Brett Favre Needs to Stop Streaking

There are a decent amount of things I hate in sports. These include, among others: Alex Rodriguez, LeBron James, Tom Brady, Notre Dame football and when people say "we" when talking about their favorite team (you are not a member of the organization, therefore you cannot say you are a part of the team). Before this season, I didn't hate Brett Favre. I still have few ill feelings towards the man. I personally think he should have retired after last year, but I understood why he couldn't let go. However, I hate... no, no, I loathe, that damn consecutive games streak, because it is the only reason Favre played last week, it is the only reason he will play this week, it is the only reason he will play the remaining ten games. This stupid streak is only causing more harm than good.

The only good thing I can say about this streak is that people should cherish it while it lasts, because there will never be another streak like it. Football is too physical, the players are too fast and too strong, and a player playing 19 seasons will be unfathomable going forward. But now, this streak is beginning to look like the last three seasons of Scrubs. It should have gone away once NBC dropped it (in Favre's case, when Green Bay GM Ted Thompson told him it was now Aaron Rodgers' team), it was stale and worn out when it changed networks, and the last season was just pathetic. But no, Favre came back, and heck, last year he had one of his best statistical seasons ever.

But because of this streak, this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad streak, he came back again this year. I can guarantee that if he got hurt in, say, 1996 and missed a game, he would have retired a Packer. But no he didn't! And a bum ankle be damned, Dr. James Andrews did his magic and number 4 was dressed up for the purple and gold for Week 1. Last week he was questionable, but sucked it up, threw three interceptions and was called out by head coach Brad Childress. Now it was admitted this week that he has two fractures around the ankle. Normally most people would sit out a week or two, but Brett Favre isn't most people now is he? Because he has to start, he's going to miss practice (because as he showed this pre-season and last week, he doesn't need practice), wear a walking boot and throw three picks as the Vikings go to 2-5 and get lambasted by the Patriots.

And it's not like Brad Childress has a choice as to playing Favre or not. Tarvaris Jackson is the backup, and a 42-year-old man with a crappy ankle and an off-the-field distraction is better than him. And because Favre loafed around, Jackson is the team's only other option. It wasn't a QB-heavy draft this year, so one who was available (i.e. Jimmy Clausen or Colt McCoy) would not have been game-ready. And because Favre waited until Jared Allen, Ryan Longwell and Steve Hutchinson had to physically drag him off his lawnmower the team couldn't enter in the sweepstakes for a Donovan McNabb, Jason Campbell, or even Jake Delhomme (just as many picks, only fewer distractions). And more importantly for Childress, if he benched Favre, he would go down forever as the Man Who Ended the Streak. I mean, he was blasted by the media for calling out Favre's three picks against the Packers! Did you see the one that was returned for a touchdown? Even Jay Cutler laughed at that. The media firestorm that would ensue if he actually had the chutzpah to bench THE Brett Favre would officially end the world. ESPN is already Brett Favre Central, but with that it would become BFPN (Brett Favre Programming Network).

(Semi-related tangent: People are wondering if his legacy is being tarnished. Obviously it is. What's really bothering me, though, is that people are considering him a Top-3 quarterback of all-time. This is insane. My list of all-time great QBs is: Joe Montana, Dan Marino, Johnny Unitas, Peyton Manning (will be higher by the time all is said and done), John Elway, Tom Brady, possibly Steve Young, then Favre. That's eighth. Call me cynical, but I don't care if he leads in every major statistical category known to man. Look at stats per game. Manning, Brady and Marino have/had more passing yards and wins. Everyone except Marino have championships to their resumé (and Montana, Unitas, Elway and Brady have multiple), so Favre's lone ring doesn't exactly stand out. And he throws significantly more picks than all those names, especially in crunch time. This season is worse than others for Favre, obviously, but the poor decisions are nothing new. I would not have him in my top 10 for quarterbacks I want down four with a minute to go in the Super Bowl (the seven I mentioned before, then add in Bradshaw, Staubach, Otto Graham and possibly Bart Starr). In short, Favre is a sure-fire Hall of Famer. But he's not the greatest ever.)

