The Sports Curmudgeon

Bert Bell used to own the Philadelphia Eagles back in the franchise’s infancy and he is credited with “inventing” the annual Draft as a way to increase competitive balance – and thereby entertainment value – in the new pro football league.  That concept has been adopted by most US professional leagues, and I have argued here before that the idea is theoretically good but practically of marginal value.

One glaring problem is the propensity of teams that are bad enough to “earn” a top draft pick finding a way to draft a guy who simply cannot play at the pro level.  Let me refresh your memory about some humongous NFL Draft busts from the recent past:

• Ryan Leaf – – Chargers – – 1998
• Matt Leinart – – Cards – – 2006
• Trent Richardson – – Browns – – 2012
• JaMarcus Russell – – Raiders – – 2007
• Akili Smith – – Bengals – – 1999

By the way, I have no interest here in picking on the folks who draw up draft boards for NFL teams; this happens elsewhere too:

• Anthony Bennett – – Cavaliers – – 2013
• Markelle Fultz – – Sixers – – 2017
• Kwame Brown – – Wizards – – 2001
• Darko Milicic – – Pistons – – 2003
• Adam Morrison – – Bobcats – – 2006
• Michael Olowakandi – – Clippers – – 1998

The explanation usually given for such a sour turn of events is that scouting and projecting player performance is not a science; it is more akin to an artform.  And maybe that is the case and maybe that will be the case forever.  Except …

• Maybe avoiding huge “Draft Busts” is beyond the normal skill set of the people who wind up making Draft decisions – – but what about Artificial Intelligence?

Current AI models learn by reading and agglomerating “knowledge” from a broad set of sources.  In doing that AI models like ChatGPT or Gemini or CoPilot can easily compete and defeat humans in trivia contests.  But suppose a team hired a cadre of elite AI coders – – a Coding Cadré of “CC” – – that developed a player model based not on comments by observers but on measurables demonstrated by actual successful pro athletes.  Granted, I have no idea how the members of “The CC” would measure competitiveness levels or emotional stability for potential draftees, but they might be able to use micro-measurements of successful players’ on-field action(s) to build models that may compare apples to apples.

NFL Players go through a standard set of drills at the NFL Combine.  Someone somewhere decided that those drills were the “correct” means to measure the basic skills needed to play effectively in the NFL.  I submit, respectfully, that the truncated list above demonstrates that not to be the case.  Remember, all those players running a 40-yard dash and doing a standing broad jump are performing without any opposition.  Such is never going to be the case on the field in an NFL contest.  Perhaps what is needed is far more precise measurement and correlation analysis of data that never shows up in the game box scores.  For example, in MLB, people now measure the spin rate of each pitch; no one did that in 1980; are there analogs for football and basketball that remain untapped in 2025?

For example, look at highly successful NFL QBs and ask how close do defenders have to get to those QBs before they begin to abandon the pocket and “scramble”.  Does that measurement correlate with anything else that might be measured such as the time each QB needs to move his arm through a throwing motion?  And are either of those measurements or a combination of those measurements indicative of completed passes?  To be clear, I am NOT suggesting those measurements are of any value in building an AI Draft Model, but I do wonder if there are a series of measurements that might make the “Draft Process” a lot more “science-like” and less of a “crapshoot”.

Here is a measurement I would use as a starting point for offensive linemen, defensive linemen and edge rushers:

• How fast do those players react to the movement of the ball by the center to initiate a play?

I am talking about measurements in the hundredths of a second here.  Who gets “off the ball” most quickly because in the extreme, that is a success strategy for those position players.  So, I might begin by asking “The CC” to find correlation among that measurement and other measurements in highly successful linemen that could then be applied to potential draftees using game films where there are opponents out there trying to thwart the potential draftees’ intentions.

Maybe all this is fanciful; maybe this is beyond AI capability.  Nevertheless, it might be a more interesting use of AI as compared to creating fake videos of a political candidate having carnal relations with a goat.

Finally, lest one gets carried away with my rosy projection here for AI involvement, take into account this from neuroscientist, Vivienne Ming:

“AI might be a powerful technology, but things won’t get better simply by adding AI.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

If you peek at the MLB standings this morning, you will probably notice that five of the six divisions have a close race going on at the top; only the Tigers with a 6-game lead in the AL Central should feel slightly comfortable in their leadership.  In the AL West, the top of the division involves three teams – – Astros, Mariners and Rangers – – within 4.5 games of one another.  But here in Curmudgeon Central we don’t stop there; we like to look at the bottom rungs of divisions where we focus first on the Colorado Rockies who could still set a futility record in the 2025 MLB season.  As of this morning, the Rockies project to a final record of 43-119 which is only 2 games better than last year’s woeful White Sox performance.

Earlier this week, the Rockies lost their 83^rd game of the season meaning that in the first week of August with about 2 months left to go in the season, the Rockies had guaranteed a losing season for the franchise.  They celebrated that “accomplishment” by losing a game by the score of 15-1.

