Author: Jack

The NFL is big on keeping its brand – The Shield – in the collective face of the US sporting public.  About the only thing that motivates the NFL more is to keep its brand in front of the public in a benign/glowing/favorable light.  I find all the previous commentary to be self-evident.  [Apologies to Thomas Jefferson for using that construction so close to July 4^th …]

It is because of the league’s dedication to continuous positive imagery presented to the public that I find this next item incongruous at best and downright dumb most of the time:

• Laurent Duvernay-Tardif is an offensive guard for the KC Chiefs.  He just completed med school (McGill University in Canada) while he was an active player.  He took classes during the off-season when he had time on his own.
• He wanted the name on the back of his jersey to read “Duvernay-Tardif M.D.”   After all, that is what he is; he is a medical doctor.
• The NFL said, “No!”

I understand that the NFL image mavens want to maintain control over what can and cannot be displayed on player nameplates during games.  After all, the NFL could not possibly continue to exist if some player took advantage of a lax ruling here and wore a jersey nameplate that read “He Hate Me” or “Who Gives A S[p]it?”  It seems to me that there is a 40-acre field here between “Duvernay-Tardif M.D.” and “He Hate Me”; the NFL must see this as an incredibly steeply inclined slope that is covered with black ice.

I believe that Duvernay-Tardif is the first active player to complete his med school requirements and classes while still maintaining himself as an NFL roster denizen.  Frankly, I find the successful blending of those two endeavors to be inspiring and I find it some thing that should be seen as laudatory at several levels.  Clearly, there are those who work at 345 Park Avenue in NYC who do not see these accomplishments in nearly the same light.  I think that the NFL could benefit greatly by having announcers point out that Duvernay-Tardif – after a great play that was captured on replay for all to see – was more than just a “dumb jock”; Duvernay-Tardif was a med school graduate.  I don’t see how that sort of publicity could hurt The Shield but I am not in the PR world…

In Waco, TX, there has been an ongoing “football-related story” that has been far less than laudatory for the team and for Baylor University which had been the locus of that team.  After some gut-wrenching stories and times, Baylor fired its football coach and its AD and is trying to reboot itself with an image that is something less loathsome than Dr. Josef Mengele.  There was a report produced by an independent law firm hired by the university to “clear the air”.  It seemed as if that report would allow the university to “turn the corner” with a new sports administration and a new football coaching staff in place.

Perhaps that sentiment was premature …  Here is a column written by Kevin Sherrington in the Dallas Morning News.  Here is the third paragraph of that column:

“Because of Baylor’s decision to gloss over the actual facts – whether out of misguided intentions to shield the innocent or in an attempt to cover up guilty parties – the university needs to start all over and get it right this time.”

Obviously, I would recommend that you follow this link to see the entirety of Kevin Sherrington’s argumentation in support of that directive.  I will only say that if he is only partially on the right track, this situation is still a gigantic hot mess.

Eight national teams remain in the World Cup.  Let me declare a bias here before I comment:

• On my recent trip to the Balkans – much of the reason I was off the air for about a month – our trip leader was Croatian.  Since the US (my country) did not make the tournament nor did Italy (my heritage), I promised our trip leader that I would root for Croatia in this tournament.  Full disclosure there…

The best team I have seen so far in the games I have been able to watch for more than the highlight reels is Brazil closely followed by Belgium.  Those teams will meet tomorrow and the winner will play the winner of the France/Uruguay match.  That end of the quarterfinals bracket houses much the better teams.  In the other bracket, Croatia looks to be better than Russia, and England has seemingly exorcised the ghosts that have haunted that team for the last 30 years or so making a Croatia/England contest for a berth in the Final Game a possibility.

True to my word, I am pulling for Croatia.  Having said that, my guess for the Final Game contestants would be:

• Belgium versus England

Even if you profess not to like soccer, let me urge you to tune into these games with even a semi-open mind.  If you do, you will see some amazing athletic action.

Finally, Japan advanced to the “knock-out round” – – only to be knocked out” – – based on fewer yellow cards than Senegal.  Here is how Scott Ostler summed up all of that in the SF Chronicle:

“Was anyone pleased with Senegal being knocked out of the World Cup on the fair-play tiebreaker, based on more yellow cards? I know Draymond Green voted against that rule.

“Soccer fans wonder, if Senegal and Japan had had an equal number of yellow cards, what would the next tie-breaker have been? Answer: The team with the best haircuts advances.”

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

 

 

Happy Fourth of July to everyone.  Try to take a moment today during barbecues and fireworks to reflect on the “blessings of liberty” that the Founding Fathers “secured” for us – their posterity.  Or, as a morning DJ used to say to his audience back in the 50s and 60s:

“To be sure to have a safe Fourth, don’t buy a fifth on the third.”  [ /Bill Wright Sr.]

A couple of days ago, I said that there would be a lot of blathering about the meaning of Lebron James “taking his talents’ to Los Angeles.  Indeed, there has been some formulaic pabulum on that topic.  However, there have been some standout pieces too and – not surprisingly – Sally Jenkins’ column in the Washington Post about the co-existence of Lavar Ball and LeBron James was superb.  I am not capable of distilling it down to a few sentences because it is too insightful to deserve that treatment.  Here is a link to her column; please go and read it in its entirety.

