There sure was a lot that happened in the world of sports today. From baseball to football to NASCAR to soccer. Even the NBA got into the act.
We'll start in NASCAR, which had perhaps the biggest news of all. With the Daytona 500 coming up on Sunday, Kurt Busch has been suspended indefinitely. This all stems from the domestic situation involving Busch and his former girlfriend. A Delaware court pressed charges against him today, and NASCAR took swift action by keeping Busch on the sidelines until the matter is resolved. Who knows how long his suspension is going to last, but NASCAR absolutely made the right move here. Having Busch on the track wouldn't have been good for the sport. Especially after everything that happened in the NFL this season.
Also on the NASCAR front, Jeff Gordon will be on the pole for his final Daytona 500. He's announced his retirement at the end of the 2015 season, with his induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame promptly coming as soon as he's eligible. While I think this was Gordon's choice, the timing is convenient for Hendrick Motorsports. They were looking for a car for Graham Elliott, who won the Busch Series title last year and appears to be as close to a sure thing as there is. He'll take over Gordon's ride, which I'm sure will be renumbered. He'll have a lot of pressure on him, but the last guy to take over for a legend worked out pretty well. Kevin Harvick is the defending Sprint Cup champion.
Another retiring superstar is Kobe Bryant. Kobe made his announcement today. The 2015-16 season will be his last. Again, I think this was a smart move. And the timing was right. Kobe Bryant's a shell of his former self, and so are the Lakers. He's been injured pretty much nonstop for the last two years. This eliminates all the questions. Next season is it. Kobe can have a Jeteresque retirement tour. Injuries might derail the plan, but now we have some finality about it. My only question is whether or not Kobe will be in Rio as a part of Team USA.
Peyton Manning is a subject of retirement rumors, too. After the Broncos' playoff loss, when he revealed he'd been playing hurt for like a month, Peyton said he'd take some time to think about the future. He's still thinking about it, but it looks like Peyton's leaning towards returning. The Broncos want him to take a pay cut, but they want him back. I think he wants to come back, too. He's not going to end his career that way. And this isn't going to turn into a Brett Favre thing. When he wants to retire, he'll mean it. He isn't there yet, though.
He'll definitely be retired before this happens, but the weirdest NFL story I've ever seen involves two of Denver's AFC West rivals. Apparently the Chargers and Raiders are both interested in moving back to LA, and they're even talking about sharing the cost of building the stadium. What?! The Chargers and Raiders have hated each other for 50 years. Now they're suddenly willing to work together so that they can both move. To the same city! And since the NFL wouldn't let them both stay in the AFC West, one would have to move to the NFC. It's here that I again feel the need to point out that all four AFC West teams were original AFL clubs, with the rivalries between the four dating back to 1960. For some reason, I don't see this happening. One of them moving to LA? Sure. But they aren't both going there and sharing a stadium. It sounds stupid to even be talking about it.
Oh, and it looks like the Patriots are going to come off scott-free in Deflategate. Evidently a Patriots staffer put the underinflated balls in play because he was asked to by a former NFL employee who was trying to profit from game-used balls. Really? Sorry, but I still think there's more to this story.
Elsewhere in the NFL, the Lions GM has suggested that penalties become reviewable. I like that idea. He, of course, has a vested interest after the pass interference that wasn't in the Detroit-Dallas playoff game, but I agree with him. If the officials miss an obvious penalty, or call one that clearly isn't, that should be something coaches can challenge. Especially with the number of NFL games each week that turn on close calls like that.
Baseball's instant replay system is also undergoing a little bit of a change. They're expanding it to include tag-up plays and the (incredibly stupid) collision rule. And, as part of the wonderful "pace of play" initiative, managers can no longer casually stroll out while somebody else watches the video, then decide if they're going to challenge. They've got to do it right away, and they're not allowed to leave the dugout.
That's just one of several new rules for this season that were originally suggested by the Pace of Play Committee. We'll see how the batter's box rule works out, and I think the whole idea of clocks on the scoreboard is dumb (part of the beauty of baseball is that there is no clock), but I think these new rules could actually be somewhat OK. My biggest worry was that they'd change the way the game was played as an overreaction to the length of games. But what they've done isn't drastic enough to actually make a difference. And I'm actually a pretty big proponent of shortening the breaks between innings and making the batter and pitcher both be ready to play as soon as the commercial's over. Of course, that's not as much of a problem as the half-innings that take a half hour because of endless pitching changes, but this will definitely help. And I kinda love the little twist of not getting all eight of your warmup pitches if you take too long to throw them.
Finally, we've got some news in the endless saga that is the 2022 World Cup. FIFA has finally picked the dates, and it looks like we're going to have a November-December World Cup in Qatar. That sure beats the February thing that some FIFA officials were pushing, but was never going to fly. FIFA's not dumb enough to go against the Almaty/Beijing Winter Olympics, and they're the ones who screwed up, not the IOC, so it was up to them to change their dates, not the other way around.
The biggest concerns about the November-December World Cup was how the European club seasons would be affected, but they've got plenty of time to figure it out. And I actually don't think it'll be as tough as everyone's making it out to be. For starters, you won't need those international breaks that year, since no national teams would be playing anything other than friendlies in the lead-up to the World Cup. All of those leagues take a Christmas break of roughly a month anyway, so you just make that break a week or two longer, start the season a week or two earlier and end a week or two later. I mean, frankly, does it really make any difference if the Champions League final is on the first Saturday in June instead of the last Saturday in May?
November-December was the only solution to a problem that FIFA itself created. Although I'm sure FOX isn't too thrilled about it. They pay all this money to get the FIFA rights away from ESPN and they end up with a World Cup that's right in the heart of NFL season. That World Cup Final, NFL doubleheader could be pretty cool, though.
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