were so far from anywhere that we went fast. The NVA weren’t too active this deep in the hills. We finished our sweep and set in. The choppers were late.

I remembered other Thanksgivings. We all did. Mine were filled with memories that probably weren’t real. I constructed the past as I wished it to be, and that was just fine. In a place where there was nothing but present-tense life, we created a past with a truth all its own. And we waited for the helicopters.

Deep in the afternoon we heard them.

There were two Chinooks bending over the horizon, cargo nets hanging beneath them. We wanted those nets to have hot food containers. Thanksgiving dinner there in the hills, 10,000 miles from home. An unloading party was organized. We all wanted to be on it for a change.

The nets were landed and cut loose. The choppers flew away, and the silence closed in on us again. There was ammo re-supply. C-rations and a huge bag of heat tabs. Thanksgiving dinner would be c-rations as hot as we wanted them. You could’ve cut the disappointment with a knife. Thanksgiving came and went.

Five years before I had been a senior in high school. Five years hence, I would be a senior in college. In less than a month, I would be lying in a hospital in Yokohama, Japan, my right leg under imminent threat of amputation. Yet, I remember that Thanksgiving in detail I could never muster for other days. The hills and the jungle and the infinite fatigue in my legs. And the smell of my Thanksgiving dinner, a hot little can against my fingers, filling me up against my will.

Norman Milliken is a retired school teacher who served with the United States Marine Corps in South Vietnam in 1968. A combat infantryman, he carried an M-60 machine gun.

via Common Ties, 2008-11-23

Patriots' System Works Again

2008-11-24T10:27:00.007-05:00

If you haven't noticed, the Patriots once again have an obscure backup quarterback playing like an MVP and leading them towards the playoffs. Interesting observations on the phenomenon from Sports Illustrated's Peter King in his column today.

Now this stat is eerie: After Tom Brady's first 11 starts in the NFL, his completion percentage was 66.3. After Matt Cassel's 11 NFL games this season, his completion percentage is ... well, 66.3.

"Wow,'' Cassel said from Miami after the Pats' 48-28 win. "That's pretty good.''

It's crazy and all-too-soon and slightly irreverent. But it is also unavoidable. Life is imitating art. The career path of Cassel is following Brady's. Brady's record after 11 games: 8-3. Cassel's: 7-4 -- and if the Pats had won the overtime coin flip a week ago Thursday, I bet those records would be the same. Brady's rating: 91.6. Cassel's: 90.5. Cassel leads Brady by 377 passing yards, thanks to Cassel's back-to-back 400-yard passing games. (Been on Mars? That's no misprint.) As for touchdowns, Brady leads Cassel by three.

It's hard to fathom what we're seeing. Brady, the 199th pick in the 2000 draft, has won three Super Bowls and will be a Hall of Famer on the first ballot. Cassel, the 230th pick in 2005, hasn't won anything big yet, but he has thrown for more yards than Brett Favre this season (2,615 to 2,461) and for a higher passer rating than Peyton Manning (90.5 to 87.2) and for more yards per pass attempt than Eli Manning. The Patriots' system works, and it works wonders.

Hoop Dreams Update

2008-11-20T07:25:00.000-05:00

For my money, Hoop Dreams is one of the best documentary films ever made. It tells the story of two teenage boys from inner city Chicago who hope to become professional basketball players. What makes it such a compelling story is that it's not about basketball, its about two kids who see their athletic talent as a ticket out of poverty. I'm not spoiling anything by telling you that neither one makes it to the NBA.

Earlier this month, Sarah Olkon of the Chicago Tribune followed up with William Gates and Arthur Agee, the stars of the 1994 documentary, to see how their lives have turned out. Now 35, the two have remained close through the ups and downs the followed the end of the film.

LIFE Photo Archives Online

2008-11-19T10:25:00.007-05:00

Life magazine has just made its entire photo archive available on Google, including millions of unpublished images that have never been seen before. Chronologically, they span nearly 150 years, from Abraham Lincoln on a Civil War battlefield to Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan on the set of their show 30Rock.

There are some fantastic sports photos here, too. This shot captures the NFL's sixteen starting quarterbacks just prior to the 1961 season. Six of these guys went on to the Hall of Fame (In the back row, Bobby Layne #22, Bart Starr #15, Johnny Unitas #19. In the front row, Fran Tarkenton #10, Sonny Jurgensen #9, Y.A. Tittle #14.

There are some great color shots, too, including the one below of a gaunt Babe Ruth making his farewell appearance at Yankee Stadium in 1948.

I also found this shot of Sonny Liston on the canvas after he's been knocked out by Cassius Clay. Most of the photographers focused on an exuberant Clay, but George Silk captured a great image of Liston rising to his knees, with what seems to be an angry gaze across the ring towards the man who just took the Heavyweight Championship away.

Big Election Night for Ex-Athletes

2008-11-05T10:12:00.002-05:00

Former Phoenix Suns point guard Kevin Johnson was elected Mayor of Sacramento yesterday. He was one of more than a dozen former athletes who were seeking office last night.

Heath Shuler, a Heisman Trophy runner-up at Tennessee who played quarterback for the Washington Redskins and New Orleans Saints, was re-elected to Congress for his second term. Another former NFL quarterback and head coach, Sam Wyche, won a seat on the Pickens County Council in South Carolina. Peter Boulware ran for state legislature in Florida. The former Ravens linebacker appears headed for a recount.

Among those who were unsuccessful in their election bids last night was Joe Mesi, a top heavyweight boxer from Buffalo. He sat behind me at the Hasim Rahman bout last June and has 36-0 record in the ring, but lost his bid for a New York state Senate seat.

Facts Still Not Covered By Copyright

2008-10-28T11:51:00.010-05:00

Sports reference publishing -- and all journalism, for that matter -- is made possible by the legal principle that facts can't be copyrighted. It's a principle that was upheld by the Supreme Court with their Feist ruling in 1991, and again this summer in the Major League Baseball v CBC case.

The issue was put to the test again this month in Federal Court, with a pair of documentary filmmakers suing Warner Brothers over their 2006 film "We Are Marshall." The dispute centered on the rights to the story of the tragic 1970 airplane crash that killed 37 members of Marshall University's football team and the school's remarkable efforts the following year to rebuild the program. Deborah Novak and John Witek argued that the studio's film stole their work with by retelling the story which they documented in their Emmy award winning 2000 film, "Ashes to Glory."

U.S. District Court Judge Gary Allen Feess dismissed the case on Monday, delivering a lengthy opinion which concluded: "Though the two works tell the story of the Nov. 14, 1970, airplane crash, that event, and the events that preceded and followed, are all matters of public record which cannot be copyrighted." He went on to write: "Even though the two works have the same story as their subject, they are not substantially similar as the phrase is used in copyright jurisprudence."

In an excellent post at the TechDirt blog, Mike Masnick discusses the impact the ruling may have on the strange practice of movie studios "buying the rights" to someone's story.

There's really no legal reason for them to do so -- as you can't copyright factual information. Anyone can make a movie based on a true story without purchasing any kinds of rights. Now, there may be some business reasons for doing so. Licensing the story from either those who were involved or who initially reported on it may allow you to have those people more involved in making the movie itself (though, that could just be handled by hiring them to advise, rather than "licensing" the story). Still, it did seem odd that it was so common for true stories to be "sold" this way.

Radio Blitz

2008-10-17T15:45:00.002-05:00

A flurry of radio appearances are scheduled for next week. I'll post them here as I confirm times and dates. Have locked in NewsRadio 1400 WDWS in Champaign, IL on Tuesday 10/21 at 7:30 pm Central time.

Working on times & dates for stations in Chatanooga and in Missoouri, probably on Thursday and Friday.

Canton vs. Masillon, 1906

2008-10-10T22:08:00.014-05:00

The image above is a detail from a panoramic photo taken at a game between the Massillon Tigers and Canton Athletic Club on November 24, 1906. Note the grid lines on the field, which run from both side-to-side and end-to-end. My small version of the photo doesn't do it justice. If you click through to the Library of Congress website, you can see the full image. It's rich with detail, and it also captures an historic game in the tumultuous pre-NFL world of pro football.

Historian Bob Carroll describes the image in an article at the website of the Pro Football Researcher's Association. (note: link is to a pdf)

The Haines Photo Co. of Conneaut photographed the asylum grounds in the midst of play. The view shows the 110-yard field lined off with the peculiar lengthwise lines five yards apart parallel to the sidelines that, together with the normal yard markings, turned gridirons into huge green checkerboards from 1906 to 1910. (The extra lines were used to judge the legality of forward passes, which had to cross the line of scrimmage five yards out from where the ball was put in play.) At either end of the field, American flags crown each upright of the goal posts. On the Massillon side, the open bleachers overflow except for a small section down near one end zone, where a skinned baseball diamond is visible. Across the field, there's no room left in the smaller Canton bleacher section, and spectators stand three deep behind the bench and from end zone to end zone. Perched on the outfield wall are hundreds more. Even the streetcars parked outside the wall have fans on the roofs. In the mid-background, brooding over all, is the state hospital.

The two teams were bitter rivals. They were arguably the best two teams of the era, located just 15 miles apart, and they were constantly fighting for the services of the game's best players. Both were spending lavishly to bring in ringers from out of town. A series of intense negotiations resulted in an agreement for the teams to meet two times, first in Canton on November 16 and a week later in Massillon. The much anticipated first game went to Canton by a score of 10-5. Carroll describes the hub-bub the game created:

No pro game had ever received such press coverage. The Bell Telephone company even had men stationed in the grounds observing. As fast as a play was made, it was telegraphed to all the large cities in the country.

Things were much testier by the following week. There had been a war of words in the press, and a disagreement over which ball to use nearly kept the game from getting underway. Massillon won the hard-fought rematch 13-6.

The evening after the game, a brawl erupted among Canton players during dinner at their hotel. It later came out that some thought the game had been fixed. The play-calling strategy of player-coach Blondy Wallace was the focus of suspicion, but as the scandal grew, a number of contradictory allegations came out. One story suggested that Canton players had bet large amounts of money on themselves to win, and then Massillon players had been approached and asked to fix the game, to lose on purpose in exchange for a share of the wager's proceeds. Charges and accusations were levied back and forth for weeks, and while there was never any definitive answer as to what happened, the scandal engulfed both teams and forced them to fold.

Early Football Photos

2008-10-10T12:01:00.002-05:00

With their stylish caps, this looks like a photo of a 19th century baseball team. But look more closely at the oblong object the man in the front row is holding. That's a football, and this is a picture of the 11-man squad from Trinity College taken in 1889.

The game of football was born in the 1870s on the campus of northeastern colleges. By the late 1880s it was spreading like wildfire, and the boys from Trinity formed a league with other North Carolina schools like Duke, Wake Forest, and UNC.

The folks at Duke University have been sharing their archives online, with a massive collection of photographs that span the institution's history. There are photos showing campus scenes, student life, early postcards... even a 70 picture set that covers campus dining halls. But my favorite is the collection of Duke football pictures. I'm particularly fond af the artwork on the football programs, like this one from 1937.

Palin's World

2008-10-09T11:45:00.003-05:00

Even if you like Sarah Palin, you have to admit that New Yorker magazine's update of one of their classic cover designs is funny.

Thanks to the great blog Strange Maps for bringing this to my attention.

