The SoapBoxers

I’ve heard that sentiment expressed many times over the years, in a variety of ways.  More than being merely a Rockies fan, I’m a proponent of the game itself.  I personally feel that people who only catch glimpses of the game every once and a while aren’t really getting the big picture.  For one thing, there are are between 250 and 300 plays in a baseball game.  Traditionally, we call these plays “pitches”.  Most of the pitches end innocently enough – with a foul ball, a called strike, or a weak ground ball to the second baseman.  But the game can also turn very quickly at any point.  A team’s down 1-0 in the seventh inning, bases are loaded, two outs.  If the batter makes an out, the opponent clings to a tentative lead.  If he hits a grand slam, his team has a pretty decisive lead.

There are also many games within the game itself.  Watch how a pitcher works a hitter to exploit weaknesses.  Will the manager pull the pitcher to take advantage of a better matchup (righty/lefty) or leave his ace in the game?  There’s a runner on first in the late innings of a tight game.  Do you bunt the guy over to second or let the hitter swing away?

Baseball is also a game that gives a team every opportunity to come back.  There is no clock – you’re allowed to make three outs in each innings, regardless of how long it takes.  You can rally from a 15-0 deficit with two outs in the bottom of the ninth – you simply need to keep getting hits.  The odds are stacked against you, but you still have a chance.  Let’s say you’re likewise getting clobbered in a football game – down 56-0 (roughly equivalent to a 15-0 baseball game) with a minute to go (roughly equivalent to 1/54 of a baseball game remaining).  Can you rally and win?  No.  You’d need to recover several onside kicks and then run an offensive play to score each time.  Each play eats up time, and there’s simply not enough time remaining.

An additional charm of baseball is the fact that there are still a lot of unknowns in baseball’s metrics.  Variations of the game date back as far as the mid 1700s, with the first game with a formal set of rules being played in 1846 (by comparison, James Naismith invented basketball in 1891).  Yet, 165 years after that 1846 game, much is unsettled.  Every few years, new theories abound on the best ways to measure performance.  For a while, OPS was the definitive offensive stat.  Now, wOBA is gaining steam.  And what about win shares?  How much control does a pitcher have over his ERA?  Defense is probably the biggest debate of all, with various methods to judge defensive effectiveness.

Heck, there is even a Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) – a group of volunteers who pay for the privilege of doing research.

The, of course, is a daily aspect of the game.  162 games, spanning from late March through early October, with a post-season stretching into November.  There are no teams that get into the playoffs because of a few lucky bounces.  There may be teams that are fortunate to be in a relatively weak division, but they still prove their superiority over their divisional foes by facing them repeatedly throughout the season.  There are only a handful of off days for a team during the season – and they are staggered so that there are always at least a few games taking place on any given day.  For someone who loves a sport, what could be better than games every single day?

My only complaint is that the season is too short …

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

As we approach the 70th anniversary of Joe DiMaggio’s magical 56 game hitting streak in 1941, some have asked whether this record will ever be broken.  I’m confident in saying no.  Let’s run the numbers.

Let’s take your average run of the mill .400 hitter.  Nobody has hit .400 for a season since Ted Williams in that same year of 1941, but let’s set that aside for a moment.  Let’s also assume that the hitter gets 5 at bats in every game (that’s unreasonably high – only a few hitters approach 4.5, with most in the low 4s).  What are the odds of him getting a 56 game streak through random chance?

Well, the odds of getting at least one hit in any particular game is (1-(.6^5))  – more than 92%.  But raise that probably (.92224) to the power of 56 and we get just .01.  In an absolute best case scenario, there’s a 1% chance of this happening to that particular player in any random 56 game stretch.  Drop the at bats to 4 per game, and there’s 1 chance in 2375.  Make the batting average a more realistic .300 and the chances are 1 in 28863 with 5 at bats per game and 1 in 4,760,352 with 4.

Then, of course, you must realize that the opposing pitcher has some control.  Let’s say a guy has a 50 game hitting streak, and he’s facing the Yankees (DiMaggio’s own team).  The pitchers can’t simply walk him every time up.  That wouldn’t break the streak, as by rule a player must have an official at bat (walks are plate appearances, but not at bats) for a streak to be broken.  However, the pitchers COULD walk him after he had recorded an out in his first at bat (even a .400 hitter will make out out 60% of the time).

