Sports Then and Now

Innovative head coach Don Coryell has passed away at the age of 85.

Sad news last night that former NFL coach Don Coryell has passed away at the age of 85. Though Coryell has yet to pass muster with the selection committee for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, his innovative career is certainly worthy of enshrinement in the Hall of Fame.

Unfortunately, when Coryell finally gets the HOF bust he has deserved for more than 20 years, he will join other deserving former players and coaches including Bob Hayes, George Allen, Gene Hickerson and Hank Stram as Hall of Famers who waited way too long for enshrinement and either had passed away or where too ill to fully enjoy their moment in the sun when it finally came.

Coryell almost made it into the HOF this past February as he was named as a finalist for the first time since retiring from coaching in 1987. Unfortunately, the selection committee maintained their track record of bad decision making and chose to recognize Dick LeBeau and Russ Grimm instead of the deserving and ailing Coryell.

While LeBeau was a solid player with the Lions and has been a good defensive coordinator (though an awful head coach) and Grimm was a key member of the great Redskins offensive lines of the 1980s, neither had the same kind of impact on the NFL of today as Coryell.

Though the game had been played for more than 50 years when he became an NFL head coach, Don Coryell ultimately established a passing attack that was well beyond anything that had preceded it in league history. Read the rest of this entry →

Mark McGwire admitted to steroid use, but believes it didn't impact his success.

“The Truth Shall Set Me Free,” so says Mark McGwire after releasing his statement to the press yesterday that he was indeed a steroid user for the better part of the decade. It was McGwire along with Sammy Sosa who revived the sport of Major League Baseball from one of its lowest places in the history of the sport.

McGwire, who never tested positive for any illegal substance during his playing time, stood up before a Select Committee of United States Congressmen and said he would not talk about the past. From that moment on, McGwire has been vilified by the fans, the press, and broadcasters throughout the U.S.

What all of us learned yesterday for the first time was what went on behind the scenes of that committee meeting. According to McGwire, he had every intention of coming clean that day before Congress but his lawyers advised him in order to avoid prosecution he would need to get immunity. His lawyers met with the two key members of the committee, who could not promise immunity, so they all agreed that McGwire who refused to lie about his steroid use could say that he would not speak about the past.

Does that make a difference to anyone? It does to me. The committee knew what McGwire was going to say, and they agreed not to push the issue.

Perhaps, the most amazing part of his revelation was that Mark did not feel that his performance was accelerated by the use of steroids. His claim about taking low doses just to help heal his injuries and himself to “feel normal” comes across as either terribly naive or just plain stupid.

McGwire feels that if he were healthy and never took steroids he still would have managed to hit 70 home runs in one season and 583 overall. Really? Read the rest of this entry →

After spending a fortune on Matt Holliday, will the Cardinals have the money to resign Albert Pujols?

Watching the post-season wraps ups for Major League Baseball this past November, you could have been easily convinced that Albert Pujols was the greatest player to every swing a bat.  If you were convinced, it was not only because everyone and their brother was talking about it as the MVP unveiling drew nearer, but also because even a quick look at Pujols’s numbers leaves people wide eyed.  He’s every smart fantasy player’s automatic number one draft choice and someday the term “highlight” itself will be replaced by “Pujols”.

So why is it that the Cardinals have all but decided to jettison Pujols by giving Matt Holliday his new opus magnum  $120 million contract?

First of all, am I the only one who realizes that Matt Holliday is not another Albert Pujols.  That’s not an insult as we could go decades before we see another AP.  But if the Cardinals are telling Holliday that he is worth this much green, how much will they have to give Pujols , the better player, in order to keep him?

Holliday will be getting roughly $17 million per year over the next seven years, not counting a list of bonuses for things like MVP, Silver Slugger, and playoff wins (exactly the same bonuses as Pujols’s current contract.) Read the rest of this entry →

Albert Pujols will look to power the Cardinals past the Dodgers.

For much of the 2009 season the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals appeared to be the two best teams in the National League. However, a late slide by the Cardinals suddenly pits these two traditional contenders against each other in the opening round of the National League playoffs.

In Albert Pujols and Manny Ramirez, this series features two of the best known players in the game. However, while Pujols is at the peak of his game, Ramirez has struggled to regain top form since missing 50 games due to a positive drug test.
Read the rest of this entry →