Qatar "Makes It Rain," Beats USA Soccer, 2022-0

ZURICH - On a cold and cloudy morning in a neutral country, FIFA made clear its own biases.

The world's governing body for soccer awarded the 2022 World Cup home site to Qatar on Thursday morning, drawing cheers from a Connecticut-sized country that will become the first nation in the Persian Gulf region to host the sport's biggest tournament.  The cheers, due to the country's small population, were not loud enough to be heard by anyone in the area, but the people carried on nonetheless.

"This is an enormous win for us," said Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the country's emir. "We would be shouting from the tops of mountains if we had any."  

Qatar, which won the committee's final vote 14-8 over the US, assuaged concerns about climate and crowd control by reasoning that their budget for the tournament would more than cover any health and safety measures that needed to be put in place to ensure a good experience for players and fans alike.  Russia, which won the bid for the 2018, had similar justifications for its own ability to host; both countries rank in the top 3 in proven natural gas reserves, and the export of such resources remains the driving force behind each country's economy.
"It took a lot of convincing,'' Al-Thani admitted. "We were not sure that [FIFA's executive committee] would consider us a worthy candidate because of our small physical size, population and average summer temperature of 118 degrees Fahrenheit. But once we made the final round of voting, we knew that our financial capabilities were starting weigh heavily on their minds.''

"Yeah, they've got money," FIFA president Sepp Blatter said. "We like that. The decision to host this year's cup in South Africa was more sentimental than fiscal.  We don't intend to go back any time soon if we can help it - the financial constrains are just too difficult to work through." 

FIFA's announcement gave a huge boost to wealthy underdog countries that have hopes of hosting future tournaments. Luxembourg, Singapore and Hong Kong, all of which share with Qatar a top-15 worldwide ranking in per-capita GDP (purchasing power parity, 2009), were rumored to have already begun talks with the federation regarding hosting possibilities for post-2030 tournaments.

***

If your brain is half the size of a Jabulani, you've intuited by now that the above 300+ words were tongue-in-cheek satire (though the linked facts are real).  The emotion, however, was legitimate, and I know there are many frustrated soccer fans across the country that would agree.

I'd be doing soccer fans a disservice if I counted myself among their ranks, but for one day this past May, I put myself in their shoes and walked into Lincoln Financial Field to watch the US take on Turkey in a pre-Cup friendly. The US won, 2-1, but even more than the win, what struck me was the atmosphere. You hear about it from people who have attended matches and you see the chaos on TV, but it's impossible to appreciate the feeling in the building unless you're actually there.  Even when Turkey was winning, the fans were on their feet, smoke bombs going off now and again, beach balls surfing the crowd and chants resounding from section to section. There was as much noise and more passion in that stadium - for an exhibition, mind you - than you would find at any regular season NFL game. That level of excitement, coupled with watching Landon Donovan's improbable goal (props to Ian Darke on a masterful call), had me thinking "Hey, this is pretty fun!"

You can imagine, then, the disappointment I shared with millions of other American supporters when I heard FIFA's decision.  The bid had slipped to the back of my memory until last week, and I had forgotten the surge of enthusiasm I'd felt this summer. It never really hit me that there was a good chance that we wouldn't get it. It made sense: we've got the stadiums, the accomodations, the transportation, the people - and a good team, to boot. Why not US?

I failed to remember, however, what is becoming increasingly clear in sports: money talks, and when you need it, the talk is louder than any sports-related motive every will. It is its own language and native speaker, fluent in every dialect and more persuasive than the shiniest of trophies. It can buy you your health, your house, and your car, and it can buy things for others if you want it to. It won't give you happiness, but it can buy a lot of things with it that will make you happy. Best of all, money doesn’t tell you what to do – it only asks what you want and if it can help; only when you answer does it stop talking.

For FIFA, and to be fair, for many other letter combinations, the answer is yes. NFL. BCS. ESPN. The list is long. Michael Crabtree. Pete Rose. Frank and Jamie McCourt. Cecil Newton is just the most recent example.  I'm not pretending this theme is going to die away anytime soon, because it won't.  But it's infuriating when there are unequivocal dangers in seeking that kind of compensation and people and organizations choose to follow their wallets anyway; it is particularly upsetting when there is a smaller payday in sight that makes much more sense.  No matter. The glint of a whole lot of coin is blinding.

"There's no way around it: I am disappointed," Sunil Gulati, president of US Soccer, wrote in an email sent out on behalf of GoUSABid.com.  "Millions of U.S. soccer fans worked hard to bring the World Cup to our country. To come up short is very difficult to take."