The other big move in NBA free agency is the Warriors signing “Boogie” Cousins.  I see this as a stress test for the ”professional equanimity potion” that Steve Kerr has clearly been able to dispense to his squad over the past several years.  Cousins has been a temperamental handful over the course of his time in the NBA; Draymond Green is hardly a wallflower; this could be interesting to watch.  The reason I would give this a “better than 50/50 chance at success” is the way the Warriors as a team and as a coaching staff assimilated JaVale McGee last season.  To say that McGee’s career history was a tad “flaky” would be a most polite assessment.  Nevertheless, with the Warriors he played and behaved professionally.  So may be the Warriors’ magic can rub off on “Boogie” too …?

USA Today published a list of the collegiate athletic departments with the most revenue in 2016/17.  The report only includes data from public colleges and universities because the records of those institutions is part of the public record and can be obtained regularly and reliably by journalistic outlets.  Looking at which schools were on the list provided only mild surprise; looking at the order of the “Top Ten”  provided a couple of surprises.  Here is the “Top Ten”:

1. Texas  $215M
2. Texas A&M  $212M
3. Ohio St.  $185M
4. Michigan  $185M
5. Alabama  $174M
6. Georgia  $158M
7. Oklahoma  $155M
8. Florida  $149M
9. LSU  $148M
10. Auburn  $148M

Here are my “surprises” from that list and from the total revenues:

• I am surprised that Alabama is $41M below Texas and $36M below Texas A&M.
• I am surprised that Oregon is not in the “Top Ten”.
• I am surprised that Oklahoma St. is not in the Top Ten”.

I am not the least bit surprised to see that Ohio State and Michigan have the same total revenue to 3 significant figures.  What else might we find for those two schools to compete in head-to-head?

More importantly, we should all look at the revenue totals for these “Top Ten” athletic departments and remind ourselves that we enable a system whereby those athletic departments maintain the pure fiction that they are ‘non-profit entities” which means:

• They file and pay no tax on those revenues and their attendant profits
• Donations to those programs are eligible as “charitable donations”.

Your Congressthing; your Senators; the IRS – under the policy direction of multiple Presidential Administrations from all over the political spectrum – are the ones that created and maintained this giant fiction.

On this July 4^th, as you ponder the “blessings of liberty” passed down to us from the Founding Fathers, please also reflect on the fecklessness and the moral cowardice of our current crop of legislators as they allow that nonsensical status quo to continue to obtain.

I understand fully that the Mountain West Conference is not one of the “big boy conferences” in college football.  Nevertheless, the conference has passed a “Serious Misconduct Rule” which will make any student-athlete ineligible for any sort of scholarship money or for any athletic teams that compete inter-collegiately.  When I read the headline(s) announcing this new rule, I was skeptical; I figured that the bar for “Serious Misconduct” would be so high that Lizzie Borden would have slipped under it comfortably.  Or, possibly the certification of the “Serious Misconduct” would only apply after a conviction in a court of law that had been held up on appeal.  I was wrong; it seems that the Mountain West Conference has gotten itself out ahead of the rest of the collegiate athletic world in this area.

• The “Serious Misconduct Rule” covers as any act of sexual violence, domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, sexual exploitation or any assault that employs the use of a deadly weapon or causes serious bodily injury.
• The rule takes effect in the 2019-20 academic year for student-athletes already in MWC schools and for MWC’s prospective student-athletes beginning with the Dec. 2019, signing period.

The devil is in the details – and in this case the value of this rule is in the way and degree to which it is enforced.  Let me turn off my “skeptic mode” just a moment and say that I really hope this rule is tightly enforced and that other conferences use it as a template to do similar things in those other conferences.

Finally, on this 4^th of July, take a moment to think upon this comment from comedienne, Lily Tomlin:

“Ninety eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.”

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

 

 

At the end of last season, the Mets fired their manager, Terry Collins.  The Mets were disappointing in 2017 and reports said that some of the players were at odds with Collins; it is always easier to fire a manager than it is to change out a bunch of players so that is what the Mets did.  In early April, the Mets’ braintrust looked like Nobel Laureates; the Mets started the 2018 season 11-1.  No one thought that sort of performance would obtain for the rest of the season; similarly, no one thought at the time that how the Mets have performed since early April was going to happen.

As of this morning, the Mets’ record stands at 33-48; that puts them all of 1 game ahead of the Miami Marlins who have the worst record in the National League.  Since their torrid start, the Mets are 22-47.  Their new manager, Mickey Callaway, seems to be learning on the job; this is his first managerial assignment.

Just as it was incorrect for the Mets – and their fans – to blame Collins last year for the team’s disappointing result, it would be wrong to put all of this failure on Callaway.  The problem is the roster itself.  The Mets have two excellent starting pitchers and not a whole lot else.  No one is batting over .280; only 2 of their 8 starting position players is younger than 31.  As a team, the Mets are hitting .231 (second worst in the NL); they are also second worst in the NL in runs scored and they are dead last in the NL in Total Bases.  The roster is a mess.

