Maryland and The Move: One fan's Perspective

     It's official:  Maryland is on the move to the Big 10.  I've heard rumors about the Big 10 wanting Maryland for a long time, but they always seemed to die down after a while.  When I found out it was real this time, my first reaction was a negative one.  The ACC has been home to Maryland long before I was a fan, and it was hard to imagine that not being the case anymore.  Soon after reality sank in, I decided I could be bitter about the whole situation, or look for the positives.



     I believe the landscape of college football is eventually gearing toward four big 16-team conferences, rather than the current six BCS conferences with automatic bids.  If this is the case, the obvious two to get cut out are the Big East and ACC.  The two conferences are perennially the bottom two conferences in football according to the amount of teams ranked in the top 25 polls, and rarely do they ever have a serious contender for the National Championship.  Each of the other four conferences has at least one team, that is often a threat to win a national title.  If college football is truly heading in the direction of four super conferences, I'm glad Maryland found a more stable home early.  Maryland leaving the ACC is not an earth-shattering blow to the conference, but if Florida State or Clemson decide the grass is greener in another conference, the ACC might be in real trouble.  As far as I'm concerned Maryland leaving the ACC is a bigger blow to the Big East because you have to figure the ACC will lure yet another Big East school away with Maryland's departure.  Once any of these other ACC schools goes to another conference, the rest will follow, and there are already rumors of other conferences waiting to make big time offers to current ACC schools.  I would absolutely miss playing Virginia, North Carolina, and Duke in many sports, but with the potential shift to new conferences, Maryland could find themselves in the same conference as one or more of those teams once again in the near future.



     Along with the security of the more stable conference, financial security is impossible to overlook.  The Big 10 has wanted Maryland to join their conference for a long time, and apparently are willing to pay dearly to make that happen.  Maryland has had financial problems, and the money the Big 10 is willing to fork over to make this switch happen will allow Maryland to spend money flexibly, rather than endure financial hardship.  Last year, Maryland had to cut seven varsity sports due to budget cuts.  The switch to the Big 10 and the money that comes with it will allow Maryland to guarantee that never happens again, as well as potentially revive some of the programs cut last year, as some high ranking Maryland officials have already suggested.

     Many people think football could just be a doormat in the Big 10.  I think this will eventually improve Maryland football to be as good as ever.  There is a ton of high school talent in the DC metro area that often go elsewhere to play their college ball.  Before the move, local stars had to choose between staying at home, or playing on a big national stage.  Is it possible that when these kids realize they can now do both they might be more likely to stay home?  I think teams adapt to their new conference rather than the other way around.  The best example I can think of this is Virginia Tech.  When Virginia Tech announced they would leave the Big East and join the ACC, the popular prediction, including mine, was that Virginia Tech would just own the conference in football, but get destroyed in basketball.  I remember a friend of mine who attended Virginia Tech at the time of the announcement talked to me about how easy it would be for them to win ACC championships in football.  My reply was, "If you joined the ACC for the football, you're in the wrong conference."  Turns out, not only was Virginia Tech hardly the juggernaut in football we expected, but they also turned out some pretty good basketball teams since their conference shift.  Recruiting seems to reflect the teams one plays as much as the team itself, which leads to teams adapting to their new conference.


     Ultimately, there are many more reasons to be excited about joining the Big 10, including creating new rivalries, bringing in high-end football teams to Byrd Stadium, and the possibility of playing in the Rose Bowl same day, albeit likely not any time soon.  There of course are the negatives of leaving a conference they helped create, and leaving traditions behind.  The bottom line for me, is that it's easy to understand why this was an offer Maryland couldn't refuse, and I can't wait to see the future Maryland football and basketball, and begin the next wave of traditions.  As ESPN Radio Host and Maryland Alumni Scott Van Pelt said it best on his radio show today, "I love the ACC, but I love Maryland more."
    

What's the Protocol Here?

     One of the reasons I started liking college football much more than pro football in recent years, is that the connection from the players to your team seems more permanent.  College players generally show up as a freshman, stay for four years (or maybe three, or two... maybe one), and leave.  Even after they leave, you always remember them as a part of your team.  Seeing your favorite college players in the pros gives you a sense of satisfaction too.  Even the little introductions from the network at the beginning of the game of Monday Night Football make you happy when a player says he went to your school.  You definitely hear the pride the players have, particularly from some schools.  "Cris Carter, THE Ohio State University," he always emphasized as he announced himself.  The same allegiance isn't the same for pro athletes.  Every once in a while you might get a player who stays with a team most of his career, but that is getting extremely rare with trades and free agency in every sport.  You can't really blame the players either, because the teams are as heartless as the athletes when it comes to aging superstars.  Frankly, once a player left my favorite pro team, I really didn't think twice about them anymore.  Vladimir Guerrero was my favorite baseball player on the Angels for five years or so, but it doesn't take too long for the admiration to go away when he's hitting bombs against your teams' pitchers a year later.

     College players always felt more like a lifetime allegiance to a team, rather than a current location, at least until recently.  Transfers from college football and basketball programs are at an all time high.  For the first time this year, a big time player from my favorite team, is transferring to another school.  This winter, Maryland Quarterback Danny O'Brien decided to transfer to Wisconsin to finish his college football career, invoking what has now become known as the "Russell Wilson rule".  The rule was used many times before Wilson, but essentially the short description is; if a college athlete graduates from college with reamining years of eligibility, he/she can finish out their college athletic eligibility at another university for grad school, given that they are going to a university that has a grad program that their current school does not have.  Incidentally, Wilson also left North Carolina State to transfer to Wisconsin, who seems to be taking advantage of this rule more than most schools.

     So what's the protocol now then?  Do I hate Danny O'Brien for life?  Seems a little harsh to me I guess.  There was all kinds of speculation as to why he left.  Maybe he didn't fit in well with the new coaches hired at Maryland before his third year there?  Maybe he had an attitude problem once he was named the starter?  Not that I saw.  I always got the impression that he was a really good guy, he sure came across that way the few times I got to meet him. 

     I remember my first time meeting him during Maryland Day in 2011, an event held on campus for many of the departments of the University, which included the Maryland Spring Game football scrimmage, and an autograph session before the game.  By this time, he was already the face of Maryland football after his redshirt freshman year in 2010, where he was named the starter by week three over a veteran Junior on the team, and went on to win ACC rookie of the year.  I remember when I met him, I arrived near the end of the almost 2-hour autograph session.  By this time he must have signed a couple of thousand autographs, taken a couple of hundred pictures, and by then I'm sure the players were anxiously awaiting end of this session, so they could get ready for the scrimmage.  But when I got up there, he signed my football, and asked me how I was doing, and thanked me for coming to the Spring Game.  That always stood out to me as a big deal.  I've been to a lot of sports events before, but this is the first time one of the athletes thanked me for coming to the game.  I got to meet him a couple more times through similar events, and each time he made a point to ask me, and everyone else, a couple of questions on how they were doing.  I always thought that was a big deal, especially because of the few times I've gotten to meet an athlete or sportscaster I really liked, and they acted like they would rather be anywhere else in the world. 

