Beaver County Times, September 28, 2014

Hey, did you hear that Derek Jeter is retiring?
Because it's New York and the Yankees, it's been inescapable.
Jeter has had an excellent career that will land him in the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. He's banked more than $265 million over his 20 years, so he probably won't be sweating post-baseball life. (He's had to get by on $12 million this season since topping out at $22.6 million in 2010. Those Yankees drive a hard bargain.)
Jeter has managed to avoid scandal, even with the competitive New York tabloids watching. He's been a serial dater of models and actresses, but unlike a lot of players, he hasn't been married while he's pursued that hobby.
If you're inclined to shed a tear, let it be motivated by unabashed envy for the wonderful life Jeter has enjoyed since he came to the Yankees in 1996.
Things have been so hopelessly over the top that there's a Gatorade commercial with Frank Sinatra's "My Way" as the soundtrack. By the way, Jeter will be paid for that, too.
Every stop on the road has brought a pre-game ceremony and some sort of gift, none of which Jeter needs. He could buy Wyoming.
ESPN's Keith Olbermann had an extended rant last week that poked some serious holes in the Jeter legend. Olbermann is based in New York and no doubt he's overdosed on Jeter-mania.
Adulation doesn't always last forever. In 1982, a lot of people were weepy when Willie Stargell ended his career with the Pirates. Not that many years later, they were booing Stargell when he came back to town working for the Atlanta Braves. A guy who then worked for the Pirates skillfully leaked the information that Stargell had demanded a $70,000 car as payment for participating in a gate-boosting night in his honor.
There are probably Yankees fans who view Jeter's last game today as the end of life as they've known it. If they're older than 12, shame on them. The Yankees moved on after Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. They'll field a team next year without Jeter.
In a perfect world, we'd get just as emotional about the retirement of a treasured teacher who influences kids into developing habits that lead to productive lives. Unfortunately, their sendoff usually begins and ends with a plaque and a tray of cupcakes whipped up by the hairnet ladies in the school cafeteria.
We save the spectacular farewells for millionaires who play games.
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--ONE MAN'S TRASH
Once you accept that people are nuts, you focus on a way to turn that truth into profit.
MLB has done that. Whenever a team has a champagne-spraying celebration, MLB has authenticators on hand to collect the empty bottles and corks to be offered for sale. The authenticators verify that the trash was part of the celebration. They thus become "collectibles," and people apparently buy them.
Some teams are selling the empty bottles for more than $100, and the corks are $25. Remember, it's not just an empty bottle -- it's a bottle that may have been emptied by Casey Sadler.
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--FILLING A NEED
Sentimentalists applauded the Steelers' re-signing of James Harrison last week, but it came about only because necessity and convenience converged.
The Steelers lost linebackers Jarvis Jones and Ryan Shazier to injuries in the Carolina game and had a sudden need for help at the position. There's obviously a premium on getting someone who can quickly learn the defense, and that made Harrison the best candidate.
Like Brett Keisel, he's back because there's a need, not because there's an expectation he's the player he once was.
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--IS THAT ALL?
KDKA-TV put together a promo bragging it was the only local news station in Atlanta for the Pirates' celebration after clinching a postseason spot.
The promo includes a clip of reporter Rich Walsh asking, "How's this feel, man?" and the player responding, "Pretty special."
That's going to make the other stations sorry they weren't there.

