Author: Jack

After the sudden demise of my computer over the weekend, I am back at the keyboard with a new device – – albeit without any major change of attitude.  The NBA Finals are over; the Golden State Warriors are the champions; we saw two interesting/competitive games in the Finals and that should be taken as a blessing in this year of boring/blowout NBA games.  At one point during the early stages of the playoffs, I thought about labeling the NBA as the National Blowout Association but did not because trying to define “blowout” so that I could make the case was convoluted and the amount of research necessary to go back a month or so into regular season games quickly convinced me to do other things.

The MVP of the Finals is Kevin Durant and he played last night just like an MVP shooting 14 for 20 and totaling 39 points.  Nevertheless, the biggest advantage the Warriors had last night – and for the balance of the Finals – was their bench.  Compare these aggregate numbers from last night:

1. Warriors’’ bench played 70 minutes; Cavs’ bench played 49 minutes.
2. Warriors’ bench scored 35 points; Cavs’ bench scored 7 points.
3. Warriors bench had 9 rebounds; Cavs’ bench had 4 rebounds.
4. Warriors’ bench committed 6 fouls; Cavs’ bench committed 11 fouls.

After the game, LeBron James said that he needed time to “figure things out”.  That’s fair; it should be unreasonable to expect that he already knows what needs to be done to change the outcome for him and the Cavaliers next year.  However, since I had the luxury to watch the games in the Finals without having to worry about how to do things on the court to thwart the Warriors, let me make one solid suggestion to LeBron James and anyone else in the Cavaliers’ Front Office who may be involved in off-season changes:

• The Cavaliers need significant improvement on defense.  James is a good defender and Tristan Thompson is sometimes a good defender.  Iman Shumpert is a good defender off the bench most of the time.  If the Cavs are to beat the Warriors’ offensive machine, they need a major upgrading on defense.  If I read the contracts correctly, the Cavs will have 5 veteran bench players heading into free agency this summer.  That is the window of opportunity for the Cavs to find a couple of defensive specialists as replacements.

This season’s Warriors’ team might be summarized algebraically like this:

• 2016 Warriors minus Harrison Barnes plus Kevin Durant = 2017 Warriors.
• Therefore – – –  2017 Warriors > 2016 Warriors.

Meanwhile, the Cavs made only cosmetic changes from 2016 to 2017 adding Kyle Korver – who plays zero defense – and Deron Williams who is well past his sell-by date.  The Cavs were able to come back from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals in 2016, but the simple fact is that the Warriors got significantly better and the Cavs did not.

Meanwhile, the Stanley Cup Finals also concluded with the Pittsburgh Penguins as the repeat Stanley Cup champions.  The NHL revenue for the season appears to have been flat as compared to the previous season and that would suggest a lack of growing interest in the sport.  However, according to the folks who measure TV viewership, the Finals did very well.  The games in the Finals averaged almost 4.5 million viewers and if that is accurate, that means these Finals attracted a bigger audience in the US than any previous NHL Finals that did not have one of the “Original Six” in the series.  The last game of the Finals had an audience in excess of 7 million viewers.

I find that even more impressive given that Pittsburgh and Nashville are not “major-markets”; a Stanley Cup Final series between LA and Philly would not have “Original Six” teams in it but the number of people in those cities dwarfs the numbers in Pittsburgh and Nashville.

I mentioned that the NHL revenues for the season were flat and according to this report in the NY Post, that puts the NHLPA in a delicate position.  I am not going to pretend to understand all of the ramifications here, but if there is agita on the union side as it starts to prepare its negotiating position for the next CBA in a couple of years, that is not a good sign.  Remember, the two folks sitting across the bargaining table from each other:

• Gary Bettman – the man who sacrificed an entire season of NHL hockey in order to get concessions in a previous set of CBA negotiations.
• Donald Fehr – the former leader of the MLBPA and a co-conspirator in the work stoppages that plagued MLB in the 80s and 90s.

In college basketball, Chris Holtmann is the new coach at Ohio State after 3 successful seasons at Butler where his teams made the NCAA Tournament each year.  Holtmann was originally hired at Butler on a “1-year/show us what you can do” contract at Butler; that was his first head coaching job.  Now he has gone to Ohio State with an 8-year contract that could – with incentives – approach $25M.  After Ohio State fired Thad Matta and went hunting for a replacement, I said that the school had the ability to “money-whip” a replacement.  I think these numbers indicate that I was onto something with that comment.

Finally, since I said above that I was back to ranting without a change of attitude, let me close with a definition from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Air:  The glorious God-given substance that provides us our very breath of life while also containing the disgusting contagious pathogens that will one day kill us.”

Have a good day …

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

 

 

Tomorrow is the 149^th running of the Belmont Stakes.  In terms of “buzz” and excitement, this race had generated just about nothing.  Not only is there no possible Triple Crown winner in the field, neither the Derby winner – Always Dreaming – nor the Preakness winner – Cloud Computing – will go to the post.  Lest you think that their trainers and owners have them entered somewhere else, that is not the case; both horses are stabled at Belmont park.  For 2017, the Belmont Stakes is really not much more than your garden variety Grade 1 Stakes race run on a summer weekend – – except for the fact that the race is a mile and a half.

If you have never been to Belmont Park, it is a huge facility; in terms of size it dwarfs Pimlico and Churchill Downs; the record attendance for a Belmont Stakes was 120,000; it would surprise me if the live gate tomorrow is more than half that figure.  The Belmont has always had to be its own draw because the New York Racing Association has never been known for its promotional acumen.  Let me give you a couple of tidbits about the race so that you might be tempted to use the remote to tune in and see it tomorrow around 6:30 PM EDT.

