Month: April 2019

It is Tax Day in the US; how nice to be in Ireland where it is easy to avoid the annual local TV “news” reports relating the people racing to file their taxes by midnite local time.  Why the stations think this is news every year is beyond me; why they glorify those mouth breathers is also beyond me.  Over here in Dublin, it is just a normal day; windy, chilly, cloudy with occasional drizzle.  The Irish TV stations do not make a big deal of such normalcy…

Two major losing streaks came to an end over the weekend:

1. Orioles’ first baseman, Chris Davis, got his first hit of the season snapping an 0 for 54 hitting debacle that extended back to September 14, 2018.  [That is the longest hitless streak for a position player in baseball history; the previous record was 0 for 46 by Eugenio Velez in 2010-11.]  Actually, Davis went 3 for 5 in Saturday’s game with 4 RBIs which would be a significant day for just about any players let alone one who has gone 0 for 61.  That 3-hit outburst raised Davis’ average for the season to all of .079.  Unfortunately, Davis reverted to form on Sunday and went 0 for 4.
2. Tiger Woods won The Masters meaning that he won a major tournament for the first time in a decade.  This is obviously great news for Tiger Woods, but it is far better news for the people who write about golf.  For the last 5 years or so, they were constrained to write about how Woods was working hard to regain his glorious game and the obstacles he still had to overcome to regain his glory.  Those were glorification pieces – – but they are nothing compared to the paeans of praise that can now be written.  If you think I am exaggerating, please try to get through this recounting of Woods’ victory at Augusta from CBSSports.com.

https://www.cbssports.com/golf/news/tiger-woods-returns-to-glory-harkening-emotions-of-the-past-in-genius-performance-at-2019-masters/

According to reports at NBCSports.com, the NFLPA and some of the NFL owners met in Minneapolis about a week ago to discuss how to proceed with negotiations for a new CBA.  If you recall the level of rancor that was in evidence about 18 months ago when the “national anthem controversy” was at its apogee, the fact that the two sides even found one another’s phone number is significant.  Recall that the players’ executive committee was advising players to set aside money to be used as individual strike funds because the common wisdom was that a strike was inevitable.

I would like to think that there has been an injection of sanity received on both sides of the negotiating table.  The underlying fact here is that the NFL and the NFLPA are partners in the production of a television extravaganza that fuels the input of $15B per year in revenue.  The two partners need to negotiate the conundrum of how that $15B should be shared; if sanity and rationality are permitted to be in the room when the bargaining occurs, that process will be much simpler than negotiating Middle East peace.

The players probably want some or all of these points:

• They would like more of the gross revenue dollars to show up in the revenue pool that creates the salary cap.
• They would like a slightly larger percentage of whatever that salary cap pool might be.
• They would probably like to get rid of – or at least significantly modify – the rules governing the franchise tag.
• They probably want a change in the Commissioner’s absolute authority in discipline cases.
• They hate Thursday Night games; this will be a dilemma for the players.

The owners want some or all of these points:

• They want some of the revenue stream to come off the top to go into the NFL stadium construction fund which has been seriously depleted in recent years.
• They want the Commissioner to remain as the disciplinarian because it takes the heat off the owners in those situations.
• They want as much of the revenue stream to wind up in their pockets as i9s possible.

For all the anger and vitriol that came from the players and the NFLPA during the “anthem controversy”, the players have done well under the current CBA which has been in effect since 2011 and will run through 2021.  They negotiated on issues of working conditions – – practice times and off-season schedules – and they have benefited by the inclusion(s) of new rules aimed at player safety.  The way the revenue stream is rising, and the formula employed to calculate the salary cap and the salary floor for each year has led to those numbers going up by about $10M per year in the past several years.

From the owners’ perspective, this CBA has been kind to them; they are in a situation where it is virtually impossible for an owner to lose money in a given year no matter how bad their team may be or how rebellious their fanbase may be.

Here are the sticking points that I see and how they may be resolved:

1. Thursday Night Football:  Looking at the TV deal, this adds – by my calculation – between $8M and $10M to the salary cap revenue pool each year.  The owners love that; the players need to decide if they want to get rid of Thursday Night Football badly enough to drop the salary cap by that amount.  I think the answer lies in scheduling changes that will allow Thursday night teams to have bye weeks the week before their appearances there ridding the teams of 3-day turnarounds between games.
2. The Commissioner as judge, jury and executioner in disciplinary matters:  I wrote about the resolution of this problem on September 10, 2014 wherein the league and the union jointly fund a disciplinary body to handle these matters.  You can find that rant in the archives on the side roll of the website; the headline for that rant is The Disciplinarian.
3. The Franchise Tag:  I suspect that this issue will get little change because the owners seem to like it the way it is, and the players are not likely to give up much to get it changed because it does not affect more than a few players per year.  This issue gets a lot more publicity that it merits in terms of the impact on the players as a group.  In a given season, maybe 3 or 4 players have to suffer under the yoke of the franchise tag and the number who have sat out a full year to avoid the franchise tag is vanishingly small.  I can’t see the union lowering their percentage of “the take” by a half a percent in order to rid the world of something that is only odious to a handful of its wealthiest members.  Maybe the contract modification that is more worthwhile for the union to seek to modify is the length and/or the rate of salary increases contained in the so-called “rookie contracts”.

