As popular as the NFL is on any given day, Thanksgiving day is still one of the showcase days for the league. The last thing Roger Goodell and his cronies wanted to have was a major embarrassment on Turkey Day. Nevertheless, that’s what they had. The Detroit Lions lost their traditional tilt, this time to the Houston Texans, after a confusing turn of events involving a bad call, an automatic review, and a coach’s challenge ended with a bogus touchdown for Houston that helped them win the game. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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The relationship between a professional sports team and its fans is a special one. I come from a city where the fans take their sports extremely seriously, and ownership is held responsible for every decision, no matter how minor. Even in other, less fanatical cities, though, the people who own sports teams have a responsibility to give an honest attempt to field a winning team. I know it’s a business, and ultimately an owner only really needs to try to make money, but I feel that there is an implied contract with the fans that takes it well beyond that. In a league like Major League Baseball, there is no salary cap and also no minimum payroll. There are numerous teams in the league who spend a small fraction of what the big spenders lay out for their rosters. It’s fun to write about those high-payroll teams that fail and the penny-pinchers who succeed, but if you look at the big picture, there is a clear correlation between the amount of money spent and the relative success of the team. One owner who clearly cares nothing for that contract with the fans is Jeffrey Loria, the owner of the Miami Marlins. What he is doing to his team right now is shameful and the whole league should be embarrassed to have him be a part of it. On Tuesday, the Marlins made a deal with the Toronto Blue Jays that involved most of the team’s big-money players. They got very little in return. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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I have always been a proponent of the use of instant replay in sports officiating. Since the technology exists, it would be a total waste to not take advantage of it in order to get more calls correct. Football is using it extensively, and baseball has been expanding its use over the last couple of years, with more sure to come. Game officials have a very difficult job, despite what you might hear from many fans. It is far easier to make a call when watching on television than to make it from field level at full speed. The thing I just don’t get is how the replay officials manage to get it wrong so often, as they have the advantage of technology that the officials on the field do not have. The two games that meant the most to me this weekend, Penn State against Nebraska and the Philadelphia Eagles against the Dallas Cowboys, each included a call that was massively botched by replay officials. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Since I last wrote, the East Coast took quite a shot from Hurricane Sandy. My family was far more fortunate than most, as we only lost power for 24 hours, and we had no damage to our home or property at all. Many people along the Jersey shore and in New York City were not nearly so fortunate. There are still many without power, and as it gets colder, the problem will be even more magnified. In the middle of all of this, the New York City Marathon was scheduled to happen on Sunday. On Tuesday, as the storm was just clearing out, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the marathon would go forward as planned. After several days of backlash about that decision, he reversed field and called off the race on Friday. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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In professional sports, the difference between the haves and have nots is fairly small. In leagues like the NFL, the salary cap is structured in such a way as to force the teams to spend a similar amount of money on their payroll each year. In baseball, where there is no cap, the difference can be far more dramatic. Still, when compared to major college sports, even the New York Yankees and the Pittsburgh Pirates are far more similar than a school like the University of Texas when compared to some of the small schools out there that are trying to compete in something like football. To widen the gap even more, Texas, in conjunction with ESPN, started its own television network last year that pays it $300 million over 20 years. Amazingly, the head coach of Texas football, Mack Brown, complained this week that the network is actually one of the reasons why his team has underperformed over the last couple of years. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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I generally try to restrict myself to writing about actual sports when I put together this column each week. I tend to define a sport as something that has a winner that is determined on the field, as opposed to by judges, although I am sure an occasional ice skating or gymnastics story has slipped in here and there. There are also many forms of competition that have a clear winner and loser that don’t really qualify as sports, like chess or shuffleboard, for example. This week, I have decided that there are no rules. This is my column, and I’ll write what I want. The benefit to you is that you get to read about my team’s winning effort at a corn maze near Lambertville, New Jersey, on Saturday. That’s right. Count yourselves lucky. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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If you read between the lines in this space — or sometimes just read the lines themselves — you know that my now teenage daughter is not always the easiest person to get along with. [Read more →]

Tags: sports, virtual children by Scott Warnock by Scott Warnock
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It was bound to happen. Three years ago, Michael Vick left Leavenworth prison after serving nearly two years on charges related to the dog-fighting ring he had been running in Virginia. A year later, he became the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles. Around the city of Philadelphia, there are a variety of opinions about Vick, from people who despise him and refuse to watch the Eagles while he is playing, to those who feel that he served his time and deserves to be judged based on his performance. Whether or not you like him, it would be tough to find fault with his behavior during his time with the team, as he has done and said the right things throughout. Until this week, that is. On Thursday, Vick admitted that he owns a dog. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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On Sunday, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel was injured on a play. Matt Cassel is a pretty shitty NFL quarterback. According to offensive tackle Eric Winston, while Cassel was down and injured, a decent portion of the crowd was cheering because it meant Matt Cassel would be unable to return to the game and, therefore, would also be unable to continue playing quarterback for the Chiefs, shittily. After the game, Winston described hearing the home fans cheering for an injury as “one hundred percent sickening.”

Bravo, Eric Winston. Gold sticker for that one, bud. If they were cheering the injury, you are one hundred percent right.

