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Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m a Minnesota Vikings fan, through and through. However, that’s not to say that I always root for the team to win. This year, I find myself routinely hoping for the team to lose. How did I come to this place?Almost three years ago, Brad Childress was hired by the Vikings as their head coach. Prior to that time, Childress was an assistant coach with the Philadelphia Eagles for six years. That was his entire NFL experience since he came to the Eagles from UW-Madison, where he served as the offensive coordinator. When Childress was scheduling interviews around the league, his original schedule called for him to interview first with the Vikings and then with the Packers. However, the Vikings never let him get back on the plane and, at the time, the Packers felt like they really missed out. The Packers then turned to Mike McCarthy, who was a real unknown.

Looking back from our current perspective, we can see how badly everyone misjudged that situation. Childress has a losing record as an NFL coach (17-22) and no playoff appearances to his credit. McCarthy is 25-14 with a 1-1 record in the playoffs.

There are all sorts of particulars I could discuss about Childress’ lack of coaching acumen (his lack of clock management skills; his lack of situational awareness during games; the continued deterioration of the offense; the laughable special teams; the big-money, low-return defense, etc., etc., etc.), but since those are all reflected in his record, we should simply let that speak for itself.

Beyond his lack of ability as a head coach, Childress is an awfully uninspiring leader. There are coaches out there who aren’t fiery leaders (Bill Belichick comes to mind), but who manage to maintain an aura of being in charge and making decisions that make sense (even if only to them). Childress not only doesn’t give the impression of being in charge, he often looks confused by his own decisions. Like he’s got a split personality and one personality gives the orders while the other is forced to stick around and deal with the consequences. There are no media reports of Childress inspiring any of the players. More often than not, those reports detail how he doesn’t communicate very well with the players. The fans certainly don’t seem inspired. Well, they’re inspired to create websites imploring ownership to fire Childress, but that’s about it.

When Childress was hired, he promised to bring accountability back to the franchise after the Mike Tice era. We all know how well that’s working out. Ray Edwards was suspended four games last year for a substance abuse violation. The two Williamses are probably facing suspensions for using steroid masking agents this year. Newly acquired defensive end Jared Allen is noted for his “dramatically increased” strength (‘roids, anyone?). Does that sound like getting your house in order? It’s not bad enough that the Vikings are cheating, but they’re doing it really badly and getting caught.

Unfortunately, it seems that the only way we’ll get rid of Childress is for the Vikings to lose badly, since simply losing doesn’t seem to be enough for management to pull the trigger. So, I find myself cheering for the Vikings to lose, every week. Even last week, when they had a bye, I was hoping that the Vikings would lose. If any team could figure out a way to turn a bye week into a loss, I was sure the Vikes could do it. They specialize in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

After reading about Mike Singletary’s debut as head coach of the 49ers last week, I was quite jealous of that team’s fans. Even if Singletary isn’t a legendary coach, he’s a leader you can get behind. Why can’t we get a coach who’s decisive, who’s decisions we can understand, who speaks in the first person?

I’ve expressed this sentiment to people before, and sometimes they say, “How do you know that you’re not firing the next Bill Belichick?” Well, that’s an easy one. For every Bill Belichick there are fifty Brad Childresses. How many of these former Vikings coaches have gone on to fame and forture elsewhere?

• Scott Linehan – Fired as St. Louis coach in 2008
• Brian Billick – Working as TV commentator
• Ted Cottrell – Fired as San Diego defensive coordinator in 2008
• Foge Fazio – Out of football
• Tony Dungy – Head coach, Indianapolis
• Dennis Green – Radio commentator in 2008
• Sherman Lewis – Out of football
• Mike Tice – Tight Ends coach for Jacksonville
• George O’Leary – Head Coach – University of Central Florida (record 22-27)
• Les Steckel – Out of football

That’s ten coaches, and only one is still coaching in the NFL as a head coach. For every Bill Belichick or Bill Walsh, there are plenty of Lane Kiffins, Marty Schottenheimers, Nick Sabans, Wanye Fontes, Bruce Coslets, Dave Shulas, Sam Wyches, Joe Bugels, Gunther Cunninghams, Jim Fassels, and Cam Camerons. You can’t hold on to your guy forever on the off-chance that he just hasn’t blossomed yet. At some point, you have to cut your losses and move on.

So, until the Vikings have a new head coach, I’m cheering for the other guys. This week, I’m a Houston Texans fan.

As the Olympic hype-machine comes to a media outlet near you, it’s time to reconsider bringing back one of the more egalitarian Olympic sports: tug of war.Take almost any Olympic sport in the modern Summer or Winter games, and you’re likely to find that, at best, a handful of countries are realistic medal competitors. In some sports, there are competitors and teams that are so much better than the rest of the field that the true competition is for second place.

Athletes from different countries often benefit from advantages simply unavailable to athletes from other countries. For instance, Australia’s Olympic curling team doesn’t have any dedicated curling ice anywhere inside Australia. The Canadian team, meanwhile, can find a sheet of curling ice in just about every town of reasonable size. The US women’s softball team benefits from a deep pool of players produced by college teams while our ping-pong squad is hampered by a such a shallow recruiting pool it’s practically a puddle. China, on the other hand, suffers from exactly the opposite situation.

Beyond differences produced by culture and climate, finances can have a big impact on teams. Some Olympic squads get heavy government backing while others are largely self financed. Squads with fancy modern training facilities are more likely to bring home medals than those that hold bake sales just to get to the Games.

Which brings us to the NFL. The NFL may not be a popular sport the world over, but it does have one important lesson to teach the International Olympic Committee: parity breeds popularity. Since moving to a financial model that promotes parity throughout the league, it has grown to become the most popular sport in America. The phrase “any given Sunday” is the common shorthand for the belief that any given NFL team can beat any other NFL team any time, any where. Like most phrases of that nature, it grew in popularity because it contained a kernel of truth. The NFL has enough parity between teams that there are no sure things, even between the best team in the league and the worst.

