I Hate Tanking in Sports

     If I had to pick one idea in sports that I hate above all others, it very well might be tanking.  For the uninformed, tanking is when a sports team intentionally loses games, usually in an effort to receive a higher pick in the upcoming draft, but also on occasion to set up more favorable playoff matchups.  It's an epidemic that has spread across the sports world, already poisoning all four major North American sports leagues, but perhaps being most notable in the NFL and especially NBA.
     The reasons for the employment of the practice are pretty clear, and make a decent amount of sense.  If a team with very little chance of making the playoffs simply decides to lose all the games they play, then they can draft the next superstar and hopefully be a great team in a few years.  Many of sports' all time greats have been drafted early in the first round of their drafts, so why not take a chance to snag one?  Because it's not a morally right thing to do.
     I don't understand how any person could feel okay with tanking.  When losing becomes the objective of games instead of winning, then some purity is definitely taken out of the game.  I want sports where teams and players play with integrity, and actually have pride in themselves.  As a fan, I would be infuriated if my team decided to lose intentionally.  If my team is going to be horrible, I at least want them to try their hardest.  Any team that considers tanking in the first place is going to receive a high draft pick anyway.  Intentionally losing is giving up on a season.  It's quitting.  Any player that believes that's okay doesn't deserve to be playing sports professionally.  Where's the competitive spirit?
     It also completely ruins the fan experience for an entire year.  What's the point of watching your hometown team on TV, or getting tickets to see games live if you know that the team isn't actually planning on winning the game anyway?  They'd rather be the laughing stock of the league than actually playing their hearts out and giving a decent effort during the games.  Just the idea of that makes a game practically unwatchable.  It's cheating the fans and cheating the league.  It's boring, and it's poor sportsmanship.  It's almost sickening to think that a whole team could come together and just decide to give up.  But teams do it all the time.
     In the NBA, the draft order is dependent on the lottery system, where even the worst team in the league only has a 25% chance of receiving the #1 pick.  Why lose dozens of games just to earn a few percentage points?  In the long run the odds aren't substantially different.  And even if a team manages to get the #1 pick, the chances of that person becoming a star are definitely not 100%.  Just in the 21st century, there have been several busts from the #1 spot.  2007's top pick Greg Oden has had a notoriously horrible, injury-ridden career which has seen him play in only 114 career games, not even one and a half full seasons, and only average eight points per game.  Anthony Bennett, the Cavaliers' surprise top draft selection in 2013, has done just about nothing in his two league seasons, suffering from many problems including asthma, sleep apnea, and fitness issues.  He's been nothing more than a sub-par role player through two seasons.  Other #1 picks such as Kwame Brown and Michael Olowokandi have also been nothing short of underwhelming.
     The NFL especially suffers from one particular consequence of tanking.  In the NFL, the season is very short by the standards of other leagues, with each team playing just 16 games.  A tanking team is basically giving every other team in their division a free two wins, which can easily make all the difference between a team making and missing the playoffs.  If a mediocre team gets two free victories, they can easily go from being a 8-6 team in the middle of the wild card race to a 10-6 team which will likely make the playoffs.  The unfortunate fact is that their opponents in the wild card race don't get this two win advantage, and might not even play the tanking team once.  Giving away free victories could easily ruin the system, turning making the playoffs into a game of schedule luck instead of actually playing skill.
     There is a strategy that calls for making trades in order to accumulate draft picks, and I'm okay with that.  If you want to move a few pieces around to have more picks come Draft Day and more cap space in free agency, go right ahead.   No one's stopping you.  Just make sure you actually still give a decent effort to win.  The New York Knicks forgot about that last part this season.  By trading away nearly every decent player on the team besides Carmelo Anthony, the Knicks put up a blatant display of tanking.  Undrafted rookie Langston Galloway was signed to a 10-day contract in the middle of the season and within a week became a starter on the team, and held the position for over 40 games.  A straight-up walk on instantly became one of the best players on the Knicks.  This is how bad they were.  Undrafted rookie Travis Wear got solid minutes after being signed to a 10-day contract, and Lance Thomas also became a starter out of nowhere.  I'm convinced I would've had a decent chance at making the Knicks roster.
     It wasn't just the Knicks, however.  The year seemed like a huge losing contest between the Knicks, 76ers, Timberwolves, and Lakers, with the T-Wolves taking the crown at the end.  It was an absolute joke to see any of those teams play.  And they call themselves professionals?  Their whole mindset as teams were to be contestants in the Karl-Anthony Towns and Jahlil Okafor sweepstakes.
     That's a huge problem with tanking.  When star talents are being hyped so strongly, the emphasis of the entire sport can sometimes shift away from the actual good teams and onto the fight for last.  I remember the entire 2011 NFL season was referred to as the "Race for Luck".  Sometimes it seemed to take precedence over all other news in the sport.  It was interesting in a pathetic way to see who wanted to suck more.  Hey!  The Colts lost again!  Oh, but the Redskins really got crushed!  Don't count out the Browns!  They're on their third-string quarterback!  It's unbelievable.
     Tanking has even begun to plague non-professional sports, such as high school basketball.  Earlier this year a story came out about how two girls basketball teams were both eliminated from the playoffs after intentionally trying to lose to avoid playing the defending state champs.  The game included blatantly missed free throws, backcourt violations, and even players asking to be called for three seconds in the paint.  Now typically tanking teams at least make it look like their playing to win, and putting up a decent fight.  This was just taken to a whole new level.  A line is crossed when a team attempts to score in the other team's basket.
     How much of it is strategy?  In this situation, the actions kind of make sense.  I mean, in my fantasy football league there were talks about intentionally benching entire lineups just to get to play a team perceived as weaker.  It never actually happened, but you bet it was considered.  In the end, I think it's just unprofessional.  Coaches shouldn't advocate the strategy.  At the end of the season, their jobs are at stake.  Players should listen to the famous words of Herm Edwards when he said, "You play to win the game!"  It's shows a lack of heart and integrity to not try, and especially for people being paid to play, it's sickening, and fundamentally wrong.  I know no other way of describing it than just saying that it makes of mockery of the game.
     I think the worst example of all at showing how the idea of tanking is harming sports comes from a game between the Lakers and 76ers, two of the league's worst teams, from earlier this season.  The Lakers won the game in overtime off a last-second shot from one of the team's few bright spots, Jordan Clarkson.  And then the fans booed.  The situation had become so horrible that defeating a pathetic team was viewed as a missed opportunity to close the gap between fourth and third-worst team in the league.  The fans' actions, while understandable, are nothing short of sad.  The team won, and yet they couldn't please the fans too caught up with visions of the future to remember the actual purpose of playing and watching sports: competition and winning.
     So yes, while there is a decent argument that can be made for tanking to exist, I really hope we can find a way to prevent it.  Take soccer leagues like the Barclays Premier League, for example.  In the BPL, the three worst teams at the end of the season are relegated from the league, and are replaced by the three best teams from the league under it.  While a system like that in the NBA, for example, where D-League teams replace NBA teams is unrealistic, a change should be found in the future, for the love of the game.  After all, it shouldn't be this difficult to get teams to want to win.

