Maybe he can digitally alter the Giants' record

So Bill Neukom is the San Francisco Giants' new managing general partner. Interesting.

Press accounts have highlighted many of Neukom's impressive titles, including President of the American Bar Association (current) and General Counsel of Microsoft (former). They have by and large failed to note, however, the conduct of the litigation team that he led in the 1999 federal antitrust suit against his old corporation.

The following is not disputed: Neukom and the Microsoft defense presented a video that they claimed showed a few dudes making some modifications to Windows in the span of ten minutes or so--but that actually consisted of several videos, which had taken many hours to make, spliced together. David Boies figured this out, and, um, embarrassed a Microsoft executive on the stand. Neukom's quoted response at the time: "We make very good software, but we didn't make a very good videotape."

The presiding judge in the case, Thomas Penfield Jackson, was--in keeping with his approach to the bulk of the trial--mainly just confused. By contrast, Howard Shelanski, former chief economist to the FCC and UC Berkeley antitrust professor, has said of the episode: "I'd have thrown the whole legal team in prison."

Best case for the Giants: Neukom digitally alters Barry Zito's contract, thereby un-fucking-over the team for the next five to seven years.

Mystery Dutchman

This commercial playing on Fox Soccer Channel is one of the best sports ads that I've seen. Turns out it was directed by Guy Richie (with cameos by just about every Nike footballer/coach out there).



Imagine that the Big Swoosh will do its best to convince Mr. Madonna to do a reprise with some American sports.

Paying to Win

In the blood sport that is the democratic primary, where low blows and cheap shots are all part of the game, it would be naïve to think that there are actually any rules of fair play, but I was still a bit surprised this week to hear talk of Obama potentially agreeing to assume Hillary's campaign debt in exchange for her dropping out of the race. Paying off a competitor to throw the match just doesn't seem kosher. But then maybe it's all about context? Even in professional sports, the business of "incentivizing" behavior is not cut-and-dry. Black Sox type dealings are clearly verboten, but what about paying another team in your league to win?

There are many times at the end of seasons, where Team A, which has little to play for, comes up against Team B, which has everything in the world at stake. In these situations, is there anything wrong with Team C, which is battling with Team B for a playoff spot or a regular season championship, offering a bit of "encouragement" to Team A to fight as hard as they can?

In Spain’s La Liga, there was much talk at the close of last season that exactly such “incentivizing” was going on. The Catalan press first announced that Real Madrid had offered a hefty sum to Getafe players to beat Barcelona and to Zargoza players to beat Sevilla in order to secure the title for the Bernabeau faithful. Madrid journalists then shot back that Barcelona had offered Deportivo players money to beat Real Madrid. Adding fuel to the fire, the Real Madrid president, Ramon Calderon, announced on the radio that he “didn’t see any problem” with paying bonuses to other teams’ players, as long as it was for winning.

My personal feeling is that this kind of scheming should be left to the fantasy leagues and has no place on the soccer pitch, the basketball court, or anywhere else. That said, I’m not trying to win an election this fall. If I was, maybe I’d see things differently. Anyway, Senator McCain, if you're reading this post, I know you talk a good game about “ethics” and “campaign finance” but if you actually want the keys to the Oval Office come January, maybe you should think about getting into the Hillary bribery action. The fact is, the longer she’s in the race, the better it is for you. Why leave that to chance? The best part is she might actually say yes. After all, unlike Obama's deal, with you she gets to have her cake and eat it to: no more debt and the opportunity to stick around until the convention.

Who's Canadian Now? (or, the Absolution of Ron Hextall, part I)

As you are doubtless unaware, the Philadelphia Flyers recently defeated the Montreal Canadiens in the second round of the NHL playoffs. You are doubtless further unaware that this was the first playoff meeting between these two teams since 1989, when they met in the Wales Conference finals, with the Flyers losing in six games. That series ended in the melee shown above, when, with the Flyers down two goals in the final minutes of play, goalie Ron Hextall charged out of the net in order to kick the bejesus out of the Canadiens' Chris Chelios. Chelios had been targeted by the Flyers ever since game 1 of the series, when he had incapacitated Flyers forward Brian Propp with a blow to the temple that left Propp unconscious and bloodied on the ice (and for which Chelios failed to receive even a minor penalty, despite having had his elbow up). You can see that hit here (warning: not for the faint of heart).

As you can tell from the video above, the Philadelphia crowd went nuts with delight when Hextall went after Chelios. Between that incident, his various other brawls and slashings, and the multiple goals he scored during his career as a goalie, Hextall has achieved something like folk hero status in Philadelphia. So it's fitting that, in the first Philly-Montreal playoff series since then, the Flyers brought the hammer down hard on the Habs. Making things even more interesting is the fact that, though Hextall has long since retired, Chelios is not only still playing, but his team (Detroit) is still in the playoffs. So it's possible that, in addition to avenging their '89 loss to the Canadiens this year, the Flyers could meet the Red Wings in the Stanley Cup finals and have a chance to take down Chelios and finally free Ron Hextall's hockey spirit from hockey purgatory (which I think is not far from Nashville). Stay tuned (if you can find the games on TV, that is).

A final curiosity: the Flyers-Canadiens series this year received a particularly large amount of attention in Canada, because Montreal was the last Canadian team left in the playoffs. But as mentioned here, there are actually more Canadian Flyers than Canadian Canadiens this year.