1. Ryder Cup
The Ryder Cup is undoubtedly the biggest event in world golf. The United States v Europe brings out extreme competition, nationalism, and fabulous golf. As the event has grown immensely during the past few years, I would enjoy making some comments regarding the players, course, scoring, fans, teams, and coverage. 
A) Players/Teams: 
Europe has chosen its players well. Despite the LIV Tour, the Europeans always choose many players not household names; but become famous with their play in the Ryder Cup. Tyrell Hatton despite being a multi-year blow torch for years on European play brought some competitive spirit into the European Camp. Hatton’s demeanor for many matches borders on unsportsmanlike conduct. The Ryder Cup play demands a feisty spirit to inspire your team. The American team did not have that same competitive spirit. Americans were quite good; but silent during crunch time (first day). George Custer stood a better chance than the Americans on opening day. Leaving Bruce Koepke, Patrick Reed, and yes – even Keegan Bradley off the team made no sense. We are in this to win; not tie or put on a show. Enough. 
B) Difficult Course:  
The NYC course Bethpage had rough close to Augusta National. At times players were rewarded for landing in the rough because the ball repeatedly stood up with a nice lie. Wedges into the 18th hole? When did golf design change from a long iron on the last hole to a par being a failure? I understand it is the same for both teams; but balls sprayed still ended up being pars due to the short length of the 18th hole. 
C) Scoring: 
The match play setup (real golf) is second to none. There is a total of 28 points. Fourteen points by the previous winner secures the Ryder Cup. Thus, in all sports comparably by if you tie, then you win if you won during the last competition. Golf matches, football and basketball games, ping pong, hockey, baseball, and virtually all sports excepting soccer declare a winner. This is a totally dumb Ryder Cup rule. The tied matches keep going with sudden death (first to score lower on a hole) on all days. There is no half points awarded for any matches.  An extra singles match on Sunday is added for 29 points; therefore, we will have a clearcut winner.  The answer is a playoff on Sunday (all players that receive a half point upon a tie should playoff until a disparity in score occurs (1-up). Please remove the half point Europe received for an injured player. If a soccer goalie, QB, starting basketball center, or hockey forward is injured, the teams play: “next man up.” Who engineered this rule…. because fake injuries occur. 
D) Fans: 
NYC and elsewhere fans at Bethpage who are unsportsmanlike should be removed immediately (not warned). Spilling beer on Europeans’ player wives, shouting during backswings, and voluntarily distracting a player is immediate removal from the golf course. Bethpage waited until the last day. The US and Bethpage failed. 
D) Coverage: 
NBC did a marvelous job of analyzing the matches, players, and course. Many holes had simultaneous critical putts or shots that demanded great coverage. Television was better than being present at the matches. There was tremendous golf all 3 days. I did not want the Europeans to jump to a killer lead; but did enjoy their competitive play and spirit until Sunday. Keegan Bradley like all captains took the heat for the loss; but realize it is a crap shoot. Steve Stricker at Whistling Straits did not play politics; and won by playing the hot players. Bradley should have played; and being a captain after one chooses the matches for the next day is in stature/name only. A captain walks around the course with no real effect on play. Yes, Keegan Bradley could have been a player-coach – instead of walking around the course with a forlorn look knowing he should have been playing. Yes, Keegan Bradley as a great should have been the player coach for the Americans. Setting up teams and order of play is a few minutes of crap shoot – nothing more. Americans need to play well and get back into the Ryder Cup so they do not have to win virtually all the singles matches on Sunday for the Cup. Change the rules and strategy of Ryder Cup play. 