     My getting to meet Danny helped shape how I'll think about him now, but so do some more factors that I thought of since his decision to transfer.  The fact that he's going to Wisconsin helps.  Not that I have any positive feelings toward Wisconsin, but as far as I know he could have gone anywhere he wanted.  Players are just recently taking advantage of the Wilson rule, but as far as I know, this rule takes away any of the transfer restrictions and he could have transferred within the ACC.  Even if he didn't go to an ACC school, if he went to a school that Maryland recruits against often, that would have stung a little.  I know for a while the Maryland staff was trying to restrict him from going to certain schools, but I think they ended up dropping that in the end.  I have to admit it might have been a little more difficult to continue to root for Danny if he was the starting quarterback of the opposing team in week 8.

     Secondly, Danny O'Brien is 21.  Still has his whole football career ahead of him.  What if he was having problems with the new coaching philosophies?  Maybe he gets buried on the bench for his last two years of college, and now NFL teams think he can't cut it anymore, and he's supposed to just deal with it?  He went somewhere else instead, and hopefully finishes up his college career strong and gets a good chance of playing in the NFL.  Kind of hard to blame a 21 year old for that logic, when really all he is doing is setting himself up for the best chance to excel in his professional career, kind of like what the rest of us were thinking when we were 21 years old and in college.

     Danny O'Brien may not be a Terp anymore, (although he did graduate from Maryland, which makes him more of a Terp than I'll ever be) and this fall, I'll still have my Maryland football season tickets, I'll still be ordering my new Maryland football jersey, and I'll still be rooting all the Terps, but this is one Maryland fan who will be checking in on Wisconsin each week to see how Danny is doing.  I will be rooting for him to be in the NFL some day, and hopefully he'll be the starting quarterback for a team playing on Monday Night Football, and when he says, "Danny O'Brien, University of Wisconsin,"  I'll still be thinking of the two seasons he was my favorite player at Maryland.

Super Bowl Picks

     The Super Bowl is known for a lot of things.  Great event, funny commercials, obscene amount of awful foods to eat.  One of the more funny things I think are the bets you can make on the Super Bowl.  You can make bets as simple as who wins the game, or the total points, but for the Super Bowl there are crazy bets like how long the National Anthem will last, and what kind of shirt Tom Brady's son will be wearing.  For the first time ever, I decided to take some of these bets, even if only for a dollar or two.  Here are my picks:

Will there be a score within the final 2 minutes of the first half?

I bet no.  I know there are a lot of timeouts used in the last two minutes, and this is an opportunity for people to get a quick score before half time, but it's such a small window of time for there to be a score so I had to go no, and the odds are in my favor on that one.

Coin Toss

I went with tails.  I heard in a stats class once that flipping a coin is actually not 50/50 because the heads side weighs more and is more likely to land face down.  The problem is they use special coins for the Super Bowl so it's really hard to say.  Anyway, tails never fails right?

Will Rob Gronkowski score a TD?

I went with yes.  I watched a lot of Patriots games this year and it seems like a lot of their strategy around the goal line is to just throw it up and hope Gronk gets it.  Odds are against me on this one, but it sounded like a lock.

Will Ahmad Bradshaw have more than 13.5 rushing attempts?

Went with yes on this one too.  Seems like the Giants will really run the ball to death, and he's the go to guy.  I hope he gets this many in the first half.  The only problem is if the Giants get down big early, they're really gonna have to throw the ball then.

What color will the Gatorade be that the team dumps on the coach?

I took orange on this one.  Odds are better for water, but I feel like orange is used a lot.  Got nice odds on orange too.

Over/Under on National Anthem 1:34

I took the over.  I'm a little nervous about Kelly Clarkson singing it, because she doesn't seem like the type to drag it out, but 1:34 just doesn't seem that long.  I'm gonna be hoping she drags out the Brave at the end.

The actual game

I took the Patriots giving up 3 points.  I think Tom Brady could really run away with this one if the O-line gives him any sort of time at all, because he really gets the ball out quick.

     With the amount of money that I put on this game, I can't really win or lose much no matter what happens, but I still think this is gonna make the game a lot more hilarious.

Another Reason to Love College Football

     I know this seems like an odd subject the day of the Super Bowl, when there is no college football being played, but the Super Bowl tonight made me realize yet another reason why I like college football much more than pro football.

     I ran out of a team to root for many times throughout this NFL season.  My Redskins were out of contention early, probably even earlier than I was willing to admit, because you never want to think your team is out of it.  Through the playoffs there were a couple of teams I was following for one reason or another, but none of those teams made it to the Super Bowl.  I don't have much of a rooting interest for tonight, and I don't really care who wins in the end.

     There is something I will be rooting for tonight though.  Da'Rel Scott is a third string running back, and special teams player for the Giants.  He also happens to be the former running back from the University of Maryland.  One of the best parts of rooting for college teams and players, is seeing those players go from freshman who are itching to get in the game to NFL players years later.

     I still remember seeing Scott for the first time in a game as a freshman in 2007 against UVA in the homecoming game.  I didn't know much about him then, I didn't follow his recruitment very much, but he broke out for a big game that day, and it was great getting to see him get even better over his next four years at Maryland.  Looking back now, it looks like he was a highly-rated recruit, but I didn't follow recruiting much then, and would never have known that had I not looked it up today.

     He wasn't a highly rated back coming out of college, and most "experts" said he wouldn't get drafted at all.  The Giants ended up taking a flyer on him, picking him with the 221st overall pick, in the last round of the draft.  He may not have gotten a lot of opportunities to do much in the NFL in his first year, but the great thing about the Super Bowl is that it turns a lot of guys no one has ever heard of into household names.  So while I may not have a particular team to root for tonight, I'll be in my Maryland Da'Rel Scott jersey rooting for him to get his opportunity.

There's a First Time for Everything

     I've never rooted for the Steelers in my life.  Never.  Until college, I was really just indifferent about them.  After all, I'm an NFC kind of guy, and they are an AFC team, which isn't as big of a deal as it is in baseball, but you don't think about competing against them to get in the playoffs, just when your team plays against them every once in a while.  In college, one of my roommates freshman year was a big Steelers fan.  You know how that goes, having a friend who likes a team makes you hate them.  The worst part about it is that the Steelers were really good that year, and he wouldn't even brag about it.  The silence was terrible, but I knew he was just loving it.

     Anyway, there is a first time for everything, and this weekend I will be rooting for the Steelers.  It's not because I'm anti-Tebow either.  I'm actually a big fan of Tim Tebow, which I have proof of, in the form of a previous post if you care to go back a few pages and check it out.  I'm rooting for the Steelers this week because of a decision head coach Mike Tomlin made about his starting lineup this week.  Tomlin announced that starting safety Ryan Clark would not be traveling with the team to Denver, and he's not hurt, and he's not in any trouble.  Ryan Clark suffers from sickle cell trait, which is a condition that gives him problems if he exercises heavily, and is worse in high altitudes.  So the combination of this trait and the fact that the Steelers are going to Denver this weekend led Tomlin to decide that Ryan Clark would not be going.  He has held Clark out of games at Denver before, but those have been preseason games or regular season with little playoff implications, and this is the playoffs.

