Winners Win, Losers Blame the Ref…Usually

I have been preaching the title of this blog as my personal sports gospel for as long as I can remember.

And there is a reason, I truly believe it. I remember that every time Bruce Boudreau opens up a post playoff loss news conference with, “I don’t want to sound like I’m whining about the officiating but…”

Think back to the 2006 Super Bowl between the Steelers and Seattle. Remember that three weeks before Mike Holmgren destroyed every shred of credibility he ever had, by blaming the refs for Seattle’s loss,, Bill Cowher’s team overcame perhaps the worst miscarriage of officiating justice in NFL history to beat Indianapolis.

It’s easy to blame the refs; whether because of one egregiously bad miss or a series of questionable calls against. It’s also a cop out. The simple fact is that officials are part of the game and rarely are they ultimately responsible for a team losing a game.

RARELY.

I have to admit that once in awhile a situation comes up that challenges our sensibilities as sports fans and my convictions on this issue. Such an incident occurred last night in Atlanta for the suddenly believable Pittsburgh Pirates.

Let’s put it out there plain and simple, the Pirates got screwed. There is no way around it. I have not seen a call that bad at home plate since Frank Drevin/Enrico Polazzo was calling balls and strikes in “The Naked Gun.” To have it happen in the bottom of the 19th inning, after nearly 7 hours of baseball is virtually inexcusable.

I’m willing to concede in writing what most people probably are thinking, the umpire may have had enough. He probably made up his mind, perhaps without even realizing it, that any close play at the plate was going to be called safe. Umpires are human; even they want to go home after 7 hours of baseball.

That does not make it right.

Only once have I readily conceded that the officials stole a game from a team. That was my sophomore year at Penn State, when our newly minted Big 10 basketball team took on number 1 ranked Indiana. The Nittany Lions had the game won in overtime when the refs in explicably called a phantom foul on the blue and white; when it fact the Hoosiers had committed a blatant game ending foul themselves.

I blamed the refs for two reasons. First the talent disparity at the time was so great that it literally took a perfect effort for Penn State to compete. Second, the timing of the call was so horrendous, coming in the final seconds of overtime that its effects were impossible to ignore. Either factor on its own is insufficient; in aggregate they allowed me to abandon my principles that one time.

The Pirates score one of out two; the horrendous timing of the call. As for the talent discrepancy; its there but certainly not to the 1992 Penn State degree.

In the end all we have is our principles and our beliefs. And while I can understand why any and every Pirate fan who was awake at 2am would want to throw a shoe through their television, I’m not conceding mine. Winners win, losers blame the…ump.

Yes it was an awful call, an embarrassing display of officiating that should embolden the desperate cries for baseball to adopt some form of replay. I’m not denying that. Was it any worse than Troy Polamalu clearly intercepting Peyton Manning with 5 minutes left in a playoff game, the refs calling it right on the field and then overturning it on review; after indisputable evidence that the call was correct?

Before you say it is, would you feel that way if Indy had come back to win (which they nearly did) and the Steelers were now up to 32 years without a Super Bowl title? That might very well have happened if the Steelers lost that game. It could have been a Sid Bream style, franchise crushing loss. It nearly was.

The answer of course, is no.

Listen I’m rooting for the battling Buccos. It would be a great story for this team to go directly from the depths of irrelevancy to a division title. I’m also far more dispassionate than your typical Kapper, Disque, or Filoni.

So dispassionately I can say this, the Pirates had ten innings to score ONE RUN and could not do it.

That’s the core of my belief about not blaming the refs. If you put yourself in a position where the officials can take it from you, they just might. And when you don’t score a run for ten innings (actually 15), you’ve put yourself in that position. Is it so inconceivable that a physically and mentally exhausted home plate umpire would make a horrendous call at 2:00AM? Of course not, so don’t give him the chance.

And the point is that this lack of scoring is not a one night issue. The Pirates’ offense is not very good. They appear from this outsider’s perspective to be winning primarily with pitching, defense, and heart. That’s a great story but probably not one that is sustainable. We saw a great example of that last night.

Quite frankly it’s the exact same reason the Penguins could not beat Tampa without Crosby and Malkin. At some point when you can’t score, you can’t win.

The Pirates need more hitting. Whether they can get it is anybody’s guess. I personally would not mortgage the future of the franchise on a rent-a-player, especially a mediocre one like Carlos Pena. At the same time, the Pirates window is so short that one can understand why they might panic in to such a move given the first glimmer of hope since Bush the first was president.

