When we lost our way

When we thought replacements could do an impossible job.

Imagine sending a guy with four years of deep-sea fishing experience to go do the job done by those cats on "Deadliest Catch". "He's fished on the ocean before, so he'll be able to catch us a use-able amount of crabs while our normal guys are asking for better insurance benefits," goes the thinking. Right, but the new guy's never seen anything quite like this. He'll do fine for a couple weeks, with some miscues. But then he'll get caught in a serious storm, the likes of which he hasn't dealt with before. He honestly won't know what to do. It's not his fault; the crash-course in training he received can only get him so far. So in all likelihood something terrible will happen--equipment will be lost or broken, a significant portion of the past week's catch will be lost, the ship will capsize--something to the suits realize, "What were we thinking? Nobody can just step up and do this job."

It's not as serious with sports (because it's sports, not real-life), but in the case of the NFL replacement officials, it's just as egregious an error on the part of NFL brass. They have been officiating Division III college football for years, so it's fair to say they understand the rules of football. But it also should have been obvious to the NFL that they were (and are) woefully unprepared for what they would be (and are) seeing on the field.

About 2.5 percent of college football players make it into the NFL. That's the strongest, fastest, most athletic 2.5 percent of all college football players. Most of those guys come from the FBS, a stronger, faster, more athletic division of college football than Division III. Of all those college football players that make it to an NFL team, not all of them play. No, just the strongest, fastest, most athletic group of 30-35 players play for each team (before accounting for injuries).

See where this is going? These referees have vaulted into an entirely different world of football. Steve Young said it best after last night's game, that the NFL is so much faster in person than anything these guys have ever seen, they never stood a chance. Being an NFL official is already an extremely difficult job--it's why fans are constantly pissed off at the officials in years past. So why would anyone think a replacement is a good solution?

Don't blame the replacement referees for these early-season debacles. It is technically their fault, but they were put in an impossible situation. Blaming them would be tantamount to blaming me for ruining your softball team's chances at the intramurals or parks and rec championship. Yeah, I'm bad, so the team has no chance of winning, but I shouldn't be in this position if excellence was the initial goal.

Think these things through a little bit.

Running, my love, I hate you

Running (not sprinting) can be cool. I swear.

When I was a freshman in high school, I wasn't an especially good runner. I headed to the regional meet that my team had qualified for to watch them and watch my brother run for his school. His team was racing in the toughest division in the state, and probably wasn't going to make it out, so it was almost certainly going to be his final cross country race.

I ended up not really watching my brother. His race, which featured the best three teams in the state, also featured the top two runners in the state, the only guys who had a chance of winning the Ohio Division 1 race a week later. Their names were Levi Fox and Jeff See, and they had a rivalry of sorts that probably existed more in my head than in real life, because their schools were not rivals in any sense. Those two had placed first and second in every common race they'd run that year; See first, Fox second.

So while See went into the region as the overwhelming favorite, there was just no way you could count Levi (this is what everybody called them at the time: See by his last name and Levi by his first. This doesn't indicate preference or familiarity for me, it would just feel weird to refer to them any other way) out; he had that incredible long hair flopping in the wind and was running unbelievably fast times.

You especially couldn't count Levi out once the race had started. 400 meters after the start, Levi Fox was 75 meters clear of the field. After months of running with See and slowly falling back, Levi had had enough. He decided to go for it, and see if See could reel him in. He'd be running alone, making it more difficult on himself, but at least he would make See work for a win, and know it.

By a mile, he had to be 200 meters ahead. It was unbelievable. The best runner in the state looked like he might lose.

Of course he wouldn't stay ahead by that much. Going out so fast meant he would be trying to hold on, not win going away. This is the nature of distance running. See started reeling him in. Still, past the two-mile mark, Levi had the lead. You could see his tactic had had an effect. See was working harder than normal, it was visible from his facial expression.

Jeff See ended up catching Levi Fox and winning the race by about 15 meters. Levi was so spent at the finish line he looked like your run-of-the-mill half-marathoner who went out too fast and paid the price at the finish. He might as well have lost his legs 100 meters back. But he finished.

