Author: Jack

Last Friday, I wrote about the whitewashing of the NFL’s investigation into the “toxic culture” in the Front Office of the Washington Football Team.  If only 20% of the allegations made there are true, there were some bad boys resident there.  Today, I am going to chatter about a couple of other “bad boys” leading me to wonder if I should consider adopting the theme song from the TV show, Cops:

“Bad boys bad boys
Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do
When they come for you…”

MLB suspended Dodgers’ pitcher, Trevor Bauer, for 7 days with pay as it investigates allegations made by a woman seeking a temporary restraining order against Bauer.  A judge heard the charges and granted the restraining order and both MLB and the local police are investigating what happened or did not happen in the events that led to the seeking of the restraining order.  This imposition of what would be called “paid administrative leave” in a workplace less visible than an MLB team is indeed an action that is addressed and sanctioned in the existing CBA between MLB and the MLBPA.  However, it is limited to a 7-day period and any extension beyond that point would require concurrence by the union.

The accusation made by the woman now in possession of that restraining order dealt with participation in and solicitation of “rough sex” between the parties.  She asserts that she consented to sex with Bauer but that she did not consent to the behavior which she characterizes as sexual assault.  In her statement to the court, she asserts that she was subject to strangulation, punches to the head/face and sodomy.  It came as no surprise when I read that Trevor Bauer denies the accusations and will contest them.  Should you want the details of the accusation, you can find them reported here.

Based on what has come to light so far, this is going to be a classic case of ‘He said…/she said…”  In such circumstances, there are only two people who know what happened physically and emotionally before, during and after the event(s) in question.  Notwithstanding the inability for outsiders to know what transpired, there will be plenty of speculation on the matter.  Since I have no idea what happened or did not happen, I would prefer to focus on two other aspects of this matter:

1. What happens next Friday when the 7-day suspension with pay runs out?  It would be unusual for a matter of this kind to be resolved by the police in 7 days and I am hard-pressed to imagine that MLB’s “investigation” would be so thorough in a 7-day period as to be conclusive one way or the other.  So, what do the leaders of MLB and the union do at that point?  It seems to me that any position taken by MLB next Friday could blow up in its face AND any reaction by the union – concurrence with MLB or opposition – is also a potential stink bomb.
2. I understand that Bauer would want to clear his name in  matter like this one if indeed he is not a “bad boy” here.  The “He said…/she said…” structure of the matter makes that a most difficult undertaking.  So, absent criminal charges arising from the seeking of the restraining order, why contest the restraining order?  It does not seem as if there is a basis for a long-term relationship of any kind between the two parties, so why contest the order and keep the story alive?

The other “bad boy” for today is Josh Gordon; he has applied to the NFL for reinstatement from his indefinite suspension from the NFL in 2019.  Josh Gordon’s NFL career has been a tortured one indeed; it has taken more twists and turns than a plate of linguini and if that plate of linguini is adorned with clam sauce, the individual clams could represent speed bumps along the path.  I will just try to hit the high points – or low points if  you prefer – here:

• The suspension in 2019 was for violation of the NFL substance abuse and performance enhancing drug policy.  He was reinstated briefly in December 2020 but suffered a “setback” almost immediately after the reinstatement and it never allowed him to show up on a playing field.
• In 2019, he played for the Pats and the Seahawks before being suspended.  If I count correctly, that would have been his fifth instance of running afoul of the NFL policy on recreational and/or performance-enhancing drugs and/or running afoul of “team rules”.
• Gordon was drafted by the Browns in 2012; he led the NFL in receiving yards in 2013 despite his having been suspended from the first two games of that season due to “drug issues”.  However, from that point through the end of the 2015/16 season, he only appeared in 11 games due to various suspensions and rehab events.
• In one instance, Gordon applied for reinstatement, and it was denied because he failed a drug test while in the process of seeking reinstatement.

I think you get the drift here…  Josh Gordon is a very talented football player who either cannot or who chooses not to live by the rules that govern his eligibility to express his talents.  Such circumstances are not unique to the NFL or its players; there are limitations on behaviors – personal and professional – on lawyers, doctors, law enforcement officers, CPAs and so on.  Should Roger Goodell decide to reinstate Gordon once again, I believe he would be a free agent since it seems to me that his last contract with the Seahawks has run its course.

Josh Gordon as a free agent might be interesting to observe.  There is no doubt about his skill as a WR – even though he is now 30 years old.  Equally, there is no doubt that he is not a player who can be counted on as being allowed to suit up and play “on any given Sunday”.  I would find it interesting to see which teams would be think about adding him to their locker room.

