the Joey Curse

When the Detroit Lions drafted Joey Harrington with the #3 pick in the draft in 2000, and then drafted wide receivers to catch his passes, they believed they were getting the quarterback and the offense that would take them back to the playoffs. That didn't happen. The wide receivers either had shabby attitudes and work habits (Roy Williams) or were unable/unwilling to catch Joey's passes (Roy Williams); the defense was inadequate, the running was was inadequate, the team was so badly run they couldn't even keep Steve Mariuchi as coach.

So of course, the blame went to Joey Harrington. There's no question: Joey did not play up to his potential. He had one horrific game in 2005 at Chicago with 6 interceptions. At that point, his time in Detroit was basically over. The Lions did a fair amount of housecleaning during the off-season, bringing in a new coach, hiring Mike Martz to run and the defense, and sending Joey to the Dolphins and turning the offense over the Jon Kitna.

The net result? The Lions are 0-3, losing at home to the previously pathetic Packers. The big remake has left the team in worse shape than before, and now they've lost even the convenience of having made the "mistake" of drafting Harrington. Joey's gone, and it's crystal clear that the awful teams he played in Detroit were not his fault. Few quarterbacks have success beginning their careers on the field rather than the bench; those who do succeed, like Rothlisberger and Eli Manning, are on already quality teams. The idea that Joey Harrington could take a bad team like the Lions and single-handedly transform them was ridiculous. And now that the new-and-improved Lions are doing worse than ever, the fans and management in Detroit have to deal with that simple fact: Their team stinks on ice.

I have no idea what Joey's future is. He deserves a chance to prove himself, and if Duante Culpepper continues to struggle in Miami, maybe he'll get a chance. I know he's a better quarterback than what his time in Detroit shows. But at least the Lions are proving that Joey was not the reason for how poorly the team played. Minus Harrington, they're even worse. My hope: 0-16 for 2006. A fitting reward for a team that took one of the best quarterbacks produced at Oregon (it'll take a lot to top Fouts) and made him look like a bust. He's not, and until he gets the chance to prove otherwise, let the Lions reap what they've sown.

damn Dodgers

jeez. one night after one of the great comebacks in baseball history, and they fall to Pittsburgh! they get the lead back from the Padres via miracle, and then give it back via crappy pitching.

i love baseball, and i hate baseball. it really is my favorite sport, especially to go to a ballpark to watch -- big leagues, minor, pickup game, t-ball. i love it all. but the line between success and failure is so fine. the difference between a pop-up and a big fly is not even an inch: it's a fingernail's width. a split-second too early, too late, just the wrong angle of bat to ball. as Kevin Costner pointed out so passionately in Bull Durham:

Know what the difference between hitting .250 and .300 is? It's 25 hits. 25 hits in 500 at bats is 50 points, okay? There's 6 months in a season, that's about 25 weeks. That means if you get just one extra flare a week - just one - a gorp... you get a groundball, you get a groundball with eyes... you get a dying quail, just one more dying quail a week... and you're in Yankee Stadium.

that's baseball. it's so beautiful and it hurts so much. when the Dodgers hit 4 home runs in a row last night, it was one of the most amazing things i've ever experienced. then Nomar wins it with a walkf-off; the people at the Stadium were jumping and spinning and dancing like dervishes. it was simply too amazing and wonderful to be comprehended. it was the game of the year, and will be remembered as maybe the greatest regular season games ever.

and tonight: a 10-6 loss to the Pirates. of course Pittsburgh probably gave a huge extra effort for their skipper, Jim Tracy, who was fired by the Dodgers after last season -- a stupid mistake. and the Dodgers trotted out some pitchers who've not been that dependable. now they're 1 loss behind San Diego and 1 loss ahead of Philadelphia. i had hoped last night would be the start of a great run to the pennant, but it's likely it was a delay on their way out of the playoff race. i don't know they've got what it takes. Nomar's health is iffy, Kent's been subpar, Drew's been ok, Ethier's really collapsed, and the only two pitchers earning their keep are Maddux and Lowe. i think next year will be the start of many good years; the kids will be even better, and more steady. we'll get some pitching over the winter. but i find it hard to hope much for this year.

but even if we do fade away, nothing can take away last night. amazing finishes in other sports can be special: the Catch, for example. but nothing has the instant and overwhelming power of a walk-off homer. the 4-in-a-row followed by Nomar's winner; Gibson in 1988; Bobby Thompson. thrilling beyond hope. and just so bitterly painful.

i love baseball. and i hate baseball. it's the best.

now it's their turn to whine

A great Duck victory today over Oklahoma. Of course the Sooners, along with the national commentators who look for quick & easy talking points, will focus on the onside kick review that was "given" to Oregon. But Oklahoma should have had the game beyond doubt by that point; instead, they left it within Oregon's reach. The refs may have — may have — blown that call and opened the door for the Ducks, but it was Oregon that made the plays in the last minute and Oklahoma that fell short.

