Damn It

Warning: this posting won't leave you smiling. It might make you sad, or maybe angry.

I'm a little of both right now. Here's why: three days ago, a dear friend called to tell me her 21-year-old son was dead. Drugs.

In my business, we tell stories like this all the time. In fact, a heroin overdose death is hardly even newsworthy anymore (not even in the Dallas area, where our friends live and where at least 25 young people have died in the last couple of years because of a cheap form of heroin called "cheese").

So why am I telling you? Why does this belong in a sports-related blog? Only as a reminder that the most dangerous drugs in America today are not steroids. Despite all the attention we pay to performance-enhancing drugs, we continue to lose our sons and daughters to the same damned poison that's been around for years.

If you want to know the brief details about Cory, here's his obituary. It fails, of course, to tell you everything. I have memories of a handsome boy sprinting into the surf at South Padre Island with his boogie-board. Of him bursting through the front door and dumping his load of soccer gear. Of him in the midst of a gang of neighborhood kids bouncing with delight on a backyard trampoline under the pecan trees.

Cory was not a world-class athlete, but he was athletic: soccer, football, even a year of college lacrosse before he began his descent into drug use. He was a sports fan (UT, the Cowboys, the Rangers).

Yet none of those connections to life was strong enough to pull him away from the tractor-beam of hard drugs. I remember reading Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, about the hold that sports-fandom has over many men, and thinking maybe all of us who suffer for our teams are a little pathetic.

Now, I just wish Cory was around to suffer for his teams.

Bad Decision, Giants

This will probably not be a popular sentiment, but I think the Giants made a mistake in letting Pedro Feliz go. They'll tell you they made him an offer, but it was a lowball deal that showed they didn't really want him back.

Look, Feliz has always had his flaws at the plate (it's an even bet that in this photo, he ended up swinging through the ball). He seldom met a first pitch that didn't deserve a hack.

Yet in fastball situations, Feliz wasn't a guy you wanted to face. In his four seasons as an everyday player, Feliz averaged 21 homers, 32 doubles and 84 RBI's a season. Very decent numbers in a ballpark that's far from friendly to righthanded hitters.

Feliz' true strengths were his glove and his versatility. The man my buddy Bob insists on calling "Happy Pete" (use your Spanish-to-English dictionary) is a 3rd baseman by trade, but he's spent time at 1st base, in the outfield, and even at shortstop in a pinch. Despite an aberrant spell in 2006 (a season in which he made 21 errors), Feliz was always a superb 3rd baseman, blessed with a well-above-average arm.

Giants GM Brian Sabean just e-mailed season ticketholders to tell them the team plans to build its post-Bonds editions on pitching and defense. Does it make sense, then, to give up on a quality defensive player who's shown he can drive in runs?

Perhaps Kevin Frandsen will make me forget Feliz, since the Giants seem ready to let him share the 3rd base job with Rich Aurilia, who will turn 37 this season. I hope so. But for now, it feels like a misplaced bet.

C-Webb and Nellie, The Sequel

All signs indicate the Golden State Warriors are on the verge of bringing the prodigal son back for a second tour of duty. I'm talking about Chris Webber, the supremely talented big man whose departure from the Warriors after his rookie season is generally regarded as the beginning of the Warriors' descent into insignificance.

Depending on your point of view, Warriors coach Don Nelson was either a bully or a hard-nosed traditionalist and Webber was either a victim or a snot-nosed brat. Their clash led to Webber's decision to force a trade.

That was then (1994) and this is now. The Warriors, in Nelson's second go-round, are a fun team to watch and are respectable, if still short of formidable.

Can Webber make them a great team? Let me put it this way: if he was that valuable, he wouldn't be sitting in his restaurant near Sacramento halfway through the NBA season. He'd be playing somewhere.

Still, C-Webb's return to the Warriors would be a boon. He might help them on the court. After all, he was useful last year to a Pistons team that lost in the Eastern Conference finals. He's certainly not the force he was in '94, but that's not what he'd be asked to be.

Webber's real value would be intangible. It would be a return to better times, a closing of an ugly chapter in a once-proud franchise's history, and a chance for two proud men (Nellie and C-Webb) to show us they've both grown up.

That's a message pro sports seldom delivers.

Dinner Now, Sharks Later

Do you ever wish nighttime sports events would start a little earlier? As an early riser, I'm a firm believer that 7 PM is a more humane starting time than 7:30 PM (hey, when your alarm clock goes off at 4 AM, every half-hour counts).

And I know many parents would love to take their kids to ballgames during the week, but the later the event runs, the less attractive a trip to the arena seems.

So I was interested to hear San Jose Sharks CEO Greg Jamison explain his rationale for those 7:30 starts at the Shark Tank. Jamison told the Comerica Bank Economic Forecast Conference (and elaborated with me in a chat later) that he'd personally rather go with the earlier starting time, but there's a reason they stick with 7:30.