A sport that truly gave the little countries a chance to compete with the big countries; or the cold countries a chance to compete with the equatorial countries; or the poor countries to compete with the rich is exactly what the Olympics needs. That’s the niche I believe tug of war could fill. Every country in the world has heavy, strong, big people. You don’t need much more than a strong rope and a place to pull it, so fancy training facilities wouldn’t be much of a benefit. Technological doping wouldn’t be much of an issue. There no benefit to making the shoes lighter, or the uniforms more streamlined.

If you want to get everyone interested in the Olympics, give them a team to support in a sport they can reasonably hope to win. That’s the niche tug of war could fill.

Interested in playing fantasy football this year?

I’m putting together a league on the NFL’s website again this year. The goal is to get twelve teams managed by people that either I know or that are friends or friends of friends. If you haven’t played a fantasy sport before and want to give it a try, fantasy football is a good sport to try. You really only need to pay attention once a week when you set your team’s roster for the week. After that, your team requires as much or as little attention as you want to give it. But wait, there’s more. Playing on the NFL’s site is free, so it won’t cost you any money to play.

Want more information? Contact me and I’ll be happy to help.

For the past year or so, one of my daily pleasures was reading BatGirl’s blog. Her motto was “Less stats, more sass” and she routinely delivered. Her writing was always clever and insightful. While some manage insightful, and even fewer manage clever, only an elite minority master both. BatGirl, (a.k.a. Anne Ursu) was one of those talented few.

Her writings opened up new ways for me to view the game of baseball, and the players on the Minnesota Twins. While I may never use the nicknames she created for some of the players, (Justin “The Island of Dr.” Morneau, “Chairman” Mauer, Johan “El Presidente” Santana, Carlos “The Jackal” Silva, and many others), it is almost impossible for me to think about those players without those names creeping into my internal dialogue.

Today, she announced that she was hanging up her keyboard to concentrate on her family. As surely as the sun rises in the East, the Internet is a bit colder and darker knowing that she won’t be writing her Twins-oriented stories any longer.

Now I find myself hoping that she takes a page from Michael Jordan’s book of retirement and that the urge to spill some digital ink will soon overwhelm her common sense. If she decides to make a return, BatGirl will no doubt find a large and eager audience awaiting her arrival.

To paraphrase Fred Willard in Waiting for Guffman, the Midwest is the best coast in baseball. If you consider the Mississippi River one of the coasts. And you would already know the Midwest is home to all that is good and wholesome and admirable in baseball, except Midwesterners are too grounded and humble and decent to brag about it.

The East Coast? Forget it. The East Coast is in decline and in denial. Those overpriced, overrated and over-hyped AL East and NL East teams have produced just two world championships in the past six seasons. The Atlanta Braves had a losing record this year. The Yankees get knocked out of the postseason earlier and earlier. The Red Sox are so desperate they recently agreed to pay $51.1 million just for the right to negotiate with Scott Boras.

Meanwhile, the West Coast is too busy producing bad movies, expensive coffee and software security updates to field championship teams. Money Ball has yet to produce an American League pennant in Oakland, let alone a World Series win. The Dodgers haven’t won a World Series since Patrick Swayze had a career. The Giants haven’t won a World Series since moving to San Francisco. The Mariners and Padres have never won a World Series. The AL West is so weak it can only manage four teams, one of which is in the Central time zone.

And the Midwest? The Midwest is the proud home to the 2006 World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals, the 2005 World Series champion Chicago White Sox, the 2006 American League Cy Young award winner (Johan Santana) and now the 2006 American League Most Valuable Player (Justin Morneau). The best player in baseball (Albert Pujols) and the best pitcher in baseball (Santana) both reside on the Mississippi.

How do the Midwest teams do it while operating with payrolls so limited they include paying their players with postdated checks? It’s no secret, and folks on the coasts can see the answer for themselves if they ever bother to look out the window while jetting over what they derisively call “flyover land.”

Central division teams succeed the same way everyone does it in the Midwest: by getting up earlier and working harder in worse weather than everyone else in the country.

East Coast and West Coast teams simply buy their rosters, but Midwest clubs raise theirs like the region’s farmers who grow the crops that feed the nation. While Derek Jeter is still at a nightclub slurping Grey Goose off the chest of the latest Maxim cover girl, Pujols is building up his powerful wrists by waking up early and milking the cows on the dairy farm he bought with his first contract bonus.

While Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi shoot every possible chemical into their body, Justin Morneau is bulking up by eating so much hearty sweet corn on the cob that he could test positive for ethanol.

And after a long summer of striking out batters with his 90-plus smoke, Santana ices his arm during the winter by holding it out the rolled-down window as he drives to Lake Minnetonka for a little ice fishing.

The Midwest’s supremacy goes beyond the players and the standings, though. You may root for a team on one of the coasts, but when you go to a game, the beer you drink and the hot dogs you eat likely come from the Midwest. Heck, even the stadiums themselves are rooted in the Midwest. The East Coast is the home of the House That Ruth Built, but the Midwest is the home of HOK, the stadium firm that builds most of the game’s other houses, including Yankee Stadium 2.

About the only thing the Midwest is lacking compared to the coasts is scandal. The West Coast is the home of the Cream. The Midwest is the birthplace of cream of wheat. The West Coast has the Clear. The Midwest’s got milk. The West Coast has Barry’s head. The Midwest has the Metrodome. Face it. In every way, the Midwest is superior to the coasts right now.

Although, admittedly, there is no defense for the Kansas City Royals.

Originally written by Jim Caple at ESPN.com, but then they shut it away behind their silly Insider system, so I copied it here for my own edification.

Normally, I don’t tire of winter until March rolls around. This year, I was tired of winter shortly after stepping off the plane that brought us back to Madison in mid-January. Sarah thinks the reason for my lack of winter tolerance this year is a combination of my time at the South Pole combined with a colder than normal snap during January and February. The seventeen inches of snow we got over the past four days certainly didn’t help matters much either.

