The Rogers News

Category: Commentary

  • Fined for Lack of Effort?!?!

    Can you imagine being fined for “lack of effort”?

    Fourth ranked men’s professional tennis player Nikolay Davydenko was fined $2000 for just that after losing a match in his home country of Russia to a player ranked outside the top 100.

    How’s that for the ol’ heave ho… sigh… sputter… can I go home yet?

    Allegations of match-fixing have been flying around for a while in professional tennis, and it’s just now coming to fruition. The organizations are considering an “integrity unit,” whatever that is.

    How easy would it be to tell if a top ranked golfer was “mailing it in”? And does it even matter?

    I can’t get beyond the “does it matter” question. Golf is such a fickle game that a player in the zone one day can play horribly the next. There is a margin these guys play within, and it’s fairly tight, but even the best players in the world will post a round in the high 70s a few times a year. A round which could be accused of lacking effort.

    If the player knows he’s well outside the cut or not in contention on Sunday, some “lack of effort” can be presumed. It’s like a nod to the golf gods that he’ll save his best for the next tournament.

    So, does it matter if a player tries his hardest? It might matter to the individual player and his image, but it likely doesn’t matter to the tournament.

    Golf has long been known for it’s emphasis on self-regulation. It’s often said that if you want to teach your kids integrity, have them take up golf. Every round of golf offers the opportunity to cheat and to cheat yourself by giving in by becoming apathetic. What builds character is persevering when your fades are hooking and you’re hitting out of divots.

    However, there’s no direct opponent in stroke play, so throwing a match isn’t possible. Even if a player does “check out early,” his impact on the tournament is far less noticeable than when a top ranked tennis player throws a match. And no one at home can tell when a golfer is displaying a “lack of effort.”

    One of the many great things about televised golf is that it ignores most golfers (excepting Tiger Woods) when they’re not playing well. It’s tough to pull away from a featured tennis match.

    (Or maybe professional golf needs an integrity committee along with it’s new drug testing policy.)

  • Limited Club Selection

    I just answered a post at TheSandTrap, which prompted:

    You can only use five clubs to play your next round. Quick! What do you pick?

    My response:

    The five clubs I would take are:

    1) Putter
    2) 56* sand wedge
    3) 8 iron
    4) 3 iron
    5) Driver

    Wost case scenario, I’m left with a 120 – 135 yard carry over something and the 8 iron flies too far and the wedge too short. But, I suppose I would do a good bit of positioning during the round to avoid that yardage / situation.

    Taking a putter seems to be a given for many people. I’m not convinced I would need it. I do pretty well using the blade of my sand wedge. The driver is somewhat irrelevant, too. I could drive with a three-iron and be sufficiently long to score well. On most courses, with the five clubs above I would probably be using the three-iron off of the tee to position for the eight-iron.

  • Brian Griese to Start for the Chicago Bears

    Former University of Michigan quarterback Brian Griese is taking over for the Chicago Bears quarterback, Rex Grossman. This means there will be two U of M quarterbacks starting for NFL teams – the other being Tom Brady for the New England Patriots.

    Better yet, the Bears are playing the Detroit Lions in Detroit. Griese will be making his pro debut as a starter only 45 minutes from his alma matter.

    What are the chances that the Bears and the Patriots will make it to Super Bowl XLII in Arizona? The Bears were in the Super Bowl last year and the Patriots made it to the AFC Conference Championship.

  • Prince Chasing Cecil Fielder

    Watching first baseman Cecil Fielder hit home runs in the early 90s is one of my favorite memories as a Detroit Tigers fan. He peaked in 1990 with 51 homers.

    Prince, Cecil’s son, now plays for the Milwaukee Brewers and is closing in on his father’s peak year.

    Prince Fielder, who passed Willie Mays as the youngest to reach 50 in a season, said he wants to hit 52 home runs this season. That would be one more than his father hit in 1990 for the Detroit Tigers.

    Well, good for you Prince, although the article goes on to make Prince look like an asshole and Cecil look like a bigger asshole. Apparently, they’re having some father-son issues and using the national media to work it out.

    In other baseball news…

    Speaking of home runs, I posted a couple weeks ago about a campaign Marc Ecko was running online to decide what to do with Barry Bonds’ 756 home run baseball. The results are in and the public has voted to iron an asterisk onto the ball and send it to the Hall of Fame. This is rude to Barry Bonds and a sad outcome, however Bonds may have brought it on himself. I think it would be better to wait a few years and gain some perspective on the matter.

  • Black and Go Blue

    The Big House was silenced and emptied yesterday when Oregon defeated Michigan, 39-7. This comes one week after Michigan lost to Appalachian State, 34-32, in what was considered the greatest upset in sports history. Continuing from last season, Michigan has now lost four games in a row. The loosing streak as been dubbed “The Curse of Bo,” referring to the fact that the Michigan men’s football team has lost every game they have played since Bo Schembechler, who coached Michigan from 1969 to 1989, died on November 17, 2006, one day before the Michigan v. Ohio State game last season.

    Lloyd Carr has been burdened with much of the blame for Michigan’s poor performance. The following craigslist post pretty much sums up the Michigan fans’ sentiment towards his value to the team.

  • “The Flash of Genius”

    John Seabrook’s “The Flash of Genius” is a great read. Period.

    The protagonist Bob Kearns, an inventor with a degree in mechanical engineering from Wayne State University, invented intermittent windshield wipers. The idea came to him in a “flash of genius” while driving his Ford Galaxy on a rainy day in 1962. Wipers in those days had two settings – one for light rain and one for heavy rain. Neither was adequate; there was room for improvement.

    The “flash of creative genius” decision originated from a 1941 United States Supreme Court case, Cuno Engineering Corp. v. Automatic Devices Corp. In that case the court decided a cordless automobile cigarette lighted was not patentable because it lacked the characteristics of an invention. Douglas, writing for the majority, stated that “the new device, however useful it may be, must reveal the flash of creative genius, not merely the skill of the calling.”

    The Doctrine of Nonobviousness became law in the Patent Act of 1952. The “flash of genius” concept was more-or-less history. The nonobviousness standard basically required that an invention be nonobvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made. This is considerably less artsy, although it still leaves room for litigation as evidenced by Kearns’ fight with the auto companies.

    Kearns takes on big auto makers in the United States and abroad for infringing on his patent by manufacturing and using intermittent windshield wipers on their automobiles. The fight against these companies in court is his life. Is his family’s life. The story pits the individual against G.M. and tells of the automobile companies’ dominance in Michigan during that era. It was a different time, but the law is relevant and the story is compelling.

    Kearns’ story is being made into a movie titled, “Flash of Genius,” starring Greg Kinnear and Lauren Graham. I’ve never seen a patent law movie, so we’ll see how this turns out.

  • Clay Buchholz No Hitter – I Left Early!

    Clay Buchholz threw a no-hitter in his second major league start last night. I was at the game for the first seven and a half innings before leaving early to beat the crowds. I don’t really mind that I missed the end of it. His post-game interview was horrible.