Baseball is a funny game; even outstanding teams have off days and wind up getting clobbered.  Many people consider the 1927 Yankees to be the greatest team of all time; that was the year that Babe Ruth hit  60 home runs and Lou Gehrig drove in 173 runs.  In the 1927 season, the Yankees record was 110-44 with a run differential of +376; the Yankees outscored opponents by an average of 2.44 runs per game in that season.  And yet …

• One day, the Washington Senators shut out the Yankees and won that game by a score of 13-0.
• Lopsided losses happen to all teams.

But back to the 2025 Rockies …  They have had more than a couple of lopsided losses in addition to that 14-run deficit earlier this week:  The Rockies have lost games by scores of 21-0 and 18-0 and 17-2 in addition to this week’s shellacking.  The Rockies run differential – – with two months left to play – – stands at minus-316.  In the modern era for MLB since 1900, the record for the worst run differential in a season stands at minus-349 (Boston Red Sox in 1932).

• Even if the Rockies fail to eclipse the White Sox performance from last year for the worst record ever, the Rockies are poised to take the 1932 Red Sox out of the MLB regular season record listings.

One might look at this wretched season for the Rockies and expect that their attendance has cratered like the team record – – but not so.  So far in 2025, the Rockies rank 15^th in home attendance; they draw 29,646 fans per game.  How amazing is that?

• Ignore the attendance figures for the A’s and the Rays; they are playing in minor league parks where the Fire Marshall would not allow 15,000 fans to cram into the facilities.
• The Marlins average 13,039 fans per game – – and Miami’s metro area is a bigger market than Denver’s.
• The White Sox average 17,755 fans per game – – and Chicago is a bigger market than Denver.
• The Pirates average 19,065 fans per game – – but Denver is a bigger market than Pittsburgh.
• The Twins average 22,101 fans per game – – and Minneapolis/St. Paul is about 3 times the size of Denver.
• The Tigers – – division leaders no less – – average 28,864 fans per game – – and the two market cities are approximately the same size.

I don’t know what sort of marketing magic the Rockies have conjured up, but despite the despicable record by the Rockies, they draw more than the average attendance for all of MLB which is 29,200 fans per game.  I doubt that it is because the Rockies are better at home than they are on the road this year; that is technically true – – and meaningless:

• Rockies at home are 16-42
• Rockies on the road are 14-42

As I continued to peruse the bottom rungs of MLB divisions, I noticed that the 2025 White Sox are a significant improvement over the 2024 squad.  Here we are with two months left to play in the 2025 regular season and the White Sox have already won more games (42 of them to be exact) in 2025 than they did in all of 2024.  No other team can make that statement.

Finally, today’s search for anything positive to say about teams that are stinking it up in MLB for 2025 reminds me of an old joke that distinguishes an optimist and a pessimist:

• Put an optimist boy and a pessimist boy in a closed room full of horse sh*t.
• The pessimist boy will just sit there and bemoan his fate.
• The optimist boy will dig furiously in the manure figuring that there must be a pony somewhere in there.

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

Many times, I employ the disclaimer that I am not an attorney when I discuss legal matters.  Today, I want to be clear that I am also not a physician.  The topic is the shooting last week at NFL HQs in NYC; the working hypothesis for investigators here is that the perpetrator wanted to get into NFL HQs to do some shooting there but instead got on the wrong elevator to the upper floors.  According to police, the shooter – – now dead himself – – had a “history of mental illness” and that he had a note on his person indicating he had a beef with the NFL because he suffered from CTE.

In that simple paragraph above, there are triggers for several vocal segments of society spring-loaded to push their narratives:

• We have to do more to treat people with mental health issues,
• We need to have stricter gun laws
• CTE is caused by football and CTE is awful, ergo, football is awful.

Yes, we do need to do more in terms of therapy for folks who are mentally ill.  There were fewer of those sorts of folks out and about in society when it was legal to commit adults to “mental institutions” prior to their being convicted of crimes; if I recall correctly, that practice was ruled out by the courts in the 1960s or 1970s.  Mental health issues are much more difficult to diagnose without the cooperation of the “patient”; it is not like chicken pox where the “patient” presents with red spots all over his/her body.  And, sadly, lots of mentally ill people do not present themselves to competent medical professionals.

I am ambivalent about the idea of “stricter gun laws”.  The ineffectiveness of the current gun laws in terms of keeping the weapons out of the hands of mentally ill people makes me wonder if such a goal is achievable.  At the same time, anything that might separate guns and people who are mentally ill would be a good thing for society.  Frankly, I think the main issue here is that the two sides of the “gun ownership issue” are so dug into their positions that meaningful compromise has become extinct.

It is the third narrative above that really bothers me, however.  CTE – Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy – is a brain condition where there are “abnormal protein deposits” found in the brains of dead people who suffered “repeated brain trauma” while alive.  CTE is even more difficult to diagnose than “run of the mill mental illness” because as of today, the only way to know if a person had CTE is to wait for him/her to be dead and the brain of the corpse to be analyzed.  My amateur reading about CTE says that there is debate within the medical community of experts about the causal relationship between “repeated trauma” and a diagnosis of CTE.

