Baseball Owns, Soccer is for Socialists and Golf is not a Sport

So I'm reading this article over at ESPN.com about awards and trophies in sports. The author, Jim Caple, provides his list of the championships and awards he would most like to win. In perusing some of the comments I came upon A LOT of whining.

Some of the more retarded comments are below.

WSOP Main Event Bracelet

Green Jacket or the Claret Jug.

World Cup...Soccer...I'm a socialist!

Okay, so that last one isn't a direct quote, but I think it pretty much captures the comments of the soccer lovers.

There were, however, a couple good suggestions:

What about a glowing piece of the Aggro Crag from Nickelodeon's GUTS?

Well, I guess that's actually only one good suggestion. At any rate, I figured I'd feed my need for attention by sharing with you my list. I've only included the items on Caple's list (with one exception), which unfortunately means the Aggro Crag will not be featured. If it was included, it would probably be somewhere in the teens. It's a rock that glows, people. How cool is that? Oh, and neither will the World's Strongest Man title, which would probably be Top 5. Sorry Magnús Ver Magnússon. I've also omitted some items from the list because I'm lazy. Still, I think you'll like it. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.


The List

1. Baseball Hall of Fame Plaque - there are 278 members (196 players) of the Baseball Hall of Fame. There have been over 16,000 individuals who have played in the Major Leagues. Therefore, 1.2% (a conservative estimate) of baseball players make the Hall of Fame. I'm not sure anything that prestigious is as selective. All little boys want to be a Major League Baseball players when they grow up (well, unless they're Canadian). This is the pinnacle and if you put it anywhere other than at #1, I'd appreciate you depart from my presence before I punch you in the throat.*

2. World Series Ring - there's no better sport than baseball. And there's no better baseball than October baseball. Win one of these and you'll never take it off.

3. Stanley Cup - if you win the Cup, you get your name etched in the Cup. That's cool, eh?

4. Baseball Triple Crown - only 16 players have achieved this feat, and no one since 1967. What other award has gone 41 years and counting without anyone receiving it?

5. Olympic Gold Medal - probably the most universally recognizable of sporting awards, but most people are going to laugh at you if you wear it for more than a week or two after you win it. It makes for a nice coaster in a pinch, though. Still, the fact that you can win one for rhythmic gymnastics (or any gymnastics, for that matter) keeps it from getting any higher on this list.

6. Heavyweight Championship Belt - people might be tempted to laugh at you for wearing this thing out in public. However, you can easily beat those people up. You can probably easily beat up pretty much anyone, for that matter.

7. Retired Jersey - getting a professional jersey is cool enough. Being as only 1.2% of baseball players make the Hall of Fame, having your jersey retired by a team is a pretty nice consolation prize. I realize they retire jerseys in other sports too, but I don't care.

8. Gold Glove - chicks dig the long ball, but defense is the new hotness. Plus, it's a glove made out of gold.

9. Heisman Trophy - great looking trophy, but now-a-days, if you win this thing you've pretty much peaked. And no one likes to peak at age 22.

10. Cy Young - this would've been higher if Roger Clemens didn't have so many of them - dirty cheater.

11. Baseball MVP - this would've been higher if Barry Bonds didn't have so many of them - dirty cheater.

12. Super Bowl Ring - winning a Super Bowl is undoubtedly great. But there are 53 guys on an active NFL roster and that number can balloon to 80 depending on the circumstance. When you're handing out at least 50 awards each year, the luster starts to wear off a little bit.

13. NBA Championship Ring - much smaller rosters in the NBA, but that also means there are more great players without one (sorry, Barkley). And Mark Madsen has two of these.

14. NBA MVP - Steve Nash has as many MVPs as Tim Duncan and more than Kobe Bryant. What a crock.

15. Bobblehead - unfortunately anyone can have their own bobblehead these days. The CEO of my old company has one. Lame.

16. Silver Slugger - you're the best hitter at your position. That's nice.

17. Wife-Carrying Trophy - real men support their wives.

18. Wheaties Box - would be higher if multiple gymnasts hadn't graced it.

19. NFL MVP - quickly name the last 5 NFL MVPs. Do it! Uh, yeah, I couldn't do it either.

20. Naismith Award - James Naismith invented basketball. I assume this award is for some sort of basketball achievement.

21. Final Four Net - true or false: I could buy a net at the store, cut it up, put a piece in a frame and you'd never know the difference. True. As we all know, the big prize in college athletics don't go to the players anyway.

22. Tour de France Yellow Jersey - they give this thing out every day during the event. Plus, anything given by the French is bound to suck (Statue of Liberty, excluded).

23. Little League World Series Trophy - cool when you're twelve, but by the time you reach college no one cares.

24. College World Series - unfortunately, I think even fewer people care about the College World Series than the Little League World Series.