And I have not even gotten started on the contract that the Mets gave to Yoenis Cespedes in 2016.  They signed him to a 4-year deal worth $110M even though Cespedes had shown very clearly that his play and his approach to the game was lackadaisical-at-best before he got that big fat contract.  Lots of players have exhibited what I call “Fat Wallet Syndrome” after getting a huge contract; Cespedes was doing everything except posting billboards saying

• I Can’t Wait To Show You What Fat Wallet Syndrome REALLY Means!

The Mets have Cespedes through the 2020 season.  He makes $29M this year; he will make $29M next year; he will make $29.5M in 2020.  Who thought that was a good idea?

The Marlins are in a full-blown “tear down and rebuild” situation.  To get there, they unloaded their best players and Giancarlo Stanton brought them a bunch of prospects.  If the Mets were to try to take a similar course and to trade away Cespedes, I doubt that he would bring much in a trade.  [Aside: It will be doubly difficult to trade Cespedes because in addition to the $110M in the contract, there is also a FULL no-trade clause in there too.]  Oh, and just to put icing on the cake, Cespedes is hurt and has missed the last 40 games or so.  Unsurprisingly, there is no timetable for his return…

Speaking obliquely about baseball managers and winning baseball games, I am already getting tired of the worshipping at the altar of Advanced Analytics by so many of the young managers today.  I understand the concepts of probability theory and I am relatively facile with mathematics.  Nonetheless, analytics – – even Advanced Analytics – – are not mandatory for guiding MLB teams to victory.

• There is no evidence to show that Connie Mack was a mathematical genius.  He somehow found a way to win 3,731 games as a manger.
• John McGraw was never nominated for the Nobel Prize in Mathematics [Aside: I know that there is no such prize; this is hyperbole.]  He was on the bench 2,763 times when his team won the game.
• Joe McCarthy was never spotted in a dugout wearing out a slide rule and yet he managed to win 2,125 games in MLB AND he is the only manager in baseball history to win 1,000 games or more and to have a winning percentage over .600.

In case you have not been keeping track, New Jersey has been taking bets on sporting events for the last month or so and the integrity of MLB, the NBA and the NFL has not come crashing down.  Call this situation Doomsday Postponed.

In a similar vein, the NCAA shockingly came down on the correct side of what could have been a hugely hypocritical position for them.  I am hard-pressed to recall the last time this institution did so, but I will refrain from calling this a “first”.  Here is what happened:

• As professional leagues try to extort money from casinos by asking for “integrity fees” that nominally would cover the leagues’ costs to monitor the integrity of their games now that gambling on them can be done on a coast-to-coast basis, the NCAA announced that it would not do that.
• Take a deep breath here; the NCAA shut off the possibility of a revenue stream.
• Of course, the reality is that the NCAA does not do anything that is very effective when it comes to protecting the integrity of its games.  Previous point-shaving scandals have come to light when casinos and law enforcement officials have gotten wind of something and then let the NCAA in on it ex post facto.
• Basically, the NCAA just got a lot more sportsbook people involved with their games meaning there are extra sets of eyes out there looking to see if anyone is trying to score a betting coup.  And, mane no mistake, the sportsbook folks have a keen interest in preventing such occurrences.

It is not common in these parts to hand out kudos to the NCAA for much of anything other than their presentation of March Madness.  However, the NCAA deserves credit for this decision.  They did the right thing here.

Before I give then an unvarnished A+ on this matter however, I should note that the NCAA did leave the door ajar just a sliver here.  While it will not seek any “integrity fees” from casinos, it did say that member schools may pursue such fees from casinos in their states if the schools choose to do so.

Finally, here is a reassuring note from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times:

“News flash: Barkley, 15 others to appear in ESPN the Magazine’s 10th annual Body Issue.

“Relax, folks — it’s Saquon, not Charles.”

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

 

 

LeBron James performed a massive public service over the weekend.  Instead of dragging out his decision – – The Decision Redux? – – as to where he would be “taking his talents” beginning with the next NBA season.  LeBron will play for the Lakers and has signed a 4-year deal worth $154M.  Please ignore all of the self-serving commentary you will hear from LeBron and the Lakers in the next 72 hours; please ignore the bazillion NBA commentary/essays that will appear in the next 72 hours purporting to “clarify for you” what this signing means and signifies.  Such statements and commentaries are pure blather.

Dwight Howard got traded again.  Reports say that the Hornets shipped him off to the Nets for Timofey Mozgov and a second-round pick.  Howard was a certified stud when he was playing for the Magic; he led the league in rebounding 4 times and in blocked shots 2 times in his 8 seasons there.  That ended in 2012 when Howard “took his talents” to LA to play for the Lakers; since then he has become a vagabond.  If/when he reports to the Nets – or any other NBA team in October 2018, it will be Dwight Howard’s 5^th team since 2012 and four teams in the last four years.  Yikes!  Howard’s contract calls for him to earn $23.8M next year and then for him to be an unrestricted free agent.

Switching over to NFL news, Jameis Winston has been suspended for 3 games at the start of the 2018 season for a violation of the Personal Conduct Policy.  A female Uber driver has accused him of grabbing her by the crotch while she was taking him from Point A to Point B.  Winston has said that he had been drinking and cannot recall the details of that evening.

