Ode to Larry King: Iphone, oldness and terrible commissioners

By Dan Nied

Why “Ode to Larry King?” Well in college, I spent many a lonely lunch scanning USA Today, one of the free newspapers offered in the dining halls. My favorite regular feature was Larry King’s column in which he would make totally inane single-sentence statements and link them with an ellipses (or “…” for the punctuation challenged.). So the average Larry King column would read like this: For my money, there is nothing better than watching a bird feed its young…My favorite juice? Prune…World Wide Web? Not if you live in the country of Chad… Dom Deluise once gave me a whole pig as a Christmas gift. That man could butter your bread from both sides… and so on.

Reading King’s column always doubled me over with laughter. The sheer randomness of the whole thing, coupled with the mental image of King barking out those lines was perhaps one of the funniest things I’ve ever thought of. In fact, Norm MacDonald’s take on the column for SNL just made coffee come out of my nose.

So that’s where my Ode to Larry King comes from…

So Apple unveiled the Iphone 4 today. Thinner, longer battery life, higher resolution screen and all that jazz. And you know what? This makes me feel inferior about my place in the technological revolution. See, I’ve been using the Iphone 3G for a good year and a half now. That is already an outdated version, thanks to last year’s 3GS. And because of the way my AT&T contract works, I’ll never sniff the Iphone 4. With 18 months left on my contract, I’ll have to wait until at least one more version comes out to upgrade. So by the time late 2011 rolls around, my current phone will basically be a coaster. And to make matters worse, I am sitting in a coffee shop right now using my beat up HP laptop while the guy next to me has a brand new Macbook. And I can tell that he thinks he‘s better than me. Stupid Macbook users. So now I have to be self conscious about my laptop and my phone?…

I’m two months away from my 31st birthday and life keeps reminding me that I am getting old at an accelerate pace. The latest example came Sunday. I was watching the MTV Movie Awards with my girlfriend and all I could say about Christina Aguilera’s performance was “well, that was pretty tacky.” Then again, the 10-year old version of me thought the same thing while watching Madonna’s performance at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards (sorry, no sound). So maybe I have just always been a curmudgeon…

There is a serious gap in effectiveness for the four major sports commissioners. Though that is not exactly breaking news, the size of the gap was illustrated from the bottom in the last week. Of course there is the obvious idiocy of MLB head man Bud Selig, who decided not to easily right an obvious wrong (more on that below). But NHL comish Gary Bettman has no competition when it comes to terrible. In his 17 years on the job, Bettman has failed miserably in his quest to Americanize hockey and bring the game to casual audiences in nontraditional markets. Plus, don’t you ever underestimate the Bettman’s ability to waste a gift. This year Bettman and the league got a dream finals: Two big markets (Chicago and Philadelphia), a compelling storyline (Philly’s path to the final, which included making the playoffs on the final day of the regular season and knocking off the top-seeded Capitals in the second round.) to go with a wildly entertaining series. So what happens? The league inexplicably schedules a pivotal Game 5 for Sunday at the same time as Game 2 of the NBA Finals. No, not only the same day, but the same exact time. The result was predictable. The NHL pulled decent ratings, but got doubled by the NBA. In the meantime, NBA commissioner David Stern is still the master at his job, and Roger Gooddell’s tenure in the NFL will ultimately be defined by his ability to prevent a work stoppage next year…

As for Selig, his decision to let Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga’s perfect game remain a one-hitter is appalling, and I don’t care who agrees with it. The simple reality is that Galarraga earned a perfect game, only to have a terrible call from an umpire say otherwise. An hour later, the umpire admitted to screwing up the call. A day later, the batter who initially got the “hit” said he was out. The fallout includes real national outrage at the injustice preventing this rare feat from going in the record books. Only Selig could save the day. And, of course, Selig did nothing. One could argue that if Selig changes this call, he would have to change all of the other obvious blown calls in baseball history. That doesn’t hold weight, though. This is a highly unique situation that hasn’t happened before and will likely never happen again. The call in question came on the final out of a perfect game. Galarraga promptly sent down the next batter to end the game, and umpire Jim Joyce was fully distraught over his gaffe. Overturning the call would not in any way change history or hurt the game of baseball, and it would give Joyce a reprieve from being known for that one error the rest of his career. If it is obvious to everyone (and really, no one is arguing the counter) that Galarraga pitched a perfect game, then why not give it to him? Simply put, this is a big fail for Selig and a black eye for baseball…

My favorite kind of cat? Siamese.