That remains among the most excited I've ever been watching a sporting event (we'll call running a sport for simplicity's sake). Watching those two go at it, and watching Levi go for it, even though he failed, was thrilling. There's no comparison for that type of decision in any other sport. But it was amazing to watch.

We rarely see this type of thing in elite running these days, where the accepted style is to go slower than most runners are capable of running for most of the race, then turn it into an unbelievable sprint over the final 100/200/lap (American Leo Manzano probably benefited from this type of racing in the men's 1500-meter this Olympics, in a shocking result for him).

That's why distance running is boring. Unless you're a huge fan, you didn't appreciate Galen Rupp's fantastic final 800 to grab silver in the 10k at these Olympics. For the most part, that race was run in a tightly-packed group. While it spread at the end, it was easy for a great deal throughout.

Nobody had any guts. Nobody wanted to make a move and take a chance. Evidently it's much wiser to sit back and try to out-sprint Ethiopians and Kenyans. That has worked a few times in these Olympics, but not very often otherwise.

There's a reason Steve Prefontaine is the most well-like and revered American runner ever, even though he won nothing. Prefontaine took races out from the start and made everyone kill themselves trying to keep up. That way, all he had to do was out-gut them over the final lap. He made races a battle and wasn't scared of anybody. Today, professional distance runners are in a type of condition I can't even imagine. But none of them are interested in using it. It's a shame, because if they did, people might start to realized the 1500 and 5k are way cooler races than the 100 or the 200.

I'm a distance runner, I'm probably biased. But I do think I appreciate the speed and power generated by sprinters. One of the best sprinters in the state went to my high school. He was running the 100 about a second slower than it took Usain Bolt to finish. While a second is a long ways on the track, seeing that power up close (which I did many times) is still amazing. It was something to marvel at, something I would never be able to duplicate.

It's just that the sprints, while cool, are more home-run derby or dunk contest. They're fun, but not as good as the actual game. Middle-distance and distance running is the actual game.

All the sprinting I've seen in person and on TV has never had the effect on me the race between Jeff See and Levi Fox did. See and Fox haven't amounted to much as runners at the international level. Imagine the show their counterparts in the Olympics could be giving us.

Bolt Strikes Again

Why did anyone think Usain Bolt was going to lose?

Because he had lost in the Jamaican trials to Yohan Blake?

Because he had been disqualified in a previous race for a false start?

Did we all forget about that race in 2008, where Bolt ran six-hundredths faster than Blakes personal best time by celebrating the final 10 meters?

Come on. Usain Bolt is 6-5. Blake is 5-11. Justin Gatlin is 6-feet even and Tyson Gay is 5-11. In an event where a tenth of a second is an enormous amount of time, Bolt's height advantage (and lengthier stride) is making all the difference when he can turn his legs over as quickly as all the other guys.

Only a false start or injury was going to make a difference in this race. As it happened, Bolt got the worst start of the four men in the race who mattered. And then he blew them all away.

What about the last time we saw Bolt at the Olympics, when he ran unlike anything we'd ever seen before in sprinting, made us think 2012 would be any different?

The Majesty of the Olympics

There have been some ugly happenings in these Olympics. Korean swimmer Park Tae-Hwan was given a phantom disqualification in the qualifying rounds for the 400-meter freestyle (in fairness, he was allowed back in after an appeal. That should never have been necessary, though). Then Shin A Lam, also of Korea (hopefully just a coincidence), was cheated out of a medal opportunity by judges feeling lazy or something.

Now we're getting this nonsense about badminton players being disqualified because they were losing to try and influence who they played later on. Let's be clear, though. This isn't ugly because players were trying to lose. It's ugly because the Olympic committee embarrassed itself in overreacting to the low level of play.

Supposedly those badminton players "violated the Olympic ideal and the spirit of fair play." I'm not sure how that can be. To me, the ultimate goal when going to the Olympics is to win the gold medal. This is a new format for Badminton. In past Olympics, Badminton was a single elimination tournament. This year, a round-robin preliminary round was introduced. The disqualified teams (which included the Chinese world champions) were simply trying to utilize it to give them an easier path to win gold.

