Josh Angel

by Bill Holmes

It has been a few days now since Josh Hamilton signed a $125 million, five year contract with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.  I don't blame Josh for signing the contract.  That's an obscene amount of money and a long contract considering his age, past, physical and mental frailties.  In my opinion it is more than he is worth so I'm glad the Rangers didn't resign him at that price.  What I do find distasteful is the way the contract came about and his and his wife's comments.

The Rangers did everything to help Josh become a productive ballplayer.  Too much in my opinion.  They traded a top young pitcher to Cincinnati for Josh when it was unknown if he had truly kicked his drug/alcohol problems.  He had been through eight rehab sessions and missed 3 1/2  years of baseball.  They provided him with a full time babysitter-traveling companion-life coach-spiritual adviser to keep him on the wagon.  Then they forgave and supported him twice when he still managed to fall off that wagon.  They put up with his sometimes suspect injuries or when he lost focus.  They didn't bench him when he was in any of his numerous slumps.  They didn't kick him in the ass when he basically said the manager and coaches were full of shit when they suggested changes to him. They had ginger ale team celebrations when they won playoffs and pennants so that champagne and beer wouldn't touch his pure lips.  All of this while also paying him millions to play.

There is no doubt that Josh Hamilton is a top five ballplayer, when he decides to show up.  He was the 2010 American League MVP, he is a lifetime .300 hitter, he has averaged over 90 RBI and 25 HRs per year.  Those numbers look even better when you factor in that in six years he has averaged only 122 games played, 75%.  While that number of games played make his numbers look better, it also points out a major problem.  Hard to believe at 6'4" and 240 lbs., but Josh is fragile.  In his five years at Texas, he missed 163 games.  That's a full season.  So, for 100% salary you get 75% to 80% production.  That makes his new $25 mil. salary equivalent to about $30 mil.  The other secret to those numbers is how streaky and inconsistent Josh can be.  In 2012 his monthly batting averages were .395, .344, .223, .177,  .310, .259, .154.  His career playoff batting average is .227.  When he's hot he's hot and when he's not he can be terrible.  His fielding can go from highlight reel to t-ball also.  

I think Josh is basically a very gifted natural athlete who has always been head and shoulders better than the competition.  Sometimes he loses focus, maybe out of boredom, maybe because he has fried some brain cells during his lost years.  A Tweet by Jeff Wilson, Rangers beat writer for the FW Star-Telegram, reporting on the physical Josh took for the new Angels contract - ‏"Eye doc says Josh Hamilton has 20/13 vision. No word on how good his focus is."  is right on.  Because he is so gifted, I don't think he ever learned how to take criticism or coaching.  When he was in the midst of that wonderful .177 batting average for July it was suggested by the manager and coaches that he be a little more patient at the plate.  Maybe not swing at that pitch that is four feet outside and in the dirt.  His response was that is how he has always batted.  Basically saying to people who have been in the major leagues for decades that he, the Great Josh Hamilton, knew more than they did and wasn't about to change.  He threw the third base coach under the bus when he was injured on a play at home plate.  He looked shocked whenever the manager questioned anything he did.  Who could possibly question Josh?  When the media questioned him about problems or poor play one of his stock answers was basically that's just Josh being Josh, stuff happens.  At one point he couldn't hit in day games.  The doctors examined him and then made up some condition he has.  They did eye drops, sun glasses and a couple of other things to fix it.  I don't know if it was a real condition and real treatments or all a farce with placebo fixes.  Late last season he had more vision problems.  This time it was diagnosed as too much caffeine.  Really?  It kept him out of five games.  Some of his poor performance in 2012 he blamed on trying to quit smokeless tobacco.  Shouldn't you make major changes to your daily routine and habits during the off-season?  I've been following baseball for over 50 years and I've never heard this kind of BS.  There is one constant in the Josh Hamilton story - drama. 

