Move on, Cleveland

I felt sorry for you, Cleveland.

I really did.

There was always that tease that LeBron James—your favourite son—would leave you, one day.

First, he started wearing Yankees hats in public.

Then he quit in the middle of an important playoff game.

And the final blow came when he decided to rip the heart out of your basketball team and your city, not behind the closed doors of a boardroom, but in the most public of forums on ESPN.

He teased you with the possibility that he wouldn’t dare break up with you in such a manner and then had the audacity to spin the situation as though he were a good guy by donating the proceeds of the broadcast to charity.

So, yes, I really did feel bad for you.

But my sympathy first started to wane when the Cavaliers owner, Dan Gilbert, unleashed his tirade, acting more like a spoiled child than a shrewd, successful corporate executive.

Granted, the whole situation could have been handled better, much better, in fact, by James and his handlers.

But you had seven years.

Seven.

With one of the most sublime basketball talents, possibly ever.

You had division titles, and playoff appearances, and conference championships and yes, even a Finals appearance.

I know, you’ve gotten the rough end of the stick in Cleveland with your sports.

But do you think the people in Buffalo feel bad for you?

How about Kansas City?

Or Seattle?

And now that I’ve seen a fan get ejected from a Cleveland Indians game for wearing a LeBron Miami jersey, my sympathy has completely evaporated.

Move on, Cleveland.

Boo him, when he returns.

Boo him, when he wins another MVP.

And boo him, when he inevitably wins a championship.

But in the meantime, get over it.

On the bright side, at least baseball fans in your city finally found something to be passionate about.

Karma strikes Owens

NFL training camps will officially open tomorrow when rookies from the Cleveland Browns report to the team’s facility in Berea, Ohio.

Over the following 10 days all players on all NFL rosters—minus those rookies who have yet to sign, anyway—will be in camp.

But one name will, in all likelihood, be conspicuously absent on any of the 32 NFL rosters—Terrell Owens.

The mercurial wideout has not been able to latch on with a club since the one-year deal he signed with Buffalo last March expired earlier this spring.

There have been nibbles—maybe Washington, Cincinnati or Oakland—if you believe the rumours, but no team has been willing to sign a player that is just one year removed from three consecutive 1,000-plus yards and double-digit touchdown seasons.

Sure, Owens’ numbers in Buffalo were pedestrian at best—55 receptions for 829 yards and five touchdowns—but it should come as no surprise that the real lack of suitors stems from his attitude.

His list of offences is so egregious that it even overshadows what is, on paper (1,006 receptions, 14,951 yards, 144 touchdowns), a pretty stellar career resume.

It suggests that eventually karma does catch up; eventually your talent, no matter how hard you work to maintain it, begins to dry up.

(Just ask Barry Bonds.)

And when it happens, people who were willing to overlook your shortcomings are no longer so forgiving.

So, no, I don’t feel bad for T.O.

Could he still be a factor for a good team?

Absolutely.

He may not be at the Pro Bowl level he once was, but certainly he has enough juice left to be a contributor—especially on a team where as something less than the first or second target he would have favourable match-ups.

Maybe this will all go out the window when a team loses a key receiver to injury and Owens is brought back into the fold.

Until then it’s a perfectly fair result for a man who couldn’t put his ego aside for the betterment of his immense talent.

Next question.

Do All-Star games still matter?

The news that the MLB All-Star game was not viewed by a large audience did not come as a surprise.

In fact, if the opposite was true—that is, if it drew significant numbers—I would have been astounded.

Clearly, the concept of the All-Star game—and not just in baseball, mind you—has passed its time.

It’s really hard to say which sport has gone so wrong, when just about every North American sports league seems to be inept when it comes to their supposed celebration of the game’s best.

Baseball’s game is a joke because of their over-reaction to a tie in 2002 that led to winner gaining home field advantage for their league in the World Series.

Football’s game can’t really be called a game. There’s no blitzing; defences can only run a stock 4-3 look and there’s not much of anything in the way of physical play; a strange omission in a violent, collision-based sport. Add that to the fact that a high percentage of players skip the game and you have the recipe for awful viewing.

Basketball’s game allows faded stars with greatly diminished abilities the chance to play and the next time you see some defence played will be the first time it’s happened.

And the NHL’s game is so important that every four years when a real competition comes along—the Olympics—they don’t have a game.

It’s rather ironic that Major League Soccer—which has by far the lowest profile of any of the leagues—does the All-Star game the best.

When they played their first All-Star game in 1996, they did it like everyone else—East vs. West—but in 2005 they switched things up.

Now they create one All-Star team and play against a major European club. This year it will be Manchester United.

Granted they have an advantage since the majority of talent in their sport is located on foreign soil, but the major selling point is the fact that it is a real game and it’s certainly unique.

Odds are that eventually this will become stale as well.

So the real point is, would anyone miss All-Star games if they were to go away?

If the numbers are a true indicator, then no.

After all, how can you miss something you aren’t watching?

Follow the Leader

Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.

– Vince Lombardi

Perhaps you can blame Nike or anyone else among his inner circle that has helped to precipitate the inflated ego that has rested upon the shoulders of LeBron James ever since he was in high school.

