Here is Oringi Clyde, a 17 year old TB park hack. 'Pride' is a true sabino with four high white stockings and a blaze and white chin. She's very cute but she is in no hurry to come into season much to Hamish's frustrati...
Monday, December 31, 2007
Reilly prior to going to be backed
Here is Reilly, aged three, a week away from being broken in (all going to plan!) - Only 15.1HH but nice things do come in small packag...
High Infidelity
More people cheat than don't. There are no hard and fast figures on this subject because people are prone to lie. But of the people who are willing to tell the truth, most of them report being unfaithful. 60 to 70% of married men and 50 to 60% of married women admit to cheating on their spouses. These are underreported figures. It is a dismal picture.The reality of human nature...
Gabibbo Talks Its Way to Victory over Big Red
Back in February 2004, Greg wrote about Western Kentucky University suing Mediaset, the television company run by Silvio Berlusconi, the richest man in Italy and the country's then Prime Minister, for trademark and copyright infringement, claiming that Gabibbo, the mascot for the satirical show "Striscia la Notizia" is a carbon copy of Big Red, the Western Kentucky mascot...
New Sports Law Scholarship
New scholarship over the past several weeks:Dana Howells, Note, Log me in to the old ballgame, 22 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNAL 477 (2007)Kelly P. O'Neill, Note, Sioux unhappy: challenging the NCAA’s ban on Native American imagery, 42 TULSA LAW REVIEW 171 (2006)Joel Michael Ugolini, Even a violent game has its limits: a look at the NFL’s responsibility for the behavior of its players, 39 UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO LAW REVIEW 41 (2007)...
Saturday, December 29, 2007
A Few Recent Insights Concerning Time, Money, and Energy
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I spend a lot of time talking about time, money, and energy. I call them the limiting factors because I never seem to have enough of all three. I believe that if I could ever get those three things straight in my life, a whole lot of good things would happen for me.One of the things I have noticed is how all three are related in some way. A shortage of energy increases the time it takes to do things. A shortage of time increases the amount of money you spend such as the amount you will drop for the "convenience"...
Friday, December 28, 2007
Broadcasting the Patriots - Giants Game
The saga of the right to telecast Saturday evening's game between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants ended in a strange, but satisfying conclusion. The game, to be broadcast on two terrestrial television networks, one niche cable network and even a local independent station or two, guarantees maximum exposure for a potentially history-making game. A victory by...
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
UNEQUAL TREATMENT UNDER THE LAW
In 1986, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act which, among other things, mandated sentences for offenses involving crack cocaine to be 100 times more severe than for crimes involving powdered cocaine. Many have seen this disparity in sentencing guidelines as reflecting the similar disparity in the way the law treats the poor and the not so poor. Whether true or not, crack...
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Shit on Christmas
It is Christmas Day. I have spent the last four days fighting traffic and shitheaded shoppers while waiting for countless hours in lines to pay for shit I can't afford for the people I love or who at least love me enough to buy me a gift all for the celebration of the birth of a savior I do not believe in. All I can say is, BAH, HUMBUG!I realize that Christmas was based on...
Monday, December 24, 2007
Introducing Blog Justice
Alan Milstein and his law firm, Sherman Silverstein, Kohl, Rose & Podolsky, have started a new blog that will be of interest to many of you: Blog Justice. It will examine legal issues that intersect with social justice. While Alan is regarded by many as the nation's leading sports litigator (he has litigated on behalf of Allen Iverson, Eddy Curry, and Maurice Clarett,...
Sunday, December 23, 2007
JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE SERVED
A state judge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana granted a request to adjourn a personal injury trial scheduled to start the same day LSU plays Ohio State in the BCS national championship game. The defendant’s attorney, Stephen Babcock, requested the delay claiming he had tickets to the January 7th game at the New Orleans Superdome. In his request for adjournment, Babcock wrote:...
More on Corporate Stupidity
Ever since my previous post on Corporate Stupidity, I have received a lot of questions concerning why such stupidity comes about in large organizations. I will now explain.The purpose of any capitalist enterprise is to make money. A company will cease to exist if it does not ultimately turn a profit. Period. A lot of people will decry the "greed" of a company and say such stupid things as "they only care about money." Exactly. Saying a company only cares about making money is the same as saying that a bird only cares about flying. This is what...