The last thing that bothered and bothers me about the Hamilton family is their attitude about the Rangers.  Now they are saying that the Rangers didn't court or woo them enough during contract talks.  Some of these comments came from Josh's wife who has made negative and anti-Rangers comments in the past.  Josh said early in the 2012 season that he didn't owe the Rangers anything.  That's true.  In today's me first world that's how people in sports, both sides, think.  Later he backed off that stance and said that the Rangers would have a chance to match or counter any offer from other teams.  That's not what happened.  No last chance.  Despite the Hamilton's constant mantra about how God/Jesus is the most important thing, they don't feel they owe the Rangers anything and feel slighted because the Rangers didn't stroke their egos enough.  Very Christ-like.  Real Christians practice humility and gratitude.  This is another reason I'm not sad to see Josh leave Arlington.  I hate athletes and others who wrap themselves in faith and then don't live up to those standards.  I don't live up to those standards either, but I don't profess to do so and don't pretend that some higher being is responsible for all my actions and guiding my every move.  That's another subject for another blog.   

So, the Rangers will miss the Hamilton bat in the middle of the lineup.  I don't think they will miss the drama.  They should be able to use part of the $25 mil. savings to build a better team.  My predictions, I think Josh will have outstanding moments with the Angels.  Maybe an outstanding year or two but not five years.  He will also have real and imaginary injuries and funks and slumps.  The celebrity media in Southern California will be oppressive and far less kind than the D/FW media.  They don't care about anything but a juicy story.  TMZ would love another episode with Josh, shaving cream, booze and young women.  I don't think the Hamiltons are as tough or smart as they think they are.  They had a pretty easy time here with the Rangers.  $125 mil. for five years is about $50 mil. and two years too much.  

Good luck Josh but I won't miss you.

wjh

Bowled Over or Over Bowled?

by Bill Holmes

Saturday, December 15, 2012, we begin the division one (BCS) college bowl season.  This year there are 35 bowl games that run through January 7th.  To qualify for a bowl game, a team must win six games.  That's half the games of a normal schedule so we now reward those who win 50% of their games.  Isn't 50% a failing grade unless you're a weather person?  There are only 120 BCS football schools so it is necessary to allow mediocre teams into the bowls since more than half of the teams are needed to populate all these compelling games.  The final bowl of the season is a fake championship game.

This year we have food related bowls that celebrate potatoes, beef, pizza, Kraft, wings, chicken, more beef and Tostitos.  There are auto related bowls, MAACO, Meineke, Valero, Hyundai and Autozone.  There are financial company bowls and some sponsored by companies I never heard of and don't know what they make, sell or do.  We also have bowls that don't have a primary sponsor.  These unsponsored bowls are the invention of ESPN and/or a city that wants to stimulate tourism and economic activity.  ESPN always needs content to feed their 752 various channels.  Likewise there is always a mayor, tourist and convention bureau or civic leader who thinks a bowl game is a great idea.  Some cities even have multiple bowl games.  Here in the D/FW area we now have three games.  Most of these games would be financial busts without ESPN's money.  They are 98.6% TV events.  Watch some of the lesser bowl games and you'll see more empty than filled seats.

The first college football bowl game, the Rose Bowl, was in 1902.  It was started to help fund the Rose Parade.  The game was so bad there wasn't another one until 1916.  It was the lone bowl game until 1935 when the Orange, Sugar and Sun bowls began.  The Cotton Bowl began in 1937.  The next one, the Gator Bowl, didn't start until 1946.  Those are the bowl games I remember growing up.  It wasn't until much later that other bowls began to spring up.

Each of these bowls was completely independent.  The Rose Bowl usually matched the Big Ten and PAC 12 champions and still does.  The other bowls didn't have any formal deals with the various conferences.  With fewer than 10 bowls, there was no problem getting good teams.  It also meant that several deserving teams didn't get a post-season reward.  As important to the bowl selection committees as a team's record was how well the fans would "travel".  Before big TV money, an undefeated team with little fan support didn't help the bowl or it's host city.  It didn't matter how compelling the matchup would be so much as ticket sales and hotel reservations.  This thinking often lead to some strange choices by the bowls.  The combination of several deserving teams missing out and the explosion of TV led to a large increase in the number of bowl games.  A dash of greed should be sprinkled in too.  Let's face it, college football, the NCAA, BCS and bowls are all big business.