Finally, in keeping with today’s theme about “bad boys” let me close with an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times – – and let me use this opportunity to wish Dwight Perry well and hope for his imminent return to the paper with his column Sideline Chatter:

“Steelers CB Justin Layne got arrested in Ohio for felony transportation of a gun, speeding (89 in a 60-mph zone) and driving with a suspended license.

“Even worse, he gets to tell it to a judge in the state the rival Browns and Bengals play in.”

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

Well, it did not take quite a full year for the NFL to act regarding allegations made by former female employees of the Washington Football Team regarding a “toxic culture” in the Front Office there and some awfully sleazy allegations that border on calling some folks “peeping Toms”.  Yesterday, the NFL announced that it has fined the team $10M – which the league will beneficently donate to charity – and simultaneously, the team announced that Danny Boy Snyder will not be the team CEO any longer because he is turning over those duties to his wife Tanya Snyder.

To be clear, no individual was suspended by the league for even a day nor was the team penalized in any way related to performance – – such as losing a draft pick or two.  The penalty here has two dimensions:

1. A monetary dimension
2. A cosmetic change to the team’s “wiring diagram”.

That’s it; that’s the list…

In September 2020, Forbes estimated the value of the Washington NFL franchise to be $3.5B.  That means the NFL fined the team to the tune of three-tenths of one percent of its value.  Ten million dollars is a lot of money in normal life; ten million dollars is petty cash in the world of NFL franchises and their owners.  Make no mistake; this is not even a slap on the wrist; this “penalty” is the equivalent of having your mother wag her finger at you and telling you not to do whatever it was that get her angry in the first place.

The investigative report done into the allegations here found the team’s Front Office workplace to be “highly unprofessional” – – particularly for women.  You can read about the first wave of allegations made by 15 women as documented by the Washington Post  last July here.  After you take a moment to do so, I want to pose a few questions when you get back.

Now that you have refreshed your memory about the first wave of allegations – – remember these were augmented about a month later when more women came forward – – ask yourself a couple of questions:

• If the findings of the investigation were serious enough to merit a seemingly large fine, should you not conclude that at least some of the charges levied by these women were found to have had some merit?
• Now, if even a few of the allegations were found to be real, how come there are no suspensions?  Would not the NFL want to disassociate itself with people who engaged in behaviors such as the ones alleged by these women?

So … either the NFL took the investigative report and found it to be “frivolous” but figured that it had to do something that looked dramatic so it fined the team 0.3% of its value or the NFL took the investigative report and found at least some of the allegations to be credible and decided to make it look as if they were acting in a way to assure such behavior would never again darken the doors of the institution and gave us a meaningless fine and a cosmetic change in the team hierarchy.

Here are four significant problems with the NFL’s current position:

1. The league – as of now – will not make the investigative report public even in a redacted form.  That leaves the door open for anyone who wants to cast aspersions on the report or the league’s action(s) based on the report to have at it.
2. The league punished the New England Patriots with a nominal fine AND the loss of a draft pick based on flimsy evidence in Deflategate.  It also suspended some folks. So, the questionable air pressure in a football is more important to the league than sexual assault on women and “peeping Tom” activities?
3. The allegations leveled last summer were sufficient for the team to fire two individuals named as “perpetrators” and for the then Director of Communications to decide to retire about 24 hours after the story hit the papers.  So, based on the current status, we should conclude that they are the only bad actors here?  Really?
4. At least one allegation made involved Danny Boy Snyder directly.  The league announcement of what it calls the conclusion of this matter does not even mention that “trivial matter”.

To my mind, the most telling and troubling aspect of this matter is that the league will not release the report done by Beth Wilkinson and that the league is now trying to frame its decision in light of this overview statement:

“Wilkinson was not specifically tasked with confirming or rejecting any particular allegation of inappropriate conduct …”

Excuse me?  Then how come it took a  year for the league to get the report and decide to take “action”?

Please take another moment today and read Sally Jenkins’ column in this morning’s Washington Post.  If you have the idea that I find the NFL’s position on this matter less than honorable, you should see what Ms. Jenkins has to say.

Finally, at the heart of this sordid mess is the issue of equal treatment of women in the workplace.  So, let me close with this observation by the French novelist, Honoré de Balzac:

“Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact,”

To which I add – – “Especially if they don’t even try.”

