Another Shot to the Head

It's happened again in baseball: a pitcher hit in the head by a line drive, crumpling on the mound as the stadium goes silent.

This time, it was Toronto's J.A. Happ, struck by a ball off the bat of Tampa's Desmond Jennings. The sound of the ball hitting Happ's skull was as audible as its impact with the bat.  Jennings wound up at third with one of the stranger triples you'll ever see.

Happ didn't see it. He was on his knees, head cradled in his hands.  Eight minutes later, he left the field on a paramedics' backboard.  It looks like he escaped the fate of former A's pitcher Brandon McCarthy, who sustained a potentially-deadly subdural hematoma when he was hit last season.

But how many more of these do we need to see before baseball does something? A pitcher takes the mound wearing a New Era 59Fifty cap on his head: a few ounces of fabric that may protect his eyes from the sun but certainly don't protect his skull from batted balls.

Those balls get there in a hurry. The ESPN Home Run Tracker provides data on the ball-off-bat speed of home runs. 100 MPH is routine; some leave the bat as fast as 111 MPH. Remember: the pitcher, after striding toward home plate, is maybe 54 feet away from that bat. I've seen studies that show a pitcher can react and deflect a ball in .368 second. Yes, that's just over a third of a second.  But a ball that leaves the bat at 111 MPH gets there sooner--something like .345 second.

Numerous researchers have suggested the best thing a pitcher can do to protect himself is to finish his delivery the way the old-timers did: in a balanced "fielding position", facing home plate. Watch a few games today and see how many guys do that. Wait--I'll save you the few hours.  The answer is: not many.

There are no rules prohibiting a pitcher from wearing some kind of protective liner inside his cap. Yet nobody at the big-league level is wearing one. Don't expect them to; athletes are notoriously slow to adopt the very protective gear designed to keep them whole.

If change is to come, it will probably have to be mandated.  I think of hockey and cycling, both of which essentially had to drag their professional participants kicking and screaming into wearing helmets (and the NHL still doesn't mandate eye protection, despite some awful incidents over the past few years).

Major League Baseball says it is working with a number of companies large and small on a protective cap liner. But baseball also says if anything is developed, it wouldn't be mandatory, partly because the sport is afraid to, in the words of one official, "give a false sense of security".  Translated: we're afraid of getting sued.

It's time to get past this. Do we really need to wait for someone to be killed or maimed for life?

Yellow For Courage

I'm not really a fan of the made-for-TV bit of theater in which the home team gets all its fans to wear the same color. White, red, orange, black...we've seen it all and it always seems a bit hokey to me.

But I'm making an exception for the yellow T-shirts the Warriors have been handing out to their playoff crowds. Yellow is the color historically used to denote cowardice. This basketball team is far from cowardly.

The shirts say "We Are Warriors" on the front and sport a variety of hortatory words on the back. The fans, of course, aren't warriors. They're just loud and energetic.  The Warriors aren't always perfect practitioners of the basketball arts. They're just exciting.

The close-out Game 6 against Denver showed the W's at their best and worst. On the plus side: Andrew Bogut's ferocious 21-rebound effort, punctuated by 4 blocked shots before halftime. Bogut is one of several wounded Warriors, playing on a less-than-full tank but gunning the engine hard.

Also on the plus side: Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes, a couple of rookies who played with courage and savvy amid a fourth-quarter unraveling that saw the Warriors barf up all but two points of an 18-point lead. 

Another plus: David Lee, whose stat line (0-1 field, 1 rebound) was meaningless (Nuggets coach George Karl called Lee's brief appearance "weird") but whose very presence was enormous. Most everyone had assumed Lee's next appearance for the W's would be next season after he tore a hip flexor in Game 1 of this series.

On the other side of the coin: guards Steph Curry, Jarrett Jack, and Klay Thompson. Curry's flurry at the start of the second half helped the Warriors build the big lead they nearly squandered, but his ragged play near the end took some of the shine off his heroics earlier in the series. Neither Jack nor Thompson could shoot (a combined 5 for 23 from the floor--though credit Jack for nailing 9 of 10 free throws) and Jack, in particular, made questionable decisions at the offensive end.

The Warriors face an enormous challenge in the next round. San Antonio is a veteran team that can pounce on disarray and weakness. It would be an enormous upset were the Warriors to win the series. But let's not kid ourselves here: the last time the Warriors won two playoff series in a season was the year they won the NBA Championship, back in 1975.

