History has taught us that Major League umpires must be dragged kicking and screaming to help make changes in the game of baseball, and history is about to repeat itself this fall.

A series of blown calls and controversies have led baseball to the cusp of instant replay, a form of technology used by all three other major sports in this country. Commissioner Bud Selig and his bumbling cronies are fully aware that scrutiny of every called ball or strike would ruin the game, so they favor a limited use of replay that would judge home runs and fair or foul balls. You would think that the umpires, men who insist that they agonize at night over missed calls and make their best efforts to get it right every time, would embrace such an idea.
You would be wrong. That same group of umpires boycotted a conference call on Tuesday with baseball's management, a petty decision made because of their concerns about what World Umpires Association chief Lamell McMorris called "procedural issues". McMorris is concerned about how it will look if umpires are forced to leave the field to view replays or if they must consult replay officials in a booth somewhere in the park, worried that the process will become a running joke and will be discredited if it's not absolutely seamless.
McMorris' concerns would be valid if he wasn't trying to defend one of the most bull-headed groups of men in professional sports. Major League umpires have earned their reputations as cantankerous at best and downright bitter at worst, a stodgy group of aging dinosaurs who are more concerned about protecting themselves than the game that they arbitrate. This same crowd had their ranks cut to shreds when their former general counsel, Richie Phillips, suggested that they resign en masse in a fight for enhanced benefits in 1999. Major League Baseball accepted the bulk of the resignations, signaling a new era in which umpires would not be able to hold the players and owners hostage anymore.
Even Selig knew that this was his chance to take command, and he made the surviving umpires come crawling back to cut a deal. Selig quickly abolished the exclusive American and National league crews, creating one large pool to work both leagues. He hired new blood that was trained differently in the minor leagues, men who were encouraged to get together on the field and sometimes overrule a call if they saw something different than the original ruling. Just picture the A-Rod purse-slapping incident against Bronson Arroyo or Mark Bellhorn's three-run homer that almost wasn't in the 2004 ALCS -- both of those calls were initially blown until heads came together and discussions were had.
Veteran umpires feel that even suggesting a call has been missed is some form of disrespect, and that's at the root of what is going on right now. This is their one last grasp at total control of the game, even if they miss a crucial home run like Derek Jeter's pop-up to right that Richie Garcia bungled into a Jeffrey Maier-aided start of the latest New York Yankees' dynasty in 1996. They rebelled at the thought of Ques-Tec, the camera-aided strike zone that was being used to grade their performance in 2004. They absolutely hate the overhead camera angle that FOX uses during its playoff coverage, an angle that exposes a plate umpire for having a zone as wide as Andruw Jones. Umpires are against anything that will shed light on their mistakes -- replay might as well be the sun hitting a dark basement for the first time in years. The glow that will follow will make the game better and send the Draculas in black on the bases back into their coffins where they belong.  

Need any further proof that professional sports value production on the field over character away from it? See the Cincinnati Bengals signing troubled wide receiver Chris Henry on Tuesday and you'll get a free lesson in what happens when pressure to win and the value of the dollar overcome good judgment and old-fashioned values.

Henry was released in March after allegedly punching a college student and breaking his car window, just another day in the life for a guy who is no stranger to the legal system. Cincinnati had finally had enough and released Henry on the spot, with head coach Marvin Lewis saying as recently as July 22 that Henry would not return to the team under any circumstances.

Wait...check that. Henry wouldn't be welcomed back unless the Bengals' top two receivers got hurt, and that's exactly what has happened during this training camp. Chad Johnson suffered a shoulder injury in the team's last preseason game and T.J. Houshmandzadeh has missed both exhibition games with a hamstring injury, the type of nagging ailment that can stay with a player for a full season. Cincinnati decided to bring back Henry, something that the team's president, Mike Brown, said would not happen in March.

