Month: April 2024

Today, I will at least partially catch up with comments on events from the past week that I have been on hiatus – – watching the total eclipse in the Texas Hill country just west of Austin, TX.  The first catch-up item is the passing of OJ Simpson due to cancer.  Given the outpouring of vitriol that his death evoked, it is safe to say that many people’s feelings that he got away with a double murder have not mellowed much over the last 30 years or so.

• [Aside:  I recognize and support the fact that OJ Simpson was found “Not Guilty” at trial.  Nonetheless, I am one of the people who believe that he did commit those two murders and that his acquittal was based on having far more competent legal representation in the matter than the prosecution had.]

OJ Simpson left a legacy on the NFL as a great player; his murder trial left a legacy on cable TV because it drew networks like CNN and Court TV (now TruTV) into the mainstream.  That trial also highlighted the fact that wealthy defendants have a much better chance of prevailing in court matters in the US than do defendants of meager means.

Simpson’s passing raises a question that might be interesting:

• Which iconic athlete had the greatest fall from grace?
  • • Lance Armstrong
    • Pete Rose
    • OJ Simpson
    • Tiger Woods
• You make the call …

The phrase, “Rest in peace,” is usually reserved for one who has just passed.  In this case, perhaps that phrase can be offered up to the deceased – – OJ Simpson – – and to everyone whose knee jerk reaction to news of his death was hatred and venom.

Moving on …  I am not a conspiracy theorist; and whenever an argument is made wherein a key element of the “logic” is the absence of evidence to the contrary, I usually tune out and go on to the next item.  However, the Monogatari – Shohei Ohtani – – as I have dubbed that story – – smells rotten to me.  And yes, I acknowledge that my issue with the story as it stands relies on some “absence of evidence”.  Nevertheless …

This story keeps changing in more than mere details.  The first iteration was that Ohtani’s interpreter, Ippei Muzihara, had paid $4.5M to an offshore bookie in $500K increments using Ohtani’s funds to pay off gambling debts.  Later that amount was reported to be $16M which is quite a jump but is nothing compared to the now alleged “gambling losses” of $41.5M over the course of less than 3 years.  Muzihara’s income has been reported to be as low as $80K per year and as high as $300K per year which is another unusually high inconsistency in the reporting but even at the highest reported number, one must wonder how someone with that income can “get credit” from a bookie to the tune of $41.5M.

Now, the allegations have shifted from “gambling losses” to “bank fraud” perpetrated by Muzihara.  Bank fraud has a far smaller emotional component when associated with MLB than does gambling debt payoffs; there can be no argument about that.  But some of the other details that are emerging from the story defy logic:

• Supposedly there were about 19,000 bets made that racked up the losses in this case and all this happened over a 30-month period between 2021 and now.
• Simple arithmetic says that comes down to about 630 bets per month and more than 20 bets per day for 2.5 years – – and Ohtani never had an inkling it was going on.
• In addition, neither Ohtani nor his agents/accountants/financial advisors noticed a series of $500K transfers from his accounts?

There is an event from about 10 years ago that I cannot get out of my mind whenever I read the next installment of Monogatari – Shohei Ohtani.  Cris Carter was once invited to address an NFL “Rookie Seminar” as part of a program the league used to try to get young players attuned to their new life of “fame and fortune”.  Carter told the rookie players:

“If you all got a crew, you got to have a fall guy in the crew.  If you all have a crew, one of those fools got to know, he’s the one going to jail. We’ll get him out.”

I can’t get that memory suppressed at all when I think of this Ohtani mess, and it sure seems to me that MLB has conveniently deferred any and all of this to “the authorities” as opposed to commissioning another John Dowd style investigation as was the case in the Pete Rose affair.  Rose’s playing days were over; he was only a manager; his value to MLB was limited.  Ohtani is the biggest star in the game today and brings back comparisons to Babe Ruth and the glorious history of baseball; his value to MLB is unmatched.

• How convenient is it that there just might be a “fall guy” to cop a plea to “bank fraud” while MLB goes on marketing its face of the game without any serious investigation related to gambling – – and potentially gambling on baseball?

This whole thing stinks.  What it needs is an investigative reporter or two – – the modern-day version of Woodward and Bernstein or maybe Seymour Hersh – – to dig in here.  Maybe that is what Commissioner Manfred might need as a prod to do a serious investigation of its own.

Finally, comedian Norm MacDonald used to use his persona on SNL as the “news anchor” to skewer repeatedly OJ Simpson as a murderer.  Let me close with what I think is the funniest of his “news reports”:

“Against the Jets last week, Buffalo Bills running back Thurman Thomas broke O.J. Simpson’s career rushing record, and the week before he surpassed Simpson’s career touchdowns. Next up for Thomas: an attempt to kill three people at once.”