This team has already exceeded expectations. Of course Jackson and his players want more. But in their Warrior hearts, these guys know they've made enormous strides. The future looks better than it has in a long time, and nobody who follows pro hoops associates the color yellow with cowardice anymore.

The Big Out

It's tempting to compare Jason Collins with Jackie Robinson; after all, the biopic about Robinson, "42", is a hot movie ticket right now and both are pioneers.

Yet Robinson's breaking of baseball's color line still seems like a bigger deal than Collins' first-ever announcement by an American major-sports player that he's gay. I say that because Robinson was demonstrably the first black big-league ballplayer, while Collins is certainly not the first gay pro jock. He's just the first to say so while still playing the game.

Make no mistake, though: this is a big deal. It's a big deal because men's sports remain riven with homophobic attitudes. Anti-gay slurs are still commonplace on the playing fields and the sidelines.  When Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice recently lost his job, the videotaped spewing of homophobic insults was widely aired. Sadly, those of us who've been around the sports scene were hardly shocked.

Nor were we really shocked when 49ers defensive back Chris Culliver made his widely-reported pre-Super Bowl comments, saying he wouldn't accept an openly-gay teammate. The reality, of course, is that Culliver probably already has played with gay teammates--he just didn't know it.

And that's what's significant about Jason Collins. From now on, there's a face and a name to go with the hazy notion of the gay jock. The next Mike Rice who wants to demean someone by calling him a "fag" will have to come to grips with the hardnosed, intelligent, dignified image of Jason Collins.

Collins is listed in the roster as standing 7 feet tall.  He's even bigger than that today.

Cruel Shoes

Nice kicks, eh? Those are Nike's "Lunar MVP Pro Pregame" shoes and they're very popular among San Francisco Giants players and coaches. Of course, they come in other colorways too, so you can bet other teams are sporting them as well.

Those are the cleatless models, ideal for jogging in the outfield during spring training or for a starting pitcher on his off-day to wear while lounging in the dugout and spitting sunflower seeds.

Nike makes a similar-looking metal-cleated model worn by many big-leaguers, including the Giants' Angel Pagan. He may want to re-think that part of his game-day wardrobe.

Pagan was hit on the right foot by a pitch from San Diego's Eric Stults in the first inning of Sunday's Giants-Padres game. Pretty much everyone in the ballpark knew it and television viewers could easily see the pitch glance off Pagan's toe. But home plate umpire Bob Davidson missed the call and no amount of pleading from Pagan or Giants manager Bruce Bochy could get him to re-think the situation. Pagan ended up grounding out

Fans of a certain age had to be clamoring for the Giants to track down the ball and show it to Davidson; surely, the smudge of shoe polish on the ball would convince Davidson to change his mind.  After all, shoe polish had played a similar role in two legendary World Series games. Nippy Jones of the Braves in 1957 and Cleon Jones of the Mets in 1969 were both awarded first base after umps were shown shoe polish-smudged balls.

Ah, but that was then and this is now. Those shiny Nikes never see shoe polish. Progress? You be the judge. But if I was Angel Pagan, I'd be re-thinking my footwear choices.

Golf's Goof

Take nothing away from Adam Scott. His playoff win over Angel Cabrera at the Masters was gripping drama and Australians are rightfully celebrating the first-ever Augusta win by one of their own.

Sure, there'll be some downstream grumbling about Scott's use of one of those goofy "anchored" putters, which could end up being outlawed by the Lords of Golf.

But a putter kerfuffle is nothing compared to the real issue facing professional golf: the sport can't get out of its own way when it comes to something very basic. Golf is having a rules crisis.

The Tiger Woods drop on Friday's 15th hole is just the latest highly-visible reminder that the gentle old game of golf is having real trouble adjusting to the Age of Instant Media.

Some have written that golf's rules are too complicated and that's why Woods committed (or didn't commit) a violation.  Nonsense. Golf's rules are no more puzzling than those of baseball or football, and both of those sports move a heck of a lot faster. The difference is that baseball and football employ real-time referees who spot infractions and mete out justice on the spot.

Golf relies on a quaint old notion of self-policing...until it doesn't.  In this case, all was well until somebody called Masters officials to say they'd seen Woods drop his ball improperly after his approach shot rebounded off the flagstick and into the water. And then Woods himself told reporters he'd made an improper drop--a 2-stroke penalty.

After that, it gets even crazier. Since Woods had signed a scorecard without taking the penalty strokes, he could have been disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard (that's how Roberto DiVincenzo lost the 1968 Masters). But Masters officials decided to let him play on. It's a good thing he didn't win the tournament; if he had, the debate would never end.

