Trainwrecks, Anyone?

A friend sent me an email yesterday afternoon that contained a picture of Nolan Ryan wearing a Texas Rangers’ cap.  The caption on that picture read:

“Nolan Ryan’s arm was so damaged by the first 5000 innings of his career he was only able to strike out 16 Blue Jays when he no-hit them at age 44.  It’s a cautionary tale for all young pitchers.”

Nolan Ryan was hardly your typical MLB pitcher.  Let me toss a few items on the table here to demonstrate that assertion:

• Ryan’s MLB career spanned 27 seasons.
• He threw a total of 5386 innings.
• He holds the career records for walks (2795) and strikeouts (5714)

To put that strikeout record in perspective, imagine a young pitcher starting his career in MLB.  If that youngster had a 20-year career, he would need to strike out 285.7 batters in each of his 20 seasons to equal that record.

Moving on …  The folks at Netflix thought it was important to produce a documentary on the life and career of Johnny Manziel.  I am certainly not one to pretend to have marketing expertise; but as soon as I read about the existence of this programming, I thought it should have the title of Trainwreck.  But what do I know?

The folks at Netflix think a better title is Untold: Johnny Football.  Given Manziel’s college accomplishments – – winning the Heisman Trophy and leading Texas A&M to a win over Alabama in Alabama – – the rest of his story is maddening and frustrating enough without the “untold parts”.  Manziel is in that category of highly hyped young athletes who found ways to self-destruct and to prevent their talents from reaching full expression.  In the case of Johnny Manziel, the biggest demon evidently was alcohol.

A successful NFL player at any position needs to have football as the primary focus of his life for the duration of his career; his dedication to football must include physical readiness and mental readiness.  In Manziel’s case, it appears that a lack of sobriety intervened to assure that he was not physically or mentally able to flourish in the NFL.  Manziel is now 30 years old, and it is not clear that he has committed to a life of sobriety.  Even if that were the case, I doubt that any NFL team would even allow him in a training camp given the outlandish focus on him that would take place.  His talents on the football field will never show themselves again.

I think the most interesting aspect of this documentary is the reaction to it by Ryan Leaf who also saw a potential NFL career crash and burn.  Leaf’s reaction to the documentary is that it told “the wrong part” of Johnny Manziel’s story; there was no attention paid to his current state and perhaps what a future for him might be.  Said Leaf:

“Once again, people have taken advantage of Johnny Manziel. There were no solutions. There was no addressing the bipolar diagnosis and how he’s dealing with it and how he’s living with it around his substance abuse.”

Johnny Manziel is indeed a cautionary tale at best and probably a tale that need not have been told.  If you want to read reactions to that Netflix production, here is one link and here is another.

Switching gears …  I thought the Netflix documentary should have been named Trainwreck; in another part of the sports world, there is a trainwreck about to happen and it looks as if the team involved will be the Philadelphia 76ers.  The team that went through “The Process” and exposed its fans to about a decade of horrible basketball appears to be on the brink of starting a new chapter in “The Process”.  Let me review the bidding:

• In its zeal to rid itself of the head case known as Ben Simmons, the Sixers took on James Harden.
• After Harden disappeared in the final playoff game against the Celtics earlier this year, he sought a max contract, and the Sixers did not come forth with one.  In that matter, the Sixers were correct; Harden is 34 years old and clearly on the downslope of his career.
• Harden exercised his player option in his previous contract to play for the Sixers at $35M for one year.  As soon as he exercised that option, he requested a trade; according to reports, his desired destination was the LA Clippers.
• Trade talks between the Clippers and the Sixers did not yield a deal.  Harden went to China to build his brand there and show off Adidas shoes and gear.  In China, he went nuclear on Sixers’ GM Daryl Morey calling him a “liar” and stating more than once that he (Harden) would never be part of a team run by Morey.
• After that tirade, Sixers’ player PJ Tucker seemed to side with Harden in the matter and Sixers’ star player, Joel Embiid, disconnected himself from the Sixers social media presence.

Harden’s declaration that Morey is a “liar” is interesting in terms of where he chose to reveal that news.  Daryl Morey is persona non grata in China; recall that he spoke out in favor of the Hong Kong protesters seeking more democratic controls in that part of China.  For that Morey lost his job in Houston prior to signing on with the Sixers.  Harden’s revelation while in China pits him as the good guy against the evil guy in the mind of his audience there.

Harden says he will show up for training camp which is much worse for the Sixers than if he were to sit at home and rail on social media about the lies he has been told.  This confrontation has catastrophic potential too.  If Joel Embiid gets caught up in this mess and he too demands a trade, the Sixers will be lucky to win 20 games next year.  If this is going to be a 5-Act drama, my guess is that we are just at the end of Act 1.

Finally, I’ll close today with this observation by the theoretical physicist, Erwin Schrodinger:

“If you cannot – in the long run – tell everyone what you have been doing, your doing has been worthless.”

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