Author: Jack

I try to keep politics out of these rants, and I am completely incompetent when it cones to dishing out political advice.  Nevertheless, I feel sufficiently strongly about a minor current issue in the political realm that I will go out on a limb here.

After the LSU/Iowa game to decide the Women’s NCAA basketball championship, our First Lady suggested the possibility that both teams should be invited to the White House.  A subsequent statement from the White House said that there would be invitations for LSU as the women’s champion and for UConn as the men’s champion, but it made no mention of Iowa or San Diego State.  Here is my position:

• The practice of inviting champions in the sports world to the White House has run its course. 
• I think President Biden should set a new trend in motion and not invite any sports figures to the White House for a meaningless photo-op.
• The last thing we need is to expand this practice which approaches the level of existential nihilism to runners-up.

The plaintiff rests, Your Honor …

The MLB season is only a week old; it is far too early to do any sort of projection about the season, but a few items do stand out:

• The pitch clock is working.  So far in 2023, the average game time is 2 hours and 38 minutes.  According to CBSSports.com, that is the shortest average game time since 1984.  Last year, the average game took 3 hours and 3 minutes.
• There has already been a game played in less than two hours.  There was only one such game in all of last season’s 2430 scheduled games.
• The limitations on “The Shift” seem to be working too.  Offense is up in 2023 as compared to 2022.  Last year in the first week of the season the OBP for MLB was .312; this year it is .323.  More offense means more action on the field in shorter game times.  Hard to complain about any of that.
• The larger bases introduced this year were intended to encourage more base stealing adding to the action on the field.  So far, that seems to be the case.  Attempted steals are up slightly and the fact that a higher percentage of that increased number of attempted steals are successful portends a continuation of that early trend.

Looking at the early standings, a few things stand out:

• The Twins have given up only 11 runs in 6 games even in this environment of more offense in the games.
• The Red Sox have played 6 games and the total number of runs in those games was 73 or just over 12 runs per game.
• The Royals are 1-5 on the season but their run differential is only minus-9.
• The Phillies are 1-5 on the season and their run differential is a whopping minus-24.
• The Rays are 6-0 on the season and their run differential is +31; they are winning their games by an average of more than 5 runs.
• The Orioles are 3-3 on the season and their run differential is zero.  Talk about a team in perfect balance…

Switching gears …  Back in early February, the Dallas Mavericks acquired Kyrie Irving from the Nets.  The Mavs were in 6^th place in the NBA Wet at the time with a record of 30-26, and some folks suggested that the pairing of Irving with Luca Doncic could give the Mavs a shot at the #1 seed in the NBA Western Conference playoffs.  In terms of offensive firepower, the tandem of Irving and Doncic is formidable indeed, but the rise of the Mavs has not exactly followed.  As of this morning, the Mavs would not even be in the play-in portion of the NBA playoffs.

Since acquiring Irving, the Mavs are 8-16.  Those 24 games represent about 30% of a full NBA season; so, I think we are outside the realm of extrapolation from a small sample size as one clearly should not do with the MLB stats cited above.  But there are two disturbing trends at work here:

1. The Mavs do not defend well at all.  Neither Irving nor Doncic is even an “average defender”.
2. This is Irving’s third consecutive team that has been better without him as compared to with him.  Surely, neither the Celtics nor the Nets would want him back.  Irving is in the final year of his contract; Mavs’ owner, Mark Cuban says he wants to sign Irving for “the long term”.  Really …?

The Masters gets started today.  I will check in periodically over the weekend because it is a milestone event on the sports calendar.  There is an interesting new bet available this year.  You can wager on whether an LIV Golf pro will win the Masters or not.  Current odds are 6-1 if you bet that the person to put on a green jacket over the weekend is with LIV Golf.

Finally, I shall close today with these words from Mark Twain:

“Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.”

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

 

 

The UConn Huskies won it all last night.  Since January 1, 2023, UConn has scored 80 or more points in 9 games; San Diego State “held” the Huskies to 76 points but UConn showed impressive balance by putting on a defensive display of its own; the Aztecs only shot 32.1% from the floor because uncontested shots were few and far between.  At one point in the first half, San Diego State had turned the ball over 6 times and had only made 4 field goals; there are not a lot of paths to victory under those circumstances.  UConn won six tournament games to claim the championship and they won all six by double digits.

Anyone who has been reading these rants for a while must know that I love the NCAA Tournament.  It is because I love it that I am worried about it.  I have this nagging sense of doom that the combination of the “transfer portal” plus “booster pools of NIL money” are going to ruin college basketball and therefore the NCAA Tournament too.  Basketball is much more easily influenced by the transfer portal than is college football; as few as two transfers can change a school’s basketball fortunes; getting four major transfers will become the gold standard of the off seasons.  Yes, there were always “blueblood programs; now the disparities are going to be even worse.

I hope I am wrong here.  However, I feel like Cassandra from Greek mythology.  She had the gift/curse of being able to see the future and at the same time, no one ever listened to her when she prognosticated.

