Going In on Cavs Fans

I know a lot of Clevelanders are *really* excited (OMG!!!!) that the Cavs beat the Heat last night. In Quicken Loans Arena. Good for you. I'm surprised that Dan Gilbert hasn't written a letter about it for the website yet.

I was feeling bad for you guys for a while this season, at least those of you who were Cavs fans during the Mark Price and Ricky Davis eras (AKA Pre-Lebron). You know I wanted him in a Knicks jersey but even if he had taken his talents to the Garden, the way he left still would have been so salty. But, I don't commiserate with y'all any more. Not after the myriad Facebook statuses and tweets about how this win makes up for all the losses this year; how redeeming it was; how good it felt to stuff it in LeBron's face; and so forth. I'll hit you with this analogy to sum up how silly a thought that is to have: it's like a girl who got ceremoniously dumped in front everyone by her awesome boyfriend. She's in shambles, only ugly, boring guys want to date her and she's having her worst year in a decade. Meanwhile, the guy embarrassed her is doing just fine, getting serious with a fox and not spending much time worried about how his ex is doing. Then one night, when they're both at the same party, the girl and her date look better and tear it up on the dancefloor while the ex and his new girl have an off-night with bad hair days and upset stomachs. He's still going home with a dimepiece and is a healthier relationship, meanwhile, 364 days a year, she is going to her dingy apartment with the date she doesn't even like that much.

How does that one night make all those awful evenings worth it? I guess it's this simple: girls are crazy, and so are Cavs fans.

2011 Baseball Picks

Did I already make these? Maybe. But these are the ones I have money on, so these supersede anything else I've mentioned.

NL East Phillies

NL Central Brewers

NL Wildcard Reds

NL West Giants

AL East Red Sox

AL Central White Sox

AL West Athletics

AL Wildcard Yankees

NL Champ Phillies

AL Champ Yankees

WS Champ Yankees

NL Cy Young Roy Halladay

AL Cy Young CC Sabathia

NL MVP Prince Fielder

AL MVP Alex Rodriguez

Best Record Phillies

Worst Record Royals

AL Manager Buck Showalter

NL Manager Fredi Gonzalez

College Athletes Should be Paid [Mondays with Gus]

If a scholarship student is allowed to be paid a stipend for work in their fields, why then aren't college athletes given the same benefit? I have been lucky enough to have been granted a full scholarship plus stipend to study cultural anthropology and teach at Kent State University. I can't thank them enough. But this also begs the question, why am I worth more to the university than a college athlete would be?

Many people get angry at arguing for paying college athletes, because those kids are getting something that most people can't afford. I'm not arguing that these kids should make six figures (I'm looking at you, Chris Webber), but I am saying we should analyze their value and pay them accordingly. In order to understand their value, we have to look at what benefits they do get. First, tuition. Let's assume they get the benefit of about $12,000 worth of tuition expenses. They also get room, board, and food (if you can call what they make in the cafeterias food). Room and board at Ohio State, where I got my undergraduate degree from was worth about $8,000 a year. Food? I would say about $3,000 a year. That gives these kids $23,000 in benefits for each year. What kind of job would you normally get for that price? According to Salary.com, telemarketers in Columbus, OH make $32,000 a year.

Now, let's analyse what they're worth to the university. For starters, they sell the tickets to their events. Most sports don't finance themselves, but sports as a whole certainly should. Second, the school gets to sell memorabilia, recruit a wider variety of students, and even start their own television networks to increase revenue. That's an awful lot of benefits for the school. In 2005-2006, Ohio State pulled in $2.9 million in profit from all sports combined. Divide that by all 36 teams at the time, and you get an extra $80,500 per team. The Big Ten Network added an estimated $6.5 million per school in 2010. Divide that by the 36 teams and you get another $180,500. That's a profit of $240,000 per sports team.

Coaches pay is just as significant. Why is it that major college coaches are worth $3-4 million in some cases? The argument is that they generate more revenue than they're paid. I find it more than slightly hypocritical that the coaches are worth millions and the players are worth thousands. Yes, the coaches are important, and my argument here isn't that the players are necessarily worth more than the coaches. But we should be making the same arguments for players and coaches. They're both worth millions of dollars to the universities. The difference is that the coaches can leave to go to the professional level immediately while players are often under restrictions that force them to stay in college rather than becoming a pro. While I could (and will one day) argue that it's smarter to stay in school, I still find it ridiculous that the schools take advantage of this.

I understand they have a great chance to make it to the professional levels and make a fortune, and that's very true. But that mindset punishes those kids that are making their schools a fortune but can't make it to the pros. I think it's time to start rewarding these kids based on how the school benefits from their talents.