Whatever the reason, I’m excited that baseball season will soon be upon us.The Twins kick off their spring training games tomorrow night against the Red Sox in Ft. Meyers, Florida. I’ve never had the urge to attend spring training games before, but this year I’ve got more than an urge, I’ve got an itch that wants to be scratched.

While it seems unlikely that I’ll make it to Florida this year for a game, I’m committed to going to a spring training game next year. So, if you’re at all interested in coming with me, drop me a line and let’s work something out as the day gets closer.

So says Jim Caple at ESPN.com.

By Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Columnist | September 20, 2006

There are unlikely success stories in baseball this year, and the Detroit Tigers would rank near the top of the list. But what about the Minnesota Twins? How many of us saw this coming? Yet again.
When will we learn? The Twins have a system. The fundamentals apply. They cultivate pitchers who throw strikes and fielders who catch the ball. They get runners on base, move them over, and drive them home. They play in the image of the people who live in the Twin Cities. They are honest and hard-working and they give you a lot for your money.

And they are going to the playoffs again with a payroll ($63 million going into the season) approximately half the size of the team they beat at Fenway Park last night.

Amazing. It is Sept. 20, and the Red Sox have been done for more than three weeks while the Twins are winning with rookie pitchers and talented faces with no names.

OK, so maybe you’d recognize Torii Hunter, Joe Mauer, and/or Johan Santana, but you could take the rest of the Twins, line ‘em up shoulder-to-shoulder in Quincy Market and challenge Hub pedestrians to identify them.

Hmmm. Let’s guess. The New England Revolution? The Dropkick Murphys? The Sons of Sam Horn?

No. These are the Minnesota Twins, owners of a 64-28 record since June 7, and a team nobody wants to face in October — particularly in a five-game series, which could mean facing Santana twice and playing two games in the pinball arcade known as the Metrodome. The Twins are 50-24 at home this year, including a 3-0 record vs. your Boston Red Sox. Counting spring training, the Twins are 8-1 overall against your Red Sox. Boston’s lone victory was a Grapefruit League contest, which was won only after the Twins had clinched the coveted Mayor’s Cup.

It’s startling to examine how the fortunes of these two teams have changed after the Sox arrived in the Twin Cities June 12. The Red Sox were a first-place team back then and no one in New England dared make any plans for October. Surely the Sons of Terry Francona were bound for their four straight playoff autumn. The Twins, meanwhile, were reeling, dumping players, and dodging the barbs and arrows of local fans and media. The big story in the Twin Cities was the announcement that the Minnesota Wild had hired some guy named Chris Snow.

Minnesota’s three-game sweep of the Sox triggered a four-month surge, and last night the Twins pulled within a half-game of the Tigers (even in the loss column). They lead the White Sox by 4 1/2 (five in the loss column) in the wild card chase. Detroit lost at Chicago, 7-0.

Citing the June sweep of the Sox, Minnesota GM Terry Ryan said, “That’s about the time everything started to fall into place, and we’ve been on a roll ever since."

Ryan is sort of the anti-Theo Epstein. He’s bald, he’s managed to stay out of the limelight, and he’s been on something of a hot streak when it comes to deal-making since giving up a tad early on a young David Ortiz after the 2002 season.

Originally brought into baseball by Oriole savant Frank Cashen, Ryan is the man who acquired closer Joe Nathan, starter Francisco Liriano, and starter Boof Bonser (young Mr. Bonser legally changed his name from John to Boof) for A.J. Pierzynski before the 2004 season. Ryan also got switch-hitting third baseman Nick Punto and pitcher Carlos Silva for the immortal Eric Milton.

“We like to have our guys play defense, we like to have our pitchers throw the ball over the plate, and we like guys with character," said Ryan. “I’m not sure I’d call it a `Twins way,’ but I think we stress those things as much as anybody. We’re certainly better than we were in April and May. Now we have more speed, range, and athleticism, and we don’t give up many outs."

Santana is going to win the Cy Young Award, but Minnesota lost Liriano last week when the 22-year-old lefthander reinjured his pitching elbow against Oakland. Liriano is done for the year, and Brad Radke (broken shoulder) most likely is, too. That leaves two rookies (Matt Garza, who started last night, and Bonser, who starts tonight) in the rotation — plus Scott Baker, who came into this season with nine big league starts under his belt.

“We know that’s going to be the way it is for us the rest of the way," said manager Ron Gardenhire, a direct descendant of Tom Kelly (a fundamental extremist who won World Series with the Twins in 1987 and ’91). “But we’ve got our sights set on winning the division."

Dennis Eckersley, who toiled in the AL West when the Twins were division rivals, remembered, “We used to say, `These guys play nine innings.’ They’d play so hard. And that’s how they play now."

It’s not just smoke and mirrors. The Twins came to Boston ranked first in the American League in hitting, second in pitching, and second in fielding. Justin Morneau and Mauer are legitimate MVP candidates (they’re also roommates who commute to work from Mauer’s house). The bullpen’s pretty good, too. Nathan has 33 saves and the Twins are 68-1 leading after seven, 76-0 leading after eight.

Oh, and they don’t have any Mannys being Manny, either. There were no fewer than 20 Twins on the Fenway lawn at 2 p.m. yesterday, and not one player was on the bus when it left the team hotel for the ballpark at 4 p.m. Everybody was already at the park.

“This organization is built around guys who work hard and do the little things," said backup catcher Mike Redmond. “We play hard, grind it out, and come in under the radar."

So there’s some strange symmetry for this three-game set. You’ve got a team bound for the playoffs — flying under the radar — against a team that’s been in free-fall since Labor Day. And after tomorrow night they won’t meet again until next spring, when they resume the joust for the coveted Mayor’s Cup.

Now that the first official game of the 2006 Minnesota Vikings is in the books, here are my first impressions of the 2006 team.

