Category: Daily Rants

If your job is to write about or comment on college football, this is a slow point on your professional calendar; spring practice is long over; transfer portal is closed; the only coaches who might be fired are ones who are caught in flagrante delicto with a household pet.  There’s not a lot of material to work with; so, I sympathize with folks at ESPN.com who threw together an offering to name the ten best college football coaches for 2026.

Before I get to the ESPN List, let me say something about two cognitive effects:

1. Primacy Bias:  When presented with a series of ideas or items, extra weight is assigned to the first one mentioned; the first one sets the tone for the others that follow.  This effect is well known and well-studied.
2. Recency Bias:  When presented with a series of ideas or items, extra weight is assigned to the ones most recently mentioned; they are freshest in mind.  This effect is well known and well-studied also.

            I mention these two phenomena because I wonder if Recency Bias may have played a part in the ESPN Listing.

• The #1 head football coach for 2026 is Curt Cignetti.

Let me be clear; Curt Cignetti has had a marvelous career starting at small schools and then taking over at Indiana, which had not been a major football school in next to forever; and he won the National Championship in his second season at Indiana in 2025.  That is an amazing career arc – – but the list of accomplishments is a short one.  He may indeed be the best college football coach in 2026 – – and may be the best college football coach for each of the next ten years for all I know – – but it seems a bit early to put that label on him today.

The next three entrants on the ESPN List are not controversial in my mind:

• #2 is Kirby Smart
• #3 is Ryan Day
• #4 is Marcus Freeman

All three of these men are successful coaches over a significant period of time; if you want to debate the order in which they should appear here, have at it; I am happy to accept the three of them in about any order.

I find the fifth coach on the list interesting:

• #5 is Dan Lanning

Dan Lanning has won 10 or more games in the last three seasons and has had his team in the CFP picture for all that time.  However, in that same period his teams played 6 games against the teams that appeared in the CFP Championship Game and their record is 1-5.  So, it seems that Dan Lanning gets this perch on the ESPN List for winning loads of games until he draws a top contender for the year.  As I said, that is an interesting placement.

There is one coach on the list that I think may be undervalued:

• Lane Kiffin is on the list at #7

Early in his career, Lane Kiffin wore out his welcome very quickly at more than one school and with the Oakland Raiders in the NFL.  However, since spending a couple of years under the tutelage of Nick Saban at Alabama, he has had a career arc that resembles that of Curt Cignetti.  Kiffin took non-football schools and made them into winners.  FAU had gone 9-27 in the three years before Kiffin took the job; when he was there, FAU went 27-13.  In his 6 seasons at Ole Miss – – and playing a full SEC schedule every year – – he won 10 games in four of those six seasons.  Lane Kiffin may have his personality quirks, but he is a good football coach.  You could easily convince me that he should be higher on the list.

I have no quarrel with the other coaches on the list except for Kyle Whitingham who has taken a giant step up in competition level going to Michigan from Utah.  It might have been prudent to give him a chance to show what he can do at that level with a better squad of players before placing him on such a list; it seems premature to me.

Finally, here is a perspective from a coach not on the ESPN List this year – – Dabo Swinney:

“For me, and I’ve been on record saying it, let’s create two leagues: one for players who want the college football experience, and another for those that want to get paid, have the NFL help fund it, whatever. Guys who don’t want to go to school to get an education, let them go to work.”

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

 

 

 

There will be a new entity in the sports cosmos starting on August 1, 2026.  The Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) will begin play with four teams:

• The Boston Hunters
• The New York Heights
• The Los Angeles Queens
• The San Francisco Firebells

The regular season will run from August 1^st through September 6^th, and games will be played in Springfield, IL.  Playoffs will commence on September 9^th.  From what I read, there will be broadcast coverage of PWBL games, but the league has not yet identified its media partners or streaming services; with “Women’s Opening Day” three weeks hence, I would expect some sort of announcement and roll-out soon.

Women’s baseball has a history that goes back to the start of men’s baseball in the US; there were barnstorming women’s teams often based on factory workplaces even before 1900.  The high-water mark for women’s baseball came in the 1940s and 1950s when there were two competing women’s baseball leagues:

1. The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL).  This league was founded and supported by Phillip Wrigley of chewing gum fame; this is the league that inspired the movie A League of Their Own.  At its peak, there were 15 teams in the AAGPBL and it existed from 1943-1954.
2. The National Girls Baseball League (NGPL).  This league was founded in 1944 by a group of men including Charles Bidwell who owned the Chicago Cardinals of the NFL at the time.  It had 6 teams in the league, and they were all located in the greater Chicago area.  Red Grange was the Commissioner of the NGPL.