Another college basketball story unfolded over the weekend.  Bob Knight was hospitalized and then released to home care over the last several days; he is reportedly resting at home this morning.  Knight is 82 years old so any news about him that involves the word “hospital” must be taken seriously.  Bob Knight is about as polarizing a figure as there is in the world of college basketball but even his most severe critics must concede that he was an outstanding coach.

Switching sports …  MLB has no salary cap; it has something called a “Luxury Tax” which is more complicated that I would want to try to explain here.  Basically, if a team’s payroll is over a certain total value, it must play an additional tax on the overage and the percentage of the tax increases as the disparity increases plus the tax increases if a team is over the luxury tax line in sequential seasons.  With that backdrop, I read that the NY Mets had an Opening Day payroll of $334.2M which is way over the line and so the Mets also had to pay $110.9M as its “Luxury Tax”.  [Aside:  Luxury Tax money is used as a revenue sharing pool for the so-called “small market teams”.]

That Luxury Tax figure caught my eye because I thought there were probably a half-dozen teams whose total Opening Day payroll was not as much as the Luxury Tax payment by the Mets.  After only a few moments of searching, I learned that I was incorrect:

• There is a full dozen teams whose total Opening Day payroll is less than $110.9M.
• 40% of the teams in MLB have a total payroll less than the Mets’ Luxury Tax assessment.
• The lowest team payroll on Opening Day belonged to the Oakland A’s; that total payroll was $42.4M.
• For comparison, the Mets signed Justin Verlander to a 2-year contract in the off season at an average annual salary of $43.3M.

And that is why MLB needs a salary cap plus a salary floor…

Switching gears …  Remember back in the Fall of 2022 when a couple of guys were accused of cheating in a fishing tournament on Lake Erie by stuffing fishing weights into the stomachs of fish they caught during the tournament?  Well those anglers avoided a trial on several felony charges by pleading guilty to cheating (a fifth-degree felony in Ohio) and unlawful ownership of wild animals (a fourth-degree misdemeanor in Ohio).  Here is what they get in exchange for their guilty pleas:

• One of the defendants will forfeit his bass boat to the Ohio Dept of Natural resources and that boat is worth $100K.
• Both will have their fishing licenses suspended for up to three years.
• Both will be on probation for six months and any sort of criminal behavior could get them sent to jail for up to a year on these two charges.
• Prosecutors dropped more serious felony charges such as attempted theft (presumably of the $28,000 prize for winning the fishing tournament) and possession of criminal tools (not sure what these were).

These two gentlemen had won a string of tournaments that were characterized as “unprecedented” which could lead to the conclusion that they had engaged in this sort of behavior in the past.  However, there was no evidence of cheating then so nothing about previous tournaments was part of this prosecution.

Finally, let me close today with this entry from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Year:  Three hundred and sixty-five days.  Or, as it is known in Montana, half an hour,”

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

 

 

Briefly today …  I got the matchup I wanted to see coming out of the men’s semi-finals on Saturday night.  I have no connection to either school but the reason I wanted to see these two play for the championship is because I want to see UConn’s offense against San Diego State’s defense.  The line for the game has UConn as the favorite by anywhere between 6.5 points and 8 points; that is a pretty hefty number for a Final Game …

I must admit that I did not think the Aztecs were going to catch up to – – let alone get ahead of – – the Owls for much of the second half of that game on Saturday night.  They demonstrated outstanding poise in the end game and that poise led them to a slot in the Finals tonight.

I watched the women’s final game on Sunday between Iowa and LSU.  The game was a blowout for much of the time so it afforded me the opportunity to focus in minor things instead of watching offensive vs. defensive maneuverings on every possession.  Two things came from that focus on minor things:

1. Let me just say that the officiating in the game was sketchy.  The technical foul on Caitlan Clark can be justified in the rulebook; the technical foul on Caitlan Clark for doing what she did is never called in a real game unless there has been “difficulty”: in the game prior to that call and the call is made to restore order.  Such was not the case on Sunday.
2. When comparing men’s basketball and women’s basketball, the very obvious difference is the amount of action above the rim in the two versions of the game.  There is another difference that is related to the obvious one.  Interior defense in the women’s game is far less effective than it is in the men’s game.

ESPN says that the Women’s Final Four averaged 4.5 million viewers and that represents an audience increase of 66% as compared to last year.  The Final Game on Sunday had 5.5 million viewers.  All expectations have the men’s ratings and viewership declining in 2023 and the excuse given is that there are no nationally prominent teams involved – – like Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA, UNC …  We shall see what the numbers for tonight’s final game are like.

