Dan Wetzel Sports

Yahoo Sports National Columnist. New York Times Bestselling Author. Wetzel to Forde Daily Podcast. @DanWetzel

[danwetzelsports]

One summer in college my friend Murph and I moved to San Diego.

We lived in the garage of my sister Sarah and her husband. We worked as servers at a Pizzeria Uno in Pacific Beach and then picked up some construction laboring work for the Uno’s owner, Glenn, who had a lot of businesses and real estate. We were desperate for money, so whatever Glenn came up with for us, we’d take.

One day he told us he wanted to put some palm trees in front of the Uno’s on Mission Blvd. He asked if we knew anything about planting palm trees.

Now, Murph and I were from Boston so not only did we not know anything about planting palm trees, we knew nothing about palm trees at all. There are no palm trees in Massachusetts.

Believing that if we admitted we knew nothing about planting palm trees we would not get the job planting the palm trees, and thus the money that went with the job planting palm trees, we quickly said that we absolutely knew how to plant palm trees. 

Yep, planting palm trees, we were all about planting palm trees.

I’m not sure either of us had ever planted a tree of any kind before but it seemed simple. Dig a hole. Put the tree in. Fill up the hole.

“Digging a hole is digging a hole,” Murphy said this week. “And we knew how to dig a hole.”

We were good shovel men, you could say.

How much different could a palm tree be? In this case, the only added step was we had to break up and remove some sidewalk. That was simple.

As such, we presented ourselves to Glenn as a couple of tropical arborists, fully capable of planting all the palm trees he wanted. We got the job.

Now, Glenn was a very successful, very smart and very funny guy. I enjoyed working for him. So it’s more than possible that he was well aware that two kids from Boston would not know anything about planting palm trees but just wanted to bust our chops and see what we said.

But we didn’t consider that at the time. We thought we had to act confident.

What stuck with us was the specificity of what he said. Do you know how to plant a palm tree.

Was there was a trick to it? What could it be? These days, you could look it up on the internet and probably watch a YouTube tutorial, but that didn’t exist in the mid-1990s. We certainly could have gone to a library, but really, we were 21 years old and living in San Diego. We were never stepping foot in a library unless it also operated as a beach bar.

Besides, if we somehow did this wrong, well, by the time the trees died we’d be back in on the East Coast and no one was getting their money back. If you’re dumb enough to hire two guys from Boston to handle the apparently tricky, and experience-requiring work of palm tree planting, then that’s on you.

We weren’t exactly environmentalists.

One guy in the kitchen at Uno’s said that with palm trees you have to dig a really big hole. He was from Mexico, where palm trees exist, so we took him as an expert. We dug out what seemed like enormous holes.

Sure enough when the trees showed up on a truck with a crane we saw how massive the bulb of roots were. I think we needed to dig a little bit more, but we told Glenn that was only because we didn’t think he would buy such impressive palm trees.

Anyway, in went the trees. We filled the dirt back in around them. We watered them relentlessly for a couple weeks.

Most importantly, we got paid for the job. At the end of the summer, we skipped town.

Well, I was in San Diego this week and stopped by Pacific Beach to check in on things. The Uno’s is gone. It’s now a breakfast joint. But just look what is towering in front of the building, still swaying in the ocean breeze -- two damn beautiful looking palm trees, right where we left them. Only taller.

There’s a Chinese proverb about this: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” 

Another reads: “One generation plants the tree and another gets the shade.”

I’ve always been partial to an American theory of life though.

“Fake it till you make it.”

[danwetzelsports]

My Old Coworkers Done Good

A long time ago I worked for a small business, Basketball Times Magazine.

 I had two coworkers. One was Mike Sheridan. The other was Tom Wywrot. That was the staff. The entire staff. Like many small businesses, the pay was short and the hours long. We were all young. Everything that had to be done – we published a bunch of magazines, not just Basketball Times – had to be done by us (or our boss, the late, great Larry Donald).

 When you work for a small business you get to know your coworkers. The good. The bad. The everything. There is nowhere to hide. There are no phone conversations that aren't overheard. The office is too small. The work too related. Everyone got lunch together. Everyone did everything together, all day, every day.

 And so, I knew I was lucky.

 Mike wasn't just whip-smart and one of the fastest and efficient writers and editors I've ever seen. He had a tireless work ethic and a true sense of decency. Whatever the right and ethical thing to do was, Mike would do it. He would always get the job done.

 Tom was younger and maybe technically an intern when he started (his responsibilities were full-time from day one), but he came with a passion for his work. He had an ethos of doing every task exactly right. He was incredibly organized. He was about 22 years old but approached everything like he owned the place.

 I knew back then that I had it good working alongside these two. It was the only way I could survive the job. Basketball Times was a terrific opportunity for a young person to gain experience reporting and writing and learning from Larry Donald, a truly great long-form writer. It was not glamorous though. We worked out of the basement of Larry’s house. We needed about three more people to reasonably get all the magazines out. You never were 100 percent certain your paycheck wouldn't bounce.

 Much to everyone's laughter, I would buy my coffee from Sunoco, in part because it was cheaper than Tim Horton's. And, in part, because the Sunoco coffee wasn't that bad, although no one believed me. Tom would mockingly bring me a Sunoco coffee many mornings, so I’d have two.

 It was stressful, yet we were in it together. These two were rocks. They were reliable. They strived to be the best even if we were this decidedly smalltime operation. The pursuit of excellence though raised all of our games. Basketball Times, and our other magazines, were about as good as they could be. 

 Time ticks and careers change and eventually none of us worked at Basketball Times. We were all together maybe two years. Something like that.

 This weekend Mike and Tom will be together again, sort of. Mike is the director of media relations for the Villanova men's basketball team. Tom has the same job for the University of Michigan. Both of the teams they promote are in the Final Four (both have been before, but never in the same year).

 They could meet on Monday for the national title.

 Media relations directors score no points and grab no rebounds. They don't draw up plays. They aren’t the reason Villanova and Michigan are playing on college basketball's final weekend. That said, it doesn't surprise me that the teams these guys work with are as successful as they are.

 It takes a lot to build up a team. Coaches often call it culture. You need excellence in every part of the program. Jay Wright went out and recruited Mike to join Villanova because he loved Mike's professionalism when he was a reporter (I recall Jay asking me what I thought it would take to get Mike to jump into public relations, like Mike was a four star forward). John Beilein inherited Tom, but he’s since told me that he immediately realized what he had.

 They are the best of the best at what they do. Sometimes that means grunt work. Sometimes that means putting out fires. Sometimes that means scrambling through unpredictable moments. It's mostly done far from the spotlight.

 It's just like the old days. Which means like little old Basketball Times, these big-time basketball programs must benefit from their talent, organization and resolve. And the players that come through both schools, who probably didn't know what a media relations director does until they arrived, benefit from being around them as much as I did.

 All I know is I once worked on a three-man staff, pounding out endless hours and beating relentless deadlines from a basement.

 And now the other two guys might meet up for a national title on Monday.

 That's pretty cool. Winner has to buy the coffee at that Rochester Road Sunoco, though.

[danwetzelsports]

In lieu of the above video (courtesy of @nickkrause08) showing the friendly skies turning into fight club – not to mention all the other airline incidents of late – I am updating my recent post/rant on the worst people you’ll meet on your flight.

  Hint: it isn’t the flight attendants, TSA agents or that overstressed/underpaid woman working the gate.

  As noted in the first post, flying can be stressful and disappointing. I get it. I’ve flown over one million miles on Delta/Northwest alone and probably hundreds of thousands on other airlines. I’ve been to airports big and small, in airplanes big and small and seated next to passengers big and small. I’ve been stranded, abandoned and slept one night in a chair inside the Minneapolis airport. Whatever horror story you have, there’s a good chance I can match it.

  Still, come on people. We have an actual brawl on an airplane? This is the discount flight from Burbank, not the prison yard. If someone disrespects you, chill. In fact, always chill. Your flight will go better. And sleep. And shut up. The other passengers don’t want to talk to you. Trust me.

  Somehow the public momentum is to defend the customers and blame everything on the airlines. No, it’s usually us, the passengers.

  Remember the woman whose baby almost got bumped because the flight attendant was trying to remove a doublewide stroller she wanted to bring down the aisle? Could have been handled better but … why the hell were you trying to bring a doublewide stroller onto a plane when it clearly and always is prohibited?

  How about the woman who went to the media because flight attendants wouldn’t let her go to the bathroom while the fasten seat belt light was on and instead handed her a cup? Pretty funny story, but there is a reason why they have a fasten seatbelt light. It isn’t safe to wander around the plane. You can disagree with their judgment – there are many policies on board that make no sense. That’s still the deal. It’s probably a federal law. This isn’t your living room. You want full control of your actions? The interstate is right over there.

  And yes, getting bumped from flights happens but the practice of overselling planes is good for customers, because it helps lower costs and allows more people each day to book flights.

  Airline travel is amazing – amazingly safe, amazingly convenient and amazingly cheap. Perfect. Not at all. Anyone who expects perfect, let alone on a $119 supersaver, is a fool.

  So here are my updated and now expanded nine worst people on a plane (in no particular order). And I’m not even getting to the obvious ones such as belligerent drunks or the would-be UFC brawlers in the video or the barking dogs – no dogs other than guide dogs should be allowed in the damn main cabin, by the way. Give me a break with the “comfort pet.”

  1. Starbucks Lady

  It’s a 6:30 a.m. cross-country flight and you felt the need to get a Venti double Frappuccino or whatever that creation is? Not only are you going to spend the first hour of the flight sucking loudly through a straw, but that creation has enough caffeine and sugar to drop a horse. Look lady, no one is asking you to fly the plane. Exactly how alert do you need to be?

  You want to know how to make air travel better? Go to sleep. Flight goes faster, you don’t need to be entertained, you can ignore the other passengers and you catch up on some rest (fitful, but whatever). Don’t tell me you can’t sleep on planes between a gargle of Starbucks. You have to have a plan – turn off electronics, read a book, avoid stimulants. It isn’t hard. I feel for like 6-foot-10 guys, but you aren’t that.

  Don’t book a window seat, drink a massive coffee and then wonder why you are as fidgety as a kindergartener, unable to sleep and have to get up three times to go to the bathroom – thus bothering the rest of us.

  2. Big bag guy

  It ain’t going to fit, buddy. Maybe it’s compensating for other parts of their life. Maybe they just really think they are going to get over on the airline for that $25 baggage fee. Whatever it is, that massive roller isn’t getting into the tiny overheard compartment.

  These guys are the worst. They push and slam and bitch and moan. The people already seated below them are panicked and jostled. Some properly sized bag is inevitably getting crushed up there.

  The guy gets angrier and angrier as he tries to defy the laws of physical space. Soon he’s regaling everyone about that time the airline lost his luggage in Albuquerque – cry me a river, we’re not on your side.

  Then the poor flight attendant has to come by and tell him he needs to check it (for free) and he gets mad at them. Everyone’s stress goes up. Look, pay the fee or pack less. It’s simple. How much crap you need for this weekend in Erie?

  The baggage fee thing is horrible but they have to do it because all you fools will only pay for the cheapest flight that comes up on Expedia. Then you complain when the flight isn’t luxurious like it supposedly used to in the Mad Men days or something. It’s like someone buying a Chevy Spark and then bitching it isn’t as roomy as a Cadillac Escalade.

