The Bigger They Are . . .

I just wanted to quickly weight in on the current state of affairs of the NFL. Labor disputes between the owners and the players. Revenue sharing problems between the owners and the owners. Years of a cap system about to get shredded and thrown aside.

Beautiful.

Now, I love football as much as the next guy. Don't think I don't. It's just that I've grown tired of hearing how the NFL is the greatest sports league in the world - the archetype of what a professional league should be.

And I'm tired of hearing that.

Especially as a baseball fan. After the strike of '94, baseball lost its hold on being the national pasttime and allowed football to slide in. But now, now everyone will be able to see that not even football can hold it together.

The NHL lost a complete season and dropped out of the Big Four national sports, leaving a triumvirate of MLB, NFL, and NBA. That's not going to happen to the NFL. But a labor dispute will hurt the NFL. Teams are cutting players that normally they wouldn't have to only since they have no idea what's going to happen. And as a sports franchise, that's not a good place to be in. Just take a look at the Washington Nationals. They don't even know if they're allowed to call themselves that.

All in all though, I'd be glad to see the NFL brought back down to Earth. Now it's time for leagues like MLB to play up the fact that it's been over ten years since the last stoppage or labor dispute. This is the opportunity for baseball to move back up the pasttime ladder.

[Extra Innings Exclusive Content]

Fisherlympics

For those of you keeping track, 2006 is once again a year for the Olympics. More specifically, the Winter Olympics. The 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games.

While the Summer Olympics go hand in hand with presidential elections and have the more traditional events like swimming, running, and trampoline, the Winter Olympics are somewhat limited – basically to events that involve snow or ice. Which is why they’ve had to find a dozen different ways to compete with a snowboard. Boy, am I looking forward to Snowboard Hopscotch. Go Team USA!

Anyways, it seems that people really don’t care about the Games this time around. Maybe it’s because fan faves likes Michelle Kwan are gone. Or maybe it’s because no one cares about Russian dudes dressed in sequins. Or maybe it’s because Turin is just too far away. Or maybe it’s because there’s also another session of Olympics going on in some city called Torino. Man, that’s some poor scheduling.

Maybe we need to create some Olympic excitement here at Fisher.

Welcome to Fisher Winter Olympics I.

Athletes will compete in many thrilling events staged around the lovely grounds of Fisher’s Pittsford campus. Some of the featured events include:

•The Murph Marathon: Participants must trudge through several feet of snow, braving blustery winds all in hopes of getting to class in time. Will the paths be plowed? Will traffic allow them to cross over to Fisher? Will these daring athletes make it to Basil despite the cruel luck of being placed in the Murph?

•Campus Center Speed Skating: Fisher Olympians will race through the new Campus Center, trying not to slip on the stylish yet dangerous tiling. Yes, those multi-colored squares may look cool but don’t let your guard down or else you will find yourself in last place.

•Cold Shower Plunge: Competitors will test the very limits of their endurance in the Keough Hall showers. Who needs warm water when you have guts? Only those with heart should enter this battle. Heart and immunity to hypothermia.

•Hockey: Oh . . . that’s right – we cancelled that. Never mind.

Those rooms above the Cyber Café will be used to hold the medal ceremonies – no one’s ever in there anyways. The medals themselves will actually be made from spray painted AOL CDs since I don’t think the school’ll spring for real gold, silver, and bronze – well, maybe bronze. I pretty sure bronze runs cheap.

All we need now is TV coverage. Somebody call Bob Costas. I can’t wait.

- Originally published in the Cardinal Courier (Volume 5-Issue 9; February 22, 2006)

Insider Scam

Okay - ESPN has once again managed to tick me off.

How you may ask?

Let me introduce you to the ESPN.com Insider.

ESPN.com has this club that gives members access to more articles and more features. The catch though, is that you have to pay to join this club. Not just register, not just give your e-mail address but pay.

$39.95.

Why should I have to pay 40 bucks in order to read articles that are going to be free in a couple of days? That's absolutely ridiculous.

SI.com has a similar feature to this in it's EXTRA program. The nice thing about SI's though, is that it's free if you're a subscriber to the magazine. It's also technically free if you borrow a magazine from a friend and enter their subscription number. But SI.com's EXTRA info doesn't take up basically half of their site. Most of SI's stuff is available for free - like it should be.

ESPN.com, on the other hand, has almost every interesting feature or rumor locked down under the INSIDER program. In the past, there would be a little "in" next to articles that INSIDERs only could access but they've stopped making that a consistent feature. It seems that now almost anything on the front page of ESPN.com is unavailable to the viewing public.

Personally, I have never heard of anyone who has forked over the 40 to gain INSIDER access. I have though, heard many complaints about this program.

So c'mon, ESPN - stop alienating your faithful following and let us in. We'd really like to read what you have out there.

[Extra Innings Exclusive Content]

Playmade

Over the past weekend, I borrowed the Playmakers season DVD set from a buddy and proceeded to spend my time watching all eleven episodes of the series.

For those of you who don't know, Playmakers was a show that ran on ESPN for one season. The series followed the lives of the players on a fictional team called the Cougars. The show received really good reviews and I personally loved it.