Much had been made about the fact that secondary market process for tix to the women’s Final Four in Dallas were higher than for the men’s Final Four in Houston.  I suspect there are two factors that contributed to that reality:

1. The women were playing in a basketball arena and the men are playing in a football stadium.  There are about 4 times as many seats available for the men’s games; the “supply side” of the Law of Supply and Demand may apply here.
2. One team in the women’s Final Four (LSU) is not hugely distant from the site of the women’s Final Four; it is about a 6-hour drive.  None of the schools in the men’s Final Four are nearly as proximal to Houston; it is about a 18-hour drive from the Miami area to Houston – – and that is the closest campus.  The “demand side” of the Law of Supply and Demand may apply here.

Finally, here is an entry from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Human:  Any of a species of hominids that insist on using the highways, grocery stores, banks and post offices as the same freaking time as you.”

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

 

 

Call it political correctness; call it cancel culture; call it whatever you want.  It has struck again.  George Washington University in downtown Washington DC has decided to change its nickname.  No longer will athletes at GWU play as “The Colonials” because some folks have decided that name:

“… had a negative connotation regarding violence toward Native Americans and other colonized people.”

So, in our newly enlightened age and in our new perspective on history, what are we going to call those thirteen entities that declared independence from England in the 18^th century?  Maybe call them the Co-Ops?

George Washington lived in a part of the world that was – – take a breath here – – a colony.  Changing the nickname of a university named for him will change exactly nothing that George Washington did or that anyone of George Washington’s contemporaries did.  This is nothing more than platinum-plated virtue signaling.

The ever-so-well-meaning folks at GWU started out with a list of 10 possible name changes and have evidently reduced that list to 4 “finalists”:

1. The Ambassadors:  I am no historian, but I do not recall any time when George Washington was an ambassador to anywhere.
2. The Revolutionaries:  Washington led an army of revolutionaries so this name might make a smidgen of sense – – but those revolutionaries inflicted violence on lots of other folks.
3. The Sentinels:  Washington was a general in charge of the Continental Army; he never stood watch as a sentinel; sentinels stood watch to protect him.
4. The Blue Fog:  Seriously, think about how irrelevant and stupid the other six potential nicknames must have been to get whacked from the original list of 10 possibilities and yet, The Blue Fog remains in contention.

The school mascot will not be changed – just the team name.  The mascot is a guy in a costume appropriate for – dare I say it – colonial times with a white wig.  Now imagine that guy running out of the team locker room and onto a basketball court leading a bunch of other guys known as The Blue Fog.

One other loose end that the visionaries at GWU might want to consider is this.  The school newspaper is The Hatchet.  Just maybe, some of those “colonists” used hatchets to perpetrate less-than-amicable acts upon “Native Americans and other colonialized people.”  Maybe that newspaper needs rebranding when bathed in the light of modern awareness.  If and when that level of awareness dawns at GWU, let me suggest that the new name for the paper be The Asshat.  No connotation about violent acts toward anyone with that label but it does seen to relate to current thinking at the university.

Moving on …  There is a much more interesting story related to collegiate athletics than the ongoing nickname saga at GWU.  A lawsuit has been filed against the Ivy League asserting that the Ivy League’s policy of not giving athletic scholarships – – only “need-based scholarships – – violates the Sherman Anti-Trust Act because that policy amounts to price-fixing.  The complaint here says:

“The Ivy League Agreement, in short, has stymied competition that would have lowered, and would lower, the net cost of attendance.  These injuries are particularly unfair given what is required of Ivy League Athletes and how their services benefit their schools and the Ivy League brand.”

In response, this is the statement from the Ivy League regarding this complaint:

“The Ivy League athletics model is built upon the foundational principle that student-athletes should be representative of the wider student body, including the opportunity to receive need-based financial aid.”

If these are the opening salvos in this action, it seems to me that neither side wants to acknowledge fundamental questions about their own position:

• No Ivy League Athlete is forced to play a varsity sport; that is a free choice made by those athletes.
• No Ivy League Athlete was a victim of bait-and-switch where they thought they would get an athletic scholarship from the school but then found out that no such scholarships existed.
• The Ivy League statement rests on the league’s model that has been in place for about 70 years – – but does not address the possibility that it has been in violation of extant law for any or all of that time.

I have no idea if this complaint will gain traction; the plaintiffs are seeking to make this a class action lawsuit.  However, this is much more interesting to me than the nickname change at GWU.

Sticking with college stuff today, this is the weekend of the Final Four and I find the betting odds interesting.  UConn is the favorite to win it all on Monday night but only as a tepid favorite.

• As of this morning the futures odds for UConn to be the national champion range from minus-125 to minus-130.
• As of this morning, the longest future odds are on FAU at +650.

My pick has been UConn since the first weekend of the tournament.  What I would like to see is a UConn/San Diego St. game matching good offense and good defense.  We shall see…

Finally, I began today with what I consider to be the absurdity of changing the nickname of George Washington University, so let me close with these words from the philosopher, Thomas Hobbes:

“The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject but man alone.”