     Tomlin actually told Clark he was not permitted to come to this game, and the reason was that if were his own kids, he wouldn't feel comfortable with them playing.  Maybe this was an easy decision for Tomlin, but I get the feeling not every coach would be so sure about going to a playoff game without one of their star defenders.  I think it's very refreshing to see a coach put the well-being of his players before the team.  They could lose the game, but in the end, it's just a game, and it's not worth risking Ryan Clark's health over.  It's especially refreshing to me because of all the players who know the secrets to pass a concussion test so they don't have to sit out of a game.  Tomlin has downplayed this decision and acted like he's not doing anything major, but I think it's what truly makes Tomlin a great person, as well as a great coach.

     Unless you're a big NASCAR fan, you may not realize that one of the greatest streaks in sports history ended last Sunday. Tony Stewart just won his third Sprint Cup Championship, which means Johnson's 5-year reign as the Sprint Cup Champion is officially over. 

     I think a lot of times people tend to forget about past sports figures and think everyone or every moment they see if the best of all time.  Well in that spirit, I will go ahead and say Jimmie Johnson is the best driver in NASCAR history.  The obvious other top drivers would have to be Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and Jeff Gordon.  Each of them had a reason why they were great, and I think Johnson has one reason why he separates himself from those three.

     Petty won 200 races and 7 championships, but when he won his races there was far less competition and they ran more races.  Earnhardt also won 7 championships, and much of that was because he revolutionized the sport by driving as aggressively as he did.  Many of the NASCAR drivers now try to drive like he did, but few have the respect from other drivers to make it as successful as he did.  Gordon was/is a great driver, but had the benefit of his race team revolutionizing the pit crew.  Gordon's "rainbow warriors" was the first pit crew made up of athletes from other sports.  That team was a huge advantage for Gordon which amplified his great driving.

     The reason I think Johnson stands alone as the best NASCAR driver of all time is how much the sport changed over his 5-year reign.  There was the Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff format, and then they changed how many people got in the Chase, and then they changed the qualifications to get in the Chase, and they changed the points system, and how many points a driver who wins gets, and most notably, they changed the cars.  The cars Johnson started in and continued his reign in were completely different.  What made Johnson so great is his adaptability.

     We may never see another team or individual with an absolute dominance in a sport like Jimmie Johnson, so while many NASCAR experts talk about how Tony Stewart is the current face of NASCAR, don't forget that we are lucky enough to witness the greatest driver in NASCAR history.

The NBA Lockout... A Whole Different Story

     I have never been a huge fan of the NBA.  It's just not the same as college basketball.  They don't play defense like college, and NBA teams let themselves get beat by superstars too easily.  How come LeBron never gets double teamed?  But I must admit, I am completely captivated by the NBA lockout, mostly because of how different it is from the NFL lockout.

     With the NFL, you kind of had the feeling that everything was going to be fine.  They got the deal done in time, and the teams had just enough time to still have a crazy quick off season.  I even heard some fans call in sports talk radio shows to say they preferred it this way, instead of having the trade and free agency season drag out all summer, all the moves happened one after another in about two weeks.  The NBA has already cancelled two weeks of the regular season, and there are players saying they are fully prepared to sit out the whole season.

     The NBA players have a huge negotiating chip that the NFL players did not have.  The NBA players have other options.  Dozens of players have already signed contracts to play overseas if the NBA lockout doesn't end.  These are no contracts to laugh at either, some of these guys are getting paid a million bucks to play for a month.  Another option that has come up recently is a group of NBA stars going on a 4-city international exhibition tour.  I think this would be pretty interesting.  You get the NBA superstars, presumably big ticket sales, everyone wins, except the NBA.  Football players couldn't have just decided they'd play a season for NFL Europe, it's not quite the same.  Also, you don't really have the risk of injury in the NBA like you do in the NFL.

    I don't have the numbers to prove this last point, but I think the NBA just isn't as popular as the NFL.  The NFL could have handled some games being cancelled I think.  The NBA really can't.  Like other sports with long seasons, the middle of the regular season can drag on.  The NFL is so short and sweet, that every week is a big deal, and the fans would come back through just about anything.  I just don't think the NBA has the fan base to support an extended lockout.  Plus, more basketball fans might take up watching college basketball during the lockout, and come to the conclusion that many sports fans already have:  The NBA doesn't come close to the entertainment of college basketball.

It's Been A Great Postseason So Far

     Sometimes I think it's hard to get interested in the MLB postseason when your team isn't in the playoffs, but I had no problem doing that this season.  Really, it started before the playoffs, in the last week of the regular season.  I'm not anti-Red Sox or anti-Braves (okay, truthfully, I don't much care for the Red Sox), and if you check my pre-season predictions I had the Sox and Braves in the World Series, so I was rooting for them as much as anyone.  But, to see the two wild card teams, the Rays and Cardinals, come back from huge deficits to barely make it into the playoffs was extremely entertaining.  Also, I'd always rather see the teams with the positive momentum get in the playoffs rather than the teams who barely hung on to their regular season lead.

     I had a feeling this postseason would be good, and the biggest reason for that was that I can't remember a year when I had less confidence in the two top seeds in each league.  The Phillies and Yankees ended the regular season on a whimper, both seemingly for different reasons.  The Yankees made it clear that they only had one motivation for the last week of the season; to make sure their starters were healthy for the playoffs.  They benched a lot of their regulars against Tampa Bay, and it didn't hurt that losing to the Rays would help keep the Red Sox out of the playoffs.  The Phillies manager Charlie Manuel however, let everyone know that they would be trying as hard as usual in the last week of the regular season, but they struggled as well.

     Sure enough, The Phillies and the Yankees both lost in the first round, leaving four hungry teams who aren't always playoffs fixtures, in the Cardinals, Brewers, Rangers, and Tigers.  I wanted to write on here and make playoffs predictions, but I honestly couldn't.  This year's playoffs were as unpredictable as possible, that is what made it so great.  The Rangers and Cardinals of course moved on in the League Championship Series' and are getting ready for the World Series.  I think this series will be as good as the rest of the playoffs has been.  I'm not at all confident in being able to predict how this will turn out, but I'll take the Rangers in 7.

Football Storylines So Far...

     Thank goodness football is back!  I have always been more of a baseball guy, but there is no denying that football delivers more nationally known storylines than any other sport, except maybe the Lebron-a-thon of 2010.  Here are some of my favorite football storylines of the college and pro football season so far:

SEC vs. the world

     The NCAA champion has come out of the SEC for something like 100 years in a row, give or take a few.  Is this the year a team from another conference takes over?  The SEC already has a few teams in the top of the national rankings in LSU, Alabama, South Carolina, and Arkansas.  Alabama and South Carolina might have the best two running backs in the country in Trent Richardson and Marcus Lattimore, and LSU looked surprisingly good against Oregon without their starting quarterback Jordan Jefferson.