That reason is the downtown San Jose restaurant scene. See, the Sharks have found that when they play earlier, fewer people go out for dinner before coming to the Tank. Jamison doesn't have exact numbers to prove it, but he says there's no doubt that the extra half-hour lets more fans stop off for a restaurant meal

It's an enlightened viewpoint. It would be easy for the Sharks to say "the hell with the restaurants" and proceed to sell more food at the HP Pavilion. But it speaks to an understanding that a rising tide floats all boats. If downtown San Jose is alive and vibrant, it's only good news for the Sharks and their ownership (which also operates the HP Pavilion and books all the other events there).

By the way, here's another data point from Jamison: the Sharks Ice facility in San Jose (one of 3 run by the team in the Bay Area) is directly responsible for 15,000 hotel room bookings this year. That's because of all the hockey tournaments and skating events staged at the facility, which is now the biggest ice facility west of the Mississippi and is open 20 hours a day.

Something Has To Give

So it's all set. The Team Of Destiny vs. The Team That Loves To Travel.

The Patriots haven't lost all year (18 wins and counting). The Giants have set their own NFL record with 10 straight road wins.

Super Bowl 42 (look, I'm OK with Roman numerals when we're talking V, X, or even XX, but when it gets up to XLII, let's stop the madness, OK?) sets up a collision between two teams riding hot streaks.

Conventional wisdom (read that: the Las Vegas bookies) says the Patriots will win. That's probably a safe bet. But don't be too shocked if the New Yorkers pull this thing off.

The Giants, like the Steelers two years ago, have taken the hard road. They've been forced to win three straight playoff games away from home. And they've done it the smart way: no offensive turnovers in those three games, including the frost-fest in Green Bay. That's the kind of team that can win a Super Bowl.

Some crabby types don't like the idea of a wild card team winning it all. Their tortured reasoning is that a team that can't even win its division shouldn't be in the playoffs. This, of course, is silly. With the NFL's unbalanced schedule, you're never measuring apples against apples when assessing win-loss records anyway, so the addition of two wild card teams is easily defensible. What's a little odd about this season is the fact that two divisions (NFC East and AFC South) sent 3 of their 4 teams to the playoffs.

It's all about peaking at the right time. The Giants started 0-2 this season, and have since won 13 of 17 games, including those 10 straight on the road. Don't forget: the Super Bowl is an away game.

Baseball and Rap

The week is wrapping up and surprisingly, we've heard not a peep out of Congress about the furor engulfing hip-hop music. Yes, just like baseball, rap has a steroids scandal.

Big names like Timbaland and 50 Cent have been mentioned in reports about illegal distribution of steroids and human growth hormone. It turns out some of those way-too-ripped physiques may have been artificially-enhanced.

So where's the call for Congressional hearings? If the logic behind Capitol Hill's abiding interest in baseball is that kids are using steroids because their ballplaying heroes do (a sentiment expressed more than once at this week's hearing), shouldn't the multi-billion dollar music industry also be under the microscope?

Look, if Congress is really worried about kids adopting the dangerous ways of their heroes, then why stop with baseball? Of course, it's entirely possible that Congress is engaging in a bit of grandstanding with its baseball hearings. You think?

The Giants Dilemma

Much is being made today of the possibility that baseball Commissioner Bud Selig will punish the San Francisco Giants for failing to rein in Barry Bonds and his "trainer" Greg Anderson. This is because Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) leaned heavily on Selig at yesterday's House Oversight Committee hearing, essentially getting Selig to promise he'd do something about those bad boys by McCovey Cove.

Does this mean Giants G.M. Brian Sabean and/or owner Peter Magowan will soon be receiving suspension notices, or paying a big fine, or suffering some other draconian punishment? I wouldn't bet on it, and here's why: they weren't alone.

While George Mitchell may have gotten former Giants trainer Stan Conte to reveal his frustration about steroids seeping into the Giants clubhouse, what doesn't appear in Mitchell's report is any detail about what went on with other teams. You think nobody with the Oakland A's wondered about Canseco and McGwire? Is it plausible that all those Yankees players fingered by Mitchell did what they're alleged to have done without anyone in Steinbrenner-land knowing or suspecting?

Remember, Selig works for the owners. If he offers Giants management up as a sacrificial lamb in this case, he's opening up a Pandora's box. He's punishing one of his employers for the exact same thing some, many, or all of the others are likely to have done as well.

It's been pointed out that past Commissioners have punished owners. Well, yes, but those cases involved activities that were highly-specific to the owners who were punished. Steinbrenner was convicted of a felony, and later, found to have spied on one of his players. Marge Schott was, well, an embarrassment to everyone. In both cases, other owners could enthusiastically endorse the punishment: their hands were clean.

This time, there would be an uneasy feeling all over baseball if the Giants were busted, for it's extremely doubtful they were alone.