Some Head-Scratchers Today…

A news report this morning says that Geno Smith will start in the Seattle Seahawks’ first exhibition game over Paxton Lynch.  The two of them are battling it out in the Seahawks’ training camp to see which one will hold the clipboard for Russell Wilson this year.  Lest anyone doubt that Russell Wilson’s job is in no danger, Wilson will not play at all in that first meaningless exhibition game.  This “news item” is interesting to me only because I read a report about a week ago where Geno Smith told one of the reporters covering the Seahawks camp that his goal is to be a starting QB in the NFL and that this camp is about him proving that he can do that.

Taken at face value, that must mean that he expects coaches/scouts from other teams to attend Seahawks’ training camp sessions because the reality is that he will only replace Russell Wilson if Wilson is in a coma.  If his goal is to be a starting QB in the NFL, I wonder why he chose to sign with the Seahawks as opposed to some other team where the starter is not as solidly encamped.  I don’t know if his bold statement about showing he can be a starter in the NFL is braggadocio or self-delusion – – or – – if he is simply recognizing the simple fact that the injury bug is always lurking around NFL locker rooms.  We shall see…

  • My best guess is that Geno Smith will get a real chance to be a starting QB for one of the XFL 2.0 teams if/when that new league launches.
  • If that happens, then maybe Geno Smith can be “The Tommy Maddox of XFL 2.0”.

Last night, the Yankees beat the Orioles 14-2 to run their record at Camden Yards to 10-0 this season.  The outcome of the game is not important nor is the fact that it was a blow-out.  What was unusual is that Orioles’ manager Brandon Hyde and high-priced lawn ornament, Chris Davis got into a kerfuffle in the dugout and players had to restrain Davis from going after Hyde.  Of course, after the game the official line is that this was just a misunderstanding and that it has all been smoothed over and it will all be “kept in house”.  Here are some data that overhang this situation:

  • Davis is 3.5 years into a 7-year contract worth a total of $161M.  The deal calls for him to get $23M preseason for the duration of the deal.
  • When the deal was done just prior to the 2016 season, it looked like a good move for the Orioles.  Davis had hit 47 home runs and driven in 117 runs the year before and in 2013 he had hit 53 home runs and drove in 138 runs.
  • In 2016, the first year of the deal, he hit .221 and struck out 219 times.
  • In 2017, he hit .215 and struck out 195 times
  • In 2018, he hit .168 and struck out 192 times
  • So far in 2019, he is hitting .183 and has struck out 110 times.

On Opening Day this year, the Orioles total payroll for their 25-man roster was $67.4M according to this analysis.  Chris Davis accounted for 34.1% of the team’s salary.  To say that he has been a disappointment for the last 3.5 years would be a monumental understatement – – sort of like saying LaVar Ball is an extrovert.  Davis was removed from the game after this dugout scene last night; it will be interesting to see if he is in the lineup when the Astros visit Baltimore tomorrow night…

Speaking of things that are coming apart at the seams in MLB, the Boston Red Sox are in meltdown mode.  They have lost 9 of their last 10 games and they are 6 games out of the second wild card slot as of this morning.  Last year the Red Sox lost a total of 54 games; here we are in early August with 8 weeks left in the regular season and the Sox have already lost 56 games.

It seems to me that the explanation for this collapse is the pitching staff.  Chris Sale is the Sox ace and he has not been “ace-like” for most of the 2019 season.  In addition, the Sox have not been successful in finding a closer to replace Craig Kimbrell who left in free agency.  I don’t men to hang all the blame there, because the rest of the Sox pitchers have not stepped up to take over when these two large holes appeared from the beginning of the season.

One more baseball note today.  Next year, the Yankees will play the White Sox in the Field of Dreams movie site in Iowa.  They will construct a temporary stadium there to seat 8000 people.  This seems to expand on the idea that MLB will schedule a game in Williamsport PA around the time of the Little League World Series and will send teams to the UK to play there.  The tag line from the film Field of Dreams is:

“If you build it, they will come.”

All I can say is that MLB is not expecting too many folks “will come” if the seating is limited to 8000.  After all, the population of Dyersville, IA is just over 4000 and one would expect that many of the townsfolk might be interested in securing a ticket for the spectacle.

Finally, having mentioned the Chris Davis contract in conjunction with last night’s dugout unpleasantness, consider this comment from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times:

“Californians carry the country’s highest mortgage debt — an average of $347,000.

“’Cry me a river,’ say the Baltimore Orioles. ‘We still owe Chris Davis $100 million!’”

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

 

 

A New One On Me…

Baseball games have been postponed because of rain or a variety of other weather conditions.  Football games have been delayed/interrupted when there are lightening strikes in the area.  A bunch of World Series Games were delayed when an earthquake hit the Bay Area in 1989.  Today, we have a sports-related cancellation for a reason I have not previously encountered:

  • Plague-infested fleas affecting prairie dog colonies.

The Colorado Rapids will host the Montreal Impact in an MLS game this weekend.  After the game, the Rapids had scheduled a fireworks display for the fans.  Here is part of a statement issued by the team regarding the cancellation of that event:

“However, it has been recommended that the post-game fireworks display be cancelled due to the confirmed presence of plague-infested fleas affecting prairie dog colonies in the surrounding areas…

“Additionally, in accordance with the Tri-County Health Department’s recommendation for the safety of all attendees, parking lots at DICK’S Sporting Goods Park will be restricted to asphalt lots until further notice.”

The problem here is that the launch site for the fireworks would have been in a grassy area that is off-limits by order of the health authorities in the area.  And that is a sports event cancellation that is a new one for me …

This portion of the sports calendar tends to be a slow time.  You can get an indication of how slow it is by the headlines on various sports websites heralding what folks wrote about to provide content for those sites in the past few days.  Here are just a few of many examples:

  • Zion wants to play career with Pelicans.  He knows that already?
  • Anthony Davis says he is afraid of the dark.  Never travel to Fairbanks in winter.
  • Why great rotations don’t always win titles.  You must score runs to win.
  • Which Premier League club should you root for?  Come on now…

We have not done this for a while so let me propose a Quick Quiz.  Of all the programming that ESPN puts on the air over its seemingly infinite outlets, what is the most annoying/least watchable programming:

  1. First Take
  2. Any X-games event
  3. The Nathan’s July 4th Hot Dog Eating Contest
  4. The ESPYs

100 words or less…

A recent report in the Omaha World Herald appears to have uncovered some “Title IX shenanigans”.  Title IX requires colleges to provide comparable levels of athletic opportunity/participation for male athletes and female athletes if they receive any Federal funds.  Since college football teams have about 80 players on the roster, that means there needs to be plenty of “female opportunities for intercollegiate competition” to reach a “gender balanced status”.  According to the Omaha World Herald in its report here, one of the ways that some of the big schools have achieved that balance is to carry on the books inflated numbers of women on the rosters of the women’s rowing teams.  Here are some data:

  • Wisconsin:  176 women on the rowing team
  • Michigan:  132 women on the rowing team
  • Alabama:  120 women on the rowing team
  • Ohio St.:  110 women on the rowing team
  • Clemson:  104 women on the rowing team
  • Texas:  101 women on the rowing team

Those are just the “triple-digit schools”; there are others…  You might wonder how these schools can possibly afford to have so many rowing scholarships – and you would be right to have such a confusion in your mind.  It seems that the way schools make this happen is to recruit women from the general student population to come and try out for the rowing team even if they have never pulled an oar in their lives.  Then, so long as the female recruit does not evaporate, she is listed as a member of the team and carried on the roster.  There is no way most of them will ever come close to participating in an intercollegiate rowing competition – – but if they are listed on the roster, they count toward Title IX compliance.

