Those stupid kids ... screwing it up for their parents

A lot of what passes for "anger" among sports fans is actually passion. Sure, I get upset when the Yankees don't hit, or Syracuse chokes, or Jose Mourinho parks the bus against Liverpool or the Chargers make stupid mistakes or whatever, but it's fleeting and there's a distance to it. The anger is that I, as a spectator, did not see the ending I had hoped for.

But this Boston Globe article made me angry, not sports-fan angry, but actual, want-to-slap-these-people-upside-the-head angry.

"'I hate to hear we’re playing at Evans Field,'” said Patrick Fitzgerald, casting an accusatory glance at the Southie field’s towering lights, beloved by grade schoolers for their power to extend games after dark, dreaded by some parents for the same reason.

“'It’s good for him to be part of a team,'” Fitzgerald said, “'but he also plays hockey, and that is guaranteed one hour, which is kind of nice.'”

Yes, parents are unhappy that their children's Little League games ... take too long.

I don't have kids, but I was a kid once upon a time. And I loved Little League. I loved the games. I loved the practices. My brother's four years younger than me, so his first year in Little League was my last, and I loved his games and practices. I just loved being at the ballfield.

And unless something urgent got in the way, my parents were always at the games, just like they were always at basketball games (mostly mine, even when I wasn't going to play), soccer games (my brother's), concerts (both) and school musicals (my brother's).

They did, because they could.

"As Andover mom Tracey Spruce put it in a Facebook post: 'I love my son dearly, but I have to say that watching a second-grade Little League game may very well be the Tenth Circle of Hell.'”

"Reached by phone before a game, Spruce expanded: 'The kids are picking flowers, and it seems completely disorganized. Let’s say you have a kid who actually gets a hit, then the shortstop misses it, four kids bump into each other. Someone throws it to first base, but it’s an overthrow . . .'”

Does she realize these are little kids? Hold on, and try that again, this time in your best Lewis Black voice, "DOES SHE REALIZE THESE ARE $%@&//* LITTLE KIDS!"

"But as every parent knows, pokey behavior — on the field and off — can be hard to regulate, a reality some parents deal with by doing one, or all, of the following during games: communing with their phones, chatting with other parents (often missing their kids’ at bat), grocery shopping, running home to do laundry.

'You can get stuff done during the game,' Lauren Downey, the mother of two White Sox players, said as she watched Sunday’s game at Evans Field.

'I’ve read a couple of James Patterson books,' said Anne Spence, the mother of a player for the White Sox’ opponents, the Dunkin’ Donuts Mets."

Again, I don't have kids, so I'm sure schedules can be rough ... but from what I understand, that comes with having kids. But apparently, it's too much of a burden on these poor parents to actually watch their children play sports for more than an hour.

And it really, really made me angry to read that.

The game is the thing ... at least FIFA hopes so

If you've seen John Oliver's epic "Last Week Tonight" segment on the horribleness that is FIFA (and if you haven't, it's right there ... watch it), you know that before and after he lays out in great detail just how horrible FIFA is, he says he's incredibly excited for the World Cup.
He presents it as a conundrum ... loving an event while knowing the people in charge of it are loathsome. But it's not really that much of a conundrum, and it's not something that can be ascribed to the "religious" aspects of soccer.
After all, the most-popular sport in this country is one in which we are learning more and more that its participants are maiming themselves for our enjoyment, but woe unto anyone who tries to do anything about it, or even say it's happening.
In March and early April, millions of people may actually stop obsessing over the spectacle that is the self-maiming to watch a basketball tournament in which the "student-athletes" miss days of classes to play for the championship of an organization that believes the players can receive an education at the school they play for and absolutely nothing else, even as the billions keep rolling in.
And earlier this year, the youth of the world gathered to compete in a country run by a man who could generously be described as perhaps a bit autocratic, and not only did people complain when one of the television hosts of that event dared to bring it up (because, you know, he said something about guns once), they complained when they couldn't see those competitions as they happened.
This is sports. This is what sports does. We want our games, and absent something truly catastrophic (stadiums falling in, natural disasters, people dying), we don't want anything to intrude on them. Yes, sports provide a welcome distraction from whatever crap is going on in the world, and my good friend Cy Nical would tell you that's especially true for people who don't want to have to think about anything.
But it's not just that. Lots of people are perfectly capable of understanding the real world and its implications on sports, who know that the NFL, NCAA, Vladimir Putin's Russia and the International Olympic Committee that awarded this year's Winter Olympics to him are flawed, at best, but we still love the games.
Why?
Because they're fun!
In just this World Cup alone, there are so many questions, and it's going to be so much fun to see them be answered? Will the United States get out of group play, and if not, will Landon Donovan be able to restrain himself from shouting "I told you so!" on air?
Will Spain be able to defend its title, or will Brazil lift the trophy on home soil? Or will Lionel Messi become the hero for Argentina that he is for Barcelona and lead his country to glory? Will Luis Suarez and Cristiano Ronaldo be able to play? If so, how effective will they be? 
How will England mess it up this time, and who will be blamed when they do? Will it be Roy Hodgson? Wayne Rooney? Steven Gerrard? The guy who missed the key penalty kick in the shootout?
Those are the ones I came up with off the top of my head. I'm sure there are a lot of others people far better-versed in the World Cup could come up with.
So enjoy the games. Just don't be blind about it.

