I know that I generally write about sports, but there has been something happening in politics over the past several days that I just can’t ignore.

Formerly relevant former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani has recently begun to say that President Obama does not love America.  As he’s gone around trying to justify his comments, he’s spoken in circles and pretty much presented absolutely no evidence to back up his claim.

Mr. Giuliani has said things like:

• “Honestly, I don’t and you don’t know what he truly believes”
• “He’s a patriot, I’m sure,”
• “But I don’t hear from him what I heard from Harry Truman, what I heard from Bill Clinton, what I heard from Jimmy Carter, which is these wonderful words about what a great country we are, what an exceptional country we are.”
• “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country,”  This one was said at a Republican fundraiser.
• “Not the slaughtering of the Christians, not the slaughtering of the Jews, not the slaughtering of the Syrians, but Ferguson.”

So I want to get this straight:  You can be a patriot, but if you don’t love Rudy Giuliani, and you don’t love Republicans, and you don’t sound like Jimmy Carter and think that America is always great and exceptional, then you don’t love America.  If you speak out for the American citizens of Ferguson, but don’t speak out against Christians being killed abroad. then you don’t love America.

By the way, Obama has spoken out against the slaughtering of Christians:

Remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.

That’s right:  President Obama compared the atrocities of ISIS to other atrocities.

How anyone could think that he meant anything other than “These things are really horrible, just like other horrible things that have happened in our past” is beyond me.

Oh, I know why: Those things we did weren’t real atrocities, because they didn’t happen to REAL Americans.  You know, the white Christian ones.

Of course Republicans and Christians were offended by it:

Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, called the president’s comments “an unfortunate attempt at a wrongheaded moral comparison.”

That’s right, Mr. Moore was somehow offended that President Obama compared the brutal killings of Christians by ISIS which were based on wrongheaded religious beliefs held by Muslim extremists to the brutal killings of African Americans which were also based on wrongheaded religious beliefs held by racist white Americans.  How dare he compare Muslim extremists to racist Christian extremists!  I’m glad the Mr. Moore was eager to jump up and defend our “heritage”.  (I hope you can sense my sarcasm there).

Maybe President Obama isn’t so eager to paint all Muslims with the same brush for the same reasons we shouldn’t paint all Christians with the same brush.  I guess the President’s mistake is to assume the right wing would be smart enough to know what he’s saying.

Anyways, back to Giuliani.  I think White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest got it right today:

I can tell you that it’s sad to see when somebody who has attained a certain level of public stature and even admiration tarnishes that legacy so thoroughly, And the truth is I don’t take any joy or vindication or satisfaction from that. I think, really, the only thing that I feel is I feel sorry for Rudy Giuliani today.

I can’t believe the Republicans have now turned me in to an Obama apologist.  Look, there are plenty of reasons to dislike or not even support President Obama.  This is clearly not one of those reasons.

Perhaps Marco Rubio said it best:

I don’t feel like I’m in a position to have to answer for everyone in my party who makes a claim. Democrats aren’t asked to answer every time Joe Biden says something embarrassing. So I don’t know why I should answer every time a republican does. So I will suffice it to say I believe the President loves America. His ideas are bad.

I know there aren’t many people who will agree with me, but I believe Pete Carroll made the right call to throw on 2nd and goal from the 1 yard line.  Of course hindsight is 20/20, and we all know how it ended up working out for the Seahawks, but let’s take a real look at the situation.

Seattle was down by 4 points and had the ball, 2nd and Goal from the 1 yard line.  There were 20 seconds left in the game, and Seattle had 1 timeout remaining.  They have one of the most physical running games in the league, led by Marshawn Lynch.

If they elect to run on 2nd down and don’t convert, then they must use their final timeout, and are presented with 3rd and Goal and no timeouts, meaning they would be in a known passing down.  Also, if anything goes wrong on 3rd down, the clock would certainly run out without any chance of running a final play to score.

Instead, Seattle chose to pass in what New England thought was a running down.  Typically this gives an advantage to the quarterback.  Honestly, what are the odds that Russell Wilson throws an INT in that situation?  That is literally the ONLY way this becomes the wrong call.

Seattle had the opportunity to make 1 passing attempt to the end zone, then run Marshawn twice if the pass goes incomplete, and they took it.  Unfortunately for them, the almost impossible happened, and Wilson threw the INT.

If you’re gonna play the blame game here, I wouldn’t put the blame on Carroll.  It was on the players for not executing.

As a note, Brian Burke of Advanced NFL Stats disagrees with me:

What say you?

I received responses such as:

this guy is such a tool. When you join the NFL, you represent the NFL, which means your represent the Seahawks. People and kids look up to the players, their idols. And this guys is just an asshole, has been from day one. Great role model.

Let me get this straight:  Marshawn Lynch sacrifices his body 16 Sundays a year to generate money for the NFL and the Seattle Seahawks.  You know, the NFL, the organization that arbitrarily punishes players for off the field behavior, collectively bargains to make sure the players don’t get one more penny than they “deserve”, and repeatedly hid evidence of the long term effects of concussions.

