The Dubscast, Volume 5: “Offensive” Mascots Prove The Hypocrisy of the NCAA

Back in 2005, the NCAA declared that Native American mascots were “hostile and abusive” and outlawed them. Eight years later, the fact they are still around may be the perfect example of why the NCAA is the standard by which one measures ineffective and hypocritical organizations. The fact the debate spread beyond that is even more of a damning statement.

In today’s installment of the Dubscast, J-Dub takes a critical look at how the NCAA really isn’t interested in “hostile and abusive” because it clearly makes decision based on other criteria it won’t tell anybody.  It is important to understand this IS NOT a discussion as to whether these mascots are “offensive,” you will need to get past that debate in order to see the bigger picture in play in this issue.

In other words, after checking out this episode of the Dubscast, you will need to decide for yourself why the NCAA either cannot or will not enforce its own rules.

B1G Ten’s Jim Delany To Be New Commissioner Of Catholic Church

First, there was the news that for the first time in 600 years a sitting Pope would resign from office. Now, the Catholic Church is taking advantage of that situation to completely revamp it’s leadership structure.

During this rare “sede vacante,” the Catholic Church announced on Saturday that it would take unprecedented steps in its search for a new leader in order to move the church in a new, growth-centered direction.

One of the major changes announced by Camerlengo Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone was the creation of the office of Commissioner.  The duties of this office are to handle many of the operational and administrative functions, while Benedict XVI’s successor in the Papacy would still retain the position as the Supreme Pontiff.

“The next Pope will function more like a Chairman of the Board,” said Cardianl Bertone. “The business operations of the church needed more focused attention. This is just a smart business decision that will allow us as an organization to better synergize our efforts.”

To fill the new Commissioner position, the Catholic Church appointed Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. The 65-year old Delany has been at the helm of the Big Ten since 1989.

“Delany was really our choice for this position all along,” Cardinal Bertone said. “Delany has an established track record of growth during his time with the Big Ten.  Mr. Delany’s experience in organization building, finance, and sports marketing are a perfect fit for the directions that we need the Church to go.  To become the world’s pre-eminent religion again, we need to grow like an American sports league.  He [Delany] saw right away that as an organization, we have been focusing our efforts in some areas that tend to lead us away from our core competencies.

Some of Delany’s accomplishments while with the Big Ten:

• The creation of the Big Ten Network
• The expansion of the conference to 14 schools with the addition of Penn State University in 1990, the University of Nebraska in 2011 and the University of Maryland and Rutgers University in 2012.
• Guaranteed participation for Big Ten schools in seven different bowl games
• Development and implementation of the first college football instant replay system
• An increase in average Big Ten football game attendance from 58,000 per game to 72,000 per game by 2005
• Negotiations with CBS to achieve a $6 billio,n 11-year contract for men’s basketball NCAA tournament games

Given that list, it should come as no surprise that according Cardinal Bertone, Delany’s primary agenda will be to “reposition the Church to be aggressively market-driven.” Along this line, one of Delany’s first major changes in Church philosophy was to permanently rescind the traditional “blessed” status of the world’s meek.

Marking a dramatic shift in church doctrine, the historic reversal of its nearly 2,000-year-old pro-Meek stance signals a major change in the focus of the church toward being a more revenue-focused organization.

“Your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ once said, ‘Blessed are the Meek,’” said Delany in a conference call with the College of Cardinals. “However, there has always been a tacit understanding between the Church and the Meek that this ‘blessed’ status was conditional upon their inheritance of the earth, an event which seems unlikely to happen anytime in the foreseeable future. Our relationship, therefore, must be terminated.”

Citing “Two millennia of inaction and non-achievement” by the world’s impoverished and downtrodden, Delany contended that the Meek’s historic unwillingness and/or inability to improve their worldly status constituted “bad faith that violates the spirit of the agreement on their part.”