Where the Yankees got it all wrong

I see a lot of #firecashman these days on Twitter when I'm watching a Yankees game. It is frustrating these days, with the Yankees bumping along at 29-28, five games out of first place and looking like the very symbol of mediocrity or worse, with a run differential of minus-26.

Yes, Derek Jeter's swan song could be a pretty miserable year, so wanting to get rid of general manager Brian Cashman is an unsurprising way to lash out. After all, he did such horrible things in the offseason like disrespecting Robinson Cano by only offering seven years and $175 million.

If that was Cashman's only terrible move, it would be one thing ... but no, he had to make it worse by signing Jacoby Ellsbury (.298/.355/.426, nine home runs, 53 RBI, 52 steals) and Carlos Beltran (.296/.339/.491, 24 home runs, 84 RBI) to replace Vernon Wells (.233/.282/.349, 11 homers, 50 RBI), Ichiro (although he's still around as a part-time player -- .262/.297/.342, seven homers, 35 RBI) and Curtis Granderson (.229/.317/.407, seven homers, 15 RBI in 61 games. In 56 games with the Mets this year, his numbers are .212/.323/.354 with six homers and 27 RBI).

So Cashman clearly screwed up the outfield by getting two good players to replace three not-so-good ones. Then he had to turn around and sign Brian McCann (.256/.336/.461, 20 homers, 57 RBI) to catch instead of, among others, Chris Stewart (.211/.293/.272, four homers, 25 RBI). Yes, yes, I know they should have never let Russell Martin (.226/.327/.377, 15 homers, 55 RBI with Pittsburgh) go, since he was obviously Thurman Munson reincarnated.

And he had the nerve to think that a healthier Derek Jeter, even approaching 40, would be better than ... who played shortstop for the Yankees last year when Jeter was out? Who didn't? I personally enjoy all the love for Brendan Ryan, who's a wonderful fielder but for his career would be a good-hitting National League pitcher (.238/.299/.320).

Remember the Lyle Overbay Experience ... the .242/.295/393 with 14 home runs and 59 RBI? For a guy signed off the street in spring training, he actually didn't do too badly, but Cashman had the nerve to let him go in favor of a theoretically healthy Mark Teixeira.

(By the way, I got all my numbers from here if you want to look yourself.)

I know I'm no general manager, but by the looks of it, on paper the Yankees improved in left field (since Ellsbury allowed Brett Gardner to move to left), right field, first base, catcher, shortstop and designated hitter (either Alfonso Soriano or Soriano and Ichiro in a platoon instead of the fossilized remains of Travis Hafner or whatever other player was getting a partial day off).

Second base was a loss, a big loss, and I don't know how to judge third base.

