Conference 7.286::sports_90

    uh....well,  uh, who's gonna win the pennant?
    

    Theoretically speaking :
    
    
    How many plates can you stack on your posterior T ? 
    
    How big can they be ?
    
    Do you prefer china, plastic, or pewter ?

    > Profundity only here.  No REK-style "my wife bought a dog" drivel.
    
   >  MrT
    
    
    Sorry, T,  I didn't see the restrictive sign.

    Okay, T, I'll bite.  
    
    What is it you have in mind with this topic ???
    
    Effects of sports on society ???  Economic impact ???  The human
    element of competition ???
    
    It's been awhile since you started a new topic.  What's on your
    mind ???
    
    Bob Hunt

The effect of rools:

	Most rules seem to be initially generated either for reasons of safety,
to boost fan interest (make it a more exciting game) and sometimes (at least it
seems so) just to make the game more fair. What I've noticed, though, is that
making a rule, generally involves the necessity of making additional rules.
It's like you tell little kids.... don't start telling lies, or you'll find
yourself having to tell more and more lies.

	Example = Footabaw

	The D. used to hand fight and bump receivers all the way down the
field. Rule change = chuck within five yards of the line of scrimmage. So
what happens? Initially, higher scores, more fan satisfaction.... just what
they were hoping. But then.... defenses respond. Can't mess with the wide
receivers, put more pressure on the QB. Result: QB's are getting broken into
pieces at a record clip...  sooooooooooooo let's make another rule: In the
grasp. Protect the QB, right? NOt good enough. How about making some more: slap
the ball into the dirt to stop the clock; QB's can run, and if they slide down,
nobody touches them. Further results, fans start getting fed up. I think they'd
have been better off leaving things as they were.

	Some other ones:

	What about the 3 pointer in hoops?

	What about high sticking in Hockey?

	What about corked brooms in curling?

	What about the DH in America's Pastime?

Mike JN

I like this, somehow.

I agree with the first 1 criteria for excitement - level of stress.
That's the basic issue of attempting a couple of free throws with 4
seconds left.

The level of attractiveness is important but I'm not sure about the
complexity. Often, the excitement is quite simple: the guy hits the free
throws and puts the game out of reach. Complexity is an interpretation of
the action and may or may not lead to any excitement. (Supporters of this
complexity might define a chess match as exciting, which it may very well
be.)

I look at significance at 2 levels. The first is that it's sports, a
game, and that is not necessarily significant. Now within the domain of
sports, an excitement is certainly related to the significance of the the
"play". Keeping with our analogy, if the guy hits the free throws, it
matters not what the other team does in the last 4 seconds. As
significantly, if he misses, say, the front end of the one-and-one, the
other team could have a chance to win or tie the game with its own
significant shot.

TTom

    �		What makes a sport exciting?
    
    Good starting point.

   � I define sports excitement as a blend of three things: 
   � 
   � 	1. Level of stress.
    
    Level of stress in what terms ???  If it's physical stress alone,
    I don't know.   Competitive weightlifting looks awfully stressful
    but I don't find it particularly exciting.  Same with triathalons.
    
    But football and basketball are pretty stressful as well and they
    get my juices jumpin'.
    
    Emotional stress is another issue but that may more closely relate
    to your point #3 concerning the level of significance.
    
    Mechanical stress ???  As in auto racing or pole vaulting ???  
    Auto racing is intriguing to me.  I'd like to know more about it. 
    Now living in Charlotte, I'm right smack in the middle of NASCAR
    country.  NASCAR doesn't do much for me but I did see a preview of
    Tom Cruise's new flick "Days Of Thunder" and I admit it looks
    intriguing.
    
    Pole vaulting seems like it was perfected by East Germans trying
    to clear The Wall.  We'll probably see a big drop in Warsaw Pact
    pole vaulting performance now that you don't need a running start
    to make it into West Berlin.
     
    � 	2. Level of attractive complexity.
    
    As in just enough rules and regulations to keep things moving but
    not too many to bog things down ???   This is where the NFL has to
    be real careful.  A lot of the football jargon is "secret mantra"
    stuff.  As in "run the 49Y split right green toss trap".   To the
    novice, it's a cloud of dust.  To the ordinary fan, it's a running
    play.  To the junkie, it's a trap, a draw, a counter, a sweep or a
    plunge.
    
   � 	3. Level of significance.
    
    As in "for all the marbles" ???  The "big enchilada" ???  No doubt
    about it.  College hoops in March beats college hoops in November. 
    Same for baseball in October and football in January.
    
    I'll add to the list of what makes a sport exciting ...
    
    	4. Personal involvement.
    
    If you've played it before, either for cash or for flash, it's an
    exciting sport to watch.  True, there are sports that are still
    exciting despite never having played.   Auto racing again fits
    this example for me.   So does ice hockey.   But, I was a
    significant part of an outstanding high school wrestling program
    and I can always get excited watching and reading about great
    collegiate wrestling.   Others can't relate to wrestlers.
    
    On the other hand, figure skating and swimming bore me to tears.  
    I can't stand Dick Button.  "Oh, look, dear Brian is still in
    character.  He's playing Napoleon for all he's worth tonight." 
    And Scott "She *NAILED* It" Hamilton makes me retch, too.
    
   	5. Hype.
    
    I'm a sucker, I admit it.   Roman-numeraled Super Bowls, March
    Madness, the World Series, Tyson-Spinks, and so on ...  If they
    don't *act* excited about it, I may not either.
    
    But I'm careful about over-hype, too.  I was in St Louis last week
    and some of my colleagues were all abuzz over the Billikens' second
    straight appearance in the NIT final game.  I had to make sure
    they knew I thought the NIT title tilt was for 65th place no
    matter how hard the St Louis press tried to pump up the populace.
    
    Any others ???
    
    Bob Hunt

    It seems that the rules are hurting U.S. sports--in particular,
    football.  Why is it that the game has to be so complex.   The
    basic idea is simple but the mega-pages of rules, and the constant
    rule changes, are making it a sport that can only be watched but
    not fully understood.
    
    When the world-wide game of soccer is compared to the American-made
    game of football it becomes obvious that Americans have to keep
    fiddling with something to make it fit into the American society.
    
    Soccer, at least 5-6 years ago when I played in adult leagues, had
    only around a dozen rules.  The rules were virtually the same as
    the rules all over the world and probably about the same as they
    have been for decades.  Anyone who is raised around soccer-playing
    kids would have no problem understanding the game.  The rules
    didn't have to be changed so that there was more "exciting scoring"
    or more breaks for tv commercials (which what America tried to do
    with the U.S. pro teams).  Soccer may be the most played sport in
    the world but it can't survive at the professional level in the U.S.
    
    Why is it that football rules caint be written similarly to soccer rules?
    Just write rules that are the bare necessities and that are general
    enough to keep the game under reins so that the game is still "football".
    
    Maybe because football is still evolving and while offensive coaches are
    discovering new ways to move the ball defensive coaches are finding
    a way to stop them.  Maybe as long as this process continues then the
    rule makers will be 1 step behind the coaches keeping them in check.
    
    The sports-watchers (the type like me, who watch the action for
    enjoyment and relaxation, and not like a facks-quiz Jeopardy game)
    would like to be able to follow the game--without a phonebook size
    rule book.  Do we have to wait until the game stops evolving or is
    football going to evolve until it dies?
    
    Simple is best....
    
    
    Cowboy 

   � Maybe because football is still evolving and while offensive coaches are
   � discovering new ways to move the ball defensive coaches are finding
   � a way to stop them.  Maybe as long as this process continues then the
   � rule makers will be 1 step behind the coaches keeping them in check.
    
    Does this imply that "simple" games like soccer ahve *stopped*
    evolving ???  I don't think so and I hope not at any rate.
    
    I think the NFL is treading dangerous ground with its constant
    tinkering with the rules.   Rule changes for safety I can buy. 
    Tougher penalties for cheap shots, fine.
    
    Rule changes designed largely to suit non-playing interests such
    as television are not only unnecessary but are resented by most
    fans.   Things like the recent rule change about resuming the
    clock after certain plays so as to speed up the game hurt the
    game.   Yes, the games are too long.  But they are not too long
    because of incomplete passes.  They are too long because
    television must sell air time for product advertisements.   
    
    The tube reigns over the NFL and the NFL changes its rules to suit
    the tube.   This is inherently self-defeating and the NFL needs to
    address it.
    
    Bob Hunt

    > Does this imply that "simple" games like soccer have *stopped*
    > evolving ???  I don't think so and I hope not at any rate.
    
      From a rules point of view there has been little change for
    *years*--atleast that's my recollection from my soccer days.
    
    As outstanding soccer players enter the game they bring their
    own particular style which has to be countered by the opposition.
    The way they handle the ball or fakeout an opponent, etc will
    keep the game evolving within the framework of the age-old rules.
    
    And this is what American Football is years away from.
    
    Cowboy
    

    What makes a sport exciting?
    
    For myself the most exciting sports are ones which I have played. 
    While I can consider a 3-2 wrestling match exciting many people
    who do not understand the sport would find it boring.  If you've 
    ever hit the home run to win the game, sank the foul shot to
    send it into OT etc... I feel their is a better understanding of
    what your watching therefore making it more exciting to you.  I 
    think you can identify with the particular sport or player or 
    dilemma if you've been there.
    
    Jimbo
    

>>    > Does this imply that "simple" games like soccer have *stopped*
>>    > evolving ???  I don't think so and I hope not at any rate.
    
>>      From a rules point of view there has been little change for
>>    *years*--atleast that's my recollection from my soccer days.
  
It seems to me that, sadly, soccer has stopped evolving.  Since it is 
primarily an Olde World game, every rule changed proposed is greeted with
a barrage of opposition.  You should here the rumpus over here about the
proposed change to 4 quarters of 25 minutes each!!  You'd think they were
advocating an orange ball or something!!

As a result we're left with a game with one man controlling the whole thing
(compared to how many refs on a football field - 6 or 8??), which is 
ridiculously out of date.  Sadly, far too many games are now being decided
by a good timely dive inside the penalty area.

r��k 

      For me its reading all the dipstick replies about how their team is
    soooooo great and ten watching teir teams get blown away!!!
    
    DOnks
    ACC
    Yankees
    You get the picture...
    
          REK
    
    PS KILL all dogs!!!

    re .9:  Great note, Bob.  As usual.
    
    I agree entirely with your assertion on hype.  I'd be more apt to
    get excited about a sporting event (eg. Super Bowl, March Madness,
    World Series, etc.) for the very reason I sometimes detest televised
    sports -- Media Hype.
    
    However, Media Hype seems to fan the fire for us armchair athletes
    to discuss the event and offer bragging rights for our favorite
    teams.  Also, remember that as kids we emulate our heroes, so again
    the media exposure has far-reaching effects.
    
    Mark.
    

	Over the history of sports, there have been many rule changes which
have improved various games. Many of these have been so obviously better, that
one wonders how in hell it could have taken so long to actually implement them.

	As an example: when hoops was first starting out.... they hung up a
peach basket. Here they had an organized sport, and one of the key ingedients
was an individual under the basket with a step ladder whose function was to
climb up after each successful shot, retrieve the ball, and put it back into
play. Finally someone came up with the concept of a hoop and net (after
YEARS!), so this concept was implemented.... but guess what? Yep. It still
hadn't occurred to anyone to cut a hole in the bottom of the net!!! So instead
of a guy with a step ladder, you had a guy with a stick. Just PUSH the ball out
of the net. Pretty slick, huh? No more climbing up and down... speed up the
game. What a great idea. Again... it was YEARS before some radical non-
traditionalist came up with the concept of CUTTING A HOLE IN THE BOTTOM OF THE
NET! WHOA! Talk about your innovators.

	Sports seems to have gone from an era when even the most obvious
improvements took YEARS to implement, to the situation today where every damned
season we're tinkering with the rules. I don't particularly like it.

	I don't particularly like the DH rule,either. This is not necessarily
because I find it aesthetically displeasing. Or because I do not believe that
it makes the game more exciting. I just kind of rebel at the idea of
specialization to such an extent (pitchers) that other facets of the game
(batting) become not only less important, but are actually done away with for
that particular specialty. I think it sucks.

	Ryne Sandberg is a human vacuum cleaner at Second. What has happened
with the pitchers is in no way different than saying `Hey Rhino, you're an ace
fielder. Keep your focus. Hone your talent... and we'll jimmy the rules so we
can have a designated hitter for such fielding specialists as yourself. I don't
think it's good for the game. Maybe in Basketball we should have a designated
free throw shooter for anyone who plays Center. Why not? It's no more silly.

	I also don't like the situation in football where two teams battle it
out all afternoon, and some dwarf soccer player named Tito comes in and kicks a
field goal to win the game.

So there!
MIke JN

    Actually, a powerful defense in football, soccer, basketball, etc
    stopping the offense is *more* exciting to me than a continuous
    battle of the offenses.  When the offense can only break through
    the tough defense just some of the time in a game--that's where the
    real excitement is.
    
    Cowboy

I agree the 3 point rule qualifies under the Attractive Complexity
clause.

Another thing that the 3 pointer cheapened was being able to sit on the
lead. Coupled with clock rules, it's harder to coast to a victory.

A negative corrolary to this is back in the glory days of the 4 corner
offense. Besides the obvious result of boredom, it undermined the entire
point of any offensive strategy, namely, scoring.

TTom

    Good points T, but there is_a couple_a counterpoints.  ("T, you
    ignorant Bafoon ...".  ;^) )
    
    First, you say that sports rules are changed for the fans benefit. 
    While this may in practice be correct, in theory shouldn't the people
    participating in sport have a say?  I think they should, and in the
    case of the 3-point shot, the players like it.  (I'm basing this fact
    on limited data, I'll grant you, but the ACC has in the past polled
    players on what they like/don't like, and the 3-point shot has always
    been an overwhelming "like".)
    
    Second, the 3-point shot kind of falls in line with what logically
    makes sense.  In baseball, if you hit the ball far, it's a homerun. 
    Previously in basketball a 90-footer counted the same as a slam dunk. 
    Does this make sense?  Perhaps, but there is a certain quality to the
    idea of a longer shot (read: More Difficult) should be rewarded more
    than an easier shot.  (read: a 7-footer throwing down a slam-dunk)
    
    Third, the 3-point shot is an equalizer.  It gives the underdog a
    chance.  Now I realize this is highly controversial and, as you point
    out, perhaps unfair.  The better team often doesn't win.  BUT, ... the
    majority of people (both fans *and* players) seem to like it this way. 
    As Dean says about the 3-point shot, "It doesn't help Carolina, in fact
    it hurts us, cause we're usually bigger and stronger than most teams. 
    But everybody seems to like it."  
    
    Fourth, It brings the little guy back.  There's something discouraging
    about having to be 6-5 to play guard in the NBA these days.  I like
    seeing the little guy in college.  Outside shooting is a very difficult
    skill.  Much more so than a slam-dunk.  The guys who can shoot it from
    long range were a vanishing breed.  The 3-point shot has brought them
    back, which I think is good for the game.  
    
    Fifth, the 3-point shot cleans up the inside play.  You claim it's a
    joy watching Moses battle for position.  I say "PHOOEY".  I watched
    Moses battle for position last night and also so the *incredible*
    leaning, pushing, grabbing, holding, etc. that goes on underneath in
    the NBA.  I couldn't believe it.  College is getting more physical too,
    what with television not wanting the refs to slow the game down and
    such.  (Something needs to be done about this, but we all know TV
    controls all.)  Anyway, the 3-point shot extends the defense and
    (theoretically) decreases contact.  (BTW - I think the NBA should
    shorten the 3-point shot to make it more of an option.  It might help
    some of the ugliness like I saw last night.)
    
    Lastly is the myth of the 3-point shot killing the zone defense.  I
    like man-to-man myself, but it's fun seeing different strategies
    employed by different teams.  The zone is one of these.  Many felt the
    3-point shot would eliminate the zone.  This has not happened, though
    the use of the zone has changed.  Typically now we see teams go to it
    when they get a lead and kind of dare the opponent to shoot themselves
    right out of the contest.  Sometimes they do, ... but sometimes they
    shoot themselves right back *into* it.  Makes for additional fan
    interest, me thinks.
    
    Enough rambling,
    
    
    - ACC Chris
    

    But hasn't the 3-pointer increased the chances that an underdog
    can pull off a major upset ???
    
    I agree that it may be a "cheaper" upset but it still can be
    exciting nevertheless.
    
    For example, Loyola Marymount upset Michigan this year in part
    because they were "bombing away" all game long.  {Forget about the
    Gathers' motivation for this example.}
    
    It was exciting but ... 
    
    Villanova over Georgetown in 1985 *without* the 3-pointer was
    sublime.
    
    Bob Hunt

Perhaps what is true is that fans like "action". Offense often meets this
criterion: someone shoots, passes, runs, scores. Good defense
(goaltending) also meets this: the shot is blocked, the ball is caught.

Perhaps it's worthwhile to discuss why ice hockey might be more popular
than soccer. In soccer, it's up and down and up and down and every once
in a while something happens. Ice hockey is up and down and up and down
and there's all sorts of "action". Some of it even has something to do
with the basic sport. There's checking and physical contact.

TTom

	I think fans like balance.

	Offense AND defense.

	I know baseball purists will probably try to slip into my bedroom
tonight and slit my throat, but I can conceive of nothing as boring as WATCHING 
a 1-0 no hitter (with maybe two or three hits on the winning side). It may be
fun to read about, or hear about, but I'd rather have a root canal (it's over
quicker).

Mike JN

    > It ain't true in hockey, where fans more often find themselves yapping
    > about a_awesome goaltending performance than hat tricks. 
    
    Replace "goaltending performance" with "fight" and I think you'd be
    closer to the truth.  ;^(
    
    re: offense & college hoops
    
    One of the biggest problems in college hoops right now is the
    officiating.  This isn't getting alot of ink, but alot of coaches have
    been moaning about how the refs are letting *WAY* to much go, mainly in
    the interest of TV.  (i.e. the folks at home don't like to see the
    action stopped all the time)  We can probably credit John Thompson and
    Gougetown (tm) with popularizing the "Run and Butcher" defense.  Now
    there's tons of teams doing it (Arkansas, Providence, LMU, Kentucky, 
    Oklahoma, etc, etc.)  and those that don't teach this mega-aggressive
    (and previously illegal) defensive tactics are being put at a
    competitive disadvantage.  
    
    It stinks, but it's reality.  They're hoping the elimination of one
    time-out per half will give the refs more freedom to stop the action
    more.  I'm not optimistic.
    
    
    - ACC Chris

    My one, and only, theory on sports in general is:
    
    	Just lay back and enjoy it, BABY!!!!
    
    Is there any need to go into it any further?  I thought sports is just
    a form of entertainment, not another spreadsheet to be analyzed.
    
    But, of course, don't let me stop you guys......  :-)
    
    H�wk

    
�    Replace "goaltending performance" with "fight" and I think you'd be
�    closer to the truth.  ;^(
    
I disagree ACChris.  I think if you talk to the true, genuine fans of 
the game (not the zipperhead fans, but the people who *know* the game)
they'll  talk more of strategy and great plays they remember.

When I was in 7th grade (I'd have to figure out the year) Ken Dryden
turned in some of the finest goaltending I have ever seen in my life.
I'm not a Habs fan, but I've always been a goalie fan.  Those are
the kinds of things I remember....

'Saw

    I think the belief that "fans like offense" doesn't always hold up
    to close inspection.
    
    Football is probably the best example of a sport where defense
    receives a sizable chunk of the "glory".   Think about the great
    defenses and you'll recall great names like "Steel Curtain",
    "Purple People Eaters", "Fearsome Foursome", "New York Sack
    Exchange", "Monsters Of The Midway", "Orange Crush", "Doomsday
    Defense", and so on ...
    
    How many football offenses have such appeal ???   Sure, Montana
    runs the Niners like a Swiss watch but you don't hear them called
    "Montana's Maulers" do we ???   Even the college offenses like
    Oklahoma and Nebraska that rack up 50 or 60 points a game against
    weaker opponents don't have colorful monikers for their offensive
    squads.
    
    As for basketball, defense is appreciated only by the truly
    knowledgable.  It is hard to appreciate a defense in a 124-110
    game until you have to give credit to the defense that "held" them
    to *only* 110 points.
    
    Defense is just about everything in the low-scoring sports like
    hockey and soccer.  Goals are often scored on pure flukes like a
    puck that hits a chip in the ice and hops over a good guy's stick
    onto a bad guy's stick.   Goalies in these sports are very brave
    souls indeed.  Not just because they face a puck or ball shot at
    them but because their margin of error is so slim.  Nobody cares if
    Kelly Tripucka does an "ol�" when his man drives around him.   But
    if Mike Liut lets in a goal that clangs off both posts *and* a
    teammate's skate into the net, they call for his head.
    
    Defense in baseball is so subtle that it's very easily missed. 
    Over a 162 game season it gets lost in weight of offensive numbers
    but keep in mind something Sparky Anderson once said ...
    
    "If you win 3 games out of every 5, you'll win the World Series
    but if you win only 2 games out of every 5, you'll finish in last
    place."
    
    Over the course of a full year, the leather of an Ozzie Smith or
    Benito Santiago or Kent Hrbek can win a lot of critical games. 
    Those boring mid-August 2-1 snorefests count the same as the wild
    23-22 jobs in April in Wrigley.
    
    Bob Hunt

I don't think that offense necessarily does it either.

I'm a really big soccer fan, and I know that I can enjoy myself watching
Liverpool beat Arsenal 1-0 as much as I could seeing them take 
Luton Town apart 5-0.

There's a lot that goes on in a game, and there's always something 
interesting.  If a player gets booked, or (ejected) that adds an
element of spice to the game.

The goalies are some of the nimblest men I've ever seen (even Nevil
Southall from Everton ;^) :^))  and they don't get BLAMed all that
much.

Some commentators are brutal though.  I was watching an international
between Ireland and someone else, and this one striker stretched full
out between two guys to get his head on the ball, managed to make the
ball curve slightly around the goalkeeper, and then the ball missed
the net by a hairs breadth...."Tsk tsk," said the color man, "he
is an international player, and there's no reason to miss an easy
shot like that!"  I was rolling!

I would say that the suspense factor plays big in soccer...

JMHO,
'Saw

Dear T(Ball),

�    Btw, I take this as a tacit admission that you don't particularly 
�    understand or care for the Nation's Pasttime, for the game of baseball
�    and most of it's activity (whether mental or physical) revolves around
�    the pitcher-batter confrontation, and in a 1-0 no hitter there would be
�    more of both types than in your typical ALmost League 9-7 bore fest.

	No it is not a tacit admission, because I do understand and care for
baseball. And I've played and coached baseball for years. And I feel I'm at
least as knowledgeable on the intricacies of the game as the next fan. And
while the pitcher batter confrontation `initiates' activity, I don't feel that
it comprises `most' of the activity. (POPB allowed I presume)

	I can understand and care for the game of chess. I can recognize the
intricacy and skill involved in a pawn pressure game, and the incredible
tension that builds as the game progresses. HOWEVER (he exclaimed in boldtype),
I do not want to sit and watch such a chess match for three hours either. I
have no objection to others watching such a contest, I recognize that many
people find it enthralling, and I find no need to question their grasp of the
game, or their sanity. Different strokes etc.

Mike JN

    I have to agree about some of the aspects of hockey being bantered
    about.  Last night for example, Bourque drove a shot off the post, and
    the fans came flying out of their seats.  You can hear the crowd
    buzzing.  Someone from Hartford did the same and the fans in unison 
    let out a sigh relief.  
    
    I definitely agree with the Saw on this one ACChris.  If the game
    interests you at all, listen to the reaction of the fans when the home
    team scores a goal compared to when a fight occurs.  There's no
    comparison.  Sure, there are those yappin' hounds that salivate over
    blood and can't wait to see two guys punchin' each other's helmet,
    but on the whole that's not the case.  I sure as hell don't turn my
    head when it happens and I enjoy a good dukin' now and then, but that
    certainly ain't what the game's about.  JMHO
    
    					Steve

    Baseball was meant for the radio airwaves.  Lets your imagination kick
    into action.  Nothing like sitting on the porch with your favorite
    beverage, and listening to John Miller.
    
    					Steve 

    The kind of action that gets a crowd excited isn't always during
    a scoring opportunity.  Most of the action in soccer is the
    player with the ball in one-on-one situations with an opponent or
    the offense passing the ball to gain an advantage.  It's this
    continuous "chess game" along with extreme ball handling skills
    that is the majority of soccer.  It appeals to me but it doesn't
    to many people.  On the other hand, none of this play is memorable
    unless there is an outstanding effort by someone, but it is still
    exciting.
    
    Cowboy
    

    Re Bob Hunt on football defense
    
    As someone once said "You never, ever hear the fans chanting 'Offense,
    Offense'.
    
    To me, the single most poignant, most memorable moment of this past
    football season was Gary Reason's stopping Bobby Humphrey on 4th
    and goal at mile high.  Amazing.  Made the whole season.
    
    JD

    and offensively, Bo running over the Boz

   � To me, the single most poignant, most memorable moment of this past
   � football season was Gary Reason's stopping Bobby Humphrey on 4th
   � and goal at mile high.  Amazing.  Made the whole season.
    
    Gee, I thought it was Randall Cunningham's 91 yard punt ...
    
    Sorry, JD, had to rub it in ...
    
    Bob Hunt

    Brutal, Juice, Brutal
    
    JD

    What's it take from the fan viewpoint for a sport to be attractive?
    
    For me:  'The challenge of human athletic competition, the thrill
    of victory, the agony of defeat....'   
    
    Seriously.   
    
    The game must be simple enough that a 10 minute or less explanation
    will enable me to understand what each team/player is trying to
    accomplish.  The major penalties must be included in the short
    description (icing, offsides, free throws, etc.)  It must be complex 
    enough so that the true aficionado can find stuff to argue about 
    and second-guess.
    
    The action must be fast enough, whether offensive or defensive,
    that you get involved in the game.  Score isn't as important as
    drama, which is why soccer and hockey work for me.  It helps if
    the game is close, or you can see a way for the losing side to make
    up the difference as the game winds down.
    
    A&W

    REK, how's the dog doing?  :*)
    
    Lee

>>    REK, how's the dog doing?  :*)
  
Where IS he, anyways??  Time for an amazing REK WAG...

Anyway, I think that sports is mainly about the competition between the
players and teams, and from a spectator point of view it is therefore most
important to be able to see and understand the struggle and feel part of it.

Baseball here is a tough one because to the distant spectator it is difficult
to get excited about every play as one pitch looks like another until one
comes along that gets smacked somewhere or there is a replay to explain.

Soccer is a bit like that too, as the bulk of the play takes place in the 
middle of the large field and there are therefore few scoring chances and 
goals.  It would be a better sport IMO if they made the penalty area smaller
and added a couple of more refs (I mean one guy for a field that size??).

Hockey is my favourite because it is so fast in relation to the size of the
playing area, and results in lots of body to body contact and chances for
goals.

Basketball drives me nuts to watch because the same thing happens over and 
over 100 times a game.

Football fascinates me in spite of the fact that it is sometimes slow with
all the stoppages in play.  It must be the intensity of the all the little
battles going on all over the place that I like...

One that I haven't seen so far in here is Tennis, which is easy to understand
and follow, so you can feel right in the game just watching.  Playing is even
more fun, even if you play like I do.

r��k

�    Mike, how in the world cain you claim that the bulk of action in a
�    baseball game doesn't take place between the pitcher-batter confrontation? 
                                                           
MrT,

	Maybe I'm just playing at semantics, or maybe I'm not doing very well
communicating my point. I'd agree that the pitch./bat. confrontation takes the
most time. What I meant when I said it initiated the action was that much of
the game it is only three people involved `actively'. I realize others are
`into' the game. Mgr re: strategy, fielders re: position, etc..... but with the
crack of the bat..... WHAM! Everyone explodes into action! People are zooming
around, Fans are screaming, the Bat Girl is jumping up and down (god! I love it
when she does that!). Acrobatic catches, fantastic throws, home runs, hit and
run, slide, double plays, bunts. WHOA! That's baseball! I can appreciate skill,
tension, strategy, etc., all to hell and gone. And I still say, you can take a
No Hitter and put it where the sun don't shine. One man delivering a ball to
another is just one part of the game. But if the clown never hits it, it's the
whole game. And to me that's not total baseball.

Mike JN

    Leee, the dog was a little tough... didn't use enuff meat tenderizer
    on it...

    There is not such thing as sports theory. Each action in any sport
    requires a totally different movement, action, reaction of each
    moving object.

         REK

    Hey T, now that this note hit bottom can ax my question again?
    
    
    
    uh....well,  uh, who's gonna win the pennant?
    
    

   � Each hole is of a different shape, with differing lengths, slopes, 
   � landscapes, green sizes, traps, hazards, etc.  Each course is a 
   � different montage of such distinct holes.  Then you have the changing
   � conditions (wind, light, soil moisture, etc.) that further complicate
   � things by variegation.
    
    Not only that but the course changes from Thursday to Sunday. 
    They change the pin placements, shave the greens a little shorter,
    the weather is often different from day to day, and so on.
    
    After golf, I would make a serious case for baseball showing small
    amounts of repetition.  It may *look* the same but it most
    definitely is not the same.   A 2-1 pitch is different from a 3-1
    pitch.  Runner on first with 2 outs is much different than runner
    on first with 1 out.  And two different games, both decided by
    identical 3-2 scores, for example, can be amazingly diverse and
    bear no resemblance to each other.
    
    Bob Hunt

    And Golf and Baseball are the only two competitive sports that I
    can think of that out-of-shape slobs can excel at.  Speaks magnitudes
    for the physical stress incurred in those great games.  Mind you
    I like baseball, and I dabble in golf - but name me another sport
    that Lamarr Hoyt could win the leagues' award for best at his position?
    
    JD

>    I like baseball, and I dabble in golf - but name me another sport
>    that Lamarr Hoyt could win the leagues' award for best at his position?

	Bowling?   or is that a sport? :-)

Maybe JD,

But with all the guys running around the NFl nicknamed Fridge, 
house, garage, apt. building, etc, the NFL isn't exactly pure as 
the driven snow either...

That leaves hockey and basketball.

daryll

    We're talking "Sport Theory" here JD, and there's no reason I can 
    think of that there should be a prerequisite that participants be
    strong, fast, quick, etc, etc. before it be considered "sport".  Matter
    of fact this is one of the things I find so distasteful these days
    about the NFL and NBA.  The way the NFL picks its players isn't based
    on how well the guy plays but on a complex formula of objective
    measurements.  Talk about boring.  Same thing in the NBA, where it's
    necessary nowadays (there are a few exceptions, but not many) to be 6-5
    to play point guard and 6-10 to play forward.  The game is getting
    sterile as a shiney new needle (which'l probably used to inject
    steroids).  Yuck.
    
    Thank goodness for baseball and golf, where you can actually be a
    normal sized human and excel.
    
    				
    - ACC Chris

>    Thank goodness for baseball and golf, where you can actually be a
>    normal sized human and excel.
 
    	And that's why it's so boring to watch, too..   

    Ah, I see sean gets turned on by the freak show aspect of sports. 
    This is an interesting phenomenon that Pistol-Pete Maravich observed
    long ago when he compared the NBA to the circus.  (i.e. people coming
    to gauk and the tall people, etc.)
    
    Sad.
    
    
    - ACC Chris

    Golf and baseball command around the same salaries too.  Why beat
    helmets with someone in football when you can make more hitting a ball
    around the woods, and take a leisurely stroll at the same time? ;-)
    
    Mike

>>    After golf, I would make a serious case for baseball showing small
>>    amounts of repetition.  It may *look* the same but it most
>>    definitely is not the same.   A 2-1 pitch is different from a 3-1

Aw C'mon Bob.  What is important is that to everyone single fan in the stadium
(except maybe those right behind the plate) every damn pitch is perceived to
be exactly the same.  What the hell good is it to know it is different but
not know why?  As a result, you need to wait for the instant replay to
see what really happened.

So, while I would agree that the duel between pitcher and batter is one of
the most exciting and intense in sport, it's a snoozer unless you're one of
them or extremely close to the play...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


rick

    Would you people call fishing and hunting a sport?

    Chriss,
    
    You are wrong about my views, buddy.  I don't take to the freak
    show - but I expect athletes to be in shape - I don't like watching
    middle-aged, fat, out of shape slobs in double knit, dribblin tabacky
    juice down their chins.   I don't care if the guy is 7 fooot or
    5 foot - I expect 'pro' athletes to show some semblance of being
    in shape.  
    
    All the 'success' of fat slob baseball players does is fuel the
    imagination of the zillions of couch potatoes who sit there and
    say - gee, I don't need to exercise, I'm still in better shape than
    Lamar or Rick Rueschal...
    
    I like sports where you  can't be out of shape and compete at
    a 'pro' level - like track and field, soccer, hurling.
    
    JD

    
    Most definately.
    
    
    Mike,
    PGA players don't command any salary. Unlike baseball where you have
    one mediocre year and then go to arbitration and become an instant
    multi-millionare regardless if you ever play a good game again or not,
    in golf you have to produce to make any money. You only make what you
    earn, i.e. finish high on the leader board. The only slight variation
    to that is that if you win a certain tournament, you get an exemption
    and don't have to qualify for certain tournaments for X number of
    years. All that does is give you the opportunity to compete for the
    money. You still have to produce to make any money. You also have to
    pay for your own travelling expenses ect. Only a relatively small
    number of golfers get lucrative sponsorship contracts.
    
                                                   HOOT
    

    Golf a sport ?
    
    Not as long as you have some potbellied wimp-fairy-girlymon walking
    around in that TACKY POLYESTER double and triple-knit pants .....
    
    Disgusting ....
    
    DrM

Thanks T for the golf statement I agree that each course is completely 
different as well as the type of grass. Bermuda is completely different than 
a Kentucky Blue grass and the player either has to adjust or miss the cut. That 
is why the leader board is completely different almost every week. 

The pressure that accumulates when a player has a 3 foot putt with 10,000 people
standing around in dead silence is awesome. I can't imagine a player shooting
the winning free throw in the NCAA to 17,000 dead quiet fans. That type of
pressure is different than 17,000 sdreaming fans but you are quite aware that 
every eye is on you. 

Jeff
 

>    You are wrong about my views, buddy.  
    
    No, I'm right, and the rest of your note proves it!  You consider being
    in great shape a prerequisite for something to be considered "sport". 
    It simply ain't so, unless you're redefining the definition of the
    word.  (Perhaps it'd be courteous to drop Webster's a note so they can
    update the next edition ...)
    
    > dribblin tabacky juice down their chins
    
    Now just hole_on their bubba.  Nowhere have *I* ever noticed a
    correlation between a little pench and a fella bein' an out_of_shape
    slob.  No, this is just an ugly stereotype fostered by mega-latsters
    like yourself, and incorrect one at that.  Think I might bring this up
    at my next UDD (Understanding the Dynamics of Difference, for you
    uninitiated) class!  
    
    > All the 'success' of fat slob baseball players does is fuel the
    > imagination of the zillions of couch potatoes who sit there and
    > say - gee, I don't need to exercise, I'm still in better shape than
    > Lamar or Rick Rueschal...
    
    I realize that alot of people think TV is intended to mold us into
    perfect people and all, but I'd like to propose an alternate (if naive)
    view.  Namely, watching sport on TV is meant to entertain, not
    program me into believing I need to be able to bench 300 pounds (even
    if it DOES take steroids to do it, darnit!) or run like a deer. 
    (Course the message *does* get a little confusing when they intermix all
    those beer ads in, now don't it?)
    
    > I like sports where you  can't be out of shape and compete at
    > a 'pro' level - like track and field, soccer, hurling.
    
    Fine.  Just realize that you're being narrow-minded and kinda foolish
    and we'll let you think whatever you want!  (;^) )
    
    
    - ACC Chris

    	So therefore JD, in your opinion, Greyhound Racing is a sport.
    All the greyhounds have to be in tiptop shape (no polyester blankets,
    or fat, unsightly looking mutts) to compete.  I always fancied myself
    a sportsman and not a gambler.
    
    				/Don

    Ah, but Chris - I said PRO sports.  I watch em for entertainment,
    and I expect them to be in good shape.  For the rest of us non-pros,
    I don't care what shape you are in - go out and play.  
    
    So maybe the TV line was a little off base.  But when talking Pro
    Sports - I expect the folks to be in good shape.  And I rate the
    sports by what I feel is the shape you have to be in.  I put Baseball
    and golf way down on the list, because of the folks who play it
    professionally, and excel, that are obviously less fit then most
    of their brethren.
    
    /Don - greyhounds are animals - I don't consider a sport with
    non-humans as being a sport.  Yeah, jockeys are in good shape, but
    without the horse, they are just a bunch of midgits dressed up like
    golfers...
    
    JD

================================================================================
Note 206.72                       Sports Theory                         72 of 72
RIPPLE::DEVLIN_JO "Don't steal home wifout it!"      17 lines  11-APR-1990 10:17
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
�    /Don - greyhounds are animals - I don't consider a sport with
�    non-humans as being a sport.
    
�    JD

	So you don't consider football a sport?

			/Don

    	Steve, is that a theory of yours? 8^)  
    
    	I'll still contend that baseball and golf may be fun to play,
    but it is most uncomfortable to watch due to the lack of physical
    activity and constnat break in the action.  
    	I admire freak show players who can rise above the elitist in
    their group to be in the top echelon of their sport:  Basketball,
    Football, Hockey, Soccer, Tennis, Track/Field, Rugby, etc..
    
    sean

    So, Steven, tell us, is sheep-boarding a sport?  :-)
    
    H�wk
    

    < Note 206.68 by LUNER::BROOKS "Bo,Jordan,Hendry,Shakespere,Gronowski" >
             -< Does the dress code get any worse than in golf ? >-

>    Not as long as you have some potbellied wimp-fairy-girlymon walking
>     around in that TACKY POLYESTER double and triple-knit pants .....


    Doc, this is *exackaly* what you wore to Sox/Tigermania IV.
    
    Mark.

How about a litsing of sports in which you don't have to be a mutant to play
at the professional level...