A Statistician's View of Electoral Politics

2008-10-08T20:30:00.005-05:00

I like to think I'm an informed voter. I'm sure most people think they are too. But it's harder and harder to avoid the blatant partisan blather that passes for commentary on the cable news networks. No matter what issue is raised or what question is asked, the panelists spin into an attack on the opposing candidate. Enough already.

There's a great new web site that caught my attention earlier in the year called FiveThirtyEight.com, and I've been recommending it to many of my friends. And here's the twist; after reading it every day for weeks I discovered that it was the brainchild of Nate Silver, a baseball analyst best known for his predictive models to project player performance. Nate has applied his advanced statistical analysis to study political polls, compiling polling data from hundreds of sources and measuring the effectiveness of different polling techniques.

Wikipedia offers this overview:

[The site] compiles polling data through a unique methodology derived from Silver's experience in baseball sabermetrics to "balance out the polls with comparative demographic data" and "weighting each poll based on the pollster's historical track record, sample size, and recentness of the poll."FiveThirtyEight.com also uses computer models to simulate the election 10,000 times per day in order to provide a continually up-to-date assessment of probability for electoral outcomes.

Notably, FiveThirtyEight.com's new polling methodology gained national attention for beating out most pollsters' projections in North Carolina and Indiana in the heavily contested political primary race between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2008.

Nate launched the site in March, and by the end of September it was attracting 2.5 million unique visitors a week.

A lot of folks probably aren't interested in this sort number crunching, but I find it fascinating. It's an injection of science into what has, at least for the general public, been a nebulous process. Maybe Nate will do for politics what Michael Lewis and his book Moneyball did for the game of baseball.

Writing is A Conversation

2008-10-03T06:55:00.004-05:00

Writing is a conversation.

It starts a solitary act. You sit alone in a room quietly typing away, but the words on the page are a conversation you're having with the reader.

A lot of us become writers because we find that it's how we communicate best. We're better at sharing our ideas in the written form. A lot of that is a result of (or maybe the cause of) our shyness.

And that's a problem, because being successful as an author requires aggressive self-promotion. Some folks aren't comfortable with that. I haven't always been. I was like many authors who would prefer to finish their book and lot others worry about promotion and publicity. But the fact is, unless your name is Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, publishers aren't going to do any of that for you. Books don't sell because they're well written. They sell because the author promotes them.

Cartoonist Hugh MacLeod hit on that point the other day at his blog. He's probably best known for his known for his ideas about how "Web 2.0" affects advertising and marketing. Here's what Hugh wrote:

It always struck me as funny how people want to be artists, yet they don't want to be marketers. To me that's like wanting to be a pro football player, yet not wanting to keep in shape. Nice work if you can get it.

If you're not comfortable pitching your book, doing radio shows and book signings and interviews and all of that stuff, then this isn't the racket for you. If you're not prepared to hear some readers say you're an idiot and your book stinks and you're funny looking, then you're only interested in having a monologue. If you're a writer, you eventually have to take the conversation out of that quiet room and directly to the readers.

Radio Tonight

2008-10-02T07:11:00.002-05:00

Making another radio appearance tonight (Thursday 10/2) on WUCZ 104.1 FM in Carthage, Tennessee. Scheduled to be on SportsNuts from 7:30 to 8:00 pm eastern time, and you can listen online.

Update: Sorry for those of you who missed me. I didn't realize Carthage was on Central time. My appearance was at 8:30 eastern time. Thanks to John and Jim for a great conversation.

On Wearing Suits

2008-10-01T07:55:00.001-05:00

Do you wear a suit to work? I don't, and neither does NBA owner and business maverick Mark Cuban. The business suit use to be a universal requirement, but it's becoming much less common. Cuban talked about his own decision to opt for casual wear in his blog.

Why am I such a suit hater ? I'm not a suit hater, I just could never think of any good reason for any sane person to wear a suit in the first place.

Exactly what purpose does a suit serve ? Why in the world are so many people required to wear a suit to work ? Do the clothes make the man or woman in the western world today ? Does wearing a tie make us work harder or smarter ? Is this a conspiracy by the clothing, fabric or dry cleaning industry to take our money ?

Or are we all just lemmings following a standard we all know makes zero sense, but we follow because we are afraid not to ?

If you are a CEO, are there not better things your employees could spend money on than multiple suits, ties, dress shirts, dress shoes, dress socks, dry cleaning, and all the other associated costs ? Gee, no suits would be the same as giving your employees a tax free raise. Think that might make them happy ? Or do employees consider having to spend money on suits a perk ?

Suits used to be standard attire for NFL coaches on the sidelines, until the league signed a $250 million contract with Reebok mandating that coaches as well as players wear Reebok sportswear exclusively during games. Niners head coach Mike Nolan had to petition the league for the right to wear a suit during games, and it took almost two years to get their permission.

Upcoming Appearances

2008-09-19T20:44:00.007-05:00

On Tuesday, I'll be talking about my book and signing copies at the Barnes and Noble on the campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology. I'll be there from 6:00 to 7:00. if you're in the area, stop by and say hello.

Later that night I'll be making a radio appearance with Papa Joe Chevalier on KLAV 1230 AM out of Las Vegas. You can also listen online. I'll be on around 7:40 eastern time.

Fred Taylor Knocks My Book

2008-09-13T09:39:00.002-05:00

My new book has been out for about a month. Yes, I know I'm lousy when it comes to self promotion, but the sales have been strong and the reviews have been very good.

Of all the press I've received, my favorite piece comes from an NFL player who took umbrage at where I had ranked him. Fred Taylor of the Jacksonville Jaguars told a Florida Times-Union reporter that I was crazy for ranking him as only the 35th best running back of all-time.

"Tell that dude I'm one of the top five running backs of all time," Taylor said. "Looking at the caliber of running backs that have played the game, I'm definitely in the top 10. I've got to prove him wrong and make the top 10 before it's all said and done."

USA Today and Gannett have both had good reviews, and the Library Journal -- which reviews new books for librarians to consider purchasing -- gave it a starred review. More details at my website.

The Sun Also Sets

2008-09-03T19:23:00.001-05:00

Got word late Wednesday night that the New York Sun will likely cease publication at the end of September. Editor Seth Lipsky explained to staff that despite the critical success the paper has received, the financial challenges appear to be too much to overcome. The newspaper business is suffering a slow death, and the goal of launching a new broadsheet in a city already served by six daily papers was an audacious one. Lipsky's letter to readers offers more details.

I've written hundreds of colums for the Sun since they launched, mostly covering the Jets and Giants. It's been a great experience. I've worked with some great editors, covered a game I love, and had a chance to meet some of the great players and coaches of this generation. I hope to continue writing for the Sun right up until the final edition.

Hanging On Too Long

2008-07-08T06:00:00.004-05:00

The sports world was abuzz last week with rumors that quarterback Bret Favre was considering a comeback. What that reflects, more than anything, is how little real news there is from the football world this time of year. Favre was quick to dismiss the rumors, but not before sports radio hosts and football columnists worked themselves into a frenzy.

Part of the excitement stems from the belief that Favre could still perform at a high level. But the sad reality is that too many great players couldn’t force themselves to walk away from the game, continuing to play long after it was clear that there was nothing left in the tank.

Who were the players who had the hardest time letting go? I’ll offer my top-five.

5. Red Grange -- The Galloping Ghost arrived with a splash in 1925, giving pro football a much needed injection of credibility when he walked off the University of Illinois campus and joined the Chicago Bears. He was such a big star that he decide to form his own league the following year. Grange was a success, but his league was not. He returned to the NFL the following season, and in the fourth game back shredded his knee. Grange refused to have surgery, even though he could barely walk. He limped through the rest of the 1927 season then sat out a year, hoping that rest would solve the problem. It didn’t. He returned in 1929 but had lost both his speed and his ability to make cuts. The Bears turned their running game over to Bronko Nagurski, but Grange stuck around to back him up and played defensive back. Grange was still a big box-office draw, but he was a mere shadow of the player who dominated the college ranks. He played just 13 NFL games before blowing out his knee, then hung around for seven more years.

4. Mike Webster – Over the last few years, Webster has become the poster boy for the debilitating physical ailments that NFL players suffer when their careers are over. The Hall of Fame center was a key member of the Steelers team that dominated the seventies, winning four Super Bowls in six years. Webster continued playing long after his teammates from that era had retired. The Steelers released him after the 1987 season, and he signed on as an assistant line coach with Kansas City. After just a few weeks, he talked the Chiefs into letting him come out of retirement and play, and he spent two more years in the trenches. By his early forties he was showing signs of dementia and symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. He had suffered seizures and was taking a cocktail of medication for anxiety and depression. Webster died at the age of fifty, having spent his last few years living out of his truck and sleeping at an Amtrak station in Pittsburgh. Who knows if his post-football life would have been better if he had retired sooner, but looking back, you have to think it might have helped.

3. Joe Namath – He suffered his first knee injury during his senior season at Alabama, and by the time he was 27 Namath had endured 83 knee surgeries. (I’m exaggerating, but not by much). When he was healthy he was one of the greatest passers the game had ever seen. He became the first player to surpass 4000 passing yards in a season, and let the Jets to a shocking upset of the Colts in Super Bowl III. The bum knees sidelined him for the better part of four seasons, and when he returned he struggled. From 1974-1976, he threw 39 touchdown passes and was intercepted 66 times. The Jets were forced to cut him loose, and he spent one last season with the LA Rams trying to recapture the magic. It didn’t happen.

2. Franco Harris -- Harris was a great running back for a long time, but he stuck around at the end in pursuit of Jim Brown’s all-time rushing record. Brown, who had retired at age 29, was so outraged by that idea that he threatened to come out of retirement to keep Harris from passing him. Brown was 48 at the time.

Brown challenged the 34-year old Harris to race him in a 40-yard dash, and Harris agreed. The event generated a lot of interest and was televised nationally the weekend before the Super Bowl. Brown pulled up midway through the race with a sore hamstring, but still managed a time of 5.72 seconds. Harris finished in 5.16, enough to win the race but a dreadfully slow time for someone hoping to show he could still be productive in the NFL. Although Harris won the race, Brown proved his point.

Clearly out of steam, Harris was released by the Steelers and spent half a season with Seattle before calling it quits. In the end, he fell 192 yards shy of Brown’s rushing mark. Walter Payton passed them both by the end of the 1984 season, and eight other players have passed Harris in the two decades since he retired.

1. Johnny Unitas - I’m hard on Unitas , I guess, and that’s a reflection of my age. If I’d have seen him rally the Colts to victory in the 1958 NFL Championship game or watched him dominate the early sixties with his passing prowess, maybe I’d be a little more sympathetic. But my earliest memory of Unitas – and one of my earliest memories of the NFL – is seeing him at the tail end of his career with the San Diego Chargers. He’d clinched his place in the Hall of Fame six or eight years earlier, and he’d struggled for years with a chronically sore elbow. I’m not sure why he was still playing. As great as he was for all of those years, he was no longer an effective quarterback at age 36. The Colts benched him at 38, and rather than cut him, they traded Unitas to the Chargers just before his 40th birthday.

The Trouble With Sports Journalism

2008-07-05T06:00:00.001-05:00

Veteran sportswriter Pat Jordan wrote a fascinating piece for Slate, describing how the relationship between athletes and journalists has changed. Thirty years ago, when Sports Illustrated wanted him to write a piece on an athlete like Catfish Hunter, he'd spend a few days talking to his subject and following him around. Now, players work hard to keep writers at a distance.

