YACKETY YAK

The Definitive Super Bowl Primer --- updated, re-revised and re-reposted

2011-02-01T18:24:00.002-05:00

As we all know, the game can be won or lost long before the kickoff. You can’t afford to get distracted by all the hoopla surrounding the game in the two weeks leading up to it. There will be plenty of time to party after the game is over. The team that is better prepared, better disciplined, better coached and that has the better game plan will win.

But once the ball is kicked off, you can throw out all the notes, the film, and the Xs and Os because it basically comes down to execution. Football is a simple game of blocking and tackling, that is all. Which means neither team can afford to make mental mistakes or have blown assignments. It is all about execution---that is what playoff football is all about, and the team that executes better on that day will win.. If you gotta take it up a notch in the playoffs, you gotta take it up two or three notches in the Super Bowl. As Scrib50 reminded me the last time I posted this, it is important to emphasize that the players don't get caught up in the grandeur of the game and try to do too much... they have to remember to play within themselves. The defenders can't afford to go for the spectacular hit all the time---they have to make the sure tackle. The receivers have gotta make sure they catch the ball before they start turning upfield---you can't score a TD if you dont have the ball. The QB has to be calm even if his team is down---you cannot get it all back in one throw.

And what it all comes down to, every year, is that defense wins championships. The front four on the defensive line has to get pressure on the QB and hurry him, knock him down, disrupt the offensive rhythm, get into his head, send him a message that they will be in his face all day. You gotta stuff the run and you gotta get to the QB. You gotta create turnovers. One thing your defense absolutely has to do is get off the field on third downs.

And on the offensive side of the ball, you gotta make sure you establish the running game. If you can run, that takes the pressure off the QB and opens up the play-action pass, which means the defense can’t just pin their ears back and rush the QB. Plus you can bleed the clock and have the defense sucking wind by the fourth quarter. And of course, you have to convert third downs….which means that you have to have positive yardage on first and second downs….ending up repeatedly in third and long will usually mean trouble for you.

Therefore, particularly in big games where both teams are good and evenly matched, the battle is always won in the trenches. The unsung heroes are always in the offensive line. If the O line can give the QB time to look to his second and third reads, it could be a long day for the secondary. But all the offense in the world is no good if you cannot protect the football. As always, turnovers will kill ya. You can’t turn the ball over and expect to win championships. The team with the better turnover ratio will win. Also, you gotta avoid penalties, especially the stupid penalties that are caused by mental errors.

But protecting the ball is not enough to win; you gotta have great special teams play too. The special teams always play a huge role (or an uuuuuge role, if you’re Al Miracles) in determining the outcome of the game. A blocked punt or blocked field goal, or a muffed punt, or pinning the opponent inside their 5-yard line can completely turn the momentum around. Plus, special teams determine the outcome of that most basic of all football ‘game-within-the-game’ chess-matches---the field position battle. In all big games, field position will eventually determine the outcome of the game. Good field position can lead to an easy score and bad field position can lead to an ill-timed turnover.

You gotta remember that both teams have made it to the Super Bowl not by fluke but because they are good, battle tested, mentally tough teams that know how to win. That is why they are playing for the WORLD championship. So in the end it will come down to who wants it more. Who has the desire, the hunger, the stick-to-it-iveness, the refuse-to-lose mentality? Will the X-factors emerge on the biggest stage? Of course, one can never forget the intangibles.

In the end, it comes down to how the superstars and the play-makers play; great players make big plays in huge games on the grandest stage----that’s what playoff football is all about. The team that makes more plays will win. But all that having been said and done, nobody can contest this fact----when time runs out, the team with more points will be the champion.

NFL Playoff musings…

2011-01-16T07:10:00.000-05:00

I almost feel bad for the Ravens…almost…

They had this game halfway in their pocket. I’m sure the Ravens offense will get most of the blame and they deserve some of it for the key turnovers that changed the game in the third quarter. Flacco will get further heat for “coming up short in big games”...unfairly, I think, because he made two throws that could have changed the outcome. He found Boldin in the end zone and hit him in the chest with the football but Boldin dropped it. And he made a pretty amazing pass to TJ Houshmandzadeh on their last 4^th down….4^th and forever and he put the ball right on the money for 1^st down yardage and TJ dropped it. If Boldin makes the straightforward TD catch, they’d have been up by 4 (instead of tying the game with a FG) and the game may have been lost for the Steelers. With time running down in the 4^th quarter, (and especially against great defenses) mounting a successful drive with the score tied is easier than mounting a successful drive while down by 4 pts…in the former case a FG is meaningful and valuable, so the defense has to respect all options on the field and the offense can dictate terms better. If the Steelers had been down by four points, I seriously doubt Ben could have completed that pass to Brown…the safeties would have been sitting on the long routes and cared less about the underneath stuff.

BTW, while Brown made a great ‘helmet’ catch he also made it more exciting than it had to be. I looked at the replay several times online…Ben flings the ball about 60 yds downfield and drops it in just over the shoulder of Brown, in stride….that pass was damn close to perfect…as was Flacco’s pass to Boldin the end zone… but Boldin dropped it while Brown caught it, and I guess it is by such margins that games are won and lost and careers and reputations of QBs are made and broken.

Few things, sports-wise, give me as much pleasure as watching Aaron Rodgers play QB. And not just because of what I think of Brett Favre….Rodgers has been under unfairly intense pressure since day one and he has been great. I thought it was ridiculous that people picked on him for not winning a playoff game when on the only occasion he played in one he led the team to 45 points. But hey, the media is generally too busy making apologies for the Mannings of the world to care or notice…..

What Green Bay, and Rodgers, has accomplished this year is freaking amazing. Every time I feel bad about the Steelers having to deal with injuries on their O-line I remind myself that Green Bay is much worse off….and that they still find a way to kick some ass when it counts. That beatdown in Atlanta last night was sobering….I mean, I thought Green Bay could win but didn’t imagine in my wildest dreams that Atlanta could be dismantled like that at home.

The only thing that sucks about the NFL playoffs is that they go by so fast. But that’s also the beauty of the NFL…even with everyone’s (including their own) efforts to overexpose it, the games largely occur only once a week and the playoffs are single-elimination. This is why it remains so much fun….as opposed to baseball and basketball where the seasons are way too long and even the playoffs are painfully drawn out. The NFL is a great example of “less is more”….of course, the league members (and the networks) are doing everything they can to ruin that state of affairs but that’s another story for another day.

More toadying by the sports media…

2010-12-20T21:12:00.002-05:00

Before I go on to yesterday’s Giants debacle, a word on the Redskins’ and Shanahan’s latest game…..Sally Jenkins appears to be laboring under the misconception that yesterday’s performance by Rex Grossman validated Shanahan’s decision to bench McNabb. A good sports reporter/columnist/analyst should have known that one game does not mean jack squat. A couple of weeks ago, when Favre got injured on the Vikings’ very first offensive play, Tavaris Jackson came in and led the team to 38 points and an emphatic win over the Bills. 38 points was more than the Vikings had scores in their previous three games. This didn’t mean Jackson is better than Favre (even at this age) --- rather, if you follow the NFL, you’d know that QBs often have good outings against defenses who haven’t game-planned for them (or defenses who don’t have enough data…..film on the QB’s tendencies, esp within an offensive scheme). Let’s see how Grossman does in the NFC East after a D has had a week to prepare for him and esp after the Ds have had a few game films on him in Shanahan’s scheme. This is Grossman’s eighth year in the NFL and he has thrown for 37 TDs and 38 interceptions; even in his best year (the Bears superbowl season of ’06) he threw for 23 TDs and 20 INTs….he’s never even bettered a QB rating of 80 for any season… Grossman may turn out to be a decent QB yet, I suppose, but this one game against a mediocre Cowboys defense that was unprepared for him does not constitute evidence or validation of anything.

To me, the only things that were validated to me were that
(i) There is a powerful new bully in Washington and Sally Jenkins wasn’t gonna pass up an opportunity to kiss his ass and
(ii) This year’s Redskins amply demonstrate that Andy Reid is, as I always believed, a far superior football coach and thinker than Shanahan.

And now to another coaching bully, Tom Coughlin. I thought that there were so many layers to the Giants debacle yesterday but apparently it is entirely the punter’s fault. Who knew?

Stupidly, I thought
(i) That not anticipating an onside kick with the other team down 14 with like 7 mins to go was a colossal coaching blunder. The only downside to putting your hands team on the field at that time is that you start with modest field position. Besides, Andy Reid is looking at a team that has already put up 31 points on him and he figures he may need not two but three scores to be in the game, so he is almost definitely going to kick it onside....but what do I know? Peter King goes to great lengths in his MMQB column today, to make the case that it wasn’t Coughlin and his staff’s fault but rather the fault of the guys on the return team…. Poorly prepared players…hmmm… I’d think that’s poor coaching……. but what do I know?
(ii) I thought that not being able to generate a much needed first down in two consecutive series on offense within the last five minutes may have equally contributed to the Giants’ loss but then again the offense is led by the great hall-of-famer Eli Manning, so they can certainly not be at any fault, can they?
(iii) I thought that not having your team prepared to defend the punt (regardless of what the punter was asked to do) --- indeed, having a team ill-prepared to respond to crisis --- may be poor coaching….but what do I know?

After all, Coughlin courageously claimed to take full responsibility for the last play before he proceeded to throw his punter under the bus on national TV, so he must be a stand-up guy and a great coach. He did yell at the punter on national TV and ignored all the other players who were supposed to defend the play, so he must be a stand-up guy and a great coach. The players (offense and defense) didn't know how to do their jobs when it really counted, but he must be a stand-up guy and a great coach.

It is the credo of mediocre coaching bullies, and it is given credibility by toadying sports ‘journalists’ all the time….”Why take responsibility when you can make a convenient scapegoat?”

On Shanahan's genius

2010-12-19T09:31:00.002-05:00

Hopefully it is becoming more apparent to people that Mike Shanahan’s ‘genius’ is largely the creation of the incompetent and cheerleading sports media. Shanahan is, and always has been, a mediocre coach and a supreme asshole. He had a 3 to 4 year dream run in Denver that was almost completely attributable to the fact that he had John Elway and Terrell Davis. They won more than 75% of their games and won 2 Superbowl titles in that span. But if you look at the record you’ll see that Dan Reeves had a 4-5 year run (’84-’84, ’89) in Denver in which they also won over 70% of their games. Without a hall-of-fame caliber running back, I should add. I don’t see anyone calling Reeves a genius. Oh yeah, they lost 3 superbowls during Reeves’ tenure --- to legitimately great teams --- Parcells’ Giants, Gibbs’ Redskins and a 49er team that could arguably have been the best ever in the NFL. Shanahan’s Superbowl successes came against a Packer squad that just wasn’t mentally prepared to be repeat champs, and a clearly overachieving Falcon team that had no business being in the Superbowl in the first place. Ironically, that Falcon squad owed much of its overachieving success to its coach, Dan Reeves, who got them to the freaking Superbowl with those legends Jamaal Anderson at RB and Crystal Chandelier…errr… Chris Chandler at QB.

Anyway, more importantly, in the decade after Elway retired (and Davis was soon done in by injury) Shanahan managed to win about 57% of his games and recorded one playoff win. Ten years. 57%. One playoff win. Oh, did I mention that he had pretty much carte blanche over personnel decisions as well? Must be genius.

Funny too, how Washington’s struggles this year are now supposedly due McNabb’s inadequacies, huh? Quick…..name a Redskin WR or their starting RB. I’m not trying to say that McNabb is great ---he is clearly in decline--- but funny how the offensive geniuses of the Shanahans [Mike and (his nepotistic hire) offensive coordinator son Kyle] can’t fix things. I guess geniuses cannot win without hall-of-fame talent at all important skill positions.

You know what great coaches do? They repeatedly find ways to win important games with underdog rosters. Does that describe Shanahan? I don’t think so.

Finally, I also hold Shanahan primarily responsible for the whole Haynesworth fiasco. See, I have some sympathy for Haynesworth --- he is a problematic dumbass, but to his credit he has never presented himself as anything but a problematic dumbass. When Shanahan took over, he decided he would impose his despotic style and whip every one into submission from day one. Haynesworth, who had already been paid over $40 mill in guaranteed money, didn’t quite appreciate being pissed on. So he basically told him to fuck off. To be perfectly honest, in Haynesworth’s place, I would most likely have done the same thing. Great players often come with great egos. If I were signed to a $100 mil contract with over $40 mil in guaranteed money, I’d expect the incoming coach to treat me as an important part of the franchise too. Even a disciplinarian like Parcells used to have separate rules for players like LT --- Great coaches find a way to deal with, and bring the best out of, troublesome talent while despotic egomaniacs want everyone to kiss their ass in their prescribed manner.

