• Home
• About TBSD
• Copyright
• Privacy

• Baseball
• Football
• Hockey
• Other Sports
• Top Story

Subscribe

Why the UFL Can Work

Why the UFL has a better shot at success then prior attempts at Professional Football Leagues.

Welcome to another session of Dr. Football’s class called “Viewing Pro Football 421″, a 4th year undergraduate class. Today’s topic: Will the UFL be successful in todays market?

Sure it’s been done before. Another Pro Football League, you laugh. No one can touch the NFL, you say. But what if The UFL isn’t trying to “compete” with the NFL, but rather enhance the ability of people to watch live the greatest game ever played?

So you think I’m nuts too don’t you? You must think I’m inhaling too much field chalk. But look at it this way: when was the last time you went to an NFL game? Do you remember how much you paid to get in? To buy your kid a pennant (or if you were lucky, a game program!) or a T-shirt? Don’t even think about a jersey! Or NFL licensed Baby Booties! Forget it!! (before i obtained a press credential i was paying $70 per ticket, 5 dollars for a game program and 5 dollars for a 32oz. bottle of water. I hear it’s $80-$85 now for the cheapest seat in the Meadowlands).

The UFL changes all of that. Tickets for 20 Bucks a game, in quality venues! Affordable prices (for today at least) at the concessions. No Kid, you’re not dreaming, this is the real UFL and if you Live in NY it’s coming to your house soon.

OK, so it’s in the middle of the week, but didn’t you say you were football starved? You just can’t watch another season of the local college teams. You don’t think you can put up with the team in Green and White that can’t seam to make up their minds about who the QB is. The team in Blue with the shortage of starters even though they had a great draft and did well in free agency already missing too many players in training camp. Not that I’m saying “don’t follow your favorite team anymore,”  hardly that. I’m just saying open yourself up to the possibility of another pro football league being able to entertain you this fall.

Let’s step away from NY for a moment. Did you ever think Las Vegas would get an NFL franchise? For years the NFL wanted no part of the Sodom and Gomorrah that is the gambling culture of Vegas, yet now they allow teams to back state run sports themed lottery tickets(that is for discussion in another article). Give the UFL head honchos credit for jumping all over the Vegas market, as well as Orlando. The Vegas team will attract fans from parts of California, Arizona, and Utah as well. As for Florida, a former co-blogging partner of mine who spent a good deal of time growing up there once told me “you can never have too much football in Florida.”

Although Orlando is only 105 minutes from the greater Tampa area, there is a huge void to be filled there and in other parts of the country with the loss of the Arena Football League as we knew it.

Let’s sum it up for today shall we: More pro football is good, not bad, as some would suggest. It doesn’t “water down” or “short change” the great game, as a few suggest. It gives the fan(and Player and Coach!) more options on more days of the week to watch the game, as well as for you young folks to learn about the game. Why would anyone argue with me about that? Class dismissed, now go watch some football!

Woodstock’s 40th Anniversary Also Recalls Momentous Sports Events in 1969

New York –Woodstock’s 40^th anniversary brings to mind a uniquely American event that spoke to an entire generation of young music fans who are now in their fifties and sixties. Just imagine, close to half a million baby-boomers gathered in upstate New York on Max Yasgur’s farm, listening to music, getting stoned, sleeping in mud, having sex. Sounds like a plan.

Could you imagine a festival like Woodstock occurring today? Tickets for those three days of music were sold for 18 dollars to watch super-groups like The Who, The Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Jimi Hendrix and so many more, then at the absolute peak of their creative talent, give extraordinary performances. Could a similar festival of sharing and co-existing in an open field exist today? Maybe, but the ticket prices would probably be about 600 bucks for the weekend, effectively eliminating younger people who couldn’t afford the corporate greed that exists today. Of course, the bands themselves would require all the backstage accoutrement (cases of Evian, anyone?) and lots of cash to appear. Which brings to mind the scene from the movie, “Woodstock” in which many of the musicians are filmed walking through the crowd towards the stage with guitar in hand, saying hi to their fans. Yup, times have changed, haven’t they?

