Letters to the Editor
jr
Published Letters: 38 Editor's Choice: 7
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Re: anti doping
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]dbs: "anti-doping agency that hounds athletes who, by all appearances, are innocent"
i'm not sure that the austrian skiers are by all appearances innocent...what with the blood transfusion equipment, bag of blood, syringes, drugs, and the banned olympic coach. if this were a criminal trial, which in italy it may well become, a conviction may arrive based on this circumstantial evidence alone (look up "juventus doping" and you can find plenty on the subject); nevertheless, i suspect that they will conduct dna and other exams to see if they can determine who used the syringes for what.
my understanding of the tyler hamilton case is that he had one positive test thrown out on account of poor test management (at the olympics), and he tested positive again a month later in spain...correct me if i'm wrong.
you do raise a good point about where to draw the line on the WADA's investigatory practices, but if we're just going to take tests which show that 1 in 1200 athletes dope, then we might as well give up the fight against doping.
i think it is fair enough for the WADA and the athletes to argue their sides before an "unbiased" court (say, the Losanne Court of Appeals for Sports....they're swiss, they must be unbiased...)
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yankees, white sox, et al.
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree with king, and i believe that i too deserve to see a year without the yankees in the playoffs. i'm not taking the time to count, but these 8 consecutive years in the postseason might be more than my white sox have done in their history. this is as good a year as any, but that doesn't say much, does it?
as for the twins, i'm sure they've won more world series in the last 20 years than the w sox in my dear grandfather's whole life, so enough whining, as colin cowherd might say.
frankly king, your pick of the whitesox to win the division is chilling, to say the least. i believe there was a fourth place prediction last year, which turned out rather well for us. time will tell in any case, but i do believe it's fair to say we have the best rotation in the majors.
in all honesty though, it's hard for me to be greedy. i couldn't even imagine a world series, let alone a repeat. that said, we're going to kick the crap out of the twins this year, and hopefully the indians as well. as far as the loss of millwood goes, it's hard to imagine him repeating as e.r.a. champ, so they did well. they have a nice team, balanced, and seemingly motivated.
just a thought...are we sure the twins are better than the tigers?
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ticket prices in foreign markets...
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A slightly different perspective on ticket prices:
I live in rome, and am a season-ticket holder for the soccer team here (Roma), which is typically a fairly competitive side. For 20 games, I pay a total of 360 euros (something like 425 dollars) to sit in the second-cheapest (out of 4) sections. My section, which is about 8,000 seats, as well as the cheapest sections (250 euros a year) which total about 15,000 seats, are typically sold-out or almost sold-out to season ticket holders. Let's just say that outside of the expensive seats we have a full house every game. In any case, all of this seems like a very good deal, and I wonder why it is that the team has not raised prices in several years, despite the fact that the market seems to indicate a possibility to raise prices. Perhaps it is because of what I would call an "active" fan base, which makes its voice heard, and loudly? Perhaps it's a real "feeling" with the community? Maybe just a different way of viewing sports ownership/fandom? Whatever the reason, the family which owns the team has lost tens of millions (literally) in the decade that it has run the club, yet continues to work hard to put a quality team on the field, while keeping ticket prices level.
As a side note, for parking we pay a total of 2 euros to park about 10 minutes from the stadium, which money goes to a semi-toothless parking "attendant" (shark, whatever. he definitely doesn't pay taxes on it, put it that way). I think I like our system better than the $90 parking fee at Fenway...
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Let's not throw a pity party for "student" athletes.
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is the system wrong? yes. Is the NCAA and Big U profitting off of their scarcely compensated semi-employees. Yes. But I don't think it's any more unjust than other situations which have already been raised. Free-market bs aside, it's the way the world goes round, the money goes to the few, and everyone else scrapes off what they can. Which, in fact, is why at the same time no one should be bashing (Reggie) Bush. Who cares if he took advantage of his situation? Again, one could call it a victim-less crime, and unlike Bonds with steroids, he hasn't "disrespected" the game. At least not in my eyes. That and he hasn't been a jerk for two consecutive decades yet, but that's besides the point.
In any case, i'm not a fan of college athletics; I think they take away from the real goal of the institutions. I think it's clear that the system is unfair for everyone involved, besides the head honchos (like all systems). I think they should do away with them and let professional teams take care of player development, which is what they do in Europe, and quite succesfully. But I understand both that other people do enjoy watching the NCAA, and that the system is not going away. So I guess we're stuck with what we got...