I am not interested in trying to litigate the allegations here so let me get a couple of things out of the way without any equivocation:

1. No woman should ever be “grabbed by the crotch” unwillingly.  Period.  End of message.  There are no “mitigating circumstances”.
2. This is not the first time that a woman has made allegations against Jameis Winston that involve unwanted or forced actions of a “sexual nature”.
3. The presumption of innocence – guaranteed in the US Constitution – demands that we all declare that Jameis Winston has never been proven to be a sexual predator in a court of law.

With all of that out of the way, the NFL’s action and posture in this matter is befuddling.  After the blunder that followed the “Ray Rice Incident” – wherein Ray Rice got a 2-game suspension for knocking his future wife to her knees on an elevator captured on video – the NFL adopted a Personal Conduct Policy that set the bar at a 6-game suspension for actions involving domestic violence.  Recall that in 2017, Ezekiel Elliott got a 6-game suspension for that same sort of violation.

So … the current question open for analysis is:

• Why/How did Jameis Winston get a suspension that is half as long as what the NFL’s policy demands and is half as long as what Ezekiel Elliott got just last year?

In order to try and understand all of this, I thought that the best way would be to look at what the NFL itself said about all of this in the announcement of the punishment and the closure of the matter.  The NFL said in its statement that Jameis Winston touched an Uber driver:

“… in an inappropriate and sexual manner without her consent.”

The NFL statement also included this comment:

“In addition, a future violation of the Personal Conduct Policy will result in more substantial discipline, including a potential ban from the NFL.”

OK, so now that you know what the NFL has to say about handing down a suspension that is half of what the league policy calls for and half of what Ezekiel Elliott got last year, can you give me a logical explanation?  If this is the best logical explanation, then the NFL and its so-called Personal Conduct Policy should be exposed for what it is:

• An arbitrary and capricious use of authority granted to the Commissioner by the NFLPA in the last round of labor negotiations in exchange for more revenue being devoted to the salary cap.

This is off the top of my head and so there may be other “precedents” involved here.  It does seem to me that the 6-game suspension rule is not followed in more than a few cases.  Nonetheless, consider:

• Josh Brown got a 1-game suspension for a domestic violence incident.
• Junior Galette got a 2-game suspension for a domestic violence incident.  (This is the “Ray Rice punishment” after the fact and after the announcement of a new policy standard.)
• Joseph Randle got a 4-game suspension for an incident that involved domestic violence plus a firearm.

[Aside:  Randle’s 4-game suspension was the same punishment handed down to Tom Brady for a charge not yet proven conclusively related to under-inflated footballs.  I must be missing something here regarding the severity of the potential/alleged violations of NFL rules/policies here.]

If you get the idea here that I think the NFL is bending over backwards not to drop the hammer on a young Black QB who continues to show that his maturity level and his self-control mechanisms are inadequate, you would be most correct.  Nonetheless, I feel in good company because this is what Scott Ostler of the SF Chronicle had to say about this matter:

“Suggestion for the lawyers and agents of Jameis Winston: When you release a statement on Winston’s Facebook account, listen to how he talks and try to make the statement sound like him. Not: ‘In the past two years my life has been filled with experiences, opportunities and events that have helped me grow, mature and learn.’ Is that his valedictory speech?

“Apparently one of those growth opportunities was the groping of a female Uber driver.”

Finally, since I invoked the name and the commentary of Scott Ostler just above, let me close today with another of his observations regarding the NFL and its rules and policies:

“If you want to see an NFL owner sweat, ask him what will happen if Marshawn Lynch continues to sit out the national anthem. The owners are hoping and praying that their new anthem rule will make that sticky situation go away, and Lynch could be the wild card. Good luck, owners, on getting a feel for what Lynch might be thinking. He sits out the anthem, on the Raiders’ bench, surrounded by team staffers trying to hide him. Lynch never explains why he’s sitting. And he doesn’t like being told what to do. And the Raiders don’t want to punish Lynch and risk alienating Oakland fans. Tick, tick …”

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

 

 

Back on May 1, six teams in MLB were on track to lose 100 games this year – – and the Reds projected to lose 123 games.  I do not have the inclination to check the numbers, but I doubt that there has ever been a season in MLB where that happened.  Those teams were:

1. Marlins
2. Orioles
3. Padres
4. Reds
5. Royals
6. White Sox

Here we are almost two months later and what do we have:

1. Marlins now project to lose only 99 games.  I wonder if that will engender a spike in attendance in South Florida.
2. Orioles now project to lose 115 games.  Buck Showalter has managed 20 years in MLB; his teams have never lost more than 97 games in a season.
3. Padres now project to lose 92 games.  The improvement here comes despite a 2-8 record in the Padres’ last 10 games.
4. Reds now project to lose 95 games.  That is a major improvement over the past 2 months under new manager Jim Riggleman.
5. Royals now project to lose 111 games.  The Royals are in a weak division and are the weakest of the weak.
6. White Sox now project to lose 105 games.  The White Sox are in the same division as the Royals; enough said about the AL Central.

If all these projections at the halfway point of the season pan out, there will be 3 teams in the AL that will have lost more than 100 games in the 2018 season.  Economists often talk about “income inequality”; this year’s AL standings could show a humongous “victory inequality”.