The Ides of March are upon us

If you know your Shakespeare, this will mean something to you. In the world of Johnny Goodman, this means taking off the opening Thursday of the NCCA Basketball tournament from work, setting up shop at a local establishment that has numerous televisions, and enjoying an adult beverage or three.

For many the bubble burst, for many many more the bubble never existed, and now that the talking heads and spurned coaches have had three or four days to hash out who got jobbed and why, we can move on to the real important topic. Bracket Pools.

Depending on what online source you read, billions of dollars are figured as lost in space in terms of productivity this time of year as thousands of workers clamor at break time, at lunch, on the phone to their buddies, even on email, as to if this twelve seed is gonna knock of this five seed. Millions of office pools are in place in the United States. Heck some areas will even have Women’s tourney pools, (I am guessing Connecticut has a higher than average participation rate for these) as well as NIT Pools (although I have not seen any floating around Lincoln yet, but maybe in Boulder)

On line there are thousands of pools you can enter, some are small local television pools with a chance to win maybe a big screen television. Others are major national monster insurance company advertising pools that offer great prizes such as all expense paid vacations or substantial cash rewards.

The fact is that March Madness (shouldn’t they start calling it April Madness as it ends in April?) is big time business. The only real losers are CBS, who has taken a bath with revenues compared to what they shell out to show the games on the tube. So what is the answer? The NCCA adds a couple of more “who really cares” play in games and then CBS goes out and adds in a couple of more networks to assure “ALL” games are on television, and they pay even MORE money than they were previously.

So let’s review. Big losing contract to NCAA + adding four more games now equals even more money that CBS is paying to the NCAA to cover games this year…..sounds like a genius deal to me.

So remember as you fill out your pools this year, just channel your inner Charlie Sheen…..

“DUH….WINNING!”

Stay Classy Morehead State!

My fantasy baseball draft is underway.  You may remember that it’s a bit of an oddball league.  The main rule is that you can only play one guy for each letter of the alphabet.  The draft consists of ten rounds, with each owner being assigned a group of letters for each round (no duplicates, everyone has a unique group).

This does tend to turn normal strategy on its head, as you may be forced to wait on certain positions.  For example, the good catchers bunch up in the Ms.  I don’t have M until the eighth round.

How has the draft unfolded for me so far?

1st round (B and V) – Justin Verlander has won a total of 37 games the past two seasons, with 488 strikeouts and an ERA around 3.40 during that stretch.  He’s the clear choice.  I could chase reigning MVP Joey Votto, but first basemen with good bats aren’t hard to find.

B was a bit different.  Lots of good players within this letter.  Ryan Braun and Jay Bruce are some big bats, and Beckett, Buchholz, and Bumgarner are guys who could rack up a lot of wins.  In the end, it came down to a choice between one hitter and one pitcher.  The pitcher was Padres closer Heath Bell, and the hitter was … Florida catcher John Buck.  Why Buck?  Because the good catcher letters are very late for me.  A bird in the hand, perhaps?  In the end, I go with Bell.

2nd round (L, O/I) – Evan “Gabby” Longoria was already off the board, so this came down to a choice between Tim Lincecum and Cliff Lee.  Very comparable players from a statisticts perspective, but Lincecum gets more strikeouts, and he’s my pick.

I is a really shallow letter, and thus gets combined with O to make a decent letter grouping.  Lurking in this group was Rockies catch Chris Iannetta.  Iannetta has 25 homers in his last 477 at bats.  The only bad thing is that those at bats are split over two years.  If the Rockies stick with him for the whole year, he can produce.  He also walks enough to partially offset a bad batting average (we count OBP rather than BA).  Iannetta is the reason I passed on John Buck – I was confident that the person who had O/I in the first round would go after Roy Oswalt.

3rd round (H, A) – Roy Halladay and Felix Hernandex are off the board at this point.  Guys like Haren, Harden, Hamels, Hudson, and Hughes are available … but with two aces on the staff already, this is a good time to go for a bat.  I look around to see if anyone makes sense from the perspective of positional scarcity.  Bill Hall (2B) or J.J Hardy (SS)?  Nah, not enough value to pass up the thunder bats.  I’m looking for a guy who can help me in all the categories, across the board.  My guy is Matt Holliday.