“Twenty centuries should have been more than enough time for them to inherit the earth,” the Pope said in a statement supporting Goldbaum’s move. “For years, the Catholic Church has made every effort to help them, but at some point, enough is enough. We are patient, but, Jesus Christ, when do you draw the line?” Catholic leaders around the world were vocal in their support of the decision.

“The Meek have abused their blessed status for far too long now,” said Sean O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston. “From the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution to the current Global Information Age, the Meek have always somehow managed to sit on their asses and do nothing while others worked hard to make advances and improve their lives. They have collected the Catholic Church’s spiritual welfare checks for long enough.  Everything about the Meek, from their simple garments, to their quiet demeanors, to their utter lack of can-do spirit, goes against Church philosophy. Sitting back and expecting the Lord to provide you with Marlboros and cheap liquor is not the type of behavior for which the Church should be rewarding its followers.”

The change in policy toward the Meek is also rooted in financial considerations. Quoting Vatican statistics, Delany stated because more than 80 percent of the world’s Catholics live below the poverty line, the Catholic Church receives less than 2 percent of its annual earnings of $395 billion from such people.

“It is plain to see that being so heavily involved with the Meek offers almost zero return on investment,” Delany stated. “By divesting ourselves here, we open up pipelines for far more productive revenue streams, much more interesting market segments, and ultimately, major growth potential.”

“The Meek’s blessed status was originally bestowed upon them by Jesus Christ Himself, but there is enough latitude in His gospels and teachings to allow us discretion in this manner, especially in light of the financial goals of the Church as it seeks to establish itself in the 21st century,” Delany said, offering the theological justification for the move. “From this day forward, the Church position shall be, Blessed are the Affluent for they have indeed inherited the Earth. Not to mention, they are the ones who will buy season tickets.”

In an effort to move away from its traditional Meek core demographic and attract more upscale worshipers, Vatican officials announced a number of big-time sports related changes for the Gospels. Among the changes:

• Christ is now said to have been born in state-of-the-art training facility, not a manger.
• The amount of gold bestowed upon Him by the Wise Men has been quadrupled, the frankincense replaced by a BCS Bowl-quality gift bag, including deluxe Calvin Klein Obsession^® toiletry kit with a Gucci carrying case, and myrrh was replaced with a full-ride scholarship.
• Judas shall no longer be viewed as a traitor, but instead shall be viewed as a demonstration of the pitfalls of not keeping your boosters in line.
• It shall henceforth be as easy for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as it is for him to pass through the Stadium Club entrance.
• The episode between Christ and the Moneylenders in the temple from now on is to be interpreted as an internecine argument over appropriately aggressive alumni fund-raising tactics.

Changes have also been made to the Sacraments, according Cardinal Bertone. Among the changes:

• Baptism is now done with bottled water, available only through licensed staduim concessions.
• Extreme Unction is now available in exchange for an alumni donation instead of actually having to deal with any sick people.
• A new bonus Sacrament has been added, Indulgent Consumption. This is achieved upon purchase of your first four-seat of Club Level® season-ticket package and can be used as a substitute for any other Sacrament.

In addition, Bertone went on to outline the new Catholic Church Staduim Club/BlessedPerks^® plan, under which blessedness and God’s everlasting love are free of charge to members once a baptism/membership fee has been paid. Once this fee is paid, members begin accruing FrequentPrayer^® points. Points can be accrued, for example, by attending mass, making donations to the Church, purchasing items from the news line of licensed Church gear and by using the new ChristBuxx^® credit card at selected retailers.

After completion/purchase of the Sacraments, for an additional fee, Catholics can become Gold Circle^® members of the Church, entitling them to such upgrades as forgiveness, sainthood and reserved priority seating at the right hand of the Holy Father upon death, depending on the number of FrequentPrayer^® points they wish to redeem. In explaining the root of these changes, Bertone went on to add that this was strictly a business decision

“We do not wish the Church to become completely exclusionary,” Bertone said. “If any of the former Meek wish to change their ways, they may certainly do so. But it won’t be the free ride they got before, I can promise you that.”

