5 More Sports Things That Need to Change

I've had an aggravating week in sports and I've compiled a short list of things that would ease that aggravation if they went away.

1. Seeing Red: Like many people, I watched the Notre Dame/Florida State football game this weekend. Like so few things in life, it promised one thing and then actually delivered on that thing. Of course, I couldn't help but notice the Florida State fans and their incessant "Chop" chant. The Atlanta Braves fans do the same thing and each group swears the other stole it. I have just a small issue with the "Chop" (as pictured):

As a self-described "White Man," I find it painful, on behalf of Native Americans, to watch a crowd of mostly white folks swing their arms, or better yet, foam Tomahawks, whilst some decidedly inauthentic "Native" music plays in an effort to conjure some unjustified help from Cree or something to that effect. The "white people got a lotta nerve" element isn't what bothers me most about the Chop. What bothers me most is that there is an outrage over the name Washington Redskins whilst the Chop gets a free ride. Can we either decide that none of this stuff proper and stop doing all of it or stop pretending that we have some sort of moral compass that guides our interactions with Native peoples, concede that we have no respect for them as people, their traditions and cultures and move on?
By the by, as a person of Irish decent, I said nothing about Notre Dame being "the Irish"or the multitude of other Irish-related mascots of other schools. So if we're having the discussion, let's not leave groups out, OK?

2. Running Interference: Will the NFL finally just come out and admit that nobody associated with the league knows what pass interference is? Normally, I might be upset that the call was made against my team in some way. My point here, however, is the rule doesn't seem to be enforced consistently. Different officiating crews seem to have ranging interpretations of the rule. I suspect this is because pass interference is unbelievably vague. Good rules are unambiguous. If the ball hits on this side of the line, it's foul; it it hits the line or on that side, it's fair. Brilliant rule. With pass interference we go from "well, he did make contact" to "that's just two guys playing football right there" from play to play. Here's a challenge: find 10 people working in the NFL-coach, player, official, league admin.-and have them define, in as much detail as possible, what pass interference is. My guarantee is you get 10 different answers. That is the very definition of a horrible rule. Yet, how can a rule that has such an affect on the outcomes of games be one of the worst rules in your sport?

3. Zoning Out: This next thing isn't a problem in the same way the previous two are, it's just something that drives me crazy when I see it. Football teams can play two types of pass defense-zone and man-to-man. Man-to-man is easy to understand. This specific guy right here is the guy you are responsible for. You follow him everywhere and don't let him catch the ball. Zone, as the name implies, divides the field up into defensible areas, with each player responsible for a different zone. But please tell the defensive coaches in your life to coach defense the following way, as doing so will prevent me from wanting to throw a book through my TV scree: Think of a zone defense like a house. Each defender is responsible for a different room. One guy takes the living room, the other the kitchen, another the bedroom. Simple to understand. However, the message on the next step isn't getting through, as evidenced by the awful pass defense being played around this country in high school, college and the NFL. While you might be responsible for, say, the kitchen, your job as a defender isn't to guard the kitchen. Your job is to play man-to-man against anyone in the kitchen. You don't defend the sink, you defend the dude near the fridge. If he moves from the kitchen to the living room, he's not your man anymore and you let him go. IF there is nobody in the kitchen nor likely to be anyone in the kitchen BUT there is someone in the unguarded, adjoining dining room, THEN DEFEND THAT GUY! A zone has never caught a pass in the history of football. Air is the worst receiver in the last 100 years of the game. Receivers catch passes. Receivers need to be defended. Standing three yards away from a guy isn't defense, it's spectating. Here's some basic math: There are 11 dudes on offense or defense. Most teams have four guys rush the passer, maybe five. That leaves six pass defenders. The offense has five linemen and a quarterback. They can have a MAXIMUM of five receivers on any given play. So right now, as you're asking "but what if one zone has two guys in it," understand the math. One zone has two guys, one is empty. Empty zone guy, go help out. Pass defenders defend receivers, zone or not. Poached and scrambled aren't two different things, they different types of the same thing. It's not these "potent, high-powered" offenses that are taking over, it's shoddy defense.

4. Design flaw: OK, look...I'm all for being progressive and pushing things forward. But, uh...that's quite enough from the uniform designers for college football teams. It's one thing to have a different set of uniforms for each game, never wearing the same pattern of colors for two games in a row. There comes a point, however, when a thing gets taken too far. It's been taken too far. We gotta reel it back in.
For starters, chrome isn't a friggin' color. Unless you're designing a hot rod, chrome isn't for you.

A lot of teams have this type of helmet now and it looks...what's the word I'm looking for here...ridiculous? Stupid? Like you pulled up to the game on a bus with spinning rims?

More significantly than that is this, uniform designers: generally, highlighter is used to draw attention to text, not as a color on your palette. What in the world about these uniforms made you think, yeah, that's what I bring to the table...

