Play It Again, Bud!

Comedian Chris Rock mocked people who want credit for doing things that they are supposed to be doing in his 1996 HBO stand-up special, “Bring the Pain”. While the central theme of this segment of his show was a controversial, ethnic cultural commentary, this offshoot of Rock’s routine was not lost on the audience. 

“’I take care of my kids!’ You’re supposed to take care of your kids! … What do you want? A cookie!?!? … ‘I’ve never been to jail!’ You’re not supposed to go to jail, you low-expectation having motherfucker!”

This classic comedy is what came to mind when Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig announced that a proposal was put forward to expand MLB’s use of instant replay, expected to be approved by the owners. By “expand”, I mean actually make it meaningful and correct the bulk of common umpiring errors.

Caution: Contains strong language and graphic descriptions of adult situations. Viewer discretion is advised.

 

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

If you regularly read this blog, you know that I pull no punches with my general disapproval of Bud Selig. Still, even a broken clock is right twice per day. Selig and company, in my opinion, took a significant, historic step forward with this announcement.

Similar to the NFL, which began using instant replay in 1986, managers may challenge a call once during the first six innings of a game and twice after the sixth inning. Managers will not lose a challenge if they are correct. While I have not read some of the fine details, this sounds, on the surface, like a sensible system to ensure that critical calls are made properly.

MLB calls its replay expansion historic. The NFL called it "status quo" in the 1980s. 

EMBARRASSMENT VIA PROGRESS

The problem for MLB and Selig is that the sport has endured countless egregious missed calls in key, potentially historic situations that repeatedly put a stain on the game. Selig rigorously defended the effect of the “human element” in lending to the game’s historic charm. MLB found little public support among people not eligible for Social Security and Medicare. Baseball is a sport that is heavily rooted in tradition, but MLB has been of the position that tradition need not give way to common sense.

The NFL, which has had a reputation for evolving with technology, improving its product when the opportunity presents itself, and (drumroll) solving problems quickly when they arise, began using instant replay 27 years ago. After a minority of owners suspended the use of replay in the mid-1990s because it slowed the game down (and some teams were burned more than others on overturned calls), the league refined the process in the late-90s and led the organized sports world in the implementation and use of replay.

The NBA followed suit 11 years ago.  Even college football, also very rooted in tradition, implemented instant replay in the last of all of its major programs seven years ago. Here we are in 2013, approaching a half-century after man walked on the moon, and baseball is incapable of calling a runner out at first base when a fielder with the ball stepped on the bag first.

SAFE!!!! 1

DON’T POP THE CHAMPAGNE YET

MLB still needs formal approval from 75 percent of the league’s 30 owners in November plus agreement from the umpires and the players association for the video challenge system to go into effect in the 2014 MLB season. I’ve watched MLB bungle enough alley-oops in the past to leave the door open for the possibility that someone tosses a monkey wrench into the gears of change. In addition, we have yet to see tangible evidence of how the replay system will affect actually game play.

Catastrophe aside, baseball has finally moved into the 21^st century. It was just more than a decade after the century started. It should have happened years ago. Bud Selig gets no extra credit for doing what he was supposed to do long before this season.

MLB finally does the fans a favor. Was this the day of Bud Selig's daughter's wedding? 2

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1) Image from www.wikipedia.org
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That Guy

Chances are that if you took the time to log on to a sports blog, you have your fair share of sports discussions. Perhaps you listen to sports talk radio. If you like sports, watch sports, talk about sports and listen to others discuss sports, chances are you have heard several inevitable clichés that come up during sports discussions.

We've discussed different sports discussion guys in the past. Today, we are going to discuss the different kind of sports cliché guys who arise during sports discussions. Typically, this is a guy who thinks he knows more than he does. Whether it is at the water cooler, the local watering hole, or on the radio, you can count on eventually hearing some of the following guys spouting these clichés.

I could tell you half of the things that one of them will say without being able to hear them. 2

“THE COACH IS TOO NICE” GUY

This guy cracks me up. This is the sports fan who thinks that by the head coach yelling and screaming, foaming at the mouth, and cracking the whip, the team will magically and miraculously improve, win more games, and/or score more points in the second half of a game in which the team is trailing.

