The Sports Curmudgeon

From the time of the NFL Draft at the end of April until OTAs in early June, there used to be a six-week “dark period” for the NFL; nothing was going on; the league was relegated to interior pages in the sports section.  Then, the NFL managed to take a trivial matter and turn it into a big deal news release; I am talking about the release of the schedule for next season.  Understand that the NFL schedule is formulaic; everyone who cared to know would have been able to know all the opponents for every team 24 hours after the conclusion of the Super Bowl in February.

You could have known all your favorite team’s opponents then; what you could not know until this week was the order in which they would play those opponents.  And yet, this has become an annual “event” as is everything related to the NFL.  There are 272 regular season games; the majority of them will take place on Sunday afternoons; for the purposes of making “schedule revelation” a big deal those games are for the most part ignored in favor of specially placed games either by time slot or by international location.

So, here are some overview comments about the NFL schedule for the 2026 regular season:

• Week 1 will be a big deal as it usually is.  The league will have an additional unique time game this year because it scheduled a Week 1 game in Australia.

Wed Nite: Pats/Seahawks (Super Bowl rematch)

Thurs Nite: Rams/Niners (Netflix from Australia)

Sun Nite: Cowboys/Giants

Mon Nite: Broncos/Chiefs

• Thanksgiving week has also expanded this year; there will be a game on “Thanksgiving Eve” so if you are stuck in traffic on that terrible travel day, there will be a game to listen to while you are crawling at 3 mph on the Interstate.

Wed Nite: Packers/Rams (Netflix)

Thurs Noon: Bears/Lions

Thurs Afternoon: Cowboys/Eagles

Thurs Nite: Bills/Chiefs

Fri Afternoon: Broncos/Steelers (Amazon Prime Video)

• Christmas falls on a Friday this year; that provides the NFL with another expanded weekend of games on TV – – and the NFL did not drop the ball.

Thurs Nite (Christmas Eve): Texans/Eagles (Amazon Prime Video)

Fri Early PM (Christmas Day): Packers/Bears (Netflix)

Fri Late PM (Christmas Day): Bills/Broncos (Netflix)

Fri Nite (Christmas Nite): Rams/Seahawks

Sat Nite: Jags/Cowboys

Mon Nite: Giants/Lions

            I have listed 15 of the 272 regular season games here as ones that will be in stand-alone time slots; the other 257 games will be more typically scheduled en masse.  And here are a couple of overview schedule observations:

• Both the Bills and the Bears will play on Thanksgiving Day and also on Christmas Day this year.  Happy Holidays, guys …
• There will be 9 international games this season.  Three will be in London and the other six will be in Australia, Brazil, France, Spain, Germany and Mexico.
• Sixteen of the thirty-two NFL teams will play at least one game overseas this season.
• The Steelers and Saints will play in Paris; that will be the first NFL regular season game in France.

Moving on …  Undaunted by my embarrassment in picking a trifecta for the Kentucky Derby, I will press on and offer up the following trifecta ticket for the Preakness tomorrow:

• Numbers 2, 7 and 12 – – with
• Numbers 1,2,7,8,9,12 – – with
• Numbers 1,2,7,8,9,12   That is a $1 Trifecta ticket costing $60.

Finally, I will leave you with this from George F. Will;

“Politics in a democracy is transactional: Politicians seek votes by promising to do things for voters, who seek promises in exchange for their votes.”

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

 

 

Jason Collins died earlier this week at the age of 47; the cause of death was reported as glioblastoma (brain cancer).  He played in the NBA for 13 seasons with the Nets (twice), Grizzlies, Wolves, Hawks, Celtics and Wizards.  He was not a “star”; teams were not built around him.  His fame and legacy in the NBA are that he was the first active player to openly declare that he was gay.  Notwithstanding anyone’s personal view on homosexuality, Jason Collins’ declaration in 2013 was a courageous act.

Rest in peace, Jason Collins.

