Here at The Stain, you can always count on each of us to post a mock draft… and each of to get about 10% of the picks correctly. This is, of course, because we are like everyone else, in that we are sans crystal ball. As usual, my projections are based on what I would do, not what I think the team will do. Now that we’ve gotten the disclaimer out of the way, on to the good stuff.

1) Kansas City: Sharrif Floyd, DT, Florida: He was highly regarded before the combine, and then he went off. The Chiefs traded for Alex Smith so any QB is not going to happen. They tagged Brandon Albert so Joeckel is unlikely. That leaves the best available player strategy. Many think that’s Floyd now.

2) Jacksonville: Luke Joeckel, OT, Texas A & M: Whether it’s Blaine Gabbert, Chad Henne, or someone else taking the snaps, they won’t be able to throw from their backs. The best offensive lineman in the draft makes sense here.

3) Oakland: Eric Fisher, OT, Central Michigan: Just as good as Joeckel, Fisher would help provide Carson Palmer much needed protection, so he can see the world from another angle than from the turf.

4) Philadelphia: Star Lotulelei, DT, Utah: This guy’s got heart… see what I did there? Philly just cut basically their whole defensive line, and unless there really is something to his heart condition, he’s a stud and makes perfect sense here.

5) Detroit Lions: Dee Milliner, CB, Alabama: The Lions have a LOT of needs on defense, none bigger than cornerback, and they’ll be thrilled if Milliner falls to them… which is not guaranteed by any stretch. He could go number one.

6) Cleveland: Kenny Vaccaro, S, Texas: This is higher than most people have him, but I don’t understand why. The Browns have defensive holes and Vaccaro defends every part of his safety responsibilities very very well. Practically a can’t miss pick.

7) Arizona: Lane Johnson, OT, Oklahoma: No team had a worse tackle situation than Arizona last year. No point in drafting a quarterback if you can’t keep him upright. And Johnson represents an immediate big improvement.

8) Buffalo: Dion Jordan, LB, Oregon: Buffalo’s defense wasn’t nearly as good as it was expected to be last season. There are other problems there besides linebacker, but Jordan is an obvious quick improvement. Sometimes you shouldn’t overthink things.

9) NY Jets: Bjoern Werner, DE, Florida St.: The Jets didn’t do everything poorly last season. Just most things. Including rushing the passer. Werner would help from day 1.

10) Tennesee: Jarvis Jones, LB, Georgia: The Titans defense is not good enough to stop anyone if the opposing quarterback has time. Jones gets after it and should help Tennessee tighten up.  Get it? Tighten up? Because they’re the Titans? Anyone???

11) San Diego: Keenan Allen, WR, Cal: They do need line help but the best tackles are taken. Malcom Floyd and Danario Alexander are both good players but a real #1 receiver would probably help Philip Rivers recover some of his lost form.

12) Miami: Barkevious Mingo, DE, LSU: They were probably hoping for Allen, but Mingo is a nice consolation prize. There will be decent WR talent in the middle rounds.

13) Tampa Bay: Alec Ogletree, LB, Georgia: Would go higher if not for off the field issues. Terrific player should help a shoddy defense.

14) Carolina: Sylvester Williams, DT, North Carolina: If not him, than Tavon Austin. But the Panthers need to get better on the defensive front, or it won’t matter if Cam Newton scores 5 tds a game.

15) New Orleans: Sheldon Richardson, DT, Missouri: Not a lot of middle ground with the Saints. Their great in places, terrible in others. The D line is terrible, enter Richardson. Voila. Middle ground.

16) St. Louis: Chance Warmack, G, Alabama: The Rams are desperate for guard help… which virtually guarantees they’ll do something idiotic… like pick LSU punter Brad Wing. Not hating on Wing, but…

17) Pittsburgh: Ezekiel Ansah, LB, BYU: Tons of potential, and they could use a young LB. Tavon Austin, again, is an option here if he’s available.

18) Dallas: Jonathan Cooper, G, North Carolina: Terrific player slots right into an area of immense need for Dallas. Uprade the line and see Tony Romo FINALLY become a superstar? Probably not, but you need to upgrade the line here anyway.

19) NY Giants: Damontre Moore, DE, Texas A & M: Stock has dropped a little bit but unless I missed something and he has completely tanked, pass rusher extraordinaire should be on the Giants’ list of wants. It’s kind of emblematic of their team, isn’t it?