Now somehow Lynch is the bad guy?

Personally, I think that Marshawn is a great role model.  I want my kids looking up to someone who sticks up for himself against an organization like the NFL in the middle of their circus that is the Super Bowl.  Honestly, how many ways does Marshawn have to make a statement that will mean something without losing his livelihood he’s worked so hard for?

Kudos to you, Marshawn.

Please just stop grabbing your crotch, ok?  That’s one thing I don’t want my kids to emulate.

photo credit: West Point – The U.S. Military Academy via photopin cc

The past year has exposed a lot of issues with the NFL.  I know that for at least myself, it’s gotten pretty frustrating to watch and follow the league, and I’ve started to giving up on them.

• Full time officials
• Permanent cameras trained on each end of the goal lines and all out of bounds lines
• Lights on the line-of-scrimmage sticks that go off when the play clock or game clock goes to zero
• A replay system where every play is watched by the replay official, just as in college.  The referee on the field would never go “under the hood”.
• Replay review of penalties, particularly pass interference.
• Stop the clock on first downs, at least in the final 2 minutes of the 2nd and 4th quarters.
• Better control of the clock by the officials on the field, similar to what is used in the NBA and major conferences in NCAA basketball.
• Fire Roger Goodell
• Create more consistent rules governing player discipline for off the field actions.

Lamar Odom’s brief and bumpy ride with the Dallas Mavericks has come to an abrupt end.

The Mavericks and Odom spent Easter Sunday working out a parting, according to sources close to the situation, that frees the struggling Odom to leave the team immediately without actually being released.

“The Mavericks and I have mutually agreed that it’s in the best interest of both parties for me to step away from the team,” Odom said in a statement to ESPN.com. “I’m sorry that things didn’t work out better for both of us, but I wish the Mavs’ organization, my teammates and Dallas fans nothing but continued success in the defense of their championship.”

It’s been clear Odom is not a fit in Dallas, and the effort just hasn’t been there.  It’s disappointing, as I thought going into this season that things were going to hinge on the play of Odom.  Unfortunately, it has turned out to be true, and not in a good way.

My dad passed away a few years ago.  This means that my mom will occasionally come across things that were his and pass them on to me.  Recently I received a collection of baseball cards.  In a Ziploc bag.

Putting aside the Ziploc bag and its effectiveness at storing baseball cards, there was another thing that piqued my interest as I went through them.  The cards were mostly  spares, and there was a decent percentage of Rangers.

To help explain the spare-ness of the cards, I must point out that like most kids, I loved baseball cards.  I would by them and excitedly open the packs.  I’d take them home and organize them, some of them going into a binder.  There’s no telling how many hours I spent just paging through them, reading stats and factoids on the back of the cards.  Since I was so infatuated with them, my dad would also take an interest.  He would take me to get them and would let me have the good ones and he would keep the others.  He was awesome like that.

All sappiness aside, there were three cards that caught my eye for various reasons.  The first one was more amusing than anything, a Jeff Russell 1989 Topps:

Have you ever seen anyone look happier and more nonchalant throwing a pitch?  Honestly, look at that smile.  This had to have been taken during warmups or throwing BP.

The next two struck me for their newfound significance.  These are two cards that at the time meant nothing to a young Rangers fan.  Now I find it fascinating that they were in the small batch of cards from my dad.

The first is a Gary Matthews 1981 Topps card.  I have no idea why he would have even had this card, as I was 4 in 1981, and we were not collecting cards yet.  I didn’t even know who Gary Matthews was, and honestly still wouldn’t if his son didn’t share his name.  Gary Matthews, Jr. isn’t the most significant of Rangers from the past 2 years, but I still found it interesting.

The last card is a bit more significant, at least to me.  First off, it comes from the 1989 Upper Deck set of cards.  This is by far my favorite baseball set ever.  It was the first to feature pictures on the front AND the back, and the layout is incredibly sharp and clean.

To illustrate how spare this card was at the time, the note on the back of the card is that Mike’s younger brother Greg pitches for the Braves, and that they faced each other the first time in 1986, 3 years prior.

Of course we all now know the significance of Mike Maddux to the Rangers organization.  It’s just a bit crazy to me that in the collection of roughly 50 cards, this was one of them.

During the pre-lockout 2010 season, the collective bargaining agreement expired and the league operated without a salary cap.

According to sources, the Cowboys and Redskins took immediate cap hits during the 2010 season that normally would have been spread out over the length of the contracts, giving them an advantage that other NFL owners found unfair.

Putting all biases aside, this is total B.S.  The Cowboys and Redskins both took advantage of the uncapped season and reworked contracts accordingly.  Now Goodell is punishing them retroactively for something they did that was not against the rules.

That being said, it makes me smile to see Dan Snyder get screwed out of $36 million in cap space right after he trades away draft picks that are more precious than ever after the latest CBA.

Nonetheless…here goes.