  3. Idiot/Patriot in the TSA line

  You know these people are there to stop us from getting blown up, right? Imperfect system but it’s the best we’ve got. No matter what you think, TSA agents want to get rid of you as quickly as possible. They are trying to be professional under impossible circumstances.

  So, can you please pay attention? September 11 was over a decade and a half ago … the freakin’ laptop has to come out of the bag. Yes, a cell phone is a metal item. And actually I am not surprised that your oversized belt buckle caused the x-ray to ping. It’s not shocking at all.

  This isn’t that hard. Follow the stupid rules. You’re slowing up the line because you are a clown.

  The only people worse are the ones who believe the TSA is infringing on their Constitutional rights with that there new-fangled body scanner or a pat down or merely existing. What, you think I’m a terrorist? If you’re that into your privacy, then cool. Just find a better way to get the woods of Idaho.

  Twitter follower @FakeKevinKugler added a subset to this: the person who was sent to TSA PreCheck but decides to clog everything up by stripping down anyway. You undeservedly reached the promised land and this is how you act? Pay attention.

  (Then again, TSA PreCheck should not just be handed out randomly like it is these days. Change that rule, TSA.)

  4. Burrito Bowl Dude

  Tight connections and long trips can mean there is limited time to get a meal at the airport. And we know you aren’t getting anything substantive in coach. So people bring food on the plane.

Here’s a tip. Maybe on those days, you just have a protein bar. Or eat right away as you wait for everyone else to board. Not these people. They have to bring an elaborate, often sloppy meal, let it sit in a bag for an hour stinking up the place and then pull it out and try to spread out.

  There’s usually some assembly required, some salsa to pour over, some Sriracha or salad dressing. Then a knife and fork come out. You need the dexterity of Houdini to eat this thing in such a small space so rice or lettuce is inevitably flying everywhere and chicken is spilling and it’s a massive mess.

  You’re bothering me now. I don’t care if it’s good.

  5. Drink Cart Enthusiast

  They need to get rid of the drink cart on all flights under like two hours. It’s a rolling debacle. If you are so desperate for hydration or a tiny snack then buy your own.

  Yet they pull that thing out and people act like dogs that just saw their master walk in with the treat jar.

  You’ve never had a Diet Coke before? A package of five to six pretzels? I have had people wake me up to let me know the drink cart is here so I wouldn’t miss out.

  The drink cart blocks the aisle, slams knees and elbows and generally only gives the customers something else to bitch about because they didn’t get the whole can or found the peanuts an unsatisfying meal. You know, back in the day they used to carve up steak. Yeah, well, back in the day flights cost a thousand bucks and planes crashed all the time.

  I once had a 37-minute flight to Indianapolis delayed for 1:45 because “catering” needed to restock the drink cart. That means we could have flown to Indy, deplaned, slammed a beer at the airport bar, reboarded and returned.

  6. Maintenance Know-It-All Guy

  I’m as suspicious as anyone when they announce that the flight is being delayed for maintenance because I assume they use that excuse to cut down on complaints. You know why? Because it works.

  Or it should except for the guy standing in the gate area who immediately starts huffing and arguing that there is no maintenance issue and it’s a big conspiracy. Really, how exactly do you know? Congrats to you if you truly are so proficient in diagnosing a $300 million airplane that you don’t even have to look at it to draw your conclusion. If you really enjoy such a skillset, however, maybe you should make a career out of that rather than schlepping to Des Moines with the rest of us. Seems like something that would pay well.

  You don’t want them to check and make sure the plane is working properly? You’re troubled by an airline that demands all the parts and emergency back-ups are working.

  You do realize what the alternative is, correct? If you think you’re late for your cousin’s wedding weekend now …

  7. Delusions of Grandeur in 38B

  Many Twitter followers mentioned this one. You’re way in the back of the plane yet somehow believe once the plane arrives at its destination and pulls up to the skybridge that you’ll somehow beat the crowd and race off the plane first. I get the desperation to make a connecting flight, but it isn’t happening. Usain Bolt couldn’t charge the aisle fast enough to make it. Accept reality and wait your turn.

  8. Frequent flyer poser

  Submitted by Twitter follower @BoneilHoops is: “The guy that tells you how much he travels – has Gold Medallion bag tag.”

  Ah yes, the “sort-of” frequent flyer who loves to yell at the gate agent or flight attendant about how much of a valued customer they are when, well, they really aren’t that valued of a customer. They gave George Clooney in the movie his own number to call for a reason. They gave you an easily identifiable bag tag and you may have gotten that by falling for their credit card deal, not actually flying.

  I once heard a guy complaining to a gate agent about not getting an upgrade and asked what he needed to do to get upgraded to first class. This was on a flight to Europe no less. The woman calmly said, “fly our airline more.” Classic. 

9. Boarding Group Z Gate Blockers

  More Twitter recommendations: apparently these people, who crowd around and block the boarding gate even though their group isn’t getting called for awhile, are referred to as “gate lice.” I had no idea, but it works.

  They have a process to get on the plane. The Diamond Medallion and First Class people go first. Deal with it. If you find yourself in Group 7 or whatever, get the hell out of the way. Standing in front of the little ropes that lead to the ticket scanning machine when you aren’t getting on for the next 20 minutes assures only one thing, it will take even longer to get on.

  This is a partial list. In summary, as much as I sometimes hate airline bureaucracy, I hate you people even more – not enough to have a fist fight in row 18 over it, but still.

[danwetzelsports]

As this blog has long noted I travel a lot for work. I’ve flown over one million miles on Delta/Northwest and who knows how many more on airlines ranging from Southwest to an operation known as Aeroflot.

  I’ve taken domestic flights inside some edge-of-proper-society-places such as China, Russia, South Africa, Brazil and Louisiana. Other than the obvious similarities between our looks, I am not George Clooney from that movie, but I’ve seen a thing or two.

  And here is what I know: Not to defend United for dragging that guy off the plane, but generally the biggest problem when it comes to flying is not the airlines but my fellow passengers.

  I don’t know all the details and don’t care for all the details but clearly United messed up. If you need seats on a full flight you have to keep raising your bump compensation until someone takes it. That’s the way to deal with this.

  But in defense of airlines, we can walk back the rest.

  Just briefly: overbooking isn’t a bad thing. It’s a good thing. Good for the airlines who can maximize profits by accounting for the number of people who miss flights, fly stand by earlier or later or cancel at the last moment. And good for passengers because that allows flight prices to remain lower than they otherwise would and gets as many people on a plane (and thus across a day) as possible. Also, you can score some sweet credits if you volunteer.

  Airlines are terrible at lots of things. Believe me. I’ve been taken off flights. I’ve been put on flights to unnecessary connecting airports. I’ve been stranded overnight. I’ve had long set plans ruined. It’s brutal.

  Ninety-plus percent of the time however I’ve climbed in a tin can in one city/country and landed on time or earlier in another. It’s amazing. Lewis And Clark was two hundred years ago.

  The United thing was extreme. Poor work by the airline, but when three cops come and tell you to move out of your seat, you should really move out of your seat. It’s not going to end well and an airline seat is hardly the hill you want to get roughed up on. Go protest something important.

  On Wednesday April 5, Delta was dealing with heavy storms and everything was a mess in Augusta, Ga. The little airport was packed with beaten-down travelers. Luckily they called my flight we all boarded the plane. Then we sat on the tarmac for an hour before being told told we all needed to get off.

  The entire plane – every passenger – peacefully exited only to have Delta give our plane to another flight. We had to watched a couple hundred other people take our seat. They soon departed for Atlanta instead of us. Our flight never left. Cancelled for good.

  It sucked but no police were needed. Everyone listened to the flight attendant.

  I appreciated that because it’s usually an idiot passenger causing all the problems, not the stressed-out, under-paid, no-good-option flight attendant or gate agent.

  Here are my five worst people on a plane (in no particular order and I’m not even getting to the obvious ones such as belligerent drunks or barking dogs – no dogs should be allowed in the damn main cabin, by the way).

  1. Starbucks Lady

  It’s a 6:30 a.m. cross-country flight and you felt the need to get a Venti double Frappuccino or whatever that creation is? Not only are you going to spend the first hour of the flight sucking loudly through a straw, but that creation has enough caffeine and sugar to drop a horse. Look lady, no one is asking you to fly the plane. Exactly how alert do you need to be?

  You want to know how to make air travel better? Go to sleep. Flight goes faster, you don’t need to be entertained, you can ignore the other passengers and you catch up on some rest (fitful, but whatever). Don’t tell me you can’t sleep on planes between a gargle of Starbucks. You have to have a plan – turn off electronics, read a book, avoid stimulants. It isn’t hard. I feel for like 6-foot-10 guys, but you aren’t that.

  Don’t book a window seat, drink a massive coffee and then wonder why you are as fidgety as a kindergartener, unable to sleep and have to get up three times to go to the bathroom – thus bothering the rest of us.

  2. Big bag guy

  It ain’t going to fit, buddy. Maybe it’s compensating for other parts of their life. Maybe they just really think they are going to get over on the airline for that $25 baggage fee. Whatever it is, that massive roller isn’t getting into the tiny overheard compartment.

  These guys are the worst. They push and slam and bitch and moan. The people already seated below them are panicked and jostled. Some properly sized bag is inevitably getting crushed up there.

  The guy gets angrier and angrier as he tries to defy the laws of physical space. Soon he’s regaling everyone about that time the airline lost his luggage in Albuquerque – cry me a river, we’re not on your side.

  Then the poor flight attendant has to come by and tell him he needs to check it (for free) and he gets mad at them. Everyone’s stress goes up. Look, pay the fee or pack less. It’s simple. How much crap you need for this weekend in Erie?

  The baggage fee thing is horrible but they have to do it because all you fools will only pay for the cheapest flight that comes up on Expedia. Then you complain when the flight isn’t luxurious like it supposedly used to in the Mad Men days or something. It’s like someone buying a Chevy Spark and then bitching it isn’t as roomy as a Cadillac Escalade.

  3. Idiot/Patriot in the TSA line

  You know these people are there to stop us from getting blown up, right? Imperfect system but it’s the best we’ve got.

  So, can you please pay attention? September 11 was over a decade and a half ago … the freakin’ laptop has to come out of the bag. Yes, a cell phone is a metal item. And actually I am not surprised that your oversized belt buckle caused the x-ray to ping. It’s not shocking at all.

  This isn’t that hard. Follow the stupid rules. You’re slowing up the line because you are a clown.

  The only people worse are the ones who believe the TSA is infringing on their Constitutional rights with that there new-fangled body scanner or a pat down or merely existing. What, you think I’m a terrorist? Look, if you’re that into your privacy, then cool. Just find a better way to get the woods of Idaho.

Twitter follower @FakeKevinKugler added a subset to this: the person who was sent to TSA PreCheck but decides to clog everything up by stripping down anyway. You undeservedly reached the promised land and this is how you act? Pay attention.

  4. Burrito Bowl Dude

  Tight connections and long trips can mean there is limited time to get a meal at the airport. And we know you aren’t getting anything substantive in coach. So people bring food on the plane.