Gripes with Sports Fans: Wishing for Injuries

     *Gripes with Sports Fans is a new weekly series where I discuss some of my biggest problems and pet peeves with sports fans, and attempt to explain why these issues are unreasonable or unacceptable.

     In game 4 of the NBA's Western Conference Finals on May 25, Warriors point guard and newly-chosen MVP Stephen Curry landed hard and awkwardly on his neck after attempting to block a shot from Trevor Ariza and flipping when Ariza pump faked when Curry wasn't expecting him to.  Curry lay head down on the court for several minutes after the freak accident, and later described the whole event as the scariest moment he'd ever experienced on the basketball court.  In a situation that could have resulted in severe injuries to Curry's neck, head, shoulder, elbow, or arm, the Baby-faced Assassin was lucky to escape with only a head contusion, and miraculously returned to the game after missing only a quarter of action, despite initial reports that he could have been out for the remainder of the series or longer.

     Curry's situation could easily have been much worse, and millions were relieved to see the sharpshooter returning to his old self almost immediately.  However, not all people who watched the game enjoyed seeing the return of Curry.

     In an appalling display which showed a severe lack of sportsmanship, many took to social media sites like Twitter to share their hopes that Curry's injury would prove too serious for him to continue playing, some even hoping for him to be out for the rest of the playoffs or longer.

     While Curry was down, the fans in the Toyota Center were very respectful of Curry and the situation, as were the majority of basketball fans.  Unfortunately, not everyone felt this way, and that is something that really bothers me.

     I would like to give some people the benefit of the doubt, that maybe their comments were premature and that they actually had not seen the play when they posted, or that somehow it was a joke in poor taste.  However, this cannot be true for everyone, as this kind of incident has happened many times before.