• Hall of Fame trainer, Woody Stephens, saddled the winner of the Belmont 5 times – and all 5 of those races were in succession from 1982-1986.
• Trainer D. Wayne Lukas saddled the winner 3 years in a row from 1994-1996.
• The record time for the Belmont Stakes is 2:24 set by Secretariat in 1973.  That record is 2 full seconds – about 10 lengths in handicapping terms – better than the second fastest time in the race.

That last item leads me to share with you something #2 son pointed out to me.  Someone has taken the telecasts of the 1973 race won by Secretariat and put it side-by-side with the telecast of the 2015 race won by American Pharaoh and posted it on YouTube.  Let me be clear, Secretariat would have beaten American Pharaoh by 13 lengths based on their times but there is an interesting aspect to the race comparison.

As you watch the 1973 race, Secretariat blazes through the early fractions and then continues on a pace that leaves the second place horse 31 lengths in the dust.  If you only look at that race, it appears as if Secretariat is actually accelerating in the final portions.  However, when the two races are juxtaposed, you can see – and you can verify by looking at the split times for the ¾ of a mile and for the mile that American Pharaoh actually ran the final half mile faster than Secretariat did.

Just for fun, here is the  video comparison…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT50hQINVrI

For what it is worth, here are my picks for the race.  Until late yesterday, I liked Epichris (#11) to be part of the superfecta but then I read he had been given a pain killer shot for an abscess on his foot.  That convinced me to look eslewhere for a runner in a mile-and-a-half race so here is my wager:

• Exacta Box: Tapwrit (#2) and Irish War Cry (#7)
• Trifecta Box: Tapwrit/ Irish War Cry/ Twisted Tom (#1)
• Superfecta Box:  Tapwrit/Irish War Cry/Twisted Tom/ J Boys Echo (#4)

I want to switch gears here and talk about a relatively new phenomenon in sports radio and sports TV commentary.  It did not start yesterday but yesterday put me over the top here.  It seems the latest fashion is to discuss how current ongoing events may or may not affect the “legacy” of some star player or some team.  Yesterday’s versions of this sort of nonesnse went along these lines:

• If the Warriors sweep the Cavaliers, will that tarnish LeBron James’ legacy to the point that any discussion of him as “The GOAT” is “off the table”.
• If the Warriors sweep the Cavaliers, does that make this team the greatest basketball team of all time?

I guess the producers of the radio shows and the TV shows have to come up with items to fill time, but these sorts of discussions have gotten tiresome very quickly.  For starters, what the Hell difference does it make if I think the 1990s Bulls teams are better than the current Warriors team and you think the obverse?  We could have that “debate” privately over some beer and chips and it would probably move on to another topic in about 3 minutes – if we got really worked up over the “debate”.  On radio and TV this goes on forever and ever and ever…

The idea of a “legacy” should not – because it cannot – be assessed in the current time.  A player’s legacy or a team’s legacy is only capable of measurement once a decent interval of time has past.  Legacies are things that are more on the “mental” or “intellectual” end of the spectrum; in the immediate moment, “mental” and “intellectual” things tend to get clouded by emotions and adrenaline and endorphins. Let me give you two examples:

1. In 1979, OJ Simpson retired from an 11-year career in the NFL.  If, during the final weeks of his career, you had discussed his “legacy”, the focus would have been on things like “first-ballot Hall of Fame RB” and “2000-yard season” and “five time first Team All-Pro” and “in the conversation with Jim Brown as the best RB ever”.  That was then.  In 2017, with the perspective of history, is that OJ Simpson’s legacy?
2. In 1986, Pete Rose retired from a 24-year career in MLB.  If during the final weeks of his career, you had discussed his “legacy” the focus would have been on things like “all-time leader in base hits with 4,256” and “sure-fire first ballot Hall of Fame” and “played the game the right way” and “Charlie Hustle”.  That was then.  In 2017, with the perspective of history, is that Pete Rose’s legacy?

Having dismissed these “legacy debates” as frivolous at best, let me try to answer briefly the two sorts of questions that dominated a lot of yesterday’s air-time:

1. Getting swept in the Finals by an opponent cannot possibly be a positive entry on any player’s résumé.  At the same time, a career is much more than a single 4-game series.
2. I doubt that the 2017 Golden State Warriors could possibly have beaten – let alone dominated – the original Dream Team.

Finally, here is an item from Norman Chad’s syndicated column, The Couch Slouch.  It is one of a list of “facts, tired and true, about the widening world of sports television”:

“Best thing about having kidney stones?  It takes your mind off Stephen A. Smith.”

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

 

 

Earlier this week, here is what I said I wanted from the NBA Finals:

“I would like a game to be tied with 2 minutes left to play.  Then I want either team to win the game – I really do not care which one – without the benefit of some outlandish call by an official.

“I am only asking for one game like that.  After enduring the tedium of this NBA regular season and its playoffs, I don’t think that is so much to ask for.”

Well, I got my wish last night; it was a 5-point game with 3 minutes to go and a 1-point game with 1 minute to go and there were no outlandish calls in the final 3 minutes of the game.  The Warriors scored the final 11 points in the game to take a 3-0 lead in the Finals. Here is some history:

• Prior to this year, 12 teams have taken a 3-0 lead in the NBA Finals.
• All 12 of them have become NBA Champions.

