Baseball, We Are in 2009. Can You Come Join Us?

I say I'm going to give you $100.  You're reaction? Heeeck yeah! Now I tell you it's my contribution to help you buy that Ferrari you want.  Not so excited are you.  The same concept is true with time.  How long is 30 seconds?  If you have to be silent for that long, it feels like an eternity.  If I ask for 30 seconds of your day and you're not busy, you're more than likely going to oblige.  Where am I going with all this? Here:

I'm sick and tired of all the excuses of why baseball doesn't have replay.  There are a million excuses, but they are all just that, excuses.  No one has a valid reason of why, in 2009, we don't have expanded instant replay in baseball.  So I'm going to rail through all the excuses, tell you why they suck, and then go home tonight and watch with frustration as the umps inevitably blow an obvious call (hey, we're battin over .500 in these playoffs of games with blown calls so I'm probably right) cause baseball is stuck in the stone-age.

1) "It'll take too long"

Really? How long does it take to see that you've missed a call in baseball? To answer a question with a question, how long does one replay take? How many replays are done of every pitch between pitches? At least three.  It's not that hard to have an ump in the booth and a field side monitor and get a call corrected quickly.  In fact it will take LESS TIME than a manager coming out and throwing a fit.  Here's how you do it.  Each manager gets one challenge per game, and on top of that you go by the college football system where every play is replayed in the booth.  If it's blatently obvious that an ump missed the call, then the booth umpire will buzz down to the crew chief, who will take a look at the field side monitor (or God forbid the giant scoreboards) and confirm the call.  It will take 30 seconds and nobody's mad.  If a play is closer (such as a bang-bang play at first) than a manager can challenge. No added time. No problem. Suck it up.

2) "I like the human element"
Me too. The players are human. I like that. I'm not saying a manager can challenge every safe and out call at first, however if in a clutch spot he has a valid point, why should the umpires be able to effect the game?  I'm not saying use questec for balls and strikes which in my mind should remain unchallengeable for now, but a fair/foul call or an out/safe call should be able to be challenged.  These are not judgement calls. These are fact. Technically strikes and balls are too but there is far more interpretation involved in where the strike zone is as compared to did the ball hit the line. Errors are part of the game for the players and they happen, they're playing it.  The umpires aren't playing the game.  They aren't on one of the two teams.  They don't have to be perfect, but their errors can't effect the game.  The athletes make too much money and baseball is too big of a business to have their biggest games not being decided by the guys earning the big bucks.

3) "It'll show up the umpires"
Football officials don't seem entirely offended. Neither do NBA refs. All officials want to get it right. The end. They don't want you to know who they are, and they don't want to effect the game. They want to do their job, get their paycheck, and go home happy with no beer or popcorn thrown on them. Replay would allow this to happen.

I have a lot of respect for umpires.  They do their job knowing that if they slip up one time, they're going to have thousands, if not millions of people nation and world-wide upset with them cause the call didn't go their teams way.  Knowing that, why not give them a little help? Clearly the technology is there, we get to see it on this magical device called the television.  Why can't they? Oh that's right! Cause baseball is stuck in the stone age.  The managers, many of whom are 60 and 70 year old men still wear the same uniforms as the players.  The concept of the Wild Card was considered radical when introduced less than 20 years ago; and the commissioner goes by the name of Bud, and his suits look like 3rd generation hand-me-downs.  Baseball, we are in 2009.  Can you come join us?

Do The Right Thing: The Story of the NCAA (Not a Spike Lee Joint)

The NCAA is the governing body that oversees all major intercollegiate sports in the United States.  It has a strict set of rules and by-laws for its institutions and particularly its players. If you cross the NCAA as a player you can be sure that you'll hear from them and will suffer sever consequences.  When was the last time you heard a player suspended by the NCAA for a few games?  Never. Because they don't play like that.  If you break an NCAA rule than you're probably done for a significant amount of time.  Which brings us to the case of one Dez Bryant.

The Oklahoma State standout was suspended this week by the NCAA for the remainder of the season, after it was found that Bryant lied to NCAA investigators about meetings he had with former NFL players Deion Sanders and Omar Stoutmire.  As far as we know, all the meetings were legal and even set up through the university, yet for some reason Bryant felt like it was necessary to lie about them and he got busted.  Once again, he did nothing wrong, lied about it for fear that he had when the NCAA sent investigators after him (because nobody but the NCAA really knows every in and out of the rule), and for that he has lost a year in which he was trying making his case to be a top 15 NFL Draft pick next April. 

Bryant is appealing the decision and if the NCAA has half a brain it'll overturn it.  The kid has obviously learned his lesson and there is nothing to be gained by suspending him.  He's a big attraction so its a loss for Oklahoma State and the NCAA.  It also would cost Bryant millions unless he has a miracle run of workouts, because his draft stock would take a huge hit not playing football for the 6 months leading up to the draft.  This would leave the NCAA looking like what it really is, an uptight bully. 

Bullies are only bullies until they are stood up to, challenged, and beaten.  They always pick on the smaller kids because they know they can win, and they always put themselves in power positions.  Since collegiate athletes are amateurs and can't unionize, they can't fight the NCAA like professional counterparts.  The student-athletes simply have to deal with it.

The same unfortunately goes for us in the fans and media.  First the fans side: who wants a college football playoff? You? Oh and you too? And you? Wow. That's, well, everybody.  Yet for some reason known only to the NCAA and maybe God (but that's only a maybe) there isn't a playoff for college football.  There is precedent.  First, there are playoffs in every other level of NCAA football except for the bowl subdivision.  Secondly, in the NCAA's second most popular, not to mention commercially successful sport, men's basketball, they have a little thing called "March Madness," which is the greatest playoff in the history of the world.  I could continue on this tangent forever but that's not the point.  The point is the NCAA is holding us, the fans, captive.

