Author: Jack

As more parts of the US begin to “re-open” despite a still large number of known COVID-19 cases, I thought it would be worthwhile to look back and see if there might be a bright spot or two that will emerge from the country’s lockdown – – at least as it may apply to the sports world.  It is hard to imagine that anything organic to individual sports like MLB or the NBA or the NHL which had schedule disruptions could have been a “bright spot”, but maybe if we look just a bit more deeply, we can find a nugget or two.  The danger here is that as we dig more deeply, we might find some fetid remains as well.  We shall see…

When sports went dark back in March, the TV networks had to scramble to avoid having test patterns [Google is your friend, youngsters.] and/or dead air fill the screens nationwide.  They resolved that issue by following Warner Wolf’s directive:

“Let’s go to the videotape.”

That solved TV’s immediate problem, but it left execs and producers with time on their hands to think up “innovations”.  Those good folks came up with three of these and I want to put them into three familiar categories:  The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

• The Good:  The idea of putting microphones on baseball managers/coaches could be an interesting innovation providing added insights into game strategy and dugout atmosphere.  There will need to be attentive monitors of that audio feed and it will be important to silence those microphones when a manager/coach goes nose-to-nose with an umpire over a “blown call”.  [Aside:  Dr. Fauci would not approve of that sort of face-to-face shouting even if the participants were wearing masks.  Just saying…]  I do not need to hear any “commentary” from players or among players, but from managers and coaches it might be interesting.
• The Bad:  The idea of using mannequins – or worse yet blow-up dolls – as faux fans in the stands so that it “looks better on TV” is more than just a bad idea.  It is a stupid idea.  The collective of humankind saw its total intellectual capital diminished when that idea was first vocalized.
• The Ugly:  I assume you are wondering at this point what might be worse than something that drains the inventory of human intellectual capital.  Well, the idea of piping in crowd noise because there are no live fans to provide spontaneous crowd noise would fit that bill.  The compelling thing about sports is that it is real; what is happening on the field or the court or the pitch or the ice is not some fakery or fantasy; it is there and it is happening in real time.  Piping in “fake noise” destroys that compelling element.

There was a time 60-70 years ago where there was a thing called a “reconstructed baseball game” as a radio program.  If you saw the movie Bull Durham you saw an announcer sitting in a studio getting a news feed pitch by pitch from the stadium and using sound effects and fake crowd noise to make it seem to the listener that they were hearing a real broadcast.  Those reconstructed games were commonplace until about the early 1950s in MLB but it was always easy to tell which games were “live” and which were “reconstructed” – even to a kid who just wanted to listen to a game on the radio.

• Memo to TV Execs:  Do not screw around with the reality and the authenticity of the sports you are paying to  televise – unless you lump pro ‘rassling in with the concepts of “sports” and “authenticity”.  The only analogy I can come up with here if you do that is that you will be pissing in the soup.

Along similar lines, the NFL – a sport whose regular season/playoff season was not immediately impacted by all of the COVID-19 trauma – made some changes to the way it did its business and made some rule changes that will go into effect when the NFL returns to live action.  It would be ever so convenient if I could categorize those changes in the same three categories as above – – but I cannot honestly say that any of the changes classify as The Ugly.  So, I will have to settle for a simple delineation of good and bad.

• The Good:  I really liked the “decentralized NFL Draft” better than the huge convocation of folks into a single venue.  I doubt we will see that very often down the line because of the revenue the mass convocation produces, but it was a great innovation.
• The Good:  The NFL got rid of the rule allowing replay to be used to review pass interference calls – or non-calls – which had been in place on a one-year trial basis in 2019.  The problem with the rule was not its intention; the problem is that the rule was not enforced well at all and created more animosity league-wide than did the Saints/Rams playoff incident that engendered the rule in the first place.  Good riddance…
• The Bad:  For the second year in a row, the NFL tabled a rule change that would eliminate the onside kick and replace it with a single play of 4^th and 15 to determine if the “kicking team” would retain possession of the ball.  The league is on a dilemma here; they changed the previous onside kickoff rule to enhance player safety; that is a tough terrain on which to beat a retreat.  The problem is that the current rule makes it almost impossible for an onside kick to work.  The NFL needs an infusion of imagination to change things here.

With regard to onside kicks in the NFL, I ran across this stat attributed to Michael Lopez who is the Director of Data and Analytics for the NFL.  I figure he is an authoritative source…  According to his stats, over the last two years since the new onside kick rule has been in effect teams that have tried an expected onside kick in a regular season NFL game have a combined record of 0-104.

Obviously, teams trying an expected onside kick are trailing when they do that; one should not expect the results to be anywhere near .500.  Nonetheless, with the new onside kick rule in effect, the onside kick has been relegated to a status politely described as “Useless”.

• Memo to NFL Owners:  Find a way to modify the current onside kick rule; it’s not working…

Finally, here is a comment from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times about a baseball story that has receded into memory as the league and the players continue to squabble over money:

“Three teams — the Astros, Red Sox and Mets — fired their managers in the aftermath of Houston’s sign-stealing trash-bangers.

“Or, more precisely, they canned them.”