If you are to believe the narrative of many of the sports yikkers on TV, this series and this season represents LeBron James’ quest to be recognized as “The GOAT” in basketball.  I have no idea if that is really in James’ mind – nor do I care because those sorts of arguments get very old very quickly.  However, I would note that leading/carrying the first team ever to come back from a 3-0 deficit in the Finals would be a solid résumé entry.

I have not seen any reports on the TV ratings from last night’s game but the ratings for Games 1 and 2 were up about 8% from last year when these same two teams met in the Finals.  My interpretation of that is that plenty of basketball fans knew in their hearts that this was going to be the pairing in the Finals and had been waiting all year to see it.  Regular season ratings had been down but now the fans were going to get what they really wanted to see.  Games 1 & 2 were hardly exciting; last night’s game was as entertaining as anyone could have wanted.

Also earlier this week, I said that there was a surprise eruption of news from the college basketball world when Ohio State fired Thad Matta as its head coach.  Early June is normally a quiescent time in college basketball – just as it is in college football.  And then, yesterday, news broke in the world of college football that was even more shocking than Ohio state’s announcement.  Bob Stoops announced his retirement as the head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners football team.

At the news conference called to make this announcement, Stoops said specifically that “health” was not a factor in his decision.  He made that point emphatically more than once.  That is good to hear because I know of no reason to wish ill-health on Bob Stoops.  Moreover, here is a bit of Stoops’ family history:

• Bob Stoops’ father, Ron Stoops Sr., was a successful high school coach in Ohio.  In 1988 at the age of 54, Ron Stoops Sr. was coaching in a game against an opponent coached by his son, Ron Jr.
• In the second half of that game, Ron Stoops, Sr. collapsed on the sidelines and died of a heart attack soon after the game ended.
• Bob Stoops is now 56 years old…

I am not insinuating in any way that Bob Stoops has a health problem; that would be an outrageous assertion.  I do think, however, that his father’s sideline incident and Bob Stoops’ current age has to be something in the back of his mind.  Bob Stoops has made plenty of money in his career at Oklahoma; he is leaving on his own terms; he could – if he wanted to – slip easily into a TV commentator role.  He has earned his retirement years and has decided to start to “cash in on them” a bit earlier than most highly successful coaches do.

Here is what I mean by a “highly successful coach” as it applies to Bob Stoops’ career:

• His record at OU is 190-48; the Sooners under Stoops were 101-9 in Norman, OK.
• In 18 years, Stoops’ teams won 10 conference championships and 1 National Championship.
• In 14 of his 18 seasons at Oklahoma, the team won 10 games or more.

Oklahoma named its offensive coordinator, Lincoln Riley, as the man to take over from Stoops; Riley is all of 33 years old.  Following a legend in a job is not an easy task.  Let me use Oklahoma football to demonstrate what I mean:

1. Bud Wilkinson coached the Sooners in the 50s and early 60s; his teams dominated the 50s and won national championships.  When he retired, the next two coaches spent a total of 3 years on the sidelines and the total record over those 3 seasons was 15-15-1.
2. Barry Switzer coached the Sooners in the 70s and 80s also winning national championships and amassing a winning percentage of .844.  From the time Switzer left and Bob Stoops took over, three coaches amassed a cumulative record of 61-50-2 – – not nearly a winning percentage of .844.

Bonne chance, Lincoln Riley …

It is almost obligatory at this point to pose the rhetorical question:

• Will Bob Stoops ever return to coaching?

Here is my answer:

• He left coaching on his own terms and so he could change his mind someday – also on his own terms – and return to the sidelines somewhere.  Here is a major question he will need to resolve in his own mind.
• Absent a financial necessity to go back and earn the kind of money a highly successful college football coach can command, would he want to spend a significant portion of every year cajoling 17-year old prima donnas to come to his school to play football as opposed to going to some other school to do the same thing.  Or has he “been there … done that”?

Finally, with so much of today’s rant focused on matters in college football, this commentary from Brad Dickson seems an appropriate way to close things out:

“Next year’s College Football Playoff national championship game will have a ‘Super Bowl-style halftime show.’ Step one: Hire a musician whose last hit song was in 1968.

“ESPN and the College Football Playoff committee are going to work on the halftime show together. What could possibly go wrong here?”

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

 

 

I do not play fantasy sports but I have a hunch that, if you had Scooter Gennett in your baseball lineup yesterday, you did pretty well.  Gennett tied an MLB record with 4 home runs in a single game becoming only the 17^th player in baseball history to do that.  He also had a single to produce a stat line for the evening like this:

• 5 for 5; 4 runs scored; 10 RBIs; 17 total bases

At the start of the game, Gennett had hit a total of 38 home runs in his career which began in 2013 and consisted of 502 games and 1637 at bats.  It is fair to say that he had a “career-game” last night.

The Seattle Seahawks put an end to the speculation that they would sign Colin Kaepernick as their backup QB earlier this week by signing Austin Davis to fill that role.  I wrote previously that I thought Seattle would be a logical landing spot for Kaepernick for the simple reason that the team had no viable backup on the roster but the rest of the roster indicated that the playoffs should be within reach.  Signing Austin Davis simply adds fuel to the concocted debate that has been out there ever since the Niners released Kaepernick regarding the motive(s) for his long-standing free agency.

Austin Davis was drafted by the Rams out of Southern Mississippi in the 2012 NFL Draft.  He did not see the field in his rookie; he did not see the field in 2013 and in the previous 2 seasons, he has appeared in 13 games – starting 10 of them.  He was with the Rams in 2014 and the Browns in 2015.  When Austin Davis is the starter, his team’s record is 3-7-0.  For his career, he has thrown 13 TDs and 12 INTs and he has completed 62.4% of his passes.