Ultimately that’s a question for better baseball minds than myself.

The bigger question is how do Clint Hurdle’s boys deal with this loss? Rarely does one regular season game make a huge difference but this is very possibly an exception. This loss can be a focal point for the remainder of the season. For Pirate fans of my generation, think Howard Johnson’s infamous home run off Jim Gott in 1988 that derailed what was to that point a similarly brilliant, overachieving team.

I always worry about teams that lose ridiculously long games. I remember the Pens losing that five overtime epic to Philly in 2000 and pretty much packing in the series after that. I remember the Craps doing the same thing after Peter Nedved and Kenny Wregget put them away in four overtimes in 1996.

If this young Pirate team is looking for an excuse to take their foot off the gas, this would certainly be it. On the other hand, this could also be the moment that galvanizes them. This could be their us against the world, nobody believed in us moment. I’m not suggesting Hurdle put up a poster of the umpire in the dressing room a la Lou Brown and Rachel Phelps in “Major League.” I am suggesting that maybe some veteran player can stand up and announce a la Jake Taylor, “there is only one thing to do…win the whole bleeping thing.”

Adversity reveals character; from the manager on down.  And losses like this certainly create adversity. It will be interesting to see how Hurdle deals with this. Does he shrink and whine like Boudreau does or does he lead like Cowher and tell his team, “Whatever happens we just play. We control what we can control.” More important, does he rally his young team around the cause?

That includes the general manager who has a chance to truly prove his salt by adding much needed hitting without giving away the store. Maybe Neil Huntington should call Ray Shero and ask how he traded spare parts and never will be prospects for that Slovakian winger who later fled to Detroit.

Regardless, that’s tomorrow’s problem. Today it’s about moving on. It’s about getting past a truly ugly call and an ugly loss, in Atlanta of all places. It’s about showing the depth of inner character that great teams must have, no matter how devastating last night’s loss was. It’s about remembering that true champions some how, some way overcome bad officiating. No matter how hard that is to do.

Turning up the Hate on Jaromir Jagr

Well so much for that whole, why I think the Penguins should sign Jaromir Jagr blog last week.

I spent 1,200 words detailing how Jagr could help the Penguins on the ice and how his return might heal a decade’s worth of wounds off of it. I described my long held and unchanged belief that the treatment of Jagr since he left the Burgh has been truly disappointing. I referred to it as “a blight on an otherwise terrific fan base.”

Given what transpired last Friday afternoon, that decade will now be remembered as “the good old days.”

Before that, Jagr was disliked by most of the Penguin populace. He has now graduated to utterly detested. In truth, I’m not even sure that sentiment captures the degree of venom and hatred launched at the former Penguin superstar since his ill fated decision to sign with the Eastern Pennsylvania Orange and Black Goon Squad. To quote a Facebook post from one of the best hockey fans I know, “He’s dead to me now.”

As my wife Emily so perfectly retorted, “I guess Marian Hossa does not seem so bad anymore.”

For the record, I think what Hossa did to the Penguins in 2008 was far worse than what Jagr did last weekend. Hossa and his teammates barely had time to clean out their lockers before Maid Marian bolted to the team that beat them in the Stanley Cup finals. His departure nearly swung the balance of power to the Pens biggest championship obstacle. By contrast, the 39 year old Jagr’s last meaningful game as a Penguin came before there was wireless internet.

I am in no way defending Jagr and believe me I’m not happy with his chosen destination. Still I can’t help but think that that the overbearing emotion here is clouding the real story. At face value, this is simply an unrestricted free agent, eleven years removed from his last game in a Penguin uniform electing to sign with a team that offered him 65% more money. If you replaced the name Jaromir Jagr with say Peter Forsberg, would that seem so awful?

To me this outpouring of unbridled hatred is not really about Jagr’s actions last week. This is about a fan base that already hates him being given a perfect opportunity to hate him even more.

Alas, it’s fairly clear that I’m in the minority here. Better stated, I’m in the republicans running against Richard Daley in Chicago minority.

Given the tenuous olive branch that Penguin fans were extending, I’m not sure Jagr could have survived signing anywhere other than the new igloo. The fact that he chose Philadelphia just blew the whole mess up to epic levels. Keep in mind however that since he left the Burgh, Jagr has played for the Craps and Rangers; two teams that are not exactly on the typical Penguin fan’s Christmas card list.

