This is not funny but in Amsterdam, a linesman at a youth soccer match has died after being beaten and kicked by several players. Richard Nieuwenhuizen collapsed and was rushed to the hospital hours after players from Amsterdam club Nieuw Sloten punched and kicked him. Nieuwenhuizen’s club, Buitenboys, announced the death but not the exact cause.
Three players, whose ages range from 15 to 16, have been arrested for alleged involvement in the beating. Dutch sports minister Edith Schippers said in an interview just discussing the beating, before the news of Nieuwenhuizen had died that “it is absolutely terrible that something like this can happen on a Dutch sports field.”
We make comments like “kill the ump/ref/official” but we don’t mean it. This is a very sad occasion, but I have to say, threat of death may be one way to improve the officiating in the Big Ten Conference significantly.

I’m getting as tired of writing about the NHL lockout as you probably are of reading about it. The sides still have not come to an agreement, and they have invited Federal mediators to come in and try to get the sides together, but no one is optimistic about this having any effect on getting a deal done.
So, like the NFL did a year ago, the players are considering decertifying the union, which would allow the players to sue the league under anti-trust laws. The union and the collective bargaining agreement allows the league to avoid anti-trust litigation since all issues are address in the CBA. In the NFL’s case, Drew Brees and a couple of superstars sued the league in hopes of a court saying that the lockout is illegal, which would make the games start immediately.
In light of the fact that it certainly appears that the NHL owners have not negotiated in good faith, it would appear that the players could have the upper hand, but one never knows what may happen in a court of law; plus, if the litigation could take a very long time to adjudicate, especially if the owners countersue or appeal if they lose, which means the rest of the 2012-2013 season would be history.
So, we could see decertification help to light a fire under the owners, or, it could also be the end of the season and a dark cloud over the future of the league.
Either way, it’s madness.
(It also should be noted that it probably wasn’t good timing for Forbes to publish the estimated value of the NHL teams. The average franchise value was $286 million with the Toronto Maple Leafs being the league’s first $1 billion team. This is not all good news however: the top 5 teams (including the Canadiens and Blackhawks) have an average worth of $604 million; but the bottom 5 teams average value is only $145 million. Still, this is more evidence against the NHL owners pleading poverty.)

In a related hockey story, a writer in The Hockey News wrote a couple of issues ago that Commissioner Gary “The Count from Sesame Street” Bettman, as the second longest tenured commissioner in NHL history behind Clarence Campbell, is a serious candidate for enshrinement in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Bulls#$t! Bettman has expanded the revenues of the league, but as the man who has presided over three labor lockouts (not strikes, which would have been the players’ union stopping play); it is clear that any positives Bettman has brought to the league have been at the risk of killing the league outright. The 2004-2005 lockout which cancelled that entire season nearly killed the league, and the current standoff which comes when the league was showing great growth in tickets sold and with a better national television network, could be the final nail in the league’s coffin. At any rate, even if a deal was struck today, the negative publicity and bad feelings mean that it will take more time to regain the positives that the league had at the end of last season (if they even can).
The Hockey Hall of Fame removed Alan Eagleson when he was convicted of colluding with the owners when he was the head of the Players’ Union. Gary Bettman has done far worse, and while I realize that tradition is sacred in the sport, there is no way that he should ever be considered to be in the Hockey Hall of Fame. EVER!

Last night, the San Antonio Spurs lost to the defending champion Miami Heat in Miami, but it was a close game 105 – 100, which might not be good news for the Heat since the Spurs sent their four top players home to rest, and boy is the NBA pissed off.
San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said the decision to rest Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Danny Green was in the team’s best interest, because last night’s game ended a six-games-in-nine-nights swing for the Spurs, who won their first five on the trip. The game was nationally televised and of course, the league doesn’t want to upset fans who paid good money to watch two of the best teams in the league either live or on cable.
Commissioner David Stern promised that San Antonio would be penalized. “I apologize to all NBA fans,” Stern said. “This was an unacceptable decision by the San Antonio Spurs and substantial sanctions will be forthcoming.”
Before the game, Popovich said he decided to sit his best playerse when he saw how challenging this particular part of the schedule was. “Everybody has to make decisions about their schedule, about players playing and back-to-backs and trips and that sort of thing,” Popovich said before the game (quoted on SI.com). “In our case, this month we’ve had 11 away games, after tonight. We’ve had an eight-day trip and a 10-day trip, and we’re ending it with four (games) in five nights here. I think it’d be unwise to be playing our guys in that kind of a situation, given their history.” Popovich has done similar things before – last season he gave Duncan, Parker and Ginobili time off together, and even took a two-game sabbatical himself.
I do understand both sides – the league has a marquee game that suddenly has no star power, and it is entirely possible that some fans will sue the teams and the league over it. But Popovich has a duty to do what’s best for his team, and resting players should help them. The “bad guys” in this story are the league morons who come up with the schedule. Yes, we know that the players are just cattle to them, but the players, especially the stars are what put butts in seats, and you don’t want to ruin the golden calf by working it too hard.
Stern will levy a big penalty on Popovich and the Spurs, but they will do what they always do, pay it and do what they want to anyway.