Both leagues folded in 1954; the increasing audiences for MLB games on television is often blamed for serious declines in attendance for women’s baseball games.  Back in the 1940s, women’s games were well attended, and some reports say that NGPL teams outdrew the Chicago White Sox in some seasons.  Even if that claim is exaggerated, it probably means that women’s baseball was a decent draw prior to the rise of telecast MLB games.

Justine Siegal is the Commissioner of the soon-to-arrive WPBL and she had this to say about the new league:

“Across the USA and around the world, women have always played baseball. From backyard games with older siblings, to rec leagues across the country, women have found ways to play the sport they love. Baseball is America’s pastime, but the professional game hasn’t evolved to reflect the diversity of those who play, watch and love this sport. That’s about to change.”

Tickets for PWBL games start at $22; for folks who can conveniently get to Springfield, IL, that is a price-point one notch above men’s AA minor league baseball games and men’s AA teams routinely draw crowds of five to six thousand fans per game.  By obviating travel expenditures and playing games in a single location, the economics of this fledgling entity just might make it…

Staying with baseball, two pitchers have been removed from games where they were working on a “perfect game” late:

• Over the weekend, Marlins’ pitcher Eury Perez had a perfect game after seven innings.  He had thrown 92 pitches and was pulled by Marlins’ manager, Clayton McCullough.
• Last night, Pirates’ pitcher, Jared Jones, had a perfect game after six innings.  He had thrown only 77 pitches and was pulled by Pirates’ manager, Don Kelly.

Perfect games are rare birds; there have been more than a quarter-million MLB games to date and there have been a total of 24 perfect games.  I have seen two of them on TV; I have never seen one in person.  Given the actions of the last week, perfect games may become rarer than they are today; the analytics and pitch-count dominance of MLB strategy works against perfect games.

To be fair to the managers in these recent pitching change decisions, the two pitchers involved had both already had Tommy John surgery and both are in their early 20s.  The less benevolent interpretation of those pitching decisions is that those managers are slaves to the computer probabilities and have no sensitivity to baseball history.  Pick the side you like …

Finally, since today was about baseball, let me close with this from Babe Ruth:

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”

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

 

 

Allow me a moment here …  Exactly sixty years ago, my long-suffering wife and I were married.  I don’t know what the OVER/UNDER line in Vegas was for that marriage, but I have to think that we made it to the OVER by now.  That has been my genuine good fortune.

Major Legue Baseball employs 76 full time umpires; at the end of the 2026 season, seven of those umpires will either retire or take a buyout.  That represents almost 10% of the officiating workforce.  Interestingly, six of the seven departing umpires came up to the major leagues together in 1999.  One of the names on the list of retirees is C.B. Bucknor; he is not someone that I will miss in the future.

Moving on …  If you have been watching World Cup action, you may have missed promos for a new show on FOX.  It is a “quiz show” called “America’s Dumbest”.  How would  you like to be known as the Ken Jennings of “America’s Dumbest?”

Sticking with the World Cup for a moment, some commentators have developed a line of patter that labels the USMNT’s campaign here as a “magical run” and an “international showing”.  Sorry, but I think that is pure nonsense.  In the Group Stage, the US beat Paraguay and Australia; then rested key players against Turkey.  I may not be a noted FIFA historian, but beating Paraguay and Australia does not imply “magical” to me at all.  Then in the newly created knockout round of 32 teams, the US beat Bosnia/Hercegovina; I don’t think that was the stuff of banner headlines around the soccer world.  Then came the bed-wetting performance against Belgium …

One more World Cup observation.  Soccer is a worldwide game – – probably the most widely distributed game in the world.  And yet, Europe seems to dominate the sport.  There are eight teams still in the running for the championship; six are European national teams:

1. Belgium
2. England
3. France
4. Norway
5. Spain
6. Switzerland

The remaining field of eight rounds out with Argentina and Morocco.

Switching gears …  I mentioned the upcoming MLB Trade Deadline in recent rants and that reminds me that this is the time of year for a signature refrain which should get started in the next couple of days:

• “The Angels ought to trade Mike Trout; he deserves to be on a contending team.”

