Sliding

Two years ago, the Blue Jays finished with 85 wins, 19 more than the hapless Baltimore Orioles.

Last year, the Jays registered 81 victories, 12 more than Peter Angelos' terrible O's.

This season, the Jays have 55 wins and Baltimore has 64. The Orioles have shot past Toronto and could suddenly have, depending on how you look at it, a brighter future.

Look at what Washington is doing over in the National League - PIttsburgh too - and the teams that were struggling along with the Jays to build winning ballclubs from youth have now leapfrogged ahead of Toronto.

Ouch.

I'm willing to accept injuries as the biggest part of the Jays slide from a competitive team in June to one now on a 3-7 slide that suddenly looks hapless. The pitching staff has been devastated, and losing Jose Bautista, Brett Lawrie, J.P. Arencibia and others for extended periods just kills a young team that is still trying to find itself.

But as Ricky Romero's latest performance indicates, there are other reasons for the way in which this season has deteriorated.

Sub-par production from players that were counted upon to produce has played a big role, as well. Romero has gone weirdly sideways, and he wasn't just supposed to be the team's best pitcher. He was supposed to be the ace and a clubhouse leader. Taking him out of a tie ballgame last night with a big lefthanded hitter coming up was about as strong a non-confidence vote in Romero by manager John Farrell as could be imagined short of sending him to the bullpen.

Adam Lind had to go to the minors. Both Eric Thames and Travis Snider were found wanting, then traded. Yunel Escobar couldn't keep his role as a leadoff man. Brett Cecil floundered. Francisco Codero bombed. Henderson Alvarez is still very much a youngster learning to become a pro.

The list of Jays underachievers is nearly as long as the list of injured players. That shouldn't be lost in the story here. That Alex Anthopoulos had to deviate from the plan and start trading prospects for veteran bullpen help, and not in a bid to make the post-season, isn't the way this was supposed to go. (Snider has an OPS of .866 in his first 15 games as a Pirate, by the way. We won't discuss Brad Lincoln's night.)

Finally, there's the payroll. The decision was made in the off-season to wait, and that has meant when the injuries came the team had to turn to kids like Drew Hutchinson and Adeiny Hecchavaria instead of letting them mature in the minors, which was supposed to be the whole plan.

It's a weird universe we're now it that the Jays, at around the $75 million payroll mark, now spend $20 million or more less than Milwaukee and Minnesota. New ballparks in those cities have changed the economics, yes. But by that much? In a city of this size, how does the 23rd highest payroll in a non-cap sport make sense to a fan desperate to see this team find some success?

So yeah, injuries effectively derailed the Jays season. But there are other reasons that shouldn't be ignored.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warming Up

Saw two noteworthing sporting moments on Tuesday night while endeavouring to continue to avoid the early propaganda from both sides in the NHL labour discussions.

First, on a gorgeous night with the roof open at the Rogers Centre, one was momentarily caught by surprise when a tidy but ear-catching standing ovation broke out.

The subject? None other than Colby Rasmus, the young centre fielder driven out of St. Louis last season, the Blue Jay outfielder who wasn't exactly the most popular athlete in this town either in the latter part of last season and the early part of this year for his erratic batting efforts.

Rasmus worked through those problems to become one of the more effective Jays hitters this season, with his 20 home runs a surprise power stat in the Toronto lineup.

But what seemed to draw Rasmus the rousing cheers on Tuesday was the fact he went to the plate as a pinch-hitter in the ninth despite being unable to be part of the starting lineup because of his tender groin. Fans like that, athletes who play hurt. Rasmus swatted a single to left and then was promptly replaced by 45-year-old pinch runner Omar Viquel.

Rasmus - who turned 26 on Saturday - certainly isn't the most popular Jay. But on a team with a few flashy players, his improvement and efforts have clearly been noticed.

Another young athlete based out of Toronto, tennis player Milos Raonic, did some bouncing back of his own Tuesday night, upsetting Richard Gasquet of France in the first round of the Cincinnati Masters in straight sets.

Raonic, 21, drew some criticism for his quarter-final appearance at the Rogers Cup last week in a loss to John Isner of the United States. Gasquet, meanwhile, made it to the final before losing to Novak Djokovic.

Gasquet jumped to No. 13 in the world with that effort, while Raonic moved into the top 20 for the first time at No. 19. In Cincinnati, Gasquet had double set point in the first set but couldn't close, ultimately dropping a tiebreak.