-Gus Rafeedie

Tipping

Dining and drinking at various bars and restaurants, I've noticed that people are getting careless with their tipping. When I was coming up, 10% was a tip for crap service (you never didn't leave a tip, which I'll get to later), 15% for good, expected service and 20% for excellent service. If you were a regular at a place maybe you went to 25% every so often. Now, I'll see people leaving a default 20% and its terrible. Waiters are getting conditioned to provide crappier service because they're seeing 20% almost every time. Sure it's easier to calculate 20% of a bill than it is 15% of a bill in just about every case, but that doesn't mean its deserved. More and more I'll see people dropping 20% (yeah, if we go out to eat, sometimes I'll peek on your bill to see what you tip, get over it) and it pisses me off. More than that, if you have crap service, I'll see people leave no tip, NO TIP! Maybe it's because my family has had a lot of waiters, busboys, chefs, cooks and bartenders in it but that's inexcusable. They still brought your food over right? They still poured some water in your glass, didn't they? 10% is the minimum, not 20%. Let's get back to that, please.

Tipping on Wine is another interesting issue. Wine, by most accounts is between two and three times as expensive in a restaurant as it is on the shelf. Just because you bought a $80 bottle of wine, should you tip on the whole thing? Especially if you ordered it from the menu with little-to-no input from the waiter. I lean towards no here. I don't have an accurate % of the total to tip on because clearly you shouldn't not tip on it at all BUT it's not like you ordered an expensive steak that requires careful prep and cooking. Most times (which isn't that often since I don't order bottles at nice places on the red), I'll tip on one-third or half of it. Not the best formula, but the best that I am going to come up with.

Getting a dish, appetizer, dessert, drink for free because the restaurant screwed it up/you had a coupon/you know a guy/they forgot to add it is no excuse to not tip on it. This is a simple one that people often forget, but you get something comped for one reason or another, the same amount of prep, service and time go into it, so you still need to calculate that into the total and tip on it.

Drinks. This is always puzzling to me. Do you tip a buck a drink? A buck each time you go to the bar (ordering 2-3 drinks)? How much more should you tip when ordering a complicated drink/shot as opposed to a beer/whiskey? What about Happy Hour/Dollar Draft night situations. Am I supposed to tip $1 every $1 beer I get? Then its not Dollar Beer night anymore is it? I really just make up new rules every time I go to a bar. You got something better, let me know and we'll post it.

NCAA Frozen Four Picks and Updated Madness Picks

Bracket here. Picks below.

In the First Round, I have Yale over Air Force (sorry Pauli); Minny-Duluth over Union; Merrimack over Notre Dame (the Irish are too young); Miami over New Hampshire (in New Hampshire, thanks guys); North Dakota over Rensselaer; Denver over Western Michigan; Michigan over Nebraska-Omaha (still makes me laugh that there is a D1 hockey team in Nebraska, and another in Alabama); and Boston College over Colorado College (vomit).

Advancing to the Frozen Four, I like Yale over Minny-Duluth; Miami over Merrimack; North Dakota over Denver; and Boston College over Michigan (vomit again).

I have all the top seeds making it to St. Paul, which is anticlimactic, but probable. Miami over Yale, Boston College over North Dakota. Miami FINALLY expunges a Boston team in the playoffs and takes home the first major sport 'Ship in school history. I'm so confident because I won't be attending any of these games and Miami always loses when I'm there.

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Updated March Madness Picks:

Since I had only seven correct teams in the Sweet 16, including just ONE TEAM LEFT ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BRACKET (Kansas, don't fail me now), here are my updated picks...unchanged from original picks are in italics.

Sweet 16

Ohio State over Kentucky

UNC over Marquette

Duke over Arizona

UConn over San Diego State

Kansas over Richmond

VCU over Florida State

Butler over Wisconsin

BYU over Florida

Elite Eight

Ohio State over UNC

Duke over UConn

Kansas over VCU

Butler over BYU (ugh I hate this region so much)

Final Four

Duke over Ohio State

Kansas over Butler

Championship

Duke over Kansas

Why Great Players Can't Become Great Coaches [Mondays with Gus]

There's a reason why Jim Brown and Michael Jordan never coached in the NFL and NBA, respectively. It just so happens to be the same reason why people like Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick can succeed without ever playing a down in the NFL. For starters, it's impossible to teach another person something that you have an unworldly natural ability to do.

Michael Jordan's greatest attribute (in my humble opinion) was his unbelievable ability to hold grudges and work tirelessly to prove people wrong. The man complained about how the NBA hated him (5 MVPs, ten-time 1^st team All NBA) even after being inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, player of all time. In his hall of fame speech, he insulted his high school basketball coach, a man that had cut MJ from the team because he hadn't grown tall enough to play. How on earth could you coach that? You would never be able to convince someone to hold a grudge for 30 years. It was a natural hatred of doubters (also called passion) that made MJ impossibly good, and impossible to listen to.