This has become the curse of modern sports journalism. Writers and fans alike no longer get to know the object of their affections in a way they did years ago. Athletes see us as their adversaries, not as allies in their achievements. They are as much celebrities as rock stars and Hollywood actors are. They live insular lives behind a wall of publicists, agents, and lawyers. They don't interact with fans or writers. They mingle only with other celebrities at Vegas boxing matches, South Beach nightclubs, and celebrity golf events, all behind red-velvet VIP ropes. We can only gawk at them as if at an exotic, endangered species at a zoo.

That's one of the reasons why magazines are dying, because the quality of the articles is declining. It's not that writers can no longer write, but as Jordan puts it, "magazine writers are forced to churn out inconsequential puff pieces to satisfy those stars' publicists, or else the publicists will withhold their other clients from that magazine."

When Bill Gates Reviews Your Software Spec

2008-07-04T06:00:00.001-05:00

Bill Gates retired from Microsoft last week, leaving behind the company that he helped to found so he can devote himself full time to his charitable foundation. Gates was a fascinating character, in part because while he became the world's most powerful businessman, he was still first and foremost a great programmer.

There are a lot of great stories out there to illustrate this, but I was reminded of this blog post from a former Microsoft programmer. Joel Spolsky described what it was like to walk into a code review and see that Gates had decided to sit in. Spolsky wrote a 500 page spec for a new macro language in Microsoft Excel (which would eventually be released as Visual Basic for Applications), and the next day. Not only was he surprised to see Gates, but to see that the boss had come prepared.

He sat down and exchanged witty banter with an executive I did not know that made no sense to me. A few people laughed.

Bill turned to me.

I noticed that there were comments in the margins of my spec. He had read the first page!
He had read the first page of my spec and written little notes in the margin!

Considering that we only got him the spec about 24 hours earlier, he must have read it the night before. He was asking questions. I was answering them. They were pretty easy, but I can't for the life of me remember what they were, because I couldn't stop noticing that he was flipping through the spec...

He was flipping through the spec! [Calm down, what are you a little girl?]

... and THERE WERE NOTES IN ALL THE MARGINS. ON EVERY PAGE OF THE SPEC. HE HAD READ THE WHOLE GODDAMNED THING AND WRITTEN NOTES IN THE MARGINS.

Here's a guy who's the CEO of a huge company, the richest man in the world, and still he spent his night reviewing this guy's software spec. I'm sure that that sort of relentless attention to detail wasn't the only thing that made Gates so succesful, but I'm sure it didn't hurt.

Red Grange's Notebook

2008-07-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

One of the great things about doing football research is the treasure trove of source materials available from coaches and players. The image above shows a couple of pages from the notebook of Red Grange, which describes some of the basic concepts of the T-Formation offense. they're available from the archives of The University of Illinois, Grange's alma mater.

Great coaches from Knute Rockne and Clark Shaughnessy to Bill Walsh and George Allen have left us a rich legacy, documenting their strategies and innovations in great detail for future generations. I've got several dozens of these in my collection, and I'm always on the lookout for more.

One of my favorites comes from the college ranks. Notre Dame coach Frank Leahy wrote this book on the T-Formation in 1949, having won the National Championship three times in his first six years as head coach. It includes chapters on special teams play, run and pass defense, and even his approach to pre-game warmups. These sorts of books were intended to serve as a guide to other coaches, but they also provide an invaluable insight into football history, and into the minds of the game's great innovators.

Goodell Calls Rookie Salaries "Ridiculous"

2008-07-01T06:00:00.001-05:00

In an appearance late last week, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke out on the huge salaries being given to top draft picks. He acknowledged that it is "ridiculous" to reward untested rookies with lucrative contracts, and wants the issue addressed in contract talks. "There's something wrong about the system," Goodell said Friday. "The money should go to people who perform."

He was asked specifically about the five-year $57.75 million contract that Michigan tackle Jake Long signed with the Miami Dolphins. "He doesn't have to play a down in the NFL and he already has his money," Goodell said during a question and answer session at the Chautauqua Institution. "Now, with the economics where they are, the consequences if you don't evaluate that player, you can lose a significant amount of money."

And that's a huge problem. If you've read my annuals, you know that recent history suggests that half of first round draft picks don't pan out. If you commit that much of your salary cap to one guy for so long, you're bound to get into trouble, and it doesn't make any sense to be taking that kind of risk on a player whose never played a down in the NFL. Absent some sort of limit on salaries for rookies, teams are in a bind. They want the talented players that are only available at the top of the draft, but if they aren't willing to pay the market rate, the players simply won't sign.

The owners don't like the current system, and neither do the veteran players. How do you think veteran players -- guys who have been to the Pro Bowl -- feel when a new kid walks into camp making twice as much as they do? Maybe he'll earn it and maybe he won't, but those veterans hate seeing unproven players get substantially more money based on their potential. And they also hate the fact that the kid's bloated contract is going to force the team to cut several players loose just to stay under the salary cap.

Ultimately, that's what will drive the change... the veteran players and the union. Their careers are very short, their contracts aren't guaranteed, and the vast majority of players are better served by a system where everyone is paid based on their performance. Tom Brady threw 50 touchdown passes last year and led his team to 16-0 record. This year, he'll make $5 million, less than half of what Jake Long's pro-rated contract will pay out. That's great for Jake and his agent -- God bless 'em -- but it's just ridiculous.

Russert's Death

2008-06-30T09:26:00.000-05:00

The death of newsman Tim Russert earlier this month highlighted an important fact: medical science doesn't have all of the answers. An article in the New York Times illustrates the discomfort that this realization creates.

Mr. Russert, the moderator of "Meet the Press" on NBC News, took blood pressure and cholesterol pills and aspirin, rode an exercise bike, had yearly stress tests and other exams and was dutifully trying to lose weight. But he died of a heart attack anyway.

An article in The New York Times last week about his medical care led to e-mail from dozens of readers insisting that something must have been missed, that if only he had been given this test or that, his doctors would have realized how sick he was and prescribed more medicine or recommended bypass surgery.

Clearly, there was sorrow for Mr. Russert's passing, but also nervous indignation. Many people are in the same boat he was in, struggling with weight, blood pressure and other risk factors — 16 million Americans have coronary artery disease — and his death threatened the collective sense of well-being. People are not supposed to die this way anymore, especially not smart, well-educated professionals under the care of doctors.

Mr. Russert's fate underlines some painful truths. A doctor's care is not a protective bubble, and cardiology is not the exact science that many people wish it to be.

It's kinda scary to realize that you can do all the right things and still have a fatal heart attack.

Researchers' Weekend in the Steel City

2008-06-25T08:56:00.004-05:00

I joined a group of my fellow football researchers for a get-together in Pittsburgh this past weekend. Most were members of the Pro Football Researchers Association (PFRA), but it wasn't an official gathering. Friday night we all went to dinner and then screened the film "Leatherheads." The next morning, we gathered in a conference room to talk about the projects we were each working on and how we could help each other. Ken Crippen and Andy Piascik spoke about their efforts to track down and interview all of the surviving players from the All-America Football Conference. It's a daunting task, and time is running out. Most of the men who played in this league (which ran from 1946-1949) are in their eighties.

(Note: We're still trying to track down 12 AAFC players, and as far as we can tell they're all still alive. They are: Ezzret "Sugarfoot" Anderson, Robert Francis "Bob" Callahan, Norman Lawrence "Norm" Cox, Raymond L. "Ray" Evans, Paul Edward Gibson, Richard H. "Dick" Handley, Joe Winfred Morgan, John Puckett North, James C. Summer "Jim" O'Neal, Dewey Michael Proctor, Prince Arthur Scott, Linwood Bookard "Lin" Sexton, Gaylon Wesley Smith, Robert Lee "Bob" Sneddon, Robert Porter "Buddy" Tinsley, Jr., and Jack Gressert "Tex" Williams. If you have any info on their whereabouts or would like to help the effort, please contact me. )

T.J. Troup, who served as a technical advisor on "Leatherheads", shared stories about working with George Clooney and teaching the cast how to play football like they did back in 1925. Denis Crawford talked about his experiences writing his book on the 1979 Buccaneers called "McKay's Men." And we spent a fair amount of time just talking football. I wish more members had turned out, but those of us who were there had a lot of fun. I drove up to Canton on Sunday and spent a couple of hours at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. They've added a lot of interactive exhibits since I was last there, particularly in the Hall itself. Large touchscreen monitors let you call up and view a highlight film of any inductee. One of the newer exhibits in the museum honored those players who had served in the armed forces during wartime. no matter how many times I go, I always come away feeling like I've seen something new.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

2008-06-24T08:51:00.004-05:00

Peter Lovenheim, a writer who loves across town from me, posed an intersting question in his NY Times article yesterday.

Why is it that in an age of cheap long-distance rates, discount airlines and the Internet, when we can create community anywhere, we often don’t know the people who live next door?

After tragedy struck a family on his street, he was disappointed to realize that he didn't really know anything about his neighbors. And he was a little dismayed to learn that the same held true for the other folks on his block. He vowed to rectify that, to make a concious effort to get to know each and every person on his street.

I think his observations ring true. We've become more isolated, less connected to the people around us. It's easy to chat online with people around the world, but why is it so hard to have a conversation with people who live down the street, with people who spend their lives just a few yards away?

High Court Upholds Right to Use Sports Data

2008-06-05T07:27:00.000-05:00

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck a blow against Major League Baseball and the Players Association in their heavy handed efforts to assert control over the use of baseball statistics. The two entities had argued that they owned the rights to the use of their playing statistics, and that companies who used them to run fantasy baseball leagues had to pay a licensing fee. A lower court had ruled against MLB, and by refusing to hear an appeal, the Supreme Court upheld that ruling.

The Court has already ruled pretty clearly on the central issue in this case: that factual information could not be protected by copyright. That 1991 decision (Feist v Rural Telephone) was fought between the publishers of competing phone books, but it has made a major impact in the field of sport reference publishing. It's made it possible for me to publish the kinds of books and websites I've worked on for the past decade, and it's helped spawn all kinds of great new research by making the raw data more widely available.

W.C. Heinz: 1915-2008

2008-02-29T15:43:00.006-05:00

One of the all-time great sportswriters died yesterday. W.C. Heinz was 93, and a name that probably wasn't known to most folks younger than forty. He cut his teeth as a war correspondent, where he witnessed the D-Day invasion and shared a typewriter with his friend Ernest Hemingway. When the war ended, he went to work for the New York Sun covering baseball, boxing, and horse racing. He invented a new genre when he immersed himself with the Green Bay Packers in 1962, producing a detailed account of a week in the football life of coach Vince Lombardi. This style, later called "new journalism," shaped a whole generation of writers, from Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese to George Plimpton and John Feinstein.

Heinz also wrote the classic boxing book "The Professional" and, under the pseudonym Richard Hooker, wrote the novel "M*A*S*H*," later made into both a film and a television series.

Some of the tributes and obituaries which have appeared today do a better job of describing the importance of his work and the place he holds among 2oth century writers than I could. (thanks to my friend Greg Spira for passing some of these along.)

New York Times

Los Angeles Times

Sports Illustrated feature story from 2000

Hunstville Times

Burlington Free Press

Tough Week for Sportswriters

2008-02-04T12:28:00.000-05:00

Super Bowl week is generally pretty fun for sportswriters. The weather is usually pretty warm, there's almost no real news to report, and the whole scene is like one big party with a who's who of the football world. This year, however, the trip to the big game turned into a trip to the hospital for three prominent football writers.