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

MLB teams have been playing for 3 months in 2021; the season is almost half over.  As I have done on the first day of previous months, I want to present some cumulative numbers regarding MLB’s Injured List.  So, for the first 3 months of the 2021 season:

• 566 different players have spent time on the Injured List
• 327 of those players were pitchers
• Those players spent a cumulative total of 20,431 days on the Injured list.  (Average stay on the IL is 36.1 days.)
• Players have collected a total of $381,728,917 while on the Injured List.  (Average salary collected is $674,433)

If you want to slice and dice this data in some different ways, here are some more data:

• The Houston Astros have paid the most money to players on the IL ($21.0M).
• The KC Royals have paid the least money to players on the IL ($1.5M).
• The NY Mets and the San Diego Padres have both placed the largest number of players on the IL (14 different players).
• The Boston Red Sox and the Oakland A’s have both placed the fewest players on the IL (4 different players).
• The San Diego Padres’ players on the IL have spent the greatest number of days on that list (979 cumulative days).
• The Oakland A’s players on the IL have spent the fewest number of days on that list (171 days).

And speaking of players being paid not to play baseball, today is – unofficially of course – Bobby Bonilla Day.  Every July 1^st until 2035.  Bonilla will collect $1.19M today from the NY Mets as a deferred payment for a contract buyout in 2000.  Nice work if you can get it …

Here in the DC area, today marks the passing of an icon.  Thomas Boswell retired as of yesterday; he will no longer be writing sports columns in the Washington Post – something he has been doing for the last 52 years.  Since I have lived in the DC area for 51 years and have subscribed to the paper for all that time, I have been a more than frequent consumer of Boswell’s output.  I would break down his columns into 3 categories:

1. When he was writing about baseball – either the local team or the sport itself – he was as good as there was.  He loved baseball and he recognized parts of the game that were not apparent to me.  He educated and he entertained paragraph by paragraph.
2. When he was writing about the local NFL team, he provided an important service to the reader.  He did not spend his time focused on a single aspect of a game or a “key turning point” in the last game; he offered insight and opinion into something larger and more relevant to the team or the league itself.  However, I never got the sense that he loved football nearly as much as he loved baseball.
3. When he was writing about any other sport, the prose was excellent, and the insights were still there.  However, I always got the sense that he would have preferred to be writing about a baseball topic, but the boss said he needed a column on whatever today’s subject was.

The Washington Post has had some excellent folks write columns over the years including Richard Justice, Dave Kindred, Tony Kornheiser, Shirley Povich and Michael Wilbon.  Thomas Boswell can now take his place in that table of Post alumni in a seat of honor.

Currently, the sports staff at the Post has Kevin Blackistone, Jerry Brewer, Sally Jenkins and Barry Sverluga as its lineup as columnists.  I follow and I enjoy all four of those journalists; at the same time, I have to say that the four of them have a large void to fill with Boswell’s retirement.

Bonne chance, Thomas Boswell…

The debacle of the European Soccer “Super League” has had an interesting bit of fallout.  One of the teams that intended to break away from UEFA to participate in the Super League was Liverpool from the English Premier League.  The team was obviously surprised by the vehement opposition of its fanbase to the club’s intention to be part of that renegade league and the folks who own the club – Fenway Sports Group – clearly saw a need to mend a lot of fences.

The owners have agreed to have fans represented on the Liverpool Board of Directors and Fenway Sports Group has pledged to pay any costs or fines levied against the Liverpool Club itself and not charge those costs to the club.  The team fan club will create a Supporters’ Board which will meet with club officials periodically and the chairman of the Supporters’ Board will attend the main Board of Directors meetings to assure fan interests and thinking are represented.

When I first read about this, I thought it was clever window dressing manufactured by a communications specialist on staff.  However, the club is also adding to the Liverpool articles of association a written agreement with the fan support group – the Official Liverpool Supporters Trust – assuring that fan representation on the teams Board of Directors will survive even in the event of the sale of the team by Fenway Sports Group.  It will be interesting to see how this amalgamation works out and if it provides a model for other sports franchises.

Finally, since I mentioned Thomas Boswell’s retirement above and having been happily retired for 20 years now, let me offer a couple of things relative to that situation:

• Being retired is like having two six-month vacations every year.

And …

• A great thing about retirement is that Fridays are no longer the best day of the week.

And …

• I don’t want to.  I don’t have to.  You can’t make me.  I’m retired.

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

I have had a nagging suspicion that Bob Baffert had gotten special treatment – – kid gloves actually – – in previous incidents where his horses had improper substances in their blood after a race.  Obviously, I had no evidence; but his fame and his success seemed to be “factors” whenever racing authorities closed one of his cases.  In this morning’s Washington Post, there is a report by Gus Garcia-Roberts based on “confidential records” obtained by the Post.  These are not the Pentagon Papers, but they are records from the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) as that body investigated 2018 Kentucky Derby winner, Justify, and his failed drug test at Santa Anita prior to the Derby.

