Say It Ain't So, Jo--er, Bob Costas!

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Bob Costas, whom I usually admire greatly and without reservation, is flat-out wrong in his stance on the issue of Barry Bonds going into baseball's Hall of Fame despite Bonds' being convicted earlier this week of obstruction of justice in connection with the Balco steroids scandal.

Costas says neither Bonds nor Roger Clemens will get his vote on the first ballot on which they appear, but they will on later ballots because both had established a body of work that is HOF-worthy before they clearly started "juicing" [as the somewhat unfortunate description goes--Ed.].

He then goes on to distinguish that status from players like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmiero, and others whose careers were not particularly distinguished until, as the dramatic improvement in their baseball performance suggests, they started using steroids. Costas has wrongly excluded McGwire from his own nuanced HOF criteria. Mark McGwire set the rookie record for home runs, 49, if memory serves, well before he ever began using androstenedione, and he never kept that use a secret, either. It wasn't illegal or against the rules at the time, and he said it helped him heal faster, not hit the ball farther.

Even if McGwire's defense is not 100% accurate [as Costas has also noted, healing faster means more time playing than otherwise, which is an indirect performance enhancement, at least in terms of career stats--Ed.], however, there is a valid point buried within it, to wit: steroids absolutely cannot make you hit a ball better than you could before. You still have to have the hand-eye coordination to make the fat part of the bat get enough of the ball at the proper angle to propel it on an upward (but not too far or even straight up) trajectory. Otherwise, no matter how strong you are, you're never going to hit the ball over the fences.

This is a bit tangential to my ultimate point, however. Costas is wrong about its being OK to vote Bonds and Clemens in on subsequent ballots because of their well-demonstrated actions. In the interview I saw on MLBTV, Costas pooh-poohed the "morality" aspect of the Hall of Fame, saying that was an indistinct and undefinable standard which can be ignored as easily as it can be enforced. So what? It exists. It's what has kept "Shoeless" Joe Jackson out of the HOF for more than half a century now, and what Jackson did--or didn't do--pales in comparison to the behavior of Bonds and Clemens both. All that Jackson did was keep his mouth shut about the impending Black Sox scandal, and he did that because it was the first time in all the years he'd played for the Sox that anyone else on the team had treated him as if he belonged. His stats from the 1919 World Series prove he didn't do anything to help throw it. Heck, if the White Sox had won, he might well have been the MVP if they'd had such a category then.

But Bonds has now been convicted of obstruction of justice. Even though that's a classic "white collar" crime, and first offenders normally get probation, it's still a criminal conviction. And it's not just a question of keeping one's mouth shut. Bonds has been convicted of actively impeding investigators and interfering with their ability to get to the truth of what they were investigating. This is not something to be taken lightly or to be pooh-poohed, even though it is not murder. It bespeaks of a fundamental lack of character on the order of Pete Rose's betting on baseball while he was a player and manager. It, too, brings disrepute to the game and sullies its unique standing as America's pastime. Hey--that isn't to be taken lightly--it's the legal justification for giving baseball an exemption from most anti-trust laws in this country.

Granted, Clemens hasn't been convicted of anything yet, but the corroborated descriptions of his adventures in moral turpitude are well-established. Not to mention his arrogance and his belligerent behavior when testifying before Congress in connection with this whole steroids mess. He will eventually be convicted of lying to Congress, once the charges are brought. There is not a shred of doubt that he did lie to the Congressional panel which called for his testimony. Joe Jackson's worst sins against baseball pale in comparison.

So, Mr. Costas, if you're going to vote to enshrine Bonds and Clemens in the Hall of Fame, do me one favor. Make sure Joe Jackson gets voted in first. Given that he has the third-highest all-time career batting average (.346, if memory serves), and given that his outfield play was described as so excellent that his glove was where triples went to die, he deserves to be in Cooperstown. [I will also concede that Mark McGwire was never so outstanding a defensive player, so if anything keeps him out of Cooperstown, it ought to be that lack of being the so-called "5-tool player," not his use of androstenedione--Ed.]

Do keep Pete Rose out, however. After he finally admitted the truth about his betting habits, after vociferously denying it for at least a decade, he simply doesn't deserve it, no matter how marvelously he played the game. Actually, since what Bonds and Clemens did also largely comes down to lying, too, maybe you should rethink your intention "someday, eventually" to vote them into the Hall of Fame.

