The Sporting Life category archive

Bob Molinaro, a most excellent sports writer at the local rag, considers the Penn State pederasty case.

As fed up as I am with big time sports (with the exception of baseball, with which I approach fed up only occasionally) and with sports coverage, I delight in his columns regularly. The man can write

A nugget:

It’s hard to know, though, what infiltrates the football bubble.

Proof of how warped people can be is found in an ESPN.com story that wonders about the impact of the scandal on Penn State recruiting.

The long-term injuries to NFL football players are becoming more noticeable.

The Denver Post reports that an insurance company and the Denver Broncos are headed to court over who’s responsible for workers comp payments to retired players claiming disability due to their football careers.

Note that the insurance company is not trying to disqualify the claims; it’s arguing that the team, rather than the insurance company, should pay.

So in 2008, (Pro Football Hall of Famer Floyd–ed.) Little took advantage of a not commonly known provision in California law to file for workers’ compensation in that state, arguing that his football career had left him with a legacy of pain after suffering two broken collarbones, broken ribs, multiple concussions and other injuries too numerous to recall.

“Your memory isn’t what it used to be,” Little said. “You don’t sleep as well as you should. I still suffer from the injuries during my career.”

Now his claim, along with claims by eight other retired Broncos players, has become entangled in a federal lawsuit by an insurance company that says it shouldn’t have to pay.

Little was one of the lucky ones, at least in football terms–a big star with a long career and many honors. The average pro football career is less than four years and the retirement benefits are surprisingly miserly.

Tell me again why I should sympathize with the billionaire owners who use the players so callously.

More about Floyd Little.

A. J. Daulaerio in Playboy (Warning: Yes, that Playboy, the one with the big articles) illustrates how, indeed, winning is the only thing:

Welcome to the greatest moral dilemma in modern sports. Fans find themselves cheering for rapists, wife beaters, philanderers, steroids freaks, drunk drivers, thieves and, in the case of one Australian rugby player, a man who let a dog give him (oral gratification–ed.). And truth be told, the majority of fans compartmentalize their self-righteous outrage over a player’s off-field behavior whenever that player achieves on-field success.

It doesn’t really matter:

But the plain fact is that whether the team wins or loses, you still have to go back to your job or job hunt. Term papers are still due, deadlines still loom, the sidewalk still needs to be shoveled. Groceries cost the same. Your car gets the same mileage. Your computer doesn’t run any faster, your cell phone still drops calls, the rain forest and the ozone layer are still shrinking.

Derrick Z. Jackson, admitted Packers fan, writes:

. . . in a perfect world, football would never have been invented. We now know that this sport of mangled bodies is also malevolent for the mind. This was the season that the term “chronic traumatic encephalopathy’’ entered the mainstream, as Boston University researchers found dementia damage in the brains of dead football players down to high-school age.

NFL team owners, another group for whom too much is never enough.

Phil Sheridan at Philly dot com:

After three days of listening to (NFL Commissioner–ed.) Goodell, his chief negotiator, and the NFL Players Association discuss the challenge of negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement, a hazy picture emerges. The owners have realized there is potential for vast increases in revenue over the next decade or so, and they simply can’t bear the idea of the players getting the percentage called for by the 2006 CBA. That is at the heart of this thing.

In their posturing, the two sides have created at least one interesting conundrum. Goodell and the owners have pushed hard for expanding the regular season from 16 games to 18. Part of their campaign is to trash the value of preseason games, which would be cut from four to two. These are the same games NFL owners have forced season-ticket holders to pay full price for over the last 20 years or so.

So what happens if the union holds the line and refuses to accept the 18-game season? It is going to be impossible for the league to go back to pretending the preseason games are anything more than consumer fraud, but they’ll have to. They’re not going to give up the revenue.

From the Boston Globe:

This year, Fox is hosting the big game, and the network rejected ads from the conservative humor merchandise site JesusHatesObama.com and the animal-rights group PETA. But as the would-be advertisers complain, they do so with a wink. A Super Bowl ad that doesn’t make the cut gets potentially millions of views online — without the $3 million Super Bowl pricetag.

The San Jose Mercury-News lists why the Super Bowl is special. A nugget:

Reason No. 1: It’s not soccer.

American exceptionalism is alive and thriving on Super Bowl Sunday. National Football League franchises are overwhelmingly owned, managed and manned by American citizens. Even as other major sports have growing numbers of Latin American, Asian and Eastern European players, professional football remains ours alone. Neither immigration nor foreign capital has made a perceptible dent in the game.

And you and I have proudly subsidized all this. American taxpayers have built many NFL stadiums, and American universities, with their government grants, have shaped the sport. Multimillion-dollar college football programs (which, despite claims to the contrary, are rarely profitable) train the players, and sports management departments train the front-office personnel.