It stared on Monday with Michael Wilbon, longtime columnist for the Washington Post and co-host of ESPN's daily sports-talk show, Pardon the Interruption. After complaining of chest pains, his wife drove him to a Scottsdale hospital, where he learned that he had suffered a mild heart attack.

After participating in the vote for the 2008 Hall of Fame class Saturday morning, ESPN's Len Pasquarelli checked into a local hospital and learned that he had five blocked arteries. He underwent quintuple bypass surgery on Super Bowl Sunday.

That same morning, Sports Illustrated's Peter King was in the emergency department at Good Samaritan Medical Center receiving treatment for what he described as "a nasty fever and bug."

Get well guys.

Eli Manning Arrives... Late, or Right on Time?

2008-01-30T21:59:00.000-05:00

A lot of folks have been jumping on the Eli Manning bandwagon this week. I've been a big supporter of his from day one. In my New York Sun column, I urged the Giants to make the bold move to trade up in the 2004 draft. I saw him play early in training camp before the start of his rookie season, and I've written a lot about him during his four seasons.

Manning's three playoff wins have made most Giants fans feel as if their patience with the young quarterback is finally paying off. But when did we begin to think that four years was a long time for a quarterback to develop? I tackled that question in my New York Sun column this week.

As fans, our expectations for young quarterbacks have been dramatically skewed by the sudden success of two recent signal callers. In 1999, Kurt Warner led the St. Louis Rams to the Super Bowl in his first season as an NFL starter. Two years later, Tom Brady achieved the same feat with the New England Patriots. That sort of immediate achievement is exceptionally rare. Historically, it has taken longer for quarterbacks to develop and achieve success at the professional level.

Terry Bradshaw struggled through his first five seasons, throwing more interceptions than touchdowns in each of those years as he struggled to hold on to his starting job. Roger Staubach didn't become the Cowboys' starter until he was 29 years old, and Steve Young turned 30 before he finally took the helm in San Francisco. And there are plenty of examples of great quarterbacks, from Johnny Unitas to Brett Favre, who only found success after failing with their first team (or in the case of Len Dawson, after failing with his first two teams).

Seven for the Hall

2008-01-28T06:53:00.001-05:00

On Saturday, the Pro Football Hall of Fame will announce its selections for the class of 2008. I'm not on the 44-man committee that gets to vote, but I've spent most of the past two years rating and ranking the best players in pro football history for my new book. Based on my research, here's a look at who I think the most deserving candidates are.

Randall McDaniel - He had that funky stance, with his left leg bent awkwardly to his side. If you didn't know any better, you'd take one look and think the guy didn't know how to play the position. He couldn't even get into a proper three point stance, but he was a dominating blocker. With McDaniel anchoring the line, the Vikings became an offensive juggernaut in the nineties. During his thirteen year career, McDaniel blocked for five different 1000-yard rushers and four 3,000-yard passers.

Darrell Green - One of the great cornerbacks of the nineties, Green seems like an obvious choice in his first year of eligibility. With Rod Woodson and Deion Sanders coming onto the ballot in the next few years, the field will get crowded with great cornerbacks. Green was one of the fastest players of his generation, and as the trend shifted towards taller more physical receivers, he continued to hold his own.

Emmitt Thomas - Nominated by the seniors' committee since he retired before 1982. Thomas led the league in interceptions twice and still ranks in the top-ten for career interceptions. Seniors committee candidates have already been through one selection process, and by making it this far they're almost assured of being selected.

Richard Dent - His individual performance is often overlooked because he was part of that dominating Bears defense. Dent's ability to rush the quarterback from the outside was one of the keys to making that 46 defense work. He ranked third all-time in sacks when he retired.

Art Monk - There have been more arguments over Monk's candidacy than any other player since the Hall of Fame opened. I think there's a strong case for his inclusion, which I documented at length in my forthcoming book, the Pro Football Historical Abstract. For most guys, it's a question of whether they were good enough. In Monk's case, I think it's more about understanding the context of what he did and why, in the case of the current board of selectors, his contributions have been dramatically undervalued.

Derrick Thomas - Frankly, I'm surprised he's not in already. At his peak, Thomas ranked with Lawrence Taylor as the best pass rushing outside linebacker of all-time. His tragic death in an automobile accident cut his career short, and kept him from pushing his sack totals to the top of the record book. He finished with 126.5, fourth highest ever for a linebacker, and probably a season and a half short of Taylor's high mark.

Ray Guy - I don't think he was the best punter of all time, but 99% of the public does. After 45 years, there's still only one special teams player in Canton. I don;t think Guy's an unworthy choice, and I think inducting him would open the door for other greatly deserving candidates who have been ignored because they were kickers, punters, or return men.

That leaves ten candidates who wouldn't get my vote, at least not this time around. They are:

Cris Carter – Wide Receiver (1987-2002)
Fred Dean – Defensive End (1975-1985)
Marshall Goldberg – Back (1939-1948)
Randy Gradishar – Linebacker (1974-1983)
Russ Grimm – Guard (1981-1991)
Bob Kuechenberg – Guard (1970-1984)
Andre Reed – Wide Receiver (1985-2000)
Paul Tagliabue – Commissioner (1989-2006)
Andre Tippett – Linebacker (1982-1993)
Gary Zimmerman – Tackle (1986-1997)

I'm not saying that none of these guys are worthy of induction, but the rules limit each year's class to a maximum of seven.

The Real Cost of Stadium Spending

2008-01-13T11:01:00.002-05:00

The booming economy of the 1990s spawned a building craze for pro sports. Team owners convinced state and local governments to build new stadiums and arenas for them, with the threat of moving to another city as the alternative. Seventy-two new venues were built between 1990 and 2005, creating a new home for two-thirds of the teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL, and Major League Baseball. The argument team owners made was that having a major league team boosts your city's prestige, creates jobs, and helps stimulate the local economy. It's hard to argue the first point, but it's much tougher to find evidence for the economical claims.

Back in the late-1990s, Indiana University professor Mark Rosentraub studied stadium financing in five cities. In his book Major League Losers, he meticulously demonstrated that pro sports produce very few jobs with little ripple effects in the community, take away business for suburban entertainment and food venues, and often leave municipalities with huge losses.

Now, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston takes that argument one step further. In his new book Free Lunch, he argues that stadium subsidies do more than just redirect tax money to wealthy team owners, they force local governments to cut funding for other services. In a recent interview on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Johnston said:

Because governments are spending money on baseball stadiums and football stadiums and other arenas, they don’t have money for youth programs and for parks. And I show in the book that this subsidy...and some others are intimately connected with the rise of youth gangs in America. Because we’ve starved our parks for money and recreation, we have eliminated all sorts of programs.

Regardless of your political views, it's hard to get around the dichotomy this situation creates. Conservatives complain about how much we spend on social programs. Liberals lament the growing numbers of people without health insurance. But as a society, we're willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build sports venues for millionaire team owners. That just doesn't make any sense to me.

Coaching Carousel Begins

2007-12-31T14:28:00.000-05:00

News just came over the wire that the Baltimore Ravens have fired head coach Brian Billick after a 5-11 season. If history is any indication, there will be a handful of other coaches out of work before the week is done. The average tenure for an NFL head coach is less than three seasons.

Important Early Baseball Find

2007-12-16T16:26:00.000-05:00

My friend and colleague John Thorn writes about an important early baseball find in his blog. John is not only a gifted writer, but the leading authority on 19th century baseball, particularly in the era before the civil war. Several years ago, Thorn found written documentation of baseball being played in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1791. That was more than thirty years before the earliest known reference to the game, and the first solid evidence of baseball being played in the 18th century.

Recently, Thorn stumbled upon the item above in the catalog of Leland's auction house. The item was described as an invitation to a ball, but Thorn correctly surmised that it was actually a ticket. After pouring through newspaper archives, he was able to determine that it was for an event in February 1843. More significantly, it was an event for the New York Magnolia Ball Club, an organization that was unknown to modern historians. Even more significant than that, perhaps, this is the earliest known image of men playing baseball.

Stating the Obvious

2007-12-13T10:07:00.000-05:00

"I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling
is going on in here!" -- Captain Renault in Casablanca

At 2 p.m. this afternoon, former Senator George Mitchell will release his report, serving up the results of his lengthy investigation into the use of performance enhancing drugs in baseball. Everyone is talking about the Mitchell report, speculating on what players' names might be revealed and what new details might emerge. Frankly, I don't understand the fuss. I don't need to know which player wrote a check to which clubhouse attendant to understand the big picture. Baseball has had a steroid problem for almost two decades, everyone knew it, and we all ignored it because we enjoyed the benefits that it brought. Attendance (and revenues) soared, the record books were re-written, and baseball bounced back from a devastating strike to enjoy a golden era.

Steroids were at the forefront of the public conscience in the late 1980s, particularly after Ben Johnson's world record performance at the Seoul Olympics was tainted by a failed drug test. In 1991, when Lyle Alzado revealed how years of steroid abuse ravaged his body, the NFL was forced to begin confronting the problem within their ranks.

Baseball was not immune to the problem, nor were they unaware of steroid use among players. Commissioner Fay Vincent proposed a drug policy in 1991, issuing a memorandum to all teams and urging them to confront the issue. (view the memo as a PDF) He specifically mentioned steroids, and warned about the damage that continued use could do to the game, to players, and to those who looked to ballplayers as role models. Both the owners and the players' union balked at the idea, and within a year, Vincent had been run out of office.

Over the next fifteen years, the issue of steroid use in baseball continued to force its way to the forefront. During Mark McGwire's record-setting 1998 season, he acknowledged using a steroid called androstenedione after reporters wrote about seeing bottles of it in his locker. Former MVPs Jose Canseco and Ken Caminiti later revealed not only that they had used steroids, but said the use of the substance was rampant in major league locker rooms. Canseco named names in his book, while Caminiti told Sports Illustrated that he estimated up to fifty percent of major league players were using steroids.

Padres General Manager Kevin Towers admitted that he suspected Caminiti was juiced, but kept quiet about it. "The truth is, we're in a competitive business," Towers told ESPN, "and these guys were putting up big numbers and helping your ballclub win games. You tended to turn your head on things."

Federal authorities made it a legal issue in 2003 when they raided the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, or BALCO, near San Francisco. The facility was alleged to manufacture performance enhancing drugs and distribute them to some of the world's top athletes. A series of reports by San Francisco Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada revealed the details of grand jury testimony, and began to reveal the names of some of the baseball players alleged to have received steroids from BALCO. Among them was Barry Bonds, the Giants slugger who was poised to break Henry Aaron's all-time home run record.

Still, despite all of this evidence staring everyone in the face, Commissioner Bud Selig and Players' Association chief Don Fehr both remained steadfast in their refusal to take action. It took Congressional hearing to get Baseball to institute a drug policy. In March of 2005, a House committee summoned players and executives to testify, and grilled them mercilessly on their failure to act.

That brings us to today, I suppose, when Mitchell will present a report that formally addresses the problem... sixteen years after Vincent's steroid memo. It's a necessary step and one that's long overdue. After all of the hype over the details of the report subsides, all that Mitchell has really done is to acknowledge what the whole world already knew. "Steroids in baseball? I'm shocked, shocked!"