The winner of the Kentucky Derby will skip the Preakness; there will be no Triple Crown winner in 2026.  The trend seems to be that Derby winners are not highly motivated to come back in two weeks to race again in the Preakness.  Since 2019, there have been 7 Derby winners and 5 of those 7 winners skipped the Preakness.  [Aside: To be fair, one of those Derby winners, Country House, never raced again anywhere after winning the Derby.]

I think the Triple Crown has lost its luster and is on life support and the basis for that lies in thoroughbred breeding practices:

• For the last 40-50 years, breeding has been basked on speed not stamina.  It used to be that breeders tried to mix those traits in offspring but now the aim is to breed speed with speed.  The result is that horses are not able to race as often as in the past and are not nearly as capable of distance racing.
• Also, simply winning the Derby – or any other Triple Crown race – by itself guarantees the owners at least a decade of elevated stud fees that can only be diminished by an injury or repeated bad performances.  So, the bird in hand …

In fact, there were 18 horses running in the Kentucky Derby this year and only three of them have been entered in the Preakness.  Those three are:

• Ocelli – – Post Position #2 – – Morning Line Odds 6 to 1
• Robusta – – Post Position # 4 – – Morning Line Odds 30-to 1
• Incredibolt – – Post Position # 12 – – Morning Line Odds 5 to 1

             Moving on …  The unpleasant thought of seeing “Replacement Refs” in NFL games this year need not reside in your head anymore.  The NFL and the NFLRA have agreed to a new CBA with a 7-year duration.  I have not seen a full breakdown of the terms anywhere but one of the things that the league was pushing for was greater participation by the officials in the offseason for the purposes of some experience/training during team minicamps and formal Training Camps.  The thinking there is that it would improve officiating in real games.

It would be difficult to take a position that “improved officiating in real games” is an unworthy goal; in fact, it is exactly the desire for top-shelf officiating that makes the idea of “Replacement Refs” less than palatable to most NFL fans.  So, even though I thoroughly endorse striving to meet that objective, I have to think that the league may be approaching the limits of marginal returns.  Consider:

• Even with super-slow replay analysis that goes frame by frame in video coverage from multiple angles, the vast majority of the calls on the field are upheld.  The point is that even without replay to confirm it, the calls by NFL officials are usually right.
• Such is clearly NOT the case with other major sports.  MLB has a challenge system for balls and strikes and a replay challenge system for other calls.  More than a few baseball calls are overturned on review.
• In the NBA – – and college basketball – – there are lots of reviews that are overturned and particularly in the final minutes of games where reviews seemingly take precedence over action on the court, the reviews are endless and often are either modified or overturned.

The Bottom Line is that the NFL officials – – while not nearly perfect – – are already more efficient and effective than their counterparts in the other major sports in the US.  Good for the NFL in trying to elevate even those already high levels of officiating, but it must be recognized that there is not a lot of room for improvement.

The new CBA will increase pay for the officials as is always the case with a new CBA.  One of the other negotiating points was the duration of the probationary period for new officials.  The current CBA had that set at three years; the league wanted to extend that to four years; according to reports it will stay at three years.

Finally, let me close today with this from Jason Collins:

“As all professional athletes know, Father Time is undefeated, and when I wake up in the morning, my back especially lets me know that it’s about time to bow out gracefully, let the young guys in and move to being a full-time fan of the sport.”

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

 

 

Well, tanking seems to have finally paid off for the Washington Wizards – – sort of.  After three years of mediocrity between the 2020/2021 regular season and the 2023/2024 regular season, the Wiz tore the team down to the studs for a total makeover.  So, in the last three regular seasons the Wizards have lost:

• 67 games in 2023/2024
• 64 games in 2024/2025 – – and – –
• 65 games in 2025/2026

The lottery ping pong balls have not fallen their way until this year and that is the reason I said that tanking paid off – – sort of.