Beaver County Times, September 21, 2014

Even acknowledging the scourge of karaoke, nothing fuels performance fantasies like sports.
People purchase and proudly wear jerseys with someone else's name on the back, living vicariously through the borrowed identity. Sidney Crosby might think it peculiar that a tubby 50-year-old would sport his name and number, but he's far too diplomatic to say so.
An entire industry has grown around the desire to be a player. Middle-aged people pay thousands of dollars to attend fantasy camps that purport to simulate the experience of being a major league player, if only for a week. Campers get a regulation uniform, a baseball card of themselves and they presumably learn the fine art of scribbling a consistently illegible autograph. They're not really players, but they get to put sunglasses atop their caps and walk the walk for a few days.
Baseball fantasy camps routinely sell out the available spots, despite the big price tag. There are no dentist fantasy camps, where wanna-be's get to wear scrubs, lecture on the importance of flossing, and bark orders for a set of bitewing x-rays.
Sports grip us in a special way. Surgeons and Senators daydream about patrolling the outfield in Wrigley Field on a sunny afternoon or stepping to the plate with the World Series on the line, the way that Bill Mazeroski did.
But if you pay attention, it works the other way, too. You see things in sports and silently give thanks that you don't have that kind of problem. You wouldn't want to be in their shoes. Here are some people whose Florsheims you're grateful not to occupy these days:
--Roger Goodell: Sure, he has the big bank account and his signature is on the footballs, but he looks awfully stressed now. He completely botched the Ray Rice issue, and he's backpedaling faster than a cornerback trying to cover Calvin Johnson.
Reports of off-field misdeeds are springing up like dandelions, leaving Goodell scrambling like Fran Tarkenton, and causing some observers to overuse similes and reference old players irrelevant to anyone under 40.
--Billy Beane: The Oakland GM had the team with the best record in MLB, and decided to improve it. The master of Moneyball, who has skillfully built on a budget, uncharacteristically broke the bank to beef up his pitching. He boldly acquired starters Jon Lester, Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel, shoring up the one potential weakness.
But while those pitchers have generally done well for the A's, the offense went south. They've gone from a four-game lead in the division to a double-digit deficit, and they're now in a final-week scramble to nail down a wild card spot. Beane blew a hole in the offense when he dealt cleanup hitter Yoenis Cespedes for a two-month rental of Lester He potentially bought years of future regret by surrendering prime prospects for the other two pitchers.
--Pedro Alvarez: There he sits on the Pirates bench, felled by a foot injury. It's the latest indignity in the scatter-armed summer that saw him removed for defensive purposes and lifted for pinch hitters. It's no fun to be a detached spectator as the team makes a late charge to a postseason berth. He's being paid nicely, but Alvarez has to be suffering in what's turned into a lost season for him.
--Mike Johnston: His first chance to coach in the NHL comes at 57, and he gets this soap opera. He has two superstars who seem to be less than happy, and ownership expects a Stanley Cup, even though the team is clearly at least a notch below the current Kings/Blackhawks standard of excellence. The GM who hired him has one foot on his retirement property, his goalie has a potentially-distracting contract issue, and he didn't even get to pick his top assistant. Welcome to the NHL!
Perhaps it was all best summed up by the philosopher Barry Bonds. He had a memorable reaction when told a mid-level Pirates executive with whom he had clashed had been dismissed in a budgetary move. Bonds grinned widely, then gleefully cackled, "See ya! Wouldn't want to be ya!"

Beaver County Times, September 14, 2014

Roger Goodell has an opulent office on Park Avenue, and he's in a fight to keep it.
You know the details of the Ray Rice case and the NFL's horribly inadequate response. Now there's the Watergate-esque issue of what Goodell knew and when he knew it.
Somehow the NFL's far-flung security network couldn't come up with a tape that instead wound up in the clutches of gossip website TMZ. That's Goodell's version of the story. If it's true, he's admitting he's incompetent. If it's not true, he's a liar.
Either way, it doesn't bode well for his future in a job that's reported to have earned him $44 million last year. It's stunning that Goodell has been so tone-deaf in his handling of Rice's case.
The two-game suspension was a joke. Goodell admitted his mistake when he backtracked and toughened the NFL's policy on domestic abuse. Still, at that point Rice would have been cleared to rejoin the Ravens this week.
The security video changed all of that, and may have also altered the course of NFL history, where there have been just three commissioners in the last 54 years.
You don't get that big office on Park Avenue without being politically savvy. Goodell, according to his published history, wanted to work for the NFL from the time he was attending Washington & Jefferson. He regularly wrote to the league and most of the teams, looking for any entry-level job.
The league took him on as an intern, and he progressed from there. That doesn't happen unless you make a lot of right moves, schmooze the wealthy and headstrong men who own franchises and build a consensus of support. It's much like a political campaign, and Goodell's paid off in 2006 when he was selected to succeed Paul Tagliabue.
How can a guy who's that smart miss so badly when the Ray Rice incident landed on his desk? After all the finger wagging and scolding and fining on late hits and dope smoking and improper comments about officiating, he completely fumbled a clear-cut case of assault.
A lot of players are enjoying seeing Goodell squirm under the heat that's roasting him these days. The most effective way for the NFL to recover from the Rice disgrace would be to put someone else in charge of the league.
It may come to that after an investigation is concluded. The big question is how a league that employs elite former law enforcement personnel couldn't come up with a tape that was obviously available. Was Goodell inept, or was he dishonest?
Neither choice is very appealing. Ray Rice lost his job. Roger Goodell may lose his, too.
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--IT'S FUNDAMENTAL
You can debate schemes and wonder how quickly new players can grasp a complicated defense, but there's one horrible truth from the Steelers' first two games:
They don't tackle very well. If you've watched much football, you know that the ability to tackle the guy with the ball is kind of fundamental to any success on defense.
The other night in Baltimore, Troy Polamalu and Ike Taylor both whiffed on tackling a ball carrier and Ryan Shazier missed, too. Later, Cortez Allen awkwardly tried to bring down Steve Smith by the shoulder pads and wound up getting a 15-yard facemask penalty.
Whether it's a problem with technique or a lack of commitment, the Steelers are missing too many tackles.
When James Harrison retired, Polamalu praised him as someone who typified the toughness of the Steelers defense. Wonder if he said that with a certain wistfulness, because the current group seems to get pushed around quite a bit in a way that's very un-Steelers like.
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--PITCHING CHANGE
Who knew the Pirates would wind up missing Bryan Morris more than A.J. Burnett?
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--DIFFERENT WORLD
Lloyd McClendon's Mariners are in the postseason hunt, and he's a candidate for Manager of the Year in his first year with Seattle.
The Mariners were bolstered in the offseason by the free agent signing of Robinson Cano to a contract worth $240 million.
When McClendon managed the Pirates from 2001-05, his five teams had a combined payroll of just under $226 million.