Of course, the real issue isn't documenting what has happened in the past. What's really important is for the folks in Baseball to step up and do something. Let's hope they view this as a first step, an opportunity to get better, and not simply a final chapter to end the discussion.

How America Lost the War on Drugs

2007-12-05T20:35:00.001-05:00

Great piece of journalism in the latest issue of Rolling Stone Magazine about the War on Drugs.

All told, the United States has spent an estimated $500 billion to fight drugs - with very little to show for it. Cocaine is now as cheap as it was when Escobar died and more heavily used. Methamphetamine, barely a presence in 1993, is now used by 1.5 million Americans and may be more addictive than crack. We have nearly 500,000 people behind bars for drug crimes - a twelvefold increase since 1980 - with no discernible effect on the drug traffic. Virtually the only success the government can claim is the decline in the number of Americans who smoke marijuana - and even on that count, it is not clear that federal prevention programs are responsible.

Miller Snubbed Again

2007-12-03T13:31:00.000-05:00

Marvin Miller (right) and Curt Flood, 1970

The Veterans' Committee today announced that they have elected five new memebers for the baseball Hall of Fame. Their selections include two former managers, two former owners, and a commissioner. For the fifth straight year, those with a vote chose to ignore Marvin Miller, head of the player's union from 1966 to 1984. When Miller was passed over a year ago, Murray Chass of the New York Times wrote:

Miller did more to influence the game and business of baseball than anyone in history except perhaps for Branch Rickey, who demolished baseball’s color barrier. Rickey brought black players into the game, and Miller made them wealthy. Miller did more than that, of course. He made it possible for all players to make a lot of money, and he improved their working conditions.

The folks that run Major League Baseball don't view that as a positive development. Gains for the players are losses for the owners. Thirty years after players earned free agency and the right to collective bargaining, it appears that some people are still holding a grudge

What's particularly egregious is that wile the voters showed no support for Miller, they were nearly unanimous in selecting his nemesis, former commissioner Bowie Kuhn. The 12-member committee cast 10 votes for Kuhn; Miller received just three.

Outrage over the snub was nearly universal. John Helyar of ESPN wrote: "As the intrepid head of the players union, Miller reshaped the sport's economics," he added. "As the inept figurehead of the owners, Kuhn tried to preserve the status quo. And lost every time."

Murray Chass wrote in the New York Times that the omission of Miller was not surprising but still embarassing. "That only 3 of the 12 voters on the new executives committee acknowledged his contribution, and voted for him, is a sad commentary on the committee members and the Hall’s board of directors, which concocted the committee." He added, "The National Baseball Hall of Fame has become a national joke."

Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune called Miller's omission disgraceful. "To deny Miller while honoring Kuhn insults the intelligence of the fans who will go to Cooperstown next July and lessens the credibility of the Hall's good work throughout history."

So Long, Evel Knievel

2007-11-30T17:08:00.000-05:00

I hate to post three obituaries in a row, but I can't let this one pass without mentioning it. CNN reports that Evel Knievel has died today at the age of 69. His action figures were the "must have" toys when I was in second grade. Long before I was aware of professional sports or movie stars, my room was adorned with Evel Knievel posters. I had the Evel Knievel lunch box, and even his full length LP, an odd mix of songs and interviews. He retired in 1980, but had enjoyed something of a revival as a pop culture icon in recent years. The report says that he had been in poor health for several years.

Looking back, it sure seems like his success rate wasn't too high. His attempt to jump over the Snake River Canyon was a bust, and his jumps at Caesar's Palace and Wembley Stadium ended with an ambulance ride. Still, you can't deny that he was a remarkable showman, and he came around just at the right time. A guy like that would never get a chance to become an international celebrity today.

And a final bizarre footnote, the wire services were reporting just yesterday that Knievel had settled his lawsuit with Kanye West after the rapper visited him at his home. The articles included a strange photo of the two, probably taken just two days ago.

Inventor of Gatordade Dies

2007-11-27T14:39:00.000-05:00

Doctor Robert Cade, the University of Florida researcher who invented Gatorade has died. He was 80.

His concoction was born after the school's football coach asked him why his players "don't wee-wee after a game." Cade learned that the problem was dehydration, and his drink helped the Gators players replace carbohydrates and electrolytes lost through sweat while playing in swamp-like heat. The product took it's name from the team, and would spark a $5.5 billion a year sports drink market.

In a 2005 interview, Cade said he was proud that Gatorade was based on research into what the body loses in exercise. "The other sports drinks were created by marketing companies," he said.

The Old Lefthander

2007-11-17T14:53:00.001-05:00

News out of Cincinnati that Joe Nuxhall has died... He spent 31 years as a radio broadcaster for the Reds, with a unique style that made him immensely popular with his listeners. My own interest in baseball grew from listening to his accounts on the radio as a nine or ten year old boy in Cincinnati. He always ended the night with his signature phrase -- "this is the ol' lefthander, rounding third and heading for home."

Nuxhall made his major league debut in 1944 when he was just 15 years old, making him the youngest player in modern baseball history. He retired the first two batters he faced, but got rattled when Stan Musial came up to the plate. The legendary hitter lined a base hit, and the Cardinals scored five runs before manager Bill McKenchie took the kid out of the game. Nuxhall was sent to the minors and didn't return to the big leagues for eight years. By then, he'd become a confident young pitcher. His best season was probably 1955, when he went 17-12 and earned the first of two all-star appearances. The Reds traded him to Kansas City in 1961, so he missed Cincinnati's trip to the World Series that fall. He returned as a free agent in June of 1962 and pitched for the Reds until he retired in 1966.

Book Update

2007-10-01T11:26:00.000-05:00

The folks at Lyons Press have decided to push back the release of my new book, the Pro Historical Football Abstract, until next summer. I've received a lot of email from folks who are anxiously waiting, and to them I can only apologize for the delay and hope that you'll still want to buy the book in 2008.

The main reason or the delay is me: this book has been a massive undertaking and has taken me longer than I expected to complete. When all is said and done, it's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 pages. It's an exhaustive look at the greatest players of all-time, with essays on the top players at each position and a decade-by-decade look at how the game has evolved.

Nobel laureate Toni Morrison said: "If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it." That's exactly what I've done, and I hope folks will enjoy reading it.

Sports in the Post 9-11 World

2007-09-11T10:34:00.000-05:00

Six years ago today I woke up in a hotel room, having watched the New York Giants and Denver Broncos play their season opener the night before. My mind was on a column I would write that day about how the Denver offense would be affected by the loss of Ed McCaffrey, who broke his leg in that game. But of course, the other events of that day quickly made that seem like the most trivial concern.

I went back this morning to look at the piece I ended up writing instead, and it wasn't particularly compelling. More than anything, I think it captures the shock and confusion we were all feeling as we tried to put those horrible events into context. A year later, I wrote another piece, originally intended as a chapter for the inaugural edition of my Pro Football Prospectus. My thoughts had crystallized by then, and now five years later, they essentially remain the same. In one sense, the terrorist attacks and all of the things that followed have helped put a lot of things into perspective. But while some would argue that it shows our obsession with sports is out of place, I believe the opposite is true. Here's what I wrote then:

We are blessed to live in a country whose freedom and prosperity give us the privilege of enjoying spectator sports. No other nation can rival our passion for the games and for the teams and for the athletes. The Super Bowl is our biggest undeclared national holiday. To celebrate, we gather together with friends, share some pizza and beer, and sit on the couch to watch the last football game of the year. If that doesn't say something about the spirit of America, then I don't know what does.

So whether you want to wave the flag or not, and regardless of how you feel about all of the things that have happened in the last six years, I hope at least that you'll take an opportunity today to reflect on the role of sports in American culture, and how truly blessed we are to be able to root the way we do.

The Big Apple Beat

2007-08-20T10:43:00.000-05:00

The NFL season is about to get underway, and once again I'll be writing weekly game previews for the New York Sun. It'll be my fifth season covering the Jets and Giants for the Sun, and I've really enjoyed that opportunity. Both teams should be competitive in what will be very competitive divisions.

Much of the offseason discussion about both teams has focused on their quarterbacks and head coaches, but I think that the success of each club will depend largely on their new running backs. The Giants have to replace Tiki Barber, who opted to retire to pursue a career in broadcasting. They'll count on third-year player Brandon Jacobs, a tall athletic back whose running style reminds me of Eric Dickerson. I'm not suggesting he'll be the kind of dominating back that Dickerson was, but he runs with the same upright style and has a similar easy gait that masks his speed.

The Jets made the playoffs last year despite their inability to tun the ball consistently. A trio of unimpressive backs just didn't get the job done. To solve that problem, the Jets traded a second round draft pick to the Bears for Thomas Jones. A big powerful back, Jones rushed for 1210 yards last year and helped lead Chicago to the Super Bowl. He doesn't have the kind of explosiveness that will lead to big plays, but he might help the Jets control the clock by pounding the ball up the middle.

My previews will appear in the Sun on Fridays during the season, or on Thursday/Monday when the teams play on those days. You can read them at the New York Sun web site or in the archive section of my own web site.

Back From Alaska

2007-07-24T14:56:00.000-05:00

Just returned from a two-week trip to Alaska with the family. We flew into Fairbanks, then made our way gradually south towards Anchorage on the Alaska Railroad. It was an amazing experience. We'd ride for miles without seeing a house or a road or any signs of human life. The word that kept springing to mind was "pristine." The scenery was breathtaking just about everywhere you looked, and most of the geography was undisturbed by man.

I saw and did too much to describe in a single blog posting, but if you're curious, I'd invite you to check out what we have posted at our family web site -- lahman.org. Between myself and the three kids, we took wel over 3500 pictures with our digital cameras. I posted a few each day when I could get internet access, and once we returned I uploaded low res versions of everything else.

Because we were doing so much, I kept a journal of our activities. Otherwise, I knew I'd forget some of the amazing things we got to experience. As time permits, I hope to make that journal available at the family website along with edited versions of the best pictures. My younger daughter Hannah is doing the same thing with her written journal, and Audrey, her older sister, made posts to her blog during the trip.

Kodak's Implosions

2007-07-01T19:11:00.000-05:00

I went with my son and daughter to Kodak Park early this morning. The photo giant had announced weeks ago that they were going to demolish two large buildings by imploding them, one yesterday and the other today. We trekked out there both mornings, along with thousands of other people who wanted to see the show. On both occasions, the whole thing lasted about ten seconds, but it was definitely a unique experience. The destruction of an eight story building is probably the biggest sudden release of energy you can witness outside of a war zone. The noise was tremendous, and the force of the falling structure made the ground shake where we were standing, about a thousand feet away. (Hannah took videos of each with her digital camera, first Saturday and again on Sunday. She also took the three pictures that accompany this article.)

Eastman Kodak was once the largest employer in Rochester and Kodak Park, the company's main campus. was like a city unto itself. The 2200-acre facility had its own fire department, dozens of cafeterias, bank branches, shoe stores, and even a bowling alley. George Eastman is buried on the grounds, a sign, I suppose, of the power and influence the company founder held even after his death.

That company has been dying a slow death over the past decade. I left my job at Kodak in 1999, convinced that the company's half-hearted attempts to enter the digital imaging market had misfired, and that their failure to adapt to the changing marketplace would result in a lot of local folks being shown the door. I was definitely right about the latter, with several rounds of layoffs coming in the first few years after I left. Then the company dropped a bombshell, announcing their plans to slash the local workforce from 21,000 to 13,000 by 2007. With fewer employees, of course, they didn't need so much space. The destruction of these two buildings this weekend was part of a massive demolition effort that's been taking place at Kodak Park, with more than half of the facility's 212 buildings being torn down in a span of a few years.

