Texsox

NFL being rocked by a pay to lose scandal and racist hiring practices MLB Lockout NHL Blackhawks scandal Olympics in China MLB Steroids still in the news Minority hiring in about every league I'm thinking this is the lowest point for self inflicted problems in American sports in my lifetime. I'm thinking of the Munich Olympics and thinking that's the worst single moment in my lifetime, but the sheer number of self inflicted issues today is horrible.

Wait, the side that has shown the least flexibility is calling for a mediator? The side that waited how many days to make a proposal?

The infuriating thing is the changes they have to make are basically to just do the right thing. How difficult is it to say we won't tolerate illegal, immoral, or unethical behavior at any level of this organization ever again and will constantly monitor our organization for signs of those behaviors. We've hired an outside investigation or law firm, without ties to the organization or the NHL, to conduct annual, confidential interviews, with all employees. These same investigators have established a 24 hour reporting system that all employees will have access to without fear of retaliation. That took me all of five minutes to think of. The Hawks can't be just above average in fighting this.They have to be the absolute #1 organization in stopping this kind of behavior and turn themselves into the model for other teams to emulate and even then they aren't free and clear. That's just the beginning. But Rocky's seemingly arrogance and lack of compassion and understanding is breathtaking in it's inappropriateness.

The unknown is what competitive balance leads to. Basically no one wants to see a 100 win team and a 55 win team anymore, we want those wins to be redistributed. What spread does that lead to? Let's take the AL east from last year and take away 24 wins from the top teams and give them to Baltimore. After TB 94 Bos / NY 86 Tor 85 Balt 76 If every division looked like that would we perhaps want 14 teams? The three division winners receive a bye week at the end of the season (last week in September) while the four runner ups play to a winner. (Two three game series) Or top two in each division and one wild card. Again using last year Bos v. Cleveland* and Yankees v. Seattle After those two winners play off that winner would have played Tampa Bay while the Sox and Astros played. *easily the worst aspect of this plan. Toronto or Oakland deserves a playoff spot before a losing record Cleveland team. But again, once competitive balance steps are taken, the Sox wouldn't win 93 games, it's better if some of those wins are redistributed across the division. After running through this I think 12 is my max.

From my keyboard it seems really, really, easy to do. Plus it's the most decent human thing to do.

Are you thinking of wrestling admitting it was a pre scripted entertainment event to avoid sports regulations?

Great point. Horse racing is in the middle of a suit for doping and gambling. I wonder if a human was found to have been using a banned substance if bettors could sue? It's a novel concept. One obvious difference here is the NFL does not put on the games for gamblers, while horse races are run for the gambling. I'm not certain a gambler could sue the NFL because they bet with a casino.

Why do you think that is? I'm thinking it's the length of season and how close most NFL teams are to making the playoffs. I also suspect that gambling is a factor as well.

Dusty Baker seemed to have weathered his comment about black and Latino players being better in the heat and sun and white players being slow. Plus has he ever won a postseason series? But no doubt being white is a huge and unfair advantage in America.

Tim Anderson is managing this team one day if JR is still around.

x2

As @southsider2k5pointed out the Sox "system" has resulted in Kenny Williams and Tony Larussa. Both hires are consistent with Sox and JR history. I'm trying to think of a way to eliminate the sham interview and increase minority hiring at the same time. Stopping the "retread" hiring I think can be a step in the right direction. To me TL was the ultimate retread hiring. At the same time if you own a team and decide that you love your coach but if Belichick was available you would fire your guy and hire Belichick, I don't think the sham interview helps anyone. But admittedly there may only be three or four guys alive in that category and it is not worth stepping on that slippery slope. Thank you @Kyyle23 who pointed that out to me earlier.

OK, I'm with you. Now how would you write a rule so that JR was not allowed to hire a HoF manager, and a former team employee, to lead his team? I'll take a run at it. I like @southsider2k5 idea of a monetary reward.I'm going to go a little off that. It should have cost JR some money and I would have a stepped system. Hire a white guy and it costs you some. It would cost more the more other chances the guy had to manage (the retread penalty) and finally the biggest penalty of all for bringing a white guy who managed multiple teams out of retirement to manage.

Who benefits?

I hope it comes with a shorter season and greater percentage of the playoff gate to the players. That to me is a win for both sides and the fans. (I acknowledge that some fans prefer regular season games to playoff games).

I like it.

One of the cornerstone reasons I am proud to be a Sox fan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost I thought I knew what it meant. LOL

Exactly. He was even given a third chance* to carry on and fix his organization and has now I believe utterly failed. *Once when it was happening, a second when it was reported, now a third moving forward. I don't have a second team so the NHL has lost an admitted casual fan.

The owners could end this anytime they want and still have money for many generations of descendants. Players would still be earning at the MLB level much more than they could anywhere else and have money for their descendants. The only threat to their wealth is a bunch of too big egos who can't come up with an agreement. This is insanity. Unlike most strikes/work stoppages in our history both sides could live very comfortably with the previous agreement. They aren't fighting over unsafe working conditions, poverty wages, business about to fail without concessions from the workers, etc. The fight is over how to share the profits of a very profitable business. I wish there was something truly nobel for them to fight over. I could dig in and argue with the best of them. But in a world where people are starving, face persecution and wars these idiots are fighting over when someone should be arb eligible?! One side is saying $600,000 isn't enough and the other side can pay $750,000 but won't?

As I said earlier I don't have a better solution all figured out but I will toss a start of an idea and see if smarter people than I can work with it. What if in addition to the Rooney Rule they put in place a rule to increase the number of POC coaches in the league? Let's build the NFL coaching staff better. If I was a POC I'm not certain I would want a career that leads nowhere. So we need to keep the pressure on the GM and HC positions but also fill the ranks with coaches. As a kid who grew up in the 60s and 70s I'm just crushed that we would be having this conversation forty years after I left high school. The future looked so much better back then. My generation failed to make this better other than requiring sham interviews.

Exactly. If the Bears would think of it as $100 mil / 5 years with the last five for free (and be willing to move on if it wasn't working), I could see it working. But IMHO they would stubbornly hang on until the contract was up before making a move.

I agree with where you are going. But consider this. Worse than what we have now? Only Mike Tomlin and Ron Rivera? Removing it without something better in place would be worse. But I don't think it's done anything other than some window dressing. Replacing the Rooney rule with something better should be a priority of the NFL.

I'm almost certain I wouldn't. Especially when the Bears probably would keep putting him out there until the end of the contract no matter what. Here's an interesting question, if you were writing the check, is there any coach alive you would give that amount to?

I guess you didn't read my full post. Bummer. No, letting them do whatever they want isn't a solution, I never said it was. never advocated for it. It's about the stupidest thing I could think of doing. What I'm saying is we need something better than the Rooney rule. I don't think the Rooney rule is working, does anyone?