Field of Steve

Joannie Rochette of Canada lost her mother on Sunday. On Tuesday she was the third best skater at the Olympics in the figure skating short program competition. No one appears to be holding out that she’ll do well enough to medal after the long program, but Tuesday’s performance was a gift. (Click on the link to watch the video.)

This place should be home to baseball well into October.

The Dodgers should have every reason to expect to win the National League West. They have by far the easiest path there.

The Dodgers have three games against the Rockies to end the season and six games against the Giants in September. Meanwhile they are four games up on Colorado and seven up on San Francisco. Neither the Rockies or Giants could overtake the Dodgers just by sweeping them. They need help. And later I’ll show you why that’s unlikely to happen.

The Giants have the toughest route. They have 12 games against the Dodgers and Rockies and three against the NL-Central leading Cardinals, and four against the Cubs, who have a tough path to the wild card spot, but do have a winning record.

The Rockies have nine against the other two teams and three against NL-East-leading Phillies.

The Dodgers have nine against the other two contenders. The other 25 are against the five worst teams in the National League. If the Dodgers don’t make it to the post-season, it will be a gift to Dodger fans, because they would have to be so bad that a trip to the playoffs would be nothing but an embarrassment.

If Alex Rodriguez had never left Seattle, no one would hate him.

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If Alex Rodriguez had never joined the Yankees, he would not have met Madonna.

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There is a connection there somewhere. Mr. Rodriguez is surely shaking his head in shame.

The 1980s were golden years for L.A. sports fans, especially because most of the world still cared about the NBA. Recap: The Raiders won one championship in Los Angeles, the Dodgers won two and the Lakers won five, two of them against the Boston Celtics (pronounced sell-ticks).

A few things have happened since then that have made me less in tune with the goings on in Los Angeles. One, I couldn’t claim to live there since 1986. Two, not only do I not live there, I now live in a place that makes getting there more than a 10-hour drive. Three, I really love where I do live.

That said, I still maintain my allegiance to the Dodgers. The Lakers, not so much. During the 1990s they became a team of thugs and crybabies and I was living in Utah. I started rooting for the Utah Jazz, because I wanted to see Jerry Sloan, Karl Malone and John Stockton get a championship. They were already Dream Teamers, but wore no NBA rings. The Lakers, young and cocky, were roadblocks on the way. The Jazz blew their shot. The Lakers got better at a time when the NBA was full of personalities I couldn’t stand. We lived near Portland for a couple of years at a time when the Blazers were known as the Jailblazers. So L.A. won a few championships at a time when I wasn’t watching the NBA much.

To make matters worse, we moved near Seattle and during Nate McMillan’s last year here as a coach I grew to have an affection for the Seattle Supersonics. Then the team let Nate go to Portland and the new owners made a sham show of trying to stay here, when everyone except David Stern knew the intention all along was to move the team to Oklahoma City.

Seriously. Oklahoma City. I’m not kidding about that.

David Stern, the NBA’s jefe, has been a complicit worm in the entire deal. Now we’ve got court cases in which the former owner is trying to void the sale. He may have a case, because the new Sonics owners were stupid enough to send congratulatory e-mails to each other when things got bad for Seattle basketball fans. So a city with a 40-year history with the league is struggling, causing some a-holes from Oklahoma to celebrate and David Stern is on their side? Yeah, that’s my story. So why should I care at all about the NBA?

Well, here’s why. One of Seattle’s good guys, Ray Allen, got traded to Boston, where he joined two other superstars and suddenly the Celtics were good again. Not only were they good, they’re great, the best in the NBA. I’ve been rooting for them all year. As much as deep in my heart I’d still like to see the Los Angeles Lakers with as many banners as the Celtics, I have a real appreciation for Allen, who wanted to make it work here in Seattle. So I paid some attention to how he and the Celtics were doing, not at all aware that the Lakers were winning. Now we’re a few games from a Lakers-Celtics finals and it has caught me completely by surprise. Actually, the money now would be on a Lakers-Pistons finals, but if the Celtics win one on the road that goes back to the former possibility.