Bye, Bye, Birde!

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Along with most of the rest of the country, I was rooting for the Arizona Cardinals [that still doesn't sound right--it'll always be instinctive for me to say "St. Louis"--Ed.] to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in yesterday's Super Bowl, while at the same time thinking the Steelers were going to win the game. And that's how it turned out . . . but it wound up being a much more fun game to watch than I expected. The Cardinals scored a touchdown on a long pass and run play to take a 5-point lead with over 2½ minutes left. I confess to thinking at that point that they scored too soon, that they left too much time on the clock for Pittsburgh to come back and retake the lead--which is exactly what happened.

I just hope the Cardinals don't go away feeling bad. They played a great game, but trying to beat Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl is akin to trying to beat the New York Yankees in the World Series. Ain't normally gonna happen.

I'm going to rank this game among my all-time favorites. My own #1 favorite will always [until they get back in and win it again, that is--Ed.] be the Kansas City Chiefs' win over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV. My dad raised me to be a Chiefs fan (I told you I have lots of bad habits), and I'm not going to apologize for that no matter how badly they've stunk since Len Dawson and Joe Montana retired.

My second favorite is the San Francisco 49ers' win over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl XVI, not only because it was the start of the Niners' brilliant run as the team of the 80s, but because it, too, was a fun game to watch, what with the Niners coming from behind at the end of the game to win 26-21.

My third favorite is last year's win by the New York Giants over the New England Patriots, because that game played out more like a college bowl game than pro game ever could, right down to the underdog beating the previously undefeated and presumptive champion on a virtually last-minute improbable play.

But yesterday's game is right up there in my own Top 5.

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The commercials were, in general, less obnoxious yesterday than many in prior years have been, too. The main exception was the GoDaddy.com series, which was incredibly sexist and trashy. I don't care that Danica Patrick is GoDaddy's spokesperson--she's doing a disservice to her "sisters in arms" everywhere. When are GoDaddy's owners going to realize that women watch these games, too, and that they aren't helping their market share by offending a large part of their audience?

I liked all the Budweiser Clydesdale ads I saw this year. The Clydesdale's love affair with the circus horse was the best, though the Clydesdale playing fetch was laugh-out-loud funny. And the one about the grandson of the Clydesdale which emigrated from Scotland was equally humorous, though on a higher level--you have to know about both US history and the geographical origins of the Clydesdale breed to appreciate it fully. I confess to having missed the first five minutes of the game because I was under the impression that kickoff was set for 6 p.m. Central Time, not Eastern Time. So I do not know if there were any other Clydesdale ads which I missed.I did see the Miller High Life one-second commercial and found it amusing, but that's mostly because I like the delivery guy character who's become Miller's spokesman.

The Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head driving in the mountains commercial was funny--though sexist [not as blatantly exploitative as the GoDaddy ones. It was more like a Borscht Belt comic's routine: "Take my wife, please!"--Ed.]--but I have forgotten which product it was advertising, so how effective could it have been? (Was it also a Bridgestone ad? If so, I applaud Bridgestone for its focus on humor--if not, I don't know what to say. Remembering the ad but not the product advertised isn't exactly the point, now, is it?)

The Bridgestone ad with the space aliens stripping the astronauts' planetary excursion vehicle (especially for its tires) was also laugh-out-loud funny. Bravo, Bridgestone!

But Hulu had the best ad of the night, hands down. It made no bones about what Hulu does--by letting you access your favorite videos (TV episodes, ads, whatever)--whenever and wherever you wish, Hulu turns your brains to mush. Self-deprecating honesty is funny, but the Hulu ad had an additional twist that took it to the top: Hulu is run by space aliens who like to eat mushy human brains--and Alec Baldwin is not just Hulu's spokesman, but one of aliens. Bravo, Hulu! It was far and away the best commercial of the night.

Fresh-Squeezed Juice

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Orenthal James Simpson was convicted of kidnapping and other crimes in relation to his attempts to "retrieve" memorabilia from some dealers in Las Vegas--items he says belonged to him and were stolen. He's going to serve up to 33 years in prison, though at his present age of 61, I doubt he'll be incarcerated that long.