Indeed.  I'm sure it hit these fans hardest; it's gonna be a while before they have something to cheer.

When "Welcome Back" Means "Duck and Cover"

I'm sure you're aware that Lebron James returns to Cleveland this week (with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in tow) for the first time since leaving his hometown team this summer.  If he's hoping for the warm welcome that Donovan McNabb got when he went back to Philadelphia as a member of the Redskins, he's about as naive as James Harrison was to think that he wouldn't get fined after stating his intention to "hurt people" in his violent and often questionable collisions on the gridiron.  There's enough James-related vitriol in northern Ohio right now to light the Cuyahoga River on fire (again), though I don't think fans/arsonists will actually be dumb enough to set the Quicken Loans Arena aflame no matter how badly they want Lebron to feel their heat; in any case, he's certainly not feeling his own Heat right now, given Miami's barely .500 winning percentage nearly a quarter of the way through the season.  If James is really serious about proving his doubters wrong, he won't be affected by angry fans or needling chants, but he should definitely take note of what Michael Jordan says in the video response to his "What Should I Do?" commercial (posted below).  Jordan is as savvy and as fiery as they come, and the used-to-be-number-23 James would do well to heed anything his numerical predecessor says.  I, for one, hope James plays well and that there are no extracurricular incidents that might throw a wet towel on an already stormy night.

Bear-ing Down: Robert Griffin, Art Briles & Baylor's Quest for Big 12 Respect

Since losing to conference opponent Missouri on Saturday night, the Oklahoma Sooners have fallen all the way to number nine in the BCS standings, momentarily boxed out of the national championship picture by the seven undefeated teams still remaining in college football. They also ceded their position atop the Big 12 North because of the in-conference loss.

The new tenants? The Baylor Bears.

Baylor? 

Yes, that Baylor, the school that has yet to post a winning record in 14 seasons as a member of the Big 12. Although it may seem like a sick joke to the other 11 public universities that populate the conference, this is no hoax. In a little less than three seasons, head coach Art Briles has lured the Bears (6-2, 3-1 in Big 12 play) out of their bottom-feeding cave and steered them to bowl-eligible status despite playing in a division that includes two of the last four BCS National Championship participants.  These are not uncharted waters for Briles: when he took over as head coach at Houston (his alma mater) in 2003, the Cougars had won eight games in the previous four years, but he managed to lift the program to a 34-28 overall record and four bowl appearances in the next five seasons.

That said, the turnaround at Baylor is not born solely out of Briles' wisdom. The coach does possess one commodity not afforded to any Bears coaches before him: believe it or not, the most valuable quarterback in the Big 12, Robert Griffin III, goes to class in Waco.

"You know, Robert brings a dynamic, energetic quality to your football team," Briles said before this season. "Without a question, we are a different football team [with him playing]."

Hello, understatement.

In his 2008 true freshman campaign, the 6'3" signal-caller from Copperas Cove, TX wowed the whole league, drawing all-conference freshman honors despite playing for an overmatched squad that finished 4-8, not to mention 2-6 in the conference.  Griffin's playmaking abilities were prominently displayed even against a schedule that included six bouts with ranked opponents, among them No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 4 Texas, No. 7 Texas Tech and No. 8 Oklahoma State; he threw only three interceptions in those games (they were his only picks of the season) while completing 81 passes, often using his feet to gain ground while covering up shoddy blocking on the offensive line. His end-of-year stats (2,091 yards passing, 843 yards rushing, 28 total touchdowns), though not eye-popping from a yards perspective, established him as an up-and-coming player that belonged in the same category as Ryan Broyles, DeMarco Murray, Kendall Hunter and Roy Helu Jr.

Despite his claim that he "couldn't have had those stats or all the accolades without the 10 other guys on the field," Griffin's importance was highlighted last year when he tore his ACL in a blowout win at Northwestern State.  Without Griffin under center, the Bears went 2-7.

"I felt like I let the community down, the fans and those seniors from last year," Griffin said in an interview after the season. He refused to let that disappointment shake his focus. "I don't wanna come back with that 'I'm back' mentality, trying to prove that I'm still the man. I just want to come back, have fun with the guys. I don't think it'll be a drastic change [from before the injury]."

"What we do fits him to a T," Briles said, "so we're just gonna cut loose and play and let Robert do his thing along with everybody else."

After a year of surgery, physical rehabilitation and lots of practice, the political science major returned to the Floyd Casey Stadium turf on September 4th, throwing for 242 yards with two touchdowns and running for another score in the Bears' season-opening win. RG3 was still himself.

