T.O. Doesn't Deserve to Dominate Headlines

I began listening to the Colin Cowherd show on ESPN Radio 860 Wednesday morning, and as expected I had to sit through an entire segment of talk about Terrell Owens and his alleged overnight depression-induced suicide attempt. When the segment was completed and the commercial break ended, I thought..."Finally, now maybe we can get to some actual sports talk." No such luck. The next segment was spent talking about T.O. The segment following that was spent talking about T.O. and every segment for the remainder of the show was spent talking about T.O.

As "The Herd" was concluding and I was just moments away from the start of "The Dan Patrick Show", I felt a sense of relief. I figured..."Dan Patrick's been around a long time. He's a saavy sports journalist. He must realize that despite it's inherent news value, the T.O. story doesn't have to dominate every minute and every second of sports news today." Again, no such luck. Dan Patrick announced within the first half-hour of his show that the day's scheduled guests, Emmitt Smith and Dan Marino, were being rescheduled and that they would be going to Cowboys coach Bill Parcells press conference as soon as it began. Later, they broadcast T.O.'s press conference with his publicist live and the few remaining segments of the show were dedicated to talking about all the T.O. "stuff."

I took the rest of the afternoon off from sports news, knowing what I was probably going to get. No more sports talk radio. No ESPN. No internet. Nothing. Late last night I finally finished all of my studying and clicked on ESPN. SportsCenter was about to start. It was no surprise that the T.O. saga led off the show. What was surprising was the fact that T.O. news and reactions took up more than half of the hour long show. It took 33 minutes for ESPN to show a single baseball highlight. By this point of the day, all I could ask is...."Why?"

Why do we continue to give so much attention to someone that can't get enough? Why do we continue to give headlines to someone that makes them for all of the wrong reasons? Why do we have to wait for sports news that we actually do care about in order to analyze someone we don't? Why must T.O. become a distraction to my life just because he's become a distraction to his own team?

Since the end of the 2005 Super Bowl, T.O. has made ten times as many headlines with his off-the-field antics than he has with his on-the-field play. Sports news producers and programmers have to realize one thing...some sports fans are actually tired of T.O.

Is the NHL still Major?

A couple of years ago, I became the most predominant poster on a discussion board called The BBBC http://thebbbc.com/forums/index.php. My frequent posting was termed "a hostile takeover" by the sports talk forum moderator at The BBBC.

One of the first topics I posted was regarding the NHL and its potential upcoming lockout. I was curious to see if anybody even cared that the prospect of no NHL hockey in 2004-2005 was a realistic probability. Well guess what? It's actually happened and......NOBODY CARED!!! Big shock.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman eventually canceled All-Star Weekend before any last ditch attempts by players and owners to reach a collective bargaining agreement failed and he had to call off the entire season. The funniest part of all of this is that at the time of the cancellation of the 2004-2005 season was announced, there had been no recent talks between players and owners and none were scheduled.

The NHL was already barely clinging to "big-four" status with the NFL, NBA and MLB before the lockout. Now with NASCAR and the X-Games ready to jump into that slot, the NHL has effectively nailed its own coffin shut.Last season's NHL games and highlights on ESPN were littered with images of half empty arenas. Television ratings reached an 11-year low. This was a trend that many saw cominghttp://cbs.sportsline.com/nhl/story/8191804.

As the 2006 NHL preseason got started this week, I have trouble seeing it returning to the same status and level of success it had before the lockout. Even with the NHL's return return last season, I would bet that more people can name the 2005 NASCAR Nextel Cup Champion than can name the 2006 Stanley Cup Champions.

The Destruction of Fantasyland?

For years, I did whatever I could to stay away from the trend that was sweeping the nation....playing fantasy sports. My primary concern was the notion that I would actually be pulling for players who weren't necessarily on my favorite team. I may even at some point have a player on my fantasy team who was playing AGAINST my favorite team. Would it be a conflict of interest?

Eventually, I got past this "severe" mental hurdle.Well, after playing fantasy football for the last three years and now being in the midst of my first fantasy baseball season, I have to say I'm hooked. Fantasy sports are like heroin. Soooooooo addicting.

Real Sports on HBO did a story on the fantasy sports trend last year. They talked about everything from mainstream fantasy football and baseball to the more obscure games of fantasy golf, fantasy European soccer and fantasy sumo-wrestling.One potentially scary thing they touched on toward the end of their piece was the amount of time being spent on fantasy sports sites while people are at work. It's apparently gotten so out of hand that it's speculated within the next two years that most corporations will begin blocking access to these sites as if they were porno or gambling sites. State Farm Insurance has already started doing this http://www.pjstar.com/stories/090906/TRI_BATHG7EG.061.shtml .

NOOOOOOOO! This is an outrage. How could they be allowed to do this?

MLB is Stupid!!!