He seemed somewhat bewildered and expressed tearful sorrow to the judge at his sentencing hearing, according to the clips I saw on TV yesterday. The judge was not impressed. Neither, for that matter, was I. For the source of his bewilderment was that he was being convicted at all. The judge explained it in copious and coherent detail, again according to the clips I saw. I was especially impressed by her forthright statement that this conviction had nothing to do with the fact that he was not convicted of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman back in 1991 . . . though to an awful lot of us, he should have been.

What struck me about Simpson's confusion was the irony of it. I saw the same reaction among males when they first learned of the murder charges against "the Juice." The consensus was "he wouldn't do that! He's a Heisman Trophy winner!"

Like that had anything to do with it.

When are people going to learn that sports prowess does NOT equal moral decency? I regret to predict that most males are not going to master this learning curve any time soon, given the universality of their confusion resulting from a Heisman winner's being charged with, let alone be tried for, murder. For whatever it's worth, most of these same males had the same reaction to the entire Pete Rose gambling on baseball mess.

The real moral of the story is that none of us should make the mistake of thinking that our heroes, athletes or otherwise, are perfect.

For whatever it's worth, I actually felt a pang of sorrow for OJ. His confusion was genuine. Still, my pang didn't last long. My ultimate hope is that his time in prison will let him reflect on all the things he's done wrong in his life--he is, as the facts plainly show, a physical abuser, and thus carries all the erroneous thinking and emotional baggage that goes with that--and maybe he'll finally be able to confront honestly the beast in his mirror.

Either that, or he can resume his hunt for "the real killer." After all, people who murder others at random are more likely to have committed other crimes, too. Simpson is much more likely to find "the real killer" in prison than he ever was on the golf course.

My Modest Proposal

OK, I know. I'm no Jonathan Swift. Neither is anyone else, except Dean Swift himself. Nor do I advocate the eating of Irish infants . . . but I do have a modest proposal about another English obsession: soccer.

Of late, I have been watching the UEFA matches on ESPN, along with several World Cup qualifying matches. I have been watching soccer on a more or less regular basis ever since my three-year stint of living in Europe. I still don't get what all the fuss is about. Soccer is BORING! Actually, it's more than that: it's irrepressibly drab and awful. [Thank you, Michael Palin.--Ed.] I suppose Europeans would tell me the same thing about baseball, but I disagree. In baseball, there is strategy and movement on every pitch, and no one knows exactly what will happen at any given moment. In soccer, on the other hand [or foot--Ed.], everything comes down to the same three maneuvers: move the ball toward the goal, veer off to the side, kick it back to the middle, and hope someone redirects it into the goal. Hockey is similar in this regard, but it, too, is more interesting than soccer for two reasons: (1) the field of play is smaller; (2) the pace of the game is much faster. If I could choose, I'd prefer to watch hockey to watching soccer--but I prefer even more to watch baseball to watching either hockey or soccer.

Yet I keep trying, in the hopes that sheer exposure to the game will somehow open its mysterious attractions to me. So far, no luck. I suspect this has to do with how the winner of any given match is decided. In the vast majority of matches, nobody scores (or if anyone does, the sides typically are tied at 1-1) and the game comes down to penalty kicks. Penalty kicks always make me think of the old joke about the guy who takes home his beer and pours it straight into the toilet because he's "eliminating the middle man." Thus my modest proposal: let's just skip the 90+ minutes of pointless running around and go straight to the penalty kicks. What a great time-saver! It has the additional advantages of being (1) very interesting immediately and throughout, and (2) faster-paced than the interminable "game" played to get to said kicks in the first place.

But my modest proposal will never fly--TV advertisers would never go for it. No place to put all the ads that normally infest sports telecasts.

Maybe It's Time For Occam's Razor

I've been waiting since Saturday, along with many others, for the official word on why Big Brown performed so poorly in the Belmont Stakes. I am (as are many others, I'm sure) relieved to know that it wasn't because of the repair to the quarter crack on his hoof; nor that it was because he did not get the Winstrol steroid shot he normally would have received on May 15th (no signs of internal bleeding or other respiratory distress).

I am not, however (unlike many others) mystified as to the probable cause of Big Brown's comedown. He most probably simply didn't like running in the heat. The track temperature at race time was 93° according to the race telecast. This was at 5 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. All afternoon, horses were being given toddler-sized ice packs immediately after completing their races and being unsaddled. I've never seen that before--anywhere at any time, let alone at Belmont Park in early June. Just as some people feel more energetic in the heat and others wilt, some horses run better in the heat and others wilt. Big Brown wilted. He certainly was unhappy about something--he'd been acting much more fractious than usual all day, and it was easy to see he was sweating even before the race began. [Frankly, I can't blame him. I don't like the heat, either. Nor do I function well in hot weather. I just don't buck and kick. Much.--Ed.]