Please do not take my uncertainty about CTE and causality as a way to accuse me of fostering some sort of conspiracy theory wherein the NFL – – in conjunction with the Trilateral Commission and the Illuminati of course – – are keeping a lid on understanding here because CTE serves a nefarious purpose on their parts.  However, CTE is a convenient excuse for erratic behavior since the only way to deny its existence would be for the shooter in this case to be rendered “unalive” so that his brain can be excised and examined.  I certainly do not know if the shooter had CTE – – and I suspect that he did not know that he had CTE but in whatever erratic construct of the universe existed in his mind, CTE was his preferred excuse.

Now let me go waaay out on a limb and talk about CTE and four other “neurodegenerative conditions” that are more well understood:

1. ALS:  It presents with pronounced motor symptoms and few psychiatric symptoms.  It can be detected by brain imaging but can only be confirmed post mortem.
2. Alzheimer’s:  It presents with mild motor impairments and few psychiatric symptoms.  It too can be detected with brain imaging in living patients.
3. Huntington’s:  It presents with definite motor symptoms and usually depression.  Importantly, this is a genetic condition that can makes the condition diagnostic in living beings.
4. Parkinson’s:  It presents with definite motor symptoms, but psychiatric involvement is rare.  It can be conclusively diagnosed in living beings.

            We are not in medical school here; so, what’s the point of all this?  These “other” neurodegenerative conditions” can be diagnosed in living persons; CTE cannot as of now.  So, I think it is important not to get out ahead of science-based understanding of what CTE is; what it is not; and what causes it to happen.

CTE is a medical term for a condition that had a street definition long before anyone thought of describing something as “neurodegenerative”.  When I was a kid, people referred to some retired boxers as being “punch drunk”.  Their words were slurred; they moved less fluidly than other people their age; they might have memory issues or flights of fancy.  Common folks who had never studied medicine chalked that  up to “too many blows to the head”.  Lyndon Johnson once said he thought Gerald Ford had played too much football without a helmet; LBJ did not mean that as a diagnosis or as a compliment.

CTE is a real condition – – but it may not be nearly as widespread as one might think because there may be sample bias in the brains donated for pathological analysis.  That is why I am not one to jump on the bandwagon of CTE, being endemic to the population of anyone who ever played football – – or soccer for that matter.  Let science march on …

I do wish, however, that there was a magic wand somewhere that someone would wave about and magically keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people.  So, let it be written and so, let it be done…

Finally, let me close with this adage:

“Don’t let your mind make your body believe that it must bear the burden of your mind’s worries.”

`But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

It was about 60 years ago when Bob Dylan sang:

“The times, they are a-changin’ …”

That is clearly the case here in Curmudgeon Central.  For the first two decades of these rants, comments on any aspect of the WNBA were few and far between and usually dealt with the lack of live audiences or TV audiences for the league’s contests.  Just two weeks ago, the WNBA was the topic of an entire rant and today it will be the lead topic.  The times are indeed “a-changin’ ”.

Twice in recent days, WNBA games have been interrupted by someone in the crowd throwing a lime-green dildo onto the court as the ball was in play.  In at least one of the instances, the perpetrator was arrested.  I did not see a report of the charges against that individual but I can only hope that it was some sort of littering ordinance that he/she had violated because it would be frightening to learn that lawmakers there had gotten to the level of specificity in the law that dildo throwing was specifically banned.

This situation leads to several speculations if you have a slightly twisted view of “what might come next” …

• Imagine if a couple of fans had thrown sesame bagels on the court in the midst of WNBA games.  The teams would institute screening procedures to make sure than fans are not “smuggling in” sesame bagels.  Thwarting dildo smugglers with a search procedure might be a bit more difficult.
• Dildo manufacturers might seek to flood the market with lime-green items.  Obviously, the WNBA is not going to grant them licensing rights naming one of the manufacturers as the “Official Dildo of the WNBA”, but the marketing thrust could be:
  • • “We can’t say we are the Official Dildo of the WNBA, but our green monsters have been in play at WNBA games more than any other dildo.”

I have now proven conclusively that I never passed Marketing 101 in school …

Both incidents have involved road games for the Golden State Valkyries – – one in Chicago and the other in Atlanta.  I am not trying to justify the incidents; throwing stuff on the court of an ongoing basketball game is dangerous and might cause a serious injury to players or officials; the WNBA has a “Fan Code of Conduct” in place that specifically forbids throwing anything onto the court and says that “guests who throw objects will be immediately ejected from the arena.”  In another part of the Code of Conduct it says that guests who violate the Code of Conduct:

“… “will be subject to penalty including but not limited to, ejection, without refund, revocation of their season tickets, and/or prevention from attending future games.”

Believe it or not, these two incidents are not ground-breaking.  Buffalo Bills’ fans have thrown dildos onto the field on several occasions when the Bills have been hosting the New England Patriots.  In 2018, after the Pats had scored a TD during a Monday Night Game, Bills fans threw “at least three” dildos into the end zone.  What the Golden State Valkyries and the Buffalo Bills have in common remains a mystery to me.