• Why do we continue signing free agents on offense from the Baltimore Ravens?!? The Ravens are, year after year, among the worst teams in the league on the offensive side of the ball. Yes, the scheme itself may be broken, but it isn’t the offensive playbooks on the field, it’s the players. Wasn’t the team’s signing of Travis “Do Nothing” Taylor last year enough of a hint? Apparently not, because this year we’ve also got Chester “Who?” Taylor cluttering up the roster. Here’s a novel though: let’s try signing some of the defensive players from the Ravens; that’s the side of the ball where they excel.
• Keep Chester Taylor’s first game in perspective. Yes, he rushed for 88 yards, but he did that on 31 carries. That’s not even three yards per carry. Anything less than four yards per carry is considered below average in the NFL; below three yards per carry will get you booted off most teams during the pre-season. In addition, he did that while running behind a line that has three players earning more than $100 million over the course of their contracts.
• Troy Williamson is probably not the answer at wide receiver. He wasn’t the answer last year and he doesn’t look like the answer this year.
• Jermaine Wiggins will have a huge year. After all, who else will Johnson have to catch his passes? Marcus Robinson? Travis Taylor? One of the ball boys?
• It’s nice to see that the new regime hasn’t completely thrown out the worst aspects of the previous two regimes. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if the Vikes stopped throwing seven yard passes on third-and-twelves.
• Chris Kluwe has not recovered from the injury he sustained last year. Pre-injury, he was booming the ball downfield. This year, his punts are below league average, at best.
• Last year in Green Bay, Longwell blamed many of his struggles on problems created by his holder. It looks like he can trot out many of those same quotes again this year in Minnesota.
• Childress may be creating a culture of accountability, but the only culture I saw on Monday was on PBS. What sort of accountability sanctions an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty immediately after a big play. The result of that penalty? Washington has the ball on the seven yard line with a first down. The very next play they score. At one point in the first half, the Vikings had already been penalized six times for forty-two yards while the ‘Skins hadn’t been penalized once. Does a culture of accountability reach up into the upper levels of the coaching staff?
• Bryant McKinnie for $48 million?!? Why just give me the money? At least I won’t pretend that I can play tackle in the NFL.
• At this point, the Vikes just aren’t a very compelling story when set against the pennant/wild card race currently being run by the Twins, Tigers, and White Sox.

Saturday night, Sarah and I saw the UW Badgers play the Mercyhurst Lakers in an NCAA quarterfinal women’s hockey match.
During the regular season, the women’s hockey team plays at the Kohl Center
on the UW campus. The Kohl Center is a big, new-ish multi-sport arena on
the UW campus. In a hockey configuration, it seats over 17,000 people with
a huge multimedia scoreboard over center ice.

The game we saw, however, was at the Capitol Ice Arena in Middleton, which
is just west of Madison. The Capitol Ice Arena seats roughly 800 people in
tight quarters, on wooden benches hard up against the glass that surrounds
the rink. Instead of a multimedia scoreboard, there was an old-school
scoreboard composed of black metal and light bulbs over center ice.

For this particular game, over 1,000 people crammed into the building with
many standing around the boards on either end because the bleachers were
filled. The western end of the bleachers was filled with Mercyhurst
supporters who traveled from Erie, PA to see the game. The came prepared
with noisemakers, green face paint (green is one of Mercyhurst’s colors),
and loud cheers. What they lacked in numbers they made up for with
decibels.

The UW faithful were numerous but not particularly loud. It was Spring
Break week for the university, and many of the university’s loudest fans,
its students, were far out of town. Some went to see the men’s basketball
team play in the NCAA tournament, some went to watch the men’s hockey team
play in the WCHA Final Five which was held in Minneapolis, other went to
tropical locations or their home towns.

As the game progressed, it was clear why Mercyhurst was playing in the
tournament–the strong play of their goaltender. The Badgers got numerous
high-quality chances to score, but after the first period, the score was
1-1. Mercyhurst got their goal on a breakaway when the UW goaltender
stopped the initial shot, but was not able to stop the rebound the seemed to
float in slow motion upwards over her shoulder and into the net.

The second and third periods were tense battles. In the second, neither
team was able to move the puck past the two solid goaltenders. It wasn’t
until the third period that the Badgers were able to light the lamp. A shot
from the point was redirected into the net by one of the Badger women.
While the crowd rejoiced, the referee waved off the goal, claiming that the
puck had been played with a high stick.

After that, both teams skated rapidly up and down the ice, but neither
school could gain the decisive goal. Half-way through the third period, the
referee seemingly swallowed his whistle as numerous obvious penalties by
both sides went unpunished and fans of both schools loudly complained to no
avail.

As the third period ended with the score tied at 1-1, both sides were left
wondering just how an overtime between these two teams might play out.
Would the Badgers’ superior talent and depth at the forward and center
positions win them the day or would Mercyhurst’s goaltender be able to hold
back the deluge long enough for her teammates to score one more goal?

The first overtime was equally tense as the match would be ended by the
first team to score. Both teams raced frantically up and down the ice doing
everything in their power to try and win the game. As the twenty minute
overtime period wound down, the players tired. Both teams tried to score,
but tried even harder not to break down mentally and physically. Such a
break down might lead directly to a score by the other team and a long
off-season for the losers.

The first period ended with the teams still deadlocked and the clock reading
10 PM. The teams had been battling for three hours. Another fifteen minute
break for the Zambonis to circle the ice and the weary gladiators would take
up arms once again.

As the second period began, the palpable tension in the crowd became even
more pronounced. The longer the game continued, the greater the chance a
fluke goal would send one team home and no one wanted to see that happen.

The second overtime period began with better play than had been seen at the end
the first as the teams had rested a bit. As the crowd finished a chant of
“Let’s go, Red!” someone shouted out, “Let’s go home!” The crowd laughed.

Roughly five minutes into the second overtime period, the referee apparently found his whistle
as he sent one of the Mercyhurst Lakers to the penalty box. This was the
chance the Badgers and their fans had been waiting for. They swarmed around
the offensive end but were unable to find a way around the Mercyhurst
goaltender.

As the penalty expired, UW fans were worried as their team failed to
capitalize on a golden opportunity and the referee would most likely call a
make-up penalty on their team in the near future, giving Mercyhurst a better
chance to end the match in their favor.

