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.

The Sad Tail of Barry Bonds

It seems like a thousand years ago that Barry Lamar Bonds was a young superstar left fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates. And as he endures endless days in a federal court room, I wonder if it seems even longer to the walking human cranium.

Bonds has become a tragic figure in modern sports although the seeds of this tragedy are entirely self cultivated. His once in a lifetime talent should have made him a hero in Pittsburgh and an icon in his sport. He should be a shoe in for Cooperstown and merit consideration as one of the greatest players of all time.

Instead, he’s remembered at best as the surly epitome of the entitled modern athlete; at worst as a steroid freak. That’s the untenable part for those of us who remember the young Barry Bonds in black and gold. Long before he ever heard of Victor Conte, long before he juiced his way to immorality, Barry Bonds of the Pittsburgh Pirates was perhaps the greatest baseball player we ever saw.

There is a reason that I attended so many Pirate games in the early 80s and I assure you it goes beyond the daily (and sometimes twice daily) invitations from my good friend the Kapper. Watching a young Bonds was like watching a young Mario Lemieux; any night he might do something you had never seen before. As hard as this is to imagine for an entire generation of Pittsburgh baseball fans, the Pirates in those days where a truly enjoyable team to watch.

I will take it a step further; the Pirates during the height of the Bonds era were arguably the best team in baseball, though sadly without a championship to prove it. They won three straight division titles and did it the right way; with pitching, defense, and great fundamentals. And when that was not quite enough; Bonds was there to change a game with his bat, glove, arm or legs.

Which makes sense because as much as we would like to believe otherwise, you can’t win championships with just hard work and fundamentals. You need that superstar who can lift a team on his back at key moments. If you doubt this, I suggest you investigate the team goal totals of the hard working Penguins’ since Crosby and Malkin were injured.

What that means was that Bonds was the ultimate key to the Pirates’ phenomenal regular season success. He was also every bit the key to their trio of consecutive post season failures. To this day I can not get my arms around the idea that a player so dominant during the regular season could morph in to Rafael Belliard in October.

Those grievous post season failures might have been Bonds’ ultimate legacy had he not discovered the cream and the clear a decade later. They would probably have excluded him from mention with the true immortals of the game; even though his talent and regular season performance was every bit as impressive. To some extent, Bonds saved his legacy by juicing up; not because of the video game-like 73 home runs he hit in 2001 but because of his dominant performance in that post season (before the Giants’ inevitable World Series choke).

Of course saving his legacy might not have been necessary if Bonds’ were not such a complete jerk. The next person who has a genuinely good word to say about Bonds in public will also be the first. Did you notice the amount of joy last season’s Giants took not just in wining their first World Series but also in winning it without the testosterone king?

(Editors note, my apologies…according to Barry he’s the flaxseed oil king).

With all due respect to any other universally disliked athlete in sports, Bonds is the only one for whom it can be said a signature career moment was the coach or manager dressing him down publically on the 6:00pm news. Jim Leyland was extremely popular in Pittsburgh before he screamed, “I’m the ‘gosh darn’ manager!” at Bonds. He became a virtual deity afterwards. It was probably the first time in his life that somebody had the nerve to knock Bonds down a peg.

I talk a lot in the blog about athletes building up collateral with the fans and media. Those who choose not too do so ultimately at their own peril. Such collateral may have zero net value when the team is winning and/or the player is performing at his best; but it’s platinum when things go sour.

The simple fact is that when everybody hates you; people will bail on you at the first opportunity. Deep down, nobody wants to root for a guy they truly dislike. That’s why the Cubs continue to deny the existence of Sammy Sosa, a man who was instrumental filling their stadium for over a decade. That’s why Bear fans turned on Jay Cutler in a heartbeat last January.

It’s also why so many in the media continued to defend Kobe Bryant during his rape accusation while Ben Roethlisberger was given little or not benefit of the doubt. Kobe made a point to seem publically likeable, Ben never considered this a priority until last fall.

Barry Bonds never learned this lesson. Truth be told, I don’t think he ever cared too. He always seemed content to be a complete jerk, and anybody who dared call him out was either jealous or racist. Now its all coming back to bite him as many who knew him line up to jam the final nail in his legal coffin; with the media cheering them on.

Honestly, of all the things to hate about Bonds; his insistence on playing the race card is at the top of the list. I’m not suggesting that he never encountered racism in his life; at some point he probably did. I am saying that when a wealthy, entitled, superstar athlete uses it as a defense mechanism against even the slightest criticism, it insults and dishonors those who have truly been victims. It also speaks a great deal of that person’s character or better yet; lack thereof.

