Harrison joins a long line of departed icons

Marvin Harrison -- the latest to go of a dying breed.

It’s September. Marvin Harrison sits in the locker room. He laces up his cleats, puts on his pads and prepares to begin his 14th season in the NFL. He runs out of the tunnel and onto the sideline. He sets up on the line of scrimmage spread out wide as he always has. But that’s not Peyton Manning throwing to him. Dallas Clark isn’t next to him either. Neither is Reggie Wayne, Joseph Addai. In fact, nobody with a horseshoe on their helmet is even visible.

Meanwhile, in Boston, John Smoltz is putting the finishing touches on his 22nd season in the major leagues. But that familiar Atlanta Braves insignia on his cap has been replaced with a Boston “B.” Trevor Hoffman too is entering the field of play, but Petco Park is thousands of miles west tonight. Hoffman now makes his home in Milwaukee.

Speaking of homes, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James, the current faces of their respective francises, still don’t know where theirs are. Could it be New York? Los Angeles? Boston?

It should be a no-brainer.

Whatever happened to the good old days when players stuck with their teams for life? If you bought a ticket to a Miami Dolphin’s game, Dan Marino was starting at quarterback. In the Bronx, thousands of fans would pack the stadium and know that Lou Gehrig was playing first base. And in Los Angeles, you could be damn sure that Magic Johnson would be draining his shots for the Lakers.

But that’s not such a guarantee anymore. With Marvin Harrison’s release from the Colts, the team he has spent his entire football life with, it pushes the group of “lifers” closer to extinction.

As money and business dominate the sporting industry more than the games themselves, it breeds a new generation of players, more concerned with getting their big pay-day than remaining loyal. Jackie Robinson chose to quit baseball rather than play for the hated Giants, but Johnny Damon chose a loaded Yankees contract rather than stay with the Boston franchise who adored him.

In Harrison’s case, he refused to take a pay-cut, so Indy cut him instead.

Does an extra few million make that much of a difference? Sure, to you and me it’s more money than we can dream about, but to athletes, it’s not exactly the difference between eating and starving to death.

If a particular organization and its fan-base show you the love, respect and sometimes obsessiveness that accompanies sports, are you not obligated to return the favor (minus the obsessiveness perhaps)? I can’t imagine what it must have felt like to be a Packer fan watching Brett Favre suit up for the Jets. I would much rather have seen Favre retire a Packer than try and squeak out one more season with New York (which of course culminated in his embarassment on national television).

And this is only what has already happened. Imagine what the future holds. Can you see Derek Jeter in a Dodger uniform? Kobe Bryant in a Bulls uniform? It’s unfathomable (well, the latter almost wasn’t).

I fear we have seen the last of the “lifers” and that loyalty in professional sports is slowly eroding away.

What a shame.

Michael Vick deserves a lifetime ban

Why should a convicted felon be allowed to play football on the grandest of stages?

It’s the middle of February and that means that the NFL free agent market is beginning to take shape. The big story: quarterbacks. San Francisco needs one and so does Minnesota. Seattle may be in the hunt for one and Detroit just needs everything.

We know the names available. Kurt Warner is probably the free agent market’s big fish, but my gut tells me it’s Arizona or retirement (and if he comes back, could Leinart be available)? We’ve recently learned that Jeff Garcia will not return to Tampa Bay, and now that Matt Cassell has been tagged as a franchise player, the Tom Brady trade winds have picked up to a light breeze.

Oh yeah, and some guy named Vick.

The former NFL superstar turned convicted felon will be 29 years old when his 23-month prison sentence for dogfighting expires in July. He wishes for a return to football, but the Falcons say it won’t be with them as they are currently shopping his contractual rights to other teams.

Well that’s great and all, but it takes two teams to make a trade, and I can imagine that there are 31 general managers whose “Michael Vick pro/con” list is heavily weighted toward the latter side. Odds are, the Falcons will be unable to trade the quarterback and will release him.

Of course, Vick’s NFL future all depends on whether commissioner Roger Goodell reinstates him when his prison sentence is over. Barring Vick pulling some unbelievably stupid stunt upon his release, he will most likely be granted his reinstatement, but should he?

Last week I blogged about Michael Phelps and the immense scrutiny that he has recieved — unjustly in my opinion. I cited that Phelps is 23 years old, and while his action was illegal and did demonstrate a severe lapse in judgement, he did not deserve to be penalized in the fashion that he was.

Michael Vick, however, is an entirely different story. A countless number of twenty-somethings have been caught smoking pot, but only a handful have been caught in a six-year-long dogfighting operation. Yet, with all the people playing Phelps’ “role model” card and calling for his head, why are the same people willing to accept Vick’s imminent reinstatement?