Switching gears …  MLB Commissioner, Rob Manfred, said recently that he was confident that a sale of the Minnesota Twins was imminent.  Perhaps that explains why the Twins traded away 10 players from their 40-man roster at the Trade Deadline last week?  The Twins acquired “prospects” galore meaning their minor league system is full to the brim with hope for the future.  Meanwhile the beneficiaries of the Twins largesse were:

• Blue Jays – – two players
• Phillies – – two players
• Astros, Cubs, Dodgers, Rangers, Rays and Tigers – – one player each

The Twins tossed in the towel on the 2025 season; the team was below .500 at the Trade Deadline despite having a higher than usual payroll for 2025 (Opening Day payroll was $144M).  Perhaps the housecleaning was done to clear the books for whoever the new owner might be.

And before I leave baseball today, the Boston Red Sox are on a tear, they have won 6 in a row and are 8-2 in their last 10 games.  The Sox have moved into second place in the AL East and are within 3 games of the Blue Jays.  Meanwhile, the Yankees are in a funk having lost 4 in a row and going 4-6 in their last 10 games.  The AL East race might be interesting after all.

Finally, here is an observation by George Carlin:

“A crazy person will beat nine people to death with a steel dildo, but he’ll be wearing a Bugs Bunny suit at the time.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

About 10 days ago, I got an email from a reader and frequent commenter here; he uses the screen ID, TenaciousP.  He asked if was going to write about Christian Wilkins and I responded that I did not think so because I did not see much to comment on at the time.  Well, that was then and this is now.  So let me do a reset for folks who may not be nearly the Oakland/Los Angeles/Las Vegas Raider fan as TenaciousP most definitely is:

• In 2024, the Raiders signed Wilkins as a free agent offering a contract reported to be 4 years with a total value of $110M with $57.5M fully guaranteed and another $27.25M conditionally guaranteed.  That is a big deal for a DT and Wilkins is a top shelf DT when healthy.
• Last season, Wilkins played in 5 games and suffered a “Jones fracture” in his foot that had him miss the rest of the season.  The injury needed surgery which was done, and Wilkins was involved in rehab.
• The injury had not healed as anticipated and the Raiders’ doctors said that a second surgery was needed; Wilkins demurred and chose to continue rehab.  Training camp was about to open, and he was still unable to practice.  The Raiders put him on the “PUP List” – – the “Physically Unable to Perform List.”
• The Raiders then released Wilkins and have deemed that those “conditional guarantees” worth $27.25M are null and void.  Obviously, the NFLPA chose to fight for Wilkins’ voided guarantees on his behalf; that is what unions are supposed to do.

Here is where I get into deep yogurt.  When a team seeks to nullify “guarantees” in a contract, the team has to specify why they seek to do so.  There are some obvious reasons:

• The player cannot fulfill his obligations under the contract – – say if the player is in jail or is dead.  Pretty obvious situation there …
• The player does not fulfill his obligations under the contract – – say if he does not report to Training Camp or refuses to dress on game day.  Pretty obvious situation there too …
• The player cannot fulfill his obligations under the contract – – say if he is suspended by the league for violating the Substance Abuse Policy.  Less obvious that the items above but not too difficult to deal with …
• The player engages in “conduct detrimental” to the team and its unity.  Now we are in the highly debatable area of contract interpretation where I am indeed over my head.

Did Wilkins’ refusal of that follow-up surgery lead to his inability to play for the Raiders and therefore is his lack of ability to play due to some sort of breach of the terms?   I suspect that the Raiders can find a half-dozen doctors that would support their assertion that was the case AND I think that the NFLPA can find a half-dozen doctors that would support the assertion that continued rehab was a prudent course of treatment.  The NFLPA has a nice sound-bite on its side here because back in the Spring, Raiders’ head coach, Pete Carroll, said that Wilkins was working hard to recover.  Here is some of Carroll’s comment:

“This has been a difficult recovery and he’s done everything he needs to do.  He’s been here every day. He’s here early, working hard, but we’re still working it, and he’s not ready to get back out. We’re in the midst of a long, challenging process here. So, fortunately there’s a lot of time, and we’re going to take every bit of it. We’ve really tried to be really diligent about the way we’ve worked it and the way we’ve monitored it and all of that, and he’s really been on board the whole time. But it has been challenging.”

Granted, Pete Carroll is not a doctor, and his comments have nothing to do with the medical issues in the matter.  Nonetheless, it would seem difficult for the Raiders now to claim that Wilkins is a slacker who refused to do what was necessary to heal his foot.

And if that were not enough controversy/oppositional behavior, Adam Schefter reported last week that there was an incident in the Raiders’ facility recently where Wilkins “playfully” kissed a teammate on the forehead and the teammate took offense.  So …

• Does that constitute “conduct detrimental”?
• Was the “playful kiss on the forehead” a “one-off” incident or is there a pattern of “other stuff” at work there?

