Today shall be a day of cleaning up odds and ends that wound up on my clipboard over the past several weeks. There is no thread that I can find to weave through these random bits to give it any sort of organization or cohesion; so, prepare for a bumpy ride.
I got a text yesterday from #2 son with a bit of humor:
“If baseball wants to be more exciting, they should have celebrities throw out the LAST pitch.
“Bases loaded, bottom of the ninth, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Danny DeVito!”
The possibilities here seem endless. This could resurrect the career of folks like Urkel…
It is always heartwarming to read about a guy who makes a bet at long odds and wins a ton of money when the bet comes in. Reality says, however, that there must be guys who lose enough bets to cover that payout; were that not the case, the sportsbook would go bust. Here is a report that will give you an idea of a bettor’s loss on a large wager.
- Last weekend when the Chargers led the Jags 27-0, a bettor on DraftKings reportedly bet $1.4M on the Chargers to win the game. It was a straight Money Line bet and the odds at the time were minus-12,500.
- I’ll do the math for you. The bettor risked $1.4M to win $11,250. And he lost…
- Yikes!
During the NFL telecasts last weekend, let me be kind and say there were ample references to the fact that both Brock Purdy and Skylar Thompson were 7th round draft picks last Spring and that the Niners/Dolphins got themselves a real bargain with those selections. I do not dispute the “bargain” aspect of those picks and I do think that it is an aspect of the NFL experience that should be front and center for the fans watching the game(s).
Having said that, I wonder why the broadcasters do not point out other bargain picks. I had to go to the Internet to confirm the following, but I thought during the games last weekend that both George Kittle and Stefon Diggs were fifth round picks – – in different seasons to be sure. Kittle and Diggs are among the very best at their position as offensive weapons but there is rarely ever ebullient oratory about what bargains they were in their draft years.
And by the way, bargain QBs have a long history in the NFL and that long history demonstrates that football scouting is not a science even though teams try to reduce players to measurements which are then fed to algorithms which spit out results. Long before computers and things like the NFL Combine and mock drafts, teams assembled their “Draft Boards” without nearly such “scientific precision”. I am not talking here about Tom Brady lasting until the late 6th round in the Draft; I want to look back more than 6 decades for teams that found QB gems in late rounds:
- John Unitas is certainly one of the ten best QBs in NFL history. He was picked in the 9th round of the 1955 NFL Draft. Interestingly, he was cut by the Steelers at the end of training camp in 1955 and wound up signing with the Colts in 1956 as a free agent.
- Bart Starr had a ton of success as the QB of Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers in the 1960s. Starr led the Packers to 3 NFL Championships – prior to the creation of the Super Bowl – and then led the Packers to victories in the first two Super Bowls. He was drafted in the 17th round of the 1956 NFL Draft – – the year after John Unitas was drafted late and cut by the Steelers.
The more things change …
A judge in Florida ruled that the deal between the overseers of Miami-Dade Arena (where the NBA’s Miami Heat play their home games) and the collapsed crypto exchange, FTX, was null and void. In round numbers, FTX was going to pay $7M per year for 19 years to have its name adorned on the building. Without getting into details, FTX will need to scrape together every dollar it can to settle its bankruptcy claims and the people in Miami surely do not want to be reminded of this deal-gone-south over the next decade and a half. Call this one a win/win situation. It will be interesting to see what entity wants to be the one to replace FTX as the naming sponsor of the building.
Too bad Jeffrey Epstein is no longer active in the biosphere. He could afford the expense and such a deal would maintain the notoriety of that building’s name. Oh well …
Finally, I am pleased to have cleared these items of flotsam and jetsam from my clipboard today so let me close with this observation by my favorite curmudgeon, H. L. Mencken:
“Every man is thoroughly happy twice in his life: just after he has met his first love, and just after he has left his last one.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports ………
Yes, fourth and fifth-round picks are where the NFL cream can be found. And take note that Reggie Kinlaw and Rod Martin (whose Super Bowl XV record of three interceptions from 1981 has yet to be equaled) both found their name punched in the 12th round (1979 and 1977 respectively).