Today Is Mishmash Day

Here is a headline from yesterday at CBSSports.com:

• “What deGrom needs to do to get ERA below Gooden’s 1.53.”

I was not sufficiently enticed by that headline to click on the link, because I thought I knew the answer off the top of my head:

• Do not allow any earned runs in September.

Brad Dickson, humor writer formerly with the Omaha World-Herald tweeted out his perspective on the Nike/Colin Kaepernick kerfuffle:

“Well, I’m glad that Nike finally found a spokes-person who’s non-polarizing. Second and third choices were Julian Assange and Kim Jong Un.”

It is a good thing when a “big controversy” gets to the point where we can make fun of it in addition to venting spleen over it…

Believe it or not, there are TWO high school football things to talk about this morning.  Often, I can go through an entire football season without mentioning two high school football happenings but that is not the case today.

The highest scoring high school football game in Iowa happened earlier this year.  Council Bluffs Jefferson beat Sioux City North by a score of 99-81.  [Aside:  No truth to the rumor that both defensive coordinators bet the OVER.]  At halftime, Council Bluffs led 57-21; Sioux City North won the second half 60-42.  The QB for the LOSING side threw for 310 yards and 9 TDs in the game.  The winning side ran the ball for 749 yards (67 attempts) and one runner scored 8 TDs.

I presume that these two teams will meet on a basketball court sometime this winter.  I suspect there will be fewer points scored in the basketball game than were scored in this football game.

The other high school football note is captured in this comment by Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Turning out: During a high school football game last weekend in Little Rock, Ark., false reports of gunfire sent 38,000 panicked people scrambling for the exits. That’s right, a high school game in Arkansas attracted 38,000 spectators.”

I suspect that in many parts of Texas, a crowd of 38,000 for a high school football game would be an indicator that the game was played in a torrential downpour…  There are indeed parts of the country where youth sports are much more important then they are here in the DC suburbs.

Allow me to tell a story here.  In my real career before ranting on the Internet, there was a time when I had to travel to Joplin, MO about once a month/every six weeks.  On the first of my visits there, I asked the people who lived there with whom I was transacting business what I ought to do for entertainment in the evening.  Most of the trips there were 2 or possibly 3 days in duration.  My colleague asked me if I liked baseball; of course, I said I did.  He said that he and his wife were going to the game that evening and that I should consider meeting them at the park; there are always tickets available at the walk-up window.  I thought that was a great idea and he gave me directions to get from my motel to the park.  [Aside: I doubt that anyone had even dreamt of GPS at that point in history.]

I went back to the motel and changed clothes and started to head to the park.  I was trying to think in what minor league Joplin had a team; none came to mind; I assumed that meant it was going to be A-ball or maybe a rookie league.  I was wrong…

My colleague and his wife – and about a thousand other folks – were there to watch a Little League doubleheader.  During my time when visits to Joplin, MO were happening on a regular basis, I took in several other Little League doubleheaders to pass the time on summer evenings.  The crowds were always about the same size.

As a point of reference, if a Little League team in the DC area counted the attendance at all of their games for an entire season, I doubt that it would come anywhere near 1000 souls…

Great players – in general – do not make very good coaches/GMs.  The counter-example here would be Larry Bird who was a great player and a good coach.  [Bill Russell’s tenure with the Celtics does not count because he was a player-coach and “Coach Russell” had the “Great Player” Russell on the court.]  Perhaps, we are seeing an example of this phenomenon unfold in the NFL.  John Elway was a great QB to anyone who saw him play.  John Elway has been less than successful in finding QBs for his Denver Broncos.  [Do not count “finding” Peyton Manning on the free-agent market after he was released by the Colts.  Everyone knew Manning was a great QB; the question was if his body could hold up throughout a season.]

The QBs he has taken in the draft have ranged from “decidedly mediocre” to “outright awful”.

• Trevor Siemian – a 7^th round pick – is probably the best of the lot.  He will back up Kirk Cousins for the Vikes this season.
• Brock Osweiler – a 2^nd round pick – is starting his 7^th season in the league and has yet to do anything marginally impressive.
• Paxton Lynch – a 1^st round pick – lasted 3 years with the Broncos where he started 5 games.  He was released by the team in this year’s cutdown.

I think the reason great players make less than great coaches/GMs is that they were able to things naturally/instinctively that others could not.  You cannot teach “instinct” and – even worse – a great player turned coach/GM might just assume that everyone has the same instincts that he does/did.  The fact is that most players do not have innate greatness and perhaps those great players turned coaches/GMs are on a fool’s errand looking for young players who will just like they were.  Just a thought…

Finally, let me close with another Tweet from Brad Dickson:

“This morning I learned that John McCain and Michael Jackson were born on the same day. So much for astrology.”

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