But there still needs to be a serious discussion within the sport. Sure, the old "call your own" gentleman's code was fine way back when. But in a world where amateur officials are perched in front of their high-def TV's and super-slo-mo DVR's, ready to pounce on every perceived violation, golf has a problem. It's one thing for the Twitterverse to debate whether a referee blew the call. It's entirely another for the Twitterverse to be the referees.

Golf can easily fix this. Empower rules officials to assess penalties on the spot. If Woods' drop was improper, he should have been hit with the penalty as soon as he hit the ball. Stop accepting phone calls from TV viewers. Does the NFL do this? Restore some certainty to the proceedings. A bad call or non-call is better than a call that takes hours to happen.

Sure, the game of golf can be slow.  Judging its rules doesn't need to be.

On Coaching

It's been a bit amusing to watch the handwringing and indignation surrounding the Mike Rice story. In case you've missed the endless video replays, he's the Rutgers University basketball coach who was fired this week after video surfaced showing him engaged in a variety of manic and abusive behavior during practices.

The reaction of many brought back memories of Captain Renault in the film Casablanca: "I am shocked...shocked...to find that gambling is going on in here!" Was anyone paying any attention to Rice's sideline behavior during his tenure at Rutgers? If so, how could they not have been asking questions about what he was doing away from the live crowds and TV cameras?

Let's go deeper here and ask some hard questions about what it is to be a coach today. Full disclosure: I grew up as the son and grandson of coaches. Both my father and his father were credentialed teachers who also coached high school teams. Both coached a variety of sports. My grandfather's legacy as "The Coach" at Kingsburg High School south of Fresno was such that years after his retirement, I could walk into that town and invoke his name; people recalled him as a pillar of the community.

In fact, the honorific "Coach" is itself emblematic of the esteem in which coaches were held. I have vivid memories of a retired NFL star who had briefly played for my father in high school spotting my dad at a football game. As they shook hands in greeting, the quarterback didn't call him "Mr. Bunger" or "Jim". He called him "Coach". It's a sign of respect, both for the person and the position.

As I mentioned earlier, both Dad and Grandpa were teachers, both in the literal and figurative sense. To them, coaching was an extension of teaching: they saw themselves as molders of young minds. Of course they wanted to win when their teams competed, but that wasn't Job One. First and foremost, they were teachers--and they had the gradebooks and lesson plans to prove it.

Sounds quaint, doesn't it? Let's fast-forward to this week's poster child for Out-of-Control Coaching, Mike Rice. Nothing in his resume' suggests "teacher". He wrapped up his basketball playing career at Fordham and immediately became an assistant coach at his alma mater.  There followed a series of brief stays as he worked his way up the college hoops food chain, eventually becoming a head coach before he was 40. Nowhere is there evidence of him teaching anything beyond an inbounds play or a zone trap.

Make no mistake: Mike Rice was employed to win basketball games. Until his methods became an embarrassment to all, he remained employed.  Nobody spent much time worrying about whether he was helping build good citizens.

It goes a lot deeper. Stop by your local high school and ask how many of the coaches are also teachers. No matter what the answer, it'll be a smaller number than it was 10 or 20 years ago. The days of the math teacher/football coach or civics teacher/basketball coach are rapidly disappearing.  Heck, it's getting hard to find P.E. teachers who want to coach.

What's going on? Let me offer a few thoughts:

•  Money. The Oakland Unified School District just posted an opening for a head basketball coach at Oakland Tech High School. The pay? About $2800 a year. You do the math.
• Administrative and community support.  You'll find no shortage of stories about coaches beset by pushy parents and left dangling by spineless administrators. I will never forget the day I watched a father call his daughter over to the backstop during a high school softball game and direct her to ignore what the coach had just said. 
• A cultural shift. There was once general agreement that high school and college sports existed to impart valuable lessons about effort, teamwork, sportsmanship and the like. Now? College sports are a multi-billion dollar business and high school (or lower) teams seem to function as feeders to that system. 

In my unspectacular high school sports career, every single one of my coaches was a faculty member. Many of my teachers coached other teams. The school was a web of interlocking relationships between the classrooms and the playing field.  Teaching and coaching weren't separated; they were joined at the hip.