Beaver County Times, September 7, 2014

Here's how the NFL works: There are a few teams that are really good and could go 12-4.
There are a few teams that are really bad and could go 4-12.
Everybody else is in that giant middle cluster, somewhere between 9-7 and 7-9, depending on variables like who gets hurt (or arrested), how the ball bounces and whether it snows in Philadelphia.
They call that parity, and it's been the league's goal forever. The draft and the salary cap help deter dynasties, and that's the way the NFL wants it. It's much better for business when everyone has some semblance of hope and the final weeks have enough wild card possibilities to keep the faithful hyperventilating.
Your 2014 Steelers are in that middle crowd, a team that could reach the playoffs, but probably won't. They're not good enough to be 12-4, and they're too good to be 4-12, so it will probably be like the last couple of seasons.
The issues now are mostly on defense. A lot of the old and slow has been flushed out over the past couple of seasons. They're younger and faster, but who knows if they understand where they're supposed to go.
In all the customarily tedious dispatches from training camp, there was one priceless nugget of information that emerged. Linebackers coach Keith Butler revealed there were times last year when No. 1 draft pick Jarvis Jones was yelling, "What do I do, what do I do?" before the ball was snapped.
He wasn't asking that in the existential sense, but rather trying to figure out exactly what his assignment was. If we know anything about the Steelers, it's that they run a complicated defense and players usually need a couple of seasons to understand it. Is it a coincidence that players like Cam Heyward and Jason Worilds didn't become contributors until they had years in the system?
Defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau said there was no effort to simplify the playbook, so it's going to be sink or swim for new players. History says there will be some rescues from the deep end.
The Steelers re-signed veteran Brett Keisel late in the preseason, a move that was widely hailed by sentimentalists and fans of prodigious facial hair. But from a more practical standpoint, it should probably be viewed as a red flag, an acknowledgment that help is needed on the defensive line. The team went into the offseason planning for life without Keisel, but now needs him as a failsafe.
Ike Taylor came back at a flea market price following a rocky season. LeBeau said Taylor was fighting injuries last season. We'll see. He will undoubtedly be targeted again by the divisional teams that burned him last season.
There's a lot of inexperience. First-rounder Ryan Shazier is being counted on to start and take on the challenge that baffled Jones last season.
Makes you wonder if "What do I do, what do I do?" might be a multi-voiced refrain this season, one that defines this defense more than "Renegade" does.
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--NO DEBATE
It seems like every Pirates game features at least one plate appearance where Ike Davis is called out on a third strike he doesn't like.
He disputes the call and walks away shaking his head. But he's out. Given that ball-strike calls are one of the few umpire decisions that can't be reviewed by replay, he'd probably be better served by swinging the bat.
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--MISSED OPPORTUNITY?
At last check, Gregory Polanco was hitting around .208 since he started his major league career with an 11-game hitting streak.
Wonder if he has any regrets about passing on that reported $75 million offer?
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--NO NEWS, BAD NEWS
If you've listened to 93.7 The Fan (KDKA-FM), you know the most useful part of the programming is the sports news updates that run three times an hour. This is especially the case when they're handled by Jeff Hathhorn and Eric Hagman.
The station has changed the format for the updates, needlessly sabotaging the station's most redeeming feature.
If they want to make the station better, encourage hosts to stay away from those discussions about what kind of potato chips they like best.
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--FACE THE NATION
It's been so long since Steelers fans have had to work up a real froth over the Browns. For that reason alone, you have to hope that Johnny Manziel gets in today's game.