Photo of Steve Jobs from the Associated Press.

Jim Joyce should be forgiven for blunder

Associated Press photo

By Dan Nied

The biggest mistake I ever made came during my first year as a professional sports reporter.

When the brother of an athlete I covered died tragically, I went to the funeral as a representative of my newspaper. I came home and wrote what I considered to be a beautiful and emotional eulogy that was published the next day.

Only problem was I used the wrong name.

See, the name of the deceased was Adam. Throughout my piece I mourned the passing of his very much alive brother Andy. I received a slew of angry phone calls. I didn’t sleep much the next few nights.

Everyone makes at least one huge, unfixable mistake in their life. When that happens, all we can do is apologize, admit our humanity and try to live with it.

And that is why I must, as a lifelong Tigers fan who was furious on Wednesday night, offer my forgiveness to umpire Jim Joyce.

Joyce, of course, became instantly famous when he obviously blew the final out of what would have been a perfect game for Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga. Joyce may have been the only person in the world who thought Jason Donald, the Indians final hope for a base runner, was safe at first in the ninth inning Wednesday. But Joyce’s opinion was the only one that counted.

Galarraga was completely robbed of a perfect game. Everyone knows it today, including Joyce.

The umpire said as much after the game, according to the Associated Press account:

"It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the (stuff) out of it," Joyce said looking and sounding distraught as he paced in the umpires' locker room. "I just cost that kid a perfect game.

"I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay."

When he made the call on the field, Joyce stood by it, even as boos soared down from the stands at Comerica Park. After Galarraga sent the next batter down, effectively recording the first 28-out unofficial perfect game in Major League history, several Tigers players had to be restrained from going after the goat. Tigers manager Jim Leyland emphatically made his case, tossing expletives in Joyce’s face.

The umpire had to stand there and take it. Soon the replay would show him how grand a mistake he made. No doubt his heart would sink to the floor.

Joyce’s quote will live on as much as his blown call. His words show a man who just realized he now has to live with a 1,000-pound weight on his shoulder. They show a man who knows he single-handedly cost Galarraga a place in history and the fans of Detroit a reason to be proud of their baseball team. They show a man who feels remorse.

That remorse is respectable. Everyone in the world must know how Joyce feels.

It would be easy to vilify Joyce because he cost us a chance to see history -- not just the 21st perfect game in MLB history, but also the third of this still-young season -- and became the bad guy in a feel-good story.

But vilification would be selfish and disingenuous. We can fire off vitriolic comments all we want, but in the end we have to accept Joyce’s humanity because it lives within all of us.

Sometimes the blame game is easier when the target is vague enough that we can make up our own villains. This time, we know exactly who the culprit was. But it is tough to come to terms with the fact that an honest man who is, by all previous data, an excellent umpire just screwed up.

It flat out sucks that Galarraga didn’t get the perfect game he earned. (And there is no word other than "sucks" to describe it.) But ultimately we must forgive Joyce because he did the best he could. He thought Donald was safe and it is his job to make snap decisions. He did his job. He just got it wrong.

After the game, Galarraga said Joyce spoke to him and apologized. Galarraga said the two embraced and the pitcher held no hard feelings.

That reminded me of my mistake. I’d like to say the family called to assure me they weren’t offended. Instead they simply ignored it. They obviously had bigger things to worry about.

But I like to think the family understood that I was just trying to do my job. I just got it wrong.

And hopefully they ultimately forgave me.

Just like we should all forgive Jim Joyce.

Quick! How many Supreme Court justices can you name?

By Dan Nied

Apparently I am smarter than you. Well, maybe. Actually, I just pay attention to government. That's why I know, for the most part, who is on the U.S. Supreme Court. Why does that make me smarter than you? Well, according to this item from legalcurrent.com nearly two-thirds of Americans can’t name one Supreme Court justice and only 1 percent can name all nine.

To me, this sounded like a test. So, without research, I named seven of the nine. Perhaps you would like to pause a moment to take the challenge yourself. Go ahead. Don't cheat though.

How many did you get? Did you name Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter? If you did, you've made a common mistake. They're both retired.

