How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria’s?

Okay, I have a passing interest in tennis. But I don’t really follow the sport. I have general knowledge about the big names, and sometimes have been known to drop what I’m doing and start to watch a match on TV, willing to settle in if the competition compels.

I am also not one of those guys who tends to glom onto sexy lady athletes just because they look incredibly attractive in a tennis skirt or golf togs. Like, when Anna Kournikova was all the rage—a fine piece of Russian jailbait in her time—I didn’t really care. She is a fetching lassie, but now 28, pretty much retired from the game, she’s pursuing grown-up life with her boyfriend-singer Enrique Iglesias. (I looked that up!)

I’ll be damned if I remember watching Anna actually play tennis. But Thursday night just past, I watched Maria Sharapova defeat Urszula Radwanska of Poland, 6-4, 7-5, in straight sets in a quarterfinal of the L.A. Women's Tennis Championships. Now I’m all abuzz.

Yes, Maria is beautiful. She’s a goddess, for chrissake. All of 22 years old, Maria’s been around, I guess, but, again, despite knowing of her, I don’t recall watching her play tennis. (I’ve caught the Williamses in recent years on the telly, but that’s about it.)

Maria hurt her rotator cuff last year and had to suspend her game, undergoing surgery and intense rehabilitation to put herself back on the road to competitive play. Now, I don’t know what she was like on the court beforehand—really good apparently, as a three-time Grand Slam champ—but I understand that her voluble grunting and howling was always a part of the drill. Okay, well, she still does that, with every serve and return: if there’s such a thing as a Russian banshee, then she is one.

But this was no simple, dominant performance by a fine athlete. It was instead practically a Greek epic, with the Medea figure struggling mightily with her demons, striving to put everything back to the way it used to be.

In besting her feisty, smaller opponent—at 5'9," the 18-year-old “ginger kid” Radwanska looks even more petite—the 6’2” Sharapova clearly put her tussle with the gods of corrective surgery on display.

Three successive times, Sharapova double-faulted. I don’t recall seeing even mediocre tennis players do that. She double-faulted numerous times more—13 times altogether—and clearly, as she works her way back into the tennis spotlight, she is struggling hugely with her serve. The speed is there—the radar clocked her at 107 MPH at one point—but Sharapova is so all over the place in this critical area of her game, that she seemed clearly relieved to turn the service over to Radwanska, knowing full well that the powerful Sharapova forehand made breaking service the more viable offensive strategy. (Try pulling that with Serena Williams and surviving.)

Sharapova’s on-court intensity is dramatic—some might say unnerving. Her long, lithe arms and legs splay this way and that as she moves about the court, almost spasmodic yet also controlled by a curious animal instinct that is distinctly her own. With her lovely blondeishness, her ponytail bobbing and swinging with every furious slash of her racquet, her stoical Cassandra-like facial expression unchanging, and her grim determination, Sharapova is a compelling court presence, exuding stardom even when she drives yet another errant serve into the net or out of bounds.

The serve is a big problem, something she hasn’t reclaimed with any consistency since the surgery. But she’s still a potent volleyer, gifted with Amazon athleticism and a powerful right arm still capable of vanquishing opponents.

Yet Saturday, Sharapova lost her semifinal match with Italy’s Flavia Pennetta, #14-ranked in the world currently. Sharapova began the day at #61, a long way from the rankings of headier days. She extended the match to three sets, losing 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, while registering 16 double-faults, even worse than Thursday.

I don’t know about you, but I adore giraffes. They are rare, wondrous creatures. And now, having watched this uniquely physical giraffe of a young woman, I’m a fan. But rehab’s a bitch, even at age 22, and Sharapova needs to go get that serve fixed. If not, well, she’ll still be incredibly beautiful, which is all well and good.

But now I wanna watch her play...again. Hope it’s not too late.

The Hero of Turnberry: Watson’s Meltdown Won't Eclipse His Achievement

Subbing for Tony Kornheiser Friday on ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption,” veteran sportswriter Bob Ryan averred that if 59-year-old Tom Watson were to win the British Open it would be bad for the game of golf.

Watson’s too old, Ryan said, asserting his belief that old guys don’t make great achievements in other sports—because their juniors are younger, stronger, better—and if Watson outclassed the field at Turnberry it would expose the current crop of competitors as weak sisters. (Presumably that would include Tiger Woods, who missed the cut altogether.)

Ryan’s co-host Dan Le Batard, subbing for Michael Wilbon, chimed in, with some wonder, that you never see 59-year-old’s tossing no-hitters or winning Super Bowls at quarterback, and Ryan jumped on that quickly. “Precisely,” he said. “Which is why it’s not good for golf if Watson wins.”

Ryan, an old fart himself—Should he not win any sportswriting awards at his age?—possibly had a point of some kind. And maybe the fact that Watson was, at the end, challenging the likes of Stewart Cink, Lee Westwood and Matthew Goggin for the Claret Jug was an indicator of golf’s low-ebb talent pool.

Well, Ryan got his wish, and Cink—a good but not elite player—finally won a major, besting Watson in a four-hole playoff in which the senior legend truly looked like an old man, devoid of the strength and stamina we normally expect of champions.

But until his meltdown on the 18th hole in regulation play—his unfortunate, gut-wrenching bogey forced a tie with Cink—Watson was the man. True, his opponents were variously blowing their opportunities to one-up him, but that, of course, wasn’t Watson’s fault. He played consistently good golf for four days, and his experience on the Turnberry course played to his advantage. (We might also mention that Watson—only nine months removed from hip replacement surgery—hit a 297-yard tee shot at one point during the tournament, proving that he can still swing the big clubs with remarkable vigor for a man his age.)

It was very sad that Watson blew his chance. A simple, straight-ahead par on 18 in regulation was all he needed to win the tourney outright. His tee shot was good. His second shot was flawed—ironically, the old man hit it too hard—but after bouncing impressively on the green, the ball kept rolling, beyond the hole and off the green, down a short ridge and into the short rough. Yet even then, Watson was in a very do-able position.

Only the gods of golf might explain what happened next. Instead of chipping the ball back onto the green, hopefully into position for a short par putt, Watson chose his putter, hoping to scoot the ball up the low rise. It was a safety-first kind of move, the sort of thing Watson had been successfully doing all week.

Much will be made of the par putt that Watson eventually blew, but that third shot was the key. Pushing the ball uphill with his putter, Watson struck the ball too hard and also miscalculated the grain of the green, the ball whizzing well past, and significantly to the left of, the hole.

When the finesse he had exhibited all week was demanded most—Where was the short, artful chip that might’ve positioned the ball for a winning gimme par putt?—Watson glitched. Of course, even then he still might’ve holed the 8-foot putt, but that was, also surprisingly, a very lame effort—and anyone watching the tourney knew that the veteran had little chance versus the younger, bigger, more vigorous Cink in a playoff.

Watson’s failure eventually has made it tough for the rest of us to put his achievement into perspective. To be one stroke away from winning the British Open at the age of 59 is simply phenomenal. Even in defeat, it remains historic. Watson proved that a veteran craftsman can eclipse the young turks if the circumstances are right, and he certainly struck a blow for older golfers everywhere, Bob Ryan be damned. (Keep on grinding, one hole at a time, fellas.)

Someday, Tiger Woods will be 59. He’ll be hard-pressed to equal Watson’s feat. In fact, he may never come that close at a much younger age.

Stewart Cink may have won the 2009 British Open, but Tom Watson was the hero of Turnberry. He came just close enough to touch golf’s Mount Olympus and inspire us all.

Best Baseball City in America Is...Not New York

On the heels of last night's All-Star Game in St. Louis, we have to call your attention to the so-called worldwide leader, ESPN, which did one of its lame-ass polls the other day, determining what was the "best" baseball city in the U.S. Wow, what a surprise! New York came out on top! With Los Angeles second, and Chicago third. Funny how those are the three most populous cities.

Complete balderdash. I have to nominate St. Louis. It's heartland, the team dating back to the St. Louis Brown Stockings in 1882, morphing into the Cards in 1900. They're always competitive in St. Louis—haven't had a completely embarrassing team since 1908 (49-105)—and, last night, rolling out former players Bob Gibson, Ozzie Smith, Lou Brock, Bruce Sutter, Red Schoendienst, and the incredibly great Stan Musial was the clincher.

The Yankees, BTW, only go back to 1901, but then they were the Baltimore Orioles. The original Yankees were a carpetbagger team!! They didn't actually become the Yankees until 1913.

Now, the Cubs go back to 1876 as the White Stockings, morphed into the Colts, morphed into the Orphans (!!), then became the Cubs in 1903. Alas, the Cubs don't have a winning tradition, but the Cardinals definitely do.

St. Louis is the best baseball town in America. The city itself has a population of only about 400,000, but a Metro area pop. of 2.8 million. New York, on the other hand, has a city pop. of 8M, with a Metro area pop. of 19M!

In 2008, the Yankees drew 4.3M fans. The Mets 4M. The Dodgers 3.7M. Who was 4th? The Cardinals, with 3.4M, outdrawing the Phillies, Angels, Cubs, Tigers and Red Sox, plus much larger cities like Houston and Atlanta.

It's a no-brainer. Per capita, St. Louis rules the baseball world. But no, ESPN runs their stupid poll and every douchebag in NY probably voted.

Never believe what you see. Always look further.

Judge Not...?

