Fool's Gold

With it being the last day of the regular season and both the Angels and Phillies eliminated from playoff contention, I felt like this point just needed to be made...

It is notably ironic that when Albert Pujols signed his recent contract with the Los Angeles Angels, that his average annual salary tied him for third on the list of active players, with none other than Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cliff Lee (A-Rod and Ryan Howard rank 1 and 2).

There was a concept that I've repeated back-to-back off-seasons, mainly to my younger brother and a few close friends; in winter of 2010 it was that Cliff Lee needed the Texas Rangers more than the Rangers needed him, and in winter of 2011 it was that Albert Pujols needed the St. Louis Cardinals more than the Cardinals needed him.  The two players' relationships with their former teams held high levels of intangible value in different ways.  It turns out that both of these players believed themselves to be bigger than their now ex-teams, and went chasing after what I deem as "fool's gold."

Why The Celts Have The Edge

A concept that is often discussed in our culture today is the amount of power and influence that the media has, particularly in the realm of politics.  Well I would argue that their degree of power and influence extends to the realm of sports as well. 

There was a piece I wanted to write over a year ago when the VCU Rams defeated my beloved Kansas Jayhawks in the 2011 NCAA March Madness tournament, as part of their dream journey to the Final Four.  I was going to focus on how the media was the team that beat the Jayhawks, not the Rams.  I'm not trying to minimize the enormous accomplishment of VCU, but the fact of the matter is that if that game was played in a closed gym, with no fans, no cameras, and no reporters, the Jayhawks would have squashed their competition.  

Too bad for Kansas, that's not how sports work these days.