“I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team.”
Whether his comments were true, or at least defensible, proved to be irrelevant as it were if you’re Rush Limbaugh, you cannot go on an NFL pregame show and imply that the media wants a black quarterback too well even if he’s not really that good. The blowback was tremendous and immediate as activist groups and African-American groups quickly called for Limbaugh to be fired. The talk show host did not allow ESPN that pleasure, however, as he resigned the following Wednesday hopefully, forever ending the practice of putting nonsports people into sports broadcasting roles.
32
The Trailblazers Choose Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan: It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
Michael Jordan is almost unanimously regarded as the greatest basketball player who ever lived. Sam Bowie is not. An entirely unremarkable player who, when healthy, had a decent albeit unspectacular career, Bowie was supposed to be better than he was, but recurring leg injuries caused him to miss lots of games and ultimately mar his career. Had he not been the player picked before the greatest player to ever play the game, Bowie’s selection in 1984 would have been considered mildly disappointing. Instead, it has gone down as one of the biggest—if not the actual biggest—blunders in sports.
People actually forget that neither Bowie nor Jordan was the first pick in the 1984 National Basketball Association draft. That honor instead went to Hakeem Olajuwon, a great player who was still no Jordan. Still, Olajuwon ultimately won two NBA titles in back-to-back years as a member of the Houston Rockets. Of course, those two titles happened in years when Jordan was not playing basketball but was instead trolling the minor leagues as a baseball player. Had Olajuwon not won those titles, his being picked over Jordan would be questioned, certainly not as much as Bowie’s selection was, but on a pretty grand level.
Though history has rendered the selection of Bowie over Jordan as one of the worst draft-day choices in history, it was not quite that cut-and-dried on draft day in 1984. Portland, unlike most teams selecting number two, was not a bottom-tier team. Instead, they had obtained the second pick in the draft through a trade, and they were not looking at rebuilding their franchise. Instead, they were looking at adding a piece that was ready to play in the NBA that might help put their team over the top.
Portland also needed a center, which Bowie was and Jordan, of course, was not. Their main divisional rival was the Los Angeles Lakers, which had the dominating presence of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The Trailblazers also had Mychal Thompson, a strong forward who lacked the bulk to be a center. If the team could add a powerful, bulky center, then Thompson could play his game, theoretically making the whole team stronger. So while everyone knew Jordan had a bigger upside than Bowie, he was viewed as raw potential and not a ready-made NBA player who would fill the Blazers’ biggest need. Portland also had strong guards in all-star Jim Paxson and future superstar Clyde Drexler. In addition the team had the top-notch scorer Kiki Vandeweghe as their small forward. Basically, Portland, on paper, did not need any more scoring. The team needed a big body at center.
Because of that, the Portland Trailblazers overlooked Jordan’s tremendous upside and picked Bowie over Jordan. Had Bowie stayed healthy, he may very well have led the Blazers—a more complete team—over Jordan’s Bulls in the NBA finals. Instead, Jordan went on to win six titles, and Bowie became the answer to a trivia question.
Worst Draft Picks Ever
Seattle Seahawks pick Rick Mirer second in the 1994 draft. Though Mirer went on to a decent career as a journeyman backup, the most stunning part of his being picked second in the 1994 draft was that it was touch and go that he might be picked first by the New England Patriots. In New England, and across the nation, Drew Bledsoe versus Mirer was a legitimate discussion. And while Bledsoe’s career was derailed and stopped just short of the Hall of Fame by the emergence of Tom Brady, he did get his team to a Super Bowl and won the AFC championship game when Brady went down with an injury during the Patriots’ first Super Bowl–winning season. Mirer never led Seattle much of anywhere, and while he got lots of chances, he was a career backup who held on for a long time because he looked like a quarterback and was an intelligent albeit mostly unsuccessful player.
Ottawa Senators select Alexandre Daigle first in 1993. Billed as the next Mario Lemeiux. Daigle never panned out as an NHL player bouncing between teams and stints in the minors, never putting up more than fifty-one points in the season. Daigle’s failure was magnified by how incredibly hyped his arrival was, but he was still a colossal failure.
New York Yankees pick Brien Taylor first in 1991. Not only was Taylor picked first by the Yankees, he received a then-record $1.55 million signing bonus—about $1 million more than previous record. Taylor never played a game for the Yankees as he blew out his arm in an off-field fight before rising out of the low minors.
St. Louis Rams take Lawrence Phillips sixth in 1996: Sometimes, college players with off-field troubles overcome them and go on to great NFL careers. That was not the case for Phillips who ran for 1,400 yard in three years with the Rams. Eddie George, a likely Hall of Fame running back, went thirteenth to the Oilers in this same draft.
33
The Bowl Champion Series: Taking a Bad System and Making It Worse
Division I college football has never done a very good job in crowning its champion. The system has always relied on the inexact science of coaches’ polls, writers’ polls and other somewhat arbitrary methods of deciding who the National Champion was. For years, there were four major bowl games (The Fiesta Bowl, The Sugar Bowl, The Cotton Bowl and The Rose Bowl). These varied throughout the years as sometimes one became less important and sometimes another snuck in, but there was a group of major bowls which all had ties to the most powerful conferences.