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

 

 

I have mentioned this before, but allow me a few lines this morning to repeat myself:

• I know enough about astronomy to know that what we call “Springtime” starts at the time of the vernal equinox which in 2023 happened on March 20 at 5:24 EDT.  Moreover, I understand why the celestial events at that moment in time mark a terrestrial change for Planet Earth.
• I know enough about meteorology and societal norms to know that most “weather people” believe that “Springtime” begins on March 1^st.
• Notwithstanding the two points above, I believe that “Springtime” starts with Opening Day for the MLB season.

So, for me, today is the first day of Spring…

I will usher in the 2023 MLB season with commentary today, but baseball is something that makes a fan “play the long game”.  There might be a cataclysmic negative event in the first week of the MLB season but it is highly unlikely that there will be any positive event of a similar magnitude.  The fortunes of teams will ebb and flow over the next six months; the idea is for the good teams to start well and then to keep on, keeping on.

In the 2023 season, fans will see the introduction of the pitch clock.  There are other rules changes for the season, but the others will likely be seriously overshadowed by the pitch clock.  I have given the pitch clock positive reviews/commentary here in the past.  Today, I want to point you to a column in the Washington Post by “columnist emeritus”, Thomas Boswell.  It appeared in yesterday’s print edition; it is written by one of baseball’s best observers and chroniclers; do yourself a favor and read it here.

I cannot express my enthusiasm for the changes that the pitch clock will make starting in 2023 nearly as eloquently as Thomas Boswell did.  I expect the changes to be profound and positive.

If you believe that Spring Training trends carry over into the regular season, you should also expect to see significantly more base stealing attempts in the upcoming season.  That was the case in Spring Training and more attempts to steal a base provides for more game action on the field.  I am hopeful that this trend will carry over into the regular season; we shall see.

Locally, the Washington Nationals should be better than they were last season.  That is setting the bar awfully low because the Nats lost 107 games in 2022.  However, the Nats made some trades at the deadline last year acquiring some young talent that could provide for the core of a good club in a  year or three.  CJ Abrams is a young shortstop who can play at the major league level; he is an excellent fielder and could develop into a serious threat at the plate even if he never develops a “home run stroke”.  Two young pitchers, MacKenzie Gore and Josiah Gray, show promise even if their stats are not sterling to date.

• A reasonable goal for the Nats in 2022 is to lose fewer than 100 games.
• A goal that should send Nats’ execs into paroxysms would be for the team to lose fewer than 90 games.

Just up the road from here in Baltimore, the Orioles are coming to the 2023 season with a surprising result from 2022.  After what seemed like an eternal “rebuild” the Orioles finished last year with a winning record at 83-79.  I surely did not expect that and other than commentators at blatantly fanboy sites, I don’t think anyone else expected that either.

The challenge this year is for the Orioles’ extremely young roster to build on last year and prove to the world that it was not a statistical freak.  If the Orioles exhibit even a smidgen of “regression to the mean” by the roster in general, a second consecutive winning season will be out of the question.  Having said all that, I really believe that catcher Adley Rutschman is a budding star in MLB who will be a “face of the franchise” player for a long time.  If you are a baseball fan in a part of the country significantly distant from Baltimore, try to pay attention to Adley Rutschman and his career development.

In terms of players to watch, I think Boston’s Masataka Yoshida stands out for 2023.  The Sox paid a hefty price to sign him from the Japanese League where he hit .336 last year and posted an OPS of just over 1.000.    Can he do anything close to that in MLB?  That is why it pays to keep an eye on his performance.

I suspect that the Oakland A’s will be in the news a lot in 2023 but not about anything related to baseball on the field; the stories will be about the team moving out of Oakland.  The negotiations on the major development project in Oakland that would include a new stadium for the team are proceeding at a crawl except for times when the two sides have to speak to the public about the negotiations – – at which point they always profess to have made progress.  Here is a fact:

• The A’s lease for the Oakland Coliseum – or whatever they are going to call it this  year – expires after the 2024 season.

As Snuffy Smith used to say in the old comic strip, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, “Times a wastin’”

Here are a few predictions for the upcoming season:

• I like the Angels and the Mariners to fight it out for a playoff slot this year out of the AL West which will be won by the Astros – – even if it takes Jose Altuve until Father’s Day to get back in the lineup.
• I like the Padres to beat the Dodgers in the NL West this year – – but the Dodgers will be in the playoffs
• I like the Guardians to win the AL Central; they were the only team there to finish over .500 in 2022 and I don’t see the Guardians collapsing nor do I see any other team excelling sufficiently to overtake the Guardians in 2023.
• I like the Cards to repeat as the NL Central champs.  They won the division last year by 7 games and I don’t see how any of the teams in the division closed that large a gap in the off-season.
• I like the Braves to win the NL East – – and I will be surprised if the Phillies can make the playoffs in 2023 given their injury situation with Harper and Hoskins.  The Mets will set MLB records for the amount of money spent on payroll in a season this year – – but that is not going to translate into a division title in Queens.
• I like the Blue Jays in the AL East and I think they will be pressed by the Rays for the top spot in the AL East.