And football is supposed to be an exercise in toughness, grit, determination and sheer, old-fashioned manliness. Highlighters? These guys don't look like football players, they look like their trying to get home to see Miami Vice. 

5. Two and oh no! Finally, I think it should be mandatory to immediately cut baseball players and ban them from the game for life for swinging at 2-0 pitches and not getting a hit. It has happened throughout my life but there seems to be a flat out epidemic going on in MLB right now. A 2-0 count is the first time in an at-bat when a hitter needs fewer balls to walk than he needs strikes to get out. Why does the 3-0 mentality seem to be, "hmm, one more ball and I walk, lemme take this one and see what happens," whereas the mentality in a 2-0 count is, "hmm, it's a hitter's count, I'm a hitter, better swing at this one!" Sure. Swing at it, if it's the exact, perfect pitch you want and not, say, a slider away, a curve ball in the dirt or a fastball across the shoulders. See, here's a baseball secret: if you take a 2-0 pitch and it's called a strike...you're STILL ahead in the count!! If you want to be a great hitter, you have to hit pitches that aren't where the pitcher wants them to be, i.e., a mistake. If you get a 2-0 mistake, swing. If not, don't. Worst case, you fall to 2-1 and you have at least two more chances for a mistake to come your way. Or maybe hitters should just start wearing chrome batting helmets to blind the pitchers. Either tactic will be successful, I think. 

Pink Pander

I've been noticing a lot of football teams wearing pink this month. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the pink-clad football players are just a piece of the pink tidal wave spilling across the country. I've known far more women who have been stricken by breast cancer than I'd like to, so any effort to raise awareness about breast cancer, early detection and fund research is appreciated.
But all this pink is troubling. If we cared as much about breast cancer as the abundance of pink products would suggest, breast cancer would have been eradicated ten times over years ago. But it hasn't been and the amount of products with  pink ribbons on them increases year after year.
That leads me to a concept initiated by Breast Cancer Action they dubbed, "pink washing." Perhaps you've heard of white washing as it relates to Tom Sawyer? Pink washing is the same idea, splashing pink on products during October for the purposes of...well, that's just it. The purposes aren't always clear. Breast Cancer Action's "Think Before You Pink" campaign attempts to drive this point across.
The NFL, for instance, sells many of the pink-laced items online and donates the money to breast cancer research. Most of these pink-laden products promise the same and certainly money is raised and donated. Most people, like me and my family, like to do what we can to support breast cancer advocacy. Research in the past, after all, helped save the lives of some people we love. We'd like to think we're helping, in some small way, save the lives of many others in years to come. I have to believe we're not alone in that thought. And so we happily buy these pink products. And, in kind, companies donate some of the revenue to breast cancer research and advocacy groups. But how much? Some. Like roughly? A portion.
If I broke off a tiny crumb of a chocolate chip cookie and gave you the bulk of the cookie, that's a portion. But so is just a single chocolate chip. I can imagine which portion you might prefer.
Sure, every little bit helps, but does it seem appropriate that companies put these pink ribbons on their products, encourage consumers to buy them to support breast cancer causes and then take the bulk of the cookie and leave advocacy groups with mere crumbs?
So where does that leave consumers? Unfortunately, if consumers are serious about their desire to help eradicate breast cancer, they have to do a little work. Responsible companies--and there are some--will be able to easily answer some basic questions. First and most obvious is, what is the exact portion of the "portion of proceeds" that goes towards the breast cancer fight? A company that donates crumbs instead of cookies probably isn't worth your time. Next is which organizations get these proceeds and what do they do with the money once they get it? It's important to be certain your consumer dollars are being put towards maximum affect. New office chairs don't do a lot to save lives for cancer victims. Lastly, is there a cap on the funds available. This is mind-boggling for some people to even think about but it's a pretty common practice for corporate "philanthropy." There is a program with a local baseball team, for instance, where a credit card company donates a certain amount of money to a selected cause for each home run the team hits. If you read the fine print, the really, really, really fine print, they say their maximum donation is $50,000. That's still a nice sum of money. However, while there is still a benefit and motivation for a team to hit more than 50 grand-worth of home runs, money spent on pink products once a cap has been reached is literally doing cancer patients no good. Further, there is frequently no means (or effort) to inform the public once a predetermined cap has been reached. There are no drum rolls and tote board numbers tumbling once consumers have bought a million bucks-worth of yogurt.
There are other things you can do as a consumer to ensure your purchases are having the impact you intend, but these three simple questions are a good place to start.
I'm grateful my loved ones who survived breast cancer are still here to enjoy life. The money raised in the past and the research that resulted is something I'm endlessly thankful for. And for whatever small benefit seeing my favorite football team dressed in pink has, I'm happy for that, as well.
Equally, I'm thankful and hopeful for future generations of people who can tell their own survival stories or, better yet, won't develop those stories to begin with. It's just a shame, amid all of these pink products, if the only thing a glut of yogurt purchases gets me is improved calcium levels and nothing else.