Those conference ties created the first set of problems as certain conference champions had to play in certain bowl games, it was nearly impossible to guarantee that the top two teams in the nation would play in a national title game. Instead the number one team might play the number six team and the number two team might play the number three team. If both number one and number two won, it would not be clear which was actually better and who should be declared the Nation Champion.
To say this has caused confusion throughout the years would be putting it mildly. In many seasons we had split national champions with the AP poll supporting one team and the coaches’ poll another. Never mind that almost nobody voting in either poll actually saw most of the regular season, these votes decided who the champion was, not any sort of actual game. In some years, you even had three or four teams claiming a piece of the National Championship and still others who considered themselves the uncrowned title holders.
As important as clearly crowning a National Champion was the idea that teams would have something to play for. Under the old system, once a major power lost, it would be unlikely that they would have any chance of climbing back into the title picture. And, if a team from a less-powerful, “mid-major,” conference went undefeated, they would have no shot at playing for a National Championship. Instead, they would play in one of the dozens of relatively irrelevant bowl games that might be popular revenue sources for the NCAA but were largely meaningless in the process of determining who really had the best football team.
Fans hated this system and clamored for a playoff. Sure, they argued about whether it should be eight teams or 16, but fans wanted a tournament to decide which team actually was the best in the nation—exactly like we have in every professional sport.
Instead, the NCAA gave the fans a mild tweak on the current system. There would be no playoffs and most of the bowls would stay exactly as they were, but one bowl would be played last and that bowl would match up the top two team
s in the nation. Called the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), this new system ignored the idea that it was next-to-impossible most seasons to figure out which teams should be ranked in the top two spots.
Should an undefeated team in a lesser conference get a shot? What about a one loss team whose loss came early, on the road and against another powerhouse teams? How do you decide in years where there are multiple one loss teams who played similar schedules?
Instead of solving the problem, the BCS just changed it slightly. It would be like if your house were flooded with sewage and instead of cleaning up you bought an air freshener. The BCS does succeed in matching up the top two teams as voted by the various polls, but that has hardly cut down on the debate as to who the actual National Champion is.
The fans want a playoff with some teams getting in due to winning their conferences and other getting at-large bids based on their record and strength of schedule. Instead, the NCAA gives them more silliness in which writers and coaches casting ballots decided who the best football team is. That would be like picking the country’s best burger by looking at pictures.
34
The LeBron James Decision: He Spits on His People, Takes His “Talents to South Beach”
For the first seven years of his career, LeBron James got to play in Cleveland in front of his hometown fans. James had grown up in Akron, Ohio and by blind luck, he ended up being drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers—a beleaguered franchise in a city full of equally woeful teams. Clevelanders—though they are legendarily loyal to their sports teams—have had precious little to cheer about. The Indians have mostly been terrible (even inspiring the Major League movies about the fantastical possibility that the Indians actually won.
The city had even suffered the indignity of having its beloved NFL franchise leave for Baltimore. Despite the rabid “dog pound” which supported the team passionately, owner Art Modell needed money and he split for Baltimore. Though the league ultimately brought a new Browns team to Cleveland, that franchise has been terrible for its entire existence, running through head coaches and starting quarterbacks at an alarming rate.
The Cavaliers had also mostly been losers, but all that changed when hometown superstar, “King” LeBron James ended up property of his hometown team. In an instant, the franchise went from also-ran to perennial title contender. James had very little talent around him during his first few seasons, but he instantly made the team a winner, restoring pride in his home state and becoming the symbol of Cleveland ‘s—and the rest of Ohio’s—rebirth. James wasn’t just a superstar athlete, he was a local boy winning in front of his people—people that loved and supported him in a way that few athletes enjoyed. Most fans have become jaded. They realize that players play for money and that they may wear a city’s name on their jersey, but they have no actual loyalty to that team or those fans.
James, though, people wanted to believe was different. He was not merely an athlete drafted by a team in Ohio who had to live there, he was actually from Akron, Ohio and he—the fans desperately wanted to believe—was actually loyal because he had grown up with the disappointment of being a Cleveland fan. LeBron was not merely a basketball player, he was the savior bringing pride and a chance to win to his community.
In his seven years the Cavaliers struggled to get supporting players to play alongside James. Though they sought the advice of their young superstar and made many moves that he had suggested, the team never quite got over the hump. James did prove himself a true superstar by leading the team to the 2007 NBA Finals, where they lost in somewhat embarrassing fashion, being swept by the San Antonio Spurs. Still, the team had made the Finals and the fans of Cleveland believed that their young superstar would ultimately lead them to the promised land even if he had to do it with a supporting cast of cast-offs and role players.