Soccer
Tennis
golf
Bowling
Hockey
baseball
Ski racing
Some track and field events...

anybody got any others? I'm talking about big-time mucho $$$$ sports or sports
with High fan awareness...(ie. log rolling wouldn't fit into this nor would
something like bobsledding)

IMHO I don't appreciate watching a sport where 90% of the atheletes are mutants
as much as a sport where the average sized guy can succeed as well as the 
mutants...


Metz

�  Yeah, jockeys are in good shape, but without the horse, they are
� just a bunch of midgets dressed up like golfers...
    
JD,

	That's a classic! I'm rollward!

Mike JN

    JD, can pistol-packing pygmies qualify as jockeys?  If they dress up
    like golfers?
    
    H�wk

    	Alot of jockeys also participate in "Dwarf Tossing".  I would
    think this should qualify them as athletes.
    
    				/Don

    	jockey's also make good checker boards if you can get them to
    lie down and sit still.
    
    sean

    THis note has proved one sports theory - that no matter what the
    subject is - somehow, someway, OURGNG::LDUC will get sheep, some
    lumber-type inference, mutants, and other transgressions into the
    discussion.  Too funny.
    
    Is car-racing a sport?  I mean take away the car, and you have a
    bunch of guys dressed likethe Man from Glad.
    
    JD

    Is aerobics a sport?  You take away the instructor and all you've
    got is a bunch of spandex-clad, walkman-totin', bum-punchin' Jack
    LaLanne-wanna-bees.
    
    Mark.

    In your opinion/theory, athletes in what sport are most physically fit?
    
    I say it's a tie between Basketball players and Water Polo players.
    
    	--dan'l
    

    how does one "lie down AND sit still"?

    	Drag-Racing is a sport JD.  Stock Car Racing too.  You always
    know it's a sport when you see cigarette adds all over the place.
    
    				/Don

    
>        how does one "lie down AND sit still"?
 
    	nonono... the jockey lies down, the hoarse sits still and plays
    with you.
                        
    sean

    ?Don,
    
    I'll agree on Drag-racing - you gotta be in shape to race in them
    high-heels and pull all that Silicone around!  ;-)
    
    Is Wrassling a sport (Pro?)  (Stir up some real trouble...) .-)
    
    JD

    Here we go again....  No, pro rasslin' is showbiz.  If you don't
    believe me, ask Guy Mainilla.  :*)
    
    Lee

    	what does Milli Vanilli have anything to do wif this?

Bowling:

	Yes, you can be overweight and bowl, but watch the guys who
	excel at the sport and make the most money.  They are in
	good shape, no beer bellies and good leg drive.

Golf:

	Again, the same.  Power comes from the hips and legs.  You
	don't *often* see a 300 pounder like the ranking amateur in
	the Masters last week.

Soccer:
	Size doesn't really matter.  If you have the skill, and can
	run your a__ off for 90 minutes, you'll make the grade.

Baseball:
	Size doesn't matter.  Evidence Greg Luzinski and Cookie Rojas...
	(or was it Freddie Patek???)

Sheep HERDING is a sport of sorts in Great Britain.

Racing is most definitely a sport in my book.  A top notch grand prix
motorcycle racer is in better shape than a lot of other athletes.
Formula I is grueling, and so is NASCAR.

I don't know much about drag racing.  I know I would be that good at
it cause I'm not a speed shifter...

JMHO,
'Saw

    Anyone think hunting & fishing are sports?

    >I wonder how Bill Cartwright would look in a White Sox uniform?
    
    Or Manute Bol sportin' some goaltender's equipment?
    
    					Steve

The mental aspect of distance running is also very complex. 

Body-"I'm gonna die" (right foot)
Mind- "No your not" (left foot)
Body-"I'm gonna die" (right foot)
Mind- "No your not" (left foot)
Body-"I'm gonna die" (right foot)
Mind- "No your not" (left foot)

    HAHAHAHA!!!!���  Good one, Jeff!
    
    Dinz's mental strategy:
    
    Body- left foot (right foot)
    Mind- dUmb SHiT! (right foot)
    
    Body- right foot (right foot)
    Mind- i'M MOvIn' nOW! (left foot)
    
    Body- left foot (right foot)
    Mind- SUMbiTcH� (left foot)
    
    Body- left foot (left foot)
    Mind- MILleR tIMe� (left foot)
    
    :-)
    

    MrT -
    
    By obese baseball players I mean Lamar Hoyt who won the Cy Young
    despite having a beer belly that hung to his knees - and Rueschal,
    and Charlie Kerfield.  Kirby Puckett is a stud, and he looks like
    a little brick doo-doo house on TV - packed muscle.  Also baseball
    lets geriatrics like Phil Niekro excel....
    
    I made fun of car racing, which I know is strenuous, both physically
    and mentally, and you countered by making fun of running - or by
    showing your ignorance, jogging.  Fine.  Just proves to me that
    you don't know a thing about track and field.   But I won't get
    into that.
    
    Also, I've never bought the 'greatest athletes in the world' crap
    about NBA players.
    
    Golf - as Saw said, the good players are usually pretty fit, and
    mentally it's a toughie - if you've ever played, youu know what
    I mean.
    
    And like I said first, baseball is a sport that old folks and out
    of shape dudes can still excel in.  In the other sports, they can't.
    
    Picture Phil Niekro at 45 leading hte fast breatk, or running the
    1500 in the Olympics, or swimming the individual medley, or playing
    outside linebacker (or QB), or playing center for the Bruins, or
    playing midfield in soccer, and on and on.  He'd either die, or
    never make it.  But in baseball, he simply chugged along.....
    
    JD

    JD, maybe they should stick a qualifier in the Cy Young selection
    process.  Some kindof objective formula that determines the guys body
    fat percentage, oxygen intake levels, and any other metrics that could
    help determine how physically fit he is.  
    
    Why, with just precedent (like the fack that NFL talent scouts look at
    the "Football Ability" category with marginal interest)
    we could safely throw out such antiquities as W-L percentages
    and ERA's to determine baseball's best hurler.
    
    Sheesh.
    
    
    - ACC Chris

	Re: Track and Field

	Not to be contrary.... but have you seen some of the dudes and dudettes
engaging in the hammer throw. We're talking some serious pork here.

	ditto-ising for the shot put

	As my ole Granny used to say:" Judge not, lest you be slapped upside the
haid with this cane, ya little snot. " (Granny was a caution)

Mike JN

    
    RE way back to .68, "does the dress code get any worse than in golf?"
    
    Do you remember discos?

    Mike,
    
    I'll agree wif you on the weighmen, but I ain't saying nufing to
    their face.
    
    ACChris,
    
    Geez, get a life.  All I said was baseball was a sport that the
    out of shape, or old geriatric could excel at, and they couldn't
    at other sports.  Didn't say they should take that into account
    when giving out awards - just saying that to me it proves baseball
    is the least physically demanding of the major sports.
    
    Gee golly.
    
    JD

    Also T and Acc,
    
    Remember, I've stated things as IMO - gosh I even like baseball,
    just don't like watching middle aged, paunchy Dh's go up swinging
    their creaking bones and trying to move their withered loins down
    90 feet of basepath without needing a rest or oxygen.  No where
    have I said *all* baseball players are out-of-shape, and no where
    have I said I enjoy the freak shows or mutants, as some noters have
    called hoopsters and footballers.  I simply like sports, and when
    I watch pro sports, I'd rather see well-conditioned athletes than
    those obviously not in shape.  
    
    Triatheltes???  I think they are crazy.  Won't watch the TV sport,
    don't think much of em.
    
    JD

RE .100

> Is golf a sport?
    
> Definitely.  Just think of the precise mechanics required.  The 
> strategy, the gamesmanship, the superheated level of mano-a-mano
> competition (anybody out there forgotten the image of White Shark
> gagging during the sudden death playoff at last year's Masters?).

Agreed!  


RE: Your comments on marathons and jogging.

Jogging is not a sport - it is an exercise.   However, running and
competive road races are sports.  There IS a difference 
between the fashion joggers you see running in the park on Sunday with
makeup and earings on (male or female), and the serious runner who trains
daily.   

Just as there is a difference between the serious golfer and the 250 pound
golfer in lime green polyester pants who thinks he is participating in a
sport. 

Marathons and other road races are competive.  They involve endurance, 
strategy, and some pretty decent money.   I think the problem with some of
these events is that the races are usually open to all comers.  Therefore
you see Joe Blow out there with the elite runners.   Events like the Bay to 
Breakers race in San Fran with people dressed up as the California raisins 
do little for a sports credibility.  The Olympic marathon event is a 
different matter.


RE: Your comments about Jimmy Carter.

    Jimmy Carter was an embarassment most everything he did.  While he was
    fishing once,  He tried to club a rabbit that was swimming towards his
    boat with one of the oars.   Don't ask me what the rabbit was doing in
    the water - it wasn't the backstroke.  
    
                                         

   >> Jimmy Carter was an embarassment most everything he did.

Except, of course, huge budget deficits, Marine Corps expeditions, weapons 
deals with the Iranians, major medical crises, equal rights progress, and a
few others that The Gipper was obviously much more qualified to handle.

And he didn't piss off the broccoli famers either like our current exec did.

Bob Hunt

    
    JD,
    You can't compare players from one sport to another, i.e. Manute Bol in
    goalie gear ect., to bolster runners as top athletes. Putting the shoe
    on the other foot, how would Jim Ryan do blocking Howie Long?, guarding
    the Mailman?, batting against that geriatric Niekro?, boxing a top
    contender in his weight class? ect. 
    
    Answers: he would get seriously injured, possibly killed, against Long,
             the Mailman, and the boxer. Against Niekro he would never hit
             a ball, unless it was pure blind luck. At least he probably
             wouldn't suffer severe injury, unless he got hit by a wild
             pitch.
    
                                                   HOOT
    

    HOOT,
    
    I guess my point wasn't understood.  I agree with you.  But at least
    Ryan was in shape.  I meant that old, out-of-shape guys can't excel
    in the other sports, but they can in baseball.  Take an old,
    out-of-shape Howie Long and stick him on the defensive line - do
    you think he'd stand a chance?  Or an old, out-of-shape Bob Cousey
    - think he'd last long?  Or even try to put Jim Ryan in a competitive
    mile right  now - he'd get destroyed, maybe lapped.  But in baseball,
    the same type guy can do well.
    
    JD

    
    Jack Nicklaus - age 52? and with a growing pot-belly seemed to do 
    pretty good in the Masters last week.
    
    If physical capability (strength & speed) were the only factors in a
    sport I agree.  But these are not the only ingredients. 
    

re Nicklaus:

	Actually Jack just turned 50, thus allowing him to compete
	on the Seniors Tours, wherein he won his first tournament that
	he competed in.  They said he was (quote) "looking rather svelte
	for 50".

re Sprots(tm) in general:

	I think that in most sports, save something totally grueling
	like weightlifting or sprinting, there are two factors that
	combine to make an athlete what he/she is.

	The first is youth, the second is experience.

	Taking baseball, for example, an outfielder with youth on his
	side, and good speed, can often make up for a lack of experience,	
	due to being able to fly after a ball initially misplayed.

	The older player who has lost a step or two, will often make up
	for that by using all of the experience gained in an entire career.

	While experience isn't going to absorb the punishing blows of
	a football game, or lessen the recovery time after playing, which
	*obviously* gets progressively longer as we get older, it will
	service to make one's game more compact:  less wasted motion etc.

	The mixture of youth and experience is important in some endeavors.
	The average age of the climbers who attain the summit of Everest
	is mid-30s.  One theory is that this age combines a body still youthful
	enough to endure the rigors of the climb, with a mind that has 
	gained enough moutaineering experience to weather all the mental 
	factors....

Re running:
	
	I tend to agree with JD.  Jogging (ie high fashion) is a trend or
	a fad, perpetuated by the yuppies.

	Running on the other hand, is probably one of the most simple things
	a human can do, dating back into our prehistory.

	Running, although simple, requires a lot of strategy in a race.
	All runners are different.  Some runners have to be front runners.
	They cannot effectively compete if they are not in first place.
	Other runners have to hang back, ready to make a move at the
	right time.

	While I agree with the runners who dress up like the California
	Raisens not helping the sport (unless it's a specific "fun run")
	I do think it's great for average Joe's (or Chainsaws) like
	me to be able to run with world class runners.  

	A couple of times, Bill Rogers would run in the Manchester
	Thanksgiving Day Race.  Instead of pushing to win, he ran
	with the pack, talking with people and enjoying the race.
	That's pretty cool.  At least you could *REALLY* say that
	you ran with Bill Rogers (not 1hr+ behind him in a Marathon 8^))

	Mainly because so much of running is competing against yourself.
	I'll *never* be world class competitive, but I can go out and
	run for personal bests, or to conquor parts of courses which have
	stymied me in the past.

	Why do people who aren't scratch golfers/PGA pros play golf?  Because
	it's fun, and they're trying to improve.


	I think Sports exist because, deep down within each of us, there
	exists a need for fun.  We participate in those we enjoy or
	are somewhat good at (ie.  forget me and tennis...just forget it)
	and watch others which fascinate us.  Sports relieve stress and
	tension.  If you participate it relieves it by creating another
	healthy stress on your mind and body.  If you watch, by immersing
	yourself in a game you are giving your mind a rest from day to
	day problems....

JMHO,
'Saw

.112�    Jimmy Carter was an embarassment most everything he did.  While he was
.112�    fishing once,  He tried to club a rabbit that was swimming towards his
.112�    boat with one of the oars.   Don't ask me what the rabbit was doing in
.112�    the water - it wasn't the backstroke.  
    
	The rabbit was a mutant strain developed by cunning Russian 
scientists, planted in the USA in the early 70's and designed to attack
on command.  Fortunately Jimmah, being trained in underwater combat was
able to fend off the furry terrorist and foil the asassination attempt.

     
.118�    called hoopsters and footballers.  I simply like sports, and when
.118�    I watch pro sports, I'd rather see well-conditioned athletes than
.118�    those obviously not in shape.  

	And when I watch pro sports I'd rather see someone who knows how
to play in crunch time rather than some milk drinkin' christian with a
washboard stomach who chokes miserably when the money's on the line.
Sonny Jurgenson had a paunch, as did John Hadl, Dan Marino.  Remember the
hero of the 1968 World Series?  Mickey Lolich looked more like a before 
picture in the Nutri-System adds, but when the pressure was on...

				/Don
                              

    Has anyone ever seen Mickey Lolich and the Slasher together at the same
    time?  You don't suppose.......  Nah!  :-)
    
    H�wk

For what it's worth, (and I'm *rarely* political in this maelstrom
of ideologies called SPORTS), I think that Carter has done his
best service to this country in the things he has achieved after
being President.

You can't fault the guy for having a good conscience anyway....


Crunch time:

Crunch time is an arena all to itself.  Crunch time is a Roger
Staubach (gawd I hate the Sowboys -- but Roger was a phenom) two minute
drill with passing heroics to beat the band.

Crunch time is a Bobby Orr goal in OT against St Louis....

Crunch time is Arsenal putting in the DECIDING goal in *injury time*
to steal the championship away from my beloved Liverpool...

Crunch time is Larry Mize, hole-ing a 142 foot chip to win the Masters.

Crunch time is Bobby Thompson's Shot Heard Round the World, as the
"Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant"...

Crunch time is Ted Williams playing the second game of the double header
when sitting it out would have ensured batting over .400....

Crunch time is Carlton Fisk, 1975 WS, Game 6......


Crunch time is theory unto itself.  In crunch time it seems all of the
other rules go away, and it all gets quiet....


Chainsaw

Here's a theory question for ya:


	In a given situation, coming into the late stages of an "event",
	would you rather be in second, and have to overtake the leader,
	or would you rather be leading.

	In ice skating, sometimes you hear skaters say they'd rather be
	in second startin the final skate.  Sometime you'll hear a golfer
	say he wants to be leading going into the final round.

	Baseball teams in pennant races will say "We don't mind being second.
	We like being second, because we have to win.  We don't have to
	worry about losing...."


	What's yer preference.

	Personally, I like to be trailing the leader just a tad, then
	make a move to overtake them.  

'Saw

> And when I watch pro sports I'd rather see someone who knows how
> to play in crunch time rather than some milk drinkin' christian with a
> washboard stomach who chokes miserably when the money's on the line.
    
Kinda like Orel Hershiser, /Don?  ;^)  
    
    Saw, I respectfully disagree with your Fisk crunch-time comment.  Much
    as I admit it was a dramatic feat and all, there simply wasn't that
    much pressure on him.  The game was tied, for heaven's sake.  Now Dave
    Henderson in '86, .... *THAT* was Crunch Time.  
    
    
    - ACC Chris
    

�    Saw, I respectfully disagree with your Fisk crunch-time comment.  Much
�    as I admit it was a dramatic feat and all, there simply wasn't that
�    much pressure on him.  The game was tied, for heaven's sake.  Now Dave
�    Henderson in '86, .... *THAT* was Crunch Time.  
    
Yes, I'll agree to a point.  (Hendu was DEFINITELY CUUURRRRUUNNNCCH TIME)

But also, I think any "sudden death" or OT situation has its own type
of pressure associated with it.  Whether it's Extra Time in the 
FA Cup Championship, or sudden death in the NHL, the pulse is quickened,
and it seems that every action takes on new significance.

One year, playing softball, we needed a victory to make the final playoff
spot (we'd had a BAD year...usually we were in first or second most of 
the year...) But anyway, we went 14 innings to decide this game, tied
at 2.  I'll tell you, every simple fly ball that was hit to CF, made
my heart pound.  [funny thing was that the hard plays didn't do that to
me....]

We finally won with a single, a sacrifice fly, and a double down the RF
line.  But, the "second game" (innings 8-14) was definitely more
pressured-packed than the first.....

'Saw

    True, extra innings in a game of high magnitude carries with it a
    certain added pressure.  In the case of the '75 Series, with the Bosox
    down a game and on the brink of elimination, the electricity being
    generated on the field coulda lit up the whole darn Northeast Corridor!
    
    But I still contend that, in the case of Fisk, there wasn't really that
    much pressure.  So he strikes out?  Big deal, the game still goes on. 
    You wanna talk pressure, how bought playing shortstop (in the same
    situation) and having a guy on 2nd or 3rd and have a hot smash head
    your way.  GULP!  Or being a pitcher with the bases loaded and run the
    count to 3 and whatever.  DOUBLE GULP!!  That's Pressure, with a
    captial "P"!
    
    
    - ACC Chris

    Nice topic T....see what you started!  ;^)
    
    IMHO, the best athlete in the world is the winner of the Olympic
    decathalon.  This tests the athlete in areas of strength, endurance,
    speed, and agility.  The one area it doesn't test is accuracy (ie as
    in golf, pitching a baseball, etc...).  
    
    Rebut away buttheads...
    
    Claybone

    No rebuttal here, I agree that a decathlete is as good an all-around
    athlete as any. 
    
    Triathletes (especially those that do Ironman distance races) are no 
    slouches either.
    
    
    py

�    Well, I don't smoke cigs, but I *DO* smoke Macanudos, so I guess
�    I qualify as a butthaid:
    
I didn't know you could smoke Menudo.....8^) 8^) 8^)

	Acccuracy pays off when throwing the javelin

Mike JN

>I didn't know you could smoke Menudo.....8^) 8^) 8^)
    
    That stuff reeks when you cook it, I can imagine what it would be like
    if you smoked it.
    
    Mike

    Correct T.  I did forget the mental aspect of *some* sports.
    In terms of physical ability, I still think the decathalon is
    the best overall measuring stick.  The decathalon is also a
    descent measure of skill as well.  Mikey JN gave us a good
    example.  Another good example is the pole vault.  I mean, hey,
    if you miss that little box at the end of the runway with that
    ~20' pole, at a full gallop, you will be the sole reason that
    the Johnson & Johnson Band Aid stock goes through the roof!
    
    Claybone

    You are correct T that the slam-bam-jam is far too easy these days in
    NBA-land, what with it practially being a prerequisite that
    you be a 6-5 jumping jack to even be given a look-see.  90% of the time
    I see an NBA jam I issue a giant YAWN and go back to sipping my
    beverage.
    
    BUT, ...
    
    The jam *CAIN* be an exciting, thrilling, momentum changing event,
    especially in the much more emotional college game.  There's something
    about the *violence* of throwing one down that gets the crowd (and
    players) fired up, kinda like when a boxer really CONNECTS with a
    powerful punch.  It's especially great (IMO) when a guy who isn't that
    big nor a great leaper makes a steal and, on sheer adrenalin, throws
    one down.  (You probably get this feeling *anytime* one of yer Hucksters
    dunks, eh?)
    
    I'm not sure what it is, but the jam is POWERFUL.
    
    Sometimes when I'm feeling low coming home from work and I've already
    kicked the dog around I'll go out, lower the hoop a couple of inches
    (okay, a couple of feet in my case ;^( ) and throw a few down.  Makes
    me feel like a new man!
    
    
    - ACC Chris
    

Personally, I'm in a near-synaptic-hyper-space-jump kind of a state
when one of those big gawky guys (who used to be called big gawky guys
until basketball was invented) runs down the court barely keeping one
foot in front of the other, and makes (are you ready):

		A simple, fundamental, lay-up.

I know of nothing more that says "In your face" than the non-chalance
of a layup....

JMHO,
'Saw

    Why IMO, can a slam be exciting, as exciting as a home run, or why
    is the slam praised?  My guess would be that few folks have actually
    slammed a basketball - at any level - compared to those that hit
    a homer at some level.  I never could slam a basketball - could
    touch the rim, could grap the rim and hang, but couldn't slam. 
    But I hit homers in little league, in Babe Ruth, in softball, etc
    (all with wooden bats, of course).  So the slam is something of
    mystical proportions...to me at least.  
    
    I still think hitting a homer is might tough, though, and it is
    harder to hit a homer, at the professional level, then it is to
    slam a basketball at the professional level, just given the numbers
    of time per game each happens....
    
    JD

    > slam is something of mystical proportions ... couldn't slam ...
    
    No need for this JD.  Just go out and lower the rim a tad and then let
    your imagination run wild!  (I do!)
    
    
    - ACC Chris_who_has_slam_dunked_lots
    

     
    >But I hit homers in little league, in Babe Ruth, in softball, etc
    >(all with wooden bats, of course).  
    
	Sure ya did JD, sure ya did.........;^)
    
    Claybone

I hit homers in little league, in softball, backrooms, alleys, trusty 
woods....out in the cornfields where the woods got heavy, out in the
back seat of my 60 Chevy, working on mysteries without any clues....

Bob Seeger

    	re: .141  
    
    	Nothing goes into a slam-jam [sic], huh???
    
    	Possible charge?
    	Possible travel?
    	Possible rejection?
    	Miscalculation on jump/speed?
    	Decision to take the 2 or pass out for a three and get under
    	the boards for a reb?
    
    	Of course nothing goes into a slam-jam [sic]...
                                            
    sean

Not that I really disagree with the tone of the HR vs. Slam
Dunk argument, but I'd like to play devil's advocate for
a second.

There was an argument put forth before that alluded to a
preference for a basketball team that plays with optimal
efficiency, such as that Villanova team which miraculously
beat Georgetown in the '85 (?) finals.

Can't it be argued that the dunk is absolute embodiment of
efficient basketball shooting?  There was a time where dunk
shots were few and far between, in a relative sense as rare
as home runs were.  I don't think it's because *all* the
athletes were incapable of dunking, but rather more a question
of training and coaching.

Today, if a guy who can slam gets the ball inside, he'd better
slam or the coach should jump down his throat.  I know
I get frustrated when Magic makes a brilliant pass inside
to AC Green only to see Green botch a one-handed layin, as
opposed to going up strong with the slam.

The game has evolved to where not only is a slam a
symbol of expression for many of the players, but it is part
of a coach's strategy and goals.

In that respect, it is equivalant to the HR:  They both reflect
the perfect offensive play in their games.

Dan

    	Good observation Dan.  The slam dunk has a lifetime percentage
    of something like 98.9%.  It's a high efficiency, foul drawing shot
    that can easily result in 3 points.  What impresses me most about
    slam dunks is the originality players can put into them.  Let's
    face it, there's isn't an All Star Home Run Competition.  8^)
    
    sean

    >What impresses me most about
    >slam dunks is the originality players can put into them.  Let's
    >face it, there's isn't an All Star Home Run Competition.  8^)

Actually, I think slam dunk competitions are hopelessly boring,
and are part of the reason that the subject even came up with
slams being thought of negatively.  Originally they were unique
and somewhat interesting to watch.  Today they are pass�.
Jordan got out just in time.

And FYI, there have been plenty upon plenty of equally hokey
Home Run competitions, including, but not limited to the old
TV show Home Run Derby and a current contest in association
with the major league's All Star game.

Dan

Nah, youse guys got it wrong:

	For the Home Run, you start your build up early.
	First, there's the roses.  Then the dinner invitation.
	At dinner, you make sparkling, witty, and charming
	conversation, holding fine eye contact, and culminating
	with your home_run swing after a nightcap.

	For the slam-jam, a six pack will do, followed by an
	aggressive move to the hoop in hopes of a high percentage
	score....

FWIW,
'Saw

    Dunking is hardly boring in a *game situation*, because the variables
    can make a dunk, especially one in a crowd, as unique as a snowflake.
    
    Think about some of the great high-wire moves in basketball history:
    
    - DrJ blowing around Landsberger and Kareem for a behind the backboard,
    'round the world, reverse layup in the '80 Finals.
    
    - Clyde Drexler's triple-pump, two-handed jam over Rodney McCray
    in the UH-Louisville NCAA Final Four back in 1983.
    
    - Or the Doc "Climbing The Ladder" to toss down a monster jam over
    BIll Walton in the 77 Finals.
    
    I can think of a 1,000 more, and they all can make a corpse go nuts.
    
    But after the latest fixed Slam-Dunk competition, I'd like to see
    it (the contest) put into mothballs until 1) reforms are made, and
    2) the players are forced to dunk on other players.
    
    That ought to bring some dash back into the comp ..

    >Equating HRs to slam-jams is a bit ridiculous: One is extremely
    >difficult to do; the other is the preferred method of taking a high
    >percentage shot cuz it is so easy.

If I were limited to comparing them only on the basis of their
degree of difficulty, you might have a case.  Even still, how do
we measure degree of difficulty.  I can hit home runs, but I'll
never, ever dunk.  How about incidence?  I think accurate stats
would show that the incidence of each is probably fairly close.
I believe that HRs outnumbered dunks for quite some time,
and then in recent years, dunks win easily.

But it's not enough to say, this here 6'5" guy *can* dunk.  But
does he do it in the game?  It's much like saying this catcher 
can hit HRs because he seems to do it so often in batting 
practice.  In live play there are fewer dunks thrown down 
than I would guess the majority would estimate.

Dan

�Home Run competitions, including, but not limited to the old
�TV show Home Run Derby and a current contest in association

Hey, I *liked* Home Run Derby...Great Show, Great Comments by the
players who never told the troof and said anything bad about the
other guy....whatta show!!!!!

'Saw

    >We're not talking about you.  We're talking about spectator sports.
    
    I see you didn't understand what I had to say.
    
    Dan

    	T, a lot of people may be able to dunk a basketball, but in
    professional basketball, I would dare say the average number of
    dunks per game is not over 10 (possibly much less) for both teams.
    Considering ther number of plays in a game, this is not a high
    percentage option.
    
    	Dunks are usually the result of an offensive player outwitting
    the defense, and getting a clear shot at the basket.  It is much
    easier to put your hand over the ball and guide it through the rim
    than to lay it off the glass or in the air where it can be potentially
    blocked without goal tending being called.
    
    	I find dunks to be at times, interestingly innovative, and I
    do not consider myself to be a "dim witted basetball fan".  I do
    not find the process of a dunk to be as easy an alternative as you
    portray it to be.
    
    	JMO of course.
    
    sean
                                              

Gee, if you're dyslexic, "dim witted" looks like "mid witted".

Does that mean if you're dyslexic you have to root for the Iolers and
Rawwen Noom?

Qenuiring Nimds tawn to wonk(tm),
Chainsaw

HAH! YUO THINK YUO WONK (TM) SO MUSH! (SICK)(TM)

Mike JN

MALB MALB BALM UOY ARE TOO BLAM KIME NJ!

WHATS THE MATRE WIF OUY LAP, I HAVE DSYELKCSIA AND YOU ARE KAMING
NUF OR ME BLAM MALB LAMB!

    	HAHAHHA!! STOP IT MIKEVANE AND SAWVANE!!!  YOU TWO ARE TO BLAM
    BLAM BLAM!!!!!  I"M STILL ROOOOLLLING!!!
    
    	re: T
    
    	Ok, so that was the initial point.  I think I missed it or better
    yet, misconstrued the point over the past notes since the time it
    was initially mentioned.
    	
    	I still contend that dunks are not as easy to do as you make
    it out to be.  Dunks on the breakaway/transition are the easiest
    of all and they don't cause too much excitement for me (Worthy
    is one).  In the halfcourt offense though, I find an explosive
    Dominique pump under the legs while splitting two defenders to dunk
    it to be a highly impressive and innovative display of athleticism
    and prowess.
    
    	You are right that dunks are usually a "crowd tool".  They are
    mostly done so that the home team crowd can get fired up.  It's
    sort of weird because crowd's get fired up more over a dunk than
    a 3 point shot, the latter of which is more important to the team.
    
    	While most dunks are very easy, some are very difficult and
    require perfect precision and knowledge.  Dunks generated from
    halfcourt offense (Jordan, Wilkins, Drexler) are the ones I'm referring
    to here.  The are the ones that are signficant of a players ability.
    
    sean

    
    
     GEez T, I could've sworn that you were in here was ridiculing the
    3-point line, because it encourages bad play (a team with no inside
    game) and penalizes good play ( a team with good 'in your face'
    defense)
    
       Now, you're saying the dunk is too easy, and don't mean
    nothing, even though it's the ultimate statement when a defense
    is beat. The slam.
    
      
    
        Make up your mind, will ya?
    
    
    STeven

    I'ma self-admitted agnotstic dyslexic:
    
    and
    
    I a pondering theexistence of DOG.
    
    
    
    JaKe
    

    >But for the subject under discussion the opposite
    >is true: Every NBA player, and virtually every college player, cain
    >dunk easily;
     
    Clearly, you're wrong.  There are NBA players, and college players who
    couldn't even dunk in practice, much less that they don't do it in game
    situations. 
    
    >That people didn't dunk until starting about 20 years ago is
    >irrelevant.  The only reason they didn't was that it wasn't allowed.
    
    Clearly, you're wrong again.  It was allowed in both college and the
    pros.  Because of Alcindor's dominance of the game, it was disallowed
    for a time in the college game, which may be what you were mistakenly
    thinking of.
    
    I liken "being able to dunk" with "being able to hit a HR in batting
    practice".  Again with respect to degree of difficulty, I am in
    agreement with the general tone of this note.  But there are other
    aspects which hadn't and should be considered.
    
    >HR are an end result, an accomplishment important to the game at hand; 
    
    Depending on your semantical bent, the slam dunk is also an end result,
    and is an accomplishment important to the game at hand.  Of that, there
    is no denying.
    
    Gee I hope you don't make this fizzle into another battle of semantics
    over who said what in reply to what.
    
    Dan

Clearly, this is the stuff that SPROTS(tm) are made of.....

   � I've never in my life been aware of a college player who couldn't dunk,
   � which is why I said "virtually."  As for the NBA, show me.
    
    Tyrone "Muggsy" Bogues
    
    Unless I'm seriously wrong, all 5'3" of him cain't dunk.
    
    Otherwise, your point is well made.  
    
    One thought on this dunk vs home run issue.   If I'm reading into
    this correctly, you favor the home run, at least in an
    appreciation sense, because the home run is inherently more
    difficult than a dunk.
    
    Does this imply that you favor "hitless" runs over home runs ???  
    
    For example, is a run scored by a player who walks and then steals
    second and who is then sacrificed over to third and finally
    knocked in by a sac fly more enjoyable than a solo dinger ???
    
    Or how about three straight singles in place of a dinger ???
    
    Not to provoke; just to clarify.   The dinger is certainly
    difficult but perhaps not as difficult in some cases as other more
    team-oriented ways to score runs.   Your thoughts ???
    
    Bob Hunt

    Heres an analogy to pick apart: 
    
    Ten year old boy shoots round ball at stationary basket = 2 points
    
    Ten year old boy swings round bat at MOVING round ball, ball deflects
    off bat and may; travel backwards, dribble forward on the ground, or 
    maybe, just maybe loop forward for a hit. 
    
    Change the age if you want, Nine times out of ten you'll get the same
    result.
    
    Whats more difficult?
                                                                
    
    

    
      Reply .173 shows that maybe the point I'm trying to get across
    is being misunderstood.
    
      I'm not disagreeing that scoring in MLB is harder than getting
    a basket in the NBA, and I've never disputed that getting a hit
    is easier than getting a basket.
    
       I was just trying to point out that comparing basketball passes
    and major league hits is a mistake, and is not a good analogy.
    
       Like, trying to be a nice guy, ya know? 
    
     
    Steven
    
    
    
       

Trying to be a nice guy to MrT is about as easy as watching a Bob Knight
temper tantrum and keeping a straight face at the same time.   Just
cain't be done by us poor mortal humans.

Then again, if T keeps getting lost in Norfolk, we might all have to
practice a little kinder and gentler noting in regards to the poor guy.

Bob Hunt

    
    Reply 173 was not meant in all seriousness either.  The previous
    analogies about passing, hitting, HRs & dunking were "in my opinion"
    going down a rat hole.  Whats the point?    I was merely trying to see 
    what kind of a reaction I would get.  My apologies - although round bat 
    on round ball can be quite a trick.
      
    Reply 175 did pose an interesting question on sport strategy.  
    I would tend to agree that baseball (NL then AL) requires quite a 
    bit of strategy.  Modern football is right there too.  Horseshoes, for
    most people is dead last.
    
    The previous comment about the sport of horseshoes was in no way
    intended to offend any person involved in this "sport".  And please no
    analogies between pitching horseshoes and pitching a baseball.
    
    

    People, who ever told you that the dunk is EASY ? Maybe on a fastbreak
    sure, but throwing one down in traffic ? 
    
    Gettouttaheiah !                                        
    
    Try going over, and around two, three, maybe four defenders, while
    moving in all three planes of space, sighting the rim, while bringing
    the ball to a postion for dunking without being stripped. 
    
    Now, do you toss it down with one or two hands ? And with how much
    force ? Not enough, and the jam may be blocked. Too much, and you'll
    miss it....
    
    T, just because your plate-stackin' booty caint jump over a Shrewsbury
    phone book, doesn't mean that the dunk is virtually worthless.
    
    Why don't you buy one of those Playskool Micheal Jordan adjustable
    rims, and lower (or raise it) to 6 feet, so that you might enjoy
    the thrill of The Jam !
    
    DrM

    > T, go back and read .176, for chrissakes
    			            ^^^^^
    
    Please Steve, stop usin' my name in vain will ya??!!
    
    ;^)
    
    
    - ACC Chris

   � It gives me Fountainhaid-style thigh-shuddering pleasure ...
    
    Whatever turns you on, T ...
    
   � to see you  gnawing, relentlessly, on my Norfolk faux pas, a
   � paltry specimen for the extensive industrial use you're putting it
   � given that it was only tangential to the point being made at the
   � time.  
    
    {Sort of like the way you continue to bring up the so-called
    "Trial" in Note 110 everytime you need a fantasy fix.}
    
    So now you're saying that a good grasp of our country's geography
    is not important, eh ???   Where are your standards, man ??? 
    Where is your pride in knowledge and intellectual truth, MrT ??? 
    Surely the world wonders.
    
    Guess we'll have to place T on that pantheonic pedestal reserved
    for the oh-so-famous "backward" adventurers out there ...
    
    Just like "Wrong Way" Corrigan and "Wrong Way" Roy Riegels and
    "Wrong Way" Jim Marshall, we'll have "Wrong Way" Shaughnessey !!!
    
   � And Bob-the-Hunter, you lecturing on nice guyism is like Ron
   � Reagan lecturing on intellectual honesty (it's beside the point
   � altogether).
    
    Hey, T, I'm one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet.  I just keep
    hoing against hope that one day you'll stop to examine the glass
    house from which you cast all your stones.
    
    Bob Hunt

    Darn, this topic was off to such a good start, too.
    
    This was the first topic that you had started in here in a long,
    long time and it showed great promise as opposed to one of your
    customary parasitic attacks on otherwise healthy topics.    You
    raised solid points, you posed good questions, you discussed them
    with a ear toward actually listening to what other people had to
    say, and you proposed worthwhile and legitimate counterpoints.
    
    And now you've torched another topic ...	To paraphrase ...
    
    "You {insert personal slur here} cain't call me a so-and-so
    unless you cain catch me standing on my haid whistling Dixie and
    don't even bother because you cain't."
    
    "I didn't say "boo", you said "boo".  You were the one who came in
    here swinging from the heels to shoot down my noble and singularly
    correct visions of truth and justice."
    
    "I don't have to apologize for anything or take back anything I
    ever say because only I cain be right and you all are chowderhaids
    anyway."
    
    Way to go, "Wrong Way" ...
    
    Bob Hunt

    Yo Wrong Way,
    
    You still haven't answered my challange to a Slam Dunk contest.
    If it's so easy, you should be able to compete.
    
    If not, then get on ....

Back to the issue at hand, Sports Theory, I would like to here from our
good buddy MrT concerning his thoughts, in terms of Sports Theory, on
this now famous riot between 2 black schools in NC, how according to
Sports Theory he feels it should have been handled, and finally, who
these brazen racists are and how, according to Sports Theory, they have
been so labeled.

Seriously, T, you've brought this up a number of times, and I'd like to
know if you can present your side of the story in some coherent fashion
of what you think happened and what you think should have happened.

TTom

�    Yo Wrong Way,
    
Gee, I don't like my name used in such a perjorative sense.  Cain't
you guys come up with a better expression?  8^)

Chainsaw

Not to worry, 'Saw ...

There's a "Wrong Way" and a "Frank Way".

We *know* the difference.

Bob Hunt

    > There's a "Wrong Way" and a "Frank Way".
    
    > We *know* the difference.
    
    Yeah, the "Frank Way" that I know is an absolute freakin' lunatic!
    
