Enough of the Basketball Already! What If Major League Baseball continued to look away?

In 1998, 2 men single-handedly brought extreme popularity back to baseball. The Major Leagues were losing in their struggle against the NFL in popularity and were even in jeopardy of falling behind the NBA. That's when two brave men went on to have one of the most epic battles in sports history. Mark Mcgwire and Sammy Sosa, from the St.Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs respectively, made history. They started a campaign of monstrous homeruns that brought the baseball world to its feet. Night after night baseball fans across the country cheered on these two goliaths as they jacked baseballs out of the park like they were tennis balls and now these 2 men that brought so much joy during those seasons have been scrutinized and slammed for taking steroids and human growth hormones that apparently "loaded" their stats. Besides the fact that I don't agree with all of this scrutiny, which is a topic for blogging all in itself, I ponder the question, what if Major League Baseball never did anything about steroids and continued to turn the other cheek?

Would their be any question at all whether Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa, Mark Mcgwire or Barry Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame. They would all of been first ballot HoFer's without hesitation before the steroid allegations.(It's also important to remember that at the time the substances were not illegal,but thats besides the point as well...) The case for Bonds being the greatest player to ever play game would also be hard to ever oppose.

What would baseball be looking like right now, a professional sport ravaged and tainted by drug use? Or is that not what it already is? When Sosa and Mcgwire were cranking dingers left and right, where were these allegations? It seems the human way though, to cheer for heros when we need them, then immediately jump on any flaws they may have when we're done with them. Sadly we won't know what would have happened if we just looked the other direction, now congress has made it a big deal, the MLB has made it a bigger deal, but its not going anywhere, athletes will always try to make themselves better by whatever means necessary and if asked to vote today, I would vote in Sosa, Mcgwire, Bonds and Palmeiro. Especially Sosa and Mcgwire, I was one of the young baseball fans screaming out " Go Slammin' Sammy" and I still cheer for that man today. We're all human, and maybe just maybe if congress worried about more important things we'd all be better off.

Thank You Danny Ainge...

It's June 2007, the Boston Celtics just completed a horrid season with a record of 24-58. This gives them the second worst record in the NBA and a great chance at getting either the number one or two pick in the draft. Celtics fans are in desperate need of another superstar to make Paul Pierce stay and with both of the top 2 picks looking like sure-fire studs, Celtics Nation gets excited once again, but then the unimaginable happens, though the Celtics had a great probability of getting a high pick, the odds go against them and they end up with the number 5 pick... once again the curse of Len Bias strikes, thrusting a dagger into the hearts of those who bleed green. This 5th pick could not do anything to immediately help the drowning franchise and Paul Pierce would have surely wanted out. At this point though Danny Ainge made a bunch of moves that sent Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to Boston and led to the creation of an instant powerhouse. 66 wins later the Celtics win banner 17 and order is restored in the NBA.

But what if everything went like it was expected too? Finishing with the second worst record in the league, usually gets you the 2nd pick in the draft. For the Celtics this would have been Kevin Durant out of the University of Texas. The lineup hypothetically would have looked like this: West,Durant,Pierce,Jefferson,Perkins. Which on paper isn't really all that bad. Durant ends up being a 20 point scorer and takes some of the load off of Pierce and Jefferson is able to come into his own after averaging a double-double all of last season. Though this team would not have been an immediate contender the potential would have been incredible. This team could have very well finished with 41-50 wins and made the playoffs.

Where would this have left the rest of the league? Well at the time of the draft, Kevin Garnett was likely going to be moved to another Western conference team and it was looking like he would go to either LA or Phoenix. Due to Kobe Bryant's intense requests, LA likely would have been the most probable spot and Garnett and Bryant would be teammates instead of Gasol and Bryant. This combination would have undoubtedly put the Lakers in position for a 15th championship and LA would have had a dynamic duo for several years to come.

Poor Ray Allen would've just been in Oklahoma City rotting away as another all-time great, without a ring...

Isn't it wonderful how things worked out instead?

Jordan, Kukoc, Harper, Longley, Kemp?? The Trade That Could Have Been...