20) Chicago: DJ Fluker, OT, Alabama: I’m surprised nobody else is calling this one. Or are they? Effed if I know… but what I do know is that tackle is a big problem area for the Bears and they should jump at the opportunity to get Fluker if they can.

21) Cincinnati: Eddie Lacy, RB, Alabama: A little high for Lacy? Well, the Bengals could use a running back. Maybe it is high, but Lacy certainly will not be around when Cincy picks in round two.

22) St. Louis: Matt Elam, S, Florida: This is, of course, if they are smart. Guard and safety are their two biggest needs. Sure, they’ll probably pick Tyler Eiffert or some other player who, while decent, doesn’t address any need, because they’re the Rams. Elam is small but a terrific all around safety and immediate long term fix.

23) Minnesota: Tavon Austin, WR, West Virginia: Logic would dictate that he wasn’t around this late… but they could use a complement for Percy Harvin. Check that. They NEED one.

24) Indianapolis: Menelik Watson, OT, Florida St.: If you had Andrew Luck as your quarterback for the next decade plus, wouldn’t you want to protect him. Watson, originally from England, is raw, but a true talent who could end up being one of the best values in the draft.

25) Seattle: Tyler Eifert, TE, Notre Dame: Russell Wilson is the real deal, and mobile. So a tight end who does everything pretty well would make sense. Seattle is in a pretty good position, though, of not having any massive needs, so pretty much anything goes here.

26) Green Bay: Jonathan Cyprien, S, Florida International: Great talent from a small school. Not sure the Packers desperately need a safety as much as they need O line help and a running game, but nobody at those positions makes sense here.

27) Houston: Kawann Short, DT, Purdue: With all the D line talent, Short gets lost in the shuffle… get it? Short??? Never mind. The Texans could use some sturdiness at defensive tackle. Short is a risk because I’ve read he comes with minor character issues, but the Texans are a good team who can afford to gamble.

28) Denver: John Jenkins, DT, Georgia: Jenkins needs some fine tuning but he’s absolutely massive and like Houston, they’re good and don’t need too many upgrades.

29) New England: Manti Te’o, LB, Notre Dame: Ok, I admit it. I put Te’o here to mess with Shaun. But think about it. A stupid hoax and an unfairly criticized 40 time is going to mean he drops. Maybe this far. Any team at 29 who can somehow fit a linebacker into their draft strategy here would be foolish to not take him.

30) Atlanta: Zach Ertz, TE, Stanford: Whether or not Tony Gonzalez, the greatest tight end, and one of the best players period to ever play the game, retires or not, he ain’t gonna be around forever. Why not pick a good successor candidate? It makes sense. The Falcons don’t have too many needs.

31) San Francisco: Desmond Trufant, CB, Washington: I think they’d have prefered a safety here but nobody left warrants a first rounder. Trufant is a real talent, and underrated. No team’s personnel department is as smart as the Niners’… GOD it pains me to say that… so you can rest assured that whoever they pick will be a smart choice.

32) Baltimore: Cordarelle Patterson, WR, Tennessee: They just made Joe Flacco a gazillionaire. They’ll probably want to make sure that whenever Anquan Boldin departs/retires, it doesn’t leave a gaping hole in the offense.

How many of these picks do I think I will get right? Hopefully all. Most likely, three to five. Let me know what you think.

1) Oakland A’s – They really don’t have a single superstar, but the thing the A’s have that no other team seems to have, is 25 men that contribute. Cespedes proved he is for real and Reddick broke out. They added more outfielders, signed a stud defensive shortstop from Japan, and added Jed Lowrie to bring some pop to the infield. They have a bullpen that is underrated and a pitching staff that is as good as any in baseball. Brett Anderson and Bartolo Colon are real front end starters, Jarrod Parker proved he has what it takes to be a future #1, Tommy Milone showed he can go a full season keeping batters off balance with his mix of speeds, and A.J. Griffin was almost untouchable down the stretch. The mix of power, speed, and pitching in the giant ballpark in Oakland will have the A’s atop the division yet again.

2) Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim – I really don’t like what the Angels have done. Losing Grienke without really adding a solid arm. They sign Josh Hamilton, but he is just as much a clubhouse cancer as he is a benefit on the field. I think the loss of uber utility man Macier Izturis will be a bigger loss than people realize. All that being said, they have too much talent to not be in the hunt for the division or at least Wild Card come mid-September.

3) Texas Rangers – They need to make a deal. Profar is legit. I think they should reach out to St. Louis about Oscar Taveras or Detroit about Castellanos in exchange for Elvis Andrus. The loss of Hamilton won’t really be that big a loss. I still like their rotation, Darvish will be a Cy Young contender, but I am just not sure they have enough in what I believe to be in the running for most talented division in baseball (along with the AL East).

4) Seattle Mariners – The laughing stocks of the West will surprise some people this year. I really wanted to list them at second in the division, but couldn’t justify it with the rosters of the Angels and Rangers, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they are in the mix for playoffs late September. They added a ton of power options in Morales, Ibanez, and Morse. They moved in the fences, and they have as talented a group of pitching prospects as there is in baseball. If the rookie pitchers make the bigs this year and pitch like the hype, the Mariners will be a hard team to beat.

5) Houston Astros – The Astros first year in the American league just might be the worst season a team has ever had. Their big league roster can be beaten by some AAA teams. That being said, I love what they are doing in Houston. The Astros are building from the ground up. They are stockpiling young arms. Have a future slugger coming up through their system in Jonathon Singleton, granted he will be serving a 50 game suspension for smoking weed. They secured a shortstop with the first overall pick. Plus they have the top pick this year, and should have it next year as well. They will be terrible this year, but will be competing with Seattle and Oakland at the top of the division in just a few years.

Selection Number	Team	Pick
1	Kansas City Chiefs	Luke Joekel – OT – Texas A&M
2	Jacksonville Jaguars	Damontre Moore – DE – Texas A&M
3	Oakland Raiders	Star Lotulelei – DT – Utah
4	Philadelphia Eagles	Dee Milliner – CB – Alabama
5	Detroit Lions	Chance Warmack – G – Alabama
6	Cleveland Browns	Keenan Allen – WR – Cal
7	Arizona Cardinals	Eric Fisher – OT – Central Michigan
8	Buffalo Bills	Bjoern Werner – DE – Florida State
9	New York Jets	Jarvis Jones – OLB – Georgia
10	Tennessee Titans	Barkavious Mingo – DE – LSU
11	San Diego Chargers	Lane Johnson – OT – Oklahoma
12	Miami Dolphins	DeAndre Hopkins – WR – Clemson
13	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	Xavier Rhodes – CB – Florida State
14	Carolina Panthers	Kenny Vaccaro – S – Texas
15	New Orleans Saints	Sheldon Richardson – DT – Missouri
16	St. Louis Rams	Cordarrelle Patterson – WR – Tennessee
17	Pittsburgh Steelers	Alec Ogletree – OLB – Georgia
18	Dallas Cowboys	D.J. Fluker – OT – Alabama
19	New York Giants	Jonathan Cooper – G – North Carolina
20	Chicago Bears	Tyler Eifert – TE – Notre Dame
21	Cincinnati Bengals	Robert Woods – WR – USC
22	St. Louis Rams	Jesse Williams – DT – Alabama
23	Minnesota Vikings	Manti T’eo- MLB – Notre Dame
24	Indianapolis Colts	Desmond Trufant – CB – Washington
25	Seattle Seahawks	Dante Jones – DE – UCLA
26	Green Bay Packers	Matt Elam – S – Florida
27	Houston Texans	Tavon Austin – WR – West Virginia
28	Denver Broncos	John Jenkins – DT – Georgia
29	New England Patriots trade to Buffalo	Ryan Nasib – QB – Syracuse
30	Atlanta Falcons	Zach Ertz – TE – Stanford
31	San Francisco 49ers	Johnathan Hankins – DT – Ohio State
32	Baltimore Ravens	Kevin Minter – ILB – LSU

I swear I had a clever title for this a moment ago…

Anyway, here’s my point today. Getting paid to write about sports is a pretty sweet gig. Just ask Shaun and me who don’t get paid, but write about it anyway. Recently though, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend. There is way too much social commentary going on in sports journalism. If that was the extent of it, I wouldn’t be bothered. However, it’s not. The issue is that professional sports journalists and bloggers are making ridiculous statements about life and society without backing it up.