    :-)
    
    H�wk

�   -< Shakespeare would've been proud to claim you from his loins!  :- >-

Oh that I would have sprung forth in glorious ecstasy from the
loins of th'immortal Bard, yea, been whelped as it were from the
seed of said Great one....

 
�    Yeah, the "Frank Way" that I know is an absolute freakin' lunatic!
    
Amen BABY!  I was on a roll yesterday, and I'm paying the price today.

But, remember, many are called, few are chosen, and when the trump is
sounded we fight the horde from morn till even, and then sheath
our swords for lack of argument.  And when the blood red rays of
dying sun at last colour our battlefield, we will there remain
standing victorious.

And hey, we didn't do so bad in the First Annual Bleacher Baffroom
Water Sprots Olympics!  

Chainsaw

    The few, the proud, the freakin' lunatics!
    
    Claybone

    
    Should we start a Baffroom Olympics note?
    

    > Should we start a Baffroom Olympics note?
    
    How about a SPROTS Freakin' Lunatics note?  :-)
    

    
�    How about a SPROTS Freakin' Lunatics note?  :-)
    
Hey, I resemble that remark!

    Isn't this entire conference a SPORTS Freakin' Lunatics note?
    
    John

	BOY!!!

	Turn your back for a minute!

	I've been workin' like a herd of ants! So ya don't pay attention for a
minute or so, and what happens?

	Chainsaw is winning gold medals in the men's toilet!
	John `Mad Dog Ninja [ We OWN The Night ]' Hendry is arrested for
		assaulting a beach ball!
	AW hits on a group of children!
	H'�wk swears off beer (or swears at the price of beer, or somethin')!
	The DiNz, et al disrupt a marathon in Beantown!
	Dr Midnight proposes marriage to Larry Bird!
	Mr T and Crisp kiss and make up!
	JD admits his lats are waterwings!
	Stephen joins the debating club!
	Claywad patents a steroid cocktail!
	Lafave starts pronouncing his name correctly ( La FEVer )!
	Hoot and the Parrot admit Al Davis is a Conman and a jerk!
	Yankowskas OD's on Old Fashioned mix
	CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN!!!
	And it goes on and on!

CRIPES!!! If a guy went away for a week.... he might never catch up around
here!

Mike JN

    Mike JN, you forgot one very important detail:
    
    	Richard Chamberlain admits he's gay!
    
    Ooooops, wait a minute.  That was from the supermarket check-out lasted
    night, not here in SPORTS.  Nevermind!
    
    :-)
    
    H�wk

Mike JN --


First off, I loved the "[We own the night]" thing.  I can envision
Hendry in a Michelob commercial.  First off, he saves a heavy duty
babe from a slavering Beach Ball, then computes the standard deviation
of his caloric output to do it, then decides he needs a Mick...

Second off, check out the movie "The First Power", with Lou Diamond
Philips.  Essentially, check out the redhead female lead, Tracy Griffith.
Kelly WHO?

Lastly, if you go away for a week, why not make it Tigermania @ Fenway
in August.  YOu can enter the Baffroom Olympics yerself, and enjoy
the swimming and water events firsthand.

I'd recommend Water Polo.  I believe that wif Chuck, you, me 'n Hawk,
we'd have the nucleus (or fetus I haven't decided which) of a Gold
Medal winning team...

Check it out BABY....
Saw

    Speaking of Chuck, is he alive today after his top 5 of all time
    hangovers, or did he shoot himself to get relief?  :-)
    
    Chuckie, do what us experienced imbibers do- get some dog hair..... 
    :-)
    
    H�ck

�    hangovers, or did he shoot himself to get relief?  :-)
                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Hey Joe, where ya going with that gun in yer hand?


actually, I think that Chuck is a prime candidate for a nomination
to ride on the HelBus.

Chuck, for a Sowboy's fan, yer okay in my book....

Chainsaw

    No I didn't shoot myself, the fog has lifted and I have clear skies
    in my head again. Chainsaw sounds like your looking for a reason to
    cheer for the Cowboys. Com'on aboard the BIG D bandwagon is real empty
    these days. 

Chuck

Chuck --

Nah, I have enough problems wif folks trying to get me on the 
now_defunct DEBILS BANDWAGON!!!!

But, I will say this.  You are the first Sowboy's fan I've ever
drank with.  Normally I don't even talk to Dallas fans, but like
I said...you're okay...

And hey, we've nominated you for HelBus Rider Privileges...in fact,
I think Hawk is makin' up the IV right now...

latered,
chainsaw

� Kelly WHO? 
That's right! I'll have to catch that.

� Lastly, if you go away for a week, why not make it Tigermania @ Fenway
� in August.  
As in DETROIT tigers!?!? Did Magnum Pi r� put you up to this!
Boston in August sounds like something you would do to punish rapists and pig
thieves.
Howsomever, As the date approaches, I'll have to see if there's some kind of
class I need being offered. If there's any insanity afoot, I like to be first
in line.

Mike JN

�As in DETROIT tigers!?!? Did Magnum Pi r� put you up to this!

Mike Gets Mathematical...sounds like a great name for a band!


�Boston in August sounds like something you would do to punish rapists and pig
�thieves.

The water in the baffroom is cool.  The pool is Olympic sized.  And, I 
hear they're gonna put in a new version of Dick Hamels game "Whomppin'
Prairie Dawgs".  They gonna give the people in the beer line huge
mallets, and we get to whomp on rats.  They'll call it "Splat a Rat"....

�Howsomever, As the date approaches, I'll have to see if there's some kind of
�class I need being offered. If there's any insanity afoot, I like to be first
�in line.

You get out this way, and you gotta stop by the Chainsaw homestead for
a homebrew...

    Let's see now ...
    
    T accuses someone else of "starting it" and then accuses yet
    someone else of "getting personal".
    
    All this from the original and still champeen "personal
    instigator", our own one-in-a-million T ...
    
    Uh, excuse me, T, but you're still heading in the "Wrong Way" ...
    
    Bob Hunt

    Well done, T ...
    
    Actually going back into previous notes, extracting the relevant
    excerpts, explaining each one, and then re-drawing your
    conclusions.   I am impressed.  You should try doing this more
    often.  You might see your credibility factor jump a notch or two.
    
    Now, if you could have dispensed with the "in-jo-face" at the end,
    it would have been perfecto.   Ah, well, Rome wasn't built in a
    day  ...
    
    Bob Hunt

>        <<< Note 206.214 by CARP::SHAUGHNESSY "A cloaca of heresies" >>>
>    ...
>    So sorry, TTom, as moderator of this topic I cain't allow that 
>    subject in here.  ...

see the following:

================================================================================
Note 206.184                      Sports Theory                       184 of 214
ITASCA::SHAUGHNESSY "A cloaca of heresies"           29 lines  17-APR-1990 13:03
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...
    ... Hey, I know enough geography to know where to go
    if I wanna find upside down priorities and racists so brazen as to nod
    their haids with paternalistic satisfaction at unpunished basketball riots.
...

TTom                    

    Rule #1 when doing battle with TTom:
    
    MAKE DARN SURE YER OWN HOUSE IS IN ORDER FIRST!
    
    HAHAHAHAHA!!!!11
    
    
    - ACC Chris
    

  
   >> Steven did though.  Shame on him.  Pugnacity is ok I guess (if you're
    >>into that) but roundhouses that catch only air are funny.  That's it:
    >>
    >>				Air_Steven_boy
    >>
    >> MrT

Just another peaceful and impersonal comment ...

Bob Hunt   

    re: .35    (I know its a long time ago, but I'm just getting back
    		after vacation....)
    
    
    	>> I know that I can enjoy myself watching Liverpool beat  <<
    	>> Arsenal 1-0...					   <<
                                                                   
    
    Well, fortunately that doesn't happen too often!!!
    
    PJ (who happens to be an Arsenal season ticket holder)
    
    (In all seriousness, though, I would rather watch Arsenal than
    Liverpool because at least the final outcome is in some doubt!!)

�    Well, fortunately that doesn't happen too often!!!

PJ, it doesn't happen often enough for me 8^) 8^)
    
�    PJ (who happens to be an Arsenal season ticket holder)

Guess there's one in every crowd ;^)
    

I'm just hoping the Reds keep their act together long enough to hold
off Aston Villa.  I mean, I can't believe they blew the FA Cup by
losing to Crystal Palace!  So, with a couple of games in hand, and
some good performances, perhaps another championship will come our
way....

BTW, do you know off hand it the American Jonathan Harkes had his
tryout there yet (forget which club it was with), and if so, how he
did?

Now back to SPORTS theory,
Chainsaw

    
    Mr.T
      
    Being unbiased and having had to go through the pain of you two's
    little tirad. I myself side with Stevie, your analogy is full of holes.
    Just *MHO*
    
    
    Cadzilla  

Well, I been readin' this for a few days, and quite honestly, I'm
getting more and more confused.... as to who is saying what, and what
the beef is.

Furthermore, I have to admit right now that I'm not unbiased in this
matter.  I don't particularly care for basketball, and am somewhat
in favor of the NL brand of baseball, so I really should bow out.

What I will propose is this:

	I will be perfectly glad to be 1/3 of a Triumverate, or
	perhaps more properl a Tribunal.  Pick two other well
	meaning souls, and the three of us will kick this around
	in mail until Monday afternoon.

	At that time we will rule...

Chainsaw

    OURGNG has reached new lows when a 3-member panel is needed to settle a
    completely boring and trivial issue that, in reality can never have a
    true "winner".  (Why don't we pick a panel to decide which is better:
    chocolate or vanilla ice cream.  Sheesh ...)
    
    I've read some weak stuff (some of it probably mine), some junk noting 
    stuff (okay, some of it was mine ;^) ), and some really stupid stuff 
    (none of that was mine :^) ), but this is the pits of all three.
    
    
    - ACC Chris
    

But ACC...

First off, it's no different than life here at DEC.  Instead of calling
it a panel, management type people call it a task force.  Not that
ANYTHING ever gets accomplished, but it sure does look good.

And why not debate about how many angels can dance on the head of a
pin.  That might come in handy someday, ya never know.

And besides, we're all theorizing here, and we all know that theory
is just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo anyways.

And lastedly, we'll be objective for a few days, and then we'll decide
which guy we like based on how well he butters us up...ain't that
the TRUE SPORTS PATHWAY....8^)

Seriously, I honestly don't give two little hoots about whether a
basketball pass is easy or harder than a baseball hit....

Oh well.....

Say, when is that life size pitchur of Rev Smif autographed by Dan Schneider
gonna come in the mail????

'Saw

> First off, it's no different than life here at DEC.  Instead of calling
> it a panel, management type people call it a task force.  Not that
> ANYTHING ever gets accomplished, but it sure does look good.

    Your point is well taken 1Way (tm).  Which is EXACTLY why MasterT's 
    proposal is so utterly ridicaless. 
    
> And besides, we're all theorizing here, and we all know that theory
> is just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo anyways.

    Contrary to what the author titled this note there was no desire for
    theory to be debated.  Rather, the preacher (MrT) wanted a little 1
    way dialogue to lecture the masses. When somebody dared to disagree, 
    the LDUC was off to the races.  Er, urinal.
    
    
> Seriously, I honestly don't give two little hoots about whether a
> basketball pass is easy or harder than a baseball hit....

    And you shouldn't, neither.  Cause it's the most foolish discussion
    I've ever witnessed in here (and that's sayin' something!).
    
    
> Say, when is that life size pitchur of Rev Smif autographed by Dan Schneider
> gonna come in the mail????

    Ah, now here we've got something *really* intewesting!  It ain't no
    Dean picture (I don't give those away for nothing - sorry) and Dan's
    not in on this.  I can see your curiosity is climaxing, but I'm afraid
    you'll have to relax a bit.  The US Postal Service doesn't move at Easynet
    speed, and I cain't mail out the prizes until I've got all the
    addresses in from the FRIENDS_OF_UNC club.  
    
    
    - ACC Chris

�    
�    >> Seriously, I honestly don't give two little hoots about whether a
�    >> basketball pass is easy or harder than a baseball hit....
�    
�      That is NOT what this LDUC is about.
�    
�      Read 206.231. That is what this is about. Nothing more, nothing less.
    
Now, I'm all confused...

Can we talk about global warming instead?    
    

    
    'Saw,
    
    	the number of angels that can fit on the haid (tm) of a pin is
    
    
    
    			AVOGADRAO'S NUMBER!
    
    Hope you're schlepped,
    
    Claybone

�    			AVOGADRAO'S NUMBER!

   or......

                                    23
   			6.0225 x 10^

   heh heh heh (tm)

   The nontechnoweenie strikes again!

   Mike JN

    Otay Mikey technoweenie, what're the units on that there number?
    
    heh heh.....
    
    Claybone

    Advacado's Number?  Cain you put that on a tortilla chip?
    
    
    JD

    
    Abracadabro''s number is 27, the same number he wore in college.
     MIT retired it after he graduated, and it's hanging next to the
    nuke reactor in the physics department.
    
    Hope this helps.
    
    -Dick
    

RE Units in Avogadro's Number:

	That's simple.  Molecules.

	Avogadro's number is the estimated number of molecules
	in one gram-molecular weight (or "mole") of any substance.

	Or to look at it another way, the gram-molecular weight
	is it's molecular weight expressed in grams.

	So, under standard condition of temp and pressure (0� C at
	1 atmosphere) a gram of any gas occupies 22.4 liters (is this
	stuff comin' back to ya now?)  Therefore, you can determine
	the molecular weight in grams by weighing 22.4 liters of
	it under standard conditions.

Are ya with me so far?

	This all relates to Avogadro's Hypothesis that equal volumes
	of all gases under equal conditions of temperature and pressure
	contain the same number of molecules.

Thank you.

>	So, under standard condition of temp and pressure (0� C at
>	1 atmosphere) a gram of any gas occupies 22.4 liters (is this
>	stuff comin' back to ya now?)  Therefore, you can determine
>	the molecular weight in grams by weighing 22.4 liters of
>	it under standard conditions.

Made a mistake.... that should be a gram-molecule of any gas occupies
22.4 liters.

Sheesh, I'll stick with engineering....

    < Note 206.251 by CAM::WAY "Ma, it's Cliff...your SON Cliff!" >


>RE Units in Avogadro's Number:
>
>	That's simple.  Molecules.
>
>	Avogadro's number is the estimated number of molecules
>	in one gram-molecular weight (or "mole") of any substance.
>
>	Or to look at it another way, the gram-molecular weight
>	is it's molecular weight expressed in grams.
           ^^^^
    	    |
    	    |
    
    John Hendry, where are you?
    
    Mark.

    
    Now it's the old brain that's rooollling.  Avacados...the weight
    of a mole (I believe they're a little heavier than a mouse)...wow.
    
    Oh, well, like they sing:  "I'm not aware of too many things...I
    wonk what I wonk, if you wonk what I mean...."
    
    Hope help is on the way.
    
    -Dick
    

�>	Or to look at it another way, the gram-molecular weight
�>	is it's molecular weight expressed in grams.
�           ^^^^
�    	    |
�    	    |
�    
�    John Hendry, where are you?
�    
�    Mark.


Yes, I do make that error on occasion.  Mostly when I'm concentrating
on the content of what I'm typing and then do not proofread my 
work.

Obviously, in dredging up the chemical answers that Claybone requested,
(and, clearly,  giving quite the Chemistry Clinic in doing so, I might 
add) my grammatical powers must have slipped somewhat.

However, in this instance I shall invoke a little known, somewhat
obscure ruling the the predecessor of the Little, Brown Handbook
(known to Medieval Grammarians as the Tiny, Tan Bard) that states
when you are describing difficult concepts to people who may not be
intimately familiar with aforementioned concepts, it's okay to
mess up your apostrophes once in a while....

(YOU AR TWO BLAM LEFEVER!) 8^)

'Saw

    'Saw, that *stuff* is fresh in my mind from Physics III last 
    fall..........quit reminding me!
    
    Claybone_recovering_from_brain_cramps_from_physics_III

Claybone --

Quick now, what's 6.67??? Huh, huh???

I'll take my hat off to you, buddy.  I never took physics or calculus.
I mean, I'd like to, but I'd have more than brain cramps trying to
remember the stuff you need to really do that stuff.

I'd probably have a brain blowout!

Chainsaw

>    Quick now, what's 6.67??? Huh, huh???

    I take it you mean 6.67 x 10 ^^-11 (newton-meter^^2/kg^^2, which is 
    the Constant of Universal Gravitation.

    Mark.

    6.67 what?
    
    OK smarty pants.....what's the average land speed of a swallow?  HA!
    
    Claybone 8^)

�	Avogadro's number is the estimated number of molecules
�	in one gram-molecular weight (or "mole") of any substance.
�	Or to look at it another way, the gram-molecular weight
�	is it's molecular weight expressed in grams.

   	Right!

   	So one could say (if one were a nerd) that it was the number of
   molecules in a substance with a weight in grams numerically equal to
   the molecular weight.

   	This number is also nwonk as a Farfignewton.

   Mike JN

   RE: Swallows

   	Laden... or unladen?

   Mike JN

    African or European?
    
    Mark.

    
    
    	Uhm, er, I don't know.....AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
    
    Claybone (let me face the peril!)

>             -< Ma victoire sur Steven est sucre.  Voila!  [sic]  >-

Herein lies one of the fundemental operating principles of the theory of
sports. That is that there must be a winner and, therefore, there must be
a loser. This in and of itself leads to healthy competition.

However, it's an easy extension to go from win versus lose to right
versus wrong. This is certainly seems to be a tenet of Sports Theory, at
least within this topic.

TTom

    Steven,
    
    I don't believe the pitcher is *ever* on the offensive when he's
    on the mound.  Despite his 90+ fastball, he'll *never* ever be
    able to add so much as a single run to his team's score.   All he
    can do is prevent the batters and runners from scoring.  That's
    defense.
    
    Ditto for the batter.  He cannot prevent opposition runs while he
    has a bat in his hands.  He's pure offense.
    
    The distinction between O and D get blurry when you talk about
    football, basketball, and hockey among others but it is clear, to
    me, in baseball.
    
    Bob Hunt

   I think Stephens's point has merit....re: the pitcher as an offensive
   factor; but I think it is more a philosophical point.

   The team (or individual) who has the opportunity to score is the
   Offense (the Defense in some sports can score, but only by disrupting 
   [ or cancelling ] the opportunity of the Offense).

   Mike JN

    Agreed on all points, both subtle and blatant ...
    
  >>  - no clock
    
    This fact inspired Yogi Berra's famous "It ain't over until it's
    over" quote.  Just ask the 1986 Bosox.  Ouch.
    
  >>  - Tiny margins between success and failure
    
    And this fact is supported by Sparky Anderson's observation that a
    team that wins 3 out of every 5 games will win the World Series
    but a team that wins only 2 out of every 5 games finishes in last
    place.
    
    Bob Hunt

To me, baseball is one of the few finite state team sports.

Most team sports that we watch feature a fairly continuous action
flow (cf. Hockey, hoops, football, soccer).

Baseball has a series of actions which are bounded by clearly predictable
terminators (start: pitch, end: out, run (hr) etc.)

In fact, I cannot think of another team sport that is like this.

Perhaps this is why Baseball umpires are considered the most accurate
officials in sport....

'Saw

    	'Saw, please provide V(x,y) and G(x,y) vector points so I can
    plot this thing versus a spanning tree.  8^)

    re: Winning 3/5 vs. Losing 3/5
    
    This point brought to mind a quote I heard awhile back that I
    thought clever and entirely accurate:
    
    "Other sports are a game.  Baseball is a season."
    
    So true.
    
    
    - ACC Chris

re Sean:

   "Tis not as wide as a door, nor deep as a well, but t'will do.
    Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man..."

    So said Mercutio when fatally wounded by Tybalt.

    And all I can say to you Sean is that I haven't the vaguest
    idea of what you're talkin' about, so I must say Touch�...

Span this tree, BABY! ;^)

re: 273

The issues here is one that comes up from time to time in debating Sports
and Sports Theory.

One thing that I like about sports is that at the end, the result is
clear. Someone lost and someone won. Then the debate begins on whether
this should have been or not, and what that means or not, and why it
happened or not. Good times.

However, often seems essential to the conversation to extend attacks on
the arguments to attacks on the arguers.

TTom

�     Baseball is also the only sport where the coach is allowed
�    to enter the field of play, get in the umps face and argue
�    a call.
    
    
Good point, Steven.

Arguing with the ump is an art unto itself.  We've all seen the
landscaping efforts of the late Billy Martin, who, with one show,
and sometime his hands, could move more earth in a moment, that
a road crew could in a day.

Then, there was Earl Weaver.  Earl would load up with chew, and
in an argument with an ump, he'd turn the brim of his cap around,
get right up close to the umps face, and then use every word
he could think of that began with the letter "p"

Often times, a manager or base coach, begins an argument with an
ump to save a player.  The player takes exception to the call,
and the base coach or manager, being more expendable, will jump
in and argue.

Also, arguing is strategic.  Argue about a close call one time, and
it might be on the umps mind the next time....

Gotta love those arguments....
'Saw    

I remember a Sports Theory class I took back at U Lowell (ha, 
what an elective!) which had a few interesting points regarding 
the popularity of baseball and society.

Basically, baseball is a game of the past. It's a game that has 
it's beginnings in a time where life was slower, simpler and alot 
less violent. It hasn't changed. People yearn for that, they want 
to go back to the good old days. Baseball brings them back. (The 
concession prices shocks back into reality :-)

On the other hand, the increased popularity of football was 
supposedly due to the way it emulated today's society, violent, 
highly structured, complicated, regulated etc...

What's this all mean? You got me, I aced the class...

daryll

Daryll --

Fancy up that vocabulary and *you'll* start sounding like George Will  8^)

    Although I would agree that baseball harkens back to a time when
    things were less complicated, it does not remind us of a time when
    life was less violent.
    
    Sorry, but mankind has had very very few eras of less violence
    than another.
    
    Bob Hunt

True BobHunt, but it is with fond memories that I recall the
George Carlin comparison of Football and Baseball....

    Yeah, 'Saw, I've heard that Carlin routine many times.  Rollward.
    
    {In a lilting sing-song voice ...}
    
    Baseball has the hit-and-run, the double-steal, and the sacrifice
    bunt.
    
    {In a deep, military type voice ...}
    
    Football has the run, kick, block, pass, and, of course, *THE
    BOMB*.
    
    {Baseball voice ...}
    
    If the score is tied, you play extra innings.
    
    {Football voice ...}
    
    In football, it's *SUDDEN DEATH*.
    
    And so on ...
    
    Hilarious ...
    
    Bob Hunt

>True BobHunt, but it is with fond memories that I recall the
>George Carlin comparison of Football and Baseball....

This, and the discussion of the "game within the game" (a phrase I've
come to loath since Garagiola overused it to death) reminds me that I
recently visited the New York Public Library and saw the exhibition 
"Diamonds Are Forever", a display of art and literature with respect
to baseball.  The Carlin clip was included on video tape along with 
the famous DiMaggio portrait ("The Wide Swing"), the Warhol of
Willie, the Lichtenstein of Rose, etc.  And throughout the exhibition
hall, cleverly framed within the chained link fences forever associated
with the game, were printed excerpts from works celebrating the game,
from Thomas Paine to Roger Kahn.

Among these excerpts was a short poem which I found simply fascinating,
and I haven't been much of a poetry fan since I finished Edward Lear
(not that The Owl and the Pussycat soured me....)
It described the delicious ironies of the batter attempted to hit the pitched
ball, and the pitcher attempting to get the batter to miss it.  It was maybe a 10
line stanza.  If anyone is in New York reading this, or goes to visit this in
another city when it travels there, I would be most appreciative if they
sent this verse to me, or posted it here.

Dan

    >Do you mind, *Dan*?  What then is it YOU do when you're watching ALmost
    >ball, flip your mind off and simply watch TV?  

I pretend I'm you watching Indiana basketball.

"Oh!  Here comes the DH to the plate.  Lookit him!  He's a slow white
grad student probably.  He gets a single, no it's a pass to the open 
man...  He dunks, no he can't dunk 'cause he's got WMD.  Wait, wait,
it all makes sense...everyone else is always wrong..."

Dan

True argument, in Sports Theory, or other prosaic efforts, need never
devolve into personal attacks for it to be productive, thought provoking,
or enlightening. In fact, I assert, that personal attacks reduce the
value of the argument and deflect from the purpose of the debate/argument
in the first place.

However, if that's the only way to argue, that is better than no argument
at all. Else we're left in a condition described as:

	"this is what paradise must be after a while"

TTom

Heaven forbid if youse is either daddy or mommy. I don't know Dan but it
sounds like you 2 could use some marriage counseling.

I accept your request to get back with the topic, however, and to the
point, to boot.

If, in Sports Theory, the only measurement is whether or not you win the
title, certainly, from that perspective, sports becomes mostly a futile
effort (1 winner, else losers). I don't think that anyone is truly
advocating this.

This leads to a separation of sports, therefore, into those that play the
sport solely for that sport's purpose and those that engage in sports for
what they get out of it by the action of playing. In the first group we
have the professionals. They may or may not get anything out of the
playing of the game. They're there because they were payed to be there.
In the second camp is the supposed student-athlete. Some play sports to
get into the first group - become professionals. Some play sports as a
way to finance an education.

The question, then, is whether college players should be allowed to
engage in sports a la the professional. That is, it the player's job.
He's in college because that's where the game is - at least until he goes
pro.

TTom

I understand that Bob, I was speaking more in the day to day 
violence that  seems to have increased. 
Witness the daily body count in the mero-Boston area...

daryll

�    is to attempt defining a sport from the spectating perspective at
�    a mechanical level.


Kinda like voyeurism??? 8^)

I always leer *and* cheer....;^)

I was thinking about this interesting aspect of baseball that Steven 
brought up concerning how it's not always so obvious who's the
offense and who's the defense.  He's absolutely right, depending on
the perspective.

The example given was the batter and the pitcher, where the pitcher
can be considered the offense by initiating the action and attempting
to hurl the pea by the batter over the plate, where the batter is 
defensively attempting to get a piece of it and protect the plate.
That certainly can describe the situation where a Roger Clemens is
pitching to Alvaro Espinosa, or just about any two-strike count, or
even just a wild fastballer.

And what of the batter who is swinging the heavy lumber, who is actively
looking for the long ball, or to drive in the runner from third with less than
two outs?  He will agressively be waiting for the pitcher to come in with
anything near the plate.  If Al Nipper is throwing to Jose Canseco with
Oakland down by a run and runners on base in the late innings, how can
that be described by anything put the pitcher on defense, and the batter on
offense.  And as the count changes, the roles change as well.  If the
pitcher misses with two curves on a batter he absolutely should not
walk, and the world knows he has to come in with his mediocre fastball,
that's defense.  

The terms, the modes of playing are sensitive to so many factors with in
so many contexts: the respective talents of the batter, the pitcher, the
inning, the count, the score, the bench strenght, the bullpen strength,
the pitching style, the baserunners talents, the bases they occupy.  
This list could be much longer.

Another fascinating example of this is as simple as the runner leading off
first base, with second base unoccupied.  Is he on offense or defense?

If he's leading off, and the first baseman is holding him at the bag, and
the pitcher is throwing over, forcing the runner to dive back in to first,
that seems to be the pitcher on offence, and the runner on defense.
Yet, the moment the pitch is thrown to the plate, the runner takes off.
He immediately switches his context from defense to offense.  It is now
incumbent upon the catcher and second baseman or shortstop to
assume the defensive posture and protect second from the offensive
interloper.  And one can keep going, because what of the poor batter, who
might be offensively trying to hit the ball through the now gaping infield
hole, or he might defensively be trying to protect the poor runner who
could get thrown out by a country mile.

The smaller the picture, the more vast the possibilities.

Dan

    Is track and field a sport?
    
    Generally speaking: No teamwork, low skill content, simplistic 
    structure, minimal tactics, no strategy, short even duration, etc.
    
    It's no coincidence that the events stem from ancient times, as do
    water wheels, cave dwellings, paganism, and flat earth science.  It's
    as if someone decided to make a sport out of testing a_engine instead
    a rolling the entire vehicle out for a 3 hour race.
    
    MrT

>    Generally speaking: No teamwork, low skill content, simplistic 
>    structure, minimal tactics, no strategy, short even duration, etc.

At the collegiate level and below, track and field has as much teamwork
as any other sport. 

Low skill content is a relative term. Relative to other sports, it's
about average. Is the pole vault easier than a slam dunk?

Structure is simple, which doesn't preclude it from the realm of sports.

Tactics are obvious to any objective analyst. 

Strategy is to win, just like most other sports.

Marathon running goes on for a while. There are even events that look a
lot like NASCAR: many, many laps around the track.

Is track and field a sport? Yep.

TTom

    TTom,
    
    Nice reply.  I figured it wasn't worth my bother.   It read like
    a 'baiting' note.
    
    All I can say is the best teamwork and teammates I ever had, in
    any sport, were while I was competing in Cross Country and Track.
    But it sure was boring doing double workouts, 'specially since we
    didn't need no skill, we didn't need no tactics, we didn't need
    no structure, we didn't have to do it for any duration, and we sure
    as hail dind't have no stat-o-gee.  
    
    Jd  

I think there are a lot of tactics involved in running.

At this point in my running, I can't even begin to approach
that level.  I'm still worrying about controlling pace, 
not going out to fast, trying to maintain an even pace when
I have gone out too fast (like my monster first mile in Sunday
evening's race...)  and worrying about maintaining good
concentration throughout the entire distance.

But the good ones, the front runners, they use a tremendous
amount of strategy.  

Some are burners.  They have to lead the entire race.  Others,
like me (except that I practice this back in the pack) prefer
to sit about a yard behind, making a move at psychologically
debilitating times for the other runner...  For instance,
pass a person going up hill, and you give them something to
think about.  If you know you can pass them easily, sit behind
them for a while....that'll really make them uncomfortable.

Do you have a kick?  Do you not have a kick?  The answer to
that question affects how you will run your race.


The other events in track and field are different than a lot of
other things in sports, but yet harken back to ancient times, with
similarities in different cultures.  Watch some field events (hammer,
shot put for example) and then take a day and go and watch some
Scottish Highland games.  Many many similarities.

In terms of team work, there is none of the coordinated teamwork
like in basketball or football (passing, formations etc).  But there
is a certain teamwork overall in a baseball (finite state) kind of
way.  (Well, in certain events there may be, espeically running, with
pace setters etc, and relays).

If the last event in a meet is the hammer throw, and your team needs
to win the event to take the meet, then the hammer thrower is
every bit as important as Dewey Evans was last Saturday in the 10th
inning.  You never know during a meet which athlete will be called
to the fore and called upon to perform to win the meet, any more than
Dewey knew that he'd be the last man up on Saturday.


Similarities with other sports also exist.  At the end of a 10K,
if you are tired (which you should be), maintaining concentration
will be just as difficult as if you're in the 490th mile of a
NASCAR or Indy Car race...

So, there are many aspects of track and field which make it a sport.
To say that it is not, and to follow that logical thought process,
you'd have to condemn many other sports as not being sports (golf,
tennis, power-lifting, fencing)...


JMHO,
'Saw

>Watch some field events (hammer,
>shot put for example) and then take a day and go and watch some
>Scottish Highland games.  Many many similarities.


	Ahh the highland games.  Used to watch them every year in 
Nova Scotia.  Those big dudes in the skirts could realy toss those
logs.  

Mc

Yeah, MC, you got that right...

The last games I went to last year, the dudes throwing the 
stones were some of the biggest guys I've ever seen.  
I mean they were HUGE.

I missed the caber toss because I was in line waiting for 
food (only one Scottish food wagon showed up when there were supposed
to be two...)  Nothin' like a bridie and a beer and the sound
of pipes...

'Saw

     Yo do need teamwork in track!! When I was running anchor in the MIle
    relay (4x400) as a sophmore I really needed my team in this big meet 
    (Pikes Peak relays or some other rot). Our strat-o-gee was to get a big
    lead (40 yards) then have me barely squeak out the win.  Anyway we
    dropped the baton on our third pass but it stayed in our lane so we was
    able to continue. So we ended up in third when I finally got the stick,
    and all hope was lost. I was bound and determined to win the race
    though and I took off like a bat outta hell. At that pace I'd normally
    gas out around the 300 meter mark but I was determined. I was about 10
    yards behind coming out of the final turn. When I saw it!!!  It was my
    friend holding a picture of his sister in her underwear and he was
    running along side the track wif it. I hadta have that photo cuz I was
    in love wif her (she was a senior cheerleader type) so'z I ran harder
    than ever,  ignoring the pain. I nipped the other guy at the tape and
    was mobbed by my teammates. I was dying, I needed water, I needed air,
    I needed that picture!!!  Anyway my split was 47.9 and I got my picture
    in the paper, we won the meet and I had my dreamgirl on kodak paper.
    What a day it was. Wifout my teammate I might have given up.

    Yo Debil Dawg,
    
    	The only thing you could anchor is a boat :^)
    
    Claybone

Yo Debil Dawg...

That story stirred something in me.  I can just imagine the 
Loinal Fire(tm) you were experiencing coming into the stretch.

I want the rights to the screen play and mini-series....

'Saw

    I beat him by a head. I was lean'in backwards

    JD,
    
    If Track and Field was really, I mean *REALLY* big at Indiana, Michigan
    and Ohio State and if the Big 10 was *THE* national power in Track
    and Field, I doubt very much we would have been been baited by such
    an ignorant Note by TTom.
    
    Rich
    

    To Frank (and anybody else w/ info)
    
    The nexted time you know when/where there's gonna be a Scottish games,
    could you please post the info?
    
    Someday I'd like to see one of those things.
    
    Thanks
    
    A&W

They usually happen throughout the summer and into the fall.

Nexted one of know of is Saturday, June 30 (this Saturday) in
Norwalk.  Probably kicks off around 11am.  This particular one
is usually big, with all of the normal events (8 pound stone, 16 pound
stone, hammer, caber, sack toss) and with some track events too.

Also, they have a football (soccer) tournament.  I believe this takes
place on a 3/4 field, and the teams are from the Connecticut leagues,
which are pretty much ethnic teams.  You out to hear some of the
swears in those games!

Anyway, Norwalk, geographically is way down there, between Greenwich
and Bridgeport.  Best route would be I95, but I can't remember
where in Norwalk the games are.

There's always some posted in my Clan Donald newsletter, so if I can
dig out this months, maybe I can post some of the upcoming ones....

HTH,
Chainsaw

    Thanks much.  Won't make this one - previous plans :-(.  But if you
    find out about some with a little more notice...... :-)
    
    A&W

    >such an ignorant Note by TTom.
    
    While I agree that TTom's note was fraught with ignorance, I don't
    think he was *totally* off the mark:
    
    - runners have to decide whether to kick early, medium or late
    
    	Whoa.  Main-o-live, we're talking major strategy here!  Lemm
    	retreat here by way of analogy: Much as shellfish are part
    	of the Animal Kingdom, certainly runners are sportsmen.
    
    - relay runners have to carefully time the baton handoff
    
    	And some people think this handoff is easy!  No way!  It takes
    	tens of thousands of hours of practice and in-depth coaching to
    	make sure that the baton doesn't get dropped.  Certainly this is
    	on par with hitting a jam pitch to the opposite field when the
    	hit n' run's on, no?
    
    I'm devastated here, my argument smashed by thoughtful insight like,
    "the strategy is to win."  Humph.
    
    Hey, boys, wake-up call: What Track & Field is all about is taking
    somebody with a lotta natural talent, optimizing it through endless
    hours of repetition, and stepping onto the track or field and going
    through the motions.
    
    *Excuse* me for daring to point out how empty all that is in comparison
    to team sports such as hockey, baseball, football, racing, etc; or to
    interesting solo sports such as golf or tennis.
    
    Shouldn't a sport have form, structure, mentally stimulating events?
    Yes, and this certainly means that Track & Field is the vestigial 
    functional equivalent of man-as-beast-with-opposing-thumb (for use in
    field events).
    
    Btw, Rich, Indiana has historically done very well in the NCAAs with
    distance runners, and if I'm not mistaken took a national title or two
    this year.
    
    Big10 Tom 

    And as for *you*, JD, how dare you talk of "bait notes?"  
    
    I mean, you're the one guy who walks down the hall with lures, 
    spinners, monofilament line, crawdads, suckers, leeches, and
    nightcrawlers hanging from your jacket pockets from all the trawling
    and casting you do.  Lucky you live in Seattle so's they think you're
    a fisherman!
    
    MrT

    MrT,
    
    have 'baited' a note in a long time.  You are just showing your
    ignorance about T&F, but hey, that's okay.  You can have your opinions.
    Of course you like motor car racing, a real stimulating, tough,
    team sport.  (Oh yeah, I know's how them pit guys have to have it
    together and the dude wif the chalk board has to know how to write...)
    
    And your line about taking a  natural athlete and subjecting him
    to hundreds of hours of reps (i.e. practice)  Geez, MrT - cain't
    that go for *any* sport - I mean didn't Steve ALford practice hoops
    for hundreds and hundreds of hours, especially the outside shot,
    so he could be almost automatic from the college 3-point line?
    Don't most sports players practice hours and hours?
    
    And by the way, there's more involved in baton passing then the
    fear of dropping it.  The US generally has sloppy baton passing
    techniques, but more raw speed than others, while most european
    teams have great technique but not the speed - when the US loses,
    it is usually due to sloppy baton technique.
    
    But I won't waste  my time with you.  You'll tire and go to another
    subject.  Congrats on coming back from the purge, comrade.
    
    JD
    
    PS.  Indiana had the best 1500M runner this year - but who cares,
    the guy just got that way by practicing.  What a dumb sport.

re: .314

I dint bait noone. 

You are confusing me with Big1xTom, who's suffering a little identity
crisis right now as his league bends over for the big bucks. I replied
that I thought Track and Field was a fine sport, while that other
gentleman from Mid America exhailed his theory that if he doesn't like
the way a sport wortks than it must not be a sport. Stock cars yes, mile
runs no. Indeed.

TTom

    dont let him get to ya  JD.. mr  t.. probaly has never run even
    a mile i bet in his entire life... 
    
    dinz
    

    Steve,
    
    I have to disagree with you - racing IS a sport.  I suppose you have
    never driven several hours straight through??  I dunno know about you,
    but last summer I had to drive to PA, pick someone-up, and turn right
    back around to come back to MA.  Needless to say, I was just a little
    bit drained.......(and we stopped several times for bio breaks!).
    