Finally, Dwight Perry had this observation about an ongoing NFL disciplinary matter in the Seattle Times recently:

“Pot-loving Cowboys’ DT David Irving — suspended yet again by the NFL for violating its substance-abuse policy — says he’s quitting football.

“Or is he just blowing more smoke?”

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

There are reports this morning that the Sacramento Kings have fired head coach Dave Joerger even though the Kings won more games this year than they have since the 2005-06 season.  That is the good news; the rest of the story is that the Kings still missed the playoffs and the Kings did not reach the .500 mark.

The Kings were in the playoffs every season from 1998 through 2006 under Rick Adelman.  Not only have they been on the outside looking into the playoffs since then, the Kings have had 9 coaches since the start of the 2006-07 season.  Joerger was the longest tenured of those 9 by a wide margin; he coached 326 games; the second longest tenured coach in that stretch was Paul Westphal who coached the Kings for 171 games.

A team with 9 head coaches in 13 seasons never has a chance to develop individual players into a cohesive unit.  To me this seems like planting a tree and then pulling it out of the ground every week or so to see how the roots are growing.  Neither of the above seems like a great strategy to me…

Next Monday will be the running of the Boston Marathon.  I don’t know if there will be wagering on the race in Las Vegas; I could not find any odds this morning.  The reason I went looking is that very often in this type of situation, the folks in Vegas will post odds for the most recognizable contenders and then lump everyone else into the category “Field” – meaning that if anyone in the “Field” wins, it counts as a winning wager.  I wondered if there was going to be wagering at all if the sportsbooks would have a wager where you could place a bet on every Kenyan in the race to win – a “Kenyan field” if you will.

Normally a “Field” bet is a longshot because all the favorites are listed separately.  If there were a “Kenyan Field” bet for Monday’s Boston Marathon, I would imagine the line would be something like minus-300.

Since I was thinking about the Boston Marathon, that led me to ask myself the following question:

• How freaked out are the Boston Red Sox fans these days?

After last year when the Red Sox won 108 games and then breezed through the playoffs and World Series, the start of the 2019 season must seem like Bizarro World for Sox fans.

• The team batting average is .238; the team OBP is .313.
• The pitching staff cumulative ERA is 6.32; four of the Sox starters have ERAs north of 6.00.

The Red Sox are 4-9 as of this morning and they are 6 games out of the division lead in the VERY early going.  Here is why Sox fans should not be in Full-On Panic Mode:

• The Red Sox started the season with an 11-game road trip; they have only played 2 home games so far in 2019.
• Every other team in the AL East has already had at least 6 home dates.

You may remember last Fall when Alabama coach, Nick Saban,” complained” that the Alabama student body did not provide what he thought was “proper support” for the football team because the student sections had cleared out in the 4^th quarter of a blowout game.  When I heard that, I figured it was just a way for Saban to find something to gripe about lest he seem pleased at the way his team had been playing.  Well, maybe he was more serious than I thought and maybe he flexed a few muscles in the school Athletic Department over the winter.

The Alabama Athletic Department is going to institute something – not yet fully defined as far as I can tell – called “Tide Loyalty Points” and it will seek to reward students who stay in the stadium until the games are finished.  Here is the intent of “Tide Loyalty Points”:

“Through the Tide Loyalty Points program, students will earn points for attending home football games and for their support in the 4th quarter.  Those points will contribute to students’ priority access to regular and postseason tickets.”

It seems as if students at Alabama will have to make some decisions this Fall.  On one hand, staying through the final 15 minutes of a game where Alabama already leads by 5 TDs might earn them access to a ticket to the national championship game in January.  On the other hand, leaving at the end of the third quarter will add another 30-45 minutes to the post-game drinking and debauchery celebration.  Decisions … decisions…

• [Aside:  I guess the good news here is that one does not earn any Tide Loyalty Points by consuming Tide Pods.]

I realize the some of you are planning for your vacation this summer and as an added service provided by Curmudgeon Central – – at no additional cost mind you – – let me make you aware of a new attraction you may want to factor into your decision making.

• The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum – – located in Milwaukee, WI – – opened to the public on 1 Feb 2019.

You can pay a visit; you can become a member; you can donate one of your bobbleheads; you can loan one of your bobbleheads to the museum for them to display; you can receive bobbleheads from the museum.  The options are many and varied.  In fact, here is what you might expect from a visit:

“The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum houses the world’s largest collection of bobbleheads and features dozens of exhibits related to the history of bobbleheads, making of bobbleheads and much more.”

