It just isn't done.

There are things you just can't tolerate.  The country next to you getting nuclear weapons before you do.  Your daughter marrying someone who is known by a single name (except to the authorities in Georgia who have accumulated much more detailed biographical information).  Rain the day after you mowed the lawn.

And, apparently, losing to the United States Naval Academy football team.

Notre Dame lost to Navy 23-21 the other day.  In South Bend.  As the Shakespearian crowd says, "treble woe".

As they say among the Irish faithful, "Fire Charlie Weis".

Then again, they say that alot anyway.

As a Navy fan since the days of Roger Staubach (I think I watched the Cotton Bowl from inside my crib, but I do remember it), it's a bit annoying.

Why are fans so shocked when Navy wins?  And why do they treat it as some sort of indication the world has been turned upside down?

A few weeks back it was Wake Forest.  In a driving rain storm in Annapolis the Midshipmen won a tight game against an ACC team which hardly the 1985 Chicago Bears.  For that matter, Wake this season wouldn't match up well against the Yogi Bears. 

There was the predictable outrage on the internet.

"How can we lose to a team running a gimmick offense?"  "How could we lose to Navy?" 

Actually it's quite easy.  You simply fail to stop the fullback, give up the occasional "Oh, no, they're actually throwing deep" deep pass, and get outhustled by a highly disciplined group of over achievers who don't know they are supposed to lose.

As for the triple option, if it were such an unfair advantage why doesn't everyone run it?  Probably because it requires split second timing, complete avoidance of penalties, and sublimation of egoes.  Not to mention that if you get behind more than a touchdown and you are sunk.

Still, Navy has accumulated 7 wins against three losses running the triple.  Paul Johnson, the former Navy coach, took Georgia Tech to 9-1 running it with a win against Wake Forest (how well that must sit with Deacon fans). 

The world hums along.  Navy will close with Delaware, Hawaii, and Army and go to a second tier bowl.  The Army game carries the potential for a dog fight.  Despite a 3-6 record, Army is much improved and anything can happen in an Army-Navy game.

Charlie Weis?  He'll get to stay unless the wheels fall off.  What the administration at Notre Dame understands, but their fans don't, is that BCS bowl teams are built in Florida, Texas, and California and those players aren't rushing to middle America to play football. 

Weis will develop, and Notre Dame will again develop, into a good coach and team combination.  But not one which annually competes for the national championship.

Or automatically beats Navy.

When empires fall it is from excess, not want.

So it will be with the New York Yankees, who are sowing the seeds of their own destruction with a 1 million payroll.

Baseball has always been a sport of great teams, especially great New York teams.  They have built baseball's traditions, expanded the fan base, fed the media.  So it isn't a bad thing to see the Yankees winning.

But not by spending million above the next closest competitor.  Not by eliminating the Orioles, Rays, and Blue Jays before the season starts.  Not by driving up the price of tickets throughout baseball by setting arbitration salary standards out of reach of many teams.  Not by creating "the Yankee contract" as the ultimate goal of stars under 27 years old, depriving the teams which developed those players of any chance of retaining them.

This is where we are at.

$75 million is the salary base to make the playoffs.  The Twins are the only exception this season and they'll be gone faster than the memory of summer on a cold, October night.  Unless the Phillies return to the World Series, it will cost 0 million plus to play the final games of the season.

A family of four must spend well in excess of 0 for a night at the ball park.  Some will pay, but go less often.  Some will stop going.  A quick look at attendance this years says the downward spiral has started.

It is a foregone conclusion Joe Mauer of the Twins, the best young talent in the American League, will command at least a million a year contract after 2010 and will be the center of a bidding war between the Yankees and RedSox.  The Twins and Mauer will say the right things about a return to the twin cities, but it isn't going to happen.

In a weak free agent year, the Yankees could turn over some free agents of their own like Matsui, Damon, and Petitte and restock with the likes of Jason Bay, Matt Halliday, or John Lackey, making 2010 the second year in a row the Yankees have drained the pool of marquee free agents.  While the economy limits the number of bidders, the Yankees could upgrade at several positons without adding huge amounts of salary.

Then there are potential 2011 free agents like Carl Crawford and Roy Halliday.  Adding Halliday to the Yankees rotation is almost a nuclear option.  After cornering the market on marquee free agent pitchers in 2009 with Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, it is hard to imagine the Yankees adding a pitcher.  But Yankee paranoia about the RedSox pursuing Halliday could put him in pinstripes in 2010.

If the Yankees make even two or three of these plays, where does that leave baseball?  The economy and attendance are in decline, arbitration will keep salaries high, and the public will be in a surly mood over Yankee imperialism in the AL East.

The current collective bargaining agreement will expire in late 2011.  Baseball owners will be under pressure to make changes in free agency.  Yankee domination will increase demands for change. 