  Here’s a tip. Maybe on those days, you just have a protein bar. Or eat right away as you wait for everyone else to board. Not these people. They have to bring an elaborate, often sloppy meal, let it sit in a bag for an hour stinking up the place and then pull it out and try to spread out.

  There’s usually some assembly required, some salsa to pour over, some Sriracha or salad dressing. Then a knife and fork come out. You need the dexterity of Houdini to eat this thing in such a small space so rice or lettuce is inevitably flying everywhere and chicken is spilling and it’s a massive mess.

  You’re bothering me now. I don’t care if it’s good.

  5. Drink Cart Enthusiast

  They need to get rid of the drink cart on all flights under like two hours. It’s a rolling debacle. If you are so desperate for hydration or a tiny snack then buy your own.

  Yet they pull that thing out and people act like dogs that just saw their master walk in with the treat jar. You’ve never had a Diet Coke before? A package of five to six pretzels? I have had people wake me up to let me know the drink cart is here so I wouldn’t miss out.

  The drink cart blocks the aisle, slams knees and elbows and generally only gives the customers something else to bitch about because they didn’t get the whole can or found the peanuts an unsatisfying meal. You know, back in the day they used to carve up steak. Yeah, well, back in the day flights cost a thousand bucks and planes crashed all the time.

  I once had a 37-minute flight to Indianapolis delayed for 1:45 because “catering” needed to restock the drink cart. That means we could have flown to Indy, deplaned, slammed a beer at the airport bar, reboarded and returned.

BONUS: 5A Delusions of Grandeur Guy in 38B

 Many Twitter followers mentioned this one. You’re way in the back of the plane yet somehow believe once the plane arrives at its destination and pulls up to the skybridge that you’ll somehow beat the crowd and race off the plane first. I get the desperation to make a connecting flight, but it isn’t happening. Usain Bolt couldn’t charge the aisle fast enough to make it. Accept reality and wait your turn.

BONUS: 5B Boarding Group ZZ Gate Blockers

 More Twitter recommendations. They have a process to get on the plane. The Diamond Medallion and First Class people go first. Deal with it. If you find yourself in Group 7 or whatever, get the hell out of the way. Standing in front of the little ropes that lead to the ticket scanning machine when you aren’t getting on for the next 20 minutes assures only one thing, it will take even longer to get on.

This is a partial list. In summary, as much as I sometimes hate airline bureaucracy, I hate you people even more.

  And don’t lean your seat back.

[danwetzelsports]

Marriott to Bring Back Desks. Victory Declared.

In December 2015, after checking into the Charlotte City Center Marriott and finding my “newly redesigned room”(!) didn’t include a desk, I wrote a post for this blog called “Who Stole the Desk from My Hotel Room?” You can find it archived here: http://tinyurl.com/gw3yola

It proved popular because there are a lot of people who travel for business and find a desk essential. Others are fine working on laptops while propped up in bed. Even for them a desk stuffed in a corner wasn’t exactly hurting anyone. You could always just throw your keys on it.

The blog got passed around the Internet and some additional media picked it up on it. Marriott’s explained they were telling their most loyal customers their preferred way of doing work was wrong in an effort to appeal to Millennials who are more likely to work in the lobby as a group or not do any work at all. The idea that 20-somethings were suddenly going to pay $350 on a weeknight for some downtown or airport full service hotel because the room was cooler and sleeker seemed dubious. But hey, it’s their company.

Over the course of the year, I began staying down brand even more often than usual – Courtyards and Fairfield Inns still had desks. (Depending on trip, Courtyards and Fairfield Inns have always been preferred for me but frighteningly Marriott was planning on removing desks in those chains too). Other travelers told me they were following the same strategy. It might be less convenient location wise, but at least you could work at night.

With franchisees it’s not simple math, but Marriott was losing money every time a guest did that.

Meanwhile a blacklist of deskless’ Marriotts grew by the day on FlyerTalk.com, which is not a group you want to anger.

And when I stayed in a regular Marriott (that hadn’t been changed yet), I saw the same tired parade of middle age business travelers, not a hipster convention staring at their phones in the lobby. I heard stories of frustrated hotel managers having to bring desks up to serve irate customers. Front desk people usually just sighed when the topic was broached.

The entire thing seemed dumb and doomed. And then … boom.

“The desk is back: Marriott is redesigning hotel rooms” the Associated Press reported Monday. Link: http://tinyurl.com/huabk7c

My blog was actually the lead quote in the story in the third paragraph, which was ridiculous, hysterical and my finest life accomplishment.

I actually doubt the blog had very much to do with it. It’s like the book “Death to the BCS” myself and some Yahoo colleagues wrote pushing for the creation of a college football playoff. It probably didn’t hurt – neither did all the complaints of football fans or Marriott travelers. However, there is one overarching thing that drives decisions in America.

Money. Businesses will, as they should, follow the money. There was more money in a football playoff than the BCS.

In Marriott’s case, all those down brand bookings or all the people calling reservations, asking about a desk in the room and then saying forget it, I’ll go somewhere else, had to do it.

The numbers must have been brutal. The entire chain completely reversed course in 10 short months, before the old renovation could even be fully implemented. That’s a lot of wasted construction.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter.

For those of us who hold the sanctity of the in room work space sacred, we declare victory and thank to our patron saint, Bill Marriott for coming to his senses.

But Mr. Marriott, next time some “hotel room consultant” comes up with an idea, just run it by me first. Pay me in Marriott points and I can solve all your problems. I’m here for you guys.

As for everyone else, what do we need to fix in America next?

[danwetzelsports]

My friend Bob Margolis

I first met Bob Margolis at a NASCAR race. This is to say I was at a NASCAR race that Bob Margolis was also at, because to be in his physical proximity was to meet him.

 There was no avoiding him. There was no not noticing-him. He had this thick black hair and sometimes wore actually fashionable clothes (to say this caused him to stand out at the track is an understatement.) He was unique. He was a musician. He had worked in the recording industry. He did some television production. He was a character. He was cool. He was a self-described hippie. He was fun.

 He talked loud and fast and for a long time. He laughed. A lot. He laughed in a way that you looked across a room, saw these people crowded around him and wondered a) what is that guy laughing about? and b) how exactly can I get in on the group?

 The latter was simple, you just went and spoke to Bob or, more likely, he came over and introduced himself first. He loved meeting people and being around people and having fun arguing about things … race cars and guitarists and politics and the best places for sunsets (the hills of Northeastern Pennsylvania, he said) and whatever the heck else popped up. He was a tour de force. I liked him immediately.

 Bob passed away Thursday, a fourth bout of cancer doing what the first three couldn’t. Man this dude was tough, a decade of taking everything the disease could throw at him and still standing tall – rounds and rounds of chemo, surgery after surgery, set back after set back. Stage 4 cancer? He came back from that one time. Even as it weakened and changed him physically, at times threatening his ability to speak (of all things), even as it tired him with its relentlessness, it couldn’t douse his infectious personality.

 “People need to know, you don’t have to be scared of cancer,” Bob would say. “It’s a scary diagnosis but you don’t have to be scared of it. It can be beaten.”

 He was in hospice the past few days in his beloved Pennsylvania, surrounded by his family. I know that meant he was content and happy. Of all the subjects Bob loved to talk about, it was his wife Becky and his four children -- Brian, Janelle, Natasha and Alana – that always elicited with the most passion and pride.

 Bob was a friend and for a stretch a coworker at Yahoo. He wasn’t a traditional journalist but that was his strength. He was popular with readers because he was full of information and opinion. Here’s the blog he was writing even while fighting for his life: https://sledgehammerblog.com/

 At the track everyone talked to Bob. He’d post up next a crew member early in the morning, pull aside a driver after the race and then find a way to fly home with an owner at night. He was a gossip in all the best ways. Everyone liked the two-way flow of information he provided. Everyone was happy to see him, unless he’d just criticized them in print, but even that was eventually forgiven.

That was his way, though. He was an arguer. He was a convincer; a street lawyer. He was a guy who just needed a couple minutes to win you over. Back at some point in the 1970s or 80s he worked for a record company. This was before big radio networks bought stations in each city, before MTV, before in the Internet.

 The only way to sell albums was to get local stations to play an artists’ song on the radio. And that meant going station-to-station, city-to-city, convincing program directors why this song should get airtime. His stories were wild because “convincing” quickly descended into all night entertainment, pay-offs, even wild antics such as smashing up an office of someone who wouldn’t budge. It was completely nuts. He had stories of being with Aerosmith and Robert Plant and the London rock scene and New York clubs of the early 80s and so on. His life was a movie.

 At some point, auto racing appealed to his sensibilities. His journey was unusual. People in the music industry – singer, songwriter, producer, record executive – just don’t become NASCAR media and marketers.

 Yet racing’s incredible cocktail of danger and excitement and soap opera and endless mayhem hooked him. At his core he was an adrenaline junkie, a guy who lived life 200 miles per hour, so why not get in on the sport that can match it? It wasn’t even just NASCAR or the Indy 500. Bob was enthralled by it all, dirt tracks and Grand Am Road Racing and Top Fuel dragsters.

 “When I’m at the track,” he’d say, “I’m alive.”

 I didn’t watch racing growing up. No one I knew watched racing growing up. I was late to the party when I started covering races and while I immediately appreciated the storylines and personalities and massive grandeur of it all, I didn’t fully get an intensity for it until I started spending so much time with Bob, who simply wouldn’t stop selling every last bit of its glory.

 I’m going to miss that about Bob. I’m going to miss the conversations, even the one-sided ones. I’m going to miss being at some track, early in the morning and watching this ball of energy come in, grabbing me by the shoulder and excitedly discussing what he just heard or what he thought might happen or what one of his daughters just did or simply about how lucky we were to be here, on race day where anything could happen.

  And I was; very lucky.

[danwetzelsports]

Ordering Subway in Rio

One of my goals while covering the Olympics in Rio De Janeiro was to go to Subway and in Portuguese order a foot long turkey on wheat without once pointing at the little vegetables containers. As a rule, I could not simply look up the words on the internet. It required figuring it all out on my own, trial and error, lunch after lunch.

 This may seem like a strange goal. As does going to Subway while in Brazil but the reality of covering the Olympics is far different than what you see on television. Matt Lauer may have a hotel suite on Ipanema Beach and a limo to drive him around and production assistants to scout out authentic little cafes. I, alas, do not.

 Rio has two remarkable beaches – Ipanema and Copacabana. The topography is very cool. Sugarloaf and Christ the Redeemer are world famous. When it comes to much of the rest of the place, most importantly the area sort of near Olympic Park where I was staying, you might as well have been in Houston.

 This is the view outside my hotel.

 It was safe though, which is all that mattered. Surrounding the hotel, the Promenade Link Stay Barra, were shopping malls, a hospital, a military depot, gas stations (behave now Ryan Lochte), odd-looking office buildings and lots of traffic.

There were no Brazilian restaurants, no neat little lunch spots. I didn’t have a car. I worked double digit hours every single day for over three weeks. A couple coworkers and I would usually walk to Olympic Park at about 11 am – the four and a half miles was long and foul smelling (complete with a terrifying crossing over a nasty river of sewage on a concrete “bridge” that would sway as you stepped).

 It was exercise and it wasn’t another bus though. We’d return on a bus between 1 and 3 am. Some guys even later. I ate a real dinner at a real restaurant three times. Total. Those were great.