“The Lord will provide, of course,” Delany said. “But He also knows the Church needs to build a new stadium first.”

What Is The Real Reason Why Manti Te’o Did What He Did?

I’m going to keep this short and sweet. By now, we all know the story of the Notre Dame linebacker and his fictional girlfriend. the problem is the more we discover, the less we know. As this continues to unfold, as of this writing there are some big questions for which I have yet to hear the answers.

1) Why was there a need for a fictional girlfriend?

Only guys in bad college rock bands get more girls than the star of the football team. Te’o could have been knee-deep in real Irish coeds if he wanted to be, so why was their a need for him to buy into one that existed only in cyber-space?

2) At which point did Te’o become complicit in this hoax?

Make no mistake, he may very well have started out as a victim, but there clearly was a point when Te’o bought into the hoax to the level of helping to perpetrate it. He let his own father believe the girlfriend existed, he told several people he had actually met her, and he mentioned her at the Heisman ceremony two days after it was shown he knew this was all a fraud. In other words, no matter which version of the story you want to buy, there was a point at which Te’o was in on the scam.

Ask The Geico Guy: Was Notre Dame Over-Rated?

Of course they were…for 12 out of 13 weeks. There was a brief moment in the 2012 college football season where the Golden Domers wore the legitimate shine of being ranked #1. To be fair, there being over-rated at all other times this season was a function of the fact that they played a schedule full of overrated teams, and that the Irish and the media ignored several warning signs about the true nature of their team.

If you do a week-by-week breakdown, this becomes a “moon rocket filled with nuclear waste fired into a supernova” glowing ball of obvious.

Teams That Grind My Gears: Notre Dame Football

In the wake of last night’s crushing at the hands of Alabama, this blog can easily be seen as “piling on.” Those who might say that would be 100% correct.

Guess what, Notre Dame? Today, America is savoring your dismantling because the vast majority of America hates you. Eyeball-popping, color-changing, bile-spewing hatred, and you bring it on yourself.

The 2012 Dubsy Awards

Every January since this blog was created, we here at Dubsism have given an award for achievements during the previous year in some under-recognized categories in the world of sports. In prior years, the nominations for the awards were done exclusively by an internal committee. This was the first year we allowed nominations from the general public.

Between our committee and our valued readers, we had more quality nominations than we could ever possibly use.  Thank you so much for that. When we received an outstanding nomination that proved to be a winner, we made sure to recognize those who submitted it. However, we did also receive nominations on multiple ballots that proved to be winners. If you see a winner that you nominated, and you weren’t credited, just know that you weren’t the only one who had the same idea.

With that, and after careful consideration, here are the winners of the 2012 Dubsy awards.

What We’ve Learned From This Football Season – The Aftermath Of “Black Monday” Edition of the 2012 Coaches Death Watch

Let’s start with the college guys who still had jobs as of our last update:

Mike Price, UTEP

What We Said:

After going 8-4 in each of his first two years, Mike Price has clinched his seventh consecutive losing season at UTEP and has no contract for next year. Color him toast.

What Happened:

Price avoided the ax by retiring.

Paul Johnson, Georgia Tech

What We Said:

Johnson came into this job with some high hopes, and since winning the 2009 ACC title, he’s gone just 18-17 at Georgia Tech, including a 4-5 mark so far this season. Johnson biggest supporter, athletic director Dan Radakovich,  just left for Clemson.  The ground Johnson is standing on is shakier than Oprah Winfrey’s back fat.

What Happened:

Johnson seems to have survived for another season, but if what happened at this year’s Georgia-Georgia Tech game is any indication, things better turn around soon.