Let's flip the scenario. Fast-forward to the 2014 World Cup, where the U.S. has won its first two games in group play and is now playing Brazil, also 2-0. Meanwhile, in another group, Germany gave up a late goal in its first game to take a tie, and then suffered a stunning loss to the Ivory Coast in its third game. With four points, the Germans are moving on, but lost the group to Le Cote d'Ivoire.

With a spot in the round of 16 secured, the U.S. decides to sit several starters and delivers a pitiful performance, losing 5-0 to Brazil. As a result, Brazil plays Germany in the round of 16 while America gets Ivory Coast...is any American soccer fan upset with this result? Is anyone made the U.S. chose to lose in order to play a weaker opponent? NOOOOOOOO! Why is it any different for these badminton players? Sure, those games with both teams trying to blow it must have sucked to watch, but they didn't matter. They weren't going to tank it anymore. And with some of the best badminton doubles teams out of the tournament now, it's an even bigger joke than their pitiful matches were.

That's why it's nice to remember why the Olympics are actually pretty awesome. Despite the IOC being about as bad as the NCAA ("If you wear that shiny teeth thingy on the stand Ryan, we won't give you your medal. You may have earned it, but not if your teeth aren't normal."), there are always going to be these really cool moments coming from the Olympics.

Like this one. Kayla Harrison became the first-ever American to win a gold medal in Judo. I know nothing about Judo, and watching a replay of her match was the first time I'd ever seen it competitively. But Harrison's medal ceremony was incredible. The Ohio native (yeah!) tried to contain her emotions, but couldn't manage it once the notes from the "Star Spangled Banner" began.

Harrison was a world champion in Judo already, but somehow the Olympic championship has more meaning to just about everybody. It sure does to me. Watching Harrison (who, like so many Olympians in this super-fringe sports, is just a normal person who also works really, really hard at her sport on the side. She's hoping to get selected as a firefighter when she gets home. Not go be in a CrossFit ad or get sponsored by Nike for her badass-edness. No, she's going to put her life on the line. Come on!) break down at the beginning and end of our national anthem had me tingling all over and tearing up. I can't explain why I was so affected; it was just an amazing moment.

Seeing the Packers win the Super Bowl didn't inspire that type of response. Hearing the national anthem at the Olympic medal ceremony and watching an everyday, down-to-earth young woman from Ohio, who I probably won't ever see again, celebrate a judo championship did.

Why Living in the Mountains Sucks...Especially during the Olympics

Since moving to Colorado, one of life's biggest adjustments has been to watch sports and shows on TV two hours earlier than I used to. Sometimes its not a problem, like when I can watch a "Workaholics" or "Breaking Bad" rerun the same night and be done well before midnight. Then, there's no worries about hitting the sack at a decent time. But catching sporting events before getting off work can be a challenge sometimes. It's been strange, but I've gotten used to it after two months.

Nothing could have prepared me for the Olympics, though. NBC's tape-delay strategy has officially ruined my life. Yes, the tape-delay in general is terrible. I knew that the men's 4x100 freestyle relay had lost to the Frenchies well before I actually got to watch it on TV. Everyone in the states is experiencing that. But NBC is executing such an awful tape delay that those of us in Colorado (and even worse in the pacific zone) aren't even up to date with half the U.S. on getting to see prime-time events.

According to the NBC commercials I've seen, the broadcast begins in the Eastern time zone at 7:30 p.m. (yes, everything is still advertised in terms of the east here). That would mean the broadcast would normally start at 5:30 in Colorado. Not so with the Olympics. After the 7:30 start in the east, every other time zone's broadcast begins at 6:30 p.m. For people in Chicago, this is all normal. They're up to date just like they normally would be. But for everybody further west, we can't even view already-old events with our American peers. They have to get even older.

It's one thing to hear on Twitter that France beat the U.S. in similar fashion to the way it lost in Beijing. It's quite another to hear that, then hear from everyone east of Colorado about how the race looked, and how Ryan Lochte did this, or Michael Phelps was super fast!

This delay nonsense worked out alright in 2008 for NBC. It's been a disaster in 2012. We're a different species than we were then. As the Olympics show us every time they come round, with brand new gymnasts, swimmers struggling to retain what they once had (like Phelps in the 400 individual medley) and even basketball rosters shifting (Kevin Durant wasn't on the 2008 U.S. team!), four years is a long time.