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

 

 

Yesterday, I said that MLB owners and players continue to find ways to annoy each other.  Yesterday brought another proposal from the union – one for an 89-game season with players receiving full pro-rated pay.  Nothing on the surface of that proposal sounds outrageous but it was guaranteed to be shot down by the owners; and therefore, it was a waste of time.  And time is beginning to run out on MLB – – even though the sport is fiercely proud of the fact that it does not have a clock to determine the end of its games.

Here is what could have happened if the two sides had made a deal two weeks ago:

• Players could be reporting to “Spring Training 2.0” and getting physical exams today.
• Baseball practices and activities could begin tomorrow.
• Spring Training games could happen next Monday.
• Faux Opening Day could be July 4^th, 2020.

Think of the hoopla of Baseball Opening Day AND the Fourth of July comingled…  Baseball would be the top story of the day and there would not be much competition in the US for major sports for at least a month.  It would not save the 2020 season, but it might salvage it.  But the two operative words here for such a potentially rosy future are:

• NOT … and … HAPPENING

The impasse appears to be straightforward.  The owners want players to take a pay cut beyond merely pro-rating their salaries over fewer games than the normal 162 games; the union will not accept any deal that has any pay reduction beyond pro-rata salaries for fewer than 162 games.  I am not interested in taking sides here but I would like to suggest a few ideas that both sides need to consider when they get past this petty squabble and settle down to engage in World War III next year as the existing CBA expires at the end of the 2021 season.

First and foremost, the most important thing that both sides need to do is to recognize that every last fart and whistle up for negotiation is not worthy of a pitched battle.  The two sides may not be “besties”, but each side needs the other side.  I do not know what it will take for the lunkheads on both sides to grasp that unalterable fact but someone far more eloquent than I needs to get that message through to them.  As they sit down to reach a new CBA, they need to keep this thought in mind:

• The objective here is to find a way to share $11B per year this year and – if we stop shooting ourselves and each other in the foot – more money than that in each of the following years.
• That should not be a Herculean task!

I am going to do some back-of-the-envelope math here; it is not accurate, but it is illustrative.  According to the data I can find, 3 MLB teams were projected to have a total payroll for its 25-man roster over $200M for 2020 while 12 teams were projected to have a total payroll less than $100M.  The range from top to bottom was $202M to $46M.  My estimate is that the MLB average is $135M per team.  For the 30 teams, that puts the “total salary cost” around $4B.  That is a lot of money – – but it is also only 36% of the projected revenue of $11B.

I believe that a major breakthrough for the players would be to negotiate a salary cap with a salary floor.  I know the MLBPA has stayed away from anything like a salary cap since the days of Marvin Miller and look where it got them:

• 12 teams – 40% of the teams in MLB – are paying players to show up but have no intention of trying to win anything.
• Only 36% of total revenue goes to player salaries.  Great negotiating union guys on that one…

So how about this for a starting point when you consider a salary cap/floor structure:

• The salary floor for every team would be $150M.  That is roughly 40% of total revenue.
• The salary cap for every team would be $180M.  That is roughly 50% of total revenue.

Please note that total player salary would go up under this model because those 12 teams with payrolls under $100M would have to sign players – along with a couple other teams – and there is a linkage of the cap and the floor to total revenue for the game which puts the owners and the players on the same side when it comes to “growing the game”.

Oh, by the way, salary caps are not inimical to player compensation.  I will use the NBA and the NFL as examples.  A whole lot of basketball and football players make generational wealth in shorter careers than do baseball players.  By not tying player compensation to a percentage of revenue, the MLBPA has created a situation that is fundamentally illogical:

• Since owners can choose to spend or not spend whatever they want without any restrictions, the union has put a “bunch-of-billionaires-that-we-do-not-trust-as-far-as-we-can-throw-a-piano” in charge of how much players will earn.
• The union agreed to a system where owners who spend “too much” have to pay a “luxury tax” but owners who refuse to spend can sit their with their thumbs in their ears and rake in some dough.

And those are the folks who will try to perpetuate that sort of gestalt next year because the idea of a “salary cap” is as appealing as kimchee ice cream.

I said yesterday that there was a lot of cheese to be shared among owners and players.  I will not be surprised if the two sides do not find a way to dig themselves into positions that both diminish the amount of cheese to be shared AND arrive at a distribution model that is heavily tilted toward the owners.

I have more to say on this subject – – probably tomorrow.

Until then, consider this observation from Scott Ostler in the SF Chronicle regarding sports on TV during the COVID-19 isolation:

“The ESPN documentaries on Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong were interesting. Now how about a documentary or two on people who become superstars without being bullies and jerks? Just to show the kiddies that it can be done that way.”

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

 

 

Readers often send me emails containing nuggets of information that I did not know and probably would never have run across; some of them are sufficiently off-center and I share those with everyone else.  Such was the case last week – although I did not discover the communiques until yesterday afternoon.  Here is the salient part of an email from a former colleague who has been reading these rants for more than 20 years:

“I know that [Kurt] Vonnegut is a favorite of yours.  Did you know that he used to write for Sports Illustrated?  That is what this blog post says.”

Indeed, I love Kurt Vonnegut’s stories; and no, I had no idea he ever wrote for Sports Illustrated and until I checked out the link provided in the email, I could not imagine him writing about sports.  This is the link provided in the email I received; it is very brief; if you go and check it out, you will see why Kurt Vonnegut’s career at Sports Illustrated was very brief and you will see why I remain skeptical that he had any future as a sportswriter.

