Jack’s Blog

Granted, these are the dog days of the NBA.  There are a few teams that might already be, dare I say, “positioning themselves” for the draft?  Others know there is more ball to be played (and bonus money to be made) once the season ends.  Except for a select few, e.g. the Lakers, many are more concerned with keeping their key guys healthy than trying to influence the postseason match ups.

Enter the Harlem Globetrotters Miami Heat.  The Heat won it all last year (one year too late, some say).  One of the concerns last season was whether the team had a reliable three point shooter to kick it out to after penetration.  So they got . . . the greatest three point marksman of all-time, Ray Allen.  He joined LeBron, D-Wade and Chris Bosh and (most of) the remainder of the team that won it all.  Was that fair?  There’s nothing fair about building a team in the NBA - the better the executives, the more understanding the owner is that money must be spent wisely (but, make no mistake about it, it must be spent), the slicker the people running the organization, the more likely the team will plug the gaps that are holding it back from being mentioned as a club that can compete for a championship - on a nightly basis.

The Miami Heat knew they were going to - as coaches are fond of saying - get everyone’s best shot.  Winning as much as they did during the first part of the year wasn’t surprising.  The “Big Three” had shed whatever it was that could have been on their collective backs their initial season (their first together) and they seemed to be playing looser.  A similar feeling for their coaching staff.

As the season progressed, injuries hit team after team and, as the post-All Star game part of the schedule moved on, the Heat kept adding win after win.  Now, the “streak” became the topic of conversation.  With the NCAA’s March Madness fever grabbing nearly every sports fan, college basketball owns this time of the year.  Spring training has begun, football and its trading deadline occupies some space and the Blackhawks gave hockey enthusiasts something to talk about post-lockout.

Meanwhile, Miami (the pro hoops team, not the college one) almost bored people with its dismantling of opponents - the “contendas” as well as those who show up because league rules dictate they must.  OK, so what about their bitter rival, aka the (aging, but) capable Boston Celtics?  The arena will always be rockin’ when the Heat show up regardless of the circumstances.  Except that there would be no Rajon Rondo (even though the W-L results have yet to be affected by the little dynamo’s absence) and no KG.  What Kevin Garnett gives the Celts, beyond points and rebounds, is a nastiness seldom seen in any sport.  Or pretty much in any walk of life.  You’ve heard how people say, “If I were in a war, the guy I’d like to have in my foxhole is Kevin Garnett?”  Even pacifists feel that way about KG.

So when it was announced that Garnett wouldn’t be available, green flags were about to be flown at half staff.  Only this is Boston, damn it!  Beantowners don’t surrender to anybody!  Somebody would come through with a wicked good game.  This time that somebody was Jeff Green who had a personal high (as well as a high for most NBA players) of 43.  The Men in Green were often up double digits and led for the entire game.  Or so it seemed.  Until LeBron hit the game winner after the Heat finally tied it.

Had the Heat been toying with them?  To many it might now seem so after watching that game last night, the Heat’s 23rd victory in a row.  A person I was with suggested Miami actually would like to see the streak end so they could simply worry about just winning the playoffs.  The pressure of back-to-back will be enough of a burden.  A winning streak would only be an albatross for the last season’s champs.

Some may wonder if the late, and fiercely competitive, owner of the Raiders, Al Davis, wouldn’t back off (between now and the end of the regular season) his famous saying:

“Just win, baby!”

Amazingly, former Oakland Raiders great Tim Brown maintained his former head coach, Bill Callahan, sabotaged Super Bowl XXXVII.  When I first heard it, I thought Brown was going to add a punchline to add.  To charge that any head coach, much less your own, would throw a game is as serious a charge as can be levied.  It’s interfering with the absolute fabric of the game.  And the Super Bowl?  Keep in mind all that goes to the winning coach of the Super Bowl: you’re one of only x number of guys who’ve ever done it, your agent gets you flooded with endorsement opportunities, you’ve achieved what has probably been your number one goal since you decided to be a coach.  There are, I imagine, several other reasons I’ve omitted.

To hear about the accusation at this time in the season seems a little too coincidental.  Brown says Callahan changed the game plan two days before the biggest game of the year.  He did this because 1) he hated the Raiders (the team that was paying him and gave him the opportunity to be a head coach - which has led to the opportunity every other of his colleagues only dreamed about) and 2) he was good friends with Jon Gruden, the coach of the Raiders’ opponent in the Super Bowl, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  First of all, you’d have to really hate your team to dump a Super Bowl and that would have to be one really good friend - to give him what just about every guy who’s ever coached would die for.  If ever there was such a friendship, it might be this year, but I doubt that either would perform such a gesture for the other.

For the record, QB Rich Gannon did put on one of the worst performances ever by throwing five interceptions, three of them “pick 6s.”  This, after the original game plan was “run-heavy,” according to Brown.

Now, though, Brown is backtracking - a little.  He said his comments “were taken the wrong way.”  Excuse me if I have a question or two.  Actually, it’s Brown who says he has a question.  Actually, he said the sabotaging remark should have been a question, not an accusation because “I’ve never said he sabotaged the game.  That’s something that can never be proven.  We can never go into the mind of Bill Callahan.”

