Category: Daily Rants

Today begins the “Dark Section” of the sports calendar in the US.  Consider:

1. MLB is on hiatus for things like the Home Run Derby Nonsense and then the All-Star Game;
2. None of the NFL teams have reported to training camp yet so we still do not know who reported to camp overweight;
3. All the important NBA free agents have already signed on for next year and the Summer League games are even worse than D-League games in terms of entertainment;
4. I could not even find a mention of hockey or the NHL in this morning’s paper.

Fortunately, I do not rely on game results for material to craft these rants; were that the case, I too would be on hiatus this week.  But here in Curmudgeon Central, I have my trusty “clipboard” …

Since I mentioned the MLB festivities in Miami this week, let me begin with a comment from Greg Cote in yesterday’s Miami Herald:

“Monday’s Home Run Derby and Tuesday’s 88th All-Star Game come to Marlins Park. It should be two nights of non-stop feelgood and cheering … well, assuming they don’t inadvertently introduce Jeffrey Loria.”

Since I mentioned the NBA Summer League games, let me remind you that Lonzo Ball’s first summer league game was an ugly performance on his part.  He missed lots of 3-pointers and even missed layups; if you did not recognize him so you knew who he was, you would have concluded that this guy will never make a D-League team let alone the Lakers.  This is the guy who was supposed to erase all of Magic Johnson’s records/accomplishments with the Lakers.

Then, in his second Summer League game, Lonzo Ball had a triple double.  Go figure…

Since I cited a comment from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald above, let me insert another item from his column yesterday:

“Sentences I Never Imagined Writing, one in a series: ‘Todd Marinovich is making a comeback at age 48. Marinovich was most recently in the news when arrested on drugs while naked.’”

When I read that, my first thought was that this had to be some sort of garbled communication; Todd Marinovich could not possibly think that he was going to get a look from an NFL team.  My second thought was that I did not recall him being “arrested on drugs while naked.”  So, I ventured onto the Internet and found this report from CBSSports.com and learned the following:

• Marinovich will try to make the SoCal Coyotes of the World Development Football League.
• Marinovich was indeed arrested when he was found naked in someone’s yard and in possession of marijuana and meth.
• Marinovich has been sober since that arrest.
• The SoCal Coyotes are one of four teams in the Pacific Division of the World Development Football League along with the Arizona Wolves, the California Sharks and the LA Saints.

I also learned from Internet browsing that there are two local teams in this league called the Maryland Carnage and the DC Wolverines.  Until this morning I had no idea such teams existed.

In football news “north of the border”, the Canadian Football League has a new commissioner and he is a former CFL player and Grey Cup champion.  Randy Ambrosie was an offensive lineman who played in the CFL for 9 years and was on the 1993 Grey Cup champion Edmonton Eskimos.  After his playing career, Ambrosie was the secretary of the CFL Players’ Association and he has held several positions in the financial/securities industry in Canada.  His educational pursuits took him to the University of Manitoba, Columbia Business School and the Wharton School.  It would certainly appear as if he has plenty of perspective from various vantage points to lead the CFL.

When introduced as the new CFL Commish, Ambrosie sounded more like a football coach than a buttoned-down financial exec from mahogany row:

“I know from experience that football is the ultimate team sport. I’m confident that by working together, we can ensure this great league reaches its full potential. Let’s get to work.”

Finally, let me complete the trifecta here with a third citation from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald:

“Phil Mickelson split from his longtime caddie and the only people on Earth who cared were Phil, his caddie and golf writers.”

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

 

 

Earlier this week, Gene Conley passed away.  Conley has a unique position in the world of sports; he is the only person to win a World Series (with the Milwaukee Braves) and to win an NBA Championship (with the Boston Celtics).

Rest in peace, Gene Conley.

Yesterday, I listed some things in the sports world about which I do not care even a little bit.  Via e-mail, several readers offered addenda to that list:

1. Home-Run Derby – – a huge waste of time and energy
2. Drone Racing – – a new sport that has already become tiresome
3. Dressage – – essentially, this is horse dancing
4. Fantasy sports – – this reader and I share a harmonic connection in the cosmos.

FOX Sports will need a new head honcho.  Earlier this week, Jamie Horowitz was fired from the position of “President of National Networks at FOX Sports”.  According to reports, this firing has something to do with sexual harassment allegations at FOX Sports.  [Aside:  Given that similar allegations resulted in the dismissal of Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly at FOX News, one might consider that there is something in the water at FOX HQS…]  Horowitz’ attorney denies all allegations here and says that the firing was egregiously wrong; I suspect there is more to learn here.

Horowitz is generally regarded as the person who – in his previous incarnation at ESPN – created the “debate format” for sports TV.  At ESPN, he is seen as the creator of First Take, a program wherein Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith concocted ways to talk past each other in very loud voices about real or imagined “issues” in sports.  When Horowitz left ESPN for FOX, Bayless also jumped networks and is now paired with Shannon Sharpe on a program named Undisputed.  [Aside:  The only thing “undisputed” about the program is that it is unwatchable.]