And, I got another email from another reader with a football stat that I would never have gone looking for – – let alone run across.  I have not verified these numbers, but I present them here as they were sent to me:

• In the history of the NFL, only 11 QBs to start an NFL game played college football at Michigan.
• Tom Brady has started 283 games and won 219 of those games.
• The other 10 QBs from Michigan to start games in the NFL have combined to start 372 games and they won only 183 of those games.

I am surprised that Michigan has only produced 11 starting NFL QBs over the last century; and even knowing Brady’s “GOAT Status”, I am surprised at the disparity between his numbers and those of his fellow Michigan alums.

The NBA has the framework for its return to action.  The idea is that 22 of the 30 NBA teams will assemble in Orlando, FL and play 8 regular season games starting on July 31 to set the playoff brackets.  Then playoffs will happen in pairings of 7-game series until there is a champion crowned for the 2019/2020 season.  If that final series goes the distance, the seventh game would take place on October 12.

Part of that schedule plan is that the next NBA season would start around December 1 and lots of people have focused on how little down time the two teams in the NBA Finals would have between the end of a series in mid-October and the need to start training camp in early/mid-November for the ensuing season.  One of the reasons driving the NBA to start on December 1 is that they do not want to have their playoffs run so late that they go up against the Tokyo Olympics next summer.  Those Olympic Games will start on July 23, 2021.

As usual, I prefer to look at the NBA’s scheduling wizardry differently.  I look at the fact that teams will convene in Orlando on July 7 and the two teams in the final series will be there until at least early October.  That means those players will be “isolated” in Orlando, FL in a “Disney World environment” for 3 months.  Why do I think that is not going to turn out to be an ideal situation for those players and coaches…?

• [Aside:  I recognize the attractiveness of the facilities available in Orlando to house the players and coaches and to provide a proper venue for the games.  I also recognize that August and September are active months in the “hurricane season”….]

Meanwhile, in MLB, the owners and the players’ union continue to find ways to annoy each other and to make a return to the field – with or without fans in the stands – look less and less likely.  The two sides need now – – and have needed for many years truth be told – – an intervention from people who love the game meaning that those people have to love both flawed institutions.  MLB is a business that has $11B in annual revenue; that is a lot of cheese.  And these two sides cannot get past their joint pettiness to find a way so that every one of them can “dip their beak” into the $11B bounty.

I believe the roots of this go back to Curt Flood and his lawsuit that overthrew the reserve clause and instituted the concept of free agency.  Make no mistake, I think what Flood did was right, proper and beneficial for baseball as a game.  Having said that, the way it all came down set in motion a sequence of labor negotiations that have swung like a pendulum and left significant scars on both sides.  If Rob Manfred called Tony Clark and suggested they have dinner together tonight, I would not be surprised if both men brought food tasters with them.  That kind of distrust must stop sometime or MLB as we have come to know it is not going to exist.

Like the NBA, the NHL and the NFL, the owners and players in MLB need to recognize a simple foundational fact:

• The two sides – despite their distrust and their enmity – can only enjoy the benefits of $11B in annual revenue if they act as partners in the business of staging a media funded “reality show”.

If the show ceases to go on, both sides lose.  Remember the 1994 World Series?  Of course you don’t, because there was no World Series in 1994.  And if the jamokes on both sides today do not find common ground to build an agreement as to how to play a truncated 2020 season AND to come to an agreement quickly in 2021 on a new CBA without putting fans through another ego-driven opera next year, MLB could be facing a permanent decline.

In the immortal words of Snuffy Smith – – and Barney Google too – – “Time’s a wastin’”…

Finally, consider this item from Dwight Perry’s column, Sideline Chatter in the Seattle Times:

“South Korea soccer club FC Seoul got fined $82,000 after about 20 sex dolls — all wearing masks and some holding signs — were substituted for live fans in the stands a 1-0 win over Gwangju FC.

“So what’s next, EPL clubs using inflatable hooligans?”

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

 

 

Sorry for the interruption.  My long-suffering wife and I planned to spend last week at our weekend home where the Internet connection is via satellite.  We arrived to find the modem dead.  We could not acquire a new modem last week, so these rants were not possible.  We are back in Northern Virginia now and the ranting can resume.

I missed the opportunity last week to proclaim “Rest in Peace” for Wes Unseld.  I remember seeing him play in college at Louisville and for the Washington Bullets – now Wizards – for many years.  He was the exact opposite of “flamboyant”, but he was indeed a great basketball player and by all accounts a great human being.

Rest in peace, Wes Unseld.

The sports event of last week had to be the statement by Drew Brees that he could never agree fully with someone who disrespected the flag/national anthem and the subsequent reaction(s) to that statement.  Those words dredged up all the feelings and opinions regarding the “Colin Kaepernick Conundrum” from several years ago amid the outcry over the death of George Floyd and the reaction(s) to that event.

What Drew Brees said was certainly insensitive and out of tune with current events.  At the same time, I think some of the “analyses” of what he said and what it may portend for his future were a tad over the top.

I suspect that psychologists/psychiatrists have a word to define the condition I am about to describe because I cannot believe that it is not found in humankind everywhere:

• It is perfectly possible for one person to hold more than one view in his/her mind with comparable conviction/commitment simultaneously.

