We Are All Accomplices

Too often people tend to be reactionary. It's really more of a cultural thing than anything else, but nevertheless, we are reactionary in everything we do.  For example, on Twitter, people are more concerned with being the first to release "breaking news" rather than being the first to release it correctly.  This whole Penn State fiasco can best be summed up as a story in which we were all reactionary to.  However, it was not really our fault as this was the direction we were put in thanks to ESPN, Twitter, Facebook, and all the other news outlets alike.  Now, I may be speaking for myself here, but I have never been captivated or enthralled by a story as much as this one, at least not in recent memory.  And when you think about it, it makes sense why this story would fascinate so many people.  What do you expect when you put together a story dealing with Penn State University, the Nittnay Lions, Joe Paterno, an accused (and now convicted) pedophile, and rumors of an institutional coverup?  Its the kitchen sink all thrown into one, and it has captivated the attention of millions of people from the most die hard of sports fans to worried mom's who could not care less about a pig skin being thrown around.

Now back to being reactionary, again like I said earlier, this is just something we tend to do as a culture since breaking news is literally just a swipe of the "slide to unlock" button away.  Ever since this story initially broke back in early November, I tried my best not to jump to any conclusions.  After all, the only evidence that was available to the public after the first week in November was a grand jury report, the arrest of Jerry Sandusky, nine possible victims that had come forward to police, and the state of shock and awe that the public found themselves in because Penn State, for the first time in decades, had been brought under the limelight in a negative way.  Despite the lack of concrete evidence, people immediately jumped to their feet to defend Joe Paterno.  He had not even been legally accused of anything and people were jumping to their feet to defend the "almighty" Joe Paterno.  Again, as a society we tend to be reactionary far too often.

So as it all unfolded, from the retiring and firing of Joe Paterno, to the resignation of PSU's president Graham Spanier, to the Bob Costas interview of Sandusky, to the inevitable death of Joe Pa in the middle of all of this, to the Sandusky trial itself; I paid close attention to the evidence that unfolded with it.  And again, even with little new concrete evidence coming to light, everyone still wanted to proclaim Paterno's innocence.  Why?  Because we are a reactionary society that is worried more about breaking the news first than actually breaking the news correctly.  Through all of this I kept saying to myself and to anyone who would listen that when something is just so out there, when something just does not make any sense at all, there must be something that we do not know.  In other words, there always felt like a missing piece to the puzzle and it bothered me that people kept calling for Paterno's innocence based off of a bunch of circumstantial evidence that ESPN and Twitter had helped us to put together.  At the end of the day, I was rooting for Paterno, I did not want to see him brought down in all of this, I wanted to see him innocent, I wanted to see him as the coach that everybody loved at Penn State University on every saturday for over 4 decades.  I wanted all of that, but I just could not call him innocent, or guilty for that matter, without seeing some kind of evidence to prove so.

Low and behold, after an 8 month, private investigation conducted by the former director of the FBI, Louis Freeh, there was finally some tangible evidence that we could get our hands on.  Paterno's role in the Sandusky scandal was unveiled in great detail in Freeh's 256 page report that was released on July 12th.  Freeh's report was the smoking gun. If he had not already been dead, it would have probably killed Paterno had he still been around to hear it.  It concluded what everyone feared, but didn't want to come to terms with; it concluded something worse than we could have expected, worse than what we could have ever imagined.  His report concluded that Paterno and other officials "failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized." Is it the truth?  Are we to take everything in Freeh's report as the exact, verbatim truth?  Maybe not.  But its the closes we are ever going to get.  Maybe if Paterno was still alive he would have spoken.  Maybe one day Spanier will break his silence and release to us what he knows about the case and the innocent children that he may or may not have been able to protect.  Maybe one day assistant coach Mike McQueary will tell the world what he really saw  going on in the Penn State shower and who he really told about what happened and why he himself didn't go to the police.  We live in a world of "what ifs" and "maybes," but what we do know for sure is that after thousands of interviews, thousands of emails and letters, and thousands of hours put in to uncovering the truth about Paterno's and other officials' roles in the scandal, Freeh's report is the most unbiased third party report we are ever going to get; and for what is worth, its the closest thing to the truth that we are going to get.