Kennedy and Breyer were the ones I missed, but they don’t really stand out like the rock star trio of Scalia/Sotomayor/Roberts. So with the hope of educating you a little today, here are the nine Supreme Court justices.

John Roberts*
Antonin Scalia
Samuel Alito
Sonia Sotomayor
John Paul Stevens
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Clarence Thomas
Anthony Kennedy
Stephen Breyer

Now, as you can see from the photo above, this is a motley bunch. The asterisk next to John Roberts’ name means that he’s the Chief Justice. Do I know what the Chief Justice does that sets him apart from the rest? Nope. But I do know that if I was John Paul Stevens, and I had been sitting on the court since Gerald Ford appointed me in 1975, I would be kind of angry that I wasted 30 years in that place just to be passed over for the only possible promotion so George W. Bush could put a pretty-boy hot shot in charge in 2005. I am not saying that ultimately led to Stevens' resignation this year (after all, the guy just turned 90) but it probably didn't make him want to stay.

And we all know (at least we should), that Barack Obama nominated Elena Kagen to replace Stevens. I have no opinions on Elena Kagan, but I do know that she has never been a judge and she looks tough. Obama made his high court debut last year by tabbing Sonia Sotomayor as the first Latina justice. Her nomination sparked a controversy about whether or not empathy is a good thing. Apparently it is, because she got confirmed.

Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia are intertwined not only because they have similarly cool-sounding names, but also because they are considered uber-conservatives. In fact, sometimes the younger Alito is referred to as "Scalito."

Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings in the early 1990s involved some sort of sexual harassment charge by someone named Anita Hill, whom I have not heard of since. But I do remember, as a 10-year old, wondering how such a disturbing man could become so powerful. I guess I was naïve back then.

If you ask me to name my most memorable Supreme Court cases, a la Katie Couric’s interview with Sarah Palin, you’ll get a blank stare and something like this: “Well Roe V. Wade obviously, and Brown V. Board of Education was huge. And then, um, there was that one that Obama didn’t like last year, and I think there was something about porn that was featured in that Woody Harrelson movie about Larry Flynt. Oh! And the 2000 election!”

So no, I don’t know too much about the cases the Supreme Court handles. But I can name seven justices. And that makes me a good American.

Ode to Larry King...Quick thoughts as I wake up on a Tuesday morning

By Dan Nied

My bank freaked out like a little kid yesterday and refused to give me money. That nearly stranded us in the middle of rural California and caused me and my girlfriend to argue a little. So bank, if we break up, it’s totally on you. Stop interfering in my life and give me my cash...

I’m down with the Stanley Cup finals. Blackhawks-Flyers is an old timey battle that the purists can love. And the ferocity of the last 10 minutes of Game 2 illustrated exactly why hockey is truly an underrated sport...

Sarah Palin for Poet Laureate!...

At this point, I don’t really care who is at fault, I just want someone to stop the oil gushing into the gulf so I can go back to not thinking about the Gulf of Mexico at all. So should I boycott BP? Fine, I’ll do it. Should I say something like “Even though I support Obama, I think the administration screwed this up?” Ok, ok. I’ll say it. But just get this thing under control...

Oh, and anyone who says this is Obama’s Katrina is just too lazy to come up with a decent analogy. Actually, there is no decent analogy because nothing like this oil spill has ever happened. But in Katrina, the government stood idly by while poor people were trapped on their roofs and one of America’s great cities came crumbling down. When New Orleans is coated with oil, this can be Obama’s Katrina. Sad to say, I haven’t ruled that scenario out...

I don’t know where Ubaldo Jimenez came from. Before this season he was just another crappy major league pitcher with a slightly humorous name. Now the guy is outdueling Tim Lincecum and has 10 wins on June 1. This is unprecedented dominance on an otherwise pedestrian team. Problem is, is there any way this guy isn’t on HGH? I know he’s always had decent stuff, but this leap is almost unfathomable...

French Open: Call me at the semifinals, then I’ll (maybe) start to care...

I find it hard to take sides on the debate over illegal immigration. It’s the ultimate “Yeah, but...” topic...

Having a rough day? Well you have no choice other than to be cheered up by this...

Hey idiot, why are you still getting up at noon?

By Dan Nied

Getting up early goes against every instinct you have as a man. Remember how mad your mom got when you missed church every Sunday because you slept until 1 p.m.? Remember how you didn’t care? And how proud were you in college when, through a little strategic scheduling, you managed to avoid morning classes altogether? It was one of the happiest moments of your life.