When the reality-struck that it could be L.A.-Boston, I suddenly realized that I didn’t know who I’d root for. More alarmingly, I realized that I actually cared. I hate the NBA, but it matters to me which team is the best in a league I despise. If the Lakers were only Kobe Bryant, the choice would be easy. But he has changed as a player, which partly explains why the team is two games away from the finals. Plus, they’ve got some good guys on that team. So maybe I never did lose my love for the Lakers. I guess I’m conditional. I was glad for Shaq when they won those earlier championships, because I thought he had matured as a player. Overall, if the guys on the team are decent guys, my default team might still be the Lakers. Then again, I like the Celtics. And if the Sonics were any good and still in Seattle, well then maybe they’d be my team.

The immediate reality here, though, is if it’s a Lakers-Celtics finals, I’m certainly going to watch. That’s good news for ABC. If it’s Lakers-Pistons, then I’ll probably watch. If it’s Celtics-Spurs, then I might watch. If it’s Pistons-Spurs I won’t watch. I won’t care. That I would care under any circumstances is news to me.

Every once in a while I read a book I enjoy so much that I read it twice. I just finished one for the first time that I’m sure I’ll go through again.

The Blind Side tells of Michael Oher, who plays left tackle at Ole Miss. If the story were that simple the book wouldn’t be much more than the standard sports bio. If any of us had met Oher and his family before he became a teenager, we would all have predicted much less for him. Through a sequence of chances he now finds himself an all SEC lineman and a surefire NFL prospect.

On Saturday he may not have lived up to that reputation. Ole Miss lost to Vanderbilt 31-17 and Vandy linebackers got behind the Ole Miss line for six sacks.

Even if he doesn’t end up in the NFL, which seems unlikely, his life story intertwined with the evolution of the left tackle makes for a fascinating read by Michael Lewis, who also wrote Moneyball. This book is getting less attention than Moneyball, but I enjoyed it more.

I bought the book a couple weeks ago after finally making it all the way through Hubris. That book was dense. Interesting, yes. Important as well, but dense. Lewis’ book is a breeze to read.

Oh, and there’s a BYU angle to it as well.

My weekend was pretty uneventful. There was this.

Campbell nearly completed a third TD score just before the break, but hard-hitting Indians corner Denny “Dirt” Kerstetter separated Jordan Smith from the football to prevent further damage. Still, Steel-High was rolling.

Not for long, as Steven Gardner wheeled 96 yards with the second-half kick to bring the Indians within 21-14. Gardner was hemmed in by three or four would-be tacklers at his own 30, but managed to spin out of trouble and go yard.

“When they ran that back, I knew that was a major momentum swing and they had the momentum,” said Young, who amassed 19 of his 32 carries in the second half. “They had all their fans behind them. “I knew the dogfight was coming.”

Said Darryl Kerstetter: “[Gardner] had a great run, breaking tackles. It was all heart. That was a hell of a run.”

We still lost.

Thanks to a post on Jim Thomsen’s blog, I was inspired to create a list of cities (which you can see by clicking the “continued” button below) I stayed in because of a job I had for two years not long after college.

American Business Seminars sold books and tapes for hundreds of dollars, mostly to people who were desperate to find their way out of their 9-to-5 lives. The company would send about 20,000 “free” tickets in the mail and if 200 or more showed up it was considered pretty successful in terms of attendance.

Each presentation would last an hour to 90 minutes. The major portion was used to describe how the program; such as making money on real estate notes, bonds or 900 numbers, worked. Then the hook would come. If you ordered these things on the phone, it would cost $495. But because they were there at the seminar, they could get it for $295. Oh wait, how about I give you $100 toward the program. That meant coming to the back table where the speaker would hand us each $100 to go toward any person’s purchase of the program.

It was schlocky as heck. I wanted to believe it was legitimate and probably should have quit long before I did.

It’s a period in my life that is the definition of a mixed blessing. I loved the travel, but wished I’d had another way to make that happen. I was no salesman. I hated being around the sales environment and genuinely felt bad for some of the people who bought from us. A couple of people I felt so bad for that I dissuaded them from buying some of our stuff. One woman told me she had so much to spend and asked for a recommendation. What I recommended required her to return something else. Another woman would cry as she bought every book and tape we had. At the end of the seminar I tried to talk her out of some of the programs she had, but she was resolute that day. I’m sure she spent more than $2,000 that day, most of it borrowed from other people. It wasn’t one of my prouder moments and was one that haunted me for years afterward.