That year, 1969, was also special for other reasons. We should also be celebrating the 40^th anniversary of the Amazin’ Mets first shocking World Championship and the New York Jets first (and only) Super Bowl championship season. True, the big game itself was played in January, 1970, but why quibble? But, it does make you think of some of the legendary names from that year in the sports and music worlds. If you were lucky enough to watch Namath throw his pure passes down the field, Seaver fire 95 mph fastballs on the black, and Hendrix do his virtuoso thing on the guitar, you are both lucky and getting old. Mostly lucky, though. That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.

Of course, 1969 was also the year Neil Armstrong did the original moonwalk, with apologies to the legacy of Michael Jackson, on the powdery surface of the moon, another momentous event for the United States. It stamped this nation as the technological force in the world and provided Americans with a powerful sense of pride in fulfilling the objective of landing a man on the moon, a national goal initially broached by President Kennedy in 1961 in the early stages of his Presidency. Sadly, one gets the sense American technological supremacy has disappeared in the way most dynasties eventually go away.

—————————————————————————————

Relax, Jet fans. The only thing your quarterback-in-waiting, Mark Sanchez, did was  complete a 48 yard pass in an exhibition game against a bunch of St. Louis Rams players who won’t be on their team when the season starts. The excitement and sports talk radio call-ins about Sanchez as the Messiah is a little on the ridiculous side.

—————————————————————————————

The Yankees have just about cemented this season as a huge success, exceeding all pre-season expectations. Other than the fear of losing one of their starting four pitchers or worse, Mariano Rivera to injury, it looks like this train is steaming along to a Division championship. Given the team’s recent misfortune in the crap shoot known as a short playoff series, where a couple of hot pitchers can be the great equalizers (see Yankees vs. Tigers and Yankees vs. Indians playoffs), the Yankees are baseball’s best team and the odds-on favorites to bring a World Championship banner to its new stadium.

—————————————————————————————

The Mets are such an afterthought in the baseball world, particularly-so in their hometown. The biggest news coming out of Mets land is their decision to finally begin the process of turning their new stadium, Citi Field, from a generic ballpark with no connection to previous Mets teams or championships or its players into a building that celebrates the teams’ at-times glorious history. How have the Mets decided to honor their past and create an atmosphere celebrating New York Mets history? By putting gigantic photos of some of their players on the walls of the stadium. Big pictures of former greats like Seaver, Keith Hernandez, Doc Gooden, and Darryl Strawberry. No need to mention here those last three names were all involved with drug use during their playing careers. Maybe that’s what Fred Wilpon was considering when the notion was brought up of turning the Mets new home stadium into a shrine to their once-great players.

You have to admit, though, those Wilpon boys are sharp, aren’t they? They seem to have their finger on the pulse of their fan base, especially the younger ones who came to the ballpark in this, it’s inaugural season only to find zero connections to the Mets franchise and its history. There was a gigantic rotunda (sort of like a big lobby) with a huge, bronze statue of Jackie Robinson in the room’s center with big pictures on the walls of Robinson, the first African-American to play in the major leagues. The fact he played for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940s and 50s seemed lost on the Mets ownership, who opted not to put big pictures of any current or former Mets players on the walls of their three quarter of a billion dollar ballfield until a gigantic crescendo of shock and dismay among Mets loyalists took place. What was Robinson’s connection to the Mets? None, or about as much of a connection as Carlos Delgado has ever developed with Mets fans. And that’s why the Mets win the first annual Mr. Irrelevance award for the 2009 season.

Visit Scott’s site www.sportsreporters.com.

A Cap For Newly Signed Amateurs To Try On

The amateur draft signing deadline was Monday night and top pick Stephen Strasberg signed with the Nationals for over $15 million.  Good for Stephen.