But you aren’t in college anymore, idiot. So why are you still getting up at noon?

There comes a time when real life slaps you in the face. When you have to drag yourself to bed during the p.m. and actually wake up during the a.m. Yep, even if it is still dark. Why do you have to do this? Because society wants you too. Look, I don’t like it any more than you do. But after a post-college year of working from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. for near-minimum wage, I realized that, yes, I can spend my entire adult life grinding against the grain of the real world in the name of individualism, but I could also die broke and alone.

Face it, your mother is right. You need to quit that swing shift job and get a 9-to-5 with good benefits, competitive pay and a reasonable schedule. You don’t want to? Well tough. You’re a man. Act like it.

Your boss? He doesn’t get up at noon. Your girlfriend? She hates dating a bona fide loser. Your more successful brother? He is ashamed of you. Your less successful brother? He’s trying to be just like you. And he’s succeeding.

At the very least, strive to get up by 10 a.m. The world somehow feels a little better when you can take the phrase “good morning” literally. You don’t have to be happy about it. But come on, man, get with the program.

After all, do you think Bear Grylls gets up at noon? Pssh. By the time you crawl out of bed, Bear’s already shimmied across two canyons and eaten 17 rare South American black-toed scorpions.

No, you aren’t going to be Bear Grylls. But you can have a little self respect.

Part of a series I am doing for http://themanfaq.com which rocks my world every day. You should probably check it out.

Hey idiot, why aren't you listening to the Hold Steady?

By Dan Nied

First of all, no I don’t think the new Nickelback is awesome. And why are you still singing the praises of Fred Durst? That guy hasn’t been relevant in years and hasn’t been good in, well, forever.

You say you like to rock, but you haven’t offered any tangible evidence to suggest you know the first thing about rocking. Yes, you like Weezer, but Weezer, while still great, hasn’t really rocked for a few albums now. Sad thing is, you just have no clue what you’re doing.

Because if you did, idiot, you’d be listening to the Hold Steady, or as I like to call them, the greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll band operating today.

Consider the Hold Steady a rocking starter kit. Pick up the new album “Heaven is Whenever” and you’ll know immediately that you like the hard-driving deluge of Tad Kubler’s guitar, and singer Craig Finn’s gritty vocals that suggest he’s been around the block a few times.

But then you’ll pick up on some of Finn’s lyrics and realize that this is the modern-day incarnation of Springsteen, Tom Waits and every other blue-collar, hard-scrabble musician inspired by hopeless stories.

If the “Weekenders” line “She said the theme of this party’s the Industrial Age... And you came in dressed like a train wreck” doesn’t instantly tell you a story, then maybe Nickelback really is for you.

And then you’ll check out a picture of the band and realize that, like Weezer, these are some hard-rocking dorks that just love making and performing music. Go ahead and check out this clip and you’ll see Finn experiencing more joy on stage than anyone in their mid-30s has a right to.

There is no glamor or pomp to this band. Their job, simply, is to rock, and they do it to perfection.

And that’s why you need to ditch your radio-inspired “rock” crap and get in touch with a truly organic brand of musical love known as The Hold Steady.

Note: "Hey Idiot" is part of a series I've been doing for The Man Faq, which is in no way a bad web site. In fact, you should probably check them out.

Image of Craig Finn from http://alloveralbany.com

My brief brush with Ernie's voice

By Dan Nied

I don’t have an Ernie Harwell story.

Don’t get me wrong, there were those summer nights I fell asleep with the radio on, hoping to hear Ernie melodically describe a Kirk Gibson homer to tie it up in the 8th. And there were the countless times before my 10th birthday that I wondered aloud how Ernie knew that the guy who caught that foul ball was from Wixom or Rochester Hills or Dearborn. And when my stepfather suggested that Ernie was simply making up the town, I sided with Ernie.

My memories of Ernie are the same as every kid who grew up in Detroit. But I can’t speak first-hand on his personality or his relations with fans.

So no, I will not write a eulogy on Ernie Harwell. I have nothing new to say.

But I will share one of my regrets in life. As a 16-year old I somehow scored a two-day gig spotting for the Seattle Mariners broadcasters when they were in town for a series against the Tigers. The work was easy, just reminding them who was on base, what the count was, who was throwing in the bullpen, etc. In the Tiger Stadium media room before the game, I plopped down $5 for dinner, and took a seat with my back to the room.