The dust seems to have settled on the Steve McNair affair. In the brief span of 10 days, the former NFL great was shot dead, oft-eulogized, and then buried in the ground in Mississippi. And, in what appears to be an open-and-shut police case, the whys and wherefores of McNair’s demise have been neatly summarized and accepted as fact.

If you’d asked me 11 days ago what I thought of McNair, I’d’ve told you that, with the exception of watching Walter Payton during my years in Chicago, McNair was the most exciting football player I’d ever followed on a local fan basis. Since 1999, when I moved to Music City, watching McNair quarterback the Titans was a thrilling experience. His feats of derring-do, if not always bringing victory, certainly roused the childlike fan in me, easily propelling me off the couch with uncontrollable zeal and a pumped fist, and evoking spontaneous whoops of joy—even when there was no one else there to share the moment with.

So Steve McNair was my hero, as he was to many, many others. On the field.

The off-the-field McNair has been touted as an upbeat fellow, modest, generous-minded, and a man who, in the common parlance of athlete-speak, gave back to his community. Or, as one newspaper account put it, had a “charming personality and charitable nature.”

In the absence of other hard data, McNair’s giving seems to have come in the form of making public appearances (Kiwanis Club, United Way, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, etc.) and running football camps. Fine things all.

But we’re not really talking about Mother Teresa here. McNair’s public appearances for causes are pretty typical for wealthy, popular, high-profile athletes who only work at their real jobs for about six months of the year.

Unfortunately, what is also known about McNair is that he tended to get mixed up in DUIs—either his own or friends’—that he liked hanging out in bars and that he carried a gun. In the wake of his murder, and as details of his relationship with Sahel Kazemi came to light, we also learned about the McNair who publicly, even if not necessarily carelessly, cheated on his wife. Further anecdotal evidence has also pointed to the fact that he may have been cheating on the mistress who eventually killed him. So we’d be plain old naive to believe that there weren’t other “side brawds” involved with this married father of four.

But, hey, Steve was a guy so full of life that he wanted to spread the love around. That’s cool, especially to those folks who easily accept—or expect—that that’s what virile men do. And truly, if this whole tawdry sequence of events had never happened, McNair would remain a hero, and blissful ignorance would be ours.

Unfortunately, McNair’s risky private life became nth-degree public, and we learned he was no saint. Which is probably why I didn’t really know what to make of the eulogy of Pastor Joseph W. Walker III, of Mt. Zion Baptist Church, at the McNair memorial service in Nashville on July 9.

Walker’s somber speechifying included this: "Drop your stone the next time you write about Steve McNair. Drop your stone the next time you text somebody. Drop your stone the next time you Twitter. Drop your stone, those of you in the barbershops, the beauty shops. Those of you walking the streets on the corner, drop your stone."

The reference here apparently is to the biblical admonition, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone...” (With some irony, we note that the online Urban Dictionary defines “drop a stone” as ”Verb. An action you take to relieve yourself of a great pressure in your abdomen.”)

I guess it’s weird enough that a man of the cloth finds it necessary to include references to text-messaging and Twitter in a very public and formal eulogy. (It’s come to that, I suppose.) But Rev. Walker seems to have missed a golden opportunity to weigh in on the wages of sin and the importance of family men sticking to their families.

I wouldn’t guess that Walker condones McNair’s “playa” lifestyle, but if a man of the pastor’s station doesn’t set us straight on things like that, who will? Are there no standards for Christian and/or moral behavior? And if there are, who will remind us of those standards if not the high-profile leader of a large flock of Christians? Do we all get a clerical pass based on “the first stone”?

McNair’s actions leading up to his shocking murder do not bespeak a man of admirable character. It’s sad, but that’s simply the truth. He still played awesome football, and if folks with tunnel-vision want to hike on over to LP Field and celebrate McNair’s life by watching highlights of his pro career on the Jumbo-Tron, then that’s great. Otherwise, now he just looks like another high-living, grossly overpaid, irresponsible jock.

Too bad Rev. Walker didn’t reach for a little Shakespeare for his remarks. He could’ve quoted Hamlet’s line to his good friend Horatio:

“Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.” 

Officially, I’d very much like to know Rev. Walker’s stance re: McNair. If it’s simply “Judge not lest ye be judged,” then it’s open season for us all—to do as we wish without any moral obligations to others. And that seems troubling.
 

All-Star Break Offers Nats Respite from Futility

[Editor's note: Approximately 16 hours after this story was posted, Manny Acta was fired as manager of the Washington Nationals. Jim Riggleman was appointed interim manager.]

"It's at the point where it's just embarrassing for us," Washington Nationals relief pitcher Joe Beimel reportedly said this past Friday night. "I think everyone in the clubhouse should be embarrassed about the way we play and just the way we lose games.”

He’s right. Now 26-61 heading into the All-Star break, the Nats are on pace to post a 48-114 record this year. Things are getting downright Metsian in the Nation’s Capital.

In their first four seasons—1962-65—the New York Mets won, respectively, 40, 51, 53 and 50 games. The '62 Mets—dubbed Amazin’ by manager Casey Stengel because of their consistently bad play—were 40-120. The 1932 Red Sox were 43-111. Ditto the 1939 St. Louis Browns. The 1905 Brooklyn Superbas (forerunners of the Dodgers) were 48-104. For real futility, you can go back to the other St. Louis Browns—same name, different team, forerunners to the Cardinals—who, in 1897 posted a record of 29-102, and followed that up in 1898 with a 39-111 mark. The 1916 Philadelphia Athletics were 36-117. The Phillies, from 1938-1942, were godawful, averaging 45 wins a year in that stretch. More recently, the 2003 Detroit Tigers were 43-119.

So there have been plenty of all-time bad teams. But even the Kansas City Royals, as bad as they’ve been in recent years, have never won fewer than 56 games in a full season. The Tampa Bay Rays, who until last year always totally sucked, have never won fewer than 55 games.

The Nats are on pace to be the worst team in Montreal/Washington franchise history, and that includes the very first year of the original expansion Expos, 1969. That team finished 52-110.

But what makes the situation in Washington so baffling is that, if you look at the starting lineup, you could conclude that this might be a fairly decent ballclub.

INF—1B Nick Johnson (.305), 2B Anderson Hernandez (.255), SS Cristian Guzman (.304), 3B Ryan Zimmerman (.288, 14 HRs, 52 RBIs)

OF—LF Adam Dunn (.266, 23 HRs, 62 RBIs), CF Nyjer Morgan (.280), RF Josh Willingham (.304, 12 HRs)

C—Josh Bard is hitting .270

Of course, pitching is the bugaboo—team ERA, 5.21— but what’s really frustrating to Nats fans is that it isn’t always that. The team has some promising young arms—including six starters under 26 years of age—and newbies such as Jordan Zimmermann, Ross Detwiler and Craig Stammen have had some very strong outings. Lefty John Lannan is 6-6 with an ERA of 3.70. Shairon Martis, only 22, is 5-3 (though with a 5.25 ERA).

The point is that the pitching has kept them in games far more often than most observers might realize. They’ve even gotten some decent outings from newly anointed closer Mike MacDougal, who’s 32 and in there out of desperation but who’s nonetheless done his part. But just when a timely hit from one of those capable hitters would do the trick, they tank out. Talk about bad timing. Or these guys just aren’t what you’d call ”clutch.” In which case, the Nats are in really big trouble.

The M.O. for manager Manny Acta seems to be roll out the kid pitchers, hope they keep improving, and pray the bats don’t completely go silent.

Acta also must pray nightly for improved defense. The recent addition of Morgan should help there, though it still leaves the club with poor defense at the outfield corners. Guzman at short, over the course of his career, averages an error every 7.9 games. That’s really not the worst—about 20 errors a year—but Guzman might be attacked more for the balls he never gets to, never mind what he does with those he does get to.

This is a team that needs to hold onto what good it’s got—especially the young pitchers—and shore up its defense. For the short term, a trade might be nice. I nominate Nick Johnson as bait. He’s a good hitter, plays a decent first base and maybe could appeal to someone looking for a veteran bat for the playoff run. Parting with Johnson would free up first base for Adam Dunn, which is his destiny afield until he becomes an AL designated hitter. Meanwhile, whoever replaces Dunn in left—Willie Harris, Elijah Dukes, virtually anybody—promises some improvement defensively.

Guzman might also bring something in trade, especially if part-time shortstop Alberto Gonzalez, hitting .333 in 41 games, is, at 26, ready for a full-time role.

Acquiring in return a youngish but somewhat veteran starting pitcher whose potential hasn’t quite been tapped, or possibly a similarly positioned hitter who could drive in runs—these might be do-able risks that could improve the Nats’ immediate fortunes and still pay dividends down the road.

Meanwhile, one must view the job security of manager Manny Acta as tenuous. In the middle of his third season on the job in D.C., Acta has compiled a record of 158-252, a .385 winning percentage, with each successive year showing significant decline. It's probably not Acta's fault, but given that keeping him on board promises the completion of a terrible year anyway, it might be worth trying someone else at the helm, if only to experiment.

Acta's only 40, and he could resurface elsewhere after this baptism of fire. Yes, it may be a moldy old cliche, but you still can't fire 25 ballplayers all at once. Managers who don't win, however, are eminently expendable.

Zimmerman represents the Nats at the All-Star Game in St. Louis. He's deserving. His teammates get to stay at home, pondering how they could ever bring some joy into the remainder of the 2009 season.

Well, a 10-game winning streak wouldn't hurt.