Apropos of nothing, no self-respecting defensive lineman should show any respect or loyalty to Shanahan anyway. Shanahan made a career of perfecting the art of chop blocking without getting flagged. Shanahan’s O-lines always played dirty. It is one thing to push the envelope in game strategy but entirely another when the innovations are aimed at ending, or threatening to end, the careers of D-linemen. Dirty blocking is one of the primary reasons Shanahan could get a thousand yards out of any old RB. His early success as a coach and his premature elevation to genius status protected him from much of the calls and criticism that was due to him for the way his O-lines played.

All this is not to say that Shanahan won’t manage to have some winning seasons in Washington (the NFL is composed of two kinds of franchises: bad ones that never really win anything and good ones that go through cycles of prosperity and poverty; Washington belongs to the latter and they are wayyyyy overdue). But it won’t mean much if he does. As Norv Turner demonstrates week in and week out, year after year, teams in the NFL can find ways to win despite their head coaches. And at the first signs of Washington’s success, Mike will get his genius label back, Kyle will land a multi-million dollar head coaching job……and po-too-weet, and so it goes….

Just wondering...

2010-10-08T09:03:00.004-04:00

At the first whiff of the Tiger Woods scandal, every news outlet including all the major ones jumped on it. It was a feeding frenzy to behold. Of course, all the 'respectable' outlets delved into all the steamy details under the pretext of "Well, it is relevant because it is a major distraction and could affect his golf...."

Interestingly, for a while now Deadspin has had a developing story on Brett Favre in which they claim that the old gunslinger was trying his best to sling his gun at a pretty little thang who worked for the Jets. Deadspin even has some pretty interesting audio and visual data to back up their claim. Favre will be visiting the Jets for a big Monday night game. Yet, there is nothing......nothing from the mainstream/major news outlets about this story.

Of course, if no one brings it up it cannot be a distraction, so the point of relevance becomes moot, right? Of course the great American legend could be just as much of a sleazeball as your average next-door perv, but it is really none of anyone's business. Funny how that works.....

There is another thing....if they could get ratings out of this, all these outlets would still follow it pretty hard. I guess what they are all declaring is that a salacious story about a young superstar American icon will play really well with the American audience while a sordid story about an aging superstar American icon will just not play very well in most American households. The fact that the former is a colored man while the letter is a gray-haired white man has nothing to do at all with all of this, I'm sure. Nothing to see here, folks....move right along....

Free fallin'

2010-08-09T09:56:00.003-04:00

A little tribute to Tiger’s Woods’ game of late…

Anyway, the bottom line is that the man cannot make a 4 foot putt anymore. I noticed this at the Masters, and by the time the USOpen concluded I knew that his major problem was putting. All the other golf stuff will fall in line if he can make putts at will again. If you can make key putts, you never mentally check out or exhaust yourself; on the other hand, if you cannot make putts to save a hole from bad shots or to capitalize on good ones, you don’t much see the point in playing golf….or in keeping score, at any rate That’s where Tiger is right now. It is really as simple as that, and it always has been.

BTW, for those who constantly bitch and whine about the amount of coverage Tiger always gets on TV, this year should be proof of why. Let me add that I am frequently frustrated by the telecasts---I would like to see much of the rounds of at least the last 6 groups, instead of a few shots from one group followed by fluff pieces and commercials --- but it is fashionable for (prejudiced) people to whine about TV showing every Tiger shot all the time and this is what I’d like to address. This Tiger-centricity came about for 2 main reasons: (1) It’s what delivers viewers and so networks will stick with it. Viewership (and ultimately the mighty advertizing dollar) justifies all kinds of popular garbage on TV so why should it not justify attention on the most compelling player in golf? (2) Nobody delivered like Tiger. Nobody. And now that Tiger can’t break 70 if his life depended on it, nobody has stepped up to deliver. For the past 6 months, Tiger has basically offered up the World #1 ranking to anyone who may want to take it. There have been multiple instances where Mickelson could have won or finished really high and taken the mantle. This past weekend Westwood or Mickelson could have wrested the #1 ranking from Tiger just by finishing decently---combined with the fact that Tiger almost finished DFL (dead effing last). But they even screwed that up. Westwood had two bad rounds and then withdrew due to injury—the official news is that it was his calf but I’m guessing there was a bit of injury to the confidence there too. And Phil --- the man Tiger haters love to love --- the Great White Hope in the Tiger era --- the man who has all the tools to make a sustained run at the #1 spot --- Phil the thrill --- folded like a lawn chair yet again. Coming into Sunday, he was placed well at 10^th place or so, four shots behind the leaders, needing to climb up only to fourth place to finally get the #1 ranking in the sport. Tiger, having a disastrous week, had already finished his round with an abysmal 7-over par 77 well before Phil teed off. And Phil, with everything to gain --- the tournament itself, the #1 ranking, some great momentum going into next week’s PGA Championship --- lit up Sunday with a sterling 8-over par 78. Mind you, this was a day when the final leaderboard showed 11 of the top 14 finishers shooting rounds under 70, including two 64s, two 65s, a 66, and three 67s.

Sooooo, yeah. All the Tiger haters need to see, understand and accept what Tiger’s collapse has revealed. There is currently no #1 player in golf. Indeed, there hadn’t been for a while before Tiger showed up. And now that he is in stunning and incredible free fall, there is again no #1 player. There is no one who, with his skill and will on the course, can make this sport quite as watchable as Tiger did.

Sure, as Tiger continues to spiral down and as others continue in their spotty mediocrity there will soon be someone other than Tiger who is ranked #1. But undertand this: golf will, as it does now, have a #1 ranked player, but it will still be without a #1 player. Until Tiger returns…if he ever does. Or until some kid like McIlroy steps up and takes charge.

Haaaaaaaahahahahahahaha

2010-04-12T19:13:00.002-04:00

/

Rick Reilly opines that Mickelson's Masters win is a victory for women......

You know, at the place (Augusta National) where they consider women unworthy of membership.

I'm sure Rick thinks he totally, right on, nailed it too. Nice toadying, dumbass.

Landmark (and great) decision on patents involving DNA

2010-03-31T07:40:00.002-04:00

A landmark ruling that, I think, clarifies some of the confusion surrounding patents involving DNA. Some of the stuff in the article itself serves to illustrate confusion in peoples' understanding of what is/was/should have been patentable. The confusion boils down to a lack of understanding of the difference between 'invention' and 'discovery'.

From the NYTimes:

"A federal judge on Monday struck down patents on two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. The decision, if upheld, could throw into doubt the patents covering thousands of human genes and reshape the law of intellectual property."

I think this was a great ruling because the BRCA ('breast cancer gene') patents basically (I understand it) were for DNA that occurred naturally in living beings. Myriad Genetics claimed (like other companies have before) that isolating the gene transformed it chemically so it was now patentable. Shrewd lawyers and ill informed judges went along with that idea. But it was flawed from the beginning because Myriad patented the mutant version of the gene (which naturally occurred) and then got sole rights to test for those mutations (that naturally occurred in patients). There was no engineering human engineering involved that made that sequence unique and patentable. The exclusivity for the breast cancer test didn't arise from any technical innovation in the testing procedure --- just from the naturally occurring DNA sequence. Basically, they patented a discovery, not an invention. A lot of the 'gene' patents are fundamentally flawed for this reason: they are patents for discoveries, not inventions.

The NYTimes article goes on to say:

Such patents, it said, have been granted for decades; the Supreme Court upheld patents on living organisms in 1980.

The first part of this statement is somewhat true; but again, those patents were awarded incorrectly, due to some smart lawyering that muddied the facts about what was natural versus what was portrayed to be 'engineered'.

The second part of it was, at best, a bad example. The patent on living organisms that it refers to is one in which a microbe was engineered, using DNA that was also engineered, to be able to break down crude oil. There is no naturally occurring piece of DNA identical to that which was made and used for the engineering. Consequently, there is also no naturally occurring microbe that can break down crude oil in quite exactly the same way as that microbe --- and it is highly significant that the microbe's ability to break down crude oil is completely dependent on the engineering, and unnatural piece of DNA, that it possessed. The difference in this case, that made the DNA and the microbe patent-worthy, was that they were inventions not discoveries.

Anyway, coming back to the breast cancer gene patents---from related NYTimes article:

Although patents are not granted on things found in nature, the DNA being patented had long been considered a chemical that was isolated from, and different from, what was found in nature. But Judge Sweet ruled that the distinguishing feature of DNA is its information content, its conveyance of the genetic code. And in that regard, he wrote, the isolated DNA “is not markedly different from native DNA as it exists in nature.”

Way to go judge. Freaking nailed it!

This ruling is very significant because Myriad patented a discovery and charged patients a freaking ton of money for a simple test. They charge over $3000 for a test that shouldn't cost more than a twentieth of that. This ruling could open up a ton of competition for the simple test now, and hopefully bring down the cost of the test dramatically.

This should also set the standard for future patenting in biology. It is really not that difficult to determine invention vs discovery --- and award patents for the former and not for the latter.

A thought about Tiger's return

2010-03-16T19:25:00.005-04:00

Now that Tiger has announced he'll return at Augusta for the Masters, there is the usual cacophony from all sorts of media outlets about how this move is obvious/smart/arrogant/cowardly/calculating etc etc etc because Augusta is a 'safe' place --- they hold near-absolute control over the media credentials and the crowds...excuse me...patrons.

I expect that every one of the people who have been (and still are) accusing Tiger of arrogant and controlling will absolutely beat down the doors of Augusta National and the PGA Tour if they aren't allowed as many credentials as they want, or if they aren't allowed to ask any damn question they want at the pressers. Further, since Augusta doesn't require any of its participants to appear at pressers, if Tiger chooses to avoid any pressers (which he won't, but still) I trust that the entire media empire will arise and unleash their fury and vitriol on Augusta National and the PGA Tour for not making it mandatory that he ANSWER THEIR QUESTIONS DAMMIT!!!!!!

I would even think that, just like the Golf Writers of America boycotted Tiger's public statement a few weeks ago because he wouldn't answer any questions, at least some 'backboned' 'principled' sections of the the media will completely boycott the Masters if Augusta not accede to their requests re Tiger and pressers.

Oh wait....I forgot.....it is perfectly OK for a bunch of rich old white dudes to be totally controlling about every aspect of their existence and message, discriminate as they wish as re their membership, and conduct their tournament by their own rules even if those rules are different from the requirements for every other golf tournament in the world....their invitational tournament will still be sanctioned by international golf bodies and they will all be referred to in hushed and reverent tones by the very same media assholes all the time....even if the Masters took a giant dump on their community once by telling CBS who it can and cannot assign for Masters coverage....ask Gary McCord about his fellow journalists' integrity....!

On the contrary, however, if a supremely gifted athlete ascends, by virtue of his talent, hard work and sheer force of will, to the pinnacle of the sport and popularize it like no one before....and generate unprecedented revenue for every one associated with the sport....if he should want to control his life and his message to his will and desire, then he is to be absolutely and endless vilified in every form of media possible....because the media are about integrity and morality, right?

A glimpse into the corridors of financial power

2010-03-04T16:58:00.003-05:00

A good read from Vanity Fair....Larry Fink's $12 trillion shadow.

Excerpt that I found particularly interesting:

He now says he lost money at First Boston because no one really understood the risks involved. The computer systems were inadequate, and so were the programs that measured the impact of key variables such as changes in interest rates. “We built this giant machine, and it was making a lot of money—until it didn’t,” Fink says. “We didn’t know why we were making so much money. We didn’t have the risk tools to understand that risk. It’s what I tell everybody today: you should analyze your portfolio just as much when you are making money, because you could be taking on too much risk.”

Seared by his fall from grace at First Boston, Fink vowed never again to be in a position where he did not fully understand the risks he was taking in the market. What Fink had also come to see during his years at First Boston was how little his clients—pension funds, corporations, state and local governments—understood about the risks they were taking. Indeed, he says they were almost completely dependent on Wall Street firms to measure their risk—which was something, he knew from experience, that Wall Street did poorly. And so he decided to build a company that would not only invest money for clients but offer them sophisticated risk management too.

Worth taking the time to read the whole thing.

Media insanity re Tiger, Part duh.

2010-02-21T20:28:00.000-05:00

I had asked, in a couple of my previous posts, why journalists were so upset that Tiger Woods would not entertain questions during his public statement yesterday. Of course, I thought the statement to be unnecessary but a sad inevitability as well. But anyway, my point was that there wasn’t much golf-related to ask Tiger and the rest of the stuff with his personal life was nobody’s business but his family’s….so what did these people want to ask Tiger that could be relevant and not tabloid?