25. BCS Championship - the BCS is a fraud. A real championship would easily jump up 10 spots on the list.

26. Frozen Four Championship - hockey is fun, but I don't think these guys get their name etched on a cup.

27. Pro Football Hall of Fame Bust - these things are just creepy. Plus, the voting system is a joke. Lynn Swann played for the Steelers in the 70's and made a couple spectacular catches, so he gets in. But Bob Hayes isn't in and Art Monk didn't make it until this year. Huh? Oh, and who was the moron who decided not to put a hat on Tom Landry's bust?

28. Wimbledon Cup and Platter - all we need from the British, we've already taken.


The rest of these aren't worthy of being included on any reputable list of sports accomplishments. In no particular order:

Soccer World Cup - I'm an American. I'm not a raving lunatic. I don't enjoy starting fires during games. I don't enjoy riots in the stands or in the streets. Look at those rioters running away. Cowards. I don't care about soccer. I will never care about soccer. Just because Europeans go nuts over it, doesn't mean it's great.

Cover of Sports Illustrated - Doesn't this usually portend failure?

Madden Video Game Cover - Doesn't this usually portend injury…or imprisonment?

WNBA Championship - I'm not a woman.

Fantasy League Championship - I prefer to root for teams, as opposed to some inconsequential cobble of players. Plus, I don't live in my parents' basement.

Sprint Cup - NASCAR isn't a sport. Even if it was, this is just a stupid trophy that has a sponsor's name on it. In 5 years this thing will be named after Viagra.

Indy 500 Milk Bottle - Indycar isn't a sport either, but at least these guys drive as fast as possible. Either way, this thing is just a regular bottle of milk with some lame label on it.


Golf-related awards:

Masters Green Jacket - I'm not a big fan of winning things in places that don't like Black people or women. But I think Happy Gilmore said it best, "Gold jacket, green jacket, who gives a s**t?"

British Open's Claret Jug - it's an ugly cup. And it's golf (also not a sport).

U.S. Open (golf) - still golf - and another cup!

Wanamaker Trophy (Golf) - another golf cup that looks just like every other golf cup. Yawn

Ryder Cup - a reeeeeally stupid looking trophy.


And finally, the stupidest of the non-sports awards:

World Series of Poker Bracelet - Aside from the fact that poker isn't anywhere close to being a sport; this is a bracelet. A bracelet. I suppose I could understand a woman wanting to win a nice bracelet, but what self-respecting man wants to wear a bracelet?


*Throat punch, Copyright © 2008 by Wealth of Nations, All rights reserved.

NCAA = Frauds Part II

A quote from a previous post had me intrigued so I did a little bit of research.

Roughly 95 cents of every dollar pocketed by NCAA will go to member institutions in support of student-athletes, says Greg Shaheen [the NCAA's senior vice president for basketball and business strategies]. USA Today

According to ESPN, CBS currently pays the NCAA $545 million a year for the rights to broadcast the Mens College Basketball Tournament. According to Shaheen the vast majority of those funds goes to the universities. The NCAA has an exceptionally convoluted method of allocating those funds. I don't fully understand it, but I can read Wikipedia, which has a nice summary. After the NCAA finishes with their fancy math they arrive at about $145 million in projected distribution across all the schools in the participating conferences.

Setting aside the fact that the schools that do better get more money, basically ensuring that the rich get richer, I just want to look at the actual numbers. I'm not certain if the $145 million refers to the entire distribution from NCAA tournament funds or just the 50% that is said to be distributed based on conference performance. Being the nice guy that I am, I'll give the NCAA the benefit of the doubt and say that $145 million is 50% of the total distribution. That would mean that the total distribution is $290 million.

Let's see. The NCAA gets $545 million each year from CBS and pays out $290 million total to all the schools. 95% of $545 million is about $518 million. $290 million < $518 million. $290 million is 95% of about $306 million. So where exactly is the rest of the money going? There is between $228 and $255 million ($518-$290 and $545-$290) unaccounted for in these numbers. If the $145 million value is taken as the entire distribution the numbers get even worse. Under that scenario we'd be looking at $370 to $400 million of missing money. Regardless of whether it's $400 million or just $228 million we're looking at some large stacks of cash.* It makes you wonder.

Hey, how much do you think a senior vice president of basketball and business strategies makes each year?

*Stacks of Cash, Copyright © 2003 by Señor Entropy, All rights reserved.

NCAA = Fraud

From USA Today

[The NCAA] is having its official ticket package provider, RazorGator, move large blocks of prime tickets online at markups of hundreds, even thousands, of dollars...