Finally, consider this comment by Bob Molinaro of the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot regarding advanced analytics and sports fans:

“Stoned: The statistical innovation that, depending on your perspective, has either transformed or ruined baseball, is coming to curling, my favorite Olympic winter sport. It’s my favorite because I can identify with competitors who don’t wear skates, skis or spandex and are smart enough to remain indoors. But now, international curling is embracing, you guessed it, analytics. The nerdy sport of curling is being turned over to even bigger nerds. I think I need to find a new favorite winter sport.”

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

Thomas Wolfe spent an entire novel warning us that You Can’t Go Home Again.  Chris Mullin did not face the same problems that the protagonist in the novel did, but Mullin tried to go home to St. John’s and resurrect the basketball program there.  His abrupt resignation earlier this week ended that attempt short of the mark.  Indeed, the Johnnies did make the NCAA tournament field this year – but losing in the early rounds is not what St. John’s basketball once was when Chris Mullin was playing there.   In fact, Mullin’s record over his 4-year tenure in Queens was sub-.500.  [Aside:  Perhaps this is an ominous sign for Patrick Ewing who is the best player in Georgetown history and who has returned to the school to resurrect the basketball fortunes there…]

Rumors say that St. John’s wants to hire Bobby Hurley; the question is whether Bobby Hurley wants to leave Arizona St. – a team that also made the NCAA tournament this year and then took an early exit.  The fact is that St. John’s is not an easy place to build a powerhouse program these days; it used to be that lots of kids wanted to “stay home” and play basketball; today, kids want to go somewhere and to be on TV a lot.

If the school decides to give the “star player returning home” gambit another shot, reports today say that Metta World Peace – Ron Artest when he played for St. John’s about 20 years ago – wants the job.  I know that Peace has not had a head coaching job anywhere to date; he may have been an assistant somewhere; but in any event, he would have a learning curve to ascend.

The NY Post reported that based on a phone interview, Rick Pitino would take the job but would want an apology from the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York for leaking his name in association with the prosecution of the Adidas folks who were improperly paying recruits.  Pitino maintains he is innocent and was never even charged in the matter but putting his name out there cost him the job at Louisville.  I’ll go out on a limb and predict that the prosecutors will issue no such apology…

From this perspective, the best thing that can happen to St. John’s here is that they do not have to suffer the embarrassments that UCLA experienced in its coaching search.  The Bruins fired Steve Alford on New Year’s Eve and stumbled through the season as a .500 team.  There was a time when the UCLA coaching job was at the pinnacle of college basketball, but this year’s hiring processes show that is no longer the case.  Rick Barnes, John Calipari and Jamie Dixon all turned the UCLA job down and finally the Bruins convinced Mick Cronin to abandon Cincinnati to move to Westwood.  And along the path that led UCLA to those three blind alleys, Rick Pitino’s name flashed once again.  Here is a comment from Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot that puts a punctuation mark on that:

“Pretzel logic: When Dick Vitale says that big-time college hoops is a ‘cesspool,’ it’s reminiscent of Howard Cosell decrying boxing after years of burnishing his brand through the fight game. Dickey V is a sweetheart, but the same man who worries about the sport wallowing in a septic tank wrote a tweet encouraging UCLA to hire Rick Pitino, who was fired from Louisville in the wake of a recruiting scandal. I don’t know how you can reconcile those two thoughts.”

One more thing here… I mentioned the novel You Can’t Go Home Again earlier on.  That was not a recommendation; I was assigned to read that for English class in high school; if you have dodged that bullet, count your blessings and find something else to read.

The Masters begins today.  Jim Nantz will be the anchor this weekend and he has probably spent the last couple of days practicing his “whispering” so that he does not appear to be too forwardly emotional while golfers are lining up their shots.  I will tune in until I hear one of the whispering voices ask one of the other whispering voices this pregnant question:

• “What do you think he wants to do with this shot, Joe?”

At that point, I will yell, “I think he will try to put the [bleeping] ball in the [bleeping] hole, you twit.”  And then I will calmly reach for the remote and take my eyeballs and earpans elsewhere…

Greg Cote had this comment on The Masters in the Miami Herald last weekend:

“It’s Masters Week. Let us pray: The Masters is this Thursday through Sunday at Augusta, maybe the holiest-feeling annual event in sports. You can’t even talk about it without hearing soft violins and tinkling pianos. Rory McIlroy is the betting fave at 7-1, then it’s Dustin Johnson 10-1. At 12-1 are Justin Rose, Justin Thomas and some guy named Tiger Woods.”

Last week, Rob Gronkowski announced his retirement from the NFL.  Even though his career was shortened by injuries, I think he is certain to be admitted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame one of these days.  As I was glancing at his career stats at pro-football-reference.com to assure myself that he was a mortal lock for the Hall of Fame, I noticed a couple of interesting stats:

1. Gronk played in 16 NFL playoff games in his career.  That is the equivalent of an NFL regular season and those are games played against competent opponents.
2. In that “extra season” of his career, Gronk had 81 receptions for 1163 yards and 12 TDs and all came against “playoff quality opponents”.