The truth is sometimes hard to deal with, and people are still wondering how on Earth this was possible.  Truthfully, I still don't think people have fully comprehended what has gone on here.  Its hard to take it all in.  When the news first broke back in November, no one even wanted to mutter the words "cover up."  That would have been the worst thing imaginable.  Now here we are nine months later, and we learn thats exactly what took place:  an institutional-wide cover up.  Its hard to believe thats even possible.  Or, when you think about it, is it?  Penn State University is 3 hours from the middle of nowhere, Joe Paterno had been at its helm for 46 years, and he had more power in State College, Pennsylvania than anyone.  No one was more powerful than Joe Paterno, to think otherwise is borderline ignorant.  If Joe Paterno went to the  board of trustees and said he want someone fired, the next day there was a moving truck in front of that person's house and he was gone from State College never to be seen again.  Paterno was omnipotent, he could do no wrong, he was the king of State College and his minions listened to every word he said; even when it involved a decision to keep an eye-witnessed rape of a child by Jerry Sandusky within the boarders of State College, never to be released to outside law authorities.

So there you go, thats how an institutional-wide cover up unfolds and takes place right before our very eyes.  Up until this point, Penn State and Joe Paterno were the epitome of college football.  Even in the past 10-20 years, college football has been filled with scandaled high class football programs like the University of Miami, the Ohio State University, and SMU.  But at the end of the day, there was always the NCAA's golden child of Joe Paterno and Penn State, the one's who could do no wrong.  And right before our very eyes, a program whose legacy Paterno spent building over a period of 46 years, came crashing down in an instant.

Before I go, I leave you with this quote from John Dalberg-Acton, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost alway bad men..."  At the end of the day, we are all accomplices here in some way or another.  We let Paterno get this powerful.  The Penn State community fed off his every word, and the media put him on a pedestal that was higher than those the gods stand on.  We were all fools, fools that took part in hagiography of a mere mortal, fools that watched it happen for 46 years and said nothing.  If anything is learned from all of this, its that to prevent something like this from ever happening again, no human should be praised this much, because at the end of the day, we all have our flaws, even when you are Joe Paterno.

Miami Hurricanes Allegations, What do they mean?

Many People have asked me what I think of these allegations against the University of Miami. And because my opinions about this situation are much too long to text someone, I am writing about it on here.  In case you haven't heard Nevin Shapiro, a former booster of the, gave gifts, parties, money, and other things to Miami football players including 11 current players. He did this from the 2002 season until the 2008 season. Since 2008 he has had much bigger things to deal with, such as the failure of his Ponzi scheme and going to jail for 20 years. This puts him on the same level as Bernie Madoff, who is widely considered the scum of the Universe. Because of this I take everything Shapiro says with a grain of salt.

So that is the background on Shapiro, and one of the things that pisses me off the most. Reading through articles on Yahoo, as this was breaking, I saw one that stated that he ratted out the players because they didn't rescue him when he went to jail. Rescue him????? What on earth can a 20 year old football player do to protect a guy who frauded people out of millions of dollars?? They can get away as fast as he can, and that's exactly what they did. The football players who knew him acted correctly here and got away from him as fast as possible. Shapiro didn't ratted out years of players because he had nothing to lose and his buddies didn't come save him. What he didn't realize is that just cause you give a guy a party doesn't give him the responsibility of saving your ass when you get arrested in general, let alone for the severe crime he committed.

So there is my being pissed off at Shapiro paragraph. He is a convicted felon and relatable to the overall scum of the earth who frauded people out of billions of dollars. Now I am going to talk about what was actually done, and how ridiculous the NCAA rules are. What did the players do wrongly?

Well they got money from a guy for their own personal uses. Under NCAA rules players are not allowed to work for money. Why? I don't know. This is why there is a discussion about paying college players, because the NCAA doesn't allow them to earn money in the off season or at all. College students need money, especially in places such as Miami, and LA as they are expensive cities to live in.