It also is holding me, the media, captive.  Most college students know a few athletes, but because of my chosen future profession I've made sure to know a lot of them.  One of these is MTSU Wide Receiver Garrett Andrews who is not only an acquaintance, but someone I consider a friend.  We had talked about him coming on my radio show and hanging out for a significant part of the show, first with us interviewing him about MT football but then him staying around and picking the rest of the college and pro slate of games with us.  When I ran this by the Athletic Communications Department, they immediately said absolutely not.  Why?  Because according to the NCAA, simply picking games is a form of gambling.  Not picking games against the spread.  Just stating who you think will win and lose a football game.  So I asked if he could not pick the games and just give his thoughts.  They had to call the NCAA on this one: still a no.  He couldn't give his opinions on any team other than his own, even though that could probably do more harm than talking about other teams if you really think about it.  I saw it as a chance for the Middle Tennessee fan base to get to know one of our student athletes in a non-interview setting while still talking about the sport he plays.  Instead the NCAA sees it as something that could be used to gamble and shot me down. 

So in review, the NCAA is a big bully and it's beating up everyone and taking their lunch money.  It's robbing its players of many freedoms most people would never even think about having at risk such as who they associate with and who pays for lunch.  They're robbing their fans of a true champion in their number one sport and the right through the media to see it's student-athletes without a uniform.  Yet, through all this, the NCAA is still a multi-billion dollar corporation that will continue to thrive because no one can challenge it.  Even congress has tried and that's gone no where.  It's going to take the fans not showing up to games, or the best players going to NAIA schools, neither of which will or should happen, for a change to take place.  In a way, it's good business.  People are still paying their money, so why change?  Because it's the right thing to do.  But seriously, who does that nowadays anyway?

Forever in our Harts

I'm 19 years old. I have friends who are 22. Heck one of my best friends is 24. Nick Adenhart was 22. He had just pitched the game of his life, six scoreless innings in the major leagues, and was on his way out to celebrate with 3 friends when the vehicle they were driving was blindsided by a minivan that ran a red-light. The driver of the mini-van was drunk, with a blood-alcohol level 3 times the legal limit. The driver was also driving on a suspended licencewhich stemmed from a previous DUI. This is just another reminder of how precious life is, and it reminds us that every day could be our last. It also shows us how we can go from our highest moments to the end, just like that. It's often said that life isn't fair, and the end of life is no different.

At 22, Nick Adenhart was far too young to go. He was a precocious pitching talent, dominating 18 year old travel leagues at the age of 14, and the night of his death had made his first start in his first full rookie season (he had a few starts last year but is still considered a rookie this year). However according to teammate Dustin Moseley, Nick Adenhart's talents went far beyond a pitching mound and a baseball diamond. He was a bright young man who according to his father was everything a dad could dream of as a son. The most convincing thing to me in the day following Adenhart's death was the reaction of his agent Scott Boras. Boras is known as a hardass to say the least. One who doesn't take anything from anybody, and whose sole purpose in life is to make money for his clients and in turn himself. When talking about Adenhart, Boras completely and utterly broke down in tears. Not shed a tear; broke down in tears. A man who some believe has a heart of stone was crying uncontrollably at a microphone and could only compose himself long enough to say, "we lost a great young man."

Although the promising life of Nick Adenhart was cut short, life for the rest of us, and for his teammates goes on as did their season. On the Friday night the Angels played their first game since Adenhart's death and what I saw was simply unbelievable. With a memorial of his image in centerfield, his number 34 on the mound, and heavy hearts all around, the Angels took the field motivated to get a win for their comrade, something they had failed to do despite his brilliant performance a few nights earlier. I didn't get to watch the game but I did see highlights, and I really didn't need those. All I would have needed to see was a single picture of Angels' starter Jared Weaver's eyes to know how much this meant to him and the rest of the team. I have never seen a player in any sport be more in the zone than I saw Weaver that Friday night. To say he wasn't going to be denied would not be doing Weaver justice; simply put, failure was not an option and it never crossed Jared Weaver's mind.

It would have been very easy, for the Angels to just go through the motions this year, and really no one could blame them. The baseball season is 162 games long and during the 8 months a year baseball players are together they become family. And although Nick Adenhart was only a rookie, he played with many of the young Angels players in the minor leagues and was there through all of Spring Training this year. He was a brother, and a younger brother at that, to everyone on the Angels roster, and instead of going through the motions they went out and played in their fallen brothers memory.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, sports has an ability to bring people together after tragedy unlike anything else in the world outside of music. Sports and music both allow the mind to escape into the world of a game or a song. After 9/11, all of New York held its collective breath as the Yankees advanced to the World Series. After Hurricane Katrina, the citizens of New Orleans wanted nothing more than to have their Saints back. And a year later when they finally did, the buzz in the Superdome was far greater than Bourbon Street (or anyone on it) during Mardi Gras. And while these situations were far greater tragedies in terms of numbers, the loss of Nick Adenhart hit the Angel and Major League Baseball families just as hard. I expected the Angels to keep playing for their teammate and despite the fact the fact that their field talent isn't nearly what it has been in years past, they are once again around in October. And now that the season is all but over, I think they are proud of how they represented a teammate, whos life was cut far too short, and who now, as a fan put it in a make-shift memorial oustide the Angel's Stadium, is playing with another team of Angels.

R.I.P Nick Adenhart

1986-2009