Mike Trout is a future Hall of Famer; he has been the MVP 3 times.  Notwithstanding his talents and abilities, the Angels have not been in the playoffs since 2014; and in fact, have spent more time languishing near the bottom of their division than at or near the top since then.  Trout is 34 years old meaning he is closer to retirement than to his peak performance years.  Having said all that, the Angels should not consider “doing Trout a favor” by trading him to a contending team because:

1. Mike Trout has not asked to be traded and has proclaimed that he does not want to be traded.
2. According to Spotrac.com, Trout has a full no-trade clause in his contract, and he has not hinted that he would waive that clause.
3. The Angels are not in “tear-down mode”; any prospects they might get for Trout will not help the team on the field which seems to be the team that ownership is sticking with.
4. Trout’s contract is not nearly expiring; he is signed with the Angels through the end of the 2030 MLB season at $37.1M per season.

Until and unless we hear from Mike Trout that he wants out of Anaheim, please put this narrative to sleep.

Finally, here is an observation from George Burns:

“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”

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

 

 

 

The MLB regular season is more than half into the books and the standings as of this morning are a mix of surprises and “Ho-hums”.  Let me start with the “Ho-hums”:

• In the NL West, the Dodgers lead by 14 games and are the only team in the division with a record above .500.  Any mystery about the division winner here was resolved about a month ago.
• In the NL Central, the Brewers and the Cubs are at the top of the division; the fact that the Brewers lead by 6 full games is a bit surprising but not shocking.
• In the AL West, the Mariners, Rangers and Astros are bunched at the top of the Division, and the Angels are at the bottom.  No real surprises there …

If you don’t do more than skim over the MLB standings,  you might get the idea that there aren’t any big surprises as compared to expectations back in March/April of this  year.  And if you have that idea in your head, this would be a good time to exorcise it; there are plenty of surprising numbers in the standings today:

• The White Sox lead the AL Central and are five games above .500 so far this year.  Consider that the White Sox have lost more than 100 games in each of the last 3 seasons (Combined record for those 3 years was 162-324).
• The Rays lead the AL East by 4 games despite a sub-.500 record on the road and a run differential of only 35 runs
• The Red Sox have seemingly imploded and are dead last in the AL East.  They are 12.5 games behind the Rays despite having a run-differential of +5.
• The Astros’ record is 45-47 and they are 2.5 games behind the Mariners in the AL West.  Somehow, they have stayed close in this race despite having a run differential of minus-44.
• The Phillies have closed to within 3 games of the Braves in the NL East.  Six weeks ago, that would not have seemed to be possible.
• Staying in the NL East, both the Marlins and the Nationals post records above .500.  Who had that as a possibility on the Fourth of July?
• Obviously, the Mets are the disasters of the NL East; pre-season analysis had the Mets fighting for the Division lead; this morning they are 16 games behind the Division-leading Braves.
• Both the Cards and the Pirates have records above .500 in the NL Central and both are solidly in the Wild Card race.

Back at the start of the MLB season, I made some predictions about outcomes.  It looks like a very mixed bag as of today:

• I had the Yankees winning the AL East.  They are in 2^nd  place but are not playing like champions as of late
• I had the Mariners winning the AL West.  They lead the Division as of today but only by 1.5 games.
• I had the Tigers winning the AL Central.  The Tigers are 10 games below .500 and 7.5 games behind the White Sox.
• I had the Phillies winning the NL East.  They had a disastrous start and are racing to catch up to the Braves.
• I had the Cubs winning the NL Central.  They are 6 games behind the Brewers as of this morning.
• I had the Dodgers winning the NL West.  That looks like a mortal lock now.

I made 5 win projections back in March.  Here is their status around the halfway mark in the season:

• Orioles UNDER 86.5 wins.  The current record is 42-49 which projects to only 75 wins.  This looks good.
• Tigers OVER 8.5. wins.  The current record is 40-50 which projects to only 72 wins.  This is not happening …
• Mets UNDER 90.5 wins.  The current record is 37-53 which projects to only 67 wins.  This looks solid.
• Reds UNDER 81.5 wins.  The current record is 41-48 which projects to only 75 wins.  This is on track for now but is not comfortable
• D-Backs OVER 79.5 wins.  The current record is 44-45 which projects to 80 wins.  As Ian Darke might say this  race is on a knife’s edge.