2. Pageantry of College Football / College Draft
Pageantry is defined by Webster as an elaborate display or ceremony. College football with pep rallies, speeches, parades, bands, alumni clubs, expensive club seats, homecoming, media, and endless hype has morphed into a winners’ and losers’ industry at all levels (fortunately or unfortunately). There is no comparable sport; and although money, social and sports media hype every first down, the sport is exciting and unpredictable. Teams must play well to win. A caromed pass with a team in the Red Zone that is picked and run back is a startling 14 – point turnaround. This makes the sport (unpredictability).  Is there a parade, loud music, dance after the game, and alumni parking lot bragging rights? Yes, and that will never change. Oil barons will use tax write-offs to support 2nd place, a rivalry defeat, or a Bluebonnet Bowl win. Fall splendor, expensive tickets, visiting dorm and frat friends, beer, and an escape chance to act unruly for 3 hours will salvage my life. The pageantry began along the sidelines November 1869 at the Rutgers (sister school to Queens in England) field v Princeton. Why isn’t Rutgers or Princeton an Ohio State? 

Academics, money, culture, and priority matter. A slippage of any of these factors leads to a loss, hate mail, losing players and coaches, alums slamming their alma mater, and divorces. Despite the implicit American game contest of having winners, each contest has a loser. Adding those losses consecutively leads to clinical forlorn looks, melancholy, and CPR for the program. Somebody must lose (roughly 2000 NCAA games in FBS yearly = 1000 losses). Somebody bears the loss; and it is not divided equally (communism). Yet, they still play loudly “Eye in the Sky” by Alan Parsons at Nebraska games as the band and team enter the stadium. The players/coaches, band, and music provide hope of a win. We will risk a loss and a couple days of depression before acceptance of a football loss. Pageantry is part of every college football game – even if it begins with a sorority powder puff battle. 

The NCAA has divided college football into FBS (Football Bowl Series – 136 schools – like Alabama) and FCS (Football Championship Series – 129 schools - like Delaware). The playoff system began in lesser conferences and leagues; and has led to a FCS national championship on television (regional interest). The larger notorious schools with better athletes and more NIL money and now portal movement finally have arrived at a decent playoff system with 12 nationally ranked schools playing (4 with first round byes). I would go to 16 with no byes. FBS system of lesser prominent D1 schools have a playoff with 24 teams and 8 first round byes. Again, I would make that 32 schools with no byes. There is substantial interest in playoffs through all American sports. Culturally, Americans cannot have a European tie (soccer). 

Teams fight until 0400 (NHL playoffs) to declare a winner. The winners are a 24/7 program with tangential global nexuses of recruiting, gamesmanship, and real money behind the fading sacred NCAA. Since the 2.6-billion-dollar settlement to back-pay former NCAA athletes and awarding a 23 % gate to athletes, college sports (face it – pigskin and hoops) have gone de facto pro. We must never mind the set tradition of $300,000 cost of an NCAA athlete with meals/dorm/books/transportation/ monthly pay allotments/ coaches/trainers/media/stadiums/ tuition/ compliance. A student athlete footballer can obtain an engineering degree (may take 7 years) and acknowledge that his chances of the NFL are 3% (practice squad maybe). It goes on; schools like Creighton pay foreign athletes (no taxes or citizenship) with a free 6 - figure soccer ride; yet a lower socioeconomic student from Harlan, Iowa must mount 6-figure college debt and play intramurals (fair?). We must win for the school, alumni, and culture. 
Winning is established as a cultural realm and goal surrounding the pageantry of college pigskin. Winning football is culturally engrained like hamburgers, stop signs, and birth control pills. Thus, as a kid riding my bike for a Fall football pickup game (tackle without pads or 2-hand touch), I entered Putnam Park. We had a half-filled football (Brady), no kicking tees, trees as out of bounds, and the goal line the neighbor’s fence. We played until the supper cowbell 3 blocks away sounded – because leaving 3 players on a football team led to a marked imbalance of teams and darkness. Extra points were debated (no replay) as blood gushed from someone’s mouth. Scores were 38-37 and games were equal. Bystanders (girls) and occasionally parents received a game day pass for free. We started each contest by picking sides with a designated captain (QB). That is why the games were competitive – acknowledging someone would lose – but it would be close because we “picked sides.” 