The report linked above quotes an attorney who has experience dealing with Title IX and compliance issues:

“Whenever women’s teams or programs are treated differently in this way, such as padding women’s teams with athletes who will never participate, or having women athletes participate in non-varsity ways like novice rowing, that is sex discrimination.”

This story probably has a few chapters still to be written…

Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times that deals with men and women in sports:

“A Lithuanian couple won the 28th annual World Wife Carrying Championship in Sonkarjavi Finland on July 8.

“Just think of it as the flip side to US soccer, where the women carry the men.”

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

 

 

Two Soccer Notes…

Every once in a while, I go “grazing” on the Internet to see if there are any soccer items that might be of interest here.  Last week I ran across two such tid-bits.  The first one comes from the Welsh Football League – – Division 2.  At some point in the upcoming season, the following two teams will square off:

  • Ynyshir Albions versus Ynysygerwn

Copy editors everywhere are already planning to call in sick the next day.  The entire country of Wales needs to on Wheel of Fortune just to be able to buy some vowels.

The second tid-bit comes from the Highland Football League in Scotland; one of the teams there is Fort William FC.  On 31 July of this year, Fort William FC beat Nairn County by a score of 5-2.  Here is why that is noteworthy:

  • In the 2017/18 season, Fort William FC went winless in all 34 of their league games and only managed 5 ties.
  • In 2018/19, Fort William FC started 0-5 and then the league penalized them 9 points for using an ineligible player in 3 of those games.  They could not even cheat effectively.  The team result for the 2019 season was no wins in 34 games and only 2 ties.  The team finished with negative – 7 points for the season thanks to that league-imposed penalty.

The win over Nairn County about a week ago was the first win for Fort William in 707 days and broke a 73-game losing streak.  Fort William is a small town in the western part of the Scottish Highlands; the population there is about 10,000 souls; I suspect there was a lot of celebrating there on the evening of July 31…

This year, the NBA offseason has been interesting and attention-grabbing.  While most of the drama seems to have happened, there remains one player-situation that could become a big deal before the teams report to training camp in late September.  [No.  I am not talking about the possible return of Carmelo Anthony to an NBA roster or about Jeremy Lin finding a landing place in the league.]  The player-situation I am referring to involves Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards.  He is currently eligible to sign a contract extension worth $112M; the Wizards have put that offer on the table for Beal’s consideration.  That offer can be valid until the opening day of the next NBA season which is October 16.

If he declines that offer, he might choose to stay in DC and hope to be eligible for a Super Max contract in the next two years there.  He will need to make one of the All-NBA teams or be named Defensive Player of the Year (that will NOT be happening) in order to qualify for a Super Max.  Alternatively, he could engineer a trade and say sayonara to the Wizards to go and chase a championship elsewhere.  It’s not a huge deal as compared to the decisions made by the likes of Kevin Durant and Kawai Leonard – – but the movement of very good players may not be over and done with for this NBA offseason.

The intense interest in the NBA offseason has been heralded as a big win for the NBA as it keeps “league business” front and center in the sporting conversation through the summer months.  Yes, that is a good thing, but it not an unalloyed success.  Here is something that the NBA needs to recognize:

  • The NBA already has fans looking past the regular season to consider the playoffs.
  • Fans and commentators are already talking about various possibilities in the first round of the playoffs next year.
  • The NBA does not need for its fans to have any reasons to ignore more of the 1230 regular season games.

As things stand already, at least half of those regular season games are of no import and can be readily ignored – – unless you like watching dunks and 3-point shot attempts.  A serious problem facing the NBA is the inexorable fact that the league consists of two categories of teams; those that have a chance to “make a playoff run” and those that do not.  That categorization is clear on Halloween; then the season happens, and it does not conclude until after your tax return is due in the hands of the IRS the next spring.  That is a long time to hold the attention of fans while they wait for a fait accompli.

Oh, but it does not end there…  The NBA and its fans must come to grips with the fact that a new era has dawned.  Professional basketball in the US is now part of the Age of Load Management (ALM).  The inexorable fact of life in ALM is that a fan who tunes into a game – or purchases a ticket to and see a game at an arena – cannot rely on seeing star players perform even when those star players are perfectly healthy.  Now, if you think as I do that far too many NBA regular season games are nothing more than an exhibition of dunks and 3-point shot attempts, the last thing you want to see is such a contest populated by the junior varsity.  Here is the only reason I might want to watch such an event:

  • It might be interesting to see traveling called on some of the junior varsity players and then compare those calls to the ones not made when the stars come back to play in the next game.

Finally, since I mentioned above the Welsh football nightmare game for copy editors, here is a similar observation from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Among the twosomes playing in the LPGA Tour’s Dow Great Lakes Invitational team event: Pajaree Anannarukarn and Pannarat Thanapolboonyaras.

“The Society of One-Column Headline Writers immediately filed a grievance.”

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

 

 

Meandering Thoughts…

Occasionally, I point out the intersection between sports and politics.  Here is an example of where those worlds diverge:

  • Politics:  Someone proposes a Green New Deal and that leads to bickering and rhetorical jousting.
  • Sports:  The Golden State Warriors propose a Green new deal and that leads to Draymond signing a 4-year contract extension for $100M.

Sports is just a lot more fun than politics …

Last week, an event at a nexus of sports and the law happened in Louisiana.  Of course, you recall that last year, the Rams beat the Saints in the NFL Playoffs and that was the game with the horrendous missed pass interference call in the final minute of the game.  That missed call was so atrocious that it led to a rule change regarding challenges for pass interference that the NFL put in place for 2019.  That missed call also led to several lawsuits in Federal court seeking to force the NFL to restart the game at the point of the missed call.  All those suits were summarily dismissed, and it seemed as if there was a lid on this matter.

Not so…  A Louisiana resident filed a suit in state court alleging fraud by the NFL officials; and last week, a state judge dismissed an NFL motion to dismiss the case and allowed the plaintiff to proceed to the point of taking depositions – including NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.  The plaintiff has stated that he will donate any damages that he receives from the lawsuit to charity; he says he does not intend to enrich himself through this suit.  He says the only objectives here are to reveal the truth and to expose the fraud.

