I didn't see this coming: I'm sitting down to write a piece defending Alex Rodriguez.
While the Lords of Baseball (and certainly the New York Yankees) wish A-Rod would just go away, the boneheads of Boston have managed to render him at least a mildly sympathetic figure.
Numerous members of the Red Sox issued public complaints about Rodriguez' continued presence in the Yankees lineup while he appeals MLB's 211-game suspension. Bad enough, since every last one of the complainers is also a beneficiary of the same Basic Agreement that affords Rodriguez the right to appeal his suspension.
But then pitcher Ryan Dempster decided to play target practice with Rodriguez, with a full house at Fenway roaring its approval. That it took four pitches for Dempster to finally hit Rodriguez says volumes about a guy in the twilight of a mediocre career. Angry Yankees manager Joe Girardi noted that Dempster doesn't hit many batters; maybe it's because he's usually walking them (an average of 4 per 9 innings throughout his career).
Rodriguez wasn't hurt and he gained his retribution later in the game with an emphatic home run in a Yankees comeback win. I'm not here to scold Dempster for the mere act of throwing at an opposing hitter. Baseball has long existed with a delicate balance on this issue, though it has been twisted in the American League, where the designated hitter rule frees pitchers from facing their own music.
No, the bigger problem here is this: Dempster (and one must assume the Red Sox were in on the deal) took an off-the-field issue onto the field. There's a process in place: MLB investigated Rodriguez' dealings with the tainted Biogenesis clinic, handed down its punishment, and A-Rod appealed. Everything by the book.
Until the Beantown Vigilante Committee decided to get involved. What next? A player's outspoken comments on a political matter make him a target of a harder-than-necessary slide at second base? Or an anti-DUI crusader decides to "make things right" by spiking a player busted for drunk driving?
What Dempster did crosses a very dangerous line. It's of course ironic that a player would decide to mete out rough justice to another player simply for exercising the rights guaranteed to every player facing MLB discipline.
And it's just plain bizarre than the master of the Just Plain Bizarre, A-Rod, would be the sympathetic figure in all this.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Monday, July 29, 2013
Get Used To It
Giants fans, it's pretty bad right now. That sweep at the hands of the Cubs--all one-run losses, all marked by painful moments of failure--is the low point of 2013. For now.
So pardon me for rubbing salt in those open wounds. But have you been keeping an eye on the Dodgers' Yasiel Puig?
The 22-year-old Cuban has put up eye-popping numbers since he arrived in LA in early June. Not coincidentally, the Dodgers have gone from last to first with Puig manning right field. They were 9 games under .500 the day before he arrived. Since then, the Dodgers have been playing out of their minds. They're 17 games over .500 (33-16) in The Puig Era.
But it's not just wins and losses and stats. With Puig, you're talking about a bona fide Big-Time Star. This guy elevates showboating to a level you don't see very often. His latest exploit: the punctuation mark on his first-ever walk-off home run. Check it out:
Puig conducts his interviews in Spanish, so it's possible things get lost in translation. But here's what he said afterward about his unusual arrival at home plate: "Some people jump, some people slide, some people run."
Really? Because I don't remember ever seeing a major-leaguer end a game by hitting one over the wall and then sliding home.
It's the part of Puig's game that gets opposing fans red in the face and causes opponents to grind their molars. It's probably not a coincidence that Puig was in the middle of the big Dodgers-Diamondbacks donnybrook in June, a few days after his arrival in the big leagues. Old-school guys like Kirk Gibson and Matt Williams have very little use for Puig-style cavorting.
Yep, it annoys people (including, it's been reported, some of Puig's own teammates). Nope, it's not likely to go away. This guy is a singular talent whose backstory is still being revealed (this excellent Yahoo! Sports piece brought new details to light). Puig is...well, he's Yasiel Puig. And he's made it clear he's damned well going to do what he's going to do.
As long as he's hitting .372 and swaggering with the hottest team in baseball, don't look for him to suddenly go all Buster Posey on us.
Better get used to it.
So pardon me for rubbing salt in those open wounds. But have you been keeping an eye on the Dodgers' Yasiel Puig?
The 22-year-old Cuban has put up eye-popping numbers since he arrived in LA in early June. Not coincidentally, the Dodgers have gone from last to first with Puig manning right field. They were 9 games under .500 the day before he arrived. Since then, the Dodgers have been playing out of their minds. They're 17 games over .500 (33-16) in The Puig Era.
But it's not just wins and losses and stats. With Puig, you're talking about a bona fide Big-Time Star. This guy elevates showboating to a level you don't see very often. His latest exploit: the punctuation mark on his first-ever walk-off home run. Check it out:
Puig conducts his interviews in Spanish, so it's possible things get lost in translation. But here's what he said afterward about his unusual arrival at home plate: "Some people jump, some people slide, some people run."
