The Tyson Zone

This Bill Simmons column is absolutely equal parts hysterical and true...a rare combination indeed. It talks about the rule for dealing with an athlete who has some talent and might help your team win, but could just as easily pull a Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction on your team and tank an entire season or more. I think these rules apply equally to the celebrity world, and the best example I can think of is Tom Cruise. He still has some gas left in the tank and can produce some box office mojo, but after the Oprah couch-jumping incident and his Scientology babble, there is NO ceiling whatsoever. Just about any headline involving Cruise would be believable to me...punched out Brooke Shields on live TV, sure...break a camera over someone's head over a scene he didn't like involving Katie Holmes, yep...replacing the Keebler elf as a cookie spokesman, why not? I'm glad to be living in such entertaining times, but also sad to think that these are real people whose lives have deteriorated to this point...just color me conflicted. :)

"This has been a crazy year in pro sports. I mean that, literally crazy. Call it the Year of the Loon. We spend inordinate amounts of time debating the mental health of players and nonplayers, well-known loons (T.O., Ron Artest, John Daly, Randy Moss, Stephen Jackson), recovering loons (Terry Glenn, Jason Williams, Rasheed Wallace), benevolent loons (Clinton Portis, Chad Johnson) and up-and-coming loons (Albert Haynesworth, Zack Randolph, Bonzi Wells, A-Rod). Everywhere you look, someone is acting crazy or something crazy just happened -- it's all crazy, all the time.

... For the past two years, I've had a running joke in my columns about the Tyson Zone, reached when someone has achieved such a degree of looniness that no story told about him would be unbelievable. He punched out an owner? Peed on a referee? Wrestled a polar bear? Of course he did. With these guys, the craziness ceiling has been removed.

For sports fans, the question is: How has this ongoing insanity changed the way teams operate? It's clear the current abundance of Tysonia (look, it can be a noun, too!) always has decisionmakers thinking: "Should we take a chance on this guy?" After all, you can't land an elite rookie without a high draft pick, and you can't sign an elite veteran without cap space or payroll room, but you can always pick up an "eccentric" talent and hope for the best. As I see it, some rules of engagement have emerged:

Rule 1: Consider the situation.
Rule 2: Always try to buy low and sell high.
Rule 3: Once things self-destruct, there's no going back. (T.O. in Philly, 'nuff said --Ed.)
Rule 4: One crazy guy is fine, but don't give him other crazy guys to run with.
Rule 5: Don't offer financial security.
Rule 6: When it's time to dump a crazy guy, target a GM who was a former star." (This also works for directors who either used to be actors or who have lost their fastball but haven't quite entered the unemployable line yet. --Ed.)