ESPN.com writer Jason Sobel has boldly ventured forth, and actually listed 10 questions that he’d have liked to ask Tiger. Now, luckily for Jason and the rest of the world, it just so happens that I have the answers to most of his questions, and I’m willing to provide them completely free of charge. So quit thanking me profusely and read the damn answers already…..

(Sobel’s questions in bold type, and my answers, bold as they may be, in regular type…..)

Q: Where was Elin?

A: None of your damned business.

Q: What happened on Nov. 27, 2009?

Well, whatever is deemed to be public record is available from the respective police dept. Beyond that, the details of the events are none of your damned business.

Q: Why the prolonged silence?

Didn’t much feel like talking, and was pretty busy with rehab. In case you don’t know, rehab people run a pretty tight ship.

Q: How come questions weren't allowed?

Because I said so. Feel free not to attend my future press conferences or golf events if you are too miffed by this.

Q: What is his addiction?

A: Ever heard of doctor-patient confidentiality? Well, doctors have to adhere to it but patients have a right to it. So I guess my answer is, “None of your damned business”.

Q: Will there be changes in Team Tiger?

Are you willing to reveal to me the intricate goings on regarding any and all sensitive impending policy decisions and management changes etc at ESPN? No? I guess, what I’m saying is that my answer is, “None of your damned business”.

Q: Why hold the speech at PGA Tour headquarters? Why leak driving range photos?

Why not? And wouldn’t you allow that driving range photos are better than driving photos under the circs? Would you not put your best foot forward?

Q: When will he return to competitive golf?

OK, finally a legitimate question.

But it was answered. Tiger said he is not sure when he’ll return. Sorry that he couldn’t schedule his rehab around your desire for a firm timeline to make money off his talent.

Q: Has he been suspended by the PGA Tour?

Another legit, and actually great, question. But one that could have easily been posed to the Commish, Tim Finchem, who has been chatting up a veritable storm to you guys of late…I mean, on TV, in print, you name it…

Q: What would Earl say?

A: Sigghhhh….at the risk of sounding repetitive, but in the interest of preserving the integrity of what principles of newsworthiness may remain….”NONE OF YOUR DAMNED BUSINESS”.

Thank you, Thank you….

My take on Tiger's statement

2010-02-19T19:08:00.003-05:00

What I just left as a comment on Comrade PhysioProf's all too cynical thread....

Nobody but Tiger can know the true motivation behind his actions and the timing thereof. Those who choose to take the cynical viewpoint are just as justified, a priori, as those who choose to give him the benefit of the doubt.

If one has to go by the available evidence, however, it appears that Tiger is trying seriously to get help and is trying desperately to save his relationship with his family. If he were to apologize just to keeping his shilling revenue alive and well, he could have gone a very different path. He could have already done the things the so-called experts have called on him to do, including crying on Oprah and all that crap. He could have come out with such a statement much earlier, when the media and golf powerbrokers were clamoring for it. I am sure he could have saved the Accenture sponsorship if he he danced to their tune—you really think they didnt try to get him to do some such apology-dance-talkshow-circuit-shit so that they wouldn’t have to completely re-invent their entire ad campaign, including removing his likeness from every airport and thousands of billboards, overnight?

Anyway, his statement today, in content, tone and timing, is highly indicative of a man following something akin to a 12-step program. I think this is why Tiger’s agent indicated that the timing of this was not entirely upto them. It appears that Tiger is at a stage of his therapy where he needed to apologize, openly, categorically and unconditionally, to everyone he may have hurt. This is what he did, and he has gone back to resume his rehab.

In my opinion, if he weren’t following a therapy strategy laid out by a medical professional, he could have eschewed this kind of statement and highly publicly humbling scenario—he could have apologized to his family and friends in private and apologized to his fans and followers on his website via a video statement or whatever. And then started playing golf. Let me reiterate what I’ve said before—he could have done no public apologies, and his endorsements would have been back in force when he started winning again. Corporate America has shown repeatedly that it has no ethic—when he started commanding eyeballs to TVs again, they’d gladly whore themselves to him again.

All the events of the past 2 months or so, culminating with today’s announcement, indicate that Tiger appears to be following a therapeutic regimen, and his priority appears to be to save his marriage and personal relationships.

Stop Breaking the News - In which I take on Selena Roberts

2010-02-19T10:46:00.007-05:00

OK, this is getting to be even more entertaining than I'd bargained for. First there was all the caterwauling about Tiger stealing the thunder from a golf tournament.

Now it gets better. Selena Roberts of SI.com claims that Tiger Woods, by scheduling his announcement for today, is ,"stealing the spotlight from feel-good (Olympic) games". Selena's article is so remarkably stupid, on so many counts, that I feel compelled to respond to it.

Firstly, I didn't realize (and I think neither did Tiger) that he needed to cross-check his calendar with every other significant event in the world and schedule his announcement accordingly. I guess he should have had the sensitivity to schedule his announcement sometime after the NCAA tournament, after hockey season, after the NBA season, before NFL training camp, and at 2 am on a Tuesday morning so as to cause minimal disruption to whatever pathetic golf event was being held that week. Thank you, golf scribes, bitter PGA pros and Selena Roberts for pointing out how freaking inconsiderate and egotistical Tiger really is.

Secondly, it seems to have chapped Selena's ass too that Tiger will not entertain questions at his announcement today. What questions would you like to ask, Selena, that are relevant to Tiger's golf, that will not embarass him and his family any further? Or would you like to get a Ken Starr-esque play-by-play of who he banged and how he did it, so as to enrich the lives and the essential knowledge-base of the world at large? And because that would be the right thing for Elin and the kids, y'know? Right?

Thirdly, I didn't realize that the 'feel-good' for an Olympic games constituted some Americans winning gold medals. Because, you know, I might have been thrown off by the fact that the Olympic movement has become the examplar for corruption, politics and the fine art of putting whipped cream on a turd. I, for one, have been disgusted by these Olympics. The lead story should be the arrogance of the Olympic committee in not listening to serious concerns and complaints about their dangerous tracks, an arrogance that has already led to the loss of a young and promising life. Oh, I forgot.....it was not an American life, so it doesn't impinge on the feel-good-ness of these Olympics for you, huh? The second lead should have been about how tens of millions of dollars were spent in importing snow for these games, so that, you know, you'd have your feel-good fortnight, at a time when such money could have been used to far better effect in any of many efforts starting with, say, the relief effort in Haiti. The third lead should be the absolutely disgraceful commercialization of the event as well as its TV coverage (by your fellow 'journalist' community, no less) that has resulted in the complete betrayal of the very athletes whose cause you claim to speak for. If you want someone to give these winter athletes a break, maybe you should get your bosses to show some of these events live, or at least at a decent hour so people could watch them, and preferably without sandwiching each minute of actual sport within five minutes of advertizing filth. Then we'll talk. But anyway. You keep right-on feeling good there, now, y'hear?

Fourthly, Selena, you have the gall to use the Olympics (and comments by Jacques Rogge) to pass judgment on Tiger's Woods' sex life? I mean, SERIOUSLY? Here's a tip from an amateur investigative journalist---go ahead and do a Google search for the terms "Olympics and condoms". Are you aware that, like for the Beijing Games, the Vancouver Games are also arranging to hand out approx 100,000 condoms to the participants this year? Don't believe me? Look here, and here, and here, for instance. That translates to about 14 condoms for each player, trainer, official and coach in the Olympic Games. Given the reality of what clearly transpires at the Olympics, handing out condoms is clearly the smart public health move. But then Rogge thinks that Tiger failed becuase he "likes their athletes to be good role models for youngsters"? Are you fucking kidding me? Look, I don't care if the entire Olympic village bursts out into a Caligula-worthy fuck-fest and orgy every night....that is the prerogative of the athletes there...but I do think that such rampant sexual behavior eliminates anyone associated with the Olympics from having any authority to comment on the sexual mores of somebody else.

So, Selena, when you decided to pile onto the assault on Tiger using your Olympics angle, did you do so in the full knowledge of exactly how 'feel-good' the Olympic games really were, or did you just employ your trademark oversight and sloppiness in the haste to make a name for yourself at Tiger Woods' expense. You know, like you did with the Duke lacrosse case. Or with the Alex Rodrigues book.....

And you call yourself a journalist. Shame on you.....

Can you feel the Tiger hatred?

2010-02-18T19:47:00.011-05:00

Tiger Woods will be giving his first public comments tomorrow after his stunning fall from grace, and the haters are out in force. The schadenfraude is so thick you can almost see it.

There have been myriad comments by various ‘journalists’ over the past three months about what Tiger should have done and how he should have done it. There is apparently a lot of hand-wringing and caterwauling about the nature of his appearance tomorrow (no questions will be allowed---no fair---waaaaah) as well as its timing (he’s taking the spotlight away from a marquee tournament just to get even with Accenture---waaahhhhh---no fair!). Let me get this out of the way for writers and touring PGA pros who have a problem with Tiger’s timing---Shut The Fuck Up. Listen to yourselves. If Tiger can upstage a world Golf Championships event by holding a public announcement, what does that say about the state of your game or the practitioners and consumers thereof? You want people to pay attention? Play better. Sack up and show the world a game that will capture its imagination and entrance it. That’s what Tiger did---he didn’t get his popularity by sprinkling pixie dust on the world or by spewing forth from the loins of privilege. He earned it with his game. The biggest talk that ever came out of his camp was done by his clubs. You want a better spotlight? Earn it.

As for the nature of the presser---so what? Journalists are all atwitter about not being able to ask questions at a presser? When did this happen? As I recall, everyone was pretty happy when administrations did this while leading our country into a trumped up war and unimaginable debt…..none of these scribes seemed to speak up then. A lot of tournament golf is sponsored by the banking and investment industry that sold our economy down the river….I don’t remember any golf scribes asking any of these institutions about their ethics or morals or anything else for that matter….. golf scribes and powerbrokers have been more than happy to be whores to corporate interests for as long as I can remember…..where is this newfound journalistic ethic coming from when it comes to Tiger’s private life? Besides, what questions do you expect Tiger to answer? Other than to his family, he owes no one anything. If you don’t like it, don’t go listen to him. Simple.

Why should Tiger be any more public now than he has ever been? Pretty much every one that I have read or heard seems to agree that Tiger has betrayed his wife and children and that he needs to apologize profusely to them. Then why do these same people want him to answer a multitude of questions about his lurid escapades? How is that even remotely respectful to his family? What purpose is served by playing out Tiger’s infidelities in even greater public and prurient detail? You feel badly for his wife and kids? Then leave them the hell alone----don’t pretend that Tiger has some obligation to the world to publicly humiliate his family any more than he already has.

I am quite disappointed that Tiger is even holding some sort of an apology presser tomorrow. I knew it was inevitable---but I am disappointed nonetheless. I really hoped that he’d sort out his home life and then, when ready, just start playing again. At the first tournament back, I thought, he could field general questions about this issue but just fend off anything personal and keep it focused on the impact on the game. Just keep the message simple---‘Yeah I screwed up badly, but none of the details are your concern. I am sorting it out with the people who matter in that regard’.

Anyway, let one thing be clear---much of this backlash against Tiger is not new. It is not a response to his ‘betrayal’---Tiger’s behavior just gave these sentiments an excuse to get aired. There has been a ton of Tiger resentment for as long as he has been on tour. You see, Tiger committed the ultimate sin, one that about many cannot ever forgive him for even if they can’t admit it---he not just entered but dominated a world of white male privilege. And a part of this nation always hated him for it. They hated the fact that he was so good. They hated the fact that he proved them wrong at every turn. When he came out on tour, the white male privilege establishment sneered (“It’s a different game out here, as the kid will find out…haw haw haw….”). They hated him for his frankness when he was winning and he claimed not to have his ‘A’ game---they called him arrogant---till he showed them at the 97 Masters and the 2000 US Open what his ‘A’ game was….They hated the fact that he fought just as hard to make the cut when playing badly as he did to win when playing well. They hated the fact that he won more times in a year than most of them had won in their careers. They hated the fact that if Tiger played his best, nobody else stood a reasonable chance of winning. But most of all, they hated the fact that while Tiger had all the physical gifts to excel at golf, his dominance sprung from his mental superiority. The white male privilege establishment would grudgingly concede that people of color could be good athletes, but they’d never concede that they could be mentally superior to the point of dominance. They subscribed to the old ‘blacks cannot play quarterback’ mentality and Tiger destroyed that world like no one before.