If I say I believe in the second amendment to the constitution, but believe that automatic assault rifles should be banned (both statements true), I will back it up by saying that I believe the only reason someone would own one of those kinds of firearms is if they intended to become a mass murderer. For home protection, a hand gun should suffice. For hunting, a hunting rifle should be fine. Who needs a damn AK 47 to hunt? I know, I know, the AK 47 reference is an exaggeration but my stance is not. It is now up to anyone who has an issue with my stance to state their differing opinion. Or not. But I have backed up my statement about thinking assault rifles are a ridiculuous thing for a civilian to own with plausible reason.

Now, take David Brown who is currently covering Spring Training for Yahoo! Sports. I like the way David writes. He deftly mixes humor with observation and it makes for entertaining stuff. However, in this article, he pissed me off.  What a ridiculous thing to say, that we live in a society that is soft on drunk drivers. Obviously, David has never had a DUI. That’s a good thing; it means he’s responsible about his alcohol consumption and motor vehicle operation.

I, on the other hand, made a mistake years ago. I got a DUI, and I deserved it. I was not being a bad person, or willingly putting others in harm’s way. I was being ignorant. I drank too much, felt I was okay to drive, and was clearly wrong, judging by the fact that I had to pay thousands of dollars in fines, lose my driver’s license for a period of time, attend diversion classes, and be on probation for the period of three years, where if I got so much as a speeding ticket, I ran the risk of being violated and going to jail… whereI had already spent 48 hours.

I don’t know if you, kind readers, think that is a good enough penalty for a guy to pay or not. Thousands in fines does not sound like much to a professional athlete but for a young (ish) guy trying to get his life and career started, it’s potentially crippling. It didn’t stop there though.

I have good reason to believe that the district attorney’s office where I got busted (I’m not going to mention the county because I know how vindictive the DA’s office is there and don’t want to get sued… they are after all attorneys, and truth being an absolute defense against a libel charge goes out the window when you can’t afford an attorney to make that argument) had people call my place of employment and try to convince my boss to fire me. I also believe that they continually delayed charging me until the absolute last minute in hopes that I was dumb enough to make the same mistake twice. I also believe they misled the attorney I hired after I realized that getting to court without a license on short notice would be difficult, about when one of my hearings would be in hopes that she wouldn’t show up. I also know that the chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) out here is one of the biggest in the nation, and seems to have incredible lobbying power. Now, nobody will ever say that MADD is a bad organization. Their cause is a noble one. However, I also think they tried to publicize my arrest to my neighbors. I have no proof of this, but many of my neighbors curiously found out about it without me telling them.

Things became very difficult for me. And that’s fine. I broke a rule, a very serious one at that, and I needed to pay the punishment. But, nobody got hurt, thankfully. And it’s a ludicrous thing to condemn the fact that if nobody gets hurt, the punishment is less, whereas if you hurt someone, you are in much deeper waters. Still, after all is said and done, the whole thing ran me about 8 grand, and a boatload of time. My insurance rates are still high despite the number of years that have passed.

Todd Helton probably has it a bit easier. He certainly has deeper pockets. But it seems as if David thinks they should have locked him up and thrown away the key for his recent DUI arrest, and that his teammates should be advocating his deportation to a leper colony.

Wow, this has actually turned into a very long version of, if you don’t know what you are talking about, then keep your mouth shut and your hands off the keyboard.

Here at The Stain, we try to take a different look at sports, and avoid the typical stories unless we have a different take on things.  This is the reason we haven’t really written much about Manti T’eo, but then I watched his interview with Katy Couric, I was shocked by one particular question and answer, which I thought would be a big topic, but I really only found three sources raising fuss about it, and I had to look for two of them.  Dan Patrick, Michael David of Pro Football Talk, and Out Sports were the few that were offended by the response of T’eo when Couric asked if he was gay.  

He was drilled the entire interview being told he was the most naive person in the world, and he was an out and out liar, and just sat there, took it, and wasn’t phased by it.  But then, when asked if he is gay, he chuckles, and emphatically said, “far from it, faaaar from it”.  So it is ok to be naive and lie to the world, but god forbid a person be gay.  This is the exact mindset that prevents so many, athlete or not, from coming out and being open with their preferences.