Callahan, for his part in all this, maintains his “innocence.”  Brown does have a supporter, though.  His ally is one of his fellow receivers in that game, Jerry Rice.  If you’re looking for a credible person in the game of football, having the greatest receiver of all-time on your side certainly can’t hurt.  However, other Raiders who would go on the record, as well as one who wouldn’t, are on the “non-dump” side.

If Tim Brown didn’t initially talk out of turn (or frustration), he ought at least to remember the street cred motto and stand firmly behind it:

“I said it, I meant it, I’m here to represent it.”

That’s something that can never be proven. We can never go into the mind of Bill Callahan

Read more at: http://nesn.com/2013/01/tim-brown-ive-never-said-callahan-sabotaged-the-game/

That’s something that can never be proven. We can never go into the mind of Bill Callahan

Read more at: http://nesn.com/2013/01/tim-brown-ive-never-said-callahan-sabotaged-the-gam

On my drive home from a rather disappointing two-day trip to the Stanford Hospital and Pain Clinic, I was listening to KNBR-AM out of San Francisco (mainly because I’m waiting on a couple books on CD I recently ordered, but also because I like the guys on that station). 

One of the subjects was, not surprisingly, Al Davis, and one of the show’s hosts was informing the listeners that Al actually coached the Raiders at one time.  He mentioned how that fact separated him from the owners who never were in the game, but always wanted to be.  He remarked that, while the Raiders are in complete disarray right now (and have been for quite a while), Al should be given credit for both his coaching success and for building the Raiders into the (however brief) dynasty they were. 

I can’t remember which of the personalities made the following remarks but they went something like: “OK, you’re right.  Al did build the franchise but that was a long time ago.  As an analogy, let’s say he was a brilliant heart surgeon, the best in his day.  But now he’s 80.  If I’m having heart surgery, I don’t want an 80-year-old, who might have vision problems now, operating on me.”

That metaphor shouted to me exactly where the sports fan’s mind is - and probably has been for a long time.  The hole in his logic is that if you are undergoing heart surgery, it’s a life-and-death matter.  Of course you wouldn’t want an 80-year-old, with or without vision problems, operating on you!  The probability of a mistake is too great.

But sports isn’t life and death; it’s entertainment!  Yet, many people align themselves to sports teams and when their team wins, they feel like they won - like they’re winners.  On the flip side, if you pull for a team that loses too often (like more than twice), you may not feel like a loser, but you think other people look at you like you’re a loser.  Therefore, you strike back - usually by either attacking their team, pointing out reasons they, to use the favorite talk show word, suck, or you vent your frustrations at your own team - whether it be at the coach (the favorite target in most cases), owner (definitely in the case of the Raiders), GM (if you know who he is) or a player or players who aren’t playing as well as you think they ought to (especially for what they’re getting paid - and combine that with the fact they are far less educated than you are - or pretend to be).  Or could it be they snubbed you somewhere - maybe in front of your date after you told her how super they were (while possibly even inferring you knew them).

This paints a nasty picture of the sports fan (and probably is a bit over the top) but the topic began with the Raiders and if any team has over the top fans, it’s the Silver and Black.  All in all, though, hasn’t the entire sports world gone a little nutso over mere athletic contests?  The country has seemed to drift away from the idea presented by one of the greatest winners - both in athletics and life - of all time, Jesse Owens, who said:

“To me, we must learn to spell the word R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  We must respect the rights and properties of our fellowman.  And then learn to play the game of life, as well as the game of athletics, according to the rules of society.  If you can take that and put it into practice in the community in which you live, then, to me you have won the greatest championship.”

   

One topic sure to generate emotional dialogue is the one regarding whether professional athletes get paid too much.  Within that topic is the one about NFL rookies getting guaranteed money - and a lot of it - before they do anything.  Count me in on the “too much” side.  After all, as I stated in a blog a few days ago (or was it yesterday - they all run together sometimes), if these guys weren’t doing this job, i.e. “playing a game” for a (really comfortable) living, there is a 100% chance that they’d being doing something else for far less money.

Granted it takes skill that so very few in society have and doing it does fall under the supply and demand category, but the contribution any one player is making pales in comparison to what he’s getting paid (with the exception of one or, maybe two, players on each team - in each sport).  To add to a contentious situation, we get to read about the whiners and complainers (Stephen Jackson of that powerful Golden State Warriors franchise - “I want out and if I can’t, I’m going to make an awful situation worse for all concerned”), injured players (way too many to list, but guys who get paid while they don’t work - OK, similar to the rest of us, but with one difference - they never use up their “sick leave,” at least not until their contract runs out) and, finally, the ones who, although they’re healthy, never play (although we don’t get to read about those guys).

