Tank's Take July 11, 2003

Mixed Signals and Bad Messages

This new fangled idea of having the MLB All-Star Game winner decide which league has home field in the World Series is pot marked with many inconsistencies in the game itself.

First they say the game is for the fans, but at the same time they want meaning to the game and make it important. These are two ideas that are almost diametrically opposed to each other. First if you want the game to have any meaning then you strip it of any idea of being an exhibition game, and thus you must keep the best players in the game. However, the fans want to see everyone play and thus an effort has to be made to get everyone into the game, but doing so could risk the game and thus home field in the World Series.

The new All-Star Game is being hyped up as being of the up most of importance and everyone has gone into a hissy fit with Toronto Blue Jays Manager Carlos Tosca requesting that his ace pitcher Roy Halladay not be used in the game. This may be unfair to Halladay, but if Halladay is ok with not going to the All-Star Game then nobody should be in an uproar the All-Star Game is still an exhibition game right? At least that's what they say its for the fans a showcase, but the new policy adds importance but everyone must get in and there is a sense if a player does not enter the game he is being ripped off.

However, even if getting home field for the World Series is important for it to be important to the Blue Jays they must get into the playoffs and with a terrible start in July they could be at a critical point in their season and having Halladay start before and after the All-Star Break could just jump start their season and get them back on track.

While saying the All-Star Game is important now so important Roy Halladay missing the game is a crime against the American League, they conflict themselves by requiring every team to be represented in the All-Star Game. So while pitchers David Wells, Pedro Martinez and Marino Rivera, are sitting home, while Lance Carter is on the American League team.

Lance Carter who? Isn't he in a boy band? No, he just plays for a team that resembles a boy band the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, but they must send an All-Star so he must go.

This means even the pathetic 24-65 Detroit Tigers must have an All-Star. In the case of the Tigers Dmitri Young was chosen. Young despite the Tigers struggles is having a solid year, but not an All-Star season. Who should go Young from the awful Tigers or Rafael Palmeiro who has 20 HR and hit his 500th career HR in May?

Meanwhile in the NL Mike Williams of the Pirates is going while Florida Marlins dynamic rookie Dontrelle Willis is left home. The All-Star Game is the perfect place to showcase a young star like Willis.

This is not saying bad teams should not have All-Stars Melvin Mora of the awful Baltimore Orioles is leading the AL in hitting Alex Rodriguez continues to star for the last place Texas Rangers. However, nobody on the New York Mets or San Diego Padres have had distinctive seasons deserving of an All-Star spot specifically not Armando Benitez who blew 5 saves in April to dig the last place Mets a deep hole.

When the All-Star Game was first started their were only 8 teams in each league so it was easy to get a representative form each team. However now that there are 16 teams in the NL and 14 in the AL its just dose not seem right anymore. In theory it's nice to get every team an All-Star, but when it comes at the expense of a deserving All-Star then it is a failed idea, and one whose time has come to be done away with. The MLB All-Star Game is the only one that requires every team to be represented the NHL, NFL and NBA have long discovered that doing so is in direct conflict of the idea of having the best players at the game.

They say the game is for the fans but yet baseball fails to capitalize on great situations, and thus 300-game winner Roger Clemens is not an All-Star. Fox Sports whose historical idea of baseball even recognizes the fact he should be on the team, since he is pitching in his final season. Yet MLB leaves him off saying the game is too important for sentimentality, but isn't that exactly what the fans want. Sentimentality does not necessarily mean a weak spot one may only look back 2 years when Cal Ripken won the game MVP despite having far from All-Star numbers in his final midseason classic.

All this being said it is clear the idea of having the All-Star Game winner decide home field in the World Series. True the old way was not the best idea with it rotating yearly, perhaps the fairest solution would be to have the team with the better record have home field like in every other sport. However, can you imagine the home team winning Game 7 in extra innings, and the thing that decided who hosted Game 7 was the pitching of Lance Carter?

What will be the next move with so many conflicts it is just a bad idea in reaction to last year's embarrassing tie in Milwaukee when both sides ran out of pitchers. The only thing that should have been done to prevent that was adding 2 extra spots for pitchers who could not be used until the 10th inning. Both would still be All-Stars but they would have to understand they are there for emergency purposes, and is there anything wrong with that? But of course they say you must get everyone n and thus the cycle goes on.

Oh for the days when the All-Star Game was just the All-Star Game and nobody tried to lump any more on it. Truth be told, part of the reason behind the new rules is to bring interest back to the game. However, with cable watering choices down and players being seen on ESPN nightly its just not a big deal any more, in addition watching the All-Star Game on Fox means Joe Buck doing play by play and that does not attract viewers either. In fact after 6 innings of his moronic mind numbing banter with Tim McCarver who thinks every fan is watching their first ever game, fans being looking for the clicker or long for the days of play by play on the radio.