Of course Favre is going to start Sunday in Foxboro. He's started 291 straight games. And although he should have retired after start 253, then after 269 and then after 285, he'll keep the streak going. At this point it is the only thing going for him. He is no longer "playing like a kid out there." That kid looks old, tired and ready to go home. His facial expression after almost every play reads "I don't care if $24 million will buy me 7884 John Deere tractors. Just let me hand it off to Adrian Peterson and get me the hell out of here."

For someone who just wants this streak to end so he can retire and go away for good, I am waiting for Dec. 12 when the Giants go to Minnesota. They've already hurt five quarterbacks this year. I can only imagine what they'll do to a 42-year-old grandfather.

America's Pastime: 1869-2010

America's Pastime, 141, beloved game run by William "Bud" Selig, passed away Monday night at Yankee Stadium. Although fighting to the very end, more people ended up watching the Jaguars and Titans on Monday Night Football than Game 3 of the ALCS. Six and a half million viewers saw Cliff Lee throw eight innings of shutout baseball, striking out 13. Over seven million people watched a 27-point blowout between two low market franchises (one of which can't even sell out their home games), both of whom had backup quarterbacks in by halftime. It was a long time coming. Pastime faced recent struggles with performance-enhancing drugs, threats of strikes and this. With homes in 28 cities, including two each in New York and Chicago, America's Pastime brought joy to millions of people for decades. It produced some of the country's most celebrated icons, including Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Willie Mays and Drew Henson. It also helped the country go through some of it's most difficult times -- the Great Depression, World War II, 9/11 and that year and a half when everyone was really into the Baha Men. Pastime leaves behind it's 30 organizations (well, actually it's 29 real organizations, plus the Pirates). Funeral services will be held on Sunday, October 24, at 1 p.m. at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. An evening service will be held Monday night. Now I don't know about everyone else, but I can't make it. That's during my football time, and no one interrupts me during my NFL time. Besides, the Steelers are actually on TV for once. And then it's Monday Night Football. Giants-Cowboys, in fact. And won't it be really fun to watch the Giants look completely disorganized, yet somehow look really good at the same time? And then there are the Cowboys! 1-4 baby! I'm not sure what's funnier: Jerry Jones giving Wade Phillips a vote of confidence, Tony Romo's "Grr.... does anyone really believe I'm mad?" face, or the prospect of bringing the excessive-celebration-penalty-to-wins ratio up to 3:1. What's that? I'm digressing? From what? Oh, right America's Pastime... Eh, no one cares anyways.

The game of baseball will go on as normal. However, "America's Pastime" has officially died. America's new pastime will now be exclusively on Sundays (and Monday nights. And starting in November, Thursday nights. And near Christmas, Saturday nights).

Time For Replays

Enough people ignore Major League Baseball when the NFL season starts. I am included in this group, especially this season seeing as my Red Sox have been out of the race for me since the injuries to Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis. It seems that everything gets moved to the back burner once Week 1 gets underway.

By Friday baseball was again at the front of the news -- not for good reasons though. Roy Halladay's no-hitter, only the second in playoff history, should have been the story, even two days after the fact. But the top story was about how truly terrible a job umpires have done only two days into the postseason. Thursday alone all three games (Rangers vs. Rays, Braves vs. Giants and Yankees vs. Twins) were impacted by missed or non-calls. As a fan, why should I bother to watch games knowing the umpires can't do their jobs correctly, thus affecting the game? Instant replay clearly needs to be added, and the way to do it is by having a challenge rule similar to the NFL.

To recap, here's how all three games were affected by bad or missed calls yesterday. In the Rangers-Rays game, Texas was up 2-0 in the top of the fifth. They had two runners on and Michael Young at the plate. With the count at 2-2 Young checked his swing on the next pitch to make it a full count. The only problem is that it looked like he went around, and he should have been called out on strikes. Much to the chagrin of the Tampa Bay bench, though, first base umpire Jim Wolf said Young held up. Next pitch, he hits a three-run blast, and all of a sudden the Rays are down 5-0 instead of 2-0, and without manager Joe Maddon, who was ejected after Young hit the home run. Texas tacked on another run and won 6-0, going up 2-0 in the series.

In the Braves-Giants game, a 1-0 decision mind you, San Francisco catcher Buster Posey went to steal second base. Replays showed Posey was tagged at least six inches before he reached the base. Umpire Paul Emmel called him safe. Instead of two outs and no one on, it was one out with a runner on second. Two at-bats later, Cody Ross singled to drive home Posey, who would be the winning run.