Meaning absolutely no disrespect to Austin Davis, those statistical entries on his résumé do not match those of Colin Kaepernick who did take a team to the Super Bowl.  Meaning absolutely no disrespect to Colin Kaepernick, that was at the end of the 2012 NFL season and a lot of water has gone over the dam since then.

I do not know why the Seahawks made the decision that they did; they worked out and interviewed both men; the folks who run the Seahawks are not stumblebums.  Rather than add to the cacophony surrounding this “debate”, I will simply say this:

• When a player’s perceived talent level is sufficient, that perception is sufficient to override some dark stains on that player’s reputation – darker than Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest last year.

Let me stay with NFL news for a moment here …  If you have watched NFL games on TV for even a few moments, you realize that beer companies spend a lot of money buying advertising time on those games.  However, there have never been any ads there for hard liquor and the reason for that is that the NFL has “worked with its broadcast partners” to refrain from selling ad slots for those sorts of products.  That will change this season.

The NFL has eased up a bit here and will allow the networks to sell up to 4 ad slots (30 seconds each) to hard liquor products per game.  This is not a capitulation by the NFL to economic realities because there are still restrictions:

• None of the ads can be “football focused”.  You are not going to see folks in their backyard pounding shots and playing touch football; you are not going to see a football team in the locker room after a game drinking highballs; you are not going to see an active player endorsing “hooch”.
• Each ad must contain some sort of exhortation to use the product responsibly and not to do something dumb like drink-and-drive.  [Aside: Given the number of DUI incidents involving NFL players, any reference to the negative aspects of drinking and driving might be considered “football focused”.  Hmmm…]

Before you jump to the conclusion that the NFL is racing to get away from its stodginess, let me assure you that there are still products that will not be part of the ad mix on NFL games.  You can agree with it or not, but the NFL is not going to air commercials for condoms or sexual lubricants during its games.  Nor will you see ads for birth control drugs even though you will see plenty of ads for drugs that purport to combat erectile dysfunction.  I guess the NFL would try to argue that they would prefer to stay away from the “debates” that could arise from such advertising.  Whatever …

More interestingly, the NFL still will not allow energy drinks to be advertised nor can the makers or distributors of “supplements” purchase ad time.  I was surprised to see energy drinks on the “do not sell ad time to these guys list”; but given the problems that some players have had with drug tests that they blame on supplements, I can understand the league not wanting to muddy those waters any more than they are.

However, here is the case that I find particularly interesting.  The NFL will still prohibit any advertising by a gambling concern or for Las Vegas tourism.  The NFL is putting a team in Las Vegas; they are the beneficiaries of $750M in State of Nevada tax revenue to build a new stadium there.  The Las Vegas economy is not driven by heavy industry; Las Vegas lives and dies via tourism.  I can understand that it might take a while for the NFL to get itself to the point where it does not look upon places like The Mirage or Bellagio or The Westgate as facilities populated in the main by evil ne’er-do-wells, but I do not understand how it can simultaneously believe that it is OK to place a team in Las Vegas but not allow the city to advertise itself as a tourist destination.

Finally, consider this comment from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald.  I did not know this was part of the existing NFL/NFLPA Collective Bargaining Agreement:

“Ex-Husker Randy Gregory reportedly failed a drug test for the seventh time in the NFL. One more and he’s removed from the league permanently and becomes a member of the Grateful Dead.”

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

 

 

Let me begin with a Public Service Announcement today.  You still have time to get your tickets to Des Moines, IA and hustle on out there for the World Pork Expo.  Preliminary events began yesterday but things will be hopping all week long.  Tomorrow, you can play a round of golf in the World Pork Open; you can pick up clothing accessories at the World Pork Apparel Shop; you can attend a seminar on Social Media in Pork Production.  You can begin Thursday morning with an “Inspirational Service” and then participate in the World Pork Open Clay Target Championship.  Friday will feature the judging of the Junior National Swine Show while Saturday is the piece de resistance – the sale of the livestock from the World Pork Open Swine Show.  A good time will be had by all …

Back to sports…  Albert Pujols joined the rather exclusive club of MLB players who have hit 600 home runs in a career.  I have no interest in debating the cheapening of home run records in MLB over the past 25 years; the fact remains that very few players have ever done it and it may be a while until we see the next player join the club.  Looking at active players who might get to this level, I see only one player over 30 years old who may have a shot and that is:

• Miguel Cabrera:  He is 34 years old and has been in MLB for 15 seasons.  He has 451 home runs as of this morning; that is an average of 30 per season.  If he can play until he is 40 and can average 25 home runs per season until then, he will join the club.  Only twice in his career has he hit fewer than 25 home runs in a season.  The first time was his rookie year when he only played in 87 games; the other time was in 2015 when he played in only 119 games.  Barring injury, I think he is going to make it.

After Cabrera, I think you have to look all the way down the list of active players to the “young stars” to find someone who might get to the 600 level in home runs.

• Nolan Arenado:  He is 25 years old; he has 125 HRs in his first 5.4 seasons.
• Bryce Harper:  He is 24 years old; he has 136 HRs in his first 5.4 seasons.
• Manny Machado:  He is 24 years old; he has 117 HRs in his first 5.4 seasons.
• Mike Trout:  He is 25 years old; he has 184 HRs in his first 6.4 seasons.