This is all but certainly someone who never played organized sports at the high school level or above. The solution to his team’s woes aren’t rooted in training, preparation, scheme, personnel, injuries, matchups, or offsetting external factors like travel fatigue or home field advantage. Nope. The coach just needs to knock over the water cooler, put his foot through the chalkboard, curse like a sailor, and THEN his team will get the message and respond.

All coaches at the major college or professional level got as far as they got because of their general personality. They aren’t changing. They may adjust their approach to their players, do a little more of this and a little less of that, but the general coaching philosophy isn’t changing. The yellers and screamers, former NFL coach Mike Ditka, University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban, and University of South Carolina Men’s Basketball Head Coach Frank Martin come to mind, are wired to yell and scream. They will yell and scream when they are up 21 points near the end of the game but a player ignored a command. It is who they are.

Much like the yellers and screamers aren’t changing, neither are the “laid back” guys who do not blow their stacks. Losing one’s cool is simply not in the DNA of the cool, calm, and collected coach. It cannot and will not work for them. Their players know their assignments and know the consequences for failure equally well and the screamer’s players. While the Type A coach may be more entertaining for us to observe during his antics, it doesn’t make him more effective. For examples, see Tony Dungy, Dick Vermeil, Mike Tomlin, Les Miles, and Mike Krzyzewski.

I'm at my best at work with some asshole bellowing in my ear, too. 1

“IF I DID THAT AT MY JOB” GUY

Athletes are known for their off the field activities as well as their on-field actions. While there are countless anonymous acts of community service and charity by athletes, the acts of a handful of miscreants such as arrests and anti-social behavior in the locker room tend to produce the most sensational and attention grabbing headlines.

Inevitably, someone will bring up in the conversation a point to the effect of, “If I did that at my job, I would get fired,” or “If I spoke to my boss like that, I’d get demoted.” This completely cliché and unoriginal insight also has the disadvantage to the speaker of being completely irrelevant. Assuming we are discussing professional athletes, this just in, the “if I did that at my job” guy can be replaced in a week or two, perhaps a day or two if that guy is a laborer.

Those talented enough to be pro athletes make up a very tiny percentage of the population. They don’t grow on trees. Most starters are not immediately replaceable and most replacements for reserve/backup players are a step down from the incumbent. In games that are decided by inches with intense public pressure to win, unnecessary personnel turnover is costly and undesirable.

So remember, your services at Jiffy Lube can be replaced by anyone with a pulse. Your crap is not worth the trouble of tolerating. A wide receiver who runs a 4.3 forty is hard to find and most coaches will tolerate just about anything but hard time if the productivity at “the office” is good enough.

If they toss this guy out of the door, it won't cost them a second round draft pick. 3

“I WOULD DO WHATEVER THEY ASKED ME IF THEY PAID ME THAT MUCH” GUY

This guy is in a similar vein as “If I Did That at My Job,” guy. This is the guy who believes that, because athletes are paid much more money in a season than he might see in ten years, athletes shouldn’t speak or think and just function as zombies or robots on command.

Mind you, this is probably the same guy who complains about something in the break room or his lack of a parking space with regularity. This is the guy who probably mumbles under his breath when he’s asked to lift an extra bag of soil at the Wal-Mart at which he works. But, suddenly this guy would clean the bathroom for the customers with a smile if there were a few more zeroes in his paycheck?

You wouldn't do whatever if they paid you that much, because you CAN'T DO ANYTHING that someone would pay you that much to do. Kobe Bryant could tell his (former) coach, Mike Brown, to kiss his ass because he is Kobe freaking Bryant, future Hall of Famer. They pay him that much because he’s worth that much. And in the end, Bryant effectively fired Brown, not the other way around, and rattled off an “Amnesty THAT” blast at another league owner. I don't think Kobe is worried about being in trouble for smarting off to the boss man for another team in the league. 

Contrary to what "that guy" might think, with the work ethic it takes to become a star athlete, I think Dwight Howard would make a better shoe salesman than 'that guy" would make an NBA Center. 4

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To advertise with The Daily Hat Trick, or to submit a guest column, please contact the editor at eric@thedailyhattrick.info.

The Daily Hat Trick is sponsored by Sports N Stuff. For great deals on jerseys, shirts, cologne, and other guy stuff, visit http://www.sportsnstuff.biz/.