After all, as Occam's Razor posits, the simplest explanation in line with all the facts is usually the correct one. No other cause was uncovered. No one connected with the horse or the track has said anything about the heat NOT adversely affecting Big Brown. The heat is the one factor at Belmont that Big Brown never otherwise faced. Therefore the heat is most probably what "done him in." Let's hope that Big Brown's connections figure that out and that the horse's future value is not diminished. He didn't win the Triple Crown, but he's no slouch. Whether one assesses his value in terms of future stud fees or in terms of his rekindling popular interest in the sport of kings, Big Brown deserves our applause.

The Un-Natural

It's Major League Opening Day! "Let's play two!"

As part of its annual celebration of the return of baseball, ESPN last night ran a tribute by major league baseball players to the Robert Redford movie, "The Natural." It was very enjoyable to watch, but what it didn't say left me feeling sad.

Don't get me wrong. I love that movie. It has wonderful cinematography, a marvelous score (by Randy Newman), a great story, great acting, the mythology of baseball, and a happy ending. Everything that makes a film timeless, a classic.

And it's exceedingly understandable why so many major leaguers like it. Heck, why so many Americans of all stripes like it. Americans love movies with happy endings, movies where the hero triumphs.

But it's not true to the book by Bernard Malamud on which it was based. That makes me sad because in its original configuration, it tells a story with a message just as important for all of us to hear. In the book, you see, Roy Hobbs does not hit the game-winning home run. In the end, his old injury from having been shot reaches out and bites him, and he fails. His wound is a metaphor for his overwhelming pride in his abilities. Roy Hobbs never learned the folly of the sin of pride, and in the book he paid for it. In the movie, on the other hand, his pride was ultimately rewarded as he triumphed over physical adversity and hit the home run.

So viewers of the movie get the message that heroes triumph, and that pride is no great hindrance to success. And that's a dangerous message to send. If our present President had a little less pride (and stubbornness) and had more ability to reflect on things, we would not be in the mess we're in in Iraq. That "heroes succeed" message pervades almost all of American thinking, and it can make Americans behave recklessly when they are sure of their own righteousness.

Lest you think this changing of the ending from book to movie is an aberration, let me assure you: it is not. Consider "Pretty Woman" if you don't believe me. In the original story, the businessman does NOT come back to rescue the prostitute with the heart of gold, and she winds up killing herself. But Americans LOVE that happy ending, so the movie had to change the ending in order to succeed. I don't care who was in the cast--if the movie had had the same ending as the book did, it would not have made money.

The larger inference, which can be drawn from any number of examples beyond the two I've mentioned here, is that Americans not only do not like unhappy endings, Americans just plain dislike reality.

"Don't confuse me with the facts. I've made up my mind." That's the new American motto, and it does not speak well for us or for our collective survival in this dangerous world.

School Daze(d) And Confused

Let me first add my voice to the chorus condemning University of Miami President Donna Shalala and her totally wimp-out response to the brawl between the Hurricanes football players and the players from Florida International University during their game last week. Florida International suspended 14 players indefinitely; Miami gave one player an indefinite suspension and one-game suspensions to 12 more (if memory serves). Shalala tried to justify this by claiming she didn't want to throw Miami's student-athletes "under the bus." Bull. She didn't want to lose the money the University would lose if they weren't in a bowl game.

She caims that Miami's policy regarding such incidents is "zero tolerance." Really? That's news to not only me, but just about everyone else on the planet. Miami has a long tradition of recruiting and playing thugs . . . ask any University of Nebraska fan about the Hurricane teams of the mid-80s if you don't believe me.

I used to think better of Shalala, but I am entirely appalled by her reaction here. What's worse, she didn't want to view the films of the brawl because she didn't want "the facts of the incident" to affect her judgment. Say wha'? The facts of the incident should form the very basis of her judgment.


Just one more example of how having lots of fancy degrees and national-governmental-level experience doesn't make someone smart. I'll bet the GOP is glad to learn they don't have a monopoly on stupidity, despite the fact of Dubya's existence.

