Month: April 2021

Tennessee State University plays Division 1-AA college football in the Ohio Valley Conference.  Normally, a coaching hire at a school like Tennessee State involves an announcement and a press conference that draws virtually no attention outside the campus area.  Not so with the most recent one.

Tennessee State hired former Ohio State star and Tennessee Titans’ star running back, Eddie George, to be their next head football coach.  This is newsworthy for two reasons:

1. Eddie George brings a ton of star-power to an otherwise ordinary football program.
2. Eddie George has never held a coaching position – – let alone a head coaching position – – at any level of football.

George played in the NFL for 9 seasons; his first year was with the Houston Oilers in that team’s final season in that city; then he spent 7 years with the Titans in Nashville before finishing his career with the Dallas Cowboys in 2004.  During his time with the Titans, he made the Pro Bowl four times and was named first team All Pro once.  He has some “football gravitas” in Nashville – – which may serve him well because Tennessee State University is also in Nashville.  It would certainly appear as if he should be able to get some recruiting business done in the immediate environs of Nashville.

It would appear that George quickly recognized that he could use some coaching of his own as he took this position because he made two rapid hires:

1. He hired his former Titans’ head coach, Jeff Fisher, to be a “Special Advisor” to him and to the program.  Fisher was an NFL head coach for all or part of 22 seasons; he took the Titans to their only Super Bowl appearance following the 1999 season.
2. He hired former Cleveland Browns’ head coach and Cincy Bengals’ Offensive Coordinator, Hue Jackson, as the Offensive Coordinator for the Tennessee State team.

Eddie George may never have structured a program and coordinated sets of practices in the past, but he can get advice and counsel on such matters at the ready.  I mentioned above that Eddie George’s name and reputation should give him recruiting entrée in the area.  Add to that situation the presence of two former NFL head coaches on the staff and Tennessee State could become a football destination for players in that part of the country.

Tennessee State does not have the reputation as a “football factory” but it has produced 5 NFL players of some note:

• Richard Dent
• Joe Gilliam
• Claude Humphrey
• Ed “Too Tall” Jones
• Dominick Rodgers-Cromartie.

The Tokyo Olympic Games are scheduled to begin in about 100 days – – July 23, 2021 to be exact.  Nevertheless, it is still not certain that the game will take place at all.  Japan’s Secretary General, Toshihiro Nikai said earlier this week:

“If it seems impossible to go on with the games, they must be definitely canceled.  If there is a surge in infections because of the Olympics, there will be no meaning to having the Olympics.”

He made it clear that he was not looking forward to any sort of “cancellation” and that it would be important for Japan to host the games as had been the plan for the last 10 years or so, but the pragmatic considerations of “pandemic factors” made it prudent to consider canceling the Games.

The Games might be held without fans in attendance; the position of the Japanese government is to put on “safe and secure” Olympic Games and in 2021, that could well mean limiting the number of foreigners coming to Japan to see the Games and/or limiting the number of fans who do come to be allowed in the various venues.  Just last week, the Japanese Economy Minister announced business restrictions in Okinawa and Kyoto due to coronavirus case rises in those areas.  In addition, the areas of Miyagi, Hyogo and Osaka were just put under “targeted lockdown”.  Osaka has seen a sharp rise in infections recently hitting new highs.

Japan’s case numbers and death totals are far lower than those here in the States, but in recent weeks the numbers have been trending in the wrong direction in many parts of Japan and Tokyo is another area that is on the rise.  The situation in Tokyo is sufficiently problematic that the Tokyo Governor has asked non-residents of Tokyo not to come and visit.

This decision will go down to the wire.  I feel sorry for the athletes who have been training for years to get to this point in their careers and who now must continue their training in anticipation of a set of Games that may be canceled at the 11^th hour and 59^th minute.

Finally, let me close today with an entry from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm

“Hard Copy:  A printout for your records of a document created on a computer, which pretty much nails the coffin shut on how those freaking things were supposed to cut down on using paper.”

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

Yesterday afternoon, I received an email from the reader in Houston.  I have always described him as a person with a treasure trove of sports stats and history.  The email yesterday – with no prompting that I can discern – demonstrates how and why he is always able to flesh out things I posit generically here.  This is the entirety of his communique:

“A review of  MLB’s Injury (formerly ‘Disabled’) List as of 4/13, less than two weeks into the season, shows 169 players on the list, which is the equivalent of almost six full teams, give or take, or almost 20 percent of the players.

“Of those, 112 are pitchers, which is almost the equivalent of 10 pitching staffs, with 37 being starters and 75 being relievers. Of those 112 pitchers, 21 are ‘out for the season’.

“The Padres lead MLB with 14 players on the list, including 10 pitchers, four of whom are out for the season.

“Based on the average player salary, that’s a lot of money being paid to players for being on ‘sick leave’.”

According to statista.com, the average salary for MLB in 2020 was $4.43M.  Using that figure as an approximation for the 2021 season, that means the players on the IL now represent an annual cost to MLB teams of $748.7M.  [Of course, many of those players are not out for the season and will be “earning their salaries” in short order.]  Nonetheless, that is a lot of money for injured players…

MLB announced earlier this week that they will be experimenting with a rule change in the independent Atlantic League this year.  The pitching rubber will be moved back 12 inches from home plate; the idea is to give hitters another split second to get the bat on the ball and – presumably – to put the ball in play more often.  The Atlantic League was a major part of the tests for robot-umpires calling balls and strikes in previous years and that experiment has now carried forward to further experimentation in some of the lower minor leagues.  There had been a proposal to move the pitcher’s rubber back 24 inches, but MLB and the Atlantic league settled on a 12-inch setback as the experiment for 2021.  As with any “experiment”, one must not jump to a conclusion until there are data to analyze; so, we shall wait and see what comes of this.