 That’s the Olympics. It’s actually pretty fun. I mean that.

 Anyway if there was time for lunch, then a 10-minute walk to Subway was it. I probably went 10 times. The food was better, faster and healthier than what they served inside the Olympic Park.

 Hence my own personal Subway Challenge.

 While it may not be the most romantic of tourist experiences, I’d like to see Anthony Bourdain attempt this harrowing act. The Sandwich Artists consisted of a crew of women, none of who spoke any English to match my decided lack of Portuguese. This isn’t a place catering to foreigners, with a friendly, understanding and often multilingual wait staff. They just make sandwiches.

 Then there are my fellow Subway patrons. They were all workers – construction, nurses, store clerks. Like everyone who goes to Subway, they had limited time and no one needs some jerk slowing down the line.

 Put it this way, if you were at your local Subway and some Brazilian was up there trying to order in Portuguese and bewildering the staff and making everything slow, you’d be justified if you went behind the counter and got that giant Subway phone they have and beat him with it. Just ask for a jury of your peers.

 So when there are a half dozen hungry ass Brazilians behind you there is considerable pressure to order swiftly. That leads to train wrecks.

 I slowly got better as I learned from my mistakes. The Sandwich Artists, bless them all, seemed to appreciate the effort (and when I’d tip them, no doubt). Sometimes customers would offer advice. It was a disaster – one day I wound up with parmesan bread for inexplicable reasons – but it got less and less of a disaster each time.

 For instance, don’t try ordering a foot long, they’re all about the metric system here. “Trinta” is thirty, so they knew I was going for the 30-center meter sub. There’s no wheat. “Nove Graos” is “nine grain.” That will do it. “Peru” is turkey (which is a geography joke). “Tostado” is toasted. “Alface” is lettuce. And so on.

 Except Brazilians speak with a beautiful flare so just knowing the word meant nothing, you have to say it with the roll of Portuguese. I had no such roll. One day early on I got the order correct and bragged about it on Twitter. People made fun of me for going to Subway. Then it turns out I just got lucky. The next day I was back to screwing up.

 There was always something. “Pimenta verde” is “green pepper” and that was my nemesis. I could never say it correctly. I think I throw an “r” in. One day it yielded me onions. Who knows? You just take what you get and go with it.

 Sunday was my last day here. I went for a final shot, practicing as I walked down the highway to the store. I was hyped. I think had that Michael Phelps face going. It wasn’t crowded, so that helped. The sandwich artist and I were locked in on each other, like a fast food symphony of ordering, the gold medal match of the Rio Games.

 The foot long wheat came out. The turkey. I survived saying no to cheese (it baffles them). It got toasted. Lettuce, tomato, pickles and, yes, green peppers arrived. Some vinegar was put over everything. I was so excited I gave her a thumbs up and said “obrigado” or “thank you.”

 Somehow she did not take that as a sign I was done and happy but rather that I was requesting black olives. And with that … failure again. It was like having a touchdown taken back for excessive celebration. I’m crushed.

 Maybe next time, Rio.

[danwetzelsports]

Brazil’s Finest Contribution To Global Society

I’m heading to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro next week amid the predictable cloud of security concerns, pollution and disease. Good times. This will be the seventh Olympics I’ve been fortunate enough to cover and it rivals, if not surpasses, Athens, as the most concerning.

 Sochi, Russia, for instance, was a testament to corruption and construction delays – for instance, I had no doorknob on my “hotel” room door for the first five days. You never doubted the Russia military had security on lock down though, which is way more important. Brazil is a perfect storm where anything can happen.

The challenges are real and depressing. Many projects are not complete. I spent nearly five weeks in Brazil for the 2014 World Cup so this doesn’t surprise me. I traveled all over the country and saw resources needed for basic infrastructure, public health and fighting street crime wasted on gleaming sports facilities.

 Consider this picture of a morning commuter on the streets of Recife during a heavy, but not unusual rain. You think this guy needs a drainage system or a 40,000-seat soccer stadium? (Got to respect the hustle, though).

That said, it’s still Brazil. It’s still a really cool place, with great people, culture and attitude. And while this won’t make up for Olympians swimming and sailing in sewage or whatever other plagues befall these Games, I am looking forward to seeing an invention I hold in high regard … the Brazilian beer refrigerator.

 I like my beer cold. Like really, really cold, preferably not just on ice, but floating in a cooler of ice water. Critics will say this is because I like bad beer and still drink Busch Light and things like that. The critics would be correct, but so what, it’s my beer. I’m not affecting your double IPA with a wedge of fruit in it. Hipsters can still drink whatever they want out of a mason jar. To each our own. We’re stronger together ... it takes a village ... and all that.

 As good as the refrigeration systems are in America, beer can still get a little warm for my liking, especially at bars. A moderately chilled, or borderline warm pilsner just isn’t very good.

 Well, in Brazil, pilsners represent 95-plus percent of the beer consumed. This isn’t a craft beer country. It is also a very warm and humid place. Necessity being the mother of invention, Brazil has solved the problem with these epic refrigerators they line up in bars. They are super fridges – more like freezers -- that chill beers below zero Celsius in order to get as cold as possible by using the alcohol (which freezes at very low temps) to dip the beverage below freezing.

 The bottles and cans come out heroically cold. It’s fantastic. You see these things everyone, in establishments big or small all over the place. Then, if you buy a larger beer (32-40 ounces) meant to be shared in small glasses (kind of like a bottle of wine) they bring out plastic cozies that are either frozen or contain ice. Warm beer is the enemy.

 The Brazilians think of everything … except how to pave a road. Priorities are priorities, though.

 I am partial to the Antarctica brand but Brahma, Skol and others will do. As way of competing, each brewery sets up its own fridge that has a digital display that informs how cold it is inside – they are all in negative digits. Maybe one is only -1 C and the one next to it is -7 (about 17 degrees Fahrenheit). Well, then, -7 it is. This is real time capitalism and a tremendous development for mankind. (You could be skeptical of the accuracy but they generally change based on how often the door gets open and the beer that comes out is damn cold.)

 And so with Brazil getting so much bad publicity right now, let me offer this small sliver of hope. For all the reasons to not get excited about Rio, at least I have the promise of three weeks with the Brazilian beer fridge

See you next week, old friend.

[danwetzelsports]

How Recruiting Works In College Golf

I never gave much thought to how college golf recruits its top players. I’ve covered lots of college basketball and football recruiting and have seen the somewhat odd visual of famous coaches hovering around a top player in the hope he notices them and appreciates their presence at his game.

 It’s warped, but that’s how the power scale works.

As unusual as it is to see a famous college coaches in the stands of a football field, or even dozens around the court at a big AAU tournament, golf felt even more out of place

 Last week the Red Run Golf Club in Royal Oak, Mich. hosted the 99th WGA Western Junior Championship, which is essentially a tournament for 156 of the nation’s best junior players, mostly high school kids. It can portend a great future, recent past champions including Jim Furyk, Hunter Mahan and Rickie Fowler (conservatively dressed, no less). Tiger, Phil and others competed in it as teens.

 I wanted to see some really talented golfers on a course I play often, just to see how they’d play holes I’m familiar with.

 Oh, so you decided to bomb it 325 yards over the bunker there? Interesting strategy. I tend to just smack it into the woods on the right, punch out, three putt and go buy beer.

 This is a golf tournament, but no one watches. It bears no resemblance to a PGA event.

 There is no gallery to speak of, just families and a few – very few – curious onlookers like me. It’s dead quiet out there, quieter than a normal day on a course where the players talk and joke among themselves.

 It made one grouping stand out, a three man paring with one kid’s dad as a caddie and two other women (presumably mothers) walking along. That was it … except for the about dozen men walking right behind them all clad in golf shirts and hats emblazoned with famous college logos.

 Oklahoma, Auburn, Arizona, UNLV, Alabama, Texas A&M, Ole Miss and so on.

 Two others weren’t walking, they were in a golf cart and wearing Oregon Ducks gear. The driver was recognizable, Casey Martin, who saw his promising career on the PGA Tour cut short due to a birth defect in his right leg that made walking extremely difficult.

 He’s now the head coach at Oregon, which just won the national championship. An assistant coach rode with him and around the greens they’d usually get out and stand around to watch putts.

 Everyone wearing college gear was either a head or assistant coach. There were other schools that would pop over for a couple holes and then leave to watch someone else … talent was everywhere.

 The chief object of their attention was a lanky player from Libby, Montana named Ryggs Johnston. He is probably the top rated uncommitted player out there.

 Libby is a 2,600-person town near the Canadian border and calls itself the “City of Eagles.” It is home to one golf course, whose dress code is “shirt and shoes required” (this is technically also true of Augusta National). Johnston could hit the ball a Montana mile but he looked young, like really, really young. It turns out he is … just 15 and just a few weeks removed from his freshman year of high school.

 Yeah, that young. Since most golf recruits commit early in high school the coaches weren’t there to see if he was good enough. One coach said the scouting is done in middle school. This was all about a recruit seeing them and appreciating how much they are wanted.

 “It’s crazy,” he noted.

 So the scene was surreal. Not only was this like Coach K, John Calipari, Tom Izzo all coming to watch a high school freshman play basketball, it was done on an otherwise peaceful, expansive and mostly empty golf course. At least a basketball game is a basketball game … even AAU tournaments have other fans and bleachers and feels like an event.

 There was something bizarre about three kids silently playing golf, with two moms following closely, and one dad on the bag … and then all these college coaches from all over the country walking (or riding) just behind them down a fairway in suburban Detroit all fairly bored but hoping to catch the eye of some kid from middle of nowhere Montana.

 That’s how college golf recruiting works apparently. The college coaches certainly seemed to know what they were doing.

 Johnston has a fluid swing and finished seven under for the four-round tournament; good enough for third place.

 The winner of the 99th WGA Western Junior Championship? Sean Maruyama of Los Angeles. He came in at 10 under. He turned 16 this month. He’s been committed to UCLA for over a year.

[danwetzelsports]

The Best Golf Course in America

Practice rounds of the U.S. Open are underway at Oakmont Country Club outside of Pittsburgh (NOT pictured above) and so is the complaining from the players. The set up is expected to be brutal on a course that is already considered brutal. It’s also a beautiful, impressive place. I’ve never played it, but I walked all over it in 2007, the last time it hosted the Open.

 When it comes to golf courses I’m more six pack than champagne – I generally just like to play wherever I can. I love a great course but I don’t chase elite places. Cumulatively I’ve had more fun at a place called Mink Lake in Valparaiso, Ind. (also NOT pictured above) than any other course. It’s 9-holes, “stretches” 3,000 yards and has a humble slope of 102. Locals call it “Stink Lake.” It was perfect when some friends I would hack around in our early 20s.

 All this said, I have through the years played some brilliant courses. Additionally, while working as a sportswriter covering major championships, I’ve repeatedly walked many others.

 Oakmont, Pebble Beach, Oakland Hills, Torrey Pines, Merion, Winged Foot, Pinehurst No. 2, Southern Hills, Hazeltine National and so on.

 That includes annual trips to Augusta National, the current No. 1 course in the Golf Digest rankings. I’ve never played it because I painfully refuse to enter the Masters media lottery out of some lost and misguided sense of journalistic integrity. (“A man got to have a code,” Omar always said, even if it’s probably a dumb one.) Still, I can pretty much imagine it.