     Some of the top contenders to break up the SEC-Natty streak are the current #1 team in the country Oklahoma, Florida State, Stanford, and this could always be the year the let the undefeated Boise State play in the National Championship, if they were to pull of that feat again, which looks likely based on their remainding schedule.

Kyle Orton vs. Tim Tebow

     Kyle Orton is the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos... for now.  It seems like all of the actual Broncos players and coaching staff are 100% behind Orton.  The problem is that it seems all of the Broncos fans are 100% behind Tim Tebow.  The biggest argument every analyst has used is that Kyle Orton is the better quarterback, and gives the Broncos the best chance to win.  I guess people are saying this because Kyle Orton looks more like an NFL quarterback, because in reality he hasn't won much, and the few games I saw Tim Tebow start last year he looked pretty good.  I think the Broncos might be worried that starting Tim Tebow might change their entire offensive scheme, but I think it worked pretty good for the Dolphins last year when they were the first team to use the Wildcat offense in the NFL.  Lastly, while I'm not ready to compare Tebow to Michael Vick, I can see the potential for Tebow to break off those 15 yard scrambles after an early-down penalty or sack to convert an improbable first down, just like Vick does.

Robert Griffin III

     Truthfully, I didn't know too much about this guy before this season started, and I heard from somewhere that he could have an outside shot at the Heisman trophy this season.  I made a point to watch Baylor play against TCU in the season opener so I could check this guy out.  I loved what I saw from Griffin that day, and I think he might already be a top quarterback, and a good potential pro.  I also like that we get to see Griffin play against other top Big 12 teams like Texas and Oklahoma this year, to see if his talent is good enough for Baylor to hang with the big boys in the conference.

Houston Texans

     I think the Texans are going to be a real fun team to watch this season, and that this is the year they crack the playoffs.  Sure, they are going to benefit from their division rivals the Indianapolis Colts losing Peyton Manning for an undetermined amount of time, which resulted in the Colts looking absolutely lost against Houston in week 1 of the NFL season.  Even without that, the Texans are bringing back one of the top RBs in the country in Arian Foster, who was out in week 1, but the Texans have some very capable backups until he returns.  Matt Schaub is also an under-rated quarterback, and happens to be throwing to the best wide receiver in the NFL, Andre Johnson.  Also, while I like Reggie Bush this year, that Mario Williams #1 pick a few years ago keeps looking better and better.

Russell Wilson

     This is by far my favorite college football story of the year.  In case you hadn't heard this one, Russell Wilson has been the very good starting quarterback for North Carolina State for the past three years.  Russell Wilson also just happens to be a top baseball prospect.  Wilson had been taking a while to decide whether he was going to play football this year or start his minor league baseball career full time.  NC State decided they weren't going to wait around for his decision, and declared that they would name Mike Glennon their starting quarterback for the upcoming season, whether Wilson was returning or not.  Well it turns out Russell Wilson did want to play college football season, but since NC State moved on without him, and since he already graduated, that he would attend grad school at a different college, and play his last college football season at Wisconsin.  News flash for NC State:  Russell Wilson is the type of player you wait around for.  Wilson is now shining as the quarterback for a top 10 team, and NC State has looked below average in their first two weeks.

Terps Uniforms

    I might be a Terps fan, but there is no doubt this was national news.  This was a top story for most sports talk shows the day after they debuted these uniforms against Miami on Labor Day evening.  Nevermind that this was an excellent game without the new uniforms.  Most people argue that these uniforms were awfuly, but I have to disagree, and I'll try to make this argument using my knowledge as a Terps fan, and also try to offer an unbiased view.

     There is no debate that these uniforms are far from traditional, but these uniforms are obviously not for traditionalists.  These uniforms are for high school kids deciding where to go to school, and like it or not, uniforms are a factor in where these kids go to school.  A few years ago I was watching Erin Henderson do a pre-draft interview on ESPNEWS, and they asked him these rapid fire questions, and one of the questions was what could the Maryland coaching staff do to improve the football program, and he immediately responded, to keep the talent in Maryland.  These uniforms were part of a larger scheme to start promoting Maryland within the state a lot more, and keep these high end football propsects from leaving town to play at Penn State, Virginia Tech, North Carolina, and Florida.  Some top level Maryland prospects have already commented on how they are excited about the changes Maryland has made so far.

     Like them or not, these uniforms did the job, and got Maryland on the national stage.  Furthermore, Maryland fans have been wanting the Maryland flag to be a bigger part of the logo and uniforms for a long time.  Maryland is really taking this Oregon of the east thing to a new level with Maryland being the flagship school of the Under Armour brand, and I would love to see what kind of crazy uniforms these teams would put together if they ever got to play a football game against each other.

American League vs. National League

     As I have written before, I'm not the type of guy to go out of my way to watch sporting events that don't affect my favorite teams in one way or another.  Since my favorite baseball team is in the American League, Interleague play gives me the chance to watch National League baseball rules that I don't normally get to.  The biggest difference in the American League and National League is that in the National League the pitchers have to bat for themselves, and in the American League an extra hitter is put in the lineup in place of the pitcher, called the Designated Hitter.  For years now, the American League has used the DH, and the National League has not.  Until fairly recently, the American League and National League never played against each other except for the World Series.  Now that there are set series between AL and NL teams, the rules apply to whichever team is playing at home.  So for an example, if the Yankees and Dodgers were playing in New York, they would play with the DH, but if they played in Los Angeles, they would not.

     I have watched interleague games in the past, but for whatever reason I have decided to take particular notice in the difference in games using the AL and NL rules.  My conclusion is that anyone who likes the National League better needs to be put in a straight jacket.  It's not nearly as fun to watch, and if you try to argue that it is, you're lying to yourself.  Now before you start, I already know the first argument for you NL loyalists.  The NL rules have more tradition.  My answer to that is, who cares?  Tradition in sports stinks.  If we worried about tradition all of the time instead of evolution of sports, there would still be no 3 point line in basketball, there would be no 2 point conversions in football, and there would still be 8 teams in the NCAA basketball tournament. 

     Having the pitchers hit ruins the flow of a baseball game.  When I am watching an AL game, and the 7th batter hits a line drive in the gap to put runners on 2nd and 3rd with two outs, then the next at-bat is very exciting.  If the batter gets a hit, then you are probably looking at a 2-run swing.  In this same scenario in the NL, they pitching team would just intentionally walk the 8th batter to get to the pitcher.  No pitchers can hit.  Even the pitchers tho can hit, can't hit.  The best hitting pitchers in the baseball have a batting average somewhere around the low 200s, which is not good, and a pitcher coming up to bat just ruins the momentum that a team created on offense.  The bottom line is it just makes the game less fun to watch.  In the AL, intentional walks are usually reserved for great hitters.  I watched a game last night where the Marlins intentionally walked Hank Conger, the rookie catcher and 8th batter for the Angels twice to get to the pitcher.  That's just not good for baseball.

     My next point is that there are plenty of DHs in baseball who are some of the most exciting players in the game.  Guys like Vladimir Guerrero, Jim Thome, Travis Hafner, and David Ortiz might not be in baseball anymore if not for the DH rule.  Those guys are fun to watch.  The bottom line is, if you are looking to watch an exciting baseball game to watch, who would you rather see hit, David Ortiz or Tim Wakefield?