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

 

 

As Final Four Weekend approaches, this is a year of change for TV viewers.  From 2004 until last year, Jim Nantz had been the play-by-play guy on CBS; Nantz has relinquished that role this year and Ian Eagle will take his place along with Grant Hill and Bill Raferty to present the games to the country.  Based on the games this trio has done so far in this year’s tournament, the transition has been seamless.  My only “regret” is that Eagle’s promotion broke up a great announcing tandem of Ian Eagle and Jim Spanarkel – – but such is the way of the world.

Jim Nantz is not retiring completely.  He will continue as the lead play-by-play guy for CBS presentations of NFL games along with Tony Romo.  And, you will recognize his voice if you tune in to see The Masters the weekend after next.

Moving on … I have shared many historical and statistical sports notes here that have come to me from the “reader in Houston”.  Yesterday, he demonstrated that his access to historical events crosses over into the world of entertainment.  Yesterday, I closed with an observation by actor Jack Palance; late yesterday afternoon, I got this email from the “reader in Houston”:

“FYI – Jack Palance, before his career as a boxer and then as a WW2 bomber pilot where he was in a test-flight plane crash in the Arizona desert, which disfigured his face, resulting in plastic surgery that gave him that tight, leathery look, was an All-State FB in Pennsylvania in the late 1930s and then played football at UNC for two seasons, but quit the team when the coach wanted to make a lineman out of him. The rest is history.”

So, now we know…

Switching gears …  There was a major trade in the NFL yesterday; and on the surface, it looks lopsided:

• Houston Texans get:  Stefon Diggs, a sixth-round pick this year and a fifth-round pick next year.
• Buffalo Bills get:  A second-round pick this year.

The Bills will also incur a “dead cap charge” of $31M for 2024 as a result of this trade which makes the exchange look even more out of balance that it seems on its face.  Fans of the Jets and the Dolphins are probably rejoicing at what looks like a talent loss for the Bills who have been top dogs in the AFC East over the past couple of years.  Remember, the Bills also lost WR Gabe Davis to free agency in the last couple of weeks.  Josh Allen will still be throwing the ball for the Bills, but who is going to catch it?

Diggs has been in the NFL for 9 years; he will turn 31 in the middle of the 2024 season.  He has made All-Pro twice and been selected for the Pro Bowl in each of the last 4 seasons.  He was the Bills’ #1 WR and was highly productive for most of his time in Buffalo.  In Houston, he will join a WR corps that featured Nico Collins and Tank Dell last year; that trio should be a handful for opposing defenses so long as QB, CJ Stroud does not suffer a “sophomore slump.”

If I were a Texans’ fan, I would have only one small reservation about this trade.

• To my mind, Stefon Diggs qualifies as a “diva WR”.
• He was outstanding in his time with the Vikings until such time as he decided he did not want to be there any longer and he “forced” his way out of town.
• He was outstanding in his time with the Bills until such time as he decided he did not want to be there any longer and he “forced” his way out of town.
• Diggs is under contract through the 2027 season for about $20M per year.  Will those terms and team conditions keep him happy over the next 4 years?

At the end of the last NFL season, the Bills were in a salary cap bind and it was clear that they were going to lose some players in the free agent period as they had to clear cap space.  That is some of what has happened to the Bills; here are some of the players in addition to Diggs who moved on from Buffalo since the start of NFL free agency:

1. Gabe Davis – WR – signed with the Jags; he averaged about 40 catches per year in Buffalo.
2. Mitch Morse – C – signed with the Jags; he made the Pro Bowl in 2022.
3. Jordan Poyer – S – signed with the Dolphins; he was an All Pro in 2021 and made the Pro Bowl in 2022.
4. Tre’Davious White – CB – signed with the Rams; he has been an All Pro twice and made the Pro Bowl twice.

Those four players – along with Diggs – represent almost 25% of the starting offensive and defensive units for the Bills at the start of last season.  It is not easy to replace that many starters all at once…

Finally, as you watch the Final Four games this weekend – – and the Championship game on Monday too of course – – keep in mind this question posed by Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Wouldn’t it be interesting to know how many fifth and sixth year graduate basketball players are actually working toward a graduate degree?”