Did I mention that Henry can't even play until Week 5? That's because he's serving a four-game suspension for violating the NFL's personal conduct policy, his third such ban. Henry's actions alone, which caused a judge to once refer to him as a "one man crime wave", prompted commissioner Roger Goodell to begin his crusade to clean up the league and stop the players' off-field foolishness. Henry was one of the chief offenders, along with Pacman (I will never call him Adam) Jones, that drew Goodell's scorn and forced strong action. Cincinnati coach Marvin Lewis had said as recently as July 22 that Henry would not be welcomed back to the team, but now he's going against his word and selling out his own credibility in the process.
But these are the Bengals, don't forget, a team that seems to wear stripes 24-7. Cincinnati had 10 players arrested over a 14-month span, a fact that should allow Henry and his five arrests during his first term with the team fit right back into the mix. Maybe the Bengals can exchange legal advice in the huddle. That's provided that anyone can get a word in edgewise over Johnson's mouthy ramblings. Carson Palmer lived the good life while he was the quarterback at USC, and he must be thinking that this is his penance after helping Pete Carroll put the Trojans back on the map. That was Palmer's version of football heaven -- innovative offense (thank you, Norm Chow), speed to burn at the skill positions, overmatched defenses and some of the world's most beautiful coeds to celebrate with every Saturday night after a big win. Cincinnati must look like hell in comparison -- dying rust-belt city, stuck about as far away from L.A. or New York as you can be, getting ready for a padded cell while praying that all of his teammates can make bail on Saturday night in time for a 1 p.m. Sunday kickoff. Bringing back Henry just moved the Bengals onto the karma police radar, and they always tend to find their target.

Even people who dismiss the Olympics as a corporate hype machine would be hard-pressed to cast doubt over the passion and the emotion present in the United States' victory in the men's 4x100-meter freestyle relay swimming event yesterday.
Jason Lezak's charge down the stretch and record anchor leg saved the gold for the U.S. and preserved Michael Phelps' quest for eight individual gold medals in Beijing, a record that nearly went down in flames on the second day of the games. There were plenty of NBC executives and sponsors biting their nails while France's Alain Bernard held the lead in the race with as few as five meters to go. All of their promotional campaigns and coverage geared toward Phelps was about to go up in smoke until Lezak set a world record with his split time over the 100-meter distance, catching Bernard with literally his final stroke.
Lance Armstrong used to give his teammates all of his prize money after he won the Tour de France, an event that he captured seven straight times. Armstrong was the one that they all suffered for, fetching water and food from the team cars, sheltering him during the flat stages from the wind and the rain, pacing him up the mountains with savage tempo riding that cracked the rest of the field. He was the man who had all the big corporate dollars in his back pocket, and he treated his domestiques well. Phelps, who reportedly will receive a seven-figure bonus from Speedo if he breaks Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in a single games, should give some thought to handing Lezak a cut of the dough after a performance like that.
I was watching all of this in a bar after my baseball game last night with my boy Hevy, his girlfriend Krista and our coach. The three of them all admitted that they know zero about swimming, but their eyes were glued to the screen throughout the three-minute race that stands as the early highlight of these games. They were into it as much as anybody could have been, interested because there were Americans involved in a competition for nothing more than national pride (and some money from Speedo, Nike, Gatorade, etc.). The Olympics are one of the few things that can actually unite a nation that celebrates independence, cultural diversity and freedom of choice like the U.S. does, and the games are a time every two years where the masses tune in and watch athletes do battle in their name. Only moments of great triumph and tragedy (think Sept. 11) are able to unite this country because we as a society are usually too involved with our own lives to stop and take a look around.
So let's stop for a moment today and find out just a little bit more about Lezak, a grizzled veteran of international competitions who saved his best for when his team truly needed it. I've had swimmers tell me that they swim better in relays because they feel the pressure of not letting their teammates down, and Lezak's time of 46.06 was almost two seconds faster than his own American record over the same distance as an individual. It was a reminder that truly elite athletes are in some ways like thoroughbred horses, trained and driven by something unseen to chase down anything that's in front of them and possessing an almost unnatural ability to pull something out of themselves when challenged by an opponent who is faster or stronger. All the evidence of this that you need is that five teams broke the existing world record in the 4x100 final in Beijing, driven by improved technology (Speedo's LZR racer suit), years of training and the heat of the competition.
What made this event even more delicious was the presence of a natural villain, something that Americans need to truly care about something. Bernard's comments that France was going "to smash them (the Americans)" in the race and his subsequent choke job down the stretch added another layer of drama and spoke to our collective psyche. We talk about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of winning and losing, of good and evil -- it's a good look into our mindset as a nation. Nobody is a winner while people are being killed on the battlefield, but that's what we need to believe in order to allow it to continue. We have to think that we're on the side of right and not necessarily the aggressors in such a conflict. We have to feel like we're saving somebody or trying to make somebody's life better.
Athletics are the same way for us -- we all disliked Bernard instantly when he made his statements, forgetting the fact that he and his teammates certainly didn't travel all the way to Beijing to lose the race. They trained for it just as hard and made just as many sacrifices, and it would have been foolish if any of them felt defeated before they even took the starting blocks just because Phelps was on the other team. Of course they expected to win. They just didn't. And even five people in a bar half a world away took some pride in that.