While MLB sends mixed signals the NBA continues to send out the wrong messages. When asked last week over hyped rookie LeBron James said he holds more allegiance to his $90 million sponsor Nike then his team the Cleveland Cavaliers What is perhaps most distressing is nobody batted an eye at such an outrageous statement. James who is entering the NBA and being called the savior of the NBA needs to pay his dies before being able to comment and what is most important to him.

Meanwhile top free agent Jason Kidd, has some nerve tell the New Jersey Nets its me or Coach Byron Scott. What a situation to put the team in. Though both sides have denied such a demand was made, the idea of it puts Nets management between a rock and a hard place. Without Kidd the Nets sink back into mediocrity, but should a player have that much power? It's perplexing. I say the Nets have to resign him and fire Scott, because if Kidd is gone the Nets will fall and Scott would be fired any way. However, the idea a player has this much power is wrong, and with LeBron's statement that he holds his basketball allegiance to Nike shows it will likely get worse.

However, players holding more power then their coach and team is just the tip of the iceberg, as players seem to be arrested on a daily basis. True players can get in some hot water and can be targets at times, the sheer numbers of arrest has to be of concern to the NBA as 3 players were busted over the 4th of July Weekend.

Not surprising one of those players Damon Stoudimire plays for the Portland Trailblazers, a team that has had more players in jail, for at least a night over the last 6 years then any other team. The Stoudimire arrest is the 31st incident involving a player from the Blazers, who have earned the nickname "Jailbalzers," since 1997. However, despite the embarrassment of 14 different players in and out of trouble with the law the Blazers organization has yet to take serious action about changing the team's image.

Another of the players arrested last weekend was a big surprise as Kobe Bryant was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault. A few weeks ago a marketing director said Kobe Bryant had trouble selling shoes because of the lack of "street cred." If he wanted to sell shoes this is the wrong way to go about it. However, as usual in these cases Kobe will likely get away with it weather he is guilty or not, and will now have to so called "street cred".

The term street cred entered the NBA lexicon last summer when Allen Iverson's jersey sales and sneaker sales shot through the roof after he was arrested. This has to be disturbing for not only the NBA, but all of society as well. In the past being arrested was embarrassing it could have thrown your life and career into peril, now its something to be honored, by those in the hip-hop culture.

The mere fact that many youths in America actually see going to jail as a badge of honor is troubling, and can literally bring about the down fall of Western Civilization. Ten years ago Charles Barkley made controversial commercial saying "He was not a role model". Sadly he was wrong NBA players are role model, and thus they should try to make a good example for their communities and the young fans who idolize them. In the hip hop culture that idolizes lawbreaker and anti social rappers like Eminem and 50 cent. We don't need NBA players like Allen Iverson being put on a pedestal for breaking the law. How about putting Tim Duncan 2-time MVP on a pedestal? Clearly the wrong message is being sent out hear.

Clearly the NBA needs to do something the hip-hop culture can bring down the league if they are not careful. The lack of good play and fundamental play is another side effect with players trying to make highlights rather then playing good fundamental basketball. This has put the US Basketball Program into peril with European players entering the league with more game skills, and a better understanding of how to play solid fundamental basketball.

The NBA needs to take a hard look at itself and decide how to clean up its image, and to do so they must promote the players who are good guys on and off the court. How many Tim Duncan commercials do you see on TV? It is time the NBA showcase its top citizens and top players differently. One change that must be made is the current Nike ad where players are pushing each other and bumping each other in a gym. That sends the wrong message too; it says that hot-dogging is what should be honored, further ruining the ideals of fundamental basketball. If the course is not corrected we can send all the Dream Teams to the Olympics we want we will never win another gold medal.

The NBA is not alone in embracing the hip-hop culture, MLB markets to this rouge element almost as much as the NBA. Much of this culture has a gang element, and MLB markets to this group by marketing of colored hats. A red Yankees hat or multicolored Yankees hat does not mean the one who wears it is in a gang, but when a group is wearing them then you know something is up. Sports cant help when their regular logos become gang insignias, but when they adjust colors so more gangs would be interested in buying it they are putting profits a head of society, and embracing this culture.

This is a culture that should be shunned and not embraced, true not every rap music fan is a criminal, but when a players marketability is increased by being arrested alarm bells should be sounding. Street Cred will get you nowhere, and the more mainstream this idea gets the worse things will get for our society, and professional sports must start taking efforts to make sure they are not sending out the wrong messages.