As the clock ticked on, UW finally managed to push the puck over the goal
line. A shot from the face-off circle hit the goaltender before dribbling
across the goal line as the goaltender fell backward. As the crowed went
crazy, the referee waved off the goal. His explanation was that the goal
judge never turned on the goal light.

The crowd, now thinned out a bit because of the hour, was extremely unhappy
with this decision and they made their displeasure known.

As play resumed, both sides stepped up the intensity. Finally, at 10:10 of
the second overtime, the Badgers scored again. A shot from near the blue
line was tipped in by a forward playing in front of the net to win the game.

As the Badger women piled on each other at center ice, and the Lakers
consoled their goaltender who had taken them as far as she could, the fans
walked out into the night. No matter which team they supported, they knew
they had seen two teams leave everything they had on the ice and all for the
love of the game.

You’ll have to excuse the punny headline. I borrowed it from the sister of a curling teammate. Regardless, it does describe how interest in curling is growing as a result of recent Olympic coverage.Yesterday, Sarah and I worked for three hours at an Olympic open house hosted by the Madison Curling Club. I’ve worked several open houses over the past four years and I’ve never seen more than twenty or thirty people turn out for any given open house. However, several hundred people turned out yesterday to give curling a try. Nearly all of them were driven to attend by the coverage of the sport during the Turin Olympic Games. It would not be exaggeration to say that almost no one was expecting the number of people who showed up at the club.

A common comment we heard was “I don’t necessarily understand the game, but it was on all the time, and I wanted to give it a try.” Of course, after trying to deliver and sweep a stone, the nearly universal response was, “Wow! It is much harder than it looks.”

Many of the people who came out to try the sport will hopefully sign up to play next fall. That’s a long time to try and keep people hooked on a sport based on some television coverage and a half-hour on the ice, but we try.

It is heartening to see more people signing up for the sport. In Canada, a million people or more curl regularly. In the United States, there are roughly 15,000 active curlers. The more people we can get curling, the better the facilites we can build, the better the competition we can face, and ultimately, the better we can do at major curling events like the Olympics.

Football fans already know the subject of this particular article: the Minnesota Vikings.Anyone exposed to a newspaper sports section, ESPN, or Fox Sports over the past few weeks has probably heard every possible way to work a nautical reference into a sportscast. It’s gotten so bad that even NBA articles in Sports Illustrated reference the Vikings’ notorious naval adventures.

I’m going to sail past any easy digs at the Purple and Gold’s off-field misadventures (after that one, of course) and analyze the team itself.

Mike Tice – As much as I was willing to give Tice the benefit of the doubt years ago, it is now time for him to go. Even if he is the second coming of Parcells, Belicheck, or Walsh, his image in Minnesota is forever tainted. He will forever have problems getting and retaining respect amongst Minnesota fans.

Offensive Line – The offensive line is easily the worst part of the team. It should be no surprise that it is such awful shape. The past few years Culpepper has scrambled for his life time and time again. It was only his talent that kept opposing defenses from burying him under the Dome’s turf. With the line’s best player (Birk) sidelined, the weakness of the line has been truly exposed this year. The right tackle, Rosenthal, has been exposed (again) this year as an awful signing. He isn’t any better than any old guy we could have drafted in the past few years but we’re paying him significantly more than we would a rookie. The guards, for all their mobility, might as well be concrete pylons placed on either side of the center. In addition, they aren’t particularly good just going straight ahead, either. The left tackle, McKinnie is a bust. The line on him is that he’s got the talent; my line is that he refuses to show it consistently. We can’t keep paying a guy who plays ten plays a game and just happens to be on-field in uniform for the rest. The center position is another disaster. Withrow was a failure; Fowler isn’t much better.

Wide Receiver – Burleson is decent, but I haven’t anything from him that makes me think he’s going to be great. He might be good, but he’ll never scare defenses like Moss did. Marcus Robinson was a stiff when the team signed him two years ago. He hasn’t gotten any better in the intervening time. Koren Robinson hasn’t been on the field enough yet to see his potential as a receiver. Williamson hasn’t shown much beyond one or two catches. Wiggins runs like he’s got an angry badger in his pants, but somehow he’s nearly always open. Kleinsasser is a punishing blocker, but isn’t much of a receiving threat.

Running Back – Mewelde Moore is the team’s best running back at this point. Though he’s not fast, he’s shifty and difficult to tackle. Moe Williams is the clear number two back. Michael Bennett is a stiff. He can’t move laterally and his speed is worthless since he can’t get out into the open field.

Defensive Line – One of the few areas the team improved over last year. Pat Williams has been a huge improvement over the twin do-nothings the team trotted out the last few years. Kevin Williams would be dominant if he saw fewer double teams. Even so, he is still often the team’s best lineman. Erasmus James hasn’t seen the field enough for us to see if he’s any good. (Obligatory tangent: James is routinely, and unfairly, blamed for causing Michael Vick’s knee injury during the Atlanta game. If you watched the replay, you’d see that Vick’s knee was actually injured when he went to plant his foot several second prior to James’ hit. In the replay you’ll see him plant his right foot, and though he takes several “steps” afterwards, they are really just hops on his left foot. He never puts his weight on his right leg after that plant. It is only after those hop-steps on his left foot that Vick gets hit by James.)

Linebackers – Stiffs, sloth-like, mentally suspect, or all of the above.

Safeties – If Darren Sharper was any good wouldn’t it make sense that Green Bay would have wanted him back? Chavous is serviceable, but I doubt that offensive coaches stay up the night before the game planning for him. He’s not a devastating hitter, nor is he particularly fast.

Cornerbacks – Smoot is certainly an improvement over the Cast of Thousands that have broken fans’ hearts over the past few years. Of course, he’s also now forever linked to the Love Boat fiasco. Winfield was good last year, and he’s been good enough this year that offenses generally haven’t thrown too much his way. Ralph Brown? He must have some really great blackmail material on someone in the Vikings front office.

