Pudge is a Tiger Now

You're Ivan Rodriguez, and you've just come off a postseason where is seemed no one could get you out. Everytime your team needed a big hit, you were there to deliver it. You were voted the MVP of the National League Championship Series. What's your reward? You're going to play in Detroit in 2004, for a team that lost 119 games last year. Congrats!

The Tigers are paying $40 million for four years, with some options and buyouts included. The question for me here isn't whether or not that's overpaying, but why Rodriguez would take such a deal in a place like Detroit.

Maybe I'm suffering from a surfeit of idealism, but I would like to think that if I was a professional athlete, I would make choices based on competition and not finance. Sure, Detroit offered him the most money, but at what cost? What's more important: getting your $10 mil a year, or having any shot at winning?

I don't say this to castigate Rodriguez, but just to wonder about the decision process these guys go through.

Thinking about Frank McCourt

With the sale of the Dodgers to Frank McCourt, check out what Jon has to say over at Dodger Thoughts, especially this take on McCourt.

3-D Super Bowl

A film crew will be in Houston, trying to film the Super Bowl in 3-d for an IMAX movie. The New York Times has the story. NFL Films is an amazing thing, and a group of people worth a much longer posting at some point. It's amazing to think about the group's role in creating the mythology of pro football as we think about it today, with the voice of God narration and the amazing imagery. This could be the next step in their history of technological innovation and creative excellence.

Soccer to Join WADA

The World Anti-Doping Agency's guidelines call for a two-year ban for an athletes first drug offense. Soccer became the latest sport to adopt the WADA's guidelines yesterday, overcoming FIFA's fears that the code was too rigid. Of course, the fact that the IOC has threatened that any sport which fails to adopt the guidelines with expulsion from the Olympic Games might have something to do with it as well. Soccer might be the world's most popular sport, but it still needs the Olympic showcase.

This leaves cycling, a sport that has been plagued by drug scandals over the past ten years, as the only major sport not to adopt the guidelines. It will be interesting to see how that fight goes down.

Flag Free Zone

Do NFL officials call games differently in the playoffs? It's sure seemed that way to me during the postseason, especially when watching the Patriots/Colts game, where New England was able to completely shut down Indy's receivers with some aggressive coverage. Turns out, I'm not the only one who was thinking this. King Kaufman over at Salon has a good column including interviews with some former NFL officials. They agree that things are traditionally called more loosely in the postseason, and that even by that standard, things have been pretty lenient this year.

ecto

Testing out the new blogging system ecto, from the maker of the amazing Kung-Log.

Super Bowl Media Day

Harvey Araton on Super Bowl media day in today's New York Times is worth a read. I was never forced to attend, but in my discussion with colleagues who covered pro football, it really is supposed to be about the worst day ever. And how thrilled am I that Rod Smart, the man who put "He Hate Me" into America's sporting consciousness while in the XFL, is now a key contributor to the Carolina Panthers. This guy took so much crap when he came up with that nickname, but it turns out, he can play.

Captain, My Captain

The Texas Rangers have reached out to Alex Rodriguez, after a winter filled with trade talks, and discussion of A-Rod's strained relationship with Texas manager Buck Showalter. In fact, at a press conference yesterday, Showalter named Rodriguez the captain of the Rangers. Having a formal captain of a baseball team isn't something that's ingrained into the sport, like it is in hockey. In the hockey world, wearing a C on your sweater is a hell of an honor, and carries with it some formal responsibilities, such as dealing with officials in games, as well as some informal one. Captains are expected to be team leaders, and deal with on- and off-ice issues, as well as talking with the media as sort of a team spokesman.

In baseball, most teams don't have captains, per se. Every team has a leader, a personality that dominates the clubhouse and gives the team a public face. But to call a player a captain, that's something else. The Yankees have done it for years, only tapping a player they deem worthy. Right now, it's A-Rod's buddy Derek Jeter.

So, what does it mean that Rodriguez is now the captain of the Rangers? Frankly, not much. He was already the key man there, and will be for the duration of his time there. He'll likely be there after Showalter is long gone.

It's a nice honor, and feeds into Rodriguez's sense of history, but in the final analysis, it seems like a move to heal hurt feelings more than anything else.

Steroids in East Germany

Unbelievable story today in the New York Times, detailing the East German program which drugged athletes, often without their knowledge. Please go read this. It's really astonishing.

No Sleep Til...

Following up from yesterday, the New Jersey Nets reached a tentative deal to sell the team to the group that is hoping to move it to Brooklyn.

Bruce C. Ratner, the New York real estate developer who wants to move the New Jersey Nets to an arena in downtown Brooklyn, reached a tentative agreement to acquire the team for $300 million, defeating a similar offer by Charles Kushner and Senator Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey, the Nets' ownership group confirmed tonight.

"We're in the final stages of negotiating an agreement with Bruce Ratner,'' said Edwin Stier, president of Community Youth Organization, the Nets' ownership group. "The contract terms have been finalized and we're putting the paperwork together.''

Brooklyn in the House

I haven't written about it yet, but I'm really interested to see the outcome of the current bidding war for the New Jersey Nets. There are two groups involved in the bidding, one that wants to keep the team in Jersey, and one that want to move the team to Brooklyn. The New York Times has a roundup of the current state of the bids. There's something undeniably romantic about the idea of Brooklyn having a major league franchise again, some sense of recompense for the Dodgers moving all those years ago. And the plan, which includes an arena designed by Frank Geary, is pretty overwhelming.

Of course, there's just one problem. Many people in the neighborhood are against it. There's a good look at the urban planning issues in Metropolis magazine. Personally, having seen the rail yard in question, it's hard for me to mourn its potential passing. I'm sure there will be more to say about this as the bidding process comes to an end, as soon as this week.