     I have heard the argument a lot that you don't really use a lot of strategy in the AL.  In the NL there are a lot of pinch hitters, defensive substitutions, and double switches.  I agreed with this argument for a long time, until I heard someone else refute that argument, and off the top of my head I can't remember who it was, but it opened my eyes.  They said that it really doesn't take much strategy at all to manage in the NL, because most of the decisions are obvious.  It is not a difficult decision to pinch hit for the pitcher in the 7th inning in a close game.  Furthermore, it is not a difficult decision to turn that into a double switch so that the pitcher spot is further away in the lineup.  It is more difficult to make a decision to pinch hit, or bring in a new pitcher in the AL, where you don't have an obvious opportunity to do it.  After all, if all of these managers in the NL are making decisions based on avoiding the pitchers spot in the lineup, why not just make the rule for the DH in the first place like the AL.

     We are in the age of needing sports to be exciting, or people will change the channel, and the NL rules are old-fashioned and boring.  It's time for the NL to get with the times and go with the DH.

     A while back, I wrote a post about changing the baseball divisions.  Suddenly this is a hot topic in baseball, and many experts are putting in their input.  Of all the ones I have seen, the one I like the most is from Jim Bowden, former MLB general manager, and current ESPN baseball expert.  Here is his article and although I would keep the DH instead of take away the DH, I would agree with everything else he wrote here.

http://espn.go.com/blog/the-gms-office/post/_/id/363/mlb-needs-geographic-realignment

The Dumbest Punishment Ever

     2004 seemed to be a great year for the University of Southern California football program.  After their great 2003 season, in which they were co-national champions, they returned their most important role players for the next season including quarterback Matt Leinart, and running backs Reggie Bush and Lendale White.  With their stellar returning roster, they were ranked #1 in the preseason polls, and did not disappoint, as they went on to go undefeated during the regular season to earn a spot in the BCS National Championship game against Oklahoma.  They beat the daylights out of Oklahoma in that game 55-19 to easily win their second consecutive national championship.     Now 7 years later, the BCS is telling us that game didn't count. 

     Over the past 7 years, we have learned some new things about that national champion USC team.  For one, Reggie Bush, the most talented player on that team was said to have received improper benefits as a student-athlete, making him an ineligible player during his last two years at USC.  Since then, USC has had all of their 2005 wins, and some of their 2004 wins vacated, and now today the BCS has announced that they are vacating their 2004 National Championship.  Recently, the USC football program has been banned from bowl games for two seasons, and has lost a significant amount of football scholarships. 

     I guess I understand the post-season ban, and the loss of scholarships, other than the fact that the ban is for the 2011 and 2012 seasons, which is punishing players that had nothing to do with these violations.  Even the coach Pete Carroll is now gone, and is the head football coach for the Seattle Seahawks.  But all that being said, that punishment makes a lot more sense to me than vacating wins and championships.  I watched USC pretty frequently those seasons, and now 6 and 7 years later someone is telling me those games really didn't happen?  I don't see the purpose of this, the games happened, I remember them so well.  So the National Championship in 2004, as well as Reggie Bush's Heisman Trophy Award are all vacated.  The only thing this seems to do is make it so when someone looks back through the list of National Champions and Heisman Trophy winners, in those two cases there will be a line that says vacant, and probably an asterisk and a sentence explaining this whole mess.

     The problem with this punishment is that it doesn't really punish the people that made the violations.  There is a black mark in the record books and everything, but that's it.  It's almost getting to the point where that is the case with every record.  Look at baseball, in what other sports would the all-time career leaders in some of the most important stats not be in the hall of fame, or really look like they are anywhere close to ever getting in, like Pete Rose, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens.

     In my actual job of school teacher, my principal often says to us teachers that it is okay to have a problem, as long as you also come with a solution.  This is the thing I struggle with most on punishing players who formerly violated eligibility rules.  While I don't care for the current punishments, I don't really have a good solution on what you can do.  You can't punish people who aren't there anymore, and it stinks to have to punish people who had nothing to do with the violations.  So until I hear something I haven't thought of yet, I'm just going to have to go on having a problem with no solution.

Richard Childress Gets a Slap on the Wrist

     In case you are not a huge NASCAR fan, let me walk you through this crazy incident, which I have never heard anything like in sports before now.  Kyle Busch is a NASCAR driver, who is not exactly known for being the most polite race car driver in the world.  He will do anything he has to do to win a race, and that includes knocking another driver out of the way if necessary.  This is not an uncommon trait among NASCAR drivers, although Busch may be one of the guys who gets himself in these situations more often than others.  In this situation, in a race in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, Busch and another driver, Joey Coulter, happened to be racing each other pretty aggressively.  Again, this is not uncommon.  What happened after this however is very uncommon. 

     Coulter drives in the Truck Series for Richard Childress Racing, a top NASCAR team which once was the team Dale Earnhardt Sr., drove for.  Lately, Busch has gotten himself in these aggressive driving situations with RCR cars frequently, and the RCR drivers have been very public about their dislike for him and his driving style.  Apparently this time, Richard Childress had enough with Kyle Busch.  After the race, Childress went down to the garage area, and found Kyle Busch, took his watch off, and put Busch in a headlock and repeatedly punched him in the head.  If you need to have this image in your head, please revisit the Nolan Ryan/Robin Ventura fight below:

     While this is very amusing, and I would have loved to see video of this altercation, this incident breaks the barrier between players and owners that is inexcusable.  Richard Childress was fined $150,000 and placed on probation for the incident, and I don't think that's good enough.  When you let players in a sport patrol their own behavior like is done in one way or another in every sport, that is one thing, but when you have owners getting in physical confrontations with athletes, that is a line that can not be crossed.  First of all, if this had happened in any other sport, players would be suspended for a significant amount of time, so why was Richard Childress not suspended at all?  In fact not only was he not suspended, he was allowed at the track for the weekend's Sprint Cup race.  Can you imagine if George Steinbrenner or Jerry Jones were seen getting in a fight with athletes?  They would be kicked out of the sport.  I'm not sure what makes this any different for Richard Childress.  One of the reason this bothers me the most, is that Earnhardt Sr, RCR's most popular and most successful driver ever, was most famous for driving extremely aggressive, much more so than Kyle Busch. 

     If I were making this decision, I would suspend Richard Childress from all operations from his team and not allow him to be at any NASCAR races for the remainder of the season.  After all, crew chiefs are suspended for multiple races when something from a car doesn't meet the exact specifications set forth by NASCAR.  I think it's pretty clear that this is much worse of an offense than that.

New Sports For Me to Watch

     I already spend a ridiculous amount of time watching sports.  This is in addition to all the time I spend reading about sports, and the in-depth analysis of sports I watch as well.  So when I told Shannon I was now interested in another sport, she was not exactly pleased.  This is a down time for sports fans who don't really get into the NBA playoffs like me.  By down time, I mean really during the week it's just baseball (which is still about six nights a week), and on the weekend it's NASCAR and a few PGA major championships in the upcoming months.  So due to the reduction of major sports to watch, I found myself getting into sports that I never would have thought of before.