Finally, since today has been all about baseball, let me close with these three observations about the game:

“Baseball is 90 percent mental.  The other half is physical.”  Yogi Berra

And …

“There are three things you can do in a baseball game.  You can win or you can lose or it can rain.”   Casey Stengel

And …

“It took me 17 years to get 3000 hits in baseball.  I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.”  Henry Aaron

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

 

 

The Buffalo Bills will inaugurate their new stadium in the 2026 NFL season; reports say it will be a spectacular facility.  However, there is something interesting about the new playpen for the team that goes beyond “sight lines” and “fan experience” and “the game experience”.  According to the Bills’ COO, Pete Guelli, the team will not include OJ Simpson in the new stadium.

There will be no team “Wall of Fame” in the new stadium; rather, the history of the team and the great players from the past will be commemorated in an area labeled as “the Family Circle”.  According to Mr. Guelli:

“We have made an organizational decision that he is not a fit to display inside our new stadium and Family Circle.”

It will be interesting to see what – if any – the fan reaction to that decision will be.

Moving on and staying with the idea of “new stadiums” …  It appears that Manchester United of the English Premier League is going to be able to build a new stadium to replace the venerable Old Trafford and the new stadium will seat approximately 100,000 fans.  Old Trafford is already the largest stadium in the EPL seating approximately 75,000 fans; the next largest would be the recently constructed Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London that seats 63,000.  I point this out because many top-shelf English – and European – soccer teams do not play home games in huge stadiums because most of them are in densely packed European cities and there is not a footprint that would allow for such facilities.

Recently, the team announced that it had acquired a 25-acre site just to the northwest of Old Trafford and that acquisition plus the land on which Old Trafford sits will accommodate the larger facility.  Man U’s minority owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, has promised that the new facility will be the “Wembley of the North”.  Surely, there are approvals and procedures that need to be followed in getting final approval for “New Trafford” along with timelines and other realities; but it surely seems as if Manchester United is on a course to get a newer and bigger facility in the foreseeable future.

According to reports, a large hurdle to be crossed is financing.  The architectural estimate for the project is about £2B ($2.65B) and Man U as a club already carries debt to the tune of £728M ($962M).  I am hardly an expert in banking or financing, but that does seem like an awful lot of debt for a sports team to be carrying already let alone joining in on a venture that would triple the debt.

Switching gears …  In the Group phase of the FIFA World Cup, Tunisia lost its first game to Sweden by a score of 5-1.  That result caused such consternation that Tunisia fired its coach in the middle of the tournament.  That impulsive decision seems not to have had much of a positive effect because Tunisia lost its second game to Japan 4-0 and then its third game to the Netherlands 3-1.

Two more tidbits from Group play in the World Cup this year:

1. Egypt won its first World Cup game ever when it beat New Zealand 3-1.
2. Curacao lost its first game to Germany 7-1.  Howiver it earned a point in its next game tying Ecuador 0-0.  In that tie-game, the goalkeeper for Curacao made 15 saves.  That is a lot of “shots on goal” for a top shelf soccer game.

In the Knockout Round of 32, Canada advanced to the next round for the first time in Canadian soccer history beating South Africa 1-0 with the goal coming in stoppage time.  Canada looked like the better team for most of the match but could not get that final push until about the 93^rd minute.

One more thing …  It should not surprise anyone that I have begun looking ahead to my annual college football preview rant(s) and have started scanning reports and schedules.  There are a few interesting stretches of games for some top teams to look forward to:

•             Alabama: Vs. Georgia – – at Tennessee – – Vs Texas A&M – – at LSU
•             Texas:  At Tennessee – – At Oklahoma – – Vs. Florida
•             Ohio State:  At Indiana – – At USC – – Vs. Oregon
•             Michigan State:  At UCLA – – At Michigan – – Vs. Washington – – Vs. Oregon

Should be interesting …

Finally, with all the talk above about Man U perhaps getting a new stadium, I’ll close with this from its former manager Sir Alex Ferguson:

“I think you have a duty and a responsibility to entertain. We have to always remember that there’s a public to be entertained.”