Here is the lead paragraph from a lengthy – and well written – report:

“In 2018, as star trainer Bob Baffert led his thoroughbred Justify to the Triple Crown, California regulators embarked on a secret effort to exonerate Baffert after the horse’s positive test for a banned substance, according to confidential records obtained by The Washington Post that fully detail the saga for the first time.”

The most damning part of this report in my mind is that as this investigative process proceeded, the CHRB rewrote its own rules so that they would be more lenient regarding Justify’s blood test and to the possible avenues for its appearance in those blood analyses.  You can read the report at www.washingtonpost.com.

Currently, Baffert is suspended from racing in NY for 2 years; he is contesting that suspension in court.  I do not understand the legal issues involved nearly well enough to pontificate on how it might turn out.  However, if the NY racing mavens have not done anything that is illegal, it would be a good thing for horse racing as a sport to come down hard on a highly successful trainer who has a history of bending – and sometimes breaking – some of the fundamental rules of racing in place to make the sport fair.

Switching gears …  The Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to begin on 23 July; that is a mere 3 weeks and 2 days from today.  As of this morning, things are “GO” for the Games.  There is still some apprehension among Japanese people about holding the games in a time when COVID is not under greater control in Japan, but it seems as if organizers and the government in Japan believe the Games can be handled safely.

Vaccination rates in Japan are not good; as of yesterday, only a little more than 8% of the population of Japan were fully vaccinated.  Two factors have hindered progress there with regard to vaccinations:

1. There was governmental bureaucratic infighting that went on for a few months putting Japan well behind the rest of the developed countries in terms of acquiring large numbers of doses of the various vaccines.
2. Now that vaccines are available, officials there face an existing Japanese law that says only licensed physicians and RNs may administer shots.  That is a restriction to be sure, but it is magnified by the fact that Japan had a shortage of health care workers even before anyone ever heard of COVID-19.

For anyone planning to travel to Japan with the hope – but not nearly any certainty – of seeing some of the competitions there, this is what the CDC offers as guidance:

• The coronavirus risk in Japan is considered HIGH.
• Make sure you are fully vaccinated before traveling to Japan.
• Unvaccinated travelers should avoid nonessential travel to Japan.
• Because of the current situation in Japan, all travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants.

Moving on …  Here is a comment from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald:

“CARL NASSIB: Finally! NFL Has first openly gay, active player: The Las Vegas Raiders defensive end is a journeyman 28-year-old with his third team in five years. But this week, forever more, Carl Nassib was to be defined for his history making more than his football. Not since Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947 has sports had a more groundbreaking ‘first.’”

I have exactly no problem with Carl Nassib’s sexual preferences.  I am not shocked, titillated nor offended by his proclamation.  I do take issue with Greg Cote on three far less “exciting” points in his comment than Nassib’s announcement itself:

1. Wasn’t Michael Sam openly gay when he was drafted by the Rams in 2014 and when he spent a  year with the Cowboys?
2. I think the comparison with Jackie Robinson is a real stretch.  Blacks were not permitted to play in the major leagues until Robinson came along; gay men were not barred from the NFL – and potentially lucrative careers there; gay men only needed to keep their gayness  quiet.  Neither situation is a good one, but what Black men faced regarding baseball 75-100 years ago was far worse because Black men could hot hide or disguise their skin color.
3. I believe the real situation that deserves the description “forever more” is the time when there will be no such announcements of sexual preference by athletes, celebrities, politicians or “ordinary Joes” simply because it does not matter enough to merit an announcement.

Finally, let me close today with a comment from Mae West that seems appropriate:

“Those that are easily offended should be offended more often.”

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

Just to manage expectations here, yesterday’s rant was about the US Supreme Court and some impending major changes to college sports in America.  Today’s rant will not come close to that level of gravitas or stature; today represents a return to normalcy for these rants – – minimal focus on important stuff…

Before I went on hiatus, I made a note of an interesting entry in the Transactions listings in my edition of the Washington Post.  I always scan through these listings – when the folks assembling the paper find the space to include them in their agate type – looking for anything that might be interesting.  On June 14^th, I ran across two entries in juxtaposition:

Los Angeles Angels:  Claimed INF Jack Mayfield off waivers from Seattle.

And …

Los Angeles Dodgers:  Claimed INF Jack Mayfield off waivers from Seattle.

