The way I see it, this NBA Lockout—and the NFL Lockout that ended a few months ago—is very much like OJ Simpson murder trial. In both the cases of a lockout and the murder trial, there was a legal dispute between two sides. We, the general public, believe, by and large, that we know what has happened, what should happen, and what is “right”. However, we, the general public, are not in charge; we are not the final arbiters of the disputes. Instead, there is an actual system in place. As part of that system, there is one party on whom the burden of proof lies. During this current lockout as well as the OJ trial, the public spoke and acted as if that burden does not exist. I find that naïve, destructive, and very dangerous.
First thing is that, yes, the burden of proof is on the owners’ shoulders. Like the NFL, this is a lockout, not a strike. It is the owners who want things to change. If things really do need to change, then the owners need to convince the players of it. There is no logical reason for the players to just accept that things need to change. The owners need to answer the question “Why?”
One thing the NBA owners have in common with the NFL owners and the LAPD investigators of the OJ case is that they lied while the burden of proof was theirs. The current NBA structure may not be viable in the long-term. I know that many people are out there saying it’s not, but I don’t know for myself. I haven’t seen the teams’ financial papers. I haven’t seen the models for the next few years. I don’t know. Somebody would have to show me. I would not take the owners’ word for it.
Back in 1995, we learned about many of the shady things Mark Fuhrman did in Brentwood. I admit that I did not watch a single second of OJ’s trial, so I don’t know all of the details that many of you do. I do know, however, that nothing with Fuhrman’s name on it was trustworthy beyond a reasonable doubt. Essentially, what the prosecutors wanted was for the jury to see beyond Fuhrman’s shadiness. For the past 16 years, I’ve figured that those twelve men and women did not think the rest of the evidence was enough to overcome the doubt created by Fuhrman. For the general public, though, it was enough to just “know” that OJ did it.
Similarly, we know that the NBA owners have been lying about team finances. People in the media and the public know this, but don’t really seem to care. They acknowledge that the owners aren’t being honest, but they still “know” that the model is failing. Bill Simmons, for example, keeps writing about how the compromises are obvious and “need to happen.” Why? He doesn’t offer any actual evidence to support his claim. He gives reasons, but backs his reasoning up with nothing to let me know that he’s actually speaking fact—he doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt since he was the primary creator of the LeBron went to play with his biggest rival nonsense—instead of just treating some idea of his as if it is actually truth. Yesterday, he did a podcast with Blake Griffin in which he said that the players need to understand that game attendance will continue to grow as a problem in this big screen HDTV, internet, iPad era. He might be right—he’s probably right—but where are the projections? Plus, who knows what those effects will be? As of right now, no one. Basically, he believes the players need to give some money back and his rationale is that we don’t know how the assumed dwindling numbers at the gate will affect the league’s revenue stream.
What kind of logic suggests that players should give back money because no one knows how much money there will be? It’s the players’ money. It’s theirs right now. The owners need to prove to them that they need it.
But, no. people want their basketball, players need to understand that the system isn’t working, and it doesn’t matter that the owners have been lying about many things throughout the entire process. Knowing it isn’t enough. And it shouldn’t be enough. It should never be enough. We’re talking about people’s lives and livelihoods here. “I can’t see any way it could have been anyone other than him.” So what? I don’t feel comfortable damaging people on the strength of someone else’s lack of imagination, insight, and creative thinking. Get out of my face with that nonsense.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Saturday, October 8, 2011
2011 Phillies - The Morning After
Yes, there is the desire and passion for immediate pleasure, but one of the more overlooked important things about sports is that they exist for the purpose of making memories. Memories. Times, good and bad, to look back upon as we get older and further removed from the days when the games were played. I have always felt this way, which is why I have never understood the “we have nothing to lose” and “all the pressure was on them” mentalities—you have the chance to make a happy memory right in front of you, and you say you have nothing to lose? I wouldn’t want to look thirty years into the past and say, “You know what, we were closed, but nobody expected us to get that far anyway.” Don’t get me wrong; I can appreciate how close I came to accomplishing a goal while acknowledging that the odds against me were strong. But I do not want to enter the situation expecting to be happy with a so-called moral victory. Looking back…that’s what it’s about. Validating your era.
When I look back at the Phillies, the first sports team I ever loved in life, I will smile whenever I think of this current era. In the year my mother died, the Phillies rallied in the midst of a historic collapse by the New York Mets and won the National League East Division title on the last day of the season, which happened to be on my mother’s birthday. Yes, the Rockies swept them out of the playoffs, but nobody outside of Colorado really remembers that anymore. The next season, they again trailed the Mets. They also trailed the Brewers in the wild card standings. They entered a four-game September series at Citizens Bank Park against Milwaukee trailing them by four games. They swept them. And then the Phillies kept winning, this time clinching the division on the day prior to the last day of the season. How could I ever look back on these years and not think about Brett Myers fouling off four CC Sabathia pitches in a row before drawing a walk that set up Shane Victorino’s grand slam (or, for that matter, Jamie Moyer doing the same thing to set up a Victorino grand slam off Johan Santana on Sunday Night Baseball in 2010)? I’ll remember dramatic two-run homeruns off Corey Wade and Jonathan Broxton in Dodger Stadium (“Stairs hits one deep into the night!”). Joe Blanton’s homerun off Edwin Jackson…the Game 5 rain...Pedro Feliz’s RBI single…Utley’s heads up throw to home…Brad Lidge vs. Eric Hinske…Ryan Howard’s game winners in Games 3 and 4 at Coors Field…Rollins’ double off Broxton…Lee’s Game 1 in Yankee Stadium…the perfect game…the no-hitter against Cincinnati…Chase Utley hitting the first World Series homerun in the history of 2 different stadiums.