Players got parties thrown for them on yachts and other venues. Well who wouldn't like that?? Remember the only active players that participated in these things were freshmen when it occurred. Everyone think back to when they were freshmen college students, this is what the players are Freshmen College Students, would you have turned down a free party on a yacht? I wouldn't turn down a free party on a yacht at any point in my life. So what is illegal about this? The NCAA doesn't want certain teams to give benefits to their players that other teams can't match. For example, Miami can have a yacht party but University of Colorado cannot because there aren't any yachts in the middle of Colorado. However the university didn't provide this, so why should the university be punished? Well those are the NCAA rules. The future University of Miami players, students, and fans will be the ones punished for acts committed when many were young. I was in middle school when these acts began being committed. Why should I as a fan be punished because of what some guy did in 2003?

This then becomes my rant on the NCAA's ridiculous rules. The NCAA does not make any sense when they make rules, and punishments. Why does Reggie Bush getting a car mean anything towards his ability to be a better football player? If anything it would make him a worse football player as he would walk less and drive more. How does Terrelle Pryor selling his autographed jerseyes give him a competitive advantage? It doesn't it gives him money that he probably needs just to be a normal college student. How do the University of Miami players from years ago going to parties and having unprotected sex, things that I can't say aren't uncommon in college, make them better football players? It doesn't. How do the players from years ago affect players now? They don't. How do the 11 current players who last committed NCAA illegal acts in 2008 affect them now? In short, it doesn't.

The NCAA needs to realize that this is only a scandal because their rules make it one. Nothing that the Miami players did were illegal, same with Pryor. Now you may say that well rules are rules and they need to be followed. I am no disagreeing with that, I am saying that the NCAA rules are RIDICULOUS. In case you don't believe me check out this article. This article states that teams are allowed to put out bagels for their players as a snack, but are not allowed to provide spreads such as cream cheese or butter. Why aren't they? Because the NCAA said so. Sounds ridiculous right? I mean when is the last time someone at a bagel without something on it. So the NCAA's rules don't exactly make sense but thankfully for all of the players this is the rule they are changing as opposed to rules that might actually make a difference.

When I started talking to people about this situation, they said that Miami cheated. If you think about it, they really didn't. Pryor didn't cheat, Bush didn't cheat, Miami didn't cheat. I compared this to the New England Patriots. They legitimately cheated as they scrambled opposing teams' communication systems. Did they lose anything, no they got fined. Their future fans wont suffer because of NFL sanctions. Most future fans won't even know about the controversy. They cheated to make a competitive advantage for themselves and may have won because of this. Miami received NO competitive advantage. The Miami players did things that normal college students have done and will do and are doing right now. It seems that the NCAA wants to prevent athletes from being normal college students. If they are going to do this they just make the players minor leaguers and pay them. Then they can say they are being paid so they can't party, or do whatever they did.

I will sum this up now otherwise I could go forever. The players did nothing illegal and nothing that shouldn't be expected out of college students. The person who should be punished is Nevin Sapiro. Yes he's in jail for 20 years, but I say get creative with his punishment. Don't allow him to watch football for 20 years, or keep him in jail longer. He is the one that broke the rules and continued to do it because he could. He put Miami's name and reputation in jeopardy. The only reason the University of Miami should be punished is if there is evidence that the current administration knew about what was going on. Otherwise I don't see how the NCAA can punish future Hurricanes about this; and this includes fans and players. The NCAA must realize that their rules are completely ridiculous for most college students to follow and should be revised along with the rule about having cream cheese on the athletes bagels. There is no reason that the University of Miami should get the "Death Penalty" as these crimes did not make the Hurricanes better, or allow them to gain a competitive advantage. It can be noted that the Hurricanes were overall a bad football team during the years Shapiro was giving the players parties. They did not become more competitive until he stopped. So if anything this could prove that what Shapiro did actually made the Hurricanes worse, and if this is true then the Hurricane fans have been punished already.

As for this year in Miami, the Hurricanes are looking pretty good and new Coach Al Golden is completely focused. I do not see this affecting his team's focus at all this year and I expect the Hurricanes to fulfill their current expectations and be a contender in the ACC.

