Second Thoughts

Columnist drops empty Hall ballot

Despite being baseball’s all-time home run king, Barry Bonds has yet to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Bill Livingston said until officials determine a ruling on the steroid era, he deliver his Hall ballot blank each year.
Despite being baseball’s all-time home run king, Barry Bonds has yet to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Bill Livingston said until officials determine a ruling on the steroid era, he deliver his Hall ballot blank each year.

Bill Livingston just said, "No."

Livingston, a sports writer with the Cleveland Plain Dealer, wrote a column about his decision to forgo participating in this year's Baseball Hall of Fame vote.

"Major league baseball will confer bronzed immortality on a few players [today] when the results of the national baseball writers' balloting for the Hall of Fame will be announced," Livingston wrote.

"I had a 2017 ballot. I returned it signed, but blank, with an explanatory note.

"MLB officials should devise a formal ruling on the steroid era. At least, they should define it chronologically, probably from 1990 to the start of drug testing in 2003.

"Designate that era as a separate voting classification, or use an asterisk for suspects, indicating the likely use of PEDs -- whatever baseball does, some kind of guidelines need to be set up.

"Until they decide what to do about the stain on the game, I abstain."

Putt, putt

Jason Dufner is the defending champion at the CareerBuilder Challenger, where he won last year for the first time since the 2013 PGA Championship at Oak Hill. What changed? Very little.

He attributed the drought to a neck and shoulder injury that he suffered at the 2014 Masters. Dufner tried to play through it all year until he was forced to pull out of his title defense in the PGA Championship at Valhalla, which kept him off the Ryder Cup team. Playing with the injury led to bad habits with his swing, which led to bad shots, too many memories of bad shots and eventually shattered confidence.

"People don't realize, once you start playing, you have to redo everything," Dufner said. "You see it with a lot of guys coming back. It takes them 6, 8, 12 months. I spent 2015 trying to get back to where I was."

Where he wants to be is one of the top ball-strikers in the game.

As for putting? He manages.

Dufner has finished no higher than 143rd in the key putting statistic over the last four years, and while he has to pay attention to his setup, it's not as though he's going to abandon his swing to pour everything into becoming Jordan Spieth.

"I've been putting bad for 17 years," he said. "It's tough to change. I can hit it good enough to make up for it. I'll wait for my weeks where I putt good and try to win."

Let it ride

ESPN's Brett McMurphy caught up with two gamblers who have made quite a bit of money off the Green Bay Packers' recent winning streak.

Back in November, when the Packers were 4-6 and coming off a blowout loss to Washington, Brian Yankelevitz and Russ Axelrod decided to bet $300 on the Packers winning their next game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Their plan from the start was to let the bet ride as long as the Packers kept winning, and now they have a ticket worth $28,213.60.

The two will continue that streak this weekend when they put the entire amount on the Packers to beat the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship Game. And if they win, all of those winnings will be placed on the Packers to win the Super Bowl.

"Brian and I are lifelong gamblers. The story is as good as winning the money," Axelrod said. "We won't pull a dime off the table, and there's no hedging on [the] Super Bowl."

Sports quiz

Who holds the record for the longest made field goal in an NFL postseason game?

Sports answer

Pete Stoyanovich of the Miami Dolphins with a 58-yarder against Kansas City in 1990.

Sports on 01/18/2017

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