Think about it for a moment.  I hope that everyone who reads this is repulsed by the events that led to George Floyd’s death and supports two consequences of those actions:

1. The perpetrator(s) should be charged and tried for their actions.
2. The event should lead to criminal justice/police reform in the US as it regards to equal treatment for people in minority communities.

AND, I suspect that at least some of the people who are reading this are ALSO upset with seeing the US flag disrespected.  Those two things are only marginally related unless one is in the midst of a Gestalt Therapy session.  They are more directly connected when the environment is dealing with police brutality and the recognizable person making a comment related to these matters is an NFL QB.  The reason is that former NFL quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, tied those two things together several years ago with his protest of kneeling during the National Anthem on the sidelines of NFL games.

• [Aside:  When Kaepernick began his protest, I said then that I fully supported his cause and his objectives but that I thought he had chosen a bad way to voice his protest because I thought it would be misconstrued by some people as being “unpatriotic”.  I would like to have been proven wrong on that point…]

What Drew Brees said was “tone deaf” in the context of what is ongoing in the US over the past two weeks.  However, what Drew Brees said was not racist; he did not say he endorsed disparate treatment for African-Americans.  What he said was that he would not agree with anyone who disrespected the US flag.  As I have watched news programs over the past week, I have seen tens of thousands of people who are protesting inequality without “disrespecting the US flag”.  These two things simply are not mutually exclusive.

Back when I said that Colin Kaepernick had chosen the wrong vehicle for his protest, I suggested that the right venue for his protest was on the steps of the local police stations where reform was needed or possibly on the steps of the city hall in that town.  That is where many of the demonstrations are taking place now and – if news reports are accurate – that is the kind of demonstration that has gotten the attention of lawmakers who are in a position to make the kinds of changes that Colin Kaepernick and these current demonstrators seek.

Hopefully, the “Drew Brees portion” of this saga is over.  Equally hopefully, there will be significant and positive changes in the criminal justice system forthcoming soon.  It is not difficult for me to hold both aspirations at the same time.

Switching gears…  Last year, Lenny Dykstra sued former teammate, Ron Darling, for defamation of character; the case was being presented to the Supreme Court of the State of New York in New York County.  Darling wrote a book and in there claimed that Dykstra had shouted racial epithets at “Oil Can” Boyd during the 1986 World Series.  The suit claimed that this defamation of character was done to intentionally inflict emotional distress on Lenny Dykstra.

Last week, the judge in the case – the Honorable Robert D. Kalish –  threw it out and ruled for Darling.  He ruled that Lenny Dykstra is “libel-proof”; Dykstra is such a widely known jerk that his reputation cannot be made worse by announcing that he used racial epithets.  Here is part of the judge’s reasoning for his ruling:

“Based on the papers submitted on this motion, prior to the publication of the book, Dykstra was infamous for being, among other things, racist, misogynist, and anti-gay, as well as a sexual predator, a drug-abuser, a thief, and an embezzler. Further, Dykstra had a reputation—largely due to his autobiography—of being willing to do anything to benefit himself and his team, including using steroids and blackmailing umpires . . . Considering this information, which was presumably known to the average reader of the book, this Court finds that, as a matter of law, the reference in the book has not exposed Dykstra to any further ‘public contempt, ridicule, aversion or disgrace,’ or ‘evil opinion of him in the minds of right-thinking persons,’ or ‘deprivation of friendly intercourse in society.’”

His Honor did not stop there. Later in his opinion, he said this for the record:

“Given the aforesaid litany of stories concerning Dykstra’s poor and mean-spirited behavior particularly toward various groups including racial minorities, women, and the LGBTQ community—this Court finds that, as a matter of law, the reference cannot ‘induce an evil opinion of [Dykstra] in the minds of right-thinking persons’ or ‘deprive him of their friendly intercourse in society,’ as that ‘evil opinion’ has long existed.”

If you would like to read the entirety of this judge’s ruling, you can find it here.

Finally, since much of today’s rant relates tangentially to the way police officers do their job, here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times from several weeks ago:

“Police in Vero Beach, Fla., arrested a 25-year-old woman who stripped down to her underwear in the middle of a street and started swinging a golf club.

“Befuddled officers couldn’t decide which covering she needed the most — a straitjacket or a green jacket.”

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

 

 

I and lots of other sports commentators have focused a lot of attention on MLB and the MLBPA and their current confrontation regarding playing baseball in 2020.  What has gotten less attention – – insufficient attention – – is the plight of minor league baseball and its players.  Minor league baseball has encountered a perfect storm.  All the way back in 2019 when the word “coronavirus” was used only by a small coterie of virologists and biologists, MLB teams let it be known that they were going to reduce the number of teams affiliated with MLB clubs.  That is a big deal because affiliated teams put players on the field who are paid by the major league affiliate; lots of minor league teams do not have “player salaries” as their major expense item.

Then, MLB with the acquiescence of the MLBPA cut the baseball draft from 40 rounds to 5 rounds.  That means there will be fewer minor league/developmental players under contract with the major league teams and it may then be necessary for minor league clubs to spend a bit of “player salary money” in order to fill out a roster.