While we're talking college football . . . will someone please explain to me why no one in Lincoln is calling for Bill Callahan's head right now? He installs the West Coast (passing-oriented) offense, and the Huskers proceed to stink for two years. This week, the weather gets bad in Lincoln and he--gasp--goes back to a running game. [Well, d'uh!--Ed.] But then, when Nebraska has an upset of Texas all but locked up, he calls for a passing play on a critical third down, the receiver fumbles the ball, and Texas gets enough field position (and has enough time on the clock) to kick a game-winning field goal. What a fiasco! The pundits at ESPN all thought the Huskers were going to lose, however, so the fact that they played the defending national champs "close" means the Huskers are respectible again. Right. I repeat: what a fiasco!

[Sometimes a good loss is better than a bad win--witness Tom Osborne going for 2 and losing the Orange Bowl and thus the national championship to Florida State in the mid-1990s. That was a good loss, because the attempt to win demonstrated Osborne's desire to either win or lose the national championship, not back into a piece of it by tying the game. But Callahan? Despite his Irish ancestry, he doesn't get it. He played too conservatively against USC, and lost. He played unnecessarily aggressively against Texas at the end of the game . . . and lost.--Ed.]

Still on the subject of college football--Joe Montana is not dead, but Brady Quinn must be channeling him at Notre Dame. Did you see the end of the Irish's game against UCLA yesterday? Talk about "wak(ing) up the echoes!" So now I can't get the Notre Dame fight song out of my head. It could be worse. It could be raining. Oh. It is raining. Maybe even snowing. But who cares? God's in his heaven (the Golden Dome) and all's right with the world.

I have to ask, however, if the Huskers were so dead-set on getting a former NFL coach, why didn't they get Charlie Weis instead of Bill Callahan?

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On to more academic pursuits. Critics everywhere of late bemoan the loss of teaching children the skill of cursive writing. On one hand, I concur. The traditionalist in me thinks that handwriting can be truly expressive (as can be no other form of writing), and that the discipline needed to master the skill is worth having. Nonetheless, the world is changing . . . and long has been, though the pace of change has increased. We no longer collectively mourn the loss of teaching Greek and Latin in our pre-college schools. Their mastery is an option open to those who wish to pursue such skills, and indeed, is required of certain university-level pursuits and career tracks . . . but their lack of mastery by John Q. Public is not tragic.

So, let it be, people. Even those of us who know how to produce cursive script are no longer writing as beautifully or even as neatly as we once did. I've been unable to decipher my own scrawls on occasion. And as I can no longer write faster than I can type (thanks to my computer), I choose to mourn neither the loss of my own nor anyone else's cursive writing skills.

This does not mean that I think everything should be 100% easy and fun for students, however. Two ostensibly unrelated news items reported earlier this week show why. According to the Associated Press, a study from the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy shows that "nations with the best math scores have the least happy, least-confident math students."

The best and the brightest seem to be the least happy because they feel real pressure to excel, as opposed to current US policy, which misguidedly posits that students will have high self-esteem and succeed if they are praised no matter how poorly they actually do. I think the US kids know that at some level they are being fed a load of bull, but they are kids. Most of them don't have the self-discipline to try harder than adults expect. So when adults expect nothing, kids, being kids, do nothing. We need to rethink this notion that "if it's not fun, the kids won't learn." Just the opposite seems to be true, based on the study.

This reminds me of the old canard about how kids say they want more freedom and trust, but act stupid when they are given same. Despite what they say, kids want and NEED limits, rules, structure, and order. Deep down, they appreciate those who give them same.

Let's go back to teaching math in a way that makes us all miserable. We'll get better substantive results.

The other article, also reported by the AP, shows that some skills already wrongfully banished from our schools are still useful and should be retruned to prominence. According to an article published Thursday in Nature, scientists are finding that nasty, antibiotic-resistant bacteria can be conquered by artificial anti-microbial peptides that are created following the rules of GRAMMAR, of all things. The scientists discovered that the peptides which beat the bugs followed consistent patterns of construction and organization of their amino acid building blocks. Those patterns of construction and organization reminded all of the scientists involved of grammar--the placement of the subject, object, verb, and other modifiers affects meaning, thus effectiveness. [Computer techie-types could really stand to learn this.--Ed.]