The Atlantic League will also experiment with another rule change that has come to be known as the “double hook”.  What this rule would say is that a team can use a Designated Hitter; but when the starting pitcher is removed from the game, so is the Designated Hitter and the relief pitcher assumes that spot in the batting order.  As you know, I have hated the Designated Hitter concept from the jump; ergo, you cannot be surprised to hear that I like this rule.  One recent trend that adoption of the “double hook” would reverse is the use of a pitching “opener” who is only intended to go an inning or two into the game.  Under those circumstances, that team’s DH would be almost useless.  I will restrain my enthusiasm here to see if there are any unforeseen and/or unintended consequences from application of the “double hook”, but I confess that I hope it turns out to be wonderful.

Speaking of baseball rules that I hate, there are statistical implications for the “runner on second to start extra innings” that is in place again in 2021.  Rather than go through all the details, here is a comment from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times that will give you an overview:

“For pitchers’ stat purposes, that runner stationed on second base to start extra innings is considered an unearned run if he scores.

“So how long before numbers geeks demand an ‘unearned loss’ stat, too?”

The Texas State Senate overwhelmingly passed a Bill called the Star Spangled Banner Protection Act; the Bill had strong conservative support and attracted more than 75% of the Democratic votes in the chamber.  The Bill would make it mandatory for “any professional sports teams with contracts with the state government to play the national anthem before the start of a game.”  The final vote in the Texas State Senate was 28-2.

Whether or not you think this is a good idea, one must wonder why such legislation would be considered necessary.  The reason goes back to a decision made by the Dallas Mavericks and its owner, Mark Cuban, to stop playing the anthem before their home games in Dallas.  The Bill now goes to the Texas House of Representatives for consideration as it moves to become the law in Texas.

When the Mavs stopped playing the anthem, it was not much of an issue because there were no fans in attendance at the time.  However, it became a big deal pretty quickly once the Lt Governor there found out about it and Tweeted that Cuban should sell the team to some “Texas Patriot” who would buy it and announced that this sort of legislation was one of his legislative priorities for 2021.  The NBA seemed to render the issue moot when it decreed that all its teams would play the anthem before their home games – – including the Mavericks.  Obviously, that was insufficient; and it surely seems as if this legislation is on its way to become State Law.

Finally, Bernie Madoff died yesterday.  Madoff was serving a 150-year prison sentence for his fraudulent financial Ponzi scheme which defrauded as many as 35,000 people in more than 100 countries over a period of 4 decades.  Here is an important question in my mind:

• Will his grave marker be in the shape of a pyramid?

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

It is far too early in the baseball season to make any sensible projections but there have been a few happenings that are worthy of attention.  Last weekend, Mets’ starter Jacob deGrom threw 8 innings in his start and gave up 1 run and 5 hits.  He struck out 10 batters and walked no one.  And the Mets lost that game.  deGrom has started twice this year and here are his stats from those two starts:

• 14 innings pitched, 1 run allowed, ERA = 0.64, 2 walks, 21 strikeouts
• And the Mets lost both of those games!

deGrom is a two-time Cy Young Award winner, and the Mets have a history of providing him with meager run support.  In 2018, he won the Cy Young Award with a season-long ERA of 1.70 over 32 starts and 214 innings.  Not too shabby, I should say but deGrom’s record for 2018 was only 10-9.  The baseball gods must be intervening in deGrom’s games because there is no apparent logical explanation there.

Last week, Ken Rosenthal reported in The Athletic that umpires collected “multiple balls” thrown by Dodgers’ starter, Trevor Bauer in a start against the A’s.  According to Rosenthal, the balls had visible markings and a sticky substance.  Those balls were forwarded to MLB for inspection/analysis.

During Spring Training, MLB announced that it would be focusing more attention on doctoring baseballs by pitchers to increase pitch movement.  This shipment of balls to the MLB analysts appears to be the first step along a road of increased enforcement – – if something comes of the analysis.  As you may imagine, Trevor Bauer is not particularly happy with Ken Rosenthal’s report and Bauer took to Twitter with this comment:

“Lol always fun reading desperate and misleading clickbait headlines from national gossip bloggers. To translate fake journalist speak for y’all, ‘It’s unclear whether’ = ‘I can’t be bothered to look into this cuz it doesn’t fit my narrative.’”

I do not have any narrative here.  What I do see is that MLB declared enhanced vigilance for the season on pitchers’ doctoring baseballs; MLB did that on its own initiative.  Now, it is up to MLB to perform said enhanced vigilance and report the findings of any such investigations as publicly as it announced the initiative in the first place.  When they do that, there will be no narrative for anyone to try to carry forward.

Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times summarized this investigation succinctly:

“In other words, they’re going to check for GPA — Gaylord Perry Additives.”

The Atlanta Braves lost a game to the Phillies on a hugely incorrect call by the home plate umpire.  According to the call, the winning run scored on a play where the runner never touched home plate.  The play went to review, and the call stood.  Given that the game took place in Atlanta, you can imagine the negative reaction for the fans there.  In fact, that fan reaction went over the top as fans proceeded to throw trash out of the stands and on to the field.

Braves’ shortstop, Dansby Swanson, went to the post-game press conference to put his feelings on the record.  Obviously, he was not happy with the call at home plate and its validation by the review process.  However, he was also very upset by the fan reaction.  Here is what he had to say:

“What happened after [the call] … I love this city. I love our fans. They’re passionate. They care. But what happened after they announced that call, that’s the most embarrassing part of the whole night. Not the call, but the reaction and the throwing of things on the field. Because No. 1, it’s disrespectful to the people who put in so much work to have the field ready for us every day to make sure it’s in the best shape possible. No. 2, endangering players. That’s incredibly disrespectful. It’s an embarrassing representation of our city because I know, being from here, that’s not how we act.

