In Honor of Hal...

A little of this and a little of that ...
By: Coach

So there are some things bringing me to the boiling point this week, a week during which I should be ecstatic because we have a World Series, NFL, College Football and the start of the NBA season. Is this the most exciting time of the year or what?

MLB
I don't need to even get into the issue of how Major League Baseball has handled this postseason, with all the days off, late start times in order to fulfill primetime television obligations, etc. My gears have been grinding bigtime lately when it comes to MLB and I don't really want to get into it. It's satisfying to say that professional football is America's favorite sport, and that baseball is still America's favorite pastime. As far as Major League Baseball is concerned, it is not America's pastime. The MLB has been a joke in the past decade and that is due in large part to the aging crapbag wearing a double-knot windsor that calls himself a commissioner. He needs to go!

America's pastime can be seen at youth games – ranging from Little League all the way up to High School baseball. If you are ever looking to find the game of baseball at its best, please refrain from going to the stadium. Just go to the local park instead. Trust me when I say that it is much more fulfilling an experience.

NFL Week 8
It was a great week in the NFL. Go Titans! As much as I would like to hang around a bonfire with a good 'ol boy like Peyton Manning, as a quarterback I love even more to see him walking off the field shaking his head with a mush face. I hope the Titans go 16-0 and the Colts go 3-13. That would be funny and I would dance with delight in my Ozzie Newsome jersey.

I was pleased to see the Browns beat a good Jaguars team on the road. Even more pleased to see them accomplish that without Kellen Winslow in the lineup. And as I looked at The Team's results over the last five weeks, I was shocked to see that they have lost only one time! One loss in five weeks! And that one loss came in the form of a 14-11 defensive battle with the Redskins on the road. The Browns have gone 3-1 over this span (one of those weeks was their bye). Have the Browns really turned it around after starting out 0-3? Or should I ask: Was there really anything there to "turn around" considering they started out vs. Dallas (L, 10-28), vs. Pittsburgh (L, 6-10) and AT Baltimore (L, 10-28)?

Those first three losses were against strong opponents (Baltimore IS strong at home). And then the Browns did get a break as they played Cincinnati, a game in which they won 20-12. I should mention that they won 20-12 while playing poorly. So they were sitting at 1-3. Still in a huge hole because Pittsburgh was 3-1. We were 2 games back.

And then the Browns had to face the defending NFL champion New York Giants. Shake the 8-ball. Wait a second … "Outlook Not Good." Shit! But this was Monday Night Football, baby! And the Browns were playing on The Lake! Orange and Brown showed up and took care of business, stomping the Champs 35-14! Sittin' at 2-3. Still in a big hole to Pittsburgh, who won during our bye week, going up 2.5 games. With our win and Pittsburgh's Week 6 bye, they were 4-1 and we were 2-3, back to 2 games out. F@$% wild card. We want the division! Right?

Going on to Week 7. Sure, the Browns looked like garbage, but they were playing a quality Redskins team on the road and despite Clinton Portis going off on our front seven, we held them in check to 14 points. Problem was … we only scored 11. It was a battle, and both Derek Anderson and Braylon Edwards both lost this game for Cleveland. So we fell back to two games under .500 at 2-4, while the Steelers won again, improving to 5-1 and now holding a 3-game lead over Cleveland.

But here we are, Week 8. This week could either make or break the season. You'd have to consider the possibility of Pittsburgh beating the Giants, improving to 6-1, and the Browns falling to Jacksonville on the road and falling to 2-5. This would put us in a 4-game hole. Instead, the unthinkable happened. The Steelers blew a 4th quarter lead and lost to the Giants. And as for the Browns, they manhandled the Jaguars who have been so potent behind nearly mistake-free David Gerrard, and running backs Maurice Jones-Drew and Fred Taylor. But Shaun Rogers – all 6-4 and 350 (listed) pounds of him – plugged up all the holes created by one of the best lines in football and consistently pressured Gerrard. He tackled Jones-Drew on a 3rd-and-3 for a loss, then on the very next play blocked a field goal attempt. Talk about stepping up.

Capitalizing on the Steelers' loss, bringing them down to 5-2, the Browns took their game at JAX by a 23-17 count and improved to 3-4, yet again back to 2 games behind the Steelers.

If you consider Pittsburgh's schedule, it is probably as difficult as Cleveland's for 3rd toughest in the league this year. I'm saying Cincinnati and Baltimore have the most difficult.

Cleveland's sked doesn't get any easier than Week 16 vs. CIN (0-8). Upcoming they have Baltimore (4-3) at home next week, then it's vs. DEN (4-3), at BUF (5-2), vs. HOU (3-4), vs. IND (3-4), at TEN (7-0), at PHI (4-3), the Cincy game, and finally at PIT (5-2). Ouch!

But for now, things are looking good. After starting 0-3, Cleveland is 3-1 against mostly good teams.

STEROIDS AND CHEATING
Why is it that baseball continues to get looked upon negatively when it comes to steroids and cheating, while when it comes to other sports everybody seems to open their eyes wide, lift their brows, and then suddenly then turn their cheeks. What gives?