     One famous occurrence was on October 13, 2013, when Houston Texans fans cheered after the injury of their own starting quarterback Matt Schaub, then cheering even louder at the arrival of backup T.J. Yates.  This came during a notorious run of pick-sixes thrown by Schaub in the preceding weeks.  Sure, it was a rough patch for the veteran starter, but the fans seemed to forget that Schaub performed consistently well during his years starting for the team, even making two Pro-Bowls, including one the year prior.  But they were so pleased when Schaub had to be pulled and replaced by Yates, a third-year man who was less than stellar in his five career starts, all of which came two years before.  Yates proceeded to throw a pick-six, adding to Houston’s misery.  But that is not the point.

     Recently, there have been many players whose injuries have been cheered on.  They include but are not limited to the Calais Campbell, Matt Cassel, Johnny Manziel, LeBron James, Paul Pierce, Joakim Noah, and Sidney Crosby, all of which have heard cheers after their injury in the past couple years.  Philadelphia Eagles fans even cheered when Michael Irvin suffered a career-ending injury back in 1999.

     Sometimes fans are not the only ones happy when a player goes down.  In the New Orleans Saints’ infamous Bountygate scandal, bounties were placed on several players on opposing teams (most notably Brett Favre), and bonuses were offered for any Saint who could successfully knock that player out of the game.  The situation ended with numerous penalties, including year-long suspensions of both head coach Sean Payton and defensive coordinator Gregg Williams.

     Being happy when players are injured is a huge issue, and one that many people, including some of my friends, just do not seem to understand.  The reason why it is so difficult is simple.  If one’s team is playing, and the star player on the opposing team is hurt, the person’s team now has a much higher chance of winning the game, which is a great thing.  However, for this to happen, another human being has to be seriously hurt, which causes a moral dilemma.  Do we as fans view our athletes as the actual people they are, or as people living inside our televisions whose objective is to bring us pleasure?  The answer should be the first option, although the line is blurred for many.
     I remember clearly the game that took place between the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants on October 25, 2010.  The Giants went into Jerry World and won the game 41-35 on Monday Night Football.  However, during the game, the Giants' Michael Boley hit Tony Romo and suffered a broken clavicle, ending his season.  I was ecstatic.  This win gave the Giants a 5-2 record, a lead in the NFC East, and essentially took the Cowboys out of the division race.  It meant the Giants would have an easier time making the playoffs, and the Cowboys were sure to crumble.  Plus, I hated Tony Romo.  He was a Cowboy, and that was the only reason I needed to celebrate when I knew he was done.  As an 11 year-old, I couldn't see the bigger picture.  I was not old enough to understand that injuries transcend sports.
     When a little kid falls off his bike, or someone gets a pie to the face, we laugh.  It's called schadenfreude.  It's funny to see the misfortune of others, but only when it's something minor.  When someone actually is seriously hurt, it's another story.
     Most people just don't understand how hard it is to be an athlete.  Sure, it isn't on the level of physical labor like some blue-collar jobs, or involved as much thinking and analyzing and decision-making as many white-collar jobs, but it's very difficult nonetheless.  In a world where everyone is a commodity, athlete's "goods" take the form of their bodies.  That's what they have to provide.  If an athlete gets injured, they can no longer perform their job.  And athletes work for their jobs.  If they didn't, they wouldn't be in the positions they are in.  All the time practicing, conditioning, working out, analyzing game film or sports-analytics, and eating right is essential to being able to give 100% peak performance every time they play.  If they slack off, they don't make it.  Injuries have destroyed many-a promising career.  For some athletes, that's all they really have.  For all athletes, that's their dream.  Millions and millions of kids grow up wanting to play sports professionally, and be just like their idols on TV.  Only a select few with a combination of natural ability and effort make it, and even then sometimes freak accidents can take it all away.  To be pleased when an athletes gets injured is not simply wrong, it's plain inhuman, and extremely selfish.
     What if the person that was injured was on your team?  You feel horrible.  Yet still it's probably for the wrong reasons.  "What a blow to the team", you think.  What we all should be thinking is "what a blow to the person".  It's perfectly okay to be upset because someone's injury negatively impacts your team.  Just remember that there's an actual person in pain.
     I have heard that we should not feel bad for athletes because getting injured is an occupational hazard.  This is one of the poorest arguments I've ever heard.  Every job has some sort of risk involved.  If a police officer gets shot and killed, or a firefighter dies in a burning building, what will you say then?  "Should've been smarter and not become an officer/firefighter?"  Anyone who thinks that has serious problems.  These people risk their lives day in and day out trying to help people.  While an athlete typically doesn't face death, although it has happened, the scenario isn't totally different.  They are doing their jobs just like everyone else, and are trying to live their dreams and bring enjoyment to those watching at home.
     I have heard that we should not feel bad for athletes getting injured because of how much money they make.  First off, it's a myth that every athlete makes tons of money.  Only the very best in the world, in just a few select leagues make millions.  But even assuming we're talking about leagues such as the NFL and NBA, the money doesn't matter.  It isn't like a player gets injured but they don't feel any pain because the pain is blocked by the sugar-coating of all the money they're making.  The world doesn't work like that.  Anytime anyone gets seriously hurt, doing anything, we should feel bad, just because that's the human thing to do.
     If you aren't convinced yet, I'll give one more go at persuading you.  What if you tear an ACL in a freak accident, and faced surgery an at least nine months of rehab and recovery?  What if all your friends don't seem to care at all, and just tell you, "well, I guess you shouldn't get hurt next time"?  Wouldn't you be pretty angry?  Remember the Golden Rule.  Treat others how you would want to be treated.  Have some respect for those who are hurt, because that could easily be you.
     If you still aren't convinced, I have nothing more to say to you.  And if your team can only win if the opposing team is without their best players, maybe you don't deserve to win the game.

