Los’s Blog

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig is involved in high-level discussions regarding Tigers pitcher Armando Galaragga’s near-perfect game and whether anything can and should be done to reverse umpire Jim Joyce’s blown call that deprived Galarraga of immortality.

Selig will have a statement today, sources said, though it’s uncertain whether any ruling will be made today regarding the situation.

The early read is that it probably isn’t likely to reverse the call, but MLB powers are considering it.

Joyce’s admittedly blown call at first base cost Galarraga a perfect game in his 3-0 victory over the Indians last night.

The missed call has re-raised the issue of expanded instant replay, as well. Selig has in the past been against the expansion of instant replay.

The Penguins‘ loss to Montreal seems not to be slowing Sid the Kid. Crosby’s new deal with Reebok is said to be worth almost $10 million over the next seven years. Crosby’s agent, Pat Brisson, would not discuss the financial aspect of the deal and said it is not completed yet, “but things are going in the right direction.’ Sources say the deal is for between five and seven years and will pay him $1.4 million a season. That would make Crosby easily the highest-paid player ever in terms of endorsements.

The Hockey News

The Penguins‘ loss to Montreal seems not to be slowing Sid the Kid. Crosby’s new deal with Reebok is said to be worth almost $10 million over the next seven years. Crosby’s agent, Pat Brisson, would not discuss the financial aspect of the deal and said it is not completed yet, “but things are going in the right direction.’ Sources say the deal is for between five and seven years and will pay him $1.4 million a season. That would make Crosby easily the highest-paid player ever in terms of endorsements.

Sammy Sosa will not face a perjury investigation for his remarks to Congress about performance-enhancing drugs.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said Wednesday the panel has decided not to have the Justice Department look into whether Sosa lied at a March 2005 hearing, when the longtime slugger stated: “I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs.”

Last June, the chairman of the committee said he would look into the matter after Sosa’s name was reported to be on a list of baseball players who allegedly failed drug tests in 2003.

“After a review of the matter, we will not be taking any action,” committee spokeswoman Jenny Thalheimer Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg had no further comment, but the committee might have been influenced by a five-year statute of limitations in such perjury cases. Under that time limit, the deadline to press charges expired in March.

Sosa therefore avoids the type of perjury investigation currently surrounding Roger Clemens, who told Congress in 2008 that he had not used steroids or human growth hormone. Clemens’ testimony was contradicted by his former personal trainer, and a grand jury has been hearing evidence for more than a year as it decides whether to indict the seven-time Cy Young Award winner.

Sosa, who hit 609 home runs over 18 major league seasons, was part of one of the most infamous sports-related Congressional hearings on March 17, 2005, when he testified alongside Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco and Rafael Palmeiro.

“Everything I have heard about steroids and human growth hormones is that they are very bad for you, even lethal,” Sosa said in his prepared testimony that day. “I would never put anything dangerous like that in my body.”

“To be clear,” he added, “I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs. I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything. “

That’s the estimate of one Wall Street analyst, but things might not be that bad

AT&T (T) could lose 40% — or 6 million of its estimated 15 million iPhone customers — when and if Apple (AAPL) makes a model of its smartphone that runs on Verizon’s (VZ) cellular network, according to a note to clients issued Tuesday by Davenport & Company’ Drake Johnstone.

But several factors mitigate against a wholesale migration:

• Sticky plans. AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega told an audience at a J.P. Morgan event last week that 80% of his customers are on family-talk or business-discount plans, which are notoriously hard to unravel.
• Termination fees. Starting June 1, AT&T is raising its iPhone ETF (early termination fee) from $175 to $325 — a penalty that is reduced $10 every month of a two-year contract. That’s lower than Verizon’s $350 ETF, but it still means you pay $95 if you leave AT&T even just one month before the end of your contract.
• Improved service. Those dropped calls and sluggish downloads aren’t quite as bad as they were 12 months ago since AT&T has scrambled to beef up its wireless network in major U.S. cities. But the carrier is running out of time. Johnstone — like many analysts — believes Verizon will get the iPhone in 2011. There are rumors that it could happen a lot sooner than that.