In addition, Gronk had a total of 603 touches in his career (regular season plus playoffs).  In his career, he only fumbled the ball 4 times.

Yesterday, I read that the Patriots have signed free agent tight end Austin Sefarian-Jenkins – late of the Bucs and Jets.  Presumably, he will compete for Gronk’s spot in the Pats; no pressure there, young man…

Finally, Dwight Perry had this observation in the Seattle Times regarding another NFL free agent signing:

“Ryan Fitzpatrick has now been employed by 25 percent of the NFL’s 32 franchises after signing after signing with his eighth team, the Dolphins, last week.

“Which certainly makes him a quarterback in more ways than one.”

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

The confluence of social obligations and time spent on home maintenance chores wiped out the time for rants earlier this week.  Sorry about that.  So, today needs to be a catch-up day…

Congratulations to the Baylor women’s basketball team for their totally exciting win over Notre Dame in the NCAA Women’s final game on Sunday night.  The games in the women’s tournament from the Elite 8 on down to the final game were generally interesting contests instead of monstrous blowouts.  I have suggested in the past – and this year’s women’s tournament reinforces my belief in this suggestion – that the women’s tournament should not be 64 teams in scope.  There just are not that many competitive programs in women’s basketball at this time and the women’s tournament would draw more interest if it could put on more competitive/compelling contests instead of early round blowouts where one team more than “doubles up” on its opponent.  [See Mississippi St. 103 – Southern U  46.]  Reducing the field to 32 would be a good idea; I think a better idea is to start with 24 teams; give 8 teams a bye through the first round and go from there.  I doubt that is going to happen any time soon, but I do think it would be beneficial for women’s college basketball.

Congratulations to the Virginia men’s basketball team for winning the first national championship in school history.  The games in the men’s tournament from the Sweet 16 forward were good contests – – even the Auburn win over UNC by 17 points was exciting to watch.  I realize that there was another point where human error presented itself with regard to the officiating in the Auburn/UVa game.  I refer back to my comments about officiating last week and the impossibility of eliminating human error from any human endeavor.

• [Aside:  I forget which comedian said this, but he pointed out that if someone spent his lifetime making a device “idiot-proof”, it would not take the world long to develop a bigger idiot.]

Like most everyone else, I expected the final game against Texas Tech to be a low-scoring affair.  At halftime, I thought to myself that 60 points could win the game and that 65 points would surely win the game.  Well, it was 68-68 at the end of regulation time and the teams combined to score 26 points in the 5-minute overtime.  So much for my expectations…

In terms of next season, Virginia stands to lose DeAndre Hunter to the NBA Draft, but the rest of the starters will be back.  Michigan St. will also return a bunch of starters.  Such is the positive aspect of staying out of the annual “one-and-done” recruiting wars…

Chris Mullin resigned as the head coach at St. John’s.  If that was expected, the commentary surrounding the expectation escaped me.  Mullin has been at St. John’s for 4 seasons and the team made the tournament this year for the first time since 2015 and for only the third time since 2002.

In my commentary last week about the NBA turning itself into a 3-point shooting contest with players launching them at the rate of about once every 46 seconds, a commenter, Rich, said that Wilt Chamberlain set some impressive scoring records (on the court and presumably in the bedroom too) without resorting to the 3-point shot.  My response was that Chamberlains sent a lot of staggering records during his playing career.  That sent me to the stat sites and from there let me present these facts:

• In NBA history, only 4 players have ever collected 40 or more rebounds in a single game.
• Jerry Lucas did that one time taking down 40 rebounds.
• Nate Thurmond also did that one time taking down 43 rebounds.
• Bill Russell did that 11 times taking down 40 or more rebounds in a single game.  He snagged 51 rebounds in a game in 1960.
• Wilt Chamberlain did that 15 times taking down 40 or more rebounds in a single game.  Chamberlain holds the NBA record for most rebounds in a game with 55 – – against the Boston Celtics with Bill Russell in 1960.

You may recall back when rumors began to get serious that the Lakers would fire Luke Walton soon after the NBA season ended, I said that the major issue in LA was not Walton; it was the roster handed to Walton by the Front Office of Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka.  Well, Magic Johnson just stepped down as President of the Lakers; he is leaving the free agency recruiting to “someone else”.  I think Johnson has gotten a pass from criticism over his personnel decisions during his time with the Lakers because – – after all – – he IS Magic Johnson and how can one be critical of such a great person and such a great player.  Well, he deserves to earn a “C-minus” for this aspect of his managerial endeavors.  Luke Walton will probably also take a fall here; but Walton could not have been successful with the roster he had; Johnson could have done a better job than he did assembling the Lakers’ roster once LeBron James signed on.