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Sitting in Red Robin in Vancouver, Washington last week I looked up at one of the televisions and it was clear Barry Bonds had broken the home run record. I wrote a little thing about vacation last week, but Brant is asking for thoughts on Barry. What I’ll say is something I know has already been said, except for one thing.

For one, I don’t think God approves. Hat tip to Jim Thomsen for providing the link to the church sign generator.

What struck me the most about Barry’s moment was that I did stay up extra late that night to catch the full report on ESPN, but once I saw it I felt nothing. I get off on these things, too. I still cry when I see Kirk Gibson’s home run in the 1988 series. I was ecstatic when Cal Ripken managed to break the consecutive game record. When Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s record, I was all over that. I love sports and I have a pretty big emotional attachment to players and teams. Yet the same night that Bonds broke the record, what really got me charged was Roger Clemens plunking a Blue Jay after one of their pitchers hit A-Rod for the second time in the series. Clemens’ pitch was perfect. It was exciting.

Also odd was that Barry acted every bit the class act on his night. Had we seen any evidence of that class over the past two decades I’m sure I would have cared at least a little. But Bonds has always been a malcontent. He’s a jerk. If he ran against George W. Bush for president I’d vote for Nader.

None of that would have mattered, though, had it not been for the steroids. He can claim all he wants that he didn’t knowingly use steroids, because he didn’t want to know. I’m prosecuting him without benefit of a trial, I know, but I think Barry had every reason to suspect that what he was using wasn’t kosher.

On Thomsen’s blog a lot of people don’t care, but here’s why it matters to me. I’m all for any performance enhancing substance or activity that also improves life in general, or at least poses no threat. That way, no one is forced to make the decision as to whether the price is worth paying. Of course it is. So if all the athletes were using performance enhancers that didn’t threaten to shrink their testicles while enlarging their heads (a pretty sad tradeoff I think we’d all agree), then I’d be for it. Hell, I’d take them myself to make me work better in the yard. The problem is steroids do exact a cost, which forces some people to stay away from them, giving those who will take the risk an unfair advantage.

I like what George Will wrote in December 2004:

Athletes chemically propelled to victory do not merely overvalue winning, they misunderstand why winning is properly valued. Professional athletes stand at an apex of achievement because they have paid a price in disciplined exertion — a manifestation of good character. They should try to perform unusually well. But not unnaturally well. Drugs that make sport exotic drain it of its exemplary power by making it a display of chemistry rather than character — actually, a display of chemistry and bad character.

It’s why guys like Dale Murphy, who in the early part of the 1980s was the most feared hitter in baseball, don’t really get serious consideration for the Hall of Fame. Murphy’s presence was diminishing when Jose Canseco arrived and changed the game. Still, they overlapped, and Murphy is overlooked. I can’t argue that Murphy would have been a shoe-in, but his 398 career home runs doesn’t seem Hall worthy at all, especially when he’s behind Rafael Palmeiro, Andres Galaragga and Canseco.

What bothers me most is what Bonds did to the record itself. The career home run mark was called by many the most sacred individual record in the sport, perhaps in all of sports. We should have cared. I should have cared. Now, I could not care less.

Darn you, Plaschke, for making me cry on Independence Day.

We take it for granted, don’t we? We’ve lived next to Dodger Stadium for so long, we ignore its beauty, shrug at its charm and lose sight of that funky streaking baseball.

We are so worried about the lousy concession lines, inconsistent parking and cramped concourses, we forget that our aging neighbor may still be the most beautiful sporting spot on Earth.

Meet a man who does not, who will not, who cannot.

Read the story of Maurice Gardner (no relation) here.

Earlier the Mariners’ Felix Hernandez owned the Red Sox, allowing one hit in a complete game. Suck on it Red Sox! You’re dead to me anyway.

Why, you ask?

J.D. Drew.