Segue into modern college football appears if we performed the preseason lineups in Brodhead, Wisconsin as college teams’ structure modernly, one of our teams in Brodhead, Wisconsin would receive 6 picks and then the second team maybe 2. The second round would have our Brodhead, Wi. youth team receiving 4 for the “good” team and one for the other team. No kid would have dealt with this disparity in talent without a real fight, walking away, or ridiculously taking on the challenge. This disparity is what is happening in college football. Nick Saban received multiple first round offensive linemen picks (ESPN player ratings) while the few remaining teams struggled with straggling yet motivated 3-star guys. Is this really a competitive game? College football has culturally cheered on these winning trouncing programs by saying just recruit better. Losers do not work and cry, so, do not admonish winners.  When Kevin Durant was a hot NBA commodity (still is). Durant said every NBA team has a chance to choose from the 4 billion males on earth – I am just one. True, but picking sides with NIL deals, aggressive alums, and death threats for .500 coaches is where college football (and hoops) has entered a new phase. Picking teams has become fierce, players change allegiances yearly, and money a affords a girl and a new car for a pigskin student athlete. These crushing teams that win weekly on weaker campuses say there is more competition in practice trying to escalate the depth chart. The pageantry still exists because nobody has protested the marching band into the stadium. Remembering that a 74 – 17 trouncing still has parking lot alums serotonin levels rising with craft beer, the crusade will never stop until we….
Demand a college draft. Big time college sports are now pro – just another real football league. College football is disguised because it is on campus like a frat game on the quadrangle (teams are generally equal, coeds watch and cheer, and competitive games and heroes erupt yearly). Down the street in a packed 100,000 seat stadium is a disparity in talent. Bach v a college frosh music student (who wins?). Bill Gates v a startup IT researcher (who wins?). A Heisman 5-star QB junior waiting for the NFL draft v a D 3 transfer 2nd string QB (who wins?). Life is not fair. I did not know until I hit college that players outside of a state could play on a different state team. I thought Iowa was all Iowa guys. Now players are global on college pigskin teams. Money, alums, popular winning coaches, and culture bring the best talent to a team. Is this fair? Undoubtedly no. The push to win had the University of Michigan filming and playing Halloween with like team garb stealing sideline signals for years (fair?). Yet Michigan with a head coach on the sidelines for 1/3 of its games won an NCAA championship (me with an asterisk). Settling the dust and moving on in the spirit of competitiveness and fairness, I propose a draft every year on New Years Eve. We do 500 players, no swaps, and even the score. Teams have one minute between player picks; and if they do not pick, the next best player by ratings is assigned their team. Let us end this imbalance in college football forever. Solution College Draft Day!  Let us pick teams fairly as we did as kids at Putnam Park in Brodhead, Wisconsin. 

3. 2025 World Series
The 2025 World Series between the Toronto Bluejays and Los Angeles Dodgers was one of the greatest baseball series of all time. Our national pastime was self-evident with repeated great batting and fielding plays by both teams. It appeared most of the fans were cheering for Toronto as a victim in a David-Goliath matchup. The Dodgers payroll is at $.5 Billion per year and growing. The key was not money; but recruiting by the Dodger scouts – bringing Sasaki, Ohtani, and Yamamoto to MLB from Japan. It was not money that won the Series for the Dodgers in the final # 7 game by a score of 5-4. The play with the best players on the planet produced the win. I also felt the managerial decisions were up and down for both teams. Granted, Milwaukee had the best record and could not hit v the Dodgers. Toronto was blunted by inept hitting in key moments. The Dodgers were fortunate in Game 6 when the baseball was trapped between the centerfield tarp and ground (ground rule double). The Dodger fielder rightfully did not pick up the ball because he knew the rules of baseball (ball losing its natural trajectory is a ground rule double (scoring runner back to 3rd base) and a loss results. The groundcrew and Toronto administration should have known the issues before the season started; and realized it may by a .5 chance it would affect their team. Toronto in part lost the World Series because a ground crew allowed a baseball to be wedged under the center field tarp. 