     The first sport I found myself getting into only more recently is soccer.  I don't mean like last week, I'm going back a year for this one during the 2010 World Cup.  Actually, let me go back a little further than that to the 2006 World Cup.  I remember this World Cup because at the time I happened to be at a small bachelor party weekend with about 4 other guys.  I claim to be a bigger sports fan than most people I know, but I was the only person at this gathering who was not getting into the World Cup.  I never really liked soccer all that much, but my friends gave me a pretty good argument about how I claim to be such a big sports fan, but refuse to watch the world's biggest sporting event.  That was all it took to convince me that at the very least I should give it a chance.  That World Cup was about over at the time, but I knew that the next time it came around, I was going to give it a good chance.  I decided to thoroughly follow the U.S. team for the 2010 World Cup and it was very exciting.  I don't think I could follow soccer year round, but watching the U.S. team try and play above their level, and advance through the tournament like they never have before as the underdog team was a lot of fun, and easy to get into.

     Another sport I have started to get into more recently is college lacrosse.  Now this one is more because of personal interest for me, but I still think it was worth getting into.  Being a Maryland fan for other sports, I noticed Maryland was on ESPNU one day.  I know all too well that it can be difficult for some teams to get some national coverage, so I thought it was particularly special for a lacrosse team to be on national television.  I soon found out that the reason they were on national television was because it was the first round of the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament against North Carolina.  This was the first time I actually sat down and watched a full lacrosse game, and I loved it.  First of all, there is constant action going on.  The game is played in 4 15-minute quarters, and there are rarely any timeouts, so the game doesn't drag on at all.  Later on I got to see what would be thought of as one of the greatest sports plays of the year so far, when Maryland pulled off a "hidden ball" play, that would be shown on SportsCenter about a thousand times that week.  I got to watch Maryland advance through the tournament all the way to the championship game which they lost to UVA, but it was a great game, and a fun tournament to watch.  Barring any significant explosion in the Maryland baseball program, I think I found my college sport to watch in the Spring season.

     My last, and probably least exciting of new sports to watch was tennis.  There have been periods of time where I have gotten into tennis, so this isn't exactly a story as to why I have gotten into it recently, but I just happened to sit down and watch the Maria Sharapova and Li Na matchup at the French Open, and I couldn't turn away from it.  Tennis is one of those things for me that's easy to get into if there's anything special about the match.  Yesterday for example, it was because Sharapova has been out of the national limelight for tennis recently, so she was making a big comeback by making it to the semi-final round of the French Open.  This was also the only major tennis championship she has yet to win.  She didn't win the match but it was still fun to watch her play a competitive match as she tried to continue her quest for the career grand slam. 

     These three are the only sports I have started to grow more interest in than normal lately.  If you have any more ideas of new sports for me to watch, please don't tell me about them so I can give Shannon at least a little break from sports.

Ranking the Major Sports Playoffs Formats

     This is a good time of year for sports.  We are not that far removed from the Super Bowl and NCAA Football championship, and more recently, the NCAA basketball championship.  Currently, the NBA and NHL playoffs are just starting to get under way, and the Major League Baseball and NASCAR seasons are just beginning.  The two sports in playoff season right now gave me the idea to write this post on which sports have the better playoff formats.  There are some playoff formats that seem a lot more exciting than others, and I'm going to rank the major ones in the order that I like them.

7.  NBA Playoffs

     All playoff formats are exciting, and the NBA has some great moments just as the others do.  The problems with the NBA playoffs are that they drag on forever.  First of all, there are way too many teams in the playoffs.  There are 30 teams in the NBA, and the top 8 from each conference make the playoffs, which makes 16 total teams.  That means over half of the teams are in the playoffs.  This also means that more often than not, a team that lost more games than it won in the regular season makes the playoffs.  Just to compare this to the NFL, a team with a losing record made the playoffs in football this year for the first time, and people were furious about it.  With 16 teams in an elimination format, that gives 4 rounds of playoffs, and each round is a best of 7 series.  What makes this even worse, is that the series play 2 games at one team's location, then 2 at the other team's location, then 1 back at the first site, 1 back at the second site, and another game back at the first site, as long as no one has clinched the series yet.  All of these location changes make for several days in between each game, and each series can last as long as two weeks.  These playoffs drag on forever, and there are rarely any upsets, so it ends up being a lot of time spent on predictable results.

6.  NHL Playoffs

     The reasons I have the NHL playoffs ranked so low are similar to the NBA playoffs.  Just like the NBA playoffs, there are too many teams allowed in, and it drags on way too long.  I feel like it is more excusable for the long breaks in between NHL games however, because the physical toll is greater on hockey players than it is for basketball players.  This part could be in my head, but it feels to me like the hockey players are much more passionate about winning their playoff games than any other sport.  Hockey players also grow some pretty sweet playoff beards until they are eliminated, which is automatic bonus points.

5.  NASCAR Chase for the Cup

     I like the Chase for the Cup, mostly because this is a relatively new phenomenon, and formerly there was no playoff system.  The points for the regular season just continued through the whole year, and whoever had the most points at the end of the season was the champion.  This would be similar to just awarding the football team with the best record at the end of the year with the Super Bowl trophy.  While it is much better than before, the NASCAR playoff system still has its faults.  As the first two playoff formats, this one drags on too.  The NASCAR Chase for the Cup is 10 races, and the races are once a week.  This means the Chase is two and a half months long.  There are a lot of great parts of the 10 week long chase though.  The leaders seems to change often.  Not just week-to-week, but also within the race.  At any given moment, a wreck could happen and someone who was leading the points could be knocked down to 8th place.  In no other playoff system can your position in the standings can change so quickly.

4.  MLB Playoffs

     I think of all the professional sports, baseball has got the concept of playoffs down better than the rest of the sports.  There are 30 teams in baseball, and 8 teams total make the playoffs.  It is a big deal for any team to make the playoffs, even for teams who make the playoffs often.  There are only 3 rounds in the baseball playoffs, as opposed to 4 rounds in the other major sports.  Also, the first round is only a best of 5 series, so it is short and sweet.  They also switch locations a lot less in baseball, so that each series lasts shorter than other sports as well.

3.  NCAA Football BCS

     There are a lot of fans and media personalities who think the BCS is as bad as any other system.  I disagree with that for one simple reason.  While it may not necessarily be the most fair way to decide the championship, this is the only sport that can basically guarantee that the top two teams in the sport will play for the championship.  Also, when there is so much importance put on choosing who plays for the championship, it turns the whole regular season into a type of playoffs.  There is by far no more important regular season than college football.  It's the only sport where losing one game could eliminate you from being able to play for the championship.

2.  NFL Playoffs

     The NFL playoffs have a ton of good things going for them.  As previously mentioned, only once has a team with a losing record ever been in the playoffs, which was last year.  There are four rounds in these playoffs just like in the NBA and NHL, but each round is only one game.  This makes each game very intense.  Each game is a win or go home scenario.  Not to mention that the culmination of the NFL playoffs is the Super Bowl, the biggest sporting event in the world. 