Kickers – Sign Chris Kluwe to a long-term deal. Now. I’m still not sold on Edinger. Yeah, he won the game last week, but he also has a history of missing field goals. Again, if he was any good doesn’t it make sense that Chicago would have wanted him back? Retread kickers, with a few exceptions, don’t have a great history in the league.

If you’re interested in playing fantasy football during the 2005 NFL season, this is your chance. I’m looking for people to fill out a fantasy football league running on NFL.com. None of us are cut-throat players, though we have been known to engage in some Three Stooges nose grabbing and eye poking.

It doesn’t cost anything to join the league and it really doesn’t take much knowledge to play. If you’re at all interested, contact me and I’ll send you the information you need to join.

One of the biggest reasons that I lobbied to purchase an XM radio earlier this year was to listen to Minnesota Twins games. The other night while Sarah and I were eating dinner, I had the game playing softly in the background.It was the bottom of the fifth inning in a scoreless game against the Orioles. The Twins had a man on second base and with one out. Lew Ford stepped up to the plate and out of the blue Sarah said, “Lew Ford sucks.”

Somewhat taken aback by this sudden interjection, I said, “What do you mean? Lew Ford is a good player.”

She said, “All he ever does is strike out.”

So, we listen to the game, and Ford strikes out holding the bat on his shoulder.

I thought about it for a minute, and I asked Sarah, “Did you ever foresee a day when you not only would recognize the name of a Twins player, but you would also have an opinion about the efficacy of that player?”

She replied, “And that my opinion would be radically different from yours? No.”

As seen in this week’s Sports Illustrated:

Half Man, Half Amazing

I’m organizing an on-line fantasy baseball league again this year. We’re playing on ESPN’s website and the cost is $30 per team. It’s a casual league and no one in our league is particularly good at it, so if you’ve wanted to join a fantasy league in the past, this would be a good opportunity to get started.

If you’re interested in joining the league, drop me an e-mail and I’ll send you the particulars.

We’ve got Trouble right here in the Twin Cities.If you’ve seen The Music Man, then the story of Harold Hill will be familiar to you. His pitch to the citizens of River City about how a boys band can halt the problems of smoking, drinking, and the like amongst the city’s youth will no doubt sound familiar. For just a small investment in uniforms and instruments, all of the citizens’ problems with their youth will be solved.

After a stirring music number (’76 Trombones’ for those keeping score at home), the good citizens of River City take up the cause and drum up (pun intended) money and support for the boys band. After all, Professor Hill will lead them to the promised land if they can just front the money for the trip.

Does any of that sound familiar in the context of the continued stadium debate?

A constantly shifting, hard to perceive, and difficult to define character named “Economic Impact” gets trotted out as a primary reason for public monies to be spent on private needs.

The theory here is that Economic Impact will grow nearly limitlessly and spread his bounty all across a chosen city if we can just be bothered to gather some tax dollars and serve them up to his good buddy, Professional Sports.

Study after study (more often than not performed and/or sponsored by rigorous, independant scientific institutions like visitors bureaus and chambers of commerce) is cited to show that Economic Impact is real, we just don’t know how big he gets once his buddy gets fed. And, even though we don’t know how big he gets, we know that it’s big enough to justify the cost.

But, what if the connection between Professional Sports and Economic Impact isn’t so clear?

According to an article in Milwaukee Magazine:

“There’s overwhelming evidence that there is no economic impact,” declares professor Marc Levine, who runs the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Center for Economic Studies. “This conclusion has almost reached the truism of the Surgeon General’s warning that cigarettes are hazardous to your health.”

So stadiums cause cancer? No, but in Baltimore, Levine claims, hotel usage has actually declined since the advent of the Camden Yards baseball stadium. Economists at Johns Hopkins University estimate that Camden Yards generates about $3 million annually in economic benefits but costs Maryland taxpayers $14 million a year.

But hey, what do those cheese heads in Wisconsin know anyway, right? Let’s ask the good folks at the Independent Budget Office of New York City, an agency that “provides nonpartisan analysis to both elected officials and the public on fiscal and budgetary issues facing the city”:

The primary reason for the additional economic and fiscal activity resulting from new baseball stadiums stems from teams making more money from higher prices and greater fan attendance not from economic development surrounding stadiums.

Ahh, who cares what people in New York think, anyway? After all, they cheer for the Yankees! DC is going to build a stadium for the Nationals (lamest name ever?). DC is also swimming with economists and budget analysts. They must have figured this issue out. Let me see what the Cato Institute had to say in their October, 2004 report titled Caught Stealing; Debunking the Case for DC Baseball (PDF):

Our conclustion, and that of nearly all academic economists studying this issue, is that professional sports generally have little, if any, positive effect on a city’s economy. The net economic impact of professional sports in Washington, DC, and the other 36 cities that hosted professional sports teams over nearly 30 years, was a reduction in real per-capita income over the entire metropolitan area….DC policy makers should not be mesmerized by faulty impact studies that claim a baseball team and a new stadium can be an engine of economic growth.

If you’re truly interested in getting a new stadium built, let’s at least be honest about the economics of the situation. Spending public money on a stadium is just that: spending public money. It’s not an investment of public money. It is money that once spent, cannot be spent again.

Once you remove the bogus investment variable from the equation of spending public money on a professional sports stadium, the equation gets much easier to solve. It simply becomes a matter of priorites.

Do you want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a stadium that will be out-of-date in less than thirty years or would that money be better spent on libraries, public hunting lands, health care, transit systems, bridge repair, parks, and the like?

All of this isn’t to say that a city, county, or state shouldn’t spend public money to build a professional sports stadium. What it does say is that if you choose to spend public money in that fashion, you are placing a value on professional sports that places them above all of the other programs and whatnot that public money usually funds and you should be open about that fact. In addition, you should be prepared for others to disagree with how you’d like to spend taxpayer dollars. That’s all part of the messy process by which the public budget sausage is made.

So, shun Harold Hill and his fancy song and dance number filled with big numbers and pie-in-the-sky projections. Ignore the Music Man and pay attention to the facts.