Then along comes a player like Louis Murphy.  Who???  Yeah, that Louis Murphy, wide receiver, #18 for the up-until-yesterday hapless Oakland Raiders.  Here’s a guy on a winless team (sure, with a storied tradition of excellence, but that was a long time ago), playing in a game against the 3-1 Philadelphia Eagles that all the pundits had written off as an easy Eagles victory.  Yet, on a pass to a teammate,  he makes a pancake block, springing his fellow Raider for a long gainer.  But that wasn’t enough for the youngster (Murphy is a rookie out of the University of Florida and, evidently, a guy not used to losing).

Keep in mind, that this effort was not one of those spectacular moves that a player shows by breaking tackles, stiff-arming people and outrunning everyone else.  This play was for someone else.  It was a pass play and Murphy, a wideout, in all probability, had run a route, hoping the ball was going to be thrown his way.  When it wasn’t, he kept on playing (maybe that’s why the Gators win).  After he threw the big block, he sprinted downfield (attested to by a camera zoomed in on him) and kept blocking, taking out two more of Philly’s finest until the play ended - in the endzone, a touchdown for Oakland.

No one watching the play, no one, would have begrudged Louis Murphy a dime of however much money he’s making.  That’s the moment where people ought to be saying, “Independent of how much dough Al Davis is paying that guy, he’s earning every bit of it because, although I don’t have the skill he does at the job he has, I can’t recall too many times when I put out that much effort at whatever it is I do.” 

All year long (and for years before this one), loyal Raiders’ fans (and, living near Oakland, I can tell you there are still an incredible amount of them) have been waiting for a spark, a catalyst, to get their team going.  It seemed like everyone on that ball club was waiting for someone else, until rookie Louis Murphy heeded the advice of Mohandes Gandhi:

“You must be the change you wish to see in others.” Â

After spending most of the day prepping my room for the first day of school (Monday), I went home, turned on the tube and guess what was showing for my viewing pleasure?  Nothing!  Both CNN and Fox News were about boring subjects (to me), race car driving was on ESPN (and since I barely can drive a stick, that was easily eliminated), the Little League World Series (a game in which they were about to invoke the mercy rule) was on ESPN 2  and, while there were reruns of a couple of good movies, Meet the Parents and The Fugitive, I wasn’t planning to spend that much time in front of the TV.

Then, the remote moved toward the network stations and, lo and behold, an NFL preseason game between the San Francisco 49ers and their crosstown rivals, the Oakland Raiders, was in progress, although it was already well into the second half.  However, it was a back-and-forth affair from there, with the Raiders going ahead, only to be caught and passed by the Niners.  With less than 4 minutes to go, down 7, the Raiders’ QB (someone near the bottom of the depth chart) scrambled and was shoved out of bounds, while he tried to stretch for the pylon.

The call on the field was no TD - 4th & goal at the one.  The Raiders’ new head coach (their zillionth in as many years), a big, rough-looking guy named Tom Cable (who, from recent reports, is quite the competitive sort), threw the challenge flag (I think the announcers said he broke it) and, sure enough, won the reversal, pulling the Silver & Black to within one.  Then, in a bold move (their mantra’s not “Just tie baby!”), Oakland went for two! 

The play, though, didn’t develop as well as the Raiders had hoped (in other words, it came off  exactly as Raider fans have seen again and again - in this century anyway), and the quarterback was immediately pressured, forcing him to chuck the ball up for grabs in the end zone, where the alert 49ers’ DBs made sure it wasn’t caught.

If this blog doesn’t exude the emotion that a long time rivalry ought to, it’s for the following reasons: 1) I’m originally from NJ and rooted for the New York (football) Giants, as we were forced to call them in order to distinguish them from the other team with the same name (yes, this makes me a year or two from being considered ancient), 2) after graduating from college, I worked many long days and much of what I had previously enjoyed had to be sacrificed in my attempt to climb the proverbial coaching ladder (which, by the way, I never did get to the top).  The NFL was one of these sacrifices. 

My disinterest in the NFL was briefly interrupted when I took a job (for what turned out to be only a one-year stay), at Robert Morris College for the 1976-77 school year.  RMC is located in Pittsburgh and, as any knowledgeable football fan will tell, that time was during the “Glory Years” of the Steelers.  It was impossible not to get caught up with Bradshaw, Swann, Harris, Ham, Lambert and the rest of Chuck Noll’s Super Bowl Champs.

The third reason the 49ers and Raiders never “hooked” me is when we moved to Fresno (from Southern California) in 1995, I looked at the stereotypical fan of each club.  The average 49er fan is a somewhat preppy, fraternity-type, while the normal (not sure that’s the right word) Raider fan is a rather vulgar, Neanderthal looking - and acting person (with the male Raider fans no better).  Neither one appealed to me.  Plus, I was making enough trips to the Bay Area, after I finally got referred to the Stanford Pain Clinic.  Nothing in their treatment mentioned a strong attachment to either team as a means for lessening the pain.

I recently saw a quote by Bertrand Russell which elicits the kind of emotion I experience when someone mentions the 49er-Raider rivalry:

“If two hitherto rival football teams, under the influence of brotherly love, decided to co-operate in placing the football first beyond one goal and then beyond the other, no one’s happiness would be increased.”

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