    Use this perspective:  baseball players use gloves and bats, hockey
    players use sticks, racecar drivers use cars!  All are sports that
    challenge ones abilities, talents, stamina, strength, and mental
    aptitude as well as knowledge of the sport.  The only difference being
    the tool in which the athlete chooses.
    
    Just my opinion,
    wheel (with a nickname like that you have to expect me to defend
    racing!)
    

    
    i dont.. but hes showing his ignorance  about  the sport..
    
    
    dinz
    

    
    so wheel, whats your opinion  on track and field?
    
    
    just curious
    
    
    dinz
    

I think auto racing is definitely a sport.

There is stress involved.  

There was an article in Sunday's paper about a report who went through
the three-day course at the Skip Barber racing school at Lime Rock, CT.
There is an unbelievable amount of things to concentrate on during 
a race, and a car performs *very* differently at a high speed than
at regular road speeds. 

In fact, I think that the main point shared by great race drivers
and great runners is their ability to maintain concentration over
the course of a race.  In either sport if you mind wanders, forget
about it.  Of course in motor racing you just wind up dead...

'Saw

>
>There is stress involved.  
>

	I can't imagine the stress.  Going full tilt and right on the edge
where one wrong move could mean spinning into a wall.  Big Nads!

mc

    Dinz,
    
    Track and Field IS a sport.......
    
    Mike,
    
    your comment of '...one wrong move could mean spinning into a wall.
    Big Nads!' is wrong.  Don't ya remeber Neil Bonnet's crash earlier
    this year?  The guy lost his memory.  Not to mention that a driver
    from Oswego and one from Beech Ridge Speedway have already died this
    year dut to crashes.  I'm sure the wives of these drivers would
    appreciate that comment.
    
    wheel

    Re .324
    
    Steven, I read your reply as a shot at a particular noter who happens
    to claim that Racing is a sport, but T&R isn't. I was rollin.
    
    Lee

Racing...

I read Jackie Stewarts autobiography a few years back, and he
described a phenomenon that I was extremely dubious of until 
I experienced it one time on my motorcycle.

Stewart claimed that at high speed, when he was right on the money,
everything was coming at him in slow motion.  (intense concentration, eh?)
He said if his rhythm was off, things would be going by too quickly.

A few years ago I was headed up Route 7 early in the morning and
decided to open the bike up to see what it would do.  Up between
115 and 130 I began to feel the same thing...  

Amazing how the human senses can handle anything.

But still, I cannot imagine doing almost 200 mph in a car (or on
a bike!)...

Auto racing takes a certain amount of nads, but so does flying F-14s
or climbing mountains, or dating Roseanne Barr....

HTH,
'Saw

re NASCAR modifieds and death -- they need the same safety practices and
   checks at that level as they have with the big boys....

    'Saw,
    
    I believe it was just last year that a certain NASCAR driver did
    die due to injuries sustained from a crash.
    
    Also, the year before a driver from NHRA died.  I can't remember
    their names though.
    
    wheel
    

    Track and Field is far more a sport than car racing.  For one thing,
    it's athletic.
    
    Dan

      Track and Field is far more a sport than car racing.  For one thing,
    it's athletic.
    
    Dan


Correct  Dan  Car racers are not a Freak of nature i.e. oter atheletes. 

Jeff                    

Dan, so is auto racing.

It can be very grueling, and most drivers (most, not all) are in
pretty good shape.  With high temperatures in the cars, a driver
can run into the same electrolyte loss problems as a marathon runner.

They're working hard, just using a different adjunct to achieve
their results...

JMHO,
'Saw -- who likes auto racing *and* t&f

>It can be very grueling, and most drivers (most, not all) are in
>pretty good shape.  With high temperatures in the cars, a driver
>can run into the same electrolyte loss problems as a marathon runner.
    
    No, Saw.  Sitting in a car might be tense, it might be grueling, it
    might induce sweat.  The drivers might be Mr. Universe, or Bob Hayes.
    Athletic, it is not.
    
    Dan

    Even though I'm no fan of NASCAR, I must say that the drivers are true
    athletes.  200 MPH in exteme heat, maintaining concentration and
    devising strategy takes quite a bit of athletic skill.
    
    Down another rathole...anybody seen previews for Tom Cruise's new movie
    "Days of Thunder"?  Looks like a pretty good flick to me, especially
    Nicole Kidman's titles.  Part of it was filmed in Charlotte, and I got
    the ?privilege? of seeing Cruise and Robert Duvall standing in a garage
    near my condo up town when they were only letting local traffic by.
    
    	--dan'l

    Dan'l
    
    Days of Thunder (I believe) is supposed to open tonight

    I have my Funk and Wagnals packed away but if I were Noah Webster
    I would do the following:
    
    athletics - n - human beings engaging in activities where they
                    run/skate, jump, throw either in groups or singly.
    
    This, to me, includes baseball, basketball, soccer, football, hockey,
    lacross, rugby, etc.
    
    It does NOT include bowling, golf, billiards, ski jumping, car racing
    or playing chess.
    
    When I think of an athlete I think of a person in very good physical
    shape. Granted there are some bowlers, golfers and race car drivers
    who are in very good shape but one "could" be a fat slob and still
    be the best bowler/golfer in the world. 
    
    I guess it's all a matter of personal preference. I've never agreed
    with Jack Nicklaus being named "Athlete of the Decade" by SI but
    there must be plenty of people out there who think that golf is
    an athletic event. I disagree. Golf/bowling/car racing is a sport;
    it is not an athletic event.
    
    Rich
    

Here's Noah on the athlete

	athelete - n (from the Greek, to contend for a prize):
		one who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or
		games requiring physical strength, agility or stamina.

Looks like car racing, track and field and about everything mentioned so
far qualifies.

TTom

    Didn't that brilliant ABC made-for-TV event "The Superstars" answer
    this debate long ago?  I seem to remember Kyle Petty practically
    drowning during the swimming event and pulling up just shy of a cardiac
    arrest in the quarter mile.
    
    Just tryin' to be helpful,
    
    
    - ACC Chris

    Mike,
    
>    your comment of '...one wrong move could mean spinning into a wall.
>    Big Nads!' is wrong.  Don't ya remeber Neil Bonnet's crash earlier
>    this year?  The guy lost his memory.  Not to mention that a driver
>    from Oswego and one from Beech Ridge Speedway have already died this
>    year dut to crashes.  I'm sure the wives of these drivers would
>    appreciate that comment.
>    
 	I don't understand?  

	mc

    >Track and Field is far more a sport than car racing.  For one thing,
    >it's athletic.
    
    Living proof than one cain be both informed and a_ignoramous at the
    same time.  
    
    Ignoramous: Auto racing is arguably the most athletic of any sport.  
    Tests have been performed by sports physiologist that show F1 drivers 
    have the highest constant heart rates of any sport, that they lose the 
    greatest percentage of body weight in a given time, and show some of the 
    worst post-event fatigue ever observed.  These tests, btw, were done not 
    to compare with other sports but to discern how much of this extraordinary
    level of exertion is associated to fear or mental strain versus physical 
    strain.  
    
    Informed: There *is* a_athletic vs. sport distinction, Dan's right on
    that.  This was my very point, that T&F is almost totally athleticism
    and almost void of sport.  JD pitched in and helped by making a bad
    analogy about Alford practicing free throws for 4 hours a day; that
    skill is only one a among many skills required by hoops, and basketball
    is a rich game jammed with tactics, strategy, subtlety, and substance.
    
    Meanwhile a T&F athlete, by the same analogy, would practice his free
    throw equivalent 8 hours a day and then simply go out and... shoot
    free throws.  Whoo.  And interesting too.
    
    We won't even mention the extent to which T&F skills are a matter of
    natural talent versus skill acquisition.  
    
    So, T&F is athleticism in one dimensional form; whereas team sports and
    many solo sports (such as golf or tennis) are genuine sports of three
    dimensions, with the heavy emphasis on event structure, acquired skills,
    tactics, strategy, complexity, etc. instead of simple talent + simple
    skill action + intensive training + simple execution at event.
    
    You lose, dins.  My farthest nonstop run was 7 miles, averaging only 
    a paltry 6 min per.  I was fascinated by the process: left, right,
    left, right, left, right, faster, slower, left right left right left
    right, uphill downhill, left right left right, oooh the pain ooooh the
    pain!, left right...
    
    Jogging: The last refuge of the incapable and the masochistic.
    
    MrT

    From The American Heritage Dictionary
    
    ath-lete (N) One who takes part in competitive sports
    
    Guess that kinda makes anything competitive a sport!!!
    
    ath-let-ic (ADJ) 1. Of or pertaining to athletics or athletes
                     2. Physically strong; vigorous
    
                (N)  {takes pl. v.) Athletic activities, as competitive
                                    sports
    
    HTH
    wheel

�    Jogging: The last refuge of the incapable and the masochistic.
    
I think a lot of it has to do with what you enjoy.  In my time I've
played baseball, softball and soccer.  While I was not a superstar
at any one of the three, I was a competent player (esp in soccer,
where I played keeper, striker, and back).

But running for some reason is the thing I've stuck to the most over
the years.  I enjoy it.  There are days when it sucks, and most of
finishing a run is just sheer dogged concentration.  But there are
other days when I get home feeling dead tired from all this bullshit
in the office, I lace up the shoes and hit the street.

Somewhere along the line I realize I'm having a really good run.
Just the other day I ran past a hay field that had just been cut,
and boy did it smell good.  I was going by slowly enough to really
enjoy the serenity of the scene.

The thing I like about running too, is that basically I compete solely
against myself.  If I get my time down, then I've improved.  I started
running to lose weight, and am dropping about 2 pounds per week, but
I know I'll continue afterwards because I just plain enjoy it.


Re Days of Thunder:

	Sounds like a good flick.  From what I've heard, Greg Saks did
	a lot of the driving.  FWIW, Cruise has a reputation at the
	track of being a bit too reckless for his (and others') own
	good.

	In fact, they kid about SCCA having a new meaning when Cruise
	is racing.  Instead of Sports Car Club of America, it
	becomes See Cruise Crash Again....

HTH,
'Saw

    Ah, name calling.  MrT's "when all else fails" occupation in here,
    whether it be sports figures or other noters.  Invariably the sign of
    another quixotic venture where he sees the truth and everyone
    else is wrong.
    
    >Ignoramous: Auto racing is arguably the athletic of any sport. 
    >Tests have been performed by sports physiologist that show F1 drivers 
    >have the highest constant heart rates of any sport, that they lose the 
    >greatest percentage of body weight in a given time, and show some of the 
    >worst post-event fatigue ever observed. 
    
    I'm sure a mother during natural child birth can score high on these
    parameters, and that's neither athletic or sporting, unless you twist
    those definitions horribly.
    
    Richard Petty may have his brow creased with concentration, he may be
    sweating buckets, his heart may be pumping the blood through the veins
    by the gallon, but he's got got his right foot pressed down and he's
    turning a steering wheel 13 degrees to the left.  By *my* definition
    that's not athletic.
    
    The athlete in the car racing model is the car, the machine.  The
    driver, the brain.
    
    Dan

    
  >      have the highest constant heart rates of any sport, that they lose the 
  >  greatest percentage of body weight in a given time, and show some of the 
  >  worst post-event fatigue ever observed.
   
    An out-of-shape person can achieve this in a simple run around the
    block or a good roll in the hay.
    
    Dickster
    

I think that it's a matter of not being prejudicial about our
sports just as we shouldn't be about each other.

If everyone in the world deemed Auto Racing not to be a sport, then
those of us who enjoy it would be out of luck.

People have different skills.  The kind of skills that make you a
fine basketball player may not hold you in good stead if you decided
to switch to moutaineering.  Or the skills used in auto racing
might not apply really well to hockey.

The nice thing is that people are free to express themselves in
whatever athletic arena they choose.  Each sport has things that
make it very difficult.  In any sport, usually the competitor
who is in better shape will tend to, over the long run, excel.

I like to run, Mr T likes one-on-one basketball (the only sport that
I'm sure that he participates in), our esteemed, grunt-disliking
Moderator Jeff likes rowing and wearing beach balls on his haid.
Mike JN and Hawk are (I'm sure) masters of the 12 oz curl.

This variety creates the differences that are so vital to a vibrant
human condition.  Without those difference, life would be dreary indeed.

'Saw

    RE: The SuperStars
    
    Lynn Swann won the SuperStars competition three years in a row.  But he
    could not swim.  So by this logic, I am an athlete and Lynn Swann is
    not.  Try again.
    
    RE: Days of Thunder
    
    They had a sneak preview in Charlotte last night.  Rusty Wallace was on
    the radio this morning and he said it was a good movie and authentic
    except for two points:
    
    	- apparently Cruise's car almost wrecks during the last lap of
    	  Daytona but he still wins.  Wallace said this is next to
    	  impossible on that track.
    
    	- Cruise wears some pretty spiffy clothes in the movie.  Rusty said
    	  most drivers he knows own one suit and hardly ever wear it
    	  because it doesn't match their flannel shirts. :-)
    	

re DoT and NASCAR --

	I used to work with Dave Marcis's mother-in-law.  
	She used to tell me that a lot of the "good ol boys"
	on the circuit were hard drivin' men.

	She said that a typical night before the race consisted
	of major league partying until the early morning hours,
	after which the hungover guys would tumble out in the
	morning and go race their a__es off.

	I don't know if it's still like that now, but you
	know most of those guys have to be pretty manly...

'Saw

PS  Cruise is too pretty to be a NASCAR driver anyway ;^)

    
    
    
    
    
    re: JD
    
    You're absolutely right, JD.  We shouldn't care at all about Indiana's 
    Nat'l Champ 1500 m runner.  What'd he do to win his Title?  He was born
    with talent, then learned the old left-right, then trained his exercise-
    event incessantly, then exercised at the Big Meet.  When I read of this
    latest of hundreds of Hoosier Titles I shook my haid in disgust and axed
    myself how much money was diverted from our baseball program or whatever
    and why couldn't this be handled out of the phys ed budget or intramural
    budget or maybe through a local exercise club or sumpin'.  Fair?
    
    re .348
                                                                   
    You sick, Dickster - but properly named.
    
    re: name caller
    
    Oh, you're full of it.  All I said is that you're a_ignoramous with
    regard to motor sports, which is clearly true.  I.e., you're prone
    to making incorrect but obtrusive and opinionated statements.  That's
    not name calling; that's opinion nailing.  
    
    Don't go around opining on something of which you know naught and then
    get weepy when nailed...
    
    Btw, the unparalleled level of physical exertion by a F1 driver isn't
    the point.  It certainly qualifies them as athletes, for they exert
    huge amounts of energy and muscle and concentration in order to do
    something besides delivering babies or committing unspeakable 
    Dicksterisms in dimly lit barns.
    
    If you wanna define whether racing is a sport then you'd have to look
    at hand-eye-foot coordination, reflex time, ability to make extremely
    serious decisions in a split second, courage, and strategic capability
    (drivers make their own decisions on tire compounds, suspension set
    up, etc. which amounts to race strategy).
    
    The huge levels of exertion are only frosting on the cake.  Morevover,
    you don't win for having the fastest heartbeat, but for having the
    best combination of physical capability in combo with mental capability.
    Supposedly the Frenchman Alain Prost has a relatively low heart rate,
    not surprising cuz he's always been known as the unflappable cool cookie,
    thus his monicker "le professeur."
    
    He's reigning world champ.
    
    As I said, Dan: Ignorance.
    
    re: 'Saw
    
    Actually, Saw fibbed a bit.  Most race drivers are freaks of nature,
    they're about the size of jockeys, especially in formula cars,
    especially since aerodynamics took over.
    
    Let's get back to the real point here.  Is T&F really sport, or just
    exercise-as-vestigial-entertainment?  I think the latter.  Left, right,
    left, right!  (Strategy, run faster than the other guy.  No, jump
    farther, no jump higher, no hand batons off quicker, no, duhhhhhhh.)
   
    MrT

    >If you wanna define whether racing is a sport then you'd have to look
    >at hand-eye-foot coordination, reflex time, ability to make extremely
    >serious decisions in a split second, courage, and strategic capability
    >(drivers make their own decisions on tire compounds, suspension set
    >up, etc. which amounts to race strategy).
    
    Hand-eye-foot coordination is used by Mexicans to make terra cotta
    pots.  That doesn't make the pot-maker an athlete.
    
    Reflexes are used by loggers when a tree falls.  That doesn't make them
    athletes.
    
    Ability to make extremely serious decisions in a split second is used
    by traders on the floor of the NYSE.  That doesn't make them athletes.
    
    Courage is used by the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz.  That doesn't
    make him an athlete.
    
    Strategic capability is used by a doctor deciding the best treatment
    for a patient.  That doesn't make him an athlete.
    
    If pressing the right foot down and turning the wheel slightly makes
    someone an athlete, I'm going to be an athlete on the way home tonight. 
    Wish me luck.
    
    Dan

Excellent comparisions Dan, especially the mother. Clearly you are ahead
in this debate. ;^)

T&F not athletes but F1's are? cmon now if you can sell that line to someone
then why aren't our sales better?

;^)

hhahaaaaa

mike

    MrT, you seem to have forgotten a large percentage of track and
    field.  That being FIELD.
    
    Can YOU do a polevault.  I know I can't, however, I can drive a
    racecar.  I wouldn't win, and I'd be happy to finish, but I can't
    polevault.
    
    How about the javelin throw?  I threw the javelin in school, and
    I can safely say that NOONE learns the proper throwing technique
    in less than 6 months, then it takes years to get everything perfect.
    This doesn't even account for the weight lifting etc, to build upper
    body strength.
    
    How about the high jump?  I'm willing to bet you couldn't even tell
    me the proper technique for high jumping, never mind do it.
    
    Every single FIELD event has its equals to your formula I techniques.
    
    Now lets go back to TRACK;
    
    Hurdles, what's the proper distance to leap from, which foot do
    I jump with, what angle does the trailing leg need to be to clear
    the hurdle, how many steps between hurdles.  These are just a few
    things you need to know and it's different for the 110m and the
    300m and the steple chase.
    
    As a person who normally doesn't say anything in your dumb, petty,
    two-bit arguments that aren't in the least bit entertaining and
    a complete waste of disk space, I say this:  LEARN ALL THE FACTS
    BEFORE YOU LEAVE YOUR BULLSH*T IN HERE.
    
    The Wizard

I think that one thing we're missing here in this debate is
the consideration of the origins of sport.

What we're doing in effect, is trying to judge two sports (for *I*
feel that each *IS* a sport) that originated in two widely differing
time periods.

Track events trace way back to Greek times, and I'm sure that running
itself it heavily tied into man's survival instinct.  Auto racing
on the other hand is a 20th century phenomenon.

Both exist because of one singular reason -- Man's competitive nature.
Man is a highly social animal, but his competitive nature cannot be
expressed in the same manner as in a wolf pack for example.  This
competitive nature has not been bred out of Man, so he plays
at Sport. 

Watch two children.  On any given day, at any given time, with materials
found at hand, they will invent games and be (at various levels)
competitive.

Also, this competition in a sporting sense helps create benenficial
stress, which is highly important in life.

The one thing so typical of this debate is that we are all working
from different definitions of SPORTS.  While I won't go into specifics,
it would seem that MrT has a set of criteria, which to him, define Sport.
Others in here have a different set of criteria.  

Hell, this is like the Paris Peace Talks.  We can't even decide on the
shape of the table yet 8^)


So, to say that T&F is not sport is ludicrous.  It is Sport derived from
one of our most primal instincts.  And to say that Auto Racing is
not sport is probably just as ludicrous.  To say that it is just pressing
the gas and turning the wheel is really short-changing a very difficult
thing to do.  


Finally, I think that instead of looking at all the differences, look
at the common denominator, and then look at how we tidy up the picture
in our instinctual rationalization.  What is the difference between the
fighter pilot in a dogfight, and a race car driver?  Common denominator
is the same -- the human competitive urge to Win.  One is war, the other
is sport...


Just some insights before my morning coffee,
'Saw

    Mrt,
    
    First of all, you assume that, for some reason, all T&F athletes
    are born with amazing natural talent and only need to learn the
    ol' left/right to suceed.  Ah, if it was only that easy.  Again,
    using race car driving, all drivers are born with natural talent,
    they just need to learn the ol left/right (clutch/brake/gas) to
    suceed.
    
    But that's all from me.  I'll ignore the rest of your latest tirade
    against things you don't understand.   Hey, when's the next purge,
    MrT?  The next time someone offends you or doesn't agree?  You gonna
    take your notes and go back home again, and then resurface like
    the hong kong flu in a month or two again?
    
    

    >But that's all from me.  I'll ignore the rest of your latest tirade
    >against things you don't understand.   Hey, when's the next purge,
    >MrT?  The next time someone offends you or doesn't agree?  You gonna
    >take your notes and go back home again, and then resurface like
    >the hong kong flu in a month or two again?
    
    JD, it's more like Herpes, wouldn't you say?  As Eddie says, "You keep
    that shit forever.  It's like luggage."
    
    Dan

   Saw has a good point re: competition. 

   Given the competive nature of humans in general (and frustated Deccie
   jocks in particular) there is very little that couldn't be termed a
   sport, given the proper format. Think of the stress involved in Frog
   Racing, for god's sake!.... and cartin' them little green mothers from
   bar to bar!

   I think Dan had some good comments re: Car racing, as well. I've raced
   dirt track before, and while it's not 200 mph, it goes well over a 100
   mph, and definitely has it's moments. I would still contend that when
   you get eight to fifty vehicles, all going the same direction, at
   relatively the same speed, on banked tracks, and with comparable
   driving skills and good reaction times, Race driving is a HELL of a lot
   safer than negotiating rush hour traffic on the freeway.

   Admittedly some `sports' require more athletic ability (or strategy, or 
   stamina, or concentration, or beer, or discipline, or cheerleaders, or
   team interaction) than others; but what it boils down to is that if
   someone wants to consider it a sport....for them... it IS a sport.

   Mike JN

    The origin of NASCAR is quite interesting.  It indeed began as
    competition between men.  Moonshiners used to run white lightning out
    of the mountains down here in souped up cars.  It soon became more
    sport than crime when the drivers tried to outdo each other with car
    and driving ability.  After awhile, it was organized and turned into
    NASCAR.  
    
    Most sports started as unorganized competition, as 'Saw points out,
    track and field included.  This, my friends, is human nature.
    The desire to compete and win brings about it's organization.  The same
    can be said for Digital except it goes like "The desire to compete and
    win brings about RE-organization." :-)
    
    	--dan'l

    Gentlemen, gentlemen...
    
    It is all a question of definition and semantics...
    
    For some, SEX is an 'athletic' endeavour (ie heart rate increases,
    increased oxygen usage (also known as heavy breathing!!), profuse
    sweating, etc, etc).  But is it a "sport"???
    
    On the subject of racing drivers, I will add my 2 pickles...
    
    Many years ago, I was training with the British Junior Olympic Ski
    Team (that only lasted a few months until they discovered I held
    a US Passport!!! but that's another story...) and spent two weeks
    at an intensive training center in the Swiss Alps with Mario Andretti
    and Divina Gallica (the first British woman to win an Olympic Gold
    Medal at the Winter Olympics and the first woman to qualify for Formula 2
    racing).  Anyway, both Mario and Divina would qualify in anyone's
    book as "athletes".  They may not be as mobile sitting behind a
    steering wheel in a race, but the preparation (both mental and
    physical) required is just as intense as that required by any other
    "athlete" you care to mention.
    
    JMHO,
    
    PJ  

    The only good thing about auto racing is the crashes.

    
    >    The only good thing about auto racing is the crashes.
  
    At last, an *honest* noter.
    
    Dickster
    

    I didn't even say that in jest. I find Auto racing to be just about the
    most boring "sport" there is.
    
    I love to see the crash highlights tho'...
    
    JoJ

    no, watching golf on TV is the worst!

    You all missed the boat, fishing shows are the worst.

                             Bowling For Bagels

   Mike JN

Monster truck shows...  about as interesting as:

		a) getting my teeth scraped,
		b) having a foley catheter inserted
		c) changing a colostomy bag
		d) getting an enema
		e) watching William F Buckley
		f) cleaning the toilet
		g) cleaning the gutters
		h) watching a DVN broadcast
		i) listening to Brent Musberger

		h) watching a DVN broadcast


Sorry Saw there is nothing. As boring as watching a DVN broadcast. My manager
actually asked if we watched the TAPES. 

Jeff

    A previous reply had it correct ... I've taped about 6 hours of golf
    and whenever I can't sleep, I just start the golf match playing on the
    VCR ... I'm usually asleep within 5 minutes ... Ten pin bowling comes
    in a close second to supreme boredom ...
    
    -- Jim Bob

>		b) having a foley catheter inserted
>		c) changing a colostomy bag
>		d) getting an enema
    
    Bob Hunt, have we crossed the sacred line of good taste here too?
    
    Claybone

�>		b) having a foley catheter inserted
�>		c) changing a colostomy bag
�>		d) getting an enema
�    
�    Bob Hunt, have we crossed the sacred line of good taste here too?
    

Claybone, actually, those are all things that are less filling...;^)

'Saw

    Hey, Claybone, I'm sorry if I offended you.  I personally thought that
    the original note about a team flatulence contest was uncalled for and
    your reply seemed to take it lightly and, in fact, endorsed it to some
    small degree.
    
    I have no intention of being the "Taste Police".  I would just like
    everyone to remember that this particular conference and all other
    non-work related conferences are tolerated by management as a vehicle
    for employee interaction.
    
    Notes in poor taste like the one in question can *easily* be used as
    justification for shutting this conference down.   And that would be a
    shame.
    
    I have been on assignments at customer sites that also use VAX Notes. 
    Non-business use of *ANY* kind can be and often is strictly forbidden. 
    Coming back into DEC's network of conferences is a breath of sweet,
    fresh, clean air.   All of which can easily be fouled by such notes as
    we saw today.
    
    For what it's worth ...
    
    Bob Hunt

For whatever it's worth, we are pretty lucky to have this
conference, in the "form" that it exists...

I talk to Sean Strout pretty frequently, and though they
have a Sports conference, it's moderated pretty tightly,
and nowhere near as fun as ours....

We should try to do our best to keep this conference from
going away....

JMHO,
'Saw

    No offense here Bob.  No apologies needed either.  I did take it
    lightly but I can see where it might offend someone and even threaten
    our beloved ::SPORTS.
    
    You have to understand, that was the firsted time one of my notes
    has ever been set hidden and I felt kinda bad about it.  Oh well,
    I'm not a *set hidden virgin* anymore!  Ooooh, I feel so dirty!
    Wonder if I'll go blind?
    
    Claybone ;^)

Well, Claybone, as I told a not-so-recently-deviginized girl one time,
the best thing you can do is get right back up on the horse!!!!

HTH,
'Saw

    >>GENRAL::WADE "ButItry,andItry,andItry,ANDITRY..."
    		    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    
    "I cain't do it anymore and I'm not satisfied"
    "I cain't do it anymore and I'm not satisfied"
    

    Yo, JoJ, what happened to Bucky that he didn't make it the Mets game
    Sunday?
    
    -Walt

Maybe he was doin' the Wild Thing.....

Jo*, you really want to admit that in public?

mike

    Well Mike, it's like this....that line is from a song that you
    personally know and love. Right?
    
    In any case, It's Claywad who's having the problems...see:
    
    >>GENRAL::WADE "ButItry,andItry,andItry,ANDITRY..."
    

    Aw Jim, you're just gettin' cocky cuz you're gonna be a daddy.
    
    Here's a toast to Jim:  May you have a daughter......so that 
    my son can date her!  ;^)
    
    Claybone

    So what ever happened to the "is Track & Field a sport" debate?  
    
    Last I saw, it was agreed that neither T&F or auto racing were 
    genuine sports, a conclusion I cain live with, if it helps the
    nonexpert public better understand the difference between public
    exercise meets and real sporting events.
    
    MrT

My vote was that Track & Field AND auto racing are genuine sports, a
conclusion that I cain live.

TTom

    re Clay,
    
    If'n your son wants to date a daughter of Waddle's I'd have a serious
    talk wif him.

I think both T&F and Auto Racing are sports also.

It's all a question of attaining a higher plane of consciousness
through athletic activity, and a deep sense of satisfaction.

And, if you come right down to it [Caution -- RAT HOLE ALERT] I think
that original premise of Sports Theory should be changed to 
GAME theory.  Not all Sports are games and not all games are sports....

JMHO,
'Saw

    Re: "T"
    
    "...t'was concluded (agreed??) that T&F...ain't a sport..."
    
    
    	POPPYCOCK!!!!!!!!
    
    I AIN'T agreed to dat so it cain't be concluded (agreed)!!!!!!!!
    
    Keep da rathole alive.....
    
    T&F is the only pure sport!!!!!!!
    
    
    Kev
    

    Yeah, *right*, Kev.
    
    Hey, now that the IOC has included Body Shaping as a Field event,
    will my heroine Corey Everson be ruled ineligible because of her
    involvement with the ESPN program I go home everyday to watch during
    lunch hour?
    
    Is THAT the kind a_activity you consider "pure sport?!"
    
    MrT(rue Sport)

    
    WATCHING  CORY EVERSON.... OH YEA. GOTTA LOVE IT..
    
    DINZ
    
    
    

    Earlier on in here some guy named JD was whining and moaning and
    groaning about how T&F didn't get the proper respect.  Well, recently
    in Minnesota a high school cross-country star (yes, his face was
    pocked, no, not from pimples but from kicked sand, he couldn't make
    the gridiron squad apparently) was working out alone running a road
    in the country.
    
    But a funny thing happened on the way to T&F glory: He got mowed down
    by a Burlington & Northern freight train engine.  Splat.  The engineer,
    the kid's ma, and others could only conclude based on the fact that the
    kid was a goody-two-shoes and therefore unlikely to try and play
    chicken with a 40,000 ton juggernaut, that he was simply concentrating
    so hard that he neither saw the mile long train nor heard the whistle
    being tooted frantically by the engineer.  Splat.  
    
    I take back everything I said about them 98 lb weaklings, JD.  These
    T&F guys really put a lotta mental energy, concentration, into this
    running thing.  Jest lookit this kid (R.I.P.), he was really haidy.a
    
    MrT

    Kinda gives new meaning to the term "running flat out", don't it ???
    
    Bob Hunt

The kid, being a goody-two-shoes, refused to listen to all of
today's neat heavy metal music, instead preferring a glass of
wine and Frank Sinatra.

Little did he know that Frank's "Strangers in the Night" album
is loaded with backwards subliminal messages like "Take the A Train",
"don't hear that train a-coming", "if you beat it, you will run",
and "do it, do it, race the train".

Sinatra's spokesman was unavailable for comment....

    Sounds like the kid was training too hard.  He was probably thin
    as a rail without much of a caboose on him.   His mother must be
    fit to be tied.  At least he died in bed.  
    
    JD

    Way choo funny, JD ...
    
    Bob Hunt

    >at least he died in bed.
    
    I git that: As in "rail bed," huh?
    
    Wail, I'll tellya, it's no good when a training session ends up 
    with one being gathered up with a vaccum cleaner.  Poor kid, his
    electrolytes musta been way down.  Too bad he didn't make the 
    gridiron squad, where it's relatively safe.
    
    MrT

I still think it was cause he was listenin' to them
suicide messages on them Sinatra albums....

    Unfortunately, he was from the wrong side of the tracks.  He was
    always coupled to to others, led blindly  through the tunnel.  His
    mother remembers the tressles in his hair, the whistle in his speech,
    the thunder in his walk.  He was known to blow off steam at regular
    intervals.   He had a tough load to freight, but he conducted himself
    well.  Yeah, that's the ticket.  He was going to go to college to
    be an engineer.  He was spiked in the prime of life, no more regularly
    scheduled runs, no more shining light on a dark night.  
    
    JD

Driving that train, high on cocaine, Kasey Jones you'd better
watch your speed,
Trouble ahead, trouble beind, and you know that notion, just
crossed my mind....


Perhaps he had his mind on the Orange Blossom Special, when he
got hit by the Wabash Cannon Ball....

'Saw

    
    "Whoa, boy, dontcha run on the tracka-lacka..."
    

Yeah, and he'd listened to a little Marshall Tucker too....

	"Gonna take a freight train, far as I can..."

Then again, maybe he wanted to really see for himself if what they
said in "Stand by Me" was true:

	The train hit him so hard it blasted him right out
	of his Keds...


'Saw

    How 'bout something all us parents of toddlers can relate to:
    
    "Casey Junior"
    
    (I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, ......
    
    
    
    I thought I could!  I thought I could!  I thought I could!!)
    
    
    - ACC Chris

    After a workout where he really pressed himself, the kid was in
    rail-thin shape.  Heh heh.
    
    New subject: 
    
    		
    			Sports & Politics
    
    
    One a the most underrated subjects around, I think.  Important cuz 
    political discourse, and thinking, has all but died out in America 
    during the TV age.  People just aren't motivated anymore - except 
    about their home teams.  
    
    I got to thinking, Tampa Bay stated that they released Iggy Igwebuike
    cuz he tested positive for alcohol in his drug test.  What in the 
    HAIL they doing testing him for alcohol?  It's patently unconstitional
    to test for drugs in the first place, but Culverhouse accidently let
    it out that they also look for legal substances.  No surprise, cuz if
    you set aside the bullsheet excuse about "examples for our youth" you
    are left with the real reason for this systematic invasion of privacy
    and abridgement of constitutional rights: Profit.
    
    Why should we set precedents sacrificing basic rights for NFL owners'
    profits?  Cuz we like for the home team to win, that's why!  
    Drug tests are valid only where impaired performance risks the well-being 
    of others in a material and immediate manner.  For instance, plane
    pilots, train engineers, and nuclear power plant operators should be
    tested for the general good.
    
    Yet, if drugs indeed impaired athletic performance one a the 400 or so
    coaches and trainers on the team would be able to detect it without random
    testing, and anyway what the hell does it matter.
    
    This "example" rationale is a canard.  Even if it were real it steel
    couldn't justify the set aside of the basic right to privacy, cuz for
    a_example to be real he/she must be the product of his/her own will -
    and being tested like a lab rat robs on of that will.
    
    Last line: Sports mania has been manipulated to get the masses to
    tolerate, even endorse, the wholesale sacrifice of our right to privacy,
    and for no damned good reason.  Now, 10 years after, every company in
    America has asserted the right to invade your privacy in order to
    assure THEIR profits.  Creeps like a vine, don't it?
    
    MrT

    Hard to argue with you on this one, T ...
    
    And we have our wonderfully conservative Republican administrations
    over the last 10 years to thank for it.
    
    The assault on personal privacy has been slow but oh-so-steady.  
    
    And, unfortunately, the media fell all over itself trying to line up
    for their massive butt-kissing love-a-thons with the Gipper.  And
    they're still doing it with The Designated Wimp.  Why, I have no idea. 
    No two Presidents have ever enjoyed such fawning and adoring press
    correspondents.
    
    I say "unfortunately" because the media, regardless of its political
    leanings, is one of the few "free" information vehicles available to
    us.  And when the information comes to us in such a soft package, most
    of the dolts in this country suck it right up.
    
    Budget deficit ???  Oh, don't worry.  It's *only* $200,000,000,000 this
    year.  Besides, we're a service economy now.
    
    Debt ???  Oh, don't worry.  It's only $3,000,000,000,000 now.
    
    Oil ???  Oh, don't worry.  It's only $1.50 a gallon now.
    
    Those three right there are every bit as brutal a rape of our personal
    privacy as any drug-testing policy.
    
    Bob Hunt

    More bad politics stemming from manipulation of sport:
    
    
    		Abridgement of 1st Amendment Right to Free Speech!
    
    
    Sports leagues, with their bylaws and near judiciaries and regulated
    internal economies, seem to be forgetting that they are part and parcel
    of a real world with real rules.  
    
    The latest sad example is Paul Tagliabue's ruling that Jerry Glanville
    cain't call the jerk Jack Pardee a jerk.  Who in the hail does he think
    he is telling somebody he cain't speak out?  By what right cain he 
    muzzle the good Jerry?
    
    Pro sports ran the vanguard in doing away with our constitutional right
    to privacy and presumption of innocence, are they now running the gauntlet
    against free speech?
    
    MrT

    
    re -1
    
    When Glanville signed his NFL contract he agreed to live by the terms
    of the NFL's bylaws.  It's the same reason a player's "rights" are
    owned by a team unless traded.  For the amount of money these guys
    make, I'd agree to give up some of my rights.
    
    Bruce

It's no different than working here.

While many of us accept the Valueing {Differences, Diversity} policy,
it too restrains one from speaking ones mind in some cases.  But, because we
all signed an employment agreement, it means that we accept that
constraint....

'Saw

    >he agreed to live by the terms of the NFL's bylaws.
    
    That doesn't make the bylaws constitutional.  A private party agreeing
    to having his rights abridged hardly empowers the abrdidging party to
    do so.
    
    >It's the same reason a player's "rights" are owned by a team unless
    >traded.
    
    It's flaccid reasoning like this that has put sports in the vanguard
    of our Incredible Shrinking Constitution.  C'mon, stiffen up, Bruce!
    Need the NFL foster widespread obeisance?
    
    Where a player plays is a matter of contract.  He's assigned to a 
    particular work station and receives money in exchange for playing
    football.  You sloppy analogy (which seems to emphasize the word's
    first syllable) fails to account for the fact that Glanville's job
    is coaching a football team, not speaking.  
    
    >For the amount of money these guys make, I'd agree to give up some 
    >of my rights.
    
    That's unimportant.  What matters is two things: 1) It sets a rotten
    commie police state precedent, and 2) It propagates the notion that 
    being told what you cain say or not say is ok.
    
    MrT

    I don't think it's a matter of rights being violated.  It's a matter of
    pleasing your employer.
    
    T, if you went public for millions to hear saying (hypothetically, of
    course) that Bob Hunt, one of your colleagues, was a total jerk, how
    would that look upon Digital?  Not too good.
    
    Digital's and Bob's reputations would be damaged by someone who can't
    contol his mouth.  Digital would have the right to reprimand you the
    same way the NFL did Glanville.
    