Last year, there was a certified, bona fide, identified overall number 1 pick – – Cooper Flagg.  This year, the consensus is that this draft is deeper than previous years, but there is debate about who to take at the top of the draft.  There is more riding on this selection by the Wizards than normal; they have a whole new front office management team, and they present themselves as highly “analytics focused” with a “holistic view” of the team make-up and its contribution to the community of Washington DC.  Let me put the punctuation on that management posture:

• Don’t blow the #1 overall pick!

If you do not live in the DC area, I would be surprised if you have seen the Washington Wizards play more than 20 minutes of basketball over the past two years; they are more than just bad; they are unwatchable.  They did not tank the way some other teams did; I do not recall any games where the Wiz were leading or close in score after three quarters and then the team sat the starters for the entirety of the fourth quarter to assure defeat.  The Wizards achieved their bottom-feeding status the old-fashioned way; they earned it.  [Hat tip to an old ad-campaign for Smith Barney and John Houseman here.]

The best college player I saw last season was AJ Dybantsa (BYU) and as soon as I say that I must point out that college basketball and NBA basketball are not congruent games.  I think there should be two other players given serious consideration by the Wizards’ mavens over the coming weeks:

1. Darryn Peterson (Kansas): He showed flashes of brilliance, but he missed games with muscle cramps and a sore hamstring.  The NBA season is more than twice as long as the college season so there is one question mark.  Another is that he supposedly did his own load management last year and sat out games as a ‘healthy scratch”.  I have no idea if that last red flag is real or not, but the Wizards’ brass had better figure it out correctly.
2. Caleb Wilson (UNC): Here in the DC area, we get to see a lot of ACC basketball and what stood out for me about Caleb Wilson is that he plays at full speed all the time.  He is athletic and he is super-competitive.  He did not have the same stats as some other players who are mentioned as potential “top picks” but in the end, he may wind up being the best pro.

[Aside:  Recall that Michael Jordan was not an overall #1 draft pick and turned out a bit better than OK.]

While the Wizards’ braintrust are pondering whom to take at #1, there is another player who should go in the middle of the first round that I think is intriguing.  Koa Peat (Arizona) is a bruiser who will compete for every rebound and loose ball.  The reason he will be available in the middle of the first round is that he does not shoot well; he is OK with his jump shot but not a “deadeye”.  Nevertheless, I will offer two points in favor of Koa Peat going earlier than some folks think he will go:

1. Anthony Edwards was not a good shooter in college.  His field goal percentage was only 40.2% and he was 29.4% from the college three-point line.  That is sort of good and certainly not great.  Last season in the NBA, Edwards shot 48.9% from the field and 39.9% from three-pint range.  With work, shooting is a skill that can be improved significantly.
2. Charles Barkley was a bruiser and a ferocious rebounder in college but did not arrive in the NBA with an outside shot that worried any defender.  Charles Barkley learned to shoot and had a more than decent NBA career.

I am not saying that I think Koa Peat will turn out to be a hybrid of Anthony Edwards and Charles Barkley, but given Peat’s physical size and strength, he might just be worth a pick closer to the Top Five than is generally projected.

Finally, let me close here with this observation from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson:

“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.”

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

 

 

Bobby Cox died over the weekend at the age of 84.  He managed in MLB for a total of 29 seasons – – five in Atlanta, four in Toronto and then twenty back in Atlanta.  He is in the Hall of Fame, and he ranks fourth in MLB history in terms of wins by a manager.  His overall record on the bench was 2504 – 2001 which is a win percentage of .556.  His teams made the post season seventeen times and the Braves won a World Series under him in 1995.

Bobby Cox was famous for his confrontations with umpires; a few of those “encounters” have become the stuff of legends.  He was ejected from games more than anyone else in baseball history and most appropriately he was tossed 162 times in his career – – the exact number of games in a season.  Many fans think of Earl Weaver as a super-hotheaded manager who was always involved in situations that got him ejected from games; Weaver was a piker compared to Bobby Cox; Weaver was only ejected 95 times in his career.

Rest in peace, Bobby Cox.