And so this weekend, I couldn't help but be a little puzzled by the celebratory atmosphere the Kodak PR people tried to muster. There were large banners on the doomed buildings trumpeting their new inkjet printers. Apparently those folks weren't troubled by the image of their new product line being blown up and being consumed by smoke and rubble. The Kodak folks wore festive t-shirts, led cheers over a loudspeaker, and released a flock of balloons. I gotta say, the whole thing was just surreal.

Building nine, which came down Saturday, housed Kodak's paper manufacturing facility. The company once held a monopoly on that booming business, but no longer. This wasn't just the destruction of a building but the end of the line for what was once one of Kodak's core businesses. It's one thing to say that this is the beginning of a new era, but there has to be more than optimism to suggest that there is something new and exciting still to come.

The local paper had some great coverage of the events, including this slide show of the crowd gathered to watch. I can't help but make two observations. First, there were an awful lot of former Kodak employees who had come out. Second, nearly everyone had a camera, and very few of them were Kodak cameras.

This weekend was a funeral for a once thriving company that is no more. If a new company emerges, one based on digital technologies, well that's fantastic. But let's not be quite so giddy when saying farewell to George Eastman's empire. The impact of Kodak's fall will reverberate throughout the community long after the debris of these buildings is carried away.

Boxing: Alive But Not So Well

2007-06-15T10:08:00.000-05:00

Last night I went with friends to see the fights. The main event featured former two-time Heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman, attempting a comeback after losing his title last August. I'd love to see him succeed, not only because he's a local guy, spending the last few years training here in Rochester. More importantly, he's really the only American fighter who seems capable of getting a fight for the Heavyweight championship. Right now, all three of the heavyweight belts are held by fighters from former Soviet countries: Oleg Maskaev of Russia (WBC), Wladamir Klitschko from the Ukraine (WBA) , and Ruslan Chagev out of Uzbekistan (IBF).

Of course, the alphabet soup is one of the main reasons why boxing's popularity has faded in the United States. Three different sanctioning bodies each anoint their own champions, and they've each added new weight classes so that nearly every bout that takes place is some sort of championship fight. Fifty years ago, their were just eight weight classes, each with their own champion. Now there are nearly sixty champions, and that sort of dilution makes it difficult for fans to follow.

The bigger problem in my mind is that the quality of boxing has declined in the last decade, and that was evident in Rahman's fight last night. He weighed in at 261 pounds -- 25 pounds heavier than when he knocked out Lennox Lewis and more than thirty pounds heavier than when he fought Evander Holyfield. Rahman should have easily outclassed opponent Taurus Sykes, but he was out of shape, and plodded around the ring hoping to win the fight with one big punch. The two fighters spent most of the night clinching and holding, never throwing enough punches to get the crowd engaged. It was like watching two men do a slow dance. Rahman did manage to knock Sykes down in the 11th round and won a unanimous decision. However, his inability to take control of the fight and the fact that he was so out of shape suggest that his comeback attempts might not be a good idea. I'm rooting for the guy, but I didn't see any sign that the 34-year old had anything left.

Despite all of this, there are still boxing fans hungry for action. I've seen them at the bouts scheduled in Rochester and Buffalo. I've seen them clamoring for big pay per view events like the DeLaHoya - Mayweather fight in May. And I saw them at the Boxing Hall of Fame last weekend for the annual induction ceremonies. They all long for the excitement that the sport used to offer. Sadly, there's too little of that excitement left.

The New Football Encyclopedia

2007-05-15T16:41:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note about the second edition of the ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia. We're wrapping up our work on updates and have added a number of new features. One of those is a new chapter I've written on the evolution of football strategy, looking at how playing styles have changed over the past ninety years. From the single wing offense of the 1920s to the modern day Cover-2, I tried to cover all of the major systems that have been used, what innovations they offered, and how successful they ultimately were. Football isn't like any of the other major sports because the game has changed so much. In order to have a context for understanding the players and the teams of the past, I think you need to understand those changes.

I'll have future updates on other features and changes for the book. ESPN analyst and former Eagles quarterback Ron Jaworski is writing a foreword for this edition, and it looks like Super Bowl MVP Peyton Manning will grace our cover. We're still in the final stages of making decisions about the content between the covers, but I'll keep you posted.

Save Your Weekend

2007-04-27T12:55:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is Draft Day for the NFL, the time each year when teams divvy up the college prospects . At this time of year, hope springs eternal, and every team believes that the players they select this weekend will make them better. Unfortunately, history tells us that usually isn't the case.

In one of my football annuals, I wrote an article about how low the ratio of hits to misses was in the first round. Less than half of first round picks become impact players, and while the players taken earliest get the most hype, the success rate for the biggest college stars isn't any better. Columnist Bob Matthews opines that the flop rate for quarterbacks taken number one overall is about 50-50.

Of the 15 QBs chosen No. 1 since 1970, here’s how I categorize them:

Worthy of the No. 1 pick (7) — Terry Bradshaw by Pittsburgh in 1970; Jim Plunkett by New England in 1971 (won two Super Bowls with the Raiders); John Elway by Denver in 1983; Troy Aikman by Dallas 1989; Drew Bledsoe by New England 1993 (I’m in a pro-Drew mood today; No. 8 pick OT William Roaf and No. 10 pick RB Jerome Bettis had more productive careers, but Bledsoe gets the benefit of the doubt for being a QB); Peyton Manning by Indianapolis in 1998; Carson Palmer by Cincinnati in 2003.
Not worthy of the No. 1 pick (6):
Steve Bartkowski by Atlanta in 1975 (Dallas took DT Randy White No. 2; Chicago took RB Walter Payton No. 4).
Vinny Testaverde by Tampa Bay in 1987 (not a great first round, but Indianapolis took LB Cornelius Bennett No. 2; Pittsburgh took DB Rod Woodson No. 10).
Jeff George by Indianapolis in 1990 (San Diego took LB Junior Seau No. 10; Dallas took RB Emmitt Smith No. 17).
Tim Couch by Cleveland in 1999 (the Browns would’ve been better off taking a recliner or a waterbed; Philadelphia took QB Donovan McNabb No. 2, St. Louis took WR Torry Holt No. 6, Washington took CB Champ Bailey No. 7).
Michael Vick by Atlanta in 2001 (I guess Vick still could justify the selection, but San Diego took RB LaDainian Tomlinson No. 5, New England took DT Richard Seymour No. 6, Seattle took OG Steve Hutchinson No. 17).
David Carr by Houston in 2002 (I haven’t written him off but the Texans did; Carolina took DE Julius Peppers No. 2; Cincinnati took OT Levi Jones No. 10; Indianapolis took DE Dwight Freeney No. 11, Baltimore took safety Ed Reed No. 24).
Too early to tell (2) — Eli Manning by San Diego (traded to New York Giants) in 2004; Alex Smith by San Francisco in 2005.

Judging the success of a pick based on the players that went afterwards doesn't make any sense, because you can always find a later pick that surprised everyone. But Matthews has the quarterbacks sorted pretty well, and for every reader that wants to argue that we should consider Michael Vick a good pick, I can find someone who says that Bledsoe belongs on the list of busts.

The point is that the hype surrounding the draft far exceeds reality. All you have to do is look back at past drafts to see that. Each class yields about 8-10 impact players, guys who become starters for a long enough stretch to be considered Pro Bowl candidates. Go back ten years and you'll see what I mean. The first round of the 1997 draft class included just four stars, by my count, tackles Orlando Pace & Walter Jones, tight end Tony Gonzalez, and running back Warrick Dunn. There are another 8-10 guys who became decent starters for a while, like WR Ike Hilliard and RB Antowain Smith. But there were also some monumental busts, like QB Jim Druckenmiller, whose career consisted of six games, and WR Rae Carruth, who was serving an 18-24 year sentence for the murder of his girlfriend. Pick any year, and you'll see that it's always the same.

Yet the NFL's marketing gurus have been successful in turning the draft into a huge event. Hundreds of fans show up to watch the event in person, an experience slightly more monotonous than sitting in an airport all day. At the newsstand this year I saw eight different draft preview magazines. When the Sporting News first came out with theirs four years ago, I couldn't imagine their were enough people interested yo justify the printing cost. I'm astonished that there are now eight. I love football, I write about it for a living, but this is ridiculous.

ESPN's wall-to-wall television coverage is a perfect illustration of how the media has failed us in the information age. Hour after hour, the talking heads will yammer on and on, analyzing past picks and speculating on future picks. In the end, they have nothing to say, no insight to impart, and nothing valuable to add to the process.

Unless you think you might be one of the players selected, please don't waste your time. The recap in Monday's paper will give you all the information without consuming your entire weekend. And even if you are a player expecting to be selected, don't stress yourself. When a team picks you, they'll call.

Ebert: I Ain't A Pretty Boy No More

2007-04-24T14:39:00.000-05:00

Last March, I had a chance to meet Roger Ebert when he came to the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. He was presenting the Italian film "Umberto D," answering questions, and autographing copies of his latest book. Ebert is not only the world's best known movie critic, he is the only writer in his field to win a Pulitzer Prize for his work. With fellow critic Gene Siskel, he created the concept of rating films with a simple "thumbs up" or "thumbs down."

Three months after his appearance here, Ebert had surgery for a recurrence of cancer in his salivary gland, and complications from that surgery have kept him sidelined for ten months. He hasn't appeared on his weekly television show, and has written only a handful of reviews for his newspaper, the Chicago Sun Times.

Ebert is poised to reappear tomorrow night when his ninth annual Overlooked Film Festival opens at the University of Illinois. In a piece for his paper today, he wrote about his decision to attend.

I have received a lot of advice that I should not attend the festival. I’m told that paparazzi will take unflattering pictures, people will be unkind, etc.

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. As a journalist I can take it as well as dish it out.

So let’s talk turkey. What will I look like? To paraphrase a line from “Raging Bull,” I ain’t a pretty boy no more.

Ebert goes on to describe how the surgery required removing part of his jaw bone, and that a tracheotomy has left him temporarily unable to speak. Ebert does not believe that his altered appearance should make him unwilling to leave the house.

So when I turn up in Urbana, I will be wearing a gauze bandage around my neck, and my mouth will be seen to droop. So it goes.

I was told photos of me in this condition would attract the gossip papers. So what?

I have been very sick, am getting better and this is how it looks. I still have my brain and my typing fingers.

Ebert's piece is titled, "We Spend Too Much Time Hiding Illness," and he's exactly right. Some people may feel uncomfortable seeing him in less than perfect health, but that shouldn't stop him from doing what he enjoys most. "Why do I want to go? Above all, to see the movies," Ebert explains. "Being sick is no fun. But you can have fun while you’re sick. I wouldn’t miss the festival for anything!"

Good for you, Roger.

David Halberstam Killed in Auto Accident

2007-04-23T18:22:00.000-05:00

For the second time in two weeks, a writer who made a significant impact on me has died. I just heard on the radio that David Halberstam was killed in an automobile accident this morning in Menlo Park, California. As a reporter with the New York Times, Halberstam won a Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his reporting on the Vietnam War. He is perhaps best remembered for his 1972 book "The Best and the Brightest," which examined the decision making process that led the Kennedy administration into that ill-fated war.