Sliding Brave Ruins Another Night For the Pirates...Actually Another Ump Blows a Huge Call

You Make the call...hard to see how he is safe by this

This game was a marathon, a classic pitching duel between two great bullpens. The Pirates and the Braves playes 2.07 games last night, 18 innings with the Braves winning with one out in bottom of the 19th. How they both lasted that long, I have no idea. There were plenty of chances for both teams to take the lead, but it never happened. An entire game went by without a single run scored, the second game that is, and it was unclear who would win this ridiculously long ball game. Who knows if it would've gone longer, but Jerry Meals apparently was very tired at 2am and decided enough was enough. Unfortunately that's not how it works in baseball, or for that matter in any sport. A complete, and very dissapointing, blown call at home plate cost the Pirates 6 1/2 hours of hard work, and brilliant work by their bullpen, to go to waste. You can see by the picture above that it is clearly out. McKenry clearly swipes at Julio Lugo, but somehow this means it is out. I guess after 1am, the umps will do anything to stop the game....Even though they don't work until 7pm the next night.

Now you can say that I'm biased, and I probably am, but even the Atlanta and national media are calling this a blown call. Even the Atalanta announcers were suprised that he was called safe. Obviously if you're a Braves fan you'll just say, blown call but I'll take it; and if it went the Pirates way the I would've had the same reaction. However, I am seeing people on twitter who I know aren't Pirates fans saying they want instant replay and how this such a terrible call. Now I'm not a fan of reviewing everything, but after a play like this it's hard to argue against replay for calls at home plate.

And just in case you think my picture is doctored or that the angles make a difference, here's the link to the MLB.com video of both TV and radio from both teams for that play. You can hear the utter disgust in the voice of the Pirates announcer and complete shock from the Braves. I've listened to it a few times and honestly still can't believe what I'm watching.




You guys make the call and leave a comment if he was safe or out. 

Pirates Win on ESPN

John Amis/Associated Press

Well if you weren't in Pittsburgh last night and chose to keep ESPN up until the rain delay ended around 9pm, you saw the Pittsburgh Pirates on ESPN for the first time since 2004. I myself was excited because I could actually see a live Pirates game, being that I am currently in NYC. The game got off as a normal game would I guess, I have boycotted ESPN baseball games because the Pirates haven't been on since 2004. The announcers talked about the feel good story of the Pirates actually winning, and Clint Hurdle making the clubhouse atmosphere much better; things that were all known a month ago by anyone who even read one article about the team since May. Then they started to drift their non game related conversation towards something like they were doing us Buccos fans a favor by having us on ESPN. Saying things like now the Pirates are on ESPN, just what the fans want. Well the fans you are speaking of didn't see one second of the game on ESPN as they were probably in Pittsburgh, and fans like me in other places would probably have rather heard our own announcers Raise the Jolly Roger than ESPN's. However I understand that for national TV, the announcers usually aren't the ones you like and they do have to tell the story to the masses who might not know where Pittsburgh is or that they have a baseball team even.

All of this aside, I just couldn't get past the live strike zone. Now like I said I've never watched an ESPN baseball game, so I was surprised to see this appear on my TV. I HATE IT!!! I hate it to the point that if the Pirates had lost I would've irrationly blamed the live strike zone for my anger and stress. It really took away the enjoyment of watching game. It went from watching a pitch, wondering if it would be a strike or a ball, to yelling at the TV because the ball went through the box but wasn't called a strike.

It basically turned watching a baseball game into a game of golf, where you criticize every single shot. I don't want to criticize every single pitch in baseball, there's over 200 a game!! I want to enjoy the game and not care if the second pitch of the 15th at bat in the game is a ball or a strike. Now I don't mind this technology on a replay, like a home run or a big strike out. In fact I love it for that, because it is a few times a game and you can see how much the ball breaks, or where the hitter connects with a ball for a home run. That shows me something cool, that I never would see otherwise, but every pitch???? That is ridiculous and overkill.

Unless schedules change, the Pirates wont be on national TV until Saturday August 13th on Fox. Hopefully we get another great win and I don't have to watch the live strike zone.

On a final note, the Pirates beating the Braves feels good. The Pirates still winning, feels good. The Pittsburgh Pirates fighting for first in the division, it feels Great! Lets Go Bucs!