The Dubsism Top Fifteen Sports Stories of 2012

Being that we are at the end of what has proven to be a tumultuous twelve months, why not take a look back at the biggest sports stories of such a year? After all, I’m pretty sure nobody else does these sort of retrospectives…

15) The Los Angeles Kings Win The Stanley Cup

These are NOT your father’s Kings.

For purposes of full disclosure, I have a bias on this one; I’ve been a Kings’ fan since I had to hold a puck with two hands. But there’s a couple of reasons why this win by the sole surviving original California hockey team (raise your hand if you remember the California Golden Seals) is a big story.

• The Kings are the first native Los Angeles  team (not relocated from another city) to win a championship (Anaheim is NOT Los Angeles).
• The Kings became the first NHL team to enter the playoffs as the 8th seed and eliminate the 1st and 2nd seeded teams in their conference.
• The Kings became the first team to win the Stanley Cup entering the playoffs as a #8 seed.
• The Los Angeles Kings ended one of the longest championship droughts (45 years) when they hoisted the franchise’s first Stanley Cup.

The moral of the story: Don’t look now, but the Golden State is slowly becoming hockey territory. In the last twenty years, California has won more Stanley Cups than Canada has.

14) Johnny Football Becomes Johnny Heisman

The rise of Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel had all the media hype of other stories you will see on this list, but it had one crucial difference. Johnny Football became the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy, thus breaking one of the last barriers in the history of the 50-pound trophy awarded by the Downtown Athletic Club.  Manziel literally came from nowhere to the pinnacle of college football in a vote that was never really close.

The moral of the story: Until further notice, the Heisman is an award for quarterbacks and running backs only. If I had a vote, by sticking with the strict definition of the “best player in college football,” my ballot would have been as follows:

1. Barrett Jones, C, Alabama
2. Johnny Manziel, QB, Texas A&M
3. Jarvis Jones, LB, Georgia

13) The Indianapolis Colts Cut Peyton Manning

The Peyton Manning era in Indianapolis came to a rather inglorious, if not completely anti-climactic end on March 7, when team owner Jim Irsay announced at a press conference that the team would release the man who had become the face of the Colts’ franchise.  A 2-14 season during which Manning never saw the field due to a neck injury illustrated the need for a consideration for the future in Indianapolis. Couple that with the economic reality; cutting Manning meant the Colts would save a $28 million roster bonus due on March 8, plus be free-and-clear of the remainder of his contract.  Add it all up, and it means this move surprised nobody, because it allowed the Colts to have money for the next franchise quarterback, #1 overall draft pick Andrew Luck.

The moral of the story: Even 4-time MVPs are no longer immune to the economic realities of sports.

12) Augusta National Adds Its First Female Members

To be honest, I’m an old-school guy who believes that private clubs should be able to pick and choose who they want  as members. That’s why when I first found out that Augusta had caved to a bunch of ball-busting feminists with chin-whiskers and married to sociology professors, my neanderthal heart sank a bit. But when I found out that the women Augusta picked would completely piss-off the “drives a Subaru with a rainbow bumper sticker” crowd, I had renewed faith in all that is right. Who better to do that that the hated George Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore, a woman who had the audacity to make a bazillion dollars in the world of corporate finance?

The moral of the story: Social activists, you too need to be careful of what you wish for.

11) The Resurgence of Notre Dame Football

Notre Dame last saw the top of the college football mountain in 1988. In the quarter-century since, the Irish have remained a media darling while simultaneously spending more time as a doormat than a contender. Since that last title, Notre Dame has appeared in exactly five BCS bowls, and has lost every single one of them by at least 14 points. They are 6-11 in bowl games overall in that time. There was a fifteen-year span between 1993 and 2008 where the Irish lacked a single post-season win.

But now they’ve managed to finish the regular season undefeated and ranked number #1, thanks largely to a  key goal-line stand in overtime against Stanford, Pittsburgh’s inability to make a clutch kick, and a complete meltdown by Oklahoma. After all that, the Irish are set to face defending BCS champ Alabama for the title.