I must confess that I learned more about English grammar from studying foreign languages than I did from studying English grammar directly. I'd not have been able to adapt what I leared from studying French and German, however, to my studies of English if I'd not already have had the English grammar lessons to give me the vocabulary to make sense of what studying French and German taught me. So let's go back to making 8th graders even more miserable by teaching them some grammar . . . but let's make sure their teachers get comprehensive training first!

La Tour de Farce Continues

Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor and 7-time winner of the Tour de France, is being dogged yet again by allegations that he admitted to doping in 1986, three years before his first Tour win in 1999.

He, of course, emphatically denies the allegations.

French newspaper Le Monde says that Armstrong's former teammate Frankie Andreu and his wife Betsy testified under oath that they heard Armstrong admit to doping in response to his doctors' questions while he was in the hospital in 1986, after undergoing brain surgery to remove tumors that had spread there from his testicular cancer.

I am of two minds about this. On one hand, NO competent doctor would ever ask such a question in anything other than a confidential setting. There is nothing to suggest that Armstrong's doctors were not competent. There is nothing in his medical records confirming that the doctors ever elicited such information from him, or that he volunteered such information. If Armstrong ever had made such statements, they would have been included in his medical records because such information would be critical to the course and nature of his treatment and recovery.

Besides, the man had just undergone brain surgery. I have a suspicion that his speech may not have been totally clear or coherent given what he'd just undergone. Who knows what it may have sounded like he said?

On the other hand, testicular cancer is a known risk of using steroids and other illegal doping agents. It is also a relatively rare cancer--and, I suspect, its presence played a role in outing Jason Giambi's past steroid use in major league baseball (but that's a story for another day).

In addition, the testimony from the Andreus came as part of the defense against a suit Armstrong brought against a company which was refusing to pay Armstrong a multimillion dollar bonus for his 2004 Tour win. The company lost the suit, and had to pay Armstrong the bonus plus an additional two million dollar penalty. The arbitration panel did not believe the Andreus' testimony in light of all the other evidence to the contrary.

So why would the Andreus make such questionable allegations? Armstrong says that they all at one time were good friends, but that Betsy now hated him and Frankie felt he had to support his wife. [Who knows? Maybe the company trying not to pay Armstrong promised them a lesser, but still substantial amount of money for their testimony. This is PURE speculation on my part, but someone ought to look into it.--Ed.]

I know the French press has it in for Armstrong. I know that people are capable of lying about things to an absurd degree for whatever perceived personal justifications they may have. I know that normally, one can deduce that the person who is lying is the one who has more to lose if the truth be revealed. But I cannot get past the fact that competent doctors would never ask a patient for such information in a non-confidential setting. So for now, I remain in Armstrong's corner in the face of this latest round of vitriol.

Just Because You're A Super-Bowl-Winning QB Doesn't Mean You Have A Brain

I am relieved to learn that Ben Roethlisberger, the youngest quarterback to take his team (the Pittsburgh Steelers) to a Super Bowl victory, has not in fact injured his knees in the motorcycle accident in which he was involved yesterday. Early news reports said it wasn't just his face that got smashed when a car turned into the lane in which he was riding his Suzuki--and if those news reports had been correct, Roethlisberger's career may well have been over. As it is, his injuries were nothing to pooh-pooh. He broke his jaw, had several facial fractures, and lost some teeth.

All this because he wasn't wearing a helmet. Pennsylvania has no mandatory helmet law. He doesn't "feel free" when riding with a helmet on, so he won't wear one when he doesn't have to do so. And no one who is not his boss will ever tell him what to do. [Ah, excess testosterone! It can be wonderful--on the football field, ferinstance--and it can be bad news indeed--nearly everywhere else.--Ed.] Ben actually said these things on camera in an ESPN interview last year, after Kellen Winslow crashed his motorcycle and suffered probable career-ending injuries.

Ben, Ben, Ben! At the age of 24, you've achieved fame and fortune few ever experience . . . and you've mastered a complicated play book and obviously are good at making snap (pun intended) decisions on the football field . . . but you sure haven't applied your brains to your off-the-field behavior.

There are two vital things you've forgotten to consider in your need to "feel free," to wit: (1) concrete has a 100% record. It always wins. (2) You cannot control what the other people on the road are doing. You can say you are a safe and cautious rider and that you don't take chances, but you share the road with vehicles which are much heavier than your bike, and which may well be driven by drunk, drugged-out, or otherwise distracted drivers--who might not even see you before they plow their SUVs [Jay Leno once called them SubUrban assault Vehicles. He's not just funny--he's smart.--Ed] into you and your unprotected head and body.