This summer, the NBA will see a bunch of free agents with name recognition.  There are three free agents who are at the top of the class:

1. Kevin Durant
2. Kyrie Irving
3. Kawhi Leonard

[Aside:  Maybe I could stretch a point and add Jimmy Butler to this list…]

If the Lakers – and their new recruiting team – do not entice at least one of those players to come and play alongside – and sometimes under – LeBron James, they will continue to be a non-playoff team in the NBA West.  Unless, of course, the NBA Lottery once again “miraculously” awards the Lakers a top pick that gets them Zion Williamson …

Finally, since I mentioned Jimmy Butler above, consider this comment from Brad Rock in the Deseret News:

“A study says one-third of young Chicagoans want to leave the city.

“Maybe Jimmy Butler wasn’t so wrong after all.”

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

The first fictional character I ever identified as a young adult was Mr. Spock from the original Star Trek series. As a kid, my objects for identification were baseball players – – and mainly pitchers.  But Mr. Spock’s unerring focus on reality instead of symbolism and inuendo has been an important part of my maturation process.  [Please do not listen to my long-suffering wife who claims that I am the world’s only 75-year old 14-year old.].  Mr. Spock always valued data in order to support observation.

You may recall that I have kvetched here more than occasionally about how NBA games are regressing into nothing more than 3-point shooting displays.  Mr. Spock might have read those kvetchings and raised an eyebrow – – until an AP report on March 30, 2019 provided data to support my complaint(s).  Here are the highlights of that report:

1. “The NBA has set a record for 3-pointers made for the seventh consecutive year, after the 25,808th of the season was made…”
2. “The league is on pace for about an 8 percent rise in 3-pointers over last season — and 3s are getting made a staggering 57 percent more often than what was the case just five years ago.”
3. “The league record for total 3-pointers attempted was broken earlier this month, with 72,354 getting hoisted…”  [This happened in a total of 1144 regular season games, so this extrapolates to 77,793 attempts for the full NBA season.]
4. “The first season where the NBA combined to make 15,000 3-pointers was 2009-10. The 20,000 plateau was broken just three seasons ago, and this season’s total is on pace to end up just shy of 28,000.”

If in fact the NBA teams attempt 77,000 3-point shots this year, that would mean teams would – on average – attempt 63 3-point shots per regular season game.

• That is approximately one 3-point shot every 46 seconds of play.

I plead guilty to being grumpy and crotchety on this issue; nonetheless, there is a basis for my grumpiness and my “crotchetude” …  [meaning my state of being crotchety]

Since I just made up the word “crotchetude” because I can’t easily come up with a real word for what I wanted to say, that reminds me that there is a mysterious process by which the “Keepers of the English Language” – – probably secret members of the Trilateral Commission don’t you know – – add “official” words to the language by incorporating them in the Oxford English Dictionary.  Here are some words that were not officially part of the English Language until recently:

• Cosplay – – admitted in 2008
• Broadband – – admitted in 2012
• Kombucha – – admitted in 2013 [Aside: It tastes just as bad in 2019 as it did in 2013.]
• Sexting – – admitted in 2015
• Ringtone – – admitted in 2018.

I suspect that the Keepers of the English Language have not yet focused on a word that I would love to see acquire the status of “Official English”.  It started as an acronym for a happening in baseball games and it has now begun to morph into a word used to describe the player who is involved in that happening in a baseball game.  I present to you the word:

• Tootblan

The original acronym stood for:

• Thrown Out On The Baselines Like A Nincompoop.

There is not a tootblan in every game – – but when you see one, you can give yourself a facepalm [another word that Official English needs, by the way] and immediately recognize that the player is a tootblan.  If admitted to Official English, the word could then acquire the properties of a verb so that when Joe Flabeetz gets thrown out at home by 15 feet, we could say that he was tootblanning all the way from third base.

• Memo to the Keepers of the English Language:  Give some attention to “tootblan” as a candidate for admission to Official English.

Speaking very loosely about baseball, here is an on-sight report from #2 son who was attending yesterday’s Yankees/Orioles game in Baltimore.  According to a text he sent me, there was a standing ovation in Camden Yards when the O’s sent up a pinch hitter for Chris Davis late in the game.  Here is why:

• Davis is in the 4th year of a 7-year deal that pays him $23M every season.
• The O’s Opening Day Payroll this year totaled $80.2M; Davis accounts for 28.6% of the total club payroll.
• Last year, Davis hit .168 with an OPS of .539 and struck out 192 times.
• So far in 2019, Davis is 0 for 17 with an amazing 11 strikeouts.
• Davis ended 2018 with an 0 for 21 streak; so, he is now hitless in his last 38 MLB plate appearances.

Oh, by the way, Chris Davis is in no danger of winning a Gold Glove for his defense at first base.  Hence the warm welcome for the pinch hitter yesterday…

The Final Four happens this weekend.  My bracket died in the beginning because I thought Nevada was going to the Final Four and that Texas Tech would go out in the Round of 32.  So, I choose not to pretend that I had this one psyched out from the start…

As you prepare to watch the semi-finals on Saturday night, here are two things to keep in mind:

1. Auburn, Texas Tech and Virginia have never won a national championship.  Therefore, if Texas Tech beats Michigan State in the second game on Saturday night, there must be a “first time champion” this year.
2. Auburn is a 5-seed in this tournament.  According to a friend who has his own databases related to sports that he has been nurturing for at least the last 20 years, there has never been a team seeded #5 in any region that went on to win the entire tournament.  The NCAA tournament began in 1939; you may be certain that I have not and will not go back through the records to confirm my friend’s assertion.