But Cashman needs to be fired because:

• Ellsbury, McCann and Beltran haven't been that good, and Beltran has gotten hurt.
• Teixeira and Jeter clearly aren't all the way back, and Teixeira has been hurt.
• Soriano has been Soriano, which means he may hit a bunch of home runs any day now, but there will be multiple games in a row where it's a triumph for him to make contact.
• And oh by the way, C.C. Sabathia's transition to an old pitcher is now complete.

But they're cheap! Kendrys Morales! Make trades!

Yes, a $203 million payroll is practically Houston Astros-like. Clearly, they should have used more money on another first baseman/DH who's so good that he's still unemployed today (although, to be fair, the draft pick attached has a lot to do with that). And they can trade for more stars with their ... virtually non-existent farm system.

I can't stress the last point enough, and if you want to rip Cashman and the Yankees' front office for this, go ahead; I'll be right there with you. What player in the Yankees minor-league system is ready to be an everyday, contributing player in the major leagues right now? In 2015? In 2016? Whenever Gary Sanchez finally arrives? (I swear, for a catcher who's only 21, it seems like I've been hearing about Sanchez for about 10 years.)

Or would you rather trade Dellin Betances, who actually is homegrown (Congratulations Yankees, you got one!) and has been a revelation out of the bullpen?

Let me put it to you this way. It looks like the Red Sox have lost all faith in Will Middlebrooks, and he's likely to go down in history as the guy who got his girlfriend canned from her TV job. He's 25 years old, and if for some reason he wound up in New York (slim and no chance), he'd be the best young player in their organization right now.

So aside from presiding over a terrible farm system, Cashman's biggest mistake is that the players he signed, who were good players just last year, haven't worked out.

By all means, fire him for that.

Luis Suarez ... love him or hate him

"Imagine the tabloid fodder of Lindsay Lohan's life with Jennifer Lawrence's acting chops."

-- Wright Thompson, "Portrait of a serial winner"

Wright Thompson's wonderful piece for ESPN about Luis Suarez, from which the line above was taken, is actually one of three excellent sports stories I read today, the others being Alyson Footer's about the integration of Houston and the role the Astrodome played in it and Will Leitch's on ESPN's soccer coverage, which in its explanation of how both ESPN and NBC Sports Network cover soccer presents a guide that all sports television executives should heed.

I don't think I can both quickly and properly sum up Thompson's Suarez story, particularly without spoilers, so I'll suffice by saying that he builds around the search for details on an incident that may or may not have happened in Suarez's youth into an attempt to explain what makes him who he is, good and bad.

Seriously, read it, along with Footer and Leitch. You can thank me later.

But even before I read the piece, I've been thinking about how Suarez, as few others I can think of in sports, with the possible exceptions of Ray Lewis or Michael Vick, embodies the guiding principle of this blog ... that we are all hypocrites, that we are willing to forgive (or at least understand) people we like while condemning in those we don't. It applies in life as well as sports.

If the worst thing you could say about Luis Suarez was that he's a serial diver (another trait he shares with Lawrence ... falling down in public), that would be one thing. It's unsporting as hell, and I think it has given him a reputation as The Striker Who Cried Wolf, but diving isn't exactly committing assault on the pitch.

Except Suarez has done that ... twice. And not fists-or-feet-flying assault, but biting. Along with spitting, is there any nastier thing you can do.

And oh yeah ... he was also suspended for racially abusing Patrice Evra. I'm actually surprised that in the Suarez ledger, the biting, and not this, seems to be the first thing people think of.

I don't know if it's because the soccer world still doesn't get the problem of racism (this is only a clip, but I would recommend the "Real Sports" story about it on HBO if you can catch a replay), the argument in some quarters that "negrito" is not actually a racial slur in South America, because talking too much about it would also force an uncomfortable discussion of how the John Terry-Anton Ferdinand situation was handled or something else, but that's how it seems.

Yet much in the same way Ravens fans cheered for Lewis, Eagles fans cheered for Vick (and Jets fans may now) and Chelsea fans cheer for Terry, Liverpool fans (including myself) cheer for Suarez, even if we know in our heart of hearts that maybe we shouldn't.

Why?

Do you really have to ask?

Today's dumbest story in sports: all-England edition

So it turns out Liverpool won the Premier League after all ... provided you only count goals scored by English players.

