France-Ireland -- World Cup Qualifier Travesty

Lest you might have thought that anything to do with the Olympics and planning for it was among the most questionable, if not corrupt, activities in the world, now we have last night's World Cup qualifier between France and Ireland, played in France. I'm in France now, and I've had the benefit of hearing the French reaction to the "Hand of Henry" goal that propelled France to a tie in the match and a berth in the 2010 World Cup.

Irish star Robbie Keane scored in the thirty-third minute, and for a good part of the game the Irish really took it to France. In extra time (for Americans, that means time added to a half to allow for the time that the clock ran but play did not continue because of an injury), the ball made its way toward the goal Ireland was defending. French captain, former Arsenal and current Barcelona striker Thierry Henry guided it with his hand toward another player. The referee should have stopped play and called it a "hand ball." Sometimes, if the touching is viewed as obvious and deliberate, a player can get a yellow card (the equivalent to a technical foul in basketball; get two yellow cards and you get a red card, an automatic ejection and a suspension from the next game). Play would have stopped, and Ireland would have had a free kick.

Instead, the Irish are crying foul in their beer. Apparently the French media are not being kind to their own Les Bleus, as a colleague told me that commentators on the air and in print are saying that France won because it cheated. Naturally, there's speculation that since no one involved with the World Cup could imagine one without France. . . well, you fill in the blank. That's a tough allegation, and, as American baseball fans learned, in the post-season this past season otherwise well-regarded umpires missed some obvious calls (including two in a row in a World Series game by umpire Brian Gorman, who called a double play that wasn't against the Yankees and then called Chase Utley out at first when he clearly was safe).

This is a pretty awful spectacle, and if you can find a replay you'll see how obvious a missed call this was and confirm that it was at the worst time of the game. Which leads to a suggestion. . .

Why don't they have instant replay on all goals in games like this? That doesn't mean I'm suggesting that they do so in every league match everywhere, but in championship matches, tournament matches, deciding World Cup qualifiers, why don't the powers that be take some pressure off the officials and guarantee some more quality in the officiating. Akin to a "booth review" in the last 2 minutes of a National Football League game, a review of any goal should be automatic. If this were the case, the referee would head to a booth on the field and converse with officials up in the press box. They would review a replay of the goal, and the referee clearly would have seen the hand ball. And then he would have made the right call.

Instead, at best human error cost the Irish a World Cup berth (my guess is that there are several World Cup officials who would contend that had the Irish played better throughout the qualifying, their fate wouldn't have come down to this goal in this game, so that they shouldn't make such a big deal about this goal). The Irish fans are angry and frustrated, and the French fans are sighing a sigh of relief.

But both Les Bleus and the French fans know that the French didn't deserve that goal, that tie or a berth in the World Cup.

As does the rest of the soccer world.

The accident has happened, so now it's time for the World Cup officials to put up better traffic signs in the form of instant replay. The reason is clear -- the integrity of the game is at stake.

Great Baseball Hot Stove Talk from SI's Jon Heyman

Good stuff on

a) who might get Roy Halladay;

b) whether and when Mark McGwire might come clean; and

c) which teams are looking to trade players.

I have a hard time believing that the Phillies would seriously consider trading for Brandon Inge, who is only a few years younger than Pedro Feliz and has a bad on-base percentage (according to MLB.com, a career .305). The Phillies need someone who can hit consistently, field the position reasonably well and have an OBP closer to .350 than .300. Placido Polanco would seem to fit the bill, but he's a Type A free agent who would cost the Phillies their first-round draft pick. And given the Phils' sudden and unprecedented run of success with first-round picks, it's hard to believe that they'd be willing to part with one for Polanco.

Keep on following Jon Heyman on SI.com. He's worth the time.

Should the NFL Go to an 18-Game Schedule?

Sports Illustrated.com's Ross Tucker, a former NFL and Ivy League player, thinks so.

