Bill Koch's New England Patriots fan blog

History has taught us that Major League umpires must be dragged kicking and screaming to help make changes in the game of baseball, and history is about to repeat itself this fall.

A series of blown calls and controversies have led baseball to the cusp of instant replay, a form of technology used by all three other major sports in this country. Commissioner Bud Selig and his bumbling cronies are fully aware that scrutiny of every called ball or strike would ruin the game, so they favor a limited use of replay that would judge home runs and fair or foul balls. You would think that the umpires, men who insist that they agonize at night over missed calls and make their best efforts to get it right every time, would embrace such an idea.
You would be wrong. That same group of umpires boycotted a conference call on Tuesday with baseball's management, a petty decision made because of their concerns about what World Umpires Association chief Lamell McMorris called "procedural issues". McMorris is concerned about how it will look if umpires are forced to leave the field to view replays or if they must consult replay officials in a booth somewhere in the park, worried that the process will become a running joke and will be discredited if it's not absolutely seamless.

Continue reading "Baseball umpires blow instant replay call"

Need any further proof that professional sports value production on the field over character away from it? See the Cincinnati Bengals signing troubled wide receiver Chris Henry on Tuesday and you'll get a free lesson in what happens when pressure to win and the value of the dollar overcome good judgment and old-fashioned values.

Henry was released in March after allegedly punching a college student and breaking his car window, just another day in the life for a guy who is no stranger to the legal system. Cincinnati had finally had enough and released Henry on the spot, with head coach Marvin Lewis saying as recently as July 22 that Henry would not return to the team under any circumstances.

Wait...check that. Henry wouldn't be welcomed back unless the Bengals' top two receivers got hurt, and that's exactly what has happened during this training camp. Chad Johnson suffered a shoulder injury in the team's last preseason game and T.J. Houshmandzadeh has missed both exhibition games with a hamstring injury, the type of nagging ailment that can stay with a player for a full season. Cincinnati decided to bring back Henry, something that the team's president, Mike Brown, said would not happen in March.

Continue reading "Henry right at home back in Bengals' stripes"

Mike McCarthy had the look of a man on his way to the gallows as he conducted his press conference Tuesday night in Green Bay.
The Packers' head coach had to tell the assembled media, frothing at the mouth in search of fresh news on the Brett Favre soap opera, that No. 4 was on his way out of town for good. So started the end of The Favre Era in Green Bay, and the beginning of the end of The McCarthy Era as well.
No head coach in the National Football League escapes without being fired. Even the greatest men to ever roam the sidelines, men who will be enshrined in the league's Hall of Fame, have been handed a pink slip in the past. Bill Belichick, the current resident genius in New England? Fired by the Cleveland Browns after the 1995 season. Mike Shanahan, Denver's offensive mastermind? Fired by the Los Angeles (now Oakland) Raiders in 1989 after just 20 games and an 8-12 record. Jon Gruden, the fiery boss of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and former Super Bowl champion? He left the Raiders to coach in Tampa and was under pressure late last season before being granted a contract extension until 2011. Another 4-12 season like the Bucs endured in 2006 would give Gruden a hard shove toward the door, if not straight out onto the street. Bill Parcells wasn't fired, but he had nasty divorces with New England and Dallas before moving into the front office. Joe Gibbs wasn't canned during his second tour in Washington only because of his prior good deeds -- three Super Bowl wins and a bust in Canton build up plenty of good will. Mike Holmgren's eight-year contract that he signed when he moved from Green Bay to Seattle in 1998 might have been the only thing that saved him after mediocre seasons from 1999-2002, a four-year stretch in which he went 31-33 and made the playoffs just once. The prospect of the Seahawks eating the final four years of Holmgren's deal likely saved his bacon.

Continue reading "McCarthy the true loser in Favre's Green Bay saga"

The time has finally come to accept the fact that the United States doesn't play the world's best basketball anymore.
The Americans struggled in the final two games of their pre-Olympic tour, breaking away late to beat Russia and holding off Australia, but the damage has been done to their collective psyche and invincible reputation. Predictions that the U.S. will win the gold medal, long considered a definite as long as basketball's birthplace fielded a team, are laughable. The Americans will be lucky to even win a medal the way that they currently play the game.
Tuesday's game against Australia, an 87-76 U.S. win, was particularly troubling. The Aussies rested their best player, Milwaukee Bucks' center Andrew Bogut, and still gave the U.S. all it could handle. The Americans launched brick after brick from the outside over Australia's tightly-packed zone defense, played selfish basketball for most of the game and couldn't get their transition game going thanks to continued poor play by starting point guard Jason Kidd. It was, in short, a perfect example of everything that has plagued the U.S. during its recent international failures.

Continue reading "'Dream Team' will author fresh nightmare in Beijing"

Goodbye and good riddance to Manny Ramirez on his way out to Los Angeles. He's Joe Torre's problem now after the Boston Red Sox cut a three-team deal to send the team-killing douche bag left fielder to the Dodgers just before Thursday's trade deadline, a desperate move designed to purge Boston's decaying collective soul of a man who simply wanted no part of Red Sox Nation anymore.
Ramirez is off to the Dodgers in a trade that involved Pittsburgh sending outfielder Jason Bay to Boston and the Pirates receiving a group of young players that included Los Angeles third baseman Andy LaRoche, Red Sox outfielder Brandon Moss and reliever Craig Hansen. Boston finally granted Manny his wish to move on after weeks of systematic attacks on the Red Sox organization which couldn't continue to be ignored, and it took three players and all $7 million left on Manny's salary this season to get him to go away.