“And then the worst part of it all, I don’t think people realize that we have families here. There are kids here. There are kids sitting in the front row and you have bottles whizzing by their heads. Just endangering kids who can’t protect themselves is downright embarrassing and it should never happen again.

“It just can’t happen. It never needs to happen again.”

I have always liked Dansby Swanson as a player; now, I like him as a person.  Notwithstanding the emotion of the moment having lost a game in a seemingly unjust manner, he had the presence to address a situation beyond the loss that is bigger than the loss of a single baseball game.  Kudos to Dansby Swanson.

There is a language phenomenon that has always amused my long-suffering wife and me; we call it the “Qualified Superlative”.  The use of the superlative should not have modifiers; something is either the biggest or the best whatever – – or it is not.  However, the “Qualified Superlative” has become a language staple.  If you visit a small art museum in Beaglebreath, NE, you may learn that it houses the largest collection of paintings by Joe Flabeetz outside of North Dakota in a museum open to the public.  Obviously, this “largest collection” exists in a universe where there are in fact other collections that are larger.

Dwight Perry had this item in the Seattle Times over the weekend demonstrating that he too finds the “Qualified Superlative” an interesting language construct:

“Further evidence that stat geeks have too much time on their hands: It was revealed that Tigers rookie Akil Baddoo just became the first player in MLB history to hit home runs in his first two career games while batting out of the ninth spot in the batting order.

“Somehow overlooked: by a left-handed hitter, at home, on natural turf, in day games.”

Finally, since today has been a baseball day, let me close with a comment from Scott Ostler in the SF Chronicle.  I am in full agreement with Professor Ostler here:

“New idea nominated for instant oblivion: Farhan Zaidi’s support for the concept of making all MLB games seven innings. The Giants’ president of baseball operations pitched the idea in an interview on KNBR. That’s the worst solution to a problem since the bleach ‘cure’ for coronavirus.”

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

Within the world of sports, I suggest that the Deshaun Watson matter is the one that most demands a bit of disambiguation now.  It has all the elements we have come to associate with a sports mystery:

• The center of the situation has star power, and the sport is one that garners lots of attention with or without this particular mystery.
• There is plenty of apparent evidence – on both sides of the conundrum in this particular case – and it has come out in dribs and drabs.
• Both sides have chosen to “try the case in the media”.
• There is an element of iniquity and or indecency at the core of the matter.

Early on, I decided to stand by for the tug of war here to play itself out before weighing in.  The reason is not that I have a particular outcome for this mess in mind that I would prefer above all others; the reason is that until some outside and objective evidence is produced, the two sides will be locked into a series of declarations that mimic the old Miller Lite ads:

• Tastes great!  Less Filling!  Tastes great!!  Less Filling!!! …

Recently, the Houston Police Department opened an investigation because someone came forward with a criminal complaint.  Normally, that is not a good thing; but in this case, it opens the possibility of discovering “outside and objective evidence”.  Moreover, at least one – and possibly two – judges have ruled that the identities of the civil litigants here must be identified to the defense lawyers at a minimum.  So, there is some movement here although I doubt this matter is any closer to “resolution” than Houston is to the moon.

What strikes me this morning is that the NFL has done nothing and said nothing about this mess except that the league is “deeply disturbed” by the allegations made here.  Let me channel Derrick Coleman here and say:

• Whoop-di-damned-doo!

With that as its only pronouncement on the matter, it is not easy to tell if the NFL is deeply disturbed by the nature of the allegations or if it is deeply disturbed that the story has legs and has not just dried up and blown away.  In modern political parlance, the NFL’s behavior here has a “bad optic”.

I recognize that the NFL has to walk a tightrope here; it cannot take sides in the matter nor can there be a general perception that the league has taken sides.  In the real world, the NFL must wait – just like all of us must wait – for this Shakespearean drama to come to its end at which point all of us will know if this is a comedy or a tragedy.  But what might – or even should – the NFL do now to alter that “bad optic” without taking sides?

The NFL has a thing it calls the Commissioner’s Exempt List.  A player on that list may not participate in any team activities – including meetings – but that player is paid in full accordance with his contract while he resides on the list and the “problem” that got him there is resolved.  In normal life, this is called paid administrative leave.  When the matter is finally resolved, the player is either punished by the league or reinstated with his teammates having suffered no damage to his bank account.  The league has never imposed this status on a player during the off-season; perhaps the reason is that there are no team activities ongoing now that the Exempt List would bar him from.  I do not know why The Commish has chosen not to use his own Exempt List, but I think the time has come for him to do so.

Before I go any further, let me be sure to state:

• I am not prejudging the outcome of this matter in any way.  That determination will be made for me – and for the NFL – by outside entities.

To those who say that putting Deshaun Watson on the list now only protects him financially in this matter but the act of putting him on the list damages his reputation, I say Buncombe! [Hat tip to H. L. Mencken there!]  Deshaun Watson’s image and reputation are tarred for life beyond any noticeable augmentation of that damage that might be done by the Commissioner’s Exempt List.  The NFL has cover for such an action about now and should use that cover while it still has currency:

1. Nike has “suspended” its endorsement deal with Deshaun Watson.
2. Beats by Dré has ended its “partnership” with Deshaun Watson.
3. Reliant Energy “suspended” its relationship with Deshaun Watson.
4. H B E Groceries “will not renew” an endorsement contract that expired in December 2020.