A roadblock remained though as James’ contract was up following the 2009 season. Cleveland’s fans, though, were not worried as not only was James a hometown hero who would—they believed—never let down “his” people, but the Cavaliers could actually pay him more money than any other team. Every factor pointed to the Cavs resigning their superstar, but everyone had overlooked that James was a spoiled millionaire who had never faced any real adversity once people realized how good he was with a basketball in his hands.
Cleveland fans had heard the New York rumors, they had heard the Chicago whispers and they even knew that Miami would make a bid for James’ services. They had been convinced that their hero would never betray them, but they had to be a little nervous when he announced that he was going to announce his “decision” in an hour-long ESPN program (pompously named The Decision). James might leave, fans thought, but he would never go on TV and rub it in Cleveland’s face. Sure, he was going to make his fans sweat—maybe to send a message to management about getting him some more talented teammates—but they believed he would never go on TV and say he was going elsewhere.
But that was exactly what “King” James did. He went on TV and said, to his handpicked interviewer, that he was “taking his talents to South Beach.” In that one simple sentence he compounded the agony for Cleveland’s long-suffering fans and while they lay on the ground bleeding, he grabbed the knife and twisted.
The long-suffering sports fans who fell victim to “The Drive,” “The Fumble,” “The Shot,” the loss of the Browns, the sad performance of the Browns since their return and years of futility from the Indians had been crushed again by one of their own LeBron James. They deserved for their hometown hero to go on ESPN and say, “I know it’s going to be hard, but this is my home, these are my people and I’m going to work as hard as I can to bring a title to Cleveland.”
Instead, they were blindsided and humiliated by one of their own on national television.
James had promised to win a title for Cleveland. He not only came up short in that quest, he didn’t actually seem to care very much as he let opportunity slip away the last two years.
Had James stayed in Cleveland and won even one title, he would go down as an immortal. Winning in a city that has historically loses means more to the fans in that city and in the history books. Even without winning a championship, had James stayed a Cavalier, he would have remained a lifelong icon in the place he has always lived to the people who have always supported him. Instead, he chose to betray those fans by not just leaving the team, but by humiliating the Cavaliers on the way out the door.
Lebron James did the equivalent of breaking up with his girlfriend by announcing it on stage at a pep rally the day before the prom. With the words “I’m taking my talents to South Beach,” James kicked his hometown fans in the teeth. Instead of taking the hard road and trying to bring Cleveland the title he had promised them, the young superstar turned his back on people who perhaps foolishly had held him up as their sports savior.
James might win in Miami, but stacking the deck with superstars and winning a title as Dwayne Wade’s Scottie Pippen does not make you an all-time great. “The King” had a chance to rule, a chance to matter in his community like few athletes do. Instead, he gets to hang out with his buddies in South Beach while Cleveland burns his image in effigy.
35
Disco Demolition Night: Cheap Beer and Destruction May Not Mix
Despite its brief, but enormous, popularity, disco music had its fair share of enemies. Chief amongst those might be sports fans—at least male sports fans—who viewed disco, with its flamboyant outfits, spinning lights and less than macho imagery as something less than manly. By the late 1970s a strong anti-disco movement had taken hold and one major league baseball team thought its marketing people had come up with a brilliant way to capitalize on that sentiment.
Disco Demolition Night actually grew out of an anti-disco movement fed by Chicago Disc Jockey Steve Dahl, who had lost his job when the station he worked for switched from rock music to an all-disco format. Dahl eventually got himself hired at another rock station where he used the publicity surrounding his firing and the
growing disco backlash to launch an anti-disco crusade. This mostly included mocking the music with his on-air partner, but his crusade also featured the parody “Do You Think I’m Disco,” which of course was making fun of Rod Stewart’s hit, “Do You Think I’m Sexy.”
The stage was was set for the infamous doubleheader that would include Disco Demolition Night when a game between the White Sox and the Detroit Tigers was rained out and scheduled to be made up in a doubleheader about a month later. Dahl, working with Mike Veeck, the son of then-White Sox owner Bill Veeck, as well as various promotion and marketing people from the radio station and the team came up with the idea that would go so disastrously wrong. Fans would pay only $.98 to get into the game as long as they brought along their unwanted disco music. The records would then be collected and put in a huge crate in center field, where Dahl would quite literally blow them up.
Expectations were not high for this promotion and White Sox management expected less than 15,000 people, which would be about double what the team attracted for a usual weeknight game. Unfortunately, approximately 90,000 people showed up disco records in hand. This was not only a better crowd than anticipated, but it was around twice as many people as the stadium held. Not to be deterred, thousands of fans who had been denied admission to the ballpark decided to scale the walls and enter anyway.
Not only were more fans than expected jammed into the stadium, which was filled well over capacity, there were also too many records for the crate in center field. This left thousands of fans in the stands carrying records. Some of these fans had been drinking and the scent of marijuana was so prevalent that the announcers calling the game actually commented on it. And, perhaps, some of the crowd was more interested in the promotion than in the actual game as records were being tossed around the stadium like Frisbees injuring fans, but stopping short of a full-scale riot.
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