What to do when your team is in freefall

Baseball's second half has begun.

Really, we're past the midway point of the season. Going into the all-star break, the Mets were coming off an embarrassing loss at home to the Cubs, and were 46-40, a full five games past half a season.

That record of 46-40 probably should have been better, with the Mets losing four of six to the Cubs and five of six to the Yankees over the final month leading to the All-Star break. So despite the team's near-unanimous preseason projection of last place, it was hard not to feel optimistic. The team hadn't even played its best baseball lately, and it was still in wild-card contention. The surprise team of the season. "Manager of the year for Terry Collins!" they cried on ESPN.

Not so fast. The second half has begun, and the glaring fault on this Mets team, its bullpen, is making it clear the other boys from New York aren't going anywhere. What was 46-40 is now 46-44, with all four losses coming to the two teams ahead of them in the NL East, and three of the four losses coming due to bullpen inadequacy.

A sweep in Atlanta was tough to stomach, but the Mets have been streaky lately. Tuesday's game in Washington said it all though. An anemic offensive night had New York trailing 1-0 going into the eighth. Jonathon Niese had been excellent, going seven innings with one run and eight strikeouts.

Next came the bullpen, which allowed a run in the eighth to extend the deficit to 2-0. Then something amazing happened. New York scored three runs in the top of the ninth, giving itself a lead. But Mets closer Bobby Parnell, the poster-child of unrealized potential who has for some reason been given extra responsibility even though he's never been reliable, made sure he filled his quota. Three hits, one run. Since Parnell probably doesn't understand baseball, he probably felt like he had done okay. After all, those are the same numbers Niese put up in his innings.

No matter! said the Mets now lively offense, which tacked on another run in the top of the 10th. But as bad as Parnell is, his time was up. It was time to turn it over to the rest of the gang. And it was time for me to look away.

But I couldn't. Instead, it felt smarter to suffer through Tim Byrdak surrendering two hits, a walk and a run, before loading the bases with an intentional walk and handing the reins to Pedro Beato, who made sure his fourth pitch didn't quite make it to Josh Thole. Wild pitch. Ryan Zimmerman crosses the plate. Game over.

New York made it more than halfway. But the writing is on the wall now. Even that last-place projection from everyone and their mother doesn't seem far-fetched. All I can think about is that annoying phrase that sabermetricians harp on and on about, and is usually accurate.

This wasn't sustainable. Regression to the mean.

Andy's Misurray

Andy Murray played well.

He didn't collapse, he didn't choke, he didn't get in his own head and take himself out of the match.

He kept battling despite falling all over the tennis court, despite possibly having ankle and/or back issues, despite definitely being worn out.

Unfortunately for Murray, he was playing against the best of all time at more or less his best. Roger Federer was once again on fire, scorching first serves in play at a high percentage, moving like he was 25 and doing everything right at the net.

So now Federer has won seven Wimbledons, as much as any other man. He's won 17 Grand Slams, adding to his already-record total.

But this day wasn't about Federer's winning, as masterful as it was to watch. It was about Murray being 0-1 in Wimbledon finals, and how that loss led to this.



For those of us that love sports, speeches like Murray's are the second reason we come up with when we explain our love for them. The first we think of, of course, is the elation we see and feel when our favorite teams win. But this emotional response, this ache that comes from losing, but this respect of your opponent and knowledge that you couldn't have done more, is really the best.

Somebody always loses. That never feels good. Losing in a championship is often described as a worse feeling than winning the championship is a good feeling. But to lose with the class Murray does, to care as much as Murray clearly did, is what really makes this great. Where else does that happen than in sports?

My favorite part of the clip: When Murray addresses the crowd, and says this:

And last of all to you guys. Everybody always talks about the pressure of playing at Wimbledon, how tough it is. But it's not the people watching, they make it so much easier to play. The support has been incredible, so thank you.

Everybody knows Britain wants the Wimbledon trophy to stay at home pretty badly. But man, the love those fans gave Murray throughout the match and during and after his speech, even though he failed to accomplish what they wanted, was unbelievable. It was one of the coolest things I've seen in sports in quite awhile.

It was one of the coolest things I've seen in awhile. Period. And that's why sports rule.