A Dark Cloud In Columbus

I don't think it's a stretch to consider today one of the worst days in Ohio State athletics history. Let's do a quick summary of the facts at hand. Ohio State head football coach, Jim Tressel, has admitted to hiding knowledge of major infractions (Read about them here) from the NCAA. Tressel found out about the infractions on April 2, 2010 and never relayed his knowledge to the NCAA. It wasn't until this week (Eleven months later) that the allegations surfaced due to a leak somewhere in the OSU athletic department. If not for that leak, it's unlikely anyone would have ever known that Tressel was aware of what his players were doing.

So, Tressel is guilty of intentionally hiding his players' infractions in order for them to be able to participate in the 2010 season. Anyone think he would have done that if the guilty players weren't among his most talented? You have to imagine that the NCAA interviewed Tressel during their investigation of the memorabilia sales and free tattoos, and that means that he lied to the NCAA about a major infraction. To say that Tressel is in trouble might be an understatement. To sum it up, he lied to NCAA investigators about a major infraction, he tried to hide the infractions so that his players could stay eligible, and he worked behind the scenes to obstruct parts of a drug trafficking investigation (Evident in the emails below). Bruce Pearl just got one-upped in a major way. Oh, and by the way, Ohio State's sanctions of Tressel? $250,000 fine and a suspension that keeps him out of the Akron and Toledo games. Way to throw the book at him.

The press conference held by the OSU athletic department may have been one of the worst press conferences in history. The athletic director began the circus by saying:

‎"We acted on this quickly, unlike other programs across the country who take forever to respond."

Apparently, he thought it would be a good idea to throw stones at other programs when his own coach sat on the story for an entire season so his players would remain eligible. It took eleven months for Tressel's knowledge to come out, and that's somehow acting quickly?

Jim Tressel's excuses took the cake, though.

First, he claimed that he thought that the emails were confidential so he couldn't tell anyone. Yet, he told/warned his players but hid the information from the rest of athletic department and the NCAA. The original email also never mentioned confidentiality, and the first mention of confidentiality (Which was in the second email) came two weeks after the original email. Even if his confidentiality claim is to be believed, he still had a two week window (Between original receipt of the information and the first confidentiality request) in which he should have reported the infractions.

Next, his reason for not disclosing the infractions was that he didn't know who he should tell. Huh? All athletic departments have a compliance office for a reason. That's a terrible excuse.

Lastly, he said that he kept the players eligible because he didn't want to interfere with the ongoing drug investigation. So basically, Tressel knew his players had committed major NCAA infractions AND were under investigation for drug-trafficking and he still let them play. Wow.

I can guarantee that the NCAA will not look kindly on Tressel's actions so I'm very interested to see what they decide is appropriate punishment.

The best analysis of the whole ordeal has to be from Tennessee sports reporter, Clay Travis. View his Twitter account here.

Here are the emails themselves courtesy of Sports By Brooks. I will update more as the situation gets sorted out, but these emails are must read material.

Has Peter Gammons Gone Off The Deep End?

In the past year or so, Peter Gammons has become increasingly vitriolic for no apparent reason. Of course, he's a media legend and had a stroke a few years ago, but at what point do we hold him accountable for the things that he says?

 I think he crossed the line today by publicly accusing Mike Huckabee of being a member of the KKK.

For those of you who aren't aware, Orval Faubus was the Governor of Arkansas who ordered the Arkansas National Guard to keep schools from integrating in disobedience of the Supreme Court's desegregation order. 

We'll see if anyone else is willing to criticize such a revered sports reporter. He should be held responsible for his words, and it might help him to get that kind of wake up call.

Good For Carson

When I first heard the developing story of Carson Palmer wanting out of Cincinnati and threatening retirement, my immediate reaction was that he shouldn't be making those types of demands after his horrible 2010 season. After giving it further thought, I think Carson may be the victim here.

Everything about the Bengals organization is a joke. It's no secret that they have one of the worst front offices in football. Mike Brown seems hell-bent on running the team, that his father helped create, into the ground. Since he owns the team and acts as the GM, he can micromanage all that he wants without having to worry about job security. This has lead to a situation where the Bengals seem unafraid to bring in bad character/team cancer type players, regardless of the preferences of head coach Marvin Lewis.