But something else also happened…..Tiger so captured the public imagination with his golfing feats that the money in golf exploded. And the golf world had to genuflect to Tiger. Suddenly, a touring pro made more money for a 10th place finish than he had for winning the tournament a few years back. If you could hold on to your tour card for a couple of years, you could retire comfortably on your earnings….even if you didn’t win a single tournament. Golf was suddenly cool…..the USOpen in primetime could beat the Yankees-Sox in ratings when Tiger played. Everyone, from the pros to the scribes, cashed fatter checks for achieving less, and at some level they were all happier for it. But on another level, I bet it tore them up. I bet it tore them up that most of them knew they were playing for second place if Tiger entered the tourney. I bet it tore them up that every time they bought newer, fancier cars or houses they realized that they were finishing lower and lower on the money list nevertheless. I mean, Tiger could have lined up all these old-world pros, scribes and powerbrokers of golf and chopped off their nuts with pruning shears on live TV and he wouldn’t have emasculated them any more thoroughly than he did with his golf clubs on the very fairways, greens, clubhouses and corporate tents that were, for the most part, forbidden to people of color.

So anyway, Tiger finally gave the white male privilege establishment an excuse to vent a dozen years’ worth of accumulated frustration and resentment, and they’re doing that now. And they’re looking suitably and predictably impotent and stupid while doing it too.

UPDATE:

Haaaaaahahahahaha......The Golf Writers Assn of America will be boycotting Tiger's statement---sorta---they will not participate as pool reporters. Good. That should silence Tiger's message!! The Golf channel or every network will not carry it live, correct? Millions would not tune in if Tiger simply did the whole thing by streaming it on his website, correct? Let the pompous douchebags boycott it---maybe they'll finally realize the insignificance of their toadying positions in this information age.

They are upset that Tiger controls his message----I got some news for them---every powerful person does. It's not like Peyton Manning or Brad Pitt or Bill Gates accedes to every request from every self-important media asshole. Every single human being who is in a position to dictate terms does so. Why should Tiger be different? Well, he is different because even most celebrities receive maybe a thousand requests a day and have to say 'no' about 999 times.....Tiger receives a million requests a day and has to say 'no' a thousand-fold more. Media douchebags need to realize that just because attention whores like Brett Favre and John Daly choose to live out their life in public along the plotlines of a bad country-western song, it doesn't mean that every celebrity should do the same.

So, GWAA, fuck off! And come crawling back when Tiger starts playing golf again, because maybe you'll realize that your job is to report on stuff and provide decent analysis if you can, not moralize on it. In case you didn't realize it, idiots, if it weren't for some PGA rules and requirements, Tiger Woods probably wouldn't give you guys ANY interviews or statements during the normal course of events. He does not need you----people watch him for what he does and there are a million ways now to provide people that access. You need him---his image, his words, his deeds--- to sell copy, to justify your circulation, so you can whore yourselves out to your advertisers. Capisce?

And I’d like Science doping analogies for $1000, Alex.

2010-01-13T22:31:00.007-05:00

Once again, shamelessly leeching off DrugMonkey’s brainwaves….

Science doping confessions I’m afraid we’ll be hearing:

Yeah, I fudged stuff. I withheld some data that was relevant, that kinda disproved my hypothesis to begin with. So it a got a coupla papers published, but there was nothing false in any of them. I mean not a thing was technically untrue. OK, so I more than fudged stuff --- maybe a coupla times I kinda made up stuff. What? Fabricated data? Noooo, that sounds so harsh, dude. Just, you know, kinda extended the results beyond the limits---to, in my mind, the logical conclusion that people were too dumb to see yet. But hey, I never did it in a paper, OK? Or even a conference. Just in some grant apps, y’know. Just to tide me over---it looked like some grants may not be renewed so I just got a little help to get back on the field, man. I mean, there were people counting on me---students, postdocs, techs, admins…..the pressure was tremendous….the responsibility I felt was enormous. Besides, these grant apps were reduced to like 12 pages, so it all basically came down to my resume. It wasn’t like there was even room to provide prelim results to give the reviewers a proper eval of the data even if we had them. It was my word against some rookie’s, and I KNEW in my heart we were correct so does that really count as cheating? And you know the fans loved me. So all I had to do was provide enough stuff for them to continue to like me. I mean, the system was set up for me to be a star, man…..who was I to go screw that up? I mean, I'm not that arrogant….just a guy who’s doing his bit for the greater good, y’know? That’s all, man. I just did it to stay in the game, to get the grants. I never faked it in the papers, man, never. Because I’m pretty sure the stuff I made up was true anyway. I mean, I didn’t really need the fabrication --- just saved some time and got me back in the game y’know. Just couldn’t afford to have funding gaps there, guys. Too many people depending on me. Way too much pressure.

So in summary, I’m really sorry for my transgressions but I hope that you will agree it wasn’t really pertinent to my overall body of work. This has nothing to do with my upcoming candidacy for the NAS or the Lasker or even the Nobel prize. I just feel bad having kept my family in the dark about this minor misdemeanor I had in the grant app process (which was, ultimately, for the greater good, in my opinion, because of my opinion of the importance of my contribution---just so you don’t lose sight of all that) and I thought it was time I came clean. I think it is important for aspiring scientists to know that fraud doesn’t pay. I’ll be happy to reply to all comments from Stockholm.

Update: I can’t understand why my confession has generated such a kerfuffle and fuss. I mean, people are bandying about my name with ‘fabrication’ and stuff and it was never like that. We just enhanced our results a bit for the grant apps, made sort of a ‘proposal enhancement data’ (PED) set if you will---think of it as supplements, man. But the PED don’t run gels or generate spectra or clamp any freaking patches (haha they certainly don’t do any real work---c’mon that’s funny in layers, admit it!) or write any grants or navigate Grants.gov (or help you deal with the Pure Edge crap back in the day) for you, you know? You still need the hand-eye coordination and God-given talent to do that. And why pick on me? People have been using all kinds of ‘supplements’ for ages. I mean, I know for a fact that many a grant proposal or paper has been written under the influence of mfing Jameson, or a hot cup of sake, or maybe even a toke of the hippy lettuce. What of those performance enhancers? I mean, is it OK if your grants and papers were sativa-ed as long as the source was Oryza or Cannabis? I was just part of the era of strangulation of funding (I mean, it’s a doc eat doc world out there and I was wearing R21 underwear) and I did what I needed to, to keep myself and my team in the game.

'Roid confession I'd like to hear

2010-01-12T16:20:00.008-05:00

Picking up from Bikemonkey's most excellent rant...

Here's the 'roid confession I'd like to hear one of these days:

Yeah, I did steroids and HGH. I'm not proud of it, but I did it.

And it pisses me off that all of you people are getting all freaking high and mighty over me because of this. The hell with you all. The writers knew something was going on. The managers knew something was going on. The owners knew something was going on. The fans knew something was going on. What....a record stands for 40 years without anyone getting close to it and suddenly it gets broken 5 times in 3 years, and you all seriously thought it was because of better fucking Ovaltine? Players who could barely hit 50 HRs per season suddenly started increasing their output by 30 or 40% and it was all hunky dory? And oh, coincidentally, players were getting freakishly bigger and looking like they were cut out of granite---you thought that was because of better colon cleanse and vitamins? Fuck off, you sanctimonious bastards. The fans loved the entertainment, the owners loved the profits, and suddenly I'm the numero uno bad guy? Are you fucking kidding me?

I did it because, frankly, pretty much everyone did something or the other. I belong to a sport that invented and lives by the credo, "If you're aren't cheating, you aren't trying". I started looking around one day and realized that I could either do something to keep up or risk losing my multi-million dollar job. Yeah, I know there was theoretically a third option---to blow the whistle. Sure--and then I'd be obliterated by the system, be the poster boy for pariahs in this nation and be left at a point where I wouldn't be employable even as assistant crack-whore. Why sure, where do I sign up for that? We live in a country where pretty much everyone with half a functioning brain knew that the entire basis for the Iraq war was bullshit, yet no one stopped it and years and trillions of dollars later we're still in it. If human history has taught us one thing it is that when cabals of rich, powerful fuckers want something they usually end up getting it, and if you try to stop them you usually get destroyed. In this case, there was too much money at stake for anyone involved in the business to do anything meaningful about cheating. That's just the way it was. Everyone talks about the players profiting from it---but everyone, including the millionaire superstar 'journalists' who cover the sport, had something to gain, financially and otherwise. And the fans, ever looking for the next high, couldn't care less---they were intoxicated with the entertainment. Attendance, TV revenues, sponsorships, endorsements, all went through the roof.

So yeah, I'm not proud of what I did. But quit sitting there and moralizing on me. I'm just a product of this wonderfully putrid system folks. Besides, WERE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?
And as for the sanctity of records, may I remind you that many of these damn records were set when colored folk weren't even allowed to play in the major leagues. So yeah, so much for your fucking sanctity and your damn asterisks.

I did what I needed to do, in the age that I played in. So if you think I belong in the Hall of Fame, great. I'll be happy to oblige and keep the circus going to everyone's profit. But of you decide to not let me in the HOF, I ain't losing any sleep either. In the information age, you can't threaten me with historical obsolescence, folks. In the YouTube and Twitter age, you think I give a crap about having a plaque in some shithole in NY? Every time people Google "XYZ baseball record" they come up with my name whether you bunch of gasbag writer voters like it or not. There was a time when election into the HOF would've meant an almost essential financial lifeline well into retirement. Not so much anymore, folks---the eight figures (before the decimal point) in my various bank accounts make for a pretty damn comfortable retirement, thank you very much.

I am sorry it had to be like that. But there's not a lot I could've changed, and not many of you in my place would have done differently either. Quit moralizing and get the hell over it.
Buh-bye now.

NFL Playoff Musings Part 1 – Free advice for Andy Reid and the Eagles

2010-01-06T21:01:00.000-05:00

Here are some relevant stats from the Eagles games this season. All stats obtained from the links from this page at Pro-Football-Reference.com.

Let’s start with the WINS:

Week 1 vs Carolina : 29 Pass Attempts, 32 Rush Attempts

Week 3 vs Kansas City : 36 Pass Attempts, 27 Rush Attempts

Week 5 vs Tampa : 24 Pass Attempts, 21 Rush Attempts

Week 7 vs Washington : 26 Pass Attempts, 27 Rush Attempts

Week 8 vs NY Giants : 23 Pass Attempts, 24 Rush Attempts

Week 11 vs Chicago : 33 Pass Attempts, 30 Rush Attempts

Week 12 vs Washington : 36 Pass Attempts, 29 Rush Attempts

Week 13 vs Atlanta : 27 Pass Attempts, 26 Rush Attempts

Week 14 vs NY Giants : 28 Pass Attempts, 24 Rush Attempts

Week 15 vs San Fran : 36 Pass Attempts, 33 Rush Attempts

Week 16 vs Denver : 35 Pass Attempts, 28 Rush Attempts

Aaaaand here’re the LOSSES:

Week 2 vs New Orleans : 52 Pass Attempts, 22 Rush Attempts

Week 6 vs Oakland : 46 pass Attempts, 14 Rush Attempts

Week 9 vs Dallas : 30 Passs Attempts, 24 Rush Attempts

Week 10 vs San Diego : 56 Pass Attempts, 13 Rush Attempts

Week 17 vs Dallas : 36 Pass Attempts, 10 Rush Attempts

It was this last game that prompted me to look up these stats. I saw about 3 qtrs of that game and I was disgusted. The Eagles had a lot to gain by winning this game---the NFC East title, a bye week and a home playoff game against, most likely, Arizona---a team that would find it difficult to play in Philly in Jan. And in the first half, Philly ran the ball 5 times. And everyone was mystified as to why they were teeing off on McNabb successfully. 10 freaking rush attempts in a game? Every now and then Reid just freaking loses his mind.

Anyway, I have been over this before, after Philly’s playoff exit last year.

1) Run the damn ball

2) Don’t give up on the running game; it helps your defense too, y’know.

3) Most of the time, if your Pass : Run ratio exceeds, say 1.4 : 1, say hello to another loss

4) Most of the time, nothing good happens when you chuck the ball over 40 times a game.

Then again, what do I know? It’s not like I’m an ‘offensive genius’ like Gruden or Shanahan or the many analysts on the ESPN/CBS/FOX/NBC payrolls (aptly titled, I think, as I find their ‘genius’ to be largely offensive).

I'm shocked, shocked I tell ya!

2009-12-23T16:33:00.005-05:00

What does the collection of human embryonic stem cell lines currently available for research have in common with ScienceBlogs?

This.

I think there may be a (free) registration step involved so here's the gist, excerpted:
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hESC lines lack diversity

12/22/2009

Tracy Vence

Researchers at the University of Michigan were surprised to discover such little diversity in the most widely used human embryonic stem cell lines, and have declared their findings a case of social injustice.
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NIH grants are not gifts and science is not welfare

2009-12-19T07:53:00.002-05:00

Picking up from a DrugMonkey post (and from links and discussion therein --- though the context should be independently clear here…..)

