There are certain things that have happened in the sports world that you assume you will never see again such as:
- An NBA player scoring 100 points in a game
- Secretariat’s dominance of the Belmont Stakes
- A team trailing in the Super Bowl by 25 points in the 3rd quarter rallying to win the game in OT.
I also thought that I would never again see one of José Canseco’s ignominious moments in the outfield – – the one where a ball hit him in the head and bounced over the fence for a home run. Scratch that off the list as of this morning… Here is a link to an item on CBSSports.com this morning with a short video clip of a minor league outfielder named Zach Borenstein taking a shot off his noggin and seeing the ball go over the fence for a home run. Unlike Canseco who was close to the wall on the warning track, Borenstein is a good distance from fence. It is worth a quick glance.
Also at CBSSports.com this morning is a note by Pete Prisco naming Kirk Cousins as the NFL’s most overrated player. The gist of the argument here is that Cousins is a “top 10-15 quarterback” in the NFL but that he is being paid more than anyone else in the league this year. My problem with labeling Cousins that way is that it confuses “overrated” with “overpaid”. Pete Prisco is correct; Kirk Cousins is not the best QB in the NFL; he is better than the majority of other starting QBs, but he is not at the top of the list nor is he real close to the top of the list. However, his salary is not based on some hyper-inflated view of his abilities by the Skins’ management; in fact, it is just the opposite.
Kirk Cousins will make about $25M this year because the Skins undervalued him 2 years ago but still put the franchise tag on him. That meant he had to be paid at the average salary of the top 5 QBs in the NFL and when the Skins’ still tried to low-ball him this year, the second franchise tag demanded a 20% raise from the previous year’s already inflated figure. The Skins did not overrate him; they underrated him and are now paying the price for their misappraisal.
After observing the promotional tour for the Mayweather/McGregor fight and reading about some of the subsequent actions/ events, I now understand why Ringling Bros Barnum and Bailey Circus had to close. When the circus came to town, it meant binging a couple hundred people plus animals along with various mechanical devices just to put on a show. The Mayweather/McGregor Circus put on their show with 4 clowns – add Bob Arum and Dana White to the two participants and you have the full cast of characters. There is no way the economics can possibly work out for Ringling Bros. here…
In case you are interested in the wagering aspects for the upcoming fight, here is how the early betting has been going in Las Vegas;
- When the fight was announced, Mayweather was an overwhelming favorite at “minus-2500” and McGregor was the underdog at “+1100”
- At the Westgate Superbook so far, the money and the action is heavily in favor of McGregor. At one point the Super book said that 93% of the tickets outstanding were for McGregor and 75% of the money was on McGregor.
- After “several low-five figure bets” went down on McGregor last week, the odds fell to their lowest point since wagering opened. Mayweather was then “minus-550” and McGregor was “+425”.
- At the South Point Sportsbook a prop bet offered 6-1 odds on McGregor winning by a KO. According to a spokesperson for the casino, one bettor took that proposition and put $35,000 down on it.
The Jaguars’ DE/OLB, Dante Fowler, made the news last week in a non-football manner. Fowler was the 3rd overall pick in the 2015 draft by the Jags; he missed his entire rookie year with a knee injury; he appeared in all 16 games in 2016 recording 4 sacks and 23 tackles. Those are not eye-popping numbers, but they are respectable. Last week, Fowler was arrested after an “incident with another driver”. Here are some of the reported “highlights”:
- The other driver made some comment about Fowler’s driving. Assuming that actually happened, I believe we can infer from the following that the comment was not any form of praise.
- Fowler then got out of his car, exchanged words with the other driver, hit the other driver, knocked the other driver’s glasses to the ground and then stepped on the glasses and broke them.
- According to the police report, this was the point where Dante Fowler channeled celebrity chef, Emeril Lagasse, and took it up a notch. The police report says that Fowler then “took the victim’s grocery bag, with recently purchased liquor, and threw it in a lake.”
If you are going to go caveman on someone else, I guess it makes sense to go “full Alley Oop” on him. The “groceries into the lake” seems like a good way to put a punctuation mark on the emotional outburst here. Nonetheless, I suspect that people who are counselors for others with “anger-management issues” might see this opera with a degree of concern. Perhaps, Roger Goodell might too…
Finally, here is a comment from Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald regarding the upcoming college football season:
“The new Oklahoma head coach is Lincoln Riley, 33. You know what you call a 33-year-old at Nebraska? ‘Redshirt freshman offensive lineman’.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………
Did you ever hear the story of Lyle Alzado telling the Middle Eastern taxi driver to take him to the stadium–and then going Three-Mile Lyle when he learned the taxi driver had taken him to Dodger Stadium?
Tenacious P:
I had not heard that story. Thanks.