1) Image from www.bradlaughs.com
2, 3) Images from www.visualphotos.com
4) Image from http://unlocked.footlocker.com

Bud Selig: “Inexorably” Ineffective

Those of you that read regularly know my stance on Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig. If you got a chuckle out of my article comparing Roger Goodell’s handling of the NFL lockout to the Michigan J. Frog Merrie Melodies animated short, then you would have found my comparison of Bud Selig to Fred Flintstone to be a knee slapper!

Selig's usual reaction to...anything. 1

If You Can't Say Anything Nice....

I rarely say many positive things about Selig because I rarely think that he makes any decisions that improve the game of baseball. In fact, I’ll do a happy dance the day he steps down, after the 2012 season, according to Selig. This is the man who made great strides to make sure baseball would not expand instant replay by the start of the 2011 season, in spite of a comedy of umpiring follies in 2010, including ruining a perfect game for Detroit Tigers pitcher Armondo Gallaraga and hanging the contrite umpire, Jim Joyce, out to dry. This is a man who has never seriously put the idea of a salary cap on the table, in spite of the glaring lack of parody among clubs in free agency. The list is as long as the day.

I will also give credit where it is due. The best move Selig made in his entire career, in my opinion, was facilitating the expansion of the playoffs to include a wild card team and a divisional round. MLB, prior to 1995, had 28 teams with only 4 qualifying for postseason play. This resulted in some dull Septembers (and some Augusts) for the majority of teams’ fans. Doubling this number to 8 was a huge step in the right direction without completely reinventing the MLB postseason wheel.

Since then, there have been two more teams added to the league. With only 8 teams reaching the playoffs, Major League Baseball, by far, has the lowest percentage of teams, among the four major team sports, reaching the playoffs at 27%. In contrast, the National Football League sends 38% of its teams to the second season. The National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League send 57% of their teams to the playoffs. It still suffers with the problem of too many teams, by modern standards, having very little to play for at the end of the regular season. In contrast, the drama and suspense for most teams in the other three sports begins to peak in the final month of their regular seasons.

The possibility of expanding the MLB playoffs from 8 to 10 teams, by adding two more wild card teams and a wild card round, was suggested in the media late last season. Last Thursday, Commissioner Selig, last week, announced that he thought MLB was moving “inexorably” toward adding two more playoff teams. Hallelujah! Bud “Flintstone” Selig finally sees the light on something (that the rest of the sporting world saw years ago)! Finally! There will be a little more life injected into the MLB regular season. Good for you, Bud! I knew you couldn’t be incompetent 100% of the time!

Selig six days ago.... 2

♪♪ “Back to life. Back to re-al-i-ty. Back to the here and now, yeah!” ♫

Bug Selig came through only like Bud Selig could: (risking) screwing up a good idea! In order to expand the playing schedule, it must be agreed upon in MLB’s collective bargaining agreement with the player’s union, which expires after this season. While there are no signs that the MLB collective bargaining process is a threat to be the cluster that has become the NFL’s CBA process, there are no guarantees and there are always details to be smoothed out. Players union chief Michael Weiner said that “it’s just too early” to treat the issue of expanding the playoffs as if it is a foregone conclusion.

There is always a story behind every story on any potentially contentious issue. The fact that Selig spoke with confidence, to the point of signaling an agreement on the issue was all but inevitable, six days ago only to be countered by a union head saying, “slow down,” tells me that the “inexorable” result of expanded playoffs may have gone from “inexorable” to a “bargaining chip”.

I have no idea what words were exchanged or ideas were floated between Selig, Weiner, or any of the owners since last week. However, the notion that a key decision maker in this process could tip his hand, ever so slightly, to the public and make the mere suggestion that a no-brainer change, a significant improvement to the game and the fan experience, such as expanded playoffs may not be implemented, in spite of the support of the Commissioner, is yet another unflattering reflection on Selig’s tenure as commissioner.

He had ignored the inexorable need for improvements in game play, he has ignored the inexorable need to improve basic fan safety, and he appears oblivious to the inexorable need to further level the playing field between large and small market teams. Now, the “inexorable” process of expanding the playoffs is not as inexorable as it was about a week ago. Bud Selig’s ineffectiveness as commissioner is inexorable.

Two days ago.... My frustration with this man is "inexorable". 3

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1) Image from yabadabadoo.wordpress.com
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