Those four business entities – and the NFL is indeed a business entity – have decided that the best thing for them to do is to take a position where they are not perceived to be in one corner or the other here; they are withholding endorsement money from Watson awaiting the final outcome here.  The NFL can and should do the same thing.  In fact, the NFL’s current posture looks pretty silly if you juxtapose two situations:

1. The NFL – considering voluminous yet contradictory evidence – in a matter involving allegations of disgusting personal behavior by one of its star QBs has decided to be “deeply disturbed” and then has gone about its business.
2. The NFL – considering poorly collected and tenuously analyzed evidence – in a matter involving the inflation level(s) of footballs involving one of its star QBs decided to suspend him without pay for 4 games.

At least in my mind, the NFL’s “bad optic” just got worse…

The more serious question, I believe, now is not what the NFL can or should do; the question now is:

• What can or will the Houston Texans do?

Watson wanted to be traded; the Texans say they have no interest in trading him; there is an outcome here whereby it would be impossible for him to play for the Texans or anyone else should he be convicted of criminal charges and sent to prison.  Are there teams out there willing to trade for him and his obvious QB skills in the current situation?  Should the Texans take any phone calls that come in?

To me, the NFL’s choice here is obvious.  Put Watson in the Commissioner’s Exempt List; seize the moral high ground; sit back and let others do the grunt work to make your final decision for you.

To me, the Texans’ choice(s) are far less obvious – – and therefore far more interesting.

Finally, the NFL has tried over the past several years to convince folks that they “value women”.  Well, here is a situation where the NFL can demonstrate some leadership where the issue of “valuing women” is interwoven throughout the issue.  That recalls a distinction made by one of my former supervisors that seems pertinent here:

“Managers do things right.

“Leaders do the right thing.”

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

Yesterday’s Topical Rant on the idea of paying collegiate athletes drew some interesting email responses.  One came from a journalist I have known for well over 50 years who liked the piece – although he thought it was long enough to have been able to be broken in two – and he particularly liked the idea of separating colleges from collegiate Athletic Departments as business entities that were taxable as opposed to non-taxable.  He did add one proviso to the separation of school and business entity as presented yesterday:

“Any college football player working for and being paid by the athletic department must fairly compensate any college cheerleader he shtups.”

I can endorse that addition to my idea on multiple levels…

The men’s college basketball coaching season of change is well underway.  I am not about to rave on or throw shade on the decision of Joe Flabeetz to leave the job as head coach at Whatsammata U to take on the more prestigious job as first assistant coach at Disco Tech.  If anyone here is severely interested enough in such changes to the coaching landscape in men’s college basketball, there are myriad other sites to patronize that will scratch that itch.  Having said that, there are several coaching changes that have happened since the Final Four games took place that seem interesting enough to comment upon.

Porter Moser left the job as the head coach at Loyola-Chicago and took the job as the head coach at Oklahoma once Lon Kruger announced his retirement from the coaching profession the week of the Final Four.  I find this interesting on several levels:

• Moser had been the coach at Loyola-Chicago since 2011.  His teams made the NCAA Tournament twice in that time making it to the Final Four in 2018 and to the Sweet Sixteen this year.  In addition, his teams went to the NIT once and won the College Basketball Invitational Tournament in 2015.  I cannot believe there was any significant pressure on the part of alums to get him out of that position.
• Moser’s record at a small mid-major school is the kind of thing that would give him entrée to a job at a “big time school”.  If he were “looking to cash in” on this year’s solid showing in the Tournament, I would have thought that his agent might have been fielding more than a couple of calls from bigger schools.

Porter Moser reportedly made $1M per year as the coach at Loyola-Chicago and the school was “thinking about” offering him a pay raise and an extension when Oklahoma got on the line.  I have not read any reporting on the details on his contract at Oklahoma, but I am sure of two things:

1. It is more than $1M per year.
2. It will not break the bank at Oklahoma’s Athletic Department.

Porter Moser is 52 years old; if he wanted to spend the rest of his career at Loyola-Chicago – – or schools of that ilk – – he would never be out of work.  This career choice says to me that he wanted to do more with his career than he could rationally accomplish at Loyola-Chicago because he took more money and more “exposure” in exchange for becoming the coach of an after-thought at Oklahoma.  Please do not try to convince me that men’s basketball is anywhere near the level of importance that the Sooner’s football team enjoys.  Porter Moser chose to take some added money to try to make Oklahoma basketball into something it has never been – – something the money-bags alums give a damn about from January until April.

Bonne chance, Porter Moser…

UCLA rewarded coach Mick Cronin with a contract extension through the 2026/27 season at $4M per year.  The Bruins began the Tournament as a play-in team and made it all the way to the Final Four losing on a half-court buzzer beater in OT.  That is the first time UCLA has been to the Final Four since 2008.  Well done, Coach Cronin.

Two other college basketball coaching decisions paint two distinctly different approaches to schools disciplining their coaches.  Sean Miller has been the head coach at Arizona since 2009; he was fired this week.  One of Miller’s assistant coaches from 2009 to 2017 was “Book” Richardson; he was one of the coaches caught up in the FBI investigation of illegal recruiting activities and plead guilty to charges of bribery and was sentenced in June 2019.  I have never thought that the FBI investigation was legit; I think what the investigation found was that Richardson – – and other assistant coaches – – violated almost every tenet of the NCAA recruiting rulebook but that it took a humongous stretch of logic to say it violated Federal law.  Notwithstanding my disbelief, “Book” Richardson is guilty of bribery and the world has known that since early in 2019 and had reason to suspect that it was the case as far back as 2017.