There are some solid pitching candidates in the As, but nobody who is really elite.  At the opening of the draft, the two guys I had coveted in the As were Texas shortstop Elvis Andrus and Pirates 3B Pedro Alvarez.  Of the two, I much preferred Andrus due to positional scarcity at shortstop.  Alvarez his 16 homers in 347 at bats as a rookie, and knocked in 64 RBI in that time.  Extrapolate to 500 at bats, and this would be 23 homers and 92 RBI … assuming no improvement.

Where we stand – I definitely need to grab a shortstop and second baseman before the good ones are gone.  Outfielders and first basemen are a dime a dozen and I can pick some up later.  I’d also like to grab another catcher, just in case Iannetta struggles.  On the pitching side, I’ll likely end up with 2-3 closers and the rest starters.  We have nine pitchers active each week, and I can tweak the lineup to have all the closer active when I’m facing a team with multiple closers, and just one active when I face a team that doesn’t have a closer (which should enable me to win the saves category while still having 8 pitchers racking up wins for me as starters).

I still need a team name.  I go with something different every year.  Last year was the Youra Peeins.

A few weeks ago, I was perusing Robin Yount’s Wikipedia page and saw the note that Yount and Fergie Jenkins were tied for the fewest All Star game appearances among Hall of Famers who played their entire careers during the era of All Star Games.  I realized that when Bert Blyleven is inducted this summer, he’ll lower the bar to two appearances.  How low can this game of All Star Game limbo go?  One appearance?  Zero?

I threw this idea over the wall to my baseball think tank.  The specific question was which player had the best career, but with zero All Star Game appearances.

Barry from the 314 gave me some good food for thought.  He pointed out that new White Sox slugger Adam Dunn has just 1 All Star Game appearance on his resume.  Dunn probably is hurt by the fact that he has a reputation as a “homer or strikeout” type of player and is a poor defender.  While it’s true that he’s a Three True Outcomes sort of player (see Moneyball for some background), he’s good enough at the third outcome (walks) to boost his on base percentage to a respectable level – .381 for his career.  If Dunn ends up with 600+ homers (quite likely) and a .380+ on base pecentage, will the voters keep him out of Cooperstown?

The most interesting player with zero All Star Game appearances is Dunn Lite – Mark Reynolds of the Orioles.  Granted, Reynolds is coming off a dreadful year in which he mustered just a .198 batting average.  However, his career batting average (.242) is just 8 points less than Dunn’s (.242 and he has been increasing his walk rate – nabbing 83 free passes last season.  Then, of course, there is the power – 104 homers in the past three seasons, including 44 in 2009.  However, Reynolds has been criticized so heavily for his record breaking tendency to strike out that he might never be selected to an All Star Game, even if he gets his numbers in line with those of Dunn.  (We know how I feel about strikeouts).

Is it actually possible for someone to be elected to the Hall of Fame without ever being recognized as an All Star?  On the face, this seems unlikely, considering the increasingly bloated size of the rosters (I actually made the National League All Star team last year).  However, it may actually be possible.

It would probably be easiest for a starting pitcher.  Some managers are very protective of their pitchers, preferring that they don’t pitch in the All Star Game.  When this happens, the manager of the All Star team typically avoids picking the player rather than wasting a roster spot on someone who won’t help them win the game.  Take a guy who is a consistent 16-17 game winner with four 20 wins seasons mixed in, and I could see a possibility of him only being considered maybe five times.  Once or twice, he may have pitched the last game before the break and be unavailable.  The other times, an overprotective manager keeps him off the team.  You’d need the stars to align in order for this to happen, but it might.

Can it happen to a position player?  Sure.  I think the most likely scenario would be a situation where there was a great class of players at one position (catcher seems to be a good candidate).  Several Hall of Famers in the group, with one guy lagging a bit behind the othes in terms of quality (a guy elected in the final years of his eligibility).  Make him a guy who starts slow and heats in up in the second half, and he may get overlooked because of lackluster first half stats – especially if there’s one random guy each year who has a torrid start and nabs a spot.

Nothing big in the world of sports for me to devote an entire article to this week, so I will touch on a number of topics as we “span the globe”

Nascar
I am not a racing fan. Never have been, never will be. But when a rookie driver wins in just his 2nd Cup start and it is not just any win but a Daytona 500 win, that is pretty special. Almost as speical as his reaction to his crew on the radio as he crossed the finish line. “Are you serious?” Yes, we are serious and now you have seriously altered your career and future in the sport. Congratulations Trevor Bayne.