Much like in the allusions made in DM’s post and consequent discussions, there is a common misconception that NIH grants are somehow ‘gifts’ or ‘free money’ or handouts that ‘subsidize the scientist’s lifestyle’. These phrases are lifted from those discussions but I have heard the same phrases (or their equivalents) used many times in general discussions on science and funding. I have also seen, frequently, the contrast made between ‘grants’ and ‘contracts’ in that the former is a good-faith effort with no fixed deliverables whereas the latter is a legal agreement with penalties for default. Finally, I have seen people who defend the NIH-granting system try to justify it as essentially being a system of contracts or being for-fee services when one really thinks about it.

Not to be framing anything here, but I believe the best analogy for NIH grants is investment capital, and it would serve us all well to look at it and think about it in that fashion. Think about the NIH as a venture capital firm that has a really large portfolio. It makes calculated bets on a really large number of projects with a view to a two-fold return on investment: i) Increasing the body of scientific knowledge, and thereby ii) Generating advances in healthcare and medicine.

Like the portfolio of any other good investment firm the NIH portfolio is diverse. It has projects that have a high probability of success, and projects that incur high risk but promise high reward. Like any other portfolio, some investments work out beautifully in a short amount of time, others have promise but need a longer-term perspective, and yet others crap out. Like with other investment firms, it takes a serious amount of effort, justification, planning and demonstration of competence (or the strong prospect thereof) to obtain funding for one’s project. Also like with other investment firms, if you get funded once and do not deliver on your goals, your chances of getting money a second time become slimmer. Conversely, if you get funded once and hit the project out of the ballpark, your chances of getting funded in the future get better.

There are, of course, key differences:

The NIH is unlikely to dissolve your project and lab at short notice to get a convenient tax write-off in a tough year.

Even if you do succeed wildly with a succession of NIH grants (or even one really good one), it is unlikely you will become a multi-millionaire and retire by the age of 50 or something like that. One great success in this system does not ensure that generations of your progeny will live in decadent comfort --- even if your success directly leads to technology and IP that creates a multi-billion dollar industry.

The NIH investment portfolio is geared to generate returns in the form of enhanced public health, not money. But while it is not explicitly geared to generating returns in the form of money, it does contribute enormously in an economic sense. Whether in the pharmaceutical and drug industries, or in the medical device and technology industries, or in the food, nutrition and exercise industries, or in a myriad such areas really, the contribution of NIH-funded research is virtually indispensable. Don’t believe me? Do this thought experiment, and feel free to consult a variety of industry leaders when doing so---shut down all NIH generated information for a year and see what effect it has on the economy.

And finally, the NIH portfolio is so large and so interconnected, the projects so collaborative just by the nature of information and material exchange, that even apparent ‘failure’ projects often yield returns --- in that information is published, and that one never knows what piece of datum will be of great relevance at any given point in time, there are very few true failures. As a collective portfolio, the return it delivers to the people by way of advances in healthcare is tremendous. I have quoted this before and will again (there are many examples of the public benefit of NIH research but this is my favorite because it is, in the end, so all-encompassing)…Quoted from the then NIH director’s budget request for 2007----“The estimated total cumulative investment at the NIH per American over the past 30 years including the doubling period is about $1,334 or about $44 per American per year over the entire period. In return, Americans have gained over six years of life expectancy and are aging healthier than ever before.”

So $44 per year gets the average American an additional 2.4 months per year in life expectancy. Again, the NIH is not solely responsible for this but it has been and still is the chief driving force behind this kind of advancement in public health. The past 30-year record shows that a dollar invested by the NIH goes a long way towards buying you and me about two days’ worth of life, and a healthier life at that.

Some hand-out to all those researchers, eh? Or maybe just a pretty freaking good return on your investment.

Go on.....be a hypocrite....

2009-12-14T07:03:00.006-05:00

/

Accenture has apparently ended its sponsorship deal with Tiger Woods saying that in light of recent events he is "...no longer the right person to represent them". This is too fucking rich! Accenture was born out of an attempt, by a bunch of fucking useless crooks, to save whatever they could from the Andersen group after they got nailed for enabling/facilitating/maybe even devising the greatest corporate scam in US history, Enron. Hey, Accenture, a two-timing cheat like Tiger is EXACTLY the kind of person who should be representing you fuckers!

I didn't understand the deal in the first place. Tiger is actually excellent at what he does, actually produces something everything he steps out on a golf course. Accenture is a consulting company---produces nothing but hot air and incentuous circle-jerk corporate relationshi...err..boondoggles that ultimately cost the average people everything from jobs to money. 'Consultant' has essentially meant 'pernicious pest or parasite' over the past couple of decades....Accenture needs a cockroach as a spokesman, not a talented productive human being. This was a company that was incorporated in Bermuda, for crying out loud.....so that they could suck at the teat of American industry and avoid paying their fair share of taxes, no doubt....taking the whole 'offshore account' concept to a whole new level. These are the kind of assholes who have made an artform out of gaming American industry such that the workers get increasingly screwed while the suits make away with the bulk of the loot with little or no accountability.

Piece-of-shit worthless consultants....and these fuckers are now moralizing on Tiger? That is fucking hilarious!! Like I said, a two-timing cheat is exactly the kind of guy you need on your billboards. Ask all the poor folks who lost their lives over Enron.....although, in fairness to Accenture they need someone who cheats professionally, for a living, as opposed to someone who has some private life issues...

Let's see if any of the alert mainstream media call Accenture on their hypocrisy. I'm not holding my breath.

/

NFL muggings

2009-12-13T21:57:00.003-05:00

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Could the NFL try any harder to give teams led by a Manning any more breaks? A touch by Mikell is illegal contact and keeps a Giants drive alive (even tho the receiver was in perfect position and just dropped the freaaking ball in stride...). Then Celek gets absolutely mugged in the end zone and no call. Later, Celek gets bumped 15 yards downfield by a LB and no call---not a problem ordinarily, but given the Mikell/Hicks call this was a gimme illegal contact call....

This happens every week with Peyton Manning's teams too---of course, Peyton doesn't really need the help, unlike Eli, but there are always holdings/interferences at key points early in games that change momentum and set the tone for the opposing D's to play hands-off for the rest of the game. It's amazing how Peyton finds his guy wide open after the receivers set picks that are illegal for most other teams.....just part of the Manning genius I guess.

Man, if McNabb had been born rich, white and privileged-surnamed he'd have 3 SB titles by now.

Hahaha....as I'm typing this the Eagles get robbed of time after a fumble recovery just before half-time.....freaking pathetic. But hey, just like Bush Jr, this country loves its aristocracy and will go to great lengths to preserve the illusion of (or exaggerate) their competence.

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PS: Wow, juggling the ball on the sidelines now constitutes control if you play for a Manning.....this is great entertainment!

Some advice for the Steelers

2009-12-11T10:37:00.004-05:00

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My dear Steelers,
Do not stop now. You are on an incredible roll. Before the season started, I suspected strongly that there were some brain-fart games in store. After blowing the Chicago game and the first Cinci game, I figured, "Well, there're your brain-farts". I also figured that we'd find out how good or bad this year was really gonna be. I really thought that ol' Omar Epps would get a serious fire lit under the team. Well, it was looking promising there for a couple of weeks....but it is now obvious that this is not a good football team. The O-line is bad, defense can't hold a 4th qtr lead, the special teams are beyond horrible and even the QB play is spotty.

Now, after this stellar run of losing to KC, Oakland and Cleveland, you are faced with a tremendous opportunity. Don't blow it. I heard some alarming things after last night's loss, about how you were gonna play for pride and all that garbage. Don't freaking do it. I think we can all agree that the time for pride has long passed (losing to KC, Oak and Cle; giving up non-off TDs for 8 weeks in a row; blowing a bunch of 4th qtr leads etc took care of all that pride crap)--- now is the time for strategic planning. Keep this roll going and finish 6-10. It is not that hard to do because the last 3 games are eminently losable. Heck, any game is eminently losable this year. I know that you can dig down deep to find a way to blow three more games. Finish 6-10, get a top-10 draft pick, and trade up if necessary to draft Ndamokung Suh or Eric Berry or Russell Okung or Rolando McClain. Then at least we'd gotten something out of this year's incredible efforts.

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The NFL---It's really not that difficult

2009-11-16T20:17:00.002-05:00

to coach on game day. Yes, there is some serious work that goes into everything that leads to game day. But game day is not that hard in most cases. It's pretty simple---run the goddamned ball and stick to the basics. Even if you're not getting much yardage, run the goddamned ball. Aside from giving your D a break, it makes the opposing D-line work harder. When you face a run block, you are powerlifting the other guy. When you face a pass block, the other guy is powerlifting you. You make the opposing D bench press 300 lbs 10 more times a game, then their legs are more tired and in crunch time their pass rush is just a fraction slower. That fraction is what decides ballgames. We went over this last year. Run the damn ball. Nothing good really happens when your QB chucks the ball 40+ times a game (unless you have also run it about 30 times, but that rarely happens anyway).

The Steelers ran the ball 18 times and threw it 40 times yesterday. Two of the rushes were by Roethlisberger, scrambles, so basically they had 19 running plays to 42 passing plays. Nice loss there guys, and kiss the fucking division goodbye!

The Eagles outdid everyone yesterday though. They ran it 13 times and threw it 55 times. Nice loss, guys!

Dallas ran the ball 14 times and threw it 39 times. Nice loss there, fuckers.

It almost never fails---throw the ball that many times, and end up with a loss.

Like last year, Indianapolis is the exception. They win a lot of games by chucking the pill all over the place. And if this keeps up, like last year they'll have an early playoff exit. The only time they fared better, when they won the Superbowl in the 06 season, they ran the ball really well and did so thru the playoffs, and Manning didn't have gaudy stats.
Look it up.

NFL stuff you may not know

2009-10-24T08:38:00.001-04:00

or care about....

After 39 games as a starter in the NFL, Kyle Orton is 27-12 with a 56.8% career completion rate and a 1.4 TD/INT ratio. After starting 39 games in his career, Eli Manning was 20-19 with a 54% career completion rate and a 1.2 TD/INT ratio. And just for craps and giggles, you should know that after 40 games as a starter, Ben Roethlisberger was 29-11 with a 62% career completion rate, a 1.2 TD/INT ratio and a Superbowl title.

Both E.Manning and Roethlisberger have played for teams with great defenses but Eli has had the benefit of a consistently superior running game and offensive line. Both currently have started 77 games in their careers. Eli Manning is 47-30 with a career 56.2% completion rate and 1.4 TD/INT ratio, a career yards/attempt of 6.5, a career QB rating of 77.9 and one Superbowl title. Roethlisberger is 55-22 with a career 63.4% completion rate and a 1.5 TD/INT ratio, a career yards/attempt of 8.0, a career QB rating of 90.9 and two Superbowl titles.

If the Miami Dolphins could find some pass defense they could still be a force in the AFC. They are possessing the hell out of the football, averaging over 35 minutes of possession per game. But they lost games earlier in the season because (1) They couldn’t defend the pass, so opponents could strike really quickly and (2) They couldn’t put up points fast with Pennington at the helm. Ever since Henne took over, they have put up 38 and 31 points. Their pass D still sucks and it nearly cost them the Jets game but Henne’s ability to go downfield brought them back to win that game. This week’s game against the Saints will be a good barometer. Miami isn’t going to win many shootouts and their pass D has to play better---and there is currently no better passing attack in the NFL than the Saints’.

Four of the next five games for the Atlanta Falcons are against opponents coming off a bye week (Dallas week 7, Washington week 9, Carolina week 10 and New York Giants week 11). Arthur Blank must have pissed off someone in the NFL scheduling office.

The Newer, More Improved, Big Bang Theory

2009-10-14T08:49:00.004-04:00

There is an interesting article in the NY Times about the Large Hadron Collider---take the few minutes to read it, if you haven't already.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

"A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one....."

“It must be our prediction that all Higgs producing machines shall have bad luck,” Dr. Nielsen said in an e-mail message. In an unpublished essay, Dr. Nielson said of the theory, “Well, one could even almost say that we have a model for God.” It is their guess, he went on, “that He rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them.”

I think this is brilliant. I buy it.

Indeed, I'll take the theory even further: I think that the Higgs boson's time traveling sabotage of the LHC will be successful only for a little while more. Eventually, the boson will not make it in time to catch the lightning bolt to generate the necessary jiggawatts for the trip and it will fail once to get back to CERN in time. Then the CERN scientists will get the LHC functioning perfectly and run it to successfully generate the Higgs boson.....on December 21, 2012.