Finally, let me close this rant devoted to baseball with an observation by former MLB Commissioner, A. Bartlett Giamatti:

“[Baseball] breaks you heart.  It is designed to break your heart.  The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops, and leaves you to face the fall alone.”

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

 

One of the annual events on the NFL’s calendar is the Spring Owners’ Meeting and one of the features of that convocation is always the adoption of new rules and regulations for the league.  The process to get a new rule – or a modified existing rule – on the books allows for teams to propose a change; then the Competition Committee reviews/endorses the proposals and perhaps suggests changes of its own; after that, the endorsed changes go to a vote of the owners themselves and a change requires a 75% supermajority for approval.

As is generally the case, the changes that are approved often involve things that the average fan did not know were part of the NFL’s rules and regulations.  In 2023 here are some examples of arcane provisions in the rulebook:

1. Players will be allowed to wear jersey number zero and punters/kickers can wear any two-digit number they want outside the range of 50-90.  This should change exactly nothing about the way games are played or the outcomes of any games.
2. The NFL preseason rosters will have a maximum of 90 players until a specified date when all teams must cut from 90 players to 53 players all at once.  Why the league would want to have almost 1200 players cast aside by the 32 teams on a single day is a mystery to me.
3. Teams will have until the following Monday to claim players waived on Friday or Saturday of the final week of the regular season.  Then teams making the playoffs will have until the Wednesday after the final regular season game to declare their playoff rosters.  Proponents of this rule say it will make those processes more orderly; I was not aware that those processes were chaotic in the past.

There were some rule changes approved at the Owners’ Meeting that can influence the way teams play and potentially on the outcome of some games:

1. Failed fourth-down attempts will get an automatic booth review which will be relayed to the officials on the field meaning there is no need for a coach’s challenge and a review by the officials on the field.  Proponents of the rule change say it will speed up the games because of the faster review process.  Those are the same folks who used to call it “instant replay” and we know for sure that replays in the NFL are anything but “instant”.
2. Tripping penalties are now going to be penalized by 15 yards and an automatic first down.  Previously, it was only 15 yards…
3. Forward handoffs – as are often effected in RPOs – are disallowed.  Handoffs must be lateral or behind the player doing the handing off.  I am not sure how game officials are going to be able to work their mechanics such that at least one of them has a view of every handoff from a perpendicular perspective relative to the sidelines.  I think this rule change will cause more controversy than is necessary.

I always look at the proposed rule changes that do not get the necessary supermajority to find their way into the rulebook.  I often look at them in comparison to the ones that are approved and wonder what was going through the minds of the voters.  Here are some proposals that were not accepted for 2023:

1. One proposal was to have roughing the passer calls added to the reviewable list.  Last year there were several very questionable roughing the passer calls and those penalties can seriously affect game outcomes.
2. Once again, a proposal to do away with onside kicks was not accepted by the owners.  This time the onside kick would have been replaced with a 4^th and 20 offensive situation where control of the ball would b e determined by the outcome of that single offensive play.  According to league stats, only 4% of onside kicks were successfully recovered by the kicking team in 2022.
3. Another proposal was to resuscitate the so-called “3^rd QB Rule” which would allow every team to dress a 3rd QB in every game and that designated 3^rd QB would not count against the 46-man roster declared for the game.  That player’s participation in the game would have restrictions as were stipulated in previous NFL rules.  The playoff game between the Eagles and the Niners last year when the Niners suffered debilitating injuries to both of their active QBs makes this rule change seem like a zero-cost alteration since most teams carry three QBs anyway.

One action that had been anticipated for this year’s Spring Owners’ Meeting seems to have been obviated.  Reports said that there could be an announcement by the league regarding the ownership of the Washington Commanders.  The Snyders have been mercifully silent during the course of the meetings and the only news on the “franchise purchase front” are reports that two bids of $6B have been put on the table.

1. One bid involves the current owner of the Philadelphia 76ers in a partnership with a Washington-area billionaire and Magic Johnson.  That bid is described as “formal” and “fully financed”.  I understand “formal”; it would seem to me that any “formal” offer would have to be “fully financed”, so there must be a nuance there that I do not understand.
2. The other bid is fronted by a Canadian real estate magnate and private equity fund manager.

I have professed in these rants on multiple occasions that I cannot read minds.  So, what I am about to say has to be taken in that context:

• It seems to me that ever since Danny Boy Snyder was in the process of buying the Washington franchise in the late 1990s, he has always enjoyed immensely those occasions where he was the center of attention.
• Over the past several years, he has been the center of attention for lots of “wrong reasons”; and even if you ascribe to the view that “any publicity is good publicity”, you might get to the point where more bad news about you is not nearly as welcome as it used to be.  [Aside: For those who do believe that any publicity is good publicity, let me refer you to the Archdiocese of Boston for a sanity check.]
• Danny Boy Snyder can milk this situation.  He can be the center of attention and have his name in the headlines where the story under the headlines does not seek to tie him to sordid and smarmy behaviors as the person running the Washington franchise.  He might actually enjoy this current status.
• Ergo, I will not be even slightly surprised to see this process of negotiation and vetting and approval and new issues go on for another year.  Unless one or both of those $6B offers comes off the table because the bidders think they are being used, this is a process that can go on for a while and provide Snyder with the enjoyment of the limelight.
• Or not…

Finally, since today has been about “rules”, let me close with this assertion from The Communist Manifesto:

“The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.”