This article originally appeared on the now defunct TwinsTerritory.com website.

The middle infield needs complete renewal.

Once again, Twins fans will most likely see Luis Rivas manning second base when the season opens.

Once again, many Twins fans will shake their heads and cross their fingers at that same fact.
When the Twins let Guzman walk over the winter, there was hope in Twinsville that Rivas would get his walking papers as well. Unfortunately, we were not so blessed.

The continuing presence of Rivas on the team is something of a mystery.

Statisically, Rivas does not seem to be any great improvment over Cuddyer. Their batting averages in 2004 were similar, and while Rivas’ fielding percentage was higher in 2004, his 2003 percentage compares favorably with Cuddyer’s 2004 percentage. It could even be argued that Cuddyer might commit fewer errors if he got the chance to play one position full-time. Using even more important numbers (from the Twins’ perspective), Rivas costs much more than Cuddyer or any of the younger guys clamoring to play infield for the Twins.

Perhaps the Twins kept Rivas around to lend the infield some stability since they will open the season with a new shortstop and third baseman. Maybe they felt Rivas could show the new guys where to stand for particular batters in specific situations. Or, maybe Rivas has some particularly potent blackmail material about Twins management.

Yes, the Twins will field a generally young and inexperienced infield this year. With Morneau playing his first full year at first base and a new left side of the infield, Rivas all of a sudden looks a bit like a rock of stability. However, does it make sense to trot him out there for one year just to watch him get the boot during the next off-season?

I’d like to see Rivas replaced this year. That will most likely mean some botched double plays and mishandled throws as the infield gains experience playing together. That’s the price we’ll have to pay for several years of infield stability going forward.

These halfway measures rarely work out for the best. Let’s suffer some short-term pain in exchange for a long-term gain.

This article originally appeared on the now defunct TwinsTerritory.com website.

Are franchises really that difficult and expensive to come by?Proponents of spending public money on a new stadium for the Twins often trot out two unfortunate pieces of local history: the loss of the Lakers and the North Stars.

The reason to exhume these rotting corpses from the ground of our collective memory is to scare the public into spending tax dollars (in one form or another) on a stadium to keep the Twins in Minnesota.

Proponents argue that cities all across the land are queueing up right now to make a bid for our beloved Twins. Those suitors will woo the Twins with public money, a new stadium, and thousands of fans paying top dollar for giant foam fingers, nachos, and beer.

To keep the grubby paws of all those suitors off our Twins, we desperately need to get a new stadium built. Some will even go so far as to say that they don’t care how a stadium is funded as long as one gets built.

After all, there are only so many sports franchises to go around. We can’t just go out and pick up a new MLB franchise at Cub Foods when we do our grocery shopping on Tuesday night. So, we need to kiss the rings of the Lords of Baseball, build them a shiny new palace, and hope that their local representatives decide to stick around for another ten years or so.

Strangely enough, the preceding argument is often coupled with a second argument that completely defeats the first.

The second argument is that once the Twins leave, we’ll have to pay even more money to get another franchise, a la the Wild and the Timberwolves.

Let me see if I understand this: once your franchise leaves you can never get another because there is a finite number, except on those occasions where someone spends money to get another franchise that is created by the league in question.

Is anyone else confused by that? Either there is a shortage of franchises or there isn’t.

The argument that it is more expensive to get that new franchise also doesn’t hold much water.

Leagues may demand larger franchise fees, but those are paid by individuals, not municipalities. Whether you spend today’s dollars on a stadium or tomorrow’s money on a stadium is really irrelevant.

Today, you may get a seemingly cheaper stadium. It will be built with today’s dollars which will be worth more than tomorrow’s dollars. In addition, it will be cheaper because fewer ammenities will be expected by today’s players and fans than tomorrow’s players and fans, so money won’t have to spent providing those ammenities.

If you build the stadium in the future, you’ll spend more on ammenities and the pile of dollars spent will be bigger for that reason as well as inflation’s devaluation of those dollars.

However, once another stadium is built with newer, better ammenities, players and fans will start clamoring for today’s stadium to be upgraded. That will cost money again.

Take the Kohl Center on the UW-Madison campus. It was built as the home of the Badgers basketball and hockey teams. When it was built, it had a scoreboard that was functional and near state of the art at the time.

This last summer, they spent millions upgrading the arena by adding four huge television screens in the middle of the arena, live video and video replay, and one of those distracting light rings around the second deck.

Once someone else had in-game video replay and some distracting light show, the Kohl Center (which is seven years old) had to spend millions to keep up with the Big Ten Joneses.

Just because you spent yesterday’s money to build today’s stadium, doesn’t mean you aren’t going to spend tomorrow’s money upgrading it once again. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of savings by building a stadium today rather than tomorrow.

In short, the major sports leagues are no different than OPEC. They both maintain a tight control on the amount of their product entering the market place. By doing so, they hope to keep profit levels high. However, if they are properly enticed, with political or economic biscuits, they gladly loosen the tap and allow a bit more product into the marketplace. There is no real shortage of product.

This article originally appeared on the now defunct TwinsTerritory.com website.

Now that the Vikings season is over, we can talk about just how good the team actually was this year.The Vikings have numerous problems on both sides of the ball.

Obviously, the defense is the biggest, and most obvious, problem. The cornerbacks, minus Winfield, generally can’t cover anyone. The safeties made almost zero plays this year. The linebackers as a squad are a mess. Individually, they’re generally average to below average. The defensive line, minus Kevin Williams, is a collection of journeymen and stiffs. The defensive coordinator either doesn’t know or doesn’t care to tailor the defense towards what little talent can be found on the defensive side of the ball.