But…

I don’t like it.  I am in total, unequivocal favor of a salary cap for draftees.  Isn’t that ironic?  The players have been fighting against a salary cap for years, like in 1994 when the strike took away the World Series (sorry Expos fans), and now I’m saying put a cap on the amateurs.  Ironic, but sensible.  Here’s why.  If I’m on a Major League roster, it took me years to get there.  Chances are good I was signed out of high school or college and then spent between 2 and 5 years in the minor leagues, paying my dues and learning the game at a level I never came close to before I signed.  Then I finally got my call up and heard the whining from management (which you may or may not have heard in the media, depending upon who’s doing the whining) about lack of funds.  In other words, I want them to spend their money on me in the off season.  I don’t want that money to be gone because they spent it all in the draft, going above their budgetary expectations.

Accountants out there are saying, “Jimmy, that’s just it.  Teams have different budgets.  They have their draft budget and they have their player payroll budget and they have their budgets for other operations, etc.  You’re not affected by their signings.”

To which I respond, somewhat thoughtfully, balderdash.  The revenue comes in and streams to each budget.  If they realize they keep going over budget to sign amateurs, then they’re going to allocate more money to the draft and less somewhere else, like, to the guys on the 40-man roster.

That’s where it affects me directly.

The NBA has a rookie salary cap.  That’s a different league, where college is like their minor leagues.  We don’t need a rookie salary cap in baseball.  An overall amateur salary cap is sufficient.

What would be important is the loopholes.  There are probably many of them in this plan.  Think like Scott Boras dealing with this cap.  “Okay, I’m suddenly constricted to what I can get for my guy as an amateur.  Do I have every one of my guys hold out, play one professional game with an independent team, and now, since they’re technically professionals, have I gone around the cap?”  But, Scott, since they now can’t go back to school (most guys are drafted after high school, when they can use going to college as leverage, or after their junior years of college, when they can use going back for their senior year as leverage), have you lost your leverage?  To which Scott says, “Not with Stephen Strasberg.  Not with David Price.  The top guys are going to get top bucks, and I’ll have all the leverage in the world because these guys are the best young talent in the country.  They can change the fortunes of an organization overnight.  Wait and see.”  My guess is most teams have to wait a little longer than overnight.

The point is, MLB players who have done their time in the minors and now live year-to-year in the bigs, or are fortunate enough to earn multi-year contracts, want the pool of funds for them to be as rich as possible.  If that pool is limited because of allocations toward young kids who haven’t put in the sweat and time and effort that you have, you’re not going to want to share it with them.  You’ve made it to the big leagues.  You know there are plenty of “bonus babies” throughout MLB history who never got out of A-ball.  Why should a team gamble “your” potential money on an unsure thing, when you’re right there under their noses, playing your heart out; when you’ve been a member of the union for a few years, literally paying them dues?

If you drive home one day and see a house two doors down for sale, you want that house to get as much as possible so that it raises the value of your home.  In this regard, players like other players similar to them to get paid lots of money, because it can make it easier for them to get paid lots of money.  The players’ market values are worth relatively the same.  But from a Major League player perspective, they’d rather that “relative” money go directly to the guys on the roster who are playing, not the ones who still pop pimples before going out on a Saturday night date.

I should add that this cap will never happen.  Why?  The owners will taste blood.  The seal has been broken on Pandora’s Box.  If the players agreed to this cap, maybe they’ll agree to a cap on rookies too.  And then a cap on pension payouts.  And then a cap on healthcare benefits.  And then a cap on…  See where it’s going?  Marvin Miller and Donald Fehr didn’t spend the last 30+ years fighting caps to suddenly instill one.  The future risks are too uncertain.

But from a simplistic, young MLB player point of view, if I were a pre-salary arbitration player on the Nationals today, I’m publicly saying congratulations to Stephen Strasberg.  And then I’m wondering where the money is going to come from to pay me next year.  That answer lies somewhere in the next six months.

Jimmy Scott is probably the greatest pitcher you’ve never heard of.  Visit Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight to read more from Jimmy and guests Desi Relaford, Eric Valent & Cassidy Dover.  You’ll also hear a new interview every Monday morning with former MLB players, agents, wives and others; giving new outlooks on this great game we call Baseball.  Go there now to hear Jimmy’s latest interviews with Rollie Fingers, Desi Relaford, Brent Mayne and MLB Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt.  You can follow Jimmy on Twitter or Facebook.