For at least the last two decades, I have advocated moving the Preakness Stakes to somewhere other than Pimlico Race Course and have suggested on several occasions that Pimlico had all the charm and elegance of an upholstered toilet.  Friends and acquaintances who live in the Baltimore area or who are from Baltimore always reacted as if I had desecrated a religious icon.  My response was always that I call ‘em like I see ‘em.

It seems that my bordering-on-sacrilegious statements may be taking root elsewhere in the minds of folks who might do something about this.  Here is the lead paragraph from an article in the Baltimore Business Journal from yesterday:

“A top city official said Thursday he was ‘cautiously optimistic’ that the Preakness would remain in Baltimore.”

Evidently, the owners of Pimlico – who also happen to own Laurel Race Course about 30 miles from Pimlico – have estimated that it will take $300M to redevelop and modernize the Pimlico facility.  The city-fathers in Baltimore have some ideas of their own wherein not only does Pimlico Race Course get modernized; the whole neighborhood in the Pimlico area gets redeveloped into a “race track and entertainment hub”.  Here is a link to the article from yesterday if you are interested in the current state of events.

It has been quite a while since I have been to Pimlico for a day of racing; my guess is that my last visit was around 2002 or 2003.  I recognize that neighborhoods can change a lot – for better or worse – in 15 years but my sense is that the neighborhood surrounding Pimlico will cost at least as much to renovate as the estimated $300M needed to make the track into something worth the trouble to visit.  If the city government in Baltimore wants to redevelop/improve the neighborhood, that would be a good idea – – but there does not have to be a racetrack in the middle of the newly improved neighborhood to make the project work.  My position remains the same:

• The Preakness should be run at Laurel – about 15 miles south of Baltimore city.
• Pimlico should be razed and the land put to whatever productive use the owners and the city can agree upon.
• The City of Baltimore has plenty of other things to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on to make life in the city better for lots of residents there.

NFL Futures bets are not pari-mutuel; the odds are not calculated with a simple and widely known formula.  However, NFL futures bets do reflect generally the sense of the betting public.  When a lot of money shows up on a team, the sportsbooks reduce the odds for anyone making a wager after the change of odds.  As of this morning, the Cleveland Browns are 66-1 to win the Super Bowl in February 2019.  Yes, that is the one at the end of this season.  Recall that the Browns have only won one NFL game in the last two years.

You can use that information to consider that the Browns may be significantly improved this year, or you can look at that information and think that some people have more money than brains or … whatever.  I think there is a way to look at this that goes beyond the Browns.  There are 7 NFL teams that are at longer odds than the Browns to win the Super Bowl.  They are:

1. Arizona Cardinals  75-1
2. Washington Skins  75-1
3. Buffalo Bills  80-1
4. Chicago Bears  100-1
5. Cincinnati Bengals 100-1
6. Miami Dolphins  100-1
7. NY Jets  100-1.

The Browns play the Bengals twice this year and the Jets will come to visit the Browns for a Thursday Night Football extravaganza in Week 3.  Might those opponents use these odds as “bulletin-board material” prior to those games?

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

Ant:  An insect of the family Formicidae, colonies of which have been around for 130 million years and have succeeded in occupying almost every landmass on earth.  Kind of puts your bachelor’s in business administration in perspective, doesn’t it?”

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

 

 

It is not often that I can start a rant with a Biblical reference.  Everyone can open their Bibles now to Ecclesiastes Chapter 1 and Verse 9:

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”

[Full disclosure:  I remembered that this was a Bible verse, but it was Google that let me identify where in the Bible is was.]

In the world of sports and television, the old has become the new as of this morning.  Reports say that FOX and the WWE have gotten together on a 5-year deal that will put 2 hours of live professional ‘rassling on network TV every week.  Back in the infancy of television, pro ‘rassling was on the air regularly; then it went away as viewers turned to sitcoms and adult Westerns; then came mini-series programming; and now, pro ‘rassling is back.

The program is called Smackdown Live and it evidently has been on cable networks for a while.  FOX is paying $205M a year for this programming meaning that each of the 52 shows a week will cost FOX $3.9M; that seems to be a cost they can cover with two hours of advertising to sell.

Right now, FOX and FOX Sports are focused on televising the World Cup games.  Given the fact that the US Men’s’ National Team did not qualify, there has to be some diminution of interest at a broad level for the event in the US.  [Aside:  If you have seen how terribly Panama has played in these World Cup games, you have to wonder how the USMNT finished behind them in the qualifiers.]  FOX says, nonetheless, that they have had strong ad sales for the games in the Group Phase and market analysts say that FOX has been the beneficiary of the NBA Finals going only 4 games.  That reduced sports competition on the air and it attracted some of the sports advertising dollars that did not get spent on an extended NBA Finals.

Of course, worldwide interest in the World Cup Games is immense.  We were in Belgrade and heard an entire city erupt in cheers – and what sounded like gunfire – in celebration of a goal by the Serbian team about a week ago.  And folks in that part of the world do not only watch their own teams; they watch all the games all the time.  Back in 2014, the World Cup Final game was watched by an estimated 700 million people.  That is more than twice the population of the US and about 10% of the world population.