As I listened to the Hardline on Wednesday, I was surprised to hear Mike, Corby and Danny dredge up the heartbreaking ending to World Series Game 6, and worry aloud whether the club would be able to collectively put that evening in the rearview mirror.  Each went on to elaborate the degree to which thinking about that evening still left him feeling somewhat ill.  As did most Rangers fans, I’m sure, I hung on every twist and turn of Game 6 on the evening of Thursday, October 27.  At the outset of the bottom of the 9th inning, I turned down my TV sound and tuned in to ESPN 103.3 FM. The expectation, at the the time, was that I would soon hear Eric Nadel call the final out of first-ever World Series title for the Rangers.  I stepped into the hallway of my home prior to Neftali Feliz’s 1-2, 2-out pitch to David Freese, cutting off my line of sight to the television, so that my only experience of the final out would be Eric’s voice. Due to the television delay, I experienced the double deflation of hearing Eric describe the action, then stepping back into the living room just in time to see Freese connect on the game-trying triple.  Agony.  I watched in disbelief the next half-inning as a clearly hobbled Josh Hamilton hit a 2-run moon shot to right-center, actually ripping off my shirt in the process of celebrating in my living room.  Ecstasy.  And, well…everyone knows the rest. There’s no sense in laying it all bare again.

FLD Mike had invited me to a Paul Simon show on Friday, October 28, and, due to the rainout of Game 6 on Wednesday, and David Freese’s heroics Thursday, the concert now coincided with the final World Series game.  No matter how much I tried to be optimistic about Game 7, I ultimately decided to attend the show in order to guarantee myself one really great thing to come out of Friday night…I just couldn’t shake the feeling of impending doom. Mike and I followed the action on our phones and on the lobby televisions at the Verizon Theatre, but it became apparent by the middle innings that the game was slipping away. So, I focused on Mr. Simon instead.  My disappointment subsided, and then…it was just gone.  I rarely thought of it again.

Almost immediately, my attention was drawn to discussion and video footage of eventual Rangers acquisition Yu Darvish…if memory serves, someone posted a link in a comment thread at BBTiA in the wee hours after Game 7 to a Japanese League playoff game in which Darvish was pitching.  The Hot Stove heated up (one of my favorite times of year).  I waved goodbye to C.J., and followed every Twitter handle that I could find during Darvish mania.  Holiday 4-Pack tickets went on sale at texasrangers.com.  The renewal was already in full swing for me.  Though it became clear that Nelson Cruz could have, and probably should have, caught Freese’s drive in the 9th, I never played what-if in my mind. I never felt let down by Cruz, or Feliz, or Michael Young’s two errors earlier in the game, or the Allen Craig home run in the 8th inning because Wash left the Dutch Oven in one batter too long. I’m glad that our metropolis has spared those guys, particularly Cruz and Feliz, the vilification that other towns have heaped upon their sports figures who didn’t seize the moment when the spotlight was brightest. I have complete faith in the way that the psychological needs of the players will be handled by Ron Washington and his staff as we move forward into the 2012 season. I feel privileged to have seen two seasons of championship-caliber baseball up close and personal after following this team since the early 1980s.  I have the utmost confidence in the front office to keep this thing going.  Most of all, I genuinely believe that the Rangers are in the midst of a historic run, and will have an enduring moment or two in the spotlight before all is said and done with this crew.

I’m over Game 6.  I’m ready for April 6.  I’ll see you at the Ballpark.

“The facts are that I’ve spent 22 years doing this exactly the same way,” Jones said Tuesday on KRLD-FM. “I’ve made a lot of changes from year to year as time goes along, but frankly, I know that when we do not have the kind of success, when we don’t have expectations lived up to, the one that should get the most heat is the one that ultimately makes the decisions, period, with the Dallas Cowboys. And that’s me.”

The contradictions in those remarks are obvious, yet the logic contained within is so full of twists and turns that it defies analysis. Find a new team to root for, people.

Image Courtesy TheBattOnline

I want to thank Mike Sherman for his service to Texas A&M University over the past 4 years.  He recruited and developed players with character and did things the right way.  Unfortunately he wasn’t able to produce the necessary results on the field, especially given the talent on the team this year.

Coach Sherman took over a team in disarray.  This was evidenced last year, when only 4 starters on offense and defense combined were seniors.  He showed improvement in his 2nd and 3rd seasons, and with a pre-season top 10 ranking  2011 was poised to be the best Texas A&M Football season since 1998.

Then the season started, and the team blew 17 and 18 point halftime leads against Oklahoma State and Arkansas.  This trend would continue throughout the season, 5 times blowing double digit leads.  The only game the team really deserved to lose was at Oklahoma.  Coach Sherman seemed to always coach with an NFL mindset, tightening up with a lead, and that doesn’t really translate to the college game.

I don’t disagree with the decision to fire Coach Sherman.  I was actually still on the Sherman bandwagon until the Missouri loss.  After the home loss to Texas, I had decided not to renew my season tickets unless a change was made.  I’m glad the administration was able to make such a difficult decision, especially with all of the change going on with the move to the SEC.

Coach Sherman has certainly left the program in a much better place than when he arrived.  I will not be surprised to see him on the sidelines of an NFL team next year.