Management Stooges

It's remarkable to me how pro-management, or "pro-billionaire," the average NFL fan is in the current labor dispute. One need only read a sample of the comments on Profootballtalk.com to come away astounded how sympathetic the posters are to the owners' position and, in turn, how vitriolic they are against the players.

Even more amazing is that - judging by the comments under most news entries - readers blame the players for the lockout...even though it is the owners who reopened the collective bargaining agreement and locked out the players that has led to the work stoppage.

It is just stunning to read how fans favor the owners in their quest to take even more than the existing $1 billion off the top before sharing revenue with the players;the anger directed at the players for wanting to see the team's financial books, and the anger at the players for suing the league. Commenters are under the mistaken impression that all NFL players are millionaires even though the average salary is $800,000 and the average career lasts no longer than four years.

There must be something about football that engenders this pro-owner mentality. As I've written previously, football fans appear more interested and incensed when players don't play to their contracts - to the point of suggesting clawbacks of signing bonuses - than fans of any other sports. (For example, where was the outrage among basketball fans (or football fans for that matter) when the Sixers bought out Chris Webber's contract to the tune of$48 million only to watch C-Webb immediately sign another albeit less lucrative contract that was an albatross around the Sixers' neck after the buyout).

Sheridan Doesn't Heart Ray

Or maybe Phil Sheridan doesn't remember Allan Ray in his reference to the last great Villanova team?

Wages of Sin

As is typical of the lack of reporting on the NFL-NFLPA labor talks, even the "world wide leader" in sports fails to provide the important details of the issues at hand. To wit, the "rookie wage scale" in which rookies would be slotted with certain salaries based on their draft position fails to mention how long their contracts under this plan would be. A not inconsiderable consideration given that most rookie contracts are 4 years and the average NFL career is ... 4 years. Meaning that most rookies will sign and earn one contract in their career, a contract that will be limited in the amount they will get paid under a new rookie wage scale.

Bonds Away

God help me, but I'm rooting for Barry Bonds.

In my heart I know he knowingly used PEDs, but i'm fascinated and impressed that he has scrupulously created plausible deniability - and stuck with it - and has worked with a trainer that has been willing to go to jail rather than turn state's evidence against him (though i'm not so naive to believe there isn't some sort of monetary compensation ultimately involved).

Bonds is the most hated man in baseball. And yet, the government and baseball have not been able to definitively pin steroids use on him. More incredibly, unlike all of his peers - Roger Clemens, Andy Pettite, Jeff Bagwell, Raffy Palmeiro, Miguel Tejada, Jason Giambi, etc. - Bonds has continually denied his knowing use of steroids, nor had any close associate rat him out.

Now comes the even greater irony. The federal government's Javert-like investigation is turning Bonds into a sympathetic victim of prosecutorial excess.

From the NY Times:

 On Tuesday, the judge ruled for the prosecution on several pieces of evidence the defense had asked to be excluded.
Illston said she would allow testimony of Kimberly Bell, Bonds's former mistress, that related to the physical and psychological changes she saw in Bonds.
Prosecutors said those changes would include how Bell noticed the shrinkage of Bonds's testicles and the worsening of his sexual performance, which the government says indicate steroid use. The judge also will allow Bell to describe an incident in which she has said Bonds grabbed her by the throat and threatened her.

What a Ken Starr-like strategy.

Seriously?

A mistress will testify on his allegedly shrunken balls and sexual performance? And the allegation of domestic violence as proof of 'roid rage? Will the defense call Milton Bradley and Elijah Dukes to the stand, both recently charged with domestic violence and clean testers of PED, to show that violence against women does not have to be the result of PED use but of misogyny?

Go, Barry, Go!