Much as I would love to see Roger Goodell deposed, let me try to resolve this matter for the plaintiff:

  • The truth is that the two officials on that side of the field on that play missed one of the most obvious penalty calls in football history.  They blew it.  We know they blew it and they know they blew it.  Saints’ fans suffered from that botched call; Rams’ fans benefited from that botched call.  It was human error and not something that was pre-ordained.

There is one other “optic” that arises from this lawsuit and its continued existence:

  • I have never lived in Louisiana and I have no familiarity with the state laws that apply there.  However, I can say from my position of ignorance that it would not surprise me if judges in Louisiana were elected as opposed to being appointed.

Moving on …  If you are an Eagles’ fan and you are inclined to see things happening in accordance with some pre-ordained cosmic plan, consider this:

  1. In 2017, Carson Wentz was injured in an Eagles/Rams game on Dec 10 and missed the rest of the season.
  2. In 2019, Carson Wentz was injured in an Eagles/Cowboys game on Dec 9 and missed the rest of the season.
  3. In 2019, the Giants will visit Philly on Dec 9.  If you believe that bad things happen in threes…

Conventional wisdom tells us that teams in the “big markets” provide players with such greater opportunity to earn money in addition to their lucrative sports contracts that most of the best players will gravitate to those “big market teams” and leave sports leagues with huge imbalances in competition.  And indeed, in MLB with no salary cap to keep teams in those “big markets” from luring players with big salaries and in the NBA where the salary cap has more holes in it than a lace doily, there is competitive imbalance.  As always, there is the counterexample to consider.  That would be New York City – the largest city in the US and the biggest of the big markets.

There are six NYC teams in the “Big 3” of US sports and 4 of the 6 teams in NYC are clearly sub-standard now and some have been for a while now:

  1. NY Mets:  The generally accepted view is that Mets’ ownership cannot or will not spend the money that it takes to be competitive on a recurring basis in MLB.  The small market teams cry poor while the Mets’ act poor.
  2. NY Giants:  The wheels came off this wagon when they decided to oust Tom Coughlin and replaced him with Ben McAdoo after the 2015 season.  At the moment, the Giants simply stink.
  3. NY Jets:  This team has floundered for a couple of decades; the last Jets coach to have a winning record there was Al Groh who coached the team for 1 year in 2000.  Since then, the Jets are 132-156 and there has been no shortage of drama enveloping the team during that time.
  4. NY Knickerbockers:  The list of malfeasances, misfeasances and non-feasances perpetrated by owner James Dolan and the executives that he has hired over the past 20 years is as long as the river Nile.

Or, maybe, there is some sort of pre-ordained fraud that has been – and continues to be – perpetrated on the fans of NYC teams…?  Whom might we depose to get to the truth there?

Finally, since we are in August and that is the time of year when many folks take a vacation and find their way to a place on the water, let me provide a definition from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Beach:  A place where the majestic ocean and its miles of luxurious sand are transformed into a petri dish of potential staph infections by an unruly mob of overstressed people trying to get their folding chairs and beach umbrellas to stay put, many of whom did not get the memo about how having a prodigious pot belly and wearing a Speedo simply do not mix.”

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

 

 

NFL Football/CFL Football

I want to juxtapose two items because they demonstrate the fact that the NFL enjoys stratospheric revenues as compared to other North American sports endeavors.

  1. A report at Sportspromedia.com says that Allegiant Airlines and the NFL Raiders are about to close on a naming rights deal for the Raiders’ new stadium in Las Vegas.  It is not final, but the report says that Allegiant will pay the Raiders $25M per year for the next 20 years.  That comes out to a cool $500M over 20 years for the privilege of slapping a logo on a stadium.
  2. Meanwhile in the Maritime Provinces of Canada the Atlantic Schooners hope to join the CFL in 2021 by playing in a temporary facility in Moncton, New Brunswick until their stadium is finished in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  The “bare bones stadium” in Halifax – which would need temporary seating to accommodate CFL games – would cost an estimated $130M to construct.

If these numbers are close to accurate, the Raiders will take in more money in the first 7 years they are in Las Vegas solely from the naming rights fees on the stadium than the entire construction cost of the basic stadium in Halifax will cost.

If you want more details on the work that various folks are doing to get approvals and funding for that Halifax stadium, here is a link that will get you up to speed pretty quickly.

There is a “football experiment” under consideration here in the “Lower 48”.  The PAC-12 folks think that they do not receive sufficient national attention and that geography is partly to blame.  There are loads of football fans in the East – – particularly in the Southeast – – who do not get to see lots of PAC-12 games because they tend to be played at night in the Pacific Time Zone and folks in the east tend to be in bed long before such games are over.  So, the PAC-12 idea/experiment is to think about starting some of the conference games at 9:00 AM Pacific time.  That would put games on the air in the east at noon – going up against second-tier matchups in the Big 10 and or ACC.

This early start-time idea would almost assuredly get the PAC-12 more East Coast viewers and in so doing it would likely increase the TV revenue taken in by the conference.  In matters of this kind, it is important to keep in mind an adage attributed to Stephen King:

  • Money talks, bullshit walks.

The ADs and the school administrators in the PAC-12 will see the potential for added dollar signs and act in a perfectly normal way here.  However, I would like to suggest that they turn the volume down a bit here and do some second order thinking.

  • Starting games at 9:00AM Pacific Time means that the entire atmosphere of PAC-12 games will change.  Instead of energetic and aroused fans in the stadium who might not be able to pass a breathalyzer test because they have been tailgating/partying for 6 hours before the game, the fans will be hungover from Friday night and/or still asleep in the dorms/frat houses.
  • The fan-experience at college football games is built around energy and adrenaline and enthusiasm.  Some of those intangibles will be in shorter supply if the games start on Saturday morning at 9:00 AM.
  • If anyone were to think that none of that “energy in the stands” matters, let me suggest that someone should tune into some MAC games on Wednesday evenings.  There are few if any fans in the stands and most of them spend most of the game sitting on their hands.  Watching on TV, the vibe here is a lot closer to funereal than it is to raucous college hijinks.

There is probably more money to be made in the short term for PAC-12 schools if they make this change in starting time for some games.  However, I think that change and that increased revenue comes at a price; that price is less enthusiasm in the stands and that can lead to more empty seats and empty seats do not make for a “tasty TV experience”.

Last week there were reports in several places saying that two members of the MLB Hall of Fame would likely boycott next year’s ceremony when Derek Jeter is a shoo-in to be inducted in Cooperstown.  Supposedly, Andre Dawson and Tony Perez are still unhappy that Jeter fired them from their “advisory positions” with the Miami Marlins after Jeter and others purchased the marlins and proceeded to cut the payroll to its bare bones.

