President Obama recently lamented the resistance to his stimulus package by wondering, "What do they think a stimulus is?  It's spending."  I thought it was a concerted effort to stimulate the economy.  The portion of the equation we stress is up for debate.  Do we stabilize the currency by keeping the money supply stagnant and controlling spending?  This would set market interest rates, as opposed to Fed-forced low rates which intend to give more money to bad borrowers.  Or do we print money for short term spending, hoping the next guy takes it on the chin when it's time to pay it back?  I'm still waiting to find someone willing to be "the next guy."

Our Nation has spent.  It is spent.  The spending is designed to show growth.  With growth, comes the desire for more growth.  Eventually, the bill is due.  Now is eventually, but the solutions seem to be tailor-made for 2002.  We must show growth.  If we don't show growth, then our elected officials must not be doing anything.

Sports teams like growth.  They love season ticket waiting lists.  People waiting means that the price can be raised.  Any balkers are pushed aside for those who feel priviledged to pay the higher price.

Most Major League teams, as noted on this blog space, have excercised smarter cost policies.  Payrolls are down.  Some teams have marketed themselves better with creative ticket packages.  Revenue sharing from new revenue streams has teams in an okay position to weather the storm.

As noted on this space before, the NFL got their season in before most of this fit hit the shan.  So the NFL needs to learn a lesson.  The NFL needs to protect its properties.  The shield is no bunker.

One NFL team has stuck to its bi-annual policy of raising ticket prices.  The Ravens cite 15% increases in salaries and benefits as the need to stay with this strategy.  Keeping prices and payroll in the top third are seen as critical to staying relevant.

The modern NFL has a lot of costly extravagance.  New stadiums complete with skyboxes were nice in 2002, when companies were willing to dump tens of thousands of dollars of profits into sports.  Frankly, this fat can be trimmed.  Teams should scale back on their circa 2002 business model to weather this current storm.  2009 will be interesting to see if any franchises wind up learning this lesson.

Is there any topic in sports that breeds more misinformation than steroids?  What's worse is that it's the paid professionals who spread it.  On the radar today is ESPN's Rece Davis, and 980's Kevin Sheehan.

Davis took on the Hall of Fame topic.  He took the let'em all in, or let no one in angle.  Halls of Fame are fickle organizations loosely affiliated with their respective leagues.  I have a feeling that there are athletes not in their HOF with far more trivial transgressions than steroids.  I'm not sure why Davis is demanding a steroids exemption.  If Murray Chass wants to exclude anyone from the HOF, that's his deal.  If John Heyman wants to vote for Jay Bell, also his deal (not saying he did, but someone did)

The rationalization we often hear for the all or none philosophy is that juiced batters were hitting off juiced pitchers.  Everyone was doing it.  Doesn't that sound like loser talk?  It's like these NORMaL folks who are bashing Kelloggs for signing Michael Phelps when they knew a DUI was on his record, and dropping him after THE photo.  "Beer is more dangerous, blah blah."  It's all about picking and choosing what best rationalizes our behavior (or the behavior of those we hero worship).

If 1200 people had Major League contracts in 2003, then 8.6% were deemed in violation of the substance abuse policy.  We don't know the other 103 names on the list.  I am confident that there are HOF worthy players in the group of 1097.  Also doesn't this strike the heart of that rationalization?  There was so much pressure to do it.  Maybe it's like teh sexxorz in college - you assumed everyone was getting three times as much as you were, so you turned into a hound to catch up (or maybe that was just me).  Come to find out, you were in the same boat as the others all along.

****

Mr Sheehan is in a different part of the "I don't care" camp.  Sheehan is one of these folks who thinks misters Bonds and Rodriguez are being treated unfairly.  After all, it wasn't until 2004 that they did anything wrong in the eyes of baseball.

sceechftwwhiskeytangofoxtrot!@!@!@!@@

That's how you type a needle straking across a record.  If you hold the belief that these people did nothing outsie the rules, or the belief that people's outrage is part of some moralistic crusade, listen up.  STEROIDS HAVE BEEN BANNED FROM BASEBALL SINCE 1991.

I'm going to repeat that, because it bears repeating.  STEROIDS HAVE BEEN BANNED FROM BASEBALL SINCE 1991.  Faye Vincent even sent a memo on the matter whilst commissioner.  Steroids have been banned since 1991.  Here, I'm not just being an Internet blowhard:

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/articles/2009/02/10/a_rod_admits_steroid_use

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2006/03/steroids_were_b.html

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3153509

Testing didn't begin until recently, because it had never been collectively bargained.  It doesn't mean the rule didn't exist.  Radio rules are broken everyday.  For example, Howard Stern only incurred fines when the FCC responded to complaints.  There are rules set by the SEC for insider trading.  It happens every day without bells and whistles.  Then there's speeding and jaywalking.

So what's the big deal about players using roids?  It's cheating.  It has been cheating since 1991.

For a few years, an occasional aroma of maple syrup has clouded New York City.  At first, there was concern.  Between 9/11, Anthrax, and playing the percentages on loonies, anything is possible.  After a while, it was written off as a nuisance.  People weren't dropping dead.  Now the mystery has been solved.  And before clicking this link, I knew what the answer would be.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090206/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_newyork_odor

Look New York, you got your football teams back.  You already have a NBA team (nominally speaking).  Now you want to take the Nets and put'em in Brooklyn.  I'm sure you'd love to move the Devils to Yonkers if you could.  Isn't that enough pennance for the whole "taking away the Statue of Liberty" thing?  Why this?  What have they done to you, New York?