Have we finally reached the saturation point?  I think so.  More than half the BCS teams, many with 6-6 records, now participate.  There is even a team with a 6-7 record playing this year.  Some of the lesser bowls committees are on the edge of their seats watching the last week of the regular season.  That's because they are not sure there will be enough eligible teams to fill all the bowls.  Most of the bowls now have agreements with the various conferences to supply participants.  How would you like to be the BBVA Compass Bowl?  They get the Big East #5 team vs the SEC #9 team.  Pretty special.  First of all what is a BBVA Compass and secondly how good are the teams going to be?  This year they are both 6-6 one of which won their last game to get six wins.  I'm pretty sure that if fewer than 70 teams were eligible the NCAA would figure out an exception.  The NCAA is always looking out for the student athlete and would hate to deny any of them a chance to play one more football game.  There is no chance that money would have any bearing on their decision.

Bowls used to be a reward, usually in a warm climate, for a deserving team.  Now they are pretty much a 13th regular season game for almost 60% of the college football teams.  I can't imagine that going to Detroit in December to play in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl is a huge reward.  Oh wait, maybe the school, conference and NCAA get a slight monetary reward.  Of course the teams playing in it this year don't deserve a huge reward.

Times change and I'm a fan of college football so I'll watch my share of the 35 bowl games.  There are a few I'm looking forward to, a few that have teams I follow, a few others that should be OK and a bunch I don't care about.  I plan to miss the previously mentioned pizza bowl and BBVA Compass Bowl.  I think 35 bowls are too many and the original six is too few.  How about maybe 20 or 25 games and a winning record requirement?  

So boys and girls, stock the fridge, get the recliner ready, find the remote and check the TV guide.  Between now and January 7th there should be a bowl game most days and several on many days.  A couple of them might even be good games.

wjh

The BcS BS

by Bill Holmes

I'm a huge college football fan. Much more than pro football. But there is a major problem. I think the whole BCS football post season is a mess. It has been a mess since first implemented. It will probably still be a mess when the four team “playoff” goes into effect. Every time the extremely intelligent athletic directors and coaches and the even more intelligent university presidents try to tweak the rules it has had an unexpected consequence. Most of those rule changes have not been to strengthen the post season competition. They have been made to appease anti-trust, congressional or public opinion concerns. Now on to the current mess of this year's BCS bowls. Full disclosure, I'm a Florida Gator and SEC fan.

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) continues to let the fans down. The BCS is in charge of the big four bowls plus the championship game. That's five bowls, ten teams. They usually get the championship game right although some years that has not been certain. It's the other four BCS bowl games that succumb to the ridiculous rules. This wouldn't matter to me except that the BCS bowls have extremely large payouts, large TV audiences and influence the final polls. The five BCS bowls will probably have close to $200 million in payouts this year. Last year the BCS bowls had a payout of approximately $18 million per team. The next highest payout was the Capital One Bowl at $4.2 million and it drops off from there all the way down to $500K. That is one hell of a drop off. It should be quite an incentive to have an elite top ranked team. Even after sharing with the conference, $18 million is a nice payday.

So you say, the top ten college football teams in any year would play in the five BCS games. Au contraire you silly savage, there is a complicated and convoluted algorithm to decide which undeserving teams will get to play in the BCS bowls. League champions from the six BCS conferences (SEC, ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12 and PAC 12) are guaranteed a bowl spot. It doesn't matter how good or bad that team is. Then it gets even crazier. If a non-BCS conference team finishes above number 16 in the final BCS poll they get in too. So now we have undeserving BCS conference champions and even more undeserving non-BCS teams automatically in one of the top ($18 million) bowl games.