MLB has been paying minor league players at the rate of $400 per week since the time when minor league seasons should have opened but that commitment runs out on June 1^st; only 9 MLB teams have indicated that they will continue those payments beyond that date meaning some of the minor league players will need to find other employment and give up at least part of their developmental processes.  For other players who might be able to hang on economically, MLB teams are in the process of releasing a couple hundred players.  Those moves are partly cost saving moves and partly a recognition that some of the players just are not ever going to help the MLB team win any games.

It is at least a 50/50 proposition that there will be no minor league baseball in 2020.  If the MLB proposal to the MLBPA to have major league rosters frozen at 40 – 50 players, there will be no need for MLB teams to have ready reserves in the minor leagues and without MLB financial support, the minor leagues would have to change the way they fund operations to exist in 2020.  There is not nearly enough time for that to happen.  As someone who enjoys minor league baseball and who tries to attend several games a season, I find that a gloomy conclusion; but it is one I cannot avoid.

I understand that MLB owners are going to have a lean year in 2020 no matter how the negotiations come out with the players’ union and why cost containment is more important in 2020 than it is in any “normal year”.  I also understand that MLB has a longstanding need to grow its aging fanbase and to attract “new blood” to the game.  The reduction in minor league baseball contracts the exposure of the game; the reduction of developmental players – – making a few hundred dollars a week – – shrinks the pool of potential future MLB stars.  The long-term implications for BASEBALL writ large of drying up a lot of minor league baseball are not good.

One minor league team is apparently looking at creative ways to generate some revenue in these days of “no baseball”.  According to a report at CBSSports.com, the Pensacola Blue Wahoos (AA affiliate of the Minnesota Twins) have put their stadium up for rent on Airbnb. Here is the deal:

• Cost is $1500 per night.
• Accommodations can be for up to ten people.
• Guests will have full access to the field, the home team clubhouse, a “large bedroom” and the batting cage/pitching machines.
• Club house amenities include 2 flat-screen TVs, ping-pong table, and leather couches.

There will be a member of the Blue Wahoos staff on hand to provide security and logistical support for the night.  Obviously, the guests will need to bring their own food/beverages or have the evening catered.  I doubt that I would partake of such an offer, but it would not surprise me if the Blue Wahoos did not get at least a few takers.

Moving on …  For the first time in 124 years, there will be no Boston Marathon in 2020.  The event had previously been postponed from April 20 to September 14 as the coronavirus spread around the country last month.  Earlier this week, Boston mayor, Marty Walsh, did what politicians hate to do; he confronted reality and made an announcement that would not be popular:

“The traditional one-day running of the 124^th Boston Marathon is not feasible this year for public health reasons.  There is no way to hold this usual race format without bringing large numbers of people into close proximity.

“While our goal and hope was to make progress and contain the virus and recover our economy, this kind of event would not be responsible or realistic on September 14 or any time this year.”

Thank  you, Mr. Mayor.  Thank you for candor and realism.  Thank you for incorporating science and public health factors into your decision making.

Tom Grilk is the CEO of the Boston Athletic Association – the organization that stages and provides the logistics for the Boston Marathon.  Like Mayor Walsh, his statement earlier this week reflects acceptance of reality:

“The spirit of Boston and the spirit of the Boston Marathon is to be strong and to be smart.  When necessity drives you in a direction you may not like, you have to have this strength, the wisdom and the guidance from public officials to do what is right.”

Thank  you, Mr. Grilk.  Might I say that it would be beneficial to the country if every decision regarding choices between public health and sporting events were made with your statement in the forefront of the decision makers’ minds.

Finally, since much of today had to do with money and economics, here is a related comment from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald:

“A bat used by Lou Gehrig sold for $1 million. There is only one baseball bat in the world worth $1 million. It’s the one with a check for $999,000 taped to the barrel.”

• Memo to Greg Cote:  That means the bat cost you $1000.  That is an awfully expensive bat too…

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

 

 

We have all been here before.  Sadly, we know that this will end somehow and somewhere, but we will have to trudge our way through well-traveled scorched earth to get there.  This coma-inducing scenario is a real-life version of the movie, Groundhog Day, engendered by COVID-19.

That less-than-lovely introduction relates to the potential for a truncated 2020 season in MLB.  The fact that any possible season in MLB would have to be limited to 80-90 games at the most is no one’s fault; the coronavirus outbreak is the sole author of that fact.  As of now, it would appear that logistical issues might be tractable regarding an MLB “Opening Day” in early July producing an 82-game season.  That is not ideal, but it could work – – except – – there are economic issues as there always are regarding MLB.

About 10 days ago, I wrote that MLB and the MLBPA have a history of shooting one another in the foot only to take a break in that behavior to shoot themselves in their feet too.  Every last issue between those sides becomes a matter of pride and honor.  The owners and the players’ union seem to be taking their cues from the partisans in Congress when it comes to finding compromises on issues that will actually produce positive change.  In other words, they don’t even try…

Here is a rough timeline of how we got where we are:

• COVID-19 terminates Spring Training in medias res.
• Players and owners agree that 2020 salaries would be pre-rated relative to the fraction of the 162 normal games that are played.  Hallelujah!  An agreement…
• As it became apparent that some – most – of the games might need to be played in front of empty stadiums, the two sides diverged on that agreement.  Owners want players to share in the agony of reduced revenues; players do not.
• Owners suggest a 50/50 revenue split with players.  That is awfully close to a salary cap and the MLBPA is dead set against a salary cap under any pretense.
• Owners offer up a huge proposal that shaves salaries drastically for the highest paid players and not nearly so much for players at the low end of the pay scale.  [Aside:  This sounds a bit like a “tax the rich” proposal which I doubt the MLB owners would support in the political arena.]
• Players are up in arms – – and we have been here before.