June is not a month when one should expect an important news item from the world of college basketball.  Nonetheless, just such an item emerged yesterday when Ohio state fired head coach Thad Matta.  This parting of the ways was not sugar-coated; Matta is not leaving his job to spend more time with his family nor is he leaving to pursue some lifelong passion of his that had never been expressed to any human before yesterday.  Ohio State simply fired him and doing that in early June is strange because the coaching carousel for college basketball coaches had pretty much gone to mothballs about a month ago.

Ohio State has had two consecutive difficult seasons; they have not made the NCAA Tournament – or any of the post-season basketball tournaments – in both of those years.  While that may sound like a reason for a big-time athletic program to fire a coach, consider Matta’s coaching career for a moment:

• He has been a head coach for 17 seasons (13 of them at Ohio State).  He has missed post-season play only 3 times.
• Overall, he has a winning percentage of .740.
• At Ohio State in 13 seasons, he has a winning percentage of .733.
• He has taken Ohio state to the Final Four twice.

Ohio State is a sufficiently attractive job to get the coaching carousel out of mothballs and fired up once again.  It is not likely that Ohio State will hand the job to some high school coach who did a bang-up job somewhere; remember when Notre Dame tried that once in their football program and how swell that worked out.  Ohio State is going to get a good coach and if that person is already employed somewhere else, that will start the domino effect.

The Buckeyes could hire Tom Crean for the job.  He is capable and he is “unencumbered” at the moment having been let go by Indiana earlier this year.  He knows the Big 10 and can likely be successful rather quickly.  The problem with hiring Crean is that there will be no domino effect and that is not interesting.  So, let me allow my mind to wander and present some other college coaches who might “get a call” from Ohio State so that if they take the job, there will be openings elsewhere.

• Greg Marshall – Wichita State.  He has been a constant presence in the NCAA Tournament in recent years and he always brings a competent and competitive team there.
• Chris Mack – Xavier.  Like Marshall, his teams are always in the tournament plus he is already a key player in basketball recruiting in the State of Ohio.
• Shaka Smart – Texas.  Smart is an excellent coach who made a mistake going to Texas where basketball is the poor relative.  If he gets the call, he should take the job in a heartbeat.

Let me throw out one more name here that would probably not start up the college coaching carousel – but might get things moving in the NBA.  Billy Donovan was highly successful in college and has had a nice run in Oklahoma City.  Looking objectively at the Thunder, it is hard for me to see them doing much more than edging into the playoffs occasionally over the next several years in the NBA West.  So … maybe a return to the college game at one of the premier programs would be enticing?  Just saying …

Finally, here is a comment from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald:

“A Boston Marathon competitor reportedly took the train to get a better time. I’m going out on a limb and guessing that the meet director didn’t have to consult the rule book on this one.”

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

 

 

Jimmy Piersall died over the weekend.  To say he was a “colorful character” would be a monumental understatement.  Back in the 60s, he hit his 100^th career home run in a game and ran backpedaling around the bases.  I guess the “unwritten rules of baseball” had not been unwritten back then because no brawl ensued and he was not the target of a beanball in his next at bat.  If that were to happen today, they would need to call out the National Guard.

Rest in peace, Jimmy Piersall.

By the way, Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald had this comment recently regarding a baseball brawl:

“There was a Giants-Nationals brawl after Hunter Strickland threw at Bryce Harper. How silly does this make NHL players feel? The playoffs are winding down and the biggest sports brawl is started by guys named ‘Hunter’ and ‘Bryce.’”

For reasons that have never been crystal clear to me, ESPN televises the National Spelling Bee.  I know the “E” in ESPN stands for “Entertainment” but I hardly find the Spelling Bee entertaining.  I know the “S” stands for “Sports”; and while there is a clear and definite winner at the end of the spelling bee, I doubt that a significant number of people would call it a sport.  Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times found a way to link the National Spelling Bee with a minor kerfuffle going on related to the current political situation:

Ananya Vinay, a sixth-grader from Fresno, Calif., won the 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling:

1.  “marocain”

2.  “Krzyzewski”

3.  “covfefe”

For the record, I can spell “Krzyzewski” but neither of the other two words on that list…

Obviously, I do not think cheerleading is a sport.  It can be a very athletic endeavor/performance, but I don’t think it is a sport any more than I think rhythmic gymnastics is a sport.  According to reports/rumors, the IOC may consider cheerleading as a sport and may think about including it in the Olympic Games in the future.  Oh my …

I know that cheerleading has a tradition here in the US but I do not recognize it as a routine happenstance in many international sports.  For example, I do not recall ever seeing cheerleaders for English Premier League games or for UEFA Cup games or for FIBA basketball games or for Australian Rules Football games or for Rugby games or for …  I have seen cheerleaders for CFL games and I recall feeling very sorry for the young ladies given the weather conditions of the game I was watching.  As I recall, it was in Winnipeg and it was really cold and there were gale force winds …

My point is that cheerleading does not seem to have much of a “world-wide footprint”.  Are there cheerleaders in Kazakhstan?  How about in Mali or in Iran?  And please do not get me started on how cheerleading fits into the Olympics’ motto of “Faster … Higher … Stronger” which derives from events related to warfighting skills from times past.

Once again, let me borrow an observation from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times related to cheerleading in the Olympics:

“Cheerleading could become an Olympic sport by 2024?

“All for drug tests, stand up and holler!”

According to reports coming out of Minneapolis, the FBI is investigating the University of Minnesota Ticket Office regarding allegations of fraud.  Brent Holck, who was the head of the Ticket Office has been fired, and now the FBI is involved in a case that may have been ongoing for a while now.  According to the Athletic Director at Minnesota:

“It was a very sophisticated and complex scheme and it was deliberately done … In essence, we had tickets that were distributed for Gopher events. We had tickets that were used but the revenue was not tying back to those tickets.”