 This stuff is, by definition, subjective, but I recently played a course that is better than any I’ve ever played or seen:

 Boston Golf Club.

 And yes, that includes Augusta National. If you told me right now I could play Augusta or Boston Golf Club, I’d chose Boston (note: this is a hypothetical, of course, and if any Augusta National member wanted to challenge me on this … ).

 Boston Golf Course is that good though. It’s as true of a golf course as I’ve ever seen; it lacks bells, whistles and pretentiousness, unless you consider its pretentiousness it’s lack of pretentiousness. And it is devastatingly difficult, like nearly every single hole.

 Somehow Golf Digest has it ranked only No. 75 in America, a travesty worth fighting. So here’s my fight. (If it matters, I got to play by chance through a friend of a friend, no one at the club knew who I was, that I was there or that there was any chance I’d ever write anything.)

 The place isn’t famous. It wasn’t even built until 2004. It’s low membership means very few people have been there. Not many people could even find it. Its entrance contains no sign, just the number 19 on a big rock by a meandering driveway off of little Old County Road in Hingham, Mass. If you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t know it was there … which is the point.

There are apparently no tee times, you just show up and play. The parking lot is basic. There isn’t some hustle of bag drop guys looking for tips. There are no dress code or rules other than one: use common sense.

 There are almost no amenities. No pool. No tennis. No big clubhouse for weddings. This isn’t a country club. It’s all golf. There’s a grille room with a good deck but it’s nothing special. Everyone I’ve spoken to about BGC says its like Pine Valley in New Jersey (No. 2 in the Golf Digest rankings). I’ve never been to Pine Valley, but it sounds right. If I need to concede BGC is the second best course in American behind Pine Valley, then fair game.

 It sure isn’t No. 75.

 The layout is incredible, cut through the deep woods and undulating quarries of Boston’s South Shore. The grounds are not obsessively manicured, but they don’t need to be. The simplicity is a positive. The terrain is rocky and steep. The bunkers are savage, both massive sprawls and vicious pots. And on the greens, it’s good luck to you and the Red Sox.

 A great golfer could play here and never lack a challenge. A guy like me was pummeled into submission at times, but the place was so awesome I didn’t care. When you tamed a hole, you felt a sense of accomplishment.

 This was authentic golf, unadulterated golf.

It’s walkers only and while we carried our own bags, I’d recommend the caddies/sherpas because this is no easy hike (it’d be very, very difficult for seniors to play here even with a caddie). The “paths” are uneven.

 There are no signs anywhere. You finish one green and look around for a trail through the woods that you figure might lead to the next hole. When you come upon a tee box, you just hope it’s the right one.

 At one point you tee off next to the ruins of an old farmhouse. A green is next to a penned in herd of goats. A three-hole stretch goes through a mined out granite quarry. Stonewalls sometimes serve as OB markers. Other times there are just there. The rakes are made of wood. So are the ball markers. The 18th is a 187-yard, up hill par three, that sounds like a bad way to finish until you try to play it. It’s a white-knuckle gambling hole.

 It’s perfect. Course designer Gil Hanse is a genius. Here’s a Boston Globe story on the place and its tragic and turbulent history (http://tinyurl.com/z3a8sfh). It includes the death on site of the founder and the time Donald Trump try to buy it. Mercifully he didn’t, although not because Trump doesn’t build and operate phenomenal clubs. He most certainly does.

 It’s that BGC doesn’t need to be gold-plated. It needs to be what it is, just shut up and play; if you can’t figure out how great this is, then don’t come back.

 I don’t know why the best course lists don’t agree with me. Golf Digest isn’t the only one vastly under ranking it. Golf.com has it 86th.

 I’m sure those publications spend lots and lots of time on their lists (far more than I do). They have certainly been to more places than I have. They are missing this one completely though. My guess is that age, history and the hosting majors play a big role.

 For instance, I’ve played Oakland Hills South (ranked No. 17) multiple times. It’s phenomenal. It’s not in Boston Golf Club’s class though. It’s just not even close and I don’t know anyone could disagree.

 So until I get out on Pine Valley, I’m personally declaring Boston Golf Club the best course in America. If Golf Digest and Golf.com can have their list, I can have mine.

[danwetzelsports]

The science is in. The NFL isn’t good at science.

DeflateGate began a year ago this week. It wasn't until May, however, that the NFL, via the Wells Report, revealed the scientific work on the case performed by Exponent. Further information was gleaned in court transcripts over the summer.

Since then other independent scientists have been able to review the process and findings.

I'm not scientist but I've always been interested to see what actual scientists came up with. Peer review is how that world works.

Best we can tell, they have been universal in blasting the league and Exponent's conclusions and methodology. It doesn't appear a single non-NFL affiliated scientist who performed a serious analysis believes the footballs were unnaturally deflated. Not one. If they are out there, I couldn't find them.

In NFL parlance it's more probable than not (way, way more probable actually) that nothing happened in the first place. If so, everything else is moot. You can’t have a murder case if no one died.

https://sports.yahoo.com/…/1-year-after-deflate-gate-balloo…

You can also watch this directly from MIT professor John Leonard. This is condensed. There is also a full 90 minute version out there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwxXsEltyas

[danwetzelsports]

Making a Murderer Update

So DUI Jodi, the girlfriend/fiancee of Steven Avery gave an interview where she calls her depiction in the movie a lie and blows Steven up as an abuser. She says he’s guilty.

It’s wild (read it below). I don’t know exactly what to take from this. Is this the truth now or was that that truth then or is there another truth or is she being pressured to condemn him or ... We’re not talking about the most reputable person, but that’s generally how it works in these kinds of cases. Well-adjusted people aren’t going to hang around people like Steven.

It is also why I’ve always said I don’t know if Steven did it but he certainly could have and signing a petition for his release is ridiculous. 

I wish the debate about the movie hadn’t deteriorated into Steven’s guilt or innocence and instead remained focused on the legal system and the conduct of Ken Kratz.

Or if the country is going to debate guilt, at least focused on the far weaker and more troubling case of Brendan Dassey. It’s amazing how little focus is on him, who almost certainly didn’t do it but is serving time just like Steven.

Anyway, read this, it’s something else:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/steven-avery-ex-fiance-abused-article-1.2496357?utm_content=buffer73602&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=NYDailyNewsTw

[danwetzelsports]

Making A Murderer Thoughts, Discussion, Part Two

Part 1 proved surprisingly popular [you can find it below] so what the hell, here’s Part 2 … now even longer and more tangential.

 I’d also recommend this podcast on the case from Matt Jones and Steven Romines, who is one of the top criminal defense attorneys in Louisville. bit.ly/1OPcO8w

 Again, these are just some free flowing thoughts. I’ve only seen Making a Murderer once and no doubt missed or misunderstood parts. The feedback I got from Part 1 [mostly via Twitter @DanWetzel] was great and I added/fixed stuff as it came in.

 Since the first part I’ve done more online research. Too much actually. I am now vowing to get out of this rabbit hole and stop pouring through old Wisconsin court filings.

 The most interesting thing I found was a transcript of what was apparently Brendan’s second interview with police. Investigators Mark Wiegert and Tom Fassbender conducted it on Feb. 27, two days prior to the infamous “coerced” confession shown in the movie.

 Brendan is far more forthcoming. There is no video, so who knows how it looked, but he offered up lots of details and stories without suggestion. You can and should read it here: bit.ly/1RwNm6N

 Brendan said he knew nothing until 8 p.m. when Steven invited him over to the bonfire. This matches all of Brendan’s alibis.

 Brendan said he helped keep the bonfire going by collecting wood and garbage but in the process noticed body parts in the fire. Steven knew he saw it and told him a story about stabbing Teresa in the Toyota Rav 4, hauling her body back on a sled once it got dark and now incinerating her. Steven then threatened to stab Brendan if he ever talked.

 Now, there are obvious questions with the story, inconsistencies and many things to go back over. A lot. It’s not perfect. Most notably, why would Steve invite a witness to a corpse burning and there remains consider questions about whether you can get an open pit hot enough to cremate a body in one evening.

 Still … this story is way, way more probable and way, way better told than the implausible rape and throat-slashing scene in the bedroom that produced no blood (I go over that in Part 1). It also seems to me – some experts in police questioning may show me otherwise – that it was way, way better handled by Wiegert and Fassbender. They often just ask a question and Brendan answers it.

 I don’t know if Brendan told the truth but it at least could be the truth. This should have been the basis for the state’s case against Steven, and Brendan (accessory after the fact, etc.)

 So why the hell is Brendan carrying a life sentence for participating in a rape, imprisonment and murder in the trailer/garage that absolutely did not happen? Why did prosecutor Ken Kratz go that route?

 My guess is Brendan is just the human version of planted evidence; a tool to run up the odds of conviction against Steven who authorities thought did the murder, had it out for or both. Brendan’s life was meaningless.

 As outrageous as it was to put the kid away based on a confession that couldn’t be a confession because what he described couldn’t have happened, it’s even worse when you realize Kratz chose that coerced “confession” instead of a confession that actually could have happened and doesn’t appear coerced.

 No wonder Brendan kept telling wilder stories. No one wanted the truth.

 * I’m putting most of this on Kratz. I’m eager for him to explain this decision, not try to muddy the waters by complaining in the media about “additional evidence” that is often not relevant or compelling. That’s a red-meat PR tactic straight out that jury-polluting press conference textbook. It’s a dodge but the cable TV hosts who interview him either didn’t see the movie or are too dense to ask a relevant question.

* Prosecutors, or at least good ones, take immense pride in their vow that they, more than anyone else in a courtroom, are there to pursue justice. Most people think that’s the judge’s job, but it isn’t. Every single day they decline to prosecute cases because there isn’t enough evidence or the story doesn’t make sense.

 They are the check designed to balance out the police who because they are on the frontlines are understandably prone to intense confirmation bias and competitiveness. Even the most honest cop in the world needs a good district attorney. So, obviously, does the public. There wasn’t one here.

 * It’s human nature to try to figure out who killed Teresa Halbach. That’s actually unfortunate.

 While the presentation is sympathetic to Steven Avery’s case, the movie really isn’t about solving the mystery. It’s about a screwed up system. This is about the process not the destination.

 That gets lost when the focus is on trying to crack the case.

 As I wrote in Part 1, I don’t know who killed Teresa Halbach. It very well may have been Steven; there are lots and LOTS of things that make him a suspect. I can’t imagine how anyone could deny that. The people who are just blindly demanding he get let out of prison because they know he is innocent are being naïve.

 He absolutely could be the killer. Anyway, I’m more interested in “guilty or not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” then “guilty or innocent.”

 While a who-done-it is entertaining, in this case it’s a folly of an exercise. How the hell would I know? Other than the people in the movie, I don’t know one resident of Manitowoc County. Many of the prime suspects are prime suspects merely because of the limited scope of our perspective.

 Although I understand and remain curious, jumping to rash certainties about guilt and innocence and then indiscriminately defending that position and missing the larger issues is how the entire thing started.

