Let's look at that again, but this time slower

I'm gonna start out by saying that in general, I am against instant replay in sports. Even when faced with Americans losing medals in the Olympic Games, I am 100% against instant replay in gymnastics and swimming. Yang Tae-Young, Paul Hamm, Kosuke Kitajima, and Brendan Hansen cannot change my mind. I'm still hesistant about figure skating instant replay, but that sport's judging is so corrupt that it seems like the only way to go. I've watched swimming and gymnastics for eight years now and I've seen rules change, scoring change, and instant replay be considered.

With swimming, I'm positive that if you slow anyone's stroke down you can find some reason to disqualify them. The things they SHOULD be disqualified for are easy to see with the naked eye. (French official, Kitajima's dolphin kick was visible from the stands).

The Hamm-Young debacle was a product of corrupt judging, not the scorers being unable to see what was going on. If this weren't the case, Jordan Jovtchev would be the reigning gold medallist on rings and Aleksei Nemov would have SOME kinda medal on high bar from Athens. As it stands, the Greek crowd could cheer their gymnast to gold and force a scoring change for Nemov, but nothing more than that.

That said, I am 100% for instant replay in baseball for foul/fair home run calls. What's it going to hurt? Sure, there's been a rash of fouled-up home run calls in the last week, but how many more will happen this season? Odds are, not many. Everyone's complained about balls and strikes for as long as baseball's been around -- and still no one's suggesting we should implement technology to make it "fairer." Joe Morgan suggests a slippery slope argument, though he doesn't call it that. He also makes the case that "strikes and balls decide the game more often than home runs," so why not use technology there? He says that because everyone is worried about that very thing -- enough so that it'll never be discussed.

But the difference between a strike and a ball is a walk or a strikeout (in the most extreme cases, a run walked in). The difference between a fair home run and a foul ball is always a run or a strike. With the rash of bad calls and apologetic umpires, you can't possibly think those guys don't want a little help out there -- if only to take the heat off.

Furthermore, strike zones change depending on the player and the umpire, and as long as it's consistent (-ly bad, or good) for both teams, there's nothing to argue about.

And as an A's fan, I was angry at the out call on Crosby yesterday, but I did not once wish for instant replay. I just wanted that umpire to look at the call after the game and feel bad.

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Random labels are due to the sad misfortune that I have to watch the Angels and White Sox play on national television yet again. Oh, nice. Way to go, Carlos Quentin. Way to walk off on the Angels. Now can we be done with this series?

Call me baffled

Dusty Baker's lineup for today's Reds-Phillies game is his "scrap iron-type lineup." It probably has a lot of guys who make the Florida FSN commentators' Gritty Gutsy Guys Who Play The Game Right Team. That team includes Ty Wigginton and, of course, David Eckstein.

I don't even know what to think about this.

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In other baseball news, I heard the Cubs WGN guys (see, why bother learning these guys' names?) refer to Jason Kendall as all of the following:
A great leader.
A great guy.
Has a great work ethic.
A veteran.

They failed to mention the fact that he can't throw out runners, can't really hit, and has a ton of passed balls. He's a not very good baseball player. Be happy he's gone!

On the other side of the fence, Kurt Suzuki is the best hitter in Oakland, getting on base at a clip of .423. Oh hey Geren, why're you still batting Buck first? Does an oh-forty-three OBP really look like a lead-off hitter to you? He hasn't walked, he's had 9 strikeouts (more than Jack Cust), and he's 0-21. "How," you might ask, "is his OBP not .000?!" I asked myself that very same question and then I remembered that he has gotten on base exactly once -- by getting hit by a pitch.

How about taking some pitches, huh?

22-1 = collapse?

Hello, National Media. My name is Skye Walker and I'm a Houston Rockets fan. Please don't talk about how the Rockets are going to collapse before the first loss in 22 games is even complete. Please don't be talking about how great they are in one half and then completely reneg on that in the second. That's not buddies.

It took 21 games to be considered the real thing, and at 22-1 they're already on their way down. Say what? Bring it, Nawlins.

And you thought it would end at 21

McGrady didn't get a point in the first half, but the Rockets scored 59 anyway.
Alston was 8-for-11 from beyond the arc.
Battier held Kobe to 24 points.

This team is for real.

Your Houston Rockets, ranked first in the West.

And in the Eastern Conference, we have our first elimination -- the Miami Heat, with eleven wins and fifty-three losses.

Miami

I was looking at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings today. Tell me this: how in the world are the Heat not yet eliminated from playoff contention? They have eleven wins!