I expect the applause for my theory to be rapturous. Ba-dum-tisshhhh.

I mean, if you want wackadoodle, I got all kinds of wackadoodle.

With friends like these....

2009-10-08T07:14:00.002-04:00

At a time where science, and indeed even knowledge and learning, is under attack by various malicious and ignorant and fundamentalist factions, we really do not need the head of the NIH to say this....“We’re not the National Institutes of Basic Sciences,” he said. “We’re the National Institutes of Health.”

This could only serve to reinforce the lay person's erroneous notion that basic research is an 'ivory tower' activity with no naturally consequent practical applications. What needs to be said prominently and repeatedly is that open and unfettered basic research (and often serendipitous discovery) drives most of the advances in medicine and health care. And that, as a nation, we should find a way to increase the NIH budget for basic research by at least 5% on an annual basis.

By the way, I am all for "considering clinical and therapeutic implications in their work"; as a matter of fact, I am involved in the process of furthering the conversion of one bit of science into, hopefully, a couple of bits of technology. But where is the money for this fine notion going to come from? Even the NIH SBIR program, which is really a lifeline for small companies that are too early for venture funding, has been somewhat hijacked. The rules have now been changed such that large, venture-backed companies can now compete for this line of funding---this sounds great on paper "Hey, let's fund the stuff that is closer to market" etc, but in reality it is only going to subsidize the risk assumed by venture capital firms and pass that risk onto the taxpayer. Now vulture capitalists can own more of your stuff, that they can strategically sacrifice in their "exit strategies" aka "take the money and run", for even lesser investment on their part. At the same time this kills small companies that actually operate in that difficult and vital space between the "piece of cool datum from university lab" and "stuff that a vulture capitalist will want to own for pennies on the dollar".

So you want to make an overt PR push to "take lab science and make it relevant to health", great. I'm on board. Now show us the money, boss.

Are you ready for some football? Part 3

2009-09-13T18:52:00.004-04:00

The conclusion of the The Definitive 2009 NFL Preview:

NFC WATB… er…North:

The NFC North. Scion of the legendary NFC Central. The Black and Blue division. The Norse division. Home of legends such as the Purple People Eaters, the Monsters of the Midway, the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field. The division that doubtless inspired the voice of Jon Facenda to greater depth and timbre. Of course, now with the addition of Cutler and Favre it has turned into the NFC Whiny-ass-titty-baby division.

Green Bay is now the chic pick to win it all this year. I hope they do really well but, to borrow a phrase from Chris Collinsworth, I am not so sure. Their defense has to prove a lot of things this year and the offense still has to produce like it did last year. Minnesota is better on defense and Adrian Peterson alone makes them a potentially dominant force on offense. I think Minnesota wins this division even if Favre’s arm falls off after 10 games like it did last year. Green Bay should earn a wild card spot. BTW, Detroit will be much better than they were last year---I think Jim Schwartz could have them winning very soon, possibly as early as next year.

NFC South:

Both New Orleans and Atlanta look great but both have suspect defenses. I say Atlanta wins this division based on their better ground game and New Orleans earns a wild card berth.

NFC West:

Seattle is the chic pick to win the NFC West. They won’t. They’ll suck, as they deserve to, being led by the vocal conservative shithead Hasselbeck. About a month into the season, Ol’ Hassle-back will throw out his spine again during one of his weekly ritualistic orgies with Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly. The 49ers will win that division, and it may not be close. Those of you who are yelling, “ B-B-But the Cardinals…!!!”, pipe down. Arizona was the worst team to make the playoffs last year---then they caught lightning in a bottle when they found a running game and Kurt Warner stumbled upon this pop report that Viagra can improve athletic performance as well. Defense and rushing win championships, and I don’t see Arizona having a sufficient supply of either, especially the latter. They do have ex-Steeler Whisenhunt as head coach, and they still have LFitzgerald and Boldin, so they won’t completely suck---just enough to not make the playoffs, methinks.

Are you ready for some football? Part 2

2009-09-11T20:17:00.006-04:00

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The Definitive 2009 NFL Preview continues…..if you didn’t read the first part, it's here.

AFC South:

The Texans will finally win the AFC South if Gary Kubiak and Kyle (product of neo-American meritocracy) Shanahan don’t completely fuck up the offensive play calling at crucial times like they did last year. But that’s too much to ask and so the Titans will win the division again. The Titans are always tough, they looked pretty good last night against the Steelers, but they will miss Jim Schwartz and Haynesworth in the long run---they already missed Schwartz’s defensive mind in the fourth quarter against the Steelers. So the Titans will not be as dominating in that division as they were last year. The Texans will benefit from this small Titan dropoff, will finish second in the division and contend for a wild card berth.

The Colts will have a hard time getting 8 wins this season. If Joseph Addai and Donald Brown play out of their minds, maybe the Colts will win more than 8. But even then I doubt it, unless the Colts sprout a defense all of a sudden. Even if they have a couple of miraculous wins like they did last year I don’t see them getting past 9&7.

The Jaguar players pretty much quit on their coach last year and I have no idea about their team this year, but I’m guessing they are still chopping wood so I’m conveniently assigning them a losing season.

AFC West:

The Chargers will win this division easily--- unlike last year when they should have won easily but scraped out an 8-8 division-winning season.

The Raiders will be much better than people expect and they’ll finish second. Of course, that ain’t saying much in that division.

I would have picked the Chargers as a mortal lock for the Superbowl title this year except for the fact that they are led by Norv Turner. I will state, however, that their FUQIT Quotient at key positions is so high that even Norv may not be able to hold them back this year. FUQIT Quotient (Frustration of Uniquely Qualified Individual Talent) is (something I just invented and) a measure of the Talent of a brilliant player multiplied by the Frustration the player feels in not having been rewarded with a Superbowl title for that talent. Rivers is a kickass QB who is steaming over the fact that fellow classmates Roethlisberger (two titles) and Mr. Mediocrity Eli Manning (one title) are ahead in the bling-bling game. Also, the scuttlebutt from San Diego is that Rivers is an intensely devout man who prides himself on not swearing. A frustrated pro athlete who does not swear…this has got to be the biggest case of emotional blue balls ever, right? The guy is a ticking time bomb, I tell ya. Anyway, LaDainian Tomlinson is good enough to kick Emmitt Smith into the footnotes of history but the lack of playoff success frustrates him to tears---plus his career window is closing fast. Shawne Merriman’s roid rage is so frustrated at not even meriting a FUQIT Quotient yet that he is allegedly choking his girlfriend in his spare time. So anyhoo, you get the picture --- I would not be the least surprised if the Chargers win the Superbowl. I will, also, only be mildly surprised if they end up at 8-8 again (of course, in that division 8-8 could win it again and then they could still go on to win the Superbowl….so…..yeah……).

NFC East:

The Eagles will win the NFC East easily if Andy Reid doesn’t fuck up the play calling at crucial times like he did last year. But that’s a tall order, especially with the distraction of the ‘wildcat’ possibilities with Vick now. The bottom line is that anything that reduces Westbrook’s touches also reduces the Eagles’ chances of winning...so I have a bad feeling about this season for the Iggles…

The Giants are loaded on defense and have a great run game but I don’t favor them to win the division because they are led by Eli (product of neo-American meritocracy) Manning. Plus, by cutting David Tyree at the same time that they made the mediocre-piece-of-crap-Manning the highest paid QB in football they have SURELY pissed off the karma police enough to ensure them losing seasons for the rest of Eli’s career, haven’t they? I know, I know, but I can hope, can’t I?

The Redskins have upgraded on defense. Plus I think it is the first time in QB Jason Campbell’s career that the poor guy gets to run the same offense for a second consecutive year. So you’d think they’d be serious contenders. But I don’t know…Portis said, during the last election, that Obama was surely the better candidate for the nation but he wasn’t sure he’d vote for him as he was worried his taxes may go up. Now that kind of stupidity, especially in DC, has got to invoke some seriously bad karma…..

The Cowboys will be, as always, very entertaining. They have the talent to win but I have the sneaking feeling that Jerry Jones’ tight face will be feeling a bit tighter at many times this season. I can’t wait for the first Cowboy receiver to drop a pass because he was too focused on the ginormous HD screen, right over the field in the new stadium, as opposed to the freaking football. Also, I really, really, hope that in every Cowboy home game the visiting punter hits the screen a couple of times….for any visiting team it is only a couple of do-overs but by the end of the season the Cowboy special teams would have had like a few dozen extra special team do-overs and that has got to be great for the health of the Cowboys, hasn’t it? All the Cowboys on IR can can rest secure in the knowledge that Jerry Jones did a smidge more than the bare-minimum requirement and therefore the screen was technically legal…..I’m looking for some seriously good times here….

Getting back to the issue of the NFC East, this is too tough to call. Screw it, I’m calling that no team wins the NFC East this year. I’ll say that they’ll all finish 8-8 with identical conference records and some lame tie-breaker will send the least-loser to the playoffs. And that will likely be the Eagles, and furthermore, they could go on to ride this playoff berth all the way to the Superbowl. I had to write that to avoid getting hate mail from Comrade PhysioProf.

The remainder of the The Definitive 2009 NFL Preview will hopefully follow sometime late tomorrow. Be sure to tune in.

My sponsors just wet their pants---I mean, breaking up a single episode into two was commercial enuff, but three installments...that’s some serious enterprise at work right there…

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Troy freaking Polamalu

2009-09-10T21:11:00.005-04:00

If it weren't for him, the Steelers would be losing by 2 TDs right now.

Troy "I just got bumped by the receiver but I'm gonna reach up with my left hand, while falling, and intercept that pass anyway" Polamalu.

Fuckin' Ayyyyyy!

HALFTIME UPDATE:
There have been some horrible calls in this game, surprisingly against the home team. The fucking Titans may have knocked out Polamalu---I have always admired Jeff Fisher teams but the "receiver pulling Polamalu down by his hair that was called a penalty on Polamalu" play may be changing my mind.
All that having been said, I have a disturbing stat---Steelers 10 rushes, 12 yards. All other things aside, this cannot bode well. The defense can only do so much. If you cannot control the ball, you cannot win consistently.
Steeler left tackle #78 was so freaking bad in this half that I actually looked up who he was---Max Starks. Max, if this is what you're bringing this year, email me. I will abandon all hope.

Are you ready for some football?

2009-09-10T18:55:00.002-04:00

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Firstly, I need to address an issue that has gotten completely out of hand ---- that of sportscasters conferring honorifics upon themselves. The ESPN assholes, in particular, hand out titles like so much Halloween candy---Professor so-and-so, or Doctor Whatshisface, or Dean of college football etc. People work really hard to earn and retain these titles in real life, so I think it is an affront to the academic community that a bunch of yahoos yakking subjectively about sports can hand these titles out to themselves. Well, screw that. Two can play that game. So this Definitive 2009 NFL Preview is brought to you by 15-time SuperBowl champion and Unanimous-First-Ballot-Hall-of-Famer Anonymoustache. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, ‘Doctor’ Lou.

I didn’t think the football commentators’ booth could get any more annoying till I caught a few minutes of Jon Gruden on MNF last week. To think that I used to consider him a smart guy…….the fucker poached Dungy’s Superbowl in Tampa, hasn’t done shit since and his commentary explains a lot about why. I mean, do we really need him to be staring into the camera with his “I’ve been trying to pinch off this particularly obstinate loaf for 20 minutes now” grimace and proclaim, “Brett Favre creates jobs!”. Do we need this? Really? I mean, REALLY? Gruden reminds me of an old adage that says “It is better to be silent and be thought of a fool than to open your mouth and leave no doubt”. Of course, he is the genius who drafted Chris (product of neo-American meritocracy) Simms, so the signs were there a while ago. He makes me long for the drunken-frat-boy-schtick of Theismann, Mike Patrick and the other fucker, and they were really really annoying (I’ll tell you what…..Let me tell ya something…..I’m tellin ya…..You know what? I’ll tell ya…….I’m gonna tell ya something right now…..).

From what I have seen, I think Chris Collinsworth is considerably overrated and he’s certainly no freaking Madden. Let me explain that to you in Collinsworth-speak: I’m not so sure that Chris is not still the pedestrian hack that I originally thought him to be before he got all these rave reviews from the powers that be in broadcasting. When you consider that, it makes you think again. But then again, that could be because he is just really good at kissing broadcast exec ass, but there is no clear evidence either way so it’s gonna be tough to make that call, you know? I’m not sure that in the end we needed to review this at all; we could have just stuck with the call on the field which was that Chris is considerably overrated.