McNair File: Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Questions to be asked based on published Tennessean reportage:

Report: Though many questions remain, investigators now know that Sahel Kazemi bought the gun that ended her life and killed former Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair. Kazemi bought the semi-automatic pistol on Thursday evening from a person Nashville police have not named. She made the purchase the same day she was bailed out of jail by McNair for a DUI charge. Both were found dead less than 48 hours later, in a condo McNair rented.

Analysis: The Kazemi DUI was issued very early on Thursday morning, in essence, late Wednesday night. This means that the gun was purchased much later in the day on Thursday.

Report: Police still aren't classifying the deaths as a murder-suicide, although state medical examiner Bruce Levy said it's a possible scenario based on the evidence. McNair was found dead with four gunshot wounds—one bullet in each temple, and two to the chest—on the couch, Levy said. The autopsy showed that three of the shots were fired from at least three feet away. One, to the head, was shot at close range, he said.

Analysis: Who was so pissed off at Steve McNair that they felt impelled to shoot him, not once or twice, but four times? His killing looks more like vengeance than the result of a lover's quarrel. And how invested was Kazemi in McNair, given that she knew him less than five months? He was giving her gifts, and she was apparently living the life of a party girl. Why kill the golden goose?

Report: Kazemi, 20, died of a single gunshot wound to the head and fell to the floor. The pistol was found underneath her body, police say.

Analysis: These facts are consistent with murder-suicide. If that's what happened. No report yet on the gunpowder analysis on her hand. But if there is no gunpowder on Kazemi, then she is a murder victim as well. She might easily have been fatally shot once in the head, whereupon the killer then turned the gun multiple times on McNair. Or it happened the other way around, meaning she stood in horror and watched McNair being shot.

Report: The woman was not old enough to carry a handgun legally or purchase one from a gun dealer. The person who sold the gun to Kazemi is not in custody and may not be charged because the seller may not have known Kazemi was under 21, police said.

Analysis: If the person who sold her the gun is known, seems like they'd be in custody for one good reason or the other. At least as a person of interest. So what's the law? If you sell another person a gun, are you suppoosed to check identification to assure the legal age of the purchaser? Can you sell a gun to a 12-year-old and get off by saying you "didn't know the person was under 21"? How easy is it to purchase a gun from someone? And how easy was it for Kazemi to do so? Does she have friends who carry guns, and one just happened to have one to sell to her that day?

Report: There still are no definite answers as to what prompted the deadly shootings. Police are continuing to interview people who knew Kazemi and McNair.

Analysis: Well, we should hope so. There are people who might've been very pissed off at McNair. Namely, his wife—if she knew he was screwing around on her—and Kazemi's former boyfriend, whom she had lived with for quite some time until McNair came onto the scene.

Report: The fact that the gun was Kazemi's "certainly raises the likelihood" of a murder-suicide scenario, Levy said. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is analyzing ballistics evidence and gunshot residue collected at the scene. Police have not determined whether gunshot residue was found on Kazemi's hand. "We are beginning to make some headway in trying to understand what took place," said police spokesman Don Aaron. "It may be that we'll never know exactly why this happened."

Analysis: "Raises the likelihood" is pure speculation, and definitely not fact. Levy offers a bureaucratic suggestion based on Kazemi's gun ownership. That means nothing. McNair was a known gun owner. Kazemi heretofore was not. What's the connection? In the absence of gun residue on Kazemi—indicating she fired the gun—the possibility exists that a third party shot them both, then planted the gun underneath her, after making sure her fingerprints were placed on the gun.

Report: After questioning several people, including Kazemi's ex-boyfriend, Keith Norfleet, police said they are still far from a motive but learning more about the dating relationship between Kazemi and McNair, who was married to Mechelle McNair.

Analysis: This is a no-brainer. Ask the question: Who gets something out of this deed?

Report: Aaron said detectives were concerned about the length of time it took McNair's friend to call police once he discovered the bodies. Wayne Neely, who rented the condo with McNair, got there before 1 p.m. local time Saturday, but police weren't called until another friend arrived at 1:35 p.m. McNair and Kazemi had been dead for several hours by the time their bodies were found, police said. Aaron said they did not believe the bodies were moved. When asked if other evidence may have been moved, he said he couldn't comment.

Analysis: Being concerned is good. Neely's actions aren't entirely out of bounds. He might've been very shaken. Still, this needs to be explored to satisfaction. To say you "do not believe" the bodies were moved is misleading police verbiage. That is speculation only. There usually is a way to determine if bodies have been moved after a killing. What continues to plague the investigation is the fact that, apparently, five shots were fired in that location, yet not a single soul says they heard anything. Are those condo walls so thick as to muffle five gunshots?

Report: Mechelle McNair has not spoken publicly about the death.

Analysis: Nor should we expect her to.

Report: Kazemi's family has said she believed McNair was in the process of divorcing his wife when they met at her job at Dave & Busters several months ago and began dating. There is no record of divorce filings for the couple.

Analysis: Anyone who's ever been involved in a complicated thing like this knows how difficult and drawn out events prove to be. It could have been years before McNair was fully divorced. The financial aspects can get very contentious. Kazemi's family probably knew none of the details, and, like everyone else it seems, are only speculating.

Report: Bishop Joseph Walker, the pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church, said he had no indication there was trouble in the McNairs' marriage. When they came to service, they came together. They had not been in to see him for counseling.

Analysis: Natch.

Report: McNair had two arrests in Nashville. He was arrested on a DUI in 2003 that was later dismissed, and in 2007, he was arrested on an owner-operator DUI because his brother was charged with drinking and driving in his car while McNair was a passenger.

Analysis: McNair also carried guns. He was a hero on the football field, but a bit of a drinker and somewhat thuggish in other areas of behavior. Hardly a saint.

Report: There was no cause to arrest McNair when he was a passenger during Kazemi's DUI stop on July 2 because Kazemi was a co-owner of the Cadillac Escalade and bore the responsibility, Aaron said. Kazemi was driving 54-mph in a 30-mph zone, according to court records. She told police she was not drunk, but high. She later said it had been eight hours since she drank any alcohol. The court records don't mention McNair and a second person riding in the car. Though McNair was an owner, police did follow procedure when they released McNair, said Nashville criminal defense lawyer Nathan Moore." Absolutely, they did the right thing," Moore said of the officers letting McNair take a cab. "He had no legal obligation keeping her from driving the SUV. It was registered in both their names."

Analysis: Yes, no legal obligation. But how weird is it that McNair beat a hasty retreat into a cab, leaving his girlfriend to deal with the cops? And who is this third party also in the car? Not to mention, what kind of idiot person drives 54 MPH down Broadway at any time of day? Stupid, careless people all the way around.

Report: Officer Shawn Taylor, who stopped Kazemi, also was the officer who arrested McNair in 2003. The charges were dismissed and expunged.

Analysis: The poetic justice is thick. Taylor took a lot of heat during the 2003 incident, mainly from a public that was on McNair's side and wanted to see him beat that rap.

McNair File: Saturday, July 4, 2009

Pieced together from electronic news sources

Former Tennessee Titans quarterback and 2003 NFL co-MVP Steve McNair is dead. The 36-year-old McNair was found shot to death in a downtown Nashville condominium this afternoon with multiple wounds to his body and head. Found next to him was the body of 20-year-old Sahel Kazemi, a local waitress whom McNair had met fairly recently. Kazemi had a single gunshot wound to her head.

Nashville police will autopsy the bodies Sunday in an effort to discern the exact means and sequence of cause of death. Speculation already swirls in Nashville that this was a murder-suicide, though there are many yet unanswered questions about the personal situations involving McNair, Kazemi, Kazemi’s recent ex-boyfriend Keith Norfleet, and two of McNair’s associates.

The bodies were discovered by McNair friend Wayne Neely, who possibly rented the same condominium with McNair, or another one nearby. According to the Tennessean online, the condominium in question, at 105 Lea Avenue, is registered to Charles Cardwell, who is the Metropolitan Trustee in charge of levying property taxes. Exact ownership is only speculative at this time.

Apparently, Neely did not call police immediately upon discovering the crime scene. Instead he contacted another McNair associate, Robert Gaddy, who arrived at the scene, and then police were called, with approximately one half hour of time elapsed.

The McNair case already takes on the drama of a TV cop show. Apparently, McNair, long married and the father of four sons, had recently purchased a 2007 Cadillac Escalade for Kazemi, of Middle Eastern descent (possibly Iranian) and 16 years his junior. The car, registered jointly in both McNair’s and Kazemi’s names—possibly for insurance reasons or because of the way the car was paid for—was pulled over by a patrol car on Thursday night, July 2, in downtown Nashville. Kazemi was cited for driving under the influence (DUI) and arrested after refusing to submit to a breath test, but not before McNair, presumably wanting to avoid embarrassment and publicity, removed himself from the vehicle and hailed a cab to make his getaway. Kazemi was taken to lockup and apparently called Norfleet, who later picked up the car. Meanwhile, McNair bailed Kazemi out of jail.

Tennesseean reports loosely quote Norfleet as claiming that he was “worried” about Kazemi having an affair with a married man. Previously, Kazemi had lived four years with Norfleet in Jacksonville, Fla., which means she’d’ve been 16 when she began that cohabitation situation.

Kazemi apparently has known McNair for less than five months. She met him while waiting tables at the Dave & Busters restaurant in the Opryland area.

Nashville TV reporters have been trying to elicit information from police with only mostly speculative results. It is not known yet exactly when the shootings took place, and police have not revealed if other condo dwellers at the site might’ve heard anything long before the bodies were found.