 * I do think Brendan Dassey deserves a new trial based on incompetent representation from his initial lawyer and because Judge Jerome Fox erred by not granting Dassey’s first request for new representation. In addition, Fox was wrong to admit into evidence Dassey’s multiple “confessions” because they were so patently ridiculous, inconsistent and, on occasion, coerced.

 There’s a more proper way to argue this, but I’m not a lawyer.

 Hopefully his case gets in front of a federal judge who enjoys a lifetime appointment and unlike the judges in Wisconsin are not subject to the whims of voters that turn them into black-robed politicians.

 * I think Steven Avery deserves a federal investigation into police misconduct in his case. If that confirms what most of us agree appears to be repeated acts of planted evidence, then he should be granted a new trial.

 He very well may have done it, but the system is the system and this country can’t exist on police determining guilt and then framing someone.

 As distasteful as it would be to allow a rapist/murder to go free, intellectually we know if cops are allowed to do this they will sometimes frame innocent people and over the years allow many more actual rapists/murders to remain free and continue to rape/murder.

 * If the federal investigation shows anyone planting evidence [cough, cough, Lenk and Colburn] they should be charged to the fullest extent of the law.

 * That’s as far as I’m going at this time. This was a movie – a long movie, but just a movie. I’m not afraid to say I don’t know. As one of my friends put it, “I’m 75 percent certain Steven is innocent and 75 percent certain Steven is guilty.” I lean more to the latter, but that sounds about right.

 I’m certainly not screaming to let someone out of prison because of a documentary. I’m also not going to employ that old tripe about “a jury of his peers decided so it’s over” either. That line is pandering to the masses that want to believe regular people are really smart and full of common sense.

 We aren’t.

 * For what it’s worth, Steven tried to offer up to the jury alternative suspects. Under Wisconsin law, however, he was prohibited because, according to a ruling, “the parties identified by Avery may have had the opportunity to commit the crime (but he) was unable to demonstrate (they) had a motive.”

 Of course, the state was able to convict Steven despite being unable to demonstrate he had a motive. That’s how it works though.

 * So who are Steven Avery’s top four alternative suspects (he pared the list down in an appeal filing … and yes, I need to stop wasting time reading appeal filings)? It’s worth specifically noting that Teresa’s ex-boyfriend, who is (unfairly in my opinion) hinted at in the movie, isn’t one of them.

 Steven’s four are: Scott Tadych, the boyfriend of his sister, and Brendan’s mother, Barb; his own brothers Earl Avery and Charles Avery and Brendan’s brother Bobby Dassey. All were at the salvage yard at the time.

 Other than Bobbie Dassey, each had at least one prior run in with the law for acts including physical assault, sexual assault, trespassing, violating restraining orders, threats and assorted other ugliness.

 This much is clear, when poor Teresa Halbach drove onto that salvage yard she was surrounded by a lot of people with a lot of history of a lot of violence. She never stood a chance.

 * If, as I suspect, the Manitowoc Sheriff Department planted evidence it should be noted they were absolutely horrible at doing it.

 These guys have no chill.

 How many times is Lieutenant James Lenk going to show up and magically discover critical evidence that a dozen other officers missed?

 I’ve seen Scooby Doo episodes with better misdirection.

 Consider the Toyota Rav 4 key, which was not found during five previous searches of Steven’s tiny bedroom. No one saw the key sitting under a pair of slippers. Really? These guys tear apart rooms, they rifle through every page of a book, turn pockets inside out, pull up rugs, rip down drywall, you name it.

 Yet the key isn’t found … until Lenk shows up.

 Of course he is under escort of a Calumet County deputy, who’s stated job is to make sure Lenk doesn’t plant evidence. Imagine that being your job. How suspicious is a cop when another cop has to watch him at all times? Only that deputy gets distracted with something else. Once no one is watching, Lenk, sure as can be, declares, “there’s a key over here.”

 I literally laughed at that part of the movie. How Ken Kratz didn’t hear this story and say, GTFOH, is mindboggling.

 * The police say the key was hanging or stuck or somehow hidden behind a small bookshelf and no one noticed until it was shook and apparently fell. If so, the police who searched the place the first five times should be fired because they are incompetent at finding clues.

 Furthermore, we are to believe that Steven, a criminal mastermind who according to the state managed to shoot a woman in his garage without leaving any blood behind, had Teresa’s key, realized it was a highly incriminating piece of evidence and decided the best idea would be to hide it behind a bookcase rather than dispose of it one million better ways?

 * Let’s look at this key. Maybe there is an explanation for this – if you know it, please pass it on – but the key chain has just one key on it, the one for the Toyota Rav 4. There is no house key. No office key. No key to another family member’s home or any other vehicle. No old key. Nothing. Just one key. How many keys are on your primary key chain?

 Is there an explanation for this? Teresa lives with a male roommate. You might argue that in rural Wisconsin they don’t need to lock their doors. OK, perhaps. But is it so safe that you never, ever lock the doors, say even if won’t be home all day or weekend? And what if your roommate unexpectedly locks the doors? You never, ever carry a house key … just in case?

 * The key that is found has Steven’s DNA on it, but not Teresa’s. So she somehow used this car key but never got any DNA on it. OK, then.

 * How about another Lieutenant Lenk coincidence, the bullet?

 I think it said in the movie the police searched the garage five times in November but never noticed any bullets. They did discover 11 shell casings, so they were looking for such things on the floor, but no bullets.

 Then, four months later, spurred on by Brendan’s story of mayhem, they decide to search the garage again. Lenk shows up of course and, hey, a spent bullet is found under some piece of equipment. Wow, that’s just amazing. What a lucky break in the case for the police.

 The bullet is of course tested and while the woman at the lab didn’t find any traces of blood on it, Teresa’s DNA was discovered.

 By this narrative this is one of the bullets that killed Teresa. How else could it have her DNA on it?

 So for that fired bullet to honestly wind up in that spot, it must have hit Teresa and then caromed around the garage floor. Yet no blood came out of Teresa’s body after being shot. No splatter, no high-velocity [and impossible to see] fragments, no pools of blood, nothing lighting up via Luminal indicating a clean up. There is nothing in that garage.

 This bullet apparently managed to hit Teresa and help kill Teresa yet caused no bleeding at all.

 Either that, or someone put some of her DNA on it and placed it there because neither she nor anyone else was ever shot in the garage.

 For that “someone” to not be a police officer you’d have to believe Steven (or a different murderer) shot Teresa with the bullet and then went and found it, put on surgical gloves so he wouldn’t get any of his DNA on it, picked the bullet up, carried it into the garage, dropped it to the floor.

 We report. You decide.

 * As for the whole defense argument about the woman at the crime lab “contaminating” the DNA test, I get it but I really didn’t care. I thought the crime lab woman made an honest mistake and made the right call to ignore protocol. I think the online backlash on her is unfair.

 The bullet was planted. After that, nothing matters.

 * I find complaints that the film didn’t provide “additional evidence” from the prosecution to be a mixed bag. It would’ve been great to get all the evidence but the movie was long enough.

 Some defense arguments weren’t included too. Want one? According to a post-conviction filing, a police cadaver dog “hit” on a golf cart that Earl Avery and his friend Robert Fabian were using to hunt rabbits on the property up until 5:20 p.m. on the day Teresa was presumed killed. Why wasn’t that mentioned?

 The producers had to make a decision somewhere. There is always more evidence.

 * As for the specific examples Kratz is complaining about: some are interesting and some aren’t.

 The handling of Avery’s legal troubles could have been better presented. Even though it was mostly allegations, mentioning that he was at least accused of sexual assault, threats and even molestation would have done much to curb the sympathy for Steven.

 * The producers should have included that Steven had called Teresa before, had specifically requested her to take a picture of the van for AutoTrader, had allegedly come to the door once wearing just a towel and she had complained to her boss about him.

 The fact he called her three times the day she went missing is particularly noteworthy because twice he apparently used the *67 feature to hide his identity. Strange. It isn’t proof he’s guilty, but it’s certainly germane and interesting. In the movie their meeting felt random.

 * Much of the other stuff rings hollow to me. For instance, he owned some cuffs that could have been used to restrain Teresa?

 Besides the fact the absolute last thing I want to spend time thinking/vomiting about is whatever Steven and his DUI girlfriend Jodi were doing with sex toys in that little trailer … so what?

 Brendan’s story of Teresa bound to the bed was nonsense. Besides, her DNA was never found on the cuffs, so she wasn’t ever in them.

* The remnants of a cell phone, Palm Pilot and camera, all the same models as Teresa’s were found in a burn barrel on the property. I think we all know she died in the area and after so much suspected evidence planting, I can’t take any of that seriously.

 * What about when Steve was 19 and was imprisoned for animal cruelty? That was mentioned in the movie. Steven doused a cat in gasoline and threw him through a bonfire. That is totally f’d up behavior, but it has no bearing on this case.

 Does anyone out there other than Steven’s sad, delusional mother think he was a well-adjusted individual? He is no angel.

 He no doubt he had huge mental, emotional and behavioral issues even before he went to prison for nearly two decades, a place that would bring out the worst in anyone.

 In the bizarre, ignorant, uneducated world of that junkyard, surrounded by other at least semi-depraved relatives, the cat story fits. It’s ugly. It isn’t evidence that he is guilty of murder.

 * The crazy, violence-promising letters he wrote from prison mean little to me. And, again, no matter what some websites claim to, these were presented in the movie.

 I have never been in prison (whew). However, I do know too many people who have been or still are in, and (mostly) because of work I have visited them and stayed in correspondence with them.

 In my very limited experience – hopefully someone else has a better perspective or understanding – I’ve found that life inside is so desperate and depressing that outrageous outbursts are par for the course.

 Two of the most prevailing issues for extended stay inmates are a sense of being powerless and of being forgotten/ignored by those on the outside whom they still believe are equals. Rejection is incredibly painful. Again, I would imagine this would be even more pronounced if you were locked up, as Steven was, for not just a crime he didn’t commit but also the crime of rape, which makes him a target from other, incredibly violent offenders. That’s about as close to hell on earth as you can get.

 Fantasizing about asserting power – via cartoonish violence – on an ex-wife who divorced you, took your children and no longer believes in you actually seems “normal” to me given the circumstances. Terrible and terrifying? Yes. But he’s full of rage after the only positive thing is in his life has been taken from him.

 * There was also testimony from an inmate that claimed Steven said when he planned on building a “rape and torture chamber” for women. It sounds ominous and is good for cable news blather but inmates are known to say anything and even the judge wouldn’t allow it at trial.

 * Here’s the most disturbing random piece of information presented in the entire movie: that Steven doesn’t “own any underwear.”

 I could have done without that tidbit.

 * DUI Jodi, of all the fringe characters, is quite a treat.

 The movie suggests the Manitowoc Sheriffs broke the couple up [heartless bastards] but I suspect it had more to do with Steven using all the civil suit money on criminal defense attorneys. Well, that and his looming life imprisonment. Jodi wasn’t a complete idiot.

 I’d imagine very few women look dreamily at Steven Avery [although he later managed to land another girlfriend despite being in prison].

 Yet I still kept wondering why he was with her? He didn’t have better options? Start with this, it’s unlikely that Mantiwoc, Wisc. is teeming with a bunch of George Clooney-types who are just hanging around into their 40s looking for Mrs. Right. The pickings for women are probably slim. Even Brendan said he had a girlfriend for a little while.