He also said that the scheme was brought to light by an internal audit of “Gopher sports tickets”.  In addition, the school now believes that this “scheme” had been ongoing for at least 6 years but when pressed to say how many tickets were involved or how much money had been diverted to improper destinations, the school could not provide specifics.  Perhaps that is because the FBI is involved and the investigation is ongoing.  However, the wording here is a bit strange…

The only way I can think of that would justify saying this has been going on for “at least 6 years” is this pair of situations:

• The internal audit found a recent problem and subsequently traced that problem back 6 years in the past.  Now if that is the case, the school would know the problem is that old.
• To say the problem is “at least 6 years old” means there is a likelihood that it is even older.  So, does that mean there are insufficient records starting 7 years ago to detect the problem or does that mean something different was ongoing starting 7 years ago?
• Or – more ominously – does this mean that the accounting system used by the university is not adequate to dredge up fine scale details of transactions more than 6 years old?

For the record, the alleged sole perpetrator here is the now-fired Brent Holck.  He was hired to the job in 2008 and had occupied that job until his firing a couple of months ago in 2017.  Perhaps that is the basis for thinking the ticket fraud has been ongoing for more than 6 years.

By the way, none of the reporting I have read indicates why the FBI is involved in this investigation as opposed to the local or state police and district attorneys.  There is more to come from this before all is understood…

Finally, let me return to Dwight Perry for a third time today for another item related to cheerleading:

“A high-school cheerleader in El Paso was arrested on suspicion of submitting a false police report after she confessed she made up a story that her home had been burglarized so she could keep her uniform instead of having to turn it in.

“She was released from jail after posting bond of two bits, four bits, six bits, $5,000.”

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

 

 

In the spirit of “keeping it real”, that opening game of the NBA Finals was not exactly what I had been looking forward to since November of last year.  Both teams got to this series on cruise control and this was – in my mind’s eye – going to be a showdown between two teams that clearly stand above the rest of the league and two teams that can legitimately be labeled “juggernaut”.  Game One was a blowout and it was clear from early in the 3^rd quarter who was going to be the winner.  Here is what I would like to see in this series:

• I would like a game to be tied with 2 minutes left to play.  Then I want either team to win the game – I really do not care which one – without the benefit of some outlandish call by an official.
• I am only asking for one game like that.  After enduring the tedium of this NBA regular season and its playoffs, I don’t think that is so much to ask for.

Down at the college basketball level, do you recall the “Louisville scandal” where a woman wrote a book and said that she had provided escorts and sexual services for Louisville recruits at the behest of the team?  That was blaring headline news for a while back then but I did not see the same coverage of a news item regarding this matter about a week ago:

• It seems as if the prosecutor and a grand jury in Kentucky have chosen not to file any charges against anyone in this matter.

Let’s review for a moment.  We had allegations that someone paid someone else for sexual favors; if you could prove that, there would be a crime.  You had allegations that one of the women who did some of the providing here was the underage daughter of the book’s author.  If you could prove that, there would be a crime.  Prosecutors and grand juries exist to:

1. Determine if there is evidence that a crime was committed
2. Bring charges against the individual(s) who committed that crime
3. Try, convict and punish said individual(s).

In this matter, the authorities stopped at Step 1 above.  Moreover, it is not clear if the “stoppage” was caused by the lack of evidence that there was a crime committed or by the insufficiency of evidence against any individuals here.

The book that initiated this scandal was written and released in 2015.  The Louisville program – and Rick Pitino personally – have been under this cloud for almost 2 years now.  One might think that these decisions by the authorities in Kentucky would put an end to this and someone somewhere might say something like, “Ooops, sorry about that.  I guess we rushed to judgment here.”  Well, don’t hold your breath because now the NCAA will do its thing and decide if there are NCAA punishments that can be meted out in this matter.  Given the NCAA’s pace of investigation – as evidenced by their progress in the UNC academic fraud matter – the Louisville basketball program will still be under this cloud for several years.

Stop the presses, I think Kevin Durant just threw down another dunk against the Cavs…

After a flurry if firings at ESPN, there was a recent announcement of a hiring.  Chip Kelly will join the ESPN studio talkers this season and will contribute his comments to coverage of both college and NFL football.  I do not know Chip Kelly but I do know a couple of folks who do and both say that Kelly is intelligent and articulate – – in addition to stubborn.  If he is intelligent and articulate, he will fit in with the other chatterboxes on the ESPN studio sets.  However, I think there is a more interesting aspect to this hiring than the person himself.

Recall that Urban Meyer spent time at ESPN commenting on college football after he left Florida and before he went to Ohio State.  Might this “ESPN gig” be a short-term deal for Kelly as it was for Urban Meyer?  Once the college football jobs start opening up, Kelly could well be the guy who takes one of the seats before the music stops.  In fact, he might move up the date when the coaching carousel starts to go around if a school really wants him to take over its program.

Here is the proposition:

• OVER/UNDER on the date for the first “Chip Kelly to Whatsamatta U rumor” is Halloween.
• Your call…

Whoa!  I think Steph Curry just sank another 3-ball against the Cavs…

Since I just mentioned ESPN – sort of – I want to make another observation.  I tuned into a weekend MLB game on ESPN after the game was underway.  That means I did not see the opening statements and so I was confused by what I saw.  The announcing crew was sitting in the outfield stands.  Dan Shulman, Aaron Boone and Jessica Mendoza were all out there and had baseball gloves presumably in the event that a ball landed in their laps.

