End The All-Star Games

Brandon Marshall set a Pro Bowl record with four touchdown catches in Honolulu. It's not something about which he should be proud.

The latest Pro Bowl, a 59-41 win by one side over the other (don't ask me which conference won, I'm still numb) should once and for all prove the need to kill off the Pro Bowl. And while you're at it, put a fork in the NHL All-Star Game too (the 12-9 final score in Sunday's game doesn't even begin to tell you how silly the whole thing was).

The problem with these games is that they don't fairly represent their exciting sports. Pro football and NHL hockey feature hard hitting and, yes, defense. You won't see any of that in the Pro Bowl or NHL All-Star Game. I do note that this year's NHL folly produced exactly one recorded hit. I'm guessing it was a mistake on someone's part.

If you love football or hockey, you'll have to agree. "But," some will argue, "it's fun to watch those great quarterbacks and receivers throw for all those yards!" Well, yeah, but when the defense isn't really playing defense, does it matter?

Once upon a time, these games looked like real football and hockey games. Players didn't earn so much money, and the bonus they got for playing made them willing to play hard. Now, no sane player wants to risk injury in a meaningless exhibition.

The baseball All-Star Game is the granddaddy of these contests and, despite the tendency in recent years of some players to skip the event, still the only one that really works. It's easy to see why: baseball players seldom get hurt in this game (I know, Ray Fosse and Dizzy Dean prove otherwise; both suffered career-altering injuries in All-Star games). The baseball All-Star Game provides a full display of the sport's magic: pitching, hitting, defense, baserunning.

The NBA puts on a scorefest every year that falls somewhere between the fairly-pure baseball event and the putrid NFL and NHL embarrassments. There's not much defense at your typical NBA All-Star Game either, but then many would argue there's not that much at a typical NBA regular-season game.

My guess is that the Pro Bowl will be gone sooner rather than later. NFL conscience John Madden tells KCBS he'll soon be making exactly that pitch to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. There's really no constituency to stick up for the Pro Bowl; even the TV networks accept it as a sort of mandatory throw-in, something they have to swallow so they can get the rest of the broadcast rights package.

The NHL situation is different. A league that remains incapable of getting rid of ritualized fighting has already shown itself to be well short of clueless. Of course, maybe there's some weird logic here: the stat sheet for the NHL All-Star Game showed zero penalty minutes...and zero fights.

The Phenomenon

He's more than a quarterback, although some argue he's not really a quarterback.

Tim Tebow is actually a living, breathing, funky-throwing Rorschach test. What you see in him probably tells us more about you than it does about him.

The latest improbability, Denver's overtime defeat of the Steelers, doesn't merely add a layer to the Tebow legend. It means at least another week of national attention. It lets all those who revel in Tebow's exploits exult, and lets the bile rise further in those who just can't stand Tebow and/or all the attention he's gotten.

Let's not kid ourselves for a single moment: if it wasn't for the Christianity he wears on his sleeve, Tim Tebow would garner far less attention. He'd still be an interesting thing to watch: an exuberant kid with an unusual skill set whose play is alternately frustrating and exhilarating.

But you can't escape the religion thing. For some, it makes Tebow their guy, even if they never knew Denver had a football team. For others, there's a profound discomfort in listening to Tebow praise his Lord and talk about how lucky he is to play with so many great guys.

This "Tebow's great!" vs. "I can't stand that guy!" debate is not very much about football, but very much about our conflicted feelings regarding faith and the public display of it. What you see in Tim Tebow reflects your own beliefs.

I've had people tell me that the media created the Tebow phenomenon. Baloney. Tim Tebow is a spectacle you can't ignore (and we would have ignored it if the Broncos had gone 5-11), but what makes the thing so big is the debate.

Look at that photo again. What do you see?

A Bleak Future

Let me say it right off the top: it's not Billy Beane's fault. It's not Lew Wolff's, either. But I don't blame Oakland A's fans for wanting to blame somebody for the latest dismantling of the ballclub.