We love to hate Major Leaguers using steroids and we simply just don't give a shit when players from other sports use them.

Let us go back to 1998 when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa became larger than life when they competed in a race to break Roger Maris' record of 61 home runs in a single season. McGwire won, ultimately finishing up the '98 campaign with a stunning 70 to Sosa's 66. Both broke the record but McGwire was King of the Longball!

America was like Stevie Wonder, blind to something, while moving their collective heads back and forth in joy. The following year these two monsters were at it again when McGwire hit 65 to Sosa's 63. Amazing, right?

Then in 2001, Barry Bonds was smacking balls into McCovey Cove at an incredible pace considering how much he walks. He wound up hitting 73 home runs that year with right around 400 at-bats. Oh yeah, and he was 37 years old. What the heck?! Those are slow-pitch softball numbers. Finally, we started questioning things.

In March 2005, Rafael Palmeiro, McGwire, Sosa, Jose Canseco and Curt Schilling were summoned to testify in front of Congress. Canseco admitted his steroid use, Palmeiro explicitly denied any and everything, McGwire refused to discuss the issue and Sosa was suddenly no longer bilingual. Schilling sat there, a pitcher alongside sluggers, and talked about how important professional athletes were to kids and how wrong it is to take performance-enhancing drugs.

All of a sudden Jason Giambi was forgotten about and since nobody cared about Canseco or Palmeiro, McGwire and Sosa were our new focus.

Since then Bonds has been charged with perjury for lying under oath about his involvement in the BALCO scandal, so since he is the single-season and all-time home run king, he is the new blacklist focus and McGwire and Sosa have been lost in the shuffle.

All this focus on MLB players using 'roids, while any player who had been suspended for doping in other sports only makes headlines when the story first breaks.

The Tour de France has been plagued by cyclists doping, even its winners (Floyd Landis in 2006) and highly-publicized favorites (Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso in 2006, Alexander Vinokourov and Michael Rasmussen in 2007 and Manuel Beltran in 2008). This is an athletic event considered by many to be the most physically-grueling considering it's daily sprints and mountainous climbs over the course of a monthlong ride through the Pyrenees and the Alps. But the Tour de France doesn't really matter much to Americans. French reporters have been trying to pin doping scandals on American and 7-time Tour champ Lance Armstrong for years now. He keeps coming up clean though.

And in the NFL, several players have been suspended for using performance-enhancing drugs. Most notably was the case with a 6-foot, 4-inch, 272-pound 24-year-old named Shawne Merriman. The guy is a physical freak. He was drafted 12th overall in 2005 and in 3 NFL seasons has posted 39.5 sacks, earning All-Pro honors in all three seasons. However, he has been forgotten about and forgiven for his steroid usage.

Here we are, quick to hate Giambi, McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro and Roger Clemens at a time when performance-enhancing drugs were running rampant through professional sports, but on the other hand, quick to forget about Landis, Ullrich, Merriman and others. Is it simply because these players aren't as recognizable because nobody in the States cares about the Tour, and football players hide beneath their helmets and behind their face masks, while baseball players are recognized both at the plate and in the field with their faces clearly exposed and more recognizable? Or is it because, deep down, we as a country love baseball more than any other sport and hold its players more accountable than professional athletes in other sports?

My beef here is that baseball players who are found guilty of using performance-enhancing drugs are rightly-so dragged through the mud, but on the other hand, professional athletes found guilty for the same offenses in other professional sports are all but forgotten about for their wrongdoings after a few days or a week. What gives? Why the hate in baseball and the love for athletes who are just a guilty in other sports?

Have I mentioned the NBA? Nope. The issue of using performance-enhancing drugs in the NBA has not even been mentioned in the media. Maybe other controlled substances are more of an issue in basketball, but I'd be willing to bet that if the NBA tested for performance-enhancing drugs and released information on positive results like MLB did, that you would find several high-profile players testing positive and ultimately being suspended. But then again, maybe we would just forget and forgive because the fan base in the NBA is not nearly as sophisticated and polished as it is with MLB. Right?

Major League Baseball is supposed to be America's sport. Although the game of "baseball" might be, the NFL is hands-down America's favorite game to watch. So with that being said, MLB players are more high-profile because their faces are more recognizable. The NFL might be more popular with Americans, but it is considered more of a team sport with teams being recognized, followed by fans and loved more so than the individual players. The NBA nobody cares much about because the majority of Americans sees its players as nothing more than a bunch of high-jumping, slam-dunking kids from the projects who were raised on Cheerios, marijuana blunts and 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor (even though that couldn't be further from the truth), and nobody in America cares about professional cycling outside of Lance Armstrong's career.

So what we have here when it comes to cheaters and dopers is one sport/league (baseball/MLB), being subject to more public scrutiny than all the other sports, and that is completely wrong. At some point we have to hold other athletes more accountable for their actions.

Salty's Thoughts: Coach is like a verbal Pirate who has exchanged his sword for a pen and bottle of ink.