Yes, the New York Times brings us some research showing that game-by-game, if you only counted the goals by English players, Liverpool would have cruised to the title by nine points over Southampton and 16 over Manchester United. I actually would have guessed at the result before reading, as Steven Gerrard, Daniel Sturridge, Glen Johnson, Raheem Sterling and Jordan Henderson give Liverpool a strong English contingent.

As for Manchester City, the actual champions, they would have been relegated with a record of one win against eight losses and 29 draws.

The whole exercise is pretty silly. For starters, it only accounts for goals scored, not goals stopped. As leaky as Liverpool's defense was, it would have been even worse without Simon Mignolet (a Belgian) in goal and central defenders Kolo Toure (Ivory Coast), Daniel Agger (Denmark), Mamadou Sakho (France) and Martin Skrtel (Slovakia), although I'm not sure how Skrtel's four own-goals would count on the ledger.

But more importantly, and seriously, it's just pointless. It would be like someone saying baseball is America's National Pastime so let's see who won the World Series by counting statistics garnered by Americans (although that would mean no David Ortiz or Koji Uehara, so maybe that's not such a bad idea).

The timing of posting the standings if only English goals count is fortuitous, though, in that it's not only the day after the Premier League season ends, but also the day the English World Cup roster was announced. From what I understand, the lack of English players in the Premier League and its international impact is a source of much hand-wringing, with various attempts to figure out how to make things better.

However, as The Secret Footballer pointed out, the Premier League is a business, and a highly successful one, based on getting the best players from around the world.

"That flagship policy (reaching the semifinals of Euro 2020 and winning the 2022 World Cup) is undermined by a multibillion-pound elephant at the other end of the table. It’s called the Premier League and it doesn’t care if England never win the World Cup again."

So there's no need to fantasize about what the standings would look like in a Premier League of only English players; it's not going to happen.

Plus, it's not like England's international record isn't all that stellar when most of the players in its top league were English. There's a reason why 1966 is a magical year there.

Liverpool, the sweet and the bitter

So bloody close, but yet so bloody far

If you just told a Liverpool fan these facts back in August:

• that the team would go from seventh in the Premier League to second, get back into the Champions League and take the title race down to the final day,
• that they would score more than 100 goals and play in an entertaining, crowd-pleasing manner,
• that Luis Suarez would go from being suspended and wanting out to leading the league in goals, teaming with Daniel Sturridge (once again, and I cannot say it enough, thank you Chelsea) to form the often-unstoppable SAS, signing a new contract and being named PFA Player of the Year,
• that they would not only sweep Manchester United, but that United would have such a terrible season that David Moyes would surpass Roy Hodgson at Liverpool in the pantheon of managerial hires that seemed to make sense at the time but turned out so, so wrong,
• that Brendan Rodgers, unlike Hodgson, would prove to be a brilliant hire who can't sign that new contract soon enough, 
• that Steven Gerrard would find a new home as a holding midfielder and in so doing revitalize his career,
• that Jordan Henderson would actually turn into a good player,
• that Raheem Sterling would start living up to his immense potential
• and that they would lay waste to Arsenal in a display that makes me want to have "How many do you want? HOW MANY DO YOU WANT?" as the ringtone on my phone ...