The article doesn't say whether Tucker had any concussions during his career or, if so, how many? While I generally like Tucker's writing, some of the reasons he cites for the proposition actually might be strong arguments against it. The main one -- he believes that injuries create intrigue and opportunity. My view -- injuries seriously dilute teams, turn the season into a war of attrition where the healthiest and not the best team can win it all, and few fans want to see a gridiron match-up where King Hill and Joe Pisarcik are quarterbacking pre-season Super Bowl contenders for the last five games of the season. (Presumably, were the NFL to move to an 18-game season, the league also will adopt a two-hand touch rule with respect to contact with quarterbacks).

Read the whole thing and see what you think.

Elena Delle Donne is Back

She was the top recruit in the nation several years ago, chose UConn over Tennessee (and many others) and then quit the team after one day. Initially, "burnout" was cited, but the fact was that Delle Donne wanted to move back home to Delaware to be near an older sister with whom she is very close and who has significant disabilities. Delle Donne enrolled at the University of Delaware, played volleyball, and then couldn't resist the urge to return to basketball.

UConn apparently was very good about her leaving. This is one kid who seemingly has her head on straight.

Here's the story of her debut.

All of a sudden, Delaware women's basketball is on the map.

Isiah Thomas Isn't Running the Knicks Anymore, Is He?

ESPN.com reports that the Knicks might be interested in Allen Iverson.

The team must have a short memory about having had to deal with Stephon Marbury.

Can't blame all the woes on their former GM, can they?

Will the Phillies Sign Mark DeRosa?

MLB.com thinks so.

That the Phillies want him and that he'd be interested in the Phillies are the easy part. What the article doesn't ask or answer is "in what role?"

The Phillies have been looking for a supersub who can play many positions and not cause a dropoff in production. They would love not to have their regulars play 155 games a year and give them more meaningful rest. That would mean finding someone who could spell Raul Ibanez for 20 games, Jayson Werth for 15 (presumably, Werth or Ben Francisco could play center when Shane Victorino rests), Ryan Howard for 10 (against tough lefties), Chase Utley for 12. That's someone who can start for approximately 60 games and get about 300 plate appearances guaranteed.

The Phillies also are looking for a third baseman. If that person is DeRosa, then they're still looking for a supersub and might be even more in need of one because DeRosa will be coming off wrist surgery. If they can sign an Adrian Beltre or Placido Polanco too, they'll both have strengthened their bench and their starting lineup. And, with Beltre, I don't believe there would be a significant dropoff in the field from Pedro Feliz.

With DeRosa, the Phillies' offense will get tougher. With DeRosa, a starting third baseman and one more potent lefty bat off the bench, the offense could be as tough as it's ever been.

Stay tuned.

Why Major League Baseball Might Need a Salary Cap

It should take a look at the English Premiership, where most teams (of the 20 in the league) are happy to be there and have absolutely no chance of winning the title. The ones who win the title are perennial contenders Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea (a relative newcomer) and Liverpool. Yes, Manchester City has a lot of money now, but they're not usually in the conversation. Others in the Premiership -- such as Aston Villa, Bolton, Everton, Fulham, Tottenham -- have little chance in winning it all. Check out the odds that the bookmakers put out at the beginning of a season, and there are more teams at 1,000 to 1 or higher than there are fewer. Or at least it's very close.

If the wealthy teams in Major League Baseball continue their spending ways, the stats have shown over the years that while excellence cannot be bought (translated: the Yankees don't win it every year despite spending the most money, it must be paid for (translated: you cannot contend for the World Series for the most part unless you're in the top 10 in payroll). So, many of the teams have little or no chance of winning a division let alone a World Series. And that means that at some point it might not be economically feasible for teams in places like Kansas City and Pittsburgh to exist, let alone play .500 baseball (17 straight losing seasons and counting in Pittsburgh) or contend.

Is that what Major League Baseball wants to be? Look, I know that the players' union wants to maximize the money that players make, but does it want to do so at the expense of most players' having a chance to play for a contender? Because that seems to be the path that Major League Baseball is on, that is, so long as fans of the teams with no chance continue to show up in reasonable enough numbers for the also-rans to sustain themselves. But if they continue to sustain themselves, then they're probably merely providing entertainment, as the home fans will get to say that they saw the stars for the visiting teams. And that trend has started -- this season, both the Washington Nationals and the Pittsburgh Pirates advertised in Philadelphia to induce Philadelphia fans to travel to their ballparks. A friend did just that for a Pirates' game and said that it seemed more like a home game for the Phillies, because Phillies' fans predominated.

Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, Mets, Cubs, Dodgers, Angels, Cardinals and perhaps a few more. Without a salary cap and with an economy that has its aches and pains right now, how healthy is Major League Baseball for the long run?

Scouting Them Young

Much has been made in the U.S. of the basketball recruiting gurus who scout elementary school and middle school kids, all with an eye to predict who will be the next big thing. The problem, of course, is that early perception seldom meets up with reality. Sure, Tyson Chandler and Sebastian Telfair are in the NBA, but we had heard about them for so long that it would have been impossible for them to become the next, say, Wilt Chamberlain and Earl Monroe. And they're not even close anyway.

I'm overseas, and I was talking with a colleague who lives in Ireland about his 11 year-old nephew, who made his town's team. He's a starter, and in the finals of a big tournament, scouts from English Premiership teams were there. The goal of many an Irish kid is to play for Manchester United, and Man U was represented, as were Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea, among others.

So, looking at the (very) youngsters is not only the franchise of self-appointed recruiting gurus in the United States. It's a very big business in Europe.

Who Do Cal Fans Root for When Stanford Plays USC?

Just askin'.

A Cal alum friend said she rooted for USC because she went to graduate school there. She didn't respond when I asked what she would have done had she not. Is it a tough choice, or does USC win because a Cal alum simply cannnot root for its arch-rival Stanford in anything?

Princeton 71 Central Michigan 68

Last year, the Princeton Tigers hosted Central Michigan in the season opener at Jadwin Gym and lost a close one. Yet, for Tiger fans, that game gave them hope that Coach Sydney Johnson had the team playing with a vigor that it hadn't for several seasons. While the Tigers didn't win the Ivy League or get a post-season berth, they enjoyed a winning season and finished second in the Ivies.

This year, the Tigers traveled to Central Michigan, had the lead late, lost it, and then rallied to prevail. You can read about the game here and check out the box score. Okay, so it's not as a remarkable an accomplishment as Princeton's neighbor to the south, Rider, enjoyed this week, as the Broncos upset #18 Mississippi State in Starkville, or the win that Ivy rival and favorite Cornell had, beating Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Nonetheless, the Tigers beat a decent opponent on the road, showing that the nucleus of players that meshed last season is trying to step up their game this year. And for close Tiger watchers, it looks like two freshmen -- Ian Hummer and Will Barrett, both touted recruits, are in the rotation.

As always, for the best coverage of Princeton basketball, go to the Princeton Basketball blog. Great stuff there from Jon Solomon, so please check it out.

Rocky Wins the Title For Real: Stanford Football

Stanford beat USC yesterday.

In football.

At USC.

56-21.

That is not a misprint.

Somewhere, the collective fandom of the Pac-10 is rejoicing. Okay, maybe not Cal fans (who have their own celebrating to do, as their Bears beat #17 Arizona yesterday 24-17), but everyone else. Having lived in California for a time, I recall seeing bumper stickers saying "My favorite team is ______ [the alma mater of the owner of the car] and whoever is playing USC."

Stanford football had fallen on hard times before Jim Harbaugh arrived in Palo Alto. Now, Stanford is a formidable force in the Pac-10. RB Toby Gerhart is a bona fide Heisman candidate, and if he doesn't get serious consideration it's because a) he plays in the wrong time zone or b) Big 12 and SEC beat writers, among others, don't look west of Nebraska most of the time for their football news (heck, they probably don't look much further north of Knoxville or Columbus these days, either). So successful is Stanford (as The Sporting News predicted it would be), that The Sporting News predicted in its pre-season football guide that the Pac-10 coach most likely not to keep his job would be none other than Harbaugh. Most of the time this prediction is predicated on a team's playing poorly enough and its coach's going into the season on the hot seat. This predication, of course, was predicated on the editors' optimism that Jim Harbaugh would continue to demonstrate what an outstanding coach he is.