In 1994 the NBA looked very strange. The game had lost a very familiar face in superstar Michael Jordan and this meant one thing for the rest of the league, time for a new champion. The Chicago Bulls had won the last three championships and before "Air" Jordan's retirement they looked fully capable of continuing their winning ways throughout the greater part of the decade.

Jordan did retire though and the Bulls would become ordinary. They still had some very good players, but they were unsure if the pieces would be able to lead to another championship without Jordan as the anchor.

A trade was proposed during the off-season of 1994. A trade that would have dramatically changed the way the Bulls played and could have severly affected their chances of winning the 3 more championships from 96'-98' when Jordan came back. The Seattle Supersonics were looking to add a superstar and at the time were having some contractual issues with their own star so a possible swap was in order. The Supersonics wanted to trade Shawn Kemp for Scottie Pippen. The deal was done in principle, but the Seattle General Manager backed out at the last moment.

If this deal had gone through, things would have been extremely different for the Bulls when Jordan came back. Pippen, one of the NBA's fifty greatest players, might have been the piece that pushed Seattle over the edge. Considering Seattle did make the NBA finals in 1996, though they did lose to the Bulls. How far would the Bulls have gone without the Pippen and Jordan combo. 72 wins would have been highly unlikely. Kemp was a good player in his prime, but was never the player Scottie Pippen was. That being said, Toni Kukoc would have become a starter instead of the 6th man and the lineup of Harper,Jordan,Kukoc, Kemp and Longley would have been very high scoring.

The concept of Pippen not with the Bulls is unfathomable and Shawn Kemp playing alongside Jordan would have been very interesting. Obviously this deal could have changed a lot in both franchises futures, but luckily it never went through and the Bulls went on the have the greatest season in NBA history

The Greatest Athlete Ever? What Could Have Been for Bo Jackson...

In order to be a professional athlete it takes work, dedication and an extraordinary amount of talent. You must be willing to give every ounce of strength in order to excel and push your body to the next tier of performance. It takes relentless hours of practicing that one sport and becoming a master of it. In one very interesting and particular case, one man mastered two sports in a way that no one else has ever done. His name was Bo Jackson, and he was one of the most gifted athletes to ever step on a baseball field or a football field. You may ask yourself, why a person that incredible is not as well known as he should be and the sad answer is...injury.

His credentials before his career altering injury, A Heisman Trophy, a Pro Bowl Selection and an MLB All-Star Selection. He was selected as the first overall pick in the 1986 NFL Draft and drafted by the Kansas City Royals in the fourth round of the MLB amateur draft. He holds the record for most yards recorded during a Monday Night Football game with 221 in 1987 and was the MLB All-Star game MVP in 1989.

During his best year as an NFL player he rushed for 698 yards on 125 carries averaging an incredible 5.6 yards per carry in only 10 games and as a backup.

During his best year as a MLB player he finished 1oth in the MVP voting and hit 32 homeruns with 105 RBIs and 26 stolen bases. He was 26 and wasn't even being as utilized as much as he could have been due to his dueling careers.

Now hypothetically, taking an in-depth look at Bo Jackson before the injury that ended his career in 1990 as a football player and 1993 as a baseball player I have come up with a view on what could have been. In the NFL he was just beginning to bloom as a star, he was taken down in the prime of his career and was averaging over 5 yards per carry, just to put that in perspective a little, Barry Sanders averaged 5.0 and Emmit Smith, 4.2. If he had just stayed on pace with his minimalist numbers he could have reached 14,000 yards very easily, but based on his style of play it would have been much more likely for him to have reached 16,000. Ending his career with total like that, would have made him a Hall of Fame player without a doubt.

In the Major Leagues he was not known for his batting average, but for his speed and power. He wasn't utilized in the ways he could have been due to his two-sport career, but he was on pace for Hall of Famer numbers as a baseball player too! Before his injury he was averaging 33 homeruns and 100 RBIs per 162 games. Of course this is all hypothetical, but a career like that would have led to about 400+ homeruns, 400+ steals and about 1350 RBIs. And that would have been only as a part-timer considering he never played more than 125 games.

All in all it’s a tragedy that one of the greatest athletes to ever participate in professional sports was never able to complete the career that could have been the most incredible thing any one had ever seen. Unimaginable things happen, leading us to only ponder... what could have been for Mr. Bo Jackson.