 Steven also had some things going for him. He was famous because of his wrongful conviction. His story elicited sympathy; the guy deserved a hug. He had his own home – albeit a rundown trailer with a view overlooking a salvage yard with about 3,600-junked cars on it. The handcuff order suggests an, ah, adventurous streak. He and his dad were going to start a fish business. He loved his mother. He was capable of growing really big beards.

 Oh, and he was going to become very, very wealthy, like multimillionaire wealthy.

 With all the dollars coming, you’d think he could’ve done better than Jodi, who appeared to bring nothing to the table, particularly when she served a 7-month jail term for DUI. (You know many DUI’s you need before you get 7-months?) Yet even then he’s taking her call multiple times a day, talking sweet to her and vowing to marry her (with a romantic proposal) when she gets out.

 Maybe all we really need to know about the real Steven Avery is that Jodi was the best girlfriend he could land.

 * Steven’s coming payday has no bearing on his ability or his motivation to rape or murder someone. None. The acts of rape and murder are so far from the norm of human nature that there is no connection to financial comfort.

 In this case, it would be about controlling Teresa and asserting power. Money doesn’t change that. To suggest it does, as some Avery family supporters in the movie theorize and others who have watched echoed, is to believe that the possibility of money makes everything and everyone happy. It doesn’t.

 * The Manitowoc Sheriff Department continuing to actively work this case even after it agreed that they shouldn’t be involved other than setting up a road perimeter and offering tools out of convenience can’t be discussed enough.

 If these cops – especially Colburn and Lenk – weren’t up to something, common sense says they would’ve stayed as far away as possible rather than further risk their careers, livelihoods and reputations.

 * The look on Colburn’s face when they played the tape back of him calling into the office and reading off the license plate – and knowing it was a 99 Toyota Rav 4 – was incredible television.

 * The reveal of the blood sample with the hole in the top was ever more incredible.

 * I don’t care about Ken Kratz and his creepy sex life – it’s actually more than creepy because it shows an abuse of power his position affords. It provided a bit of levity, but it has no bearing on this case. He could have been the straightest arrow in the world and he still acted terribly here.

 * As for actual comedy, a tip of the hat to the female deputy who was videotaping a search of Steven’s trailer and came upon a letter from, I think, the Innocence Project inviting him to some banquet.

 In a complete deadpan voice she says, “Yeah, I don’t think he’ll be making that.”

 Now that is the kind of snarky cop that I know and appreciate.

 * I am now going to cancel Netflix so I never write this much about a television show again.

[danwetzelsports]

Making A Murderer Thoughts, Discussion

 I’m not a binge television watcher. I don’t follow all the cool dramas. I almost never use Netflix or anything like that. I’m too busy and too lazy and too distracted.

 So the fact I watched all 10 episodes of “Making a Murderer” should be a testament to how fascinating the series is.

 Like anyone who watched, I was sucked in and then left with questions/observations. I decided to write them out here and may continue and add more later. It’s long and detailed but I figure maybe there are others who watched it and don’t mind long and detailed. 

 Warning there spoilers everywhere. The entire thing is a spoiler really. Repeat: SPOILERS.

 Also, I watched it once and once only. I can guarantee that I missed stuff or misinterpreted stuff. These are mostly off the top of my head thoughts. I’ve done some additional research but it’s limited and by no means am I the expert here. So add your own thoughts/rebuttals below or hit me up on twitter @DanWetzel. I’m interested.

 * There is one key, key, thing to remember about criminal cases that should have been pounded home during the show: There is no guilt or innocence. There is guilty or not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

 Are Steve Avery and Brendan Dassey innocent? Don’t know for sure. How do you prove the absence of something? That’s why it isn’t required in court. The state is supposed to prove guilt. The entire and only burden is on the state. A defendant is not obligated to present any defense at all – no witnesses, no evidence, nothing. He doesn’t have to prove anything. Ever.

 So arguing that the state didn’t prove the guilt of Steve and Brendan is different than saying they are innocent or coming up with an alternative theory on who did it.

 What this movie shows is how that isn’t the case our system, mainly because jurors aren’t very good at understanding the concept. I wish it was taught better in high schools across America. Even the oft-repeated phrase – innocent until proven guilty – is a bit misleading.

 This will focus on “not guilty.”

 * I’ll get to the more complicated Steve Avery case at some point but the situation with Brendan Dassey is a travesty.

 Sixteen years old with a low IQ, no understanding of the legal system, a complete lack of education and an childlike imagination. A cop could get him to say anything. As one of his post-conviction attorneys noted, at the time he probably didn’t know the difference between his own attorney and the police.

 It was sad and staggering to watch someone so overmatched get steamrolled like this.

 Maybe the most heart-wrenching moment of the entire series – and this is saying something – was when Dassey acknowledged that he didn’t know what the word “inconsistent” meant. Then, even worse, when he asked his own mother [who was about 40 years old at the time] she said she didn’t know either.

 There was another time, when Brendan was on the stand at his trial, when he was being asked about losing some weight. It was clear to me that he didn’t know what the phrase “on purpose” meant.

 Q. We’re you trying to do it on purpose?

 A. (confused) No.

 Q. Were you trying to lose weight?

 A. (now understanding) I was trying to.

 This kid was nearly non-functional. The police weren’t just coercing a confession; they were bullying a weakling. It was absurd. He didn’t understand much of anything. He confessed to a rape and murder but then asked if he’d be back in high school for sixth hour and later if he’d be released in time to watch Wrestlemania.

 Maybe there should be a law that anyone under the age of 18 CAN’T waive their right to an attorney when being formally questioned by police. Getting parental permission (if the police even did) from an uneducated mother doesn’t protect the child.

 * The story Brendan told was so ridiculous and implausible that the police either knew it was false or are just as cognitively damaged as Brendan.

 According to Brendan, Teresa Halbach had her arms tied to two bed posts with rope and her legs to two more by chain. She was repeatedly raped, beaten, stabbed, had her throat slit and then choked. [Why choke someone who has had their throat slit?]

 With all of that, there is no blood. None on any found clothing of Brendan or Steve. They choked by hand a woman who had already been stabbed and had her throat slit and didn’t get any blood on them? Sure.

 There is none on the mattress – it was so clean they never even bothered to send it in for testing. There is none on the carpet, the walls, the bed-posts or anywhere else in the little trailer.  There are no hair fibers of Teresa or Brendan. No rope fibers. There is no DNA from Teresa that would have come off by being bound and tossed around.

 Despite all of this, the petite Teresa Halbach, she still wasn’t dead? Brendan’s story is the act of someone just running through every way to die he knew and giving it to the cops. It was the product of the imagination of a video game player who thinks people have superhuman survival powers – or someone, as he later testified, who either read(!) the book or at least saw the movie Kiss the Girls.

 Regardless, Steve and Brendan then supposedly take her out of the trailer – without any blood getting anywhere – and shoot her. This is either in the garage – the final prosecutorial theory – or into the backyard fire pit. And they didn’t shoot her once, but 11 times. Eleven?

 Come on.

 There is no blood in the garage, of course. So that didn’t happen. It can’t be cleaned up. They found Steve’s DNA which proves it wasn’t bleached. Luminal showed nothing. None slipped through the cracks in the floor. There were 11 gun shots but no tiny, high-velocity splatter. The garage didn’t happen. To suggest so is to lie.

 As for the fire pit, if that was the case, then why did her blood and hair wind up in the back of her Toyota Rav 4? Why would they pull her out of the fire pit, put her in the car, drive her around, and then return to the supposed burn location where Brendan ridiculously claimed he saw toes and body parts in the fire. [I’m, thankfully, not an expert on how to burn a body but it also doesn’t seem possible that you could get a backyard fire hot enough to do it.]

 Oh, and Brendan had alibis up until about 5:30 from two family members, including his mother, who were with him in trailer as he played video games. Let’s say you unfairly discount that as just family.

 Brendan had a seemingly unimpeachable alibi between 5:30-6 when he answered the phone at his mom’s house and briefly spoke to his brother Blaine’s boss. The time of the call can be verified and why would that random guy lie? In addition, as my friend John Walters of Newsweek reminded me, Steven also accepted two phone calls that night -- at 5:36 and 8:57. One lasted 15 minutes. Both were recorded because they came from his then girlfriend who was in jail at the time.

 So in the middle of this gruesome rape/murder/burning/world class clean up session that eliminated all forensic evidence, Brendan happened to go home for a minute and answered the phone. Yet he did it without getting any blood, fiber or anything else from Teresa in that house either? And Steven twice had time to casually chat at length with his girlfriend?

 We can go on and on. This story is impossible. It is so ludicrous that even if Brendan volunteered it 100 times in a row without any coercion and never recanted it, it shouldn’t have been used.

 District Attorney’s like to point out that they, not the judge, are the only people in a courtroom that are supposed to be about finding justice and nothing else.

 Whatever. Ken Kratz just wanted to win the case.

 * Kratz, who prosecuted the case, later told the jury in the Avery case that this was the work of Steve Avery and Steve Avery alone. Then he came back in the Dassey case and said it was the work of two men, Steve and Brendan.

 Ugh.

 * The Dassey case was an even bigger travesty than just the fact that Dassey is sitting in a Green Bay prison for a crime the state didn’t come close to proving he was guilty of committing.

 It was tactical and this gets to the heart of the horror here.

 Let’s give law enforcement the benefit of the doubt here and say that at least some of them were trying to honestly solve the case. If so, it is natural you would seek an eyewitness who can claim he saw, or even helped, in the murder. And it made sense in this case but this is a very complex crime for one person to pull off, especially the clean up. Someone had to help.

 Dassey gave them that witness. Of course the story was made up and he later recanted, but at the moment he told it investigators probably couldn’t have predicted how weak it would turn out to be. Again, I’m going to assume not everyone in the movie is as corrupt as they are portrayed.

 An honest investigator can take the confession and presume that there will be evidence that backs it up later or some of the pieces will fit.

 That’s why Brendan Dassey is so important, if he is telling the truth about anything, then it slams the case shut on Steve Avery. He wasn’t though and thus never wound up testifying against Steve. It didn’t matter, as the movie points out, his confession takes out Steve’s best alibi, another person who was at what was almost assuredly just an innocent bonfire.

 More importantly it also allowed the DA to hold that outrageous press conference where he pollutes the jury with this horrific story of rape and abuse and throat slitting and so on.

 This happens way, way too often. In high profile cases the state will lay out crimes that enrage the public that they later never argue occurred. It’s a way to win the pretrial publicity.

 Steve Avery was done at that moment, when a story that wasn’t true was told when it should never have been told.

 * This happens even when the intent – or result – is understandable. It shouldn’t, but it does. I covered the Jerry Sandusky sexual molestation case and have always been troubled by this part. Note, I have no doubt about the guilt of Sandusky and think he is very much where he belongs. He’s the worst of the worst.

 That said, when he was first charged the state attorney’s office made a point to describe a scene where an assistant coach walked in on Sandusky sodomizing a 10 year old in the shower.

 There was justified and predictable outrage. To this day, those who only know so much about the case repeat that graphic scene.

 The truth is, that while Sandusky did many, many terrible and criminal things, there was never any allegation that he was anally raping a child in the shower. Forget no proof, there was never even anyone who claimed it happened.