If “Book” Richardson is a felon, it seems fair to me to ask how it took at least 2 years and maybe as many as 4 years for the administrators at Arizona to figure out that Richardson’s boss – – Sean Miller – – might be associated in some way with those recruiting improprieties.  For whatever the reason(s), it took that long until Miller’s tenure as the head coach became sufficiently embarrassing for the school to buy him out and “go in a different direction”.  By the way, good luck to anyone who takes the job in the current environment; the NCAA will surely move at a snail’s pace from here on out to determine what else may have happened so that it can levy sanctions against the Arizona basketball program.  Anyone going there now has a steep uphill climb in front of him.

The situation in Kansas is almost a mirror image of the one in Arizona.  Head coach Bill Self was directly implicated by the FBI investigators but not charged and the NCAA has informed the school of 5 Top Level charges of rules violations against Self and the Kansas basketball program.  That sounds serious; so how are the Jayhawks’ administrators and alums dealing with that:

• Kansas just made Bill Self a coach for life indicating in the contract extension that the coach would not be fired “due to any current infractions matter”.
• “Coach for life” might not be taken literally.  The new contract is a sequence of 5-year contracts that roll over at the close of every year. That is not literally a “lifetime contract” but it is close.
• What Kansas administrators and alums are saying to the NCAA is something like, ”We got our coach; we like our coach; you want to punish him or punish the school, go ahead.  We’ll be here when the punishments are history.”

The salary attached to this “lifetime contract” in the upcoming year is $5.7M.  Under the circumstances, I would hope that Bill Self’s agent did not spend hours pouring over and renegotiating  the “howevers” and the “moreovers” in the contract.

Finally, the last two items today recall a comment by the 18^th century Scottish economist, Adam Smith:

“Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.”

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

I may have spoken too soon yesterday in my assessment that the NY Jets got “a meager return” for Sam Darnold in the trade with the Carolina P{anthers.  Maybe the new guys in charge of football with the Jets – – Joe Douglas as GM and Robert Saleh as head coach – – have a plan to change the fortunes of the team and the basis of that plan does not require the appearance of a Fairy Godmother every month or so.  The Jets also brought in a haul of draft picks from the Seahawks in the trade then for Jamal Adams.  Over the next two years, the Jets have plenty of “draft capital”; now the question will be how effectively will they use those assets.

• For 2021, the Jets have two first-round picks, one second-round pick, two-third round picks, one fourth-round pick, two fifth-round picks and one sixth-round pick.
• That is a total of 9 draft picks this year…
• For 2022, the Jets have two first-round picks, two second-round picks, one third-round pick, two fifth-round picks and three sixth-round picks.
• That is a total of 10 draft picks next  year….

If the plan for the Jets is to “get young” and develop young players into a formidable team at a bargain-basement cost against the salary cap, the Jets would seem to be on track to try to accomplish that.  Before anyone reminds me of my complete lack of mind-reading skills, I acknowledge that situation and I still wonder if that is “The Plan” for the current incarnation of the NY Jets.

Readers will surely recall that I am not a fan of relying on “draft capital” to rebuild a team.  I assert that the draft as it is set up does not favor the worst teams all that much and I notice that scouting reports/evaluations often do not reflect performance in the NFL.  I have suggested here several times that NFL teams place a higher value on high draft picks than I think is warranted.

Let me focus here on the first pick overall in the NFL draft over the past 22 years – since Peyton Manning went first overall and had a Hall of Fame career.  These are not random picks from the first round nor are they the first-round picks by a single team; these are the players taken before any other players in that draft class.  So, how did that work out for the teams holding that pick?

• 1999:  Tim Couch  Browns  – –  Marginal career at best
• 2000:  Courtney Brown  Browns  – –  Injury riddled career.
• 2001:  Michael Vick  Falcons  – –  Pro Bowl 4 times; a good selection.
• 2002:  David Carr  Texans  – –  Mediocre career at best
• 2003:  Carson Palmer Bengals  – –  Pro Bowl 3 times; a good selection.
• 2004:  Eli Manning  Chargers  – –  Two Super Bowl rings; an excellent choice.
• 2005:  Alex Smith  Niners  – –  Pro Bowl 3 times; a good selection.
• 2006:  Mario Williams  Texans  – –  Pro Bowl 4 times; a good selection.
• 2007:  JaMarcus Russell  Raiders  – –  Bust, plain and simple.
• 2008:  Jake Long  Dolphins  – –  Pro Bowl 4 times; a good selection.
• 2009:  Matthew Stafford  Lions  – –  Very good QB but not enough to make the Lions good.
• 2010:  Sam Bradford  Rams  – –  Mediocre career at best
• 2011:  Cam Newton  Panthers  – – NFL MVP in 2015; an excellent choice.
• 2012:  Andrew Luck  Colts  – –  Pro Bowl 4 times; retired early; excellent choice.
• 2013:  Eric Fisher  Chiefs  – –  Solid performer; a good selection
• 2014:  Jadeveon Clowney  Texans – –  Good not great player; a decent selection
• 2015:  Jameis Winston  Bucs  – –  Never lived up to his press clippings.
• 2016:  Jared Goff  Rams  – –  Team gave up on him after 5 years.
• 2017:  Myles Garrett Browns  – –  Pro Bowl twice already; a good selection.
• 2018:  Baker Mayfield  Browns  – – Jury is still out…
• 2019:  Kyler Murray  Cards  – –  Jury is still out…
• 2020:  Joe Burrow  Bengals  – –  Jury is still out…

Considering that this list represents THE BEST college football player available in that year according to the drafting gurus for about half of the NFL, I do not see nearly enough “excellent selections” or “game changer for the franchise” entries on this list.  I guess it is nice to have the chance to draft THE BEST player available in a given year, but the execution of that option indicates to me that it is not nearly as tangibly valuable as it is made out to be.