You see, there was once a time when the pursuit of a championship in professional sports was all about the journey.

But when the majority of your life has been spent listening to people tell you how good you are and how good you can become, how are you supposed to react?

Why earn your place? Why use your naturally cultivated talents—as sublime as they are—to earn your spot among the NBA’s all-time elite?

Why do all that when you can go to someone else’s team, in someone else’s city and set yourself up for a lengthy championship reign?

Let’s not mix words here—LeBron James took the easy way out. He did.

He could have gone to New York and taken on the challenge of turning around a taciturn Knicks franchise; although it wouldn’t take long for the pressure to win in the world’s media capital to reach its boiling point.

He could have gone to Chicago—quite frankly the best destination for him if winning was his real goal—and built a perennial contender with Derrick Rose, Carlos Boozer, Joakim Noah; although if he didn’t have the stomach to wear the number 23 anymore, how could he stand to live and play in Michael Jordan’s shadow in Chicago?

He could have stayed in Cleveland and done what he set out to do when he was drafted first overall by his hometown team in 2003 and lead the Cavs to a title; although it was pretty clear by LeBron’s performance against Boston in the playoffs that he couldn’t handle the load of carrying a team to a championship anymore.

He could have, but he didn’t do any of those things. He didn’t choose the challenge; he didn’t choose a path that—if he became a champion—would have secured his place as an all-time great.

And that’s where he went wrong.

Sure, the elements of his breakup with Cleveland could have been handled better (the city of Seattle sends its sympathy, Cleveland.) but it’s his lack of vision for his legacy that is most offensive.

He now becomes the latest in a long line of athletes for whom the concept of culpability and accountability seems to be lost, at least if they require a mirror to determine where it belongs.

Stars of a now long-gone generation of basketball wanted to make their teammates better; now players rely on their teammates to make them better.

LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh may ultimately win championships; they may ultimately become one of the most dominant dynasties in the history of a league defined by them.

But as pundits, experts and fans alike take the steps necessary to crown the Miami Heat as the 2011 NBA Champions, somewhere in southern California Kobe Bryant is smiling and getting ready for next year.

It’s a shame that LeBron didn’t want to take on his own challenge that way.

Where's Tiger?

I miss Tiger Woods.

I miss the days when we strictly talked about his golf game and not his divorce or his off the course, umm, activities.

I miss the days when discussions about what was wrong with Tiger centred around an injured knee or a fractured leg, not about his inability to enlighten foreign press on things in his personal life.

I’m not by any means condoning the actions that led to his precipitous decline, but regardless, my interest in Tiger the man, husband and father doesn’t measure up to my interest in Tiger the golfer.

And I don’t think I’m alone; people love dynasties, and ever since he made his PGA Tour debut at the Greater Milwaukee Open all those years ago, there’s been no better dynasty than that of Tiger Woods.

His recent play, however, is not befitting of the ruling emperor he once was, but is rather more pedestrian.

(It may be the ultimate poetic justice that he now looks like a regular human being on a golf course after the depth of his inability to act like one off it came to light.)

Granted he has finished in a tie for fourth in both of the major championships thus far, but Tiger is held to higher standard.

And besides, outside of those two tournaments he really has been a middle-of-the-pack player.

Consider his scoring average of 71.19—just .03 better than Tour average.

A year ago his scoring average of 68.05 led the Tour for the eighth time.

But the thing is, we know the ability is still there.

At least, it can be as it was on the back nine of the third round at the US Open when Tiger looked like, well, Tiger—the fist-pumping, pin-seeking, scoreboard-assaulting version we’ve come to expect.

His big problem at this point is consistency and if it continues that way, then perhaps he is just like the rest of us.

And maybe that only makes it worse.

Let Strasburg pitch

After the rosters for the MLB All-Star game next week were announced yesterday, a clear injustice had been committed.

(Okay, two if you count the neglect of Joey Votto—hitting .312 with 19 homeruns and 57 runs batted in—but he still has a chance to get in the game through the National League’s Final Vote.)

The travesty focuses on the exclusion of the much-lionized rookie pitcher Stephen Strasburg.

Yes, Strasburg has started precisely six games, owns a 2-2 record with a 2.45 ERA and 1.06 WHIP, but he absolutely must be an All-Star.

If you need evidence, just ask Cleveland.

When the Indians hosted Washington last month, 32,876 Clevelanders made their way through the turnstiles at Progressive Field—more than double their per game average of 16,230.

It’s important to remember that the All-Star game is a popularity contest.

If it was about who was having the best season or who the best players were, the voting for starters wouldn’t be left up to the fans and it wouldn’t be a requirement that every team be represented.

In Strasburg’s case, the fans have voted a resounding “Yes” in favour of his inclusion; they just haven’t done it the traditional way.

According to FanSnap, ticket demand when Strasburg pitches increases 123 per cent and the average ticket price checks in at $58.10, while tickets to the rest of the series sit at an average of $25.99.

So if baseball is to live by the fan vote, they must, in turn, die by the fan vote.

Even if that means they allow someone with less than 10 career MLB starts to be an All-Star.