Basketball
Carmelo Anthony gets marquee billing as he is traded to the Knicks. Horrible trade for the Knicks. While Melo is a go to guy, he is playing with Amare Stoudamaire who requires a point guard to get him the ball, (well I guess they did also get Chauncey Billups in the deal). Carmelo is a full time shooter, mid range jumper take it to the rack occasionally type of guy … sounds a lot like Amare. I guess the Nuggets are the real winner here as they would have lost him to Free Agency and now they at least get something to show for it.

Golf
Yani Tseng wins her third straight tournament on the LPGA tour and has firmly grabbed the #1 spot in the LPGA world golf rankings. She is young, playing well and appears to be poised to dominate in 2011 on the women’s tour.

The Accenture match play starts this week for the guys on the PGA tour. With no one playing dominant and the ever crafty guise of match play it is a wide open – anyone can win event. I filled out a GolfWeek entry pool, and my pick was Paul Casey, which coincidentally appears to be the pick of the golf writers for the USA Today.

Who is #1?
What a crazy week in College Basketball, Kansas, Texas, Ohio State and Pittsburgh all have a shot at being ranked #1 and all promptly go out and lose. Duke claims the top spot with exactly 2 wins over teams ranked in the top 25 on the year. This is called a paper tiger folks … Duke is over-rated and hopefully will see an early exit from the Tourney this year, but the lofty ranking will likely get them a #1 seed and the easiest road much as last year.

NBA All Star Game Weekend
This all star event has officially jumped the shark, or in this case a Kia Optima. The slam dunk competition needs to go “old school” and get rid of all the props and added features. How about just dunking…what a novel concept.

The game itself is almost as big of a joke as the NFL All Pro game. When is the last time a home town player did NOT win the MVP award? Seems like it happens every year. I bet Vegas had the Black Mamba at 2/5 to win the MVP before the game was played.

Until next week, stay classy Austin Texas … and pass that bill that is going to allow anyone on a college campus to carry a concealed handgun. Remember folks, it is not a state … it is a Republic!

On Thursday, Harvey Almorn Updyke, Jr. was arrested on one count of first degree criminal mischief.  His bond was set at $50,000 and Updyke faces up to ten years in prison for his crime.

What was his crime?  Being too much of a fan of the University of Alabama.

Updyke is a die-hard Bama fan, but lives near the campus of the University of Auburn.  In November, he drove to the campus and sprayed some trees in the area known as Toomer’s Corner with the herbicide Spike80DF.  The herbicide, which is use to kill trees, is fatal in conentrations of 100 parts per billion (or 0.1 parts per million).  Tests of the soil around the trees found concentrations ranging from .78 parts per million (7 times the fatal concentration) to 51 parts per million (500 times the fatal concentration).  In other words, the trees will almost certainly die.  I don’t think you need to be a “tree hugger” to be appalled by the wanton destruction of century old trees.

I’m not an Auburn fan, nor much of a follower of the SEC as a whole.  I wasn’t aware of the post-game tradition of fans toilet papering the trees to celebrate wins.  Apparently, it’s a pretty big tradition, and Updyke was trying to kill this tradition by killing the trees.

After Updyke called a Birmingham radio station last month to brag about the stunt, it was only a matter of time before he would be arrested.  He identified himself as “Al from Dadeville.”  Dadeville has around 3000 residents.  I’m sure a handful are even named Al … and maybe a couple of them happen to be Alabama fans in the shadow of the Auburn campus.

Updyke’s court appointed attorney filed a motion to withdraw from the case.  The reason?  Seems that the lawyer had perviously been employed as a part-time professor at Auburn.

I guess Updyke thought he would be hailed as a hero by Alabama supporters.  He certainly doesn’t have the backing of the Bama athletic director.  AD Mal Moore commented, saying that the poisoning was “a terrible thing to do.”  I applaud Moore for publicly denouncing the act, so that there can be no uncertainly whether or not the administration would condone such acts.  Rational people would realize that Alabama wouldn’t condone this, but perhaps Moore’s words stopped one extremist in his or her tracks.  I’m sure a great many Crimson Tide fans put aside their hatred of the Tigers for one day to feel some sympathy for Auburn.