Is there any question that Bonds grew up with more money and privilege than most of us? Do you have any doubt that people have been kissing his rear end from the moment his monstrous athletic talents first became visible? Somehow, I don’t think Martin Luther King was visualizing the plight of Barry Bonds when he penned the “I have a dream” speech.

Which brings us to today. Perhaps the greatest baseball player of my generation is little more than a side show carnival freak. He’s on trial for lying to a grand jury and the U.S. Government is parading in a cavalcade of witnesses to prove it. In the end, they likely will. You know the old saying, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...

Bonds is too smart to believe that the drugs he was given were harmless creams and oils, especially when his body (and head) suddenly doubled in size and baseballs started flying in to San Francisco Bay with record breaking regularity. And if Bonds truly were that dumb, he’s too arrogant to make anybody believe it; especially given his personal trainer (and dealer’s) bizarre insistence on remaining in jail essentially at Barry’s behest.

No matter what happens in this trial, Bonds epitaph will be that he tarnished his entire legacy over what was likely 100 steroid induced home runs. That and one chance to overcome his litany of October failures. I exclude his home run records because they are afforded no legitimacy in modern baseball. In point of fact, Bonds’ most amazing feet may be that singlehandedly transformed two of the most revered records in all of sports in to complete irrelevancy.

Which means in the end, he did it all for nothing.

Oddly, in spite of everything I said above, I have mixed emotions on this. I find it impossible to have any sympathy for Bonds and certainly would love to see another blow landed in the fight against performance enhancing drugs in sports. And yet there is still a part of me that remembers him as a young man making those miraculous diving catches on the green cement of Three Rivers Stadium. That part of me mourns that a player of that magnitude will be remembered only as a cheater, a criminal, and a first class jerk.

Even for as vile a character as Bonds, that qualifies on some level as a sports tragedy.

A Lifetime of Continuous Baseball Agony

I freely admit to being a bandwagon baseball fan. To be honest, given my jaded history with America’s pastime I could be far worse.

I started watching baseball in 1980, the year after the Pirates won their last World Series (and probably last ever). I jumped full throttle off the Pirate bandwagon in 1995; about the time they became a nationwide object of sports ridicule. My salvation was to hitch a ride with arguably the most pathetic franchise in the history of sports. I’ve seen seven playoff series losses and two of the most epic playoff collapses in sports history, while losing track of the total number of losing seasons.

Seriously, one might wonder why I pay any attention to baseball at all.

Amazingly, my years backing the Cubbies now all but match my years with the Buccos. The obvious question, which is worse?

Sort of like asking which is worse; the stock market or real estate collapse? Brussel sprouts or wheat germ? Rosie O’Donnell or Rosanne. John and Kate Plus 8…or Kate Plus 8. You get the point.

Actually the Buccos and the Cubbies have a lot in common these days. Both are known for a ballpark experience that far exceeds the product on the field. The Pirates have arguably the nicest new park in baseball and I still say there is nowhere better on earth than Wrigley Field on a sunny weekend afternoon.

Imagine how great these places would be if the teams could win every once in awhile.

So I ask again; which is worse. A team that has not won the World Series in over a century, but is at least competitive every few years; or a team that has not had a winning season in 18 years? That’s nearly two decades without winning 81 stinkin games. There are people joining the army or voting today who have never seen the Buccos finish above 500.

Let’s be clear here, I’m not sure there is a good answer to this question. I would grudgingly go with the Cubs just because at least in theory they have a shot each year. Just as in theory, I had a shot at dating the homecoming queen in high school. Just as in theory, Disque may one day be President of the United States. You get the point.

Since I’ve been in Chicago, the Cubs have made the playoffs 4 times. In three of those years, they were swept out of the playoffs. As for the fourth…yikes.

The fourth year was 2003. That’s when Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Sammy Sosa and the boys were 1 win away from the World Series. Let’s be clear here, the Cubs were 5 outs away with a 3-0 lead in game 6. Then they imploded because some poor schlub in the stands nicked a foul ball and a $6 Million shortstop could not field a routine double play grounder. Oh and don’t even get me started on Kyle Farnsworth, or more accurately, Stan Belinda reincarnated.

I mean seriously folks; only the Cubs could blow a shot at the World Series because a great glove, no hit middle infielder fails to field a routine ground ball late in the game…right?

WRONG!

Since I’m pouring salt in everybody’s wounds, we all know the same thing happened with Chico Lind in 1992. Twenty agonizing minutes before (NAME NEVER SPOKEN) drove home Sid Bream with the slowest game winning jaunt from 2nd base ever, the Pirates’ gold glove 2nd baseman botched a sure fire, game winning play. Forget the poor idiot in the stands at Wrigley. When Alex Gonzales botched the double play ball a few batters later, I knew for sure the Cubs were toast.

