Donald Fehr was the head of the Major League Baseball Players Association (aka Union).  In my career, it’s been difficult to find anyone more frustrating to work with than anyone with “Major League Baseball” anywhere in their business card or title.  However, I can’t even imagine what it must be like to deal with the Players’ Union.

Fehr’s announcement today has touched off a firestorm on blogs about whether he was good for baseball.  Under him, player contracts went through the roof, so he certainly did his job for his employers.  Every time that they had to negotiate a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, Fehr took the owners to school.   Heck, they cancelled the World Series and he still got his clients darn near everything they wanted.

So this isn’t a piece about whether he should have allowed MLB to test for steroids, or if player salaries have created franchises with no hope of ever winning.  This piece raises the question, “Why retire now, and what does it mean?”

My quick, unsubstantiated take:  Here’s a man who uncannily knows when the time is right.  I think he knows that MLB revenues are in a lot of trouble.  The TV networks who broadcast games are getting killed, and are going to need to cut costs.  All the cities already have their shiny new taxpayer paid stadiums, so there’s no new revenue there to grab.  And it’s become embarassing that Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Washington, San Diego, etc… will never compete.  The league is losing revenue, needs to change and only one group has the power to allow that to happen.

The Players.

Next bargaining round, the MLB Players are going to be forced into a quandary.  The game is taking a hit, thanks in equal parts to the U.S. economic meltdown, players taking steroids from Pez dispensers, players making $12 million a year to not play, and the general ability of the NFL to continue to beat the heck out baseball everywhere it matters.  So the players will have to admit this when they sit at the table.  They’ll have to at least take a modicum of blame for abusing the lack of drug tests to the point that the great joy of comparing 100 years of baseball statistics has been rendered into a useless and meaningless exercise.  And if they admit any of this, they’ll be forced to give concessions on rookie salaries, guaranteed contracts, Free agency, arbitration and/or collective bargaining.  

So my synopsis is that Donald Fehr sees that the MLBPA is about to get crushed in the next round of bargaining.  And quite simply – he doesn’t want to be the guy who gets crushed.  So he leaves the hero or the villain depending on your take.  Let’s see if the next guy is rational and cares about the game, or like Fehr, is simply a brilliant and high paid bulldog representing a completely spoiled client.

If you google: Seattle Sounders July 4 (or just click on this link) you’ll get a mysterious return.  All of the major ticket scalping sites have seats for sales, some for as much as $3000.  What do they know that the Sounders aren’t telling us?  And is it brilliant or careless to let the ticket brokers leak that some event is going to occur before you send out any formal announcements?  Hmm…. 

This post may sound blasphemous, but I’ve slightly re-thought my views on the College Bowl system.  I like the Bowls. Now, I still think the BCS is insane, but I’m going to defend the other 74 or 75 bowl games.

What was the catalyst?  Simply, Arizona was good this year.  Now I know Arizona will never win the national championship in football.  I’m not greedy – I’ll take the 25 straight trips to March Madness and sacrifice a chance to compete with Oklahoma, Texas, LSU and USC for football’s top prize.  

But this year, when Arizona was 6-3 with 3 games to play, I was hooked trying to figure out which game they would go to.  I prayed not the Sun Bowl or Hawaii.  But San Francisco, San Diego and Las Vegas all seemed like a great place to spend a weekend.

So now a number of my friends who can get a hall pass for a bowl game, but not a regular weekend, will all meet up in Las Vegas 5 days before Xmas.  If college football had a 32 team playoff, I wouldn’t care about the game. I certainly wouldn’t travel to Vegas to see them get stomped by Alabama.  But I’m excited about the chance that they could end the year with a win over BYU in one of the lesser Bowls.

Then next year, who knows?  Do they get better and get to San Diego?  Or worse and fall out of the system again.  But the chance for a Bowl certainly kept me watching college football this year, and will probably keep me interested in next year too.