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Fantasy Baseball Implications of Mitchell Report
Over on his blog, SportsJudgeBlog, attorney Marc Edelman has an excellent look at how the Mitchell Report might impact fantasy baseball in 2008. He has five key points, here are the first two:1. Players Named in the Mitchell Report will Likely be Underrated in '08. Many fantasy owners are going to predict a decline in the statistics of players named in the Mitchell Report....
Friday, December 21, 2007
More on the Knicks and Fan Speech at the Garden
Stefan Fatsis of the Wall Street Journal, who does an outstanding weekly Q&A on "All Things Considered" about the business of sport, talked Friday about the Knicks recent actions to stop Garden fans from criticizing the team, the players, the coach, and anyone else fans might want to criticize. Fatsis and I spoke at length about my work and arguments about cheering speech and he gave a nice shout-out to this blog on the segment.Paradoxically, this could be the incident to draw public attention to the protected nature of cheering speech and...
Overall Thoughts on the Mitchell Report
I have a FindLaw guest column today giving my full thoughts on the Mitchell Report, helped along by some of the posts and comments on this blog in the past we...
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Quality of Evidence in the Mitchell Report
Howard and I are interviewed by Jimmy Golen of the Associated Press in an extensive piece he has written on the quality of evidence found in the Mitchell Report. Jimmy has a law degree from Yale Law School and he brings a particularly insightful perspective to legal issues involving the Mitchell Report. We hope you take a look at his pie...
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Wynyard Nightowl
Well here she is - At last she is with us. Six weeks in foal to Coalman's Touch and just as lovely in the flesh as her phot...
When Will They Ever Learn?
Count the New York Knicks as the latest team to think it is a good idea to restrict fans from criticizing an incompetent coach, team, and organization. The New York Times reports on two recent examples. (H/T: Deadspin). Last week, a fan was moved to a new seat and issued a written warning for heckling Head Coach Isiah Thomas; the card read "You are being issued a warning that...
Using a Libel Lawsuit to Test the Mitchell Report's Credibility
Here’s a thought. Many of us here have written that a libel suit against George Mitchell, his firm, and his “informants” would have little chance of success because the players are all public figures. If the maligned players want to clear their name, it makes sense for someone to file a law suit just for the purpose of being able to cross-examine Kirk Radomski and Brian McNamee, which I would think would be ‘easy pickins.’ He could then release the deposition transcript to the media or to Sports Law Blog and we could all judge the credibility of...
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
"Fundamental Fairness in Union Regulation of Sports Agents"
That's the title of my latest article published this month in Connecticut Law Review, which can be downloaded from here. By now you may be tired of my views regarding the agent biz, as well as my disdain for lack of due process generally. Well, this piece combines both, and addresses whether the agent regulations unilaterally adopted by the players associations afford agents a fundamentally fair enforcement process when the agent is accused of misconduct by the union. This issue involves a complicated interplay of multiple bodies of law that...
Monday, December 17, 2007
Dimino on Punishing Steroid Users
Mike Dimino at PrawfsBlawg argues that players found to have used steroids should receive lifetime bans for threatening the integrity of the game. The post and the ensuing comments are worth a lo...
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Christmas Came Early for Mitchell's Law Firm
In the prior posts, a number of you criticized the shoddy work product created by Sen. Mitchell and his law firm DLA Piper. In reading the report (aka term paper?), which was ripe with secondary sources as footnotes and with proposals for change that very so general that a reasonable person could figure them out, it made me think: how much in legal fees did Mitchell's firm earn producing this piece of work? From what I heard, there was no budgetary limits imposed by Major League Baseball over the last 20 months.I do not know how many people --...
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Empirical Study of Players Named in Mitchell Report
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has conducted an empirical analysis of the statistical performances of the 90 players named in the Mitchell Report. The study, conducted by JS writers Ben Poston, Derrick Nunnally, Bill Glauber, and Don Walker, compared the players' first two seasons while being linked to performance-enhancers with their career averages.Acknowledging that there...
Jenkins Ruins USADA's Perfect Record
On Friday, a AAA arbitration panel in the case of United States Anti-Doping Agency v. LaTasha Jenkins ruled in favor of 2001 world track medalist LaTasha Jenkins, who had been sanctioned in 2006 for using the anabolic steroid nandralone but now has the option of resuming her effort to try for the 2008 U.S. Olympic team. The arbitration panel ruled that the results of Jenkins' positive doping test from a track meet in Belgium last year were compromised because both European labs testing her sample violated World Anti-Doping Agency rules that require...