The defensive secondary, minus Winfield, could be replaced this off-season and no one would shed a tear. Brian Williams makes just enough plays to start ahead of the other stiffs on the team, but I’m not sure he would start on any other team in the league. Willie Offord is a decent special teams player, but that doesn’t make him a serviceable strong safety. Brian Russell is a waste of a roster spot. Just how many sure interceptions does the guy have to drop before Tice takes him off the field? The other guys wearing cornerback numbers, and often lining up as cornerbacks (but not playing like professional cornerbacks) should be jettisoned this offseason. There must be guys the
Vikes could sign this offseason for less money who can play (or not play) just as well. At least the Vikes would be getting their money’s worth for a change.

The linebackers were a complete waste this year. The number of plays they made could be counted on my fingers and toes. To catalog the number of mistakes the linebackers made this year you’d need a commercial database running on some big iron servers. EJ Henderson looks great in uniform and lost on the field. Dump him. Chris Claiborne is slow and very rarely makes an impact play. Usually, he gets blocked out of the play or is chasing it from behind. Dontarrious Thomas needs a brain implant. Newman and the others who saw time at linebacker should be subject to the same treatment as the cornerbacks above. They should be dumped and the Vikes should give undrafted free agents a chance to compete for the spot. At least those guys would want to play.

The defensive line could be better. Udeze showed us little to nothing this year. In fact, he lost his starting spot to another (relatively unheralded) rookie. Mixon makes just enough plays to stay on the team. Lance Johnstone is nothing special. I’m not sold on guys who are trotted on to the field only for pass rushing downs. The great players stay on the field in every situation. In addition, the front four very rarely got much pressure on the quarterback without help from blitzing linebackers and the like. That lack of pressure more than once fatally exposed the Vikings cornerbacks for the frauds that they are.

Ted Cotrell, the Vikings defensive coordinator, should be dumped this offseason, as well. Clearly, his scheme is nothing special. The Vikes finished 28th overall in defense. It seems to me that we can only go up from there. Let’s give someone else a shot.

In addition, his defense in the game against Philadelphia today was inexcusable. How many times did the mediocre Philly wideouts catch a ball without a Viking within forty feet of them? Twenty times? Against what, exactly, were the Vikings defending? The fake end-around? If I hadn’t been able to see him with my own eyes, I might have thought Brian Westbrook was wearing an invisibility cloak for all the attention he got from the Vikings defense. Supposedly, Westbrook was being doubleteamed. Maybe the guys doing the doubleteaming were on the sidelines? They certainly weren’t on the field.

On the offensive side of the ball, the picture is better, but far from perfect.

The Vikes need to seriously consider revamping their offensive line. Sure, Matt Birk is a stud, but everyone else on the offensive line is average, at best. McKinnie was a bust of a draft pick. Let’s just admit it, so we can get busy trying to find someone else who actually wants to make millions of dollars playing left tackle for the Vikes. The Vikings running game this year virtually disappeared (once you subtract Culpepper’s running yards, the team’s yards-per-carry average just plummets) and a big part of that can be laid at the feet of the offensive line. The holes just weren’t there this year. Walter Payton wouldn’t have gotten 1000 yards behind the line the Vikes fielded this year. I can’t count the number of times a running back hit the line looking for a hole, but all he saw was the big butts of his linemen and some (unblocked) defensive guys looking for his head.

A portion of the running game’s failure can be laid at the feet of Scott Linehan, the Vikings offensive coordinator. Sure, the Vikes go downfield fairly often, and they even succeed once in a while. But when the team just needs to grind out sixty yards on the ground to kill the clock, don’t call Linehan. The first time a run fails to go for ten yards, Linehan retreats into a passing mentality for the next thirty plays. Good running teams don’t try running once, get frustrated, and give up for the rest of the game. In addition, Linehan seems to have an unnatural attraction for the draw. Unfortunately, defenses know it, and the draw, as drawn up by Linehan, and as called by Linehan, rarely works. In Linehan’s mind, the pass is used to setup the pass while the run is used to setup the punt team.

The Vikings also need to take a very long look at the running back position. I know of no teams that have had success using a platoon at the running back position. Successful teams have one featured back that gets the lion’s share of the carries. Using Michael Bennett for a couple downs, then Moore, then Smith, then Bennett, then Smith, then Moore, etc., etc., etc. does nothing to help any of the three develop a rhythm. Onterrio Smith doesn’t seem to be the great back that the coaching staff is always touting. The number of big plays he came up with this year could be counted on one hand. Bennett has good speed and generally creates more big plays than Smith. Unfortunately, he is prone to running directly into his own linemen’s asses, rather than around them. I don’t know if that is because he lacks field vision, creativity, or simply cannot move his hips very well, but since we have an alternative, it seems that we ought to explore it. Moore is probably the best back the Vikes have at this point. So, it made sense for the team that he spent most of the year on the sidelines after proving his worth during several games early in the season. Hopefully, Tice and Co. will pull their collective heads out of…um…somewhere during the next training camp and give Moore a chance to be the Vikes number one back. Regardless of who they choose, the Vikes would do well to dump their running-back-by-committee approach.

Assuming that the Vikes can keep Culpepper, they are set for at least the next eight years at quarterback.

Marcus Robinson as a free-agent pickup was nothing special. Kelly Campbell lost relevance once the Vikes no longer had him returning kickoffs and stopped throwing him the ball. Moss is a punk, but when properly motivated, can still play the game like few others. The problem, more often than not, is getting him motivated. Apparently, $6 million dollars per annum just doesn’t motivate him like it would most people. Burleson is a keeper and should start every game as the number two wideout next year.

The Vikes desperately need to sign an actual field-goal kicker. It’s all well and good that Morten Anderson rarely misses from inside forty yards. However, it sure would be nice to have a kicker with a leg for a change. How long has it been since the Vikes had a field goal kicker who could make one from beyond forty-five yards? Eight or ten years, certainly. Even Sarah, for whom the Vikings are nothing more than a peripheral topic of conversation said she is “tired of hearing about Morten Anderson’s limited range.”

Darren Bennett, the punter, ought to be let go. He is washed up. Once upon a time, he was special. This year, he was barely serviceable.

The Vikes then, were about as good as their 8 and 8 record indicated. Oh well, the 2005 season starts in just a bit over seven months.