Covering the Pawtucket Red Sox tonight and visiting one of Rhode Island's treasures -- the gem of a ballpark that is McCoy Stadium. Pretty excited for that, too much so to focus on just one thing for this post, so it's time for a little bit of a scattered collection from the last few days in sports. As always, be wary of reading these and take them with a grain of salt -- I take very little responsibility for what I say when I'm in one of these moods.

-- An American delegation attending the Olympics in Beijing shows just how far the power of commercialism has come in this country in 30 years. The United States boycotted the 1980 summer games in Moscow, passing on going to a place dominated by an intolerant government that oppressed its people and violated their rights. China is doing the same thing now, but the Chinese have something that the Russians didn't have -- 1.4 billion consumers ready to open their pocket books and wallets to accept the flood of American products that are making their way to China's shores every day. Beijing and its surrounding cities are flush with cash, an economy booming thanks to technological advances and a drive to be ahead of the curve. These Olympics should be remembered as the time where America officially sold out.

-- The day where Brett Favre is out of Sportscenter's A-block is finally in sight. Green Bay's trade of its icon to the New York Jets adds another chapter to what has turned into a very sad story. Favre and Packers management, including president Mark Murphy and general manager Ted Thompson, have been taking veiled swipes at each other throughout this entire process, one that degenerated into an ugly divorce and landed Favre on Broadway. It's hard to believe that Favre won't be running out onto Lambeau Field's frozen tundra again from the home locker room, and it's even more difficult to imagine how much acrimony existed between the two sides to force the situation to this point. There will be a whole lot of regrets both ways when the Packers and Jets both miss the playoffs.

-- Manny Ramirez and his agent, scumbag Scott Boras, are being investigated by Major League Baseball on charges that they colluded to force a trade from the Boston Red Sox, voiding the two options years on Ramirez's contract and making him a free agent at season's end. Let's review the situation -- 1) Boras would have received no compensation on either one of Ramirez's $20 million options. 2) Boras gets to negotiate with all 32 teams and attempt to rob them blind like he did to Los Angeles in the Andruw Jones negotiations (two years, $36.2 million for a guy hitting .161 this year). 3) Ramirez, who complained of knee problems and sat out a pair of games against hard-throwing righthanders during his final days in Boston, is hitting .565 so far with the Dodgers. 4) Ramirez, who railed against Red Sox ownership, shoved down a traveling secretary and fought Kevin Youkilis in the Boston dugout, is acting like a saint so far in Los Angeles, making nice with Joe Torre and his new teammates. Yeah, Ramirez and Boras didn't do anything wrong...riiggghhhht. (Wink, wink).