I guess the good news for Jack Mayfield is that he only needs to buy one house in the LA area, and he can collect two salaries at the same time.  That should pay off the mortgage quickly…

Last week, Bob Molinaro had this item in his column in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“TV timeout: LeBron and the Celtics and Knicks went out early. No Steph Curry, either. Yet NBA playoff viewership is higher than it’s been in many years. This contradicts the conventional wisdom that says the league and players have alienated America.”

I think there might be an alternate explanation here.  I believe that the NBA has alienated some of the fanbase with its constant posturing on a variety of social justice issues, but that is a far cry from “alienating America”.  I think that the TV audience is happy to see new teams and new players on the prominent stage that the NBA playoffs offer.  I, for one, am happy to see folks like Trae Young and Khris Middleton and Deandre Ayton and Kevin Booker ply their trade this far into the playoff structure.

In the past, NBA fans have seen many playoff games involving LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, James Harden and Russell Westbrook.  Those are great players; I have no intent to talk down their abilities or their accomplishments.  It is the fact that they are great players that has put them – and their teams – in so many playoff positions over the past decade or so.  This year’s NBA Playoffs could steal a line from the introduction to Monty Python’s Flying Circus:

• “And now for something completely different…”

I find this  year’s “different” rather “refreshing” …

Moving on …  Football is a huge deal in the SEC and football at Georgia is one of the hottest of the hotbeds in that part of the world.  Looking ahead to the 2021 season, fans of the Dawgs can look forward to these three things at home games in Sanford Stadium:

1. Full capacity seating
2. Added “premium seating”
3. Reduced concession prices

No, the third item on that list is not a typo.  The school decided to cut the prices of bottled water, soda, popcorn and hot dogs by about 50%.  The explanation is that the school has saved a bunch of money over the last several years by changing its ticketing procedures such that tickets are handled on mobile devices instead of in hard copy.  The savings are being passed along.

[Aside:  It is good at this point in 2021 for the folks at UGa to plan for “full stadiums” so long as the powers that be at UGa recognize that coronavirus mutations and variants might cause them to alter their thinking sometime down the road.]

In a related item – that might demonstrate the magnitude of a live gate revenue stream – consider the Las Vegas Raiders.  The team’s new stadium opened last season to plenty of praise – – except for one thing.  More than a few fans complained that parking near the stadium was inadequate; the team acknowledged those sentiments and set out to remedy the problem.  Recently, the Raiders announced that for this season they will have 35,000 parking spaces within a mile of the stadium for home games and that there will be shuttle bus service to the distant parking sites.  They also announced that the average price for a parking spot at the various sites – – obviously, distance dependent – – will be $70.

That allows me to do some math:

• $70 X 35,000 spaces  =  $2.45M per game
• $2.45M per game X 9 home games in 2021  =  $22.05M

That amount is less than 10% of the revenue that will flow to the Raiders from the national TV contracts for the NFL, but $22M is not something to be brushed aside as a trifle.  And this revenue stream is only from car parking; it does not include the price of the ticket, or the money spent on food and beverages on site.

Finally, the aforementioned Raiders previously played out of Oakland, CA (twice) and that leads me to close today with an observation about Oakland by novelist/playwright Gertrude Stein:

“The trouble with Oakland is that when you get there, there isn’t any there there.”

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

The NBA playoffs took two interesting turns over the weekend.  On Saturday night, the Bucks went into Brooklyn and eliminated the Nets in a Game 7 that went to overtime.   It was the first road victory of the series, and it came despite another heroic effort by the Nets’ Kevin Durant.  Watching the game, it was obvious to me that he was having a monster night on the court and the box score confirms that observation:

• Durant played all 53 minutes.  He had 48 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steal and 1 blocked shot.

James Harden also played a great game considering that he was playing on a partially torn hamstring.  Here are Harden’s numbers for the night:

• Harden played all 53 minutes.  He had 22 points, 9 rebounds, 9 assists, 1 steal and 1 blocked shot.

The box score for that game tells an additional story; it points to the factor that gave the Bucks the win.  Compare the contributions “off-the-bench”:

• The Nets played 8 players.  The three players off-the-bench combined to contribute 19 minutes of playing time, zero points, zero shot attempts, 2 rebounds and 1 assist.
• The Bucks also played 8 players.  The three players off-the-bench combined to contribute 29 minutes of playing time, 9 points, five shot attempts, 5 rebounds and zero assists.
• The Bucks’ bench did not cover itself in glory there, but those players were at least sufficiently engaged to take a shot in their time on the floor.