""He is the same Rob," offensive tackle Danny Watkins said after the game. "He's still the wizard back there. I mean, at times we weren't clicking on offense but we're going to get better every week." 

For the most part, the Bears have done that.  They won their next game against Buffalo, with Griffin throwing for 230 yards in the first half of 34-6 victory; since then, Baylor has only been held under 30 points once, dropping a tough game to No. 4 TCU on September 18th in Fort Worth. (The vaunted Horned Frogs defense held Griffin to just 164 yards passing and one touchdown.) Even in a painful 45-38 loss to a streaky Texas Tech team, Griffin passed for 384 yards and two scores and added a pair of touchdowns on the ground.

The bad news for the Bears at this point in the season is that the meat of their schedule is right in front of them.  Baylor, which plays 12 straight games from September through November without an idle week, is about to go toe-to-toe with Texas (in Austin) and  No. 17 Oklahoma State (in Stillwater) before returning home for games against Texas A&M and No. 9 Oklahoma.  In their bid to win the division, the loss to Texas Tech was a huge blow, but there is still some scratching and clawing left in these Bears.  Though it's doubtful that Briles' guys will run the table, it isn't ridiculous to believe that they can go 2-2 over that stretch.  Texas has trouble scoring; OSU struggled mightily against dual-threat quarterback Taylor Martinez; the Sooners are relatively weak against the run and play suspect red-zone defense; the Aggies have turnover issues.  With the right combination of balanced playcalling and on-the-money execution, the Bears can steal a win in any one of these games.

"Like we said from day one: every week is a new season and we are just trying to become a better football team each week," Briles told the media yesterday after beating Kansas State 47-42. "We haven't peaked and that is the encouraging part as a team member and a coach."

Clearly, Griffin and running back Jay Finley need to be playing their best brand of mistake-free football if the Bears are to finish November with a winning record. They need one more win to complete a turnaround season on which they can lay the foundations for next year, but Briles doesn't sound as though he'll be happy with just one.  It won't be easy, but the Bears certainly seem capable and motivated to finish the job. 

While Griffin remains overshadowed by Terrell Pryor and Darron Thomas, fellow 2008 recruits leading their own November charges at Ohio State and Oregon, he will keep doing 'his thing' for the No. 25 Bears, who are ranked in the Associated Press Poll for the first time since 1991. A win against Texas, OU or Oklahoma State would be huge, though it would totally blow Griffin's cover as an underdog diamond-in-the-rough and potential 2011 Heisman candidate. But that's alright - Baylor believes they still have yet to play their best football. The Big 12 had better take notice.      

Brian Wilson: The Will Ferrell of Baseball Interviews

Today is October 15th. This is an interview from September 3rd, and how it has escaped my viewing until this week is beyond me.  Maybe it was on SportsNation when I wasn't watching, or maybe it was just too preposterous to be taken seriously.  Whatever the case, in this clip from Rome is Burning, Giants closer Brian Wilson presents himself as the Will Ferrell of baseball interviews.  His style is more eclectic, and his tone has more edge and less play, but I'll be damned if he's not equally absurd. The phrases spilling out of his mouth are unbelievable, and Jim Rome eats it all up.  Whether or not Wilson is actually the resident I-dare-you man in the San Francisco clubhouse is irrelevant; he plays the part like a champ.  It's really a shame that he had to tone down his Twitter account - I can only imagine the things he might have to say if the world were not so politically correct.  In any case, I think I know who I'm rooting for in the NLCS. Enjoy the yucks.  

San Diego's Salvation Series: Padres Desperate to Keep Their Season Alive

If divine intervention services are required in Major League Baseball, clearly the San Diego Padres are the leading candidate at the moment.


As of this morning, San Diego is 3 games behind the San Francisco Giants in the race for the NL West division crown. There are only three games remaining for the Padres, all of them in San Francisco. 

For a team that Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci described as "the closest [team] to a sure thing [to make the playoffs]" just one month ago (they sported the best record in the National League at the time), time has not flown quite as quickly as the Padres had hoped.  In the month of September, San Diego was just 13-16, inluding an 8-9 mark against division rivals.  The starting rotation has just six wins in that timespan, including one by the newly activated Chris Young, who's been on the DL for almost the entire season.  To complicate the matter, the Giants are not the Pads' only competition at this point - if Atlanta wins two of its next three, they will pull the wild card rug right out from under Petco Park.  The Braves, of course, are playing a three-game homestand against Philadelphia, and there's a good chance that the Phillies, owners of the best record in the either league, will be looking to rest their starters as they prepare for a postseason run. 