I was out of my element there. In my future were countless press boxes and media rooms. But this time, I was a virgin, afraid to make eye contact with anyone, lest I be tossed out of this secret club for some odd reason.

I was eating my meal when, suddenly, the sound boomed over me from about 15-feet behind. It was the sound of Ernie Harwell’s voice. And in a crowded, loud room, Ernie’s molasses inflection was all I heard.

My ears perked up and I sat upright in my seat. For a second I forgot where I was and wondered what Ernie Harwell was doing anywhere near me. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel worthy to be in the same place as Ernie. It was that I was shocked that this man who did so much to shape my youth was actually an existing, touchable figure that sat just a few feet away.

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure someone hadn’t left a radio on. And sure enough, there he was holding court.

I thought hard about saying hello. Yearned for a chance to meet this man whose words constructed my impression of my heroes.

But as a nervous 16-year old already certain he was trespassing, I decided to play it covert and just drink in every bit of his conversation as a third party.

I wish now I had gone over to Ernie, if only to be the 1,000,000th fan to tell him how much he contributed to my love of baseball. I wish now that I had looked into his eyes. I value expressions of pure joy and I can’t imagine anyone experienced more joy in life than Ernie Harwell.

But I still feel privileged just to have heard his voice without the filter of radio waves. Ernie may have been discussing the pork loin they served that night or his daily exercise routine, I don’t really remember. But just a chance to hear that voice in real time, without interference, was enough to make the moment special.

Maybe, as I listened to Ernie talk, I was taken back a few short years to those nights that I wanted so badly to hear him exclaim a Tigers comeback. And maybe I fantasized about one day being the gentleman from Grosse Pointe who caught that foul ball.

Funny thing, when I went back to the media room the next night, Ernie wasn’t there. But I did sit at a table with Al Kaline, the Hall-of-Famer who played for the Tigers for 22 years and who happened to be the team’s television announcer from my youth. I listened to Kaline speak intelligently about baseball and give his scouting report on then-Tigers rookie Jeff Weaver (“He’s been our stopper lately,” Kaline said.).

And while that brush with Kaline certainly is memorable, it pales in comparison to simply hearing Ernie talk from a distance. Why? I never saw Kaline play. I never saw him when he was the best at something. And even though I watched Kaline on television more than I listened to Ernie on the radio, I always heard Ernie at his best.

Now, a day after Ernie’s death at age 92, I think back to the favorite Tigers of my youth. I understand that Alan Trammell could not be Alan Trammell, and Kirk Gibson could not be Kirk Gibson -- at least not in the superhuman ways I saw them -- without Ernie.

Tiger Woods' adultery won't be forgotten at Masters

By Dan Nied

All won’t be forgotten when Tiger Woods tees off at the Masters on Thursday in his first tournament since his world exploded.

His moral crimes won’t be put into any proper perspective, and the fast food media will pick apart his every move.

But, finally, Tiger will begin the endgame of what has turned into an outright, and undeserved, media frenzy over his private life.

Yep, sex sells, especially when that sex is being had by someone who is the best at what he does. So it’s a little hard to indict a gossip-driven media monster for its infatuation with Tiger’s extramarital activities.

Yet, we’re talking about a rich, famous athlete who cheated on his wife. Nothing more than that. Michael Jordan paid off his mistress. Muhammad Ali was a notorious womanizer. Even Martin Luther King has been the subject of these types of rumors. Yet no public figure, save Bill Clinton, has endured the kind of scrutiny Tiger has seen over the last four months.

The reasons why are fairly obvious. Tiger’s transgressions occurred in the Internet age, where, when it comes to news, size and speed have replaced integrity and worth. Add in the fact that Tiger was caught while he was at the apex of his sport (Jordan and Ali were caught after their careers, King after his death), and it’s easy to see why Tiger’s harem is perceived as the biggest story on Earth.

Yet here he is at Augusta National, where he burst into superstardom with his 1997 Masters win.

Thirteen years later, Tiger must perform a similar feat, somehow shifting the focus of this conversation from women to golf.

But even if Tiger wins the Masters, the topics will simply merge into one. He’ll no longer be Tiger Woods: Golfer or Tiger Woods: Adulterer. If he wins, he’ll be Tiger Woods: The guy who won golf’s biggest tournament while facing the shame of adultery.

