By Weston Bruner, on January 13th, 2012 I am curious: what exactly does it take for a commissioner not to be considered a hero by his owners? In recent years,
 How exactly is this the best MLB could do? despite all of the upheaval and utterly moronic moves by culturally and psychologically cloistered commissioners, they seem to live on in their positions, promoted not only to incompetency but far beyond it. When Bud Selig announced that he was coming back through 2014 for another round overseeing the demise of America’s pastime, I found myself wondering whether being a commissioner might be the easiest job to retain in the country. As long as the commish is content to be a puppet of the owners behind the scenes and a Generalissimo in front of the cameras, he can do whatever he wants as Americans continue to eat up all the sports content they can get, though their tastes waver between the sports.
You would think that perhaps if franchises are losing money or the sport is losing market share to the other major sports that that could be a reason to get rid of a commissioner. It would make sense after all- if the commissioner’s job is to oversee the league and the league starts to struggle, then like any CEO he is out. But that may be the best part about the modern-day commissioner. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on January 6th, 2012  Bill O'Brien's job will be much easier if his administration is able to reform its practices and prevent another Sandusky. Well, it looks like Penn State finally has their man. Of course, by “their man” I mean “someone who was willing to take the position.” Bill O’Brien won’t inspire wonder in the hearts of Penn State fans or recruits though his resume is certainly one to respect as a head coaching candidate.
He has served in a host of assistant roles in college at programs like Georgia Tech, Maryland and Duke, which will be helpful if he hopes to reach outside of Pennsylvania to recruit the fertile southeast. Despite the history of Belichick assistants flaming out as head coaches (see Charlie Weis, Romeo Crennel, Josh McDaniels, Eric Mangini, etc.) it is certainly not a poor background to have. If nothing else, the heavy-handed dictatorial approach that Belichick assistants tend to have would serve him well in a place that needs a head coach with firm control over every aspect of the program after decades of moral decay and stagnation. At the end of the day however, we have no idea what kind of a head coach Bill O’Brien will be, and to me that will be far less important than what kind of university Penn State decides to be.
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By Weston Bruner, on December 30th, 2011 2011 was a strange year in sports. There was the Green Bay Packers reclaiming their spot among the NFL elite by winning the Super
 If you squint really hard, it almost makes sense. Bowl and starting the 2011 season 13-0. There was the thrilling baseball season that saw the Cardinals and Rays get in on the last day of the season and the Cardinals end Tony LaRussa’s career with a championship (and, incidentally, Albert Puhols’ St. Louis career). College football’s Jim Tressel was fired/resigned/retired (depending on which Ohio State statement you choose to read) in disgrace after lying at least 4 times to the NCAA, one time to get his star players eligible for the Sugar Bowl. The NBA and NFL both hit lockouts, but only NFL fans seemed to care (hopefully that was a wake-up call to Emperor Stern). VCU and Butler joined the Final Four, making for one of the most confused and bracket-busting of NCAA tournament memory. And of course, in the saddest of news, Penn State stood by and allowed Jerry Sandusky to molest children in their football facilities for at least a decade.
However, the 2011 story that fans will see the most impact in 2012 may have been the most transparent act of self-preservation of all- conference expansion. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on December 23rd, 2011
 Colts will need more than just Andrew Luck to turn 2-12 into a playoff season in 2012. There has been a lot of consternation this morning about whether Indianapolis has ruined their chances at the Andrew Luck sweepstakes, but frankly I am not sure I would be nearly as concerned. Even if Indy should lose out on the #1 overall selection, there is a good chance they may still wind up with Andrew Luck and even if not, end up with a player who might be better able to turn this team back into a contender in 2012.
I don’t need to list the quarterbacks taken #1 overall since Peyton Manning went in 1998, but I will anyway. They include a few gems like Michael Vick (though he needed a prison stay to get his mind straight), Carson Palmer, Eli Manning, Matt Stafford, and Cam Newton (Sam Bradford will need to turn things around next season). But just as often, they include duds like David Carr, Tim Couch, and JaMarcus Russell (jury is still out on Alex Smith). Even among the gems, only Michael Vick and Eli Manning could be considered among the elite NFL quarterbacks right now; Palmer hasn’t been close to elite in years. But Andrew Luck is different, right? READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on December 16th, 2011 A little off the beaten path today, but who says I can’t get seasonal?