Moving on …  There are four NFL coaches who have LOST 4 times in Super Bowl games:

1. Bud Grant
2. Marv Levy
3. Dan Reeves
4. Don Shula

There are three NFL coaches who have LOST 3 times in Super Bowl games:

1. Bill Belichick
2. Tom Landry
3. Andy Reid

If you combine those two lists and if you assume that the Pro Football Hall of Fame voters eventually decide to honor Belichick and Reid – – as they certainly should – – the only coach left out of the Hall of Fame would be Dan Reeves.  Like Grant and Levy, Reeves had teams there 4 times and lost them all.  It took the Hall of Fame gatekeepers a while to recognize Grant’s and Levy’s worthiness; I wonder if they will ever look back and think the same about Dan Reeves.

Switching gears …  The FIFA World Cup will get underway here in North America exactly one month from today.  Globally, this is the biggest sporting event – even bigger than the Olympics – and there is almost no “buzz” around here as the kickoff time approaches.  I was not in Rio when the World Cup was there or in South Africa or in Qatar, but I have to think that there was more energy around the upcoming event in those places than seems to be the case here in the US.  There is a bar near Curmudgeon Central that is known as a “Soccer Bar”; its clientele is there to watch and to engage in soccer not other sports when there are conflicting schedules.  I happened to drive by that establishment over the weekend, and the only evidence of the impending World Cup was a small sign on the window near the neon sign that said, “OPEN”.  That small sign had the image of the World Cup Trophy and the dates of the Opening Ceremonies – – June 11 and June 12.

I don’t get it.  Soccer in the US continues to expand its fanbase.  It is not yet nearly the same size as the fanbase for American football or baseball or even basketball if you combine NCAA and NBA fans, but soccer is much more important in the sports landscape today than it was 10 years ago.  And still, there is no sense of energy around the World Cup.  I hope this spectacle does not fizzle out here in North America, but someone or something is going to need to provide a spark of interest sometime very soon to overcome what seems to be a whole lot of inertia.

Finally, a few comments about the “importance” of the World Cup:

“The first World Cup I remember was in the 1950 when I was 9 or 10 years old. My father was a soccer player, and there was a big party, and when Brazil lost to Uruguay, I saw my father crying.”    Pele

And …

“For me soccer provides so many emotions, a different feeling every day. I’ve had the good fortune to take part in major competitions like the Olympics, and winning the World Cup was also unforgettable. We lost in the Olympics and won in the World Cup, and I’ll never forget either feeling.”   Ronaldinho

And …

“I can still remember watching Italy win the 1982 World Cup. I was just an eight-year-old kid in Naples, my hometown, watching the games with a bunch of people in the houses of relatives and friends. I can recall that when Italy scored, we would shout and hug, even though we did not all know each other.”    Fabio Cannavero

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

 

 

            It seems as if the sports news floating about today all relates to cash grabs on the part of various organizations.  I understand that sporting entities exist for the purpose of generating revenue and that entities that generate revenue naturally seek to increase those revenues where possible.  But are there no limits?

The NFL in its continuing effort to plant its flag in new places every year scheduled a game in Australia for 2026; it will be played such that it airs in the US on the Wednesday after Labor Day and it will match the Niners and the Rams.  In the first place, that is a serious rivalry game for two fanbases and for either – or both – of them to try to go to that rivalry game will involve a round-trip flight where each leg is approximately 14 hours in duration.

Then, to make those fanbases even “happier”, the game will be televised on Netflix as part of a 4 or 5 game package of game for the streaming service this year.  Commissioner Goodell did not reveal the amount that Netflix will pay for that game package, but he did say that streaming services are more competitive than networks for these “off-schedule games”.  Depending on which report you read here is the Netflix lineup for 2026:

• Week 1 – – the Australia game
• Thanksgiving Eve – – strong rumors about this being added to the schedule in 2026
• Christmas Day – – it’s a Friday this year and there will be 2 games then
• Week 18 – – Saturday game (some reports say this is not going to happen)

Good for the NFL and good for Netflix; I hope Netflix makes money on the deal so that it can continue to make the NFL richer than ever.  But maybe the schedulers and the strategic big thinkers in the league might not want to put major rivalry games seven or eight thousand miles away from the loyal fans of the teams.  Is the money that important?

