Sports Smörgåsbord for 10-26-09

Posted by Iroquois Plisken

Apologies, friends, as life caught up last week. Enough with the small talk. Let's get right into the Sports Smörgåsbord (and seeings how I haven't eaten today, I'm rather hungry).

MLB - Of course, the dominant story right now is the World Series. You can find analysis of that anywhere. A more pressing story, I feel, is the rumored return of Mark McGwire to the public sphere. This is an odd move by the Big Mac camp. How does McGwire not expect this to turn into something of a sideshow while the Media (tm) has been chomping at the bit to find this guy and ask questions about his (alleged) steroid use? Part of me is skeptical whether or not this is simply part of an image rehabilitation campaign in order to sway the HOF voters. Of course, we all know that we can simply forgive McGwire if he goes to BP and socks a few dingers.

NBA - One of the saddest days in my admittedly brief writing career happened last week when the NBA referees agreed with the NBA to end their lockout. I was researching a story and tried to include lots of juicy and salient facts about why the lockout was good for all parties involved save the actual referees. Succinctly, it would be (generally) good for the viewing audience because they would expect so little from the replacement refs that it would be par for the course if they sucked and positively stunning if they were to be any good. This, of course, would validate the public's opinion that the NBA referees are more crooked than Charles Barkley's golf shot. In turn, what's good for the gander is good for the Jew Goose, because he gets a product that was infinitely better managed than those improvident lackwits that previously ran the show. Of course, I don't think I need to explain why it would be bad for the now-active referees (lost wages, chance to be shown up without any way to respond, etc.). It truly is a shame that we were not rid of Crawford and Salvatore indefinitely, but alas, such is the state of the modern collective bargaining agreement.

NHL - Apparently, there are teams with financial problems. This guy is on the case with more details. It might just be me, but the NHL should probably contract a great amount of their teams, namely most anyone in a warm weather market. Since interest in the NHL among nonfans is at probably one of its lowest points, why not just make hockey small and ultracompetitive with a few markets? Most people have heard of too big to fail; the NHL is simply too big and failing.

NFL - As a fan of a team with a terrible record, I think one of the more interesting subplots of the NFL season so far is not the teams that are 'good', but rather the teams that are 'not good' (bad, to you laypeople). Your good teams (Indy, NE, NO, Min) have huge PF-PA spreads, but there are an alarming number of teams with generally poor PF-PA spreads, generally poor being defined as less than 25 difference between PF and PA. I realize these statements jump to perhaps unreasonable conclusions, but I would rather see dominant teams in any given season. I look forward to the first uncapped NFL season (next year?) and watching the spending frenzy that comes with the revenues from the "world's most popular sport."

Random Salient Point - Is it possible that this year in college football, instead of the supremely dominant team that everyone was predicting in the offseason, that we will see many teams with varying degrees of legitimacy make claim to being the team that should go to the Mythical National Championship Game, regardless of what the numbers geeks say? It seems like this year, more than any other year, the presence of surviving undefeated teams coupled with one-loss teams that have galvanized and played exceedingly well should stand to depose the Robespierre that is the BCS.