    You wouldn't have to listen, however.  But you would then suffer the
    consiquences of your actions.
    
    	--dan'l

Come on T, it is plain fact that the constitutional gauranteed rights apply
only to the government's attempt to abridge.....  Private parties can and
do enter into agreements that force one or the other to NOT do things that
they normally would be allowed to do.  

For example, you or I would be summarily fired from Digital if either of us
ever brought a gun into the building (and were found out).  We have the right,
in many jursidictions, to carry a firearm anywhere we please, as long as it
isn't in violation of a private agreement.

	Ed^2

   Mr T, that irascible yet likable (Andy Rooney's love child), verbose
   and sometimes coherent, artfully clumsy gentleman with a curious
   penchant for plate stacking has done it again!

   GIVE `EM HAIL, T
   Mike JN

A classical example of this is how the NCAA is not required to exercise
due process in how it determines who has violated its rules. In effect,
the courts have ruled - all the way to the supreme court - that it can
levy punishment without regard to how it determines that a violation
occured.

TTom

    Ed, your gun analogy goes beyond the ridiculous to the sublimely
    ludricrous.  It doesn't merit comment.
    
    Lookit the NBA and MLB, for some reason they don't feel the need
    to abridge their employee's right to free speech (Pinella, Hubie
    Brown, Round Mound of Rebound).  
    
    As for the private agreements vs. governmental censorship bit,
    so sorry, get a clue yourself.  If a monopoly (and the NFL is just
    that, in fact a government approved and government subsidized 
    monopoly) decides to force anybody who wants to seek employment 
    in the area it monopolizes to reqlinquish his constitutional 
    rights, that by definition violates the First Amendment cuz it
    forces one to either trade off his rights or leave the industry.
    
    As for the Digital analogy, that doesn't work either.  I'll let
    spokespersons queried on this issue this week by a sporswriter 
    speak to this false analogy: Both the MLB and NBA said that they
    would only move to silence or discipline someone if he said something
    that was damaging to the integrity of the game or the person spoken
    about.  In other words, they would apply the same rules as society
    in general, those of libel and slander.  
    
    Tagliablue, by way of sad-sack megalomaniacal contrast, attempts to
    outlaw simple criticism altogether.  It's unnecessary to silence 
    Glanville, it harms no one, every sportswriter in the world has the
    right to call that jerk Pardee a jerk, and anyway calling Pardee a
    jerk damages the game not at all cuz every NFL fan in existence is
    already of the opinion that somebody or else in the NFL is a jerk -
    jest axe 'em !!
    
    At any rate, the two of you only make my point: Whether the monoplist
    censor Tagliabue cain get away with it legally is entirely beside the
    point.  
    
    Jest listen to yourseves!  Your in here, as fans, arguing on behalf
    of a monopoly's right to censor any and all censorship!  My point is
    this: In a nation of declining education and the masses relying more
    and more on sports, by sports' own proclamation, for "examples," the
    example (precedent?) being set with Tagliabue's censorship has Orwell
    written all over it.   
    
    MrT

    MORE explication of the rotten analogy:
    
    1. At DEC you're paid to work together; in the NFL your paid to 
       compete against one another.
    
    2. At DEC you're paid to do work; in the NFL a_explicit part of
       the job is to interface [sic] with the press and offer opinons.
    
    3. DEC allows people to criticize one another openly, so long as 
       it's done appropriately and through proper channels; the NFL 
       defines press interviews as a proper channel to offer opinions
       on coworkers.
    
    4. Tagliabue's ruling sez that one cain only offer positive opinions.
    
    Fini.
    
    MrT
    

    Sports and criminal law
    
    It never ceases to amaze me that the enforcement of penalties for the 
    crime of assualt and battery, a felony, has been ceded to sports leagues 
    in instances where such violence takes place during a sports event under 
    their control. 
    
    And I'm not talking about the occasional manly flare up as seen in 
    baseball.  I'm talking about the serious stuff.  For instance, when
    Rudy Tomjanovich was nearly killed and suffered permanent injury. True,
    he sued and won, but it's astonishing that none of the many policeman
    present didn't do their sworn duty and go onto the court and place
    Washington under charges.
    
    Or how 'bout the sad-sack NHL?  Here's a league where violence is part
    of the program, systemic in nature, actually planned provided for and 
    endorsed by those running the league.  They fire players for not
    fighting, or not fighting well enough, scouts file reports on players'
    willingness and ability to fight, players are hired specifically to 
    fight, and coaches openly admit that fights are integral parts of game
    strategy.
    
    Take last year, when a player intentionally slashed a goalie in the 
    haid area, and cut his jugular vein.  No arrest was made.  Instead, the
    criminal justice folks sat back content to let the redoubtable Ziegler
    mete out punishment.
    
    In the real world, crushing faces and cutting throats are treated as
    very serious crimes that entail long prison sentences.  Under the 
    auspices of these paralegal by laws under the control of profit-seeking
    sports organizaitons, at worst suspension and fines are seen.
    
    Key point: Young people, adults for that matter, are being sold violence 
    in a package that demonstrates that when done for profit is not only
    desirable but strictly above the law.  
    
    Had a look at violent crime dastisticks lately?
    
    MrT

    
    Should race car drivers be ticketed for exceeding the speed limit,
    particularly when races are road races?  If he blatently is at fault
    for causing an accident, can he be nailed with "driving to endanger?"
    
    Dickster
    

    T,
    
    The goalie didn't have his jugular ripped open with a stick, it was a 
    skate.  Completely accidental.  Boston's Mayor Flynn once talked about
    having the cops file charges against anyone that partakes in a fight. 
    This happened about two years ago.  He was heavily persuaded to not
    make a fool of himself by doing so.  
    
    Violence is on the increase in the NBA and possibly even MLB, but is on
    the downswing in the NHL.
    
    					Steve

>    Violence is on the increase in the NBA and possibly even MLB, but is on
>    the downswing in the NHL.

Yes, those scalp massages and sissy mary slaps in the NBA are pretty
bad.... 8^)

I still think MLB would be more fun if *everyone* got to carry a 
bat all the time.....

'Saw

    	I remember that Steve.  Could you picture those big fat Boston
    Cops waddling out on the ice trying to arrest a hockey player? 
    To bad Flynn has half a brain, because that would've been a classic
    scene.  HAHAHAHAHA�
    
    				/Don

    >The goalie didn't have his jugular ripped open with a stick, it was 
    >a stick, it was a skate.
    
    Unless you're talking about a different jugular vein job on a_NHL
    goalie, it was a stick.
    
    >Completely accidental.
    
    The player was ejected from the game immediately cuz it was completely
    intentional (he didn't argue the point) and was later either fined and/
    or suspended by the league.  The showed the replay several times on
    Minneapolis television (hockey's rather big here) and the following day
    one sportscaster interviewed the chief of Bloomington Police as to 
    whether he woulda charged the guy with assault with a deadly weapon
    (he evaded the question).  
    
    Dickster, driving at 200 MPH on a race track is not a crime, it's
    perfectly legal.  Driving recklessly by public motorway standards is
    also perfectly legal.  If, however, a driver did the moral equivalent
    of the NHL's stick slasher and intentionally, say, ran down a_opposing
    team's owner in the pits, I'm sure that he would be turned in to the
    police by the Track Marshal immediately.
    
    MrT 

    Guess I don't remember that incident.  I do remember a goalie getting
    his neck cut open pretty bad, but I thought for sure it was caused by a
    player's skate, after being taken down by a player from the goalie's
    team.
    
    What'd this guy have a barber's razor taped to the bottom of his blade?
    
    					Steve

    The replay of it was hard to watch (but I watched it several times :).
    
    He slashes across from right to left, apparently aiming either for the 
    shoulder or the mask.  The goalie is too stupid or busy to get his arm
    up to block, and the attacker misses and the bottom of the blade goes
    directly across the neck.  The goalie immediately drops to his knees
    and clutches his throat with both hands.  Blood beings gushing through
    his fingers and reddens his jersey creating a puddle on the ice.  As I
    remember the goalie passed out from blood loss as they loaded him onto
    the stretcher.
    
    My theory is that the impact was so strong that it simply burst the skin 
    on the neck, boxer cut-style.
    
    I feel sorry for pro hockey players.  Due to the marketing stupidity of
    the Canadians running the NHL each of them is probably making at least
    a $100k/yr less than they would be if the fighting were stopped and the
    game went to the beautiful technical/passing/skating that is its natural 
    form.
    
    If NHL games looked like college or European games they'd get a network
    contract and make big dough.  Stupid.
    
    MrT

    	Wrong MrT.  Hockey is a regional sport.  They could skate as
    pretty as the Ice Capades and there would still be no teleivsion
    contract and no mega-buck contracts.  Down south they would rather
    watch tractor pull re-runs than hockey, and out west they would
    rather go to the beach.  
    
    				/Don

    Out west in Denver there ain't no water and the since-stolen Colorado
    Rockies packed the house, as still do the college squads at U. Denver
    and Colorado College.  It's agreed by every man woman and child in
    the Western Hemisphere, except you, that the NHL could do a lot better
    than they are with their TV deal, and that the northern half of North
    America is hardly a "region."
    
    Btw, slasher, given today's subject, where did you git that monicker?
    
    MrT

   Re: Colorado Rockies.

   I used to go to their games.
   McNichols Arena held 17,500.
   I never saw more than 4,000 or 5,000 in attendance.
   You could buy the cheapest ticket, then sit anywhere you felt like.

   It is this experience, plus the lackadaisical support for the Nuggets
   that makes me wonder if Major League baseball would really work in the
   Denver area.

   Mike JN

    The Rockies were quite happy with their attendance.  For this reason
    Imperatore before the purchase was forced to offer (phony) assurances
    that he had no intention of moving the club to Jersey.  5,000 a night
    ain't bad in the sad-sack NHL.  
    
    As for MLB, didn't Marvin Davis' bank bring personal checks to purchase
    something 30,000 season tickets in Mile High Stadium that time in the
    late 70s when the A's [sic] almost moved to Denver?  [yes]
    
    MrT   

    
>    And I'm not talking about the occasional manly flare up as seen in 
>    baseball.  I'm talking about the serious stuff.  For instance, when
>    Rudy Tomjanovich was nearly killed and suffered permanent injury. True,
>    he sued and won, but it's astonishing that none of the many policeman
>    present didn't do their sworn duty and go onto the court and place
>    Washington under charges.
 
    And do you know why MrT(ipsy) ? Because RudyT charged into a VERY
    heated situation, and approached Washington from his (Kermit's) blind
    side at a run. This only seconds after Washington had been
    sucked-pinched in true Bill Laimbeer style by Kevin Kunnert. NBA rules 
    specify that other players stay out of fights for that very reason. And 
    all parties (with the exception of demagogues such as yourself) accept 
    the fack that Washington was defending himself from a unprovoked assualt 
    by Kevin Kunnert. Rudy ran blindly in, and Washington understandably 
    reacted to a perceived attack with tragic consequenses due to the force
    of his reaction.
    
    Fueled by yellow jounalism (and no small amount of racial bias),
    Washington was portrayed as a "mad dog" enforcer-type, intent on doing
    as much damage to Rudy T. as humanly possible. When Rudy filed suit,
    his winning was a virtual forgone conclusion.
    
    Tell me T(minus), what charge could have Washington have been arrested?
    Self-defense ?
    
    And if he was arrested, what about the true perp, Kunnert ? Or
    Tomjanovich ? While his role was innocent (he intended to be a
    peacemaker), he was in violation of NBA rules, and furthermore by his
    actions, was as stupid as a man running into a burning buliding with a
    can of kerosene.
    
    While some of your argument has merit, this case is bogus, and your
    ignorance of the real facts involved while not unusual, are misleading.
    
    Doc

    re: .426, .427
    
    The goalie your thinking of is Clint Malarchuk of the Buffalo
    Sabres......nexted time you watch a hockey game look at his
    throat, the scar is still readily visible.

    >your ignorance of the reals facts... misleading.
    
    Ha ha hooo ha ha hee haaa !!
    
    Midnight, if I ever commit a serious crime as did Kermit I want
    YOU across that courtroom aisle in the prosecutor's seat.  
    
    The replay, and it was shown hundreds of times, shows him facing 
    with winding up his fist as Rudy takes three or four steps running
    toward him with his hands and arms open to bear hug somebody to
    stop the fight.  Washington, whom you fallaciously describe as 
    surprised by Tomjonavich, then begins running AT Rudy at collapses
    his face for life with a vicious punch even though the victim was
    neither attacking him or defending himself.
    
    Racial bias my ace.
    
    If there'd been racial bias he woulda been charged, to answer your
    question, with A&B and sent to the County lock-up to serve 90 days
    to 2 years as he so richly deserved.  
    
    Btw, apparently the NBA disagrees with your distorted perverted sick
    untrue biased racially-motivated "remembrance" of what happened.
    
    Also, the act of seeking to break up a fight does not relieve the 
    fighter of being held responsible for a vicious unprovoked assualt.
    
    MrT 

    re: Colorado Rockies
    
    After spending ten years in the service at several different "sports
    oreinted" cities I'd have to rate the Colorado Rockie fans as the
    absolute worst.  I had the oppurtunity to see my hometown Penguins
    at Mcnickel's Arena with my wife (7 months pregnant at the time).
    Since we were both rooting for the Pens, we had to put up with all
    kinds of "Denver hospitality" like having things thrown at us as
    well as some "lovely Denver fan" pushing my wife down the steps
    after the game.  Needless to say there was quite a doney-brook(sp?)
    with the security guards escorting us to our car.
    
    It was as is I had committed the supreme sacrelage...rooting for
    someone other than the hometown team.  The Rockies, as well as Denver
    teams in general, along with their fans will never get my support
    or any kind words for that matter.
    
    <flame off>
    sorry for rambling...the Bucs just lost and it's raining out and
    the mention of the Rockies hit a raw nerve.
    
    Beat'em Bucs
    Bill
    

�                        -< what happened to .438-.448? >-

    
I believe they were moved by the moderator to the lockerroom discussion....

HTH,
'Saw

    Here we go again with the supernational sports leagues.  First they
    usurp the criminal justice system, then the Bill of Rights, now 
    constitutional democracy itself !!
    
    Paul Tagliabue's announcement that he's pulling the Super Bore out
    of Phoenix cuz he don't approve of the vote against making MLK Day
    a paid holiday is astonishing - and chilling.
    
    Me, I think that MLK Day should be a paid holiday in every state, 
    that it should be a national holiday like Labor Day.  But it ain't
    cuz Congress decided against it.  And now it ain't gonna be in Zona 
    cuz Zonans decided against it. 
    
    So now, the head of a publicly-subsidized business operation that is
    exempted from antitrust law is gonna use that public money in a_attempt
    to punish the citizens of Arizona for making a policy decision that 
    doesn't meet with his approval!  
    
    
    Two things: 
    
    1) I wonder if in order to avoid the utter hypocrisy that the NFL is 
       engaging in whether the league will today renounce all further public 
       subsidy and begin paying its own freight at market rates and also forgo
       all exemptions from laws that apply to normal business enterprises.
    
    2) Don't even *think* about making the fallacious PGA country club 
       analogies, it ain't gonna work.
    
    MrT

re: the league that took so long to hire a black coach...

As far as I know the "league" has nothing to do with the hiring and firing of
coaches. That is up to the individual owners. While I'm not saying that there
hasn't been a qualified candidate before Art Shell it has nothing to do with
the head office of the NFL.



Metz

    Metz,
    
    The "league" is not the headquarters in New York.  It's not Rozelle or
    Tagliabue.
    
    The "league" is the owners.   The commissioner is appointed by the
    owners and paid by the owners.  League headquarters in New York is the
    one consolidated place of doing business for these owners.
    
    The "league" waited too long to hire a black coach.
    
    Bob Hunt

    Change the name of the holiday to "Civil Rights Day" and I'd agree...we
    should declare it a national holiday.  
    
    Mark.

   � So now, the head of a publicly-subsidized business operation that is
   � exempted from antitrust law is gonna use that public money in a_attempt
   � to punish the citizens of Arizona for making a policy decision that 
   � doesn't meet with his approval!  
    
    I agree 100% with you on this one, T.   I, too, think the people of
    Arizona erred on this issue.   It still looks like the spectre of Evan
    Meachem is floating around.  But, I don't trust the NFL's motives one
    bit.   They want out of Phoenix for business reasons that haven't been
    made public and probably won't be.  It is far beyond the NFL's 
    capacity to take a moral stand on any issue.
    
    I mean, what's next ???   No more Super Bowls in New Orleans because
    Louisiana passed tough anti-abortion laws ???   No more Miami dates in
    order to protest the drug cartel ???
    
    The NFL can do whatever it wants regarding the placement of the Super
    Bowl from a business standpoint but to take a moral stand on their
    decision is ridiculously hypocritical.
    
    Bob Hunt

    
    > So now, the head of a publicly-subsidized business operation 
    
    What is this "public subsidy"?  Are you talking the money individual
    teams, not the league, draw out of local economies in stadium deals,
    etc.? 
    
    > that is exempted from antitrust law
    
    Only because your average anti-player, anti-freedom goggled-eyed sports 
    fanatic allows it to be.  Write your Congressman...
    
    As far as I'm concerned it's a private business making a responsible
    social decision.  Private initiative founded on public perception and
    pressures is a cornerstone of libertarian philosophy, and not in 
    opposition to democracy as you suggest.
    
    glenn
     

>    Arizona erred on this issue.   It still looks like the spectre of Evan
>    Meachem is floating around.  But, I don't trust the NFL's motives one
    
    Unfortunately, that is part of the problem.  Mr. Mecham and the church
    he is affiliated with has a rep for being bigots.  That church has a
    large presence in Arizona too.  It took a threat from the U.S.
    Government that involved removing their 'no tax status' to get them to
    allow blacks in their temple.  And that was in the late '70s!
    
    Mike

    
    > Change the name of the holiday to "Civil Rights Day" and I'd agree...we
    > should declare it a national holiday.  
    
    What is the difference between using MLK to represent a "Civil Rights
    Day" and previous use of Washington and Lincoln to represent our
    democratic ideals?  Semantics to me...
    
    glenn
    

THE REV:

	Martin Luther King Jr. was a man.
	A real man.
	He had more guts and integrity in his little finger than any 
		Congressperson I've ever seen.
	He spoke not only for *his* people, but for all people.
	He carried an important message, made it his life's work, and
		gave up his life in pursuit of his dream.

	It doesn't get any better than that, folks.

	People say there are no heros.

	MLK was a hero that you can hold up to Black and White alike.

	Congress is a pack of fools and knaves.

	I suspect that the NFL decision was not `morally' motivated, but
	it is still a worthwhile message.

MIke JN

The NFL is marketing a moral image. 

TTom

    < Note 206.459 by 4156::G_WAUGAMAN >
       -< MLK's b-day seems appropriate, and memorializes the struggle >-

>    What is the difference between using MLK to represent a "Civil Rights
>    Day" and previous use of Washington and Lincoln to represent our
>    democratic ideals?  Semantics to me...

    Glenn, I see where you're coming from, but I'd wager that Martin
    would rather have a day dedicated to the observance of the Civil
    Rights movement rather than a day honoring his name.
    
    But you're right...it is semantics.
    
    Mark.

Bob Hunt,

The league might be the collection of owners but it is up to an individual 
owner to decide who he/she wants to hire as a head coach. I don't think that
there was group pressure out there to keep the NFL coaching ranks lilly white.
I do think that there were a lot of chicken owners out there that were afraid
to be the first to hire a black head coach. Football isn't nearly the GOB 
network of head managers that baseball is.

Does Tagliabue ask the owners where the Super Bowl should be played every year?
Did he ask the owners before he pulled the '93 Bowl from Arizona? HIs ofice does
heave some powers that enable him to run the "league". Thus my assertion that 
the "league" did not take forever to hire a black coach. Tagliabue and the
commisioners office (which I consider the league) have nothing to do with the
day to day operations of an individual franchise...just like Colonel Sanders
doesn't stop by each KFC every day and check out there day to day operations.


Metz

>day to day operations of an individual franchise...just like Colonel Sanders
>doesn't stop by each KFC every day and check out there day to day operations.


>Metz
    
    Metz:
    
    I hate to burst your bubble, BUT, Col. Sanders passed away a couple of
    years ago.  After which he was immediately rolled in a mixture of 11
    herbs and spices and deep fried and then put under a perpetual warming
    lamp in the "Chicken Museum" in Huntsville, Alabama.  He can be viewed
    there.
    
    
    JaKe
    
    
    

what ???

next you'll be telling me that there is no Santa Claus....

WTF - I knew he was gonzo I just didn't have time to hink up another appropriate
      anal-ogy....


Metz

    Whaddya mean no Santa Claus.  Over the past few years, I have heard
    something said about there being no Santa, but, I know it's just rumors
    cause my Mommy says so.
    
    JaKe
    

    
    � I don't think that there was group pressure out there to keep the NFL
    � coaching ranks lilly white. I do think that there were a lot of chicken
    � owners out there that were afraid to be the first to hire a black head
    � coach. 
    
    Sure there was.   Why else would these powerful, egotistic, pampered,
    multi-millionaires be afraid of *anything* ???   To say that someone
    was afraid to be the first to do something risky is to imply that peer
    pressure stifled the risk.   
    
    I watched a "Cheers" rerun recently where the "guys" were all scared
    poopless to go sky-diving.  Finally, Woody went and they all did.  
    Group pressure, pure and simple.
    
    � Football isn't nearly the GOB  network of head managers that baseball
    � is.

    Oh, yes it most certainly is.  Look how much trouble Rozelle had in
    trying to resign.   The owners split themselves into two groups, the
    "Old Guard" of Mara, Modell, Culverhouse, Irsay, Hess, Cooke, Robbie,
    and the other geezers against the "Young Turks" of Braman, Kiam, Jones,
    and the other new blood.  The oldsters wanted Jim Finks and the "New
    Kids" wanted Tagliabue.
    
    And, as far as coaches go, look at how many of today's coaches have
    held previous pro head coaching jobs ... Perkins, Glanville, Shula,
    Levy, Meyer, Pardee, Henning, Knox, and Schottenheimer.   
    
    How many were long-time assistant coaches ???    Parcells, Gibbs, Ryan,
    Bugel, Ditka, Infante, Burns, Fontes, Seifert, Coslet, Rust, Noll,
    Wyche, Carson/Shofner, Reeves, and Shell.
    
    How many came in fresh off the street ???   Johnson, Mora, and
    Robinson.  Three.  That's it.   Jimmy Johnson and John Robinson from
    the college ranks and Jim Mora from the USFL.
    
    How many jobs has Marion Campbell had ???
    
    � Thus my assertion that  the "league" did not take forever to hire a
    � black coach. 
    
    Well, *somebody* did.   If you want to split hairs and call it "the
    owners" rather than the "league", fine.   But the truth remains
    regardless of the words used.
    
    � Tagliabue and the commisioners office (which I consider the league)
    � have nothing to do with the day to day operations of an individual
    � franchise
    
    And the equal employment opportunities granted to minorities are *NOT*
    the domain of the individual franchises.  It is the responsibility of
    the entire enterprise to make it happen.  League, owners, commish,
    everyone.
    
    � ...just like Colonel Sanders doesn't stop by each KFC every day and
    � check out there day to day operations.
    
    He's dead now.   His last wish was probably to be a part of the "secret
    recipe of ten herbs and spices".
    
    Bob Hunt

	RE: Mike JN

	What twenty years of being dead can do for one's image.  Martin
Luther King was a great man, but he was only a man.  At the time of his
murder most people either hated or were indifferent to him, including
the black population.  The fact of the matter is despite all his peaceful
protests and non-violent actions it was the summer when the cities burned
that brought about changes in race relations.  Changes which started, but
in no way finished removing the stain of racism in this country.

	And with regard to your remark that all Congress is lower than
a snake's belly, all I have to say is woe to he who aspires to political
office in hard economic times.  You'll be blamed for everything from traffic
jams to painful hangnails.

				/Don

    Metz, 
    
    The site for the Super Bowl is selected by a vote of the team owners.
    
    John

    
    The Super Bowl is the NFL's party, and they can take it wherever they
    want.  My guess is the the NFLPA put/would have put pressure on trhe
    owners to move it (and rightfully so).
    
    Maybe we could get the Cardinals to where black armbands the rest of
    the season.
    
    Bruce
    

J Hendry...

Sheeettt.. I didn't know that. I thought Tagliabooo just picked a site 
for xx years Sooper bowl.Thanks for informing me. 

BobHunt,

You might want to call it splitting hairs but I call it a significant difference
You implied that the commisioners office had a choice in coaches. I said that
they didn't...Now that we've got that cleared up I agree with you that there
is a GOB network in the NFL I don't think that is as firmly entrenched as the
one in MLB.

It may have been in the past but I think that the owners are now starting to
hire coaches for what they can do. I have no problem with the hiring of 
assistant coaches to be head coaches. I never expected to walk into my job as
a corporate consulting engineer I know I have to pay my dues and prove myself
first. Why do you expect head coaches to get hired in without training as an 
assistant ? Or was this just a bad example?

A lot of the coaches you mentioned as having previous jobs might have gotten
re-hired because they are good coaches...Are you disputing that don shula is a
good coach? Marv Levy ? Glanville ?

While others might be part of the GOB network...perkins, pardee and henning..

I think that both sports are moving forward in their hiring of minorities...
I think football will move faster than baseball where the recycling of bad
managers Macnamara,zimmer and the like has been going on for decades.

Metz

	"I CHOOSE TO
	identify with the underprivileged. 
	I choose to give my life to the hungry. 
	I choose to give my life to those who 
	have been left out of 
	the sunlight of opportunity...
	This is the way that I am going. 
	If it means suffering a litte bit,
		I'm going that way.
	If it means sacrificing,
	I'm going that way.
	If it means dying for them,
	I'm going that way because
	I heard a voice saying,
	DO SOMETHING FOR OTHERS."

			Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
			Digital Reaffirm Poster.

    re: splitting hairs
    
    I'd love to learn how to split hairs, then I'd have twice as much!
    
    Can the same split hair be split again?  And so on, and so on, and so
    on............?
    
    Hawk

�	What twenty years of being dead can do for one's image.  Martin
�Luther King was a great man, but he was only a man.  At the time of his
........... etc. etc. b




Slasher...

............. and????????

	I don't think anything you've pointed out conflicts with, or
nullifies, anything I said about the man. 
	In fact, in some ways, it could serve to underscore my opinion.

Mike JN

    Then I guess the NBA is also a bunch of hypocrites as they are
    cancelling their 1993 All Star Game plans for Phoenix.

 �   Then I guess the NBA is also a bunch of hypocrites as they are
 �   cancelling their 1993 All Star Game plans for Phoenix.
 
 The NBA has had numerous black players and black coaches over the years. 
 They now even have a black-owned team in the Denver Nuggets.  
 
 The NBA can easily take a moral stand on *THIS* issue.
 
 Bob Hunt

    So, Bob and T would be happier if the NFL ignored the issue and left
    themselves open to racist accusations.
    
    Was hiring Art Schell hypocritical?
    Was hiring Frank Robinson hypocritical?
    
    I agree with Glenn.  Where's your line between hypocritical and
    progressive?

    � So, Bob and T would be happier if the NFL ignored the issue and left
    � themselves open to racist accusations.
    
    Not true.   What I did say was that I question the NFL's motives.  In
    my opinion, they've never shown much of a social conscience in the
    past.  And I'm not going to be so quick to think that they've turned
    over some brand spanking new leaf.   Things rarely happen that way.
    
    � Where's your line between hypocritical and progressive?
    
    I very quickly admitted that it might be progress.  I still reserve the
    right to be skeptical, okay ???   If the leopard had indeed changed its
    spots, that's wonderful.   It's still got teeth and claws no matter
    what new fur pattern it's wearing.
    
    Fair enough ???
    
    Bob Hunt

    No no no... FORGET glenn's wholly fallacious reference to libertarians.
    The notion of publicly subsidized sports leagues allowed by the body
    politic to operate protected from open competition is repugnant to the
    tenets of libertarianism.
    
    >happier if the NFL ignored the issue...
    
    What issue?!  The argument in Zona was about a friggin' holiday and
    the voters, according to the rules of free democracy, decided against
    it.  Nobody's rights were in the least affected.  The whole thing was
    over a symbol and nothing more.
    
    >... and left themselves open to racist accusations.
    
    Oftentime leaving oneself open to the possibility of stupid accusations
    is necessary to doing the right thing.  Instead, the NFL did the wrong
    thing and is able to take a pseudomoral stand in the process.  Not to
    mention the scumbag ulterior motives that *really* drive this latest 
    phony meddling piece of work from the sports industry.
    
    FACTS: - Nothing immoral, unethical, racist, discriminatory, or illegal
             was done in Arizona.  A referendum was voted on.
    
    	   - The NFL has pocketed millions of hard-earned Zona taxpayer money
             as a condition of doing biz in the state, money that coulda gone 
             towards schools, infrastructure, environmental protection, etc.
    
 	   - The NFL is keeping the money but reneging on a committment to 
    	     let those same taxpayers profit from their investment in its biz
             cuz it's unhappy with their decision on a symbol.
    
    	   - These arrangements of subsidies and antitrust variances are 
    	     invariably one-sided with firm committments made by the taxpayers
    	     well ahead of time and little or no committment by the sports biz
             in exchange.
    
    	   - What the NFL did was in the very least wrong, and possibly quite
             illegal.
    
    	   - No debate over this latest outrageous encroachment on the nation's
             policy-making process by money-grubbing sports operators will go
             unreported, undebated, unchallenged cuz the print and electronic
             media on which we generally rely for such things are nothing more
             than shills who rely on the good graces of the sports operators 
             to peddle papers and commercial time.
    
    Sports journalism is a_oxymoron populated with oxen morons.  As a writer 
    recently said, what they're doing is actually promotion of a product within
    the framework of business partnership, not reporting.
    
    MrT

    
    > No no no... FORGET glenn's wholly fallacious reference to libertarians.
    > The notion of publicly subsidized sports leagues allowed by the body
    > politic to operate protected from open competition is repugnant to the
    > tenets of libertarianism.
    
    And where did I say it wasn't?  You've answered my questions on these
    "subsidies", which I also especially disapprove of in light of the 
    typical NFL team's philosophy of "love 'em or lose 'em", but they and 
    the antitrust exemption are implicitly approved by Joe Six-Pack and his
    insatiable thirst for sports (the recent refreshing voter responses in
    communities like Oakland and Santa Clara notwithstanding).  The fact 
    remains that in spite of these special benefits, individually endorsed 
    through the democratic process, the NFL remains private and free to 
    make decisions (wrong ones, even, if such is the case) as they feel fit.  
    Maybe it is time that Congress now reviews the antitrust exemption that
    continues to hold up the NFL's non-negotiated labor structure in 
    continuing court battles with the players.  But where's the fallacy in 
    my argument that a private organization is free to make responsible 
    social decisions?  God knows that the same league has made enough 
    irresponsible ones that no one challenges (not you, T, but the average 
    fan).
    
    glenn
    

    � Maybe it is time that Congress now reviews the antitrust exemption that
    � continues to hold up the NFL's non-negotiated labor structure in 
    � continuing court battles with the players.
    
    *This* is the NFL's worst nightmare.  That is, losing their antitrust
    exemption status.   It boggles my mind how these owners can put this
    shimmering financial jewel of a benefit at such risk time and time
    again.
    
    Maybe they have the same amount of respect for Congress that the rest
    of us have.
    
    Bob Hunt

NFL will always keep some antitrust exemption. They will also have to
live with free agency. On this issue, neither side can be happy.

TTom

    �The whole thing was over a symbol and nothing more.
    
    Obviously some symbols mean less to you than to others.  As far as
    nobody's rights being violated, that brings up an interesting question. 
    In alot of work environments people are allowed to honor their own
    holidays even if they differ from the norm of those around them (some
    Jewish holidays in lieu of the "traditional" Christmas or Easter
    holidays).  Why not MLK's birthday (although I agree that it represents
    more than a "black" holiday)?  Some employers get around these things
    by giving floating or personal holidays that allow people to decide
    what days they want to honor.
    
�    What issue?!  The argument in Zona was about a friggin' holiday
    
    Obviously alot of people look at it as more than a holiday.

    
    >	   - The NFL is keeping the money but reneging on a committment to 
    > 	     let those same taxpayers profit from their investment in its biz
    >        cuz it's unhappy with their decision on a symbol.
    
    Oh, and what exactly is this "commitment"?  Was the Super Bowl granted
    in return for Arizona's acceptance of the pathetic Cardinals?  If so, 
    first I've ever heard of it.  Only commitment I know of was Arizona's 
    willingness to let super-sleazoid Bill Bidwell and his traveling road 
    show into their fair state, all expenses paid.  They, and the people of
    of Indianapolis, and the people of Los Angeles, and the people of
    Irwindale, and many more, have gotten what they deserve, I'm afraid.
                                                    
    >	   - No debate over this latest outrageous encroachment on the nation's
    >        policy-making process by money-grubbing sports operators will go
    >        unreported, undebated, unchallenged cuz the print and electronic
    >        media on which we generally rely for such things are nothing more
    >        than shills who rely on the good graces of the sports operators 
    >        to peddle papers and commercial time.
    
    Isn't this a contradiction?  I don't read you...
    
    glenn
     

    Mac, the referendum was over a holiday.  Nothing more, nothing less.
    The people spoke, and apparently Paul Tagliabue wasn't pleased with
    their democratic expression so he's turning their own money on them
    as punishment.  
    
    The people of Arizona in no way abridged ANYbody's rights on ANYthing.
    Period.  
    
    I've said it before and I'll say it again: The political discourse of
    this nation - low by world standards to begin with - has been dragged
    down consistently by meddling from publicy subsidized sports operators.
    It's none a Tagliabue's damned business whether the referendum was 
    approved or not.  
    
    To equate rejection of a holiday with segregated country clubs and
    South Africa is just plain stupid, and reduces the level of discernment
    between right and wrong to a_even fuzzier level.
    
    >Now I suppose you guys will accuse the NBA of hypocrisy.
    
    You got THAT right.
    
    MrT 

    I don't understand how Tagliabue is interfering with Arizona's
    right to do whatever they wished.  The people voted not to honor
    Dr. King with a holiday.  Fine - that was their choice.  But I 
    can't find anything that indicates that the NFL has a decree that
    states the 1993 Super Bowl MUST be played in Phoenix.  
    
    The people of Phoenix made their decision, and they must live with 
    it.  If one of the by-products of that decision is the NFL choosing
    to move their premier football game to another locale, that is their
    right.  The NFL can play the Super Bowl wherever the hell they want.
    It is their game, after all.
    
    NAZZ

    Did Phoenix, Tempe or anybody in the State of Arizona pay any kind of
    signup fee or application fee or pay any kind of binding deposit to the
    NFL in return for the rights to Supe 27 ???
    
    If so, the NFL had better pay it back or they'll be back in court
    defending a breach of contract suit.  If you pay for the future
    delivery of some product or service, you are entitled to a refund if
    delivery does not occur, yes ???
    
    Also, the NFL had plenty of warning on this King Day issue when they
    decided to award the Supe to Phoenix.   They went ahead and ignored the
    warnings anyway in return for doing a big favor for Bill Bidwill, one
    of the oldest of the "Old Guard" owners.
    
    You see, Bidwill moved his team from St. Louis to Phoenix but, unlike
    Al Davis and Bob Irsay, he played by the "rules" and followed NFL
    "policy" on such franchise moves.   The other owners threw him the
    "Supe bone" in return for Bidwill's "cooperation".   The fans of St.
    Louis apparently didn't count for as much.
    
    The NFL is grandstanding.  I'm sorry to those who think this is social
    progress but I don't buy it.  They don't "social progress" if it bit
    them in the butt.  These guys will milk any cash cow they can find.  
    They're doing this for the hype, not the cause.  My feelings, of
    course.
    
    Bob Hunt

    Interesting commentary by George White of the Orlando Sentinal:
    
    My question is, if Tagliabue is so compassionate to black issues, why
    has he not taken such a firm stand on issues that truly impact blacks? 
    Why did he not immediately declare that Charlotte would not be
    considered for an expansion franchise, since North Carolina's voters
    turned their backs on black Senate candidate Harvey Gantt and
    re-elected Jesse Helms?  I wonder if he would have said the Super Bowl
    will never come to New Orleans again, had Louisiana elected ex-Klan
    bigwig David Duke to the Senate?  Why hasn't he done something about
    the Cowboys, who play in a metropolitan area that still is one of the
    most racially segregated in the nation?  Or Boston, for the same
    reason?

>    Also, the NFL had plenty of warning on this King Day issue when they
>    decided to award the Supe to Phoenix.   

This is supposedly one of the issues about this. On the ESPN Gameday show
they have some NFL expert every show who gives insight and background on
some of the issues. Fred Edelstein of something like that. Anyway, he
said that all of the owners are p*ssed off at the owner of the Eagles who 
is in charge of the Super Bowl site selection. The word was that they
were not told of the potential impact of this vote and that it might
fail, which it did.

TTom

    Ordinarily, Fred Edelstein is a butthead.   But I wouldn't be surprised
    if he's right and the rest of the owners are claiming they didn't know. 
    That's usually the way that a loose confederation of rich, egotistic
    individuals behaves when something goes wrong.   See Iran-Contra
    Scandal for historic reference.
    
    "No, no, no, it wasn't *me* because *I* didn't know."  
    "Nope, not *me*. Braman didn't tell us."  
    "Uh-uh, *I'm* clean.  *I'm* not on that committee."
    "No way, Jose.  *I* missed that conference call."
    
    Bull.  They all knew and they all share the heat.   Besides, Braman is
    not the sole voice on Super Bowl selection sites.  He's part of that
    committee but he doesn't make or break the decision.   You haven't seen
    any Supes in The Vet yet, have you ???
    
    Bob Hunt

    You guys are missing a couple points.  First, the NFL agreed to award
    the SB to Phoenix, only if there was a state holiday for MLK Jr.  The
    state legislature then created one, and Phoenix was given the SB. 
    However, the Meachamites did not like this, and put the idea on the
    ballot as a referendum, which as we all know, lost.  So, the NFL did
    not go into this blindly.
    