The union went ballistic over the latest proposal calling it nothing more than “massive pay cuts”.  Well, in large measure, they are right.  And it is also right that the MLB owners are looking at “massive revenue cuts”.

The owners posit that they will lose – cumulatively – multiple billions of dollars without those salary reductions.  Well, in large measure, they are right.  And it is also right that as business owners they are not entitled to be guaranteed to make tons of money every single season.

Now, it is time for the MLBPA to make its proposal.  If their position is nothing more than the pro-rated salaries agreed to a couple months ago, then there could well be a completely missed MLB season for 2020 and that is doubly bad.  Lost in the back-and-forth rhetoric here and the coverage based on calculated leaks on both sides is a sobering reality even beyond COVID-19:

• The CBA between the owners and the union expires at the end of the 2021 season.

If the inability to compromise on economic and health related issues causes the 2020 season to disappear, the soon-to-commence next round of CBA bargaining will surely begin with a dark cloud overhead.  Want to make that an even more dire set of circumstances?  Suppose there is a “second wave” of COVID-19 next Spring that will wipe out some or part of the 2021 season and force some games to be played in empty stadiums…

Switching gears …  The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) will begin play on 27 June; if nothing changes in other sports, it will be the first professional team sport to emerge from the COVID-19 lockdown(s).  The league will stage a “Challenge Cup Tournament” in the Salt Lake City area with no fans in the stands.  The tournament will involve 9 teams and 25 games, and every game will be telecast on CBS Sports Network. The tournament champion will be crowned on 25 July.

If MLB does not get its act together and there is no baseball in July, this could be a big plus for the NWSL.  There seems to be a much better labor/management situation in the NWSL; the two sides appear to have agreed on a detailed and comprehensive plan to test players before every match and all during the time they are housed in and “NWSL Village” in Utah.  Here is a public statement from the NWSLPA – the union representing the players there:

“The NWSLPA, working closely aside NWSL, is excited to provide players the opportunity to return to sport, while also securing compensation and other necessities to make sure players’ concerns, feedback and safety are at the forefront of all conversations.”

Do not hold your breath until you hear that kind of statement coming from the MLBPA or the MLB owners!

One prominent NWSL player – Alex Morgan – will likely not be part of this return to action since she delivered a child on May 7.  I would certainly call that an “excused absence”.  Dwight Perry had this comment in the Seattle Times regarding that birth:

“U.S. soccer star Alex Morgan’s first child, due in April, actually arrived in May.

“Why, of course — added time.”

Finally, since I mentioned the movie Groundhog Day obliquely above, here is an idea for Hollywood.  Movie studios love to make sequels to successful movies; only rarely do the sequels live up to the standard set by the original successful work.  So, here is my idea:

• Announce the release of Groundhog Day – 2.
• When people get to the theaters and are settled in for the opening, just show the original move over again.

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

 

 

Yesterday, I wrote about the possible return of college football in the situation that there might be no students on campus in the Fall, but the football team would be active and playing in games.  I am not so sure that is a good idea and I am confident that not every school administration would want to operate in that manner.  I think there is another aspect of college football that might be examined since COVID-19 has forced everyone to think about things we previously took for granted.

College football always was an in-stadium spectacle.  Picture in your mind a home game at Penn State where everyone is wearing white or a game in Gainesville, FL with tens of thousands of fans doing the “Gator chomp” or the “Sea of Red” in Memorial Stadium when Nebraska is playing at home.  That has been the image of college football for decades.  To be sure, those schools and those stadiums continue with those traditions in 2020 and will likely keep them going for the foreseeable future.

However, there are signs that college football’s image or its appeal might be changing in terms of its focus.  Consider two issues that have arisen in the last couple of years”

1. At Alabama home games, school officials have considered tracking students who attend games to see which ones stay in the stadium for the entire game.  Yes, I know that it is only recently that the technology has been available to do this sort of thing on a large scale, but realize that 20 years ago, it would not have been necessary even if the technology had existed.  Coach Nick Saban “chastised” those students who left games early saying that he wanted them to be as committed to supporting the team as the team was committed to winning.  Off the top of my head, I do not know who the Alabama coach was 20 years ago, but I cannot imagine him even thinking such a thing let alone saying it.
2. As alternative to the mental pictures I asked  you to contemplate above, please take a moment to picture a home game in the Mid-American Conference on a Wednesday night in late October/early November.  Even though the stadiums there are much smaller than the ones I suggested above, they are sparsely populated.  There are small student sections; the band occupies a bunch of seats and in the rest of the stadium, there is virtually no one.