The ongoing FBI investigation into college basketball recruiting has produced some fallout beyond getting a couple of assistant coaches fired and producing a report from a Blue-Ribbon Panel that seems to have faded into memory already.  The tangible fallout is a civil lawsuit brought by Sketchers (a shoe company) against Adidas (the alleged bad guys in the FBI probe) on this basis; Sketchers alleges that Adidas:

“… created false advertising and unfair competition by funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars in secret payments to high school and college basketball players and their families to wear its products.”

Moreover, Sketchers asserts that those secret payments:

“… effectively blocked Skechers and other companies from competing on a level playing field for young, NBA-level endorsers, and unfairly bolstered consumer perception of Adidas’ overall brand quality and image well beyond the basketball footwear market.”

Not unexpectedly, the response from Adidas was to say that this complaint was “frivolous and nonsensical”.  I won’t pretend to be the modern-day incarnation of Oliver Wendell Holmes here but let me just say that Sketchers probably would not want me on the jury if this ever went to trial.

Back in the late 50s – – back when pro ‘rassling was a network TV staple – – the Detroit Lions were a solid football team.  In 1957, the Lions won the NFL Championship beating the Cleveland Browns (also an NFL powerhouse at the time) 59-14 in the championship game.  The QB in that game was Tobin Rote who was substituting for the Lions’ starting QB, Bobby Layne, who was out with a broken leg.  According to reputation, Layne was a “bad boy” whose commitment to training and sobriety was not complete.  Nevertheless, he was a fine QB once game-day rolled around.  After winning the championship with backup Tobin Rote under center, the Lions’ braintrust decided they had had enough of Layne and they traded him away to the Pittsburgh Steelers (an NFL doormat at the time).  Layne supposedly said that the Lions were stupid and that they would never win another championship for 50 years.

Last year, was the 60^th season after the Lions traded Bobby Layne.  Not only have the Lions not won a championship in those 60 seasons, they have only won 1 playoff game in that span of time.  The Lions record in playoff games since their championship in 1957 is 1-12.  That lone win came in 1992 when the Lions beat the Cowboys in a first round game.  The Lions lost the next week to the Skins by a lopsided score.

To give you an idea of the futility of the Lions as a franchise, the team has been in the NFL for 89 seasons (since 1930).  Over that time, the Lions winningest coach was Wayne Fontes and Fontes’ career record with the Lions was 66-67-0.

Here is another Lions’ oddity.  Since the merger of the NFL and the AFL in 1970, no head coach of the Lions was ever a head coach for another NFL team after the Lions fired him.  It is almost as if the rest of the league does not want to risk that sort of taint on their franchise.  Welcome to Detroit, Matt Patricia…

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

“TBS’s Conan O’Brien after President Donald Trump tweeted that he is considering a pardon request made by Sylvester Stallone:  ‘The pardon is for the guy who wrote Rocky V’.”

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

 

 

The Westgate sportsbook in Las Vegas is offering futures betting for the College Football Playoff next December/January.  For the first time, they will take action on which individual teams will be selected as the four semi-finalists.  Here are the odds for some of the top teams:

• Alabama   minus-210
• Clemson   Even money
• Ohio St.   +125
• Georgia   +175
• Oklahoma  +350

According to reports from the Westgate, there is lively action on these futures bets and the Westgate announced that in about 2-3 weeks they will post odds for more than 200 college basketball teams to reach the Final Four next April.

Back when MLB free agents were having a tough time signing monster contracts, I mentioned that some of the previous contracts handed out to aging hitters may have taught GMs to be wary of the dangers of such deals.  I mentioned then the contracts for Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera.  Let me add one more name to my previous list.

In 2016, the Orioles signed then 30-year old Chris Davis to a 7-year contract worth $161M.  That contract runs all the way through the 2022 season.  There is money in the contract that is deferred totaling $42M meaning that Davis gets an average of $17M each year through 2022 and then collects the $42M deferred money in 10 annual installments starting in 2023.  And how has this worked out for the Orioles…?

• In 2016, Davis hit .221; had an OPS of .792 and led the AL in strikeouts.
• In 2017, Davis hit .215; had an OPS of .732 but only struck out 195 times

Now, in 2018 at age 32, Davis finds himself on the bench for lack of production.  In 61 games this year, he is hitting .149 and his OPS is .469.  He has 33 hits for the season and has struck out 93 times.  The Orioles are in the midst of a horrendous season even though they did not leave Spring Training with the idea of tanking to rebuild the team.  While Davis’ performance has contributed to the Orioles’ woes, it would be a stretch to blame him for miserable record.  Other than Manny Machado who is having a great year, just about everyone else on the team is under-achieving.

Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times had this take on the Orioles’ malaise this year:

“Phil Mickelson incurred a two-stroke penalty for hitting a moving ball at the U.S. Open.

“’You can hit a moving ball?’ asked a Baltimore Oriole.”

Scott Boras is the agent who got Davis that deal.  Scott Boras also represents Nats’ wunderkind Bryce Harper who will be a free agent this winter and who has indicated that he would love to see offers north of $400M in total value.  Harper is only 25 years old, so Boras will very properly point out that he is about to enter the prime years of his career.  The negotiating hurdles here could be twofold:

1. Scott Boras has had more than a few of his former clients who have not performed up to the levels of their deals.  The Yankees’ deal with A-Rod is a prime example here.  The Chris Davis deal is also not looking like a gem.
2. Bryce Harper is making $21.6M this year and is not playing up to that value so far.  As of this morning, he is hitting .217 with an OPS of .832.  He does lead the league with 19 HRs, but he has only driven in 46 runs in 75 games.  That is not what one might call an “ideal walk-year performance”.