We shall soon see what Joe Douglas does with that picnic basket full of picks and what Robert Saleh does to turn those guys into NFL caliber players.

Every year, I take my watching of regular season college basketball games plus the tournament games to come up with a “Sleeper Pick” for the NBA Draft.  If I said I had even a 20% hit rate on those “Sleeper Picks” I would be stretching the truth. There were two “Sleeper Picks” that turned out well; Fred Van Vliet has been a solid point guard for the Raptors over the past 5 seasons and Matisse Thybulle has been a valuable bench player for the Sixers since the acquired him in 2019.  Undaunted by the possibility for continued embarrassment, I have 3 names to offer here – – the reason being that two of them are underclassmen and may not enter this year’s draft.

1. Dexter Dennis – Wichita St.:  He is an excellent defender particularly out at the 3-point line.  He is a junior and has eligibility left.
2. Neemias Queta – Utah St.:  he is listed at 7’0” and 245 lbs. and I believe that.  He is an excellent ball handler and interior passer.  His offensive game needs some work, but it is hard to “teach” a 7-foot player to dribble the ball effectively.  He is a junior and has eligibility left.
3. Lucas Williamson – Loyola-Chicago:  He has above average skills as a ball handler, shooter, defender and rebounder.  However, he is not “great” in any of those dimensions…  He is a senior and will be draft-eligible this year.

Finally, apropos of nothing, here is a Tweet from humorist Brad Dickson formerly with the Omaha World-Herald:

“There’s a truck in my neighbor’s driveway reading ‘Two Men and a Snake.’ It’s either a plumbing contractor or the world’s worst petting zoo.”

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

Congratulations to Baylor as the NCAA men’s basketball national champions for 2021.  Their win over previously undefeated Gonzaga last night was dominant and authoritative; that was not a “fluky win”; the better team on the court won the game.

With a little less than 12 minutes to play in the first half, I wrote on my notepad that Baylor led by 15 points, was totally dominant and that the “winner tonight is not in doubt”.  There were two important areas where Baylor dominated:

1. Three-point shooting:  Baylor made its first six tries in a row and shot 10 for 23 from outside.  Gonzaga hit only 5 of 17 tries.
2. Team defense: Gonzaga got few open shots all night long; and uncharacteristically, they turned the ball over 14 times.

People today lament the extinction of species; they say that the white rhinoceros is about to join the passenger pigeon and the wooly mammoth as things you can only see in a museum after a lot of taxidermy.  I want to report that something else is about to be declared extinct:

• The three-second violation:  On one play in the first half, I counted out 6 seconds in the lane and was halfway to 7 seconds with no whistle.  In the second half, I had another count at 5 seconds.

When Roy Williams retired, folks were wondering who – within the UNC basketball family – would get the call to succeed him.  I mistakenly wrote here that the UNC tradition of naming former players or assistant coaches started with Dean Smith; that is wrong.  The tradition started when Frank McGuire left UNC and his assistant – – Dean Smith – – took over the program.  Well, now we know; Hubert Davis has been hired as the head basketball coach at UNC.

Davis played 4 years at UNC graduating in 1992.  He played in the NBA for 12 seasons and has been an assistant under Roy Williams at UNC since 2012.  He is the first Black man to be the head coach at UNC and joins a noticeably short list of Black head coaches at any of the “blue-blood basketball programs” in the US.  If my “blue-blood list” contains Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, UNC and UCLA, then Davis is only the fourth Black man to have a head coaching job at any of these schools.  Tubby Smith was the head coach at Kentucky more than 40 years ago and UCLA was led by Larry Farmer and then Walt Hazzard in the 1980s.  That’s it, folks; that’s the list.

Another big announcement from yesterday was the NY Jets trading QB, Sam Darnold to the Carolina Panthers.  In return, the Jets will receive:

• A 6^th round pick this year.
• A 2^nd round pick and a 4^th round pick next year.

Considering that Darnold was the third pick overall in the 2018 Draft, that seems like a meager return for the Jets, and it puts them squarely in the business of drafting a QB in the upcoming Draft.  Currently the two QBs on the Jets’ roster are James Morgan and Mike White and you are free to ask in both cases, “Who’s he?”

The Panthers’ QB situation is even more interesting because of this trade.  Last year, the Panthers signed Teddy Bridgewater as a free agent to a 3-year contract worth $63M.  Bridgewater did not light up the league – – but he did not throw up on his shoes either.  So, is he still the starter there or has the Panthers’ braintrust decided to move on?  Bridgewater’s contract should not make it difficult to move him if that is what the Panthers decide to do.

To some extent, I think Darnold has gotten a bum rap in NY.  Hear me out; I am not going to try to make him into some tragic figure who has been wronged for his entire career.  Sam Darnold has started 38 games in 3 seasons with the Jets; his record in those games is 13-25.  He has missed 10 games over the course of his career and – – if I have counted correctly – – the Jets are 0-10 when someone else starts at QB.  My conclusion is that he was a young QB learning the pro game on a bad team and that he made them significantly “less bad” when he was on the field as opposed to when he was on the sidelines.

I recognize that storyline will not play in NYC – – but I think the Panthers got a good deal here if what they choose to do is to work with Darnold and Bridgewater as a tandem so that both men can improve their skills.  Sam Darnold will be all of 24 years old when he reports to the Panthers’ minicamp in June; it is too early to give up on him as a bust.