I have not read a report that says what the Raiders claim as the basis for voiding those conditional guarantees so I have no idea what the arbitrator in the case will have to deal with.  I am confident, however, that it will not be an open-and-shut case on either side.  I am confident that the arbitrator will earn his/her fee on this one.

So, a shoutout to TenaciousP here.  All I can say is, better late than never.

Finally, the mention of the “playful kiss” here reminds me of a great observation by H. L. Mencken:

“When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

Earlier this week, I mentioned Ichiro’s inclusion in the Hall of Fame.  He was joined in that ceremony by four other players:

1. Dick Allen
2. Dave Parker
3. CC Sabathia
4. Billy Wagner.

None of those four had a better career than Ichiro but all four are worthy inductees to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  I need to make that clear because I am now going to pick on one of those “new guys”.  Here is my question:

• If CC Sabathia can be elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, why is Curt Schilling not in the Hall of Fame at all?

Here are some of the stats that got Sabathia more than 85% of the votes in his first year on the ballot.

• Career:  19 years
• Record:  251-161  win percentage = .609
• Career ERA:  3.74
• Strikeouts:  3,093
• All-Star selection:  6 times
• Cy Young Awards:  1

Now let me give you the same stats for Curt Schilling:

• Career:  20 years
• Record:  216-146  win percentage = .597
• Career ERA:  3.46
• Strikeouts:  3,116
• All-Star selection:  6 times
• Cy Young Awards:  0

Those numbers look awfully similar to me, but if you dig deep into the stats at Baseball-Reference.com and compare Sabathia and Schilling in playoff games, Schilling is the dominant pitcher there.

• Playoff Starts:  Sabathia 23  Schilling 19
• Playoff Record:  Sabathia 10-7  Schilling 11-2
• Playoff ERA:  Sabathia  4.28  Schilling  2.23
• World Series Record:  Sabathia 0-1  Schilling 3-1

Oh, by the way, Curt Schilling was also voted as the World Series MVP in 2001 with the D-Backs.  Remember, nothing here is intended to suggest that CC Sabathia should not be in the Hall of Fame or that he somehow sneaked in through a side exit.  But Curt Schilling has been eligible for the Hall of Fame since 2012.  In 2021, Schilling received 71% of the vote and was only 16 votes shy of the necessary 75% to be elected to the Hall of Fame.

I think it is clear that Schilling never made it to the Hall of Fame – – he is off the ballot after 10 consecutive years of failure to be elected – – for off-field reasons.  The numbers above say that on-field events would have both pitchers enshrined in Cooperstown.  But Curt Schilling was very vocal and very provocative with his social media postings and with his embracement of far out conspiracy theories to the point that many thought of him as an extremist.

I have often argued that unless the off field ”stuff” falls into two categories, it should be ignored; it is the performance on the field that should be determinant unless:

1. The off-field behavior is felonious and there is police/prosecutor involvement.
2. The off-field behavior involves performance enhancing substances that contributed improperly to the on-field stats.

I am not a conspiracy theorist; I bear no animus toward anyone based on their religion or skin color.  On those dimensions, Curt Schilling and I are far apart in the way we appear to view the world.  And yet, if I had had a vote for induction into the Hall of Fame, I would have voted in favor of Curt Schilling simply because as a baseball pitcher, he belongs there.

Moving on …  Yesterday when commenting on Gilbert Arenas’ arrest involving “illegal poker games”, I said that there would be more to the story.  Well yesterday afternoon, it was revealed that another person charged in this illegal poker venue is Giora Gershman who is identified in various reports as “part of an Israeli organized crime group”.  And less than ten minutes after I read that tidbit, I got a phone call from a friend reminding me of another incident involving card games and Gilbert Arenas.

• In 2009, Arenas and Javaris Crittendon were teammates on the Washington Wizards.  A dispute over debts incurred in card games among the team’s players arose and things escalated from trash-talking to direct threats.
• Arenas brought two unleaded guns into the Wizards’ locker room and left them proximally to Crittendon’s locker.
• Then, Crittendon raised the bet and brought a loaded gun into the locker room creating a “tense situation”.
• NBA Commissioner at the time, David Stern, suspended both players for the rest of that regular season.  Crittendon never really came back from the suspension; the Wizards traded Arenas to the Magic.

That incident had faded into the recesses of my memory until that phone call yesterday.

I continue to believe that this story has legs and will be back in the headlines before it is resolved.

Finally, this observation by Leo Rosten:

“Extremists think ‘communication’ means agreeing with them.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

Back in the Spring, Shannon Sharpe took a leave of absence from ESPN when he was charged with rape by his ex-girlfriend.  Sharpe denied the accusation and said he was going off the air to focus on defending himself in the matter.  The plaintiff here sought $50M from Sharpe for “pain and suffering, psychological and emotional distress, mental anguish, embarrassment and humiliation.”  [Aside:  You have to hand it to her lawyer for touching all the bases there,]  Sharpe and his lawyer labeled all of this as a “shakedown”  saying the relationship was consensual.  [Aside:  No surprise there.]