After playing at 75 percent for his major league career, he ditched the Dodgers after giving all indications he had no intention of opting out of his contract. So then he decides on the Red Sox.

I used to be a big fan of the Sox and this will certainly just be a pause. But I wish for Drew what I sometimes wish for A-Rod. No, actually it’s worse. With A-Rod I’m fine if he does well, I just don’t want whatever team he plays for win. With Drew, I want both him and the team to suck.

It didn’t help when in the eighth inning tonight Drew got the one hit off Hernandez and the fans cheered. By the eighth inning of a no-hitter real baseball fans are rooting for it finish out no matter who’s pitching. But ever since the Sox finally won a series their fans must think they’re above baseball fan protocol.

Bottom line: Until Drew leaves Boston, the Red Sox are about as attractive as an appearance on Imus.

In the winter of 1985 I was an intern for U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, R-Calif., when a group of us from BYU went to a Friday afternoon class with Lee Roderick.

Roderick was running Scripps League Newspaper’s Washington, D.C. bureau (where I would later do another internship) and was president of the National Press Club. Another intern, David Callister (That’s his mug on the left.) who later became a state legislator in Idaho, asked Roderick why reporters dressed so shabbily. I don’t remember Roderick’s answer, but the question stuck.

That was unfortunate, because for my last project in college in the summer of 1986 I chose to do a paper on how reporters dress. I could have chosen any topic – shield laws, public disclosure laws, ethics – but I went with the question of whether journalists should think seriously about darker socks. We were to submit these projects to five publications. It was no surprise I was rejected by all five.

For the project I interviewed the owner of a 1,000-circ. weekly in Iowa, an L.A. Times spokeswoman, a writer for the Herald in Everett, Wash. (she’s now at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver) a reporter from the Detroit Free Press and another from the Denver Post, Woody Paige.

Paige gained national notoriety for his work on ESPN on Cold Pizza and Around the Horn.

That I had actually interviewed Paige about the summa important topic of how journalists dress was something I’d forgotten until a little over a year ago. I was helping my father move out of his house in Utah when amidst the old stuff I found the notes from my interview.

Consider also that Paige had passed through a tempest after slamming Mormons in a column during the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. Then he shows up on Cold Pizza and I still don’t remember him. It took finding the notes. And upon finding them it all fit.

The other sources I spoke with said the equivalent of “You have to dress appropriately for the occasion.” Paige said much the same thing, but also admitted “appropriate” for a reporter was a little different.

“I think there’s an image that newspaper reporters dress like slugs anyway,” Paige said.

Some of his views have changed some, based on his dress on TV. “I only own one tie. I don’t wear socks,” he said in 1986. He said he always wore Bass Weejuns with no socks. He said as long as a journalist didn’t look like a bum, it wouldn’t affect the work.

The next time they send out a memo at work about not wearing shorts on the job, I’m going to pull the Paige quotes.

As years progress, former Atlanta Braves star Dale Murphy’s chances of induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame grow slimmer. It’s not just a shame, it’s an injustice.

His numbers begin with two MVP awards and two other times among the top 10. There were five Gold Glove awards and five times he was among the top 10 in on base percentage. Twice he led the league in slugging and six times was in the top 10. Seven times he was among the 10 best in run creation, leading the league four times. According to one site listing his accomplishments, a Sporting News survey of pitchers in 1985 ranked Murphy as the most feared hitter in the National League. I read someone saying the National League was weak when Murphy was dominant, but National League teams won the series five times during the 1980s, equal to the American League.

Aside from the numbers, let’s get to a couple of reasons he’s not getting into the hall and one major reason he should.

First off, he never played for a winner. Well, not a real winner anyway. The Braves did win the division in 1982 but were quickly dispatched in the playoffs by the Cardinals. Murphy was nice, but other than his height he didn’t stick out much with his personality. He probably would have had a better chance making it into the hall if he had punched a couple photographers or called a Met fan a flatus at least once during his career.

The second strike against him has been pretty well discussed, the fact that he hit his peak right before the pharmacists made it into the league. Murphy might have been feared in 1985, but by 1988 the Bash brothers, fueled by pin pricks in their buttocks, owned the long ball. They changed and ruined the game, doing damage to the chances guys like Murphy and Andre Dawson deserve.