Fernando Tatis, Jr. injured himself swinging the bat yesterday.  He took what anyone would call a “healthy swing” and collapsed in pain at the plate; he was removed from the game and subsequent examination determined that he had a “shoulder subluxation” as a result of that swing and miss.  A subluxation is a partial dislocation; with that swing and miss, Tatis managed to partially take the ball of the ball and socket joint that is the human shoulder and partially remove the ball from the socket.

My knowledge base for orthopedic injuries has now been exhausted but it would surely seem to me that this kind of injury would take more than a couple of days to heal – – particularly since when he returns to the game Tatis, Jr, would be swinging a bat at pitches as a mandatory part of his play.  This is not good news for Padres’ fans…

Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times:

“Working title for a documentary about MLB managers’ worst umpiring nightmare: ‘Angel’s In The Infield’.”

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

Before I get to Saturday night’s Final Four games and tonight’s championship game, let me begin with baseball history.  Last week, I mentioned that MLB will be experimenting with some rule changes in minor league games and two of the rules seek to increase the number of base stealing attempts to add more action to games.  I said MLB needed more players like Tony Gwynn who stole more bases in 5 separate seasons than he struck out in those seasons.  I received an email from the reader in Houston which provided historical perspective here:

            “Talking about small ball, this may be comparing apples and oranges, but HOFer 5’6″ ‘Sliding Billy’ Hamilton who played mostly in the latter part of the 19th century with the KC Cowboys of the American Association and the Phillies and Boston Beaneaters of the NL had 914 stolen bases and only 362 strikeouts over a career spanning 14 seasons. He had more stolen bases than strikeouts in every season, but his last. On a side note, he scored over 100 runs in 11 seasons, including the MLB record of 198 in 1894.

“Please note the modern steal rule was put into place in 1898. Before then, any time a runner took an extra base (such as advancing to third base from first on a single) he was awarded a stolen base. But even after the revised recount, he still had more stolen bases than strikeouts during his MLB career.

“For most of us, it was Luis Aparicio who heralded in a new era of base stealing in the 1950s, an era that saw the feats of Maury Wills, who broke Ty Cobb’s single season record in 1962. Cobb had the long-standing career mark of 892, which seemed unapproachable until Lou Brock came along. Brock surpassed Cobb’s career total in 1977. Breaking Cobb’s mark suddenly brought “Sliding Billy’s” name back into the news. When Brock surpassed Cobb, suddenly there were some of us students of the game who rose to say, ‘Not so fast, my friend. How about ‘Sliding Billy’.’

“Hamilton was in the record books with his 937 steals, even if set apart as a pre-1900 figure. And the pre-1900 barely explained his total. As I mentioned above, from 1886 to 1897, stolen bases were awarded for any number of base running advances. Still, no one ran up a total like ‘Sliding Billy’ did. He was the best at what he did; the best of his era. In his first two years with the Phillies, 1890 and 1891, he had 102 and 111 steals, (in only 123 and 133 games, respectively), even as altered by modern research.

“Apart from his superlatives in stolen bases (his total was revised from 937 to 914 by MLB about 40 years ago), he had a .344 career batting average and a career OBP of .455.”

As always, thank you to the reader in Houston for historical perspective here.  I will now amend my remarks from last week to say that MLB needs more players like Tony Gwynn AND “Sliding Billy” Hamilton…

Moving along to the Final Four games.  There’s yin and there’s yang; there’s rationalism and there’s empiricism; there’s happy and there’s sad.  Saturday night I saw two college basketball games and one was exciting and interesting while the other was a dud.  Baylor/Houston was the dud; it was a mismatch from the start.  Baylor led by 25 at the half; then they took their foot off the gas and waltzed home never being threatened.  I made two notes during this game:

1. The way Baylor is playing in the first half, they could beat the Indiana Pacers tonight.
2. Lots of pregame focus on Houston’s Dejon Jarreau but he has been neutralized here.

The Gonzaga/UCLA game was exactly the opposite; it was well-played; it was close from start to finish; it went to overtime and would have gone to a second overtime but for the half-court buzzer beater that sent Gonzaga on to meet Baylor tonight.  [Aside:  I would characterize Jalen Suggs half-court shot as “an answered prayer”.]  I made three notes during the game:

1. These officials are not calling traveling violations tonight – – on either team.
2. Johnny Juzang is ready for the NBA.  He pushes off every time he drives to his right and he pushes off about 50% of the time he drives to his left.
3. Pregame I heard/read that Cody Riley would have trouble guarding Drew Timme.  Riley looks awfully good to me.

The lines on tonight’s game are a bit surprising to me.  Gonzaga is a 4.5-point favorite which is not a surprise.  However, Gonzaga is -200 on the Money Line and Baylor is +175.  Both of those numbers seem big in an absolute sense given the short spread on the game.

I did not see nearly as much college basketball this year as compared to previous years; but given what I saw, I thought Gonzaga, Baylor and Michigan were the three best teams.  When Michigan forward, Isaiah Livers went down with an injury, I downgraded my opinion of Michigan; I believe the two best teams are on stage tonight.

Both coaches must be commended for the way they have grown their programs.  Mark Few has been at Gonzaga since the 1999/2000 season; his “worst season record” in that time has been 23-11; overall, the Zags under his leadership have gone 630-124 (.836).  Gonzaga was a solid program when he took over;   The Zags had gone to a post season tournament in 5 of the previous 6 season under Dan Monson and Dan Fitzgerald; Mark Few took it from there.

Scott Drew faced an entirely different situation when he went to Baylor.  The program had just gone through the “Dave Bliss Affair” where one player murdered another player and Coach Bliss tried to cover it all up.  I wrote about that mess back in 2003; here is a link to that rant if you want to refresh your memory.