     

A Message to Professional Athletes

     It seems that far too often athletes commit illegal and criminal acts, become addicted to drugs, or take place in other acts not deemed socially acceptable.  This is something I've been wanting to write about since the blog began.  However, it's always been on the back burner, stuffed behind more recent and relevant matters.  But now, given the recent Ray Rice scandal, and the emerging Adrian Peterson situation, there really isn't a better time to talk about the conduct of athletes then now.
     I want to send a message to the professional athletes of the world, those lucky enough to play sports for a living.  I can sum up my message by simply saying "athletes: don't be stupid", but I think it would be more appropriate to really go into what I mean by that.  Also, I think it would be unwise to lump all athletes together into a big group, because my message is not directed to most athletes, because it is my opinion that the mass majority of athletes are decent people.  However, repeatedly in the past we have seen athletes who aren't decent people, and those are the people I am addressing.  This goes out to the current and former athletes who are convicted of criminal or illegal acts, or may commit such acts in the future.
     Congratulations on being a professional athlete and doing what you love in life.  It's something that while many people aspire to, very few actually end up accomplishing.  You make a lot of money, especially if you are one of the better players in your sport.  So ask yourself this question: why would you ever risk throwing it away?  One example is Aaron Hernandez.  Hernandez was a great tight end in the league, one of the best players in his position, famous, and set to make millions of dollars if he simply doesn't do anything stupid.  Instead, Aaron Hernandez is currently convicted and charged in three murder cases.  Hernandez is only 24 years old, and already has thrown his career away.
     Alright, that's one case, and not much to go on.  But 43 NFL players entered this season with suspensions.  Among these are Ray Rice, who struck his wife in the video we've all seen, and Josh Gordon for DWI and violating the substance abuse policy.
     Athletes, you need to realize that eyes are always on you.  Kids idolize you, and make you their role models.  Every move you make is monitored, and while it may not be entirely fair, it's the world we live in, and it has to be accepted.  You need to be conscious of your actions, because any slip in behavior will be publicized.
     Also, it is not okay for you to believe that you are better than everybody else.  The laws apply to everybody, and everyone has to obey them.  Just because you're famous and have tons of money doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want.
     People dream of being athletes.  Millions and millions of kids growing up have aspirations of becoming professional athletes, accomplishing their dreams and it's really a shame that some people that actually fulfill these dreams end up throwing them all away by doing things that go against common sense.  Don't do drugs, don't injure people, follow the laws just like everyone else.  It is never okay to hit other people, whether that be your wife, child, mother, or anyone else.  It's definitely not okay to kill people, fight dogs, or do drugs.  It shouldn't be so difficult that the same people are continuously caught and suspended.  If you don't feel like following the rules and being an a moral citizen, trust me when I say there are thousands of people who would love to take your place.
     Remember how lucky you are.  This is so important.  Way the pros against the cons when it comes to substance abuse, and personal conduct.  Is whatever action you may perform really worth jeopardizing your professional career and public image?  Is it really worth being removed from the game you love, losing millions of dollars, potentially going to jail, and losing the respect of friends, family, and the world?  99.99% of the time, if not all the time, the answer should be no.
     It all boils down to this: athletes need to think before they act, or accept the consequences.  They need to realize that they are privileged, and not risk throwing all they have worked for away.
     Connor
   

Johnny Manziel: Brown, Padre, Globetrotter?