And make no mistake about it, the A's are being broken up. It's not like they were a juggernaut; the A's finished 14 games under .500 in 2011 and have about as good a chance of catching up to the Angels and Rangers as I do of cracking a big-league roster myself. Now? Minus Gio Gonzales, Trevor Cahill, Andrew Bailey, Josh Willingham, Ryan Sweeney, David DeJesus, Coco Crisp et al? Fat chance.

Of course all this is being played out against the backdrop of the team's stalled efforts to move to San Jose. It's no longer just idle talk; Beane is out-and-out saying that the cheapening of the A's is a way of hunkering down until the team can move to a brighter financial future in a new stadium.

Some think Wolff and Beane are blowing up the ballclub in hopes that it'll pressure The Lords of Baseball into approving the San Jose plan. Maybe so, but that gambit has a low probability of success. Remember, the roadblock here wears orange-and-black. Until and unless the Giants are compensated to their satisfaction for an A's intrusion into Giants territory, this deal is dead. And do you think MLB would step in and anger one of its marquee franchises (the Giants) in favor of one of its weak sisters (the A's)? Not likely.

So back to my opening line. If not Beane and Wolff, who do A's fans blame? Well, actually, they should be angry at the entirety of Major League Baseball. The sport continues to operate under an absolutely unfair set of financial rules which allow the wealthiest clubs to run payrolls more than 5 times the size of the poorest clubs. The "luxury tax"? A complete joke. Only two teams are paying it in 2012--the Yankees and Red Sox--and the total of around $18 million doesn't even begin to address the disparity between baseball's haves and have-nots.

Look, money is no guarantee. The Tampa Bay Rays are proof that you can win with a low budget, and the Cubs (and others) have certainly managed to spend plenty with little to show for it. But wouldn't you rather see baseball teams compete on a level financial playing field? OK, Yankees and Red Sox fans, you're excused from the conversation.

While baseball's rich get richer, A's fans get screwed. What the A's really should do is express solidarity with the Occupy movement. In fact, maybe that's the answer. Re-name the team "Occupy Oakland". Refuse to leave the Coliseum until the 1 percenters share the wealth.

Oh, and don't forget to buy a program on Opening Day. It's the only way you'll be able to identify the guys wearing green and gold.

Baseball's New Dress Code

This is how bad things have gotten: Major League Baseball has just issued a dress code.

Not for players, or managers, or even front-office folks.

For reporters.

MLB thus becomes the first of the major North American sports leagues to tell the people who cover the games that they, in some cases, need to cover up. The policy forbids flip-flops, short-shorts, tank tops, and visible underwear.

San Francisco Chronicle writer Susan Slusser is a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America committee that worked with MLB to develop the dress code. She is probably well-understating the issue when she says, "Personally, I believe the baseball media in general could dress slightly more professionally."

Slightly?

You know what they say about stone-throwers in glass houses, so I'll be careful here. But let's just say very few of the people who cover pro sports are going to show up on any Best-Dressed lists. For every on-camera sideline dandy (yes, Craig Sager, I'm talking about you), there's a horde of guys (and gals) in torn jeans, ratty shorts, and T-shirts.

Some of them might get a free pass because they're pulling cables and schlepping cameras. But most are hauling nothing any heavier than a notepad or MP3 recorder.

The "how to dress for the ballpark" story blew into the headlines a year or so ago when a reporter for a Mexican TV channel showed up in the New York Jets training camp dressed for...well, I'm not sure what. Maybe a dance club? There have also been numerous sightings of Miami TV reporters who looked like maybe they mistook Sun Life Stadium for a trendy South Beach nightspot.

Clearly, some of this has been "look at me"-driven. But it's also true that the art of personal presentation has been in decline for many a year. Have you looked around you at a nice restaurant lately?