PRINT-Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes
Greta got me this book for my birthday after I had expressed an interest in reading it. I devoured it in two days. Ultramarathon Man is an outstanding book. I highly recommend it.I have taken some flak here from ultrarunners, and I want to say that my opinion of their activities is unchanged. I think ultrarunning is stupid. It is a stunt not a sport. But this does not change...
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Something else that is W's Fault
Jack Balkin argues that the entire steroids mess can be traced back to Bud Selig's refusal to step aside back in 1992-93 and let George W. Bush become commission...
Bonds and Clemens, Distinctions and Differences
I have not yet written about the Mitchell Report at length; I am working on a longer piece for FindLaw for next week (in between showing my daughter her first snowfall) and will link to that. I did want to jump in quickly on the comparisons between Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. The two now are inextricably linked forever in baseball history--the greatest pitcher and the greatest hitter of this generation both used performance-enhancing drugs. And both experienced similar late-career resurgences and high-level performances past the age of 40--although...
The Gospel of Hard Work
This question comes up at work a lot. Does hard work matter? Or does success belong to the lucky and to the political players?Clearly, there are people who have become rich or powerful out of sheer luck. These are people who have won the lottery or were born into a famous or rich family or what have you. These people didn't lift a finger, but lady luck smiled on them. Then, there are those people who got to where they are not as a consequence of talent or diligence but merely because they were willing to debase themselves in some way. These are...
Friday, December 14, 2007
Leaving the Falcons' Nest: A Tort in the Making?
The news that Bobby Petrino left the Atlanta Falcons for the Ivory Tower at Arkansas ranks as the piece de resistance of a year of turmoil for the team. With Michael Vick gone, the team sank to a 3-10 record, and Petrino, like a rat on a sinking ship, decided to bail out -- despite a five-year $24 million contract.To add more acrimony, team officials claimed that Petrino was...
More Good Stories on the Mitchell Report
The Mitchell Report has generated a bevy of excellent news, media, and blog stories. To add to those mentioned in previous posts, check out: Geoff Rapp has some terrific comments in a piece today by Tim Lemke of the Washington Times. Don Walker of the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal examines the quality of evidence used to implicate players. He interviews Marquette Law Professor Matt Mitten and me for his piece. George Washington University law professor Paul Butler, in a post on BlackProf entitled Free Barry Bonds,...
Others' Thoughts on the Mitchell Report
I will have more to say about the Mitchell Report later. For now, let me note a few other commentators:1) I agree with much of Alan's point that this turned out to be much strum und dranghttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif about nothing, because the Report did not really tell us anything we did not know or at least suspect, beyond specific names (although I think I have less problem with naming names than Alan did). I also thought the divide between Mitchell ("move forward") and Selig (punishment on a case-by-base basis) was notable.2) I second...
Thursday, December 13, 2007
OVERHYPED AND UNDERWHELMED
After all that, this is what the fuss was about? Let’s take a deep breath and consider this Report by George Mitchell which ESPN headlined “Culture Shock.” A few facts would be nice.First, despite what Mitchell says, baseball had no policy or regulation expressly banning steroids until September 2002, did not have testing with penalties until 2004 and did not ban HGH until...
Media, Law, and the Mitchell Report
I have a Q/A for Sports Illustrated on the Mitchell Report. I also have a couple of TV appearances, one with Darren Rovell on CNBC's Power Lunch and the other on CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck Show (it just first aired, and airs again at 9 PM and 11PM Eastern Standard Time, I appear in the first segment). Also be sure to check out Howard's chat on WashingtonPost.c...
Chat on the Mitchell Report
Earlier today, I did a live chat about the Mitchell Report on WashingtonPost.com.I thought blogging was an off-the-cuff style of writi...
Mitchell Report is Up
The Mitchell report is available for download from MLB's web site. Deadspin is supposedly live-blogging Senator Mitchell's press conferen...
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Patriots v. Jets: Spies Like Us?
This Sunday the 3-10 New York Jets travel to Foxboro, Massachusetts to take on the 13-0 New England Patriots in what will be the teams' first meeting since the Jets complained about the Patriots violating the NFL gameday manual by having a video assistant tape the Jets coaches and players on the sidelines in Week 1. We had several posts on that topic, including a terrific...
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Sharpton - Chicago Olympic Bid Update: Daley retorts; Abuse Settlement Advance
The following is an update on yesterday's post on the Rev. Al Sharpton's threats to lobby the IOC to not consider Chicago in its bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games if the City does not reform its policies of dealing with accusations of police misconduct. The Tribune reported that later on Monday, the City Council's Finance Committee sent a proposal to the full council for...