The Stanwood bureau of AndyBoyer.com once again shows it is worth every dime we are pouring into it.  Garrett and his team bring us “Bend it Like Bennett” a blog written by a fake Clay Bennett. Funny stuff.  And as Garrett reports:

This cannot be written by an OKC resident.  It has to be a disgruntled Seattle fan.  However, the comments indicate that the people reading it believe it is an OKC fan.  
 
http://benditlikebennett.blogspot.com/

(Ed note: updated when predictions come true)

I do not count WSU’s win over a Division 8 school, so I consider both these teams 0-10, which makes the game historic.  You can argue that these are two of the worst 10 teams in the history of college football, so it’s almost a shame one of them will be forced to get a win.  As I said before, I am hoping the universe does not collapse upon itself when someone leaves the field with that W.

So, here are 0-11 predictions for Apple Cup 2008. 

• There will be more missed field goals than made field goals. (UW Kicker: 1 made, 3 missed.  WSU Kicker: 3 made 0 missed.  Who knew the WSU guy was good?)
• There will be at least 4 fumbles, 2 of which will result in easy scores for the opposition, and 2 of which will happen just as a team is getting ready to score. (Shoot, 2 INT’s, but no fumbles. – FALSE)
• At some noticeable point in the game, one team will have more penalties than first downs, and penalty yards than yards gained. (FALSE) 
• We won’t see a sack until the 3rd quarter, and the sacker will either get charged with a celebration or hands to the face penalty. (FALSE)
• At least one touchdown will be nullified by a dumb penalty. (Not a touchdown, but two big returns for UW, one to start the game, and one in Q3.)
• One of the kick return teams will *almost* return a kick for a touchdown, but be tackled by the kicker.  (1st quarter, 15:00) The same kick returner will muff a kick.
• We will see one – if not more – play that goes 70+ yards for touchdowns  (close 57 yards, Q3, 2:56).
• We will not see a drive that lasts more than 5:00. (FALSE)
• One cornerback will have an easy interception for a touchdown, but will drop the pick. That cornerback will get beat on the same drive for a touchdown. (FALSE)
• There will be one quarter in which 7 or less points are scored (Q1), and one quarter in which 28 or more points are scored (FALSE).
• The officials will monumentally blow an important call.  The call will be so bad and so important, both teams will leave the field thinking they should have won.  (The WSU kicker should have been called for Illegal Procedure because he moved early.  not sure if you saw that.)

As bad as the UW offense is, I think the WSU defense is worse (FALSE – Both offenses were really that bad). I’m going with UW 33 WSU 31.   WSU has a freak safety which gives UW the 2 point edge (OK, that was a longshot, and FALSE – would have been cool if it came true).  At the end of the game, UW commits 3 straight pass interference penalties so WSU gets the ball to the UW 10.  But then they mismanage the clock, get forced into a hurried FG attempt, and miss it.  (OK, I was close here.  Instead of the penalties, a UW cornerback inexplicably got burned on a fly pattern.  And WSU did mismanage the clock, but they made the kick.)  

Side notes:

• Did anyone else hear the referee, at the beginning of the 2nd OT say, “Okey dokey.”
• Did anyone else find it funny that the Fox Sports play by play guy kept predicting what play WSU was going to run?  He kept saying things like, “Look out for thee short side sweep” and sure enough, WSU ran a short side sweep.  He should be coaching.
• Can you really put that much blame on a kicker who is trotting out there with a knee brace on?  On his KICKING leg?! Note to coaches….if your kicker has a knee brace on his kicking leg, you need to find a new kicker.
• I know my coaching career is limited to 15 year old soccer.  But, if one of my players is dominating the game, I have a tendency to keep that player in.  So when a guy with 88 yards rushing in the first half – a guy doing so well that the sideline reporter asks the coach at halftime, “Where have you been hiding this guy” – what thought process includes the decision of sitting him on the bench in the 2nd half?  
• With :50 left in the game and UW with 4th and 2 against the worst defense in the NCAA, did anyone else look incredulously at the TV when Willingham punted instead of going for the game clinching first down?  If you are 0-10, and 2 yards away from a win, how do you possibly put the game in the hands of the other team?
• Is this the worst loss in UW history?  Especially since they had it won, and then “Couged” it in classical WSU fashion.  
• How does this UW team POSSIBLY show up for 2 weeks of practice to go lose to Cal on Dec 6?