Football

The NFL negotiations for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement between the owners and the NFLPA are not going well. The NFL has proposed an 18 game season but the injuries to players this preseason are hurting the chances of the Union accepting the deal.

The list of players already on the IR seems to be a lot longer than usual. The list already includes Raven DBs Walt Harris and Domonique Foxworth, Ram DL Chris Hovan, and others. Bronco LB Elvis Dumervil could be the next one on that list depending on how the operation to fix his torn muscle goes.

FPS will be reporting on preseason games and let you know which teams are looking solid and which are looking like pretenders.

Baseball

The Reds face a tough series this week against the Cardinals. The Reds lost game 1 and as of last night had their lead cut to 1 game. The Cardinals are one of the teams that have had a lot of injuries but are still very talented.

The division races have all tightened over the last couple of weeks except for the AL West where the Rangers are running away from the rest of the division. The rest of the races are within a game and a half or less.

The Orioles are showing signs of life with their new manager Buck Showalter. The team has won 6 of the last 7 under Uncle Buck.

The Columbus Clippers are in 1st place despite a sweep by Buffalo this last weekend. The Clippers are 68-50 for a .576 winning percentage. Maybe the Indians should call up the Clippers and send the Indians down to Columbus.

NBA

The Cavs lost C Shaquille O’Neal to the Celtics. O’Neal wants to win another championship and it is very clear to everyone but Cavs owner Dan Gilbert that will not happen any time soon in Cleveland. The Cavs also lost C Zydrunas Ilgauskas a couple of weeks ago when he followed LeBron to Miami.

LeBron is finding that more people than just the fans in Cleveland are upset with him for his “Hour of Betrayal” program on ESPN. The City of Cleveland refused to pay for the police protection of LeBron’s bike fund raiser this past weekend. Always before, the City covered the overtime. In addition some advertisers have reportedly dropped interest in him as a spokesman.

That’s what I think. Tell me what you think.

Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for college football and basketball and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for http://NFLDraftDog.com and edits http://fryingpansports.com. He has also published several novels on

http://www.eBooks-Library.com/Contemporary/Author.cfm?AuthorID=1003

and edits http://fryingpanpolitics.blog.com.

Baseball Heads Down the Back Stretch

Now that the All Star game is over, we need to take a look at the standings and project what might happen from this point to the final weeks of the season.

The trading deadline is coming up and there are a few names floating around that could help a contender. Some deals have already been made. The biggest deal was SP Cliff Lee going to the division leading Rangers. He gives the team the one thing they did not really have–a true #1 starter. Even with the team’s financial problems, they decided to go for it all this year.

The Jays and Braves traded SS with Alex Gonzalez going south in a five-player deal along with 2 minor leaguers for SS Yunel Escobar and LHP Jo-Jo Reyes. The Braves needed a little more O and Gonzalez should help. Escobar has been at best inconsistent.

The Jays are in 4th in the tough AL East and have put out the word that RPs Kevin Gregg, Scott Downs and Jason Frasor are available. They are looking to build for next year. Several teams might be interested in Gregg who has converted 20 of 23 save opportunities.

SP Roy Oswalt is the most attractive guy out there. The White Sox are looking at him but he is 32 and is scheduled to get 16M in 2011 and 12.

AL East

The Yanks are leading and Rays are still close just 2 games behind. Both went 8-2 before the break. The Red Sox have fallen and can’t seem to get up. They went 4-6 in the last 10 and are 5 games behind. With all the Sox injuries, it is less and less likely that they can keep up.

AL Central

The White Sox lead by just a half game over the Tigers. The Sox are depending on pitching and the long ball because they are hitting just .257 as a team. They are 3rd in home runs with 100. The Tigers are hitting .275.

AL West

Texas has a 4.5 game lead over the Angels. The Rangers have the best lead in the AL and Lee will only help them win the division. Beyond that who knows.

NL East

The Braves have profited from the Mets stumble over the last 10. The Braves expended the lead to 4 games by going 7-3 while the Mets went 4-6.

NL Central

The Reds have a been traded places with the Cards all season. That will continue as long as the Reds pitching holds up. It won’t and the Reds will fall out of the race in the middle of August. Nobody else in the division is a factor.

NL West

The Padres are 2 games ahead of the Rockies but need both a pitcher and a bat. They won’t get either before the trading deadline but still should hold on to win the NL Weak.

That’s what I think. Tell me what you think.

Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for college football and basketball and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for http://NFLDraftDog.com and edits http://fryingpansports.com. He has also published several novels on http://www.eBooks-Library.com/Contemporary/Author.cfm?AuthorID=1003 and edits http://fryingpanpolitics.blog.com.

Technorati Tags: MLB,MLB Playoffs,Oswald,Lee,Yankees,Rays,Red Sox,Tigers,White Sox,Rangers,Angels,Braves,Mets,Reds,Cardinals,Padres,Rockies

NFL

The lower round rookies are beginning to sign. The deals are too scattered to give you a good analysis but look for the top picks to have some extended holdouts. The league ownership is in a penny pinching mood. The best indication of that is the fact that none of the usual sources have the financial data on the rookie deals. Given the concern over what the next CBA might look like and the economy still being in the tank, owners won’t quickly let the agents talk them into big increases over last year.

The RFAs are also signing. Today, the teams have the option of lowering any unsigned RFA to 110 percent of the salary the player made last year. In most cases the teams will do this for those players that they consider reserves or not critical to their long term plans.

NBA

The Celtics lead in the finals now 3-2. It is hard to get a handle on this series because each team looks unbeatable in one game but then lays an egg in the next one. While some of the differences in the games is due to injuries and foul trouble. But that can not explain it all.

I wonder if Boston has one more effort like Game 2 in them. If they lose tonight, they will not win the series.

MLB

The Yankees have clawed their way back into a tie for the lead in the AL East. They were helped by the Rays going 5-5 over the last 10 games. Boston has started to play a little better and is only 4 games behind.

Texas is hanging in the lead in the AL Weak. The Angels are just one game behind. Neither of them are playing well enough to worry any of the AL East teams come playoff time.

Atlanta had a 4.5 game lead last week but went 5-5 in the last 10 to allow the Mets to sneak back to just a game and a half back. The Phillies are still not playing well and have to face the Yankees this week in inter-league games.

Cincy and St. Louis are still in a tight race for 1st in the NL Central. The Padres, Dodgers and Giants are grouped together like peas in a pod in the NL West.

College football

For a while the Big 12-2 was on life support. But the keystone team–Texas–decided to stay and that kept the league together despite losing Nebraska to the Big 10+2 and Colorado to the Pac10+1. They key was MONEY!! Imagine that! The Big 12-2 promised Texas that they could have their own network deal and that saved the conference. There is a good chance that both the Big 12-2 and the Pac10+1 will add teams in the near future. Look for TCU and 1 other team (possibly Houston or Tulsa) to get an invitation to the Big 12 and Utah to get a ticket to play in the Pac 10.

The bottom line here is that college football has not changed all that much. I predicted that Texas would not join another conference months ago when the Big 10 was romancing it.

That’s what I think. Tell me what you think.

Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for college football and basketball and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for http://NFLDraftDog.com and edits http://fryingpansports.com. He has also published several novels on

http://www.eBooks-Library.com/Contemporary/Author.cfm?AuthorID=1003 and edits http://fryingpanpolitics.blog.com.

It’s bad enough if you shoot your friend in the foot. When you intentionally shoot yourself in the foot, you deserve whatever pain results. That is exactly what the pinhead owners of MLB did in signing a new contract with the Umpire’s union without mandating more use of technology for calling balls and strikes.

Until a couple of years ago, the fans were convinced that the umps were blind but recent developments in TV coverage have removed all doubt. Fox and other networks provide a pitch by pitch analysis of the missed calls using computer technology. We can clearly see a ball that is way low being called a strike and a ball just below the letters being called a ball. The union has run the game for years. They have prevented any use of instant replay or other technology that has even been instituted in college football. The reason is simple. The union does not want to allow their dues paying members to look as bad as they are.

The problem is that it doesn’t matter how good the players are, it will be the umpires and their bad calls that will determine as many games in 2010 as they have in the past. Some say that Congress is deaf about what the people want or in the case of the Health Care debacle don’t want. MLB leadership is just as deaf.

By signing a new deal without forcing balls and strikes to be called by technology, MLB has told the fans that it doesn’t care about them or about the game. At some point, the fans are going to have to show the owners that we don’t care about them or their game. That is the only way that things are ever going to get any better.

Your fantasy football doesn’t have to be over. Run a pro football franchise all year long for free at http://sportsims.net/. Tell them Coach Smith sent you.

That’s what I think. Tell me what you think.

Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for college football and basketball and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for http://NFLDraftDog.com and edits http://fryingpansports.com. He is a regular contributor on Cleveland Sports Radio http://www.sportstalkcleveland.com/ Monday morning at 11. He has also published several novels on

http://www.eBooks-Library/Contemporary/Author.cfm?AuthorID=1003 and edits http://fryingpanpolitics.blog.com.

Inter-league play is over. The All Star game has been played. Now, I have had enough baseball and am ready for the playoffs. Baseball has only another 3 weeks until football and the NFL steals the spot light and doesn’t give it back. Baseball has a following but it is losing ground against other sports particularly football.

Proof of how totally football overshadows baseball can been seen most clearly in the steady decline of the TV ratings for the World Series. It has fallen about 50% in the last 10 years while the ratings for the All Star game have held fairly steady. Why? Because no one plays football in the middle of July.

Baseball has to take maximum advantage of the period when it is the only major league sport in the docket. The schedulers seem dedicated to having all the games between the Boston and the Yankees in the first few weeks of the season. But that is when both the NBA and NHL has its playoffs. A good marketing guy would never put their best games and highest draws on opposite a tough competitor. They should have waited until the MLB was the only show on TV.

Baseball faces another problem as well. The playoffs and World Series have started so late that the kids couldn’t watch them to the end. Add that to the fact that kids don’t play baseball the way we used to growing up in the 1950s, and you have the makings for a of a marketing disaster in the future.

Baseball has been trying to increase interest among the young by moving the first pitch time of playoff games earlier. It has also begun broadcasting the armature draft on television. The MLB draft will never reach the level of interest of the NFL draft for a couple of reasons. A lot of the early draft picks are high school age which very few fans have seen. Since most people don’t watch NCAA baseball except the the college world series they don’t even know the college players. So because most people don’t know the players, the interest in the draft just isn’t going to come close to that of the NBA or NFL.

So let’s move baseball of the national sports stage and get ready for the real national pass time—football.

That’s what I think. Tell me what you think.

Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for college football and basketball and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for http://NFLDraftDog.com and edits http://fryingpansports.com. He has also published several novels on http://www.eBooks-Library/Contemporary/Author.cfm?AuthorID=1003 and edits http://fryingpanpolitics.blog.com.

What does everyone want to be named to but nobody wants to go to? Answer—the MLB All Star Game. Many players earn a bonus if they are named to the game only to find they are unable to participate because they are totally disabled by a potentially fatal case of hangnail.

The American League has no players entered in the home run derby. Even the HRD which has been the one shining star in MLB’s All Star Weekend has some serious rust on it. While every All Star game has challenges, MLB’s game seems to be the most endangered.

Who wouldn’t give up a weekend off at home with the family in the middle of July to spend a couple of days on the field at St. Louis in 100 degree 100% humidity? Evidently plenty of people wouldn’t. Even the NFL has decided that to get anyone to play in their post season game, they have to hold it in Hawaii. Baseball holds their game in the middle of the season. Maybe they should put a franchise in Hawaii too. At least the weather would be better.

Players are afraid of injury. Remember Pete Rose running over Cleveland’s Ray Fosse in the 1970 game? Fosse was never the same after that hit. It cost him his career.

What has happened to MLB’s summer classic is inter league play and too much television. When Ben Franklin and I were kids, we seldom saw our favorite players on out of market teams except for the all star game. Ben was always a bigger baseball fan than I was. But you can’t eliminate inter league play because it draws fans to the ballparks all over the league. Reductions in TV games won’t be happening any time soon either. Baseball is losing enough money as it is. So what’s to be done?

One thing that should NEVER have been done is to allow the game to determine home field advantage in the World Series. Can you even imagine how stupid it would be to allow the West winning the NBA game 128-126 to give the Lakers home field advantage in the NBA finals?

Nothing can be done. Baseball can add a skills competition like the NHL and NBA has but that will not draw the top names. The old timers game is about the only thing that will draw some viewers but not enough to make a difference. A rookie game with 3A all stars vs the current rookie crop might generate some interest and exposure for future stars of the game.

As it has in every other area, baseball will continue to do the same things the same way and expect better results. That won’t work. Just ask our elected representatives in Washington. They use that exact approach to the problems we face.

That’s what I think. Tell me what you think.

Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for college football and basketball and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for http://NFLDraftDog.com and edits http://fryingpansports.com. He has also published several novels on http://www.eBooks-Library/Contemporary/Author.cfm?AuthorID=1003 and edits http://fryingpanpolitics.blog.com.