Game 7 was a thriller back and forth when the Dodgers tied the game late. Toronto had miscued on multiple chances to extend their lead. Los Angeles Will Smith’s go-ahead homer in the 11th inning led to a dramatic ending on the bases for the Bluejays in the bottom of the 11th inning. One out with players on first and 3rd base; LA ended the game with a double play. I felt a stealing 2nd base attempt and a delayed home steal was in order. Risking a double play with an average batter at the plate and ending the World Series with a double play was real. Toronto needed to do an act of bravery – even if Guerrera was on third. Perhaps a speedy pinch runner on third base was needed to extend the game. A similar situation occurred in the 9th inning; and Toronto made no managerial move to steal 2nd and have the runner on third base steal once the catcher throws the ball to 2nd base. Sorry, you need to try as a manager with calculated risks to win games. Batters at the plate hitting .250 leaves a void in strategy. Odds of that batter producing a key hit are low. 

I watched all the games and lacking were steals, bunts, pinch runners in key situations, and proper managerial decisions. Most managerial decision ultimately are endless pitching changes. Monday morning QBs like myself do not know the team regarding speed, skills, and game plan. There were some excellent textbook double plays from 3rd base periodically. Pitching from Toronto was weaker than LA excepting rookie Trey Yesavage in Game 5 (12 strikeouts). The bottom line for the World Series and baseball is that for purists the series was excellent (a 10). Casual end of the season fans saw great baseball with tight moments at the ends of many Series games. Baseball grew up in part with a bat and ball in 1744 in England. There were years of like games on the East Coast for many years when baseball was codified in 1845 by Alexander Cartwright for the NY Knickerbockers. A century went by with little sports competition; and now baseball progressively through the years competes with endless sports for fans and dollars. Growing up playing baseball with a Chicago Cubs utility infielder daily instructor in small town Wisconsin, gives me hope after watching this series that baseball still matters. Teachers bringing in a Black and White television to the classroom during the daytime World Series no longer exists. In my mind, however, the sport of baseball is still the national pastime. 

4. American Football Rule Changes – Defensive Pass Interference and QB stuff
Since the controversial 2018 NFC Championship game decided by a “no-call” defensive pass interference (PI), the United States at all levels of football from Pop Warner to the NFL has been besieged by controversy. Placing aside offensive PI, defensive PI is under the NFL rule in Section 5 of the Rule Book: 
SECTION 5 - PASS INTERFERENCE 
ARTICLE 1. DEFINITION
It is pass interference by either team when any act by a player more than one yard beyond the line of scrimmage significantly hinders an eligible player’s opportunity to catch the ball. Pass interference can only occur when a forward pass is thrown from behind the line of scrimmage, regardless of whether the pass is legal or illegal, or whether it crosses the line. When the ball is in the air, eligible offensive and defensive receivers have the same right to the path of the ball and are subject to the same restrictions.

Defensive Pass Interference is NOT reviewable in any league; and the rules have minor variations from Pop Warner to the pro leagues. I firmly believe the rule should be standardized across all American Football. Here are my thoughts on Defensive Pass Interference (PI):
 
1) Never bring replay into PI (still controversial; but let us simplify/get it right); I would remove replay from all leagues in all of football. PI is like grounding – you know it when you see it. 

2) All American football leagues have become a juggernaut of offense because American fans love scoring as opposed to soccer’s 1-0 score and soccer kicking a ball back and forth for 90 minutes with a gray added time based on clock stoppage. Soccer cannot compete with a diving draped player in the corner of the end zone securing a game winning pass (Nothing can compete for excitement and anxiety in a male’s life with that end zone pass catch except perhaps asking to marry). 