In the second set, he was broken by Raonic in the sixth game, and the Canadian held off a late charge by Gasquet to win the match on move on to a second round match with Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus. It was one of those matches that was really decided by four or five big points, a measure of the small margin of error on the tour. For Raonic, a likely third round collision with Tomas Berdych awaits if Raonic can knock off Baghdatis.

If there's any similarity between Rasmus and Raonic, and there aren't many, it would be the way in which fans and critics seem so quickly to want to write them off rather than view them as young, developing athletes still learning the ways to success in their sport.

Rasmus, at least, is getting kudos for turning his game around. Raonic, meanwhile, seems to be struggling to meet the expectations of a Canadian tennis public that seems oddly untethered from the realities of the sport. He's the first Canadian male to ever crack the top 20, and a player with two major weapons in his spectacular serve and crushing forehand, yet that's still leaving some unsatisfied.

A win over Gasquet coming off the Isner loss was a huge step forward in a season filled with some tough losses. Neither he nor Rasmus is close to fully defining themselves in their chosen sport. A simple declarative sentence on either at this point in their respective careers just isn't available. People might want to enjoy the process a little more.

 

 

 

 

The Beginning of the Long, Slow March

Pay no attention. Ignore them.

That's about the best advice anyone can give a hockey fan these days as the NHL and NHL Players Association start the verbal sparring of yet another round of collective bargaining negotiations that almost certainly will result in another work stoppage.

For the "crime" of loving the game too passionately and supporting the 30 NHL clubs too enthusiastically in the wake of the last lockout, NHL fans and customers will now pay the price of watching the league and players demonstrate once more they care more about the business of the game than the sport or the fans.

They'll shut the game down, at least for a while, because the fans didn't punish them emphatically for shutting it down the last time. And it appears nothing will stop that from happening.

So ignore the propaganda, including Thursday's pronouncement by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman that if there's no deal by Sept. 15 - the day the old CBA expires - the NHL will lock out the players. That was expected, and really just a way of making sure the players understand that simply delaying negotiations and playing for time won't get them anywhere.

Don't forget the league made a laughable "offer" to the players last month that the players have as of yet opted not to even bother responding to. Given their druthers, the players would certainly just keep playing under the old system, and the rather illogical contracts given out to Ryan Suter, Zach Parise and Shea Weber this summer illustrated why they would feel that way.

At least NHL owners aren't bothering to cry poor this time. They know that everybody else knows their revenues have increased by more than 50 per cent since the last lockout wiped out the entire 2004-05 season. This time, Bettman and his board just want a more favourable deal because they want a more favourable deal, starting with the basic premise that they no longer want to give 57 per cent of all revenues to the players. 

The players are doing incredibly well and want to keep doing incredibly well. If revenues have gone up, they undoubtedly figure they deserve more, not less.

So there's really no good guy or bad guy this time, not like there appeared to be the last time when the NHL somehow convinced fans in smaller markets that they were fighting the good fight to save those teams and make them more competitive.

Here are the dynamics that really matter. The NHL knows it can cancel months of play and the fans will just come back and pay higher ticket prices. It also knows that Bettman can keep the owners together, and keep them quiet.

The players, on the other hand, know they caved last time - actually, they turned on one another - which is why they went out and hired Don Fehr. This time, then, they know they have to prove they won't cave or betray each other, that they have unity and can stay unified, and to do that Fehr needs to keep them off the job for a while. The league will only believe the players will stick together if they stick together when they're not getting paid.

What this means, folks, is that we're probably two months away, or maybe three, from serious talks really beginning. The first 20 games of the season, barring something dramatic, are already gone. What gets "offered" today will have little or no bearing on what the final deal looks like.

Oh, there will be lots of rhetoric. Predictable stuff. Hopefully, people have learned by now that this isn't a popularity contest or an election, and whether public sentiment is with the owners or the players (it's always with the owners) it won't matter a whit as far as how long the league's doors will be shut.

So set your calendar for Nov. 1 and check back in then. If there's some shocking breakthrough before then, it'll surprise everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Move On

Bad calls happen in all sports. Horrific, unfair calls, too.

Injustice, though? Maybe, but it's a stretch to come up with a conspiracy theory in which a Norwegian referee works in concert with the U.S. national women's team to produce an Olympic victory over Canada. This just doesn't feel like Josef Kompalla in '72.