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

 

 

I hope no one came here today seeking insight – – let alone clarity – – on the latest vector heading in the Brendan Sorsby Saga.  Yesterday, the NFL announced that it would not accept Sorsby’s application for Supplemental Draft eligibility and with no other applicants in the hopper, there would be no Supplemental Draft in 2026.  The league presented its “reasoning” in the matter and all of it sounds good, but it seems to me that it does two things that are not positive things for the league:

1. It merely kicks the can down the road on the question of whether Sorsby’s “gambling addiction” and/or gambling activities in the past and/or his recovery from his “addiction” will eventually lead to him being given a chance to make an NFL team.  Whether Sorsby gets drafted now or next April when he will be “Regular Draft Eligible”, those questions loom and the league needs to make a decision.
2. It opens the NFL up to a legal situation that would not exist if the Supplemental Draft application had been accepted.  Sorsby was represented by Jeffrey Kessler in his suit against the NCAA; Kessler has long been an antagonist for the NFL and if you are not familiar with his background, he was the lead attorney in the lawsuit against the NFL in the 1990s that established player free agency – – something everyone takes for granted these days.

Jeffrey Kessler is not a shrinking violet; yesterday he declared that the league’s action was illegal since the process for holding such a Supplemental Draft and the conditions by which it would happen were collectively bargained with the NFLPA and therefore, the NFL could not summarily cancel the Supplemental Draft without the players’ affirmation.  I don’t pretend to understand the legal theory there but let me try to translate that into English.  I think Kessler is saying:

• “See you in court, gentlemen…”

And why the NFL would conclude that a lawsuit on this matter at this time is somehow beneficial to the league is not in my cognitive space this morning.  In the letter from the league to Sorsby – – and Kessler too of course – – the NFL leans on the fact that Sorsby’s application was not filed until 3 days before the deadline thereby giving the NFL insufficient time to go over all the issues in the matter to make a judgment.  That is probably exactly correct but that is what deadlines are all about.  If you have to have something done by a specific date and you get it done 3 days before that date, it should not be a basis for denying an application for too little time.  The deadline should provide for sufficient “pondering time” or the deadline should be changed.

Adding to the foggy nature of the situation this morning is a line on the report in this morning’s Washington Post on the matter.  A “person with knowledge of the NFLPA’s thinking” said that the union “has not made a determination on if, how or whether there are legal grounds” to challenge the NFL’s decision there.  I understand that the union would not want to make a pronouncement on this without time to “get it right”, but there is a fundamental element here that I do not understand:

• The union represents the body of players in the NFL, and it negotiates with the NFL to assure players’ rights and responsibilities as employees of the league.
• Brendan Sorsby is not a player in the NFL.
• So, I do not understand how or why the NFLPA can or would take up an action on his behalf.  If I had applied for the Supplemental Draft, the NFL would have turned down my application too; would the NFLPA consider legal action on my behalf?  I doubt it …

And speaking of the Supplemental Draft and by extension NCAA eligibility, the NCAA also announced yesterday new eligibility rules.  Division 1 athletes will have five years of eligibility to complete five seasons of competition at the collegiate level.  The idea is to severely limit college careers that can span 6 or even 7 years of eligibility as was the case for Tyler Shough now with the New Orleans Saints.  Assuming that this new rule stands up to legal challenges that are sure to come, it should put an end to such things as “redshirt years” and “medical waivers”.  As proposed, the exceptions allowed for extending college eligibility would be limited to:

1. Religious missions
2. Military service
3. Maternity leave  [Aside:  What about “paternity leave”?]

There does not seem to be any new regulation of the Transfer Portal in this new eligibility  system that has acquired the name “Five-in-Five”.  Perhaps that is coming later?  Or will transfers just happen as they do now except with a time limit of five years?  Still TBD …

Finally, since there is not a lot of certainty contained in the verbiage above, let me close with a pertinent observation by Groucho Marx:

“Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.”

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

 

 

Lots of “breaking news” from yesterday; where to start?  The Milwaukee Bucks have traded Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis to the Miami Heat; in return the Bucks will get:

• Four players
• Three first round picks (2026 2031 and 2033)
• A first round pick swap in 2030
• A second round pick in 2033

Historically, when an NBA team trades away a superstar player, they do not get equal value in return.  This haul looks like a lot – especially given that Giannis is 31 years old and only hit the floor in 36 games last season – but unless one of those first round picks wins the newly constructed NBA Lottery, this looks like a major tear-down and rebuild for the Bucks.