When he stepped back from ESPN in the Spring, Sharpe said he would return when NFL Training camps convened and that appeared to be on track as of a couple of weeks ago when the lawsuit was settled.  Some reports said that the settlement fee was $23M; I have not seen any links to anything that would be proof-positive of that dollar amount.  Given that the woman was asking for $50M in the first place, that does not seem to me to be an outrageous settlement figure.  The suit was “dismissed with prejudice” meaning that it cannot be reinstated in the future.  So, with NFL Training Camps about to open, Sharpe would seem to have been “rested and ready” for a return to ESPN programming.

Things took a turn this week, however.  ESPN decided to walk away from Shannon Sharpe.  I have not found a statement from ESPN explaining this decision which is interesting in that generic statements from the “firing entity” are usually at the ready when the separation in question becomes public.  I have no inside information here, but something tells me that this story has not run its course just yet…

Moving on …  Another retired athlete finds himself in an unusual circumstance this morning.  Gilbert Arenas was arrested yesterday on Federal charges of illegal gambling.  Prosecutors say that Arenas ran an “illegal gambling operation”; Arenas posted $50K bond and was released this morning.  Here is a rough outline of the charges:

• Arenas and several others supposedly rented out a mansion Arenas owned in California “to hold high-stakes card games from September 2021 to July 2022.”
• Arenas allegedly hired someone to “help him stage the place for games and to collect rent.”
• Arenas and his cohorts allegedly “hired women to serve the gamblers and added a staff of chefs and security guards” to give the games a luxurious air.
• Arenas and the others made their money from the rent plus a rake of every pot from every hand in the high-stakes games.

The trial date for this event is set for September 23.  Upon his release this morning, Arenas appeared to be happy and said, “They can’t hold me.”  This one might turn out to be fun to watch …

Switching gears …  The Phillies and the Twins executed a trade yesterday giving the Phillies a much-needed closer out of the bullpen and giving the Twins two solid prospects.  It appears to be beneficial to both sides when viewed from different time perspectives.  The Phillies have struggled with their bullpen this season; their projected closer – – Jose Alvarado is currently serving an 80-game suspension levied by MLB for testing positive for “exogenous testosterone”.  Alvarado was suspended on May 18, 2025, when the Phillies had a record of 28-28.  That means that Alvarado will be eligible to return to the team for the stretch run.  And to get to that point, the Phillies acquired Jhoan Duran yesterday.

Duran is 27 years old and is “under team control” for two seasons.  His career ERA is 2.47 and he has saved 16 games for the Twins so far in 2025.  He has recorded 53 strikeouts in 2025 in 49.1 innings pitched.  He was one of the top relief pitchers on the “available list” for this year.  Importantly, Duran is right-handed; that is noteworthy because Alvardo is left-handed.  Should Alvarado return to the team at a performance level the team anticipated, that would give the team a potent pair of relief options for this year’s post-season.  [Aside:  The Phillies have not clinched a playoff spot for 2025, but they are in good position to participate in October.]

Finally, the Gilbert Arenas/gambling issue mentioned above leads to these observations about gambling:

“Gambling has brought our family together. We had to move to a smaller house.”  [Tommy Cooper]

And …

“Gambling: The sure way of getting nothing for something.”  [Wilson Mizner]

And …

“Part of the $10 million I spent on gambling, part on booze and part on women. The rest I spent foolishly.”  [George Raft]

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

There is a long history of US Presidents’ involvement with sports.  A curmudgeon would say that interest/involvement was politically motivated to curry favor with the electorate; a kinder and gentler interpretation might be that – – like many Americans – – US Presidents have been sports fans in addition to whatever their public personas may have been.  Let me hit a few of the high notes here:

• Woodrow Wilson:  A big baseball fan and a collegiate player, he attended a World Series game in 1915 and threw out the first pitch.  He was the first sitting President to attend a World Series game.
• Calvin Coolidge:  He attended Game 1 of the 1924 World Series
• FDR:  He threw out the first pitch on Opening Day 8 times in his tenure in the White House.  Also, he famously gave MLB the “green light” to continue to play in the spring of 1942 after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
• Dwight Eisenhower:  He made golf a much bigger thing that it was due to his interest in playing the game
• Richard Nixon:  He once drew up an offensive football play for George Allen – – then coach of the Washington Redskins.  Allen actually ran the play and it lost yardage; he never tried again.  Amazingly, it never caught on with other NFL teams either.
• Gerald Ford:  He played varsity football at Michigan as a linebacker and offensive lineman.  LBJ once denigrated ford saying that Ford had played too many games without a helmet.
• George H. W. Bush:  He played varsity baseball at Yale.
• George W, Bush:  He threw out the first pitch when MLB returned after the 9/11 attacks.
• Barack Obama:  He “released” his personal bracket picks for March Madness every year.
• Donald Trump:  He owned a franchise in the USFL.  He tried to buy the Buffalo Bills in the NFL.  He had a prominent role in a storyline for pro ‘rassling.  He is an avid golfer.