Social norms have evaporated, but there's also something else at work here. MLB's Pat Courtney points out that many of the people who cover baseball no longer work for "a bigger organization that may have a dress code." In other words, they're freelancers, bloggers and the like. They're their own bosses and they don't have anyone telling them what's OK to wear to the office.

Now MLB is telling them. The rules may improve the look of the media corps, but it's doubtful the ballplayers will be any more impressed with the people with the notepads. After all, they know how to dress.

Two Little Words

Baseball's new collective bargaining agreement guarantees five more years of labor peace. There's been plenty of talk about the new wild-card playoff plan, the league re-alignment (moving Houston to the American League), and the new drug-testing policy which includes blood tests for human growth hormone (HGH).

But largely below the radar screen, two little words have been inserted that speak volumes about how far the world of sports has come on the issue of sexual orientation. Baseball's long protected the rights of players based on their "race, color, religion, or national origin." The new CBA adds "sexual orientation" to the list of protected categories.

Of course, merely saying the sport protects the rights of gay ballplayers (and don't kid yourself, there certainly are gay ballplayers) doesn't mean the anti-gay slurs will dry up and blow away. Just last season, Atlanta Braves pitching coach Roger McDowell dropped a crude anti-gay comment (amplified with a gesture involving a bat) on some fans at San Francisco's AT&T Park.

No, the homophobic sports culture won't change overnight. But the times, they are a-changin'. Most other pro sports leagues already have similar language in their basic agreements (notably, the NBA does not, though one hopes that will be addressed in current labor talks). Many baseball teams hold "LGBT Nights" in recognition of the fact that you don't have to be straight to be a fan. And a number of teams, including the Giants, have produced videos as part of the "It Gets Better" anti-homophobia program.

Eventually, the term "out" will have multiple meanings in big-league baseball. That might still take some time. But for now, it's a step forward to see the sport--owners and players--agree that gay ballplayers deserve full protection. I know plenty of gay and lesbian fans; they root just as hard and wear their teams' colors just as proudly as anyone else. Now they can feel that the sport speaks for them, too.

Nobody wins when somebody is left out or marginalized.

Lord Acton Is Right (Again)

In 1887, Britain's Lord Acton wrote a letter containing the following passage:

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

The first part of that passage has been used myriad times since it was written to caution against the excesses of power. The second half is seldom quoted, but I include it here to inform the discussion about Joe Paterno and the horrifying revelations at Penn State.

It's possible Lord Acton thought "greatness" guaranteed "badness". It's also possible he meant that unchecked power, unbridled ego, would inevitably lead to trouble.

And so we have Joe Paterno. For many a year, Paterno ran what he liked to call a "Grand Experiment", believing that it was possible to succeed in college athletics while also upholding academic integrity. And it seemed to be working. Penn State won often, and its football players achieved their degrees and avoided controversy.

But now we know what we know (and surely, there is much more that will be known before this is over). And we are left feeling angry, duped, outraged, saddened. How could Joe Paterno be both good and bad?

The answer, as Lord Acton wrote so long ago, may lie in the intoxicating and corrosive influence of power. Read this piece by Southern California psychologist Ronald Riggio. It was written two years ago but you can almost see the Penn State story in it if you look closely enough. One phrase stands out: "Leaders can delude themselves that they are working for the greater good (using socialized power), but engage in behavior that is morally wrong."

In other words, Paterno could well have believed he was preserving something "greater" (his "Grand Experiment") by ignoring the rape of children. Sounds strange, even horrifying, but human nature isn't always logical or even explainable.

So where does that leave us? How do we not go here again?

Perhaps Lord Acton had it right. If so, the answer would be to avoid granting absolute power anywhere, and college athletic departments might be a good place to start.

La Russa's Legacy

The whole notion of "going out on top" sounds good, but it doesn't happen often enough. Too many athletes, coaches, and managers stick around hoping for one more trip to the top of the hill--one that seldom comes.