Eleven!

O Kenny!

"The Rockets have won 18 in a row, but Kenny Smith doesn't consider them legitimate contenders."

I also saw this line on sports.yahoo.com/nba when they were at 17 straight. I ask, "How many games do they gotta win 'fore you give 'em a chance, Kenny Smith?"

Don't fall prey to the lure of Houston-hating. We still love you, Kenny! Love us back!

In other news, I am moving to Hawai'i.

See America right: video games touch our lives

There's a pitcher in the Major Leagues who throws the gyroball. He's not Japanese and he doesn't play for the Boston Red Sox. He's a California-born Texas resident who pitches for the Rangers and in his spare time coordinates Guitar Hero and Halo tournaments for charity.

If you don't already know who I'm describing, you should. In a sports world where the great athletes and bad role models are too often one and the same, C.J. Wilson should stand out in the crowd. I hear too much about the bad guys, about the Allen Iversons, Albert Belles, and Michael Vicks of sports and not enough about the good guys.

Despite being one of the most accessible baseball players out there (if you shout, "I'm your friend on Myspace!" during batting practice, he promises to sign for you) Wilson is largely unknown outside of the Rangers fanbase. He is veritably sick versus lefties, notching a 1.71 ERA and miniscule 0.69 WHIP against the group in 2007. He collected 12 saves in 14 opportunities after a trade sent Rangers closer Eric Gagne to Boston. A straight edge athlete who attends D.A.R.E. graduations and dishes out baseball advice via his Myspace to curious young ballplayers, Wilson isn't your average Major League southpaw.

He's on a mission to save children with hemophilia from utter boredom; the donations generated from his tournaments help to outfit a video game room for children receiving outpatient treatment at Cook's Children's Hospital. In addition to his charity work, Wilson professes a drug-free lifestyle and recognizes his responsibility as an athlete in the spotlight to be a good role model for kids.

But it's not just young and impressionable minds that need a positive personality to look up to when the airwaves buzz with news of O.J. Simpson's latest antics or Pacman Jones' most recent arrest. The next time you play Guitar Hero or Halo, think about what can be accomplished through those video games with a little extra effort. The next time you scoff at the kid in your ten o'clock class who says he doesn't drink, think about what that could mean to the kid's younger brother, facing the peer pressures of high school for the first time.

Take this as a message brought to you by America's favorite pitcher who admits to throwing a gyroball, "Remember that you affect every person you ever meet, and some you never do."

Why it's more American to cheer against the Patriots

18-0. The sure bet. The favorite. The quarterback makes girls swoon, the wide receiver plucks footballs from the air in a seemingly impossible fashion and they're called the Patriots, of all things. So why is it more American to cheer against this All-American team? Simple: we want to be entertained. What's entertaining about seeing a game go down just like everyone expected, watching the Yankees beat the Orioles every time they meet, predicting the Mavericks to sweep the Warriors in the first round of the playoffs, or witnessing the Patriots roll over the Giants 54-7 in the Super Bowl? Those scenarios are only entertaining if you're a Yankees fan, if you follow the Mavericks, or if you grew up cheering for the Patriots.

Great American sports moments are defined by the same set of standards. Like the patriots of the Revolutionary War fighting off the great British Empire for independence, we look forward to the underdog pulling off an upset. We like the Cinderella stories of March Madness and we love buzzer-beating game-winning shots from beyond half-court.

A collection of not even the best American college hockey players went up against the Red Machine in the 1980 Winter Olympics and won. The Boston Red Sox were facing elimination after the third game of the 2004 ALCS and won four straight against the arch-rival New York Yankees to earn a berth in the World Series. How many Michigan fans cringe when they hear the words "Appalachian State"? Had the Soviets won, had the Yankees swept the Red Sox, had Michigan's field goal attempt not been blocked in the last seconds of the game, these events would be side notes and not full-color glossy pages in the books of sports history.

Super Bowl XLII has the makings for one of the greatest moments in NFL history – if Eli Manning can lead his team to victory. Sure, a 19-0 season would be neat, but in five years will you remember any of the games? Will you feel a rush of excitement when someone mentions it? Will you look back and say, "I still can't believe it!" with a smile? No, you'll file it away with the dusty memories of the 2007 Boston Red Sox, the 1992 Dream Team, and the 2006-2007 San Antonio Spurs.

Apparently this is still an issue.

Paul Hamm won the individual all-around gold in Athens fair and square.