Unfortunately, the NFL was none too happy with the way its league and players were being portrayed in the TV show and basically threatened to not allow ESPN use its game coverage and such on SportsCenter and other great ESPN programming.

So that meant no more Playmakers.

Which is really too bad. The series ended on kind of a down note with the Cougars winning out and possibly securing a play-off berth only to have the Phoenix franchise (a team that had to lose for the Cougars to make the play-offs) pull out a Michael Vick-esque win.

And that was it.

Nothing beyond that.

The show was done. Eleven episodes and a semi-cliff hanger ending.

Thanks, guys, thank a lot.

I realize that I'm about two, three years late to jump on this bandwagon but ESPN really dropped the ball by cancelling Playmakers. Way to cave into the all mighty National Football League.

What would've happened had ESPN stood its ground on the show? Would the NFL really've stripped the network of rights to use the NFL? And would the viewing public really've tolerated such a thing actually happening?

I highly doubt it. The way I see it, ESPN could've kept going with Playmakers and called the NFL's bluff on this one. Imagine the biggest sports network not having rights to the biggest sports league?

Wouldn't've happened. For the NFL, that would've been a huge PR disaster. Huge.

For all sports fans and all fans of good TV, the loss of Playmakers was tragic. I rank this along with the loss of another great show - Sports Night.

I miss you, Sports Night.

[Extra Innings Exclusive Content]

An Indecent Proposal?

It’s that time of year again in the sporting world. The best of the best come together in a brilliant spectacle, one that fathers will someday tell their sons about. Legends will be born. Careers will be forged. History will be made.

No, I’m not talking about the Olympics.

I’m talking about the pinnacle of publishing – the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

What’s that you say? Not sports? Sexist? Inappropriate? Yes, no, and have you ever been to the beach?

For those of you who have somehow missed the phenomenon known as the Swimsuit Issue, here’s how it works. Every year, Sports Illustrated puts together a modest collection of a few females modeling current swimwear. And it sells like crazy. Like crazy.

From what I’ve heard, Sports Illustrated makes more money from this single issue than some magazines make in an entire year. While the Super Bowl is the … um, Super Bowl of TV advertising, the Swimsuit Issue is the Super Bowl of print advertising.

There’s a lot of money to be made in a Swimsuit Issue. Which is why I’m proposing the creation of the Cardinal Courier Swimsuit Issue.

I’m not saying that we should fill it with Fisher co-eds in swimsuits (but I’m not saying that we shouldn’t) as the Courier Swimsuit Issue will feature actual models but in the Fisher setting. Instead of tropical locales like the Bahamas or islands owned by rich guys you see on MTV Cribs, imagine layouts done in great places like the Cyber Café or Bon Appetit. We can throw some sand around the Cyber Café since there’s never really anyone in there anyways. The one and only Jim Leibow can help us with the Bon App pages, crafting ice sculptures and decorations made from pineapples and other fruits that come from warm places.

I’m sure that with our own Swimsuit Issue, we could make the Courier circulation skyrocket. Kids from other schools would want copies; we’d win even more awards. And everyone would want to be a photographer for the Courier.

All of this popularity would be because of the stunning literary qualities of this issue, of course. Like the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, ours would feature great articles and … other great … stuff … and everyone would read it … for the … articles … yeah …

Now, you may be saying to yourself, how can a college in the Catholic tradition possibly allow such a depraved thing like a swimsuit issue to exist on campus? Well, a drag show somehow slipped in so I think this can fly too.

[Extra Innings Exclusive Content]

An Olympic-Sized Flop

So what are we now? A week into the 2006 Winter Olympics? Something like that. And what do we have to show for it?

As of 1 PM today, we have 10 medals, six of them golds. Germany and Norway have 15 medals (Germany six gold, Norway two gold). Russia and Canada are also above us on the medal rankings.

Pathetic.

What happened to the United States being an Olympic power? What happened to American domination?

So far, Turin has been close to disaster. Bode Miller has gone 0-for-3, making careless errors. Lindsey Jacobellis lost a gold that was hers when she decided to show off a little. The guys hockey team can't beat third-world nations. The girls hockey team suddenly isn't invincible. A Russian figure skater who is known for his sharp dressing skills took that gold . . . wait - actually, I don't want that gold. The Russians can keep it. You're welcome, comrad.

There is a light coming up in the next few days.

I have a good feeling about women's figure skating. Sasha Cohen is on the up and up and should take home the gold there. I really don't care about Michelle Kwan - never won a gold medal in her prime and she's now past her prime.

For the most part - and with the exception of Jacobellis - we dominate at anything that involves a snowboard. I'm pretty sure we actually invented snowboard. We need a strong showing in these events in order to salvage these Olympics.

The United States doesn't lose to Norway.

[Exclusive Extra Innings Content]

The New Blog

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Bill Kuchman and I write a column for St. John Fisher College's Cardinal Courier. A sports column, that is.

The reason that I've created this blog is to not only post my columns themselves but to also extend my commentary to national sports, something that I'm not really able to do at the Courier.

The columns themselves will be posted exactly as they are published in the Courier. I'll probably put them up a few days after they hit the stands as to not steal the Courier's thunder.

The extra stuff - Extra Extra Innings, you might say, will show up whenever I feel like posting it. Probably when something stirs me to write.

Yeah. That's about it for now.