3) Defensive PI is contact by a player not playing the ball restricting the offensive player’s ability to catch a ball. Both offensive and defensive players have a right to catch the football while in air. Failure to turn around and play the ball as a defensive player (face guarding impediment (included), playing through the back of an opponent trying to make a play on the ball, grabbing an opponent’s arm restricting an offensive player’s ability to catch a pass, extending an arm across an offensive receiver disallowing the ability to catch a pass (arm bar), forcibly cutting the receiver’s path without playing the ball, and hooking an opponent before the ball arrives are clear unmistakable violations. Close calls are NOT called – only clearcut impediments (sorry, it is football – not golf where the ball’s trivial movement at address (except on putting green or on course looking for ball or by wind, etc.) is a stroke – another dumb rule).
 
4) There are up to 7 officials on the field; and the unwritten rule is that they each have “ponds.” A football official 50 yards away is technically incorrect in making a call in another official’s pond. However; a closer official may make the PI call or huddle and get it correct. Most of the time football officials get it correct; and when they do not, America lives with it. Replay does not resolve close calls – 10 - minute reviews magnify the problem and lead to cold suppers. 

5) Incidental contact on a pass route is unavoidable (like a boxing match). Illegal contact beyond 5 yards/holding/etc. are enforced before the ball is in the air. When the ball is in the air, the league CONSTITUTION PI RULE kicks in. Defensive PI becomes a focal point in winning or losing the game. Bets, playoffs, player and coaching contracts, fistfights in the stands, legacies, team ownership, and constructing stadiums are all dependent on PI calls. Remember the Saints fans filed a federal lawsuit against the NFL after the blown PI call in the 2018 NFC Championship game (deciding the outcome – Rams winning 26-23). In America, not a proper greeting can also lead to a suit. Rome fell because of this legal nonsense – we could fall over blown football calls. 

6) Defensive PI Penalty – despite a guilty gifted defensive athlete complaining, grimacing, or in a state of shock after the call, the penalty should be in all leagues (15 yards and a first down). There is no guarantee that the offensive players would have caught the football without PI – giving the offense 50 yards is wrong. Blatant PI that one sees in college when the defensive corner is beat by 3 steps and tackles the receiver to prevent a TD, should be where the foul occurred or the longer of 15 yards (akin to NBA “Clear Path” Rule – fouling when offensive player far ahead and a reaching foul occurs to prevent an easy layup – scored a basket). 

7) I love defensive football with tackling techniques, corners and safeties diving for passes without PI, blitzes, blocked kicks, interceptions, fumble recoveries, and avoidance of penalties (killing the game). The modern reality is that American Football offenses (within the arms race for QBs) have strong spinners of the ball now climbing to 600 yards or more of passing yardage in a single game. As a youth watching Packers games, 200 yards of passing was a ton. The competition from Pop Warner to the NFL is about finding flame throwers to win games and bets; and shut up wideout complaints. 

8) I watched the NFL combine last year and walked away with Drake Maye throwing darts 75 yards down the field – sports networks claiming he has an outside chance of being a “decent” NFL QB. This is what I term “Over Analysis.” This leads to incorrect analysis and sways fans/media/GMs/players/coaches. How wrong could they be! I was informing my patients at work as a doc after the combine that Maye should be the guy shooting the arrow threw the apple on top of the gut filled volunteer at the Wilhelm Tell Festival. 

9) Many great potential High School, College, and Pro QBs never get the chance to play and turn their career around. Aaron Rodgers playing endless 7x7, Curt Warner with NFL Europe, and Warren Moon playing in Canada are examples of guys who did NOT sit on benches endlessly while waiting their turn. High Schools, Colleges, and the NFL should have 7x7 flag on fields across the street instead of potentially great athletic QBs drooped on the bench with no sweat. Fans who cannot afford a ticket may see a great game and a QB blossoming because they are playing – and finding out if they can play. Enough. 

Chrmd