OT: ATH on the BEdge

(imagine my arms are waving about and I’m bobbing around in my seat Jay Mariotti-style) ... LASIK surgery is NOT a competitive advantage … By all accounts, a player’s vision is restored to normal-it’s not like hitters and golfers are gaining superman-x-ray vision that would give them the ability to see through players clothes! They’re simply being restored to their natural vision, as if they had never experienced a decline. This is no different from Buck Williams or James Worthy wearing those gawd-awful UGLY goggles 15 years ago … And if this was such a big advantage, then we would have been seeing an overall improvement in batting averages, golf scores, hockey saves, football completions-and Dick Cheney might not have shot that guy in the butt last year! The fact is, if you factor out superhumans like Tiger Woods and Tom Brady, statistics show that these percentages have actually DECLINED in recent years! Clearly LASIK surgery is not an advantage, and anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong. Period.

In the sport of swimming, there is a big controversy over some new Speedo swimsuit, which many think will lead to many Olympic and world records being smashed in Beijing this summer. Some have called for the suits to be banned. Whether or not they should, I have no opinion.

Certainly, governing bodies of sports are entitled to permit, or prohibit, whatever improvements in equipment/training/etc. that they like, subject to the law. (Use of steroids, of course, is illegal in many places, including the US). Golf made news many years back when they banned the square-groove club, a technology that many thought would change the game (allowing hitters to hit longer balls). Many tennis purists bemoan the fiberglass racket. Lovers of pro baseball sneer at the amateur game and their metal bats.

But what of medical procedures? Certainly, “steroids” and other PEDs have long been verboten-virtually all of those known to man pose health risks to the user. Other substances an athlete might consume-such as Gatorade, carb-loading, etc. are all fine. LASIK is a procedure with well-established thereuputic benefits, so why would it be banned? That’s like saying weightlifting should be banned, as it gives the athlete an advantage over mere mortals.

...there is a fascinating piece on “bionic” athletes and the future of sports. There is a South African sprinter who is missing both legs but is so adept on his prosthetic legs that he is faster than many able bodied athletes. Indeed, he is so fast that he has been banned from the Olympics on the grounds that his legs give him a competitive advantage. His name is Oscar Pistorious- you can read about him all over the web, e.g. here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/sports/othersports/15runner.html

It has long been believed that the human body is ideal, but more and more it is becoming clear that prosthetics can actually help humans achieve greater athletic feats. Should these “bionic athletes” be able to compete in the Olympics? The NBA?

Another great example is Tommy John surgery. It is such a proven procedure (it repairs the tendons in baseball pitchers’ arms to the point where they are often stronger than before the injury) than many young pitchers have gotten preemptive TJ surgery to increase their strength. Unfair advantage?

Taking it even further- is a personal trainer an unfair advantage- not everyone can afford one.

In short, fairness in sport is a difficult issue and the line between fair and unfair is quite blurred. To me, LASIK clearly falls on the “fair” side of the line, but how far are you willing to go before your personal line is crossed. These are very interesting and challenging issues and they aren’t going away.

LASIK surgery gives anyone an advantage that contact lenses don’t. That said, contacts and eye surgery give a golfer an advantage over a golfer wearing glasses on rainy days. However, after surgery, you (or your caddy) would have to carry reading glasses for you so you could check your scorecard before signing … and making sure when signing autographs you aren’t signing a confession.

If someone wants to risk their vision on some notion that they’ll become better at sports…fine. I need glasses to read a blackboard *point behind myself to a hanging blackboard that reads ‘eye dosnt spel soe gude’ * and I can out-shoot most people I play against in pick-up basketball games . The all-time leader in NBA scoring, Jabbar, wore googly goggles, so there are low risk options that have a proven record including contact lenses. So, NO! Lasik is not offering a competitive advantage to athletes, its just a bunch of phooey put out there by people with nothing better to do!

Tom

I have all points of the argument covered. Next round here I come.

and I´m including YouKnowWho. American players wash their eyes with hydrochloric acid.

I mean…Tom
As usual Jay Marriotti (I mean, bfan) is wrong. Sports today unfortunately has all become about gaining a competitive edge, people taking advantage of the rules. At some point you have to step in and at least ADDRESS the issue so people know what’s fair and what’s not. If someone would have addressed the steroids issue early in its history of use, perhaps the scandal we see today could have been lessened.

And Woody, (I mean, Devenex) don’t tell me it’s not an advantage!