Down a level, the NCAA football coaches association – – or whatever it is called this week – – voted to recommend expanding the CFP to 24 teams.  That is a vote of enlightened self-interest; coaches that make the expanded playoffs will get pay boosts which ultimately benefits other coaches who participate in the annual game of coaching musical chairs in December/January.  However, there is a potential economic glitch in that recommendation

• To constrain the duration of the college football season and to keep the Army/Navy game as an “exclusive event” the coaches association recommends eliminating conference championship games.

That poses an interesting choice for schools and conferences.  Conference Championship games have shown that they produce revenue and for the major conferences that is revenue that they need not share with any other schools.  For the “Power 4” conferences, the broadcast rights can be lucrative because networks and sponsors can be pretty sure that the two teams in that conference championship game will be recognizable and popular.  With the expansion of the playoffs, there will be a bigger inventory of “important games” but:

• That revenue will need to be shared somehow – – and – –
• What assurance do networks and sponsors have before the fact that the teams in the games will draw audiences to the TV screens?

I think a 24-team football playoff is a terrible idea and I will be interested to see how benevolently the “Power 4” conferences take to the idea of canceling their championship games.

And since bad things seem to happen in threes, the NCAA geniuses have all but decided to expand March Madness to 76 teams.  Interestingly, several coaches at some of the basketball power schools have said they think this is a bad idea.  John Calipari, Mark Few, Dan Hurley and Tom Izzo have all expressed sentiments ranging from skepticism to outright hostility to this expansion.  Much of the criticism from these coaches centers on the fact that as more teams make the tournament, the regular season games are rendered less meaningful.  That is trend that has been afoot for about the last decade or so and it would be a good idea for the NCAA to think about the erosion of interest there.  Let me give you Dan Hurley’s take on this as an example of the criticism:

“What I think makes the tournament special is the qualification for it.  You don’t want the regular season to be rendered meaningless and to take away from November, December, January, February.  The qualification process makes the regular season intense and pressure packed.  It should be a privilege to play in the tournament, not a right, and obviously if it expands too much and you don’t have to have a real good season to make it, that would take away from the tournament. Does it get too big?”

Now, certainly those favoring expansion will point out that the four coaches mentioned here never have to worry about “making the tournament” so that their comments can be colored as elitist and exclusionary.  I happen to think they are dead solid perfect in their position.

Finally, I’ll close today with this from outgoing Apple CEO, Tim Cook:

“Companies that get confused, that think their goal is revenue or stock price or something. You have to focus on the things that lead to those.”

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

 

 

It is not difficult to take the position that football is a “team game” and that quarterbacks get far too much attention – – positive and negative – – from fans and commentators.  But the fact is that quarterback play is very important with regard to team success and/or team failure and that situation allows for simplistic focus of attention on matters involving team records.  So, today, I want to look at several NFL teams that have ”questions” regarding their “quarterback rooms” as they prepare for OTAs.

The Carolina Panthers are the defending champs of the NFC South; that is the good news.  The Panthers’ record in 2025 was 8-9-0; that is the reality.  Panthers’ QB, Bryce Young averaged 188 yards per game and threw a total of 23 TDs last year; so, what sort of challenge might he face in training camp this year?  My guess is that there will be no challenge at all because here are the other QBs on the roster today:

• Kenny Pickett
• Will Grier
• Haynes King

The Minnesota Vikings missed the playoffs last year and did not get stellar play from their QBs to be charitable.  This year, the Vikes have four QBs on their roster; three of them have shown flashes of competence amidst hours of dreary performance and the fourth is a complete unknown.  Here are the guys fighting to be the starting QB in Minnesota – – in alphabetical order because no other order makes sense to me:

• Max Brosmer
• JJ McCarthy
• Kyler Murray
• Carson Wentz

The Miami Dolphins parted ways with Tua Tagovailoa in this offseason and suffered a dead cap hit of almost $100M.  They signed Malik Willis in free agency to be their QB, and the jury is out on his suitability in such a role; but the athletic skills are there.  Nonetheless, behind Willis is a roster of question marks:

• Quinn Ewers – – drafted in 2025 and did not impress in 4 games last year
• Cam Miller – – drafted by the Raiders in 2025 and was on practice squad there
• Mark Gronowski – -undrafted free agent in 2026 out of Iowa

The NY Jets must be included in any compendium of “QB Questions” ever since the retirement of Joe Namath back in the Paleolithic Era.  The Jets will go with Geno Smith as their starter hoping that he can weave a storyline of redemption as he returns to the Jets after 7 years as a vagabond QB in the NFL.  Absent injury, it is difficult to see how Smith can lose the starting job because here is the rest of the Jets’ QB roster:

• Cade Klubnik – – 4^th round pick this year out of Clemson
• Brady Cook – – unimpressive in 4 games last year – – 2 TDs and 7 INTs
• Bailey Zappe – – 3 years in the NFL with stats that evince a “Meh!” response

I have to put the Pittsburgh Steelers in this compendium simply because they are – – willingly or unwillingly – – in the Aaron Rodgers Soap Opera (As the Football World Turns?).  If Rodgers plays in 2026, he will start in Pittsburgh; if not the Steelers have three guys who might inherit his job:

• Drew Allar – – drafted by the Steelers this year
• Will Howard – – drafted by the Steelers last year
• Mason Rudolph – – drafted by the Steelers in 2018

All the above “QB situations” focus on question marks for the teams but there is one team with a QB situation that is interesting from a different vantage point.  The Philadelphia Eagles in general are not in the “drama queen” category of NFL teams to the same extent as the Jets or the Raiders or the Browns, but in the “QB room” there is reason for head-scratching:

• Jalen Hurts – – In the last 4 years, he has taken the team to two Super Bowls, won one of them and was MVP in that winning Super Bowl game.  And yet, there are folks who think he is “the problem” with the team.
• Tanner McKee – – He rarely sees the field, but when he does, he plays well – – certainly better than many of the names cited above today.
• Andy Dalton – – The Eagles signed him this year.  Is he there to be a veteran mentor or is he there to be the backup if/when the Eagles trade Tanner McKee?
• Cole Payton – – The Eagles drafted him in 2026.  Why?

Lastly today, consider the QB situation for the Indy Colts:

• Daniel Jones – – He is the starter for sure so long as he is recovered from his Achilles injury suffered late last season.  The question is which version of Danile Jones will manifest itself in Indy – – the breakout version from 2025 up to the injury or the scuffling/erratic version evidenced with the Giants in previous seasons?
• Anthony Richardson – – The Colts chose not to exercise their fifth-year option meaning Richardson will be a free agent next year and the team gave him permission to seek a trade – – and none have materialized.  He is gifted athletically but cannot seem to mater “accuracy” in the passing game.  Over his career, his completion percentage is 50.6% and that is over 17 game appearances and 15 starts.  Quo vadis, Anthony Richardson?
• Riley Leonard – – He was a 6^th round pick by the Colts last year; he appeared in four games starting one and was what you would expect to see from a 6^th round pick in his first year in the NFL.
• Seth Henigan – – He was undrafted in 2025 but spent time on the Jags and the Colts’ practice squads last year.

There used to be a TV police drama titled The Naked City about life in NYC.  At the end, the tag line was, “There are eight million stories in the naked city; this has been one of them.”  There are not nearly eight million QB stories in the NFL, but these have been a few of them…

Finally, on a lighter note, here is something from George Carlin:

“Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.”

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

 

 

John Sterling died yesterday at the age of 87.  He was the iconic radio voice of the NY Yankees for 36 seasons and at one point in his career, he broadcast 5060 regular season games plus 211 playoff games in a row without missing a single one.  His voice and his calls were known all over the baseball world.  It would seem appropriate to observe here that:

• ThePearllllllllyGaaates swung open yesterday.  The PearlllllyGaaates …

Rest in peace, John Sterling.