The ways Oklahoma blew it:

• too few points off turnovers: Oregon lost 2 fumbles and had 2 interceptions; Oklahoma turned these in 13 points. convert just one of those field goals into a touchdown, and that's a Sooner win.
• failure to get the final touchdown: leading 30-20, Oklahoma ran the ball down Oregon's throat to the 2 yard line. Result? Field goal. Adrian Peterson, who was almost unstoppable in the 4th quarter, came up gimpy on his final run. Sooner coach Bob Stoops settled for a field goal rather than take any risk in going for the jugular and the terminal touchdown. He obviously thought Oregon, and Dennis Dixon, were toast. Very bad assumption.
• did not recover onside kick. The ball bounced high and right at one of the Sooner "hands" team — and the guy pulled back! He did not go aggresively for the ball; in baseball terms, he let the ball play him. It became an error, and that was the beginning of the end.
• blew an easy 44-yard field goal. 44 yards is short. Their kicker had made a 41-yarder earlier; any decent kicker at a Top 20 school should make kicks like that, especially with the game on the line. Either the kicker sent it low, or the line imploded, or Blair Phillips, the Duck linebacker who got the hand on the ball, just refused to be anything less than Superman on the final play of the day. Probably a mix of all three.
  

Oklahoma will spend the rest of the year blaming the officials. But the game was theirs for the taking. They choked, and the Ducks proved to be the better team. This game wasn't lost by Oklahoma; it was won by Oregon.

One final thing. The Sooners' second touchdown? The refs missed a push-off by the wide receiver. It was subtle but not on replay; it was what allowed the touchdown. If the refs get that one right, Oklahoma probably doesn't score, the Ducks have the necessary momentum to remain ahead, and Oklahoma doesn't have to go home feeling sorry for itself.

But they will.

Tomko must go

I hate seeing guys on my team fail, and I know they do their best, but Bret Tomko hasn't got what it takes. He started the year ok, but the way he failed at Wrigley this afternoon is just a sign that he's gotta go. Coletti has to suck it up and cut Tomko. We don't have the strongest bullpen in the league, but we can't keep trotting out guys who fail more often than not. Come the playoffs, if we survive San Diego this weekend, the bullpen will get small enough not to need Tomko's place. Kuo can do middle relief, or Billingsley; we have other options.

The offense didn't help him much, but they did score 5. That should have been enough. Nomar needs to get going, and Kent; Drew actually did his share today. But the bottom line is: 5 runs should win a baseball game. Tomko hasn't got the stuff to make that true, and there just aren't enough games left to risk his gasoline-on-fire pitching anymore.

Canzano's hate is ugly

John Canzano has a great job: he gets paid to spout off about sports. He has an excuse to watch all the games he wants, he gets in to local events for free, he has access to almost any local sports figure he wants. His opportunity to add a constructive voice to an important aspect of our national culture — and that's what sports is, however much that upsets many people — is one I envy hugely.

And what does he do with it? He wages a relentless attack on Ernie Kent. I'm not sure what Kent ever did to him, but I know it would be very very wrong of me to suggest it had to do with a lost bet and a Ducks basketball game. But there's something strange going on because now he is demanding that the UO be "courageous" and fire Kent, whom he terms an underachiever (to put it nicely), and replace him with Mike Montgomery, an underachiever (to put it very nicely).

Ernie Kent came to Eugene in the wake of the resignation of Jerry Green, who left because the university refused to replace Mac Court. Kent loves Mac Court, having played there in college in the 70s as a member of the famous Kamikaze Kids. He took the program, which was spinning its wheels in the Pac 10, and made it one of the top teams in the conference. The highlight, of course, was 2002 when the Luke & Luke Show, along with Freddie Jones, made it to within a win of the Final Four (all three of those players were first-round draft choices, as well). Since then, the team has floundered, but so have most schools. Very few schools have consistent success every year; Duke can field a championship-caliber team every year, but they win very few. UCLA has become a power again, as has North Carolina. Both had to sink low first, and both will sink again. That's the nature of college sports. However, a team with a championship heritage, and many national televised games, will always have a huge advantage over Oregon.