Which means, of course, that NFL teams and "bigger time" teams (whoever they are, wherever they are, and whatever their (lesser) academic standards are) might come a-calling. Now, the conventional wisdom these days is that college coaches cannot make the transition to the NFL. Dennis Erickson was one of the latest examples of a coach who just didn't get it done. But Harbaugh played in the NFL, is the son of a college coach, the brother of an NFL head coach and has achieved mightily -- think Sisyphus actually getting the rock to the top of the hill. He'll certainly be on the "A" list.

But let's not detract from Stanford's accomplishments and its right to celebrate an all-time victory. They'll be talking about this trouncing of the mighty Trojan empire for decades to come -- both in Palo Alto and in Los Angeles.

Stanford football is the best story of the 2009 college football season.

Princeton 24 Yale 17

The SportsProf family tailgated at a nicely appointed tailgate party on a field near Princeton Stadium. Put it this way -- the spread was much more intricate than a variety of grilled, shredded meats. Hoagies, crudite, salsa, guacamole dip, great corn chips, crab dip, wine, beer, Philadelphia soft pretzels and cookies constituted the spread. The food was great, the company better, and then we bought our $7 dollar seats and sat in the end zone, as over the years most of our friends have.

The questionable weather -- overcast, making noon look like 5 p.m. -- the proximity to Thanksgiving (meaning that many would-be attendees perhaps passed because of the travel they'll end up doing in 1 1/2 weeks) and the Tigers' overall record (bad) probably kept many of the orange-and-black faithful away. They missed a good game.

The game started out awkwardly for both teams. The Princeton kicker sent the opening kickoff out of bounds, and then a Yale special teamer made a dirty hit away from the ball on a Princeton player. The result -- Yale had the ball, and a sophomore special teamer was ejected and sent to the locker room. Yale's sophomore QB Patrick Witt -- a Nebraska transfer whose bio indicates that many big-time scholarship schools offered him full rides -- then tried to go to work. Witt's a good passer who will give the rest of the Ivies fits in the next two years, but this day would belong to the Tigers.

Witt threw a few picks, the Tigers coughed up the ball on several occasions, including once at the Yale 6, the Tigers failed to sense a Yale onside kick after the Elis made it 21-10 and then failed to guess that on fourth and short inside Princeton territory Yale would fake a punt and get a first down. Still, the Tigers bent but did not break, and they beat Yale for the first time in 3 years, 24-17.

So much for what I had speculated. I told my group before the game that given the way Penn pasted Princeton last week, I expected Yale to win by a few touchdowns. Okay, I was wrong -- Princeton showed that it could play well -- so to speak -- for more than a half and they beat their longstanding Ivy rival.

As with Ivy football, there were many parts of brilliance. The Princeton play calling was for the most part innovative, although they might need three back-up quarterbacks because they expose their QB when he runs the option. The running game was deceptive, but the passing plays were not all that creative. The offensive coordinator kept on calling for flanker screens, overloading the receivers on one side of the field and then throwing the ball quickly to the furthest receiver, who then would try to pick up blockers. On occasion, the play worked, but on other occasions, it didn't. On one play, a Yale defender blasted a Princeton receiver so hard after catch that the ball went backwards to the Tiger 7 from about the 17, but fortunately for the Tigers a running back fell on the ball. Princeton needs more vertical and crossing patterns to complement the flanker screens and occasional slants in order to deceive opposing defenses more.

On defense, the Tigers defensive tackles had their moments but on many occasions were moved out of the way on running plays. One Tiger defensive end excelled in pursuit, in blocking a pass and in making a menace of himself. The linebackers were good, but why is it that on many if not most occasions the Tiger defensive backs don't go for the ball. They were content to fall in behind Yale receivers and tackle them after they made catches. As I said to a friend, in the NFL, the defensive backs are hungrier and are draped all over the receivers. In this particular Ivy game, the cushion was too big, as though the defensive backs would sacrifice on each play a contained gain rather than to anticipate, step up and make the big play.