     Johnny Football has made news again.  This time, it doesn't even involve anything he did on the field or off the field.  In fact, he might not have even known before the fact that he would be making news.  But he did.  This time, Johnny Manziel was "drafted" to join the Harlem Globetrotters traveling entertainment basketball team.  This just a few weeks after he was "drafted" in the 28th round of baseball's draft by the Padres, and that was not even two months after he was actually drafted.  In football.  Is Johnny Manziel really a three-sport athlete?  Of course not.
     Technically, Manziel has played baseball.  Through his junior year of high school, Manziel was an infielder on his school's baseball team.  This is nothing compared to Jameis Winston, who was drafted by the MLB, but will play in the NFL someday.  The primary difference is that Winston is still playing baseball, and he's pretty good.  Manziel can also dunk a basketball as seen by videos that only went viral because it was Johnny Football.  However, this "skill" nowhere near constitutes being drafted professionally, and while the Globetrotters draft seems to be more of a joke, something that for the most part doesn't bother me, the Padres are an actual professional franchise that drafted an NFL player to play baseball.  
     My main issue is that they are wasting their time.  Johnny is a football player, and a pretty good one.  He will play for the Browns, potentially start some games this season, and probably have a decent career in the NFL.  There is practically no chance he doesn't play in the league, and somewhere near a .000001% chance he plays another sport.
     The baseball draft is 40 rounds, and Johnny was drafted in the 28th round.  Wait, really?  He was deemed more capable than 12 players the Padres also drafted?  And over 300 other baseball players?  Essentially, the Padres pulled a cheap publicity stunt that I'm not buying.  They want to make a name for themselves and get in the papers, and in the end it feels like a sorry attempt to do so.  Then again, I'm probably playing into their plan by writing about them.
     What bugs me the most about the Padres is that they just ruined someone's lifelong dream.  No one ever thinks about that one kid that just missed the cut for being drafted, the guy chosen after "Mr.  Irrelevant."  The last pick still gets a chance to play, a chance to tell people that he made it.  He was drafted to play the sport he had been playing his whole life.  He was a pro.  And who knows, maybe he'd actually make it as a starter someday.  But that next kid doesn't get any of that.  He's a failure, someone that didn't accomplish his dream.  He goes on to live an average life, having a desk job and thinking of what could've been.  Maybe I'm writing this a little late, but the Globetrotter incident reminded me of the Padres.  It is by no means Johnny Manziel's fault that he was drafted, and he isn't to blame.  The Padres decided it would be better to sell some Johnny Baseball T-shirts and throw away a pick that could change someone's life.
     I thought that baseball's farm system meant something, and that the draft was made to get tons of fresh young talent to compete and see who could develop into pros, not which team could get a celebrity.  Should Justin Bieber go back to Canada to play for the Toronto Blue Jays?  The Padres showed a lack of professionalism, and I can't bring myself to respect a team that would throw away a potential prospect for a laugh.  I now have a hope that Nick Sabo, the left-handed pitcher out of Long Beach State becomes a legend.  Why?  Because he was drafted 838th, one pick after Johnny Manziel.  I hope the Padres can one day see what they missed, and when the inevitable stats come out about who was picked before hall-of-famer Sabo, the Padres hang their heads in shame.
     Maybe I should register for the MLB draft.  I'm beginning to believe that I could get chosen.  Because there's at least one team that would throw away someone's dream to get written about in the papers.

Stop Saying Sports Are Rigged by Referees!