I would be hard-pressed to tell you how little I care if these guys attend or do not attend.  The day in Cooperstown is not about people who were inducted in the past; the day in Cooperstown is about the newbies.  Unless “indisputable visual evidence” surfaces in the next 6 months showing Derek Jeter inflagrante delicto with a small household pet, he is going to be elected to the Hall of Fame.  The presence or absence of two enshrined members to hear someone introduce him and then to hear his prepared remarks is hugely inconsequential.

This protest/boycott/whatever must be ignored lest it become an “acceptable thing” in the future…

There is a story this morning at CBSSports.com that ought to be a misdemeanor punishable by caning or the lash.  The headline is:

  • Bracketology:  2020 tourney field

Finally, Greg Cote channeled Carnac the Magnificent in the Miami Herald a few weeks ago:

“Answer: The U.S. championships in taekwondo and fencing are both going on.

“Question: What are two sports nobody except participants and their families will watch?”

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

 

 

News From Capitol Hill …

Normally, when there is activity in the US Congress regarding sports, my view is that the Congressthings are grandstanding and that the activity there is misguided at best.  Today, I believe that is not the case.  Two US Senators – Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) – have introduced legislation that would make significant changes in the oversight of the US Olympic Committee and the individual sports federations that come under that USOC umbrella.  This legislation is part of the aftermath of the Larry Nassar revelations and a variety of investigations that demonstrated that Nassar’s heinous actions were enabled by various folks in the hierarchy and by the hierarchy itself.  Let me be clear on 3 points here:

  1. Dr. Larry Nassar is a monstrous human being.
  2. His actions were – and are – an affront to humanity.
  3. Dr. Nassar is serving the moral equivalent of a life sentence in prison for his actions – – but those who did not act to curtail those actions are not similarly in prison.  They should face that possibility and defend themselves to remain free.

The proposed legislation contains a variety of procedural changes that should make it more difficult for a predator such as Dr. Nassar to act out in the future.  One such change would require the USOC to establish and maintain a public list of all “banned coaches” making it far less likely that the “banned coaches” would simply be hired somewhere else in the sport’s hierarchy.  The legislation would also increase the representation of athletes on the USOC’s board of directors and on the boards of the various sports that feed into the USOC actions.  [Aside:  I fear that this “inclusive” requirement sounds better than it will turn out to be.  Athletes will be positive forces in the “board room” when matters of abuse and enabling of abuse are the topic of discussion.  For the myriad of other sorts of issues involving economic matters, I am not nearly so sure.]

Another aspect of the legislation would require the USOC to fund and support something known as the Center for Safe Sport which was established as a non-profit to advocate for Olympic athletes and Olympic hopefuls.  Most importantly, the legislation requires USOC funding support but would ban anyone from the USOC or any of the individual sports governing organizations from serving in the Center for Safe sport.  That’s called preventing the fox from guarding the hen house…

There is a lot to praise Senator Moran and Senator Blumenthal for in their legislation; it seeks to close a gaping hole in the regulatory processes involving the USOC.  Believe it or not, one of the provisions of the bill is that the Congress would be empowered to dissolve the USOC entirely in the future if it “acts negligently”.  The USOC is funded by taxpayer money as enacted by the Congress and only with the passage of this new legislation would Congress have that authority.

Moreover, the new legislation would require the USOC to submit yearly audited reports of its finances to Congressional oversight committees.  Once again, the USOC is funded by taxpayer money and was not required to do so in the past.  It is the existence of these sorts of loopholes that makes me skeptical when Congress seeks to act to regulate or “protect” sports; the two loopholes described here demand facepalms.

All the vibe around this proposed legislation is positive – – and at the same time this means that the US Congress is about to insert itself into the arena of organizing and effecting Olympic sports.  Let me simply leave it here with this thought:

  • Congress has oversight authorities and responsibilities in areas far more germane to the nation than Olympic sports.  The history of positive Congressional impact in those areas has been “spotty”.  Why suddenly should I feel confident that they will do a stellar job in this new, less important area in which few if any of the members have any prior knowledge?

From my understanding of this legislation, I would hope that it would pass both houses of the Congress and be signed into law.  At the same time, I would also hope that this is not a “one-off” activity by the Congress thinking that this law solves the whole problem.  There is oversight to be done and legislative tweaking to be done down the road.

The MLB trade deadline came and went.  I am not going to break down every transaction here – but I think there are some teams that made significant moves:

  • Astros:  Adding Zack Greinke to a rotation that already had Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole can only be a huge plus.
  • Braves:  Their bullpen needed help and they got help with the acquisition of Shane Green and Mark Melancon.
  • Dodgers:  They too need bullpen help – – and they got a couple of guys whose career arc says they work out of the bullpen.  These actions seem to me to be a Great Leap Sideways.
  • Mets:  Adding Marcus Stroman would be a great idea if the Mets were in the midst of a push for the playoffs – – but they are not.
  • Nats:  They need bullpen help more than just about anyone and they added 3 relief pitchers to their roster.  Let me just say that none of them evoke images of Mariano Rivera…

The Indians, Reds and Padres made a trade that sort of stands out as a huge question mark.  The Indians acquired Yasiel Puig and Franmil Reyes and shipped out Trevor Bauer in a 3-team trade.

  • Bauer has been described as “enigmatic” and “arrogant” and “curious”.  Notwithstanding any of that – be it true or false – the fact is that Bauer is only 28 years old and has been a successful starting pitcher for the last 4 seasons.  The Indians are only 3 games out of first place in the AL Central and are in the thick of the wildcard race.  So, why are they trading Bauer away?
  • Puig is also 28 years old.  He is a power-hitting corner outfielder who plays with passion – if not always with focused control.  And now, he has been traded twice in the last 8 months.  Is there a message there?

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

Bus:  A response to your city planner’s challenge of combining a hospital for the criminally insane with a trash receptacle and a slum and putting the whole experience on wheels for your convenience.”

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

 

 

Spleen Venting…

I know that we are not supposed to focus on the need to “give thanks” until the fourth Thursday of November; nevertheless, I am very thankful for something that will happen as soon as this day prepares to turn into night.  At 4:00PM EDT, the MLB trade deadline will pass, and I can stop having to read about trade rumors and can stop and look at the reality of what happened as teams made whatever trades they actually wanted to make.

Along that line, it will put to merciful rest one of the many genres of a new form of sports writing that has already irritated every nerve in my body.  I refer here to any column or “listicle” that has this form of a headline:

  • X-Number of Bold Predictions For The “Fill In Sports Event/Deadline”

Let me translate that headline and give you the substance of whatever lurks below that headline:

  • A “Bold Prediction” is less tangible than a rumor.  It could be a flight of fancy or it could be a hallucination or it could be pure phantasmagoria.
  • The article below such a headline means there was a need for content on a website somewhere but there are no facts to report or analyze – – so what we need to do here is make up some “stuff” and then pretend to justify why it was made up in the first place.