• Question for the ESPN Mavens:  Who thought that was a good idea?

For decades upon decades, the best seats in the house have been set aside for the media – print and electronic.  Seats in the outfield stands are not bad seats but they are not nearly as good as the standard ones provided.  Compared to outfield seats, the broadcast team would get a better view of most of the game by simply watching the TV feed that all of us are getting.  If that is “acceptable” television, why waste the time and money to send the broadcast team to the stadium in the first place?  They could do that from a studio in East Jepeep, KS.

Finally, since I mentioned the Louisville scandal above and the potential for NCAA action there, consider this comment from Brad Rock in the Deseret News:

“Southeast Missouri State’s basketball team has been banned from postseason play next year for not meeting NCAA academic requirements.

“Since the Redhawks have made exactly one Division I NCAA Tournament appearance, isn’t that like banning Nancy Pelosi from Trump’s after-party?”

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

 

 

It does not take a whole lot for Tiger Woods to get his name in the newspapers.  If he goes to a driving range and hits a bucket of balls without grimacing; that is a story; if he volunteers to do something for the PTA at his kids’ school, that is a story.  After all, if he can do such wonderful things out there on a golf course, he must also be able of all sorts of other great accomplishments in real life, right?  There is a segment of the press that is ready to lionize everything associated with Tiger Woods.

At the same time there is a dark side to the media too.  If Tiger Woods gets a parking ticket, it must mean that he was with a hooker and lost track of time; if he hits a bad shot in a tournament and utters an word even slightly less polite than “Dagnubit”, then it shows he is a crass and uncultured boor.  With that as a background, consider that Tiger Woods was arrested in Florida earlier this week and charged with DUI.  He passed the alcohol breath test but police found him in his car at 3:00 AM asleep at the wheel with the motor running.

Not wishing to take sides with the “Tiger-Haters” or the “Tiger-Acolytes” here, can we simply agree that asleep at the wheel of a car with the motor running at 3:00 AM is not a good look?   As this story has evolved, it now appears that a combination of prescription meds could have led to the situation the police came upon.  I think this is a sad state of affairs from several perspectives:

• There was a time when Tiger Woods was golf’s icon.  If Tiger Woods did it, then it had to be good for golf as a sport and good for anyone who played golf because that associated them with Tiger Woods.  Those days are about 10 years in the rear-view mirror.
• Tiger Woods was raised to be a golf prodigy.  He succeeded at that but failed at just about all other aspects of “growing up” into a mature and responsible adult.  Now, his body is failing him and he no longer can be the manifestation of a golf prodigy.

I am not a psychologist – and even if I were I have not examined Tiger Woods in any way – so consider this next statement as AMATEURISH  at best:

• I think Tiger Woods needs a mentor in his life – even though he is in his 40s – to assist him in catching up to what an adult male of that age needs to understand and to do in modern society.  I am not convinced that he can do this on his own and his father has passed.

Looking at a bigger picture regarding what this means to “Golfdom”, this DUI incident may not have come at a worse time.  For the last 20 years or so, golf has marketed/pushed the Tiger Woods/Phil Mickelson rivalry as the pinnacle of its sport.  Ignore the fact that the rivalry was lopsided; it was the golf narrative for a VERY long time.  In reality, it has been purely a fictional/nostalgic rivalry for about 3 years now because Phil Mickelson can’t play either; unless I missed one, I think his last win on the PGA Tour was in 2013.

Golf marketed the game as the rivalry between Tiger and Phil and now it is over.  Even worse for golf is the fact that the two of them have reached this point in their lives/careers without embracing the rivalry to forge some sort of friendship.  Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus were intense rivals but that rivalry grew into respect and friendship.  I wonder if Tiger and Phil will be hitting ceremonial tee shots together at The Masters in 2047…

The ratings are in.  Sunday Night Football on NBC was the top rated TV show in primetime again in 2016; this is the 6^th year in a row when Sunday Night Football has enjoyed that status.  In the coveted demographic of 18-49 year-olds, the NFL hit the trifecta.  The largest number of viewers in that demographic watched:

1. Sunday Night Football – 20.3 million folks
2. Thursday Night Football (NBC) – 17.0 million folks
3. Thursday Night Football (CBS) – 14.7 million folks.

The NFL continues to ride tall in the saddle when it comes to sports enterprises in the US.  It would be foolhardy to say that will NEVER change but the current data certainly indicate that it will be either a long time or a cataclysmic event that will take the NFL down off its pedestal.

Earlier this week, I suggested that MLB should consider contracting to 24 teams and that one of the teams to be whacked would be the Miami Marlins.  Recall that there were stories out there that Derek Jeter and Jeb Bush – were ready to buy the team for $1.3B.  Well, it seems that they may still have some interest in buying the team but they have not yet been ready to cough up $1.3B.  A recent entry to the field of potential buyers is Tagg Romney – son of Governor Mitt Romney – but that consortium is still short of the asking price.  Here is the thing about all of these reports that gets me:

• If you believe reporting about the Marlins as a franchise, the team is losing money year over year.
• Part of the revenue shortfall for the Marlins is the fact that they drew fewer than $1.65 million fans last year and are on pace to do the same again this year.

The Marlins’ owner, Jeffrey Loria bought the team for about $200M back in 2002.  The NY Post says that he may need to “cut the asking price” to $1B in order to get a deal done.  I still think it would be better to do without a team in Miami.