The tickets sold to RazorGator come from allocations reserved for public sale (22% of the tickets) and the association's use (10%). Tickets are also allotted to participating schools (35%), the local host committee (10%), the national basketball coaches' association (8%), college athletics directors (8%) and CBS and corporate sponsors (6%)...

Much of the public-sale allocation was distributed through a lottery for which prospective customers could purchase a maximum of two tickets. They could submit a maximum of 10 applications and be selected once.

Under a partnership that began last year, the NCAA allows RazorGator to purchase an undisclosed number of tickets...

The "much" in paragraph three is nonsense. I applied and was randomly selected to purchase two tickets for each of the Final Four games. According to the letter the NCAA sent me with my tickets the seating capacity of the Alamodome is 43,500. If 22% of seats were allocated to the general public, that is 9,570 tickets. However, in the letter it also says plainly that 4,600 tickets were allocated through the lottery. 4600/9570 = 48%. Less than half of the 22% does not constitute "much" in my mind. The rest of 22% is seemingly sold directly to RazorGator so they can resell them and split the profits with the NCAA. 22% to the general public is bunk. Selling only 10.5% of the total capacity to the public and 35% to the schools isn't commensurate with a collegiate sporting event. It's a corporate function.

Does the NCAA not make enough money off of the TV contracts as it is? Get rid of all the VIP (nonsense) allocations. In my opinion the allocation numbers should be more like 75% for the schools, 20% to the public and 5% to whoever else (prize winners, foreign dignitaries, make-a-wish kids).

For that matter, basketball games aren't meant to be played in domes. Move them back to actual basketball arenas. Yes, they probably won't make as much money and fewer State Farm Senior VPs will be able to go to the game, but at least the players will be able to play a game in a more natural environment.

Plus, given the NCAA's deal with RazorGator, they could play it in a real basketball arena and still make plenty of money. Just sell all the tickets to RazorGator and watch the profit roll in.

Finally...

Roughly 95 cents of every dollar pocketed by NCAA will go to member institutions in support of student-athletes, says Greg Shaheen [the NCAA's senior vice president for basketball and business strategies].

Really? Do the athletic programs really need the money? Wouldn't all this profit be better served in a general scholarship fund? I wish the Social Sciences program had a 43,000 seat tournament. Maybe then my student loans would be so outrageous.

Powder Blue? More like Powder Blow!

"...the San Diego powder blues are universally considered among the sweetest-looking sports uniforms ever"
~Gregg Easterbrook

No, no, no, one thousand times no. Powder blue is a weak, wussy color. Granted, the powder blue Charger unis aren't nearly as bad as those worn by the Denver Nuggets but they are still pretty bad.

This

is so much better than this

and it's not even close as far as I'm concerned.

Powder blue has thankfully been banished from other fashion realms,

if only our sports teams would do the same.

Timmy!

Good sports day. Derrek Lee was huge today (4-4, 2HR, 6RBI) and Corey Patterson came through in the clutch with a walk-off shot. Lee, a notoriously slow starter, is now batting .430 and has an OPS of 1.297. He's also on pace for 208 RBI. Highly unlikely he'll reach it, I know, but wouldn't that be something? Despite numerous injuries the Cubs are only 4 back of the Cards, who have been on an absolute tear of late. It's early and, like any good Cubs fan, I'm still confident that this will be the year of the Cubs.

In even better sports news; the Spurs bounced back big-time. This was total domination, holding Denver to just 76 points on 36% shooting. Meanwhile, San Antonio was nearly flawless. The FT shooting still isn't cutting it, but what's new? Duncan looked like his old self dropping 24 points in only 28 minutes, while handing out 5 assists and sending back 3 shots. The entire team was playing smart basketball, as evidenced by a 47% reduction in TO's from Game 1. There isn't much analysis to give other than to say San Antonio gave notice that one poor 4th quarter does not a series make. So stop your yelling K-Mart. Timmy just shut you up.

One last thing: Has there ever been a single word in the history of television that even comes close to being as funny as TIMMY!? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Van Spurs Van

Spurs choked big-time tonight. 10+ minutes w/o a FG is not going to get it done. Still, the defense was generally solid, holding Denver to under 42% from the field. However, they were careless with the basketball (17 TO's) and sent Denver to the line way too often. Nevertheless, Spurs fans should remain confident. Their team played about as poorly as possible in the 4th Q and they were still in it until the last minute. Timmy should only improve before next game and Brown is one step closer to returning, giving them another young body off the bench. While I typically loathe the extended scheduling in the NBA Playoffs, I welcome it for this series. The Spurs have 2 days off, which is 2 more days for Duncan to get his rhythm and 2 more days for Pop to drill the boys. It's great how careful analysis can turn a loss which never should've happened into a reason to be confident.