A single pistol was found at the scene near Kazemi’s body, thus spurring the murder-suicide speculation, though if Kazemi, as her ex-boyfriend hinted, was considering breaking off her relationship with McNair, it begs the question why she would shoot him first and then kill herself.

Apparently the Escalade in question was towed by police from the crime scene, along with another black SUV, possibly a Ford Expedition.

Police spokesman Don Aaron broke off a late evening press conference with electronic reporters, stating that until the autopsies are completed, no more official reports will be given on the case.

Area map: http://www.zillow.com/homes/map/105-lea-avenue,-nashville,-tn_rb/#/homes/for_sale/map/105-lea-avenue,-nashville,-tn_rb/36.156305,-86.769222,36.15433,-86.772226_rect/17_zm/

Preakness 2009: Sometimes the Best Man for the Job Is a Woman

By Steve Brady

[Editor’s note: In horse racing, a “Derby” is a race set up specifically for 3-year-old colts, and an “Oaks” is restricted to 3-year-old fillies. Every few years, a particularly gifted filly attempts to “take on the boys” in a Triple Crown event. Fillies are traditionally given a five-pound weight break. Rags to Riches beat Curlin in the Belmont two years ago and Eight Belles finished a creditable second to Big Brown in the Kentucky Derby last year, before her tragic demise galloping out past the finish line. Although she eventually faced male contenders later in her career, and is still considered one of the greatest thoroughbreds of all time, Triple Tiara winner Ruffian was never entered in a Triple Crown event.]

The guy must know something, right? He won the 2007 Kentucky Derby on favorite Street Sense with clear-cut victory. Two weeks ago, he won the Derby again, using the exact same rail-hugging, come-from-behind tactics on a 50-1 longshot. But instead of sticking with Derby winner Mine That Bird in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico, jockey Calvin Borel has done something unprecedented: He’s opted to jump over to Rachel Alexandra—the filly on which he won the Kentucky Oaks the day before the Derby.

Let’s be clear: “won” is an understatement. The filly went off as a 1-5 favorite, and absolutely decimated the Oaks field by 20 lengths.

Still, despite her consistently high Beyer figures, the humiliating way in which she dispatched the distaff talent in her age group, and the scintillating workouts she has displayed the past several months, Rachel Alexandra (left, cruising at the Oaks with Borel) still makes a slightly precipitous leap upwards in class racing against all-male competitors. And that only gets tougher with each passing month, as the males mature. Add in the introduction of some interesting (and speedy) new faces to the Preakness field, plus her outside post position (#13), and RA (in my opinion) emerges as an underlay worth trying to beat at probable odds of 8-5.

But which of the boys can beat her? Only five of them have even one Beyer figure of 100 or more, much less the four consecutive plus-100 Beyers RA has racked up. As mentioned above, her workouts have been brilliant, and she should be right near the front of a not-too-speedy field at the Baltimore track, which usually favors frontrunners. Though there are not a lot of "rabbits" in this field, Big Drama (Post #1) and Tone It Down (Post #12) have enough early speed to keep the pace honest, and since RA likes to stay on the pace, jockey “Bo-rail” will not be pulling out his late-running, deus ex machina routine in Baltimore. They’ll have to try to dictate things on the lead, and given the way RA's dominated races so far this year, she may just pull it off.

Still, looking at the results charts since the beginning of this meet, Pimlico has been uncharacteristically fair to closers (especially in routes), and there’s a couple of good late runners in this race, including the second- and third-place finishers in the Derby—Pioneerof the Nile and Musket Man.

It may be that Rachel Alexandra needs an inside post like a fish needs a bicycle. Still, at 8-5, I’m gonna try to beat her. Here are the main contenders:

Mine That Bird [Post #2; 6-1 odds; trainer, Bennie Wooley] shocked the world with one of the biggest Derby upsets in history. No one seems to be buying that he’s for real. His jockey took another mount, and the oddsmakers have him as a 6-1 co-third choice. Maybe it was a fluke, but a seven-length win isn’t exactly chump change, and dismissing a Derby winner seems unwise. Hall of Famer Mike Smith picks up the mount. Look for him late.

Pioneerof the Nile [Post #9; 5-1 odds; trainer, Bob Baffert] looked poised to win the Derby before being foiled by Mine That Bird’s late- running heroics. Pioneer had been running as a closer up until the Derby, when he tried more front-running tactics. We may not know his strategy until he and jockey Garrett Gomez leave the starting gate. (BTW, that’s not a typo. Due to space limitations for horse names, they scrunched the first two words together.)

Musket Man [Post #3; 8-1 odds; trainer, Derek Ryan] closed well on Derby Day and lived up to his “wise guy pick” status. If Pimlico remains fair to closers, he’s another who could pick up the pieces in the stretch.

Papa Clem [Post #7; 12-1 odds; trainer, Gary Stute] was right behind Pioneer and Musket Man at the wire on Derby Day. He settled into fourth place at the beginning of the race, and pretty much held his place in line the whole way around. He had a very slow five-furlong workout in Baltimore on May 12, but trainer Stute seemed unfazed, claiming that “working ugly” is part of the grand plan. If the track is speed-favoring, he should be right in the mix again.

Take the Points [Post #11; 30-1 odds; trainer, Todd Pletcher] has been working well on natural dirt since finishing fourth behind Pioneer and Chocolate Candy on the synthetic cushion track at Santa Anita. He looks to improve with the surface switch, and with Edgar Prado up. His best-ever Beyer (99) was on natural dirt with Prado in the irons. He could surprise at a price.

General Quarters [Post #8; 20-1 odds; trainer, Tom McCarthy] was dubbed “America’s horse” because of sentiment for his improbable story. Retired school principal McCarthy is hoping GQ can conjure up his first plus-100 Beyer since Valentine’s Day, and that he can improve on his tenth-place finish in the Derby.

Big Drama [Post #1; 10-1 odds; trainer, David Fawkes] is a latecomer to the Trip Crown. He’s got some early speed, and impressively won five races in a row before being DQ’d and placed second to This One’s for Phil in the G-2 Swale. The 108 Beyer he earned that day is tied with Rachel Alexandra’s as best in the field. The Florida-bred has been working consistently since, and attracts John Velasquez in the saddle. If he breaks well from the rail, and can get the distance, he could lead them all the way around the track.

Friesan Fire [Post #5; 6-1 odds; trainer, Larry Jones] was my pick for the Derby, and I haven’t given up hope on him. He “pulled a quarter” stepping on his own foot coming out of the gate in the Derby, doing the equine equivalent of breaking a nail. Jockey Gabriel Saez simply guided him around the sloppy course once he recognized the race was lost, but FF put in yet another speed drill on May 12, and I don’t think Jones would send him out if the foot was still a problem. I’m looking for redemption on Preakness Saturday.

Luv Guv, Tone It Down, Flying Private and Terrain all look like longshots.

Online Video Resources (cut-and-paste links):

Past performances of Preakness contenders, available for free at DRF.com: http://www.drf.com/formulator-web/free-race.go?trackId=PIM&country=USA&raceDate=20090516&dayEvening=D&raceNumber=12#past-performance-race/12

2009 Kentucky Derby won by Mine That Bird: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv8x9x5A49s

Rachel Alexandra winning Kentucky Oaks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8b8lmbwVnA

Big Drama finishing first (later DQ’d by stewards and placed second): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dByF3eQUfHM

Steve Brady is Sports Media America's horse-racing columnist. He handicaps races in Southern California and works in Los Angeles as a commercial actor and comedy improviser with Cold Tofu.

The 2009 Kentucky Derby—90% of Life Is Just Showing (Up)

By Steve Brady

Woody Allen once famously said that “90% of life is just showing up.” His words have special meaning on the first Saturday in May. As this year’s Kentucky Derby entrants convene on a track that few of them have ever run on—at a distance none of them has been proven at, against competition few of them have ever faced, in a stampede twice the size any of them has ever found themselves in—it is challenging to pick with any certainty a horse that will come in the money. Much less the winner. Or a likely exacta.

The past couple of years, the racetracks in Southern California (Santa Anita and Hollywood Park) have offered a promotion called, respectively, Show-vivor or Show-Me-The-Money. The idea of both is to pick one horse in one race per day to finish in the money (win, place or show), and see how long you can “show-vive” in the contest. It sounds relatively easy. (Just pick the favorite; the favorite’s gotta at least show, right??) But as anyone who’s been eliminated on Day #1 can attest, it’s tougher than it looks. Even heavy favorites don’t always finish in the money—not even in a five-horse field.

With 20 horses starting in this year’s Derby, even a show payout on an obvious favorite is likely to more than double your investment—and that’s a lot better than pissing it away like I’ve been doing the past few years.

Although it is commonly noted that the favorite has won the Derby the last two years (and three times in the last five), it is also worth noting that, in the past 12 years, the post-time favorites have won only four times. Of those same 12 years, the favorites have come in the money 7 out of 12 times. Certainly no guarantee, but it’s a better than 50% chance of at least doubling your money.

In addition, the single-digit favorites who don’t finish in the money are much more likely to be stuck out beyond Post 9. In the past dozen years, of the 32 post-time, single-digit-odds runners who started in Post 9 or beyond, only eight have even finished in the money. The only glaring exception to this trend was last year’s winner, Big Brown, who, after being marooned at Post 20, bided his time in sixth place, then scooted to the lead at the quarter-mile pole and coasted home to win by almost five lengths. He was an especially talented horse in what was considered a pretty weak field.