1.  NCAA Basketball Tournament

     This one wasn't even close.  I know the Super Bowl is a big deal, but as far as the playoffs as a whole go, nothing is close to the NCAA tournament.  Even though there is a big playoff field, currently at 68 teams, and possibly still growing, there is still a hint of exclusivity with good teams being left out (just ask Virginia Tech fans).  Everyone fills out a tournament bracket, even people who haven't watched a game all year.  Once they have filled out brackets, people can't wait to watch and follow along with their brackets, anxiously hoping one of their 13 seeds beats a 4 seed in the first round.  I think the fan participation is what makes the NCAA tournament as popular as it is.  Some people play their office pools to try and win a little money.  I mostly fill mine out on ESPN just in case I hit it perfect, and I figure they'll have me on Mike and Mike the next morning.  My favorite story about tournament brackets is a few years ago when 3 people of all the millions of people who fill out a tournament bracket on ESPN, correctly picked George Mason to go to the final 4.  When they had the 3 guys on ESPN that morning, 2 of them said they picked Mason to go to the final 4 because they were graduates from George Mason.  The other guy picked George Mason on accident because he thought he was picking George Washington to go to the final 4. 

     I don't think any playoff system is perfect, but this is how I rank the playoff formats as they are right now.  I think the NASCAR and NCAA football systems are most likely to change unless any of the other leagues have an increase or decrease in teams.  Let me know what you think about my rankings, or share your own in the comments section.

Sports Things I Would Change

     I recently was watching Mike and Mike in the morning while I got ready for work, as I often do, and they were talking about what rules in sports they would change.  A friend suggested that I write here about what rules I will change when they put me in charge of the world some day.  Some of them are rules, some of them are other parts of sports I would change, all are excellent ideas.

     Change 1:  I would re-organize the divisions in Major League Baseball, and would include two expansion teams.  They say that on opening day, everyone has the same chance to win the World Series.  This is not true for two reasons.  The first reason is that different teams have different budgets for their payroll, and so some teams never really have a chance (read: Pittsburgh Pirates), but that is not the basis of my rule change.  The second reason, the rule changing reason, is that some teams have a better or worse chance to make the playoffs based on what division, or league they play in.  Each league in baseball gets four teams in the playoffs, but the National League has 16 teams, and the American League only has 14 teams.  Also, because the leagues have a different amount of teams, the division are off as well, where the NL Central has six teams, and the AL West only has four teams.  This gives teams in the AL West a 10% better chance to make the playoffs than the teams in the NL Central before a game is even played. 

     I would add two teams to the American League to make 16 teams in each league, and four divisions of four teams in each league.  I would add a team in North Carolina, because there are no teams in between the Nationals and the Braves, and in Tennessee, because I am now in charge and I want a team in Tennessee.  I like the idea of having a team in Las Vegas, but let's face it, no one is going to Vegas to watch a baseball game.  So with Carolina and Tennessee, here are my new updated divisions.

American League:

East:  NY Yankees, Boston, Baltimore, Toronto
North:  Minnesota, Chicago White Sox, Detroit, Cleveland
South:  Kansas City, Carolina, Tennessee, Tampa Bay
West:  LA Angels, Oakland, Seattle, Texas

National League:

East:  Atlanta, Philadelphia, NY Mets, Washington
North:  Chicago Cubs, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati
South:  Florida, Pittsburgh, Arizona, Houston
West:  San Fransisco, Colorado, LA Dodgers, San Diego

     Before you say anything, I realize the geographical names of these divisions don't make sense in every case, but I felt like this was the best way to keep all the natural rivalries together.  With two wild card teams in each league, this would also make for an extra round of playoffs.  I would make it a best of 3 series, keeping it short and sweet.

     I have three rule changes about college basketball, and two of them are about the excruciating pain of watching the end of close games.  The reason I say college basketball instead of all basketball is because I don't watch many NBA games, so I'm not sure if the rules about game management translate exactly the same.  So, in a close college basketball game, the coaches call timeouts after almost every play near the end of the game.  They do this to make new plays, set new defenses, and decide things like whether or not to foul the other team on purpose to stop the clock.  Each team has five timeouts, four of which they can carry over from the first half to the second half.  Now you may notice that there are many timeouts during a college basketball game, but these timeouts most often are not called by the coaches, but rather they are TV timeouts.  In college basketball, there is a TV timeout for every four minutes of game clock, to make sure enough commercials are shown during the game.  This stops the clock so often, that coaches can save their own timeouts for the end of the game.  This often leads the last two minutes of a game to last up to twenty actual minutes.  I would keep the TV timeouts, but limit the teams to two timeouts per team for each game.

     The other college basketball rule I would change to stop the extremely long end of games, are to actually call intentional fouls when it is known that a team is fouling on purpose.  When a team has gotten to the point where it looks like they are about to lose a close game, they foul the other team on purpose, so the clock is stopped, and the team has to make two free throws.  This is a huge advantage the creates more plays, and allows a team more opportunities to catch up to the winning team.  The problem is, there is already a rule in place forbidding intentional fouls, except no one ever calls it.  I think if a team gets to the point where they have to resort to fouling on purpose, than they should have to deal with the penalties of intentionally fouling, which would never happen because when an intentional foul is called, the fouled team gets the ball back anyway.

     My last college basketball rule change idea is one I have had for a long time, and to this day no one has ever agreed with me about it.  I would like to ban the alley-oop which is perhaps the most exciting play in all of basketball.  The reason I don't like it is because it is nearly impossible to defend.  Even if a player is in position to intercept the soon-to-be-dunked basketball, they won't do it because it looks like a shot, and to defend a shot on its way down to the basket is also a penalty.  Any play that is impossible to defend should be illegal.
     I have two major rule changes about NASCAR.  One is short, sweet, and simple.  There should never be a line that a car is not allowed to cross to pass another car.  If a driver wants to go down on the grass in order to make a pass for the lead, then they should be able to try it.  It would almost never work, but would be a lot of fun to watch.  My second rule is also a simple one, and this is almost universally accepted as something that needs to happen in NASCAR.  Some races are just plain too long.  NASCAR races can last over five hours, and that's without any major delays in the race.  Due to new technology in the cars, there are some tracks where it is extremely difficult for cars to pass each other, and the cars spread out a lot, so basically it is five hours of cars riding in a single file line, with brief interruptions of actual racing.  Races should last about three hours, the same length as a regulation football range

     My last rule change is with college football and basketball.  There should be no rules on when an athlete is allowed to turn pro.  People should be able to make their own decisions on when to forfeit their amateur status and become a professional.  If they make a bad decision, then they have to deal with life like the rest of us and get a real job.  Also, if a player is good enough to be a pro, than the fact that they are only two years removed from high school should not prevent them from doing so. 

     These are my rules for what I am going to change when I am in charge.  Tell me what you think about mine, and also tell me any rule changes you have.  I'll let you know what I think if you have any!