This time of year everyone is getting gifts to tap into the heart of what makes us happy, and in doing so they think about what defines us as people. Like it or not, we are defined- and define ourselves, by our sports allegiances, and the success of the teams we root for. As a Michigan fan I can hold my head high in any sports environment right now and utter the words “BCS” if any other fan got on my case. From 2008-2010 however, I would have to hold my tongue lest I get into an argument that can only be lost due to the fact that “my” team stunk. So we wear (sometimes literally) our fandom on our sleeves, a way to mark ourselves to the world like a bumper sticker on a long road trip (and like bumper stickers, the more pieces you have on the more obnoxious you look).
For a sports fan, I have very few pieces of sports-related items hanging around, but I can say pretty confidently that almost all of them have been gifts. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on December 9th, 2011  When I first heard about the proposed trade that would have sent Chris Paul to the Lakers in return for four potential starters and a first round pick, I thought it was a good but not great haul. Not in the number of players or their quality, but the age and the fit together. Lamar Odom, Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, and Goran Dragic weren’t going to be the building blocks for a future contender, but they would probably be good enough to make it to the playoffs if they could find some chemistry. A first round pick sent to the Hornets from the Knicks (via the Rockets) wouldn’t hurt either. All in all if you are trying to remake your team and give yourself assets for future moves it wasn’t bad though. Over the course of a season Odom and Dragic could probably be moved at the very least, given Odom’s track record and the league’s ever present need for big men. I actually didn’t think it was all that great for the Lakers, given that they were sacrificing their size in the middle for an upgrade at a position that they were already at least okay at. Derek Fisher may be on his last legs but he is still a solid point guard, and Pau Gasol isn’t always aggressive under the rim but big men with a good shot are hard to find. When the trade was vetoed I found myself stunned, confused, and more disappointed in the NBA than ever. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on December 2nd, 2011
This is an odd time in sports. It isn’t like the post-Super Bowl lull when there isn’t anything going on except college basketball or the April post-March Madness slump when baseball hasn’t gotten going yet. And yet unless you are a huge fan of hockey regular games are tough to come by. There is the omnipresent force of the NFL and the buildup to the mythical national championship in college football, but most teams have wrapped up and are waiting for their bowl game, if they are lucky enough to be in the top half of teams (hell of a postseason, huh? Everyone and their brother gets to go to the postseason but only the top 2 teams get a chance to be the champion of anything). If not, they are waiting around for their coach to get fired or a new one to get hired. So far Arizona and Washington State have done well for themselves, picking up the top names on the street as soon as possible so they can ease the transition and build a halfway decent recruiting class out of the year. However Randy Edsall, despite his best efforts, will still be the coach of Maryland. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on November 25th, 2011 If you are reading this on the day it’s posted, one of two things has happened. Either you are alone on Thanksgiving weekend, in which case I am so glad that BSR can keep you company on this quiet sports day (in between two great ones), or you are avoiding family so you can get your fix of Baltimore sports, in which case I am so glad we aren’t quite as irritating. However, in the spirit of the brotherly contest we witnessed yesterday, I wanted to share my own thoughts on brotherly competition. You see, I don’t merely have a brother, I have a twin brother. We grew up in most of the same classes, shared the same room, played with the same toys (why get two when you can “share”) and even had most of the same friends. For the longest time there was a rumbling of competition, though I am so glad that it hasn’t risen to the Harbaugh level.