So firing Kent is Canzano's solution? It's easy to look at the quality of the players Kent has recruited and expect them to have done better. Then you look at some of the player-related problems — Ian Crosswhite quitting the team, Aaron Brooks' meltdown — and wonder about the coach's culpability. An easy answer is to blame the coach, and he does bear responsibility for much of what goes on. But he cannot control Brooks' attitudes or actions; he can only influence. If a young man playing a highly volatile sport under tremendous pressure and public exposure turns out to be fragile, the coach learns this with everyone else when the kid snaps. But the easiest target is the coach.

What is particularly ridiculous this morning, however, is Canzano's solution: Mike Montgomery. Montgomery's specialty at Stanford was to put togethr a quality team that would lose in the first round of the NCAA playoffs. Going deep into the tournament was not something they could manage very well; "one and out" was apparently the team motto. At Golden State, who made Montgomery available by firing him yesterday, he took a team with quality players and made of them — nothing. While the Clippers, of all teams, were becoming a playoff team to be reckoned with, the Warriors were going backwards.

This is Canzano's bright solution.

I've read the accusations against Kent at the "Fire Coach Kent" website. I have no idea how much of that is rumor and how much is substantive. I don't really care. I don't think Bill Moos will hold on to Kent if he performs badly. This season will be the make-or-break. If Brooks becomes the leader we've always hoped, if Malik Hairston becomes the primetime player he was recruited to be, if Taylor and the others come through and fulfill their potential, the pressure from the idiot brigade will be lost in the cheers. If the team drops another season and fails to make the NCAA's, then Kent will be gone. And it will have nothing to do with Canzano or the self-important "fans".

Ernie Kent may need to go, but replacing him with a proven failure like Mike Montgomery is not the right solution. More than anything else, this is smelling more like Notre Dame's firing of Ty Winningham — a winning coach being jettisoned under the pretense of failing to fulfill potential but possibly because he just looks wrong on the sidelines.

i hate the Padres

when i was a kid, i hated the Cincinnati Reds. for an obvious reason: they were always beating my Dodgers. i hadn't learned about Bobby Thompson yet, and Joe Morgan hadn't hit that home run. but Joe was helping the Reds beat the Dodgers far too often. after the A's beat the Dodgers in the Series in 1974, the Reds then won twice. it would not be until 1981 that the Dodgers would overcome the Reds and the Yankees to win a Series.

later i loathed the St Louis Cardinals, but not very passionately. Jack Clark; grrr. but it was Tom Niedenfuer's crappy pitching (and Lasorda's rotten decision) that was the real culprit. but a West Coast boy has no reason to care much for anything that far inland; it's just not right to leave so far from the sea. you almost pity them.

but now it's the frikkin' Padres i hate. yes, it's for the same damn reason: they beat the Dodgers. a lot. they can play like crap against the entire league, but let the Dodgers show up and suddenly the Pads act like real baseball players. i suppose it's good the Dodgers bring that out in teams, especially their little cousin to the south. but what i can't stand (besides the losing) is the arrogance of San Diego. it's not a New York arrogance: we're better than you so fuck you. it's a negative arrogance: we're not L.A. so fuck you. that's just pathetic.

so tonight their rookie beats our rookie, and we're still in first place, and i hope to god we kick the shit out of them the next two days. they can then go back to their slide to oblivion — no one said they had to have cheap ass owners — and we'll keep moving to a championship.

and maybe whup on the Reds, Cardinals and Yankees along the way.

Firing Hargrove won't be enough

The Seattle Mariners have had three seasons in their history that might be considered successful, and even those fell short. They've had three of the greatest players in baseball history and driven them away. They take young pitchers with huge potential and transform them quickly into has-beens — or in the case of Freddie Garcia, trade him away in time for him to have enough left to win a World Series. Maybe Joel Pinero will be as lucky; his terrific future has almost disappeared.

And the next step, of course, is to fire Mike Hargrove who has done absolutely nothing to fix the Mariners. He shows absolutely no indication of having the ability to do so, either. The sooner he goes, the better. But that won't suffice. There is something seriously wrong with the Mariners organization, almost as if they are as dedicated to failure as the Yankees and Dodgers are to success.

It's not about money, either. They can spend more than enough money to build a championship team. They can afford a winning team. They've made those purchases, and they've made good trades, and the farm system seems to produce quality players as well. But put the Mariners uniform on these players and watch the slow decline begin. Excellence degrades, steadily, until a Bret Boone is out of baseball, or management can't believe Randy Johnson has even half-a-season left him in — after which he wins several Cy Youngs, a World Series and pitches a perfect game.

