Can the NFL Survive as a Touch Football League?

With recent allegations coming out that players were given pain pills like candy before games on top of the recent Concussion Settlement of $765 Million, one has to wonder how much longer the NFL will continue to be able to function as they have in the past. The game of football played at the NFL level is a violent physical game played by young men who can reap incredible financial benefits and there is huge incentive for a player to continue playing through injury and pain as there is always someone ready to step in to take your position. There is also the culture of playing with pain that has most likely always existed, it's just that now players have come to the realization whether right or wrongly that they can indeed sue and reap financial benefits from one of the most profitable sport enterprises in the world worth billions of dollars. While it's hard to feel sorry for the owners of the NFL's teams, with the NFL trademark one of the most valuable and profitable business enterprises around, at the same time, one would have to be very naive to believe that most players are not fully cognizant of the damage that they could be doing to their bodies by playing a game as violent as an NFL football game. Makes me wonder, by 2020, will we be cheering our favorite NFL flag football team?

Preakness....There Goes the Neighborhood

The Preakness is set to be run again in Baltimore this afternoon. The wealthy and not so wealthy will descend upon Pimlico Race Course in Northwest Baltimore to watch the second of the Triple Crown races, with some hoping for immortality and riches, and others just looking for a good time being part of the spectacle. Having grown up about 10 miles from Pimlico Race Course, I am very familiar with the area and have seen how it has changed since my childhood. Sitting at the intersection of Northern Parkway and Pimlico Road, Northern Parkway serves as the dividing line between two vastly different worlds. On the north side of the Racetrack, you have the Mt. Washington area, an area littered with many Victorian homes, and consisting mainly of White middle to upper middle class professionals. On the other side of the racetrack there is a different world consisting mainly of working class and Black professionals littered among the crime and drug wars that have become a constant of the Northwest Baltimore community. For one day however, this neighborhood changes as the racing world descends upon this humble neighborhood bringing the famous and hordes of police to protect the visitors. For one day, it's probably one of the safest places to spend a day and evening. Just be sure to be gone when the racing crowd leaves.

Taking the Team Away

I've been watching and reading the talk concerning comments made by Clippers owner Donald Sterling in a telephone conversation he had with a lady friend/girlfriend/etc. While not touching on the legality of recording the telephone conversation, some of the actions and comments border on the ludicrous. While the NBA has fined the owner $2.5 million which he says that he is not going to pay, the action that seems most questionable to me is banning Sterling for life from the league in which he is an owner of one of its products....NBA team. While it's apparent that professional sport leagues conduct business by a different standard than most other American corporations, I question the legality of a organization being able to arbitrarily decide to take the business away from the person who owns it. While some action was required for the racist comments, for me, it calls into question what rights does a person have in America in 2014 when he/she can be removed from the business they own for comments that some find offensive. If this is the new standard, then is anyone running a business today just one comment away from having a business taken away from them?

Kentucky Derby...Horseracing's Superbowl

I watched the Kentucky Derby this weekend and as usual it was quite the spectacle. While the race itself was quite exciting, it only lasts about two minutes, but it is arguably the most exciting two minutes in Sports. More than just the race, it's everything leading up to it that makes the Kentucky Derby the Superbowl of horse racing. For all intents and purposes, the festivities surrounding the race kicks off weeks before the race, leading up to the grand finale on the day of the race.

Celebrities of all types make their appearance at Old Hilltop to take in the scene. For those who have a vested interest in the race such as the owners, trainers, jockeys and horses themselves it is a make or break day. For the owner and jockeys they hope to garner horse racing fame and possibly a chance for horse racing immortality by winning the Triple Crown. But it is really the horse that attains that special place and not the jockey or owners. I can prove my point my stating that not more than one out of a thousand people remember who owned or rode Secretariat but they do remember that horse.

There's another benefit that comes to the lucky winner of any of the big three races, and that is the privlege of providing stud services to filly's in his leisure and retirement from racing. And it's not a bad deal for the horse either!

Rivals to the End

In Sports, there are few things more compelling and fun to watch then a good rivalry between evenly matched competitors and teams. In boxing, you had Ali-Frazier. In tennis, one of the great rivalries was McEnroe-Connors. Golf had Nicklaus-Palmer and it's the same with team rivalries. In baseball, there's no rivalry that can match the drama of a Boston Red Sox- New York Yankees playoff series. In football, you have tons of rivalries in college football, and in the NFL the Ravens-Steelers matchup is probably the best rivalry going at the present time.

After watching the Penguins-Flyers game today, I will have to add these two teams as another rivalry that is quickly becoming one of the best in Professional Sports. The war that these teams waged was brutal to watch, let alone be a part of. It has been known for some time that the players on these cross town rivals don't have a lot of use for each other, playing in the same division and from the two largest cities in Pennsylvania, but having the other as a first round opponent in the NHL playoffs has stoked the passions that much more. The only crime would be if this series only goes four games and with the way the Flyers are playing, it could happen. What a shame!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

If you're a hockey fan like me, it's the best time of the year, especially if the team you follow is in the playoffs. With the long regular season behind them, the teams in the playoffs play a seven game series, with the winners moving on to do it all over again in the next round. I have said it many times, that winning the Stanley Cup is the hardest championship to win in any team sport. The two teams that make it to the playoffs have to endure and win three...seven game series to get to the finals and then win another series to claim the Stanley Cup.

The playoffs have it all, the excitement of the bigger stakes, physical play and fights, the suddenness of victory or defeat in overtime, watching how the teams react to each other and the strategies employed by the coaches, all this plays out in a seven game series. It may not be the holiday season, but if you're a hockey fan, it may as well be.

Curbball, Wallball, Everywhere a Ball-Ball

Growing up in a poor working glass White ghetto in Southwest Baltimore during the 60's, there were no trips to places such as Ocean City, Cape May, or any other place for my family and most of the families in the area. If we were lucky, we got to take a trip out to Gwynn Oak Park, an amusement park that was quite popular at the time. However, even though we didn't get to go anywhere during those times, we somehow managed to entertain ourselves without trips or vacations by using our imagination to create silly games that cost nothing but time and a ball or two.

A couple of the games that most of the boys participated in back then were Curbball and Wallball. Curbball was a game that we played in front of our row homes in which one kid would take the ball and try to hit the top pointy part of the high city curbs sending the ball over the other players head onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street, that being a home run. Wallball on the other hand was a game that was played in a narrow alley with buildings on both sides where one player would take and throw the ball at the bottom of one wall trying to use the right Geometric angles to hit the other wall behind him where the opposing player would not be able to catch it as it came off of the second wall. Of course we didn't know anything about Geometry at that time, but we sure knew angles.

There were other games as well that we created to keep us busy during those long hot summer days, and while not all them consisted of playing ball, that inexpensive round object was never far from our hands back then.