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By Weston Bruner, on November 18th, 2011 I have avoided talking about Tim Tebow on this column or any other because I don’t really fall into one of the partisan camps on the kid. There seems to be about 40% of the country that thinks he is an awful, horrible excuse for a quarterback who should have been moved to H-back or TE the moment he left college. These people also think that he would make a poor H-back at that. There is another 40% that thinks he is a brilliant quarterback who, if given the opportunity, could become one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL. They also want him to baptize their child or future child, just in case. I have always found myself in a quiet 20%. I think he has the potential to be a solid (that is, average) quarterback by the statistical measures we use to track their performance. He will never be considered among the upper echelon, but that shouldn’t be something to be ashamed of, considering the 4th rounders many people would have picked over Tebow won’t be starting either. What the controversy highlights however is the changing definition of what makes a quarterback “good.” READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on November 11th, 2011
Like most of us, I was born into my rooting interests, singing The Victors as soon as I could sing and rooting for the Orioles before I could understand the game. It was simply part of growing up. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to me if my parents had happened to be Yankees fans. Would I behave any differently or talk about my team with a different air about me? Probably, since being a Yankees fan carries with it a completely unique history. Same thing if I was an Eagles fan, since I probably wouldn’t have much patience for my starting quarterbacks and find booing a far more acceptable practice. But there aren’t many teams anymore that you can say that about, and in watching the rivalry unfold between the Ravens and Steelers I started to wonder about the fans and what that allegiance means beyond the affinity for purple. I think I have an idea, but I think it’s a question better posed to the fans themselves. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on November 4th, 2011 The rumor coming out of the LaCava negotiations is that LaCava asked for essentially full control of the Orioles, which Peter Angelos balked at and derailed the talks. I can understand that- after all, Angelos has done a fantastic job so far, as the only common thread throughout fourteen consecutive losing seasons. I don’t know if it is ego or just blindness, but Angelos still appears to believe that he deserves a seat at the table. And why not, he is the owner after all. But as BSR has pointed out, at this point it is just another embarrassing anecdote in the story of this team. However, a lot of rumors and conjecture come out of negotiations, and there is a decent chance that it wasn’t control but something else that ended the LaCava talks. The problem that the Orioles face is that at this point it no longer matters. Their credibility is such that any accusation, no matter how outlandish, makes decent sense to the majority of Baltimore fans. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on October 28th, 2011
In 1993, Charles Barkley quite fairly stated “I am not a role model.” He was absolutely right. Yet when I look around the sports landscape eighteen years later, I still see teams and fans trying to beatify players as “good guys” when the term is so subjective and misleading as to be comical. The game itself is beautiful, yet we feel a need to feel closer to the athletes than we probably should, like making judgments about actors as people after seeing some of their movies. Our desire to be closer to the man behind the uniform and our illogical but irrepressible fandom gets in the way. Athletes are still deified because it helps sell jerseys and ad spots, but unless we know the man with at most 3 degrees of personal separation, it is hard to say anything except if he is a good ball player. But perhaps that personal drama and closeness to a player, even if it is a work of fiction, that fans need to elevate sports from a numbers game to action-packed theatre. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on October 21st, 2011
I am not sure whether Carson Palmer is a lucky man, but I sure as hell know that the Cincinnati Bengals are. For a player who had gotten worse over the past four years and was months away from his 32nd birthday, the Bengals received at least a first and a second round pick (which might become a first rounder if the Raiders reach the AFC championship game). The Bengals, already in rebuilding mode with who they feel is their quarterback of the future, didn’t really have to give up anything while the Raiders are left to go Mike Ditka on the 2012 draft for Palmer- that is, get no one but one star. After giving up their first rounder, the Raiders now are without first, second, third, fourth, or seventh round picks, and will rely on compensatory picks to get a single player before the fifth round of the draft. It serves as an example of the common syndrome- accepting the fun of tonight for the horrible hangover tomorrow. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on October 14th, 2011
You will have to forgive me for a Michigan-centric post, but go with me here.
This week I got the opportunity of the year, though at the time it didn’t quite feel that way. Today I am heading up to East Lansing for a regional conference, which I am pretty sure is a trap of some sort. Inviting a host of University of Michigan professionals into a large conference room on the Michigan State campus the day before the game? With most of the other attendees from other Michigan universities (and not much love for the flagship school), this sounds like the premise of a bad action movie. Regardless, I decided I would stay in East Lansing for at least that evening to hang out with some friends in town and lo and behold, another friend from Ann Arbor called me telling me that he had secured us a pair of tickets to the #11 Michigan vs. #23 Michigan State game on Saturday. And yet at first I felt apprehension more than anything else. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on October 7th, 2011 While you are reading this, I am on the road heading out east for a long weekend, so I do not at this point know whether the Yankees fell to the Tigers or if Cal knocked off Oregon (I know that’s the one that Baltimoreans are really watching). However, that’s why I like writing this column, it’s timeless. Or maybe it’s just lazy. I haven’t quite decided and if you are this far down then maybe you don’t particularly care. And yet from the time I started typing this to the beginning of that sentence, a new story just went across the wire, TCU bucking the Big East for the Big 12, leaving the conference before playing a game and joining the conference it probably should have joined last year if it wasn’t (isn’t?) so dysfunctional and terribly run. It is hard to get a grapple on where you are in the sports landscape or even when following a particular team how good that team really is in the moment. Maryland is a contender for the ACC for about a week before falling to West Virginia, and Navy is a potential BCS buster in the first half against South Carolina and by the time they are flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct in overtime they are back to being a good, not great Navy team. READ MORE >>>
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