When Scott Drew took the job, more than a few folks were convinced that he was committing career suicide.  Notwithstanding the fact that he had only 7 scholarships to give out for his first two years at Baylor, he had the Bears back in a post-season tournament in his fourth year there.  His overall record at Baylor is 353-213 (.624) despite going 17-53 in his first three years at the helm.

Two good teams and two good coaches tonight.  Sounds perfect to me…

Finally, one of the teams – and its fans – will end tonight “heartbroken”.  Therefore, let me close today with that definition from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Heartbroken:  A state of overwhelming sadness; most commonly experienced by adolescents who do not yet have the emotional distance to grasp just how many more times they are going to get screwed over like this by the time they are twenty-five.”

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

Well, that did not take long.  COVID-19 exhibited its ability to impact the MLB season on opening day.  The Nats/Mets game was postponed because of a positive COVID test within the Nats organization and subsequent contact tracing implicating five players who were in close contact with the positive player.  According to reports, that was what got the game called but subsequent reports said that the Nats now have at least three players who have tested positive.  Based on negotiated agreement between MLB and MLBPA the names of players who test positive or are under scrutiny per the COVID protocols will not be revealed, confirmed or denied.  However, if indeed the Nats have a minimum of three players who are positive for the virus, the likelihood that they will be playing at full strength any time soon is small.

Yesterday, I mentioned that MLB will be experimenting with a couple of rule changes in the minor leagues this year with an eye towards increasing the number of base stealing attempts.  Those comments prompted an email from a former colleague who provided an interesting set of stats.  Here is the pertinent part of his email:

“Baseball wants stolen bases to go up and strikeouts to go down … What they need are more players like Tony Gwynn.  Gwynn was in the league for 20 years and in 5 of those years he had more stolen bases than strikeouts.”

Tony Gwynn was a great player, but I never realized that, so I went to baseball-reference.com to check and my former colleague is 100% correct; the seasons in question here are 1984-87 and 1989.  For his 20-year career Gwynn had 319 stolen bases and 434 strikeouts.

The NHL fired one of its officials, Tim Peel, for a comment he made within range of hot microphone saying that he was looking for a way to penalize the Nashville Predators early in a game against the Detroit Red Wings.  The penalty appeared to be a ticky-tack call and after the fact the hot microphone recorded Peel saying:

“It wasn’t much, but I wanted to get a [bleeping] penalty against Nashville early.”

Peel has been officiating NHL games since 1999; there is no way I can convince myself that he failed to know two things:

1. That sort of comment must not be made even in jest.
2. If he actually had that thought in his mind, it was time for him to find another line of work.

I have mentioned here several times that I did a lot of basketball officiating many years ago.  I learned about the problems caused by snide comments the hard way.  Let me recount the story here.

This was a local recreation league game for boys 11 and 12 years old.  I walked into the gym and saw two teams warming up – – one wearing green shirts and the other wearing a different color that I do not remember.  I took off my jacket and saw the guy who was in charge of the recreation league sitting by the scorer’s table, so I went over to say hello.  I also said something very close to this:

“So, what is the line on tonight’s game?  Do we have our money down on Green or ‘whatever the other color was’?  Looks like a good night to cash a bet…”

His response was something along the lines of:

“Green is the play tonight…”

Now in the exact moment that we had that exchange, the mother of a player on the other team happened to be walking by and overheard us.  She thought we were being serious and became incensed that there would be a situation where the referees and the league organizers were “fixing games”.  She said she would report us to the city officials who oversaw the entire recreation department.  I tried to tell her that it was a joke and that there was no “fix” in for the night and that I did not know of any local bookies who would take bets on 11- and 12-year-old boys basketball games.  None of that allayed her fears; when the Green team did win the game that night, I knew this would not just dry up and blow away.  Sure enough, the city recreation director called the league organizer and me in for a “fact-finding meeting”.

It all worked out in the end for me because the absurdity of the scenario I had painted in my snarky remark was a sufficient defense that no hanky-panky was going on.  But I learned a different lesson then about what an official can say about the game in front of him and/or the game he did the night before.

Tim Peel lost his job with the NHL which is about as severe a penalty as possible in this matter.  Unfortunately, I have to think it is justified because even a hint of motivation on the part of an official to make a call that is based on anything other than the events just witnessed by the official strikes at the integrity of the contest.  The NHL lives on because its players, coaches and fans do not believe the games are fixed; the NHL business model does not coincide with the WWE business model so the NHL cannot tolerate “complicit officials”.  I have no idea if Tim Peel’s words and actions struck at the heart of the NHL’s game integrity, but the NHL cannot take a chance on something like that.

Roy Williams announced his retirement from the position of head coach for the UNC men’s basketball team yesterday.  Williams is in the Hall of Fame hanging up his whistle after 33 seasons and 903 victories.  UNC basketball has been a program that has maintained a lineage back to Dean Smith who started there as an assistant coach in 1958 and then was the head coach from 1961 to 1997.  Since Smith retired, the UNC head coaches have been:

• Bill Guthridge – – longtime assistant coach under Dean Smith
• Matt Doherty – – played under Dean Smith for four years at UNC.
• Roy Williams – – assistant coach under Dean Smith for 10 years

I have no inside information on who might be on the list to replace Coach Williams but noting the “pedigree aspect” of UNC hirings here, I will only mention that Jerry Stackhouse is in the coaching business at Vandy…

Finally, just as COVID-19 inserted itself in toe the MLB season yesterday, the virus has also maintained a presence in the NBA regular season as well.  Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times took note of one such intrusion:

“The Warriors were left without any big men for a game against Memphis after Kevin Looney joined James Wiseman on the NBA’s COVID-19 restricted list.

“Obviously they’re not centers for disease control.”

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