Who knows when we will see an athlete of in the four major sports come out while playing, but responses like T’eo’s push that timetable back.  I have heard people offer up the exuse of his religious beliefs being a reason for him to react that way.  I could almost buy that, if he wasn’t a Mormon attending a Catholic school, which in itself shows at least some form of an open mind.

To me, the worst thing to come out of the whole T’eo story is his reaction to that single question.  The media needs to react more harshly to comments like this, or tweets like the ones from Tank Carder, and bring more attention to athletes like David Testo, Anton Hysen, and Gareth Thomas, three people 99% of sports fans have never heard of, but are openly gay athletes at playing in the top levels of their professions. 

I don’t even know where to start when it comes to Championship Sunday leading into Super Bowl Sunday…oh wait, I can’t say that cause the NFL bans anyone to use that phrase, so, the big game at the end of the NFL season.  I have to start off letting my Patriot homerism shine through…somebody needs to take Bernard Pollard out.  Seriously, the man is probably more hated in New England than Buckner, Boone, or Dent ever have been.  He has single handedly ended 4 Patriot seasons.  Tore Brady’s ACL when Pollard was with the Chiefs, the next season with the Texans, helped shred Welker’s knee, last season rolled up on Gronk’s ankle, and this year, knocking Ridley out cold, forcing him to drop the ball, basically ending the chance at a comeback for the Patriots.  Then, in the postgame show, Shannon Sharpe, former Raven, rips Belichick for not talking to Steve Tasker on the way off the field.  Really?  He doesn’t talk to the sideline reporter more than half the time, regardless of the score, and even when he does, he basically says things like he said in the post game press conference, “We gave up too many points and we didn’t score enough”.  Really Shannon?  You think that would have been good for CBS?  Shut up.

If you believe in teams destined to win, how can you argue against the Ravens being destined to win?  4th and 29 vs. the Chargers.  The deep throw against the Broncos when the Ravens had no business scoring.  The domination of the second half against the Patriots.  The made for TV movie that is Ray Lewis.  Speaking of Ray Lewis, is anyone else sick of every Ravens broadcast, during the national anthem, the camera basically zooming in up his nostrils while Lewis tries to force out a few tears to add to the caricature of a personality he has become?  Ray Lewis playing his last game will be one of the story lines that will be driven into the ground over and over again the next couple weeks.  Here are the other ones I am already sick of and they haven’t even started.

The Harbowl, or the Bro Bowl, or whatever lame phrase media outlets come up with to go overboard talking about two brothers facing each other as head coaches of the two teams.  The death of the BCS version 2.0.  Yeah, we are still a year away from the BCS being a thing of the past, but how many times will we hear about Flacco coming from Delaware and Kaepernick from Nevada, neither of which are schools anywhere near the national spotlight of college football?  The read option:  We will see clips of Kaepernick running wild against the Packers hundreds of times, and debates as to whether or not the read option is the future of the NFL.  Let me answer that for you…it is absolutely not the future, see Wild Cat.  The Elite QB:  Yup, the arguments are sure to come, is Flacco and elite QB?  I will put up a bounty on the question, can somebody please come up with an original though when it comes to valuing quarterbacks?  Manti T’eo.  Yeah, I am sure his fake girlfriend story will find a way to be a storyline with comparisons and stories of professional athletes being taken advantage of by people of no morale compass.  But I am sorry, I don’t feel bad for you if you are about to make millions of dollars and were gullible enough to have a “relationship” with a woman for several years, but never bothered meeting the girl, didn’t visit her when diagnosed with Leukemia, and didn’t attend her funeral.  The best comment I have heard about it all was on ESPN radio, when the host, whose name is escaping me, simply said, “I had a better time following along with Inception than Manti T’eo”.

Things that are actually intersting leading into the Super Bowl are actually few and far between.  Both teams are a mix of old and new school.  Kaepernick is fun to watch with his speed and insane arm strengh and Flacco throws a great deep ball, while both teams have a solid run attack and impressive defenses.  I see the game being very close, and the deciding factor just may be to one storyline too boring for mainstream media to even care about…kicking.  After setting a record for field goals made last year, Akers has missed double digit field goals this season.  And after seeing their season end on a shanked kick, the Ravens cut a vet in favor of a rookie kicker.  Make or Miss, The game will come down to the kicking game.  Oh joy.