Please tell me I am not the only person who has had enough of those space-wasters…

Since I am on the subject of things that have worn out their welcome, allow me to mention one more.  I don’t know about you, but I have heard too many owners, athletic directors, coaches and players announce that they have embarked on a course to “change the culture” of some organization somewhere.  Enough already.  Here is what you mean, so why not say it?

  • We have been sorry-assed losers for a while now and we are going to try something different in the hopes that we can stop being sorry-assed losers and win more games.

With those two things off my mind, I can confidently echo the frequent statement of Gomez Addams from the old TV show, The Addams Family:

  • I’m feeling MUCH better now…

Tomorrow will bring the world its first look at the 2019 iteration of Hard Knocks.  Normally, I do not watch much of that program because it is obvious to me that the coaches and players see the cameras and production crews as an interruption.  I just never get the feeling that this is what would be happening if I were indeed a “fly on the wall”.  Having said that, I might give this year’s incarnation a glimpse.  Here are 4 reasons why:

  1. This year’s episode will feature the Oakland Raiders giving me the potential to see/hear some sort of pronunciamento from Mark Davis.  That could be fun – – unless he talks about “changing the culture” …
  2. This year’s coach, Jon Gruden, may not resent the cameras; he may have been planning on ways to maximize his “airtime” for the past several weeks.  No one can think that Jon Gruden is camera-averse…
  3. I can’t wait to hear how Coach Gruden – the QB guru and developer – coaches up the likes of Mike Glennon and Nathan Peterman.  The post-production folks may have to make liberal use of the “bleep-button” for that segment.
  4. Antonio Brown, Vontaze Burfict and Richie Incognito will be in camp.  Who knows what any of them might do next – on the field or off the field?

Scott Ostler had this observation about the upcoming Hard Knocks series in the SF Chronicle recently:

“That damn ‘Hard Knocks’ will be a distraction, says the football team that has sucked for decades, was homeless for months before sulking back to the Oakland Coliseum, and recently signed one player who arrived in a hot-air balloon, and another who will sit out two games because, according to a police report, he allegedly threatened to kill mortuary workers when they wouldn’t let him cut off his dead father’s head for research.”

Now that I have Professor Ostler’s perspective in mind, maybe this year’s Hard Knocks will be the best TV series since Cheers closed its doors…

There is a bit of good news out there in the sports cosmos this morning.  Reports say that David Ortiz has been released from the hospital after about 7 weeks in there and 3 surgeries to undo/minimize damage done when he was shot in the back in a fracas in the Dominican Republic.  The last announcement from the authorities there is that Ortiz was not the target of the shooting; nevertheless, he is the one who spent 7 weeks in the hospital and time in the ICU recovering from the effects of the shooting.

Finally, Brad Rock had this comment in the Deseret News recently regarding a baseball happening in the Dominican Republic:

“A Yankees Dominican Summer League team beat a Twins team 38-2.

“The biggest question among spectators: ‘How did the Twins score a safety?’”

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

 

 

Pre-Season Look At College Football For 2019

I am going to try something new this year – – a pre-season look at college football.  I have been doing an NFL prognostication for more than 15 years now but never did one for college football.  The reason I stayed away from college football is that I was locked into the model that I used for the NFL where I – ridiculously – try to pick the final record for every team in the league.

Being stuck in that mindset, I realized that was an impossibility for college football where there are about 130 teams and where I really do not care much about 75% of them.  But it did seem as if there was something to be done on the subject; and so, I decided to try and look at college football from a pre-season perspective a bit differently from the way I look at the NFL.  If I like the outcome, I’ll make this an annual feature.  If I don’t like the outcome, I’ll try to think of modifications to make it so that I like it next year.  If I hate the outcome, this will be a “one-and-done”.

From the outset, let me say that I cannot even pretend to know much about the roster details of any college football team.  That is a subject I will learn about as I watch college football games and read what local writers have to say about the best and worst teams in the country.  The content here is going to be much more abstract than team-by-team analysis.

Bob Molinaro had this comment recently in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot; it is almost as if he knew what I was going to write here before the first keystroke was struck:

“Quick hit: Speaking of college football, here is all the preseason blather you need in a nutshell: Every team promises to do better. Rinse and repeat.”

With all that as preamble, let me start by talking about coaching changes in college football for this season.  If you assume that 25% of the head coaches get replaced every year, that means there will be between 30 and 35 new head coaches on the sidelines this year.  I don’t care enough about a coaching change at Disco Tech to check the bios and credentials of the coach leaving the job or the new guy coming in.  But there are changes at eight major schools to keep an eye on.

  1. Colorado:  Mike Macintyre is out, and Mel Tucker takes over.  Colorado started out last year on a roll winning the first 5 games of the season including wins over Nebraska, Arizona St., UCLA and rival Colorado St.  Then the wheels came off the wagon and Colorado lost the final 7 games of the season – including a loss at home to a woeful Oregon St. team.
  2. Georgia Tech:  Paul Johnson is out, and Geoff Collins takes over.  Johnson was not fired; he surprisingly resigned his position to be with his family after a lifetime in football.  Collins comes there off two winning seasons at Temple; make no mistake, Georgia Tech is a significant step up the coaching ladder from Temple.  This could be an interesting situation to watch…
  3. Kansas:  David Beaty is out, and Les Miles takes over.  Beaty was the head coach at Kansas for 4 seasons; his teams won a total of 6 games in those 4 seasons.  Miles’ previous college jobs have been at Oklahoma St. and LSU; Kansas is MUCH lower on the food chain than either of those schools.  Notwithstanding that fact, Kansas football has exactly nowhere to go but up.  The last winning season for Kansas was in 2008; since the 2000 season the cumulative record for the Jayhawks has been 75-153.  If Les Miles wins 5 games this year, he will be seen as a miracle worker; it his team wins only twice in 2019, he will be viewed as an overpaid has-been who needs to be run out of town on a rail.
  4. Kansas St.:  Bill Snyder is out, and Chris Klieman takes over.  Snyder is an icon at K-State; his departure is a retirement and nothing else.  It would be an understatement to say that Snyder was the “face of K-State football”; he was the “soul of K-State football”.  Kleiman has the unenviable task of replacing a “legend”; Klieman comes to K-State from North Dakota State which has been a Division 1-AA powerhouse for the last 7 or 8 years.
  5. Maryland:  DJ Durkin is out, and Mike Locksley takes over.  The football program – and the entire athletic department – at Maryland was a hot mess last year.  Locksley was the OC at Alabama last year; his only head coaching gig was at New Mexico where his teams went 2-26 – – and there was more than a little off-field nonsense going on too.  This could be interesting to watch too…
  6. North Carolina:  Larry “The Hat” Fedora is out, and Mack Brown takes over.  UNC was awful last year; the overall record was 2-9. Brown returns to Chapel Hill having been the head coach there from 1988 to 1997; Brown leaves a cushy spot at ESPN to return to the coaching ranks.
  7. Ohio St.:  Urban Meyer is out, and Ryan Day takes over.  Meyer has “retired” once again; if you look at leaving a job as a head coach in college football as akin to divorce, then Meyer is the Za Za Gabor of the Gridiron.  Day coached the Buckeyes to a 4-0 record while Meyer was on “administrative leave” last season.
  8. Texas Tech:  Klif Kingsbury is out, and Matt Wells takes over.  Tech has been known for its prolific offense in recent years, but that has not produced much in terms of winning seasons. In 6 years under Kliff Kingsbury, Tech has only had two winning seasons. Matt Wells was hired to change that status and he will bring a more balanced offense to the field.  How well that might work with a team recruited to play in a different system remains to be seen.