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

 

 

A while back, Coach Prime offered his opinion that the Chicago Bears might want to think twice about drafting Caleb Williams in this year’s draft.  Sanders’ reasoning was that Williams had grown up and had played his college football in warm weather zip codes and that Chicago was a cold weather venue.  Indeed, Williams grew up in the DC area which is not a tropical clime but is warmer than Chicago and he spent his college days playing for Oklahoma and USC.  About a week later, Coach Prime said that his two best players at Colorado – – his son Shadeur and two-way player, Travis Hunter – – just might decide for themselves where they play in the NFL referring to the maneuverings that got Eli Manning to the Giants and not to the Chargers.  Those utterings led to this comment from Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“But what if the Colorado kids are on to something? What if pulling an Eli Manning, like the quarterback did in 2004 by refusing to go to the Chargers though they chose him No. 1, is the next wave of player empowerment? We may already be approaching the point where NIL money would allow a top prospect to remain in school and wait for the following year’s draft rather than be shipped off to the Carolina Panthers. Who could blame a kid for that? We’re not there yet, but it’s on the frontier.”

I am glad that Professor Molinaro used the word “frontier” and not “horizon” because I think those circumstances might be a bit further in the future than as presented here.  There is a big difference between “pulling an Eli” and ”waiting a year” because the NFL Draft is set up to give bad teams the highest picks.  So, a bad team picking Joe Flabeetz in 2025 may or may not be a better option than another bad team picking Joe Flabeetz in 2026 after he refuses to report and goes back to school.  Moreover, that act of defiance might not sit well with NFL coaches and execs and give them pause about drafting him at the top of that second draft go-round.

I am not an expert in the interpretation of the NFL/NFLPA Collective Bargaining Agreement but from my non-learned reading here is what I believe are the options for a player who is draft eligible:

• If a player is taken in the draft and does not sign with the team that took him, he can sit out a year and re-enter the draft in the next year.  Obviously, he gets no salary from the NFL for his “sit out year”, but he can earn NIL money – – or any other legal form of recompense – – in that “sit out year”.
• If that player is then drafted a second time by a team not to the liking of the player, he may sit out a second year and thereby become an undrafted free agent who can sign with any team that wants him and that he wants to play for in the season following his second “sit out year”.  Again, no NFL salary for “sit out year number two”.

Yes, the player can likely find a way to survive on NIL money but there is no guarantee that his contract with the NFL team of his choice is going to be lucrative.  The CBA allots each team a pool of money that can be used to sign undrafted free agents just as that CBA allots contract conditions for players taken in the first round of the draft.  Not surprisingly, a high draft pick in Round 1 will make a lot more money in his first four years under contract than any undrafted free agent will make.  The only contractual advantage for a “sitting out player” who goes the undrafted free agent route is that undrafted free agent contracts are for 2 years meaning the player gets a bite of the free agent apple in his 3^rd NFL year while drafted players must wait four/five years (if taken in the first round) or three years if taken in lower rounds.

So, if my interpretation is correct – – and it may not be – – a player would take a significant risk in sitting out two years and then playing two more years in the NFL at minimum salary in order to “pick his team”.  I am not saying that will never happen; I am saying that the financials for a top pick are going to be difficult to turn down.

Here are data from last year as people who know far more about the NFL cap and contracts than I do projected what the overall #1 pick would get:

• Signing bonus of $26.9M and a total contract value over 4 years of $41.2M.
• If the team picked up the “fifth year option” the salary in that fifth year would be more than $20M.
• Ergo… Caleb Williams would have to go back to college and earn quite a bit of NIL money in 2024 to come close to matching the approximately $30M he would earn with the Bears – – if they take him.

What is it they say about a bird in the hand …?

And while I was musing on the subject of NFL salaries for top draft picks, I happened to notice this juxtaposition:

• Nine NFL QBs have contracts in hand that earn them an average of $43M per year or more over the life of that contract.
• Four NFL QBs have contracts in hand that earn them an average of more than $50M per year over the life of that contract.
• On MLB’s Opening Day, the total value of the contracts for the 26 players on the Oakland A’s roster was $43M.

Today’s rant began with Coach Prime offering opinions about players and the NFL Draft.  Staying on that vector heading, let me say that I have reached my lifetime exposure limit to “Mock Drafts” and particularly “Mock Drafts” that involve concocted trades which allow this day’s “Mock Draft” to look different from the one produced three days ago.

Moreover, sometime before the 2024 NFL season begins, someone somewhere will put out a “Far Too Soon Mock Draft for 2025” which is stupidity squared.  Look, no one knows who will draft where before the season begins nor does anyone know what might happen in free agency after the season and before the Draft.  That sort of “Far Too Soon …” nonsense should be grounds for boiling the author in oil – – unless of course he/she is about 80% accurate or unless the author publishes a post-mortem on his/her projected selections…

Finally, much of today’s rant has been related to financial risk and projection.  So, let me close with these observations about “risk” by the economist, Peter Bernstein:

“The more irreversible the decisions, the more expensive the consequences of being wrong.”