    Now, the Braman situation is interesting.  Norman (who CHAIRS the site
    selection committee) has been whining for a SB to be in Philly for
    years.  Many people believe that it was Braman who spread the rumor to
    Greg Gumbel that the NFL would pull the SB if MLK Jr. Day was voted
    down, hoping it would fail, and he could get the SB to Philly.  It's
    interesting that Braman is feeling some heat now.  Say what you want
    about the Bidwells, but I believe they have handled this whole mess
    very well so far.
    
    Bruce

    If they had the SB in Philly, where would they play it????
    
    The Vet holds, what, maybe 60,000.  I doubt if they'd play it there.
    The Nfl, IMHO, tends to hold the SB in 75,000+ sites to maximize
    revenue from the tickets, hot dogs(food, not the 49'ers), beer,
    souvineres(sp???) etc.
    
    JaKe
    

    Not to mention that the weather in Philly in January is downright
    nasty.  No way the Supe comes to Philly unless they dome The Vet.   And
    Philly itself is just about bankrupt (thanks Gipper) so I don't see
    that happening anytime real soon.
    
    Bob Hunt

    The college teams who have been named for the Fiesta and Copper Bowls
    will wear something on their uniforms to commerate MLK during the
    games.

That appears to be Louisville and some SEC team - Mississippi, Auburn,
Alabama, Tennessee, depending on who beats who.

TTom

    
    Ole Miss apparently has decided to pull out because of the connotation
    that their Confederate flag-waving, Dixie-playing fan/band contingent 
    might bring.
    
    glenn
    

�                               -< Rebs are out >-
    
    One of the Austin High Schools' mascots is a Rebel complete with
    Confederate flag.  There was a big discussion going on down there
    recently to change this.

    Form over substance.  If racism were the issue then Arizona would
    be the preferred bowl, and wouldn't be stigmatized with coodies
    as it is right now.  Kudos (not coodies) to the African American
    Students Association to endorsing Cal for accepting the bowl bid.
    Anybody remember 'Deen, *KY* Jell?  He's bro, as in from Camaroon,
    and he moved to Phoenix from Boston and tells me that if anything
    life is easier for him there.
    
    Form over substance, image over reality.  It's a damned shame.  It
    sends the wrong message to everybody about what the REAL issues 
    are, and it further interjects sports as a negative influence into
    the national debate (such as it is).
    
    MrT 

�    be the preferred bowl, and wouldn't be stigmatized with coodies
                                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This reminds me of like 3rd grade, when people you didn't like
had coodies and if you touched them you got them, then you had to
give them away.  Especially girls had them at that age, and NOBODY
wanted to get coodies from girls.

Heck, when I think of the changes we all went through in the couple
of years following that, and how we would have given ANYTHING, ANYTHING
AT ALL to get some coodies by 5th or 6th grade, it is truly amazing....

Thanks for the memory, MrT.....

'Saw

"... ain't no coodies on me."

    After hearing some of the details of how the vote went in Phoenix and 
    Tempe, and how Arizona is the only state to even have gone so far as to 
    place the issue on a referendum ballot, I'm less convinced that  
    Tempe and the Super Bowl organizers should be punished for the final 
    tally.  I must admit that the outspoken views of former governor 
    Meacham and of a couple of crank state politicians in New Hampshire have 
    prejudiced my views on the question.  To these individuals, the issue 
    was not just about a holiday, but as T correctly asserts the vote in 
    Arizona was not *necessarily* an issue of race.  It obviously meant a 
    lot of different things to different people, and race was only one of 
    those things.
    
    Even still, as opposed to the NFL where ulterior motives might exist, I
    cannot blame college teams like Virginia and Mississippi whose *players* 
    voted not to go (in spite of considerable forgone revenues to their 
    respective universities), even if only out of respect for MLK and in no 
    way out of condemnation for the state of Arizona.  I continue to defend 
    the freedom of individual choice on this far from clear-cut issue.
    
    glenn
        

    I think these players threatening not to go to the bowls are making a
    big mistake that they'll regret later on in life.  They'll not only be
    hurting themselves, but their teams also.  Their no-show will have no
    impact and simply be meaningless, and they'll realize that 10 years
    down the road- too late.......
    
    Hawk

                         
    > I think these players threatening not to go to the bowls are making a
    > big mistake that they'll regret later on in life.  They'll not only be
    > hurting themselves, but their teams also.  Their no-show will have no
    > impact and simply be meaningless, and they'll realize that 10 years
    > down the road- too late.......
    
    Why?  All the teams originally discussed have nailed down alternate New 
    Year's Day games.  Virginia's going to the Sugar, an improvement for
    players and fans all the way around as far as I can see.  Mississippi 
    is letting another SEC team go to the Fiesta and will probably draw
    Michigan in the Gator (that's if they don't win the SEC outright
    against Tennessee, a slight possibility).  Penn State has an excellent
    game against Florida St. in sunny Miami.  No one is sitting at home as
    a result; the teams good enough to make the bowls are merely being
    re-distributed.
    
    If the players truly are voting with their consciences and have great
    alternatives, where's the problem?
    
    glenn
    

    glenn, I didn't realize they had alternatives, which I agree are great
    ones!  I was thinking a `go/no go' situation.  Nevermind!
    
    Hawk

    That should've said, "I regret it now."
    

    Re: 'Deen
    
    Mr. T, I remember him!  He came by to visit before quitting DEC and
    brought me a Celtics' painters cap.
    
    Mike

    It was my understanding that the King hliday vote was going to be
    a close one.  When word of the NFL's leverage attempt on the vote
    spread, it swung many and had a backlash effect thus defeating the
    measure. It was an Arizona issue and of course Phoenix feels the 
    NFL whip, and of course according to some, defeating the issue  means 
    Az is a haven for racists and bigots and I don't understand the connection
    of any of this except on the thinnest of pretense. The NFL needs
    to keep their damn nose out of local social-politico issues and
    take care of their own messes. That in itself should be enough for
    them to concern themselves with. But NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo.....
    Even though I would favor the bill and would vote for it, I would have
    had to vote against it if only to send a clear signal for those that
    would meddle to stick it.
    
    BoB

    Heard on the radio a proposed solution to college teams not playing
    in the fiesta bowl.  How about University of Montana versus University
    of New Hampshire 8^) [reps from only other two states without MLK
    day]
    
    The Wizard

Let's remember here that the NFL is a private, largely unregulated,
corporation. They have as much right to put their nose into political and
social issues as you or me. In effect, they're their own PAC.  And, just
like Arizona, they suffer the consequences of public perception.

The NFL is simply outmarketing Arizona. Arizona is perceived as being
racist. It doesn't help the state's cause that several of the more
outspoken opponents were already perceived as being bigots. The NFL, on
the other hand, has played into the media's mostly liberal hand and
they've eaten it up. The media loves this: bowl invitation being turned
down; Super Bowl moving; now maybe the baseball franchise in jeopardy. By
God, let's make a statement here!

TTom

 � Let's remember here that the NFL is a private, largely unregulated,
 � corporation. 
 
 With one helluva sweet juicy plum of a federal exemption from anti-trust
 laws.   In actuality, the NFL is a government-sanctioned monopoly
 consisting of a loose confederation of individual franchise owners and a
 token spokesman called the commissioner.
 
 � The NFL is simply outmarketing Arizona. 
 
 Excellent observation.   This is *ALL* that the NFL is doing.  The NFL has
 no "social agenda" or "timetable of progress".   Those things are far
 beyond the comprehension of that closed society of wealthy egotists.  
 This is brilliant manuevering, pure and simple.   What is amazing is that
 they are "backstabbing" one of their own, the Bidwills in Phoenix, to do
 it.   One can only wonder what it's taken to keep *them* nice and quiet
 during all this hoo-hah.
 
 It's also significant to note that the NFL is so powerful in this regard
 that they've sucked other entities into the storm center as well.   This
 includes the NBA and the college football teams that were considering a
 trip to the Fiesta Bowl.   They've been forced, more or less, into taking
 the same stance as the NFL.   Amazing.
 
 I'm sure Phoenix is just *thrilled* to have the NFL in town.   A lousy
 football team, the highest ticket prices in the league, and now a costly
 slap upside the head for lawfully voting the way they felt on a piece of
 legislation.   Unreal.
 
 Somebody should have warned them to be careful what they wished for when
 they pursued an NFL team.   I'm sure they didn't bank on this.
 
 Bob Hunt

 > Somebody should have warned them to be careful what they wished for when
 > they pursued an NFL team.   I'm sure they didn't bank on this.
    
    And as I said before, I have absolutely no sympathy for them.  Anyone
    that would do business with the NFL much less Billy Bidwell, one of the
    all-time great con men, should have known that they were asking for
    trouble.  There was snickering when Arizona accepted the Cardinals, and
    it has been no great surprise that all fears have been realized.
    
    glenn
     

    A main from Mesa, AZ, filed suit against the NFL and CBS, naming Greg
    Gumbel as co-defendent, on charges of racketeering and some other 
    crime which I forget.  Should be interesting to see if the court is 
    willing to hear it.  Don't know if he has a legal leg to stand on, but
    even if he doesn't he's right, IMNSHO.
    
    MrT

>    When word of the NFL's leverage attempt on the vote
>    spread, it swung many and had a backlash effect thus defeating the
>    measure. 
    
    and RE: the guy filing suit.
    
    Sorry, folks, but I for one am getting extremely tired of Arizona
    et.al. blaming the NFL for this problem.  Every bigot needs a
    scapegoat and even though I don't like the NFL's hypocrisy in this
    case, it's being set up as the villian.
    
    In North Carolina, the bigots turned the tables on Harvey Gantt and
    made him look like the villian.  They took the light off of Jesse
    Helms' out-and-out racism and shined it on Gantt in the now infamous 
    job quota ad. 
    
    The Charlotte Observer is filled with post-election letters today that,
    now that their racist, sexist, homophobic senator is re-elected, say
    the rest of the nation has the wrong opinion of NC; it's Gantt who was
    the bad guy.
    
    How many times have you heard someone say, "I'm not a bigot, but..." ?
    Such contradictions don't hold water with me.  Arizona was not
    blackmailed, but now that it's got its appropriate racist brand, it's
    trying to make the NFL the villian.  
    
    Don't fall for that or you are as bad as the good ol' boys themselves.
    
    	--dan'l

    Re: Mesa guy filing suit
    
    Mr. T, the other charge, (the name also escapes me) has something to do
    with unlawfully persuading voters on the ballot.  Some sort of
    political disturbance.
    
    Real nice commentary in yesterday's paper.  It seems San Diego is being
    considered as the '93 replacement site.  It is no secret on how San
    Diegan's have also give MLK the shaft.  Long live the Market St.
    scandal!   I'll have to post it later.
    
    Mike

    
    I don't think most Arizonan's are blaming the NFL.  I believe people
    who are anti-NFL are turning this around to use as another reason why
    we aren't supposed like the NFL.  If people don't believe that there
    are racists here, they haven't spent a lot of time here.
    
    I do think this thing is getting overplayed, however.  But, if anything
    deserved it, this was it.  Don't feel sorry for "the poor people of
    Arizona," they did this to themselves.
    
    Bruce
    

    >Every bigot needs a scapeboat and even though I don't like...
    
    What?!  
    
    Voting against a paid holiday is biogtry?!  Since when.  Nobody's
    rights were abridged, in fact, a big part of the argument against 
    MLK Day was lost productivity, a not insignificant fact in a state
    that has lost thousands of electronics assembly jobs to the Pacific
    Rim nations.
    
    So, Dan'l, by *your* lights that old liberal Ken Olsen is a "bigot,"
    cuz his company don't celebrate MLK Day neither.
    
    MrT

    As I understand it, the referendum to make a statewide holiday for MLK
    was ahead by 14 points when the NFL tried their heavy-handed technique. 
    I would have reacted the same to those tactics.
    
    Glenn

    
    The lost productivity was bull@$#$%.  We are only talking about state
    workers here, whose services would not be missed (I didn't miss them
    last Monday) only postponed a day.  The Meachamites were using the lost
    $5mill in productivity as a weapon against those saying the SB and its
    $200mil in revenue would be lost.
    
    Voting against a paid holiday is not bigotry.  But when you sit down
    and talk to these people about why they voted against it, you find
    bigotry.
    
    
    Bruce  

    � I believe people who are anti-NFL are turning this around to use as
    � another reason why we aren't supposed like the NFL.  
    
    How many reasons do we need ???   There were lots of anti-Hitler people
    in the 1930s, too.  They kept coming up with reason after reason after
    reason not to trust the man.  Turned out they were *dead* right.
    
    � If people don't believe that there are racists here, they haven't
    � spent a lot of time here.
    
    Nobody said there weren't racists in Arizona.  Evan Meachem proved that
    there most certainly are.   I've spent all of 45 minutes in the Phoenix
    airport and I know there are racists there.  There are racists
    everywhere.  The people of Arizona cast legal ballots on a legal
    referendum.   
    
    As I said before, what's next for the National Fantasy League ???  Are
    they going to come out in favor of pro-choice and prevent future Supes
    from being played in New Orleans ???    How about anti-military and
    stop playing in San Diego ???   Or anti-gay and stay away from San
    Francisco ???    Or anti-Castro and get out of Miami ???
    
    Pretty soon, if they keep it up, they'll be playing the game in a
    specially constructed movie set in the back of Paramount Studios in
    Hollywood or something.  Maybe Brian DePalma could direct it.  Starring
    Pee Wee Herman as Paul Tagliabue.
    
    Bob Hunt

    re: .518
    
    Who have you sat down and talked to?  
    
    And even if you find that 10% of those who voted against the holiday 
    are bigots, is that a reason to deny something to the whole state?  
    You can find bigotry in every state. 
    
    Finally, lost productivity is a valid concern.   Every time you turn
    around city, state and bank workers have a holiday.  Privately owned
    business don't honor these for the most part because they know that it
    does cost money to shut down.  
                                   
    Pat

    re .520
    
    I talked to many people before and after the election- friends, family,
    coworkers, etc.  I'm willing to bet that more than 10% who voted
    against the issue were bigots.  It was much more than 10% who voted
    aqainst the holiday, and the vast majority had less than pure
    intentions. 
    
    Bruce

    Can someone please explain why govt employees should not work on public
    holidays but the rest of us should ?  If you are going to honor a great
    American hero why shouldn't the whole nation honor him/her rather than
    leave it up to the individual CEO to decide ?  
    
    I understand the point about lost production, but holidays and vacation
    time in the US lag far behind the rest of the world, and at some point
    the rate of production will decrease if employees do not get enough
    relaxation time.  Silly me, I thought employees were a compnay's best
    asset.  
    
    John "D Cowboys" R. 

The word is `cooties'!
Not `coodies'!

BAILIFF!!!
MIKE JN

    re .520
    
    I forgot to add:  What productivity is lost by not having a state
    worker show up one day?  1 out of approx. 250 workdays is very small. 
    When you go on to consider what these people do (I'd be happy not to
    have my state senator show up at all) the lost productivity is even
    less.  A road repair is finished thursday instead of wednesday, big
    deal.  The lottery workers don't show up, big deal.  The essential
    services are taken care of, just like they are with the federal
    employees.
    
    As far as MrT's assertion that electronics assembly work is being lost
    to overseas concerns:hogwash.  It has nothing to do with Az state
    workers getting the day off, to begin with, and just the opposite is
    true:  Az is is (was?) winning assembly work for electronics work back
    from the Far East.
    
    Bruce
    
        

    Seems to me that there are a few DEC sites who use the site specific
    holiday for MLK's B-day.  Boston and Springfield come to mind right
    away.

    
    re .522
    
    The CEO or proprietor owns or is responsible for the business.   
    If you owned a business, and the state just declared Columbus day a two
    day holiday instead of one YOU would lose money.   You respect good ole 
    Chris but its costing you money to shut down.  
    
    If you own the business and it is a legitimate law abiding one, you
    should be able to set your hours and not be subject to what the state
    or a religious group says is a holiday.
    
    Why do govt employees get the day off.... they work for the
    organization that declared the holiday.   Just like if Ken Olsen
    declared a KO day.
    
    Pat
       

    Bob, if you're dead sure that this is *not* foremost a racial issue as 
    your last reply now suggests, why aren't you applying the same criteria 
    to the University of Virginia's decision versus the NFL's?  Along the
    same lines, you appear to have moved beyond the "NFL hypocrisy" issue 
    onto the issue of whether it's even appropriate (if not illegal) for a 
    sporting organization to respond and perhaps even influence social 
    decisions at all...  If that's the case, then there appears to be a lot
    of groups, and not just sports teams, that are completely missing the
    boat on this one, I guess.
    
    glenn
      

    Glenn,
    
    I agree with you.  Virginia, the university, should *not* have taken
    the stand they did, either.   They are out of place for the same reason
    as the NFL is.    However, I do believe that the colleges, Virginia
    foremost among them, were "sucked into" this controversy against their
    wills.  This was *not* Virginia's idea; it was the NFL's.
    
    But, if the school and the coach give the decision over to the players
    and the football players themselves don't want to go, that is
    different, isn't it ???   I don't know if that happened in Virginia's
    case but it would seem to be a different situation if it did happen.
    
    Bob Hunt

Bob, I saw an interview with Welsh and he indicated that the players were
going to vote on the "boycott", "refusal", or whatever you want to call
it. While I haven't heard the result of that vote, the next day, UVa
accepted an Sugar Bowl bid.

I'm not real sure that I understand your position - or Glenn's - about
the appropriateness of Virginia's "stand". It appears that Virginia was a
desired team for the bowls and it turned out conveniently that they
"rejected" the Fiesta Bowl and accepted the Sugar. My opinion is that
it's as good a token gesture as anything else and can be defended on much
higher grounds.

TTom

    I admit that I've molded and adjusted my stand over the course of this
    controversy.  As it unfolds and new information comes out, my feelings
    have changed somewhat.
    
    I just feel now that sports should stay out of politics.  Period.  I
    can appreciate the "moral stand" they took but the teams or the
    organizations like the NFL had better be prepared then to take moral
    stands on a whole helluva lot more issues than King's birthday.   
    Like abortion, AIDS, drug abuse, and so on.
    
    To select one cause and ignore others does nobody any good.  Besides,
    nothing illegal happened in Arizona.  It was abysmally stupid but it
    wasn't illegal.   The NFL appointed itself as judge and jury and the
    colleges followed right along behind them.   They're both out of their
    place, in my opinion.
    
    Bob Hunt

    
    > However, I do believe that the colleges, Virginia
    > foremost among them, were "sucked into" this controversy against their
    > wills.  This was *not* Virginia's idea; it was the NFL's.
      
    I humbly disagree.  I believe this issue is much bigger than the NFL. 
    It was controversial in this country even before there was professional
    football in Phoenix.  The NFL only happens to be the most visible
    "demonstrator" at this time.  (And I think you would agree that the
    above amounts to a very weak excuse on Virginia's or any other party's
    part, and ignores any notion of individual responsibility.)
    
    > But, if the school and the coach give the decision over to the players
    > and the football players themselves don't want to go, that is
    > different, isn't it ???   I don't know if that happened in Virginia's
    > case but it would seem to be a different situation if it did happen.
    
    Only in that it shows that the decision was reached democratically, and
    that there were probably no ulterior motives (if Tagliabue had opened
    the debate to NFL players the same result probably would have occurred).  
    It says nothing about whether the decision was a right or wrong one.
    
    Anyway, I think you have at least reached a consistent position on the
    appropriateness of any sporting organization, not just the NFL, taking 
    such action.  While I still have some ambivalence over how and why 
    the NFL reached its decision, I'm still not sure that it was the wrong 
    one.  
    
    I also feel that sports leagues and teams are more qualified, if
    you will, to make a call on this particular issue versus other social 
    ones, so I'm able to make a distinction here from the ones you 
    mentioned.  For starters, both NFL and most college football teams are
    disproportionately represented by those and the parents of those who
    actively participated in and benefited from the civil rights movement 
    and probably know something about it, so I would tend to respect and not 
    trivialize the logic behind their position.  Secondly, many of the
    colleges we're talking about *directly* played a part in how the civil
    rights movement played out-- like most of the only-recently desegregated
    universities of the South.  (A proper analogy might be the requested 
    boycott from the international medical community of scheduled meetings in 
    the US because of the US' visa policies for AIDS patients.  I wouldn't 
    tend to respect the same organization's call for a boycott of an annual 
    Super Bowl gathering based on the MLK issue if I was unsure myself and 
    it was all I had to go on.  In the NFL and the colleges' cases, their
    somewhat educated positions only tend to support my intuition.)
    
    glenn
     

Mike JN,

While "cooties" is the preferred spelling, I believe "coodies" is an
acceptable alternative.  I chose the alternative for consistency's
sake.

And, if I remember correctly, that plastic bug thing called Cootie
or whatever it was (from Hasbro) ranks second behind Mr Potato Head
in sales in the Plastic Toys for Kids...


HTH,
'Saw

Personally, I always liked Mr Potato Head.  I had two sets until
my parents took them away because I was having Mr Potato Head
do Mrs Potato Head in all kinds of different positions.  


Mr Potato Head gets kinky, film @ 11....

Saw

    Call me naive, call me a bigot if you want, but I think the NFL is way
    out of line on this issue.
    
    The NFL is saying to the people of 'zona "if you don't think the way we
    want you to think, we aren't going to let you play with our toys (i.e.
    Super Bowl)". Now, the question is, where was the NFL when Mr. Bidwell
    scampered from St. Louis to Pheonix? I believe MLK Day was celebrated
    then, albeit not in nearly as many states. (Does anybody know when MLK
    Day was first celebrated?). The NFL could not block the move from St.
    Louis (as had been proven by Al Davis), but they certainly could have
    modified the schedule so Pheonix played all of it's games away. Or is
    it OK to play regular season games in a "racially unaccepting" state?
    Just don't play the Super Bowl there...
    
    Also, it would seem that if the NFL wanted to take a stance of
    substance, they would refuse to take advertising dollars from any
    corporation that did not gives it's employees the opportunity to
    honor MLK in their own way. How does this differ from the state not
    *officially* having a holiday?
    
    As has been mentioned earlier, where *does* the NFL stop? It's gotten
    into racial politicking; how about ABORTION, AIDS, and HOMOSEXUALITY?
    DRUG ENFORCEMENT!! Yeah, this is something the NFL is really good at.
    I'll bet Dexter Manley would be all for it! Just *not* in Arizona.
    
    Sorry to flame on like that.... But, the NFL has now set a precedent
    that it will try to dictate issues that have nothing to do with the
    game. With all of the problems the NFL has, it would be very nice to
    see them get their own house in order before they start cleaning
    someone else's. Besides, this seems like grandstanding when you stop
    and remember that two days after JFK was shot, the NFL played a full
    schedule of regular season games! Arrrghhh!
    
    Anyone care to speculate what impact this has on the Cactus League?
    
    Dave

    
    I don't think the NFL is doing this to make a statement, but rather to
    get out of being involved in the whole controversy.  I haven't heard
    the NFL say anything negative about the people of AZ.  However, with
    the large minority membership in the NFL, it would have a mess on its
    hands.  I have little doubt that the NFL mgmt. is doing this for
    strictly business reasons, not because it has a great vision and wants
    to do the right thing.  If they held the SB here, much of the media
    exposure would be spent on MLK and the people of AZ, not the NFL as
    they would prefer.
    
    Bruce

    Will some of you flamers (tm) in here please explain to me why
    the NFL HAS to keep the Super Bowl in Phoenix?  I am lost here.
    THE SUPER BOWL IS NOT PHOENIX'S TO DO WITH AS THEY PLEASE.  IT
    BELONGS TO THE NFL.  And if a host city (or state) is not willing
    or able to accomodate the NFL with what they want, there are many
    other cities or states willing to do so.  
    
    The arguments about the NFL or other sports leagues getting involved
    in polititcs have merit, but are basically irrelevant to the main
    issue: does the NFL have the right to play their Super Bowl games
    wherever they want?  The answer is obviously yes.  And if the people
    of a community are willing to overlook the millions of dollars in 
    revenue a Super Bowl will bring in, and are willing to reject a holiday
    for Martin Luther King Jr. that is already observed in 47 other states,
    then they must be willing to suffer the consequences of their action.
    
    The people of Arizona made their choice, now they must live with it.
    
    NAZZ 

�    I just feel now that sports should stay out of politics.  Period.  I
�    can appreciate the "moral stand" they took but the teams or the
�    organizations like the NFL had better be prepared then to take moral
�    stands on a whole helluva lot more issues than King's birthday.   
�    Like abortion, AIDS, drug abuse, and so on.
    
    Actually, the NFL has taken a stand on drugs.  It may seem inconsistent
    at times, but they have taken a stand that the use of drugs can cause
    you to lose your job.  As for the others, I agree with Glenn.  What
    credibility would the NFL have in those areas?
    
�The NFL appointed itself as judge and jury and the
�    colleges followed right along behind them.   They're both out of their
�    place, in my opinion.
    
    Was Tony LaRussa out of place when he spoke at Clark University about
    animal rights the other night?  Is Sting out of place campaigning for
    the tropical rainforests?  Are the Catholic Bishops out of place by
    telling Bush to get out of the Persian Gulf?  Like it or not, many
    entertainers, sports figures, and other groups get involoved in
    political issues.  Right or wrong, it certainly heightens public
    awareness and that in itself can't be all bad.

    � Will some of you flamers (tm) in here please explain to me why the
    � NFL HAS to keep the Super Bowl in Phoenix?  I am lost here. THE SUPER
    � BOWL IS NOT PHOENIX'S TO DO WITH AS THEY PLEASE.  IT BELONGS TO THE
    � NFL. 
    
    I agree with you completely.  The question that is going unanswered,
    however, is simply this: Has Phoenix or any other representative entity
    in Arizona paid any money to the NFL for the "privilege" of hosting
    Supe 27 ???   Was there are any kind of application fee or binding
    deposit or upfront commitment or anything else in any fiduciary
    capacity at all ???   Were the Arizona taxpayers affected at all ???
    
    If so and if there is no refund, then the NFL is *breaking* a deal and
    they are wrong for doing it.   If not, then they can go wherever they
    want whenever they want.  I've never said that they flat out couldn't
    do what they are doing.  I've just questioned their motives.   That's
    all.
    
    � And if a host city (or state) is not willing or able to accomodate
    � the NFL with what they want, there are many other cities or states
    � willing to do so.  
    
    Providing they fit some kind of NFL moral model, that is.
    
    Bob Hunt

    � Actually, the NFL has taken a stand on drugs.  It may seem
    � inconsistent at times, but they have taken a stand that the use of
    � drugs can cause you to lose your job.  
    
    But they have *not* taken the stand that drug abuse can cost a city to
    lose a Super Bowl date.   Miami has a nasty drug abuse problem.  They
    still host Super Bowls, though, don't they ???
    
    � As for the others, I agree with Glenn.  What credibility would the
    � NFL have in those areas?
    
    As much (actually, as little ...) credibility as they do in civil
    rights issues.
    
    � Was Tony LaRussa out of place when he spoke at Clark University about
    � animal rights the other night?   Is Sting out of place campaigning for
    � the tropical rainforests?  Are the Catholic Bishops out of place by
    � telling Bush to get out of the Persian Gulf?  
    
    No, they're not out of place but so what ???   Each of these people or
    groups are exercising their right to free speech.  That's fine.  The
    NFL is entitled to free speech, also.   But they didn't stop with
    "speech" only, did they ???   They took some action and there is no
    right of "free action" in the Constitution.  Thus, we can hold up their
    actions as right or wrong.  Speaking is always right; doing is not
    always right.
    
    � Right or wrong, it certainly heightens public awareness and that in
    � itself can't be all bad.

    Agreed.   Unfortunately, "public awareness" seems to be getting more
    and more oxymoronic as each year goes by.
    
    Bob Hunt

    
    Nazz, your comments correctly address the "right" of the NFL to take
    this action.  I don't think there's much argument there (MrT suggested
    some illegality founded on the NFL's legislated and subsidized monopoly,
    but that's been about it), unless as Bob also suggests there is a 
    contract in place.
    
    However, most of the discussion in here concerns the "rightness", not
    the right, of what the NFL is doing.  Make no mistake, the NFL is doing 
    more than just innocently removing a game for vague reasons.  They *are* 
    engaging in politics; they *are* attempting to make a statement on civil 
    rights.  There's no denying that.  It's the appropriateness of that 
    action that people are properly concerned with.  
    
    I reject the unqualified arguments defending the legality of Arizona's 
    vote, or that sports, unlike other businesses, should in no way be 
    involved in politics, and am trying to focus only on this specific issue.  
    Sports have been involved in race-related causes in the past, including 
    desegregation of the major leagues, desegregation of public places in 
    the South, and eventual desegregation of universities which formerly 
    refused to play more progressive teams that included blacks.  In each 
    case, the protested activity was completely legal and the response 
    involved some kind of political boycott.  The boycott over the MLK issue 
    should therefore be debated on its own merits, and not rejected out of
    hand on, say, T's false assertion that sports necessarily water down the 
    political discourse in this country, and should never be involved in 
    said forum.
    
    glenn
      

 Enough is Enough already, this is the NFL where money talk BS walks. The MLK
 issue was just an easy way out so they could move to 100K stadium with better
 perks. Phoenix is supporting Bidwell's team so this is their punishment.

 Morals my a$$. these guys haven't been driven by anything but a buck for as
 long as I've know. Parity induced schedules, 1 then 2 now 3 wildcards, 17
 weeks to play a 16 week schedule and on and on....

 mike

    � They *are*  engaging in politics; they *are* attempting to make a
    � statement on civil  rights.  There's no denying that.  It's the
    � appropriateness of that  action that people are properly concerned
    � with.  
    
    Actually, to focus a bit tighter on this, it is the *motive* for this
    action that I've been questioning since the beginning.  I don't deny
    the NFL the right to engage in politics or the right to make social
    statements.  
    
    I just question their motives for doing so.  I don't believe they have
    a single solitary goal of 100% social progress in mind.  I believe that
    they are are also using this issue to make themselves "look good".   If
    their motive is at the very least 51% progress and 49% marketing, then
    I approve wholeheartedly.   If it's 50%-50% or in any way leaning
    towards the publicity angle of this issue then that is grandstanding in
    my book.
        
    � The boycott over the MLK issue  should therefore be debated on its
    � own merits ...
    
    Absolutely.  I agree 100%.  I just don't think the NFL is solely
    concerned with the social progress behind their actions.  I think they
    also have a marketing gimmick up their sleeve.  And, having followed
    the NFL for so very long, I very cynically think that they give much
    more weight to the "look good" than the "feel good" of this or any
    other social issue.   Like hiring a black head coach, for example.
    
    I'd be very happy if I'm proven wrong ...  but I doubt it.
    
    Bob Hunt

    Interesting poll in last night's Phoenix Gazette showing that the MLK
    propositions lost to the rural and senior voters.  The cities of
    Phoenix, Tucson, and Flagstaff supported it.
    
    Mike

    >T's false assertion that sports necessarily water down the political 
    >discourse in this country
    
    "Poison" would be my verb of choice, but you've got it basically 
    right except for that unfortunate mistaken "false" part:
    
    - Eased way for American people to accept the idea of non-critical drug 
      testing and waiver of constitutional right to privacy
    
    - Popularized idea of rigged markets (see Peter Ueberroth)
    
    - Popularized idea of socialist subsidies of non-essential private
      enterprise 
    
    - Popularized idea of censorship (see Paul Tagliabue)
    
    - Put end to national debate over low academic standards with well-
      known college coach's successful boycott for yet lower standards
    
    MrT

    Two questions:
    
    1) Do you think what happened to Lisa Olson was sexual harrassment?
    
    2) Do you consider it to have been a serious matter?

    .546�    1) Do you think what happened to Lisa Olson was sexual harrassment?
    
    	No.
    
    .546�    2) Do you consider it to have been a serious matter?
    
    	No.
    
    B.A.

 �   1) Do you think what happened to Lisa Olson was sexual harrassment?
 �   
 �   2) Do you consider it to have been a serious matter?
 
 This is a *tough* question with a lot of "gray" area.   T and I talked
 about it a bit and he's got some good points.
 
 Guys, think back to when you might have been in a locker room.  Maybe high
 school football or hoops or maybe just 7th period gym class.  Did you ever
 have one of the seniors come up and wave his Johnson in your sophomore
 face ???   Sure enough.  All kinds of grab ass and Johnson jokes and rat
 tail towel fights.  Most of us would think of that somewhat fondly as the
 good ol' days when men were men and sheep were nervous, right ???
 
 So that means it's okay for a bunch of guys to horse around with each
 other but it's not okay if a lady is present ???
 
 So, you might think "That's right, it ain't okay if a woman is there." 
 Well, fine, but what the hell does that do to one of the key planks in the
 feminist movement's platform ???   Do women want equality with men or
 don't they ???   If so, then maybe the Patriot who yelled "If you can't
 stand the heat, get out ..." was right after all !!!
 
 And is it really and truly "harassment" ???   I know it's wrong to
 pigeon-hole these things but the "classic" definition of sexual
 harassment is the threat of retaliation in exchange for sexual favors.  
 As in a boss threatening to fire his secretary unless she wears the latest
 Madonna fashion accessories.   Well, *that* didn't happen here, did it ??? 
 Lisa Olson wasn't threatened with anything if she didn't please them
 in some way, was she ???
 
 Yeah, they made about five minutes of her life rough as hell.  But
 afterwards, the basic foundations of her *LIFE* were still intact.  She
 still had her house, job, family, car, and so on.    She lost a small
 slice of her dignity, that's true, but is that the price of women's
 equality or do women want something more than just equality ???   Do they
 also want veto power over men's behavior, albeit juvenile and crude ???
 
 Like I said, this is not an easy question and it has no easy answers.   I
 don't claim to see things from the woman's viewpoint.  I would really like
 to see one of our feminine noters respond to this question.
 
 I tend to lean toward Lisa Olson and away from the players involved.   If
 only because they were unbelievably crude, stupid, and mean.   But I'm not
 at all sure she was harassed in the legal sense of the word.
 
 Tough one ...
 
 Bob Hunt

    Good note, as usual, Bob!
    
    Hawk

Yes,

If 3 6ft+  hulks confronted me (or just stood around me!) and asked me if 
I wanted to "bite" it, I would feel threatened and harassed.  I'm a six foot 
male.  Just because she's alive doesn't mean she's not harassed.  Sorry, other
sports seem to handle this "serious" problem of women in the locker  room 
just fine.

On the other hand if, players want to go around slapping towels at one another,
while women are present, they can go right ahead.  

Yes, it's serious.

If you take away the sexual content and think of harassment around race, 
religion etc. (No real violence, just intimidation) then it's serious right???  
What's the difference????  None.

If you've experienced harassment, you would agree it's serious.

It's important to remember that the Herald  asked for an apology right after
the incident.  If the Patriots and players had the "right stuff" and apologized
immediately, this whole incident would not have become the media circus it
is today.

			Robert Cohen

 > Guys, think back to when you might have been in a locker room.  Maybe high
 > school football or hoops or maybe just 7th period gym class.  Did you ever
 > have one of the seniors come up and wave his Johnson in your sophomore
 > face ???   Sure enough.  All kinds of grab ass and Johnson jokes and rat
 > tail towel fights.  Most of us would think of that somewhat fondly as the
 > good ol' days when men were men and sheep were nervous, right ???
 
	Bob, I don't think of that sort of thing fondly at all.  At least, not 
	those episodes of it that were vicious and cruel, as so much of life 
	is for adolescents in situations where immature minds conclude that 
	the best way to secure a place at the top of the heap is to harass 
	and humiliate other people.  One would like to think, abundant evidence 
	to the contrary notwithstanding, that professional athletes (like other 
	profesional adults) have progressed beyond that particular developmental 
	stage.  Now, I grant you that not all instances of the type of behavior 
	you describe should necessarily be put in the category I'm talking 
	about, and I suspect that you consider the incidents you are recalling to 
	have been basically good-natured.  But it's very difficult to imagine 
	that "good-natured" describes the behavior of those players.


  > Yeah, they made about five minutes of her life rough as hell.  But
  > afterwards, the basic foundations of her *LIFE* were still intact.  She
  > still had her house, job, family, car, and so on.    She lost a small
  > slice of her dignity, that's true, but is that the price of women's
  > equality or do women want something more than just equality ???   Do they
  > also want veto power over men's behavior, albeit juvenile and crude ???
 
	Five minutes?  Aren't you overlooking a few key things, such as the 
	insults from large numbers of fans in Foxboro a week later, and the 
	ongoing vilification by thousands of people all over the country?  
	Besides, how little value do you place on dignity, even "a small slice" 
	(if one is to accept your evaluation of the degree of loss)?  In my 
	view, dignity is more important than, say, a car.  As to whether women 
	want veto power over men's behavior, I can't speak for women at all, and 
	I know that they don't all want the same things anyway, but as a human 
	being I know that I want to be able to do my job (and conduct my life) 
	without suffering purposeful attempts to humiliate me.  I don't suggest 
	that the degree of offense is comparable, but I'm sure you want "veto 
	power" over other people's desire to shoot you.  Finally, why should 
	why should equality carry a price tag of any loss of dignity whatsoever?

	I'm glad that you and I agree about the "crude, stupid, and mean" 
	behavior, and I think that is the most important issue here.  In legal 
	terms, while I'm not qualified to give a very meaningful opinion, I believe 
	there is ample precedent for regarding that behavior as harassment and, 
	if not as a criminal offense, as misconduct in the workplace that is 
	punishable by dismissal.  Since I don't think (though I'm not sure) that 
	either Olson or the Herald is contemplating legal action, it seems more 
	important to me to consider what happened in the context of professional 
	conduct.  In that context, the incident certainly was both harassment and 
	a big deal.

	--Steve 
	

 Like I said, it is *not* clear cut.   
    
 It all rests in Lisa Olson's reactions to the incident.   *She* decided it
 was harassment.   Or perhaps more appropriately, her "embarrassment"
 decided it for her.  Nothing "tangible" happened to her.  She didn't lose
 anything of any substance.   Sorry, "dignity" is not substance.   That's
 not to say it isn't important; just that it is a state of mind just like
 embarassment.   So she decided to consider her dignity assaulted and to be
 embarrassed during and after those 5 minutes.  And then *she* decided she
 didn't like their behavior.
    