The moral of the story: Despite all the media attention the Irish are gathering, you would be hard-pressed to hear Notre Dame is a ten-point underdog.

10) The Beginning of the End of the National Hockey League

If you needed a perfect model for how not to run a professional sports league, you need look no further than the NHL.  The latest example of their stupidity came with the latest failure to come to a collective bargaining agreement after two months of talks between team owners and the NHL Player’s Association broke down and the league entered its fourth work stoppage since 1992. I’ve never been the commissioner of anything bigger than a fantasy sports league, but even I know that in order to keep people interested in your sport, you need actually to play some games.  As of now, that hasn’t happened, and with every passing day, it looks more likely that hockey fans will be deprived of an entire season for the third time since 1994.

It’s time to understand that even die-hard hockey fans like myself are ready to wash their hands of this shit.  Idiotus Supremus Gary Bettman and the owners don’t get that they are killing a league over their insistence in making the players’ union pay for their complete lack of business sense. Fellow Sports Blog Movement member Ryan Meehan and I hit on this a while ago, but the keys remain in place.  The owners locked the doors because the players wouldn’t accept a new collective bargaining agreement that requires players to accept salary cuts and limits on free agency, despite the fact the owners were more than happy to give those provisions without any threat. The union wants a better revenue sharing plan that help the league’s struggling franchises.  Face it, the NHL needs to survive in the Winnipegs and the Buffalos of the world, because in North America, hockey is a regional sport with a limited appeal outside of that region.

The moral of the story: If Meehan, the players, and I can figure that out, what does it say for the future of this league that the owners can’t?

9) Lin-sanity

For 25 days last winter, an Asian Harvard graduate was the biggest story in all of sports. Think about that for a minute…Jeremy Lin had been sleeping on his brother’s couch, had been cut by two NBA teams, and was put into a game on February 4th by Mike D’Antoni, whose New York Knicks were so injury-depleted Lin was the only alternative left on the bench besides the towel guy.  Lin went on to score 25 points and seven assists leading a comeback over the then-New Jersey Nets.  Lin then lead the Knicks to seven straight wins, including one in which he hung 38 on Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.  What began with a bang (perhaps literally, judging by the photo above) ended with a knee-injury and a quiet relocation to the Houston Rockets.

The moral of the story: All glory is fleeting.

8 ) Michael Phelps Becomes History’s Most Decorated Olympian 

As far as I’m concerned, any guy who won 19 gold medals can do all the bong hits he wants.  While most stoners can’t get past micro-waving a burrito and watching Scooby-Doo at the same time, this guy joined a frightfully short list of elite athletes while giggling stupidly at his own own reflection in a sheet of aluminum foil.

Phelps made the cover a Wheaties box in 2008 after he won eight Olympic gold medals in Beijing. but then came history’s most publicized bong toke. Phelps received a three-month suspension from USA Swimming and Kellogg’s said they would not renew their endorsement of the Olympian. which goes to show what dumb-asses they both are. USA Swimming finally re-instated Phelps and he went on to win nine more medals in London this past summer, his 19 medals surpassing the 18 won by Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina.

The moral of the story: Somebody ought to start a cereal called Weed-ies.

7) The NFL’s Replacement Referee Debacle 

We all know what a debacle the NFL’s use of replacement referees was.  The biggest indicator of what dipshits sports commissioners in this country are is that they make me sympathetic to scumbag unions.

The moral of the story: This is just one reason people will look back at 2012 as the beginning of the downfall of the Kommissar Goodell regime.

6) Lance Armstrong Stripped of  Cycling Titles

While it isn’t an excuse, there is a shitload of truth in that quote in the above graphic.  There’s a huge double-standard about cheating in this country; it is OK when your guy does it. And nobody was more of “America’s Guy” then Lance Armstrong was when was routinely humiliating the French in the Tour de France. That’s really the only reason anybody in America gave a damn about cycling; it was an exercise in hating the perfectly hateable French.

