Is the Madden Curse Real?

I'm not a superstitious person by any stretch of the imagination - I don't toss salt over my shoulder, I step on sidewalk cracks, and I'd probably step on the foul line if I was a baseball player. Despite not believing in superstitions and jinxes, the Madden Curse has been pretty consistent throughout the years. The Madden Curse (similar to the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx) refers to an injury or poor performance of the players featured on the cover of John Madden. Here's a look at some of the players featured on the cover:

2001: Eddie George (injuries and an all time rushing low)
2002: Daunte Culpepper (season ending knee injury)
2003: Marshall Faulk (ankle injury & team missed the playoffs)
2004: Michael Vick (broken leg)
2005: Ray Lewis (torn hamstring)
2006: Donovan McNabb (sports hernia)
2007: Shaun Alexander (broken foot)

2008: Vince Young (leg injury & a dismal 17 interceptions)
2009: Brett Favre (torn biceps tendon which derailed the Jets season)
2010: Troy Polamalu (sprained MCL knee injury)

Hopefully nothing happens to Larry Fitzgerald, who shares the cover with Polamalu on John Madden NFL 10.

Fantasy Football for Dummies

Ask any guy how many Fantasy Football leagues they belong to and you'll be surprised by the answer. I try to limit myself to two teams a season to make it manageable. A few friends have as many as 10 teams with different scoring formats (head to head, rotisserie, keeper leagues, salary cap, etc) and smack talking opponents (coworkers, ex-coworkers, friends, etc). Keeping up with their schedule of live drafts in August and September is a part-time job in itself.

The best way to prepare for "Draft Day" is to have a cheat sheet (ranked by position and average draft position), knowing key news (like which player is suspended for 3 games: Marshawn Lynch), and having a strategy (I live by: "2 Running Backs as your first two picks" and "Kickers in the last round" mantras). Here's a tip that will help you easily import and organize fantasy football stats into an Excel spreadsheet:

1) Go to your Fantasy Football provider's (Yahoo, CBS.Sportsline, or ESPN) players stats page. Copy the URL.
2) Open an Excel Spreadsheet. Click on Data -> Get External Data -> New Web Query. Paste the URL and click OK.

All of the players' stats should neatly populate onto the spreadsheet for easy sorting. Keep repeating the steps until you get all of the players you want to rank (you can only get 25 at a time on Yahoo). I keep three tabs for Offensive players (QB, WR, RB, TE), Defenses, and Kickers. Enjoy this time saving tip and feel free to pass it onto friends (non-opponents in your league).

What's in Your Golf Bag?

I took up golf five years ago after starting my current job. It helps facilitate business and it doesn't hurt being out of the office, getting some sun, and drinking all day. Let's be honest, if shark feeding was a corporate event, I'd probably take it up to get out of the office too. I've never broken 100 (70% of golfers never have either), but its a satisfying game when everything is going right. Here's a look at the 14 clubs in my bag:

Club# 1) TaylorMade R360XD 10.5 degrees (regular flex): "old faithful" - its my first and most consistent driver.
Club# 2) TaylorMade R9 9.5 degrees (regular flex): I won it at a golf outing, but its not consistent enough to unseat "old faithful" just yet.
Club# 3) TaylorMade V Steel 3 Wood 15 degrees (regular flex): I bought it right before I played Pinehurst to get away from using the lower irons in my bag.
Club# 4) King Cobra Baffler DWS 3 Rescue Club 20 degrees (regular flex): I love this club. Its great out of the rough, off the fairway, and long par 3's.
Club# 5-12) Cleveland TA5 Irons 3-9 PW: I'm very hit or miss with my irons. I'm bringing my hands in more and swinging slower for better contact.
Club #13) Cleveland Sandwedge Tour Action 588 56 degrees: Its not the arrow, its the Indian. Sometimes I'm great out of the sand and sometimes I'm playing tennis back and forth with myself over the green.
Club #14) Odyssey White Hot #5: I've got stone hands around the green and this putter doesn't help. I'm considering upgrading to the Odyssey Sabretooth before the season ends (I love the offsetting weight in it).

Kobe - Do you have a Ring Polisher?

Here's a few more commercials from the Nike Kobe-Lebron puppet series with Lil Dez. "Lebron, you have 20 triple doubles, can I have one?" "Lebron, c'mon man cheer up, it took Mike seven years and Charles Barkley ain't even got a ring, not one!" Good stuff!

The L Word

The championship that the NBA and most of the world wanted to see won't be happening. The Nike puppet commercials might have jinxed the "dream championship matchup" - instead of Kobe vs Lebron, its going to be The Black Mamba vs Superman....*yawn* Don't get me wrong, the Orlando Magic deserve their just due, they beat Lebron James in 1 on 5 basketball (despite the phantom liberal foul calls). Lebron learned the same thing Michael Jordan learned against the Detroit Piston: he needs role playing players (Ho Grant / Rodman - rebounds, Paxson / Hodges / Kerr - 3 point specialists, Cartwright / Longley / Wennington - useless big men to hack quality centers) and a viable second scoring option (Pippen / Kukoc). Here's the question on my mind, will Shaq show up wearing an Orlando Magic jersey to the Finals?

Manny Being Manny

I guess its more of Manny being Manny. Manny Ramirez was suspended for 50 games for a banned substance: HCG (a female fertility drug). HCG is used to restart the body's ability to produce testosterone and used by steroid users at the end of a steroid cycle. Manny claims that it was prescribed to him for a "personal health issue" and that he had passed 15 drug tests in the past. C'mon Manny! Should we applaud drunk drivers who kill innocent people for not drunk drunking in the past? Are there any "heroes" left in baseball anymore? Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and now Manny. Who's next? Albert Pujols? Ryan Howard? Here's my solution: instead of there being an American League and National League, they should have a Juice League and a Non-Juice League. Juice League players would all make the league minimum ($400,000), they would get 2 outs per inning, and have their own record book. We'll see how quickly players would be jumping onto the juice bandwagon.