Between 1981 and 2005 he published thirteen books, seven of which covered sports subjects. The most notable of them was his 1999 work, "Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made." Halberstam examined the impact that the hoops star had both on and off the court, detailing how Jordan had not only changed the game but invented "the idea of the individual player as a commercial superstar"

Halberstam's sports books used the games as a backdrop against which to examine issues of culture, race, and history. In that respect, his sports books weren't all that different from his books on politics and American history. He never argued that the games or the players were important per se, but that they reflected the society in which they took place. Their inherent value had little to do with sport, and in that way, Halberstam helped to provide a new context for examining the players and coaches of our era.

For most Americans, sports exist in a vacuum. You either immerse yourself as a fan, or they don't register on your radar. Halberstam was able to speak to both audiences in a meaningful and entertaining way.

I think my favorite was "The Teammates," his next to last book. It told the story of how three friends went to visit a fourth friend who was dying. All of the men were in their early 80s, and the 1,300 mile drive from Massachusetts to Florida gave each a chance to reminisce about their lives together and apart. The dying man was Hall of Fame slugger Ted Williams, and the three friends were his teammates with the Boston Red Sox, Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Bobby Doerr. Even if you didn't know who those four men were, it doesn't matter. The story is less about baseball than friendship.

That was the secret to Halberstam's success as a writer, I think. He always knew what the real story was.

So It Goes

2007-04-12T07:53:00.000-05:00

I woke this morning to the news that Kurt Vonnegut has died at the age of 84. I first discovered his novels when I was in junior high school, and like many young people, I felt as if his message spoke directly to me.

His most well known book was Slaughterhouse Five, whose most memorable line was never far from my mind. The story begins with aging optometrist Billy Pilgrim at his typewriter, writing a letter to the editor of his local paper. "I have become unstuck in time," he writes.

Slaughterhouse Five has been classified as science fiction because on the surface the story is about time travel. Pilgrim keeps bouncing back in forth between events in his life, mostly between his current suburban life and his time with the Army as teenager during the last months of World War Two. It is Vonnegut's story, and the time travel is simply a metaphor for his reflections on his life. As he travels back in his mind to tell us what it was like to witness the firebombing of Dresden, he finds a story much different than what we (or he) expected.

Vonnegut was a pessimist, discouraged by human behavior which seemed bent on destruction and obsessed with minutia. It's no wonder that his work speaks so strongly to disaffected adolescents. I absolutely hated having to read Charles Dickens and William Faulkner in high school. There was nothing in Victorian England or the rural south that spoke to me, that expressed any truths about my own human experience. And Dickens was so long winded. Vonnegut wrote in a short, breezy style. His book Cat's Cradle consisted of dozens of short chapters, some just a paragraph long. It was almost like a stream of consciousness, and reading his prose was like having a conversation.

It had been ten years since Vonnegut's last novel was published, and although he repeatedly insisted that he was retired, he continued to write. A collection of his political commentaries was published in 2005, and while I can't say I always agreed with him, it was a treat to have them... like one last letter from a dying friend. Thanks for everything, Kurt.

Here's a selection of links on Vonnegut and his works.

Obituary in the New York Times
Playing Chess with Kurt Vonnegut - reminiscences from salon.com
So It Goes - Obituary from Time Magazine
Vonnegut Entry on Wikipedia - with plenty of links to audio and video clips
The Vonnegut Web

Imus is Retarded

2007-04-09T10:17:00.000-05:00

Radio host Don Imus is coming under increasing fire for comments he made last week about members of the Rutgers University women's basketball team. The day after the team lost in the NCAA championship game, Imus commented on their tattoos and called them "rough girls," and later called them "nappy headed ho's."

For the record, I watched that game and none of the Rutgers girls sported any visible tattoos. That may seem like the most trivial point, but it is important. Imus was not responding to something he saw on a video highlight, he was spouting his preconceived conclusions about female athletes. Women can't play sports and be feminine, and those who try should be ridiculed.

It's been a recurring theme on the Imus show. His sidekick Sid Rosenberg called the U.S. women's soccer team "juiced-up dykes." He also said that he can't watch tennis players Venus and Serena Williams because they are too masculine. Rosenberg called Venus Williams an "animal" and said the sisters are more likely to be featured in National Geographic than Playboy.

This kind of misogyny isn't unique to the Imus show. Popular sports talk host Jim Rome constantly refers to players in the WNBA as "horses," and makes derogatory comments about women golfers and other female athletes. While Rome seems to be more progressive than his peers on the issue of gay male athletes, he has been much less tolerant of lesbians in sports.

Imus responded this week with a half-hearted apology as he fought for his job. He insisted that he wasn't a racist and pointed to his philanthropic efforts as a reason why he should keep his job. He's a shock jock after all -- he invented the genre -- so the fact that he said something offensive shouldn't surprise anybody. It's what he gets paid to do.

But for more than a decade, he's tried to mix the obnoxious humor with serious political commentary. All of the top journalists, from Thomas Friedman to Tom Brokaw, appear on his show, and any politician who wants a national stage makes a visit. But Imus can't have it both ways. He can't ask to be taken seriously when discussing the war in Iraq or autism research while he and his merry band do sophomoric comedy bits.

And while Imus claims that his latest gaffe was simply a failed attempt at humor, it was an accurate reflection of the views he has expressed time and time again: that women have no place in the world of sports. That's a view that should have been discarded twenty years ago. It's out of place in our society, and since that is how he feels, Imus has no place in the mainstream media. His views are retarded, in every sense of the word.

That's the problem in my mind. Not that Imus made comments that were racist and sexist, but that he thought it was funny -- that it was his job -- to belittle and demean 18 and 19-year old women at their moment of glory.

I love the fact that women have an opportunity to play sports in this generation. Girls sports weren't taken seriously when I was growing up, and I've come to learn what a remarkable loss that was for them. Young people can learn important lessons from sports, about teamwork and dealing with adversity and accepting defeat. I'm thrilled that my daughters get to grow up in a time when they can compete in athletics, and I look forward to a day we no longer have to listen to old men questioning their sexuality because they want to play.

Why I Don't Root

2007-03-19T19:17:00.000-05:00

When people find out I'm a sportswriter, they often respond by saying how lucky I am to get paid to watch sports. They're right, but what they usually don't understand is how doing this for a living changes your perspective. For most folks, sports offer a diversion from their responsibilities, a chance to unwind after a hard day of work. For me, the game is the job.

Baseball writer Joel Sherman addressed the different perspectives of a fan and a sportswriter in his New York Post column yesterday. He was writing in response to Mets fans who complain he preferred the Yankees, and Yankees fans who complains he favored the Mets. "I root for two things," Sherman explains. "Short games and interesting story lines."

Even when I'm working on an encyclopedia or covering historical events, I have to do it with a certain detachment. Because at the end of the day, being a sportswriter is first and foremost about being a writer, not about being a fan.

I don't know Joel Sherman, but he and I have covered some of the same ground and suffered some of the same heartburn in the waning minutes of a game. Here's how Sherman describes his seven years as a Yankee beat writer.

Among the deadlines at this paper, one is at about 11 p.m. Which means you have to write as the game is going on. When I was the beat guy I cannot even quantify how many times I had a story complete, and watched as Dave Righetti or Steve Farr or John Wetteland coughed it up and made me totally re-write hundreds and hundreds of words with essentially no time left on the clock to do it. There was a time, when I was younger, that I would be mentally begging for that not to happen. And then you realize -- when it does happen several dozen times -- that it is just wasted energy.

When Mariano Rivera blew the ninth-inning save in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series against the Diamondbacks, you could either sob about the wonderful column you think you have in front of you trumpeting the Yankees' fourth straight World Series championship or flip instantly into re-write mode and be a pro. There is often just not time to care or root. I like Mariano Rivera as much as any athlete I have ever covered because I find him so excellent on the field and dignified off of it. But in that moment when several hundred words must be redone, who cares? A fan cares that's who. As for me, my allegiance is to the column.

Just in Time for Spring Training

2007-02-20T14:47:00.000-05:00

Just a quick plug for the new ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, which should be arriving in stores any day now. It's the fourth edition of this series, updated through the end of the 2006 season with more stats and history than you'll know what to do with.

I'm a contributor to this edition, not an editor, but it marks the seventh time my name has appeared on the title page of a baseball encyclopedia.

There's still a foot of snow on the ground here. Can it really be time for pitchers and catchers to report?

So How's the Book Coming?

2007-02-12T14:37:00.000-05:00

I've spent almost two years working on a major project, a historical football book that's scheduled to be published this summer. I'm dreadfully behind and working night and day to get the manuscript finished and turned in.The book is called the Historical Football Abstract, and it's modeled on one that Bill James wrote in 1985 called the Historical Baseball Abstract.

In the late seventies, James began writing an annual book he called "The Baseball Abstract," reflecting on the previous season and offering analysis, not just of the teams and players but of more fundamental issues. James examined subjects such as the impact of ballpark dimensions, the value of a stolen base, and the usefulness of minor league statistics as a predictor of major league performance.

James self published the first five editions, and after a favorable mention by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated, he signed a deal with Ballantine Books for future editions. By 1984, the book was selling 150,000 copies a year, pushing as high as #4 on the New York Times Best Seller List. He has often been described as a statistician, but James approached the number as a means to an end. He asked basic questions about the game and used the scientific method to try and find answers. Although James is not a household name, his work has shaped an entire generation of sportswriters. In 2006, Time Magazine named him to their list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

In 1985, James wanted to take the tools and methods he had developed for analyzing current players and apply them to players from earlier eras. And that's the same path that I'm following. Having written pro football annuals and covered the current game for five years. I was anxious to turn my attention to historical subjects, and that's what I've been doing for the past two years.

I'm eager to finish, not just because I've been working on it for so long, but because I think the book is turning out pretty well.

Finding Herb Scharfman

2007-01-22T15:14:00.000-05:00

After reading my article on the mystery boxing photographer, several readers wrote in to offer leads. Rock Hoffman told me that the man was featured in a 2002 HBO documentary called "Picture Perfect: The Stories Behind the Greatest Photos in Sports." That was enough information to crack the case, and I quickly learned that the photographer who appeared ringside in those two legendary boxing photos was the late Herb Scharfman.

As Neil Leifer tells it, Sports Illustrated often sent two photographers to cover boxing matches. At the Ali - Liston rematch, the two men assigned were Leifer and Scharfman. "He was one of the greats," Leifer said in an NPR interview, "but on that night, he was in the wrong seat." In his autobiography, Leifer expanded on those thoughts.

It didn’t make a difference how good he was that night. He was obviously in the wrong seat. What the good sports photographer does is when it happens and you’re in the right place, you don’t miss. Whether that’s instinctual or whether it’s just luck, I don't know.

Scharfman -- who died in 1998 -- began his career in 1939 as a motorcycle messenger for International News Photos in New York. In need of a photographer to cover a Brooklyn Dodgers game one afternoon, the photo editor called on Scharfman because he happened to own a camera. The shots must have turned out alright, because he continued taking photographs for the next 44 years. According to his obituary in the New York Times, he became friends with many New York baseball players, including Jackie Robinson, Joe DiMaggio, Sandy Koufax and Ralph Branca.