            That listing merely skims the surface; nothing there would attract the attention of anyone associated with the American Historical Association.  Moreover, if the interests and exploits of President Trump ended with the notations above, I doubt that the entire listing would ever have appeared here or anywhere else.  Such is not the case and as Cher once sang:

“And the beat goes on …”

There are three sports issues into which President Trump has inserted himself.  Please do not ask me to explain why this is the case; I do not read minds and if I were ever to achieve such a capability, let me be sure to say now that the last folks I would use my newfound skills on would be the current senior members of the Executive Branch and/or any member of the US Congress.  And yet, here we go:

• Transgender athletes:  I happen to agree with President Trump on this one; I think it is unfair competition for a post-pubescent male to compete against women in sports where strength, speed and endurance are critical elements for success.  Proving that to be the case is the creation of women’s sports in the first place; if the playing field were level, women could participate in Varsity Sports and there would not have ever been a need to put a gender label on women’s sports in the first place.
• Staging a UFC event on the White House Lawn:  That is a bad idea no matter when you put on the spectacle but to do it on July 4^th, 2026 – – the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence – – takes the cheesiness of the idea to stratospheric levels.  Yes, I remember JFK playing touch football on the White House Lawn and yes, I remember Ike had a putting green installed on the White House lawn and two par-3 holes introduced to Camp David.  Nevertheless, a UFC fight card with a large number of well-oiled hooligans-in-waiting on the White House lawn is clearly different.
• Signing an Executive Order to “clarify” college athletes’ employment status:  Look, the “Transgender Issue” is a real one and it falls in President’ Trump’s wheelhouse; even if you do not agree with his position, you must admit that his involvement there makes a bit of sense.  The UFC fight on White House property achieves an exponential level of cheesiness, but maybe you can attribute that to his proclivity to hob-knob with successful billionaire bros.  But this one is a social tar baby [Hat Tip to Joel Chandler Harris and the Uncle Remus Tales]

I make no claim to be an attorney nor a political scientist or political guru.  And I really don’t think that the rest of my days on this planet are going to be affected materially by whatever the final shakeout might be regarding paying college athletes and their employment status.  So, my fundamentally uninformed and only marginally interested perspective on the Executive Order is here:

• The NCAA student-athlete who competes only for the love of the sport on his way to a degree became sufficiently threadbare that the NCAA had to approve NIL payments.  That set up a suit by college athletes who toiled in the years before the NCAA’s altered posture claiming that they missed out on earnings potential.  That suit settled for $2.8B.  Those are facts; so, what does the Executive Order need to do here?
• The Order directs the Secretary of Labor and the NLRB to “clarify the employment status of student athletes.”  Are they employees of the schools or conferences?  Are they independent contractors?  Can they unionize?  Maybe I need to go back and review my notes from civics class in high school, but those questions seem to me to be in the purview of the Congress and not the President.
• The Order directs the Attorney General and the Chairman of the FTC to direct the NCAA into ways that the NCAA can regain its rule-making authority regarding intercollegiate athletics.  I’m sorry; I don’t understand how they might do that or why that might be a giant leap forward.  The NCAA hardly brings a long history of meaningful rulemaking to the party.
• The so-called “Olympic sports” and most women’s sports get protection from the Order which calls for set-asides for scholarships in those sports.

Look, I don’t know nearly enough to say here that the Executive Order should have said this or that something that it did say was patently counterproductive or even unconstitutional.  But I think I know enough to believe that the President of the United States and his White House team of advisors and supporters all have much more important things to do than to worry about college athletes getting paid for their efforts.  Hey, even starting the planning to protect the White House and the grounds from being trashed by the UFC crowd on July 4, 2026, is a bigger deal than that.

Finally, this comment from comedian Hugh Dennis seems appropriate today:

“I’m constantly looking for humour in the news. The funniest things are in the minutiae.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

Ryne Sandberg died yesterday at the age of 65; the reported cause of death was metastatic prostate cancer.  Sandberg is in the Hall of Fame and was the face of the franchise for the Chicago Cubs from the mid-80s through the mid-90s.  In that era of baseball, most second-baseman were of the “slick fielder/light hitter” variety; Sandberg was different.

• He led the league in home runs in 1990.
• His career OPS was .796.
• He scored 100+ runs in 7 different seasons.
• He led the league in runs scored 3 times.

Do not mistake those offensive stats to mean that Sandberg was deficient in the field.  He won 9 Gold Gloves in his 15-year stay with the Cubs and was selected for the All-Star team 10 times.

He was not a product of the Cubs’ farm system; the team acquired him in one of the more lopsided trades ever.  In 1982, the Phillies wanted a change at the shortstop position and arranged with the Cubs to send SS Larry Bowa to the Cubs for SS Ivan DeJesus.  At best for the Phillies, that might have been construed as an “even swap”, but the Cubs cajoled the Phillies’ brass to throw in a 21-year-old second baseman whose major league credentials at the time included all of 6 plate appearances and a batting average of .167.   And that is how Ryne Sandberg came to be a Chicago Cub until his retirement after the 1997 season.

Rest in peace, Ryne Sandberg.

