Trivial Pursuit

With the nation spiraling to horrifying depths with each passing news cycle, it is an unsettling ingest of this daily content. Trivial matters of undocumented household help and derogatory personal slurs make headline news. All of those issues might cause problems but we have bigger problems. We need bigger people to tackle them. The mid-term election has become a 6th grade note passing exercise and so far no one has to spend the lunch hour on the benches. They pester me during prime sports viewing with their negative rhetoric game.

Is Meg Whitman’s alleged undocumented housekeeper really an issue for local debate? We think Meg did not need to cut corners to find cheap hired help the way most of us do. This did not stop celebrated attorney Gloria Allred from grabbing the headlines for another tour of the muck she harvests. Ms. Allred apparently does have a law degree but we never hear about her exploits in the court room only at the press conference. The Yard would support deporting Allred rather than Whitman’s illegal. Others are outraged that Jerry Brown was covertly recorded calling Ms. Whitman a whore. If she wins the election, she will be called much worse in the next few years…deal. We do not condone either trivial news event we just wonder which stop the real issues got off the campaign bus.

Of greater concern was the performance of the Giants this year. The Yard has rained down unrelenting negative rhetoric on the Giants since our first kilobyte. There never had been a reason to look in the rear view mirror. The Yard had more legendary demons to vanquish with our words. It has looked like a scary horizon with that pitching staff in the playoffs and Yard karma coming home to roost.

The rivalry with the Giants is more important to San Francisco that it is to LA. My son, the telecom exec, crystallized the rivalry for me the other night. He lives in San Francisco and roots for their 49’ers and hates the Giants. The 49er’s are the only shining sports star in the history of San Francisco Sports albeit an ancient irrelevant 0-5 one at time of this musing. As he explained to me over a pitcher of margaritas in the Mission district, the Dodgers want to win championships. The San Francisco Giants want to beat the Dodgers. The venom at a Dodger-Giant game in San Francisco is on a magnitude ten times higher on the Scoville scale than at the Ravine. LA could be a better rival to the Giants but we have so many other rivals, in so many other sports during all of these championship runs. San Francisco only has the Giants versus the Dodgers as an arch rival in any sport.

The Yard is staring into the mouth of the demon with the Giants taking the Dodger’s annual spot in the NLCS against the Phillies. The Phillies are playing like the 1927Yankees right now so we can probably rest easy. Halladay does not need throw another no-hitter to win Game 1. With 2008 World Series MVP Cole Hamels as their #3 starter, the Phillies are looking to win their 2nd title in three years. The Giants are just happy to have gone farther than the Dodgers.

Brent Musburger stirred the pot this week when he stated to a group of journalism students at the University of Montana that the use of performance enhancing drug use by professional athletes might not be so terrible if done under a doctor’s supervision. The US Anti-Doping Federation reacted with venom that made them seem like they were maybe on steroids.

We applaud Musburger’s candor and support his view point. He was clear to point out that high school and college athletes should be restricted but pro athletes could take whatever enhancements that they chose to subject their bodies as long as they do so with understanding and guidance. If their testicles shrink, their head explodes, they have a coronary at 50 years old then they do so at their own educated risk. Viagra, Paxil, and Ambien permeate our society and our bed stand with five minute disclosures that go with the 45 second advertisement on TV. Hard working professionals in business are taking HGH and all the rest of their enablers under a doctor’s supervision today and all days. These aging Americans are taking drugs to enhance performance in work, life or in the bedroom. It is all a risk but if Barry wants to risk his manhood so he can hit 75 home runs, it is his choice not the media’s.

Baseball purists are all about the statistics and the history. Performance enhanced ballplayers have blown away many of the historic records. This has led to the asterisk club and exclusion from the Hall of Fame. Baseball statistics are always a product of an era. In the early years, baseball was game played in the day by white men east of Saint Louis. This is not our great grandfather’s baseball. Baseball fans want to see their heroes play longer in their careers, recover from injuries faster and bomb the rock out of the yard with their prodigious exploits. They are not purists, they are fans. The owners are about the fans not the purists.

Bud Selig rooted out the PED crisis that he helped create but he cannot figure out if instant replay is a good idea. Little League baseball decided that they needed instant replay for the Little League World Series but not Bud. He might have rooted out steroids but he has provided fans few reasons to root otherwise. His decision is for the purists who never want to see this dying sport change.

Pundits suggest it would slow an already slow game. Really? How much time does Lou Pinella take arguing a call that could be reviewed? How many games has Bobby Cox been ejected from a game after ten minutes of blood vessel popping frustration for a missed call? Most of the time he is right but the decision is never changed even when game changing. The game would be shortened without Lou or Bobby Cox waddling out to argue a call at second base.

Instant replay in baseball would be simpler than it is in football. Football has 22 players slamming into each other fighting to change possession of a ball and they get it right most of the time. Baseball plays would be far easier to review. There are plenty of football calls that are difficult to review from multiple angles. There has yet to be a replay in baseball that was unclear. Baseball would have a chance to get it right.

In Game 1 of the NLDS, SF Giant catcher Buster Posey was clearly out at second base on a botched hit and run play in a 0-0 game. He was called safe by the umpire. He eventually scored the only run in a 1-0 win for the Giants. If Posey is correctly called out, he does not score and it could have changed the entire game and maybe the series. Bruce Bochy does not let Tim Lincecum pitch a complete game if it is 0-0in the 7th with Tim of the Bong is coming to bat. Maybe, Lincecum gets yanked for a pinch hitter. Maybe Atlanta rallies in Bobby Cox’s final playoff series to win the first game on the road in the playoffs. Maybe Bobby does not get thrown out of Game 2 for arguing a call and telling the ump he missed the call last night as well. Our bias cannot be ignored and neither can the impact of this missed call.

“We will dominate them mentally and physically and then we will steal their girlfriends.” Steve Martin, Center for CSUN about their rivalry with Cal-State Hayward.