He continued to shoot for International News Photos until they went out of business, at which point he joined the staff of Sports Illustrated. Among his body of work are two iconic sports photographs. The one that is perhaps most well known is his image of Roger Maris (at right) immediately after hitting his 61st home run in 1961. Scharfman spent that season following Maris as he chased Babe Ruth's single-season home run record, producing a number of classic photographs that not only chronicled the events on the field, but the crushing burden that Maris faced off the field. Sports Illustrated re-published some of this pictures in an online gallery in 1998, when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were engaged in their own quest for a new home run record.

The other unforgettable picture Scharfmann took was of a punch delivered by a young boxer named Rocky Marciano in 1952 (at left). It was snapped at the instant that Marciano's glove impacted the jaw of Jersey Joe Walcott, the world heavyweight champion. The force of Marciano's blow is captured on Walcott's face, as a wave of energy appears to visibly distort the shape of his face. For twelve rounds, the champ had his way with Marciano, but that all changed with one punch. Walcott fell slowly to the canvas, and after the referee's ten count, Marciano was crowned as the new champion. Scharfman's perfectly timed photo captured the startling punch.

Between 1963 and 1972, Scharfman's pictures appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated fourteen times. His subjects included Muhammad Ali, Curt Flood, and Tom Matte.

Eyewitness to History

2007-01-18T21:27:00.000-05:00

One of the great sports photographs ever taken is this shot above. It was taken by Sports Illustrated's Neil Leifer at the second fight between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston in Lewiston, Maine in 1965. After knocking him down in the first round, the 23-year old Ali stood over his vanquished opponent yelling "get up!"

I've had a print of the famous photo hanging in my office for years, and one of the elements that has always captured my attention is the photographer standing at ringside. He appears in this shot just between Ali's legs. The faces of the other ringside photographers are hidden because their cameras are in front of their faces. But not the balding gentlemen in glasses. At one of the biggest moments in sports history, he's just watching while his colleagues are snapping away.

I don't know who this gentleman is, and I've never made any particular effort to find out, but I think about him every time I see the photo.

Yesterday (January 17) was Ali's 65th birthday, and as part of their coverage, the folks at Sports Illustrated published a gallery of photographs from his fights at their website. As I was browsing through it, I came across the mystery photographer again in this photo.

I'm pretty sure it's the same guy at ringside again. This shot is from a fight eleven years later, the third meeting between Ali and Ken Norton. And once again, while all of his colleagues are shooting away, his camera is idle as he watches.

So now I'm intrigued, and I've started looking at both still photos and DVDs of bouts from the era to find more examples of the mystery man. Like Forrest Gump, he was an idle spectator at great moments in history. Who was he? More importantly, did he ever take any pictures?

Old Cardboard

2007-01-16T15:49:00.000-05:00

Every kid of my generation grew up collecting baseball cards. It was just the thing that we did. We'd trade them with our friends, each having different motivations for why we wanted certain cards. Some collected their favorite players. Others wanted a complete set for their favorite team. I suppose a lot of us just wanted to get the cards of the game's star players.

For me, the cards formed a handy reference collection. I loved listening to baseball games on the radio at night. As Cincinnati Reds play-by-play man Marty Brennaman called out the lineups, I'd shuffle through my box and pull out the card of the man whose action he was describing. Much of what I know about geography came from reading the players' hometowns on the back of those cards and finding the cities on my wall map. Twenty-five years later, I can still recall the small towns that some of those players came from... places like Donora, PA (Ken Griffey), Binger, OK (Johnny Bench), and Bonham, TX (Joe Morgan).

None of us collected cards because we thought they were worth money. Sure, they had some value to us in the way that any of a twelve year old kid's possessions do, but that was an intrinsic value, not a monetary value. That all changed by the mid-eighties, when collecting sports cards became a big business. While there was once just one company -- Topps -- selling cards, suddenly there were several, and as the competition grew, the market was quickly flooded. As Dave Jamieson recounts in a recent article at Slate, things went downhill from there.

Baseball cards peaked in popularity in the early 1990s. They've taken a long slide into irrelevance ever since, last year logging less than a quarter of the sales they did in 1991. Baseball card shops, once roughly 10,000 strong in the United States, have dwindled to about 1,700. A lot of dealers who didn't get out of the game took a beating. "They all put product in their basement and thought it was gonna turn into gold," Alan Rosen, the dealer with the self-bestowed moniker Mr. Mint, told me.

Rosen describes a fellow dealer struggling to unload 7,000 Mike Mussina rookie cards. Ten years ago the 1991 cards might have fetched $8 to $10 a piece, but now the dealer couldn't find a taker at $0.25. Folks who viewed baseball cards as investments have grown to be sorely disappointed, as have the folks who were going crazy for beanie babies a few years ago. For the rest of us, the cards have more value as a bit of nostalgia, a pleasant reminder of our youth. It's one of the few artifacts we're likely to have hung on to, and I wouldn't sell mine for any price.

The Best Show in Football

2007-01-14T12:22:00.000-05:00

The Cleveland Browns were founded in 1946, and over the next ten years they dominated professional football. As charter members of the All-American Football Conference, the Browns won four straight league championships with a record of 47 wins, 4, losses, and 3 ties. They joined the National Football League in 1950, continuing their dominance by advancing to the NFL Championship game in six straight seasons, winning three times.

That record by itself is enough to make a strong case for this Browns team as the greatest dynasty in football history. In a new book called The Best Show in Football, author Andy Piascik bolsters that case by examining not just their accomplishments, but the methods that made them stand head and shoulders above their competition.

Much of that success stemmed from the innovations of head coach Paul Brown. He pioneered the use of game film to study opponents. He was the first to have a full-time staff of assistant coaches. He studied play-calling tendencies and adopted the practice of scripting plays at the beginning of the game. He introduced the use of messenger guards to relay plays from the sidelines. A list of Brown’s innovations could go on and on. Most of the things that professional coaches do today derive from practices that he pioneered.

Piascik argues that all of those innovations pale in comparison to an innovation that seems obvious in retrospect, but at the time was incredibly difficult: the addition of African American players. A year before Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, Paul Brown signed two African Americans to his 1946 squad, fullback Marion Motley and guard Bill Willis. While Dodgers' general manager Branch Rickey made great headlines in 1947 by breaking baseball's color line, Paul Brown's move came with little fanfare. Piascik writes:

Although Brown was probably as certain of his rightness in all things as Branch Rickey or anyone else who ever lived, he was also different from Rickey in important ways. He never considered himself a crusader on the race issue, nor did he do anything to call attention to his role in breaking the color barrier in sports. As Jim Brown put it, Brown "integrated football the right way -- and no one was going to stop him.

"Paul Brown integrated pro football without uttering a single word about integration," Jim Brown said. "He just went out, signed a bunch of great black athletes, and started kicking butt. That's how you do it. You don't talk about it." Paul never said one word about race."

In the two years that I've been researching my new book, I've read more than a hundred books on football history. "The Best Show in Football" may be the most important one I've come across. Piascik tells some fascinating stories about the great players in Cleveland, but more significantly, he tells the story of how collectively, they reached heights that no other team before or since has attained. They didn't just play well, they changed the way everybody else played the game.

Beckham Arrives

2007-01-12T15:48:00.000-05:00

British soccer star David Beckham announced this week that he was coming to the United States to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy. His five-year contract is reportedly worth $250 million, though most of the money is likely tied to endorsement deals. Major League Soccer hopes that his arrival will help increase their fan base. MLS Commissioner Don Garber said: "His decision to continue his storied career in Major League Soccer is testament to the fact that America is rapidly becoming a true 'Soccer Nation' with Major League Soccer at the core."

That, my friends, is what we call wishful thinking. While soccer remains the most popular participatory sport for kids, Americans have never embraced it as a spectator sport. Michael Mandelbaum, best-selling author of The Meaning of Sport, suggests a number of reasons for this. The biggest one? Americans already have other sports that they like to watch.

Even in as large and wealthy a country as the United States, where the national appetite for playing, and even more so for watching, games is enormous, the cultural, economic and psychological space available for sport is limited and that space is already taken. Baseball, American football and basketball have long since put down deep roots, claimed particular seasons of the year as their own (although they now overlap) and gained the allegiance of the sports-following public.

The idea of bringing soccer to center stage by importing a foreign star isn't a new one. The New York Cosmos tried the same thing in 1975 when they signed Brazilian superstar Pelé. There was a brief surge in interest, but Pelé played just three seasons before retiring, and within a few years both the Cosmos and the North American Soccer League folded.

One difference between that case and this one is that Beckham speaks English. He'll be much more accessible to the press, and he has a charisma that makes him a huge celebrity outside the world of soccer. Unfortunately, unlike Pelé, Beckham is no longer a great player. A day before the move was announced, Phil McNulty of BBC Sport offered this opinion:

[Beckham] in recent times gave the impression of a once outstanding player whose days at the top were done. And he did little at last summer's World Cup to dispel that theory. Beckham appears to have made an intriguing choice about his future. It seems he has effectively admitted his serious career is finished and so has opted for a last slice of the showbiz lifestyle in the United States.

Gerald Ford, Football Star

2006-12-27T00:33:00.000-05:00

The news came over the wire late yesterday that former President Gerald Ford has passed away at the age of 93. Many others will write about his career as a public servant, but I wanted to take an opportunity to briefly recount that in his youth, Ford was a great football player.

In the mid 1930s, Ford was one of the stars on a powerhouse team at the University of Michigan. He played center and defensive lineman in an era when every man played both offense and defense. His Wolverines were national champions in 1932 and 1933, and Ford was voted as the team's most valuable player in 1934. Ford played in the annual East-West College All-Star game in San Francisco in January of 1935 and the College All-Star football game at Soldier Field against the Chicago Bears in August of that year. Two different NFL teams offered him a contract -- the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers -- but he spurned them to continue his education. Ford went to Yale University, where he worked as the boxing coach and assistant football coach while pursuing his law degree.

In later years, as people reminded the President of his athletic prowess, he was always humble. While making an appearance at his alma mater in 1976 he said:

In those stories that I was a great all-time center, I found this--the longer you get away from the reality, the bigger those stories get. ... And I can only say that they get better, because the longer you are away from school, the fewer there are of people to tell the truth about what happened.

Saying Farewell to 2006

2006-12-25T09:02:00.000-05:00

At the end of the year, various media outlets like to look back at the prominent people who've passed away during the year. The sports world lost some legends in 2006, including Red Auerbach, Byron Nelson, and Floyd Patterson. The folks at ESPN's page2 opted for a different approach, recognizing the players and coaches who called it quits during the year. From AA (tennis great Andre Agassi) to ZZ (scocer star Zinezane Zidane), they offer a final sendoff to some of their favorites... while they're still around to appreciate it.

Federer and Woods

2006-12-24T23:51:00.000-05:00

Tiger Woods is the most dominant golfer of his era. Roger Federer can say the same thing about men's tennis. The two champions have formed an unlikely friendship, traveling to watch each other play and comparing notes over dinner. What kind of things do the two talk about? Woods told Time magazine, which profiled the pair in their "People Who Mattered 2006" feature.

"It's more the mind-set: what it takes to do what we do, how do you manage all that, the balancing act. We pick each other's brain." They exchange tips on training and preparing for big events. Woods was wowed by Federer's media load; he does press conferences in three languages. Tiger also got some help with his backhand. "He plays much more tennis than I play golf," says Federer, "but that is going to change when I retire." He'll know who to call for a game. "It's been a really neat relationship," says Woods. "Roger and I are going to be friends for a very long time."