Here’s what I’m getting at: The closest thing you get to a sure thing in the Derby is betting a single-digit favorite inside the 10-hole to show. And if he’s got enough speed to stay on the pace, so much the better.

The obvious favorites in this race are:

I Want Revenge 3-1 [morning-line odds] Jeff Mullins [trainer]
IWR exploded once he got off the West Coast synthetics and started running on natural dirt. He put up two consecutive plus-100 Beyers, in two consecutive graded stakes wins. Consider his astounding performance in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. After getting left flat-footed at the gate, he and jockey Joe Talamo patiently chased a relatively slow pace, got boxed in on the rail, and still managed to break away and split foes in the stretch to gain the lead and win by a length and a half. He’s a deserving favorite, but he’s in Post #13. He’s not getting my show money.

Dunkirk 4-1 (Todd Pletcher)
Obviously has immense talent. In his third career race, he went off as the even-money favorite in the Florida Derby. In that race, he finished a nice second to Quality Road—now off the Derby trail with hoof issues—and earned a career-high 108 Beyer. He’s been working very fast, and gets Edgar Prado in the irons. Certainly a tempting win candidate. He’s in Post #15.

Pioneer of the Nile 4-1 (Bob Baffert)
PON has won his last four consecutive graded stakes races. It would be reckless to ignore the fact that he has already beaten Papa Clem and Derby favorite IWR in the Grade 2 Robert Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita. Meanwhile, Eclipse Award winner Garrett Gomez had his choice of mounts, and picked PON over Dunkirk. Still, while PON has done nothing wrong, and keeps on winning, he remains untested on natural dirt, and still hasn’t taken on an especially large field. He also relies on closing tactics. Between the number of late runners in this field, the possibility of traffic problems in a 20-horse field, and a perusal of Churchill Downs results early this meet, it looks like an on-the-pace style will be more successful come Saturday. I don’t think the #16 hole will be as draining on PON as it might be for some others, yet I still don’t like the single-digit, outside-post candidates. I’m gonna keep looking for my surefire show bet.

Friesan Fire 5-1 (Larry Jones)
This is my pick. He’s another horse who just keeps winning and doesn’t seem to get enough respect. I’m pretty confident he’ll come in the money, and that makes him my heavy show bet. He starts from Post #6, and has no intimidating speed to his inside. He can get in a nice spot towards the front, just off the rail, letting Papa Clem, Join in the Dance, Regal Ransom, Atomic Rain and even I Want Revenge battle for position up front. He should be near the pace without burning himself out, or getting hung wide. Meanwhile, he’s been working out beautifully for trainer Jones. Plus, he won the Louisiana Derby on a sloppy track, and rain is predicted for Saturday in Louisville.

Longshots who could surprise:

Regal Ransom 30-1 (Saeed bin Suroor)
The top money-earner ($1,297,000) in the field, RR has worked well over the Churchill track after shipping in from Dubai.

Papa Clem 20-1 (Gary Stute)
Papa Clem has certainly been consistent. He beat IWR in the Lewis Stakes (just behind PON) and won the Arkansas Derby. On Thursday he worked three furlongs in a blistering 34-second bullet at Churchill. I think he’s got a shot.

Musket Man 20-1 (Derek Ryan)
MM could surprise everyone on Derby Day. He’s won five of six races—the other one, he came in third. He’s been working very nicely at Churchill, and he attracts Eibar Coa for the mount. He should be up towards the front for most of the race; we’ll see if he can hang on in the stretch.

General Quarters 20-1 (Tom McCarthy)
GQ is worth a $2 flyer based purely on a warm-'n'-fuzzy play. He’s the one-horse barn of 75-year-old, semi-retired trainer and ex-school principal McCarthy. After getting outbid for GQ in the yearling sales at Keeneland, McCarthy picked him up in a $20,000 claiming race at Churchill Downs a year later. Oh yeah, and he earned a 102 Beyer in a stakes race at Tampa Bay Downs on Valentine’s Day.

Chocolate Candy 20-1 (Jerry Hollendorfer)
CC seems to be the wise-guy pick. He’s continued to improve with each race. Right behind PON and IWR in the CashCall Futurity, he’s another who seems to work well underneath the Twin Spires.

Steve Brady is Sports Media America's horse-racing columnist. He handicaps races in Southern California and works in Los Angeles as a commercial actor and comedy improviser with Cold Tofu.

Kalas and Fidrych: Gone But Not Forgotten

Longtime Philadelphia Phillies baseball announcer Harry Kalas passed away yesterday, and by all reports he was a well-liked individual and apparently a very nice man. He collapsed in the broadcast booth at Nationals Park prior to the Nationals-Phillies game in Washington, D.C.

Death brings a sense of sadness—and an immediate tendency to reflect on the past. Having lived to 73, and having spent 38 years as the “voice of the Phillies,” Kalas was a part of many memories, and the memorializers were quick to tell us how Harry was the “soundtrack” for the lives of so many Philly sports fans.

I think it’s sad that Kalas is gone because if it’s true that he was a good human being, then the world is diminished by his leaving us.

But I don’t understand it when ESPN personnel go all gooey and hyperbolic in their reminiscences—especially about a guy who must have had one of the cushiest career rides in sports media history.

Kalas had a distinctive voice, without doubt, and it’s probable that his work as a narrator for NFL Films is what will live on the longest. In fact, Kalas had a voice made for football—a deeper-than-normal baritone that was gritty and actually rather grating.

So when ESPN’s Jayson Stark, in a video memorial, describes Kalas as delivering “dulcet words” in his Phillies broadcasts—while legacy-like piano music tinkles in the background [think the Master’s theme]—you gotta wonder why people so easily substitute bullshit for reality. Dulcet means “sweet and soothing.” (You could look it up, Jayson; in fact, you should look it up.) Anyone with a brain, and who had ever heard Kalas, could never describe his voice as “dulcet.” (Vin Scully is dulcet, okay?)

Stark also talked of Kalas’ “unmistakable Hall of Fame stamp” (whatever that means, besides the fact that Kalas got into the Hall of Fame) and how he “exuded a love for what he did.” Well, hell, if you got to announce baseball games for about 45 years, plus pick up sweet sidework—Kalas did national commercials occasionally—you’d probably exude a love for what you did, too. Exuding love for what you do is great, but there’s nothing heroic about it.

Who can forget the venal character Noah Cross’ line in the film Chinatown: “Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.” You could say that about sports announcers, too. Christ, they’re still trying to prop up Yankees PA announcer Bob Sheppard last I heard. Sheppard’s 98 (!!), still exuding love for what he does. That, or he simply won’t go away. And to think Kalas might’ve had 25 more years himself.

I guess I think this: If someone has died, then what they deserve is an honest rundown of what they’ve done and how they did it. Not made-up fantasy crap that doesn’t tell the tale.

Stark also said that he “can’t imagine how the players are going to take the field” upon hearing of Kalas’ passing. Former Phillie and ESPN analyst John Kruk claimed, “we’re going to miss him desperately,” citing Kalas’ “calming voice” (guess Kruk has wax in his ears too) and the “difficult day” ahead.

I dunno. The Phils seemed unmoved. All they did was score a lot of runs and beat the Nats 9-8. Jamie Moyer pitched his typical mediocre game and against the terrible Nationals that’s all you need. Somehow the broadcast booth carried on.

Two seasons ago, I found myself watching a lot of baseball highlights at MLB.com. Every time I checked out the Phillies and heard Kalas’ voice, I winced. Judging his performance strictly on its quality—never mind all the icon stuff—Kalas sounded tired, sometimes slow on the uptake, occasionally groping in mid-sentence to remember a name, and generally hardened of the arteries. Sorry, folks, that’s the truth.

But I think, where Kalas’ life is concerned, it should definitely be celebrated. He had a great ride, and he died in a baseball broadcast booth. Who could ask for more? That oughta spark a cool party—with lots of beer.

Now the sudden passing of 22-year-old Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart? That was sad.

Bird Man

The other big death news from Monday was the report of the demise of Mark Fidrych, known as “The Bird,” whose high-flying 1976 season with the Detroit Tigers remains one of the most colorful and wonderful stories in baseball history. Fidrych came out of nowhere to win the American League Rookie of the Year Award, when he was 19-9 with a 2.34 ERA and 24 complete games. (Take note, all you pansy-ass pitch-counters: 24 CGs in 29 starts.) Injuries began to plague Fidrych not long into his very next season—his knee, NOT his arm—and his career was, for all practical purposes, suddenly over. He totaled five seasons in the majors, all with the Tigers, with a lifetime mark of 29-19 and a 3.10 ERA.

The Bird was as idiosyncratic as they come when he was on the mound—landscaping the dirt (sometimes down on all fours!), talking to himself (and the ball!!), high-fiving teammates in the middle of innings—in-between mowing down hitters with his excellent control and inducing a lot of easy ground-ball outs. Fidrych was the real deal: an exuberant, unpretentious and genuine baseball flake. Like Kalas, I guess you could say that The Bird exuded a love for what he did, but truthfully, I don’t think he thought about it that much. I’m sure he was, as they say, just happy to be there.

Fidrych died on his Massachusetts farm, apparently while fixing a truck that he used for road construction work. Details were sketchy, but it sounds like just one of those things.

The Bird was 54. Way too young, and—just think—44 years younger than Bob Sheppard.

But that’s the thing about death. It’s out of our control, and it's as mysterious as life itself.

God bless 'em all.

New Baseball Prospectus 2009 Tons of Reading Fun, But Could It Help Joe Torre Win a Game?