You want to talk about a bad example? Nearly every child’s dream is to be an NFL quarterback — to throw the game-winning pass in the Super Bowl — to be Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and to the children of Atlanta a few years back, yes, even Michael Vick.

If Vick ever takes the field as a professional football player again, what does it say to our children? That their dreams can still remain intact even if they run an illegal dog-executing operation for six years?

This stems beyond a lapse in judgement. Michael Vick knowingly participated in a discpicable organization for an extended period of time, and although he will have served his time in the eyes of the law, why give him a free pass in the NFL?

Take a look at the 2008 installment of the NFL Personal Conduct Policy. It clearly states that criminal behavior can and will be punished, and while Goodell did suspend Vick indefinately, he could have given him a raise and it wouldn’t have mattered as long as the quarterback was confined within the walls of a Kansas penitentiary.

What penalty does he recieve after he gets out? Sure his reputation will be tarnished and he will never achieve the stardom he was on track for before his sentence. Some may argue that that is punishment enough. I disagree. If the NFL truly seeks to promote “lawful, ethical and responsible conduct,” also stated in the policy,  it needs to show that behavior such as this will not be tolerated. Period. Nothing good can come from reinstating Michael Vick, and for what he did, he deserves a lifetime ban.

Show them the money

Babe Ruth played his first season for $600. Baseball's current highest paid player makes $27.5 million per year.

The average annual salary of a surgeon is $177,790 per year.  High school teachers make $52,113 per year and fire fighters make $43,776 per year.

Carlos Silva of the Seattle Mariners, who just came off one of the worst seasons ever by a pitcher, will make  $11 million in the 2009 season.

Hmm.

The salaries of professional athletes have always been a topic of controversy. “In such troubled economic times,” one may ask, ”how can we justify paying someone millions to throw a ball?”

“That’s business,” another may counter.

Who is right? Are our athletes dramatically overpaid or is it simply business as usual?

I tend to answer yes on both.

Regardless of the state of the economy, it is ridiculous for an athlete to make 70 times the amount of a surgeon, 211 times the amount of a teacher and 251 times the amount of a firefighter — all jobs that contribute to bettering or even saving the lives of every human on this Earth.

What can an athlete do of that magnitude? Sure, they give back to the community at times; some donate a portion of their salaries to charities while others directly volunteer at hospitals and shelters, but nothing they can do compares to rescuing a baby from a burning building or giving a sick man a new heart. Athletes are merely entertainers.

However, one cannot overlook the business aspect of professional sports. Nobody set the bar for the average basbeball player at $3 million per year. The bar set itself.

Business 101 — Supply and Demand.

There are approximately 6,706,993,152 people on Earth. There are exactly 30 major league baseball teams with rosters of 25 men per team. This means that at any given time, there will be 750 people on a major league baseball roster — about one ten-millionth of a percent of the world’s population.

Supply = low.

Whether a team makes money depends on whether they sell concessions and merchandise. Whether they sell concessions and merchandise depends on whether they sell tickets. Whether they sell tickets depends on whether they assemble a winning team worthy of buying a ticket for. And how might they do that? By going out and buying the best talent on the market.

Demand = high.

Babe Ruth played his first major league season in 1914 for the Baltimore Orioles and earned a grand total of $600. Then, in 1922, he became the first player in history to earn $50,000 in one season.

Nobody broke $100,000 until Hank Greenberg did it in 1947, and Nolan Ryan became the first to $1 million in 1979.

With each new salary milestone hit, the bar is raised up a bit. Athletes due for a big pay day are compared to the highest paid players in their sport. Are they as good? Not as good? Better? Once that determination is made, the checks are written.

Baseball’s current high salary is Alex Rodriguez and his $27.5 million annual average. In a few years, Albert Pujols will hit free agency and if general managers view him to be a better talent than Rodriguez, he will likely become baseball’s first $30 million man.

The concept of bidding wars also helps to jack up the price of some of sports’ biggest stars. Let’s extend upon the Albert Pujols example. Assume the general concensus is that Pujols is worth $30 million per year and the Boston Red Sox offer him such a contract. But the New York Yankees need a power hitter too and definitely don’t want to see Pujols go to their archrival. So they offer him $32 million per year. Unless one of the competitors backs off, Pujols could make up to $35 million or even more.

With slimeball sports agents such as Scott Boras forcing teams to drastically overestimate the market and bid through the roof for his clients, this aspect of the salary debate is only compounded.

So in summary, yes, athletes are dramatically overpaid. But when the fate of a team executive’s success rests in the hands of how much they spend, sometimes it pays to overpay.

Ready the asterisks!

Might Bud Selig discredit the records of Barry Bonds and other steroid users?

 As Abbott and Costello comically bumble through their famous routine of “Who’s on First,” there comes a moment when Abbott turns to his counterpart and exclaims “Now, that’s the first thing you’ve said right!”