If the economy stays bad, and I believe it will, we will see deep divisions among owners and ultimately attempts to negotiate a salary cap.  So much money will be lost in smaller markets the next two seasons, there will be owners hoping against hope for a long lockout.

the Yankees aren't the only reason we'll likely see a prolonged strike in 2012, but they are a big part of why we may end up with some form of a cap.  Bad for baseball (witness the pariocrity of the NFL) and worse for the Yankees.

We can hope the Steinbrenner family excercises some common sense and judgement during the off season.  Maybe they won't vulture the cream of a limited free agent crop.  Perhaps they won't get into insane bidding wars with the RedSox.

Who believes that?

The Yankees would argue, and not without some logic, that the problem is with the industry model and not their spending.  If there is not enough talent available, if some teams can't compete, the answer is obvious.  Let them go out of business.  Fewer teams with the same number of players equals lower salaries and better competition.

Baseball won't buy that.  The powers that be will come up up with some Rube Goldberg version of a cap. 

The MLBPA won't buy into a cap.  Then comes the strike, then comes a lost season, and then?

Maybe a cap so severe it will be the end of the Yankees as we know them.

Which won't be fine.

They just don't get it.

There are many reasons to watch sports.  One is, it's not politics.

Rush Limbaugh on Monday Night Football?  Bad idea that didn't last long.  Keith Olbermann on the Sunday Night Special?  Worse idea not going away any time soon.

Olberrmann and Limbaugh have in common the ability to turn serious issues into a carnival sideshow.  They also share legions of detractors.  Which meant when Limbaugh was on Monday nights it took away from the enjoyment of half the audience.

Olbermann offends the other half.

Did anyone watch Monday Night Football because of Limbaugh?  Is anyone tuning into Sunday Night Football who wouldn't, just to hear Olbermann?

Not very likely.

So what's the point?

Cross promotion.  The idea that maybe someone will watch Olbermann, enjoy his schtick, and end up watching MSNBC.  Anything to get some kind of a buzz going for a network with lots of ink and not so many viewers.

Watching Olbermann reminds you of the great movie "A Face In The Crowd".  Andy Griffith, in a deadly serious role early in his career, played a huckster who parlayed an image as a good old boy into a national radio program and enough power to influence public opinion.  Enough, as it turned out, to turn him into a loathesome creature consumed with the sound of his own voice.

Griffith's character, "Lonesome Rhodes" eventually was so consumed by his own narcissism he became a parody of himself.  Olbermann is well on his way to being a Saturday Night Live sketch.

On the Andy Warhol Fifteen Minutes of Fame Scale, Olbermann is at 14 minutes and thirty seconds.

But will NBC pull the plug?

Not yet, not until he crosses the line and starts pontificating about politics during his pregame show, or makes some statement so far beyond the pale as to end up in the national headlines.

Let it be quick.

My politics are hard to define.  I happen to think the country functions best when the two parties are pushing against each other in a battle of ideas from which some general consensus often emerges.

In all honesty, my biggest wish for politicians is that they would follow the physicians oath and simply "Do No Harm".  That, alas, is not going to happen.  Most of the problems we face in this country are a result of politicians either ignoring what they should fix, or trying to fix what they should ignore.

Come the weekend the chattering classes usually take a rest from their mischief and leave the rest of us to enjoy sports.  We don't need them, or members of their clown show entourage, turning up on our TV screens.

Olbermann must go.

The hallowed halls of Cooperstown.

Nice turn of phrase.  If you're a major league player they are one of the things you play for.  A chance to join to legends. 

Which is also the argument against people like Mark McGwire joining the Hall.  How can we put a cheat into this shrine to the immortals.

Easy.

The same way baseball put Ray Schalk in.

If you ever saw the great movie "8 Men Out" you know, or think you know, Ray Schalk.  The tough as nails little catcher who saw what was going on during the fixed 1919 World Series and nearly fought his crooked pitchers to stop it.  Old school integrity.

Schalk caught for eighteen seasons, but only 12 where he played as many as 100 games.  Put up the following numbers:

11-594-177-.253.

You read it correctly.  11 home runs, 594 RBI, 177 steals, and a .253 average.

In fairness, Schalk was a very good catcher, rated one of the best of his era.  He lead the American League in fielding percentage for eight seasons and caught four no hitters.

Which makes him an early 20th century version of Jeff Torborg, but hardly Hall of Fame material.  Yet, there he was in 1955 getting his plaque in Cooperstown.  And no matter how much you value his defense, no matter how much credit you give him for trying to stop his teammates from throwing the World Series, you still come back to the same question.

What is Ray Schalk doing in the Hall of Fame?

The answer may go back to 1917.  Baseball players were under the reserve clause and without the leverage of today's free agency they worked for fractions of their value to teams.  If a player challenged the contract he was offered, owners often sent back another lower offer.  Players were bound for life to one team and treated like chattel.

Trying to fight the system, players formed a "Player's Fraternity" in 1912.  It was not a formal union, but it was recognized by the National Association (the primary baseball management group).  It achieved limited improvements in player conditions and focused much of it's attention on conditions in the minor leagues.