Baseball Prospectus 2009: The Essential Guide to the 2009 Baseball Season (Penguin/Plume, 628 pages, $21.95)

This may seem to be a dotty notion, but I’ve long believed that I could manage a major league baseball team. In fact, I think there are a lot of regular guys all over the country who could manage a major league baseball team with some success. Or at least as much success as Manny Acta had with the Washington Nationals in 2008 (59-102).

But even if I’m selling Acta a little short—the Nats have hardly any talent to speak of, so maybe 59 wins was a miracle—raise your hand if you are convinced that you could manage a baseball team much better than Dusty Baker. Baker (somehow—oh yeah, Barry Bonds) got to a World Series in ’02 with the Giants, lost it, then went over to the Cubs the next year, oversaw the Bartman game, and proceeded to manage them completely into the ground. Now he’s pulling boners with his pitching staff in Cincinnati, and ya gotta ponder why anyone would hire this guy. Is the good-ol’-boy system more important than winning, even?

And now I see a lot of hands have gone up in the room.

So it makes you wonder. Why do the Los Angeles Dodgers pay Joe Torre a few million dollars a year to be the team’s manager, when they could pay me to do it and save a boatload of cash? Given that I’ve spent my life as a writer and musician without hitting the big time in either, I’d gladly take, oh, say, $75,000 (easy, but plus expenses) to manage the Dodgers, and consider myself a comfortable, happy guy.

Now, I’ve also been a lifelong baseball fan, so don’t let the artsy profile fool you. I know baseball. I even coached Little League once upon a time. I could write out a lineup card. I could make a pitching change. (Yeah, yeah. I’d consult with my bench coach and ask how many pitches my starter has thrown. To keep the front office happy.) I could send Matt Kemp up to pinch-hit for Clayton Kershaw. I could give the hit-and-run sign. I could order Rafael Furcal to lay down a bunt.

Now, presuming all the players on the Dodgers don’t intentionally play crappy just because I’m their manager—"Who does this guy think he is? Walter Mitty?” Manny Ramirez might mutter to no one in particular around the batting cage—I think I could get through the year okay and win a lot of games. I mean, do professional baseball players actually just lie down on the job if they don’t particularly like their manager? Seems like they’d try to do well always, since sucking on purpose could cost them money down the road. (Would Russell Martin actually think, “I hate that little turd. I’m going up there and strike out on purpose just so he’ll fail”? Seems unlikely.)

But what I’m also wondering is, if (and when) the Dodgers come a-calling, would I use the new edition of Baseball Prospectus to help me in my decision-making?

For the uninitiated, Baseball Prospectus is an annual guide to major league teams, their managers and players, including up-and-coming minor leaguers who may very well make the big club this season. This year it features the glib input of 16 baseball experts, all of them steeped in modes of statistical analysis that make Bill James and his pioneering Sabermetrics look like first-grade arithmetic.

The BP guys (and one girl) are obviously totally committed to this stuff, which requires a Ph.D, not in math really, but in acronymology. In between their determinedly know-it-all commentary on the players’ abilities and chances for success in 2009, you get a solid dose of SNLVARs (“Support Neutral Lineup-adjusted Value Above Replacement”), VORPs (“Value Over Replacement Player”), and WARPs (“Wins Above Replacement Player”). Not to mention BABIP (“Batting Average on Balls in Play”) and WXRL (“Wins eXpected above Replacement and adjusted for Lineup faced”). I have another personal favorite, Pythag +/-, which tells you how many games a team should have won, even if it’s less than the number they actually won.

(According to the BP guys, the 2008 Houston Astros’ record of 86-75 was a mirage. Actually, the team should have been 77-84, if only they had played to their BP-projected ability. I guess manager Cecil Cooper didn’t get the memo. For which I’m sure the Houston fans are grateful. Alternatively, the Cubs should have won two more games than they actually did, a supposition that would only make their fans head yet again for the nearest bar. Sorry, BP guys, the Cubs really only win what they win. Twenty years in Chicago taught me that.)

There are other arcane stats, which vary for hitters and pitchers—DERA, EqH9, EqBB9, EqA, EqBRR, etc.—plus defensive metrics for position players, and, for patient readers, they’re all explained in the book’s all-important statistical introduction.

Sometimes, though, the BP geeks will overlook describing a term. Hence, blithely and randomly reading along, we learn that Dodgers reliever Joe Beimel is a LOOGY, but no one explains what a LOOGY is. So I sought out this answer elsewhere. It stands for “Lefty One Out GuY.” (Just a guess here, but I’ll bet Joe Beimel’s mom doesn’t want her son being called a LOOGY. Sounds kinda gross.)

For the average fan, the BP individual position-player stats for a single season are slightly frustrating. They cover the past three years of play, and include projected numbers for ’09 (the latter a pretty clever gimmick based on the so-called PECOTA system, which I leave to you to investigate on your own). But they don’t tell you how many games the guy appeared in (G), or his total number of at-bats (AB), nor the total number of hits he achieved (H). Instead we get PAs (plate appearances), plus doubles, triples and homers, then RBIs and walks and strikeouts, and then a line of BP specialty stats that play into the think tank’s overanalyzed sense of smug self-satisfaction, beginning with the Holy Trinity of latter-day baseball numerology: average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. You are left on your own to compute the ultimate New Age Holy Grail stat: OPS (that’s on-base percentage + slugging percentage).

The short, essay-like thumbnail sizeups for each player are interesting, to be sure—soundly premised, usually crafted with grabby flair and infused with witty one-liners and ripe sarcasm—and really, for bathroom (or less casual) reading you won’t find a cooler book. The inside dope on the younger players poised to make a splash in ’09 will definitely intrigue the devoted fan.

Now, if only the games were played in the heads of the BP staff, and not on the field. Then Baseball Prospectus would make perfect sense. But part of the beauty of baseball is that games are won between the lines, and sometimes the most unlikely players are transformed into heroes while the statistics are defied.

The BP metrics also don’t really factor in the concept of clutch. I imagine these guys would have all sorts of reasons for determining that former Dodgers and Cubs third-baseman Ron Cey (1971-1987) was a bit of a stiff, with his mediocre batting averages, his slow feet, and his limited range in the field. But Cey hit when it counted, almost all the time. Even uber-stats-ology can’t account for that kind of magic.

The BP badinage also tends to be snobbishly dismissive of certain players when a modicum of realistic understanding is required. How else to explain their rap against the Dodgers’ Juan Pierre? His lack of power is well-known, but Pierre is seen through BP eyes almost as a cipher of a ballplayer. Yet in eight full seasons, Pierre has four 200-hit campaigns, a lifetime average of .300 and also a World Series ring, and at age 31 has nearly 1,600 hits. So...has this guy been wasting his time in MLB?

Regrettably, the book has two serious strikes against it. 1) There's no index, so you'll be driven nuts sometimes trying to find players that got traded or signed with other teams in the off-season. If you dig hard enough, and remember their 2008 teams, you can find 'em, but still...why give that headache to a baseball fan? 2) The foreword is by Keith Olberman (or Olbermann, the book spells it both ways, which is kind of funny given how famous he thinks he is). KO is a cretinous knee-jerk liberal political bigmouth masquerading as a sports fan, and he should be encouraged by thinking people to partake of neither. For what it's worth, I skipped his blowhard contribution and am no worse for wear.

That said, Baseball Prospectus 2009 certainly is engaging in its own ways. The specific (and important) critiques aside, it’s still pretty smart, eminently readable, hiply humorous, and packed with enough “regular” stats to satisfy guys who collected baseball cards back in the day but may not go for all this “Eq” stuff. (It's also probably a boon to all those fantasy players.)

Fact is, sometimes you can overanalyze everything, and then life starts to be less fun.

Conference Tournaments Still Blight NCAA Selection Process

The message is now clear to every NCAA men’s basketball conference: Get yourself a season-ending conference tournament—and then manipulate the system.

Conference tournaments suck. They’re stupid. Their existence invalidates the regular season conference schedule. And they were doubtless founded solely to generate cash. But according to the ESPN news story, Mississippi State, with its victory over Tennessee on Sunday, was “celebrating the league title.” Gee, I thought that honor went to LSU, with its 13-3 regular-season record against all SEC comers.

Mississippi State won the conference tourney, not the league title, but where the SEC is concerned that’s a damn fine thing. Because without it, one of the best (or apparently only formerly best) conferences in the nation would have had only two schools placed into the Big Dance—Tennessee and LSU. So in this case, the season-ending tourney helped the SEC, and thank God for that. Otherwise, the Atlantic-10—with Xavier, Dayton and Temple—would’ve placed more teams in the NCAAs than the SEC.

So maybe the SEC commissioner should issue a secret memo:

Dear SEC basketball coach:

Beginning with the 2009-2010 NCAA basketball season, any SEC team that is already assured a berth in the NCAA Tournament will purposely lose in the first round of our season-ending tourney.

There are three reasons why we are issuing this edict:

1) By losing early, teams already guaranteed an NCAA slot will get some needed rest, and avoid injury, as they prepare for the Big Dance.

2) All of our lesser teams will automatically improve on their records and enhance their chances as bubble teams or possibly as NIT candidates.

3) This will guarantee an additional SEC team’s automatic berth in the NCAAs as our tourney winner.

Let’s face it: That’s the way this thing works. And if you can’t trust the NCAA Selection Committee—the Big Ten has seven entries this year, while the SEC has three (make sense to you?)—then you gotta go along with everybody else and cook the books.

