Driving home last weekend, we ran into a traffic slowdown; turns out it was about 5 miles long moving at 10-20 mph and the cause was an accident on the other side of the Interstate. It was a 5-mile rubbernecking delay. People love to look at accidents/disasters; check your local news at night; the lead story will almost always be either a fire, a shooting or a transportation disaster. In the TV news business, there is an adage:
- If it bleeds, it leads!
Here in Curmudgeon Central, I am not immune from a fascination with failures to the point that I like to see if I can find potential prodigious failures before they go into the record books. If that sounds a bit ghoulish to you, rest assured you are not the first person to think about me that way. And that leads me to my focusing attention on the Chicago White Sox in the 2024 season.
As of this morning, the Sox record is 27-82. We are not quite into the month of August and the White Sox have already guaranteed that they will finish the season below .500. To achieve this level of ineptitude, the Sox are on a current 15-game losing streak AND they endured a 14-game losing streak earlier in the season. The MLB record for consecutive losses is 23 losses in a row set by the Phillies in 1961; that mark of futility seems to be in little danger – – for now.
However, if we do some projecting, the White Sox final record in 2024 would be 40-122 and that would be historic.
- The record for the most losses in a single season belongs to the 1962 Mets; their final record was 40-120; two obviously meaningless games were not made up that year.
- The Mets’ winning percentage that year was .250. That is not the lowest win percentage in MLB’s modern era; that ignominy belongs to the 1935 Boston Braves whose record in 153 games was 38-115 for a win percentage of .248.
- The White Sox in 2024 have a win percentage as of this morning equal to .248. That is not the sort of history a team seeks to make…
Moving on … The Green Bay Packers and their young QB, Jordan Love have come to agreement on a contract extension of 4 years and $220M with a $75M signing bonus. Jordan Love is 25 years old; when he plays out his current contract and then the extension, he will be 30 years old and can be a free agent for another bite of the apple. Yum …
The Packers have been on a QB high for more than 30 years:
- In 1992, the Packers acquired Brett Favre in a trade with the Falcons. Favre played 16 years in Green Bay before he was traded to the Jets for the 2008 season.
- The Packers had drafted Aaron Rodgers in 2005 and turned over the QB job to Rodgers when Favre was sent to NY. Rodgers was the QB in Green Bay for 15 years when he was traded in 2022 to the Jets.
- The Packers had drafted Jordan Love in 2020 and gave him the QB job in 2023 with the departure of Rodgers. If you make a linear projection, Jordan Love should spend the next 16 years in Green Bay until he is traded to the Jets sometime around 2039.
Brett Favre is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Aaron Rodgers will join him there about 5 years after Rodgers retires from professional football. If that is the career trajectory for Jordan Love, the fans in Green Bay must have done something to please the football gods …
Next up … I found this comment in Bob Molinaro’s column about 2 weeks ago in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:
“In NIL news: Arch Manning, the backup quarterback for the Texas Longhorns, reportedly received between $50,000 and $60,000 to promote a college football video game. Imagine how much he could have made if he were first-string. Or how little if he wasn’t a Manning.”
Switching gears … There is an article at ESPN.com with this headline:
“Why Suns’ Bradley Beal should come off the bench”
The article makes some rational points based on stats and suggested player fits given the Suns just signed a free agent to play point guard there in Tyus Jones. Here is a reason to believe that Bradley Beal will not be coming off the bench:
- Bradley Beal’s contract with the Suns has two years left; he will make $104M in those two years – – guaranteed.
- After that, Beal has a “player option” for one more year at a guaranteed salary of $57.1M. From my perspective, the only way he will not exercise that option is if he is abducted by aliens and taken to play in the Galactic Basketball League.
- So, the Suns will pay Beal $161M over the next 3 years – – and they are not likely to pay that to a guy “coming off the bench”.
Finally, much of today has dealt with sports providing lots of money to various folks; so, let me close with this view of wealth by H. L. Mencken:
“Wealth – any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one’s wife’s sister’s husband.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………
Curm – you missed the 1916 As – 36-117-1, .235