Al Michaels: Chris, that analysis was uuuuuuge….this game is so exciting I’m having trouble breathing….do you believe in spiracles???.....welcome back to Sunndeeeee nite footbooaall……

OK, here’s the Freaking Definitive NFL 2009 preview:

AFC East:

The Patriots will win. The Jets will be pretty good and will make the playoffs---the standard for rookie QBs, and the teams led by them, has been raised last year by Ryan + Falcons and Flacco + Ravens. RookQB teams now expect to win, and the Jets are solid on both sides of the ball. Plus, head coach Rex (product of neo-American meritocracy) Ryan seems to have his dad’s renegade, bounty-laying, ass-kicking and name-taking redass and that alone could be good for a couple of wins. I am excited by the prospect that the Jets will do really well and then have a minor meltdown in a game that might prompt Ryan to coldcock one of his fellow coaches. Too obscure?

AFC North:

This will be brutal at the top again. Baltimore and Pittsburgh are mirror teams: Tough defense, solid running game, good young QBs and some serious mutual respect+hatred. Much as my heart wants Pittsburgh to win, I have to give the edge to the Ravens this year. I think they will be a bit hungrier and the Steelers may be a bit more relaxed. Plus, Ray Lewis’ window is closing fast and I’ll bet he’d love to stand on the sidelines at the superbowl one more time with a lead and watch his offensive buddies slowly kill the clock….I mean, watch as they slowly bleed the game to an end…..I mean, when a guy has killer instinct you gotta give it to him, y’know? What, too soon? So anyway, I say Baltimore wins the division and Pittsburgh makes the playoffs as a wild card.

The rest of the preview will have to wait till tomorrow or the day after. Be sure to tune in.

In the business, we call this a ‘tease’. My sponsors are agog with excitement.

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The Fortunate Son Chronicles (FSCs) Return

2009-09-01T10:39:00.007-04:00

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I haven't done a FSC post in a while. I also realize that in my previous posts on this theme I have been very sexist by not ridiculing fortunate daughters as well (though, in my defense, there are far fewer fortunate daughters than sons; women get a raw deal there too).

Anyway, I can put off writing another FSC post for a while after reading Glenn Greenwald's awesome column "It's time to embrace American royalty". It's gonna be hard to top that.

Enjoy!

(Thanks for the tip, G-man)

PS: Bikemonkey pointed out that I omitted to include the official FSC soundtrack (which he had so appropriately suggested a while ago).

So here goes.....one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite bands, and the inimitable pipes of John Fogerty.........enjoy!

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Brett Favre is an asshole

2009-08-18T19:59:00.006-04:00

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His signing with Minnesota has nothing to do with his famed "childlike enthusiasm to play the game", It has more to do with his "childlike petulant attitude with someone who didn't put up with his spoilt vacillating ass anymore". Brett said he wanted to stick it to Ted Thompson when he un-retired the first time and it's a bit late to try and put that toothpaste back in the tube. The Packer gave him every chance to come back after he retired---he refused. Then, when they set a new course for the future, he wanted back in. Tough shit Brett.

If Favre wanted to just play, and even contend for a Superbowl title, he could have just as easily continued with a talented and Jets team that looked Superbowl-bound at one point last year. Till Brett started completing a greater number of his passes---to the other team.

By signing with Minnesota he is sticking it, deliberately, to the one fan base in all of big league sports that should NOT be fucked with. You see, the Packer fans actually own the franchise. The Packers are the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team in the United States. The Packer fans put their hearts and souls and money into the team and their football. They turn out in force to cheer their team whether it is led by 'Magic'kowski and Infante or by Favre and Holmgren. They bailed out Favre from the horrendous Falcons and gave him his goddamned career. They bought his '4' jersey and paid him his fat salary and made him a millionaire many times over. And they deified him. And all the fucker can do in return is slap those same fans in their faces and their wallets---all because the Packers GM actually showed some spine and tried to do the right thing for the franchise.

This will hopefully reveal to fans the hypocrisy of big league sports stars---they want you to be loyal fans all the time, but when it comes to them it is only a business. So realize that if you are the prototypical 'fairweather fan' you are actually now a smart consumer; if you are the prototypical rabid, hardcore fan, you are a fucking idiot.

Anyway, I do not root for anyone to fail as it is bad form to do so. But when the Vikings play the Packers next if it should happen that Barnett or Hawk come on a blitz and use Favre to recreate the LT/Theismann play, then my reaction would (instead of the usual "Damn, that's horrible") probably be to merely nod and think, "Karma sure is a bitch, isn't it Brett?"

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Tiger’s Imperfection and General Grumbling about the PGA Championship.

2009-08-17T16:22:00.002-04:00

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So it finally happened yesterday---Tiger Woods could not close out a major championship when leading after 54 holes. His record in that area was, and still is, stunning. Entering yesterday, Tiger had held the lead 50 times in his career at the end of the third round. He had won on 47 of those occasions. Before this past weekend, Tiger had held the 54-hole lead 14 times in majors and had won on every single of those occasions.

But yesterday, a little-known 110^th ranked player, Y.E.Yang stepped up and ended all that. It was virtually inevitable that Tiger’s streak would end one of these days, and the chances were always greater that it would end at the hands of a talented golfer who was playing with house money, so to speak. Still, the way it transpired was surprising in that Tiger did not play badly. I would have guessed that one of these Sundays he would have a bad day with his driver and irons and put himself into too much trouble while someone else went relatively low. I would have never guessed that Tiger would hit the ball relatively well, hit so many greens but then miss so many putts inside 15 feet to give up the lead---more on the field’s putting in general in a moment.

Congrats to Yang because he did what he needed to do. He played solidly all day and made two great shots when they mattered---the chip in at 14 and the phenomenal approach on 18. He did get a few breaks, like when he pushed his approach on 16 and his ball landed a foot from deep trouble (and two yards from total disaster) on 16. But often contenders get some breaks on Sundays and the champions take advantage of them.

All that having been said, that last round was painful to watch because of what I thought to be really bad course set-up. The PGA set up the pins really poorly. In every major there are always a couple of greens on which nobody can read the subtle breaks (and the commentator, on cue, goes, "nobody has been able to read this/get it to the hole/ keep it on the high side/get within 6 ft from there" etc). In this final round, it seemed like that was every freaking putt on every freaking green by every freaking player. I think they figured that the course became a dart board after the rains yesterday---and with more rain last night and in the forecast it was gonna be there for the taking---so they decided to put the pins not only in difficult locations (which is normal for Sundays, esp in majors) but also in micro-break locations within them. Ask your local greenskeeper and he'll tell you that he can put every pin in such a location that you will make a 10 ft putt only by chance---they can put it in places where, for instance, the last 2 inches have unreadable breaks or slopes---and at tournament speeds, that means lip-outs and burnt edges. Well, the PGA sure busted those locations out yesterday. I happened to see Els miss a putt just to the right on one hole, and then later on the same hole Lucas Glover (who was then in contention) hit the same put inside Els' line and it looked great---till the damn thing dived left at the end and ended up horseshoe-ing back to Glover…..I mean, what the hell was that? That was basically an un-makeable putt from inside 10 ft on the safe side of the green! The end result was that nobody could make a putt and nobody could make a run. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? Especially after Saturday, when the tournament came alive because a handful of guys made deep runs!

Several players---McIlroy, Glover, Westwood, to name a few---made mini-runs early in their rounds (mostly by hitting it very close to the pin on several holes) and got within a couple of shots of the lead but were derailed by their inability to make longer putts later for birdies or to save pars. Heck, just between Yang and Woods, I think they missed over a dozen putts from inside 15 feet---and these were good putts, well struck, that just missed. That doesn’t make for good competition or viewing. From what I saw of the coverage, there was an anomalously large number of well-struck putts that missed---- they burned the edges or lipped out or dived away at the end. When no one in the field can make putts with any consistency from the 10 ft range, the pin locations are absurd.

A stunning stat from yesterday was that nobody----not one player---broke 70. In every tournament, on Sunday, there are many players who tee off early with virtually no chance to win; of these, there are always a couple or a few that shoot 69s or 68s or better because they are playing stress-free and trying to make a top-10 and improve their paycheck. Most of them play with the mentality that a 60^th place finish is really no different from a 40^th place finish so they may as well try for the top-10 or 15 and earn more money and Ryder Cup points etc, so they go for it and play aggressively. Actually, I looked this up: (Go to the ‘SCORING’ tab on this link and click “Final results with money.pdf”, if interested. If I link directly to the list, it crashes the browser---dunno why) Anyway, in this tournament 6-over par got you 43^rd place and a paycheck of just over $21K. Six shots worse (12 over par) got you 73^rd place and a paycheck of just over $13K [So once you are on the low end of the scale you don’t have much to lose by doing worse---even for a struggling golfer on the PGA Tour, $8K is not serious money]. But 6 shots better (Even par) got you 10^th place and a paycheck of over $150K (and Ryder cup points, FedEx cup points etc). So there is quite a bit of incentive for all the golfers under 30^th place after the 3^rd round to just go for it on Sunday---a few shots worse don’t make much of a difference, while a few shots better can pay off handsomely. And if 40 golfers take on a course aggressively, you’d think that at least 2 or 3 of them will come out with decent scores in the 60s.

The fact that no one scored below 70 is telling---yes, the course was windy but I don’t think that wasn’t the main reason, because the greens were soft and there were plenty of chances to get somewhat close to the pins for birdies and par-saves. But it just seemed like nobody could make a putt. I mean nobody. Heck, the signature shot of the tournament, and the one that really won it, was Yang’s chip in from off the green from like 50 feet---one that he was realistically trying to get to within 3 feet for a tap-in birdie but that happened to drop. A one-in-a-million shot. I’d love to know what the low round of putts was on Sunday, or what the field average was, but I can’t find that info.

The tournament would have been a lot more fun if the PGA had tried to give the players a few more makeable putts with the pin locations. We could have seen someone charge from further back, we could have seen Tiger and Yang exchange blows (they both hit great putts that narrowly missed on several occasions---can you imagine the excitement and tension if those putts had dropped?).

Anyways, it was historic, if dull and frustrating to watch.

I have thoughts on the famed Tiger-Sunday-mystique and the media’s spin on it but that will have to wait. This rant has gone on long enough already.

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A Must-Read Interview

2009-08-13T20:28:00.005-04:00

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This is why I will always root for Paul Goydos (He is a good, journeyman, pro golfer from Long Beach who lost the Players' Championship in heartbreaking fashion last year).

Read the interview.

Some excerpts, in case you need enticement....

......."The difference between Tiger Woods and me is not this huge chasm. It's that he's a little bit better at a million small things that you can't see, that eat away at you. It's like termites. I think he's the most underrated player on Tour."........

..........."I appreciate absurdity. I hit a little white ball around a big grass field into a gopher hole, like Robin Williams said, and make a ridiculous living. You talk about me having an everyman quality. Well, the everyman doesn't get to play golf for a living. An everyman would be the likes of my father, a 20- year Navy guy, was in World War II and Korea, worked his way to a college degree. That's an everyman."...........

"......How I became a better golfer at 44 than 24 wasn't through hitting balls. It's through learning. I approached golf the wrong way. I said, "Show me how to do this," when I should have said, "Teach me what you know."...........

And there are the parts about when he was a sub teacher in LA and about being a parent ....So good that I won't quote them.

Go read the interview.

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Pete Rose, MLB and the HOF

2009-08-05T08:41:00.002-04:00

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Comrade PhysioProf has a post up stating that Pete Rose should be allowed into the baseball Hall of Fame. This is the comment I left over at his site---I'm posting it here as it summarizes my views on the matter and on MLB as a whole.....

"Let Pete Rose in? And destroy the only excitement baseball can provide anymore? It is commonly known that on slow news days radio stations can get their phone lines jammed for hours just by opening up the topic of Rose and HOF. Why would MLB destroy all that passion that it can no longer generate via its games? Or its players and their sins, even! People just don’t give a shit about roids the way they still do about Rose, one way or another!

Besides, letting Rose in would destroy Rose too. The fucker lives for and thrives on a good fight. He gets his jollies by scrapping with MLB, selling his shit outside the HOF every year, playing the poor martyr. It would be funny if he went into the HOF—-it would eliminate his raison d’etre for the past couple of decades and both he and baseball would slink into complete irrelevance in a couple of years’ time.

On second thought therefore, I agree CPP. Let the asshole into the hall. Let all of the assholes into the hall."

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On hypocrisy: Steroids/PED, and Sports/business

2009-07-31T11:44:00.002-04:00

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I made the mistake of tuning into Mike and Mike earlier this morning and immediately heard two stupid things (I know, I know…). Anyway, one sounded like Golic’s plea to try and understand why the NFL gets a free pass on the steroids issue while the other was Greenie mocking the Pittsburgh Pirates. Since both these are fairly commonly raised issues (roids and bad teams’ spending or lack thereof) I figured I'd lay some education on the Mikes.