And while a win under this unique pressure will certainly cement Tiger’s status as the Greatest Athlete of Our Time, it will also fan the flames of the perception that Tiger just isn’t human.

Maybe we need to see Tiger break down to verify our own human theories. If he misses the cut, perhaps we will understand him better knowing that no man -- not even Tiger -- can stand up to this level of chaos.

But maybe, if we believe his mistakes have already humanized him, that he did what so many men would do in the same situation, we need to see him win. Because if we already believe Tiger is a normal, flawed man, then he can tell us something about resolve. If we somehow view Tiger through the prism of a victim, then a Masters win will give us faith in man’s strength in the face of adversity.

And yet, to see Tiger through this lens would take an awful lot of effort. He devalued his marriage and family, and failed to live up to the higher standard that served as the price for his fame.

But if we want to see this as something more than the average celebrity adultery case, then we must choose sides. You either want Tiger to fail, or you want him to succeed. There’s no sitting this one out.

Tiger has already succeeded, however, in taking this story to his home turf -- the golf course. It is only through his chosen sport that he can ever earn the public’s forgiveness.

Eventually, we’ll need to see Tiger dominate the way he once did: hitting mind-bending bunker shots, impossible putts and monster drives. If he can convince us once again that his value to us is as a special athlete instead of a public figure, we’ll forgive and forget soon enough.

Face it, 49ers blew it with Smith

By Dan Nied

It is unfair to compare Alex Smith to Aaron Rodgers.

Bonded by draft class and nothing else, Rodgers has become one of the NFL's top 10 quarterbacks while Smith toils in the land of the unknown, grasping desperately at what is likely his last shot as a starting quarterback.

In 2005 there was a legitimate Smith-Rodgers debate for the 49ers, holders of the first overall draft pick.

Rodgers was a star at nearby Cal while Smith burst onto the scene as a mobile, smart quarterback under Urban Meyer's spread-option system at Utah. The 49ers had an easy choice in that whomever they chose couldn't miss.

But their choice did miss.

Rodgers eventually went 24th overall to the Packers as the heir apparent to Brett Favre.

He would sit and learn for three seasons.

Smith started almost immediately.

Rodgers, of course, is a star now, leading the Packers to the playoffs in his second season as a starter.

The story of Rodgers' career is simple: Wait, start, star. He's had the same offensive system his entire career and an influx of talented receivers to hide his mistakes. Sliding to the Packers in the draft was the best thing that could have happened to Rodgers.

But Smith? He took a road in which a successful ending was never possible.

Five years in the league, five different offensive coordinators, five different offensive systems. He lost his starting job because of injury, endured a feud with coach Mike Nolan, the man who drafted him, and threw to a depleted, talentless receiving corps that did him no favors.

Certainly Rodgers is the better quarterback today. But it is indisputable that the 49ers botched Smith's development in every possible.

The end seemed to come when a shoulder injury kept him out for part of the 2006 season, and Nolan refused to restore Smith's starting spot upon his return.

It's hard to blame Nolan, really. He was already hanging by a thread as a coach -- largely because offensive coordinator Jim Hostler was woefully unprepared for the job -- and he couldn't afford to let Smith finish the job. The next year, Mike Martz replaced Hostler and chose J.T. O'Sullivan to start over Smith. When O'Sullivan proved unworthy of the spot, Martz and Nolan turned to journeyman Shaun Hill over Smith.

In four seasons, Smith had gone from savior to pariah, from hopeful to hopeless. It was taken as common knowledge that he was a bust, despite the fact that he was fighting an unwinnable fight. Smith was never given the benefit of the doubt by Nolan. Never given a chance to relax and develop. Never given even a decent possession receiver with which to find the right chemistry.

Smith was tossed on the bust pile with Akili Smith, Ryan Leaf, Joey Harrington and so many others. But the difference was that those guys got fair shots and proved they couldn't handle quarterbacking in the NFL. Smith never got a chance to let his potential reach the surface. Too busy looking over his shoulder. Too busy wondering when help would arrive.

Football is the ultimate team game. Unfortunately, the 49ers blamed their woes on one man. Perhaps with a bit of coddling and plenty more stability, Smith would have become something more than an experiment in 2009.