In the other game, the Hawks beat the Sixers in a Game 7.  In baseball, there have been times when a specific player gets himself into a state where he cannot execute the simplest of tasks in the game.  The Mets had a catcher who could not throw the ball back to the pitcher without a half-dozen “false starts” in the process.  There have been infielders – second basemen seem to be “prone to this infection” – who could not pick up a ground ball and make a routine throw to first base.  MLB pitchers who have been pitching with pinpoint accuracy for years suddenly get to the point where they cannot keep the ball in an area where the catcher can put a glove on the ball – – let alone the strike zone.  This condition is called “The Yips”.

I think the Sixers’ Ben Simmons has a mild case of “The Yips”; and since there is no known cure for “The Yips”, he and the Sixers have to pray that the condition is not progressive.  Simmons is under contract with the Sixers through the end of the 2024/25 season  and the team still owes him $147M.  Last night, Simmons scored 5 points and only attempted 4 shots in 38 minutes.  That is a meager return on investment for the Sixers and if “The Yips” are progressive …

In a column last week in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot, Bob Molinaro had this item:

“Waiting: Shouldn’t the investigation into sexual harassment alleged to have taken place under Dan Snyder’s watch be finished by now? Or is the NFL holding onto the findings until it can figure out a way to soft-pedal the results?”

I believe – but have no inside information that would confirm – that the report is finished and has been in the hands of the league office for some time now.  I also believe that the league is indeed trying to find a mechanism to deal with the findings of the report that will do minimum public relations damage to the league.  It is important to recognize that every action the NFL might contemplate has negative blowback potential for the league; and the NFL does not like negative blowback.  Put most indelicately, I think the NFL suits are trying to figure out which set of folks they are going to trigger:

• Will it be the “Me Too Folks” if the league takes the report and issues a minor wrist slap to a few folks and tosses it aside as “boys will be boys”?
• Will it be the “Cancel Culture Crowd” if the league comes down hard on sleazy behaviors that took place more than a decade ago?
• Will it be the “Broadcast Partners” who might suffer resistance from their advertisers?

I do not think the NFL believes that they can make all of this dry up and blow away simply by stalling.  They cannot.  However, I do believe that they are still looking for the course of action that minimizes their regrets after it all plays out to its conclusion.

I have purposely avoided chiming in on the brouhaha between Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers’ front office.  The only speculation left it seems to me would be to wonder what might happen if Rodgers were abducted by space aliens who surgically attached a third arm to his body and the NFL was at a loss to figure out if their rules allowed a “three-arm player” to participate.  Every other angle has been beaten to death already.

I will observe, however, that Rodgers’ absence from team OTAs and the “mandatory mini-camp” [Aside:  How “mandatory” is it since Rodgers simply did not show up?] may have been beneficial to the Packers.  When the Packers used a first-round pick to draft Jordan Love a little over a year ago, they obviously thought that Love was their “QB of the Future”.  Last season, Love never saw the field; the Packers probably still believe he is Rodgers’ heir to the QB position in Green Bay, but they do not know it yet.  Given all these team activities where Love has been involved and Rodgers has not, the Packers have had more time to see Love “in action” with the first team and it has given Love and his pass catchers time to work on “chemistry”.  If Rodgers had been there, Love would have gotten less of that quality practice time.

Finally, let me close today with another observation by Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

Upsetting: On a note of faux disappointment, how is it that the USA men failed to qualify for the Olympic debut of the 3-on-3 basketball tournament? This is like Australians failing to qualify for a boomerang contest.”

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

Rafael Nadal and Naomi Osaka announced that they will not participate at Wimbledon this year.  Osaka said that she will be preparing to play in the Olympics for the host country starting on July 23^rd ; Wimbledon will begin this year on 28 June and – presuming that Osaka would go deep into the tournament – would not end until 10 July for the women.  That would cut short preparation time and recovery time prior to the Olympics and – in reality – Ms. Osaka has no choice here; she must choose to represent Japan at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Nadal is a different story; he announced his withdrawal from Wimbledon saying that he was “listening to his body”.  Nadal just turned 35 a couple of weeks ago and lost in the finals of the French Open a week ago.  In “dog years”, Nadal is only 5 years old; in “tennis years”, he is a grizzled veteran.  My interpretation here is that Nadal recognizes that his body will no longer make it through the rigors of the “full tennis schedule” and he is now at the point in his career where he will have to pick and choose his appearances.

I think both players have made rational decisions; neither deserves criticism for their choice.