Finally, since I advocated above for the recognition of a new word in the English language, let me present a similar sentiment expressed by Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Shouldn’t an errant hike over the punter’s head be known as a snapfu?”

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

Muffet McGraw is the highly successful long-term head coach of the Notre Dame women’s basketball team.  Her squad is in the Final Four for the ninth time; this year the Irish are there as the defending national champions.  Her coaching career started in 1982 at Lehigh; in 1987, she got the job at Notre Dame and has been there ever since.  Her overall career coaching record is 918-274 (.770).  No matter how you look at it, her record is laudable.

Muffet McGraw was interviewed by – and was subsequently the centerpiece of an article – an organization called Think Progress.  This is an organization that promotes and advocates for a variety of causes to include women’s advancement opportunities in the workplace.  In that interview, she said, “People [meaning Athletic Directors] are hiring too many men.”  Her coaching staff at Notre Dame has been all female since 2012 and when she was also asked if she would ever hire another man as an assistant, her answer was “No.”

There has been a smidgen of controversy associated with that report – and some praise and support for McGraw for taking such a definitive stand on an issue she believes in.  I believe that she has earned the privilege of assembling whatever coaching staff she wants for the rest of her career; if she decided that only left-handed women with freckles should be on her staff, then she should go for it and everyone else should let it ride until everyone saw the results of that decision.  So, let me be absolutely clear about this:

• Muffet McGraw should always have as her assistant coaches whomever she wants, and everyone else should keep their comments to themselves.

I do question, however, the coverage of matter in the sporting media.  Obviously, this is a topic in the wheelhouse of Think Progress; the minute that interviewer had those quotes, you can be sure that was going to be a prominent piece on the website thinkprogress.org.  However, please imagine for a moment that Joe Flabeetz is the head coach of a team at Whatsamatta U and he said on the record to an interviewer that:

• He would never again hire a woman as an assistant coach.  [Or just for fun never again hire a Black man or a registered Republican…]

Ignoring the “exclusionary aspects” of Coach Flabeetz’ idiotic remark, how do you think the sporting media would handle the story?  How long would it be until someone hung the label “sexist” around his neck?

Remember, I think Muffet McGraw can hire whomever she pleases based on whatever criteria she sets for her assistant coaches.  My question here relates to the way the sporting media might cover the story were it presented in its mirror image…

For the record, this year’s Women’s Final Four will take place in Tampa this weekend.    Baylor plays Oregon in one semi-final game while Notre Dame takes on UConn in the other on Friday night (televised on ESPN2).  The winners there will meet on Sunday night (ESPN) to crown this year’s women’s national champion.

Let me turn now from a highly successful coach and basketball program to the Washington Wizards and their former GM, Ernie Grunfeld.  The Wizards had been guided by Grunfeld for the last 16 years until he was fired earlier this week.  At this moment, many readers here are shaking their heads wondering what had been going on for those 16 years – – because when you look back there has not been a ton of success.  So, let me give you thumbnail history of the last 16 years of the Washington Wizards:

1. The cumulative record – as of this morning – has been 568-725 (.439)
2. There have been 5 head coaches in those 16 years all selected by Grunfeld.
3. He took over a hot mess in 2003.  Then owner, Abe Pollin had just fired Michael Jordan – – yes, THAT Michael Jordan – – as the Team President and the squad included the likes of Christian Laettner at the end of his career, Kwame Brown who never should have had a career and Tyronn Lue as the point guard.
4. Grunfeld’s failing was his unerring ability to draft the wrong guy – or to trade away a pick that could have drafted a star player in order to get a mediocre player or two.  Consider:
5. He traded away a pick that could have been Steph Curry to acquire Randy Foye and Mike Miller.
6. He passed up the chance to draft Klay Thompson and Draymond Green in two different drafts.  Somehow, the Golden State Warriors’ braintrust was able to see some value in those two guys.
7. He took Jan Vesely and passed on Kawhi Leonard.
8. He has signed good-but-not-great players to super max contracts.  Presently, the Wizards are committed to pay John Wall about $170M through 2023.  Wall is injured and will miss most if not all the next season; even if healthy, there is plenty of reason to suggest that he would be overpaid significantly by such a deal.
9. The best player on the Wizards’ roster is Bradley Beal and his “rookie contract” is about to expire and he too will be looking for a max deal.

The Wizards were a hot mess in 2003 when Ernie Grunfeld took over.  He was able to improve the roster to the point where the team was a regular playoff contender – – even though the Wizards have not won 50 games in a season since the 1978-79 season.  But now the team is a hot mess once again and the next GM will have a serious reclamation project on his hands. The roster is talent-deficient, and the cap room issues are significant.  Fans in Washington should expect several years they can label as “Tankapalooza”.

Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry’s column, Sideline Chatter, in the Seattle Times:

“Spotted on the license plate of a white Bronco in North Carolina: ‘AIN’T OJ.’”

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

Occasionally, there is a news story out there with enough dimensions to it that a consequence of that story goes under-reported – – or unreported.  Such may be the case with the folding of the AAF.  Reporters and analysts can focus on:

1. Are the Orlando Apollos the AAF champions with the best record in the league’s only partial season?
2. Where did this business model fail?
3. Can professional “Spring Football” survive?
4. Did the AAF project any players to the NFL or resurrect any NFL careers?

All those questions are interesting; the second and third questions there might even border on important.  Nonetheless, there is another aspect here that needs to be considered:

• With the folding of the AAF, Johnny Manziel is yet once more a free agent.  Let the rumors and the paparazzi shots begin…

Speaking about football players with a history of notoriety, it turns out that Pacman Jones is going to do some jail time for that arrest at an Indiana casino a little over a month ago.  He was arrested for a skirmish with officers called to the casino to investigate cheating at one of the table games.  There are now reports of a plea deal.  When all the smoke cleared, Jones was charged with 9 felonies and 5 misdemeanors in the matter; according to reports, he plead guilty to 1 felony count of cheating at gambling and 1 misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest.  According to reports Jones will spend 10 days in jail and will be on probation for 18 months.  Not surprisingly, he is also barred from ever going to that casino again.

• Ten days in jail and 18 months of probation may seem light for a menu of 9 felony counts and 5 misdemeanors, but it is more severe than a four week stay at an anger management counseling session held at a spa somewhere…

UCLA is searching for a new head basketball coach.  The program that once won 10 national championships over a 12-year span in the 60s and 70s has not resembled that stature for years.  Yes, UCLA won another national champio9nship in 1995 and made three consecutive Final four appearances about 15 years ago, but the last several years have been dismal.  Two years ago, UCLA had to win a play-in game to be part of the tournament; last year they fired their coach in mid-season and finished with a 17-16 record with no tournament slot available to them.  As bad as that is, I believe that UCLA struck out twice in the past several days:

1. First there was the report that they tried to hire John Calipari away from Kentucky to resurrect the program at UCLA.  Cynics may say that Calipari used the noise surrounding that story to get a new deal from Kentucky that will make him the coach there for his lifetime AND when he chooses to retire, he will be a “Special Ambassador for Kentucky Basketball” for as long as he wants.  In any event, UCLA was told to take their offer and – – you know the deal…
2. Then, the guy that UCLA could have hired – and should have hired – took the job at Texas A&M.  Back when Steve Alford was fired, I said that UCLA should target Buzz Williams as their next coach.  Williams put Marquette basketball back on the map; he has had Va Tech in the NCAA Tournament for 3 straight years now and Va Tech is a football school not a basketball school.  Buzz Williams is a very under-rated coach and that is the kind of guy that UCLA must find because the fact is that UCLA is no longer “the gold standard” of college basketball.  In fact, it’s much closer to a slag heap than it is a gold nugget.

The Sacramento Kings made a run at the playoffs in the NBA this year; they won’t make the playoffs, but it appears that they will finish 9^th in the NBA West.  That is a big deal because the last time the Kings saw post-season action was in 2006 when they were eliminated in the first round by the San Antonio Spurs.  As of this morning, the Kings’ record is 38-40; if they win 1 of their remaining 4 games, they will have their best record since that 2006 playoff season.

The Kings’ franchise is a mess.  I think it gets less scorn that it has earned because it is in Sacramento; and even though Sacramento is the capital of the largest State in the US, Sacramento is a backwater in the sports landscape.  Here is some Kings’ history:

• In the 13 seasons since that 2006 playoff appearance, the Kings have had 9 head coaches.
• Of those 9 head coaches, the best record belongs to Reggie Theus – – 44-62, a .415 winning percentage.
• Rick Adelman coached the Kings from 1998 – 2006; he had an admirable record of 395-229 (.633) with playoff appearances every year.  Adelman’s contract with the Kings expired and the team did not renew it.
• Prior to Adelman’s 8 years of success, you have to go back to Cotton Fitzsimmons coaching tenure (1978-1984) to find another coach with a better than .500 record – – and it was only a little better.  Fitzsimmons was 248-244 over an almost 6-year stint on the bench.

The current coach is Dave Joerger.  If you live more than 100 miles from Sacramento and could recognize Joerger on the street, you are a true NBA junkie.  Joerger’s deal with the Kings is entering its fourth year; according to ESPN reporting at the time the contract was initiated, this upcoming fourth year is a “team option”.  Joerger’s record is nowhere near .500 over the past 3 seasons, but this year looks promising.  So, what might the Kings’ front office do now?  Maybe they will make an offer to John Calipari?  It would fit right in with the decisions made by these folks in the past decade or so.

Finally, Dwight Perry had this observation about another less-than-brilliantly-run NBA franchise in the Seattle Times:

“President Trump paid a recent visit to America’s last tank factory.