Perhaps my hazy memories are laughable to you. Or maybe you agree that something's awry. I don't know if the trend can be reversed; it would take general agreement that teaching matters and that coaching is a form of teaching. It would require a generation of my-kid-first parents to back off and let school sports become something more than an audition for a mythical college scholarship. It would require communities to see beyond a win-loss record to measure the value of a man or woman named Coach.

If you ask the men who played for the legendary John Wooden at UCLA what they learned from the "Wizard of Westwood", they won't talk about the wins and losses. They'll talk about the life lessons he imparted, about his Pyramid of Success.

In an era where we seem to want to measure a teacher's value by how her students perform on an annual test, maybe it's not shocking that we've allowed coaching to come to this. But before you dismiss me, ask yourself: would you rather see your kid coached by his history teacher or by Mike Rice?

Somebody Else's Fantasy

It's that time of year: workplaces and campuses everywhere are abuzz with the frenzy of the fantasy baseball draft. Fantasy-league managers are scouring various sources, looking for the hidden gems that will give them bragging rights all summer long.

Me? I'm sitting it out. Again.

Every year, I try to explain to my fantasy-smitten friends why I think these leagues are a pox, a blight, a blasphemy. And every year, more people play and more words are published and broadcast about fantasy baseball. I'm losing this battle.

My antipathy toward fantasy baseball has its roots in a tragedy in the summer of 1979. An enterprising young journalist named John Genzale had coaxed me and a few other baseball nuts into playing a new game: we'd submit a roster each week and score points based on the stats racked up by the players we chose. In those pre-Internet years, we tallied our numbers from newspaper box scores.

I've since learned that we were probably pioneers; the "Rotisserie League" created by Daniel Okrent in New York didn't launch until the following year. But we were way out in the woods of South Lake Tahoe and had no idea we were trailblazers.

Anyway. I was in the "newsroom" at KTHO Radio in South Tahoe on August 2, 1979 when the bells on the AP teletype machine started ringing (yes, children, bells really did ring when big news broke, even when your "newsroom" was formerly a bathroom in the converted motel that housed the radio station). The bulletin told of the death in a plane crash of Yankees star Thurman Munson.

My first thought: "This is big news!" My second thought: "Wait...isn't Munson my catcher?"

Naturally, I assumed I'd be able to replace a dead catcher in my lineup.  Wrong. Genzale, who would go on to a remarkable career in journalism and academia, acted "in the best interest" of our little game and forced me to wait until the weekly roster change.

It seemed wrong then and still does, 34 years later. I've used the Munson Incident as my excuse for avoiding fantasy baseball ever since. But the reality is that I have much deeper reasons for steering clear of fantasy baseball.

There are basically two flaws in the fantasy world. First, I'm a lifelong San Francisco Giants fan. I love the game of baseball, but once the season begins, I bleed orange and black. In fact, I don't really trust folks who say they're fans but don't make the emotional investment in a team. Sure, I keep track of how other teams and players are doing. But I damned sure don't want to be watching Matt Cain facing Joey Votto in a key at-bat with a little voice reminding me that Votto is on my fantasy roster and a three-run homer would be good for my team. Not!

My other problem with fantasy baseball (and fantasy sports in general) is that they reduce complex games to small sets of data. They tend to focus on a few statistics (hits, RBI's, home runs, ERA, strikeouts, etc.) while ignoring the broader sweep of the game.  Notably, most fantasy leagues ignore the role of defense. If they pay any attention, it's often the token inclusion of a stat like "outfielder assists"--hardly a true measure of an outfielder's overall defensive value.

As a consequence of the above, fantasy players tend to fixate on one-dimensional big-leaguers: mashers who can't play defense. This is why folks in our newsroom are horselaughing one colleague who used a second-round choice to take one of her favorites, Brandon Crawford, when Hanley Ramirez was available. His current injury aside, history says Ramirez is an offensive threat but a defensive liability. Fantasy ball cares not a whit for Crawford's defensive prowess.

I like to tell my fantasy-besmitten friends that I love baseball too much to reduce it to fantasy baseball. I feel differently about baseball strategy games (I grew up on Strat-O-Matic, APBA, and Gil Hodges' Pennant Fever); these simulations attempt to include all of baseball's nuances.

There's always a chance, of course, that the flood of modern advanced stats will find its way into fantasy leagues. (Vanessa, you'd feel better about your Brandon Crawford choice if "Defensive Runs Saved Above Average" was included; he was almost 20 runs better than Hanley Ramirez last year). If that happens, perhaps I'll be back. But I'll still be ticked off about that Thurman Munson deal.