Head Games

One of the easiest things to do in the world is quit.  Not doing well in school?  Just quit.  Having a tough go in your marriage?  Quit.  You’ve thrown a thousand curveballs that never curve?  So quit.  Giving up today is easy if you don’t think about what you could have done if you’d kept going.

Make sense?

Life can be hard.  Baseball can be really hard.  Succeeding in baseball can be even harder.  and when you fail, you want to quit.  That’s human nature.  But… That’s where people differ.  The strong keep going; they keep trying.  The rest quit.  What’s the difference between the two groups?  Mental toughness.

Put yourself in this situation: Bottom of the ninth.  You’ve gotten two quick outs as a closer.  You’re nursing a one-run lead in a very big game.  You walk the #8 hitter on 10 pitches.  A pinch hitter comes up and smashes a first-pitch two-run home run to win the game.  You have failed.  Add to that 35,000 people saw you fail in person.  Add to that the hundreds of thousands who saw you fail on TV back in your home city.  Then throw in the media who are going to write about your failure and talk about your failure and then, at your locker, ask you about your failure.

Do you quit?  Do you run?

There are guys who hide from what happened.  They’ll go into the deep recesses of a locker room and not come out until the throng is gone.  They will feel the weight of failure, the burden of stress, the personal disappointment and it will take time for them to recover.

It is those with mental toughness, those with their heads turned on straight, who can overcome this short-term failure and understand exactly what it was: a short-term failure.  If they can understand immediately that the next night they’ll have a chance to win and make up for this night, they’ll be winning the Quitting Game.

Look back at the same example.  Remember the #8 hitter who walked on 10 pitches?  Think about his head.  He’s a #8 hitter, so that means he’s no Babe Ruth.  If he’s hitting .250, he automatically has to live with the fact that 3 out of 4 times he walks back to the bench holding his bat in his hands and holding his pride down in his chest.  This guy could have been the end of the game.  He could have gone up and let the closer beat him on 3 pitches.  But if you have a 10-pitch at bat, you’ve got two personalities battling each other.  You’ve got two guys desperate not to fail; desperate to win.  You’ve got an underdog #8 hitter who does not give up on himself, his abilities or his team.  As mentally tough as the closer needed to be in that spot, the #8 hitter had to have equal mental strength.

The pinch hitter?  He’s sat on the bench for roughly three hours watching.  He’s cold.  Sure, he’s stretched out in the hallway behind the dugout, maybe taken some hacks in the cage, but he hasn’t been playing the game at all.  He’s been a third wheel, a spectator.  Now he’s asked to insert himself and succeed.  He’s got one chance that night to not fail.  Generally, he does.  Pinch hitting is hard.  Some guys can do it and some can’t.  This guy did.  How?  His head was in the game.  And he never gave up on himself.

Former 15-year MLB catcher Brent Mayne makes a few comments about mental toughness in his most recent blog entry, Man, This Weather Sucks. Check it out.  You learn a different perspective about the mental game as it pertains to playing in weather that blows, figuratively and literally.  Brent’s main (get the pun?) lesson? “Complaining about the conditions isn’t going to help your cause. Matter of fact, it’ll take you out of the game before it ever starts. Why waste energy on a fight you’re not going to win?”

There are two fights a player can win, the game on the field and the game in their heads.  If you can beat the fear of failure and never give up on yourself, quitting won’t even become an option.  It’ll be something those other guys do.  And it’ll be the reason why you win.

Jimmy Scott is probably the greatest pitcher you’ve never heard of.  Visit Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight to read more from Jimmy and guests Desi Relaford, Eric Valent & Cassidy Dover.  You’ll also hear a new interview every Monday morning with former MLB players, agents, wives and others; giving new outlooks on this great game we call Baseball.  Go there now to hear Jimmy’s latest interviews with Rollie Fingers, Desi Relaford, Brent Mayne and MLB Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt.  You can follow Jimmy on Twitter or Facebook.