(Little side note: You know why it's time for Bobby Cox to retire? Because after the missed call, he didn't come out to argue. Didn't even budge. After the game when questioned about it, he said "I haven't seen [the play].... From the dugout, you can't see anything and I didn't see a reaction from our infielders." Since when has the poor view from the dugout ever stopped Cox from going out, kicking dirt, swearing and getting tossed? The Bobby Cox we all know and love would have been out there before Emmel was finished making his "safe" signal. To make an excuse like that, you know it's time for the man to retire.)

And in the Yankees-Twins game, the game was tied 2-2 in the top of the seventh when Lance Berkman stepped to the plate. With Jorge Posada at first, Berkman took what appeared to be strike three on the inside corner. It was called a ball. Similarly to Young, Berkman sent the next pitch to the wall for a double, scoring Posada. Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire argued and was ejected. The Yanks added insurance and won 5-2 to take a 2-0 series lead going to the Bronx.

Of course, one could argue that all three teams that benefited from the poor calls would have won anyways. The Rays didn't score a run, so they would have lost anyways. Tim Lincecum pitched a gem, striking out 14 Atlanta batters and getting a shutout. The Yankees added runs after the Berkman double. Essentially it is the team's own faults for losing. If the Tampa Bay and Atlanta offenses got going the calls would not have mattered. If Chad Qualls and Carl Pavano made better pitches there would not have been an issue at all.

But that's not how sports fans think, especially when it involves their favorite teams. If I were to go out and tell a Rays fan (oh, right... bad example...). So like I was saying, if I were to go out and tell a Braves fan that Lincecum was untouchable and that the team would have probably lost anyways, I would be told quite the opposite. "No way, man! That call changed the momentum of the game! It sucked all the life out of the team!" That's just the way sports fans are. It is never the team's fault in cases like this. The loss is entirely on the umpire for that one bad call, among the hundreds of pitches in a major league game. And the case for instant replay will be made.

Which brings me to my point. Give the fans what they want. Face it, sports today are for entertainment. As one colleague told me last week, "They don't blast fireworks after every White Sox home run for the sake of it. They do it because it entertains the fans." That is what ultimately matters. Teams relocate if fans don't support them. Leagues shut down entirely. Obviously baseball is in no danger of folding, but it is certainly not the number one sport in America anymore. If the fans want instant replay, which is the best thing for the sport, expand it and give it to them.

Critics against the use of replay say that it adds too much time to the game. If I'm going to sit and watch a three to three-and-a-half hour game, what's an extra five minutes to make sure that a key call was made correct? Or better yet, to annul the added time, restrict either the number of times a manager can go to the mound, or how long the meetings can last. For a devoted fan, an extra five minutes (if that) per game is nothing. For the two biggest fan bases (Red Sox Nation and whatever the hell the Yankees call it now), their games are always four hours. At least. That little time added to make sure the umpires correct a call is well worth it, and wouldn't add to the ridiculousness of the game's length.

The only way the critics would be correct would be if replay were expanded for everything except balls and strikes, but there were no restrictions. There would be a good chance every play that was even remotely close would be reviewed. That would add to the time. Here's my proposal:

Give the managers two "challenges" per game, just like the NFL, that can be used for anything except balls and strikes. There would be no penalty if the play were overturned, but there would also be no reward for getting both challenges correct. If the game goes into extra innings, the managers would get one reward every four innings, with no rollover. That way the game is not in the hands of the umpires as much. Yeah, there would be flaws. On some plays, it will be hard to determine where runners on base should go. The best possible solution? If the play is very questionable and the call could go either way, make it so the ball is in play (i.e. the ball was trapped, not caught). Let the game run its course and see what happens. That way, if a manager chooses to challenge the play and the ball was foul, caught, etc, the runners merely return to the bases they held before the pitch. And if the call was correct to begin with, the umps aren't left pondering where runners should go, if they should be allowed to score, etc. It's not 100% foolproof, but it's better than what the system has now.

Some baseball "purists" will complain that expanding replay will ruin the game. Well, right now the purity of the game is being ruined by the umpires.