I've Died and Gone to Yankee Stadium

I finally made it out to Yankee Stadium and the baseball gods scorned me for going to Citi Field's Opening Day (my game was delayed for 1 1/2 hours and then postponed). Since I got to the Stadium at 10:30am, I had plenty of time to walk around and explore. There were no climate controlled seats, refrigerated cup holders, plasmas over each urinal, or an EZ-Pass entrance, but here is what I noticed:

• The entry concourse is impressive with banners of Yankee greats in black and white on one side and color on the other side
• The food selection is pretty diverse: Nathan's hot dogs, Brother Jimmy's BBQ, Hard Rock Cafe, Johnny Rockets, NYY Steak, Mohegan Sun Bar, Boar's Head Deli, Garlic Fries, Lobel's Steak Sandwiches, Mexican food, Famiglia Pizza, sushi, and noodles
• The lines for concessions and the men's bathroom are considerably shorter (the urinals are now wall to wall - in the old Stadium people always threatened to use available sinks/garbage cans)
• The dimensions remain the same and the seat size / legroom have improved
• Monument Park is supposedly open throughout the game (but closed during rain delays)
  

The new stadium is a definite upgrade, but I can't see where they spent $1.5B - its the 2nd most expensive stadium after Wembley.

Citi Field: Putting Lipstick on a Pig

I grew up in the Bronx and was born and raised a New York Yankees fan (mainly by my grandfather and uncles). Sports allegiances are similar to prejudices and racism: they are taught at an early age, you are blindly conditioned to love your own, and hate the "enemy" (Red Sox and Mets) for no logical reason. A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to Citi Field's Opening Day by one of my underwriters. I tried to reject the offer with every excuse in the book: I'm not a Mets fan, I live in NJ and it was a night game, and did I mention I wasn't a Mets fan? The thought of entering such a sacriligious place after being pre-conditioned to hate blue and orange, made me wonder if my grandfather would spin in his grave. After getting grief that the tickets were not costing me anything, that I was the first person he invited to go, that it was a hard to get ticket, and it was a "historical moment", I decided to go. Here are a couple of my observations:

• Its much nicer than its ugly minor league looking predecessor (Shea Stadium), however people are over exaggerating how wonderful it is. There's still a 20 minute wait for the bathroom / beer / food, a few stadium lights need replacing, and the jumbotron and scoreboard already have blown bulbs.
  
• The urinals are "green" and do not use water to flush. Be careful washing your hands because the sinks blast you with hot water.
• Its going to be harder to hit home runs - we watched Beltran and Wright blast balls to center (408 ft) and right center (415 ft) where the wall's height can hit 20 feet in some areas.
  
• Its still in the middle of no where - a lovely train yard.
  
• Its still the lowly Mets playing - the same franchise that won a World Series because a ball passed between someone's legs and have squandered a divisional lead in the last month (two years in a row). They even lost their Opening Day game by balking home the winning run.

Fantasy Baseball for Dummies

I've been playing Fantasy Baseball since the 1993-1994 season - when my team consisted of Darren Daulton, Mike Stanley (who seemed to hit a HR every game), John Kruk, Jeff Bagwell, Carlos Baerga, Jack McDowell (22 Wins), Phil Plantier, and Chuck Carr (58 Stolen Bases). In my virgin season, I had my greatest free agent pickup: I discovered Pedro Martinez as a lowly middle reliever on the Dodgers.

According to my Yahoo Sports trophy case, I've been in a Fantasy Baseball drought - the last time I won First Place was 2004 (I finished in Second Place in 2006). Being a post-draft optimist, I believe this is going to be my year. I refined my draft strategy from last year: load up on offense (I didn't pick a pitcher until the 7th round where I had to pull the trigger on Chad Billingsley), pick a catcher near the end (last year I drafted Bengie Molina who lead all catchers with 95 RBIs - this year I landed Jorge Posada), and wait on relief pitchers (the position is too unpredictable and you can always pick one up on the waiver wire). Here is how my team looks:

C: Jorge Posada
1B: Justin Morneau
2B: Dan Uggla (who I officially have a man crush on)
3B: David Wright
SS: Stephen Drew
OF: Carlos Beltran
OF: Jacoby Ellsbury
OF: Torii Hunter
Util: Carlos Pena
BN: Mark Reynolds

SP: Chad Billingsley
SP: James Shields
RP: Brian Fuentes (K-Rod had 62 SVs with the Angels)
RP: BJ Ryan
P: Ricky Nelasco
P: Derek Lowe
P: Zack Greinke
BN: Randy Johnson
BN: Scott Baker
BN: Troy Percival
BN: Kevin Gregg

My only fault in the draft - although I'm a Yankees fan, I'll be forced to root for David Wright / Carlos Beltran (on the lowly Mets) and Jacoby Ellsbury (on the much hated Boston Red Sox). My biggest sleeper prediction: Cameron Maybin on the Florida Marlins (he'll be good for 40+ SBs).

To the Victor go the Spoils

There are 247 members in the NFL Hall of Fame and not one of them is a punter. The punter is the least glorious position on the team - they don't score, they don't get physical, and they are statistically the most likely to turn the ball over per touch. No one grows up wanting to be a NFL punter (as far as I know). Offense wins games, defense wins championships, and punting simply gives the ball back to the other team (in other words: quitting).

There is an important business lesson in all of this: if you don't produce, you can't get rewarded. I learned this my first year out of college - businesses always reward/protect their profit centers and sacrifice their cost centers (support staff, HR, IT, etc). You can't win the game, if you're not scoring points.