Maddux Sports Blog

It is not a good time to be a referee. Or at least a bad referee. We have seen bad calls happen at at least the same rate as usual, but league’s are doing something about it. First, the SEC announced this week that  they have suspended the crew that made the bone-headed mystery calls against Arkansas in the Florida game. Now, MLB has changed their policy for selecting the World Series umpire crew. Typically they include at least one ump making his World Series debut so that they can add to the total of experienced World Series umps in the league. The large number of very poor calls in the playoffs so far, though, has forced them to get nervous about the situation and attempt to ensure the best refereeing they can get. To do that they are reportedly going to establish a crew made up mostly of crew chiefs, and entirely of veteran, experienced umpires. That won’t mean that there won’t be problems, but it is nice to see the league take things seriously and try to do something about it – at least until they can get a workable instant replay system in place.

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It is not a good time to be a referee. Or at least a bad referee. We have seen bad calls happen at at least the same rate as usual, but league’s are doing something about it. First, the SEC announced this week that  they have suspended the crew that made the bone-headed mystery calls against Arkansas in the Florida game. Now, MLB has changed their policy for selecting the World Series umpire crew. Typically they include at least one ump making his World Series debut so that they can add to the total of experienced World Series umps in the league. The large number of very poor calls in the playoffs so far, though, has forced them to get nervous about the situation and attempt to ensure the best refereeing they can get. To do that they are reportedly going to establish a crew made up mostly of crew chiefs, and entirely of veteran, experienced umpires. That won’t mean that there won’t be problems, but it is nice to see the league take things seriously and try to do something about it – at least until they can get a workable instant replay system in place.

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1. The Toronto Maple Leafs are a truly awful team right now. Incomprehensibly bad. Like Oakland Raiders bad. They are theoretically rebuilding, but the signs of progress are slim right now. Their top two goalies are hurt, most of their offense is either hurt or benched, and coach Ron Wilson seems to have a tenuous grasp on the team. Incredibly ugly.

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That was a crazy game to end a crazy sporting Monday. There is, like the first game, a whole lot to digest in that one. Here are a few of those things:

1. Oakland played very straight forward defense, but it was shockingly effective for much of the game – The Chargers are supposed to be a world class offense, but Oakland thoroughly outplayed them, and they did it without doing anything fancy. The defensive scheme really just looked like a basic preseason package, but they played it with intensity and burning desire, and San Diego couldn’t manage to overcome it to nearly the extent that they should have. Part of what helped the Raiders was Richard Seymour. He might not be happy to be in Oakland, but you’d never guess it by the way he played. He was a beast. The exception to that defensive strength, of course, was on the last drive when the Raiders played a tentative, pathetic prevent package when they badly needed to hold the Chargers.

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The sports world is always good at producing news that makes you go ‘huh?!?’. There is lots to choose from that fits into that category today:

- Jay Cutler has spent a fairly long interview finding all sorts of ways to tell the world how much be respects Josh McDaniel. Among the head scratching quotes: “Just the brief amount of time I was able to spend with him, he’s impressive. He knows a lot about offenses, he knows a lot about getting guys open and scoring points, as everyone’s seen when he was in New England”. Remind me again why Cutler fought so hard and like such a baby to get away from the team? By the sounds of that quote t sounds like the right thing to do would have been to suck it up and be a part of things there. It’s not like he landed in a significantly better place offensively in Chicago. Bizarre.

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For the third time in three weeks the number one team has fallen. There is no shame for Duke in losing at Wake Forest, especially when it was so close, but I didn’t think it would happen. Wake Forest showed me more than I expected from them. The ACC is going to be very interesting to watch down the stretch. It now looks like UConn should get their shot at number one, barring any setbacks before Monday. I don’t like their chances of staying there long.

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