Let me address the Pirates issue first. Basically my stance is, “Why mock the Pirates?”. They are running a business, for profit. Baseball is not set up for small markets to compete consistently anyway, so why fault the Pirates for doing the minimum, cutting current and future payroll, and raking in the profits? I keep hearing how big-league-sports is big business and we should all accept it. Well, accept it. The Pirates are running a business with profit as the bottom line. What is your fucking problem with that? Heck, I thought that was the celebrated business strategy of the past 25 years! Corporations have been running down labor costs (to the point of shipping every job overseas that they possibly could), diluting product quality, and generally screwing its labor force to improve the bottom line for Wall St. Why is it OK to have Walmartism in all other fields of business ---people are happy to consume inferior mass-produced crap, from nuggets to gibbets, so long as it is cheap --- but not in sports? The Pirates have no obligation to win championships. If you do not like what they are doing, don’t go watch them. Ah, but our unreasoning sports addiction has created a system in which, due to TV contracts, licensing and merchandizing revenue, the Pirates can make a profit even if they don’t sell a single ticket?!! Well, tough shit. So Mike and Mike, instead of mocking the Pirates, deal with it, assholes --- ‘cos it is the same unreasoning sports addiction that makes multimillionaires out of ~~sellout-to-the-sponsor-talking-heads~~ ‘journalists’ like you.

Besides, many other teams have sucked for years--- are some of them better just because they spend more money to suck perennially? What kind of fucked-up logic is that? I mean, the Marlins have won 2 more championships in the past decade or so than the Cubs have in the past century. And then the Marlins have proceeded to cash in by dismantling the championship team rosters to cut salary and maximize profit. They still always keep their payroll low. Brilliant, if you ask me. I think that the Cubs are even bigger losers for spending money and losing all the fucking time. Mock them.

I love what the Pirates are doing because they are exposing exactly how stupid the business of sports has become. The Pirates had revenues of $139 million (of which only $29 million came from gate receipts) and they made a profit of $17.6 million, the current owners of the franchise bought it for $92 million in 1996 and it is now worth $292 million. How the hell is this a bad business organization? I mean, if they were bad, the system should be penalizing them, right? They have no more obligation to sign expensive players than players have to sign with them in the face of better offers. Loyalty? Fuck that. Just business, baby. My point is that the business of big league sports has little to do with the daily paying customer. You pay for it in a myriad other ways. Stuff your outrage and deal with it. Or change it if you can. Go ahead. Try.

As far as the NFL always getting a pass on the steroid/PED issue—there are many factors at play here not the least of which is that the NFL actually instituted and enforced a meaningful policy years before baseball did. But do NFLers still use PEDs in some form, like HGH maybe? I am very inclined to think so.

So why is the NFL more respected than MLB in that regard anyway? I think it is because sport is about competitive fairness and balance, and the increasing size and speed of NFLers didn’t obviously skew it in some peoples’ or teams’ favor or, more importantly, make a mockery of the history of the game itself. Baseball, on the other hand, had a handful of its players perform at freakishly historical highs at the same time that they gained at freakishly abnormal physical attributes. Baseball loves its numbers--- 56, .400, 714, 755, 2130, etc. And one of the most cherished of these, 61, got completely abused five times over a four year span by three different people none of whom had come close to doing anything like that previously in their career. At the end of this disgraceful display, the new record of 73 had bested the old one of 61 by 20%. The equivalent in football, for power and endurance, would have to be the single-season rushing record. Currently the single season (16 game) rushing record is held by Eric Dickerson, who ran for 2105 yds in 1984 (avg of 132 yds per game). It could be argued that O.J. Simpson still has some claim to that record as he rushed for 2003 yds in only 14 games (avg 143 yds/game). So to equate what happened in baseball, using ED’s metric, three talented but mid-career running backs who had never rushed for over 1800 yds would have to suddenly rush for over 2100 yds (actually close to at least 2300 yds, to equate what happened to the 61HR record) five times in a four year span and leave the new record at over 2500 yds. And oh, BTW, at the same time become freakishly bigger even by comparison to their peers.

BTW, if you use OJ’s rushing metric as the standard the 16-game equivalent would be 2288 yds, so someone(s) would have had to rush for about 2500 yds five times over a four year span and set the new record at over 2700 yds.

No one has yet broken ED’s record. Same holds true for Marino’s single seaon passing record of 1984. Yes, some records (e.g. TDs/season) have fallen, but not egregiously like they did in baseball. Moreover it is really difficult to make a power+endurance correlation to these records the way it can be made for rushing or for home runs. When historic NFL records get thoroughly abused in an abnormal manner, people will take the same kind of notice that they do now in baseball.

I know that the job of talk radio is to fan the flames rather than provide intelligent analysis but I am not sure Mike and Mike can tell the difference anymore.

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On the greatest sporting achievement that almost was…..

2009-07-21T07:53:00.005-04:00

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(This is basically an edited version of an email response to the good Scrib50 regarding Tom Watson’s astonishing run and disappointing finish at the 2009 British Open. I’m posting it because it contains some thoughts on caddying, as well as my shared perspective with Scrib50 on how incredible a sporting feat this actually was and where it would have ranked if Watson had managed to win. Thanks Scrib50, for firing up this line of thought and for the encouragement in turning it into a blog post)

I was just absolutely crushed, like most people, when Watson’s putt to win the Open championship didn’t even come close. Watson didn't just have it on Sunday, he had it in spades! He was in control on the back 9. A lot of people had trouble on 15 and virtually everyone melted on 16---Watson cruised thru there. Then he birdied 17 like he should have. Westwood bogeyed 3 of the last 4. He got incredibly lucky after his drive on 17---though he did get robbed on his eagle putt. Even Cink didn't birdie 17 like he should have---that was a long par 4 for these guys and he absolutely should have birdied it or better. But to his credit, Cink did birdie 18---though he got a very favorable bounce that Westwood or Watson didn't get.

Still, after all that, Watson had an 8-footer to win---I actually stood up from my chair with anticipation. It was very disappointing how he never gave it a chance. Short putts have been Watson’s problem for years, and it was painful to watch how the 8-foot putt barely made it past six feet.

His caddie/friend should have talked to him before lining up the putt---I know, he probably thought "Jeez he's won 8 majors, let me leave him alone" but seeing how Watson was shaky all day with the putter he should have talked to him. In his place I would have absolutely told Watson "Let it flow Tom. It’s all gravy anyway man. This improbable ride has come this far---you've gotta believe it is meant to be. Pick a spot and let the thing roll. Let's cash this one in". That's all it takes to release pressure. Instead, the caddie looked tense and funereal and just tried to avoid Tom as much as possible at a time when you could feel the tension all freaking around. The collective breaths of like 20000 people around the grandstands were being held---the short putt has been Tom's Achilles Heel for decades now, and you could feel everyone---there and around the world--- get all puckered up, if you know what I mean. I mean you could reach out and touch the stress thru the TV---you think Tom couldn't feel how anxious everyone was?!!

You HAVE to break that tension before you let your guy putt. I mean, it is not some super-caddie-juju-secret or anything, just freaking common sense. You have to loosen him up, PUT ONE REALLY GOOD THOUGHT IN HIS HEAD and then give him a moment to focus on the spot/line and then go.

That bad putt was purely the result of very tight hands and forearms---I should know as I gag like that all the time. And even I know, over a crucial putt, to tell myself, "Dude, you get tight, nothing good will happen. You stay loose and let it ride, and chances are that you make it; even if you don’t make it at least you won't regret it like you would if you were all wound up and gagged". But the bigger the moment and the more frustrated/tired/wired/excited/anything but thinking clearly and positively/ that I am, the more apt I am to forget to remind myself to relax. That's why pros have caddies---and it is part of the caddie's job (even if it is a friend or an amateur caddie) to jockey the player home. On that incredibly huge stage, with that much emotion going thru him and the pressure of the world on his shoulders, even a seasoned pro needs a gentle nudge in the positive direction. All good caddies know and do that. Tom's caddie should really have given him a strong positive thought, and maybe even gotten him to genuinely chuckle or something, before Tom started lining up the putt.

It has been said, even by the great ones, that Tiger "willed in" putts. Sure seemed like it to me. And I am convinced it is because he saw the picture of the putt like his dad taught him, and then he convinced himself that if he hit it on that line it would definitely go in. That confidence frees up your body, and all the info your mind has processed when lining up the putt gets mobilized into action even somewhat subconsciously---and whaddaya know, you make the damn putt!

If Watson had sunk that putt I think it would have been, hands down, the greatest sporting story in modern history. People have made comparisons to the Miracle on Ice team, Buster Douglas’ upset of Tyson etc. But they are not even close, due to the crucial differences. Firstly, all the others were somewhat fairly matched contests. The USA sent its hockey team--it was a national team, however much of an underdog it was. Buster was an underdog but he was an active fighter in the same age and weight class and had some resume. Anyway, you get the idea. Watson was not remotely on the same plane as much of the field. He doesn't play on the regular Tour. He doesn't even really contend all the time on the Champions Tour. He would not have come close to qualifying by normal criteria for the Open---the only reason he played was that he was a past champ and was eligible to play till he was 60. There was nothing in his game, even remotely recently, that suggested he could even make the cut, let alone contend for the title.

But even more importantly, most of the other "greatest sports stories" (even where talent wasn't evenly matched) were single day events---one good day and you could make history. Watson had to beat all comers for four full days. If one golfer had a meltdown, there were still 70 or so more over the weekend to fend off. What it came down to was that Watson just couldn't afford even one really bad hole, on a course that would destroy you if you have a momentary lapse of concentration---Ask Ross Fisher, who led the field by 2 strokes after 4 holes on Sunday and then made an 8 on a par 4 because of one bad tee-shot.

And Watson pulled it off. All the experts kept commenting on how well he knew the course (having won there in 1977), knew to play links golf (having won 5 Open Championships) etc, but none really commented sufficiently on how difficult it is to execute nearly flawlessly for 4 days, especially at the age of 59, playing with an artificial hip! It is really great to know where you need to hit the ball, but then you have to go out and do it really well for 4 full rounds. Anyone who has ever walked 18 holes of golf, on a championship-level course, knows how much it takes out of a player. Anyone who has walked 18 holes of golf for three days straight, then tried to play the fourth day, knows how difficult it is to swing the club decently let alone to keep form and balance all the time. If your club face is off by 5 degrees on impact, a 150-yard shot will be errant by about 10-15 yards---these guys can't afford to miss by 10 feet on many of these approach shots. Imagine it, man. 3 or 4 lousy degrees open or shut, and you are in a bunker or off the green or something like that. This is not talked about enough by the 'experts' --- most people have trouble closing out tournaments on Sunday because of fatigue. Even subtle fatigue matters. Even a supremely fit athlete who tires slightly during the fourth round will have some trouble. Just because Tiger at his weakest is stronger than me at my strongest doesn't mean that if Tiger is immune to fatigue-related errors. If he is off his optimum by 3% then his club could also be off by 3% on a crucial shot and could be scrambling to save par instead of licking his chops at a birdie. And that's just the physical stuff---the mental toll over 4 rounds is just as high, if not higher. Fatigue happens all the time to golfers on Sunday. The great ones know how to manage it, and Watson did it so freaking well---till that last putt. Obviously and remarkably, a lot of it was pure adrenaline too, as you could see that he was just completely gassed in the playoff after missing the putt on the 72nd hole.

The only story that comes close is Francis Ouimet’s stunning win at the US Open in 1913---he was a 20-yr old amateur who beat a couple of legends. But even there, Ouimet was clearly a talented enough amateur to qualify for the tournament. He went on to win the US Amateur title the next year and went on to have a distinguished golf career. His win at the 1913 US Open, in retrospect, was an announcement of a talented golfer’s arrival—remarkable, but it happens every now and then. Tiger Woods’ three consecutive US Amateur titles, his record win at his first professional Masters---I think that these were just as remarkable and stunning as Ouimet’s win.

But Watson’s performance last week was just unparalleled in major sport in recent history. I think that if he had won, it would clearly have been the greatest sports achievement of modern times.

What a bummer, the way it turned out. Nevertheless, I think it will prove to be one of the most inspiring events to many people, especially senior citizens. I do not think anyone seriously thought that a 59-yr old man could contend, and indeed beat, a whole field of young thoroughbreds for virtually an entire tournament. I think it will have opened up a new avenue of hope and rejuvenation for a lot of older people struggling to come to grips with their failing faculties. It reinforces, in an exhilaratingly tangible way, the hope that incredible things can happen if one can stay fit. Anyway, that's how, I've decided, I will always think of the 2009 Open Championship.

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