Now You See Him; Now You Don't

"Past results are not indicative of future returns."

It's the standard caveat rolled out by every mutual fund, after touting its polymath insights and market-beating deliverables. And it's part of the fine print we ignore while pouring our life savings into Bernie Madoff's trough, or the Parkcentral Hedge Fund.

The retirement this week of Brandon Webb reminds us that everyone who makes a living firing a baseball overhand should wear a tag with the same warning.

Webb is a strong-armed, 230-pound right-hander who commanded the mound from 2003-2008. He hurled more than 1300 innings over six years for the Diamondbacks to the tune of a 3.26 ERA, a Cy Young and two runner-ups. In short, he was a stud on a Hall of Fame path.

Then, in his first start of 2009, a funny thing happened to his shoulder. Well, not funny if you're Brandon Webb, or the guy cutting the checks owed to him for 2009 and 2010, which totaled $15 million. Four innings into the '09 season the Arizona workhorse was done for the year.

And for 2010.

And for 2011.

And for 2012.

And now, for evermore.

After five 200-frame seasons, the fraying of Brandon Webb's labrum and rotator cuff prevented him from tossing another MLB pitch. He tried a comeback in '11, but 12 unproductive Double-A innings put him back under the knife and on the DL.

Think back to Opening Day 2009. Brandon Webb's on the hill, arguably the best pitcher in the game entering his age-30 season. He wears consistency, sturdiness and reliability like a second glove. Any reasonable extrapolation of his career, even if you build in decline, suggests a solid return on investment.

And then, poof!

It's should serve as a a red flag to teams thinking of handing the car keys to their seemingly-indestructible ace pitchers. The Mariners are poised to guarantee Felix Hernandez a week of federal budget deficits for his next, undoubtedly awesome, seven years of service. If you were going to bet on anyone to deliver for that long, King Felix would be the guy.

But so was Bernie Madoff.

The NFL's Existential Crisis

In 1970, appointed New York Senator Charles Goodell, a liberal Republican running for a full six-year term, faced an ideological sandwich between Democratic challenger Richard Ottinger on the left and Conservative James Buckley on the right.  Many liberals and moderates asked Goodell to withdraw, but he demurred. Come election day, Ottinger nabbed the liberal vote, Buckley swept the conservative and Goodell's political career went "poof."

But that was nothing for the Goodell family.

Forty-two years later, pity his son Roger, chief executive officer of a $9 billion existential crisis. Goodell has served as the involuntary hatchet man for an industry whose product causes its employees massive physical degradation, traumatic brain injury and early death. The agent of these horrors -- repeated high-speed collisions -- is also the extraordinarily popular main product peddled by Goodell's industry, and his employees not only chafe at his efforts to safeguard their health they revile and deride him. Worse: so do many of his business's best customers.

At the same time, a large group of former employees are suing Goodell's industry for the very policies that current employees vociferously defend. Despite his industry's battalion of deep-pocketed counselors, the lawsuit is a multi-billion-dollar slam dunk.

The current Goodell faces an ideological sandwich similar to his father's and the knowledge that unless he carefully navigates the issue, he could be presiding over the most popular sport in American history also going "poof."

Most challenging for Goodell fils: the lawsuit, the players, the fans, the derision, they're all a sideshow. The commissioner's real challenge is this: the weekly car crashes that devastate players' bodies and threaten his sport are the grist of the NFL mill. Violence is killing the business, but without violence -- head-snapping, bone-crunching, felonious violence -- there is no business. Oh, the humanity.

So Goodell is doing what his father couldn't: manage the clock. He is attempting to slowly parse out the bodily destruction that can be attributed to the league while preserving the essential mayhem that propels the NFL ever upward in the world sports landscape. It's akin to carving out the fat from bacon, which is why it will take time and upset a lot of people. If he fails, Roger Goodell will have presided over the demise of a massive, unsinkable enterprise, legislated and litigated into oblivion.

If he succeeds, he will merely be remembered for ruining the game. And Gary Bettman thought he had problems.