I wish there were room enough for all three teams.  Statistically, the Padres are worse than the Giants and the Braves, but they've worked awfully hard this season to come away with nothing.  For a team that finished 19 games out of first place last year, they deserve a bid for turning the ballclub around as they have.  The Giants have made remarkable progress since the All-Star break, rising from 3 games above .500 to a 91-68 record atop the West, buoyed by the development of catcher Buster Posey (.313 BA/.365 OBP/.511 SLG) into a future franchise backstop.  The Braves are trying hard to claw their way into a playoff spot for retiring manager Bobby Cox, hoping to allow for an appropriate October exit for a man who ranks 4th on the all-time managerial wins list.  It's difficult to pick a villian in that group.
That said, I'm pulling hard for the West. It would be cool to see the Padres and Phillies take 2 of 3 on the road, forcing a San Diego-Atlanta one-game playoff next week.  Here are the pitching matchups for this weekend:

Phillies @ Braves
FRI: Kyle Kendrick (10-10, 4.76 ERA) vs. Brandon Beachy (0-1, 2.89 ERA)
SAT: Cole Hamels (12-11, 3.09) vs. Tommy Hanson (10-11, 3.41)
SUN: Vance Worley (1-1, 2.25) vs. Tim Hudson (16-9, 2.76)

Padres @ Giants
FRI: Clayton Richard (13-9, 3.71) vs. Matt Cain (13-10, 2.95)
SAT: Tim Stauffer (5-5, 1.89) vs. Barry Zito (9-13, 4.08)
SUN: Mat Latos (14-9, 2.92) vs. Jonathan Sanchez (12-9, 3.15)

If the Phillies are going to win 2, it will probably have to be the first two, given the inexperience of Beachy and the fact that Hamels' only complete game this season has been away, at night, on grass.  The Richard-Cain duel should keep you glued to your seat; whatever happens, the Padres absolutely have to win on Sunday and steal a win tonight or tomorrow.  Let's hope this weekend is as good as it gets.


Baseball gods, are you listening?

Whoa, Philly: Michael Vick Deserves to Start... For Now

So the Philadelphia Eagles, according to head coach Andy Reid, are going to start Michael Vick at quarterback this week against the Jacksonville Jaguars and for the remaining part of the season.

Stop. Slow down. Contain yourself.  Having learned about this development, there are probably hundreds of people, mostly NFL analysts, former players, or Eagles fans who either just tied a hangman's noose or fell to their knees in appreciation. And those people need to cool their jets.  There was considerable backlash from an ESPN football panel in light of Reid's choice to bench Kevin Kolb in favor of Vick, including sentiment expressed at what many believe a knee-jerk reaction and a miscarriage of judgment in how the Eagles are dealing with Kolb's progression as a quarterback.  NFC West Blogger Mike Sando seemed to be the only one talking sense:

 I'm not sure what all the drama's about. Everyone in the Eagles' locker room can see Michael Vick is the best option right now. Go with him and make no apologies. Andy Reid's obligation is to the team. His first responsibility is to play the best players, not to make sure Kevin Kolb or anyone else gets a fair shake.  

 Sando nails the current objective for Reid and the Eagles, i.e. winning.  If having Vick at the helm is the best option, go with it.  The frustration of losing a starting job on the basis of injury is understandable, but to rationalize the back-and-forth waffling of a quarterback situation in order to stick to one's guns fails to use all the information at hand to make the best decision possible.  Right now, given Vick's statistics and the way he is conducting Philly's offense, it would be illogical to take the ball away from him.  That said, people are acting like this is a watershed decision, and it isn't.  Kolb will be right there on the sideline, ready to answer the call when needed (and that call will come, eventually). Is it unfair to Kolb? After everything he's been promised, sure, it can certainly be seen that way, but there's no human decency clause in an NFL contract.  Coaches change their minds all the time; if Kolb is good enough and Vick fades towards the bye week, we're going to see exactly how "permanent" this decision is.  "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" - at this moment, Michael Vick seems far from broken.

Photo credit to Ed Yourdon, courtesy Creative Commons

Ashes to Ashes: Is It Time for a Maple Bat Moratorium?