Notwithstanding the above, Harper will get a mega-deal because of his numbers in years prior to this one.  Personally, if I were a GM and I were inclined to throw out a $400M offer this winter, I would probably direct it to Manny Machado first.  But I am not a GM and I never will be…

Over in the National League, the Miami Marlins surely appear to have chosen tanking as a team strategy for at least 2018.  The new ownership – fronted by Derek Jeter – took the opportunity last winter to trade away their entire starting outfield:

• Marcel Ozuna is in St. Louis
• Giancarlo Stanton is a Yankee
• Christian Yelich is in Milwaukee.

All three of them are having solid seasons with their new teams.  Without resorting to Google, how many outfielders for the Marlins in 2018 can you name?  For the record, I could only recall one name – Derek Dietrich – without glancing at baseball-reference.com.  Then, when I went to that site, I noticed that Marlins’ centerfielder, Lewis Brinson, has been in 76 games so far this year and is hitting all of .177 with an OPS of .554.  Moreover, Brinson leads the team in strikeouts.

Finally, here is another observation from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“The Phillies’ pitching staff is nothing but right-wingers after lone lefty Zac Curtis got demoted to the minors last week.

“The Republican Party approves of this message.”

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

 

 

Julian Edelman is facing a 4-game suspension from the NFL for failing a drug test.  I was not the least bit surprised to hear that Edelman proclaimed that he had no idea how this happened; that is the “go-to response” for every athlete who “lights up the lab” with one of his samples.  Here is the thing that did surprise me:

• The NFL said that his failed test was due to the detection of an “unrecognizable substance”.

The natural question here is:

• If the substance is “unrecognizable” – – translation: the guys in the lab have no idea what it is – – how can the NFL be sure that it is a performance enhancer or one of its banned substances or some sort of illicit drug?

Just suppose that after months of painstaking analysis, they find that the “unrecognizable substance” is in fact – – mule snot.  I doubt there is evidence that mule snot is a PED; I am pretty sure that ingesting mule snot is not illegal; I am certain that mule snot is not on the NFL list of banned substances.  So, while the test can only conclude that there is some “unrecognizable substance” in Julian Edelman’s sample, how can the NFL assume that it is one that merits a suspension?

Another NFL-related story got far too much attention over the past several weeks.  Terrell Owens said that he would not attend the Hall of Fame ceremony that would induct him into the Hall of Fame.  Analysts have concluded that T.O. is miffed that it took him a couple of years to be voted into the HoF and that is why he will not show up for the event.   Talk about a tempest in a spittoon…

Look, if Terrell Owens wants to make his mark as the guy who snubbed the HoF ceremony because he thinks the HoF snubbed him for a couple of years, so be it.  By turning that decision on Owens’ part into something worthy of discussion/debate, the media journalists played directly into his hand.  I think it is fair to say that more than a few events in Terrell Owens’ life/career point to the fact that he loves to be the center of attention; discussing this magnificently unimportant decision on Owens’ part only serves to make him the center of attention.

Jason Whitlock of FS1 had this Tweet about this matter:

“The worst teammate in the history of professional football is now going to be the worst teammate in the history of the Hall of Fame.”

Somewhere T.O. is smiling while doing sit-ups in his driveway and thinking of how he just got his name in the public eye yet one more time…

Here is an alternate explanation:

• Owens will skip the ceremony because he could not find anyone who was sufficiently egoistic to write the acceptance speech for him.
• Of course, if that is indeed the case, I think it would be safe to conclude that Terrell Owens and LaVar Ball are not on the best of terms.

The US Congress – Motto: Taking fecklessness to new depths daily! – – has held hearings as it contemplates a piece of legislation known as the Horseracing Integrity Act.   Sports fans with a memory span greater than that of a rutabaga should recall the last time the Congress waded into the sports world with legislation to preserve the integrity of sports.  That previous incursion was the late – but hardly lamented – passage of PASPA which was to protect and preserve college and professional sports from the evil influences of gambling.  There were only two flaws in the PASPA legislation:

1. It was declared to be unconstitutional 26 years after its enactment.
2. It failed to stop gambling on collegiate or pro sports thereby failing in its stated duty to protect those athletic endeavors.

Other than that, …

These days the Congress is contemplating how to “save horseracing” and to protect its integrity; moreover, the Congressthings are actually able to do this with a straight face.  Clearly, this means that all of the important problems facing the nation are already resolved if the geniuses on the Hill can take time to work on this nit-not-worth-picking.  The Horseracing Integrity Act would ban Lasix on race day and would put drug testing for horses under the auspices of the USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency).  Those are the same efficient and effective folks who assure that Olympic athletes and cyclists are not using banned substances.  What could possibly go wrong?  I know; they might find horse blood and urine samples that have “unrecognizable substances” in them and use that information to draw a conclusion other than the most obvious one:

• Your “drug testing regimens” are woefully insufficient.

