Singletary's Rant

San Francisco 49er's coach Mike Singletary's reaction to a Yahoo report in which an anonymous source is critical of offensive coordinator, Jimmy Raye, is reminiscent of Mark McGwire's response to Congressional questioning regarding his use of steroids. On last night's KPIX news Singletary goes on a rant about how he wants to move on and not talk about these issues. Singletary is angry that someone on the team is leaking information and that it is not true anyway. The source claims that Raye has trouble calling plays and communicating the plays that he does call. Since McGwire comes to mind I have to consider that Singletary has ulterior motives in his rant. I think that Singletary may be the source of the leak or it is at his direction. This way he puts the blame for the team's problems on Raye and deflects it from himself. Maybe his job is on the line and he is trying to shape public opinion ahead of what 49er management might decide. This is only football and the consequences to our society are minimal, but this is how politics and the economy work. Washington leaks are a time honored method of altering and forming public opinion. The sports fan who pays attention to nothing else should take note. This may be an example of how your lives are being run by those in power.

Oakland Athletics and Injuries

The Oakland Athletics have been plagued with injuries for the past several years. I have had an intuitive sense that this is the case. It seems as though they have more players suffering injury than in the past. I have not been able to find historical data yet, but I was able to peruse the MLB.com injury (not disabled ) list for May 3. The A's lead all of baseball for players on this list. They have 11 on the list and the average for all teams is 4.2, with a standard deviation of 2.38. This puts Oakland at almost 3 standard deviations from the mean. I am trying to learn how to use my spreadsheet, so this is why I derived these figures.

Why are the Athletics so oft injured? Several reasons come to mind. They have signed some older players for cheap because they are returning from injury, too much head first sliding and poor conditioning. The older players I can see as they may be worth a shot. Coco Crisp is out with a broken finger from sliding. I think players would do better to slide the old fashioned way and minimize the threat to their hands, although Rickey Henderson knew how to slide this way and was not hurt too often. Sometimes, I see these fools trying a headfirst slide into home with the catcher blocking the plate. They are an injury waiting to happen. Conditioning is the main culprit. In the old days, players got and stayed in condition by throwing and running. Today, the emphasis is on other activities, like weight lifting and riding the stationary bike. I suspect they are still using as yet unknown steroids. A high school coach told our team not to lift weights because it makes one too tight. Maybe some weight lifting is OK, but I think the Athletics need to get back to the old school and keep their team healthy.