I want to mention only one coaching change at the Division 1-AA level:

  • William and Mary:  Jimmye Laycock is out, and Mike London takes over.  Jimmye Laycock has been the head coach at William and Mary since 1980.  In his 38 seasons there, his teams have gone 249-194-2.  Moreover, 3 people from his program are currently NFL head coaches.  Sean McDermott (Buffalo) and Dan Quinn (Atlanta) were assistants under Laycock; Mike Tomlin (Pittsburgh) played for Laycock.  London played for Laycock and has been the head coach at Richmond, UVa and Howard before taking this job.

The 2018 season saw its share of changes in head coaches around the country.  Some of the new hires made a decent impression while others were “disappointing”.  I think there are six second-year coaches that will be interesting to keep an eye on.  I am listing them alphabetically lest anyone try to read some meaning into the order that is unintended.

  1. Herm Edwards (Arizona St.):  People scoffed when Arizona St. hired him away from ESPN, but Edwards and his staff led the Sun Devils to a bowl game and a 7-6 record.  [Aside:  The Las Vegas line for total wins for Ariz St. last year was 5.]  Edwards is not a prototypical head coach for a college team; if his system continues to work, things will be just fine in Tempe; if the system sputters …
  2. Jimbo Fisher (Texas A&M):  His first season in College Station was 9-4 and the Aggies only lost to Clemson by 2 points.  Every other coach on this list would be thrilled to have had an opening season like that; but that is not what the Aggie boosters opened their wallets to see.  Fisher has a 10-year deal worth $75M to coach at Texas A&M; those folks bankrolling that job expect a lot in return.
  3. Scott Frost (Nebraska):  He was hailed as a savior when he returned to his alma mater as the head coach last year.  Then the team started off 0-6; all was not peaches and cream in Lincoln, NE.  However, the team rallied and went 4-2 in its final 6 games leading Husker fans to think very positively about the 2019 season.  I don’t think another 4-8 season will make Nebraska a “happy place”; there is some pressure here…
  4. Chip Kelly (UCLA):  The Bruins were 3-9 last year and were blown out in 5 of those losses.  If you want to explain that away, you can say that Kelly has his own system for offensive football and that he inherited a squad not recruited to play his style of football.  If you want to be less kind, you can say that Kelly is more stubborn than a mule.  That record needs to improve this year – particularly avoiding losses to out of conference opponents from the All-American Conference and the Mountain West Conference.
  5. Dan Mullen (Florida):  He had Florida in the hunt for the SEC East berth in the SEC Championship Game last year; that slot went to Georgia.  Florida fans expect the same sort of meaningful football again this year.
  6. Willie Taggert (Florida St.):  His first year in Tallahassee was “unacceptable” to Seminole fans.  The team finished 5-7 and did not make a bowl game for the first time in next to forever (1982); moreover, the team looked overmatched in many of its losses six of which were by 19 points or more.  If Florida St. does not make it to bowl eligibility again this year, Taggert may be looking for work elsewhere.

One thing that must be part of any pre-season future cast is the section on “Coaches on a Hot Seat”.  I am going to put a couple of coaches here who are not on a hot seat in the sense that they are likely to be fired at the end of this season; they are here because there are certain expectations for their teams that have not been close to fulfilled so far despite overall success.

  • Chris Ash (Rutgers):  Look, no one with the brains of rutabaga expects Rutgers to be a Top 25 football program.  However, Ash has been on the job at Rutgers for 3 years and his record there is 7-29; last year the Scarlet Knights were 1-11.  The poohbahs at Rutgers may delude themselves into thinking they might actually be able to hire a good coach to come to Rutgers; and then, they might use that delusion to fire Chris Ash.
  • Randy Edsall (UConn):  On one hand his job is very safe because UConn has opted out of its conference and faces the choice of making a go of it as in Independent or dropping down to Division 1-AA – – neither of which would be an attractive lure for a competent coach.  On the other hand, his team last year was historically bad on defense allowing just over 50 points per game and about 9 yards per play to opposing offenses.  Not surprisingly, UConn was 1-11 last year…
  • Jim Harbaugh (Michigan):  He will not be fired by the folks in Ann Arbor, but the fact is that he has not achieved what Michigan fans expected when he was hired 4 years ago.
  • Clay Helton (USC):  He was 5-7 with USC last year; the last time the Trojans had a record that bad was in 2000; the last time they had a worse record than that was in 1991.  Need I say more…?
  • Lovie Smith (Illinois):  The school gave him a 2-year contract extension in this off-season so he may be safe for this year.  But here is the rub; he has been at Illinois for 3 years and his teams have gone 9-27.

The one thing that I do not like about college football is that too many top-shelf teams go out of their way to avoid playing any reasonably competitive games out-of-conference.  There will be mismatches dictated by conference alignments; when Ohio St hosts Rutgers, that is not a scheduling choice that either school has made.  However, some of the very good teams make a mockery of their out-of-conference scheduling decisions.  Here are seven (again in alphabetical order) that deserve a healthy measure of opprobrium:

  1. Alabama: Duke, New Mexico St. So. Mississippi and Western Carolina.  Duke is at a neutral site; the other three games are home games for Alabama. Really …
  2. Florida St.:  Boise St., La-Monroe, Alabama St and Florida.  Florida is a traditional game; the other three games are embarrassing choices.
  3. Ohio St.:  Florida Atlantic, Cincinnati, Miami (OH).  Surprise, all those games are in Columbus, OH…
  4. Oklahoma St.:  Oregon St., McNeese St. Tulsa.  A smidgen of good news here is that only the McNeese St. game is a home game for the Cowboys.
  5. Penn St.:  Idaho, Buffalo, Pitt.  All are home games; the game against Pitt is the reincarnation of what used to be a big rivalry, but still …
  6. Texas A&M:  Yes, they play Clemson out of conference.  They also chose to schedule Texas St., Lamar and Texas-San Antonio.  Please…
  7. Va Tech:  Yes, they play Notre Dame out of conference.  They also chose to schedule Old Dominion, Furman and Rhode Island.  Seriously …

Compare those out-of-conference choices with just one other team that should compete for the National Championship this year:

  • Clemson:  They play Georgia Tech, Texas A&M, Syracuse and UNC-Charlotte.

