Rest In Peace, Willie Mays

Willie Mays died yesterday.  There is no need to cite any statistics today as a basis for declaring him a treasure to sports fans.  He was a joy to watch because in addition to his greatness as a baseball player, he exuded his own joy in playing the game on the field.

Rest in peace, Willie Mays.

As I was meandering around the Internet yesterday in search of “rant material”, I stopped by ProFootballTalk.com to see if there were any tidbits there.  Indeed, there was a nugget.  The NFL will hold the 2025 Draft in Green Bay, WI.  Fans from around the country converge on the site of the Draft and when the league stages the event in places like NYC or Philly there is ample hotel space to accommodate the surge.  Green Bay is not nearly so large; the population of Green Bay is only 106,000 people.  The good folks at ProFootballTalk.com provided me a link to a report in the Green Bay Press Gazette with this headline:

• Don’t want to stay 90 minutes from Green Bay for NFL Draft?
• Lambeau Field-area Airbnbs can cost up to $18,000.

In this report, I learned that a three-bedroom house across the street from the Draft venue is available through Airbnb for $17,900 per night during the week of the Draft.  The report did the math for me; if one were to book the place for the full week the bill would look like this:

• Rental fee = $125,300
• Airbnb Service Fee = $17,675
• Airbnb Cleaning Fee = $200
• Total cost = $143,175   plus taxes.

The house can accommodate 10 people, so this listing boils down to a mere $2000 per person per night.  If you ever needed an example of The Law of Supply and Demand, this would be a good one.

According to this report, “nearly every hotel room in Green Bay is already booked” and property owners more than an hour’s drive from Lambeau Field have listed private residences or spare rooms for rent during this event.  If you decide to go, let me suggest you bring some food along with you because I suspect that dinner reservations are going to be difficult to come by.

Switching gears – – and sports …  The Euro 2024 soccer tournament is underway.  The Danish team opened against Slovenia and the first Danish goal was scored by Christian Ericson.  Why is that interesting?

Three years ago, Christian Ericson was playing for Denmark in the opening game against Finland when he suffered cardiac arrest on the pitch.  After 13 minutes of CPR on the pitch, he was “brought back to life” and transported to a hospital.  During those minutes, the Danish and Finnish players formed a wall around the medics and the fallen Ericson to keep prying camara eyes at bay; this year, the Danish team mobbed Ericson as a celebration of his return – – and the goal too.

The game ended in a draw:

• Slovenia 1
• Denmark 1

Moving on …  According to reports, ESPN and Shannon Sharpe have come to an agreement on a “multi-year contract”.  This deal maintains Sharpe’s appearances on First Take and it will have him expand his appearances on the network’s programming.  Sharpe originally joined ESPN about a year ago after a dispute with Skip Bayless that led to him leaving FS-1.  The details of that falling out between Sharpe and Bayless were uninteresting back then and certainly are not worth repeating here.  That original deal with ESPN had Sharpe appearing on First Take two days a week during the football season.

When the football season ended, a short term extension kept Sharpe on First Take through the end of the NBA season.  Now, here we are with what has been reported as a 4-year deal (one report said 3 years but let me be optimistic here) and it supposedly provides for expanded exposure for Shannon Sharpe on the network.

I like Shannon Sharpe; I particularly like the way he pushes back at Stephen A. Smith at times on First Take.  In those moments, he is pointed in his rebuttals but not antagonistic or pejorative.  Personally, I think he would be a good addition to ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown lineup as part of the “studio panel” on the program or as a person to do out-of-studio interviews with players or coaches or “The Commish” as the season unfolds.  We shall see what else ESPN has in mind for him…

Next up …  The Detroit Pistons posted the worst record in the NBA last season at 14-68 and the team endured a 28-game losing streak along the way.  Naturally, they fired their coach, Monty Williams – – as if he was the one missing all those open shots and the guy who gave up points on defense galore.  I don’t know if Monty Williams is a good NBA coach or not, but the Pistons’ braintrust probably thought so just a year ago when they signed him to a 6-year contract worth $78.5M.  Assuming a linear annual payment in that contract, the Pistons still owe Williams just a tad over $65M.

Finally, given the passing of Willie Mays and the return from near death by Christian Ericson, let me close with these words from Soren Kierkegaard:

“No one comes back from the dead, no one has entered the world without crying; no one is asked when he wishes to enter life, nor when he wishes to leave.”

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