Players must oppose dangerous money grab
You don’t need a team of linguists to decipher what NFL commissioner Roger Goodell meant.
“I’m not sure, talking with coaches, that four preseason games is necessary any more to get ready for a season, to evaluate players, develop players,” Goodell said earlier this week, via The Associated
Press. “There are other ways of doing that, and we’ve had a lot of discussions about that.”
One “other way” would be to play two fewer exhibition games and two more regular season games. They’ve been batting that idea around for nearly a decade. It’s not going away.
The idea of an 18-game season could be nothing more than a negotiating ploy in advance of serious CBA talks, an item the league could throw out there in bad faith then pull back as a
“concession” to players who claim they want no part of it. Then again, the money-grubbing owners might really push for two more games of max revenue.
I can barely count the number of ways this idea stinks:
• It would spit in the face of all the “player safety” initiatives the league is so proud of. Take concussions, for example. The main cause of them is football. The best way to prevent them is less football, not more.
• It would compromise the quality of play in the postseason, thanks to battered players. The season is already too long.
• Quarterbacks, the NFL’s marquee players, have a tough enough time surviving 16 games, let alone 18. Do you want more of your biggest stars unavailable for the postseason showcase?
• Teams would be more apt to rest players, sit them out periodically the way they do in the NBA, as a concession to the ridiculous physical demands of an endless season. So imagine shelling out big money to watch, say, Aaron Rodgers play in Week 14, only to see him rest that week. Bad business.
The players should not let this happen, even if it would pad their wallets. If they agree to 18 games — and to hear many tell it, they never will — they could never talk about player health issues with a straight face again. They will have sold themselves out for a few bucks.
Sales pitch
The Pirates and the Chicago Cubs have had pitching crises of late — Chicago in the bullpen, the Pirates all over the place — and it’s safe to say they attacked those crises differently.
One team chose Craig Kimbrel. The other chose Rookie Davis.
The Cubs threw $43 million at Kimbrel. The Pirates tabbed Davis to start in place Friday of Nick Kingham in Milwaukee.
Nothing against Davis, but what’s going on here? He started seven games at Class AAA this season and posted a 5.35 ERA. He started six games for the Cincinnati Reds last season and posted an 8.63 ERA. He has appeared in four games with the Pirates this season with a 5.87 ERA.
Meanwhile, top prospect Mitch Keller’s past three starts in Class AAA have been good, and he did bounce back from a terrible first inning in his major league debut May 27 in Cincinnati.
Why not Keller? Why haven’t the pitching problems been addressed more aggressively, if general manager Neal Huntington truly believes this team is a playoff contender?
The Pirates continue to battle. They won the rubber match of their three-game set Thursday with the Braves thanks in large part to a gutsy performance from Chris Archer. Too bad their GM won’t reward them with major league reinforcements.
The state of the Pirates’ pitching depth is a terrible look for Huntington and his top personnel men. Going into Thursday’s game, Clay Holmes was still on the roster. Geoff Hartlieb was still on the roster. Alex McRae, too.
The shame of it is that the lineup is suddenly looking dangerous. The Pirates have banged out at least eight hits in 13 consecutive games. They’re scoring runs. Kevin Newman and Colin Moran have been surprises. Jung Ho Kang and Corey Dickerson might soon join the fray — and Kang was hitting nearly .500 in his Class AAA rehab.
Yawning fields
The surprise is not that attendance is down across Major League Baseball again. It’s that baseball’s revenues continue to rise every year. It’s that baseball continues to survive, even thrive, in a society where millions of humans cannot sit still for more than five seconds.
America is fast. Baseball is slow. Shaving 15 minutes off the average game time isn’t going to solve that problem.
Bell’s rings
I could relate to Le’Veon Bell’s misfortune from a few weeks ago. Who among us hasn’t had two girlfriends visit our home simultaneously and (allegedly) run off with $520,000 in jewelry?
Bell’s gonna find out real fast, if he hasn’t already, that media scrutiny in New York is a bit brighter than here. He’d better play well or this will get real ugly, real fast.