Let's all hope that Ben learns something from what happened to him. Let's all hope that Ben doesn't take the lucky break (pun intended) that he suffered relatively minor injuries, considering, as a vindication of his need to "feel free" and ride without a helmet. Let's all hope that we never again hear the name Roethlisberger connected to news reports from outside a hospital of a horrible accident he suffered on his motorcycle.

In fine, let's all hope that Ben literally got some sense knocked into him.

A Modest Proposal

Barry Bonds hit career home run # 714 last night, tying him for second on the all-time list with Babe Ruth. While it is quite an accomplishment, it pales in comparison to Ruth's overall impact on the game. Ruth far and away is still the greatest single baseball player ever. For one thing, Ruth became the all-time home run leader when he hit his 137th big fly. The next 577 were superfluous. Also, entire teams hit fewer home runs in any given season than Ruth hit by himself the same year. For yet another thing, Ruth began his career as a pitcher, and his name is still sprinkled liberally throughout baseball's collection of pitching records, too. No one before or since has performed at a level so far beyond everyone else in the game as has the Babe.

Besides, there is absolutely no whiff of steroids or other performance enhancers anywhere near Ruth. Indeed, one wonders how much more he could have accomplished than he did if he'd lived a less "party hardy" life.

So what do we do with Bonds's records, especially once he hits his # 715 and beyond? And what do we do with the records of other baseball players who've been touched by the steroids scandal still simmering in baseball?

My modest proposal (thank you, Dean Joanathan Smith) requires consideration of the following: first, that the single most difficult feat in all of sport is to hit "squarely" a spherical object, the baseball, with a conical object, the bat (it's not a cylinder because it tapers at the handle) when the ball is moving toward the batter at upwards of 90 mph. Second, that steroids do not so much change one's abilities as they enhance them (by about 10% according to the talking heads on ESPN).

We thus should go back and remeasure every home run hit by every player who has been at all touched by the steroids scandal. For the players who have either confessed to using steroids or who have been confirmed to have used steroids, take 10% off the distance of every homer they hit, compare the new distances to the dimensions of the ballparks in which each homer was hit, and continue to count each hit as a home run if it still exceeds the distance to the applicable outfield fence. If the adjusted distance is the same as the outfield fence, go ahead and give the player the home run. (The ball could have bounced off the top of the wall and beyond the field of play.) If the adjusted distance is shorter, subtract the hit in question from the player's home run totals. No asterisks required. A parenthetical notation after the player's name that the totals were adjusted (and by how many) because of confirmed steroid use will suffice.

For the players who have not been proven to have used steroids, use the same procedure, but place an asterisk by the player's totals to indicate that X number of home runs may or may not count if the allegations/suspicions/implications of steroid use by the player in question are ever confirmed.

This will clarify the situation in the record books, honor the dignity of the game, and yet recognize that some of the things that have happened in the past several seasons may not be entirely on the up-and-up. Of course, all this becomes moot if someone proves that steroids do not merely enhance performance, but change/improve it.

In that case, there's no other answer but to force the players involved to eat their children [no comments, please. If you do not get the reference to Swift's A Modest Proposal, go read it before you castigate me for this made-in-jest suggestion.--Ed.].

The Bad News Bears Have Nothing On R. Palmeiro

I have been following the steroid-use controversy concerning Rafael Palmeiro with trepidation. Let me say first that when Rafael came up w/ the Cubs, I thought he was going to be a really good ballplayer, and I never did understand why the Cubs traded him.

My respect for him dwindled when he started hawking Viagra a few years ago.

My respect regrew once he quit doing that and when I realized the record-breaking hitting achievements he'd posted in the interim.

I was entirely stunned to learn of his suspension for steroid use. After all, back in March during the Congressional hearings on steroid use in baseball, he was adamant that he was not a user, despite what Jose Canseco wrote in his book. [I now hear echoes of "I did not have sex with that woman."--Ed.] At the time, I was not the only one to think that Palmeiro's stature increased to the same degree that Mark McGwire's decreased when contrasting Palmeiro's statements with McGwire's evasive testimony.