Perhaps he would have been the franchise.

But it took Mike Singletary half a season in 2009 to give Smith his last chance. The now-veteran quarterback is still going through ups and downs. Smith has responded with mostly ups. But because of his past, Smith's margin for error is razor thin. In order to secure the starting role for 2010, he'll have to be nearly perfect in these last two games.

But then again, maybe Singletary and the 49ers should give Smith a longer leash this time. Maybe keep the offensive system in place this time. Perhaps name him the 2010 starter immediately after the season finale. Because talent doesn't disappear. And if Alex Smith was talented enough to be drafted first overall, and tough enough to withstand unfairly becoming the scapegoat for a failed franchise, then he deserves a real second chance to compete with Rodgers.
-- A version of this column appeared in the Dec. 26 , 2009 edition of the Vallejo Times-Herald

Stafford looking like all the rest

By Dan Nied

Matthew Stafford is not Joey Harrington.

Except that he is. Just like he is Chuck Long, Andre Ware, Rodney Peete and Scott Mitchell.

Among the most difficult tasks in the sporting world these days is to actually distinguish between the latest saviors of the Detroit Lions.

No Lions quarterback has gone to the Pro Bowl since Greg Landry in 1971. The Lions wasted the Barry Sanders era with a revolving door of would-be capable quarterbacks and one playoff win.

The Lions drafted Harrington in 2002 and mangled his development so badly, Harrington replaced Ryan Leaf as the quintessential high draft quarterback bust.

Before Stafford each new Lions quarterback was greeted as the savior and run out of town in shame.

Rusty Hilger, Jeff Komlo, Gary Danielson, Josh McCown, Jeff Garcia. An endless string of names that either buckled under the pressure of reviving a downtrodden franchise or never had enough resources to make such a revival possible.

So here comes Stafford, the top overall pick out of Georgia, another pretty boy savior of a hopeless cause. Why is Stafford any different? Maybe he’s not.

Halfway through his rookie season, Stafford looks like all the rest. A few missed games with injuries, more than a few rookie mistakes, plenty of heat already from a restless fan base.

And during last Sunday’s loss to Seattle, Stafford took a break from throwing five interceptions to get in a shouting match with top receiver Calvin Johnson.

Half a season in, Stafford is Joey Harrington with a little more fire.

Sure, the kid looks like a world-beater at times. A gorgeous scoring pass to Bryant Johnson Sunday made him look like The One.

But when Harrington tossed two perfect touchdown passes to Charles Rogers in the 2003 opener, he looked like The One as well.

It was Harrington’s lone bit of glory and the start of a nasty downward spiral.

It’s not that Stafford should be written off as a Harrington clone. It’s just that we’ve seen this story before. It starts with hope, and it ends with the former golden boy slinking off to a series of backup jobs around the NFL, and the Lions replacing him with the latest doomed quarterback prodigy.

For his part, Stafford seems to have thicker skin than Harrington. And he is definitely more polished than Ware, who couldn’t even win a starting job from Peete and Erik Kramer in the early 1990s.

And maybe that mental toughness will separate Stafford from the rest of this sorry list. Maybe that’s the ingredient that was missing all this time. In Johnson, Stafford has his go-to receiver. In Kevin Smith, he has a serviceable running back. In Jim Schwartz, he has a coach that actually seems to know how to handle a football team.

But the Lions have a way of taking talent out of the equation. A player or coach tends to get dragged into the losing culture, and talent is no match for an overriding sense of failure.

Stafford has eight games left in his rookie season, and sadly he can do nothing in those eight games to relieve the stigma that comes with quarterbacking the Lions.

The answers will come in the next two seasons. He’ll need that thick skin to allow time for the game to slow down, for a porous offensive line to become solidified, to develop a real chemistry with Johnson.

Because the people of Detroit demand results now. And who can blame them after the last 20 years? In Sanders they saw the greatest running back of all time squandered in losing causes. In Harrington, they bought into unrealistic expectations only to see him flounder repeatedly. In Matt Millen, they saw a general manager too inept to learn from his own mistakes and too stubborn to quit.

And then they saw an 0-16 season.

One player can’t change that history. But Stafford is the only one who can lead the charge.

But until he somehow separates himself from the rest of the sorry quarterbacks in Lions history, Stafford will be just another Joey Harrington. Another Andre Ware. Another Scott Mitchell.