Back in August, U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced that it was stripping Lance Armstrong of his record-seven Tour de France titles and barred him for life from the sport after concluding he used banned substances.  On October 22, the International Cycling Union (UCI), cycling’s governing body, said that it had officially stripped Armstrong of his seven titles and banned him from cycling for life.

But then comes the part where the hypocrisy comes in again.

“He deserves to be forgotten,” UCI President Pat McQuaid said of Armstrong.

Give me a fucking break. Cycling is the dirtiest of the “dirty” sports when it comes to performance enhancing drugs; what’s going on in baseball might as well be the drug problem in pee-wee T-ball compared to cycling.  All the UCI and USADA did was to catch the best cheater in sport filled with cheaters whose lifeblood literally is cheating.

The moral of the story: There’s nothing wrong with anything that sticks it to the French.

5) Speaking of Hypocrisy, Let’s Talk About The NCAA

Question: Do you know what the Jerry Sandusky and Sandy Hook Elementary School situations have in common, besides the fact they both involve monsters whose own self-absorbed impulses were brought to bear on many innocent people? They are both examples of how we in America love to pontificate about horrible things, yet do nothing about them.

In the wake of both of these terrible stories, you didn’t hear one credible person come out and say stupid shit like “I’m glad this happened. We need more events like this to learn our lessons.” Anybody who would have said anything like this would have been stamped USDA Prime Whacko and their words would have been filed in the appropriate plastic-bag lined receptacle. But no matter how many times you let a train run over a coin, it still has two sides, and there were far too many people ready to get on the other side of the bombastic coin  from the stamped Whackos.

These were the people who took such a brave stand by table-pounding the obvious “we need to protect our children” reaction. There are lessons to be learned, and there are things as a society we need to do; the trouble is that we as society have completely missed the point.

The NCAA serves as the perfect microcosm of American society, and the ridiculous, pointless, and self-serving crap the NCAA does is a perfect reflection of the society in which it exists.  It’s numb-handed response to the Sandusky scandal at Penn State proves that.

After former FBI Director Louis Freeh released his report , the NCAA got into the fashionable “shitting on Penn State” and did it in a completely meaningless way. While Penn State may have received some of the harshest penalties in NCAA history, they were ultimately without real teeth. If you doubt that, let’s break them down:

• A 4-year bowl ban: Normally that would hurt, but at the end of the 2011 season, this team could only qualify for a low-rent bowl where they got smoked by a Houston team whose coach was on his way to making Texas A&M the Belle of the SEC Newbies ball.  Nobody saw the miracle incoming head coach Bill O’Brien pulled off; he literally made a team intended to be kicked off the B1G island and made it the second-best team in the conference.
• Loss of 20 scholarships: This does kill bench depth, but lets be honest…you can still win with only three punters on the depth chart. 65 scholarships is still plenty to field a winning team; NFL teams only have 53 roster spots. The only part that could sting is that Penn State can only sign 15 recruits per year rather than the usual 25.
• $60 Million Fine: Penn State has an endowment of nearly $2 billion and has an athletic department that generates cash in gorgon-like quantities. $60 million to them is the change you keep in your car’s cup holder for toll booths.
• Loss of shared conference bowl revenue for four years: This is estimated to be around $13 million per year. See above.

Faber College’s Dean Wormer: The perfect successor to NCAA President Mark Emmert

• Five years probation: That might as well be  Dean Wormer’s “double secret probation” from ”Animal House” since the NCAA really has no interest in handing out real punishments.
• Players were allowed to transfer without penalty: The team still won eight games.
• Vacating of all wins from 1998-2011: Record book hocus-pocus. This was only done to screw Joe Paterno, who was already dead by the time this move was made. Utterly pointless.

In other words, the NCAA didn’t do anything substantive after the Sandusky situation just like we won’t solve the problem after Sandy Hook.