Clearly Giannis was the foundation of the Bucks’ franchise for the last 13 seasons which saw him win the MVP award twice and until last year’s injury-impacted season, he had made the first team All-NBA team seven straight times.  However, that sterling string of accomplishments may have elevated some rhetoric about this trade just a bit.  In announcing the trade and the details, writers for The Athletic said in the opening paragraph:

“The Milwaukee Bucks have agreed to trade Giannis Antetokounmpo, the most accomplished player in franchise history, to the Miami Heat just before the team’s self-imposed deadline of the 2026 NBA Draft, league sources confirmed to The Athletic.:

“The most accomplished player in franchise history”?  Really?  In 1975, these same Milwaukee Bucks traded someone named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to the Lakers for 4  young players.  I will humbly submit here that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is more accomplished as an NBA player than is Giannis Antetokounmpo notwithstanding Giannis’ lofty achievements.

Moving on …  Lionel Messi is en fuego in this World Cup tournament.  In Argentina’s first game, he scored all three of the team’s goals; in Argentina’s second game he scored both of the team’s goals.  The team has scored 5 goals in two games and Messi has them all.  He now holds the record for most goals scored in World Cup competition with 18 goals and is three goals clear of the second place player.  Not bad for a guy pushing 39  years old…

Next up …  The College World Series came down to a winner-take-all game in Ohama last night.  UNC was favored to win the title, but Oklahoma clearly had different ideas there.  The final score was:

• Oklahoma 13   UNC 2

Congratulations to the Sooners on this win; it is their first College World Series title since 1994.  UNC looked to have an advantage in the game.  When Caden Glauber pitched in a game, the Tar Heels were 29-0 this season; Glauber pitched last night but the outcome was not as previously encountered.

Switching gears …  Linda Cohn announced that she will be retiring in July of this year leaving ESPN and the SportsCenter anchor desk where she has made more than 5500 appearances over the last 34 years.  I liked Linda Cohn simply because she did what SportsCenter was designed to do – – deliver the sports news of the day.  She did not try to turn the program into a comedy act or engage in schtick; she gave us the news.  Thank  you for that…

Bonne chance, Linda Cohn.

Last item for the day …  The Dallas Mavericks have a new head coach; it will be Dusty May who just led the Michigan Wolverines to the NCAA Championship in April.  May’s coaching credentials are solid; in addition to the recent NCAA Championship, he also led Florida Atlantic to the Final Four three years ago.  Coaching in the NBA is different; in college the head coach pretty much controls players’ minutes; that control is much more tenuous in the pro ranks.  May will need to make an adjustment there.

I believe that his departure from Michigan is a not-so-subtle indicator that collegiate coaching has become far less enjoyable in the era of NIL and Portal Transfers.  College coaches need to recruit and re-recruit all their players every year – – and still find time to get new ones who can play at a high level.  There does not appear to be any “time off” at the college level whereas there are times on the NBA calendar when nothing is supposed to be happening.

Dusty May is another name on an expanding list of top-shelf college basketball coaches that have “moved on” in the last several years:

1. Tony Bennett
2. Jim Boeheim’
3. Mike Krzyzewski
4. Bruce Pearl
5. Roy Williams
6. Jay Wright

I think there is more than coincidence at work there …

Finally, this observation by Hunter S. Thompson:

“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”

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

 

 

The negotiations between MLB and the MLBPA have only just begun; right now, almost everything that is exchanged between the two sides is as firm as a cloud; it is not quite Kabuki theater, but it’s close.  Last week, the owners made a “sweeping proposal” that would provide a “massive overhaul” of the MLB Draft.  Here are the highlights:

• No high school players would be eligible for the domestic amateur draft.  Like in the NBA and the NFL, there would be age restrictions for draft eligibility.  MLB proposes that to be draft-eligible, players must be at least 20 years old.
• MLB Draft would be reduced from 20 rounds to 12 rounds.  This seems to be a trend in major sports; the NBA Draft used to be 10 rounds; the NFL Draft used to be as high as 30 rounds; in MLB there was a time when the draft went 50 rounds.
• MLB proposes an international amateur draft.  To be eligible players must be 17 years old.  There would be a set amount of bonus money for the draft ($200M) and players not chosen in that draft would be free agents who could sign anywhere to fixed/structured contracts.

            Note first that nothing in these proposals has even a smidgen of relevance to anyone involved in this current set of negotiations.  No players in the deepest minor leagues – let alone players in MLB – would be affected by anything in this new construct.  Nonetheless, since we are in the “Kabuki theater phase” of the talks, the players have taken the required pose and have  categorically rejected the idea and labeled it as demonic.  Here is the players’ response:

“Today, MLB made another set of proposals that are flat out bad for baseball, ones that would cripple the next generation of players and damage the future of our game. They would, among other things:

“Eliminate over a billion dollars in player compensation from the international and domestic system over the next five years, with a $400 million reduction from 2026 to 2027 alone.