Jagr has turned Penguin fans in to jilted lovers; so blinded with emotion and rage that the actual facts of the situation have become immaterial. Yes we are angry that Jagr “appeared” to string us along and that he signed with our mortal enemy. I can understand that to some degree. I’m still not sure this qualifies a player eleven years removed from his Pittsburgh career for Barry Bonds treatment.

Which frankly is irrelevant since that’s exactly what he’s going to get…and worse? Jagr’s first visit to the Energy Barn in December figures to rank with Cliff Stoudt’s infamous USFL return in 1983 as the most venomous sporting event in the history of the Burgh. With all due respect to the winter classic, they might have to play the game at Heinz Field to accommodate the demand from irate Penguin fans.

Most of the current anger towards Jagr stems from his quote a few years back suggesting he would take the league minimum salary to play for Lemieux and the Penguins again. More than one fan or member of the esteemed Pittsburgh media has referenced that quote and suggested they would not be nearly so angry if he did not go back on his word .

You can argue that a person should honor thier word and I will not disagree. We certainly have enough experience with Jagr; not too mention other athletes and celebrities to know that this is often not the case. I’m sorry but I did not believe it when he said it any more than I do now. To me it’s no more relevant than the infamous and badly overplayed “dying alive” comment which while upsetting and stupid, did come while Jagr was leading the NHL in scoring.

Honestly, do we care more about the mindless dribble that spews from Jagr’s mouth or what he does (or did) on the ice? To me it’s the latter by a mile.

I’m also not sure about this concept of Jagr stringing the Penguins along. Ray Shero basically dropped in to Michael Corleone mode noting this was strictly business and he has no emotional attachment to it. Shero moved on to his plan B which was Steve Sullivan and that was that. I’m fairly sure that Shero and his Hall of Fame boss were more peeved than they let on publically but it’s not like the Pens missed out on Brad Richards…or even Radim Vrbata because of Jagr. Jaromir took his talents to South Philly and life moved on at the Consol.

As far as I’m concerned, nothing has changed except that the Pens missed out on a good free agent. Life goes on with Crosby, Malkin, and Fleury, I can happily deal with that. For whatever reason, I am nowhere near as angry about this as most other Penguin fans. Perhaps because as much as I thought he could help the Penguins this season, I wrote him off emotionally while Ben Roethlisberger was a sophomore in college.

Honestly I’m more upset about the idea of Max Talbot in orange and black than I am Jagr. I do not blame Max in any way for his decision. The Penguins were clearly moving away from him and he took the best opportunity for long-term security, on and off the ice. I hate the fact that the quintessential Pittsburgh athlete will spend five years plying his trade in Philly, but I completely understand it.

Most (though not all) Penguin fans seem to feel the same way about Talbot’s decision. There seem to be about three of us who feel that way about Jagr; and I’m still waiting for the other two to publicly identify.

I would love for all of my favorite athletes to be good people and solid citizens. I want to genuinely like the people I root for. I’m also a realist. There are a lot of great athletes who are not up for sainthood and frankly there are a lot more who think and act like Jagr than there are like Sidney Crosby or Hines Ward. This point was driven home during the whole Roethlisberger debacle last year.

As a result, I’ve made a compromise with my ideals. If my favorite athletes perform at their best on the field and remain law abiding citizens off of it, I can deal with their other faults and flaws. It’s the same stance I took with Big Ben last year (given no charges or evidence of a crime). For whatever grievances we may have against Jagr, he greatly exceed those qualifications while in the Burgh.

None of that changed last weekend; no matter how disrespectful he was perceived in his actions.

I have numerous reasons to hate the Philadelphia professional hockey club whether or not they suit up number 68. As a result, I see no need to make a special trip to the Burgh just to jeer an old friend. Maybe I will develop that Hossa like disdain for Jagr if he ends up squarely between the Pens and the Stanley Cup next spring but frankly I doubt that will be the case.

It’s fairly clear that Jagr could care less about Pittsburgh, the Penguins, or his legacy here. That’s his prerogative. It’s also obvious that he’s immature, and feels no accountability to his public statements. That’s not exactly breaking news either. He handled this situation as poorly as he did his initial exit from the Burgh. He should have been more upfront about his intentions and more straightforward with his decision. Clearly neither he nor his agent cared to be and for that he deserves a degree of scorn.

I just don’t think it’s this degree.