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

 

 

Last week, I offered my opinion on which side had the most leverage in the Jets/Packers negotiations regarding Aaron Rodgers.  Shortly after posting the rant, a friend asked me to opine on the Lamar Jackson situation as it relates to leverage.  I think the “Jackson situation” is more complicated than the “Rodgers situation” because it has more moving parts.  As things stand now, all that has to happen is for the Packers and Jets to agree on compensation and Rodgers will be the QB for the Jets in 2023.  As things stand now, there are multiple upon multiple possible actors for the “Jackson situation”, so the contingencies begin to pile up quickly.  Nevertheless, I will give it a go.

Looking only at the Jackson versus Ravens stand-off, the Ravens have all the leverage now.  They have made a contractual offer that allows Jackson to seek a deal anywhere in the league AND THEN that offer allows the Ravens to sit back and analyze if they want to match that deal or not.  If “not” then the Ravens get two first round draft picks automatically without any dealmaking necessary from the club that signs Lamar Jackson.  Oh, and if Jackson does not get a deal to his liking from another club, that gives Jackson a choice:

• Play for the Ravens in 2023 and earn $32M for his efforts knowing that the team is likely to put the same flavor of franchise tag on him in the next off season – – OR – –
• Take the “LeVeon Bell Route” and sit out the 2023 season.

If Jackson sat out 2023 and made it known he would do the same again, he would create lots of leverage for himself.  However, I think that is the only way he is going to achieve that status.  His “problem” now is that when he talks to one of the QB-needy teams in the league about a contract, the price that the QB-needy team has to pay is amplified:

• The QB-needy team has to give Jackson something that Jackson finds sufficiently rewarding – – PLUS – –
• The QB-needy team has to give the Ravens two first round draft picks.

Things get trickier if indeed one or more QB-needy teams begin to entertain the possibilities of signing Jackson.  For example, I would not call any of the other three AFC North teams “QB-needy” but if one of them got involved in talks with Jackson, the Ravens might feel a lot more pressure than if Jackson’s negotiations were with a team in the NFC South.

Jackson can gain a small bit of leverage by slow-playing his negotiations with other teams until after the NFL Draft which will take place from April 27 through April 29.  In doing that, he deprives the Ravens from knowing if they need to draft a QB in this year’s Draft and he diminishes the current value of those two compensatory first round picks the Ravens can get because the second one would be pushed out until 2025.  That is not a huge advantage for Jackson, but it is something.

There was an interesting wrinkle in this matter that was reported in the last week or so.  Supposedly, someone who is not Jackson’s agent – – remember, he is representing himself in negotiations with the Ravens and being advised by his mother – – contacted other  teams.  Jackson said specifically that this man was not negotiating for him and that the stories were the sports equivalent of fake news.  The NFL league office must have believed the reports – – or had sources of its own – – because it sent a letter to all 32 teams reminding them that this person was not a certified agent approved by the NFLPA and therefore teams could not deal with him in any way.  The interesting wrinkle to me has nothing at all to do with whether or not this guy was “negotiating on behalf of Jackson” or not.  What I find interesting is the concept of a “certified agent” in this labor-management negotiation.

I am not a historian nor an economist but my recollection from American history classes is that the Congress passed anti-trust laws that sought to break up what were described as “combinations in restraint of trade”.  The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was aimed at mainly at railroad monopolies but as I recall it also banned  conspiracies to restrain trade/commerce.  The outlawing of anti-competitive agreements was a big deal leading to the passage of this Act in 1890.  So, with that law still on the books, riddle me this:

• How can the NFL and the NFLPA have an agreement that limits the competition for player agents by imposing things that agents must do before they are allowed to act as agents for players who may or may not choose to have such representation?
• Why is that part of the existing CBA between the NFL and the NFLPA not a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act?  It smells to me like an “anti-competitive agreement” which creates a “combination in restraint of trade.”
• Why is Lamar Jackson limited in his range of choices for representation?
• Why is Lamar Jackson required to be a member of the NFLPA which is then a party to limiting his ability to choose his representation?

I know that five readers of these rants are practicing attorneys and one is a retired attorney.  If any – or all – of them explain this to me, I will be happy to share their insights in a future rant.

