It's Not Cowardly to Protect Employees

We need to stop calling the leaders of media outlets who decide not to republish the Charlie Hebdo cartoons "cowards.”

Any reasonable person knows that free speech is a right to be celebrated and defended. Unfortunately, we live in a world filled with unreasonable people, who do unreasonable things for unreasonable reasons.  Wednesday’s demented exercise of religious vigilantism in Paris is an example of such an action. 

For those that beat their chest from the comfort of their twitter account and call a media outlet cowardly for deciding not to publish a cartoon, I urge you to put yourself in their shoes.  If you’re in charge of a newsroom full of tens, if not hundreds of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters, is the publication of a certain cartoon worth endangering the well-being of even a single employee or the viability of a business that employs tens, hundreds or thousands of people?   

This is not a crisis of free speech.  This is a question of making choices that are best for specific organizations and their employees.  In fact, deciding not to publish the cartoons is an equally reasonable exercise in free speech as is the decision to publish the cartoons.     

Is it horrible and tragic that an editor needs to worry about religious fanatics storming his newsroom and executing his staff over a published cartoon?  Absolutely.  But if your mother, father, son or daughter were in that newsroom, what would you want that editor to do? 

For us, it’s a no-brainer.  We cover the story in depth but let our readers find the cartoon elsewhere if they so choose – something that anyone with a remote control or an internet connection and the ability to spell Google and Charlie Hebdo can accomplish in about 5 seconds.  Would we feel good about our decision?  No, but would we feel worse if a single employee was injured in part because of our decision to publish the cartoon?  Yes.   

For clarity, this is how we would exercise or right to free speech in this situation, it does not mean we think reprinting the cartoon is wrong.  Publishing the cartoons is an equally reasonable exercise free speech.  To suggest that either decision is right/wrong or courageous/cowardly is the real attack on free speech.    

We find criticizing free speech on the grounds that it’s not the right kind of free speech problematic, and the reactions to those who decide not to reprint Charlie Hebdo cartoons are just the latest example in this growing and disturbing phenomenon.

It's Hall of Fame Time Again

Last year we shamed Jayson Stark of ESPN for admitting that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are two of the greatest players of all time, but leaving them off his 2014 Hall of Fame ballot.  He cited the broken voting system with many critiques that we share, but our point was that if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

So this year, it's only fair that we commend Stark for his full throated support for the games best players, full stop.  We only hope that more members of the BBWAA take the same approach and start to clear out the backlog of historically great players that, to date, have not been enshrined into the games Hall of Fame. 

With that, we present our 2015 ballot and predictions.  Remember, due to the asinine rules imposed by the Hall of Fame (which Stark does a great job criticizing), a ballot can only have 10 players, regardless of how many are worthy of induction.   

1. Barry Bonds
2. Roger Clemens
3. Randy Johnson*
4. Pedro Martinez*
5. John Smoltz* 
6. Jeff Bagwell
7. Mike Piazza 
8. Curt Schilling
9. Mark McGwire
10. Craig Biggio*

* Who we think will get inducted - Smoltz and Biggio will be very close to 75%, but we think/hope they both get there. 

Our ballot has changed from last year - we gain three spots given the induction of Maddux, Glavine and Thomas, which are taken by first timers Big Unit, Pedro and Smoltz.  Our only other change was selecting Biggio instead of Sammy Sosa.  This change is partly due to our realization that we were under-appreciating the breadth of Biggio accomplishments and partly due to finally taking off our Cubbie Blue tinted glasses and realizing that Sosa's role in bringing the game back from it's devastating strike year was important, but not a reason for Hall induction under the current rules.  It's also clear that a vote for Sosa would be wasted as he only received 7% last year and is likely to fall below the 5% threshold in 2015, forever removing him from the ballot.   

Concussions Help USA Win First World Cup Trophy

July 24, 2026 – NEW YORK

Over one million people packed the Canyon of Heroes on Friday for a ticker tape parade in honor of the United States Men’s National Soccer team and their hard fought 2026 FIFA World Cup Championship. 

After failing to reach the knock-out stage of the world’s most popular tournament in 2014 and back-to-back heartbreaking losses in the quarterfinals to Germany in 2018 and Argentina in 2022, Jurgen Klinsmann’s squad notched a 3-2 victory over a heavily favored Brazil squad to secure the first World Cup Championship for the United States, and a ticker tape parade down Broadway.   

When asked what changed in the 12 years since the US was unceremoniously ousted from the 2014 tournament after three straight losses, Klinsmann took a few seconds to think and responded with one simple word - “concussions.” 

Klinsmann followed up, “obviously our guys worked incredibly hard, played as a cohesive unit, peaked at the right time, and performed beautifully when it mattered most.  But without the concern about concussions in the 2010’s, I’m confident you would instead be watching many of our best players in pads and a helmet on Sunday’s in the NFL instead of on my squad in the FIFA World Cup.”

Starting in the early 2010’s parents started steering their kids away from sports with a high risk of head injury, American football in particular.  Parents have always been concerned with injuries in football, but the risk of concussions and their long term impact, was just too high to bear.  By the end of the 2010’s a large majority of parents and even some local governments banned full contact football until high school. 

Soccer was the primary beneficiary of this movement away from football.  As Klinsmann explains, “12 years ago, many, if not most, of the elite American soccer talents would have never even known they were elite soccer talents.  At a young age, these boys would have been gobbled up by the sexier and better funded fall sport of football and never again touched a soccer ball.”

The 2010’s was the height of the NFL’s popularity, but with that popularity came an increased scrutiny of head injuries, particularly the cumulative effect of multiple head injuries long after a players career was over.  Multiple ex-NFL players had committed suicide due to the lingering effects of years of football related head injuries, and many more were diagnosed with various brain afflictions that drastically reduced their quality of life.  Studies even came out showing the negative developmental effects of hits to the head as early as pee-wee football.    

As a result of the increased focus on concussions in football, parents started to ban their children from football.  The decline in football participation, coupled with the surge in popularity of a vastly improved and better funded professional soccer league in the US (Major League Soccer), created the perfect environment for US Soccer to thrive.    

And thrive it has, culminating in this year’s World Cup triumph.  The past 12 to 15 years has proven that the concern over concussions has been football’s loss and soccer’s gain, and with it, America’s standing as an international soccer powerhouse. 

US Men’s National Team Captain, and the winner of the 2026 Golden Boot, Joe Smith echoed his managers remarks, “despite my temper tantrums, my mom would not allow me to play football as a kid.  As a 10 year old, I was distraught, but looking back, I’m forever indebted to my mother for not letting me play football as a kid.  The other fall sport of interest was soccer, so I poured my time and effort into soccer and became the world-class player I am today.  To be the captain of the first US Men’s National Team to win the World Cup is an incredible feeling and I owe it all to my mother, and in a weird way, to the concussion controversies.  A Super Bowl victory could never mean this much to me, my family or my country.”