Eric Byrnes/Miguel Olivo - August 2006 

Don Long/Nate McLouth - April 2008

Todd Helton/Susan Rhodes - April 2008

Miguel Olivo/Brian O' Nora - June 2008

Mike Napoli/Brad Ziegler - August 2010

Welington Castillo/Tyler Colvin - September 2010

The names and dates above link to six separate, highly publicized incidents in which broken or shattered maple bats have hit and or injured persons at an MLB game, both those on the playing field and off it.  In the most recent case, Colvin, a Chicago Cubs rookie playing in his first full season, was struck in the chest by the sharp end of Castillo's bat and ended up with a wound that will prevent him from playing in any further action this year.  The injuries sustained by Long, O'Nora (pictured) and Rhodes were considerably more horrifying than Colvin's, but in spite of maple's notoriety for emulating a cruise missile with Frisbee rotation, there has yet to be any action taken by the league.  I know I'm far from the first person to bring this up, but here's what people aren't talking about: it's almost a certainty that the situation will get worse before it gets better.  According to an official quoted in the Byrnes/Olivo article, it would take years to end the production and use of maple bats if commissioner Bud Selig were to put the kibosh on them after this season. Here's the 2006 quote from Chuck Schupp, an employee for the company that makes Louisville Sluggers:

Schupp, in his 24th year with Hillerich & Bradsby and the liaison between the company and the players, said he recently warned MLB not to make a hasty decision on eliminating maple.

"I told Major League Baseball if they say maple bats can't be used anymore, do not do it until late 2008 or 2009," Schupp said. "We already ordered everything for next year. You've got to cut the wood, dry it, process it. I can't call the lumber mill and say I need 10,000 ash bats."

Do the math and you see that maple will still be terrorizing ball fields for at least another 3 years; with a possible maple extermination looming, veterans will be racing to use whatever maple is still left in production at the time of decree.  That said, at least there is something being done - certain maple bats were banned in the minor leagues this year, and bat specifications were tweaked to promote bat strength.  It seems that the MLB is trying to root out the problem by applying the rules to all who have yet to make a 40-man roster, but the rule needs to be clarified considerably. An example: if a player spends his entire time in the minor leagues hitting with an ash bat, and then gets called up and wants to use a maple bat, can he? Sure, you would guess he would stick with what works, but if he thinks maple gives him added power over the contact he felt using an ash bat, wouldn't he use it? More importantly, anyone who has already made it to The Show has free reign to use whatever they like, so the present rule would not completely eradicate the existence of maple until all of the players who debuted last year finish their careers.

The unknown entity here is the stance of the MLB Players' Association, which will most likely seek to retain the maple bats in spite of their dangers so that it can provide the best competitive advantage to the players who are members of the union.  As someone who owns a maple bat, I understand that perspective completely - maple seems sturdier and solid contact feels more pure than the same swing made with an ash bat.  The real issue, as McLouth pointed out, might be more psychological at this point, given how particular players are about the equipment they use; after all, this is the superstition-fraught sport that gave us Pedro Cerrano.

At the same time, there are extenuating circumstances here that say otherwise. When Colvin was struck, he was running in foul territory while watching to make sure the ball Castillo hit was not caught - he did not have any reason to think he was in danger of bodily harm, being that he was not in the field of play and not near the ball.  Had he run just a little bit faster, he might have been struck unexpectedly in the face, and that's a fear no player wants to have while he's trying to do his job. Likewise, Rhodes and Long were paying attention a ball in the field of play when they were hit; if fans and players alike are not properly protected during game action, they can't be expected to watch/play at the risk of their own physical health.  Others writing about this topic have mentioned the additional netting put in place by the NHL after an errant puck fatally struck a 13-year-old girl, and it wouldn't be a bad idea for Selig to at least consider having the same kind of netting put in place between the dugouts and the present backstop at each ballpark - though you can catch a high-speed foul ball, you can't exactly stop a shattered bat with a baseball glove.

Given the preference for maple, it will not be easy to find a suitable replacement for SamBats and other popular brands used by the pros.  One thought would be to mandate a bat that is some combination of a composite handle and a maple barrel that would make the maple less likely to shatter in long, sharp fragments as it presently does.  Another idea is simply trying to find a different wood source for bats - many cricket bats are made of willow, which might be a decent alternative if it can be cut down to an easy-to-wield weight.    Whatever the solution, the decision needs to be made in winter meetings before the start of next season - it would not be wise or safe for the MLB to continue to allow its faithful patrons to risk their own livelihoods because they are unable to keep track of two divergent trajectories, hit ball and flying bat, at one time.  No other major sport forces us to do that on a regular basis.

Credit to Yahoo! Sports, MLB.com, SB Nation, SFGate.com, ESPN.com and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for media and information used in this post.