They scored more points. 

Okay seriously, let's do a breakdown of Sunday's events.  The Steelers had surrendered 300 yards to an opponent only once.  On Sunday, they surrendered 400.  Though the usually efficient (speaking long-term here) rush attack was held to 105 YPG this season, the Steelers fifty-eight yard effort on Sunday had to frustrate terrible towel waving fans, used to seeing Steeler football.

So if the bread and butter (rushing and defense), fell on the floor Sunday, how did the Steelers emerge victorious?  It's actually a concept that can be applied to most games.  It is the concept of hidden yardage.  Hidden yardage has been attributed to Bill Parcells, who stated that teams winning this battle by 100 yards, generally win games.

The Cardinals held a 407-292 statistical advantage in yardage.  Kurt Warner threw for 374 yards, giving him the three greatest throwing totals in Super Bowl history.  The Steelers, buoyed by a dominant (though low-scoring) opening frame, held the TOP advantage.  That said, when a playmaker like Larry Fitzgerald is on the field, TOP is meaningless.

Let's look at the numbers when factoring in the hidden yardage.  On interceptions, Jerome Harrison scampered 100 yards for a score.  In fact, they held a 100-(-1) advantage in this department.  The Cardinals, with one extra return due to a safety, grabbed a 125-85 advantage in kick returns.  The Steelers, as custom, obtained a 106-56 advantage in penalty yardage. 

Add to the teams' statistical totals, the advantages each team held in hidden yardage categories.  The Steelers wound up covering 443 yards in their favor to the Cardinals 447.  Factoring in the hidden yardage explains the close game more than the low-hanging fruit numbers that are often quoted.  In Super Bowl XLIII, the Steelers had a hidden yard advantage of 111 yards.  If Bill Parcells did in fact come up with this metric, he should be hailed for finding the Atlantis of winning football games.

In November, the voters of the State of Maryland approved slot machines to be installed for the "primary purpose" of funding education.  The ancillary benefit would be to make Maryland's sports and entertainment industry competetive with the likes of Delaware, West Virginia, and even Pennsylvania.  After all, we must save the Preakness.

The proposed law came right to the mailbox.  No need to trek to the library and dust off an old book penned by Warren Berger.  I read it whilst waiting for my dinner to cook.  When I read it, I laughed.  I told my wife, "The way they wrote this, it makes Arundel Mills [mall complex] a likely site.  They want us to think it's going to Laurel [racetrack]." 

Alas, proposals were received by the State.  The site receiving more than one proposal?  Arundel Mills Mall.  For the record, I voted for the measure.  I'm ambivolent about the fact it's going near the mall.  When did the mall become sacred ground from which our vices should be spared?  What gets me is the incredulity expressed by neighbors (who likely voted for it), and even...my favorite...the Governor of Maryland.

Either Martin O'Malley knew this would happen all along, and he could play Sargent Schultz, or he does not own a map of the State he governs.  By the way, the mall is in Anne Arundel County, which houses Annapolis.  So really, a map of the county would have sufficed.  Know your own backyard before speaking out on others.  (This man, as mayor of Baltimore, criticized the last Governor on Homeland Security issues related to the Port of Baltimore.  Naturally, his city has violence, drug, and blight issues).

As with any Economy Watch Wednesday, this aside brings me to the sports world.  Specifically, it brings me to Roger Goodell.  The administration of Goodell has made Paul Tagliabue look like Pete Rozelle.  His ability to give conflicting answers in the same presser is either buffoonery or pure genius.  After all, if we can't get to the core of his beliefs, we can't pin him down on anything (hmmmm, familiar).

The NFL has been the least hit by the recession.  NFL season tickets were paid for before the September collapse.  The season ended before anyone compounded it with $819, $825, $900 billion in new debt.  The TV deal still has some legs, and the eight game season can be written off as "a vice I can still afford."

I have previously stated that the NFL has some economic issues.  We worship at the altar of the shield, but what do we make of franchises like Cincinnati, Detroit, and Jacksonville?  Home blackouts are here.  Seat "tarpouts" are a reality in Jacksonville.

Then there is the matter of labor peace.  The 2010 season stands to be an uncapped year.  This could put Dallas, New England, and Washington in an arms race that only Reagan and Gorbachev could settle.  Franchises that thrive in an era of revenue sharing and expense control (Indianapolis, Green Bay, Carolina) may return to the days of Lindy Infante.

On top of that was the October story word that the NFL was trying to secure lines of credit at Bank of America, with their current (and quite favorable) loan structure about to term out.  The response to the additional interest costs seems to be layoffs.  The number was somewhere around 150 at last glance.

It is said that one of those 150 is NFL Films guru Steve Sabol.  If it's true, then we are headed for darker times in the NFL.  Granted, Steve Sabol isn't the litmus test for economic success in sports.  But Sabol has done more for this league - that shield - than Goodell.  Phrases like "Ghost to the Post," "Immaculate Reception," or "Miracle at the Meadowlands" mean nothing without NFL Films. 

Take a look at another NFL property, the NFL Network.  How many hours of "Total Access" can be viewed before it's time to see something else?  What drives the content of that something else?  NFL Films drives it.  Those team videos that adrenaline infused fans purchase after a good season?  NFL Films drives it.  The mythos through which we mentally view the glory of the NFL?  NFL Films drives it.

Goodell, before addressing everything on such a grand stage, know your own backyard.