I ran across an item earlier this week that rang a distant bell, so I had to go looking for the backstory.  The report this week was that the women’s basketball coach at Detroit Mercy “left the university” and was replaced by one of the assistant coaches.  What I did not recall until doing some searching was that it was the Detroit Mercy women’s basketball team that quit on the season earlier this year and sent a letter to the Athletic Director there saying that the coach had abused them emotionally and that there were NCAA violations ongoing within the program.  They said they would not play unless the coach was removed.  At the time the letter was delivered, the Detroit Mercy women’s record was 1-13.

The school did not fire the coach; in fact, after investigating the charges outlined in the letter to the AD, the school found that “the most serious allegations were found to be false and unsubstantiated”.  So, at this point all seems right with the program – – except now the coach leaves the university and the explanation for that separation is that it was an “HR personnel matter” that had nothing to do with NCAA violations or student-athlete matters.

• If this were a Star Trek episode, I believe the stage directions here would be for a close-up of Mr. Spock raising one eyebrow with a quizzical look on his face…

You can read an excellent summary of this less-than-clear matter here in a solid piece of reporting in the Detroit Free Press.  It seems to me that the bottom line is that the school and the team are going to start over and that nothing nearly resembling “the whole story” has been told by any of the parties involved.

The Super Bowl game is still almost 8 months away but there are reports that NBC, which has the telecast rights to the game next February, is already out selling advertising slots.  One report says that NBC is asking up to $6M per 30-second time slot for the most desirable positions within the game.  Last year, the prime slots cost $5.6M apiece; NBC’s asking price represents a 7% increase to the client.  Seven percent is more than the rate of inflation and/or the cost of living but it is not an increase that one might be tempted to call usurious.  Now it is time to cue the voiceover for one of those late-night infomercials:

• But wait; there’s more…

According to one report that I read, NBC may also require an advertiser who wants one of the “prime slot positions” for the Super Bowl ad to purchase some advertising time during the Olympic Games, which is also going to be an NBC presentation.  If the Games in 2021 take place in their entirety, there will be 33 sports represented and here is a most inconvenient truth for NBC and any potential advertisers:

• The majority of these 33 sports will not attract a TV audience too large to fit into a typical suburban high school gym.
• The Super Bowl game will attract – in round numbers – 100 million viewers in the US.
• That number will not be achieved if you add together all the viewers for all the events in archery, badminton, canoeing, fencing, handball, modern pentathlon, shooting, skateboarding and sport climbing.

You may recall that I wrote about a lawsuit brought in a Federal Court seeking to return the MLB All-Star Game because the suit alleged that the Constitutional rights of Atlanta’s business owners – small and large – had been violated.  The plaintiff there was an entity called the Job Creators Network and it sought an injunction from the court.

Well, since the All-Star Game is going to take place on July 13^th, the court had to hear the matter expeditiously.  It did so and Judge Valerie Caproni threw the case out.  That is not so unusual; lots of cases get thrown out of court and every lawsuit has a winner and a loser.  But Judge Caproni was rather direct in explaining her decision:

“To say that the legal underpinnings of this lawsuit are weak and muddled is an understatement.  The plaintiff alleges that [MLB and the Players’ Union] were members of a conspiracy to violate JCN members’ constitutional rights … but I am still at a loss to understand how.”

And …

“But whether small business owners as a group agree or disagree, are deeply divided or are agnostic on that issue, it is hard to see how MLB’s decision had an impact on the equal protection rights of small business owners as a group.”

To me, that sounds like a reasonable decision and one that clearly outlines the deficiencies of the plaintiff’s case.  My original conclusion was that we would hear no more about this until I read at the end of the report that – – JCN planned to appeal the ruling and continue the matter.  Sigh…

Finally, apropos of nothing, here is an observation from H. L. Mencken from more than 80 years ago.  Imagine what he might think about today:

“The typical American of today has lost all the love of liberty that his forefathers had, and all their disgust of emotion, and pride in self-reliance.  He is led no longer by Davy Crocketts; he is led by cheer leaders, press agents, word-mongers, uplifters.”

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

I need to offer thanks again to Gregg Drinnan for keeping me up to speed on the CFL’s plans to return to the field in 2021.  The league’s Board of Governors voted to have a 14-game season – – fewer games than normal – – that would begin on August 5^th  with training camps to open on July 10^th.  When players arrive, they will go through a quarantine period before practices and there will be no Exhibition Games.  Assuming that all goes well and the coronavirus does not re-emerge significantly, the CFL will end its season with a Grey Cup Game on December 12^th in Hamilton, ON.  The CFL was dark for all of 2020; this is an important step for the league; hopefully, they can pull off the season with only minor glitches.

