Letters to the Editor
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College coaches
I don't buy the argument that a "college coach" can't succeed in the NFL. I'll offer up Jimmy Johnson, Bill Walsh, and Bobby Ross as evidence. Heck, Saban's 15-17 record with the Dolphins could be viewed as a smashing success when you consider their 4-25 record in the years bookending his brief tenure.
I'm sure there are coaches out there whose personalities fit one or the other, and Petrino may be better suited as a college coach, where he can get away with being an uncommunicative despot. But he was an NFL assistant and coordinator with Jacksonville -- did his DNA change because he took a college job in the interim?
In my view, most coaches viewed as college guys tend to fail in the NFL for two reasons. First, MOST coaches fail, because the best few tend to stick around and keep winning, while most franchises experience sporadic success interspersed with frequent coaching turnover, whether they're college or pro guys.
Second, when a successful head coach does manage to step down without being fired, the franchise may tend to value continuity and hire someone familiar, i.e. George Siefert, or else assuage a nervous fan base by going with a retread, i.e. Wade Phillips. The "college" guys get the jobs with the lesser franchises.
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I'm an All-Star Steroid User
But because the fans perceive me as a nice guy, when my name gets named today, they will wring their hands and say what a shame it is, and pretend for a few minutes that they will never watch or respect me again. But then, once the dust settles, they'll start making excuses for me via fantabulous logical gymnastics, and by the end of the day, they'll have a complete rationale for why I'm different from that bastard Barry Bonds, even though they don't really know me personally, nor Bonds personally, and we will all have done essentially the same thing.
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Bud the Slug
Other than the details of who's going to have his name named, there doesn't figure to be too much in Mitchell's report that'll surprise anyone who hadn't already come to believe that baseball had a "serious drug culture." And really, who among us still doubted baseball's great 21st-century truth teller, Jose Canseco?
It's gotta make you wonder what the point of this was, then.
I have to say, Bud Selig is one strange dude. Most CEOs see their job as building up their business. Not Bud. From the moment he pushed Fay Vincent out the door, all he's ever done is run down his product (ie. baseball and its players). From false testimony under oath before Congress in 1994 that teams would go bankrupt unless the salary structure was radically altered, to constant whines about competitive balance, to steroids...
You get the sense that Bud wants to use this report to embarrass the players. He seems oblivious to the fact that the players are his selling point, and that it might not exactly help MLB to keep running down the very people who were largely responsible for drawing $6B in revenue this year.
Indeed, it's amazing that - despite Bud's best efforts all these years - baseball *did* draw $6B. I can only imagine how well baseball would be doing with a commissioner who hadn't cancelled a WS and AS game (and cut short another), while doing his best to denigrate the chase for baseball's most hallowed record. In short, imagine what baseball would be like if it was run by someone who liked baseball!
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College Coaches
I don't buy the argument that a "college coach" can't succeed in the NFL. I'll offer up Jimmy Johnson, Bill Walsh, and Bobby Ross as evidence.
Might as well include Barry Switzer. Say what you will about him, he did with a SB, after all.
And of course, on the flip side, look how Charlie Weiss, Bill Callahan, and Chan Gailey flamed out this year. I'd also note that Bill Walsh's return to college coaching wasn't steeped in glory.
I think Sanso1's point is pretty apt. There's no "rule" one way or the other. Coaches "fail" - at both levels - because the zero-sum nature of the game dictates that half of them have to every game.
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turning point in the history of baseball
Today around 2pm in midtown.
It's going to be a really boring circus.
Somewhere, Javi Lopez is nervous.
Ron Gant fakes a smile while dropping his kids off at school.
Roger Clemens sighs, and pops another HGH.
Big Mac refuses to get out of bed today.
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Clemens and Racism
Now that Clemens is going to be outed as a steroids abuser, we can start to test King's racism theory about Barry Bonds. My guess is they'll both be treated about the same way.
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@ Topper
Sorry, I couldn't help but laugh.
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Clemens will not be treated the same as Bonds,
because Roger will not come back to play and stay in the spotlight. The racial aspect is huge, but it's hard to yell at someone when they hang out in their backyard all year long. Look at BigMac, he was pathetic but disappeared after that hearing and popped up once in St. Louis. He would be more fun to boo than Bonds.
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What would actually be surprising...
What would actually be surprising from this report is if MLB ousted Selieg, realizing his policies and foot dragging are a real part of the problem. Next surprise, is if MLB retroactively punished those named in the report, in-acting suspensions for the behavior or erasing stats or at least asterisking (*) them.
It's not going to happen. Selieg wants this report to pass the blame onto the players solely, and the ownership will not want anything to come home to roost in their pocketbooks and will not push for any kind of public flogging of players or their beloved commish. The union will keep a low profile, they know how good they already have it. The media outlets will do as they always do, try to make a buck by using this to create ad revenue.
Maybe fans and some sports writers will have a moment of clarity and make their feelings known in a way that the players can take to heart, but I am not holding my breath. Little will really change, and this scourge of performance enhancing drugs will continue to plague the sport for decades, the same way it has in the olympics since before I was born.