As alluded to earlier, in the late 1990s, both Tiger and Mcguire wanted stronger muscles and better eyesight. Woods chose weight training and laser surgery on his eyes. McGwire decided eye surgery was too risky and went for steroids instead but also got special contacts that enhanced his vision to 20/15. McGwire ended up with 70 homers and a rebuke from Congress, and was basically kicked to the curb. Tiger on the other hand, who had lost 16 straight tournaments before his surgery, ended up with 20/15 vision and won seven of his next 10 events and has dominated ever since. Better eyesight obviously helped both players.

Is Woods’ domination all due to LASIK? No, but Woods has improved his game by it along with Jeff Bagwell, Jeff Cirillo, Jeff Conine, Jose Cruz Jr., Wally Joyner, Greg Maddux, Mark Redman, and Larry Walker for the MLB and with players like Amare Stoudemire and Rip Hamilton for the NBA.

At this point you may not have to ban LASIK, as it is sometimes medically the best option for players, but when you have players with 20/20 vision zapping their eyes with lasers to gain an advantage, you should at least address the issue.

Now can we please talk about a real topic, like NASCAR or hockey?

This is getting absurd! There is no way you can say eye surgery is comparable to steroid use!

Often times people get surgeries, like the previously mentioned Tommy John surgery, amongst others, they rehab and they come back stronger than before. This is the same thing here. It’s not like anyone is getting robotic eyes put in! It doesn’t make them stronger, it doesn’t make them faster – there is no actual athletic enhancement gained from the procedure. Sure, you can see better, but that doesn’t mean you can hit the ball farther or throw your curve ball any better or hit that 30 foot shot any easier.

How could you even regulate that? Can a doctor look at someone’s eyes to physically determine whether or not they had the LASIK procedure done? Or will they give the players an eye exam. I’m sure that would work. “Read the letters off the card on the wall”. I’m sure that would get a lot of honest responses.

To go even further, if they wanted to go that far, to prove any of that at all, they would have to give eye tests to players before hand to determine if their was any improvement in their vision. How far would they have to go? When they first entered the professional leagues? If they did that then people would just get it done beforehand and there is no way professional athletic leagues could somehow tests “everyone” beforehand. If they could even detect the procedure was done at all at a later date.

There is no way this could ever be enforced in athletics.

She had lasik and is now legally blind….....and she only had minor vision loss before, but didn’t want to fuss with contacts or look stupid in glasses. Me, I just wear my glasses when I feel like it. Don’t when I don’t. Simple as that….

You have got to buy this Hawaii, Larry Brown is the master of developing players and turning around teams. This is exactly what the bobcats need to take them to the next level. Brown is the 4th winniest coach in Nba history and the only coach to win both an Nba and ncaa championship. He coached eight different pro teams prior to coming to New York and averaged an improvement of 8.9 wins over the season prior to his arrival. His stint in New York was an abberation Hawaii, Jordan just hired one of the best coaches of all time. I am buying this all the way…

Short term I could see this working ok- I could even see them getting to the playoffs (the talent is certainly there with Felton, Wallace, Okafor, JRich and if May could ever stay on the court that would be a huge help). Can you really see them getting past the first round though? I can’t, and within 2 years there would be a power struggle between Brown and Jordan. We all know what the endgame is here: Brown is gone within 2-3 years win or lose. The best I can see them doing in that time is a first round exit or two.

Sell.

I’d hire Larry Brown as my own personal coach, but all I have to offer him is a half eater submarine sandwich. I’m guessing the Bobcats offered him significantly more, like perhaps a sandwich unmarred by my bite marks. He’ll be a huge upgrade over their current coaching situation, since they didn’t have one at all from the fact that they fired their last coach. Win-win for all involved. Now pardon me, I have a sandwich to finish.

If you look at Larry Brown’s coaching record you realize one thing: He has coached for nine teams and in his rookie coaching year with each team, six of them improved dramatically, one improved marginally (Detroit Pistons 4 extra wins), and the only two that actually had worse records were the 87-88 Spurs and the 05-06 Knicks. For the spurs the 87-88 season was infamous, the front office had drafted David Robinson but were forced to wait two years for him to play (and were setting up the roster in preparation for Robinson’s return the next season), and in Larry’s sophomore year he was able to dramatically improve the team’s win record by 35 games. The 05-06 knicks might be the one case where Larry’s coaching could actually take the blame for having a bad year, but then again the knicks weren’t great before or after he coached either. I am absolutely buying here, historically Larry Brown has added almost 9 wins as he arrives, look to see the bobcats playing .500 basketball next year, and entering the Eastern playoff race.

All statistical information was grabbed from: http://www.basketball-reference.com/coaches/brownla01c.html

I’d like to buy. They play in the east.