Updyke should have asked himself WWBBD – What Would Bear Bryant Do?  I suspect that Bryant wouldn’t have stooped to vandalism.

Sadly, this sort of thing is not completely unprecedented in sports.  Back in 2002, White Sox fans William Ligue Sr. and his son (William Jr.) attacked a completely defenseless Tom Gamboa, the first base coach for the Royals.  Gamboa suffered permanent hearing loss as a result.  Sadly, the younger Ligue bragged about the incident online later.

And who can forget the knife attack on Monica Seles in 1993 – by a fan of Steffi Graf would hated seeing Graf lose to Seles.  Seles returned from the traumatic attack two years later, but nor at the same level of consistent excellence she had achieved before.

I’m a huge sports fan, and I have intense dislike for a number of teams.  Johnny Goodman knows how much I hate the Nebraska football program.  However, I would never dream of doing something like this.  Sports are great, but in the end, it’s a game.  There are more important things in life.  Ratchet the rhetoric down a bit.

Once again, Albert Pujols is front and center in the world of baseball.  As I write this, we’re closing in on the deadline Albert set for striking a deal.  It seems increasingly unlikely that Pujols will sign a deal prior to the deadline – setting the stage for his possible departure from St. Louis.  While there are a lot of teams that would love to have Pujols in their lineup, are there any willing and able to pony up $30 million per year?  The Yankees and Red Sox have a franchise 1B locked up, and those are usually the two teams with the most cash.

Of course, Pujols played third base earlier in his career.  The Yankees would play him at 3B, move A-Rod back to SS, and turn their aging SS into a utility player.  (I kid, John, I kid.)

Speaking of Yankees … CC Sabathia showed up at camp considerably lighter.  That’s a relative concept for a guy who lugs around 300 pounds on his 6’7″ frame, but he claims to be down 25 pounds from last year.  Based on the photos, I can believe it.  The one concern I always had with CC was his weight.  I always thought that it would eventually cause him to wear down at the end of the year.  It hasn’t happened yet – with Sabathia winning at least 17 games, pitching at least 230 innings, and posting an ERA of 3.37 or better in each of the past 4 seasons – and the weight loss might make him even more durable.  With 157 wins on his resume at age 30, Sabathia remains a solid candidate to be come the next 300 game winner – especially if he can maximize his wins the next few years, before the Yankee core declines too much.  There’s also the possibility that Sabathia could opt out of his deal, but I don’t see that happening.

Off the field …

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama recognized former Cardinal Stan “The Man” Musial with the presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.  The greatest Cardinal of them all was a 24 time All-Star (note that there were two All Star games each year between 1959 and 1962, with one game benefitting the players’ pension fund).

The ownership of the New York Mets is in flux.  The owners are looking into the possibility of selling a 25% share of the team.  The owners are being sued by Irving Picard (no relation to Jean-Luc), the trustee for victims of Bernie Madoff.  Picard alleges that team ownership withdrew large amounts of false profits from their accounts with Madoff, and should have know that fraud was occurring.  This is the latest in a recent string of off-field issue affecting teams.  The McCourt divorce is still casting uncertainly on the future of the Dodgers.

Spring Training has begun, meaning that winter is officially over.  This means that any subsequent snowfalls will be in violation of federal law.

My picks for the World Series?  As much as I’d like to pick the Rockies, any team with Cole Hamels as their #4 starter  is going to make some noise – so I pick the Phillies from the NL.  In the AL, I’ll give the nod to the Red Sox, who added an extremely good player in Adrian Gonzalez.  My player to watch this season is Homer Bailey.  Although many have already given up on him as a bust, the kid won’t turn 25 until May.  I think he has enough experience under his belt to put together a breakout season in 2011.

Wednesday is the deadline Albert Pujols has set for negotiating a new deal with the St. Louis Cardinals.  If the sides are unable to reach a deal by then, it will have to wait until the end of the season – and Pujols might opt to become a free agent.

Last year, I posted a May Fools Day article claiming that Pujols signed a contract extension with the Cardinals.  Obviously, Pujols’s demand were slightly exaggerated (the St. Louis Arch is not on the table), but not by much.  The parameters that have been kicked around are 10 years at $30 million per year.  I’m not going to get into a debate about whether athletes are overpaid, but instead look at the issues surrounding this particular deal.