... he or she would be pretty pleased with how the campaign would go, right? I mean, sure, it would have been disappointing to not win it, but that's still a wonderful season.
However ... what that Liverpool fan wouldn't have known then, but would know now, is how close they were to taking the title. It actually would have been fairly preposterous had they pulled it off, as they would have had to improve upon their 2014 record of 15 wins, three draws and one loss either by eliminating the loss, making the loss a tie and winning one of the ties or winning two of the ties ... basically anything adding up to three or more points.
Yet it looked like they were going to do it. After all, following the 1-1 draw against West Bromwich Albion Feb. 2, Liverpool won 11 in a row through April 27. There was open talk about Liverpool winning the trophy, and The Guardian even ran a story profiling the 20 players that brought them to the cusp of the title.
Then Chelsea's Jose Mourinho parked the bus, Gerrard fell down, Demba Ba remembered for one of the few times this year that his job is to put balls in the back of the net ... and Liverpool effectively kissed the title goodbye. Losing a three-goal lead to Crystal Palace didn't help, either, but the Chelsea loss was the opening Manchester City needed, and they weren't going to lose again.
So the season, brilliant as it was, ends in the disappointment of knowing that a trophy was there for the taking but not taken. Sure, it's easy to say that Liverpool will be back, that the current players will improve, young players who weren't ready to crack the roster this year will earn places and that the team will make additional astute signings, particularly to address the lack of depth and leaky defense.
And maybe they will be, but nothing's guaranteed. This year, the possibility of a Liverpool title was getting a "Yeah, but," as in "Yeah, they might win the title, but their players are in better shape because they're not playing in Europe." Next year, Liverpool will be in the Champions League, which is obviously great, but it does tax the roster.
You also have to assume that Manchester City will continue to spend whatever it takes to win and that Chelsea will try to find strikers who can actually score goals. Everton showed signs of being really good this year. Maybe Tottenham Hotspur will finally figure it out. 
Arsenal actually topped the table for a long stretch before falling off, and Manchester United seemingly has too much talent to stay down long if they get the right manager (something I frequently remind my mate Gardner of when he's feeling too down about life). 
In other words, just because Liverpool had a great year this year, nothing is guaranteed for next year. It could be the last step toward a title, or as close as the club gets for a long time.
And the worst part is, there are no shortcuts. There is actually no one who will be able to say in August with any more certainty than a prediction that Liverpool hoists the trophy a year from now. It's a journey that kicks off in a few months and won't end for another year.
Let the next journey begin. 

A walk through the Garden

And there it is ... right down the street from my hotel.

I'm not a big "bucket list" type of guy. Sure, there are things I'd like to do, but I don't look at doing them as another item checked off.

But of the few things I'd like to do but haven't yet, going to an event at Madison Square Garden is near the top of that list. Not only is it in New York City with that famed, distinct architecture sitting right atop Penn Station, it has an aura that I struggled to define as I was thinking about it. 

What I came up with is that no matter the event -- Knicks, Rangers, the real Big East men's basketball tournament, concerts, wrestling (even the way wrestlers would walk to the ring looked different, entering from the side and with a shorter walk, seemingly into a mass of humanity) -- the Garden seems to fit the event, like there was never a more natural place for it. Nothing ever seems out of place.

As he so often does, Jeff Jacobs of the Hartford Courant got it just right before the Rangers and Flyers played in the seventh game of their playoff series Wednesday night.

Wow. Place looks different from the last time I was here for Michigan State-UConn.#game7 pic.twitter.com/7ZzEfZVSMD
— Jeff Jacobs (@jacobscourant) April 30, 2014

I had actually momentarily forgotten that this year's East Regional was at MSG, and not just because the NCAA, in its finite wisdom, continues to insist on generic floors. For on Wednesday, the Garden was a hockey arena hosting a massive game that had the whole city buzzing.

Mrs. Last Honest and I spent a few days in New York this week, staying at the New Yorker hotel right down the street from the arena. While we didn't go to the Rangers-Flyers game (we were supposed to see the Yankees and Mariners that night, a game washed away by the all-day and all-night rain, and I wasn't up to spending the hundreds of dollars it would have taken to go to the hockey game), we did take a tour the previous day.

Wow ... just wow.

The tour wasn't perfect. I understand the guide (who was actually delightful, plus she was working off a format, anyway) was trying to inform us about the renovations at MSG, but I really don't care about tile patterns or the high-class offerings in the food court. Also, if there is going to be a stop for people to have their photos taken with hockey sticks or basketballs, it should be before or after the tour and not in the middle, and people shouldn't have to get their picture taken if they don't want to.

All these did was take time away from what people wanted ... which was to be in the arena.

It's always exciting to walk into a stadium or an arena, but there are some that are more meaningful than others. As I was sitting there, listening to our guide talk about how the rink is put together and the changeover from hockey to basketball, there was only one thing I could think of.

I'm in Madison Square Garden. I'm in Madison. Square. Garden.

Now I just have to get to a game there someday.