Are we buying/selling the Brown led ‘Cats as a playoff team or as a championship contender? I’m buying the former, selling the latter.

Lar-B is good with kids. He failed in NY with overpaid old vets.
I don’t see the Charlotte day-care squad going sulky on him like the Nix did.
I think what worked in Philly and Indiana will work in Charlotte, too.

I have a friend called Larry. That´s enough.
The Bobcats will go to the playoffs because there will be more refs who don´t like dogs or mouses.
Good serious reasons.

Tomorrow/today I will do an Out of Bounds question. It is supposed to be indirectly sports related and I am having trouble coming up with a question. I’ve been every so busy and I going to watch Mike and Mike on ESPN2 because Mike is going to do competitive eating in about an hour and 15 minutes. Maybe I’ll ask a question about competitive eating.

I guess most of you folks are in bed. It’s 12:47 here and you folks are three hours ahead of me.

If anyone else wants to play, squeeze in an answer and then I’ll make the cut and a new question when I wake up today.

Jordan and company have put together a solid squad of young talent that many thought could make the playoffs this year…their coach was simply too green for the job. A green coach can learn on the fly with a solid team, and similarly a young team can grow with a seasoned coach. But the experiment of a young team and young coach just doesn’t work. Other than the New York incident, which you can’t really blame him for, Larry Brown has been a solid coach throughout his career, and has a history of taking young guys and turning them into hungry contenders. He singlehandedly took what we’re now seeing is a somewhat mediocre, complacent team in the Pistons and had them playing at a championship clip in 2004 and 2005. He did likewise with Allen Iverson’s 76ers, who without Brown never could get anywhere. Larry Brown has a way of making guys overachieve, and that’s exactly what this Charlotte franchise needs.

His winning percentage is .558 (1,010-800 record) and his playoff winning percentage is .529 (100-89 record).

With that many wins and that much playoff experience, why not hire him. He is the best coach availble.

We had a Crispy Creme eating contest at my work . All I could eat was 9. I know that sucks and worse….I couldn’t eat Crispy Cremes for pleasure for quite a while after.

Look, for something to be considered a sport it has to meet three requirements: it takes physical exertion, it highlights a skill you can improve upon, and it has to be competitive. These are all characteristics that a top competitive eater has.

If you look to the winners of the nathan’s hot dog eating challenge the recent past winners have all been athletes who run several miles a day, practice daily, and keep their bodies in peak physical shape.http://www.educatedguesswork.org/movabletype/archives/2006/12/how_to_train_fo.html

In terms of a skill that you can improve upon almost every year the record is broken meaning the game takes skill to accomplish and each year these eaters are getting better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan%27s_Hot_Dog_Eating_Contest

In terms of competition there are serveral people who are reigning champions and others who are contenders, meaning that they possess a level of skill and endurance that takes years and a lot of hard work to accomplish. http://www.ifoce.com/eaters.php

There is even the threat of injury which may end the athletes career: http://www.blogcadre.com/blog/stella/takeru_kobayashi_has_jaw_arthritis_due_to_rigorous_hot_dog_eating_training_2007_06_25_22_22_51

And furthermore they even have their own cheerleaders: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/baseball/marlins/sfl-marcheer022508-pg,0,3825480.photogallery

Okay maybe not, but I think they would lead some of their patented cheers if they were allowed into the competition…

Long story short these guys train hard, have a unique skill that they can and do improve upon, have strategy and large scale competitions, if that doesn’t make competitive eating a sport I don’t know what does…

just reading the second to last link cracked me up.

Is THAT really your premise for a sport?!
You said, “It takes physical exertion, it highlights a skill you can improve upon, and it has to be competitive.”
If that’s the case, your very job and my job as sportswriters is a sport for crying out loud! It takes physical exertion to write a story, I’ve obviously improved in my writing over the years, unlike you, and this is definitely a competitive business, as evidenced by all these bloggers trying to take our jobs! Sorry, but sports writing is not a sport. What is or isn’t a sport is determined by culture. If you put football on the sports channel, are people going to watch it? Yes—it’s a sport. Will people tune in to watch an eating contest on a weekly basis like the NFL? No! It’s not a sport. It’s something goofy that belongs on Youtube. People simply won’t tune in on ESPN on a weekly basis to watch eating contests. They won’t. In a culture built around money and what’s “in” and what’s “out,” you have to judge based on how popular things are on a regular basis. 30 years ago, NASCAR wasn’t popular, no one called it a sport. Why are they asking now? Because it’s finally getting some attention. Because fans are demanding to see it on ESPN. The drivers follow your three steps, they exert themselves, it’s competitive, it’s a skill, and now it’s popularity is rising, so bottom line is you have to call it a sport. But calling hot-dog eating a sport is out of bounds.