Finally, since I was speaking of things that are priced above what they are actually worth, consider this comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

“At auction yet again: That rare 1909 T-206, the original Honus Wagner baseball card. I don’t wanna say it might be a fake, but if you look closely you can see an ESPN banner on the outfield wall.”

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

 

 

Frank Deford died on Sunday.  A long time ago, I would grab my issue of Sports Illustrated from the mail pile at home and turn to the Table of Contents to see if he had a byline in that issue; when he did, that is where I turned first.  There was no Google or Wikipedia in those dark days; I ascribed inordinate levels of wisdom and insight into Frank Deford; I did that because I assumed that he was so much older than I am.  In reality, he was only 5 years older than I.  Whether he was writing a novel or a long-form sports feature or the story of the sickness and death of his daughter, Frank Deford was – simply – outstanding.

I have another bond with Frank Deford.  For years he did a weekly commentary on NPR Radio; reportedly, he did 1656 of those commentaries.  About twice a year, he would adopt the persona of “The Sports Curmudgeon” for one of his weekly columns; whenever he did that, I would get a flurry of e-mails and/or comments on the website asking for a transcript of “your radio column”.  I answered every one of those requests telling the listener that I was not Frank Deford and could never hope to be Frank Deford but that the listener could probably get the transcript he/she sought by contacting the local NPR station in their area.

Rest in peace, Frank Deford…

Since I mentioned one of my favorite writers from my youth, let me take a short paragraph here to recommend a book to you.  I just finished reading Dan Jenkins’ latest novel, Stick A Fork In Me; Dan Jenkins was my other “favorite writer” from the halcyon days of Sports Illustrated  This is a fictional “memoir” of a collegiate Athletic Director who is looking to find a comfortable retirement package from his school – Western Ohio.  If you even enjoy Dan Jenkins’ writing a little bit, I think this is a book you should read.  I read it cover to cover in about 3 hours; this is not War and Peace.

The NFL has loosened the reins a bit regarding endzone celebrations by players after a TD.  Ignore the details here and think about the “big picture” here for a moment:

• To a large extent, the NFL is a TV show.  So long as people can bet on the games – legally or illegally – and watch them on TV, the NFL has a license to print money.
• Do “over-the-top/choreographed” endzone celebrations cause fans to turn off the games?  If so, that hurts ratings and those celebrations need not be curtailed, they need to be banned completely.
• Do “over-the-top/choreographed” endzone celebrations attract any fans?  Do you know anyone who tunes into an NFL game primarily to see endzone celebrations?  If those folks are out there, the NFL should never have a limit on what players might do.

As I said, NFL telecasts are a TV show and the TV industry likes its shows – to the greatest extent possible – to fit into carefully carved out time slots.  Lots of scoring along with lots of extended celebrating MIGHT cause time overruns and that is an imperfect solution.  So here is what the NFL Competition Committee should have done:

1. After a TD is scored, the referee should immediately call for a “kicking ball” and place it at the 15-yardline and start the play clock.  Failure of the scoring team to get a try off in the allotted time would forfeit that team’s right to make an extra point try.
2. This ruling would get the coaches on the side of the league and its “TV partners” and keep things rolling along.

The 2016/2017 NBA season started on October 25, 2016; the Finals will begin on June 1, 2017; if I have counted correctly that is a span of 219 days.  Here is the problem; we pretty much knew for certain which teams would be in the NBA Finals in the days leading up to October 25, 2016.  Both the Warriors and the Cavaliers were going to make the playoffs even if they had two starters show up on Quaaludes every fourth game; the teams did not care about regular season games; the con offered up by the NBA was that once the playoffs began the competition and the intensity would be ratcheted up.  Horse hockey!  To date, the totality of the NBA Playoffs has produced less than a half-dozen games that you would honestly call “interesting”.

These finals had better deliver some kind of game drama that makes the fan/viewer fixated on the game until the end; if either team wins this final series by 4-0 in 4 blowouts, the NBA will have some “ ‘splaining to do”…  [/Desi Arnaz]  The NBA is not the Harlem Globetrotters; you know who is going to win Globetrotters’ games but you go to be entertained by other antics on the court.  That is NOT the competition model or the fan interest model the NBA seeks.

I tried to get into the NBA this year once January showed up on the calendar and then February and then March.  I could not get myself to care even more than the slightest bit because all of this was obviously pre-destined.  The only – and I mean only – thing that I found interesting about the NBA regular season was the snarky – but on-the-mark – commentary from Charles Barkley about things that are imperfect with the NBA game as it exists today.

• Memo to Adam Silver:  I am a basketball fan and have been since the mid-1950s.  I could not get myself interested in your NBA product this year even though I tried.  If that happens again in the next season or two, you will lose a lifetime fan – and at my age you may never get me back.
• Memo to the NBPA:  You folks need to work with the league on this problem; this will affect both sides of the negotiating table.  Your product is less interesting than it used to be and you need to find ways to reverse that trend tout de suite.

Greg Cote summarized the situation at hand for the NBA and its fans like this in the Miami Herald:

“Finally, it’s on! The inevitable Warriors-Cavs Finals begins: It’s the Golden State-Cleveland trilogy, LeBron-Steph III, and the rubber-match series begins Thursday night. Now all it has to be is the greatest Finals ever ending in a triple-overtime Game 7 to live up to expectations.”

Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Two players at the NCAA Women’s Golf Championships who used a cart to take a bathroom break were given two-stroke penalties.

“So who’s running the show there, Roger Goodell?”

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