Jim Brown? That dude was a freak with a vicious streak a mile wide. He hated the world, and for good reason. The racism he dealt with at Syracuse can never (and should never) be recreated. In fact, all of college football legitimately hated Jim Brown, purely because he was a strong black man. Dick Schaap once said that Jim Brown coming in 5^th in the Heisman race in 1956 is the reason he never voted for another Heisman Trophy winner again. The hatred for Jim Brown went to the NFL, too. Deacon Jones, a hall of fame DL once said he tried to injure Jim Brown after every play in a game. Jones said the most frustrating thing he ever dealt with in his career was that Brown responded “Nice hit, Deac.” Again, how on earth could you teach that?

What I'm getting at is that the greatest of the great have a natural hatred of opponents, doubters, and all criticism whatsoever. They can't handle it. So, they take it out on their respective sports, and do it with a natural athleticism that few are born with. They can't ever go up to someone and explain how to do this. It's programmed into their DNA.

Bill Parcells? He can explain it, because he would have to pay attention to every detail imaginable to be a great player. He's a guy that doesn't have a natural ability to fall back on. If someone pisses him off, he's going to have to outwork them and outsmart them. While he has a similar desire to win as MJ or Jimmy B, he can at least sympathize with what a regular player is going through. He knows that you can't just go out there and dominate a game. You have to prepare for it, because you don't have the natural ability to fall back on. Jordan scored I believe 4,800 points one day while dragging an IV with him down court in that ridiculous flu game. How could you possibly teach that? Parcells never had to. He had to win through preparation, not reaction.

And that's the mark of a successful coach; preparation. The Parcells and Belichicks of the world will continue to be the great coaches due to the fact that they have to prepare like madmen just to compete. They have little in common with their players. They can't motivate them because they don't know what those guys are going through. They have to have the game won before they step on the field. Jordan and Jim Brown? They could have won the game whenever the hell they felt like it. That's the mark of a great player, but coaches can't play that game and hope to win.

*Special thanks to Snaps for stimulating the debate on what a jerk MJ was, and inspiring me to write this article.

-Gus Rafeedie

Brickety Brackets [UPDATE]

Since following the Knicks has lately become an exercise in frustration as they copped an L vs. another below .500 team (increasing the ratio from bad losses to good wins this year), let's focus on March Madness. Clearly, it's the best month of the year as demonstrated below in my takedown of Major League. Let's skip the talk and get to the chalk.

Last night I had UNC-Asheville and UAB winning. Half right. Tonight I have VCU and UT-San Antonio.

Now onto the real First Round. I'll go down the line in each quadrant:

EAST

Ohio State, Villanova, West Virginia, Kentucky, Xavier, Syracuse, Washington, North Carolina

WEST

Duke, Tennessee, Memphis, Texas, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Penn State, San Diego State

SOUTHWEST

Kansas, UNLV, Richmond, Louisville, Georgetown, Purdue, Florida State, Notre Dame

SOUTHEAST

Pittsburgh, Butler, Kansas State, Wisconsin, St. John's, BYU, Michigan State, Florida

Second Round

EAST

Ohio State, Kentucky, Syracuse, North Carolina (chalk)

WEST

Duke, Texas, Connecticut, San Diego State (chalk)

SOUTHWEST

Kansas, Louisville, Purdue, Notre Dame (chalk)

SOUTHEAST

Pittsburgh, Kansas State, St. John's, Michigan State (upset alert!!!)

Sweet Sixteen

EAST

Ohio State, North Carolina

WEST

Duke, Connecticut

SOUTHWEST

Kansas, Purdue

SOUTHEAST

Kansas State, St. John's

Elite Eight

EAST

North Carolina

WEST

Duke

SOUTHWEST

Kansas

SOUTHEAST

St. John's

Final Four

Kansas over St. John's, Duke over North Carolina

Championship

Duke over Kansas

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Hate it, but that team is filthy with Kyrie Irving back.

UPDATE:

President Obama, are you for real with the filling out your brackets on ESPN BS again? What about, I don't know, RUNNING THE COUNTRY! Even the crazy liberals in Hollywood are jumping off your bandwagon, it's probably time to do something you campaigned for. It's cute that the First Lady is on Iron Chef America, but you need to get it together. America's getting soft and gas is $3.60 a gallon in the Midwest. That's NOT a good look for me.

Furthermore, why is Obama the sports president? If I'm not mistaken, Gerald Ford played football at Michigan, and more recently George W. Bush played D1 baseball at Yale and owned an MLB team for several years. Obama plays pickup basketball, sweet...so do 50 million other people in the country. GET REAL.