Just the latest in a long lineage of losers.

When will the Raiders ever learn?

By Dan Nied

In the case of the NFL v. Tom Cable, the main culprit is... Well, it’s not Tom Cable.

Maybe the Raiders coach allegedly battered assistant Randy Hansen into jaw-breaking submission. Maybe Cable has a history of domestic violence, as ESPN reported last week. Maybe Cable is obviously in over his head as an NFL head coach – as Oakland’s 2-6 record suggests.

But if a guy has a history of violent activity and uncontrollable outbursts of anger, is it any wonder that pesky behavior would rear its ugly head again?

The Raiders should have known that, with Cable, they were getting an unstable hot head who doesn’t exactly buy into the social contract.

But the Raiders didn’t know. And that’s why the Raiders – not Cable – are deserving of the NFL hammer on this one.

Had owner Al Davis properly vetted his current head coach, he might have found that a guy who supposedly batters women is not fit to be a leader of men.

He might have found that Cable’s history of abuse is not the ideal path for a return to glory.

Oh, but that’s a difficult process, right? All that investigative work, all those messy phone calls and awkward interviews. Davis might have even had to hire an outside company to get the job done right.

Or he could have called Cable’s ex-wife and former girlfriend, who both told ESPN that the coach hit them.

True, he-said-she-said accusations from a potentially-bitter former spouses might not have been enough to disqualify Cable from the job. But at the very least they would have raised some serious red flags. Flags that deserve to be investigated a little bit more.

And then Davis could have gotten Cable’s side of the story, and then maybe, just maybe, Davis might have figured out that Cable wasn’t his man.

It’s not Cable’s fault the Raiders didn’t perform due diligence. It’s the Raiders fault, which is no surprise.

The most barbaric fan might suggest that Cable’s fist-raising ways represent a throwback to the old Raiders mystique. Certainly the burly, crop-topped, take no guff Cable fits the Raiders caricature more than his pretty boy predecessor Lane Kiffin.

But in the reality of modern society, there is no place in leadership for a man who allegedly raised his hand on a woman. And even in the all-testosterone world of the NFL, there is no place to break the jaw of an underling, which is what Hansen says Cable did during training camp in Napa, though the Napa authorities declined to pursue the case.

Though it should be noted that none of these allegations have been proven true, they do create a disturbing trend for a man who has one of the most coveted jobs in America.

Violence at home and in the workplace is as antiquated a notion as separate water fountains for whites and blacks. No matter how perfectly Cable fits the Raiders rough around the edges persona, the team needs to start living in the real world.

Which is why the NFL needs to take control of the once-proud franchise. Since the Super Bowl loss in 2002, Davis has proven himself unable to adapt to the winds of change in both society and the NFL. He has led the Raiders down a putrid path of subservience to the rest of the league, as a 26-78 record since 2003 might suggest. And as though losing wasn’t enough, Davis has turned the Raiders into a football sideshow by stumbling head first into garish controversies and embarrassing disputes.

The team’s executives have had physical confrontations with media members, and the organization seems determined to ban anyone with a critical opinion from its facilities. Just ask Rich Gannon. Currently, the on-field distractions come from Jamarcus Russell, the top-pick quarterback who, in only his third season, is in danger of eating and lounging himself out of the league.

The Cable embarassment – which will almost surely end with him losing his job, and the team performing another comedic coach search – is just the latest illustration of an organization that has spun out of control.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell must wrestle control of the Raiders away from Davis, and restore respect to a formerly proud franchise.

Because, though the Cable controversy will eventually subside, another unnecessary drama will soon take its place.

That’s just the way of the Raiders.

Hey! I got a blog

What does Dan Nied think? A lot of things. But here, you'll get mostly thoughts on sports. I wanted to start this blog just to have a central place for my work.

Oh, you don't know about my work? Well let me update you. I am a sports writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I like to spout off about things from time to time.

If you knew me, you'd categorize me as the loudest guy in the room. Since you probably don't know me, I'll just have to be the loudest guy on Blogger.

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If you need some status here, I have worked at newspapers and Web sites around the nation, but settled three years ago in California. I won seven Colorado Press Association awards for features, columns and event stories. I've covered the NFL, MLB, NCAA and NHL, and a ton of high school games.

So yep, that's me. check in from time to time and see what's new on What Dan Nied Thinks.