College football remains an “in-stadium spectacle” in many places but it is not the rock-solid entertainment that it used to be; there are cracks in the façade.  Schools, conferences and the NCAA have taught college football fans that it is no longer necessary to go to the stadium to enjoy the game.  As has happened in the NFL, the improvements in television picture quality along with the proliferation of games available in conjunction with the creature comforts present in your average man cave have created a different class of college football fan.  This different class is just as passionate about the games and the schools – – but (s)he evokes that passion somewhere other than in the stadium.  I don’t see that trend reversing any time soon; in fact, if colleges have to find ways to play in empty stadiums or ones where social distancing is enforced, there is a good chance that this trend will be enhanced in 2020.

Let me be clear; I am not trying to be like the prophet Jeremiah here; I am not “predicting” the destruction of college football.  What I am saying is that college football has been slowly evolving in the past 10-15 years away from a purely in-stadium event and that trend will continue to happen.  Since the college football mavens are going to be forced to think about things differently in 2020 anyway, perhaps it would be smart if they looked at this trend to see how they might make college football even stringer once COVID-19 is but a less-than-fond memory.

There is a report the morning that an investment bank hired by the XFL has twenty bidders at the moment who have signed non-disclosure agreements as a prelude to negotiating with the bank to buy the XFL out of bankruptcy.  Vince McMahon had been rumored to be angling to buy back the XFL for “pennies on the dollar” as part of these bankruptcy procedures, but he has asserted in court that he is not going to make such a bid.

Reports this morning say that there is a “robust market” for whatever remains of the XFL.  Given the lack of success for “Professional Spring Football” over the years, I am surprised that there are twenty entities out there ready to take on that challenge.  According to reports, some of the potential buyers are considering presenting the XFL on television in 2021 in a “12-week tournament-style TV experience”.  Please do not ask me to elaborate further on that matter because – like  you – I await an explanation too.

Finally, here are two comments from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times relevant to football’s in-stadium experience:

“At Fark.com: ‘Michigan governor says no full stadiums this fall. Or as the Lions call it: Sunday.’ “

And …

“Ohio State, among its contingencies amid the coronavirus pandemic, is bracing for football games in its 102,780-seat stadium with socially-distanced crowds of 20,000-22,000.

“In other words, they’d schedule a Buckeyes home game and a Rice home game breaks out.”

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

 

 

The focal point of just about every discussion regarding US sports in late May 2020 relates to the question of how they will reopen – – or in the case of the NFL, will it open on schedule.  It should be clear to anyone who reads these rants that I would be part of the demographic that wants sports “back to normal” and it would certainly be easier for me to find things to write about if there were games happening.  Notwithstanding that fundamental prejudice, I do wonder about two aspects of our collective experience over the past10 weeks or so:

1. Will sports fans rush back to their previous behaviors regarding “their teams” as soon as the seasons begin again – – or have a significant number of those fans learned that they can live without live sports?
2. Recognizing that the pandemic has claimed almost 100,000 American lives as of this morning and that the pandemic has put at least 35 million people out of work, have a significant number of people come to view the “essential nature” of sports very differently?

I suspect that fans will return to sports relatively quickly in terms of watching on TV.  Live attendance will probably be a completely different thing varying from league to league.  If MLB returns to empty stadiums, fans will not have a choice regarding attending or staying home.  If the NBA plays their games in Orlando as a “hub city”, fans in Phoenix are less likely to show up than they would be for a “pre-COVID-19 home game”.  But I do think that televised games that matter – – real live games that count in the standings – – will draw good audiences on TV.  I think those broadcasts will provide fans with an opportunity that they recall fondly in an environment where other entertainment options are not as easily available as they used to be.

It appears as if the NBA and the NHL are making progress toward reopening their seasons.  Players and owners seem to be willing to negotiate and compromise on things like playing conditions, health issues and economics.  As of this morning, I am less sanguine about MLB and the MLBPA showing any meaningful interest in compromising on anything.  Those two sides seem willing to acknowledge jointly that the sun sank in the west last evening – – and not much else.

The NFL and college football are different stories in that their seasons have not been interrupted; the question there is along the lines of can they begin on time – – and if so, can they continue to play out a season without spreading the virus to an unacceptable level.  It seems that the economics in the NFL is self-healing; as revenues for teams declines, so does next year’s salary cap; the teams’ major expense item – – player salaries – – are tied directly to revenue.  When there are labor management issues regarding NFL games, it would seem to me that the focus will be on players’ health and safety

College football has another wrinkle to it.  Administrators will need to consider if the school can field a football team under the circumstances that the campus at large is closed to students.  I think it is a long haul for those folks to do that because:

• Closing the campus to students would be a decision made in recognition that the health and safety of the student body is better served by not having them in great numbers on campus.  Schools will not close down for no good reason.
• If in an abundance of caution, admins close the campuses but then allow a football team to practice and play, what responsibility might those admins have forsaken when a player or coach comes down with COVID-19.  I would not be surprised if liability lawyers have not already begun to hone their arguments for cases that would arise there.

The second question above relates to the way we view sports as part of the essential infrastructure of our society.  One thing we know for sure is that the nation can survive for about 10 weeks without the major US sports.  What I don’t know is if our recent sports-free experience has changed a lot of minds about how “essential” the games are and how “essential” it is to pay a football or basketball coach $5M a year or more and how “essential” the games are that it would be OK to risk the health of the players even if they played in empty stadiums.