South of the border, the NFL took an interesting step with regard to managing the COVID pandemic.  The NFL announced some changes to its COVID protocols to include:

• There will be in-person media interviews this year but not in locker rooms.
• There will be fines of up to $50K for violations of protocols.
• There will be minimal restrictions placed on vaccinated players.
• Players, coaches and team staff members are all subject to these rules.

Importantly, these new rules/guidelines/protocols have been drawn up as the result of consultations between the NFL, the NFLPA and medical folks.  Many people like to refer to a need to “return to normalcy”; this is an example of a “return to rationality”.  Folks with specific knowledge (the medical folks) provided their expertise to the relevant parties (the league and the union) and the relevant parties worked together to get something done in a positive way.  Slow down here, folks; I need to catch my breath…

One feature of the new processes is that vaccinated players/coaches/staff members will need to be tested for COVID-19 only once every 14 days.  Unvaccinated players etc. will still undergo daily testing.  More importantly – to me – is the provision that vaccinated players will not be subject to quarantine based on contact tracing while unvaccinated folks can face quarantines of various lengths based on contact tracing and the degree of closeness of that contact.  What the NFL and the union have done here is to provide incentives – in the form of convenience – to players who have not yet taken the vaccine.

Since I firmly believe that vaccines work and since I am totally confident that there are no microchips in the vaccine nor is there any sort of magnetic interaction between the vaccine and the 5G cell phone radiation in the air, I believe this a positive step.  Players can still choose not to take the vaccine – – but if something “goes wrong” for them they will have a more stringent set of hurdles to jump over before returning to the team and/or the playing field.  Kudos to the league and the union for that.

I have not seen reports about the acceptance of the vaccine among the sports reporters who cover NFL teams.  There too, the league and the union have set up an incentive system to encourage vaccinations.  Vaccinated media members will have access to training facilities, sidelines and press boxes.  They will be allowed to interview players, coaches and team staff members face-to-face so long as social distancing is practiced.  Here too, media members can choose to take the vaccine or not take the vaccine as is their choice.

It seems as if I am handing out a lot of praise this morning and that is not the normal tone and tenor around these parts.  So let me now cast a quizzical and cynical gaze at an entry in the Sports Digest compendium in today’s Washington Post:

“Louisiana Lafayette’s Cajun Field will undergo $15M in renovations and improvements because of a local hospital providing the largest philanthropic gift in the history of the athletic department.

“Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center will receive naming rights in exchange for what Athletic Director Bryan Maggard called a ‘transformational gift’.”

I claim no expertise in medicine or in hospital administration, but a few thoughts came to mind immediately as I read those two paragraphs:

• Why would a hospital want or need naming rights to a stadium?  Is advertising and promotion that significant for a hospital?
• From the name of the hospital, I assume this is a church-related facility and therefore operates as a non-profit entity.  [I have no idea how to find out such financial info about a hospital but it sure sounds that way to me.]  So, why is a faith-based facility handing out $15M to a football stadium – – as opposed to something like cancer research or autism treatment or even upgrades to the hospital’s surgical capabilities?
• The cynic in me thinks that if the hospital had $15M lying around after the hospital’s medical needs were funded and taken care of, perhaps they could think about the option of lowering some of their charges for care.  I guess not…

Now I feel more like my normal uncharitable self…

Bob Baffert is back in the news.  He has filed suit in a Federal court in Brooklyn seeking to have his suspension by the New York Racing Authority overturned.  The suit claims that he was denied due process when the NYRA issued the ban when Medina Spirit failed a drug test after finishing first in the Kentucky Derby.  The suit says that by banning him from NY tracks, he could lose horses assigned to him by owners and those horses would be worth “tens of millions of dollars”.

I would definitely need one of the lawyers who reads these things to chime in here, but my understanding is that “due process” must be afforded by government entities or institutions that act on the behalf of the government – – like a National Laboratory or something like that.  From a look at the NYRA site, it appears to me to be a private entity created by the racetracks and the folks that own and run the tracks.  If I am correct here, I guess I do not understand the reliance on “due process” in the lawsuit.  Whatever…  I am more confident about this next statement than I am about the previous one:

• If Baffert had not had a dozen failed drug tests among his horses – – worth tens of millions of dollars no less – – over the past half year or so, he would never have been remotely in danger of a suspension.  The NYRA did not pull this action out of their figurative anal orifice; they may have been hyperbolic in saying they did this because of their reverence for the purity of the sport, but they did not pick Baffert’s name out of a hat to make their point.

Finally, since I mentioned advertising – by a hospital no less – above, let me close with two observations about advertising:

“Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it.”  Stephen Leacock

And …

“Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better.”  George Santayana

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