Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Next game idea: Labville - instead of crops, players manufacture PEDs

The charges filed against Dr. Anthony Galea by the feds yesterday had been anticipated for some time. What will be interesting is seeing which athletes are involved in the case as PED and HGH users and which ones were only getting the apparently legitimate "platelet rich therapy" the doctor was known for. ESPN's website has a terrific breakdown of where Galea was and what his notes say he was giving patients. According to the complaint, at least three NFL players received HGH treatments from Galea. I'm no baseball apologist, but why is it that when NFL guys like Brian Cushing get caught in performance related drug scandals it's just shrugged off by the general public while the same thing in baseball is treated like a national crisis? If three MLB guys were linked to this, there would be more questions about why the league can't get the problem under control. If Roger Goodell was being interviewed today, somebody would probably ask him what he thinks LeBron's going to do.

I was sorry to see Washington win the NBA Draft Lottery last night. It's not that I have any particular gripe with the Wizards, but I really was hoping to see the New York papers react to Utah getting the top overall pick with the spot the Knicks dealt away and didn't protect in the event of a lottery win. Not having the ninth pick won't carry anything close to the same sting. Minnesota's point guard crazed GM getting the chance to select john Wall would have been amusing as well, but instead the Wizards will get a much needed quality player to build around. Wall seems like a slightly safer choice than Kwame Brown was after the last Wizards lottery win.

Big Ten meetings are underway in Chicago, and their commissioner Jim Delany seems to be doing his best to try and turn their expansion process into a replacement option for LOST fans who'll miss discussing convoluted theories about the meaning of it all once the final episode airs. Tuesday Delany refused to even acknowledge that one of the reasons for them to expand is to create a conference title game. Is there any scenario where the Big Ten adds even one team and does not create a title game? No, because that would be leaving millions on the table as well as missing out on a programming option to sell or air on the Big Ten network. Everyone knows this, yet Delany's ego won't let him concede the obvious. The guy loves being on center stage and portraying his conference as the epicenter of college football even though Florida has more national titles BY ITSELF in the past four years than the entire Big Ten does in the past forty.

If you're not on Facebook this will mean nothing to you, but ESPN has decided they need to get in on the Farmville craze. They're creating a college sports themed version of Farmville as a way to do that. Not sure what the annoying equivalent of "so and so's cow has gotten out of the yard" posts will be - "Bobby Petrino is trying to get your school's head coaching job", maybe? As for ESPNUville crops, I can think of a few possibilities that could be interesting if they want to base it on what people are actually growing.

1 comment:

Walt said...

I've also wondered why there seems to be such a difference in reaction to PED's in football versus baseball. No question baseball is a more statistic-driven sport and the only one where players from 50 years ago are still considered among the "best ever". No one cares all that much about stats in football.

I think the brutal nature of football is also a factor. As long as my team's guys are the biggest and strongest I don't care how that got that way.....something along those lines.