Beaver County Times, August 31, 2014

People get sappy about the opening day of baseball season, writing gooey paeans to the way springtime optimism blooms like the daffodils. As Mad magazine was fond of saying, yecch.
The most joyful point on the sports calendar might be the moment the clock reads 0:00 on the last NFL preseason game.
It means the exhibition season is over, the rosters will be cut, and teams will now scout opponents, formulate a game plan and, you know, actually try to win.
The final preseason game is especially awful because the starters sit. The Steelers devoted several hours the other night to reinforcing the sound theory that if their season got down to Landry Jones at quarterback, they'd be pretty well sunk.
Coaches love the preseason because they get video on marginal players. Of course. Coaches obsess. But the fact is most of the cuts could have been made after a week of training camp.
They call them games and they charge regular prices for tickets and everything else, but they're really scrimmages. The uniforms are recognizable, and the estimable Ed Hochuli shows up to make the calls. The action on the field bears little resemblance to the real NFL product, though.
As consumer scams go, this is up there with personal seat licenses. Here's hoping the undrafted free agents got selfies so they'll have proof they once wore an NFL uniform. Now kindly go home, and let the real games start.
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--HOBBLING HURDLE
Poor Clint Hurdle. In addition to the daily stress of managing (especially with a shaky bullpen), he's suffering physically with a bad hip.
He's headed for replacement surgery, and there was sentiment that he should have had that done over the All-Star break. He didn't, and he's probably now regretting that decision to tough it out through the rest of the season. Thanks to Root's constant surveillance of Hurdle in the dugout, you can see he's hurting.
It seems like Jared Hughes gets to the mound quicker on his mad sprint from the bullpen than Hurdle does on his wobbly walk from the dugout.
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--MISSING THE POINT
Greg Brown is one of the most conscientious broadcasters around, which makes it even more disappointing that he adheres to the silly tradition of not directly saying a no-hitter is in progress.
It's potentially one of the biggest stories of the season, and listeners have to decipher clues to figure out what's happening.
This is rooted in the dugout superstition that mentioning a no-hitter jinxes it. That might be OK for the players, but it's a losing strategy for broadcasters. The game is decided on the field, not by some mojo from the radio booth. Lanny (Hi, Friends) Frattare, who routinely overloaded broadcasts with mind-numbing factoids, did the same incongruous thing.
The radio audience is transient. People constantly join the game in progress, so tell them what's happening. When Edinson Volquez completed the sixth inning Friday night, Brown's summation was that he had allowed three base runners, hitting one batter and walking two others.
They'll tell you a dozen times about Free Shirt Friday. They don't hesitate to mention no-hitters in other games. It's OK to be up front about one against the Pirates. But listeners need a decoder ring to figure out that a Pirates pitcher is doing something special.
There have been four no-hitters by Pirates pitchers in the last 54 years. There have probably been 10 times that many close calls (remember Jose DeLeon?) So by the numbers, the jinx theory doesn't even work.
Of course, if someone bought a sponsorship -- "This no-hitter update is brought to you by Winky's" -- they couldn't mention it enough.
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--CALLING IT QUITS
James Harrison has officially retired. He had a fine career, he has a permanent place in Steelers history for his Super Bowl touchdown, and he's presumably sitting on a bank account made fat by big contracts.
But the best thing about this announcement is people won't be calling talk shows every five minutes to ask if the Steelers should bring him back.
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--DOWN THE AISLE
Big week for celebrity weddings: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in France, Kevin McClatchy and longtime partner Jack Basilone in Martha's Vineyard.