Uniform Fun

Paul Lukas, the genius behind the classic zine Beer Frame, also enjoys writing about sports uniforms, and he's got a fun little piece on Slate about using uniform numbers as a tribute. It's worth checking out.

Tennis and Bayesian analysis

Two topics that you might not put together, tennis and cutting edge cognitive research, are combined in this New York Times story. The story reports on the research of two University College, London scientists who have found that the cognitive patterns of athletes follow Bayesian lines. As they say in their first paragraph:

When we learn a new motor skill, such as playing an approaching tennis ball, both our sensors and the task possess variability. Our sensors provide imperfect information about the ball's velocity, so we can only estimate it. Combining information from multiple modalities can reduce the error in this estimate. On a longer time scale, not all velocities are a priori equally probable, and over the course of a match there will be a probability distribution of velocities. According to bayesian theory, an optimal estimate results from combining information about the distribution of velocities—the prior—with evidence from sensory feedback. As uncertainty increases, when playing in fog or at dusk, the system should increasingly rely on prior knowledge. To use a bayesian strategy, the brain would need to represent the prior distribution and the level of uncertainty in the sensory feedback. Here we control the statistical variations of a new sensorimotor task and manipulate the uncertainty of the sensory feedback. We show that subjects internally represent both the statistical distribution of the task and their sensory uncertainty, combining them in a manner consistent with a performance-optimizing bayesian process. The central nervous system therefore employs probabilistic models during sensorimotor learning.

What's the point? That we learn motor techniques in a much more subtile way than previously thought. This is the sort of research that can lead to some real breakthroughs in teaching and coaching techniques.

(Thanks to Clive for the pointer!)

Pujols heading to Arbitration

Albert Pujols has had about the best first three seasons of any player in the history of baseball. So, it comes as no surprise that he's looking to cash in, and rightfully so. He says he won't give the Cardinals a bargain. One has to imagine that Pujols is going to win a massive arbitration award, as he's currently among the top five offensive players in the game. St. Louis has offered him 5 years and $55 million, but that seems laughably low to me, even given the slowdown in the market over the past two years.

St. Louis was able to get Mark McGwire to sign for much less than his market value because he loved playing there so much. Whether or not they can get Pujols to do the same will have a big impact on the future of the franchise.

Who Likes Short Shorts?

Sepp Blatter, that's who. Blatter, the head of FIFA, suggested in an interview that women's soccer players should wear "more feminine uniforms," including, yes, "tighter shorts." This is the sort of amazingly asinine suggestion that sadly comes as no surprise coming from the head of a major sports federation. I remember the head of FIVB, the international volleyball federation, suggesting that women play in tighter clothes a few years ago, and they were later forced to.

Blatter's suggestion has been met with eye-rolling, thankfully. When will these troglodytes who run these federations learn that women's sports don't need sex to sell?

I Wanna Go Home

Maurice Clarett, who was suspended for the season by Ohio State for lying to police and investigators this past summer, says he wants to play for the Buckeyes again next season, even as he is suing the NFL for entry into the draft. I don't know what to think of this. As a fan, both of college football and Ohio State, I'd love to see Clarett back in scarlet and grey, as he's an immense talent. But I've really respected Jim Tressel for following through on running a clean program at OSU, and Clarett blew it last year.

It will be interesting to see what wins out at the university -- sticking to your guns on character, or the chance to have a stud in the backfield.

Today's Fun New York Yankee Item

Because 24 hours without something silly happening in New York isn't really a day worth remembering, we bring you this tidbit: George Steinbrenner has hired Jerry Krause as a scout. For those of you who are basketball fans, you might remember Krause was the GM who built the Chicago Bulls teams that won 6 NBA titles in the 1990s. You might also remember him as the GM who basically broke up that team, pissing off Michael Jordan by forcing Phil Jackson out as the head coach.

What you might not know is that Krause was a baseball scout before getting involved in the NBA. I can't exactly tell you what is so funny about this to me, but I feel like George and Jerry are a nearly perfect couple.

Rocket Cleared for Launch in Houston

What does it take to get Roger Clemens out of retirement? Apparently, signing Andy Pettitte, and $5 million for one year. This is a hell of a move for the Astros, obviously. Clemens was 17-9 with a 3.91 last year, and 190 strikeouts in 221 innings. Add him to a rotation that includes Pettitte, as well Roy Oswalt and Wade Miller, and the Astros start to look very good indeed. The NL Central seems like it's going to be up for grabs this season, but I'd call Houston the preseason favorites.

Deford a Fraud?

Sports Illustrated's Frank Deford has been called the world's greatest sportswriter so many times that he might as well make it part of his name. But in a long feature in the LA Times, Glenn Bunting takes Deford to task for what he characterizes as his many factual mistake and overstatements. The article is a good read, and a fascinating look at a great writer. As for the nitpicking -- I'm of two minds. Having been one of the drones who do fact-checking at SI, it's still astonishing to me the number of mistakes that writers like Deford make, only to have them cleaned up by fact checkers.

On the other hand, the examples in the story really do seem, for the most part, rather trivial. Of course, we'd like to see a perfect record of no mistakes, but that's too much to hope for. Given the level of the mistakes and hyperbole that are outlined in the story, it's hard for me to get too fired up. There are other SI writers, past and present, who are much more liberal with facts.

Yes, another NASCAR Post

As I had posted about before, NASCAR is going ahead with a revamp of their points system. It will be interesting to see how they work out the details of this, as the AP story raises a couple of problems with the proposal.