Do you hate being employed?

Phil Sheridan in the Inquirer today in his article about the shame of Lancaster (other than the guy who shot all those Amish), Floyd Landis-

"Professional bicycle racing is a filthy sport and, in a perfect world, the Tour de France would go away and never come back. Certainly there is no reason for anyone to watch cycling's premier event with any faith that it is clean."

Using that logic, we can also get rid of the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA Finals, whatever the NHL calls their thingy, the Olympics, the World Cup, The Daytona 500, the World Series of Poker, Mr. Olympia, and Bill Bob's Big Ol' Rodeo Showdown. If fact, in the spirit of cleanliness, lets just get rid of sports. There, done. Congrats, Phil- you're now out of a job.

As long as there have been ways to cheat and sports, there have been athletes willing to combine the two, starting with the Greek discus thrower Steroidicus in 487BC. This is not going to change, especially as the financial stakes of sports reach ever more ridiculous levels. These are competitive people looking for an edge, legal or not. It shouldn't be okee dokee to cheat, but if you think you're ever going to watch a completely "clean" sporting event you are, in the words of Steroidicus, out of your fucking mind, and if we banned dirty sports, Phil, you'd be out of a fucking job.

Let's Reward Mediocrity!

Ed Snider had the following to say about the NBA Draft Lottery:

"There should be just one Ping-Pong ball per team," Snider said. "Teams should not be rewarded for being inept."

You're right Ed. Instead of trying to improve teams that are currently not competitive, let's help out the teams that aren't good enough to make the playoffs, but yet not bad enough to have a chance in the current lottery system.

This obviously has nothing to do with the fact that the Sixers are looking at a few years of being in the 10-14 position in the lottery does it? If a team like Charlotte or Memphis drafts at #4 or worse every year, it is unlikely that they will get better. If teams in these small markets don't get better, their attendance will drop and the team will eventually have to move.

If they are going to change the lottery, I would recommend grouping the teams into four "slots". The teams with the worst, second worst, and third worst records are grouped together have the same chance of winning the lottery, teams 4-6 have the same chance which is less than teams 1-3, etc. This way the only dumping that teams do is between "tiers" and it doesn't give teams as much incentive to drop games.