This Week's Sports Thoughts

BY SCOTT MORGANROTH

As the NFL and it's players work to end the lockout, I was amazed at the reaction by the players when the owners ratified the new labor deal 31-0 Thursday Night.

The words that stood out in my mind that the players were accusing the owners of doing are trying to pull a Fast One. They were being Bamboozled which means to trick or deceive. They were Hoodwinked which also means to trick, deceive or take in.

Was this a Power Play by the owners? I'd say it was their Final Offer. They know how far they're going to go. We have a battle featuring Millionaires VS Billionaires. If I were a betting man, and I'm not, I'll take the Owners/ Billionaires because they've got deeper pockets and the players know they need to pay their bills.

It's pretty obvious that as we draw near the pre-season and there is $200 Million plus on the line for each weekend lost that the owners aren't about the let this drag on any further. The players aren't getting any better offers. The offers only figure to get worse. That's why both sides are scrambling through the weekend to get a deal done.

When this deal does get done and the lockout ends, lets figure that for teams to fill their 90-man rosters, the activity is going to look like the New York Stock Exchange with the frantic pace of the teams signing their own free agents, in addition to the undrafted free agents as well as their draft choices. The newspapers will need extra pages and there will be longer stories online with a transaction a second.

As comical as this is, I'm looking forward to seeing the pace of these activities when it generally takes five months to do that must be done in just a few short days. We all know that the front offices and coaches have been preparing for this, now it will be interesting to see which team has done it's homework and does the best job.

I am amused at the premature reaction to the players on Twitter by the players comments. There should have been a gag order on the players but in this day and age, it's extremely easy to press The Send Button and just be amused by the many other comments they've said. No need to mention them now with a deal so close.

But I do know that both sides realize that if there are no contests on September 11, 2011 this will be a major Public Relations Disaster to the players, owners and the league to not have games on the 10th year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. To see these sides squabble overs billions of dollars will get no sympathy from anyone.

Thankfully, both sides are smart enough to realize that and there will be Pro Football soon. I can only hope that the injuries are minimal because of question marks of the players conditioning, but you can rest assure the teams will have extra doctors, strength conditioning coaches and trainers on staff this season to work through this.

In basketball, when I read in the Detroit News that Pistons guard Ben Gordon will be one of four players paid in the NBA lockout, I was wondering how all of this happened. As it turns out, all the clients of Raymond Brothers spread their salaries out of the 2010-11 NBA Season of 18 or 24 Months in case of cancellation of games. Many people figure that the NBA Lockout is expected to last the entire season.

The other three players who were smart and planned for this so they could pay their bills and not even consider playing in Europe are Memphis Grizzlies forward Zach Randolph (Michigan State), Dallas Mavericks forward Caron Butler and LA Clippers forward Al-Farouq Aminu.

Finally, the most colorful way to describe an Indy Car came from a good friend of mine whose a realtor for Tauriello Real Estate in Delray Beach, Florida. Shane P. Barta described Indy Cars as a Space Ship where you shift with your fingers and NASCAR Stock Cars as normal. With a stock car, you'd shift regularly.

I do agree with Barta because the general public does view the stock car as their own car with the the same body style but just going speeds at greater than 150 MPH. The Indy Car does look like a Space Ship and actually reminds me of a hydroplane on water, just the pavement version.

Regardless, in any of these machines, I'll guarantee one thing, the adrenaline rush has to to be incredible and if I had the chance to get in all three, I'd do it in a second!

Scott Morganroth can be reached at scottsports33@aol.com and his blog can be seen at www.scottsports33.com.