I never had the opportunity to discuss the murder of former champion Hector “Macho” Comacho. I saw a lot of Comacho’s fights and he was a fine fighter and decent champion. What is more interesting is the murder. If you didn’t hear, Comacho was shot in the neck and face while sitting in a car and the other person in the car was killed at the scene. Comacho lived but was declared brain dead and eventually died after his mother made the decision to end life support.
The authorities have been unusually tight-lipped about the incident and investigation. Who was targeted by the assassin(s)? Was it over a woman? Drugs? A robbery attempt? Whatever the cause, we have another early death of an athlete (Comacho was 50) which makes the Murray the K quote “live fast; die young; leave a pretty corpse” the way of the typical athlete. But I admit being curious as to the back story behind this killing.
I also have to admit that I couldn’t resist seeing another controversial boxer before something else happens to him. Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson is bringing his one-man show to Chicago in February, and I have already bought tickets. Tyson remains an enigmatic figure even now, many years since his heyday in the ring. Like I said, watching this force of nature and celebrity talking should be one of the more interesting evenings I’ve spent in a theater. It may not be good; it’s probably like buying a ticket to a train wreck or a bullfight; but like a car crash, I have to take a look.

When can anyone ever say that they feel sorry for a sportswriter? They get paid to watch sports; they get access to players, coaches, and owners and many of them get to offer their opinion on the events of the day. What’s to feel about sportswriters except envy, and of course anger when they write or say something incredibly stupid?
But what do the members of the Baseball Writers of America do starting this week with the annual Hall of Fame ballot? For the first time, two alleged and one player convicted of lying about the user of performance enhancing drugs hit the ballot. Barry Bonds, the sport’s home run king and a man who was convicted of lying about PED use (though not proven guilty of actual use) makes his first appearance on the ballot. Joining him are Roger Clemens, perhaps the best pitcher of his generation, but also a man who was acquitted of lying to a Grand Jury, and Sammy Sosa who has yet to face a court proceeding but whom rumors of PED use hover over him like vultures.
To date, the sportswriters have given a uniform thumbs-down to Mark MacGwire and Rafael Palmeiro, one of whom admitted to steroid use and the latter tested positive for drugs after testifying to Congress that he never used them. Considering that neither one of them have come anywhere near the 75% required for enshrinement, one would assume that the same will happen to Bonds, Clemens and Sosa, but many writers are openly asking in their columns for some guidance from Major League Baseball as to what to do, and no answer appears to be forthcoming.
I hate to keep repeating myself, but the only way that Bud “head in the sand on PEDs” Selig and baseball can put this behind them is declare a period of time in which any past or present player comes clean on ANY steroid or other PED use. There would be no punishment – a blanket amnesty on anyone who never tested positive to this point. After that period, say six months, the penalties come back in force. As to the Hall of Fame, anyone who comes forward as a user of PEDs can be voted into the Hall, however, that fact will be listed on your plaque.
In my way of thinking, that allows players like Bonds and Clemens, who arguably would have been Hall of Famers before there was evidence of PED use, to be rightfully in the Hall of Fame. Also, this would clean up all of the old-timers who used amphetamines to “get up” for games.
But for now, as it has for over a decade, Major League Baseball has made no ruling on the issue, preferring to bury its collective heads in the sand and hope the whole thing blows over. That is one of the reasons that the common fan can never respect the owners and management of the league.

Speaking of the Hall of Fame, one man who arguably should be there as he was the most significant man in baseball history in the latter half of the 20th Century, Marvin Miller, died this week at the age of 95. Miller was the head of the players union for over three decades and built the MLB Players Union as the strongest union in the country.
Miller defended Curt Flood; he stood with Andy Messersmith, the pitcher who opened free agency. Miller’s union struck again the owners, had lockouts against it (which is one reason the hockey lockout still goes on as one of Miller’s students, Donald Fehr runs the hockey union); and battled some of the most contentious owners in sports history.
For all of that, many believe (myself included) that Miller deserves a spot in Cooperstown; but the owners would never let the man who defeated them at nearly every turn be in baseball’s hallowed shrine. It’s a shame, but the owners have always been very petty.

Then, there are player running afoul of the law. Former Baltimore Orioles all-star third baseman Doug DeCinces and three others were indicted this week on insider trading charges involving the use of information prior to the takeover of a medical device company in California.
Reportedly, in 2008 DeCinces was told by a close friend and official at Advanced Medical Optics Inc. that Abbott Laboratories planned to pay $21 to $23 a share for the company’s stock, prosecutors said. At the time, Advanced Medical Optics was trading for about $8 a share, and he began buying the company’s Medical stock based on that information. In addition, DeCinces told three friends about the impending takeover. According to prosecutors, DeCinces wanted to make up for bad previous investment recommendations that had gone bad, prosecutors said.When Abbott’s offer was made public, DeCinces sold his shares and pocketed about $1.3 million. DeCinces, 62, was charged with 42 counts of securities fraud and one count of money laundering. Each of the fraud counts carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The two friends who were also indicted were David Parker, 60, of Provo, Utah; Fred Scott Jackson, 65, of Newport Beach, and Roger Wittenbach, 69, of Lutherville-Timonium in Maryland.
Also caught up in the insider trading case was Hall of Famer and DeCinces’ former teammate Eddie Murray, who agreed in August to pay nearly $360,000 to settle federal civil charges. Federal investigators said DeCinces told Murray about the impending takeover, but, as usual in these plea deals,. Murray neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.