In 1917 the fraternity asked it's players to sign pledges not to sign contracts or report to spring training until it released them to do so.  At issue was the "Ten Day Rule" which said teams did not have to pay injured players after they were unavailable for ten days.  

Momentum was behind the players until some began to break ranks.  The first two included Ray Schalk, who had refused to sign the pledge.  Ultimately the attempt failed and emboldened management to refuse future dealings with the fraternity.

Owners like Charles Comiskey of the WhiteSox had the upper hand and played it out to the hilt.  Despite having the best team in baseball, Comiskey paid about sixty cents on the dollar for talent.  Which played a big part in why his players sold out themselves and the game to gamblers in 1919.

Schalk got a day in his honor in 1920 from Comiskey.  Late in his career, ever loyal, he offered to play one last season for a substantial pay cut.  Comiskey rewarded his loyalty by knocking his offer down even lower.  Schalk retired, but later came back to manage the WhiteSox for two seasons.

Then in 1927, Swede Risberg of the "Black Sox" appeared before Commissioner Landis and testified that in 1917 the Sox had gotten together $1100 cash to give to Detroit players to roll over during a pivotal four game series late in the season.  Risberg specifically mentioned Schalk as having contributed to the fund.

How does this relate to a .253 hitting defensive specialist getting a plague alongside Ruth, Cobb, Speaker, Gehrig, Williams, DiMaggio, Mantle, and Mays? 

The Hall of Fame Veterans Committee which elected Schalk didn't have but a single player on it in 1955.  It included the presidents of the American and National Leagues, the minor's Internation League, the secretary of baseball, Branch Rickey (Pirates GM), and three writers.

Harridge was assistant to the American League President back in 1917 when Schalk helped derail the developing strike against baseball.  The others, excepting the writers and former player Charlie Gerringer, were all closely associated with the powers who ran baseball.  And, in 1953 the players had just organized the MLB Player's Association.  There can be little doubt Harridge remembered Schalk's loyalty, or that the others appreciated it.

Was the fix in for Schalk?

Nobody can say for sure.  But it certainly is easier to believe than accepting that a punchless catcher, even one as gifted defensively as Schalk, found his way into the Hall of Fame purely on merit. 

And, you may ask, what is your point?

Simply this.  The idea that the Hall of Fame is so pristine in purity it cannot tolerate the likes of Mark McGwire or Barry Bonds, or Pete Rose or Joe Jackson for that matter, seems a bit absurd.

Ray Schalk was not a bad man.  He sized up life and followed where his conscience lead.  No doubt many steroid users did the same.  We can question them, and Schalk, with 20-20 hindsight.

The Baseball Hall of Fame is alot of things to alot of people.  But if you're going to keep certain players out based on the idea that everyone already in Cooperstown got there without politics and is beyond reproach, you would be mistaken.

Of that I'm at least .253 percent sure.

Fire the coach!

I wanted to be the first to say it, but it's probably too late.  Already there are "dead coach walking" lists all over the internet.

Al Groh of UVA seems to be at the top of most lists.  0-2 after losing to Texas Christian today, William & Mary last week. By most objective criteria, Groh has not achieved a great deal in Charlottesville.

Well, except he has a great deal.  In Charlottesville.

Roughly $1.7 million a season through 2011.

And there's the rub.  How do you fire a coach who is into you for that much money, the year after UVA spent $2.1 million to part ways with basketball coach Dave Leitao?

Firing Groh would be the responsibility of Athletic Director Craig Littlepage.  Which would force Littlepage to walk that long last mile to tell the nice folks at the Virginia Athletic Foundation that large sums of money must be advanced to buy out the coach whose contract he extended after the 2007 season.

How would that conversation go?

"I had the right vision for UVA football and basketball.  It was all coming together.  And then it didn't.  So, I'll need you to dig just a little deeper...."

At which point the VAF will probably begin to wonder how much it would cost to buy out Littlepage.  Which is probably a question which should be asked.

Craig Littlepage isn't exactly Bernie Madoff, but he's done a reasonable imitation, promising unrealistic returns on investment.  Like Madoff's ponzi scheme, the investors in UVA athletics have come to realize the money is gone with little to show for it.

Groh's extension was tied to a vision of national championship contention.  Littlepage sold that vision, which is probably not achievable at UVA, with or without Al Groh as head coach.

Simply put, Charlottesville is not a destination location for the type of players needed to put UVA into one of the major bowls.  There is not history of success, no more of a pipeline to the NFL than other ACC schools, and the ACC itself is not a marquee football conference. 

Could another coach change that?  Butch Davis at UNC is a close comparison, and while Davis is moving Carolina in the right direction it is a multi-year project with no guarantee of anything more than the Top 20.

And Al Groh is no Butch Davis.  A good offensive mind, an experienced coach, someone who should consistently win eight to ten games a season.  But not a national title.

Where does that leave UVA?

With an AD who probably can't pull the trigger, but may be fired himself.  And with a coach who will probably ride out the season before getting a golden parachute from the VAF. 

And lots of unrealized dreams.