All in all, though, the Tigers came out organized and more driven than Yale, and led 14 to 3 at the half. It should have been 17-3 or 21-3, but a fumble deep in Yale territory late in the first half negated what could have been a bigger advantage. Yale woke up in the second half and played more aggressively on defense and offense, but in the end it was too little to late. With less than 2 minutes to go the Tiger defense rose to the occasion and obliterated any chance of a 2-minute drive for the Bulldogs.

It was a nice win for Princeton in an otherwise disappointing season, with losses to Penn on the road (42-7) and Columbia at home (38-0).

Free Agency: Charlie Finley's Suggestion May Take Root

Do you remember Charlie Finley? Charles O. Finley, the insurance magnate who owned the Oakland A's. Do you remember the Oakland A's of the early 1970's? They wore mustaches, garish combinations of green and gold, and they won three straight World Series, from 1972-1974. Among the players on the A's were Hall of Famers Reggie Jackson and Jim "Catfish" Hunter. Those teams defended well, pitched awesome, hit solidly, and generally beat the stuffing out the their opponents when they weren't picking on each other.

This, of course, was the same Finley who tried to sell his stars to the Yankees and the Red Sox a few seasons later, only to have Commissioner of Baseball Bowie Kuhn void the transactions under the "best interests of baseball clause." Kuhn's moves prompted Finley to dub Kuhn "the village idiot."

When Marvin Miller became head of the players' union, he helped transform the players' bargaining power and the sport. Put simply, the Major League Baseball Players Association is the most successful union in the history of organized labor. I won't go into the details here, but the average player's salary has gone up dramatically over the past three decades.

One of the things that players battled for (among them, Curt Flood and Andy Messersmith) was free agency. They hated the "reserve clause", which, until free agency came about, meant that once a player was in a team's organization the team had the right to keep that player forever. Put differently, the team had all of the leverage over a player who's contract was up -- it was either sign or hold out and then try to work something out; the player couldn't offer his services to another team. Miller and the players changed all that.

Naturally, most owners were horrified at the concept of free agency. I don't know whether any predicted that without a salary cap the wealthiest teams would end up signing the best free agents, but to a degree today that's what's happened, and the numbers show that it's hard to make the playoffs unless your team is in the top third of payroll. In any event, Finley had a much different take on free agency. It didn't scare him at all. In fact, he was ready to give in -- totally.

Said Finley: "Let Them All Become Free Agents." What Finley proposed was that after each season every player would become a free agent, free to sign with whatever team wanted his services.

Think about that. Talk about a dynamic market reflective of a player's previous performance. Talk about "pay for performance." Talk about not crippling your payroll with a long-term contract for a player who would be likely not to perform well at the end of the contract (the Mets suffered three such fates with four-year deals for Pedro Martinez, Tommy Glavine and Billy Wagner) or who just wouldn't perform well (Exhibit A: Barry Zito). Talk about giving a good raise, though, to the 22 year-old rookie who hit .325 with 25 home runs and 100 RBIs (here Pablo Sandoval would be making about $5 million now instead of the hundreds of thousands he'll earn because of his youth and lack of Major League service). So, year to year, players would get what the market will bear.

The possibilities are mind-boggling. How much would Cliff Lee earn after his wonderful performance with the Philadelphia Phillies? Certainly more than the $9 million he's scheduled to earn; Lee would probably be making about $17 million this season. In stark contrast, Jamie Moyer, who is scheduled to earn about $8 million this season because of incentives he achieved in his 2009 contract, but who after mid-season struggled mightily, might only be making $750,000.

It's hard to say how competitiveness would be affected, but my guess is that the competitive landscape wouldn't be a lot different -- the teams with the money would still excel, and it could be the case that the teams without money would get worse. The smaller-market and poorer teams would lose the right to keep a young player through his first year of eligibility for free agency; they probably would lose him after his first good season. Finley probably didn't care -- he probably worked on commissions, and how well he and his businesses did had to depend on how well they performed and not necessarily locking in long-term deals for themselves.