If there needs to be a third strike, and Murphy did strike out a lot, it’s that Murphy doesn’t lobby for it. I don’t know that other guys do, but in the few interviews I’ve read or heard by him, he genuinely doesn’t seem too concerned. That, right there, makes me want it for him more. Nothing illustrates his selflessness more than the fact that he left the game two home runs short of a milestone.

My final point goes to Mark McGwire and Pete Rose. This week passed and it was Mac’s first time eligible for the hall. Because of the belief that he cheated, he got few votes. Rose’s exclusion has been going on for years. Both are being kept out because of things they . . . allegedly . . . did. Murphy was astoundingly charitable as a ballplayer, earning gobs more awards for his goodness off the field than for what he did between the lines. Murphy’s stats might be borderline, but if you’re going to keep someone out because of the negative things he did to the game, then you ought to let someone’s positive influence be a factor in tipping the scales in his favor.

Way to go dude from Arkansas! He’s suing Kobe because he says Kobe elbowed him on purpose when he was at a Lakers-Grizzlies game.

I’ve been plotting revenge on Kobe ever since Newsweek picked his piece for a “My Turn” column instead of mine. You can read about the whole sordid incident here. In response I sent Mr. Big Shot, Glory Hog, Piece ‘O Crap a letter congratulating him and saying if he was going to defeat me in my profession, then he ought to let me try to defeat him in his. I challenged him to a one-on-one. Big chicken never even wrote back, so as far as I’m concerned, I won. I think I’ll make a trophy for myself.

The Dodgers go into the weekend a game back of San Diego and a game up on the Phillies. Unfortunately, they have to play the Giants, which means folks in Frisco get their year made by spoiling it for the Dodgers, right?

No. Their team lays down and gets swept.

I’m a Dodger fan to the enth degree. One of the things we Dodger fans have learned to tolerate over the years is the unreasonable hatred from Giants’ fans and their team’s uncanny ability to ruin it for the Dodgers. But this year the Giants give away game one and bow out during two and three.

I’m glad the Dodgers are in the playoffs, believe me, but the Giants are complete wusses. They’re certainly not the Giants I remember.

Field of Steve

You’re welcome.

Sincerely,

Seattle

P.S. The refs say “you’re welcome” too.

Field of Steve

I deleted a rant I had about Michael Strahan calling the Seahawks storyline boring. I decided to be charitable, I guess. Nonetheless, I will resurrect a quote from 2001.

“I like boring,” New York defensive end Michael Strahan said. “When we got boring, we started to win. If boring means winning, we’ll be boring. We’ll let everybody else have the headlines. That doesn’t matter to us.” — Michael Strahan

See the whole story here.

Field of Steve

First off, some shouting.

GO SEAHAWKS!

Some problems. I think the Seahawks D will stop the run, but it will probably give up the big plays to Steve Smith. The offense will do well. A big factor, Carolina’s been in this situation before, failing once and succeeding once. The Seahawks have players who’ve been here, but the team as a whole is first-time visitors to this situation. Still, I say 27-17 Seahawks and on to the Super Bowl!

So far, at halftime, I’m glad the game isn’t televised here.

Utah 24
BYU 3

Field of Steve

For a while I hesitated to post, fearing I’d jinx the team. Of course that’s ridiculous, but what is there about sports that makes any sense?

BYU is 5-4, they’re winning games they’re supposed to and seem to be improving. They win one more and they’re eligible for a bowl game, which doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll get one anymore. BYU fans don’t travel well, i.e. spend money, when they go to watch the Cougs. I’m not sure how much people would travel to watch this Coug team anyway. Still, I’m encouraged.

Two more games, one at Wyoming and one at home against the Utes. The Utes may be improving as well. They beat up the Cowboys today.

Of course the most interesting story in college football is the probable matchup of USC against Texas in the Rose Bowl. Both teams look unstoppable. I grew up rooting for USC, back when Anthony Davis ran behind the wedge and helped kick start a comeback from an 18-point deficit against Notre Dame. That was sweet. So is watching the Trojans now.

The photo is from AP.
Field of Steve