And …

“In the end, risk management is about consequences.”

And …

“Many years ago, an older partner taught me to distinguish between outcomes that are unlikely and outcomes that are catastrophic.  The latter are to be avoided even if the odds on them are tiny.”

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

 

 

The following item is NOT an April Fool’s joke.  In the Elite Eight round of the women’s NCAA Tournament, Texas and NC State played each other in Portland, OR.  The 3-point line on the court was improperly painted on one end of the court.  Looking at pictures, it appears that the distances were different and the “circle” at one end was slightly off-center as well.  Rather than incur long delays to “repaint” the court, both coaches agreed to play the game under the improper court markings without protest.

The Twitterverse is predictably unhinged over all this with some pundits suggesting this as “proof” that the women’s tournament is “rigged” and with other pundits calling out the NCAA for this blunder.  No one is going to mistake me for an NCAA apologist or lackey, but unless someone can show me that it was an NCAA official who painted the court improperly, the NCAA as an institution gets a pass from me on this one.  However, the event organizers in Portland who are staging this event should not be getting any regional basketball action from the women or the men any time soon; it is the folks in charge of staging these regional finals who should be accountable.

Over in the men’s brackets, I made these Final Four predictions before the tournament began:

• UConn – – made the Final Four
• Tennessee – – made the Elite Eight and lost yesterday.
• Duke – – made the Elite Eight and lost yesterday.
• Auburn – – lost in the round of 64 to Yale.

My predictions were probably better than throwing four random darts at the brackets; but still, they were hardly praiseworthy.  Here are three notes I made watching games this weekend – – for what they are worth:

“Purdue just too big for Gonzaga”:  Indeed, Purdue pounded the ball inside and got lots of shots inside 6 feet from the basket; the Boilermakers shot 57% from inside the arc for the game.

“Houston looks like Uva; lots of defenders and no shooters”:   The Cougars shot a combined 22 of 57 (39%) from the floor.

“Zach Edy plays full time against Tennessee with only 1 foul?”  Wow!

The most impressive thing I saw over the weekend was the first 8 minutes or so of the second half of the UConn/Illinois game.  Every college and high school basketball coach needs to get the tape of those 8 minutes or so and to show it to their teams as an instructional tool.  Illinois is a good basketball team; they were dominated to the point of embarrassment for those 8 minutes or so.  Consider:

• UConn led 28-23 at the half; the Huskies appeared to be the better team, but Illinois was still “in the game”.
• At the start of the second half, UConn put on a 30-0 run.  It was both an offensive and a defensive clinic.  The best player for Illinois this year has been Terrence Shannon; UConn held him to 8 points on 2-12 shooting from the field.
• That performance – – along with the rest of the second half – – called to mind the 1973 NCAA Championship Game where UCLA, led by Bill Walton, beat Memphis State by 21 points after the game had been tied at halftime.

Moving on …  Here are two more observations about the Tournament:

1. Prior to the start of the Tournament, the American Gaming Association estimated that the handle for betting on March Madness nationwide would be $2.7B.  Several reports over the last week said that “action” on the Elite Eight games was even heavier than expected – – so maybe the handle will be even higher?
2. College basketball teams play defense – – some play tenacious defense.  In fact, you will probably see more defensive energy expended in one half of a March Madness game than you will see in a week’s worth of NBA regular season games.

Switching gears ,,,  The Jacksonville Jaguars have not been spectacular on the field for much of their time in the NFL and it seems as if their mediocrity on Sundays carries over into their management of the team off the field.  Recall that a mid-level finance guy was recently sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison for embezzling a mere $22M over a three-year period.  It took a while to notice a $22M “discrepancy”.  Now, another Jags’ employee, Samuel Arthur Thompson, has run afoul of the law:

A federal judge sentenced Thompson to “220 years in federal prison, followed by a lifetime of supervised release” for a series of child pornography offenses, for failure to register as a sex offender and for hacking the Jags’ stadium jumbotron.

[Aside:  Thompson is 53 years old; if he were to serve out his sentence, he would be released at the age of 273 years.  I suspect that a “lifetime of supervised release” would not be a big deal.]

The DoJ referred to Thompson as a “prolific child molester” in this press release which is an English phrase I am sure I have never heard or read before.

Finally, I’ll close today with an anecdote involving Groucho Marx:

• A guest on Groucho’s You Bet Your Life TV show was a woman who had given birth to 22 children.  “I love my husband,” the woman explained sheepishly.
• “I love my cigar too,” Groucho said, “but I take it out once in a while.”

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