Moving on …  Last week, there was a report at frontofficesports.com about NCAA plans to make postseason college basketball for women more equitable vis á vis men’s college basketball.  At issue is the funding/sponsorship of the Women’s NIT and how that event has a second class status when compared to the Men’s NIT.  Here is the link to that report; I recommend that you read it in its entirety; it is thorough and well written.  It is clear that the NCAA has paid far more attention and devoted far more resources to the Men’s NIT than the Women’s NIT; and in the environment of 2023, that is a problem to be rectified.  However, one way to rectify it would be for the NCAA to cancel both NIT tournaments owning up to the fact that neither of them is of any relevance.

That will never happen because it is a “reality-based solution” …

Finally, since much of today dealt with negotiations and agents, let me close with these lines from Shakespeare’s play, Much Ado About Nothing:

“Friendship is constant in all other things.

Save in the office and affairs of love:

Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues.

Let every eye negotiate for itself

And trust no agent.”

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

 

 

Let me start with two comments about the Sweet-16 games over the weekend.

• The foul call in the final seconds of the San Diego State/Creighton game was simultaneously the right call and the wrong call.  It was the right call because the Creighton player did indeed commit a foul; it was the wrong call because “fouls” of that degree of severity had been ignored for the previous 39 minutes and 55 seconds.  When the officials who “grade the refs’ performance” after the fact review this game, they should note that he made the right call and his call was in fact what decided the game outcome.  Good for him in getting the call correct; bad for him that his call was out of line with the way the officials had established that the game would be called.
• Isaiah Wong (Miami) was voted as the ACC Player of the Year.  He is a good player – – maybe even a very good player – – but somehow I do not have him on a level similar to previous winners of that award such as:
  • • • Billy Cunningham
      • Tim Duncan
      • Phil Ford
      • Michael Jordan
      • Christian Laettner
      • Ralph Samsom
      • David Thompson – – you get the idea.

After San Diego St. eliminated Alabama over the weekend, Alabama coach, Nate Oats said, “Our season wasn’t a disappointment.”  I agree; it was way more than disappointing; it was cringeworthy.  Let me review the bidding:

• An Alabama player stands accused of capital murder.
• Brandon Miller – knowingly or unknowingly – brought the alleged murder weapon to the scene of the crime and is a material witness in the case.
• A third player is also a witness in the case.
• And as the overall #1 seed in the tournament, Alabama lost in the round of 16.

Coach Oats is right, that is much more than merely “disappointing” …

Speaking of “disappointing” and “basketball”, let me move up a level to the NBA and observe the Dallas Mavericks.  About 6 weeks ago, the Mavs acquired Kyrie Irving in a “blockbuster trade” to put another superstar player alongside Luka Doncic.  More than a handful of commentators said at the time that this could make the Mavs serious NBA Championship contenders.  Let me just say those analyses have not played out well to date.  Assuming I have counted correctly:

• The Mavs are 7-13 since acquiring Kyrie Irving.
• The Mavs are only 3-8 in games where both Irving and Doncic played.

As of today, the Mavs are in 11^th place in the NBA Western Conference meaning that they would not even be part of the “play-in round” of the league’s expanded playoffs.  In the NBA about 70% of the teams make the playoffs; it is highly unusual for a conference finalist in Year One to miss the playoffs entirely in Year Two.

The Mavericks made the Western Conference finals last year; they lost Jalen Brunson to free agency over the summer and then acquired Irving at the beginning of February this year.  If Kyrie Irving played Jalen Brunson in a 1-on-1 game, Irving would win  90% of the time.  But the Mavs are not nearly as good a team after the trade as compared to last year’s squad.

I believe the Mavs were 29-26 when Irving arrived from the Brooklyn Nets; as of this morning, the Mavs are 36-39.  The Mavs have 7 games left in the regular season and 4 of their upcoming opponents are below .500 as of today.  If the Mavericks cannot “right the ship” and win at least those four games between now and April 9^th, the season in Dallas will not be “disappointing”; it will be “disastrous”.

While on the subject of the NBA, that league is edging up to a potentially disastrous PR situation.  Forget the skills of its players; that has never been a problem for the league; it has always had the best players on the planet.  Here are just some of the issues the NBA has to deal with and has shown little if any competency in dealing with them:

• Player empowerment which allows star players to dictate where they will ply their trade.
• Load management which allows star players to dictate when they will ply their trade even after they have decided where they will ply their trade
• Ja Morant being suspended for “mental health issues” and then being pronounced as “cured/good to go” in about 2 weeks.  Even Dr. Phil would not put his name on that kind of behavioral turnaround.  [Aside:  The juxtaposition of “player” and “guns” will get another focal point in June this year when Brandon Miller is drafted and goes onstage to hug it out with Commish Adam Silver.]

Finally, since much of today dealt with “disappointment”, let me close with this observation by the poet, Alexander Pope:

“’Blessed is the man who expects nothing for he shall never be disappointed’ was the ninth beatitude.”