The moral of the story: I can’t wait for NCAA President Mark Emmert to weigh in on gun control.

4) The Ongoing Tim Tebow Saga

Where do I start start with this? Here’s a guy who sold more jerseys than anybody before he even took a single NFL snap.  Here’s a guy who stays in the headlines despite the fact he’s only taken 50 snaps this season as a New York Jet. Here’s a guy who everybody keeps saying isn’t an NFL quarterback, and yet right now we are talking about where is the next place he “isn’t” going to be an NFL quarterback.

The moral of the story: I’ll buy lunch for the first person who can explain Tebow-mania to me in 50 words or less.

3) The “Bounty-Gate” Debacle

Too bad NFL Commissioner Kommissar Goodell doesn’t have a paper towel good enough to clean up the mess he made.

Think about it for a moment. How many times have you seen a guy over-estimate his power, do something completely stupid because of that over-estimation, then need somebody to come in and clean up the mess. I guess former commissioner Paul Tagliabue is the one who had the big roll of paper towels.

To make a long story short, ”Bountygate” blew up in Goodell’s face when he mistakenly assumed the players he suspended would simply roll over and take his brand of “justice.” But when Jonathan Vilma, Anthony Hargrove, Will Smith and Scott Fujita were reinstated by a three-members appeals panel. which included former NFL head Paul Tagliabue. The panel overturned a ruling that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was within his powers to suspend the players for their alleged roles in a pay-to-injure agreement.

What it all boils down to is that in the end, Goodell managed to emasculate himself, and required Tagliabue to get him out of the mess he made for himself. In other words, the commissioner did not have the final say; the former commissioner did.  I don’t know of too many executive-level managers who stay employed after they need to be bailed out, especially when Tagliabue was only intended to review Goodell’s decision to impose suspensions on four New Orleans Saints players and instead found the action so flawed he had to vacate those suspensions.

The moral of the story: This is another reason people will look back at 2012 as the beginning of the downfall of the Kommissar Goodell regime.

2) Miguel Cabrera Becomes Baseball’s First Triple Crown Winner in 45 Years

Miguel Cabrera became the first player to win baseball’s Triple Crown since Boston’s Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, and just the 15th player ever. This puts Cabrera on a list with baseball royalty which includes Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, and Lou Gehrig. Cabrera led  the American League with a .330 batting average, 44 home runs and 139 RBIs.

The moral of the story: Dude can hit.

1) The Los Angeles Dodgers Are The First Sports Franchise to Sell For $2 Billion

The Los Angeles Dodgers were sold to a group that includes NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson for a final sale price of just over $2 billion. That represents the highest price any sports team has ever sold for — by a wide margin.

Television money for live sports is skyrocketing, and it’s driving up the values of sports teams not just in the United States, but around the world as well.  People keep trying to tell me baseball is dead, and a baseball team just sold for a staggering amount of money. If one were to pay that $2 billion in cash, you would need sixteen standard shipping pallets stacked four feet square with $100 dollar bills. And the prices are only going up.

Want to buy a European soccer team? Soccer is the world’s most popular sport, so you’d better bring your wallet. Manchester United was the first team to break the the billion-dollar barrier, and that was a decade ago. Now, buying a top team in the English Premier League will easily cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5 billion.  If you still want a big-time European soccer club, but want to save your pennies, you might be able to get Real Madrid for just under $2 billion.  Even the Jacksonville Jaguars, arguably the least-valuable franchise in the NFL, just sold recently for $770 million.

The moral of the story: Television money is exploding sports as we know it.

Your College Football Heavyweight Champion – Baylor K.O.’s UCLA To Retain The Title

With their 49-26 win over UCLA in the Holiday Bowl, Baylor heads into the 2013 season still holding the College Football Heavyweight Title.  The Bears will next defend the belt on September 7th, 2013, when they host the University of Buffalo.