The NCAA President – Dr. Mark Emmert – said emphatically that the idea of closed campuses with active football programs and games was not happening.  This does not happen often, but I am in total agreement with Dr. Emmert on this one.  The problem here is that the NCAA is not on totally solid ground here.  The Power 5 conferences (ACC, Big-10, Big-12, SEC and PAC-12) dominate college football and they could choose to bolt from the NCAA on the “football side” and agree to tolerate the NCAA on the “basketball side”.  [Aside:  If the Power 5 conferences leave the NCAA, do not be surprised if all of them expand to have 16 teams in each of the conferences.  That act would permanently divide major college football into the “Haves” and the “Have Nots”.]

I do not have answers here; I do think these are the sorts of issues that will be interesting to watch over the next several weeks – and maybe in the case of football over the next couple of months.

By the way, before I sign off from this issue:

• Can you think of a dozen things in society that are less “essential” than about 35 of the college football bowl games that are played between December 20 and December 31?

Finally, here is a definition from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Eccentric:  The type of unconventional, idiosyncratic, oddball character with whom it is utterly unbearable to spend even five minutes in the same room, but whom we somehow find uplifting and inspiring when they are the fictional subject of a two-hour movie.”

[Aside:  I always thought that a person was “eccentric” if he/she was worth $100M or more but that same person was merely “weird” at a lower net worth.]

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

 

 

If the adage is correct that bad things happen in threes, then the death of top-flight coaches has completed a triad.  Don Shula died a couple of weeks ago.  Last Friday, Jerry Sloan, who coached the Utah Jazz for 23 seasons and amassed more than 1200 wins in the NBA passed away.  I remember Jerry Sloan as a player for the Chicago Bulls in the early 70s; he was a tenacious defender.  His Jazz teams with Karl Malone and John Stockton made the pick-and-roll a staple item for NBA offenses that carries on until today.

Rest in peace, Jerry Sloan.

In addition, Eddie Sutton died over the weekend.  His career was at the collegiate level where his teams won more than 800 games.  He took four different schools to the NCAA tournament and had Oklahoma State and Arkansas teams in the Final Four.

Rest in peace, Eddie Sutton.

Also over the weekend, there were reports that Ryan Leaf was arrested in California and charged with “misdemeanor domestic battery”.  I am not sure what the details of the incident are, but he is out on bail and his next court appearance is not until late September.  Ryan Leaf has not had an easy road in his life.  He was the overall #2 pick in the 1998 NFL Draft – – right behind Peyton Manning – – but his NFL career was marginal to put it as kindly as possible.  After the NFL, he has battled drug addiction and various other criminal charges.  Recently, he appeared to have gotten his life in order and was hired by ESPN as a college football color analyst.   I only heard him do one game, but I thought he had found himself a career niche that would work for him.

I do not intend to prejudge the outcome of these charges, but I cannot conjure up a set of circumstances where any of that advances his career as an on-air talent with ESPN…

Over the past couple of weeks, a lot of attention focused on The Last Dance.  Given the dearth of sports options on TV over the last couple of months, I tuned in to Episode 1 and thought it was OK – – but nothing more than that.  I watched part of Episode 2 and an even smaller portion of Episode 3 until I admitted to myself that despite the rave reviews the series was getting, I did not particularly like them.  I saw nothing beyond the very early part of Episode 3.  Obviously, I am not representative of the viewing public and because people watched in great numbers and continue to discuss points made in the series, there are going to be copycat productions.  Two such imitations have already been “announced”:

1. LeBron James has a TV/movie production company – Uninterrupted – and that company is going to produce a documentary on the Houston Astros sign stealing scandal.  I have not seen a production schedule or a target date for this project to be completed, but I can say confidently that I am already tired of it.
2. Also in the works is a 9-part documentary on the career – – to date to be sure – – of Tom Brady.  I will not care about that one either.  However, I will note here before it ever shows up as a viewing option that The Last Dance was a 10-part series and the Brady-documentary is supposed to be only a 9-part series.  What’s up with that?

My guess is that we are in the early stages of a new fad in sports programming for television.  I think this will continue until the American public cries uncle after someone produces a 5-part series that starts with the working title:

• The Man, The Myth, The Mediocrity – – Joe Flabeetz

The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is another casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic.  The postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics caused the USOPC to lay off 51 employees, furlough an additional 33 employees terminate 23 temporary employees and give buyouts to 40 other workers.  The USOPC had expected to take in something close to $200M this summer as its share of the TV deal for the Tokyo Games; obviously, that is not happening and that means belt-tightening is the order of the day for the USOPC.

If you add up the numbers of employees “let go”, it comes to 147 folks; according to reports, the USOPC cut its workforce by “roughly 20 percent”.  That means the workforce prior to the cuts was around 750 people.  I know that USOPC runs training sites for athletes in Lake Placid, Colorado Springs and San Diego and I realize that keeping those sites up and running requires staff.  Nonetheless, I wonder why it takes 750 people to deal with games that basically happen once every two years…

Finally, here is an observation from Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Update: Korean baseball broadcasts seemed like an amusing diversion a week or so ago. But in my household, the fad has run its course. Just can’t relate.”

For the record, I watched about 5 innings of one game here in Curmudgeon Central and gave up on it.

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