Mike McCarthy had the look of a man on his way to the gallows as he conducted his press conference Tuesday night in Green Bay.
The Packers' head coach had to tell the assembled media, frothing at the mouth in search of fresh news on the Brett Favre soap opera, that No. 4 was on his way out of town for good. So started the end of The Favre Era in Green Bay, and the beginning of the end of The McCarthy Era as well.
No head coach in the National Football League escapes without being fired. Even the greatest men to ever roam the sidelines, men who will be enshrined in the league's Hall of Fame, have been handed a pink slip in the past. Bill Belichick, the current resident genius in New England? Fired by the Cleveland Browns after the 1995 season. Mike Shanahan, Denver's offensive mastermind? Fired by the Los Angeles (now Oakland) Raiders in 1989 after just 20 games and an 8-12 record. Jon Gruden, the fiery boss of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and former Super Bowl champion? He left the Raiders to coach in Tampa and was under pressure late last season before being granted a contract extension until 2011. Another 4-12 season like the Bucs endured in 2006 would give Gruden a hard shove toward the door, if not straight out onto the street. Bill Parcells wasn't fired, but he had nasty divorces with New England and Dallas before moving into the front office. Joe Gibbs wasn't canned during his second tour in Washington only because of his prior good deeds -- three Super Bowl wins and a bust in Canton build up plenty of good will. Mike Holmgren's eight-year contract that he signed when he moved from Green Bay to Seattle in 1998 might have been the only thing that saved him after mediocre seasons from 1999-2002, a four-year stretch in which he went 31-33 and made the playoffs just once. The prospect of the Seahawks eating the final four years of Holmgren's deal likely saved his bacon.
McCarthy is caught in a tug-of-war between the man that hired him, Packers general manager Ted Thompson, and the players in his own locker room. Green Bay decided to hand the starting quarterback job to Aaron Rodgers when Favre retired in March, a move that never would have been made if Favre didn't walk away from a team came within a couple plays of a Super Bowl appearance last season. Rodgers, a first-round pick by Thompson in 2005, has never taken a meaningful snap in a regular season or postseason game in Green Bay, but the Packers kept Rodgers in charge despite Favre's announced intention to return to the franchise. Favre will be traded in the coming days and Rodgers will deal with the chants of "We want Favre" and "Bring back Brett" throughout the season, not exactly the best way to settle into a job.
Green Bay's veterans will say all the right things before the season starts, talking about how Rodgers is their quarterback now and they're going to move forward. It's rubbish, and McCarthy will be left to pick up the pieces of a divided locker room if Rodgers struggles. Proven Packers like starting corners Al Harris and Charles Woodson, starting offensive tackles Chad Clifton and Mark Tauscher, wide receiver Donald Driver and defensive end Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila have all been in the NFL to know one of the league's hard truths -- young quarterbacks rarely win games. Tom Brady is the lone exception, helping to drive New England to a Super Bowl title in 2001 after Drew Bledsoe was injured in Week 2.
Peyton Manning? No. The Indianapolis Colts were horrible during his first few years in the league and Manning threw as many interceptions as he did touchdowns his first full season. Carson Palmer? Cincinnati is still waiting for the playoff success that was robbed from the club when Palmer injured his left knee against Pittsburgh. Ben Roethlisberger? The image of him chasing Rodney Harrison after a crushing interception while the Steelers choked away another home AFC Championship Game still brings a smile to my face. Tony Romo? Still waiting on his first playoff victory.
McCarthy must hope that Rodgers does his best Brady impression, or they'll both be on their way out of Green Bay. Thompson handed McCarthy a contract extension through 2012 after his 13-3 season in 2007, a strong show of faith, but McCarthy has to know that his club is likely to take a step back in 2008 and can't say so publicly -- it would be career suicide to second-guess a boss with an ax to grind against Favre. McCarthy had to endorse Rodgers and started the clock on his own tenure with the Packers in the process. Thompson can't look like the fool here and won't tolerate anything but more playoff appearances with Rodgers under center. Green Bay's veterans know this and it's McCarthy who'll be left with the locker room mutiny on his hands when his experienced players realize that their last best chance to win a title might have left town with Favre.