Recently there was a hearing on this matter and the opposing sides of the debate came loaded for bear.  Here is a link to a report that will give you more details on this subject that the law allows…

Finally, here is a comment from Brad Rock in the Deseret News.  I completely agree…

“ESPN and Netflix plan to air a 10-part documentary on Michael Jordan.

“Because what the world seriously needs is more stories on Michael Jordan.”

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

 

 

Back in the days of Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio, the hosts would come back from breaks and say they were “back and better than ever”.  Well, I have been on an extended break and the best I can say is:

• I’m back – – and I promise to be as crabby as ever.

When I went off the air, the Caps and Lightening were tied 2-2 in the NHL semi-finals while the Golden Knights led the Jets 2-1.  Congratulations to the Caps on their first Stanley Cup championship in franchise history.

In the NBA, both Conference Championship rounds were tied at 2-2.  The Cavaliers prevailed in the East and then were swept by the Warriors in the Finals.  Over in the Balkans where I was for much of my hiatus, the NBA is a big deal and lots of people were watching various NBA games at bars and outdoor restaurants.  There were also lots of people wearing NBA “gear” and just about every school we saw had basketball hoops installed on the grounds for kids to use.

The NBA presence and awareness in Europe is significant.  Taking a cue form the NFL, the NBA will play another regular season game in Europe again next season.  In January 2019, the Knicks and the Wizards will face each other in London.   I wonder if the NBA selected those teams because of the diverse presence of European players on both teams:

1. Wizards’ Center Marcin Gortat is from Poland
2. Wizards’ Center Ian Mahinimi is from France
3. Wizards’ Forward Thomas Satoransky is from the Czech Republic
4. Knicks’ Forward Kristaps Porzingas is from Latvia
5. Knicks’ Guard Frank Ntilikina is from France
6. Knicks’ Center Enes Kanter is from Turkey

And as icing on the cake, Knicks’ Guard Emmanuel Mudiay is from the Congo.

In the NFL, Tom Brady and Odell Beckham, Jr. were not attending OTAs.  For some reason, that was considered newsworthy.  Somehow, I believe both of these guys will still be on NFL rosters come September…

The NFL is simply not a big deal in the Balkans.  In that part of the world “football” is a totally different game…

In MLB, the Phillies and the Braves were tied for first place in the NL East.  This morning the Braves are still in first place.   Last year, I said that I thought the Braves were back as contenders; that was premature.  However, the Braves’ team in 2018 looks pretty good to me.

The Yankees and Red Sox were running off with the AL East.  They continue to do so.  The surprise in the AL East is not that the Orioles are out of contention but that the Orioles have the worst record in MLB and the team is not trying to tank for a rebuilding process.

The Indians were sitting at .500 and still led the AL Central.  They now lead the division by 5 games partly because every other team in the division is still below .500.

The Astros led the Mariners by 2 games when I left.  Back then the Astros had only allowed 125 runs in 49 games.  The Astros lead is now 3.5 games and they are still very stingy with runs allowed.  In 76 games, they have allowed 233 runs; the next best team in terms of runs allowed is the Cubs giving up 253 runs in 73 games.

The NL Central race was a 4-way affair when I left.  Today, it appears to be sorting itself out into a race between the Brewers and the Cubs.

The NL WEst had the Rockies, D-Backs and Giants setting the pace.  Today the Dodgers have inserted themselves in the race and trail the D-Backs by only 2.5 games.

MLB is not much of a deal in the Balkans.  I saw a few folks wearing Yankees’ caps and a young man and a young woman decked out in KC Royals hats and shirts.  Other than that, …

Back when I left, the US Supreme Court had just declared PASPA unconstitutional.  Lots of folks were opining on what this might mean in the future.  Former Senator Bill Bradley – who was one of the proponents of PASPA back in 1992 when it was passed into law – obviously thought that the Court’s decision was wrong-headed.  I have a great deal of respect for Senator Bradley – not because he was an excellent basketball player but because he is generally thoughtful and reasonable and pragmatic.  Nonetheless on this issue, he and I fundamentally disagree.

Senator Bradley dipped into a line of argumentation that was once labeled “the parade of improbable horribles”.  He said that legalized sports betting could lead to gambling on high school games and even into in-game betting on those events.  Indeed, that could happen, and I agree that it would not be a boon to high school sports to have lines posted for the games.  HOW-EVAH …  [/Stephen A. Smith]:

• Sports wagering has been ongoing in Nevada for decades and in all my visits to sportsbooks there have never been any high school sporting events available for wagering.
• What the Supreme Court said is that the Congress could act to regulate sports wagering but PASPA was not a permissible way to do it.  If the several States and/or the Congress wish to assure that there are no legal wagers placed on high school sports, the door is open for those entities to do so.
• Please note that I said “legal wagers” above.  If a local bookmaker wants to take action on a game between Rocky Mountain High and Secondhand Smoke High, there are already laws on the books to prevent such action – – but the local bookie can probably still do that with impunity.

Finally, the College World Series started whilst I was gone and here is a comment from Brad Dickson, formerly with the Omaha World-Herald about the weather in Omaha at this time of the year:

“Torrential downpour, dangerous lightning strikes, flooding, 60 mph winds. And still, this is pretty nice weather considering it’s College World Series time.  CWS visitors are learning that ‘Omaha’ is an old Indian word meaning ‘rain delay’.”

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