Consider the case of the Horizon League, which features such stalwart schools as Youngstown State (11-19), Detroit (7-23) and Valparaiso (9-22). The Horizon has one acknowledged first-tier team, Butler. According to the experts, Butler was already guaranteed a slot in the NCAAs. But for some reason, this dinky conference is awarded an automatic NCAA berth to the winner of its year-end conference tourney. So what happens? Butler loses in the tourney championship game to Cleveland State (the third-best squad in the Horizon), and now both schools are off to the Dance. If Mississippi State hadn’t pulled off its SEC tourney win, the Horizon League would’ve had as many schools in the NCAAs as the SEC.

Does anyone really think Cleveland State is better than SEC also-rans Auburn, or South Carolina or Florida?

The big schools who tanked in their conference tournaments made the smart play. North Carolina, Pitt, UConn, Michigan State, Oklahoma, Kansas, Wake Forest—they all get needed rest by bowing out early. And by doing so, they also leave a path open for their conferences’ lesser schools—like bubble-team Maryland in the ACC—to pad their resumes and enhance their Big Dance chances.

Frankly, I don’t know what Louisville and Duke—who advanced to their leagues’ title games—were thinking. Why waste all that energy—and why risk injury playing a game that means nothing—when a high seed awaits them anyway?

Conference tourneys should have no bearing on determination of the best teams in the country. But since they do, and since good teams in lesser conferences (e.g., St. Mary’s, Creighton) get screwed by the Cleveland States under the system, then it’s time to level the playing field.

What the heck. It’s time for the Ivy League to add that conference tournament. This year, its rep in the Big Dance is Cornell, 21-9 and clearly the class of the league. But if they had a year-end tourney, then maybe they could add another school to the postseason. Maybe 9-19 Brown would’ve gotten hot and won the automatic tourney bid. Wouldn’t that be fun...

There are two possibilities here: Either the SEC really sucks this year, or the system remains as flawed as ever. That said, the NCAA choices look acceptable in their typical way. Yet more reform is needed.

In the meantime, I’m all for that SEC secret memo. What’s the worst that could happen? Double secret probation??

Haynesworth Finds Greener Pastures in D.C.

So Albert Haynesworth is gone to the Redskins, who acquire the Titans’ behemoth defensive tackle for $100 million on a 7-year commitment. Haynesworth earns a guaranteed $41 million with the deal.

There are two shorthand ways to think about this:

1. Haynesworth is a premier defensive talent who is just now entering his prime. The Titans lose the heart of their defense, and the Redskins have immeasurably improved their team.

or...

2. Haynesworth has peaked, he has had a history of underachievement, he’s one hyperextended knee away from prolonged periods of inactivity, and the Titans dodged a fiscal bullet of sorts, while the Redskins and owner Daniel Snyder have once again paid out huge money on a risky venture that may very well yield limited dividends.

Haynesworth is talented. He’s listed at 6’6,” 320 pounds, and when he’s on his game, he is a dominant force. For a huge guy, he’s reasonably mobile, and his strength is clogging the middle and disrupting running games. When he’s doing that effectively, he makes everyone around him better, especially linebackers.

Haynesworth will turn 28 on June 17, so he’s young enough to still have banner years ahead of him. Barring injury. Barring his penchant for underachievement. Barring the usual drop-off we see when players get larded with obscene amounts of money (which seems to happen a lot with the Redskins, in particular).

Fact is, it took Haynesworth about five years to hit his stride with the Titans. Plus, if Redskins fans are expecting Haynesworth to terrorize quarterbacks in the fashion of marquee defensive linemen, they can forget about that. In seven years and in 90 games, Haynesworth—who only in his rookie year in 2002 played in every game—has recorded a grand total of 24 sacks.

So where does this event leave the Titans? Not that bad off, actually. The team received surprising performances on the D-line last season from rookies Jason Jones and William Hayes, plus strong levels of play from younger vets Tony Brown, Jacob Ford, and Kevin Vickerson. They still have veteran former All-Pros Kyle Vanden Bosch and Jevon Kearse anchoring the ends. If they can add another promising defensive tackle through the draft or free agency, they have a shot at finding ways to retool their generally successful defensive approach.

What remains to be seen is whether Haynesworth has in fact entered the Twilight Zone of Washington, D.C., where high-priced talent has arrived in droves in recent years, only to achieve at a consistent level of mediocrity.

Media note

Titans radio announcer Mike Keith recently was accorded the Tennessee Sportscaster of the Year Award. Ouch. Must have been another down year for local electronic media voice talent.

Keith is just awful. Nothing grates so much on the ears than Keith when he’s getting all worked up over action on the field, his voice rising to a strange treble-y one-note level, then exploding into his signature cry, “Touchdown, TIIII-TANNNNS!!”

I can’t stand Keith’s play-by-play voice. He renders Titans broadcasts unlistenable after more than about 20 seconds. Proving once again the old shibboleth that it’s better to be lucky than good.

What makes things worse is that we hear Keith’s voice all over the radio as a pitchman for every product under the sun. (He’s very big promoting jewelry stores, especially.) So the small-market guy with the small-market voice and small-market enthusiasm is cashing in big-time locally, his gross overexposure trumped mightily by his vaunted choice position as the Titans’ radio voice.

To be fair, Keith is just fine on his TV gig, “Titans All Access.” That’s because in that forum his voice resides at a consistently conversational level, and he does conduct decent, if softball, interviews.

They say Mike’s a nice guy. I’m sure he is. But I’m not drinking that Kool-Aid.

Da Thom Abraham Show: Nashville Sports Talk Radio’s Answer to Phony Blue-Collar Fandom

Thom Abraham’s been on 106.7, the local ESPN outlet, since the summer of 2007. He has a somewhat sketchy resume as a small-market radio host and also as a high school coach, so the Nashville gig is probably a big deal for him. His career has stretched in its previous, various incarnations from upstate New York to Florida and Alabama, which makes you wonder why he sounds like one of the SuperFans from the old Saturday Night Live sketch. (“Daaaa...BEARS!”)

For the uninitiated, here’s a short glossary of some key SuperFan terms, as used by Abraham, with phonetic pronunciation and translation:

The Glossary of Abraham

“da”—the
“dare”—there, their, they’re
“dat”—that
“day”—they
“dem”—them
“den”—then
“dis”—this
“doze”—those
“ta”—to
“wit”—with
“wit-out”—without
"yer"—your, you're

Usage

In order to fully understand SuperFan-speak, you need to see it in action. Here are some examples of how Thom Abraham might use it in his “colorful” radio broadcasts. (Tip: For full effect, pronounce the following really loud and fast):

“I’m tellin’ ya, doze Red Wings are gonna come into da Sommet Center and dare gonna run doze Preds ragged wit-out mercy, and den dare gonna beat dem down in da third period wit dare front line.”

“Den dare’s da case of LenDale White. Da guy’s kinda a bonehead, wit-out any sense of da impact of stomping on dat Terrible Towel.”

“I went down dere wit my good buddy Jeff Diamond. I went dare wit da family and day all had a great time, wit-out any hassles.”

“Dare’s no way da Titans can beat dare opponents. Dare lost wit-out a passing game. Dare gonna lose.”

“Let takes da Preds. Day have no chance to win da division. Day kinda suck right now.”

“Dis is not da first time dat da Preds have tanked in da third period.”

“Dat’s probably da last time dat I’m gonna see Kerry Collins move da team wit-out a running game.”

“Da Titans haven’t been to da Super Bowl since our own Jeff Diamond was in da front office.”

Now, I lived in Chicago for 20 years, and if anyone knows what a Windy City Northwest Side sports-nut Polack sounds like, it’s me. That’s why the SNL skit was so successful: In essence, it was absolutely right on. So one can only conclude, without firm biographical evidence otherwise, that Abraham’s a complete put-on with this stuff.

I recall possibly hearing Abraham once discuss Cleveland as a point of origin, and his bio mentions that he passed “on an opportunity to play football at Ashland College in Ohio.” (Whatever dat means.) So I dunno. Do Clevelanders talk like the SuperFans? More importantly, do guys who’ve spent the bulk of their professional life in upstate New York, Florida and Alabama sound like the SuperFans?

I don’t think so. Which is why one can only conclude that Abraham’s rap is absolute phony-baloney, probably designed to inject a breath of fresh air onto our drawly Mid-South sports airwaves.

But if you want to hear Abraham really let loose in this mode, listen to him when he’s shilling for the local restaurants that sponsor his gig. For example:

“Ya gotta get down dare to Joe’s Sport’s Bar, down dare in Cool Springs. Yer gonna love it. Day got da chicken and da ribs, day got da pork and da beef, day got da burgers and da subs, and day even got a deep-dish pizza dat’ll drive you wild! Plus day got da sides ta go wit it, like da cheese sticks and da French fries and da onion rings, and dat’s not all: Day got 18 kinds a beer dat you can wash it all down wit. Dat’s my favorite place ta watch sports and get myself a great meal ta boot.”

Or, with that menu, as the SuperFan played by the late Chris Farley would say, “I tink I’m ’avin’ a ’eart attack!”

Put-on? Or actual Rust Belt blue-collar guy who digs sports? We'll let you decide. But listen closely when Abraham shills for other, slightly more genteel products. Your more-articulate slip is showing, dude. And dat's all I'm gonna say about dat.

Super Bowl Weekend Roundup: The Game, the Hall, and a Trivia Quiz for Diehards

Yep, that was a good Super Bowl. Actually, a great one. My pregame prediction was 24-17 Pittsburgh—same as ESPN’s John Clayton—but I was rooting hard for the Cards.