As the 2006 Major League Baseball season opened in April, I found myself simply not caring. As a lifelong Oakland A's fan, my discontent with the organization's inability to keep its top players year after year has me so jaded that I am not only boycotting this season of MLB, but I am seriously considering quitting on baseball for good if something doesn't change to allow the A's (and other small market teams) to at least keep some of their top talent. Seeing my team basically become a "farm team" for the rest of the playoff contenders in baseball over the last four or five years has just gotten to be too much for me to take anymore.
It started for me after the 2001 season. After falling to the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs in five games for the second straight year (I still wonder what the hell Jeter was doing there when he made his back-handed flip to home plate!!!??), I was very fearful of what would happen next.

Jason Giambi was becoming a free agent, and there had been talk all season that the Yankees wanted him and wanted him bad. I knew that it was 50-50 at best that Giambi would be back. Then something happened.......Something that made me so pissed that I wound up boycotting baseball altogether in 2002!!! A couple of weeks after the World Series, the Raiders were playing the Broncos in Oakland on Monday Night Football. Giambi was there. He was decked out, head-to-toe in Raider Black. Melissa Stark tracked him down and did an interview with him before kickoff. He was all smiles!! You could hear the fans in the background chanting "MVP!!! MVP!!! MVP!!!" This made me actually believe that the A's had a shot at bringing Giambi back. Ten days later, Giambi signed with the Yankees. I was crushed. I still haven't completely gotten over that slap in the face from Giambi!! If he was never going to don the Green and Gold again, that mother-f*cker had no f*cking business showing up at my stadium that night!!!!!!! AND I MEAN NO F*CKING BUSINESS!!!! To show up at Oakland Coliseum that night to get his rocks off in front of the Oakland fans one last time before signing with the Yankees was classless!!

This occurrence led to my boycott of baseball in 2002. I had waited nearly a decade for the A's to become contenders again, and now that they were, their first significant free agent flies the coop. I knew the A's would probably still be good in 2002 (they made the playoffs again), but it didn't matter. After the Giambi fiasco, I needed a break. The 2002 season was the first time since the fifth grade that I hadn't followed baseball and the A's on a daily basis. If an A's game was on ESPN or FOX...I wouldn't watch. When A's highlights came on SportsCenter...I'd change the channel. Even when the 2002 A's had that 20-game win streak....I just didn't care. The 2002 season came and went, and I barely gave it a second thought.

Toward the end of the 2002 season, MLB actually avoided a work stoppage and agreed with its players on a new collective bargaining agreement. The parameters of the deal were actually supposed to level the playing field between the large and small market teams...or so we thought. With this agreement in place, I came back to baseball in 2003. The Giambi sting had begun to subside. The A's had a new AL MVP in Miguel Tejada. Eric Chavez had established himself as one of the best 3B in the game. The big 3(Hudson, Zito, Mulder) were still intact. Oakland had a new all-star caliber closer in Keith Foulke. And after a year off to "cool my jets," I was ready to return. 2003 was fun! The A's won the AL West again and despite ANOTHER first-round fifth-game loss in the playoffs (this time to Boston), 2003 was worth the ride. Unfortunately the off season came......here we go again.

Now it was Tejada's turn to test the free agent market, and right on cue.....he leaves. The Orioles signed Tejada, and I was now more furious than ever!!!! I was ready to boycott.....again. I just couldn't take it anymore. Then the unthinkable happened....The A's actually signed somebody!! During spring training 2004, the A's reached a long-term deal with Eric Chavez, who was going to be up for free agency himself at season's end. Like an idiot, I fell for it. I actually believed that this was a sign of things to come. I thought "Maybe now we'll start keeping some of these guys."

2004 was alright. The A's won 91 games but just barely missed the playoffs largely due to a bullpen that had 37 blown saves. When the off season started, I quickly realized that the Chavez contract was nothing more than a "token-signing" to pacify myself and other A's fans who were just as fed up with everyone leaving. Billy Beane and Co. wasted no time. Both Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder were traded to the Braves and Cardinals respectively, for no other reason than the fact that the A's knew they couldn't afford them when they each reached free agency in the next couple of years. Just a couple more playoff teams getting better through the use of the "Triple-A's."

A's departures since end of 2001.....Johnny Damon, Keith Foulke (Red Sox), Jason Giambi (Yankees), Mark Mulder, Jason Isringhausen (Cardinals), Tim Hudson (Braves) Miguel Tejada (Orioles), Jermaine Dye (White Sox). The list goes on and on. You could put together a frickin' All-Star team with these guys. I'm not saying we have to keep everybody, but some of them would be nice. As good as they've been in recent years, imagine how good the A's would've been if they could've kept just a few of these players.

It may take a new collective bargaining agreement that actually does level the playing field. It may take the new A's ownership showing that they actually do have the $$$ to keep some players. It may take the A's getting a new stadium. It may just take another season-long boycott. One way or another, it'll take some sort of significant change for me to give MLB another chance. As it stands now.....Baseball is stupid!!

Any Royals or Pirates fans agree with me?

Are you the fan of a small market team that is fed up with baseball too?

If baseball is your passion, tell me why I shouldn't quit on MLB.

Anyone think baseball's just fine the way it is and nothing needs to change? I really do want to hear all sides.