Moving on …  In case you had not paid attention to NBA business news recently, Amazon Prime Video and the NBA reached an 11-year deal for Prime Video to televise 66 NBA games per season.  That deal will include:

• Double headers on Opening Week and on Thursdays/Fridays during the regular season.
• “Select Saturday afternoon games”  [Aside:  Translation TBD]
• A special “Black Friday Game”.  [Meh!  I’ll watch the NFL thanks.]

In addition to that commitment, Prime Video will also televise:

• All games in the knockout rounds of the NBA Cup.  [Ho-hum!]
• All games in the play-in tournament.  [Insignificant – – but potentially interesting]
• Games from the first and second rounds of the playoffs.  [I’m listening …]
• Conference Finals games in 6 of the 11 seasons in the contract  [I’m there.]
• Some WNBA games too.

With that commitment to telecasting basketball games, Amazon Prime Video needed to  go out and hire some announcers for games and for some studio/commentary shows that will complement those games.  Obviously, their plan was not to find unknown talent and hand the keys over to them; Prime Video went for lots of experience.  I have not seen the announcer pairings yet, but here are some of the hiring decisions by Prive Video:

• Play-by-play:  Ian Eagle, Michael Grady, Kevin Harlan.
• Analysts:  Brent Barry, Dell Curry, Blake Griffin, Udonis Haslem, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Candace Parker, Stan Van Gundy and Dwayne Wade.

That is a potent line-up.  Ian Eagle and Kevin Harlan have done a ton of basketball telecasts and are at the top tier of their profession.  The analysts are far less experienced, but Barry, Nash and Van Gundy bring coaching experience to the microphone and Parker has done excellent work in the studio for March Madness programs for the past several seasons.

Meanwhile, NBC also has part of the NBA TV action and NBC is going to offer a studio show that might be great or it might become known as “The Hiroshima” of sports studio shows.  Carmelo Anthony and Vince Carter will be the regular experts in this production, and they will be joined aperiodically by a “Special Contributor” you may have heard of:

• Michael Jeffrey Jordan.

Finally, this from former NBA coach, Phil Jackson:

“Basketball is a simple game. Your goal is penetration, get the ball close to the basket, and there are three ways to do that. Pass, dribble and offensive rebound.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

I did not watch the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony live yesterday, but I have seen video clips of many of the speeches.  I very much enjoyed seeing Ichiro’s presentation.  There was a time about 20 years ago where I said here that going to see the Mariners play was a treat because it allowed me to see Ichiro’s focus on the game and  his “routine” to participate in that game.  Ichiro is not the best player I ever saw, but I found him to be the most compelling player to watch even when he was in the dugout.

You can go to baseball-reference.com and see every nuance of Ichiro’s stats; I will not dwell on all of them here, but Ichiro is a well-deserved first round inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  He did not arrive in Seattle until he was 27 years old, but he brought with him a résumé that included 7 consecutive batting titles from the Japanese League.  Surely, that was not going to carry over into MLB; Ichiro was too skinny and too much of a “slap-hitter” to survive in big league waters.  Boy, was that reasoning off kilter…

Ichiro is the first Asian player to make it to the Hall of Fame; he will not be the last.  But as others join him there, don’t let some of Ichiro’s accomplishments dim in your memory.

• In 2004, Ichiro recorded 262 base hits.  That is a bit more than 3 hits every 2 games for the duration of the regular season.  That  year, he broke George Sisler’s record of 257 hits in a single season – – a record that had stood for 84 years.
• In his rookie year, Ichiro won the Rookie of the Year Award AND he won the MVP Award too.  Only one other player, Fred Lynn, has ever done that.

Listening to some of Ichiro’s remarks yesterday made me think that one day Shohei Ohtani will be in the same position addressing an audience.  And that got me thinking about active players who could make the Hall of Fame ceremony somewhere down the line.  Here is an off-the-top-of my-head list; I did not go through team rosters to compile this list, so there are surely omissions that would be corrected if I did more homework here.  These seven players look like shoo-ins to me:

1. Freddie Freeman
2. Bryce Harper
3. Aaron Judge
4. Clayton Kershaw
5. Shohei Ohtani
6. Max Scherzer
7. Mike Trout

Here are five players who came to mind who could make it to the Hall but are not lead-pipe-cinches:

1. Ronald Acuna, Jr. – – if he can avoid more injuries
2. Jose Altuve
3. Mookie Betts
4. Manny Machado
5. Chris Sale

Switching gears but staying with baseball … Last week, Kyle Schwarber got the 1000^th hit of his career and it was a home run.  In his career at that time, he had hit 319 home runs which means his “home run percentage” relative to his base hits is .319.  That seemed to be awfully high, so I decided to check up on the “home run kings” of baseball to see what their “home run percentages” were:

• Henry Aaron = .200
• Barry Bonds = .260
• Ken Griffey, Jr. = .227
• Willie Mays = .200
• Albert Pujols = .208
• Babe Ruth = .249
• Mike Schmidt = .245
• Jim Thome = .263

Finally, since today has been about baseball, I’ll close with this from “Mr. Baseball” – – Bob Uecker:

“The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………