Really? Because I don't remember ever seeing a major-leaguer end a game by hitting one over the wall and then sliding home.
It's the part of Puig's game that gets opposing fans red in the face and causes opponents to grind their molars. It's probably not a coincidence that Puig was in the middle of the big Dodgers-Diamondbacks donnybrook in June, a few days after his arrival in the big leagues. Old-school guys like Kirk Gibson and Matt Williams have very little use for Puig-style cavorting.
Yep, it annoys people (including, it's been reported, some of Puig's own teammates). Nope, it's not likely to go away. This guy is a singular talent whose backstory is still being revealed (this excellent Yahoo! Sports piece brought new details to light). Puig is...well, he's Yasiel Puig. And he's made it clear he's damned well going to do what he's going to do.
As long as he's hitting .372 and swaggering with the hottest team in baseball, don't look for him to suddenly go all Buster Posey on us.
Better get used to it.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Best of Times, Worst of Times
Let's roll the calendar back a few months. Here we are: it's the fall of 2012. The two Bay Area big league baseball teams are in tall clover: the Giants have followed a 94-win regular season with Mr. Toad's Wild Ride through the postseason to a second World Series title in three years. The plucky A's have posted 92 regular season wins, surprised both Texas and Anaheim to win the AL West, and extended the big, bad Tigers to a 5th and deciding playoff game.
Wow, the future looked bright, didn't it?
Turns out it was only half-bright. The A's have gone from plucky to scary and lead the AL West again (with the league's second-best record). The Giants? Well, they're summoning up memories of the Bad Old Days. Sure, they're only 6-1/2 games out of first--but that's only because the NL West has but one team over .500, and division-leading Arizona would be 6-1/2 games behind the A's were they in the same division.
What the heck happened here? Essentially, the A's just kept being the A's, adding a few pieces here and there (Eric Sogard, Jed Lowrie) and watching young talent like Josh Donaldson blossom into a budding star. Of course, the A's continue to parade out young pitchers--although the ace is Bartolo Colon, an old man with a PED stain in his past and the shadow of another one looming (the Florida Biogenesis case).
The Giants? Well, if it could go wrong this year, it probably already has. Let's go back to spring training, where Brandon Belt went on a homer binge--then got sick in time for Opening Day and has never really recovered. Injuries? Plenty of them: Angel Pagan, Pablo Sandoval, Marco Scutaro, Ryan Vogelsong. Subpar work from Matt Cain. Barry Zito's bizarre home/away split (a home ERA of 2.45 vs. a road ERA of 9.38; opponents hitting .241 against him at AT&T Park and .423 elsewhere). And on and on...
To a man, Giants players say they aren't giving up. But you can see they don't have an answer (if they did, wouldn't they have tried it already?) and GM Brian Sabean has been hinting very strongly that the Giants are more likely to be a seller than a buyer in the trade-deadline sweepstakes. In short: the odds grow stronger with each loss that 2013 will be a Lost Season in San Francisco.
And across the bay? Call these the Best of Times and enjoy the ride.
Wow, the future looked bright, didn't it?
Turns out it was only half-bright. The A's have gone from plucky to scary and lead the AL West again (with the league's second-best record). The Giants? Well, they're summoning up memories of the Bad Old Days. Sure, they're only 6-1/2 games out of first--but that's only because the NL West has but one team over .500, and division-leading Arizona would be 6-1/2 games behind the A's were they in the same division.
What the heck happened here? Essentially, the A's just kept being the A's, adding a few pieces here and there (Eric Sogard, Jed Lowrie) and watching young talent like Josh Donaldson blossom into a budding star. Of course, the A's continue to parade out young pitchers--although the ace is Bartolo Colon, an old man with a PED stain in his past and the shadow of another one looming (the Florida Biogenesis case).
The Giants? Well, if it could go wrong this year, it probably already has. Let's go back to spring training, where Brandon Belt went on a homer binge--then got sick in time for Opening Day and has never really recovered. Injuries? Plenty of them: Angel Pagan, Pablo Sandoval, Marco Scutaro, Ryan Vogelsong. Subpar work from Matt Cain. Barry Zito's bizarre home/away split (a home ERA of 2.45 vs. a road ERA of 9.38; opponents hitting .241 against him at AT&T Park and .423 elsewhere). And on and on...
To a man, Giants players say they aren't giving up. But you can see they don't have an answer (if they did, wouldn't they have tried it already?) and GM Brian Sabean has been hinting very strongly that the Giants are more likely to be a seller than a buyer in the trade-deadline sweepstakes. In short: the odds grow stronger with each loss that 2013 will be a Lost Season in San Francisco.
And across the bay? Call these the Best of Times and enjoy the ride.
Friday, June 14, 2013
Baseball's Replay Mess
Open letter to Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig: This isn't that hard to do.
I'm talking about baseball's absurd approach to the use of video replay.