If anything, we should have been up in arms about Paul winning the silver in the high bar event final and Aleksei Nemov with his six release moves not even medalling* -- or what about Dimosthenes Tambakos and his step on the dismount taking the rings gold over Jordan Jovtchev and his higher-in-difficulty and perfectly clean routine**? Both of those events had me seething.

However, there are still people out there on the Internet who think Paul is selfish and arrogant for keeping the gold.

I'm writing this entry to make a point: uninformed individuals feed the fire of controversy. They cost people money and reputation.

If you don't remember the event (or don't follow men's gymnastics as well as I do), I'll briefly re-hash it for you.

1. Paul Hamm led the individual all-around (an individual competition consisting of six events [for men]: floor exercise, rings, pommel horse, vault, parallel bars, and high bar) after three rotations. In his fourth rotation he competed on the vault and crashed, scoring a 9.1something. This is terrible. He dropped to 12th.
2. He scored a 9.837 on parallel bars and other gymnasts ahead of him started to suck. Yang Wei fell on high bar. Ioan Suciu messed up on parallel bars as did his fellow countryman, Marian Dragulescu. American Brett McClure got the shaft on rings (another controversy not pursued***).
3. In the last rotation and as the last gymnast of the competition, Paul scored another 9.837 and won gold. (Incidentally, he thought better than a 9.825 would just give him bronze.)
4. The NBC coverage showed Yang Tae-Young crouched with his hands over his head.
5. Sometime later after the contest South Korea files a protest. First misstep: this protest, unless against the integrity of the judging (see: 2002 pairs competition in Salt Lake), should not have been heard. The protest was (as you may remember) about the SV (start value) of Yang Tae-Young's parallel bars routine. He competed on p-bars in the fifth rotation. There was an entire rotation to file the protest before the competition ended.
6. The tape of the p-bars routine was reviewed. Second misstep: video replay was NOT allowed in gymnastics competition (like it isn't in swimming). In stupidly reviewing the tape, they find that Y T-Y's routine was indeed a 10.0 SV, not 9.9 as he was given. (SVs refer to the maximum score a gymnast can earn based on what elements they have in their routine; their deductions are taken from that score.)
7. Everyone freaks out.
8. Paul is interviewed, says he won't give up the medal.
9. FIG says he should give it up.
10. USAG throws a fit.
11. IOC stays out of it.
12. Nothing is solved.
13. But then, the key to the puzzle finds its way to the coffee table. Miles Avery, Olympic coach and Paul's coach at OSU, says that while reviewing the tape of Y T-Y's p-bars routine he finds that there is a hold not deducted for. There are a certain number of holds allowed in one routine and Y T-Y had one more than allowed. The deduction is two-tenths.

Let's break this down.
Say the judges (illegally) give Y T-Y his 10.0 start value. He wins the competition, right? Wrong. In giving him the 10.0 SV they've used the video, so they take off .2 for the hold. He's right back where he started, not winning the gold medal. Then, you have to give EVERYONE the same treatment, reviewing their routines and correcting the scores. Wow, that's dumb. So no one did it.

Results remained the same, Paul has his gold, South Korea is pissed (until Ahn beats Ohno one and a half years later in Turin), and people (Americans!), because they don't bother to get all the facts (Miles Avery's right: when reviewing the tape you can see the extra hold) they make the wrong decision.



*I was terrified this would become bigger than the IAA deal. But noooo, no one cares about Aleksei Nemov and his amazing show of class in shushing the booing crowd as Paul stepped to the podium. Aleksei should have won. Paul shouldn't have silvered. Yann Cucherat wasn't that good. The only real problem was that no one (with the clear exception of Aleksei) was outstanding.

**Bulgaria, whom Jordan represents, actually filed a protest. It was denied. That event was a crock. Jordan was far and away the superior gymnast in that competition. Even my dad thinks so and he knows nothing about the intricacies of scoring. "But he didn't stick his landing!" Exactly. They didn't even take off for the step. Just because he's Greek.

***Same thing happened to McClure that happened to Yang Tae-Young. His SV was about three-tenths lower than it should have been. Did America file a protest after the contest? Nope.

And now it actually makes sense

McCarver's comment about breathing easy actually has relevance, now that it's the Rockies playing the Red Sox, with at minimum two games to be played a mile high.

The team breathing easiest? That would be Colorado. I'd like to see Ortiz leg out a sure double in that altitude. Actually, I'd like to see Ortiz do anything in a National League park. Who sits?