On a personal level, I got to watch my team play as the first defending World Series champion to play in the new Yankee Stadium, and I did it on my honeymoon. I went up to Citi Field and saw our ace throw 8 shutout innings against the hated Mets. I was able to be there in person as Doc Halladay threw a complete game 2-hit shutout in Nationals Park to clinch the division in 2010. This season, I went to Opening Day for the first time in my life. Later, I sat in the stands as Clifton Phifer dealt a 12-strikeout, 3-hit shutout on only 99 pitches. And I was able to take my sister to a game on her birthday and watch her favorite pitcher, Cole Hamels, toss a gem. This was a great era for me.
Of course there were some bad times. Brad Lidge vs. Johnny Damon. Pedro vs. Matsui. But overall, this has been a great time. And I’m OK with it
In the Wild Card era, there have been 12 seasons (20 total teams) from the National League to win 97 games. Only three times has one of those teams made the World Series. On two of those occasions, all three division winners were 97-win teams. The playoffs are a crapshoot. The Phillies’ loss last night means that 2011 is the 13th season out of the last 15 in which the top seed in the National League playoffs did not win the pennant. Neither of them won the World Series. Meanwhile, the National League Wild Card team has gone on to the World Series 6 times in the last 14 years (the Cardinals can make it 7 out of 15) and won it all twice. These statistics are not offered as excuses. No, they show how much harder it is to achieve postseason success in the modern era. They show how difficult it is to validate your era in modern Major League Baseball.
We saw the Phillies win a World Series and then go back to the Fall Classic the following year. I know it hurts for us Phillies fans right now, but we all know it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as 2009 or 2010, especially 2009. With everyone getting older and Ryan Howard’s injury, I’m pretty sure this is the end. It was a great run. And we did more with it than most teams would have. The Cardinals were a bad matchup, and they out-hit and out-pitched the Phillies. It happens.
I’m proud of my team and what they have accomplished over the past five years. And what they did for me the summer my mother died and my wife was in chemotherapy cannot be overstated. This group will always be my boys.
When I look back at the Phillies, the first sports team I ever loved in life, I will smile whenever I think of this current era. In the year my mother died, the Phillies rallied in the midst of a historic collapse by the New York Mets and won the National League East Division title on the last day of the season, which happened to be on my mother’s birthday. Yes, the Rockies swept them out of the playoffs, but nobody outside of Colorado really remembers that anymore. The next season, they again trailed the Mets. They also trailed the Brewers in the wild card standings. They entered a four-game September series at Citizens Bank Park against Milwaukee trailing them by four games. They swept them. And then the Phillies kept winning, this time clinching the division on the day prior to the last day of the season. How could I ever look back on these years and not think about Brett Myers fouling off four CC Sabathia pitches in a row before drawing a walk that set up Shane Victorino’s grand slam (or, for that matter, Jamie Moyer doing the same thing to set up a Victorino grand slam off Johan Santana on Sunday Night Baseball in 2010)? I’ll remember dramatic two-run homeruns off Corey Wade and Jonathan Broxton in Dodger Stadium (“Stairs hits one deep into the night!”). Joe Blanton’s homerun off Edwin Jackson…the Game 5 rain...Pedro Feliz’s RBI single…Utley’s heads up throw to home…Brad Lidge vs. Eric Hinske…Ryan Howard’s game winners in Games 3 and 4 at Coors Field…Rollins’ double off Broxton…Lee’s Game 1 in Yankee Stadium…the perfect game…the no-hitter against Cincinnati…Chase Utley hitting the first World Series homerun in the history of 2 different stadiums.
On a personal level, I got to watch my team play as the first defending World Series champion to play in the new Yankee Stadium, and I did it on my honeymoon. I went up to Citi Field and saw our ace throw 8 shutout innings against the hated Mets. I was able to be there in person as Doc Halladay threw a complete game 2-hit shutout in Nationals Park to clinch the division in 2010. This season, I went to Opening Day for the first time in my life. Later, I sat in the stands as Clifton Phifer dealt a 12-strikeout, 3-hit shutout on only 99 pitches. And I was able to take my sister to a game on her birthday and watch her favorite pitcher, Cole Hamels, toss a gem. This was a great era for me.
Of course there were some bad times. Brad Lidge vs. Johnny Damon. Pedro vs. Matsui. But overall, this has been a great time. And I’m OK with it
In the Wild Card era, there have been 12 seasons (20 total teams) from the National League to win 97 games. Only three times has one of those teams made the World Series. On two of those occasions, all three division winners were 97-win teams. The playoffs are a crapshoot. The Phillies’ loss last night means that 2011 is the 13th season out of the last 15 in which the top seed in the National League playoffs did not win the pennant. Neither of them won the World Series. Meanwhile, the National League Wild Card team has gone on to the World Series 6 times in the last 14 years (the Cardinals can make it 7 out of 15) and won it all twice. These statistics are not offered as excuses. No, they show how much harder it is to achieve postseason success in the modern era. They show how difficult it is to validate your era in modern Major League Baseball.
We saw the Phillies win a World Series and then go back to the Fall Classic the following year. I know it hurts for us Phillies fans right now, but we all know it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as 2009 or 2010, especially 2009. With everyone getting older and Ryan Howard’s injury, I’m pretty sure this is the end. It was a great run. And we did more with it than most teams would have. The Cardinals were a bad matchup, and they out-hit and out-pitched the Phillies. It happens.
I’m proud of my team and what they have accomplished over the past five years. And what they did for me the summer my mother died and my wife was in chemotherapy cannot be overstated. This group will always be my boys.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)