Also, compare some of that cupcake scheduling against independents such as Notre Dame and BYU.  Yes, I know that Notre Dame can schedule just about anyone that it wants because it will result in a nice payday for both schools.  Nonetheless, Notre Dame could opt to schedule the Little Sisters of the Poor and Our Lady of the Amputees; the fact is that they do not, and you know they do not.  You may not be nearly as familiar with the independent schedule that BYU has assembled for itself:

  • The first four games are:  Utah, Tennessee, USC, Washington
  • It gets a tad easier after that with games against Liberty and Idaho State.

Looking over the schedules for some of the teams that appear to be “top teams” for 2019, I have identified six games in the first month of the season that should be fun to watch as well as instructive as to what may come later in the season:

  1. Oregon/Auburn (31 August):  Auburn is a competitive SEC West team and the SEC West is the best division in the best conference in the US.  Oregon has QB, Justin Herbert, returning for his senior year; he could have declared for the NFL Draft in April and might have been the first QB selected.  This is a neutral site game (Arlington, TX).
  2. LSU at Texas (September 7):  Both teams – and many of their fans – consider the Tigers and the Longhorns as serious contenders for the national championship.  I don’t agree – – but this will be an interesting game to watch just to get a yardstick on these teams.
  3. Texas A&M at Clemson (September 7):  Last year’s game was a 2-point win for Clemson.  I would not be surprised to see this game end as a “one-possession game”.  Two of the best college QBs will be on display here – – Kellen Mond for the Aggies and Trevor Lawrence for the Tigers.
  4. Washington St. at Houston (September 13):  I predict the Total Line for this game will be at least 80 points.  If you like tight defensive battles, just avert your eyes…
  5. Texas Tech at Arizona (September 14):  This should be another offensive explosion driven by the two QBs – Alan Bowman (Tech) and Khalil Tate (Arizona).
  6. Notre Dame at Georgia (September 21):  The Irish were undefeated in the regular season last year; Georgia lost twice  – once to LSU and another time to Alabama; neither loss was embarrassing.  Both teams hope to be part of the national championship conversation in November/December.

I do need to make some observations about specific teams and their prospects for the upcoming season just to prove that I can embarrass myself at the college football level as well as I do at the NFL.  So, here are five generalized team predictions (in alphabetical order) for some teams in 2019:

  1. Arizona:  The Wildcats were 5-7 last year but – presumably – they will have a healthy Khalil Tate this year.  They have a relatively soft out-of-conference lineup and the PAC-12 South is not the toughest division in the country.  I think Arizona will be a winning team in 2019.
  2. Duke:  The Blue Devils were 8-5 last year using a QB who was drafted #6 overall in this year’s NFL Draft.  Coach Cutcliffe is reputed to be a QB-whisperer; unless he has a willing and talented listener for this year’s squad, it may be a stretch to see Duke winning 8 games again this year.
  3. Kentucky:  The Wildcats were 10-3 last year and two of the three losses were to very good teams (Texas A&M and Georgia); they finished 12th in the final poll for the season.  They won playing tough defense and using a grinding offense featuring Benny Snell.  The defense may continue to be tough, but Snell and his 16 TDs are gone.  I will be surprised if Kentucky comes close to winning 10 games again this year.
  4. Nebraska:  The Huskers were 4-8 last year but they were 4-2 in the final half of their season.  Adrian Martinez developed nicely as a true freshman at QB toward the end of last year and the schedule sets up favorably in terms of home and away games.  Nebraska should be bowl eligible and may win 8 games in 2019.
  5. Tennessee:  The Vols were 5-7 last year with a new head coach and a new system.  They have a soft out-of-conference schedule that should provide 4 wins.  Their SEC schedule is difficult, but Tennessee ought to be able to win 7 games this year.

I need to mention here a specific player and program.  Jalen Hurts will be the Oklahoma starting QB after transferring there from Alabama.  Two years ago, Baker Mayfield was the starting QB there; he won the Heisman Trophy and was the #1 overall pick in the NFL Draft.  Last year, Kyler Murray was the starting QB there; he won the Heisman Trophy and was the #1 overall pick in the NFL Draft.  No pressure on Jalen Hurts this year … right …?

I need to mention here that Division III Linfield College will enter the 2019 season riding a 63-year streak of winning seasons in football dating back to 1956.  I will be keeping you abreast of their progress toward another such season in “Football Fridays” again this year.  If there is a longer streak of seasonal success in a team sport in the US, I am not aware of it.

Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times regarding college football – – and one of its more colorful characters:

“Washington State football coach Mike Leach, to ESPN, when asked how he’d like to be remembered when his obituary is written: ‘Well, that’s their problem … What do I care? I’m dead.’”

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

 

 

Work Together…

About a week ago, the Washington Post ran a long story on the status of the NFL/NFLPA negotiations over a new CBA under this headline and sub-head:

  • A LIFETIME SPOILING FOR A FIGHT
  • NFLPA’S Smith warns of coming labor battle – and is ready to dig in

I do not doubt that there will be acrimony in these negotiations and I do not doubt that NFLPA leader, DeMaurice Smith, will need to do more than put up a “good fight” given that he has been accused of getting a not-so-good deal for the players in the last round of negotiations.  In addition, there has been plenty of reporting over the past year or so that there is some personal animus in the relationship between Smith and NFL Commish, Roger Goodell.

However, before we get sidetracked on secondary issues such as length of practices at training camp or the number of days devoted to OTA’s in the off-season or some proposed rule change involving pass interference calls, allow me focus on the big issue first.  That big issue should lead the reporters and commentators covering these negotiations to take the advice given to Bob Woodward back in Watergate days:

  • Follow the Money

The NFL is a $15-16B enterprise, and the owners and players share that money.  THE biggest issue by far is what percentage of that money goes to the owners and what percentage goes to the players.  If the sides find a way to come to an agreement there, NO OTHER ISSUE will hold up a finalized CBA.

The second most important issue is how the NFL and the NFLPA can work TOGETHER to increase the total revenue taken in by the league.  That is important because either side can do damage to this enterprise if they go into a prolonged work stoppage and/or they engage in behaviors that turn off the fans.  The way for BOTH sides to benefit is to grow the league revenue and that means they need to work together.

The two issues outlined above can be intertwined.  As I read the current CBA – and I admit that I do not understand it fully – it seems to me that the players get 47% of one category of revenue and 48.5% of a smaller category of revenue.  Let me posit here that the players are getting 47.5% of the football revenue – however that is defined.  Obviously, each side wants a larger percentage during the life of the next CBA; moreover, the owners would like to skim some revenue off the top for things like a “stadium building and rehabilitation fund”.  The fundamental issue is that the sides may haggle over the percentage of the split, but it is in the interest of neither side to do anything that takes the game off television or takes the game off the betting boards in the various states that now allow sports betting.  To make that happen is self-immolation.