Here's the bigger point; staying focussed on the very, very iffy calls late in the Canada-U.S. game on Monday should not be the way in which the Canadian team's efforts should be remembered, both good and bad.

From the good point of view, Canada struck early and often offensively, and how great was it to see a Canadian soccer team so dangerous with the ball. This wasn't sit back and play for penalty kicks against the powerful Americans. This was a Canadian team going for gold in an aggressive, exciting way. An inspiring way.

From the bad, four goals allowed in any soccer match, even if one was of the very dubious variety because of officiating error or misjudgement, isn't usually going to get it done. Were we really going to score five? As good as Canada was offensively, it lacked defensive efficiency and judgement, at least partly, quite likely, because of a slew of key injuries on the back end.

Beyond that, Canadians can be offended if they want that IOC officials are "investigating" what was said and done post-match, and sanctions may be forthcoming, but ripping the refs post-match is going to get you in trouble in any sport. Fines and suspensions for beaking off about the officiating are not uncommon in the NHL, NBA and other major North American sports. Serena Wiliams, Lord knows, got in a heap of trouble for verbally attacking a U.S. Open lineswoman.

Was it understandable that some of the Canadians went off? Sure, even more so because this is a tournament that comes along once every for years. They don't get another shot at the Americans next week. There's raw emotion out there.

But that's the bargain you make when you compete, that the calls may not go your way but when it's all said and done questioning more than just the calls but questioning the integrity of the process and the competitive landscape is out-of-bounds. Hey, the British team was openly questioning the officiating during their loss to Canada last week. They thought the Canadian team was getting away with murder. This time, it's Canada that doesn't like how it went down. 

To me, it sure doesn't sound like members of the Canadian team said anything that egregious, or anything that deserves suspensions from the bronze medal match. It's doubly tough when athletes not used to intense media attention have to handle so much of it on such a large stage. But you still have to watch your tongue. Saying the wrong thing is never going to be right.

So let's move on. It wasn't so long ago that it seemed Canadian women's soccer was going in the wrong direction, and today, despite the loss to the Americans, few would say that. So let's not make it about the officiating. Let's make it about a daring, attacking team that competed valiantly but didn't quite get it done protecting their own net.

Understand what went right and what went wrong. Don't make this like Leaf fans who still believe the Leafs were robbed of the Cup in '93 by Kerry Fraser.

Anything else is, ultimately, pointless. Going for bronze is now the only point.

 

The Welcome Whirl

Even in a multi-channel, multi-platform sports media world in which pretty much everything and anything is possible for the viewing public, it's striking how much oxygen the Summer Olympics take up.

For the two weeks in which the London Olympics have been ongoing, the rest of the sports landscape has been lost in a whirl, submerged by the steady drumbeat of stories and information emanating from the British capital. Here in the GTA, the voices of other sports and other leagues are barely heard. The CFL is barely noticed. Ditto for the Canadian Open golf. The Rogers Cup tennis is struggling to be noticed. 

If there's a good side to this, it's that we haven't had to listen to the predictable propaganda coming out of the NHL collective bargaining negotiations. The NHL-NHLPA blather is lost out there in the non-Olympic atmosphere and frankly, given that they're not going to be playing hockey quite probably until December, its a nice break that would only be better if it could last longer.

The other good side to the Olympics in this neck of the woods is that we haven't had to listen, at least not to the same extent, to the usual whining and moaning about the Maple Leafs and what they have and haven't done. GM Brian Burke has added three forwards- James Van Riemsdyk, Leo Komarov and Jay McClement - so far this summer, and drafted and signed a top defence prospect, Morgan Rielly.

Still, you hear the lament of "why haven't the Leafs done anything?" Well, if you accept the premise that adding three forwards is nothing even though JVR may be an impact forward, then you have to at least look around the NHL and acknowledge that few teams have done a great deal.

Yes, the Rangers added Rick Nash, Minny signed both Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, and Carolina traded for Jordan Staal, although the price paid - Brandon Sutter, a good prospect and a high first round pick - was substantial.

Otherwise, unless you consider Jiri Hudler to Calgary or Mike Ribeiro to Washington moves of the earthshaking variety, the vast majority of teams have either done no more than the Leafs or less. That makes sense in this environment, for with the terms of the next CBA yet to be established, making big, expensive moves could end up being very problematic.

Sadly, many in Toronto see only the Leafs, what Burke does and doesn't do, and not the larger context. So the whining and moaning is sure to emerge soon. If only the Olympics could go on for another month.