As I've written before, I'm not in the replay camp. I'm just fine with umps blowing calls (after all, the players screw up and don't get re-do's), but I recognize that I'm in the minority. And the battle's been lost anyway; baseball already employs video replay on some home run calls and plans to expand it next year to include fair/foul calls and caught-or-trapped calls.
So, since the sport seems so intent on expanding the use of video replay, is it too much to ask that they get it right?
Bay Area baseball fans have seen the current flawed system in use way too often in 2013, and the year isn't even halfway over. Exhibit A was the May home run-that-wasn't in Cleveland, where Oakland's Adam Rosales hit one over the wall. It bounced off a black-painted railing, rebounded onto the field, and was ruled a "live ball".
The A's complained, and that's when Selig's Folly kicked in. The original call had been made by Angel Hernandez, an umpire who is not exactly beloved by players and managers for his acumen or his demeanor. But Hernandez is the "crew chief", so he was in charge of deciding whether to overrule himself. He didn't, making him the only person on the planet who didn't get the call right.
There are two problems here. First, why is the guy who made the call asked to rule on his own work? And second, why does it have to take so long to sort these things out? Baseball's replay system involves the entire umpiring crew leaving the field and peering at a video monitor somewhere under the stands.
The Giants played two straight games in Pittsburgh this week in which home run calls were reversed. In one game, the Pirates' Neal Walker bounced one off an empty right field seat at PNC Park. In real time, the umps missed the call, but correctly ruled it a homer after watching the replay. The next night, Giants rookie Nick Noonan circled the bases with his first big-league dinger, but was sent back to second base after a closer look showed the ball had bounced back off the top of the center field fence.
Both of those Pittsburgh decisions were correct, but both took far too long to make. Casual television viewers knew the truth long before the umps returned from their video lair.
The solution is simple, and it's already in use in the smallest of North America's Big 4 pro sports. The National Hockey League uses a central video replay room to make very fast calls on goals. The Toronto "war room" gets feeds from every arena.
The NHL system removes the Angel Hernandez factor from the process and leverages technology in the service of speed and accuracy. It's about time baseball got with the program.
It'll only get worse when the use of video replay expands to more calls. Before MLB games start looking like NFL games, complete with on-screen timers showing the length of the delay, it's time to adopt the NHL system. If it's important to get it right, there's no reason not to get it right fast.
I'm talking about baseball's absurd approach to the use of video replay.
As I've written before, I'm not in the replay camp. I'm just fine with umps blowing calls (after all, the players screw up and don't get re-do's), but I recognize that I'm in the minority. And the battle's been lost anyway; baseball already employs video replay on some home run calls and plans to expand it next year to include fair/foul calls and caught-or-trapped calls.
So, since the sport seems so intent on expanding the use of video replay, is it too much to ask that they get it right?
Bay Area baseball fans have seen the current flawed system in use way too often in 2013, and the year isn't even halfway over. Exhibit A was the May home run-that-wasn't in Cleveland, where Oakland's Adam Rosales hit one over the wall. It bounced off a black-painted railing, rebounded onto the field, and was ruled a "live ball".
The A's complained, and that's when Selig's Folly kicked in. The original call had been made by Angel Hernandez, an umpire who is not exactly beloved by players and managers for his acumen or his demeanor. But Hernandez is the "crew chief", so he was in charge of deciding whether to overrule himself. He didn't, making him the only person on the planet who didn't get the call right.
There are two problems here. First, why is the guy who made the call asked to rule on his own work? And second, why does it have to take so long to sort these things out? Baseball's replay system involves the entire umpiring crew leaving the field and peering at a video monitor somewhere under the stands.
The Giants played two straight games in Pittsburgh this week in which home run calls were reversed. In one game, the Pirates' Neal Walker bounced one off an empty right field seat at PNC Park. In real time, the umps missed the call, but correctly ruled it a homer after watching the replay. The next night, Giants rookie Nick Noonan circled the bases with his first big-league dinger, but was sent back to second base after a closer look showed the ball had bounced back off the top of the center field fence.
Both of those Pittsburgh decisions were correct, but both took far too long to make. Casual television viewers knew the truth long before the umps returned from their video lair.
The solution is simple, and it's already in use in the smallest of North America's Big 4 pro sports. The National Hockey League uses a central video replay room to make very fast calls on goals. The Toronto "war room" gets feeds from every arena.
The NHL system removes the Angel Hernandez factor from the process and leverages technology in the service of speed and accuracy. It's about time baseball got with the program.
It'll only get worse when the use of video replay expands to more calls. Before MLB games start looking like NFL games, complete with on-screen timers showing the length of the delay, it's time to adopt the NHL system. If it's important to get it right, there's no reason not to get it right fast.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
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?
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?
Friday, May 3, 2013
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.
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.
Monday, April 29, 2013
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.
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.
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