“Apparently, it was his first Knicks game in years.”

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

News reports continue to appear saying that the AAF might cease to exist within days if there is no “agreement” reached between the NFLPA and the AAF.  The majority owner – the guy who bought up most of the league earlier this season – says that the AAF cannot exist unless the NFLPA allows young developmental players to be in the AAF.  Why the NFL teams seemingly have no say in that matter is not clear to me, but so far, the differences of opinion here are attributed to the NFLPA and the AAF.  Is this for real – – or is this some sort of negotiating strategery?  I have no idea.  However, if the AAF folds even before its inaugural season ends, I wonder if that will have some bearing on the launch of XFL 2.0 next year.

Meanwhile, another pro sports league just folded in the last week.  The Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) will discontinue operations as of May 1 making the announcement to the teams and players via conference call over the weekend.  By all reports, everyone other than the Board of Directors for the League were shocked by the announcement.  The CWHL has 6 teams and it has been around for more than a decade.  Suddenly, it has one month left before it fades to black.

I will not pretend to have had any familiarity with the CWHL before last weekend.  But the press release announcing the liquidation of the league says that “… while the on-ice hockey is exceptional, the business model has proven to be economically unsustainable.”

Those 6 teams in the league are far-flung indeed.  There are 4 teams clustered in eastern Canada and New England (Markham, Toronto, Montreal and Worcester); the other two teams are in Calgary and Shenzen, China.  Immediately, I perceive a lot of travel expenses for a league whose regular season extends to 28 games.

For what it is worth, the Calgary Inferno finished first in the league standings in this final season of the CWHL and Calgary also won the Clarkson Cup – the playoff championship.  The other item of marginal interest in this final season is that the Worcester Blades ended the season with a record of 0-28-0.  Ouch!

As the NBA season winds down, there is still a lot of hyperventilation around the Lakers’ season and the future of Luke Walton as their coach.  About 2 weeks ago, there were hints/rumors/unsourced reports that said Doc Rivers (of the Clippers) was being courted by the Lakers and that he “might be interested”.  I like how Doc Rivers handled that situation.  After about 36 hours where this story was percolating in far too many places, Rivers put it to rest.  He said unequivocally that he was not interested in the Lakers’ job and that he intended to stay in LA to coach the Clippers.

Ever since the Clippers moved to LA from San Diego more than 30 years ago, they have been the “Los Angeles junior varsity basketball team”.  This action by Doc Rivers – a well-respected NBA coach – would seem to announce that the “JV status” of the Clippers may be coming to an end.

In another coaching move, St. Joe’s University fired Phil Martelli as its head coach.  He had been an assistant at St. Joe’s for 10 years before taking over as the head coach in 1995.  Martelli’s Hawks had been in the NCAA Tournament 6 times and his teams made it to the Elite 8 once and to the Final Four another time.  The last two seasons have not been banner years for the Hawks, but Martelli’s overall record at this small school that is just down the road from powerhouse Villanova who dominates college basketball in that area was a very respectable 444-328 and he is the winningest coach in school history

Martelli’s replacement is Billy Lange who had been an assistant at Villanova – just down the road – and an assistant with the Sixers in the NBA.  In addition to the impressive record Phil Martelli posted at St. Joe’s there is another coach in school history who draws comparisons.

• From 1955 to 1966, Dr. Jack Ramsey was the head coach at St. Joe’s.  His record over that span of time was 234-72 (winning percentage .765)

Staying with basketball for another moment, this year’s Final Four will not see participation from Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and UNC.  To give you an idea of how dominant those programs have been in college basketball recently, consider this stat:

• Since 1985 there have been only 5 Final Fours that did not have at least one of those four schools as a participant.
• Starting in 1986, there have been 34 tournaments meaning that there have been 136 “slots” in the Final Fours over that time.  These four schools – Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and UNC – account for 39 of those “slots” (29% of the total “slots”).

Evidently, some of the smaller schools that earned a slot in this year’s NCAA Tournament did not – or could not – send their pep band to the venue for the game.  In a couple of cases, they hired band players from other schools and dressed them up to look as if they were from the small school that did not send their band to the game.  Unless you are one of the band members who did not get to go to the game, this is not such a big deal – – but the Internet reports made it a much bigger deal that it needed to be.  Brad Rock of the Deseret News put some perspective on all this:

“Fairleigh Dickinson was a 16 seed in last week’s West Regional in Salt Lake and played its role superbly.

“So did others.

“In the Knights’ 38-point loss to Gonzaga, their pep band performed with gusto. Except that FDU has no pep band. The mystery musicians were actually the University of Utah’s, wearing FDU T-shirts.

“Imagine that — one band posing as another!

“Said Milli Vanilli: ‘Cool! Can we get in on this?’ ”

Finally, let me close today by sharing another observation from Brad Rock:

“A study in the U.K. says people are the happiest at ages 16 and 70.

“That pretty much covers both ends of Vince Carter’s career.”

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