 The assistant coach never said it. He never implied it. He never hinted at it. Nowhere in any of his interviews with law enforcement did he describe an anal rape. He said he walked in to a locker room and saw Sandusky and the boy embraced in the shower, but not to the level the state claimed. There was never anything said about anal sex in the shower.

 The state embellished it for what I would imagine was the shock factor.

 The thing is, that made up allegation wasn’t necessary. Sandusky’s acts were more than enough to be charged and contained more than enough stomach churning details to gain the obvious advantages of pretrial publicity. He was almost certain to be convicted – as he was on 45 counts.

 They piled on anyway. It’s a bad deal no matter how awful the defendant. In this case, it also helped wreck the reputation of the assistant coach, who to this day tries to convince people he never said what the state said he did even though they knew he didn’t.

 * This is all designed to not just influence potential jurors before the trial, but to later, during the trial, cause them pause about voting not guilty and having to explaining to outraged friends, family and neighbors who didn’t sit through the actual trial. It’s a scare tactic.

 * It is also serves to intimidates judges. I wish the movie had focused more on this [how many slow camera pans of a snow-covered junk yard do we need? There must have been two cumulative hours of it].

 When Avery and Dassey’s appeals went nowhere, the viewer is left to wonder how and why?

 Well, maybe there are legal arguments why and maybe there aren’t. I don’t know it all well enough and won’t claim I know the motivation of the trial judge or the various appellate judges.

 What we do know is that judges are human and judges live amongst us – in some cases in small communities. These aren’t some far off, well-cocooned U.S. Supreme Court Justices.

 You want to be the local judge and have people perceive that you went “easy” on those vicious criminals? You want to explain at a neighborhood barbecue why you may have favored the defendant? It requires additional courage. A lot of courage. It’s a lot easier to play along on a case this high profile and grizzly. That’s human nature. Some judges are going to be influenced by it.

 Justice is supposed to be blind but this is one way it isn’t.

 * This case shows what a terrible idea it is for the public to elect judges. The law – especially appellate – is suppose to messy and difficult and maddening and unpopular and beyond the comprehension of many citizens.

 Once you elect judges though, that can go out the window.

 In Wisconsin, the public votes on all seven Supreme Court justices, all 16 judges in the Court of Appeals and all 241 of the circuit court judges. They serve at the will of the people and the people overwhelmingly were expressing their will.

 The two “trial” judges in this case, one in Manitowoc County, one in Calumet County, were making about $128,000 a year according to the state court system [it could vary slightly by year]. At the time the median household income in Manitowoc was about $48,000 and in Calumet about $65,000.

 Needless to say, these are really good jobs in areas where there aren’t a lot of options. Incumbents tend to keep winning and thus remain employed for life unless they do something dramatic to anger the electorate. Something that can be used against them by outside groups in the election, like say ruling that Brendan’s confession is inadmissible and almost assuring he walks.

 I don’t know if financial security or professional ambition influenced any decision, in the trial or the ensuing appeals, but it is clearly a possibility. Those judges stand for reelection every four years and this was, by far, the biggest cases they’d ever hear.

 Everyone was watching and especially in the statewide appeals courts, going “soft” in either case would certainly be brought up during the campaign by what are often out-of-state, single-issue political action groups.

 Why risk everything by making an unpopular decision to help out someone who isn’t likely to become a very productive member of society anyway?

 * I’m going to do the indefensible and defend [a little] Len Kachinsky, who was Dassey’s public defender. OK, a real little, I mean very little, but still.

 Look, Kachinsky obviously did a terrible job. Allowing your mentally challenged teen client to be interviewed a second time by police without your presence is the definition of ineffective counsel and should have earned Brendan a new trial. His “investigator”, Michael O'Kelly, was perhaps the worst villain of the entire movie, a predator in sheep’s clothing and he’s responsible for that. O’Kelly took it upon himself to essentially work for the state rather than the defendant. It was sickening to watch.

Still, as it pertains Kachinsky’s recommendation that Brendan seek a plea bargain rather than fight, there’s some hindsight going on here. Not saying I’d ever hire him, but maybe he isn’t as bad as presented. The movie makes you want to root for Brendan and leads you to believe in real time that his confession is so clearly coerced and ridiculous that eventually someone will reject it – judge or jury.

 So in the moment, Kachinsky looks horrible.

 Here’s the thing though. Brendan’s mother did the real damage by allowing the cops to talk to him. Once the confession is in, no matter how ludicrous, the die was essentially cast. Kachinsky inherited a disaster of a case. The judge wasn’t going to do a damn thing. And neither was the jury. That was proven when Brendan did fight. He lost.

 Whether Kachinsky did or didn’t believe in his client, his pursuit of a plea deal was pragmatic. He had a mentally incapable client who’d admitted being part of a murder/mutilation in an emotionally charged case. In the moment, his public defender couldn’t possible have known there would be no supporting evidence to that confession.

 The offer was 15 years to testify against Steve – although that obviously would never occur because the district attorney knew Brendan’s story was false. Brendan eventually rejected the plea deal but wound up sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 41 years. He can get out at 58 years old. He would’ve been 31 with the plea.

 The only way he gets out sooner is if the publicity from Making a Murderer gets his sentence commuted – with Scott Walker as governor I wouldn’t hold my breath. Even still, there is no way Kachinsky could have predicted. As such, Brendan probably would’ve been better off with the plea deal, even if it was based on the state’s misconduct and a jury’s incompetence.

 That’s how the system works.

 * One of Teresa Halbach’s brothers has been getting a lot of heat online. He shouldn’t. People should lay off of him. The families of murder victims react in a million different ways during trials. Some cry. Some are normal. Some hide. I’ve had family’s not want to speak to the media at all. I once had dinner with the family of a murder victim while we waited for the verdict. You never know.

 What is common is for a victim’s family to place overwhelming, even unhealthy, faith in the system. It’s all they have.

 This young man [I’m purposely not using his name] was stuck in a period of mourning while unexpectedly having to become a spokesperson to the voracious media despite likely having limited experience or understanding of how the legal system works.

 And yet people are trying to pick apart his facial expressions.

 Just because you are rooting for Steve/Brendan doesn’t mean every person on the other side is evil. On this, don’t judge, just offer your condolences on their terrible loss.

* I’m going to write more, especially about the Steve Avery part, but one thing sticks with me: if they were willing to do all this to poor, pathetic Brendan Dassey, what wouldn’t they do?

 * What do you think? Comment below or use your own Tumblr page – it’s way the hell better and easier than Facebook.

[danwetzelsports]

Why are the college football playoffs on New Year’s Eve?

This year the college football semifinals will be played on New Year’s Eve rather than New Year’s Day.

New Year’s Eve is a work day for many -- the first game will kick at 1 p.m. PT. The night is too, especially in staffed up professions such as hospitality, transportation, law enforcement and so on. Millions of others just have other entertainment options or longstanding traditions of the holiday.

Even the men who run the playoff and ESPN which televises it acknowledge that putting the games to New Year’s Eve means fewer people will be able to watch, casual fans will ignore it and ratings will drop.

So why the hell did they move it in the first place?

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/why-are-the-playoff-semifinals-on-new-year-s-eve-again-053757483-ncaaf.html

[danwetzelsports]

Minnesota is playing at Arizona Thursday Night and if you are a fan of NFL history, or odd, construction-related circumstances, you should be rooting for the Vikings.

A victory would move Minnesota to 9-4 and give them a half game lead in the NFC North. That would put us one step closer to something occurring for the first in nearly three decades … something that if it doesn’t occur this season, may never happen again.

To be specific: An outdoor playoff game in Minneapolis.

Everyone has seen the old footage from the 1970s of the Vikings playing in frigid Upper Midwest weather, with the frozen breath of Carl Eller or Alan Page filling the air before they slammed some poor opposing running back. Classic stuff.

As cold as it gets in Green Bay, Wisc., it may be even a shade colder in the Twin Cities. Officially, the historic average low for both places in January is 7.

It’s so cold the Vikings moved into the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in 1982. There has never been a thought of going back outside but when the franchise decided its new stadium – fixed roof, of course – should be downtown rather than the suburbs, it needed to implode the Metrodome and build on its footprint.

That moved the Vikings to the outdoor stadium on the campus of the University of Minnesota for the 2014 and 2015 season [they played the final game of the 2013 season there too after the Metrodome roof collapsed].

The new – warm – place will be ready for next season, so this is the brief window to bring one of those classic outside-playoff games back. Next year is too late.

The last outdoor playoff game in Minneapolis was on Dec. 26, 1976 [playoffs were earlier then]. Minnesota beat the Los Angeles Rams 24-13. Chuck Foreman had a 62-yard TD run. Fran Tarkenton was the Vikings quarterback and Pat Haden was the Rams starter. It was 19 degrees with a 7-degree wind chill.

Now thanks to a construction quirk, the rise of the Vikings and the NFL rewarding all division winners with at least one home playoff game, we might get a football game in some January Minnesota weather.

Of course, with the way El Nino is working, that might mean sunny and in the 50s.

[danwetzelsports]

Monday’s post on Marriott taking desks out of what were once business-friendly rooms was more popular than I anticipated. The original post was designed to be lighthearted but I can tell you, there are a lot of travelers out there getting militant about this.

Here’s a discussion on it from Wednesday’s edition of the Wetzel to Forde Daily Podcast. We usually just talk sports, but Forde is also a Marriott Platinum for Life designee. And he was in the Marriott Marquis in New York at the time.

For those missing the point: a hardcore business traveler spends 100 to 200 (or more) nights a year in these rooms. Telling them they can no longer do work in their preferred manner is a massive lifestyle shift. This isn’t a redesign, it’s taking away what they saw as an essential part of the room.

They aren’t going to be fooled by having their bed called “multipurpose” -- now good for sleeping, eating and working. It’s not about how many people do and don’t use the desk. It’s a company running off very valuable customers who are desperate to continue being very valuable customers.

Just telling them to adjust is stupid. There are tons of hotel options out there.

Not sure the Marriott consultants understood that. If they did, that’s a hell of a gamble.

There are a lot of professions out there that can’t just be done on a laptop or smart phone while sitting on a bed or socially in a lobby. I heard from a bunch of them. There was the lawyer who used to regularly stay at the Charlotte hotel but laughed when they suggested he prepare for court the next day without a desk. He hasn’t been back. Others were salesmen who need the desk to sort product. Some liked a real table -- even if it was a desk -- to eat.

Of course, then there was the porn star -- or whatever she is -- who tweeted me this:

https://twitter.com/XAmberMeow/status/674300773426003969

Slate did an article on the situation citing the Tumblr post. It noted that just five years ago consultants told Marriott to design their rooms with improved workspaces. I think that’s when they started putting the good adjustable chairs in. Now workspaces are out.

So apparently we just need to wait for the consultants to change their mind and bill the confused executives again about returning to the classic hotel room. Or at least preserving some.

I’m certainly not going to be the leader of this “movement” but from what I heard the Marriott properties that have undergone the redesign are concerned/rattled by the backlash.

So I’d recommend contacting your hotel directly or the chain because these redesigns are going everywhere soon. Supposedly even some Courtyards, “the hotel designed by and for business travelers.”

https://www.marriott.com/marriott/contact.mi

Other than that, carry on.