And Tony, as far as our “sport” competition goes, I can’t and don’t know anyone who can down 6 soda crackers in a minute, much less jumbo size Krispy Cremes, even if it is two minutes. I’m guessing I could knock down 4…anything more and I might not be in top physical condition for my upcoming hot dog eating contest….

What I am getting out of prez of death’s ramblings are two points: That it takes physical exertion for him to type and that culture defines sports. While both may be true they do nothing to validate his points. The first point only proves that he should report next year for the Manatee training camp (see above link for dates and times). His second point can either be divided two ways, that sports are either popular games, or that ESPN claims sole naming rights of what is a sport and what isn’t. If sports are popular games than such games as (Tom’s favorite) Amer. Idol would be placed as sports far ahead of other real sports (Hockey). The second point either it is on ESPN or its not a sport just helps me out: First, ESPN shows the Nathan’s hotdog eating contest every year on ESPN, plus ESPN classifies Competitive Eating under its More Sports category: http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/news/story?id=2509226 Thanks for playing prez, we’ve got some lovely parting gifts.

Myemic, if you follow the link in my initial post you will see that the top athletes in competitive eating work very hard to be able to reach the athletic shape necessary to be a top competitive eater. While race car drivers spend their training time at the arcade, putting dollar after sponsored dollar into the simulations, Competitive eaters need to remain in peak physical condition, by your argument you could say that soccer is not a sport because I kick my shoes off every day when I get home, or basketball is not a sport because I like to throw things into my garbage can in my office. When you reduce something ad nauseum sports don’t sound very much fun, but its the competition, athletic ability, and the drive to win that define a sport, not the (implied) fact that a ball isn’t involved.

she could drive race cars competitively too.

Sorry Woody (Odenator), but no misquoting of me or linking to an ESPN site or even your blackboard can save you. If you call Hot Dog Eating a sport, than Tony’s (Tom’s) Krispy Kreme eating contest is a sport! I have to train hard to wolf down those things. And if “work[ing] very hard to…reach the athletic shape necessary” is what it takes to make something a sport, then you’d have to call modeling a sport. All those people who starve themselves to look good for a magazine cover, to get “in shape” in a competitive industry are in fact sports players!

The bottom line is that sports is a cultural phenomenon. If pop culture says it’s a sport, it is. If pop culture says it isn’t, then it isn’t. I’d argue that pop culture is saying that NASCAR is a sport right now, by coming to see them live, buying NASCAR merchandise, etc.
Fox Sports or ESPN or any TV station carrying “sports” broadcasts doesn’t make the sport a sport…it’s the people watching that make the activity a sport. Being on ESPN doesn’t make something a sport, it simply gauges what pop culture is saying. Right now, there is such a small following for Hot-Dog eating contests, I’d argue it isn’t a sport. Similarly, you’ve now got video games entering the ESPN arena. Are they sports yet that people would pay to come see? That pop culture wants and embraces? Not yet, but they may be on their way.

Brain training needed.

I don’t know much about horse racing, but not knowing much never stops Paige, Mariotti and the other guys from talking loudly, so…

Big Brown CAN win the triple crown- he won the Derby easily despite starting from the 20th post, which hadn’t been done for about 80 years. A race that good tells me that this is a special horse. I also noticed that the jockey riding Big Brown was the jockey who was within a nose of winning the Triple Crown with Real Quiet a while back. So, Big Brown has as good a chance as any horse in quite a while. HOWEVER, we’ve had a number of tremendous Derby performances in recent years (names such as Real Quiet, Smarty Jones, War Emblem come to mind) and we still haven’t had a Triple Crown winner in 30 years. So, while Big Brown is obviously an impressive horse, the odds are strongly against a triple crown.

As for Eight Belles, I do not blame the injury on the decision to run in the Derby. This horse was obviously capable of running with the boys as evidenced by her 2nd place finish. Also don’t forget that Rags to Riches (a filly) won the Belmont Stakes last year. If anything, I blame the sport of horse racing- just in the last few years we had Barbaro and now Eight Belles. Perhaps the jockey was at fault for not realizing something was wrong. We don’t know. Is it possible that she would still be alive had she run in the Kentucky Oaks? Sure, but we don’t know that. I don’t think we have enough information and the 2nd guessing does us no good at this point. Nobody knows the horse better than the trainer, so without additional information, we shouldn’t blame him.