Why is Finley relevant now? Because for baseball players what might well be an unintended consequence of their very successful efforts at collective bargaining will take roost by December 12. Click on this link for a list of players who are arbitration eligible. It's a long list, and if teams don't offer their players arbitration they will become free agents. The bet here is that most of these players won't be offered arbitration, which means that there will be a glut of free agents on the market.

And that's bad for baseball players.

Here's why. Attendance was down 7% this past season. Many teams are not doing well. Unemployment lingers at 10.2%, so fans who might have stretched to hold onto their tickets for 2009 might not be able to afford the luxury in 2010. But much more important than that, arbitration has served as a way to get more money for players year after year. Arbitration meant that there was a floor under whatever the player was making, and if a team opted not to sign him to a long-term deal and keep him in arbitration-eligible mode the likelihood is that he would continue to get raises (usually double-digit) until he became eligible for free agency (where, assuming good performance, he could get a much bigger increase and a longer-term deal). Most people get 0-3% raises; baseball players, because of their unique talent and their collective bargaining agreement, get much higher ones on average.

But without arbitration, the player who made $1.5 million in 2009 (Chad Durbin) and had a decent year but is in his early 30's and was on the DL in 2009 might find himself in a cattle call of other middle relievers. Some baseball observers believe that betting on middle relievers for consistent long-term performance is an iffy proposition because if they're overused in a season they might not be able to perform at the same level the next season. At any rate, the bet here is that no one will offer Durbin a multi-year deal and that he and others like him will take significant pay cuts. The bet here is that if Durbin returns to the Phillies or signs elsewhere, it's perhaps for $1 million with a club option for the following season.

Back to Charlie Finley. This "let them all become free agents" mentality will not take over baseball but will find a test lab in the subset of arbitration-eligible players. And, rather than help equalize the potential of all Major League teams, the best-financed ones will be able to find bargains to populate slots #17-#25 on their Major League rosters, making them even tougher to beat. Why? Because the best will get caught up in small bidding wars that will get them what they want, and the good ones, even if they take less, will still get more from a New York, Boston or Philadelphia than they will from a Pittsburgh or Kansas City.

And then the rub continues -- the elite teams will remain as popular as ever, while the worst ones will continue to wilt. And then all of baseball -- owners and players alike -- will have to ask themselves this question: will baseball be able to continue without a salary cap if the marginal teams have little chance of winning a World Series and, as a result, continue to see their attendance and merchandise sales dwindle? How many teams will be able to remain if only 8-12 of them will be able to contend meaningfully for the World Series year after year?

Temple Wins Its Eighth in a Row!

Temple's football team trounced Akron in Akron last night to win its eighth straight game, the first time the Owls have won eight straight since 1973 (and I think I was at every home game that season). This is a great story -- an amazing turnaround, so much so that head coach Al Golden had a feature written about him in this week's Sports Illustrated.

Whether or not the Owls' 8 wins will garner them enough respect to earn a bowl invitation remains to be seen. After all, this outstanding achievement only got the 11th priority headline in the on-line version of the sports section of the Philadelphia Daily News, behind stories about the woeful 76ers and LeBron James' suggestion that all teams should retire Michael Jordan's #23. Sure, the combined record of the teams the Owls have beaten is below .500, but as players are wont to say, "you play who you play," you have no control over that, and the Owls are 6-0 in their division within the Mid-American Conference. This is a great story.

Temple has two games left -- it would be hard to see the Owls not getting a bowl bid if they finish the regular season 10-2.

How Battered is Your Favorite NFL Team?

The Philadelphia Eagles are beaten up, and their roster has taken some big hits.

For example:

Going into the season, here is what their offensive line was projected to look like:

RT Stacy Andrews
RG Shawn Andrews
C Jamal Jackson
LG Todd Herremans
LT Jason Peters.

But Stacy Andrews, a somewhat big free-agent signing, hasn't materialized. Shawn Andrews went on injured reserve with a bad back, and some surmised that he wasn't fully recovered from the bout he had with depression last season. Herremans missed about 5-6 games recovering from foot surgery, and Peters has been banged up here and there.