This is the path I’ve chosen in life folks. And people wonder why I’m such a huge hockey fan?

Let’s remember, I did not just miss the Pirates last World Series by one year. That would have been bad enough. I was fortunate enough to show up just in time to see the key cogs of that team fall under an embarrassing cocaine scandal that stained the entire franchise. As much fun as we had torturing Weet with the Willie Stargell cocaine stories in high school, I would just assume the whole thing never happened.

It’s easy to forget that the Pirates of the 80s were every bit as pathetic as they are now. It just did not last quite as long. I lived through George Hendrick and Steve Kemp. I lived through Jason Thompson, the Sominex superstar. An unwatchable team in a terrible stadium and there but for the grace of Amos Otis go I.

And then came this brilliant five year run under Jimmy Leyland. A young, talented, entertaining team with arguably the greatest player in baseball, a fine fellow named Barry Bonds. You would think such a team could have produced at least one World Series but no! We had to sit through a Twilight Zone style three year recurring nightmare of playoff losses, each more painful than the last. That’s without even considering that mind numbing tomahawk chop which still gives me nightmares today.

Not only did the Pirates lose, they found a way to stretch every game to about four hours of pure agony. Honestly, why not just settle in for a four hour root canal without anesthetic? Is it any wonder that Leyland would smoke two packs of cigarettes every nine innings?

Thankfully they tore the whole thing apart and replaced it with a Triple A team for the last 18 years. Bonds became a national hero, then a national disgrace and I became a Cubs fan. Frankly I think Barry and his enormous head got the better deal.

The Cubs have this reputation as being lovable losers but anyone who endured Sosa, Prior, and Moises Alou knows that’s not really true. I’ve seen Sammy cork his bat and clam up before congress. I saw Alou pimp out that poor schlub in the stands rather than take responsibility for his team’s collapse. I remember Kent Mercker and the boys threatening Steve Stone for having the audacity to point out how bad they were. Maybe Kent could have spent less time avenging the Stone Pony and more time on his curve ball?

Keep in mind I have not even brought up the Carlos Zambrano reality hour yet. I could probably do 1,800 words on him alone. Millions of aspiring psychology PHDs would like a shot at that guy.

I could put up with all of this if the Cubs would just win once in awhile but they never do. They go out and spend $140 Million on aging, overpaid players who don’t give a you know what and then find a way to choke. They have a general manager who thought Milton Bradley was the answer to the team’s problems; which is comparable to taking rat poison to help your upset stomach. Why not just bring Ted Bundy in to the clubhouse?

In fairness to Jim Hendry, the Bradley debacle came after Lou Piniella pinned his team’s 2008 playoff meltdown solely on not having a left handed power hitter. And Bradley only accused half the city of racism; you know just the north side.

The Pirates lose every year in part because they have no money. The Cubs have $140 Million and spend it like Richard Pryor in Brewster’s Millions. To steal a line from that underrated classic, pick NONE OF THE ABOVE !

I attended the Cubs one game playoff victory over San Francisco (which was apparently Dusty Baker’s managerial audition) in 1998. I remember thinking the post game celebration was World Series like in nature. When I pointed that out to a fellow Cubs fan he replied…”how would we know?”

Seriously, that one victory and Leyland dressing down Bonds in 1992 might just be the two highlights of my baseball life. I can’t even really enjoy the memories of Sammy’s run to 62 dingers in ‘98 since he apparently did so with more than Flintstones vitamins in his system. My only regret is that Kerry Wood got to take a Louisville slugger to Sammy’s infamous boom box, rather than me. By the way, Wood’s shoulder feels really good this year.

I make no apologies for bailing on the Pirates; I still say they bailed on their fans 18 years ago. We should all just be thrilled that MLB does not have relegation like English soccer.

All I ask is for the love of all that’s good and holy, WHY DID I GO FROM THAT TO THE CUBS? I should have done what every other baseball free agent does and pick the Yankees.

Honestly, I think Pirate fans are better off than Cubs fan. They are numb to the pain. They go in to each season with little or no hope. They don’t expect to see wins. Going to a Pirate game is like taking your daughter miniature golfing. It does not really matter who wins; it’s just 150 minutes of entertainment for a relatively cheap price.

The Cubs tease their fans into thinking (as we often say) that “this could be the year.” Then they find new and innovative ways to collapse. They brawl in the dugout and smash water coolers with far more success than baseballs. And then they win 1 of 3 home games and 35,000 intoxicated fans gleefully sing ‘Go Cubs Go’ in the stands as if their life is complete.

So maybe Cubs and Pirate fans are not so different?

So as I ponder a life time of baseball futility amongst another lost season in Wrigleyville and the Burgh, I’m left with just one comforting thought. Just six weeks until hockey season !