     I am going to get something off my chest that's been there for a long time.  It is not acceptable to blame every questionable refereeing decision in professional sports on the rigging of games.  There are a lot of reasons for this.  First off, and the most obvious, is that referees control very little of what actually happens during any professional sports match.  In the NBA, refs call fouls once every minute or two.  In soccer, a little less frequent, and football and hockey follow similar patterns.  The fact that most of the game is played by the players means that many games couldn't be rigged even if refs wanted them to be.
     Secondly, I like to think there is a bit of integrity in professional sports.  Maybe I'm just crazy, but referees are there for the big games for a reason: they qualify as being top level refs.  And I would assume that the majority of these refs wouldn't be willing to blatantly throw a game.  In addition, I would think that throwing games is not a one or two man operation.  These guys would get caught rather often if rigging of games occurred.
     Thirdly, let's go over a history of known game rigging.  In 1919 the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series.  These players were all subsequently banned for life.  That story got out, as I imagine many rigging stories today would if they were to occur.  Sometimes teams tank for draft picks, or lose for a more desirable playoff position or sit players in order to avoid injury.  These are all separate matters that don't have to do with the outcome of matches being decided by money.  And one last thing: none of these scenarios have involved referees.
     Let me pose a question: do referees rig matches?  You may be surprised to find out, but my answer is yes.  Some referees do rig matches.  However, this happens infrequently and not to the same level that many people accuse it to be.  One notable scenario is when in 2012 one of the NFL's replacement refs chose to ref a game with a player on his fantasy team.  However, he did not alter the course of that game, and again, was banned.  I believe, on a similar note, that if a referee has a favorite team, which most don't, but some do, that they may let a call or two slip.  However, nothing major enough to be a blatantly obvious game fix.  The World Cup tries to stop this by using referees from a different continent than the teams in the game.  In addition, it is known that some refs succumb to a home field advantage where they are more likely to "assist" the home team.  Again somewhat understandable, but again nothing too major.  Those are the most likely times a game is fixed in any sort of way.  Do they involve money?  No.
     Game fixing has happened, and will inevitably continue to happen, but not near on the sort of level people suggest.  I agree that some games are rigged for many, but very few.  I am absolutely sick of seeing a questionable decision blow up over the media because people have their little phony conspiracy theories that something had to be up for a ref to make that call.  People say ridiculous things such as "I wonder how much he was paid to make that call" or "the player of the game was definitely the ref in that one."  Let me introduce those people to reality.  The refs are real people, and people have a tendency to make mistakes.  In addition, several refs have publicly apologized to the media when making a faulty call and realizing it after the game had concluded.  Most notably Jim Joyce, a baseball umpire, when he mistakenly called a runner safe at first base, ruining pitcher Armando Galarraga's perfect game in 2010 when a correct call - an out, would have ended the game.
     Referee's are human people.  They get only one angle on a play and have to make a decision that may change the fate of a game.  And these plays happen fast.  Us watching at home get as many replays as we want.  But most referees see every play one time.  Not to mention all the pressure that goes into having a responsibility like refereeing a professional sports game, a game people bet on.  In an ideal world, there would be some kind of robot or technology deciding if their is a foul or a flag or a penalty on any play, and while that may occur in the future, that doesn't happen today.
     I genuinely feel bad for referees that make mistakes.  These people get yelled at, disgraced, in extreme situations receive death threats.  Fans and players and coaches alike have to realize that these moments are inevitable parts of sports and that sometimes a call goes for you and sometimes against you, and that over the course of time an equal amount will go in both directions.  It is a poor display of character and sportsmanship to blame the refs anytime your team loses.  Because in reality, regardless of what call a referee makes, the opposing team still had to make that touchdown, or score that goal, or make that free throw.  Referees never add numbers on to the scoreboard by themselves.  This is a huge fact that many people seem to ignore, and after going on Facebook, or the comments section of articles and game recaps time and time again, I think something has to be said about it.
     Now the underlying topic of conversation here, and what really pushed me over the edge was this past World Cup game that saw Brazil defeat Croatia 3-1.  I admit I don't think all the calls in that game were the best, but they were the refs calls nonetheless, and I believe there is a reasonable defense for every call Yuichi Nishimura made, and that they were all at that point in time acceptable calls, and in some cases acceptable errors.  That is all I will say at this point in time, but I will give my full reasoning and rebuttals to the arguments that Nishimura rigged the game in my first World Cup recap blog going out which I plan to go out on Sunday.
     What this all comes down to is that human error is an inherent part of sports, and that like it or not, it's going to be there for a very long time.  It's always been there, and it may always be there.  As a sports team, your job is to have a higher number on the scoreboard than your opponent at the end of a game, and that decides who wins and who loses.  If a referee has a small impact on that, due to a right or wrong call, it is the job of the athletes to accept it and play harder.  You aren't going to change the game, and you shouldn't resort to blaming game rigging for ending up on the wrong side of the score.  Rigging happens, but it happens infrequently.  Refs are responsible for a few things, but nowhere near everything.  Roll with the punches, suck it up.  Sometimes you get robbed, and that's life.  Basically, even if you may think a game is rigged, realize that the likelihood of you being right is low.  So it's probably best to keep your mouth shut, and enjoy your sports the way they are.
Thanks for reading,
Connor