I was willing to give Palmeiro the benefit of the doubt about his testing positive: perhaps it was due to a minor ingredient in an over-the-counter concoction he'd taken. I knew he had nothing to gain and tons to lose (especially at this late stage of his career) by taking steroids and getting caught . . . and then I learned that the steroid in his system was stanozolol, the same steroid that felled Olympic and world-champion sprinter Ben Johnson. It is not something that just shows up in trace amounts in anything OTC.

The very next day, a Seattle Mariners pitcher (whose name escapes me at the moment) was also suspended for testing positive. He offered the same increasingly-lame-sounding explanation: "I have no idea how the steroids got into my system."

Right. And all unicorns will be destroyed if the guy doesn't share his Emerald nuts with his little girl.

All the facts must be revealed and evaluated in each and every case before we simply choose to ignore the accomplishments of the current major leaguers. Every little relevation, however, especially about someone so high profile due to his on-field exploits, chips away a bit more at my resolve to hear all the evidence before making up my mind.

Palmeiro eventually may still be elected to the Hall of Fame, but certainly not on the first ballot. Maybe not on the first five or ten ballots. Of course, if even more bad news comes out about his steroid use, he may have demolished his chances to be enshrined at all. We can but wait and see.

Contrast the weekend induction of Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandburg into the Hall. Boggs's tribute to his mentor, his father, was incredibly moving. Sandburg's speech, focusing on how he approached everything he did to show his respect for the game, was genuinely inspiring. (I know the already-inducted HOF members liked Sandburg's speech a lot. They were nodding in agreement all the way through it.) Boggs was only the 41st player to be voted in on his very first eligibility; Sandburg should have been voted in on his first appearance on the ballot. Nevertheless, they both embody what baseball can produce when those who play the game play it right.

This week's suspensions cannot sully or tarnish the weekend's ceremonies, but they sure do muck up the game today.

It's About Bloody Time!

Ryne Sandburg has been selected to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. The only other player inducted with him this year is Wade Boggs . . . not bad baseball company, but surely two very different styles of player! Sandberg was noted for his cool calmness; Boggs for his intensity. Yet both have achieved the ultimate measure of success. Their accomplishments are about to be recognized as being among the very best of all those who ever played the game.

Boggs was a first ballot inductee. It took Ryno three tries to be voted in. That's a shame; he's a first ballot quality player, too, and did not deserve to be shunned twice before being ushered into baseball's Promised Land.

He was the premiere second baseman of his era. He excelled in all aspects of the game. Offensively, he hit more home runs than any other second baseman ever, 277 (till Jeff Kent broke his record just last season)--including 40 in his MVP year. Defensively, he holds the major league record for consecutive errorless chances at his position (something like 123 games in a row) and his career fielding percentage is the highest ever at second base, .989. He also was a nine-time Gold Glove winner.

He also was a threat on the basepaths: he stole a lot of bases, scored a lot of runs, and generally did everything in his power to make the Cubs a winner. It certainly wasn't his fault that the Cubs had only sporadic success in the 1980s. Besides, he was the National League MVP in 1984, the first year in a lo-o-o-o-ng time that the Cubs made it to the playoffs. [Darn those San Diego Padres and Tony Gwynn, anyway! -Ed.]

Now if we can just get the Veterans Committee to vote Ron Santo in, all will be right with the world.

Sandburg was also very popular--he was a starting All-Star something like 10 times overall, 9 of those in a row. Most importantly, he was (and is) a genuinely nice guy and a real class act. It has been suggested that this worked against his getting voted into the HOF because he didn't do a lot of self-promotion. Frankly, I'd rather have him as he is, exuding quiet excellence, than being a lot of talk and no real action, the way too many professional athletes in all sports are these days.

[I'd also like to start a petition to get ugly sports events off TV, like last night's Orange Bowl. Whatever happened to the Oklahoma Sooners? I think they got kidnapped and some stringers were put in their uniforms just so USC could beat the living daylights out of them. The final score in that game was on the order of 55-19 . . . I'm not sure I have it right because I had to quit watching. It was making me ill. -Ed.]

Anyway, I look forward to hearing his speech at the induction ceremonies later this year. The juxtaposition of Sandburg and Boggs must be the best one in contrasting styles since George Brett and Robin Yount in the class of 1999.

Here I am, stuck at home in the middle of the worst snowstorm we've had in eastern Nebraska in years, and I am dreaming of the Hall of Fame and the start of spring training. I must be a real baseball addict!

Anyway, congratulations, Ryno! You richly deserve all the accolades you're getting. It's more than about time!