What is it about this team that transforms possibility into failure? Is it as simple as being unable to hire the right manager? Lou Pinella was the right manager, and he left at the right time. With him and his staff, the team did great, and players excelled; but even his excellence faded into a lassitude that felt like Tennyson's "Lotos Eaters." Bob Melvin was not a bad choice, except that Dusty Miller, a great choice, was also available. Mike Hargrove was a terrible choice; nothing in his resume indicated he could guide a team in transition. The Dodgers picked the man this year the Mariners probably should have taken last year: Grady Little, who is mixing vets with rookies into a championship contender.

Playing major league baseball may be the hardest job in sports. It's a team sport that depends on individual achievement; every play is full of pressure. Each pitch, each at-bat, every single defensive play. As the saying goes, fail 70% of the time in baseball, and you'll be a star. Managing players has little to do with helping them with their release point or how much weight to put on the back foot; managing is about putting players in a position to succeed enough times that they play to their potential instead of being crushed under the weight of that potential.

If the Mariners, like the Dodgers or Yankees, can find that right manager, they have the players to win championships. Hargrove isn't that manager. I hope they find the right manager; I can't stand watching great players like Pinero turn into yet another Dave Fleming.

a better idea of why the Mariners suck

the Seattle Mariners have good players, but they seem to have a knack of playing just badly enough to lose. today's game at Minnesota is a great example.

tie game, top of the 10th. Ichiro, lead-off single. Jose Lopez, possibly the best second baseman in the AL, another single. no outs, 2 on. Ibanez drives one to deep right, which gets snagged at the last second. for some reason, Ichiro is running, so he has to tag up and is still at second instead of on third with one out. next batter, Sexton, hits one to the baggie in center. Ichiro not only isn't able to score on what should have been an easy sac fly, he's again halfway! he again is stuck on second.

Mike Hargrove may have some chops as a manager, but i'm not seeing them. other teams have lesser talent yet win. Hargrove got Cleveland two AL titles but never over the hump; in Baltimore, he did nothing. again, he's doing nothing. the Mariners certainly need a few more pitchers and they need Beltre and Sexton to earn their money. but for the winning run to get stuck on second like that is unfathomable and ridiculous.

and of course, in the bottom of the 10th, immediately after this embarrassing Seattle lack of smarts, the leadoff batter hit the game-winning home run. of course.

Super Bowl: Fulltime

Seattle did not play their best game, but it's impossible to win when the calls are as awful as they were in this game. 14 points were taken from Seattle, 7 given to Pittsburgh, because of 2 bad calls: the interference in the endzone and the hold on the play before Hasselbeck's interception. neither was a legit penalty, and that was 14 points taken from the Seahawks. maybe Pittsburgh goes on a game-winning drive after Seattle scores; maybe they make other plays. but the truth of the matter is they did not make the plays; the zebras did. they got them wrong. the interference was so ticky-tack; as Steve Young said, it was not a penalty but a touchdown. and John Madden was crystal clear on the hold: it did not happen.

the cliche is that a champion overcomes things like bad calls. it depends. when i was a kid, the Rams got a chance at the playoffs taken away when the refs shorted them a down at the end of the game. the 49ers brought instant replay to the NFL when they were ripped off the Bears (i think it was) and kept from the playoffs. and the Hawks against the Jets, early in Holmgren's time. this was a close game. neither team did very well. but the difference was not the Randle El pass, nor any other play. it was 2 bad calls by the refs. what a terrible shame.

Super Bowl: Halftime

it wouldn't be so egregious if the Seahawks didn't have a history of being on the wrong side of the calls. the worst to date, of course, was the Testaverde "touchdown" that kept the Hawks out of the playoffs about 5 years ago. the touchdown they took away from Jackson was awful; there was no push-off. the ref called that out of fear of being wrong, but he was wrong. the Steeler touchdown was closer, but still looked as if they got it wrong.

the holding call on the punt return was bad, too. there were hands to the chest and nothing grabbed. a clean block, and the ref, who was blocked on the play, called it on a guess.

the big play, in my mind, was not Roethlisberger making the long pass to Ward; it was Boulware not knocking it down. he went for an interception and got muscled out of the way. had he just slapped it down -- he was in position to do so -- then Pittsburgh punts and Seattle maybe marches down field.

still, the Seahawks played the better game. if they cut out the mistakes, the Steelers cannot stop their offense. and they have more of a hold on Pittburgh's offense. the Steelers can't run; the Seahawks are getting just a bit more. Alexander is much more likely to go off on a big one than Parker. if the Seahawks can force a punt after the kickoff, they can take the lead back and push it. Hasselbeck is having a very good game; he can easily ratchet that to great and win this game. but the Hawks have to stop the stupid mistakes. that's the only reason they're behind. they have been the better team. the second half is when they can prove it and make it matter.