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

 

 

There was a time when the NCAA refused to allow a state – – Nevada to be specific – – to host any sort of championship event because that state had the taint of sports gambling associated with it.  The NCAA could – – and did – – get away with that farcical stance because the US Congress in its infinite wisdom passed a law designed to “protect” professional and amateur sports from the evils of gambling.  And then the US Supreme Court said that law was null and void because it was unconstitutional.  Previous NCAA Presidents like Cedric Dempsey, Myles Brand and Mark Emmert smugly dismissed Nevada in general – – and Las Vegas very specifically – – as possible sites for any sort of important NCAA event.

Myles Brand has cast off his mortal coil; he has gone to the great amateur sports venue in the sky.  Dempsey and Emmert are still exchanging oxygen in our biosphere so they can deal with the ignominy they so richly deserve as we look at only men’s college basketball as one NCAA sport and how it has found ways to exist in Nevada in 2023.  I may have missed some activities here, but my list demonstrates that any and all of the self-righteous bleatings of the NCAA in the past were nothing more than self-righteous bleatings:

1. The PAC-12 held its Conference Championship Tournament in Las Vegas
2. The Mountain West Conference held its Conference Championship Tournament in Las Vegas.
3. The WAC held its Conference Championship Tournament in Las Vegas.
4. The WCC held its Conference Championship Tournament in Las Vegas.

As if that were insufficient to rub the noses of those prigs in the reality of 2023 in the US and the existence of gambling on men’s college basketball that existed before and during the barren times overseen by these recent NCAA barons, add these events to the 2023 list of activities in the sinful environs of Nevada and Las Vegas:

1. The NIT Final Four will be in Las Vegas this year.
2. The NCAA’s own March Madness West Regional Final games will be in Las Vegas this year.

And I am willing to go out on a limb and predict that with all of that overbearing pressure on the games played by those so-called “student-athletes”, the most annoying song from the musical Annie has relevance here because:

• The sun will come up tomorrow – – and then – –
• The sun will come out tomorrow.

Do not anticipate any statements of sorrow for being wrong from Cedric Dempsey and/or Mark Emmert.  They will be watching the games and pretending that any gambling on those games is done by unrepentant degenerates in our society who have been given license to yield to the Devil’s temptations by the miscalculations of the US Supreme Court.  I prefer to think that it is the time for real people in the US to rub the noses of those two goofs in the waste products of every NCAA basketball athlete who participated in an event in Las Vegas this year and managed to come away from it without the stain of scandal attached to his name forever and ever.

Oh, and by the way, the current mavens who chart the course of March Madness which is the single largest revenue stream left for the NCAA to live on have decided to stage the Final Four – – the Holy Grail of each and every NCAA competition – – in Las Vegas, NV in 2028.

Cedric Dempsey will be 95 in 2028 so he may be sitting next to Myles Brand in the Celestial Café watching the March Madness games in 2028 in their purest form;  Mark Emmert should – actuarially speaking – – still be among us in 2028 at age 76 and someone ought to ask him then if he was even tempted to fill out a bracket and/or to take Blueblood U and lay 35.5 points against Who’s That College – – the team that got a mandatory bid to that tournament by winning the WTF Conference.  Trust me, no one is going to ask him that question then even if they can find where he is hiding out 5 years from now.

Many times in these rants, I have railed against the idealistic nincompoops who asserted that gambling on collegiate sports would ruin those events.  The premise of their arguments was so patently false that their argument(s) did not deserve even minimal consideration.  Let me be clear:

• Gambling – – on anything including college sports – – has a dark side.
• Consuming alcohol and smoking pot have a dark side.
• People are going to gamble notwithstanding the existence of that dark side.
• People are going to consume alcohol and marijuana notwithstanding the existence of that dark side.

Trying to ban alcohol consumption – – Prohibition – – was tried and it did not stop people from drinking.  Trying to ban marijuana smoking was tried and it did not stop people from smoking – – and inhaling even despite Bill Clinton’s lame attempt at deflecting that inquiry.

Walking along that same track, trying to prevent or ignore the existence of gambling on college sporting events does not stop the practice of betting on college sporting events.

• Wagering on college sports is at least 100 years old and will continue to be a common practice among college sports fans until and unless there are no more inter-collegiate sports events for them to wager on.

That is not some sort of Satanic-inspired prophesy; that is the reality of human existence.  Now if one’s religious beliefs leads one to conclude that the only way for such to be the reality of the human condition is for it to be Satan-inspired, have at it.  My intention is not to try to make a theological point that I am supremely incompetent to make; my intention here is to say specifically that people gamble on a variety of things from sports to the roll of a pair of dice to the turn of a playing card; and laws, regulations and high-falutin’ rhetoric is not going change that state of affairs.

Now, go watch today’s Sweet-16 games in this year’s NCAA Tournament and enjoy the spectacle – – with or without “a little something” riding on the games’ outcomes.

Finally, having spent today dealing with gambling on college sports, let me close with a famous observation by the American journalist, Damon Runyon:

“It may be that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong – but that is the way to bet.”

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