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Tags: advice, sports by Ian Micir
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It is easy to assume that we, as fans, are far more invested in the outcome of our teams’ games than the players themselves. After all, they are getting paid whether they win or lose. It drives us (or at least some of us) crazy to see players on different teams being chummy with their opponents during a game. As a passionate (some would say obsessed) fan of numerous sports, my favorite players are the guys who seem to care just as much as I do, and who appear to despise the other guys while the game is still being played. For some of these athletes, that kind of demeanor comes naturally, even if it is not for real. Those guys have it easy, I guess. The game does not need to be life and death for them, as long as they are giving their all when it counts. It is easy to forget that these are people who have lives of their own off the field, and that their performances may well be impacted by things that have nothing to do with sports. This week, real life intruded upon the sports world in a big way for a couple of people, and, by extension, their teams. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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I was all set to write about the ridiculous replacement referees that officiated the first three weeks of the NFL season to disastrous results, but the sides resolved their differences and the real refs were back at work starting Thursday night. The beautiful thing about the world of sports, though, is that there is always something else about which to complain. I guess that is because we are so passionate about the subject. This weekend, there were a whole lot of insane numbers put up by some college quarterbacks, the most astonishing of which came from Geno Smith, the incredible quarterback from West Virginia University who is widely considered to be the front-runner for the Heisman Trophy. Smith threw for 656 yards and eight touchdowns in his team’s 70-63 win over Baylor. I guess many people might slobber over those stats, but I just can not get past one simple question: doesn’t anyone play defense anymore? [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Alright, I know Tim Tebow’s popular here in America, but since his trade to New York, it seems his fame has gone global. This is just getting absurd, as we now have “The Tebower” located in some French museum. And look, he’s not even doing it right. He’s supposed to be on one knee with his right hand held in a fist against his forehead while his left hand reaches down to hold a football helmet.

Ugh, fuckin’ French people — get a clue.

Tags: sports, trusted media & news by Ian Micir
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You’re not going to win this one. The replacement refs are here, and there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of progress being made between the NFL and the League of Extraordinary Officials Who Can Actually Figure Out Where to Spot a Ball Within Eleven Minutes. But this doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy football. Don’t get mad, get glad. Here’s how:

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Tags: advice, sports by Ian Micir
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No sport translates to television quite like football does. I enjoy watching them all, but there is just something about football that lends itself perfectly to an afternoon on the couch in front of a giant screen. With so many sports, I would actually rather be there in person. Sitting at a baseball game is fantastic, for example. Football, particularly the professional variety, is a lot of fun to watch in person, but you actually lose a lot by not watching on T.V. Much of the experience that we have watching the NFL broadcasts can be traced back to the Sabol family and NFL Films. Steve Sabol, the real genius behind all of that, died on Tuesday of brain cancer at the age of 69. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Last November, I ran my first-ever race. After months of training, I participated in the Philadelphia Half Marathon, and I wrote about what a thrill it was. Today, ten months later, I ran my second race. I am not sure why I have never done a 5K…I seem to be attracted to the longer races. The event on this beautiful Sunday was the Rock ‘n’ Roll Philadelphia 1/2 Marathon, formerly known as the Philadelphia Distance Run. It was a similar course to the PHM, but not exactly the same. As I ran, I found myself thinking about what a major industry this thing has become. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Stephen Strasburg is a young pitcher for the Washington Nationals, a team that, as of this writing, has the best record in all of Major League Baseball at 86-54. Strasburg, in his first full season in the bigs, is the team’s best pitcher, sporting a record of 15-6 with a 3.16 ERA. He has struck out 197 batters in only 159 1/3 innings. With his team a virtual lock for the playoffs, you would think he would be preparing to lead the Nats into the postseason for the first time since the former Montreal Expos moved to our nation’s capital in 2008. Instead, team officials have shut Strasburg down for the rest of the season. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Somebody needs to explain the NCAA to me. Seriously, I am obviously not equipped to comprehend its rules, policies, and methods of determining punishment. Everyone knows what happened at Penn State, or at least people think they know. The Nittany Lions were hit with stunningly severe sanctions for the Jerry Sandusky situation, despite the fact that no NCAA rules were broken. On Friday, it was announced that the NCAA had concluded its investigation of accusations of academic fraud at the University of North Carolina and had found no evidence of wrongdoing. If you have read anything about this situation, you are as astonished by this as I am. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Every once in a while I run into a story about which I want to write, but I can’t decide if it’s Bad Sports or Good Sports. The current Lance Armstrong saga is one of those stories. There are a lot of different facets to this tale, and they are fairly well distributed on both sides of the ledger. Armstrong is arguably the greatest cyclist of all time, having won the prestigious Tour de France a record seven times. Even more remarkably, all seven came after he was diagnosed with cancer in 1996. For a number of years, though, he has been dogged by allegations of doping, a problem that is absolutely rampant in the sport. This week, he announced that he was giving up the fight against the charges, saying that the process has been unfair and continuing to fight was a waste of time and effort. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency immediately banned him from the sport for life and stripped him of his titles. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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This year a family beach vacation overlapped with the Olympics, so I was able to get a huge dose of the events from London. I am one of those people who loves the summer games, and I was able to indulge that passion more than any year since probably 1984. [Read more →]

Tags: sports, virtual children by Scott Warnock by Scott Warnock
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There’s nothing that gets me riled up quite like a frivolous lawsuit. People who sue other people, businesses, and organizations for minor injuries nauseate me, especially when those injuries were really their own fault. The lawyers that take these cases are just as much at fault, and should be held accountable as well. That is not to say that there is never a valid reason to sue someone for injuries or negligence. I am sure there are plenty of those. When someone sues for something idiotic, however, I really believe that person should be subject to fines, jail time, or at least a requirement that he pay all court costs for the defendant. This week, a woman in Texas sued the Dallas Cowboys because she allegedly burned her backside on a bench outside of the team’s stadium back in 2010. Really. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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