We can only speculate as to the impact these players have had on the locker room atmosphere, but it is no coincidence that the best teams in the league give major weight to character issues when deciding on which players to draft/sign. There may be the occasional Randy Moss to the Patriots type of deal, but that was a judgment call based on the veterans' ability to keep him under control. Once he became a problem, Moss was shipped out immediately. You can imagine the type of locker room atmosphere present with a cast of characters such as Chad Ochocinco, Terrell Owens, Carlos Dunlap, Cedric Benson, Tank Johnson, Andre Smith, and PacMan Jones. Whereas the Patriots were able to keep Moss in check with a strong veteran presence, many of the Bengals' veterans are the problem themselves.

To go slightly off-topic for a second, how impressive is it that Palmer has been financially responsible enough to have $80 million in the bank? The NFL has an 80% bankruptcy rate among retired players and an absurdly high percentage of players that live paycheck to paycheck. Obviously financial responsibility isn't one of a normal NFL player's best qualities. It makes it extremely hard to make the case (In which I fully believe) that NFL players are actually underpaid in an economic sense when you see idiots like Bryan McKinney spending $100,000 on alcohol in one night at a Hollywood club. Then there's the famous story where Palmer's teammate, PacMan Jones, made it rain with $80,000 in a Las Vegas strip club. I think Carson Palmer should be lauded for his responsibility and intelligence which have led him to a point where he can make the important decisions in his life without having to become a slave to the NFL paycheck.

Returning to the issue at hand, it sounds like the character/attitude issues that were prevalent among the Bengals players have driven Palmer past the point of no return. We don't know how much nonsense he had to put up with from Ochocinco and T.O., but you can pretty much guarantee it was a ton, especially when the season went in the tank. If Palmer was miserable due to the locker room dynamic that naturally results from having that many poor character guys, it's very easy to see how his preparation and focus could suffer. Is it a coincidence that Palmer had his best game of the season with Ochocinco and T.O. out due to injury? It says a lot that Palmer is willing to retire to keep from having to play another snap for the Bengals organization. Keep in mind that the Palmer is not the type of player to complain through the media. The only time I've ever heard him criticize anyone with the Bengals was when he stated his displeasure with Ochocinco not being in training camp. Imagine how powerful the negative atmosphere around an organization must be for a player to be willing to walk away from the game he loves just to avoid playing for that team.

Situations constantly arise throughout sports where a player becomes disgruntled due to issues with coaches or management. The one bond that is supposed to keep a player focused and competing is the idea that you play for your teammates. No player wants to let his family (and your teammates become family very quickly in sports) down, but what if the teammates are the ones causing most of the problems? That's when there are no viable options. In a poisonous atmosphere, it's not healthy for a player to continue fighting battles he'll never win. With Mike Brown at the helm, Carson Palmer will never be able to right the Bengals ship. Therefore, his only option is to move on, whether be with a trade or retirement.

A View Inside My Fantasy Baseball League

Ronnie Jones is currently planning to take Chewbacca
with his first round pick.

When it comes to fantasy sports, baseball is the one true king. With this in mind, I've decided to make my main baseball league viewable to the public, and I will also post weekly updates, analysis, standings, etc on this blog. Before we get into the description of the league, let's take a look at why fantasy baseball reigns supreme.

Fantasy football may be the most popular version, but it also focuses on the lowest common denominator of fan. Once you draft, there is very little incentive to check your team more than once or twice a week. Most importantly, the head to head format and small rosters cause luck to be the most important factor in deciding who takes home the hardware. In fact, it isn't uncommon for teams on auto-pilot to make the playoffs or even win the championship. The best team over the course of the season rarely wins the championship, and that has soured me on fantasy football.

Fantasy baseball is the exact opposite. The truly knowledgeable competitors will find that their skills and intelligence are fully rewarded over the course of a 162 game season. I'm comfortable stating that it is impossible for a team on auto-pilot to win a normal fantasy baseball league. Fantasy baseball requires owners to check their teams and make transactions almost daily to stay competitive. The draft is only the beginning, and in many cases, it is much less important than working the waiver wire and adjusting your roster throughout the season. I've noticed that my baseball teams look drastically different at the end of the year than they did after the draft due to trades and other transactions. With the default Rotisserie scoring system (explained below), fantasy baseball successfully removes 99% of the luck from the equation. Whereas football rewards the best team over the last two weeks or so, baseball rewards the best team over the entire season.

Rotisserie baseball separates team performance into categories. The most common version is 5x5 in which there are five hitting categories (Average, HRs, Runs, RBI, and SB) and five pitching categories (Wins, ERA, WHIP, K's, and Saves). Points are awarded based on the final standings in each category (In a ten person league, ten points for first place in that category and one point for last place), and whichever team totals the most points wins. 