“Destroy fundamental player rights and remove talent from our sport by barring high school and junior college players (anyone under age 20) from the domestic draft.

“Abolish an entire year of international signings by delaying the first draft until at least September of 2027 (and as late as March of 2028), denying young international players the ability to start their professional careers.

“Players remain committed to bargaining in good faith and leaving baseball better than they found it — the league’s proposals fall woefully short.”

I am not into Kabuki theater; so, let me ignore the posing and the drama contained in the above.  The real winner if the owners proposal were to be accepted would be college baseball.  The best high school players would have to spend at least one  year and probably two in college baseball honing skills there before being draft eligible.  But don’t get too excited because there are still more than 5 months until the current CBA expires and nothing meaningful is likely to happen before Halloween.

And speaking of college baseball, the College World Series will be decided tonight.  Oklahoma and UNC have each won one game in Omaha over the weekend.  So, tonight’s game is for all the cheese.  Game time is 7:00 PM ET and  you can find it on ESPN.  The oddsmakers have UNC as the favorites in the game at odds of minus-158.

Sticking with baseball, there was an odd game last week between the Angels and the A’s:

• First, the A’s took a 4-0 lead.
• Then the Angels scored 11 unanswered runs to lead 11-4.
• The A’s rallied to tie the game in the ninth inning with a home-run when they were down to their last hitter.
• The A’s won 12-11 in the tenth inning scoring on a bases-loaded walk.

In that up-and-down contest, the Angels hit 5 home runs, had an inning where they scored 7 runs and had a 7 run lead at one point in the game.  And they lost …

Finally, some advice from Warren Buffet:

“Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget Rule No.1.”

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

 

 

There are still some loose ends in the Brendan Sorsby Matter.  The NFL has not held a Supplemental Draft since 2023, and the last player taken in a Supplemental Draft was back in 2019.  That year, the Cards took Jalen Thompson, DB, with a fifth-round pick that they forfeited in the 2020 “regular Draft”.  Brendan Sorsby arrives at Supplemental Draft status on a different trajectory than previous participants to be sure and that leaves some unanswered questions.

• If Sorsby is such a talent, will a team try to grab him in Round 1 and thereby forfeit their first round pick next season?  Well, there are folks out there who think he would be the top-rated QB coming out of college next year if he were to play college football in 2026.  However, the last QB taken in the first round of a Supplemental Draft was Dave Brown by the Giants back in the early 1990s; that did not work out well for the Giants.  However, two other QBs taken in the first round of earlier Supplemental Drafts worked out very well – – Steve Young and Bernie Kosar.
• Might the NFL banish Sorsby entirely rendering all this moot?  I am not an attorney, but my guess is that the league would be challenged in court if they tried to do that and the potential loss in such a situation is too great to risk.  The NFL survived the “Paul Hornung” and “Alex Karas” suspensions; it survived Joe Namath’s bar that was a “crime hangout” and it survived Art Schlichter.  Brendan Sorsby is not exactly terra incognita for the league.
• Might the NFL issue a suspension of some type for Sorsby?  Sure, the NFL has precedent for that kind of behavior.  In fact, Terrelle Pryor seems to be a reasonable precedent there.  The NCAA suspended Pryor for 5 games; he “fled” to the Supplemental Draft; Roger Goodell suspended him for 5 NFL games saying that the Supplemental Draft was not intended to be a haven for players who got on the wrong side of the NCAA.  As of today, Sorsby would be suspended for 2 games as per the decision of a judge in a lawsuit Sorsby filed against the NCAA; so, a 2-game suspension from the NFL would have precedence here.

This storyline has had so many twists and turns over the past 6 months or so that it would not surprise me if the next headline would be that Brendan Sorsby had been abducted by aliens from the Xygork Nebula and there would be no Supplemental NFL Draft this year because Sorsby was the only player who had declared for such an event.  I am tempted to say, “What are the odds on that?”  But that would be a cheap way to close out my comments this morning.

Moving on …  Now that the NBA season is over and the Knicks have had their parade in NYC, I want to make a general comment for the league mavens to consider:

• Change the dress code for coaches in games!

I certainly do not mean to imply that coaches should have to be attired in tailored suits costing thousands of dollars each; they are there to coach a team not to be a fashion-plate.  However, when the coaches show up in athleisure wear and pullovers with team logos, they look more like animated sandwich-boards for NBA merchandise.