That's why it's nice to see Tony La Russa say goodbye to the dugout, just days after claiming his third World Series title. La Russa has been there, done that. And could any season ever top the one La Russa and his Cardinals just finished? I doubt it.

Just about anyone who follows sports knows about the last three games of the World Series: the Game 5 "phone-gate" story, the epic Game 6, and the make-no-mistake-about-it Game 7 that gave La Russa his final ring. But there was a lot more to Tony La Russa's last lap.

Don't forget La Russa's struggle with a case of shingles so severe it kept him away from the ballpark for a few days and in pain for many weeks. Don't forget the key Cardinal injuries: starting pitcher Adam Wainwright missed the whole season, outfielder Matt Holliday missed a big chunk and The Great Pujols missed a couple of weeks. There was the whole "is this Albert's last year in St. Louis?" free-agency deathwatch. And then there was that month of September.

While the baseball world focused (and maybe over-focused) on the Red Sox meltdown, the Cardinals faced an even bigger deficit, clawing past Atlanta the last night of the season to make the playoffs as a wild-card team.

And then the Cards knocked off the heavily-favored Phillies. And then the Cards knocked off the same Brewers team that had outpaced St. Louis in the NL Central during the regular season. And only then did La Russa get his final shot at the brass ring.

You can read all the stats about La Russa's career and still not fully appreciate this man. I'll cop to my own mistaken read on La Russa. Back in the 1980's, I'd occasionally be sent to cover an A's game and find myself having to do the postgame interview thing. Mind you, I wasn't a regular in the clubhouse, just one of those microphone-wielding itinerants who are eyed warily by athletes.

I often found La Russa, well...challenging. Especially, but not exclusively, after a loss, he could be a tough nut. Not just grouchy, because that I could understand. No, it seemed that La Russa felt that every question was a challenge to his intelligence or maybe even his manhood. It seemed to me then like insecurity, and I can remember thinking that this poor guy needed to learn to relax.

What I didn't know, because I never got close enough to La Russa to know, was that this man is a grinder, a guy who will outwork you or die trying. As his friend John Madden told us this morning, "'A' students don't make the best managers and coaches." The implication: La Russa was never a star on the field, so he set out to dominate the game as a manager.

I finally got a sense of the real Tony La Russa many years later in, of all places, a room beneath the stage at Oakland's Paramount Theater. I'd wormed my way into a role in the annual Nutcracker ballet performance in which La Russa recruited jocks and "celebrities" to perform in the beloved holiday classic. For Tony, the annual fundraiser was a matter of passion: his daughter, Devon, was a dancer. Tony and his wife Elaine were serious supporters.

La Russa's passion for ballet seemed to me an expression of love for his wife and daughters (his other girl, Bianca, would later become an Oakland Raiderette), his way of supporting them in the same way a baseball family supports the man of the house through those long seasons.

So I began to see La Russa in a new light. And the conversion was complete as we BS'd backstage during the break between rehearsal and performance. La Russa was relaxed, funny, and very excited about a project he was embarking upon with author Buzz Bissinger (Friday Night Lights): Bissinger would observe a 3-game Cardinals series and use it as a leaping-off point for an exploration of the inside world of the sport, with La Russa as the tour guide.

That's when I gained a full appreciation of Tony La Russa. He was, by then, a man in full. His career path was set, he was engaged in altruistic activities like the ballet and his Animal Rescue Foundation, and now, this book would help establish La Russa's legacy as a Baseball Mind. The book Three Nights in August ended up being a cut above the average ghost-written sports bio.

Madden says La Russa could have been successful coaching any sport because he cared about the arts of coaching and leadership. I think he's right. When you mixed La Russa's passion for baseball, his will to win, his willingness to buck the norm (who else was willing to bat his pitcher in the 8-hole?), and his relentless curiosity with what turns out to be a very wide stripe of good old humanity, you wind up with Tony La Russa.

I'm glad I was wrong about him all those years ago.