Now onto the Grads and Scrubs league details....

Our league's scoring system is 7x7 Rotisserie with deep rosters and six keepers (Each team designated six players they want to keep on their roster for the next year) per year. The categories are:

Hitting	Pitching
Batting Average	Wins
On-Base Percentage	Quality Starts
Slugging Percentage	Strikeouts
HRs	Holds
Runs	Saves
RBI	ERA
SB	WHIP

The two past champions are Team Daugherty and Team Koojo. Best of all, Ronnie Jones holds the record for quickest waving of the white flag (Mid-May), though he claims that this year will be different. 

Here are the players being kept for each team:

TEAM DAUGHERTY  (John Daugherty) PLAYER POS Hanley Ramirez, Fla SS Roy Halladay, Phi SP Matt Kemp, LAD CF Justin Upton, Ari RF Chase Utley, Phi 2B Jay Bruce, Cin RF	JUST WAIT (Ronnie Jones)  PLAYER POS Albert Pujols, StL 1B Domonic Brown, Phi RF Troy Tulowitzki, Col SS Felix Hernandez, Sea SP Andrew McCutchen, Pit CF Carlos Santana, Cle C	BUCKHEAD BASHERS (Lath Guyer)   PLAYER POS CC Sabathia, NYY SP Carl Crawford, Bos LF Evan Longoria, TB 3B Kendry Morales, LAA 1B Shin-Soo Choo, Cle RF Tim Lincecum, SF SP
TEAM CERVERO  (Mark Cervero) PLAYER POS B.J. Upton, TB CF Adrian Gonzalez, Bos 1B Matt Cain, SF SP Dustin Pedroia, Bos 2B Jose Bautista, Tor 3B Andre Ethier, LAD RF	WALKING WOUNDED (Kyle Bedrosian) PLAYER POS Adrian Beltre, Tex 3B Jose Reyes, NYM SS Matt Holliday, StL LF Jon Lester, Bos SP Justin Morneau, Min 1B Ian Kinsler, Tex 2B	TEAM BEAULIER  (Scott Beaulier) PLAYER POS Cliff Lee, Phi SP Zack Greinke, Mil SP Joey Votto, Cin 1B Nelson Cruz, Tex RF Cole Hamels, Phi SP Jonathan Sanchez, SF SP
BIG MIKE  (Mike Armstrong) PLAYER POS Kevin Youkilis, Bos 1B Clayton Kershaw, LAD SP Dan Uggla, Atl 2B Mat Latos, SD SP Delmon Young, Min LF Colby Rasmus, StL CF	SHAUG'S SQUAD  (Billy Shaugnessy) PLAYER POS Tommy Hanson, Atl SP Jason Heyward, Atl RF Miguel Cabrera, Det 1B Mike Stanton, Fla RF Joe Mauer, Min C David Wright, NYM 3B	TEAM WINKER  (Joey Winker) PLAYER POS Josh Hamilton, Tex CF Chad Billingsley, LAD SP Michael Young, Tex 3B Matt Garza, ChC SP Tim Hudson, Atl SP Rickie Weeks, Mil 2B
TEAM BENTLEY  (Richard Bentley) PLAYER POS Mark Teixeira, NYY 1B Ryan Zimmerman, Was 3B Ubaldo Jimenez, Col SP Buster Posey, SF C Robinson Cano, NYY 2B Carlos Marmol, ChC RP	TEAM KOOJO  (Kyle Johnston) PLAYER POS Ryan Braun, Mil LF Alex Rodriguez, NYY 3B Prince Fielder, Mil 1B Brian McCann, Atl C Justin Verlander, Det SP David Price, TB SP	TEAM DIMAURO  (Nick DiMauro) PLAYER POS Ryan Howard, Phi 1B Adam Dunn, CWS 1B Ichiro Suzuki, Sea RF Carlos Gonzalez, Col LF Jayson Werth, Was RF Josh Johnson, Fla SP

As you can see, the league is very balanced heading into the draft. I look forward to having a very competitive year, and the transparency should provide some solid motivation to not finish at the bottom. I hope everyone will join me in analyzing the league as the season progresses. Feel free to heckle or praise any team or owner in the comments section. If it all works out right, this experiment should prove to be a lot of fun.

Click here to view our league homepage.