• Memo to Adam Silver:  You can do better than this.

Next up …  Check out the MLB standings this morning; the Chicago White Sox lead the AL Central Division by a percentage point.  Over the last three seasons, the cumulative record for the White Sox was 162-324; that is a winning percentage of .333.  That is quite a turnaround even if the 2026 season is less than half over.

Switching gears …  The other night I was grazing among the sports channels and happened across a telecast of a Pirates/A’s game from Sacramento.  Because that field and the story of how MLB came to be in that stadium is interesting, I stopped and watched a couple of innings.  I came away with a couple of thoughts:

• The A’s are playing .500 baseball this year.  Their lineup has some interesting young players who do not cost much and who should continue to develop skills.  There is a young core there; it may not turn out to be legendary; but it is a solid foundation.
• The park is a millstone for the team.  I cannot believe that any top-shelf MLB free agent would sign up to play there even if the owners decided to open up the wallet and spend what was necessary.  So, that young core of players is pretty much on their own for the next several years.
• In 2028, the new Las Vegas stadium is set to open; unless the architect was a complete loser, the facility should be attractive to free agents who might sign on there and help the team excel.
• However … the seating capacity of the new stadium will be 33,000 and with 81 home dates, that means the maximum home attendance would be 2.67M paying customers.  Is that enough for ownership to “open the wallet”?

Finally, with Father’s Day looming, I’ll close here with this observation from Tim Russert:

“The older I get, the smarter my father seems to get.”

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

 

 

I have highlighted here some of the surprising results from a few first round World Cup games, but some other commentators have drawn conclusions from those results that I think are overblown.

• Yes it was a humongous “upset” when Cape Verde and Spain played to a full-time draw.
• No, that result does not justify expansion of the tournament to 48 teams nor does it provide a justification for further expansion.

Let me provide an analogy here.  March Madness expanded to 64 teams in 1985; there have been 41 tournaments since then where teams seeded #16 and #15 had the opportunity to have won first round games.  There are 8 such games in each tournament so the universe of possible upsets of that sort is 328 games.

• Teams seeded #16 have won twice = 1.22% winning effort
• Teams seeded #15 have won eleven times = 6.71% winning effort
• Combined winning percentage for teams seeded #15 and #16 = 3.96%

Those improbable results happen simply because improbable results happen every day if you consider enough different sets of events.  But that does not justify looking for ways to have even more such oddities.  Just enjoy the fact that some of the “upstart teams” in Round 1 of the World Cup this year provided some juice to the tournament but don’t call for further expansion of the field and do not believe that these upstart teams are going to make it to the Finals because that would be more than just an oddity.

Moving on …  Medical science and surgical procedures continue to advance.  On May 6^th, Tarik Skubal underwent surgery on his pitching elbow to remove “loose bodies”.  Twenty years ago, that could well have been season-ending surgery but not in 2026:

• On June 7^th – – 32 days after his surgery – – Skubal started a minor league game for the West Michigan Whitecaps.
• Skubal was on a pitch count and was lifted after 3.1 hitless innings and 54 pitches.  Of those 54 pitches, 44 were strikes.
• On June 13^th – – 38 days after his surgery – – Skubal was pitching for the Detroit Tigers and registered a fastball in the game at 99.9 mph.

The surgery was performed by Dr. Neal ElAttrache and the procedure employs a contraption known as the “NanoNeedle Scope”.  The question here about this surgery and this contraption is simple:

• Was this outcome wildly serendipitous or is this a harbinger of surgical triumph for MLB pitchers?
• The sample size is far too small to be conclusive – – but these results sure do look enticing.

The first Tommy John surgery was done in the 1970s and it was a breakthrough that extended pitching careers significantly.  Tommy John himself pitched in MLB for 13 seasons after his surgery.  Could the “NanoNeedle Scope” do something similar?  If so, how should this procedure be named:

• Skubal Surgery?
• Neal’s NanoNeedle?

One more thing …  Tiago Splitter has left the head coaching position with the Portland TrailBlazers and signed on to be the head coach of the Chicago Bulls.

• Would it be proper to say that Tiago “Splittered” from Portland to go to Chicago?

Finally, today’s closing thought comes from comedienne, Rita Rudner:

“I was going to have cosmetic surgery until I noticed that the doctor’s office was full of portraits by Picasso.”

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