Asking for Autographs as an Adult

     As stated in the title of my blog, I may not be an expert on all things sports, but there is one thing I  am absolutely an expert on, which is the embarrassment of getting autographs as an adult.  This is by far the most demeaning thing I willingly do.  While my wife was reading this post before I published this, she felt obligated to remind me that she has had to stand by my side while she shared the embarassment of these incidents with me.
    

     The worst, and most embarrassing thing about asking for autographs is when you are competing with children for the autographs.  There is nothing I hate more than standing next to a 5 year old kid trying to get an autograph at a baseball game.  Kid beats adult in this situation every time.  Not only do they have the  cute and emotional advantage, but they seem to be able to sneak themselves in between you and the athlete in any scenario to cut in line. 

     One of my most upsetting autograph experiences was just a few years ago.  I went to a 3-game series when the Angels came to play the Washington Nationals, and was determined to get Torii Hunter's autograph in his first season with the Halos.  In the first two games there was never really a good opportunity, but in the third game I got myself in premium position right next to the visitor's dugout when Torii was coming over.  It was basically me and another guy using this strategy.  At some point, Torii acknowledged us, and gave the nod that he would be coming over shortly.  There was a kid, about 10-11 years old behind me, and an old man behind me, but I had good position on these two and did not anticipate a problem.  What I didn't know at the time was the guy positioned next to me was from Torii Hunter's hometown of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and had a Pine Bluff Little League baseball for Torii to sign.  I was obviously losing out to this guy, but still had good position for the next one.  This is when the old guy behind me asked me who was signing, and being the nice guy that I am, I turned around to tell him it was Torii Hunter.  When I turned around, the kid snuck in front of me somehow, and got autograph #2 on a Washington Nationals baseball.  Torii Hunter was not on the Washington Nationals, in fact he's never been on the Washington Nationals.  This kid did not care about Torii's autograph, it could have been the 3rd base coach and this kid would not have known the difference.  I guarantee this ball ended up in the sewer wherever this kid played baseball like the minor league autographs me and my brother used to get at Prince William Cannons games.  As I turned around to see this kid commit this unforgivable act, the old guy who I had to tell that Torii Hunter was signing autographs snuck around me on the other end to get the third and final autograph that Torii Hunter would be giving out this day.  I was inconsolable until about the 6th inning of that game.

Torii robbin' em, what he does best



     There are a lot of good opportunities for autographs if you pay enough attention.  Most teams have some kind of day celebrating the opening of the season, or some similar event where the players are signing autographs that day.  I went to the one last year at Maryland, called Maryland Day, which was a combination of the football Spring game, and where other parts of campus are open, and the Maryland basketball team also signs autographs.  This is the event where I got my picture with Gary Williams on the front page of this blog.  This was great for me because there were organized lines, so I did not have to compete with kids for autographs, and also the event was free.  Maryland also does not have a huge fan base, so I could get as many autographs as I wanted, and didn't have to wait in crazy lines.  Everything about the event was going smoothly until I came to one sad realization.  I was 26, and the autographs I was getting was from college students.  It was a sad moment once I realized I was going all crazy over 19 year olds signing a football for me.  Keep in mind though that I will be going again this year, so I wasn't too embarrassed about this.

Me and Jordan Williams at Maryland Day



     eBay however is not a good alternative to avoiding the shame of getting autographs with children.  First of all, even if you are really sure, you are never 100% convinced this is a real autograph you've paid for.  Also, even if you do feel really good about the authenticity of the autograph, the fact that you didn't get it signed yourself really ruins it for you.  When I see some of the autographs I have gotten, I remember the story of getting them, and when I see the few I have gotten from eBay, I don't have that same feeling.

     In summary, to truly enjoy your autograph, don't buy it on eBay, don't get suckered into compromising your position based on old people or kids, and do your best to live with the shame of obssessing over getting someone to sign their name on an object of your choosing.

My Thoughts on Tiger Woods

     It's Masters week, the greatest golf weekend of the year.  You could argue that the 2 open championship majors are better, but I'll take the Masters any day.  First of all, it's the first major of the year, so if a good golfer wins, you can start wondering what if he wins all four, which never happens but it's still okay to hope.  Secondly, Augusta has more history and pageantry than any other golf course in the world. 

     I thought since this was Masters week, it would be a good time to write about golf.  And if I am going to write about golf, who better to write about than Tiger Woods.  I am not real happy about the Tiger Woods situation that went down beginning on Thanksgiving Eve of 2009, but I think I probably feel like that for different reasons than most people.

     Tiger Woods is not a saint as it turns out.  I hope I'm not ruining your perception by saying this, but most athletes aren't.  Athletes cheating on their spouses is not unusual, partly due to their celebrity and money, but also due to the fact that they are constantly on the road.  I'm not saying this is an excuse, I'm just saying it happens.  A lot.  The reason it was as big of a deal as it was, is because it was Tiger Woods.

     My biggest problem is that all of these things he did to satisfy his own needs, ruined his golf game.  Taking the time off of golf ruined what was supposed to be the world watching the greatest golfer of all time.  Now it's gone.  Tiger Woods was not only the best golfer in the world, but what people who didn't watch him might not realize, is how feared he was by his competitors.  Great golfers used to fold just because they played in the same group as Tiger.  I don't have the stats behind this, but Sergio Garcia played his absolute worst golf whenever he played with Tiger. 

     The best of Tiger Woods was when people used to talk trash about him in the media.  Whenever anyone would say the slightest comment that could be thought of as negative in anyway, Tiger would take that out on the course and just dominate everyone.  Stephen Ames once said he doesn't know how Tiger Woods wins golf tournaments for how bad he hits the ball, not long before he was going to play him in a match play tournament.  For those who aren't familiar with golf, instead of playing against everyone like a normal tournament, in a match play tournament you are matched up against one person, and if you win more golf holes than the other golfer, you advance to the next round of the tournament, until there is only one golfer left.  When a golfer is leading in holes by more than the amount of holes left to play, the match is over.  So if a golfer wins a match 2&1, that means they are 2 holes up against their opponent, with only 1 hole left to play.  So Stephen Ames decided to make these comments about Tiger Woods right before he was matched up against Tiger.  Tiger then went out and beat him silly, winning 9&8.  If you're keeping up with the math, this means they only played 10 holes, and Tiger won 9 of them, and they tied 1.  This is as big of a beat down as you can give someone in match play golf.

    Golfers now talk trash to Tiger all of the time, and there's nothing he can do about it anymore.  Ian Poulter called him #2 soon after losing his #1 ranking in golf which he held for about 10 years during a dispute on a putting green.  Young golfers are talking about how beatable Tiger is, which would have been unheard of 3 years ago.  This was supposed to be about the time Tiger was beating Jack Nicklaus' record of 19 majors won, but instead he's reduced to being demeaned by a bunch of young guys who haven't even won anything yet.

     So I know most people are upset about what Tiger did, and they are certainly justified.  I am more upset because I feel robbed of what should be watching the greatest golfer in history.  I don't expect Tiger to do well in the Masters this weekend, because he just seems to be having too much trouble putting 4 good rounds in a row together, and is not putting well.  Golfers I am looking to do well this week are Phil Mickleson, Graeme McDowell, and Dustin Johnson.