The media coverage ought not to focus on the “spoiling for a fight” aspect of these negotiations; the real story here is what are the activities going on in the background while each side holds their press conferences to air their side of the story.  Not much of substance happens in that arena; the real reporting ought to be what is happening in the talks that are taking place in private.

There is a situation ongoing in college football where – similarly – there is a relatively simple solution to a problem but any movement toward that simple solution has gotten no media traction.  The issue is the ability of players to transfer from one school to another and the waiver system that allows some of them to play without sitting out a season while others must miss a year.  Michigan coach, Jim Harbaugh, enunciated a solution that would work to resolve this issue.  Here it is:

“My opinion is that every student-athlete should have a one-time ability to transfer and will not have to sit out a year.  I’d keep the graduate-transfer rule in place that we have right now.”

That may or may not be perfect – – but it is far better than the waiver-application process via the transfer portal with subsequent approvals or denials of waiver applications by some faceless NCAA adjudication entity.  And now, here is why that simple and direct solution to this problem will never happen:

  1. The language there is clear and unambiguous.  It was stated in 34 words and not 34 pages of paragraphs and nested sub-paragraphs with multiple uses of the words, “whereas”, “however”, “moreover”, “in light of”, “accompanying” … you get the idea.
  2. More importantly, this process would require no oversight and no approval by any of the poohbahs in the NCAA hierarchy.  It would put the student-athletes in charge of their own lives/careers.  Anyone who thinks that is a prime objective at NCAA headquarters likely also thinks one needs to be a Medal of Honor recipient to order a Hero Sandwich.

As we approach August, MLB still has 5 teams on track to lose 100 games in 2019.

  1. Tigers project to lose 113 games
  2. Orioles project to lose 107 games
  3. Royals project to lose 102 games
  4. Blue Jays project to lose 101 games
  5. Marlins project to lose 100 games

Finally, here is an item I found in Dwight Perry’s column, Sideline Chatter, in the Seattle Times:

“Brewers pitcher Jhoulys Chacin walked in three straight runs with the bases loaded.

“Lovers of the George Foreman Grill are just dying to know: So when is Jhoulys Chacin Wok Night?”

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

 

 

A Mixture Of Stuff …

I want to clean up some odds and ends on my clipboard today.  I’ll start with the announcements earlier this week that ESPN has added two more former football players to its commentary ranks.

  1. Mark Sanchez will call his NFL career quits and move on to the next phase of his life as a studio analyst for college football.  He will replace Mack Brown at ESPN since Brown left to take on the head coaching job at UNC.  This is a “reunion” of sorts for Sanchez.  He joins ESPN which also employs Rex Ryan as an NFL studio analyst and Ryan was Sanchez’ first coach in the NFL with the Jets.
  2. Rob Ninkovich has been out of the NFL since 2017 and he will join ESPN as an NFL studio analyst.  The announcement of his hiring indicated that he would be working on TV and on ESPN Radio.

There was not a lot of ballyhoo when NBC Sports Network hired a color analyst for its presentation of the Tour de France.  There are probably two reasons for that:

  1. The Tour de France probably draws ratings similar to infomercials for some sort of kitchen gadget that run at 3:00 AM.
  2. The analyst they hired to do commentary for a bike race was Lance Armstrong.

The analogy that leaps to mind here is that Lance Armstrong doing color commentary for the Tour de France is about as apropos as the Food Network naming Hannibal Lecter as its next Iron Chef.

Prior to the Manny Pacquiao/Keith Thurman fight last week, Bob Molinaro had this comment in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot regarding the challenge facing Pacquiao (age 40) and Roger Federer (age 38) as they continue to compete against younger men in their sports:

“Ringwise: At 40, Manny Pacquiao will fight 30-year-old unbeaten American Keith Thurman on Saturday for the welterweight title. Federer is going strong at almost 38, but that doesn’t compare with what Pacquiao signed up for. Philosopher and former heavyweight Randall ‘Tex’ Cobb once said it best: ‘If you screw things up in tennis, it’s 15-0. If you screw up in boxing, it’s your ass.’”

Lorenzen Wright was a former first round pick out of Memphis by the LA Clippers in 1996.  He had a journeyman career that lasted 13 seasons.  He was found shot to death in 2010.   According to a report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “[his] body was found riddled with gunshot wounds in a swampy field…”  I guess the police quickly ruled out the possibility of suicide.

Earlier this week, his former wife pleaded guilty to “facilitation of first-degree murder” in the matter.  That same report in the Review-Journal says that his wife masterminded a plot to kill Lorenzen Wright at his home in Atlanta but that attempt failed.  Then, his wife and another man conspired to kill Wright in Memphis which is where Wright’s body was found after he had been missing for 10 days.

Here is a link to the report in the Review-Journal.  When I read it, my reaction was along the lines of – – you have got to be bleeping kidding me…

Moving on to a topic related to today’s NBA, the current CBA there allows for something called a supermax contract to be awarded to players who meet certain criteria.  The idea is a good one; the results have been not-so-good.  The idea was to reward veteran players who are of star-caliber to sign contracts worth up to 35% of the team salary cap.  To qualify for such a supermax, here is what the player needs to do:

  • The player must be on the team that owns their rookie rights.
  • The player must have completed 8 years in the NBA
  • The player must have achieved at least one of these honors along the way – won the MVP Award in any of the previous 3 seasons – or – won Defensive Player of the Year in the year before the supermax is negotiated or won it in the two previous seasons to the negotiation – or – made one of the All-NBA Teams in the year prior to the supermax negotiations.

Those are stringent requirements; as you might expect, there are not a lot of supermax contracts out there.  The problem here is that there are five supermax contracts out there and two of them are – candidly – “albatross contracts”.

  • John Wall is signed for 4 years and $171M by the Wizards.  He is injured and will miss all next year; his value to a team is totally dependent on his speed and the injury is to his foot and Achilles tendon.  Assuming he returns to play in the Fall of 2020, he will be 30 years old at the time.
  • Russell Westbrook is signed for 5 years and $206.8M.  His value to a team depends on his athleticism; he is 30 years old now.  He was recently traded from the Thunder to the Rockets demonstrating to my mind that the Thunder recognized that he might not be worth the sort of financial commitment they made to him.

My problem with the concept behind the supermax goes beyond the devastation it can wreak on a team when something like an injury corrals 35% of their salary cap space.  My problem is that the third criterion above depends on the vote of media personnel to qualify a player for a supermax deal.  Why is that a good idea?

Finally, here is an observation related to the NBA by Brad Rock of the Deseret News:

“NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said at a press conference that he values a competitive balance among teams, whereby ‘strong management is rewarded.’

“Knicks: ‘What are YOU lookin’ at?’”

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