The Supreme Court rejected the National Football League’s request for broad antitrust law protection Monday, saying that it must be considered 32 separate teams — not one big business — when selling branded items like jerseys and caps.

“Although NFL teams have common interests such as promoting the NFL brand, they are still separate, profit-maximizing entities, and their interests in licensing team trademarks are not necessarily aligned,” said the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for an unanimous court.

The high court reversed a lower court ruling throwing out an antitrust suit brought against the league by one of its former hat makers, who was upset that it lost its contract for making official NFL hats to Reebok International Ltd.

American Needle, Inc. sued, claiming the league violated antitrust law because all 32 teams worked together to freeze it out of the NFL-licensed hatmaking business and gave Reebok an exclusive 10-year license.

The company lost and appealed to the Supreme Court but the NFL did as well, hoping to get broader protection from antitrust lawsuits

Major League Baseball is the only professional sports league with broad antitrust protection. The National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, the NCAA, NASCAR, professional tennis and Major League Soccer supported the NFL in this case, hoping the high court would expand broad antitrust exemption to other sports.

But Stevens said NFL teams directly compete on many levels. Citing the two teams in this year’s Super Bowl, the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts, Stevens said that teams compete against each other “to attract fans, for gate receipts and for contracts with managerial and playing personnel.”

“Directly relevant to this case, the teams compete in the market for intellectual property,” Stevens said. “To a firm making hats, the Saints and the Colts are two potentially competing suppliers of valuable trademarks.”

American Needle was one of many companies that made NFL headgear until the league awarded an exclusive contract to Reebok. Lower courts threw out American Needle’s lawsuit, holding that nothing in antitrust law prohibits NFL teams from cooperating on apparel licensing so the league can compete against other forms of entertainment.

But the high court turned away that theory and sent American Needle’s antitrust lawsuit back to the lower court.

“Decisions by NFL teams to license their separately owned trademarks collectively and to only one vendor are decisions that ‘deprive the marketplace of independent centers of decisionmaking … and therefore of actual or potential competition,’ ” Stevens said.

Just because NFL teams have a single organization, the National Football League Properties, to jointly develop, license and market its logos does not mean it can escape antitrust scrutiny, Stevens said.

“If the fact that potential competitors shared in profits or losses from a venture meant that the venture was immune from” antitrust law, Stevens said, “then any cartel” could evade the antitrust law simply by creating a ‘joint venture’ to serve as the exclusive seller of their competing products.”

The argument that NFL teams also need each other to play an NFL season also doesn’t work, Stevens said. “A nut and a bolt can only operate together, but an agreement between nut and bolt manufacturers is still subject to” antitrust scrutiny, Stevens said.

The league argued that a court decision against it “would convert every league of separately owned clubs into a walking antitrust conspiracy” and bring legal challenges to any decisions that the teams make collectively like scheduling.

But Stevens disagreed.

“The fact that NFL teams share an interest in making the entire league successful and profitable, and that they must cooperate in the production and scheduling of games, provides a perfectly sensible justification for making a host of collective decisions,” he said.

The case is American Needle v. NFL, 08-661.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell sent a letter to 44 governors urging them to pass a law similar to one in Washington state that protects young athletes from concussions.

The NFL said in an e-mail Sunday that Goodell’s letter will be part of Dr. Richard Ellenbogen’s testimony at Rep. John Conyers’ forum on concussions in New York on Monday.

Ellenbogen treated Zackery Lystedt, the Washington youth who suffered a brain injury in 2006 after returning to a middle school football game following a concussion. His story prompted Washington to pass Lystedt’s Law, which keeps young athletes from returning to play too soon. Other states that adopted similar laws are Oregon, Connecticut, Virginia, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Ellenbogen and Dr. Hunt Batjer head the NFL’s new Head, Neck and Spine Committee.