Well, after Bud Selig has not-so-humorously bumbled through his role as commissioner for the past 17 years, his mind off dreaming of polish sausages in a Milwaukee pub while the stain of cheating players continues to defile his legacy as commissioner, Mr. Selig, you have finally said something right!

With Alex Rodriguez being the latest and greatest player to have his bust prominently displayed in the Hall 0f Shame, the commissioner may finally be aware of how severe the problem is.

As we all know, Alex Rodriguez was the man on the white horse. He was going to save us all — extend a hand and pull us out of the dark abyss we were thrown into when Barry Bonds surpassed Hank Aaron with his 756th career homerun. But now Rodriguez has plummetted as well.

While the rest of the baseball world looks for their unsung hero to rise from the ashes and break Bond’s hallowed but hated record, Selig may take matters into his own hands. Word is that the commissioner may simply discredit Bonds’ record and restore Aaron as the all-time homerun leader.

And why not?

As the sign read on that cold night in the left field pavilion in Philadelphia, “Aaron did it with class. Ruth did it on hot dogs and beer. How did you do it?” The fact is, Bonds didn’t do it! Sure it was his body, but a body stuffed with the cream, the clear, and God knows what else. Hank Aaron was clean. Hank Aaron broke the record with hard work and determination –  not with steroids and other performance enhancers. And by the way, Hank Aaron set the all-time homerun record in 1974, a time when people of his particular skin-tone were not treated so nicely.

Imagine the pressure of having to perform in front of  tens of thousands of people when your mailbox is overflowing with hate mail such as this letter addressed to the homerun king.

“Dear N***** Henry,
You are (not) going to break this record established by the great Babe Ruth if I can help it. … Whites are far more superior than jungle bunnies. . My gun is watching your every black move.”

Of course, the ability to overcome adversity is not a case for re-instating Aaron, but it further helps to portray how different the two figures really are. Bonds never had anything of this magnitude to deal with and the only negative attention he was dealt, he brought upon himself.

Barry Bonds is a cheater. Barry Bonds is a liar. And come the verdict of his perjury trial set to begin March 2, Barry Bonds will forever be known as a criminal as well.

But if Selig’s thoughts materialize — the record, not the sausages — and the true homerun record is restored, where does it go from there? Do A-Rod’s accomplishments get tossed from the record books too? McGwire’s? Sosa’s? Clemens’?

I say throw them all out!

The old saying dictates that “cheaters never prosper.” So if Bonds, Rodriguez, McGwire, Sosa and Clemens all shot up banned substances (read: cheated), then their numbers should not stand. No asterisks. No seperate records a la Roger Maris (he was clean too, by the way). Simply toss their files out the window and pretend that no player by those names never existed.

Will that happen? Absolutely not. But one can dream, right?

Anyway, Bud Selig’s reputation may have already been irreparably tarnished by his lack of action, but should he follow through, it will bring integrity back to a game that has lost so much and respect back to an executive who has lost just as much.

Nobody’s perfect — so why should he?

Michael Phelps — a giant among athletes but a human nonetheless

If no man is a saint, why do we demand perfection from our public figures and scrutinize them when they fall short of that mark?

In August, Michael Phelps cemented his place in history as the greatest Olympian of all-time when he surpassed Mark Spitz with his eighth gold medal. He became a giant — a God — and thus had to shoulder the burden of the God-like perfection that was then expected of him.

Unfortunately for Phelps, he was unable to live up to society’s demands when photo evidence of Phelps taking a hit of marijuana on a bong at a party in South Carolina in November surfaced in a British tabloid earlier this month.  And so he bore his punishment. Kellogg, a major sponsor of Phelps, announced that his endorsement contract would not renewed and USA Swimming banned their star from competition for three months.

“We decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and hero,” said USA Swimming in a written statement.

Disappointed so many people?

Why? Because he took one hit on a bong? The man is 23 years old! And the fact is, he isn’t perfect and it is ridiculous to set the bar for him or anybody else at that level. Rather than focus on the act in a vacuum, why not focus on what followed? Upon the revelation of the photo, Phelps immediately apologized for his misconduct and never said a negative word toward USA Swimming or Kellogg for their reprimandation of him. That’s called “taking responsibility for your actions.” That’s what your parents have been teaching you to do since you were three years old.

Speaking of your parents — you know — the ones that raised you with love and affection — the ones that you looked up to when you were a child — the ones that you wanted to emulate — most of them have smoked pot at least once in their lives too. Do you feel let down? When you found that out, did you view them as any less of a hero to you?

But Phelps is different, right? He’s different because he’s on such a grand stage, under the brightest of spotlights. But the fact is he is still a human. He is no less likely to make a mistake than you or I. What matters, however, is how you deal with your mistakes, and Phelps has done so flawlessly.