 Is that harrassment ???  I may not like someone else's behavior very much
 but that doesn't mean I'm legally harrassed if I just tell myself I'm
 embarrassed by it.   If a drunken Tar Heel fan breathes in my face, I may
 not like it very much but I hardly have a case for harrassment based on
 just *MY* reactions to it, do I ???   Now if he ralphed on my tie or
 spilled cheap beer on my shoes, that's different.   That's substance. 
 Yuck.
    
 Think about it ...  Suppose, just for a second, it was Marilyn Chambers
 instead of Lisa Olson.  Would she have called what happened in that locker
 room "harassment" ???  Doubtful.  She probably would have called it
 "career-related research" or something.    It's all in the vantage point
 of the person involved.   Marilyn would not have been embarrassed.  Lisa
 was.   They're *BOTH* women.   Are they equal or not ???
 
 I'm just not so sure you can base legal definitions of crimes on just
 people's feelings.   Murder is murder because dead is dead.   Sexual
 harrassment is just that if jobs, money, property, ... are denied because
 sexual activity is not offered in return.   But where do you draw the line
 on "embarassment" and who gets to decide just how "embarrassed" you have
 to be before you have a case ???
 
 And lest anyone *still* think I'm against Lisa Olson, I'm not.   Those
 players were total morons.  And Kiam is an imbecile and Tagliabue is a
 slickster.   "Boys will be boys" is *NO* excuse for their behavior.  But
 perhaps Lisa Olson's dignity is now better off with her new assignment. 
 She very well may not have been able to handle the "heat".
 
 And I still think Sam Wyche has reason to be bitter.
 
 Bob Hunt

 Steve,
 
 Good points.   I'm certainly *not* looking to jump into Doc Brown's
 DeLorean, set it to 1972 and head back to my high school gym so I can get
 my nostaglic butt rat-tailed all over again.   Instead, my point in
 bringing up those dubious memories is to try and make us think about the
 Patriots' incident in different lights.   It was somehow legally "okay"
 when it was all guys but, all of a sudden, not "okay" when a woman is
 present.   Besides the obvious difference in the sexes, is there a *LEGAL*
 difference ???
 
 And, if there is a difference, then does that grant women some sort of
 special veto power over men's behavior ???   And if so, does that mean
 we'll soon be hauled in front of a judge because we left the toilet seat
 up or because we left the day's socks on the floor instead of in the
 hamper ???   Tough question, isn't it ???
 
 And, you are also right that I focused on the locker room incident only
 and ignored the rest of the controversy.   Yes, her dignity suffered far
 beyond just the locker room.  And there is no excuse for the mob hysteria
 and the fans' behavior that followed.  But, once again, we can argue that
 she "chose" to be embarrassed and, thus, started the string of events.  
 It all starts with inside her head.   
 
 And, my question then still is: "Where does legality start ???"   Inside
 one person's head ???   Tough, tough question.
 
 Bob Hunt

	What the Patriot players did was wrong. If they had done nothing wrong,
they would have protested from the beginning, but they didn't. If the Patriots
did nothing wrong, they wouldn't have fined Zeke Mowatt $2000.00 before
anyone asked them to do anything. The incident is referred to, by the players,
as something that happened in the lockerroom, not of Lisa Olson complaining.
The coach of the Patriots was livid when he heard what happened. Livid at his
players, not at Lisa Olson. Unfortunately, unless the thing wound up in
criminal court, which I would like to see, we'll never know the whole story.
Enough players have talked about getting the 'embarassing' situation behind 
them to indicate that something that shouldn't have happened did happen.
	Why has Michael Timpson been on the injured list all season with a
minor injury, especially when the Patriots are hurting at Wide Receiver? Why
was Robert Perryman really waived? I didn't think anything of these situations
as they occured, but in light of the report, maybe they need to be asked again.

	Jim M

    Bob, I hope one of your daughters never has to deal with something
    like this.  You'd probably think a bit differently as to what 
    constitutes harassment.

    Lisa Olsen was "embarrassed" enough for her to feel that she couldn't
    do her job (interviewing a player).  The incident cost her the
    opportunity to cover football and forced her back to covering hockey,
    so in essence her job was threatened because of the incident.

>    Bob, I hope one of your daughters never has to deal with something
>    like this.  You'd probably think a bit differently as to what 
>    constitutes harassment.
    
    I doubt this very much.  Mr. Hunt is a man of conviction.  I have no
    doubt that Bob will raise his girls to deal with the situation the way
    Ms. Olsen *should* have.  Treat it with humor and go on with your job.
    
    	--dan'l

    I believe that Bob has tried very objectively to see this situation on
    *both* sides of the coins AND while not defending either side.  No
    other replies that I've seen so far has shown as much UNbias.
    
    Nice try Bob.  I completely understood what you were saying......
    
    Hawk

   � Bob, I hope one of your daughters never has to deal with something
   � like this.  You'd probably think a bit differently as to what 
   � constitutes harassment.
    
 Geez, there are very very few nightmares that are much worse than this one
 for a father of any number of daughters and I have three of them.  I'm not
 very rational when it comes to discussing my "harem". (Geez, was someone
 up there listening to me or what ???)    
 
 Daniel surmises that I may have counseled my girls to laugh it off and get
 on with the job.  He might be right.  Perhaps Lisa *should* have pulled a
 magnifying glass out of her purse and said ... "Where is it ???" ... and
 then resumed the interview.   There's a lot to be said for humor in the
 right time and place.
    
 Then again, I may have wanted to get my hands around Mowatt's neck and
 squeeze real real tight.    Hard to say.
    
 Which, I hope, once again illustrates that I'm not against Lisa Olson. 
 What they did to her was mean, cruel, and stupid and I think they ought to
 suffer for their sins.
    
 I'm just not sure it was a crime.   Stupidity is not always a crime.  See
 "Bush, George" for further details.  Perhaps it ought to be but *that* is
 an entirely different discussion.
    
 Bob Hunt

If she was harmed, it would be a case of assault versus harassment.

she doesn't need to be touched to be harassed and it is more than 
embarassment involved here.  Geesh, this isn't a dirty joke, that she
overheard. 

What if she came back with what she thought was a blistering retort and
the "HULKS" didn't decide that was too funny.  It COULD have gone beyond
intimidation.  Thats was harassment is.  A threat to commit violence.
To say it wouldn't happen, ignores the facts that some athletes act before
they think...

What constitues harassment CAN be a big big rathole, especially in the
workplace.  

		Bob 

    I totally agree with you, Karen.
    
    Mowatt was a total jerk, and should be gotten rid of.  These guys are
    being paid BIG bucks (relative to my salary, anyway) to play a GD game!
    The team pays for their uniforms, equipment, the washing of their
    towels, provides transportation and meals, and an area for them to
    change their clothing, shower, etc.  Yet, at least a few of them
    haven't enough brains to realize how lucky they are to have the
    physical attributes to continue playing a game for a living.  I'm not
    negating the physical work that's involved, but there have been more
    than just a few athletes who would probably have given a hell of a lot
    to have had a more physical build to go along with their desire.
    Like a Bob Gladeux (sp?) who played for the Pats.  This guy wasn't
    really fast, or big, or strong, yet he played with all he had,
    and was the most popular offensive player with the Foxboro fans at that
    time..  But, I digress.
    
    I am totally against females being in a male lockerroom.  
    
    I am also totally against such sexual harassment when it does occur.
    It's got nothing to do with treating that person like a lady.  It had
    much to do with decency and the pride to act like a man, not a boy.
    
    Lee

    OK - another woman's viewpoint.
    
    First - a definition of harassment, as put forward by the US
    Government.  It is the creation of an atmosphere which causes an
    individual to be unable to conduct their work free of embarassment,
    ridicule, or direct threat.  It *is* defined by "the eye of the
    beholder", the harassee gets to define what constitutes an intimidating
    or embarassing atmosphere.  The harassee, in EEO complaints, is
    expected to have made one (1) bona fide attempt to define and describe
    the objectionable atmosphere to his/her management before bringing the
    complaint forward into government adjudication.
    
    I'm inclined to think that Lisa Olsen was trying to bring forward her
    complaint to Pat's management when the whole mess exploded into the
    press, thanks to her rival newspaper.  I believe that what took place
    was harassment (I would certainly have complained under like
    circumstances, and I'm not entirely humorless nor a complete prude).
    
    A&W

 � What if she came back with what she thought was a blistering retort and
 � the "HULKS" didn't decide that was too funny.  It COULD have gone beyond
 � intimidation.  
 
 That is most certainly the risk in using humor in that situation, no doubt
 about it.   We won't know but perhaps Lisa Olson did think about saying
 something funny and backed off for just that very reason.   Good point.
 
 � Thats was harassment is.  A threat to commit violence.
 
 Which did *NOT* happen according to all accounts.  It is most certainly a
 crime to threaten violence and that has never been brought up in this
 incident.   We can conclude that the players did not threaten her with
 violence.  If they had, all bets are off.    
 
 By your definition, she was not harassed because she was not threatened
 with violence.  Is that what you really meant to say ???  I don't think so
 but I'll let you clarify if you want to.
 
 � To say it wouldn't happen, ignores the facts that some athletes act
 � before they think...
 
 Nobody has said that in here yet, if I recall.   And *ALL* human beings
 sometimes act before they think, not just athletes.   Again see "Bush,
 George" if you need examples.
 
 One more little hand grenade to throw in here ...  
 
 What *IF* the players had felt "harrassed" by Lisa Olson ???   What *IF*
 she had allowed them over time to believe, whether intentionally or not,
 that she had a habit of letting her eyes take a little unprofessional
 stroll, if you will ???   I am *NOT* accusing her of this and I'm not
 saying this did or did not happen.    I simply do not know.   But does it
 change the picture in any way *IF* it were the case ???
 
 And even *IF* this were the case, it still wouldn't relieve the idiot
 moron players from their sins.  She would still be the victim in either
 case.  Perhaps a little less sympathetic one, however, if she had not
 acted professionally on previous occasions.
 
 Yes ???  No ???
 
 Bob Hunt

� What *IF* the players had felt "harrassed" by Lisa Olson ???   What *IF*
� she had allowed them over time to believe, whether intentionally or not,
� that she had a habit of letting her eyes take a little unprofessional
� stroll, if you will ???   I am *NOT* accusing her of this and I'm not
� saying this did or did not happen.    I simply do not know.   But does it
� change the picture in any way *IF* it were the case ???
    
    The players have the same rights Olson has.  They could have lodged a
    complaint with management who could have then taken it to Olson and her
    employers.  The players have no right to take matters into their own
    hands.

 �   First - a definition of harassment, as put forward by the US
 �   Government.  It is the creation of an atmosphere which causes an
 �   individual to be unable to conduct their work free of embarassment,
 �   ridicule, or direct threat.  It *is* defined by "the eye of the
 �   beholder", the harassee gets to define what constitutes an intimidating
 �   or embarassing atmosphere.  The harassee, in EEO complaints, is
 �   expected to have made one (1) bona fide attempt to define and describe
 �   the objectionable atmosphere to his/her management before bringing the
 �   complaint forward into government adjudication.
 
 By *this* definition, she was "harrassed" in the legal sense of the word. 
 And what happened to her after the incident is even worse.  Kiam's
 remarks, the fans' behavior, the NFL's foot-dragging, and the eventual
 wrist slaps are all "harassment" by this definition.
 
 Bob Hunt

 � Thats was harassment is.  A threat to commit violence.
 
> Which did *NOT* happen according to all accounts.  It is most certainly a
> crime to threaten violence and that has never been brought up in this
> incident.   We can conclude that the players did not threaten her with
> violence.  If they had, all bets are off.    
 
> By your definition, she was not harassed because she was not threatened
> with violence.  Is that what you really meant to say ???  I don't think so
> but I'll let you clarify if you want to.
 
  The point I was trying to make is that people can be threatening and
intimidating without doing almost anything.  Just standing a inch from someones
face can be very intimidating if your're 6ft+.  But the threat is implied.
You don't have to say a word here.  Ok so let's say violence is a little strong
here.  How about an implied threat to continue bothering her in a similar 
manner so she can't do her job??  Not directly said, but could be implied by the
physical presence, hostility and obscene comments.  Maybe not.  How could
Lisa Olsen know?  Maybe it would have blown over, maybe it would have gotten
worse.  You really don't know for sure.  So that's what I meant by a threat
and harassment.

If Mowatt was really concened about his privacy he could have said something
like "HEY, LISA, STOP Checking me out!!!".  Still pretty hostile and he could
have been absolutely wrong,  but I bet that would have been considered a 
misunderstanding and I bet that action wouldn't have gotten him in so deep.

> What *IF* the players had felt "harrassed" by Lisa Olson ???   What *IF*
> she had allowed them over time to believe, whether intentionally or not,
> that she had a habit of letting her eyes take a little unprofessional
> stroll, if you will ???   I am *NOT* accusing her of this and I'm not
> saying this did or did not happen.    I simply do not know.   But does it
> change the picture in any way *IF* it were the case ???
 
If you mean harassment as walking around naked in front of women you don't
really know, then I agree with you.  If I was an athelete, I wouldn't want
women reporters around while I was taking a shower or slapping those towels
8^).    And if a woman reporter had a habit of walking in the shower area
to "interview", I wouldn't like that either.  I guess I would complain.

It's hard to believe the NFL can't figure how to allow reporters of any sex 
equal access to the players without disturbing the players privacy.

How do the other sports do it???

		Bob

    One other point-- I obviously have a very different definition of
    "equality" than some in here.  It does *not* mean that all persons 
    should be treated exactly the same in every circumstance.  That is an 
    accusation that has been brought against the feminist movement, but 
    it's an opinion that I doubt that more than a very small minority of
    any sector (including the undefined "feminist" sector) holds.  I don't 
    believe that this fact precludes the possibility of equality in the 
    workplace, which is where this incident took place, after all.
    
    > But, once again, we can argue that she "chose" to be embarrassed and, 
    > thus, started the string of events.  It all starts with inside her 
    > head.   
    
    > And, my question then still is: "Where does legality start ???"   Inside
    > one person's head ???   Tough, tough question.
 
    For the sake of argument, the exact same point can be made about rape.
    The seriousness of rape is *not* primarily its potential for physical 
    damage, but rather its destructive emotional consequences.  Yet we 
    obviously would not consider this incident to be nearly as serious as 
    rape.  A better rationale than the supposed intangibility of any 
    emotional response to alleged "harassment" is required to defend the 
    non-harassment case in a legal sense.  Mental and emotional damage 
    have always been considered, and rightly so.      
    
    Dan'l, was your response serious?  You consider this incident a joke
    which the American public just didn't get?  I'd have to say that I'm
    somewhat shocked, particularly given the usual seriousness you 
    demonstrate on other issues of human rights, no matter whether you 
    stand for or against...
    
    glenn
    

    Re: 564
    
    The Globe broke the story, but only after the Herald refused to report
    on it themselves, according to Will McDonough, in today's Globe. Not to
    digress, but this was part of a tirade where he called the Herald's
    sports editor a "spineless wimp", implying that if he had any guts he
    would have supported Olson more strongly.
    
    re 566:
    
    True about what the players could have done if they felt embarassed by
    a woman's presence, but there is one more thing they could have done.
    Put on a bathrobe. 
    
    Tom 

    >The Globe broke the story, but only after the Herald refused to report
    >on it themselves, according to Will McDonough, in today's Globe. Not to
    >digress, but this was part of a tirade where he called the Herald's
    >sports editor a "spineless wimp", implying that if he had any guts he
    >would have supported Olson more strongly.
    
    Well, Ol' Will is trying to go back and get extra credit points after
    he flunked the test.  Will falsely reported on the contents of the
    report a few weeks ago, insinuating that Olsen's charges were just
    exaggerations and claiming 3 sources.  The report proved Will's various
    reports false (NBC, Globe, etc.) so he has to finger someone for the
    blame and get the heat off of himself.
    
    Dan

This whole thing sort of reminds me of the time when we had our first
woman firefighter in our Company.

Until that time, the firehouse had been very much a male's domain.  We
had showers etc in the large men's room, and had a smaller one seater
ladies room, which tended to be used more by the female police officers
who'd stop by on a 10-8 (bathroom) break.

Getting that first woman in caused some major changes.  We weren't cautioned
against using foul language -- that will tend to slip out anyway at
a fire scene or drill, but we were told to be a bit careful about
our use of the showers and stuff like that.

Bottom line, it boiled down to respect.  While a few firefighters were
dead set against having a woman in the ranks, most of us went with the
flow and treated her with respect.  

What that meant was that is she heard one of us say "f_ck this damn coupling"
it wasn't directed at her, and was part of what she'd have to put up with
in the FD.  On the other hand, if we had made remarks such as those
made to Lisa Olsen, or if we had intentionally paraded around naked outside
of the shower area, we would have faced disciplinary action no doubt.
In one case, it's standing the heat, in the other, it's being asked to
put up with harassment.


I think it all boils down to treating another human being with respect,
or lack thereof.   Unfortunately, we've pretty much forgotten how to
do that in today's society...

'Saw

    I think what you said is even milder than what happened in the Olsen
    incident, although I agree with the concept.  I can't believe if
    a guy walked around and asked her if she wanted to touch his private
    parts that that guy would be around very long.  It does go back to
    the respect argument though.
    
    _Walt

�    I think what you said is even milder than what happened in the Olsen
�    incident, although I agree with the concept.  I can't believe if
�    a guy walked around and asked her if she wanted to touch his private
�    parts that that guy would be around very long.  It does go back to
�    the respect argument though.

Yes, Walt, much milder.

On a humorous note, sometimes inadvertant things would happen.

During a winter evening drill one time, a fellow firefighter and I
took 5 to relieve ourselves.  There were some bushes conveniently
nearby, and Kenny and I strolled over.  We were carrying on a conversation
while relieving ourselves, and as I finished first I went back over
to the pumper.  Well, Kenny took a bit longer, and unbeknownst to him,
our lady firefighter had sauntered up next to him, not realizing 
what he was doing, and started conversing with him.  

No one was very upset by the whole thing.  Kenny, who was my dad's
age, was quite embarrassed afterwards....


But, like you said, if someone had been lewd to her, or given her
a hard time, disciplinary action would have been forthcoming, no doubt.

Personally, I judged her solely as a firefighter.  She wasn't bad, but
I was concerned about her ability to drag me out if the situation arose.
(Not that she was the only one I had that concern with...there were 
several firefighters in our company I would have hated to depend on 
in those situations!)


bottom line, it's lack of respect for another human being that causes
incident like the one in the pats lockerroom....

'Saw

    For me it's simple. I understand where Bob is coming from, because I
    had problems connecting with Lisa, based on what I knew of the
    incident.
    
    Then I thought : What if I insert my mother, sister, girlfriend into
    Lisa's place ???
    
    I would have wanted to kick the shit out of Mowatt, et al.
    
    They were crude and repulsive. Frankly, I think their public exposure
    will be a bigger deterrant than any fine.

    >Frankly, I think their public exposure will be a bigger deterrant
    >[sic] than the fine.
    
    Frankly, Midnight, it'd be better for all a us if you'd think things
    all the way through:
    
    * The incident definitely wasn't sexual harrassment, which by any
      reasonable definition is the taking or requesting of sexual favors
      by force or coercion.  Nobody touched her, and nobody tried to
      extract sex from her.  No threats were made against her.
      
    * What was it, then?  It was a crude joke.  They were making fun of 
      her, not trying to get sex from her.  Even the NFL's biased findings
      reflect the apparent dislike the players involved had for Olsen.
    
    * People are acting as if this crude joke happened in the "workplace"
      but ignore the fact that this "workplace" is a lockerroom in which
      there is nothing at all wrong with nudity, yet everybody's making 
      a big deal that poor Lisa was surrounded by naked men.
    
    * Expanding definitions result in shrinking freedoms.  Now it's possible
      to deny a man income for the "crime" of having made a crude insulting
      joke to a woman that he didn't like by calling it "sexual harrassment."
      This is much like the various communities that are adopting expanded
      definitions of rape to include acts beyond penetration accomplished by
      methods that do not include physical assault.
    
    * Even if you *do* accept the police statist-feminist claim that their
      crude insulting joke was sexual harrassment, you must account for the
      fact that it took place in the context of an entertainment venue. Sports
      reporters aren't journalists, they are promoters whose employers work
      in partnership with the sports operators.  This being so, it's of the
      utmost importantance that Olsen and her employer treated the incident
      as an article of entertainment by printing the story instead of a problem
      that needed to be solved using the same private process used by those
      who perceived harrassment in the non-entertainment public.
    
    * The NFL and the Globe, as partners, have made entertainment at direct
      expense to the players by denying them privacy and due process in this
      matter.  Tagliabue's fines represent civil fines levied through a quasi-
      legal system that in no way has the requisite impartiality or competence
      to investigate and adjudicate facts, damage professional and personal
      reputations, or to mete out punishment.
    
    Personally, I don't give a damn about Olsen or the players.  What bothers
    me is that this whole flap has insidiously resulted in a_expanded definition
    of the already too-broadly defined thing called "sexual harrassment." 
    
    Add to sport's damange to our public disource, and legal rights, the newly
    established concept of crude jokes-as-sexual harrassment to the several
    other major injuries already absorbed from sport's relelntless assault
    on our body politic.
    
    MrT

    Oh sh*t,  MrT is stirring the pot again...
    I can't wait to see the rathole down which this discussion heads...
    
    PJ
    
    
    P.S.  In fact, maybe I'll start....
    
    
    T,
    You said, "They were making fun of her...."   In some places that in
    itself would constitute harrassment (sexual or otherwise).  Some people
    can take a joke (you, for example) others can not or do not want to. 
    Are you suggesting that people have to be the brunt of other people's
    jokes even if is against their will??
    
    

>    * The incident definitely wasn't sexual harrassment, which by any
>      reasonable definition is the taking or requesting of sexual favors
>      by force or coercion.  Nobody touched her, and nobody tried to
>      extract sex from her.  No threats were made against her.
 
   Unfortunately, that view has no basis in reality, the law (stated in 
   a previous note) doesn't restrict harassment to the taking and request
   of sexual favors.  I bet that the law is like that for a reason, not
   because they arbritrarily decided to limit your FREE speech.
    
>    * People are acting as if this crude joke happened in the "workplace"
>      but ignore the fact that this "workplace" is a lockerroom in which
>      there is nothing at all wrong with nudity, yet everybody's making 
>      a big deal that poor Lisa was surrounded by naked men.
    
  If they said, the same things with their clothes on, it's still harassment.

 >   * Even if you *do* accept the police statist-feminist claim that their
 >     crude insulting joke was sexual harrassment, you must account for the
 >     fact that it took place in the context of an entertainment venue. Sports
 >     reporters aren't journalists, they are promoters whose employers work
 >     in partnership with the sports operators.  This being so, it's of the
 >     utmost importantance that Olsen and her employer treated the incident
 >     as an article of entertainment by printing the story instead of a problem
 >     that needed to be solved using the same private process used by those
 >     who perceived harrassment in the non-entertainment public.

   I'm sorry, I thought that while the Herald complained to the Patriots,  it
   was the Globe who broke the story.  So the Patriots COULD have avoided this 
   rathole by apologizing and reprimanding the players immmediately.  Could have
   avoided the whole circus.  But hey, she's really just a stupid bitch..

   I think the firefighter had more problems with female co-workers than those
   poor maligned little football players.  (Don't firefighters still stay 
   overnight in shifts?).  They seemed to handle it well.  But they aren't
   PROFESSUNAL athletes, so they are forced to work it out in an adult manner.

   			Bob 

    >that view has no basisi in reality, the law (stated in a previous
    >note) doesn't...
    
    ... apply at all to the incident at hand, cuz Zeke Mowatt & Company
    are NOT employers, supervisors, or coworkers of our poor poopykins
    Lisa Olsen of the slatternly globbed-on mascara that streaks her face
    goblin-style when she goes into those faux crying jags for the cameras.
    
    The second E in EEO stands for "employment."  
    
    Two reality-based salient facks stand out in this entertainment-issue:
    
    1. Criminal law only would apply to this situation, no employment law
       would apply, as you falsely apply.  
    
       I'm no lawyer, but I think the laws that would apply in this case 
       would either be assault or rape.  As you've admitted, no one assualted 
       her and no one raped her.  
    
       Until the feminists pass a law against men making crude insulting
       jokes at the expense of women, no law applies to the federal case
       poor Lisa is trying to make.
    
    2. Even if employment law *did* apply, Olsen would have no complaint.
       They didn't touch, fondle, intimidate, or in any fashion attempt
       to extort sexual favors from her by leveraging supervisory control,
       rewards, or job advancement.  In fack, they clearly disliked  her 
       and were mocking her.   
    
    Face it, boys and girls: Zeke & Co. got busted for being creeps and
    showing very poor taste in their joke-making.  So poor, in fack, that
    they got busted for Poor Entertainment Value, got tried in a Kangaroo
    Court case that was tried on national television, and will pay in the
    hundreds of thousands of dollars - all in the name of a_employment
    law that don't apply and even if it deed they'd STEAL be innocent!
    
    MrT
    

    >Are you suggesting that people have to be the brunt of other people's
    >jokes even against their will?
    
    Yes.  This is called The Real World.  And I would think that a reporter
    (i.e., pseudo-journalist) would be especially careful to put up with 
    the behaviors of her subjects.  
    
    Her falsely claiming sexual harrassment is no different from a sports
    columnist crying attempted murder when a player disgruntled with his
    writings threatens to kick his ass (which happens every day in sports
    reporting world-wide).  
    
    MrT

    > I'm no lawyer
    
    You got that right bub.  And if not for the gaping holes in the
    evidence, any reader could go over to 110 for proof!
    
    Haw haw!!
    
    
    - ACC Chris

    Strong words for a_escapee fromthe Hospital for the Criminally
    Insane and Haid Injured.  
    
    I would think that you'd be more respectful given that it was ME
    who sat there in a wheelchair and appealed to the Jury to show you
    mercy (which they did).
    
    MrT

 �   First - a definition of harassment, as put forward by the US
 �   Government.  It is the creation of an atmosphere which causes an
 �   individual to be unable to conduct their work free of embarassment,
 �   ridicule, or direct threat.  It *is* defined by "the eye of the
 �   beholder", the harassee gets to define what constitutes an intimidating
 �   or embarassing atmosphere.  The harassee, in EEO complaints, is
 �   expected to have made one (1) bona fide attempt to define and describe
 �   the objectionable atmosphere to his/her management before bringing the
 �   complaint forward into government adjudication.
  

  >   Two reality-based salient facks stand out in this entertainment-issue:
  > 
  > 1. Criminal law only would apply to this situation, no employment law
  >     would apply, as you falsely apply.  
  >  
  >     I'm no lawyer, but I think the laws that would apply in this case 
  >     would either be assault or rape.  As you've admitted, no one assualted 
  >     her and no one raped her.  
  >  
  >     Until the feminists pass a law against men making crude insulting
  >     jokes at the expense of women, no law applies to the federal case
  >     poor Lisa is trying to make.
  > 
  >  2. Even if employment law *did* apply, Olsen would have no complaint.
  >     They didn't touch, fondle, intimidate, or in any fashion attempt
  >     to extort sexual favors from her by leveraging supervisory control,
  >     rewards, or job advancement.  In fack, they clearly disliked  her 
  >     and were mocking her.   
   
 Admit it... You have NO IDEA what the law is... 

			Bob 

 Bob,
    
 Be careful with MrT.  He usually has a very good grasp on issues like this
 one.   I've been trying all along in this debate to get people to think
 about *ALL* the issues in this case, pleasant or unpleasant.
    
 By the *STRICT* interpretation of the law, about all the players are
 really and truly guilty of is indecent exposure.   And in a locker room
 even *that* charge is hard to press since they're buck naked half the time
 anyway.   Maybe "lewd conduct" is a more accurate charge.
    
 The players are not her employers.  They didn't touch her.  They didn't
 threaten her.  They didn't force her to do anything against her will.  
 She took offense at their behavior, that's it.
    
 What would the charge be if she were walking down the street and Zeke
 Mowatt in a trench coat flashed her ???  Not sexual harassment, that's for
 sure.   I have not changed my feelings towards her ordeal or the players'
 stupidity.   I can understand and sympathize with her pain and I can only
 shake my head at the pure brainlessness of the players.   
    
 What I can't do is charge them with a crime just because she was horribly
 offended.   That's not the intent of the law.   If it is, all Americans,
 regardless of gender, are exposed to a dangerously arbitrary situation
 where you can be charged and convicted just because someone else was
 offended by your harmless behavior, no matter how stupid or crude.
    
 Josef Stalin would have loved this.  Do we really want it this way ???
    
 Bob Hunt

However, the players weren't accused of a crime. The fine was by the
NFL. And the NFL has been policing its own without regard to what is or
is not an infingement of its employees' rights.

The NFL imposes drug testing
The NFL removes players from their jobs if they test positive.
The NFL requires medical treatment in order to return to that job.
The NFL will deny a person's livelihood if they test positive 3 times.
The NFL imposes arbitrary fines for a variety of reasons:
	Curfew (CURFEW!?!?) violations.
	Publicly disagreeing with a Ref
	Fighting
	Farting
	Gambling
	Etc.

Why in hail should it shock anyone for the NFL to impose fines for
upsetting a lady. (Because that's what it was. It wasn't Sexual
Harrassment... MrT is correct. It wasn't Assault. It wasn't any damned
thing but somebody's statement that she was upset by specific actions.
Whether those actions were warranted, unwarranted, gross, shocking,
sophomoric, or lacking couth is beside the point. It wasn't illegal. But
the NFL... as usual... responded in its typical high handed fashion).

Mike JN

    I thinks that the bottom line is equality. If this had happened to a
    male reporter (and I'm told this type of cruel joking goes on alot to
    reporters) would it have been this big a deal. According to some of the
    reporters from Philadelphia that I've heard talk about it, it would not
    be an issue. They would consider it part of the crap they need to put
    up with to do their job and shut up about it. If that's the case, thatn
    Lisa should have done the same. If she wants to do the same job as a
    man, then she should get equal treatment in all aspects and I think the
    NFL is bullying the Patriots around. I hope the players sue.
    
    Dennis
    

    I don't like what happened to Lisa Olseen, but Mike JN, Bob unt
    and MrT all have good points, and a good grasp on reality.
    
    I seriously doubt that any of the alledged "assailants" would have
    been convicted of anything in a court of law.   What charge could
    Kiam be convicted of for calling her a 'classic bitch'?  Bad grammar??
    Naughty language?  C'mon, people are called worse every day (doesn't
    make it right, but it is REAL WORLD).
    
    The NFL policed itself by fining the playes - and seeing as the
    league basically 'owns' the 'rights' of the teams and players, then
    that's acceptable - since they already, as Mike JN pointed out,
    control so many parts of the players lives and emotions (such as
    the no celebration rule...)
    
    This incident is hopefully over.   Perhaps guidelines will be
    established concerning the 'press' and their 'right' to get the
    story, the whole story.  
    
    JD

    � and I think the NFL is bullying the Patriots around ...
    
    ... for their own publicity purposes, as usual.   The NFL does just
    about everything it does to either 1) enhance positive PR or 2) kill
    negative pubs.
    
    The Arizona-MLK flap, Lisa Olson and Zeke Mowatt, Dexter Manley, Sam
    Wyche, eligibility rules for the draft, expansion city hopes and
    dreams, and so on and so on ...
    
    The *ONLY* thing I like about the NFL is watching the games.
    
    Bob Hunt

                      
    How far should we extend this prohibition of an employer to enforce its
    rules and regulations?  Guaranteed that if someone pulled a stunt 
    anywhere close to that in this company they'd be shown the door, due
    process be damned, even if a law hadn't been broken (and in spite of
    the preponderance of two-bit legal opinions in here one very well
    might have been-- if Lisa Olson had pressed charges we'd have found
    out soon enough).  
    
    And exactly what personal rights have been violated in fining or 
    suspending a player for such behavior?  The drug testing analogy 
    doesn't cut it: in that case a very strong argument can be 
    made that an action is being forced on the employee by the employer 
    which constitutes an unwarranted invasion of privacy, superceding the
    employer's right to define the terms and conditions of the job.  But 
    Mowatt and company took all the action here, even as Lisa Olson's 
    *right* to equal access to the locker room to perform her job is 
    guaranteed by the courts.  There is no waiver of the players'
    constitutional rights in fining them for what almost everyone agrees 
    was abhorrent, if not criminal, behavior exhibited while on the job.  
    
    The possibilities are endless here.  Why was Jimmy the Greek fired from
    his job at CBS?  Did he break any laws?  Was he given a hearing or a
    trial?  Certainly his livelihood was taken away and all he was doing
    was exercising his right to free speech, right?  Wasn't the entire
    issue solely about bad publicity in the entertainment business, like T 
    says this one is?  Can an employee, outside of a committing a criminal 
    act, never be held accountable to his employer for his behavior, even
    when that behavior reflects on the employer as well?
    
    glenn
    
    

    > ... for their own publicity purposes, as usual.   The NFL does just
    > about everything it does to either 1) enhance positive PR or 2) kill
    > negative pubs.
    
    Again, what happens when the NFL's publicity purposes coincide with
    doing the right thing (in any case, not this one specifically)?  Should
    they blow off doing the right thing so that they can trumpet the fact
    that they're above that cheap PR thing?  It's no-win, right?
    
    I'd prefer to stick with the issue at hand, which is what's right and 
    wrong pertinent to this case if we want to get anywhere.  We'll go 
    round in circles on the motive angle, and it's probably a given that 
    most of us hate the NFL establishment anyway.
    
    glenn
    

    Bob,
    
    I generally agree with your comments in .584, but I ask you to consider
    a slightly different scenario.  You said....
       
 >> The players are not her employers.  They didn't touch her.  They didn't
 >> threaten her.  They didn't force her to do anything against her will.  
 >> She took offense at their behavior, that's it.
 >> What would the charge be if she were walking down the street and Zeke
 >> Mowatt in a trench coat flashed her ???  
    
    Let's suppose a female writer for Computer Magazine X comes to Digital
    to interview someone for an upcoming issue.  During the interview
    several other Digital employees parade around the female writer with
    their filberts hanging out.  If the writer can take a joke, fine..no
    problem..everyone's happy  (that's obviously what Olsen should have
    done).  But what if the writer can't or doesn't want to take a joke??
    
    In my books, that constitutes harrassment  (it doesn't have to be
    labeled 'sexual harrassment' that just makes it more emotional) and
    there should be, and the law provides for, an opportunity for the
    harrassed to complain and, if necessary, bring charges.
    
    You can bet that if the above ever occurred at Digital the
    filbert-dangling perpetrators would be instantly dismissed.   
    
    It is for this reason, that I can't agree with your conclusion....
    
    >>What I can't do is charge them with a crime just because she was horribly
 >>   offended.   That's not the intent of the law.   If it is, all Americans,
 >>   regardless of gender, are exposed to a dangerously arbitrary situation
 >>   where you can be charged and convicted just because someone else was
 >>   offended by your harmless behavior, no matter how stupid or crude.
    
      I think we must accept that while some people can take a joke, others
    can't (or chose not to).  The law exists to protect the latter.
    
    
    PJ
    

re -.1  PJ

Your analogy is off base because it is part of every day life for sportsmen to
walk around the locker room with their Mortons hanging out, which of course is
not the case here at work.

I think the players should sue:  It is against *their* rights to not allow them
to walk freely around *their* locker room.  Furthermore, it is highly sexist
to force them to change their habits because a female writer is in the room.
If everyone is so bloody equal, then what's wrong with some of the equal people
having Mortons hanging out in a locker room where they shower and change?  If
they make lewd suggestions, then that is going overboard, but not to the 
point of fines the first time....

Anyway, it's a bit academic, since what was hinted at in previous notes about
the NFL getting some publicity at the expense of the players is what it's 
really about.  Can anyone think of a better way to get the sympathy of that
largely untapped female football fan market than a sexist scandal?   If women
view the sport as being less male-dominated, that can only go in the favour of
the NFL.

rick ellis

    rick,
    
    Do you really believe that thrusting your filberts in the face of
    reporters is "part of everyday life for sportsmen"???
    
    PJ

I think the definition of what harassment is still stands.  So Olsen isn't an 
employee of the patriots, so what?  So they couldn't be CHARGED with sexual
harassment.  I didn't see them being charged with anything.  So what did they
do then?  Good fun? So if the "harassment" prevents Olsen from doing her job, 
is that legal?    If nothing had happened, the same sort of behaviour could
have easily continued, is that legal? Again, I say just substitute the phrase
sexual harassment with racial or religous harassment and people wouldn't be
complaining about 
the "injustice".

Let's see... Oh we're just a bunch of good ole boys having some fun. we didn't
             mean to bother anyone...That's sort of the way we are...

Sorry, most replies here focus on how it's just common sense to treat people
with respect.  Still seems a no-brainer to me.   Still seems people are 
splitting hairs here.  But I'm no lawyer either...

		Bob
 

First off, you guys are wrong when you say someone here at DEC would
be fired for that.  Digital NEVER fires anyone.  The person would
either be promoted or set up to work on "special projects".  That's why
were in such dire straits with so many employees....

But I digress.

As usual, we SPORTS noters have pulled out our electron microscopes and
gotten so deep and nit-picky with this issue that we can't see what it
really is.

Bottom line, what those players did to Lisa Olsen was not nice.  It doesn't
matter if we want to dance around the semantics of legality, the definition
of harassment, or how many of Zeke Mowatts' johnsons could dance on an I-beam.
They treated her in a manner which was disrespectful.

People react differently when treated that way.  Personally, if I'm having
a good day I'll just laugh it off.  But if my boss has been on my ass, 
my dog is sick and has been puking all over the house, bills are due, and
the car's broke down, then I'm just as likely to ask the person to step
outside.

Lisa Olsen reacted.  Perhaps she didn't act in the smartest fashion (although
I see no harm in demanding an apology) but she shouldn't have had to either.
If any one of those players had stopped to think for a moment what it would
be like if they were in her shoes, it might never have occured.

Besides, personally, I don't think it's very nice to shove your johnson
in someone's face.  I mean, I'd have a hard time dealing with other folks
being in the lockerroom anyway, since I tend to be a private kind of person.
But that's another issue...

Just my 2�.....