“The Center for Disease Control estimates that there may be as many as 3.8 million sports and recreation-related concussions in the United States each year,” Goodell wrote. “These injuries are sustained by both boys and girls in numerous contact sports.

“Given our experience at the professional level, we believe a similar approach is appropriate when dealing with concussions in all youth sports. That is why the NFL and its clubs urge you to support legislation that would better protect your state’s young athletes by mandating a more formal and aggressive approach to treatment of concussions.”

The Lystedt law contains three essential elements:

• Athletes, parents and coaches must be educated about the dangers of concussions each year.

• If a young athlete is suspected of having a concussion, he/she must be removed from a game or practice and not be permitted to return to play.

• A licensed health care professional must clear the young athlete to return to play in the subsequent days or weeks.

“We would urge that similar legislation be adopted in your state,” Goodell added. “We believe that sports and political leaders can help raise awareness of these dangerous injuries and better ensure that they are treated in the proper and most effective way. Young athletes, as well as parents, coaches and school officials in your state, will thank you for taking a stand on this important issue.”

Brett Favre posted a short statement on his website on Friday night confirming he had arthroscopic ankle surgery, possibly clearing the way for the quarterback to return to the Minnesota Vikings next season.

Favre’s future has been up in the air since the Vikings lost to New Orleans in the NFC championship game. He had said he would need ankle surgery if he wanted to play in 2010, but there was no word Friday about his playing career.

“This is to confirm that I did have a procedure to remove some scar tissue and bone spurs from my ankle which had been bothering me for a period of time,” Favre said on his website. “I appreciate your concerns.”

ESPN.com reported Dr. James Andrews operated on Favre’s left ankle at the Andrews Institute in Gulf Breeze, Fla., on Friday morning.

Messages were left by The Associated Press seeking comment from Bus Cook, Favre’s agent. A Vikings spokesman declined comment when asked about the ESPN.com report.

Favre, who turns 41 in October, is coming off one of the best seasons of his storied career, throwing for 33 touchdowns and only seven interceptions while guiding the Vikings to a 12-4 record. He is under contract for $13 million next season if he plays.

The surgery came one day after Favre visited the Southern Mississippi baseball team in Hattiesburg, Miss., and told the Golden Eagles he would return for one more season in the NFL if they made it to the College World Series for the second consecutive year.

In one of the less shocking stories in sports history, Philadelphia Flyers fans trashed a car after Philly’s Sunday night thrashing of the Montreal Canadiens, presumably because it had Montreal plates. On any given gameday, it’s just another case of empty beer cans littered on the opposing team’s car. But since it’s Philadelphia, throw in a slashed tire, broken hubcap, stolen bug guard, vanished license plates, and the fact that it belongs to Montreal Gazettehockey writer Pat Hickey. Sacre bleu!

Hickey apparently missed the opportunity to park in the designated media lot, thus having to park in general population. His Quebecois license plates then became chum to a sea of sharks. The vandalism to Hickey’s 1999 Honda Accord (line forms to the left, ladies) has drawn a great deal of media attention in the wake of a post-game riot in Montreal when the Habs beat the Penguins. Hickey is using the vandalism to his car as a battle cry to sports fans: “GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU PUNKS!”

Rumors have been circulating over the Internet for days that NBA player Delonte West is having an affair with the Gloria James, the mother of his Cleveland Cavaliers teammate Lebron James.

News of the World reports that sources say that James recently discovered the relationship between his mother and West.

James is a legendary NBA player, being selected MVP two years in a row. Nonetheless, the rumors about his mom and West involved in a torrid romance are “eating away steadily” at his form on the court, according to Entertainment and Showbiz.

Reports indicate that West’s questionable past has fueled the rumor mill as well. For instance, in 2009, West was found carrying weapons in a guitar case when pulled over by police for a routine traffic stop.

Unlike West, James’ career and reputation has been virtually scandal-free, thus, some speculate the rumors, true or not, may force the NBA star to leave Cleveland over the matter and start fresh with another team in another area.