RB Brian Westbrook hasn't fully recovered from his bad ankle, and he's missed a few games because of a concussion. MLB Stewart Bradley had a bad knee going into training camp and then blew it out in a pre-season practice at Lincoln Financial Field. Starting LB Chris Gocong missed last game with leg injuries. The injuries at LB were bad enough, but then neither Joe Mays nor Omar Gaither established himself in the middle, and then Gaither suffered a Lisfranc sprain to his foot (a very painful injury that requires surgery), so he's on the injured reserved list and out for the season. The team then traded for career outside linebacker Will Witherspoon, who's a bit undersized for the middle, to play the middle (this after former MLB Jeremiah Trotter, out of football for 2 years, came back and proved that he's a few steps too slow to play regularly). So, with Gocong hurt, you saw backups Tracy White and Mose Fokou get more playing time. Fokou had two huge penalties against Dallas last week -- one on an interception return and one on a kickoff (the latter negated a TD runback by Ellis Hobbs).

So now we get to the secondary, where Joselio Hanson is on the shelf for four games for taking a diuretic that's on a banned list as a steroid. That's bad enough, but Hobbs just went onto the injured reserve list, as he'll need neck surgery. Those two develops prompted the signing of a free-agent cornerback and the elevation of a cornerback from the practice squad.

And, of course, QB Donovan McNabb got hurt in the first game of the season and then missed the next two games. WR Kevin Curtis has missed the entire season with injuries (fortunately for the Eagles, rookie Jeremy Maclin has made the team all but forget Curtis).

All of the above, of course, are only the publicized injuries. You can only imagine what "smaller" injuries -- contusions, bone bruises, sprains, lacerations -- that each player is dealing with to some degree.

Got all that?

And the team has only played half of its games. When the Eagles went to the Super Bowl in 2004, I recall that only two players went on the injured reserve and that the team was very healthy for the entire season. A season or two later, 11 players ended up on the I.R.

So, as you watch the NFL during the second half of the season, look for a correlation between a team's health and happiness. The healthier the team, the happier it's players and fans will be with its results.

Rafael Palmeiro to Become the Rangers' Hitting Coach

Not.

Just wanted to get your attention.

How is it that Mark McGwire can come back to Major League Baseball and Pete Rose cannot become eligible for the Hall of Fame? Why is there no pushback from the Commissioner's office on McGwire? Why should he be allowed back?

The simple answer is that while he all but lied during his Congressional testimony he wasn't found guilty of anything, wasn't (really) the subject of MLB's investigation and most certainly wasn't suspended by Major League Baseball. In contrast, Rose committed a host of transgressions for which he wasn't fully remorseful or apologetic, at least for a long while.

McGwire benefits, in part, from the "everyone else did it" defense, one which, under most circumstances, prosecutors would have their mouths watering. The reason? Because if everyone did it, there are more people to prosecute. Instead, baseball prefers to want to have its performance-enhancing-drugs era vanish as quickly as it can, almost as though the Commissioner's office wishes it could place a Harry Potter-like memory charm on the entire population of baseball fans to make them forget -- forever -- that some of the stats and results were as pumped full of crap as the players themselves were. So, the logic must be, pay attention to McGwire and make a stink out of his hiring, and then baseball (whose attendance was down about 7% this season) opens up the entire can of worms again -- steroids, HGH, who are among the 204 or so players who tested positive but weren't named -- and all of that.

At a time when attenance is down, baseball thinks it's cleared that mess, and that there are lingering concerns that without a salary cap teams like Pittsburgh and Kansas City are forever doomed to be at the bottom looking up. While there is a saying that any publicity -- good or bad -- is good publicity, naturally the Lords of Baseball do not think so.

But the amusing part of this is that the writers -- who themselves whiffed on the story for years -- won't forgive McGwire and won't vote him into the Hall of Fame. Or so many say. So, on the one hand, they won't anoint him, but, on the other hand, they're not pressing MLB for the reason why it's giving McGwire a pass.

Gambling, we all should surmise, is worse than performance-enhancing drugs.