Continue reading "Manny moves out, Bay rolls into Boston"

Mark Teixeira is on the move again, but this time he's doing much more than changing uniforms -- he's changing the perceptions of two franchises.
Teixeira's move from Atlanta to Anaheim (okay, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) signals the boldest decision that the Angels have made in their pursuit of an American League pennant and the end of the Braves' era as buyers at the trade deadline. Anaheim instantly upgrades its lineup with the switch-hitting first baseman, providing some added pop behind Vladimir Guerrero, and now has very few weaknesses at the plate to battle playoff-tested pitching.
Teixeira's greatest value to Anaheim will be his ability to pick up the slack when the free-swinging Guerrero inevitably struggles in the postseason. Opposing teams know that Guerrero will get himself out by swinging at sliders in the dirt and high fastballs, and that's why he's a career .183 hitter (11-for-60) in postseason play. Erase the grand slam that Guerrero hit against Mike Timlin in Game 3 of the 2004 ALDS and Guerrero has just three RBIs in 15 postseason games. He doesn't see meatballs and missed locations from the likes of Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling. Guerrero's missing thunder in the middle of the order made the Angels very ordinary, with an aging Garrett Anderson and a bunch of slap hitters (Chone Figgins, Howie Kendrick, Maicer Izturis, Kendry Morales) left to fend for themselves. Going first to third on a base hit can only do so much, and pitchers of that caliber will not beat themselves or allow three or four consecutive hits very often. Scoring runs became impossible for Anaheim. Teixeira goes a long way to changing all of that.

Continue reading "Teixeira trade boosts Angels, scalps Braves"

David Stern is one of the most PR savvy commissioners that we have ever seen run a major sports league in this country, but his latest handling of the Tim Donaghy situation might shade his legacy in a negative light.
Stern announced Tuesday that the league would delay the release of an independent probe into NBA officials, an investigation prompted by Donaghy's guilty plea to rigging games and gambling heavily on their outcomes during his career. Lawrence Pedowitz, a former federal prosecutor, is conducting the interviews and finding the facts with all the relevant parties, attempting to determine just how deep the corruption ran while Donaghy fixed regular season and playoff games for gambles with ties to organized crime.
Stern insists that Donaghy is a "rogue official" and a "criminal" to hear him tell it, lawyer speak that's meant to destroy Donaghy's credibility before he utters a word in public. The league said Tuesday that Pedowitz needs more time to prepare his report, and multiple sources told ESPN.com's Marc Stein that Pedowitz is still hoping to speak to Donaghy now that the federal investigation into his case is over. If Stern has his way, no new information that Donaghy has will find its way into the report.

Continue reading "Stern, NBA duck Donaghy disgrace"

God spoke today and condemned Manny Ramirez for his recent insubordination, all but sealing Boston's Village Idiot a ticket out of town by the end of this most recent firestorm. God in this case would be Peter Gammons, so nicknamed by my boys Urs and Hevy because of his brilliant service to the game of baseball for the last five decades. Gammons, the Hall of Fame baseball writer for the Boston Globe and espn.com, crushed Ramirez in a scathing piece that was published on the main page for all to see. This was the type of insider stuff that you hear behind closed doors as a person who covers the team, the conspiracy theory about Manny covering his declining ability to hit a good fastball by conveniently being hurt and asking out of the line-up against righty flamethrowers Joba Chamberlain (t

Continue reading "Gammons damns Manny's grand plans"

Another day, another new round of allegations dogging Brett Favre's road out of retirement.
Now comes word that Favre was in constant contact with Minnesota Vikings head coach Brad Childress and several members of his staff shortly after announcing he wouldn't be returning to Green Bay next season, a course of action that not even Wisconsin's sacred No. 4 can justify. It's just another chapter in what has become a very ugly public divorce between Favre and the place that he called home for almost two decades, and the fallout will impact Favre, Green Bay general manager Ted Thompson and current Packers quarterback Aaron Rogers for the rest of their respective careers.
This all started well before Favre actually announced that he would forego the final three years of his contract and $39 million to tend to his estate in his native Mississippi. Favre's relationship with Thompson and the organization had been eroding for the previous few years, with both sides looking to move the team in different directions. Thompson didn't want to piss off a legend, but he did allow some key free agents to leave Green Bay (Marco Rivera, Mike Wahle), failed to sign some of Favre's targets (Randy Moss chief among them) and made some choices in the draft that Favre wasn't all that thrilled with (Rogers, a back-up quarterback as long as Favre was around, was a pretty glaring one). Favre did what so many veteran players tend to do -- take a short-sighted view of the future in an attempt to earn one more shot at a championship before riding off into the sunset, the kind of approach that leaves organizations in salary cap hell for the next five years and leaves fans upset that their once great team is suddenly rebuilding.

Continue reading "Favre's fall continues in Green Bay"

Eli Manning must be the happiest man in New York Giants' blue and gray today after Jeremy Shockey was finally handed his ticket out of town.
Shockey was traded to the New Orleans Saints for second and fifth round draft picks in 2009, a good price for a player who had outlived his usefulness in East Rutherford. Shockey's bad attitude, disturbing injury history and constant squabbling with Manning in the Giants' huddle won't be missed by his teammates, and New York's offense might be even better with a true blocking tight end leading the way for bruising Brandon Jacobs.
Shockey has been a lot of sizzle and not much steak since his rookie season in 2002, a year in which he recorded career highs in catches (74), yards (894) and mentions on Page Six of the New York Post (138). He's never played all 16 games, bowing to a broken leg at the end of 2007 and missing seven games in 2003 after his productive rookie year. He wasn't needed while the Giants marched to their upset of the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, as rookie David Boss started in his place and proved to be a much better fit. Boss blocked well, caught the balls that were thrown his way and kept his mouth shut, three things that were absent for parts or all of Shockey's tenure in New York.

Continue reading "Shockey was never New York's saint"