A news item from a couple of weeks ago demonstrates one of the downsides of NIL money in college athletics.  With payments needed to maintain competitiveness in the revenue sports, colleges cannot spend those same dollars twice to fund non-revenue sports.  That reality is the Economics equivalent of the Law of Conservation of Matter that everyone studied in their eighth-grade science classes.  And that reality caused the University of Arkansas to eliminate its men’s and women’s tennis teams.

Reports based on press releases by the University said that the two tennis teams spent $2.5M in 2024/2025 and created revenue of $3,284.  Even if the cynic in you believes that those numbers have been stretched to justify the decision, I would suggest that the tennis team generated red ink not black ink for the school last year.  If I had to guess, I would think that the $2.5M cost was largely due to travel expenses for the team and given the minimal revenue generated, I wonder why the school even bothered to issue and sell tickets to its tennis matches.

Do not misunderstand here; I am not arguing for the elimination of NIL money in college athletics; I support that concept.  What is important to recognize at the same time is that making fundamental changes in the way college athletics had been run for decades will cause ripple effects throughout the structure and many of those ripple effects were not quantifiable at the outset.  I will not be surprised to see other non-revenue sports suffer economic fatalities at major universities that need to remain economically competitive in the large revenue sports.

As an example, consider Mississippi State; as of this morning, the athletics website shows only 6 men’s sports at the school – – baseball, basketball, football, golf, tennis and track and field.  There are eight women’s sports because Title IX requires “equality” between men’s and women’s athletics and none of the women’s teams comes close to the roster size of the football team.

When the announcement of the dissolution of the two tennis teams came, there was the obligatory rhetoric from the AD at Arkansas about how painful the decision was:

“After considerable reflection and thoughtful discussion, we have made the very difficult decision to discontinue our men’s and women’s tennis programs.  We understand the disappointment and emotion this news will bring to many. The landscape of college athletics continues to evolve, requiring us to make challenging choices as we balance competitive opportunities, resources and the long-term sustainability of our department. Ultimately, we concluded that we are unable to provide the level of support necessary for our tennis programs to consistently compete in the SEC and nationally at the standard our student-athletes, coaches, alumni and supporters deserve. We appreciate the efforts of Coach Udwadia and Coach Clary, along with all of our current and former student-athletes.”

All I can say is that if the programs only generated about $3K in revenue, he “disappointment and emotion” that this news will bring is not to very many folks at all.

Moving on …  The MLB news of the day is that Tigers’ pitcher, Tarik Skubal will go on the IL and undergo a “procedure” to remove “loose bodies” from his elbow.  The expectation is that he could be back in the Tigers’ rotation by mid-July.  This is not a trivial matter; Skubal has won the AL Cy Young Award in each of the two previous seasons.  Right now, the Tigers are in the midst of a tight race in the AL Central; they will need to hold on by their fingernails and hope that Skubal returns to the lineup and to his previous performance level ASAP.

On the assumption that Skubal’s absence for about 10 weeks makes him a longshot to win the Cy Young Award for a third straight year, there is an interesting possibility here.  Jacob deGrom (Texas Rangers) has two Cy Young Awards in the NL.  He is coming off Tommy John surgery and will turn 38 years old in mid-June.  However, his stats so far in this young season are significant:

• His record is 2-1 with an ERA of 2.01.
• In 31.1 innings, he has 40 strikeouts and only 7 walks
• His WHIP is 0.96

Finally, this economics lesson from Steven Wright:

“If it’s a penny for your thoughts and then you put your two cents in, somebody somewhere is making a penny.”

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

 

 

There are reports everywhere that LIV Golf is about to dry up and blow away in the immediate future.  There will be dancing on the grave of this entity which tried to reinvent golf such that it would have dominated the sport and relegated the PGA to minor league status.  It looks as if even the deepest of pockets was insufficient to make that happen.