An Open Letter to Notre Dame Fans: Stop Whining About Manti T’eo Not Winning The Heisman

In today’s “not so fast” department…

Since I live in Indiana, I’ve heard an amplified level of bitching about Note Dame linebacker Manti T’eo getting “screwed” out of the Heisman Trophy Saturday night. To keep this simple, it is time for Notre Dame fans to realize that Te’o was never going to win…never.

Yeah, I get that even after a quarter-century of irrelevance, you Notre Dame fans still think that college football supremacy is your birthright, but if you really want to re-assert that claim, you may want to focus on beating Alabama rather that whining about what is essentially a quasi-meaningless popularity contest.

Face facts, you Golden Dopers. If Notre Dame beats Alabama, nobody will remember this so-called Heisman slight. But if you lose that game, don’t spend the next 20 years crying about how T’eo got screwed, because he didn’t.

If you doubt that, consider the following:

1) The Vote Wasn’t Really That Close

Even though the common line about the outcome of this vote was “Manziel Narrowly Beats T’eo,” that’s really not true when you remember how the voting is set up.  There were 892 ballots cast for the award;  the vote being conducted by a voter placing three candidates in order on their ballot.  Each first place vote is worth three points, second place is worth two points, and third is worth one.

Manziel recieved 474 first-place votes as compared to 321 for T’eo. When you factor in the other 97 ballots that had somebody other than Manziel or Te’o, it becomes clear this was a two-horse race. With 892 ballots, a unanimous first-place winner would have received 2,676 points.  This means Manziel only got 1,422 points from first-place ballots, where T’eo got 963. Manziel got a total of 2,029 points to T’eo’ s 1,706. That means Manziel not only scored more first-place ballots, but that T’eo was scored second or third on more ballots than Manziel scored first.  Remember, you are voting for a guy to lose if you don’t put him first on the ballot.  In other words, more voters thought T’eo was not the winner than thought Manziel was the winner  That’s a pretty clear cut loss for T’eo.

2) It Wasn’t About “Defensive Players Can’t Win,” Te’o Wasn’t Even The Best Defensive Player

T’eo’s big claim to fame statistically is his collecting 7 interceptions. But out of the guys with 7 or more interceptions, he has by far the fewest return yards and is the only one not to come up with a “pick 6.” So, the fact that he is a “big play maker” is a bit of a myth.

In terms of sacks, Te’o doesn’t even show up on the board. In fact, the only thing that T’eo gets credited for is making a lot of tackles, which are not an official statistic. T’eo shares this trait with Georgia linebacker Jarvis Jones, who doesn’t have T’eo pick-offs, but did record 22 tackles for loss. Jones also received so first-place Heisman ballots.  From “eye-ball” test, Jones was the better linebacker, and another first-place vote recipient, South Carolina’s Jadavean Clowney was a far more dominant factor on the field from his defensive line position.

So why did Te’o get so many votes? Largely because he is the best player on a defense which brought the Fighting Irish back to national prominence after two-plus decades in the college football shitter. Don’t underestimate how powerful that is.

If Notre Dame had lost a game along the way, would Te’o have even been in this discussion?

3) Face It, Football Is Now A Quarterback’s Game

Charless Woodson is the only one of 74 Heisman winners who wasn’t exclusively an offensive player, and even then he won due to his efforts as a kick-returner and part-time wide-receiver. Since Woodson won that award in 1997, only four of the last 15 winners weren’t quarterbacks, and 6 of the last 7 were signal-callers.

This isn’t just a college phenomenon. Since the NFL began awarding MVP awards in 1957, it’be been won by a defensive player only twice; Alan Page in 1971 and Lawrence Taylor in 1986. Out of the 54 years in the history of this award, 35 winners have been quarterbacks, including only 6 non-quarterbacks in the last twenty years.

So, Notre Dame fans, after considering all that, please explain to me why you thought Te’o has a chance to win the Heisman.  After all, it was only you and only a third of the Heisman voters who thought so.