You might think the biggest problem is the money.  Sure, $30 million per year is some serious cash, but it’s been fairly apparent for a number of years that Pujols would ask for this kind of money.  He has established himself as one of the best – if not THE best – players in the game, and Alex Rodriguez has set the market for the über-elite at $25-$30 million per year.  It certainly wouldn’t surprise me to see the Cardinals sign him to a deal paying $30 million per year.

The real sticking point is the length of the deal.  Pujols wants a ten year deal.  When the deal expires at the end of the 2020 season, Pujols would be nearly 41 years old.  That’s not old in human terms, but it is ancient for a baseball players.  As you look down the rosters of MLB teams, you’re only going to encounter a few guys on the downside of 40.  Even the players who are still around at 40 have seen their skills diminish greatly – an effect of the aging process.  Pujols plays first base, which isn’t as prone to dramatic drop-offs as middle infielders or catchers – but the odds of a 40 year old Pujols making a run at the MVP aren’t likely.

What this boils down to is that the 2011 version of Pujols at $30 million might make a lot of sense, but paying $30 million for Pujols in 2020 – even after accounting for fact that inflation will likely erode the value of that salary – might not.

So, then, why don’t the Cardinals simply sign him to the 10 year deal and then cut him when his skills erode?  Because baseball contracts are guaranteed.  Once the player signs a deal, he’s going to get the money – unless he opts to retire.  You can’t simply wash your hands of the deal after a few years, a la the NFL.

So, then, what’s the answer?  I personally think that vesting options are the way to go.  Make maybe 6 years of the deal guaranteed.  After that point, if Pujols reaches certain levels of performance, an option for the next year is automatically triggered.  This protects the Cardinals from a situation where Pujols has declined to the point of being a platoon player, while at the same time getting Pujols maximum value if he stays healthy and productive.

Many observers have said that Pujols is worth more to the Cardinals than he is to any other team, due to the fact that he is such a huge fan favorite in St. Louis.  I have always agreed with this sentiment.  However, a recent suggestion has made me re-think this.  The suggestion was that the Cubs – who have 1B Carlos Peña on a  1 year contract – might make a run at Pujols.  This move would strengthen the Cubs at the same time it weakened their hated rivals – and would turn the rivalry even more bitter.

One interesting, yet overlooked issue … the Cardinals could opt to offer Pujols arbitration at the end of the year.  In fact, they would need to in order to receive compensation for losing him as a free agent.  If the Cardinals offer and an Pujols accepts, it would set the stage for an extremely interesting arbitration hearing.

On Tuesday, I mentioned the plight of fans who were left without seats to the Super Bowl after temporary seating was not deemed safe in time for the game.  The fans were given the option of standing in standing-room-only sections or watching the game from TVs within the stadium.  Hardly the experience they expected when they paid a small fortune to buy tickets from scalpers and more money for airfare, lodging, and meals.

Almost immediately, the NFL said they would give $2400 refunds to the fans.  That’s three times the face value, but face value means very little when it comes to the actual cost of Super Bowl tickets.  Certainly a nice chunk of change, but the fans still wasted vacation time and the cost of the trip for a pretty lousy experience.

On Monday, the NFL increased the offer by including tickets to next year’s Super Bowl.  The tickets would be transferable, meaning that they could be sold.  Definitely a better offer.

On Tuesday, the NFL added an additional options.  The fans could choose to receive tickets to any future Super Bowl, plus airfare and accomodations.  The fans could wait until after the conference titles games to decide whether or not to attend – meaning that they would know whether or not their team would be in the game.  Fans taking this option would not get the $2400 cash (since they are getting airfare and accomodations), nor would the tickets be transferable.  I assume that if the original ticketholder died while waiting for their team to reach the Super Bowl, the experience would be transferrable to an heir – but I’m not sure the NFL has had the time to think through these types of scenarios yet.

I’m happy with that offer.  Presumably, these fans would get decent seats to the future game (to avoid negative publicity) and covering the cost of airfare and lodging would seem to offset costs to attend this year’s game.  If you’re a Packers or Steelers fan who really wanted a seat to this year’s Super Bowl, it’s not going to completely fix that problem – but what would?  Some things are priceless, and you can’t throw money at them to fix it.

