Oh my God you're kidding really I can't believe it I mean wow: McGwire used steroids

Well, over a decade after he made history, Mark McGwire has admitted that he used steroids.

For those of you too young to remember, McGwire broke the single season home run record in 1998, beating Sammy Sosa in a year long fight to the finish. It should be no surprise that McGwire cheated--the rumor mill has been saying so for ages.

Now McGwire has taken the first step to re-sanctifying baseball by telling the Associated Press that he used steroids over a 10 year period. He admitted that his record was tainted. But he's not the first to admit he used steroids.

What then, makes McGwire's admission the first step down the road back to what baseball should be? It's the little part about him setting a record while juiced. Other players cheated, but McGwire's home run record was arguably the first major feat that can be attributed to steroids. It was the inspiration for Barry Bonds to start juicing--and once again I suppose I must say "allegedly"--and was one of the key parts of the steroid era.

What makes McGwire's confession so important, is that he sets a precedent for other retired athletes to admit they juiced. This won't make people forget that he used steroids, but it will very likely lead people, present company included, to have a shred more respect for McGwire than we otherwise did.

I might even go so far as to allow him into the Hall of Fame with my hypothetical Hall of Fame vote. We'll have to see what the others think when the next round of voting happens.

Actually, the Hall of Fame issue is a big one. If McGwire is inducted, then the laundry list of players implicated in the steroid debacle have reason to come clean. If not, well, we're very likely back to square one.

Civil War Postgame thoughts

Well, that was an experience. Oregon lost the game to Oregon State, and there's nothing I can say to make that fact any less depressing. The Beavers lead the whole way. They deserve to win. Sure, the refs didn't help but as much as I think we'd all like to we can't blame a game on the refs (other than the 1972 Olympics debacle).

But, on the bright side, I did win Fan of the Game and. Oh, and seated at the VIP table right in front of me were University President Dr. Richard Lariviere, his wife, and a United States Senator(pictured). The US Senator, Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) was literally directly in front of me. He complimented my fanhood.

As a result of getting Fan of The Game, I won an AMP Energy shirt, a Mountain Dew hat, a Diet Mountain Dew shirt, and an AMP Energy hat. Oh, also, an advertisment card for Pepsi. I liked that. While everything else was a subliminal advertisement, Pepsi just handed me a card that said "Pepsi" on one side, and had their slogan on the other.

Oh, America! (but that's another post)

Oh, did I mention that the Fan of the Game promotion was sponsored by Amp Energy!

Duck out

Image courtesy Mr. Wyden's senatorial web page (www.wyden.senate.gov).
This is the first time we've posted a photo because we try and you know, follow the law. Most other blogs would link tons of photos from ESPN, but we don't own those photos. The photo of Senator Wyden is available on his website, specifically for uses like this.

End of an era

This Sunday will be the final Civil War basketball game played at historic Mcarthur Court in Eugene. For those of you who don't know, Oregon will move into the $200 million Mathew Knight Arena, named for Phil Knight's son.

As for the game itself, Oregon comes in on a six game win streak, including a road sweep of the Washington schools. Overall, the Ducks sit at 10-4 (2-0 conference). Those two conference victories equal the total number of Pac 10 wins for the Ducks a year ago, and the 10 wins overall are two more than Oregon had last year.

Oregon State on the other hand comes off it's worse defeat in school history, a 51 point loss to Seattle University--in Corvallis. The Beavers look for their first win at Mac Court since 1993.

If you're in town, tickets are still available for Sunday night's game for $40. Student tickets are sold out. Otherwise, FSN will televise the game, and Jerry Allen will have the radio call for the Oregon Sports Network.

Since this is a Civil War game, I will leave you with my Oregon-State-Joke-Of-The-Day.

Did you know that an OSU fan lost $100 betting on the Oregon-Arizona game? He bet $50 on the Wildcats in the first game and another $50 on them in ESPN’s “Instant Classic” replay.
-this was an entry in a "post your best Oregon State Joke" contest.

Fancier is not always better

I should tread lightly on this one, because ESPN is--if all goes according to plan--my future employer. That being said, they are not perfect.

ESPN is planning to unveil a 3D TV station network in 2010. We have officially reached the point where we know more about technology than we have a reason to know. Call me a purist, but I think that ESPN has no real business making a 3D station. No doubt I watch HDTV over a grainy black-and-white model, but there is a point where "improvement" and "innovation" go a bit too far.