'Saw

                  
    > * Even if you *do* accept the police statist-feminist claim that their
    >   crude insulting joke was sexual harrassment, you must account for the
    >   fact that it took place in the context of an entertainment venue. Sports
    >   reporters aren't journalists, they are promoters whose employers work
    >   in partnership with the sports operators.  This being so, it's of the
    >   utmost importantance that Olsen and her employer treated the incident
    >   as an article of entertainment by printing the story instead of a problem
    >   that needed to be solved using the same private process used by those
    >   who perceived harrassment in the non-entertainment public.
    
    After further thought, could you clarify this "entertainment venue"
    differentiation, T?  I'm not sure I understand.  Beyond your
    misstatement that Lisa Olson and her employer, the Boston Herald,
    treated the incident as "an article of entertainment" when no such
    thing happened (the matter was being handled in private as it would
    in any other private setting, when a third party, the Boston Globe,
    exercised its right to freedom of the press in breaking the story), 
    and even if sports reporters are not not journalists but partners with 
    the NFL, what difference does it make?  Why is the entertainment 
    industry not subject to the same standards of law and internal employee
    policy as any other business?  
    
    Furthermore, if you are correct in assuming that the Boston Herald is 
    not an independent entity but rather a "partner" of the NFL, what does 
    that do for your claim that the incident does not fall under EEO 
    guidelines?  If the Herald is in bed with the NFL, don't the actions of 
    NFL players and owners against Lisa Olson affect the advancement 
    potential of Lisa Olson through the ranks of your supposed NFL/media 
    machine?   
    
    On the absence of due process, does the presence of an independent
    investigator in the person of one of the top legal minds in the
    country, ex-Watergate chief counsel Philip Heymann count for 
    anything?  Are you suggesting that in rendering his opinion Mr. Heymann 
    didn't consider legal employment punitive guidelines but merely sold out
    to the NFL publicity machine?  I don't find the publicity conspiracies
    credible for exactly this reason.  Heymann wrote the report and
    publicly endorsed the level of punishment.  I don't want to ruin
    SPORTS' Amateur Legal Hour, but are your opinions on what constitutes 
    sexual harassment and enforceable employment policy just what you think
    they should be, or are they founded on some background legal knowledge 
    you're not supplying us?
    
    And lastly, in response to the last few replies, it is evident that
    no matter what the incident constituted, it was not "a joke".  It was
    very clearly malicious.  This was not a couple of guys just funnin'
    with a female counterpart who they'd previously become comfortable 
    working with.  I'd thought that at least that much was obvious...
    
    glenn
     

    As several noters have pointed out, Lisa Olsen had the right to be in
    the lockerroom. A right which is granted to her not only by NFL
    policies, but by the courts.
    
    All NFL players know that ALL reporters have this access.
    
    We are not talking about Rob Woodard accidently being captured on
    camera in his birthday suit.  We are talking about one or more players
    who deliberately exposed themselves in the presence of a reporter doing
    an interview.  This reporter apparently wasn't in the showers doing the
    interview, but rather in the locker area.
    
    Putting the legal implications aside, there are business implications
    here, which others have already pointed out, which puts the NFL within
    their rights to act as they did.  The actions of people like Sam Wyche,
    Zeke Mowatt, and Victor Kiam had an adverse effect on the NFL image. 
    The NFL's image has a direct effect on their bottom line.  I can't
    think of too many employers who would not have taken disiplinary action
    in a case which effected their profit margin.
    
    Why are people unsympathetic with punishing Pete Rose for gambling (how
    many cries of - it's in his contract, he knew the rules were in here),
    yet Sam Wyche, Zeke Mowatt, and Dexter Manley get sympathy despite
    breaking clearly layed out guidelines for employment?

    I also think that people take "equality" the wrong way - which is why I
    applaud the valuing differences type approach.

    
    > Why are people unsympathetic with punishing Pete Rose for gambling (how
    > many cries of - it's in his contract, he knew the rules were in here),
    > yet Sam Wyche, Zeke Mowatt, and Dexter Manley get sympathy despite
    > breaking clearly layed out guidelines for employment?
    
    Especially given that the Rose and Steinbrenner investigations and
    punishments were carried out in a more closed system than the Olson
    case, as Giamatti/Vincent and Dowd did all the work and made all the
    judgements...
    
    glenn
    

    � The actions of people like Sam Wyche, Zeke Mowatt, and Victor Kiam
    � had an adverse effect on the NFL image.  The NFL's image has a direct
    � effect on their bottom line.  I can't think of too many employers who
    � would not have taken disiplinary action in a case which effected their
    � profit margin.
    
 So then how do the entirely legal, although stupid, actions of the people
 of Arizona have an adverse effect on the NFL's precious image and its
 bottom line ???
    
 The NFL decided to take "disciplinary action" against the people of an
 entire state because it didn't like the way they legally decided an issue
 for themselves.
    
 So Mowatt legally but stupidly waves his Johnson and Kiam legally but
 stupidly shoots his mouth off and the NFL is *still* justified in taking
 disciplinary action against them ???
    
 Kiam is *NOT* an employee of the NFL.   Kiam is one of the employers who
 constitute the NFL.   Mowatt is *NOT* an employee of the NFL.  Mowatt is
 Kiam's employee.  The NFL does not pay Mowatt's salary; Kiam does.   So
 tell me again how the NFL is justified in invoking its disciplinary will
 on people who aren't even its employees ???   Could it be for the
 publicity ???   Nahhhh .....
 
 Mowatt was a stupid moron and a bully who needs to go find someone his own
 size.   Kiam is a loud-mouth chauvinistic jerk who needs to be brought
 down to reality.  But neither one of these wastes of sperm is a *CRIMINAL*
 based on this incident.
 
 You can't just arbitrarily punish someone just because you don't like
 their basically harmless behavior.   You can call it whatever you want ...
 racism in the case of Arizona, sexism or genderism in the Lisa Olson case,
 and whatever other "...isms" that are still out there but the fact remains
 that the NFL has decided that it and it alone knows what proper and moral
 behavior is for all of us and it has decided to punish based on those
 beliefs.
 
 Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to submit to that.  I find what the
 players and Kiam did to be morally reprehensible, pitilessly cruel,
 unbelievably dumb, and spirtually bankrupt but, perhaps unfortunately,
 altogether entirely legal.   And until the NFL learns to distinguish
 between people's legal rights and the importance those rights hold over
 its own precious image and why that is so incredibly important to all of
 us, I will remain a skeptic.
 
 Lisa Olson has suffered tremendously.  If she wants retribution, she
 should go to court.  That's what we have them for.   Our founding fathers
 didn't say we should be tried by a loose monopolistic confederation of
 government-sanctioned sports entertainment moguls.
 
 Bob Hunt

� So then how do the entirely legal, although stupid, actions of the people
� of Arizona have an adverse effect on the NFL's precious image and its
� bottom line ???
    
    What would happen if the NFL players committee and/or civil rights
    groups elected to boycott the Super Bowl as a means of protesting the
    ideas behind an MLK holiday?
    
    A large number of NFL employees are black.  Why does is MLK Day a site
    specific holiday for BOO, yet most other central and eastern MA sites
    choose Patriots Day?
    
    Since when does an employers decision to discipline an employee have to
    be related to the breaking of a law?
    
    Even if Kiam and Mowatt are not direct employees of the NFL, they have
    agreed to certain policies set by the NFL as part of their job. 
    The president of McDonald's does not actually employee everyone who
    works at one of the restaurants, yet I'm sure they have the power to do
    things when something at one of their franchises steps out of bounds.

   The original questions were 
>
>   Two questions:
>    
>    1) Do you think what happened to Lisa Olson was sexual harrassment?
>    
>    2) Do you consider it to have been a serious matter?
>

I still think the answers are Yes, and Yes.    I didn't see any question
about whether a crime was committed or whether Zeke Mowatt can dance on the 
head of a pin.    Does it matter if we are talking about the CRIME of sexual
harassment or the ACT of sexual harassment?  

> Kiam is *NOT* an employee of the NFL.   Kiam is one of the employers who
> constitute the NFL.   Mowatt is *NOT* an employee of the NFL.  Mowatt is
> Kiam's employee.  The NFL does not pay Mowatt's salary; Kiam does.   So
> tell me again how the NFL is justified in invoking its disciplinary will
> on people who aren't even its employees ???   Could it be for the
> publicity ???   Nahhhh .....
 
  How does the NFL or baseball impose fines at all then?  I thought each
  member/owner agreed to the bylaws of the league...  I suppose the Patriots
  and Mowatt could take it to court.   Al Davis got away with it.   Isn't 
  Mowatt thinking of taking this to court????  I hope he does, so the courts 
  can deal with this rathole..

> You can't just arbitrarily punish someone just because you don't like
> their basically harmless behavior.  

I think thats more of the same "boy's will be boy's" copout.  If it threatens
her ability to do her job, that's not so harmless.

It's hard for me to assess how damaging such as incident could be.  Then again,
now one was carted off to jail either, they were hit in the wallet.  

			Bob  

  

    
    Bob, would you feel differently if the *team* "arbitrarily" fined,
    suspended, or fired the players in question for their actions?  I find
    the argument that the NFL itself does not directly employ the players 
    evasive of the issue, which is due process, and specious anyway since
    the commissioner is necessarily empowered by the individual employers.  
    The players still sign those standard NFL contracts...
    
    I'm not arguing with anyone's opinion over what constitutes sexual
    harassment (from a personal point of view; all too many assumptions 
    have been made in here over what the term means in a legal sense in 
    order to support arguments on both sides) or whether the punishment 
    was too lenient/severe.  I'm contesting the notion that the NFL (or 
    individual teams which make up the NFL) has no right to set rules or 
    administer punishments like any other employer on matters it considers
    "serious", simply because that action might somehow generate good 
    publicity (which in itself must be bad).  Mowatt or any of the others
    involved have to demonstrate in court that they were in some way 
    unfairly discriminated against to prove that the NFL had no right 
    to take this action, like you or I would if we were fired for such an 
    offense, and considering the facts I quite frankly don't see them
    proving that.  Considering the saber-rattling from Mowatt's agent,
    the courts may be where this ends up, though.
    
    glenn
       
      

 >So then how do the entirely legal, although stupid, actions of the people
 >of Arizona have an adverse effect on the NFL's precious image and its
 >bottom line ???
    
    I'll guess that the league is 60% black.  Let's say the NFL doesn't do
    anything with regard to the election.  What if the black players
    threatened a walkout on a given Sunday in direct response?  Bad
    publicity, games get lost in the story, fans lose interest, dollars
    lost.  What if they follow through?  Mucho, mucho dollars lost.  What
    if they follow through on Super Bowl Sunday in Phoenix?  A financial
    catastrophe of biblical proportions!
    
    I see a lot of potential bottom line impact if the NFL hadn't moved on
    Arizona.
    
 >So Mowatt legally but stupidly waves his Johnson and Kiam legally but
 >stupidly shoots his mouth off and the NFL is *still* justified in taking
 >disciplinary action against them ???
    
    I haven't seen it established that what Mowatt did was legal, but yes,
    the NFL is justified in my mind with taking disciplinary action, and in
    fact stopped way too short of the mark.  12.5 K to a guy making a half
    mil a year isn't that stiff a fine.  50K to Kiam is a joke.
    
    FWIW, the white-wash that the Patriots put on the situation a week and
    a half after it happened (Kiam on TV, Sullivan fines Mowatt, full page
    ads in major newspapers) was a major coup for them in fact making it
    look like they did something when in reality they were prepared to
    ignore everything.
    
 >You can't just arbitrarily punish someone just because you don't like
 >their basically harmless behavior. 
    
    I can't and you can't.  But the NFL can and did.  Kiam and Mowatt eat
    at the table and benefit greatly from it.  If Tags says 'Wash your
    hands', they wash their hands.  You better believe that's how it works,
    Bob.  Legality is not an issue.
    
 >Lisa Olson has suffered tremendously.  If she wants retribution, she
 >should go to court. 
    
    Pie in the sky on your part.  Lisa exacted her own form of retribution
    and apparantly is satisfied.  She *could* go to court, not should.
    
    Dan

    
    Bob,
    
    I tend to agree with your overall assessment with ONE significant
    difference....
    
    If 'Lisa Olsen has suffered tremendously' (as you said), then what
    Mowatt & Co did can not be called 'harmless behaviour'.
    
    I accept that the definition of 'harmless behaviour' is in the eye
    of the beholder, but whose definition do we accept Olsen's or
    Mowatt's???
    
    PJ

.593>    Do you really believe that thrusting your filberts in the face of
.593>    reporters is "part of everyday life for sportsmen"???
    
Hey PJ,

No way!  The players should be reprimanded for that as it is mean in the same
vane as a bully picking on a little kid.

All I'm saying is that if everyone is really equal then the players shouldn't
act any different when a woman reporter is in the locker room doing her job
than when a male reporter is doing his.   

Any compromise on that means that female reporters are treated differently
because of their gender, which in my mind constitutes sexism.  Equality of
the sexes doen't mean that women can do as they please but men have to treat 
them like ladies - it means everyone is treated the same.  Doesn't it??

rick ellis

    This is what I meant before in my comment about perception of equality:
    
�Any compromise on that means that female reporters are treated differently
�because of their gender, which in my mind constitutes sexism.  Equality of
�the sexes doen't mean that women can do as they please but men have to treat 
�them like ladies - it means everyone is treated the same.  Doesn't it??
    
    No, it doesn't.  Equality means that anyone is due respect and should
    be allowed to perform any job they are qualified for.  Afterall, do we
    tell someone in a wheel chair "Hey, sorry, you wanted this job and
    wanted to be treated equally so you have to figure out how to get up
    those 32 steps to your office"?  The situation isn't much different.
    
    So, is it OK if a pro-athlete walks up to a male reporter wagging his
    private parts and asking the reporter if he wants some?

Before the "incident", womem reporters were present in front of naked atheletes. 
It's quite possible it made many in both groups uncomfortable, but there are
reasonable solutions to these situations.  If I was an owner, concerned about
the well being of my players, I would modify the locker room so that a players
privacy could be respected if they wanted, while reporters maintained open 
access.
 
			Bob 

    >it was not a joke, it was clearly malicious.
    
    I thought we'd agreed that it was a malicious joke.
    
    >If the Herald is in bed with the NFL, don't the actions of NFL
    >players... against Lisa Olsen after (her advancement) through
    >your supposed NFL/media machine?
    
    *Supposed* NFL/media machine?  SUPPOSED?!  I don't think there cain
    be any debate that such a (free) publicity machine exists, although
    that's a side rathole of peripheral importance here.
    
    But, to answer your question: No.  Players are free to hate reporters
    guts (they're not journalists, there promotional publicists in the
    sports field) and they've historically used that freedom with great
    vigor, at, not insignificantly, no penalty from the NFL.  
    
    And beyond that, your analogy is flawed by the fack that the players
    are NFL labor, not management.  They have no decision-making power
    except that of striking, as is the case with all labor unions.
    
    >Mowatt and company took all the action here.
    
    Wrong:
    
    1. Tagliabue took their money.
    
    2. Tagliabue and the owners will constrain their future incomes.
    
    3. The media libeled them by fallaciously asserting that they had
       "sexually harrassed" Olsen, which they clearly didn't do.
    
    4. The NFL usurped the players' right to due process and privacy in
       this matter by giving press conferences and press releases and
       any number of media interviews on the matter.
    
    5. The NFL discriminated against the players by trying them in the
       media and affecting the livlihood in a case of feminist faux
       sensitivity where no such actions are taken when male reporters
       are similarly goofed.
    
    6. All these two bit prosecuting attorney analogies about how it's the
       same in the corporate world don't know what they are talking about.
       The NFL is a government-sponsored monopoly that does its business in
       public as a form of entertainment.
    
    7. Falsely accusing someone, on a discriminatory basis, of sex harrassment
       may be good entertainment but it's also libel.
    
    
    Legality is NOT beside the point here.  The players have been libeled
    as sex harrassers when they in fact are tasteless jokers.  If the NFL
    is so sensitive about a woman being offended by penises and hairy scrotal 
    sacs then the megamaniacal Tagliabue should fine himself for the league's 
    stupid lockerroom policy that *requires* the players to expose
    themselves.
    
    Too many of you miss the point: Let them screw Mowatt & Co. and ruin 
    their careers.  What worries me is the insidious affect such a stupid
    morality play has on our already moronic national discourse, to wit, the
    snivelling little cretin Mike Lupica.  (Refer to Johnston's .585 for list.)
    
    MrT

    
 >> So, is it OK if a pro-athlete walks up to a male reporter wagging his
 >> private parts and asking the reporter if he wants some?
    
    Of course not, and this is why I keep repeating my belief that what
    occurred was harrassment NOT SEXUAL HARRASSMENT.  The issue has become
    sexual harrassment because it is emotional and because it gets
    publicity.
    
    If an athlete waves their filberts in the face of a reporter against
    their will, that consitutes harrassment (in my books) regardless of the
    sex of either the athlete or the reporter.
    
    (Although if I were a reporter and Gabriella Sabatini wanted to wave
    her privates in my direction, I doubt I would consider that
    harrassment.)
    
    PJ

                                          
    > And beyond that, your analogy is flawed by the fack that the players
    > are NFL labor, not management.  They have no decision-making power
    > except that of striking, as is the case with all labor unions.
    
    The analogy is not flawed.  I was responding to *your* assertion that
    players and reporters are not co-workers and therefore cannot be
    subject to employment guidelines on sexual harassment.  You then
    contradicted that assertion by stating that they are all part of the
    same establishment.  I'm not management, either, but I nonetheless can
    be charged with sexual harassment in the workplace if I obstruct
    someone's ability to do the job, even if I have no decision-making
    power.  You don't believe that?  why did you make mention of 
    co-workers?
    
    > 3. The media libeled them by fallaciously asserting that they had
    >   "sexually harrassed" Olsen, which they clearly didn't do.
     
    You're correct that the issue *is* all about legality.  But we've 
    reached no agreement or conclusion on the above, in either a criminal 
    or employment context.  Prove it, relying on your knowledge of the law, 
    specifically in the state of Massachusetts.
    
    > 4. The NFL usurped the players' right to due process and privacy in
    >    this matter by giving press conferences and press releases and
    >    any number of media interviews on the matter.
    
    They did?  Before the report was released?  You have a valid point on
    privacy, based on the release of the report.  Due process; I disagree. 
    
    > 5. The NFL discriminated against the players by trying them in the
    >    media and affecting the livlihood in a case of feminist faux
    >    sensitivity where no such actions are taken when male reporters
    >    are similarly goofed.
    
    The *media* tried the players before all the facts were in, as is 
    their right, for good or bad.  If anything, though, the NFL was 
    accused of dragging its feet and covering up the facts by that same 
    lynch-mob media.
    
    > 6. All these two bit prosecuting attorney analogies about how it's the
    >    same in the corporate world don't know what they are talking about.
    >   The NFL is a government-sponsored monopoly that does its business in
    >   public as a form of entertainment.
    
    This is the one we keep coming back to.  Do the exemptions given by
    the government preclude any right of a still-private organization like 
    the NFL (or MLB) to conduct its internal business, including employee 
    discipline?  I don't think so.  I agree with you that it's an example 
    of government stupidity in giving away something (namely freedom of 
    player movement and an uncompetitive local marketplace) without 
    getting anything back, but how does that affect the right of the 
    business to make policy on something like personal behavior while on 
    the job?
    
    At least answer the last question.  It's the one I'm the most 
    interested in, because it keeps popping up whether we're talking Rose,
    Steinbrenner, MLK, or Mowatt, and yet it never seems to get answered.
    
    glenn
      

�    (Although if I were a reporter and Gabriella Sabatini wanted to wave
�    her privates in my direction, I doubt I would consider that
�    harrassment.)

If she followed up with a bust in the mouth would it be assault.... or
sexual assault.... or heaven... or what?

Mike JN

>If she followed up with a bust in the mouth would it be assault.... or
>sexual assault.... or heaven... or what?

 I think at best it would qualify as a mistermeanor (sp?)

 mike

    Hey Mikey, you said a mouthful!  :-)
    
    Hawk

    Isn't sex a misdemeanor anyway? 
    
    The more you mis de meanor ya get! ;-)

    good one mike.

    >Do the exemptions given by
    >the government preclude any right of a still-private organization like 
    >the NFL (or MLB) to conduct its internal business, including employee 
    >discipline?

    I don't see how the answer could possibly be 'Yes' unless it is spelled 
    out in similar fashion as the anti-trust exemption.  There could be the
    ethics question "Should the exemption preclude...?"  In my opinion, the
    answer to that is 'No' as well.
    
    Dan

    re: .613
    
    Mike,
    
    It may have been unintentional, but you gotta (tm) that sucker!!!
    
 >> I think at best it would qualify as a mistermeanor (sp?)   <<
                                          ------------
    
    
    PJ

    >You contradicted yourself...
    
    No I didn't.  I stated that the NFL/media machine is a mutually 
    reinforcing de facto partnership wherein the media trades free
    publicity to the NFL in exchange for increased circulation/ratings
    and therefore increased ad revenues.
    
    That (correct) assertion in no way implies that the players and
    reporters are coworkers.  By way of correct analogy (a_antidote to
    your recent badly flawed one) Digital relies on Computerworld for
    free publicity.  Does that make me a coworker with CW's reporter
    corps?  [no]
    
    As for your apparent assertion that "impeding" a women's ability to
    do her job constitutes sexual harrassment (if a woman is yelled at
    does it then become rape?) resolve the fack that no action is taken
    against myriad coaches and players who refuse to speak with certain
    reporters, or scream at them, or make negative public statements about
    them, etc.  There are thousands of examples of this, almost all of them
    relating to male reporters.
    
    And guess what?  No action taken by your God-like sports commissioners.
    No public Kangaroo trial, no libelous false charge of sexual harrassment,
    no huge fines, no branding to curtail free access to future income 
    opportunities, no nothing.
    
    To argue against Tagliabue's shameless abuse in this matter is NOT to 
    argue against the league's right to exert internal discipline.  Taking
    such a binary approach there ignores what really happened: false charges,
    discriminatory bias, usurpation of civil law by way of denial of due
    process and levying of fines, etc.
    
    MrT 

�    As for your apparent assertion that "impeding" a women's ability to
�    do her job constitutes sexual harrassment 
    
    Noone said that impeding her ability to do a job was sexual
    harrassment.  It was the manner in which her job was impeded (a player
    allegedly waving his sexual organs at her) that is being labeled as
    sexual harrassment.
    
�resolve the fack that no action is taken
�    against myriad coaches and players who refuse to speak with certain
�    reporters, or scream at them, or make negative public statements about
�    them, etc.  There are thousands of examples of this, almost all of them
�    relating to male reporters.
    
    I think there is a big difference between yelling at a reporter or
    refusing interviews and what Mowatt has been accused of.  In cases of
    anything physical (shoving/hitting reporter), some action has been
    taken.  As for the bit about most incidents involve male reporters, is
    that simply because there are more male reporters than female
    reporters?

    >waving... sexual organs
    
    Speaking a which, what sports are more affected by the intercession
    of officiating?
    
    (most affected-to-least affected in descending order)
    
    1.  Basketball  	arbritrary rules + arbitrary enforcement
    2.  Ice Hockey      power plays are everything
    3.  Soccer		especially now that penalty shots are central  
    4.  Volleyball	more close calls than tennis
    5.  Tennis          line shots and foot faults only
    6.  Baseball	balls n' strikes and bang-bang plays but no penalties
    7.  Golf		only occasional peanlties, usually on recordkeeping
    8.  Auto Racing     Lotsa rules but few infractions
    9.  Baseball   	the King of Sports
    10. Bicycle racing	what rules?
    

    Why is baseball on there twice, and in two different positions?
    
    Dan

    I think it must have to do with geography, Dan.
    
    Hawk

most affected by the intercession (or input) of officiating.

I think baseball would be right up there at the top.
	Every pitch is ruled on. And as Clemens has shown us
	the rules are pretty arbitrary.

Football also. 
	Any sport where each offensive play has a 50/50 liklihood of being
	overturned by officiating, that's a lotta `intercession'.

Both of these more so than basketball. Almost the only things you can do
offensively to negate a play is charging (seldom called), traveling
(almost never called), goal tending (offensively? practically never). So
although the tempo of the game is disrupted by officials, they have only 
minor impact on the offense of a team.

Mike JN

    Basketball doesn't reverse plays cuz they *create* them in the form
    of pud scoring opportunities in the form of foul shots.  No sport
    has more such penalty scores than hoops.  Hockey and soccer lag hoops
    on this by a big margin.
    
    Baseball's balls and strikes calling isn't truly arbitrary, cuz the
    umpire always is right there to intensively analyze each call and 
    eastablishes the same zone for both teams.  Baseball really has no
    penalties per se, except getting thrown outta the game.
    
    The only egregious abuse of strike calling I've ever seen in baseball
    is the Rickey Henderson scam.  If they did the obvious and based his
    strike zone on his swinging stance and not his pre-swing stance (a
    ridiculously exagerrated crouch) his BA, HR, and OBP would plummet and
    he'd emerge for what he is: A coddled baserunner-only style player who
    somehow managed to beat that old axiom that you cain't steal first base
    cuz *he's* been doing it for a decade now!
    
    MrT

    Stop whining T - both the Yanks and A's sent film to the league office,
    which showed that in fact, Ricky maintains a low strike zone while
    swinging.
    
    Fess up T, twins pitchers caint get him out, 'cause they caint peetch!!
    
    HAW HAW HAW !!!!

    >The only egregious abuse of strike calling I've ever seen in baseball
    >is the Rickey Henderson scam.  If they did the obvious and based his
    >strike zone on his swinging stance and not his pre-swing stance (a
    >ridiculously exagerrated crouch) his BA, HR, and OBP would plummet and
    >he'd emerge for what he is: A coddled baserunner-only style player who
    >somehow managed to beat that old axiom that you cain't steal first base
    >cuz *he's* been doing it for a decade now!
    
    His fantastic '85 season, where he got these calls, started a lot of
    similar complaining and opened some eyes.  In '86, Rickey did not get
    the benefit of these calls.  Using stop action photography it was shown
    that Rickey's exagerrated crouch leads to an exagerrated crouced swing! 
    He doesn't rise from the crouch until after he follows through on the
    swing.
    
    The complaints above are false.
    
    Dan

>    Speaking a which, what sports are more affected by the intercession
>    of officiating?

How about Diving, gymnastics, ice skating, etc. where there is only the
judges/officials opinion. No home runs, no knock outs, no second
opinions, no instant replay: just the "vote".

TTom

           
    > The only egregious abuse of strike calling I've ever seen in baseball
    > is the Rickey Henderson scam.  If they did the obvious and based his
    > strike zone on his swinging stance and not his pre-swing stance (a
    > ridiculously exagerrated crouch) his BA, HR, and OBP would plummet and
    > he'd emerge for what he is: A coddled baserunner-only style player who
    > somehow managed to beat that old axiom that you cain't steal first base
    > cuz *he's* been doing it for a decade now!
    
    That's funny, T.  I saw the opposite proven out by this past year: the 
    umpires have gotten relatively wise to Rickey, enlarged the strike 
    zone nearer to his swinging stance, cut down on his walks as he was 
    forced to swing the bat more, and yet his BA, HR, and OBP all still 
    rose!  (Career highs in BA and OBP, no less...) 
    
    glenn
    

    >How about Diving, gymnastics, ice skating, etc.
    
    I thought we all agreed that these weren't sports, that they are
    athletic events?
    
    This is also why I disincluded boxing, but it truly has the potential
    to be a sport but the crooks so completely removed integrity to the
    point where it moved off the sport band and into the the entertainment
    band alongside professional wrestling (aka, athletic entertainment).
    
    MrT

    >The complaints above are false.
    
    Bull.  Nobody swings the bat with his ass, face, knees, and shoulders
    on the same horizontal plane.  Of necessity when he strides into his
    swing his knee must go down.  True, he keeps his shoulders down some
    part of the way through his swing, but bottom line he enjoys a strike
    zone much shorter than his height (about that of a 9 year old little
    leaguer) BECAUSE THE STUPID UMPIRES WHO BY THE WAY ARE NOT UNDER ANY
    TRAINING REGIME OF MLB ARE TOO LAZY TO ESTABLISH THEIR ZONES BY A
    PLAYER'S SWING BUT INSTEAD DO IT BY HIS STANCE IN DIRECT CONTRAVENTION
    OF THE LETTER AND SPIRIT OF THE DEFINITION OF THE STRIKE ZONE AS
    DEFINED IN THE MLB RULE BOOK.
    
    And glenn, I guess you are disagreeing with poor MrT and several
    hundred players and managers.  But you always pick on poor MrT, so
    I ain't gonna take it none to serious this time neither.
    
    Poor MrT

�    >How about Diving, gymnastics, ice skating, etc.
�    
�    I thought we all agreed that these weren't sports, that they are
�    athletic events?
    
    Since when have "all" agreed with Mr.T?

    >Bull.  Nobody swings the bat with his ass, face, knees, and shoulders
    >on the same horizontal plane.  Of necessity when he strides into his
    >swing his knee must go down.
    
    His strike zone doesn't appreciably change from stance to swing.  It's
    fact, so moo all you want.
    
    Dan

    > And glenn, I guess you are disagreeing with poor MrT and several
    > hundred players and managers.  But you always pick on poor MrT, so
    > I ain't gonna take it none to serious this time neither.
    
    What are you talking about?  I agreed with you that it was once a
    problem, one that was largely rectified, and I haven't heard much
    complaining since.  Nor have I heard several hundred players and
    managers refer to Henderson's talents as you did.  And I didn't even
    rely on some super slow-motion breakdown of Henderson's swing to make
    my point, only his BA, HR, and SLG statistics.
    
    *If* nothing has changed with regard to the umpires' definition of
    Henderson's strike zone, then he made a concerted effort on his own to
    forego the status quo base on balls and swing the bat more.  Either 
    way, he did a very nice job of it...
    
    glenn
    

I want to go on a_overt record that I ain't agreed with anything that T
has said, except that Bobby Knight is a better coach than Dean Smith.
Maybe 1 or 2 other nits.

TTom

    Anyways, baseball has far less officiating inputs than most other
    sports, and that's a fack.
    
    Less factual, impossible in fack, is Dan's preposterous contention
    that Rickey's preposterous stance (ass, haid, elbows, hands, shoulders,
    and front knee cain be maintained on the same horizontal plane through
    his swing.  
    
    I've seen Rickey at regular film speed and he doesn't.  Period.  If he
    were forced to go by the same rules as everybody else he'd fade.
    
    MrT

Count up balls and strikes and you have a very large number of
officiating inputs. Throw in rulings on ground outs, attempted steals,
foul or fair, and you have a sport that is a_almost continuum of
officating inputs.

TTom

    Doesn't w-work, TTom.  Balls and strikes are called by a_official
    only inches away, totally ready, peering up close and personal.  
    While umps have different zones, and make the odd bad call, the 
    Home Plate ump is seldom in the middle of deciding who wins and who
    loses.
    
    Compare and contrast that with the hoops ref who routinely makes
    such decisions, or the hockey ref who hands over a numerical advantage
    to a side.
    
    Football is, I think, very well officiated, especially with the replay,
    but they're called upon to make arbitrary decisions MUCH more often
    than a 1B ump guesing on the bang-bang play.
    
    >spits in the wind.  Fact is fact.
    
    Cheep shot artist is what YOU are.  
    
    MrT

from .636

>    Anyways, baseball has far less officiating inputs than most other
>    sports, and that's a fack.

This is what I responded to: "far less officiating inputs". 

In the realm of all officiating inputs are not created equal, I don't
necessarily dispute your assertion of routine, game-deciding calls in
basketball. What I really agree to is that basketball games seem to often
turn on the call and that certainly isn't true of baseball, although that
is sometime also present.

Take this a step further and I guess this might be one of the attractions
of Soccer since there is very little called, at all, since there are very
few rules and opportunities for officiating inputs.

TTom

    Then we're both r-right, TTom.  And dagblamit I cain't think a two
    more deserving technical analysts than you a me - perfect together.
    
    *Arbitrary* or *Uncertitudnous* officiating inputs is what I shoulda
    said.
    
    Btw, from a theoretical standpoint uncertitudnous officiating inputs
    may not be necessarily bad for the fan.  It adds to the anticipation,
    stress level, complexity, and memorableness of a contest - so maybe
    it cain be a positive.  
    
    For example, I used to LUV seeing Bob berate and intimidate refs to
    the good for maybe 7 points a game.  However, sadly, now the refs 
    have turned the table with a vengeance (which led to the USSR showdown,
    btw) and his presence onthe sideline probly [sic] *costs* the Hoosiers
    7.
    
    MrT

    Ever notice how certain sports are more easily "distorted" by 
    strategy than others?  
    
    
    EASILY DISTORTED
    
    Basketball - run n' gun & dash n' flash vs. Princeton & Timberwolves
    
    Football - run n' shoot versus 3 yards and a cloud of AstroTurf
    
    
    MEDIUM HARD TO DISTORT
    
    Tennis - baseline versus charge 'em game
    
    Hockey - dump n' dig versus EuroPass game
    
    
    NOT SO EASILY DISTORTED
    
    Baseball - single state sport w/run n' hit & steal vs. 3 run homers
    
    Soccer - continuous state sport but not many options
    
    
    I think the key is the number of tactical options available and the
    degree to which they cain change the game's nature.  Basketball seems
    to be the most easily modified, with Payola Moneycount barely
    resembling what the Princeton Tigers do.  This is cuz the coach has
    pace (not at all available in single state sports) plus outside vs.
    inside, drive vs. outside shot, pass vs. clear out, and so on...
    
    MrT(heorist)
  

    
    Don't forget pro boxing:  When to dance, when to charge in;  pace for
    duration vs. the quick K.O.; when to take a dive vs. getting your
    kneecaps shot etc.
    
    Dickstah
    

    Dagblamit Dickster said "distort" not pimp !!
    
    MEDIUM HARD
    
    John Holmes (may he rest in peace)
    
    MrT

    You forgot swimming:
    
    Float or drown.
    

    I have to disagree with your assesment on soccer. 
    
    The best example of two drastically different styles is Brazil and
    Ireland. Brazil plays a graceful one-touch style that is considered 
    more lively and more creative than any team on the planet. In fact, it
    has been the biggest complaint that they play too esthetically
    pleasing, and aren't cynical enough to win the big one. Anyone who saw
    their World Cup game vs Argentina would have to agree. They dominated
    the whole game, lots of shots and made thread-the-needle passes, but Diego
    Maradonna took the ball and turned the game around in a minute's time,
    as Argentina won 1-0. Brazil dominated the game for 89 of 90 minutes,
    but it wasn't enough.
    
    The other side of the coin is Ireland. They play the most skill-less
    brand of soccer of any team on the international level. Two tall forwards 
    up at the front, everyone else back. As soon as a defender gets the ball, 
    he boots it upfield 80 yards or so. The tall forwards can head it down for
    a back-pass to a midfielder, and he can take a shot. The idea of making
    several short passes in a row and controlling the ball for any amount
    of time is completely foreign. The Irish are hard workers and tough as
    nails, so often hustle and determination become a substitute for
    skill.  Funny thing is Ireland's style works! It ain't pretty, but they
    made it to the fianl 8, only to lose to the host, Italy.
    
    Tom

    Ah,the wearin" of the Green!
    
    Twas exciting to watch Ireland's team in the World Cup,style
    notwithstanding. Gotta love the FAI= Find Another Irishman!
    
    ML
    

�    as Argentina won 1-0. Brazil dominated the game for 89 of 90 minutes,
�    but it wasn't enough.

It's hard to credit that a team could `dominate' another for 89 minutes
and remain scoreless. At least, it's not what I would interpret as
domination.

re: distorting the game

Not sure I see what you are trying to get at. Any game which involves
strategy is subject to being impacted when strategies are altered;
whether you are talking about a stall in basketball, the forward pass in
football, aggressive base-running/stealing in baseball, naked
cheerleaders in rugby, allowing goalies to carry chainsaws in hockey,
etc.

The word `distorted' implies (at least to me) that the resultant game
has become, somehow, inferior.  Is this what you mean? If so, I think we
should discuss what strategies negatively impact the enjoyment of a
specific game... not discuss what sports are `distorted'.

    Perhaps by "distorted", we mean to discuss the total spread or variance
    between different strategies.   
    
    That is, if you contrast Dean Smith's Four Corners with Paul Westhead's
    Loyola Marymount style, you get a huge disparity that shows up most
    obviously on the scoreboard.  47-45 vs 168-155.   But they're both
    playing basketball, right ???
    
    While on the other hand, take Whitey Herzog's speedy, base-stealing,
    gap-hitting Cardinals and compare them with Earl Weaver's passion for
    the three-run dinger.  Two different brands of baseball but not nearly
    as dramatic a difference in results.   That is, you get plenty of 3-2,
    4-1, 5-3, ... games in both cases.
    
    And as far as soccer is concerned, I am constantly amazed at how much
    deep thought its fans put into their team's strategy.  Such-and-such a
    team is deep, dark, and mysterious with marvelous precision and
    masterful tactics while another team is happy-go-lucky, full of the vim
    and vigor of life and so on and so on.   To me, soccer is 22 guys in
    shorts running around playing keep-away with their feet and heads for
    90 minutes and then they shoot the soccer-equivalent of "free throws"
    to decide who wins.
    
    I know, I know, typical American.   I gotta tell ya though.  Nothing
    made my kids fall asleep this summer faster than a few good World Cup
    games.   End-to-end snooze-a-ramas.   Up until the time when they hung
    their goalies out to dry during the silly shootouts.
    
    I liked Cameroon this past Cup.   Most exciting team on the planet.
    
    Bob Hunt

    
    Even soccer enthusiasts considered this year's World Cup a dud.  Lowest
    goals per game ratio in World Cup history, I believe...
    
    glenn
    

    No, the Designated Geek is a_abomination, and let's pat ourselves 
    on the backs cuz it's emerged (since Glenn Waugamann toasted that
    awful math model of you-know who over in BASEBALL) that now the
    MBL Commish and majority of owners have seen their way clear to
    publicly concur with MrT that the DG was indeed a mistake and not
    only unnecessary but downright harmful from the biz standpoint.
    
    And you summed it up for me perfectly, Bob Hunt.  Thanky.
    
    MrT