While the league and the Cowboys certainly have some blame, the winter storm that smacked much of the country was a very large factor in wreaking havoc on the preparation for the Super Bowl.  As the proverb goes, “Man plans.  God laughs.”   (Note: next year’s game will be in balmy Indianapolis.)

Today, a lawsuit was filed against the league and the Cowboys (who hosted the game)  claiming breach of contract, deceptive sales practices, and fraud.  I’ll conceded that there was a breach of contract and even the possibility of deceptive sales practices – but outright fraud?  Does anyone actually believe the NFL intended to defraud these people?  I sincerely believe that the NFL would have loved for the temporary seating to be deemed safe and to have butts in those seats.

I suspect that the league may set a deadline for accepting its offer and make fans sign a release that prevents them from suing for further damages.  Fans who join the lawsuit might end up with more money … or they might lose the lawsuit and get nothing.  I’m certainly no legal scholar, but it appears that the NFL has made a good faith effort to rectify the wrong.  Will Lady Justice see the fans as victims … or as gold diggers?

My web consulting business, Sparks by Kosmo, is off to a solid start, buoyed by reviews on The Digerati Life and Out of Debt Again.  It’s throwing some chunks of revenue my way without consuming a huge amount of time.  That’s a win.  In celebration, I’ve launched a super-secret fiction coaching academy that will kick off with the first class in March.  The first class is already full, but I’ll be advertising spots in subsequent classes at a later time.

I’m going to make an attempt to push Mountains, Meadows, and Chasms into the world of literature.  The compiled edition of stories is now 80,000+ words – featuring more than 70 of your favorite stories (I’ve cut out some of the chaff).  I’m looking for a literary agent – I’ll keep you up to speed on things.

My baseball card book has been getting a bit of traction, and we’ll be ramping up publicity a bit in the coming months, including a media appearance.  ESPN?  Er, well, no.

I had a pretty lousy Super Bowl Sunday.  In my early years, I was a Bears fan.  In my early teens, I became a Vikings fan.  For the past two years, I’ve have been Favrecotting the NFL until my least favorite player (any guesses who he is?) resigns.  During that entire span of time – a quarter of a century – I have hated the Green Bay Packers.  Imagine my disgust when they won.  To make the spectacle even worse, the Fox “dream team” broadcasting the game was Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and the stupid robot (a/k/a/ nepotism, pretty boy former QB, and stupid robot).  Excuse me while I make my way to the vomitorium.

Four hundred fans with tickets to the game were left out in the cold when temporary seating could not be deemed safe prior to the game.  After being herded like cattle while a decision about their fate was made, they were eventually given the option of watching from standing room only areas or viewing on TVs within the stadium.  The fans will be given triple refunds (triple the face value, not triple what they paid to scalpers) and tickets to next year’s Super Bowl … but watching a Lions – Brown Super Bowl next year probably wouldn’t be as much fun to a Packers or Steelers fan as watching this game would have been – not to mention the expenses they incurred for travel and lodging to attend an event that they really didn’t “attend”.

The NFL announced the 2011 Hall of Fame class.  While all of the inductees are deserving, the complaint is that a lot of deserving players are not getting in.  Indeed, you could make a case for all fifteen of this year’s finalists.  However, no matter how great they are, only five of them were ging to be inducted, per the rules.  In other words, if the all time best quarterback, running back, receiver, linebacker, defensive end, and defensive back all retired at the same time, it would be an absolute certainty that one of them would not be a first ballot hall of famer.  Contrast this to baseball, where a writer can list as many players as they wish – the only issue is whether they are named on 75% of the ballots.

Longtime Texas Ranger Michael Young is on the trading block.  In recent years, the Rangers have bounced Young around the infield like a ping pong ball as they wedge other players (Elvis Andrus, Adrian Beltre) into the lineup.  Now they want Young to play DH.  One of the teams reportedly interested in Young – and his $16 million salary – are my Colorado Rockies.  Young slumped in the second half of 2010, and is in his mid 30s … but if he can put up number similar to what he had a few years back, he’d be an interesting guy to have in the lineup.

LeBron’s former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, recently lost their 25th consecutive game.  That’s very impressive to me.  Regardless of how bad a team is, you’d think at some point they’d have a night where luck went their way and every close shot went in.