Here is the question: How do you have a touchdown lead with a minute left, your opponent has nearly 80 yards to go and no timeouts, and you lose?

Here is the answer: John Fox is your coach. In the history of professional sports, there have probably been plenty of bad coaching performances, but if one should ever cost a coach his job before the fans leave the seats, it was this one.

Sometimes when a team is very good, piss poor coaching can be masked. A top defense, a hall of famer at quarterback, two very good receivers, a good line, good backs, all that leads to success. But in the playoffs, when everyone is good, you need your coach to step up with a good game plan and make good decisions under pressure. John Fox could do neither.

First, before Baltimore even got the ball back with a minute left, Fox refused to let Peyton Manning try to throw for a game ending first down. Yeah, sure, you want to keep the clock running, but on third and 8 with everyone looking run, what are the odds of a conversion? Besides, Manning excels on underneath routs and would likely have completed the pass whether it went for a first down or not, so the clock would probably have kept running. Second, and I’ve written about my disdain for the prevent defense before, he refused to bring any pressure to Joe Flacco on the final drive, opting instead to rush three and drop 8 in coverage. We saw how that worked out. Third, when Denver got the ball back, they had 31 seconds on the clock and two timeouts, and a kicker with the leg for 60. Are you telling me Peyton Manning can’t drive the ball 40 yards in 30 seconds with two timeouts? Would he have? We’ll never know. But can he? You better believe it. Flacco moved the Ravens 80 yards in 45 seconds, albeit the last 70 coming on a bomb. What does Fox do? Kneels. Has there ever been more of a display of chicken…uh…poop?

It continued in the overtime period, but at that point, the script was probably written. A brilliant Britton Colquit punt coupled with a beautiful open field tackle on the attempted return by Tony Carter stuck the Ravens at their own 5. After two plays netted a return of minus 2 yards, Fox again refused to bring pressure in the end zone, allowing Flacco plenty of time to loft a beautiful 25 yard pass down the middle to Dennis Pitta. Sure, Denver got the ball back eventually, and anyone who watched the game knows what happens. A brutal brain fart by Manning and an even more brutal throw as a result led to a pick that gave the Ravens the ball with scant few yards to have to gain in order to get into Justin Tucker’s field goal range.

The reality is, the win is nothing less than what Baltimore deserved. They played well enough to win, and the only reason they didn’t win in regulation is two special teams touchdown returns by Trindon Holliday. Wipe those from the board, and it’s not close.

In a sporting world where players are often released for an inopportune fumble, missed kick, bad game, whatever, there is no other course of action than for the Broncos to fire Fox. And you know what else, I think they should do it via press release in the next half hour. Hey, I’ve got time, I will even write it for them.

The Broncos organization has decided to part ways with coach John Fox. We thank him for his, uh, contributions, but the reality of the matter is, playoff caliber teams need to be coached by playoff caliber coaches. The fact simply remains, the players on this team have masked Coach Fox’s insufficient ability to coach at the NFL level for most of this season. We wish him luck in his future endeavors, which if they lie anywhere in football will probably be in Division 1 AA, or perhaps the CFL.

That should cover that, right?

On another note, the Baltimore win allows the storied (not always good stories but I digress) and brilliant career of Ray Lewis to continue for at least another week. Lewis, who is retiring after the season, is playing through what would be crippling pain to any mere mortal with a torn triceps injury that 99.9% of players would have taken to the operating room and subsequently Injured Reserve. Not only that, Lewis led all tacklers in the game with 15 (unofficially) and recovered a fumble.

Last point on this game, the officials were mediocre at best. Nah, let’s call it what it really is. They were awful. They got the obvious offside calls correct, but apart from that, they were horribly wrong both ways on pass interference decisions and screwed up about a dozen holding penalties, again, in both directions. However, it has to be said that they got it right on Peyton Manning’s third quarter fumble. Upon replay, it appeared that the play would be a prime candidate for a “tuck rule” incomplete pass ruling. However, they stuck with their ruling of fumble after review. Anyone who even remotely resembles a football fan has to admit, even if they were pulling for Denver, it’s nice to have that idiotic rule for once not become a factor on a play like that.