This year the wonderful BCS rules decided that #15 Northern Illinois gets to play #12 Florida State (FSU) in the Orange Bowl. It also means that #21 Louisville gets to play #3 Florida in the Sugar Bowl. The venerable Rose Bowl has #6 Stanford against unranked Wisconsin. That is a disservice to Florida and Stanford. As a top ten team they are in a no win situation. If they beat the opponent that's expected and not rewarded. If they struggle or lose they drop like a lead balloon in the rankings.

There are two games that have top matchups. The Fiesta Bowl has #5 K-State vs #4 Oregon. The BCS championship game has #1 Notre Dame vs #2 Alabama. Two of five bowls, that's only 40%.

So, the excellence of the SEC is punished by the BCS rules. The final pre-bowl BCS rankings had Alabama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Texas A&M and South Carolina in the top ten. Only the Tide and Gators are in BCS bowls. The reason? The BCS powers decided that only two schools from a conference could go to a BCS bowl. That means that four SEC teams in the top ten can not participate in an $18 million bowl game, but unranked Wisconsin, #15 Northern Illinois and #21 Louisville can. Last year the SEC could not host the Sugar Bowl (actually the January, 2012 edition) because LSU and Alabama were in the Championship game so that used up the two SEC representatives slots.

Of course the way to fix part of this mess is to have a playoff. Every professional league and every other collegiate sport has one. There are still a few inequities but not many. The Division One football leaders have blocked a playoff for years. There is a very limited playoff coming in a couple of years, but not a definitive one.

The BCS and their college presidential oversight committee is a joke. The university presidents thump their chests and tell everyone who will listen that they are in charge. They are protecting the concept of the student-athlete. The truth is that like most of us the presidents are whores. The big TV networks promise millions and Mr. or Ms. Academic Integrity decide it's OK to change a rule or two. College football teams used to play 10 games and then maybe a bowl game. They now play 12 games plus maybe a conference championship game and a bowl game. I can remember when there were fewer than ten bowl games, so it actually was an honor to play in one. There are now about 35 bowl games and it is hard for all of them to find a team that had at least a .500 season. Now if you win half your games you are rewarded with a bowl game. So, a mediocre team gets to take a bowl trip and maybe pocket some extra TV money for the school and conference. That's OK with me. What's not OK is when they hype the game as important and crow about student-athlete integrity. Until and unless there is a real Division One football playoff, hardly any of these games are meaningful. We have had years when there were three undefeated teams so one of them (Auburn) got eliminated from the BCS Championship game. We have had other years when several teams had the same record (ie. 2012, AL, FL, OR & KS) and only one gets to compete for the title.

Here's the convoluted season in the SEC. Texas A&M beat Alabama and lost to LSU & Florida. LSU lost to Alabama and beat South Carolina. Florida beat South Carolina but lost to Georgia. South Carolina demolished Georgia. So which team is the best? My point is that top ten SEC teams play each other every weekend. If the Gators lose to the Dawgs or LSU beats A&M, if the Gamecocks beat the Dawgs and so on it's just another week in the SEC. There is a reason six SEC teams are in the BCS top ten. There only loses were to other SEC teams in the top ten and the SEC is the top league in college football. Four teams have one lose. So, is Alabama the undisputed #2 team.

Although the four team playoff will be better than what we have now, it will still fall short of being definitive. I think you need at least eight teams and 16 would be better. I know, that's several extra games but only for a few teams. Now there is anywhere from three to six weeks between the last regular season game and the bowl game for a team. Plenty of time for a real playoff. A 16 team playoff would produce 15 must see games that ESPN would pay a fortune for and I would watch. It's also an opportunity for almost half of the current bowls to have a meaningful game. This year I plan to miss the Little Caesars Bowl (6-6 Central Michigan vs 7-5 Western Kentucky) and several others.

Let's get Division One college football into the 21^st century. Let's also give way less credit to the BCS, NCAA, athletic directors and university presidents.

Lastly, lets hope for at least a couple of good bowl games this season. Happy bowling.

wjh