For example, this sentence is boring.
Because this sentence us bold, it stands out more
this sentence looks really cool, and was probably one of the first things you noticed when you loaded the page, but it is a bit tedious to read such a long sentence while it's flashing
This sentence has way too much going on and is very hard to read

Bottom line is, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. 3D is amazing in movies. Take Avatar, for example.

Let's face it, Jim Tressel could have written that plot. It was stale, formulaic, and predictable. There were--and this is a true story--three or four times where I literally predictedverbatim what the next line was going to be.

But the movie was a superhit, because it was visually stunning. The masterful cinematography and use of technology made the movie amazing, even though the plot was--well not amazing.

But a World Cup match is not a fictitious war between 8 foot tall blue aliens and trigger-happy marines.

A World Cup match is reality. What is so captivating about watching professional sports is that it is real. It's actually happening. I don't need to see the ball flying out of my TV screen towards my face--I'm already equally captivated by the precision with which the ball was sent spinning just over the top of the wall and into the corner of the net.

Pro sports is not fiction. The Beautiful Game is beautiful because it leaves people speechless. Shown in 3D, it loses its grandeur because it is no longer reality.

You want to watch something in 3D, fine--but stay way from my sports or I'll start writing everything like this. And when we do video-podcasts, they will be shot with some obnoxious video affects--perhaps that photobooth affect that makes the image look like it's in a comic book?

(Civil) War for the Roses Preview

Duck will be on air with Keith Becker, aka The UO Sports Dude early this week to preview the 113th edition of the Civil War.

Ireland vs. France debacle raises questions

From everything I've read--there was no doubt about it. The Associated Press has used terms such as "clearly" and "obvious" to describe Henry's handball. As a journalism student, it is shocking to see a sentence like this in an AP article:

"In extra time, Henry twice handled the ball, then passed to William Gallas in the Irish penalty box for the deciding goal."

Normally, no matter how bad a call is, professional writers would say that Henry "appeared" to handle the ball-but that is not the case here.

So let's call it a missed call. What's FIFA to do with that information? Ireland is apparently calling for a replay, but is that really practical? The missed calls came in extra time--doesn't the old adage go that if you lose a game because of a missed call you didn't deserve to win anyway?

Besides, Ireland could have put the game away in regulation. Would a replay of the game even be justified? Imagine the hullabaloo if France won that game 3-0. The missed call would be largely forgotten, and soccer would be left vulnerable to have another situation happen again.

But then what if Ireland wins? A World Cup berth reversed? France would be outraged, and nobody wants the French outraged. In 2005, FIFA invalitaded the results of a World Cup qualifier between Uzbekistan and Bahrain--but the situation was entirely different as it was not a game that decided who qualified (neither team was in the World Cup).

It would seem then, that some kind of a rule change is in order. I've heard a few things tossed around. One suggestion has been to add an extra official behind each of the goals. Think back to the Zidane incident at the last World Cup. Had one of the linesmen not seen the headbutt, Zidane wouldn't have been sent off, so he'd have been able to take a penalty. This might have changed the outcome of a World Cup. So clearly, an extra pair of eyes can't hurt.

As with any missed call, replay has also been a suggestion, and it seems like it might be time--though it does pain me to say that. If ever there was a timeless sport, it is soccer, but how many more scenarios like this one are we going to need before we bite the bullet and implement replay.

Ducks vs ASU postgame

Forget about it
Homecoming. All black unis. The knowledge that Cal knocked off Arizona. There were plenty of things to take the Ducks' minds off of last week, and they all did. Oregon didn't look like they were stuck thinking about last week's loss to Stanford, and it showed as the took care of business against ASU.


Capitalize on opportunities
The Ducks had two field goals and a couple of questionable third down calls, but overall they did a good enough job to come away with the win.


Defense Defense Defense
The Duck defense looked nothing like the unit that game up 51 last week in the Bay Area. Coincidentally, Stanford's 34 point demolition of USC in Los Angeles made the Ducks nine point loss in Palo Alto seem, well, not as bad. And by the way. That best-rush-defense-in-the-Pac-10? USC had the best run defense in the conference until they came to Eugene. Anybody sensing a theme here?


Duck Out.