1) First, no horse has won the triple crown in 30 years and with the amount of money and focus that has been going into breeding lines and the great advancement in artificial insemination in the early 1980s has created much more parity among race horses. The last 14 Kentucky Derby winners have all been descendents of the legendary ‘Native Dancer’, and all 20 horses that were entered in this Kentucky Derby can claim the same pedigree. The number of stallions that have produced offspring has dropped by about 50% since 1992, and without new and exciting bloodlines, a stand out horse with new and unpredictable muscle and skeletal structures, is becoming less and less likely. While Big Brown did run a spectacular race, with his hoof problems and the fact that horses today are more similar than they were thirty years ago, it seems much more likrly that this was a freak race, with poor competition (5 of the last 8 Kentucky Derby winners have won with better times), and will not be repeated.
2) I would say the fault lies with the breeder more than the trainer, and more generally the direction breeding (for liverstock and race animals) has gone for the last twenty years. Artificial insemination has given rise to the super horse, one that is not able to breed (due to size and weight issues) without the benefit of AI. Horses are naturally not the musclebound over 16 hands high beasts that walk the preakness and derby grounds, instead their structure is geared towards them being light and lean (with their method of reproduction being a limiting factor). The unnatural size that these creatures have attained is incredibly hard on their legs and fetlocks (haven’t you ever wondered how a horse could be so fast with sticks for legs) and makes the risk of fatal injury much more than the way a supreme race horse once was. While there have been advancements on track surfaces, just what the horse is, is now a much more dangerous factor than what it happens to be running on. Without a diverse amount of breeding lines the thoroughbred horse, could go the way of the purebred Suffolk sheep, where major genetic flaws have been amplified with champion AI breeding.

So in conclusion, having a limited genetic pool is the reason behind both of my answers, first it creates more parity in the racing world, since the horses are much more genetically similiar thatn they were 30 years ago, meaning it is unlikely for one horse to dominate all three thoroughbred races, and second the horses that are being bred now have much more muscle and taller frames then their skeletal structures were designed to hold, causing horrible accidents such as what happened on the track recently. While they may be horrible, and rare (especially a double-ankle break) they are the fault of genetics, the trainer could do nothing to keep them from happening (the race was already over at the point where she fell), and as long as everyone is using the same breeding lines there is no opportunity for a truly dominant horse to emerge.

No way Big Brown wins the triple crown. As jksnake said, it has not been done in 30 years. We hear the same thing every year, the winner of the derby always seems to be the next horse to win the triple crown. Remember Barbaro? It hasnt happened in 30 years for a reason.

You certainly cant blame Eight Belles’s trainer on the tragedy. You can however blame the general attitude behind breeding and training these horses. They have been starting to train these horses at younger and younger ages, and as a result, the horses are becoming less and less durable. But seriously, I want to talk about some playoff hockey. Go Stars!!

unlike the ever long winded Woody Paige. Wikipedia stats are great for the main sports, but for a sport like horse racing that few follow other than the week of the Derby, fans just want a horse to pull for, one they can get behind and root for.
Ultimately, leading up to the race, Big Brown was that horse. Then he got stuck in the 20th spot, and yet somehow he STILL pulled out a victory, and looks like he might be the first in a few decades to win the Triple Crown. Will it happen? Maybe not, but there’s a chance, and that’s what fans want. Will Tiger realistically ever win the Grand Slam? Was Davidson really going to win the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament? All those guys had a shot, but the point of these stories is the fans emotionally getting behind them and pulling for them. The same is true for Big Brown and the pursuit of the Triple Crown.

As for your second question Tony, I don’t think you can blame anyone for this horrible accident. PETA has come out and accused Filly’s rider of knowingly riding her with injuries, demanded the rider’s suspension, all this stuff, but they’re missing the point. People are sad this happened, but accidents happen. Few riders are inhumane enough to ride their animals to death, or they wouldn’t be in horse racing, and furthermore riders know if their horse goes down, a trampling is a good possibility. I just can’t see Filly’s rider forcing her onto the track with an injury. Accidents happen in sports, so you’ve got to look at what happened, maybe amend the rules a little bit to prevent further injuries, and then move on.

Now you can rant for 30 seconds. Also, if you e-mail me your address, I’ll mail you your stuff.

this was extremely fun Tom! I can’t remember the last time I’ve missed an episode of ATH….by far my fav. show on ESPN. Would love to see you do this again! Maybe you do another one soon, but with more Blazer-focused questions?
Anyway, congrats to jtsnake. I’m actually kind of glad I didn’t win. I’m wary of anything arriving from Hawaii, and especially wary of 16 year old boys sending me stuff or writing me from that area.