However, when LIV is lost to the great sand trap in the sky, every PGA golfer should quietly and privately lift a glass with an adult beverage therein and toast the folks who tossed millions of dollars around like nickels and for a moment scared the PGA near to death.  Here is what happened once LIV offered salaries and prize pools much larger than was customary in the sport:

• The PGA – without any major new influx of money from rights fees – raised many of its tournament purses by 50-100%.
• PGA golfers need to thank the LIV folks for that because it would not have happened without the LIV folks.
• And maybe PGA golfers need to put some pressure on the PGA financial folks because somehow they found a lot of “new prize money” in a budget that did not meaningfully expand revenues.  So, how much more “flexibility” might there be in those secluded accountings?

[Aside:  The PGA that organizes and runs the PGA Tour events is a “non-profit entity” and is exempt from Federal Tax.  Does that make sense to you?]

Moving on … NBA Commish, Adam Silver, declared a “War on Tanking” and started processes to come up with ways to drive it to extinction.  None of the ideas that were floated made a lot of sense to me and the latest suggestion is even dumber than earlier ones; the trend here is ominous.  Here is how to stop tanking – evidently:

• There will be 10 teams in the NBA Lottery – – the ones that do not make the playoffs or the play-ins.
• The “Bottom-3 teams” will each get X ping pong balls in the Lottery Hopper.
• The “Other-7 teams” will each get X+1 ping pong balls in the Lottery Hopper

The whole idea of the Draft in the first place is to help the worst teams become more competitive and this idea will punish the worst of the worst.  The only way such an idea might make sense is to assert that every team that ever finishes in the “Bottom-3” only got there by tanking.  [Aside: I saw with my own eyes the Sixers’ team that went 9-73 for a season; they did not tank the season; they were simply outmanned and outcoached.  Period.]

The US Government has in the past “declared war” on things like poverty, drugs, cancer and terror.  All I can say is that basketball fans should hope that Silver’s “War on Tanking” will be more successful than those government efforts.

• Memo to Adam Silver: Once you resolve the tanking issue, please turn your attention to integrity issues.
• Damon Jones just pleaded guilty to gambling charges; Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier still have to face a day in court on similar charges.
• “Tanking” is an “integrity issue” just as is “gambling” an “integrity issue” and both could become existential threats to your league.

Switching gears …  Another head has rolled at Football Night in America; it appears that Chris Simms will be out of a job there.  For the moment, the cast there has been reduced by one; Tony Dungy and Chris Simms are out, and Mike Tomlin is in.  I have said here before and will repeat myself here, the cast there is far too big; there is not enough time for any of them to express a cogent thought even if they actually have one to offer.  If I count right, the current on-camera cast is 8 people which I think is about 3 too many.  I don’t like to see people lose jobs, but there could be a significant benefit there by “thinning the herd”.

Next …  Tomorrow they will run the Kentucky Derby.  My track record for picking Derby winners and profitable wagers for the race is stupendously awful.  Undaunted, I will offer here my idea for wagering on the race tomorrow with a budget of $100.

• Commandment (#6) and The Puma (#9) with
• #6, #9, Renegade (#1), Danon Bourbon (#7), So Happy (#8), Incredibolt (#11) and Pavlovian (#16) with
• #6, #9, #1, #7, #8, #11, #16  ($1Trifecta ticket costs $80)
• $10 to win on Commandment (#6) and $10 to win on The Puma (#9).  Cost = $20.

 If history is any judge, none of those horses will be a factor in the race – – whatever…

And just to be sure that no one here forgets my enjoyment of word playing with names, let me remind everyone that the #18 horse in the Derby field this year is named Further Ado (Morning Line = 6 to 1).  I do not wish any misfortune for the animal, but if by chance he turned up as a late scratch tomorrow:

• They would still run the Kentucky Derby without Further Ado.
  • • BaDaBing!   BaDaBoom!!!

Finally, WC Fields has a perfect way to close out today’s rant:

“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”

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