Ah… that felt good. I’m happy now. I will wake up tomorrow and John Fox will likely still have a job, but that is what it is. My allegiance to Denver in this game started and ended with the office football pool.

With nobody being elected into the baseball hall of fame and the NHL lockout recently coming to an end, I find it shocking somebody isn’t getting more criticized.  The topic of the hall of fame vote fell squarely on the steroid era with Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds on the ballot for the first time joining Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, and Rafael Palmiero as the poster boys of steroids.  But people forget the steroid era would never have been had is not been for Donald Fehr.

As head of the MLBPA, Fehr fought against drug testing, claiming it as an invasion of privacy, which basically enabled all baseball players to roid up, and home run numbers to soar.  “But didn’t the home run race bring baseball back to popularity after the 1994 strike?”  Indeed it did, but who had a huge role in the strike?  You guessed it Fehr.  In fact, He was involved in 5 baseball work stoppages.  After working for the MLBPA for over 40 years, he finally stepped down in 2009.

What did Fehr do after baseball?  He became the NHLPA executive director in 2010 and proceeded to orchestrating his 6th work stoppage in 8 negotiations through his career.  And the NHL is probably the sport that could least afford a work stoppage.  After the 2004-2005 season being completely cancelled, hockey became almost extinct on TV, being hidden on the NBC Sports Network formerly known as Versus, which, at the time, was only available in about half the homes in America.  Hockey finally found itself back in the spotlight with the introduction of the Winter Classic.  Now, a work stoppage cancelled about half the season, lost out on the Winter Classic, and has some of the league’s stars contemplating staying overseas to play their hockey citing the better treatment they get than in the states.  

Only Donald Fehr can make living and playing in Russia more desirable than the United States.  In my opinion Fehr is the worst thing to happen to sports since, I dunno, the WNBA?

Well, not a ton of you played, if you couldn’t tell by the completely empty comments section. But here are the pertinent facts.
The site I referenced is SB Nation. I find them to be quite entertaining and usually pretty well informed.
Player A was Mark Langston, a hard throwing lefty from the 80s and 90s who played for the Mariners, Expos, and Angels, and once was traded for Randy Johnson. Player B was Fernando Valenzuela, the pudgy Dodger lefty who baffled the National League with baseball’s best screwball since Carl Hubbel.
As you can tell, their stats were pretty similar, Langston having a big edge in Ks and Fernando a half run better in ERA with more career shutouts. The other biggy is that Fernando won two World Series titles.
Still, SB Nation asserted that Langston was better and implied that it wasn’t close. It makes you wonder what ever happened to doing a bit of research.
You can probably make arguments for both guys to be a little better than the other, but to assert that it’s not close is lunacy.
That’s all for now, avoid the flu and get a vaccine this year. Apparently the strain is pretty brutal and worth avoiding.

One of the great things about being a sports columnist, blogger, or merely a fan is that you can make assertions about a sport and it’s players without having to justify how you feel. I am conflicted about a sports website that I read frequently. I enjoy the content most of the time, but every now and then, the writers really come up with a doozy. So, we’re going to do an anonymous comparison of two players’ Major League Baseball careers.

Both of these guys were left handed pitchers, approximately the same age, and pitched in the same era, so there’s no need to throw any opposition comparisons in there. Oh, and both spent time in both leagues, so both had to deal with the Designated Hitter at points. Not everything is congruent, of course, but let’s stick to the stuff that’s close for now.

This aforementioned website asserted that one of the players below was undeniably better than the other. I think they’re on crack, so we’re going to do an anonymous comparison. Please help me out by voting.

Player A Career Stats: 179 Wins, 158 Losses, 3.97 ERA, 2962 Innings Pitched, 2464 Strikeouts, 81 Complete Games and 19 Shutouts.

Player B Career Stats: 173 Wins, 153 Losses, 3.54 ERA, 2930 Innings Pitched, 2074 Strikeouts, 113 Complete Games, and 31 Shutouts.

Both guys have nearly identical WHIPS of 1.3. I’ll give you another hint. Both players pitched a no hitter, but the guy who was determined to be so much better went only the first 7 innings of his.

So I beg of you again, please help me out by putting either Player A, Player B, or about the same, in the comments, with as much or as little of an explanation as you please. I will post the results and all info you may be wondering about in a day or two. Thank you.