Hindsight’s always 20-20, but maybe if the Cards had taken the gunslinging approach sooner they’d’ve put some early points on the board. They credibly made the pro-forma attempt to “establish the running game,” but in so doing it ended up taking a while for Larry Fitzgerald to get his first catch before he finally caught fire.

I’d have to say the Steelers were definitely the stronger team in the “physical” department, but the Cardinals were pretty damn awesome in some tough defensive situations, and their combative spirit put them in position to win.

It’s easy to hate the Steelers. Their uniforms—the black and the gold—always seem to make them look bigger than everyone else, and maybe they just flat-out are. And somehow Ben Roethlisberger makes plays out of improbable circumstances, and there’s nothing else you can say about that. He’s a “New Age rock ’em, sock ’em robot” figure standing back there like Goliath, and hence a damn good argument for all future NFL quarterbacks to never line up at less than 6’6,” 250 pounds. Santonio Holmes deserved the MVP, too. He was a relentless force, and his timing was impeccable. How that decisive TD pass play came off without one of those athletic Cardinals defensive backs getting a hand on the ball was slightly miraculous.

So the Steelers were good—and lucky. You can’t beat that. (For example, linebacker James Harrison’s 100-yard interception return for a TD was insane. How could he rumble and stumble that far without a Cardinal running him down sooner? That play changed the game, and even at that the Cards came back to take the lead late. Now, if Harrison doesn’t score...?)

As for Kurt Warner, he remains, for me anyway, the most entertaining QB in the game. When he’s on, he’s great, and his performance this day recalled his amazing seasons with the St. Louis Rams. There’s been much discussion lately about Warner’s Hall of Fame chances. Personally, based on the caliber of his play—raw numbers notwithstanding—I think he’s a lock. No one runs a passing offense like Warner. And if the Cards’ D could’ve held off the Steelers on their last drive, it’s Warner hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.

Great game. Maybe the greatest of them all.

Hall of Fame Watch

Hall of Fame honors were announced over the weekend, and the most important selection was Bob Hayes, the late, great Dallas Cowboys wide receiver. Hayes’ selection was long overdue, and he had to get a reprieve from the Senior Committee to become eligible a second time for possible induction.

Hayes was the seminal, modern-day, fleet-footed wide receiver, the first guy to stretch defensive secondaries and force the development of the zone defense. No one could cover Hayes one-on-one. He was an Olympic gold medal sprinter before he came to the NFL, and his 11-year career concluded with a 20.0 yards-per-catch average, which is totally unheard of in the modern age of short, dump-off passes and the dinking and dunking that has come with the rise of the West Coast offense.

Hayes won his requisite Super Bowl ring following the 1971 season, which completed a two-year regular season stretch in which he caught 69 passes for 1,729 yards for a crazy 25.1 YPC and 18 TDs. (This was back in the day of the 14-game season, by the way.) And Hayes still holds the Cowboys record for TD pass receptions at 71.

Hayes had fallen into disfavor with Hall voters because of some drug-dealing troubles he had following his retirement. Maybe the scribes got more forgiving once they realized they had voted in Michael Irvin—himself an ex-Cowboy receiver with drug problems (and a guy of questionable character, to boot)—in 2007.

But Hayes is in, and that’s right.

Interestingly, former Eagles/Vikings/Dolphins receiver Cris Carter didn’t make it in this year, and in next year’s voting he’s up against Jerry Rice, who becomes eligible for the first time. Carter’s got huge numbers, piled up over the course of 16 seasons, including 130 TDs and almost 14,000 yards on 1,101 catches. Yet Carter’s career YPC is a puny 12.6, indicative not only of the age he played in—dink and dunk—but also of his status as premier “possession receiver,” a term that I usually interpret as meaning, “Oh, he’s not very fast or elusive and, hence, doesn’t catch many long balls.” Carter did have great hands and he was a pretty tough character. From 1988-2001, he played in every regular season game with the exception of four he missed in 1992. Carter should get in eventually, but to me his candidacy raises the old question: Is the Hall of Fame for guys who played a long time and piled up weighty numbers, or it it for guys whose talent is undeniably superior no matter how long they played?

Others who made it into the Hall were former Vikings offensive guard Randall McDaniel, deceased Chiefs linebacker Derrick Thomas, versatile cornerback/safety Rod Woodson, longtime Buffalo Bills defensive end Bruce Smith, and also Bills owner/founder Ralph Wilson. The main snubs were Carter, former Vikings DT John Randle, and, by the Senior Committee, former DE Claude Humphrey, who was a good player on mostly forgettable Atlanta teams and probably won’t ever see the Hall now. (Humphrey played in Super Bowl XV with the Eagles.)

The Randle snub is perplexing. Again, it has to do with ability. Randle’s stats are fine—14 seasons, 137.5 sacks—but even those don’t tell the whole story. He was an animal of a player, an extremely nimble and aggressive DT, a position very often filled by chunky dudes whose main task is to clog the middle. Latter-day behemoths like the Titans’ Albert Haynesworth are very good at what they do, of course, but Randle played the position far differently than the typical DT. With his quickness, he raised DT play to a new level. He’s one of those guys who oughta be Hall-bound based on what we saw him do, not merely on what the statistics tell us.

As for Wilson, frankly, I don’t know why owners even go into the Hall in the first place. The guy’s 90 years old, for chrissakes, so why now? Former commish Paul Tagliabue was also denied entry, but again, why should commishes be singled out for the Hall? Or worse, have to go through the voting process and get snubbed? Just seems kinda dumb to me.

Trivia Quiz
Anyway, the season’s over. It was a great one, and the culminating game was a classic. So now we’ll leave you with a little fun and a look back at Super Bowls past. (Answers below.)

1. The 1995 Pittsburgh Steelers made it to the Super Bowl, then lost to the Dallas Cowboys, 27-17. Who led the Steelers in rushing that season?

a. Bam Morris

b. Erric Pegram

c. Barry Foster

d. Jerome Bettis

2. Three teams have lost 4 Super Bowls. Was it...?

a. Dallas, Buffalo, Denver

b. Buffalo, Washington, Minnesota

c. Minnesota, Buffalo, Denver

d. Dallas, Oakland, Buffalo

3. Almost everyone remembers Scott Norwood for missing a potential game-winning field goal at the end of Super Bowl XXV, won by the Giants, 20-19, over the Bills. But who kicked the actual game-winner for the Giants earlier in the fourth quarter?

a. Raul Allegre

b. Chris Bahr

c. Matt Bahr

d. Pat Leahy

4. Besides Kurt Warner—1999 Rams, 2008 Cardinals—who’s the only other quarterback to start Super Bowl games for two different teams?

a. Jim Plunkett

b. Earl Morrall

c. Rich Gannon

d. Craig Morton

5. Only four head coaches have taken two different teams to the Super Bowl. Was it...?

a. Ewbank, Holmgren, Shula, Flores

b. Holmgren, Madden, Ewbank, Parcells

c. Shula, Parcells, Ewbank, Vermeil

d. Vermeil, Shula, Parcells, Holmgren

6. While located in Baltimore, the Colts won only one Super Bowl, following the 1970 season. Who was the head coach?

a. Weeb Ewbank

b. Don McCafferty

c. Don Shula

d. Ted Marchibroda

7. Which of the the following is not a Super Bowl-winning quarterback?

a. Brad Johnson

b. Trent Dilfer

c. Jeff Hostetler

d. Neil O’Donnell

8. The 1967 Oakland Raiders posted a 13-1 regular season record on the way to Super Bowl II, which they lost to the Packers, 33-14. Who was their coach?

a. Al Davis

b. John Madden

c. John Rauch

d. Lou Saban

9. In their only Super Bowl appearance, the 1994 San Diego Chargers were spanked by the 49ers, 49-26. Who was their quarterback?

a. Dan Fouts

b. Gale Gilbert

c. Jeff Hostetler

d. Stan Humphries

10. The Cincinnati Bengals made their first Super Bowl appearance following the 1981 season. Who was their coach?

a. Forrest Gregg

b. Paul Brown

c. Sam Wyche

d. Bill Johnson

11. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Bengals in that Super Bowl, their very first of five won in the ’80s and ’90s. Who led the 1981 team in rushing?

a. Roger Craig

b. Rickey Watters

c. Ricky Patton

d. Wendell Tyler

12. Which of the following quarterbacks won only one Super Bowl?

a. Steve Young

b. Jim Plunkett

c. Bart Starr

d. John Elway

13. Which of the following Super Bowl-winning coaches has the most regular-season career coaching victories?

a. Mike Ditka

b. Dick Vermeil

c. Tom Coughlin

d. Bill Walsh

14. Who is the only man to have won a Super Bowl as both a player and a head coach?

a. Tony Dungy

b. Bill Cowher

c. Mike Ditka

d. Mike Tomlin

15. Only one player has earned Super Bowl rings with three different teams. Was it...?

a. Charles Haley

b. Matt Millen

c. Bill Romanowski

d. Preston Pearson


Answers:
1.-b
2.-c
3.-c
4.-d
5.-d. Vermeil (Eagles, Rams), Shula (Colts, Dolphins), Parcells (Giants, Patriots), Holmgren (Packers, Seahawks)
6.-b
7.-d
8.-c
9.-d
10.-a
11.-c
12.-a
13.-a Ditka (121)
14.-c
15.-b

Mark your calendar: The 2009 NFL Draft is April 25-26.