According to Sports Illustrated media commentator, Richard Deitch, FOX will not be abandoning the “debate concept” for its studio programming and that there is a significant divide within FOX Sports between the folks who produce “studio work” and those who produce “field work” i.e. live sporting events.  Here is a link to that report on SI.com.

Back at the turn of the century, Katie Hnida made news when she was a walk-on placekicker for the football team at Colorado.  She dressed for games at Colorado but never saw the field; later she transferred to New Mexico for whom in 2003 she kicked 2 PATs in a Division 1-A college football game making her the first woman to score a point at that level of competition.  Recently, there has been another “first” in this area.

Becca Longo has been given a scholarship as a placekicker at Adams State – a Division II school.  According to reports, she can “routinely” convert 45-yard tries and she reportedly has made a 50-yard field goal in practice.  She has trained with Alex Zendejas who asserts that this is not some sort of publicity stunt because Longo is a real kicker.  Moreover, this story may have legs because reports say that Becca Longo wants to be an NFL placekicker down the road.  As she enters college, she is listed at 5’ 11” and 145 lbs.  NFL kickers – Sebastian Janikowski notwithstanding – are not behemoths, but I doubt that any of them weigh only 145 lbs.  If she is going to have a chance to get a tryout with an NFL team – and not get crushed by a special teams’ opponent on a kickoff – she is going to have to add some muscle to her frame over the next 4 years.

Bonne chance, Becca Longo…

Last week, Manny Pacquaio lost a controversial decision to a hometown fighter in Brisbane, Australia.  Some folks say there was “corruption” involved; that is an ever-so-polite way to assert that “the fix was in”.  Others say that the judges’ unanimous decision was merely a demonstration of monumental incompetence.  I have only seen short highlights from the fight and have not nearly sufficient interest to find an online video of the entire fight and watch it.  Therefore, I have no way to offer any comment on the “corruption versus incompetence” spectrum here.  I will offer a few generic comments however:

• If indeed “the fix was in”, this would not be the first time something like that happened in boxing.  The earliest fight I recall where it surely appears as if “the fix was in” was when Jess Willard beat Jack Johnson for the heavyweight title almost 100 years ago.
• Boxing has been replete with “cheating” situations over the years to include things like plaster-loaded fists under the gloves and gloves that had some of the padding removed to make each punch landed more impactful.  One fighter claimed to have been given a sedative just before entering the ring in the form of an orange slice.
• This controversial decision has generated more publicity and more focus on boxing than anything in recent years.  It also sets up a rematch – surely to be held somewhere other than Brisbane – down the line.  A cynic might see great convenience here…  [Aside:  The Mayweather/McGregor spectacle is technically a boxing match and it has generated more publicity than this decision but I think that “hybrid match” is not much more than a one-off money-grab and not generic boxing.]

Finally, since I mentioned Becca Longo as the first female to get a college football scholarship, let me close with this observation from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald regarding an oddity in the world of college football scholarships:

“The University of Hawaii offered a fifth-grade quarterback a scholarship. The quarterback is looking forward to taking a recruiting visit as soon as he’s old enough to cross the street by himself.”

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

 

 

After hearing that a new record was set in the July 4^th hot dog eating contest, I asked myself if I could come up with 10 things related nominally to the sports world about which I cared less than I do about that annual hot dog eating contest.  Obviously, I could name a bunch of other stupid “competitive eating” events but that would be an intellectual tautology.  I gave myself a couple of minutes to think about it and this is what I came up with – – in the order they flashed into my mind:

1. Anything related in any way to professional ‘rassling.
2. Sumo wrestling.
3. MMA, UFC and things of that nature.
4. Lawn mower racing.
5. Professional fishing.
6. The Naked Olympics.
7. The Winter Olympics.  This may not belong on this list because I do enjoy watching some of the hockey games here and there is nothing about the hot dog eating contest I care about at all.
8. Synchronized “anything” in the Olympics.
9. The America’s Cup Yacht Races.  New Zealand just beat the US in this regatta held in Bermuda which is not the home of either combatant.  Why they held it there, I do not care to try to understand.  See below for another comment on the allure of this sporting event.
10. The Tour de France.  This annual event is ongoing as I input these words.  My reaction is, “Whoop-di-damned-doo!”

            Greg Cote had this comment in the Miami Herald recently about the recently completed America’s Cup regatta:

“Team USA got clobbered 7-1 by New Zealand in America’s Cup sailing. How great would it be if there arose a scandal in which the Kiwis were found to have illegally used outboard motors!”

Yesterday, I reviewed some of the astronomical numbers being thrown around as contract values in the NBA without even mentioning the $201M contract just signed by Steph Curry.  Later in the day, I ran across a report that Buffalo Bills’ WR, Sammy Watkins, took to Twitter to complain about those NBA contract numbers because – – according to Watkins – – NFL players should be getting that kind of money too.  At first glance, you might think that Watkins has a point; but upon a bit of reflection, you might conclude that if he wore his helmet, no one would notice.

The NFL has higher revenues than the NBA; so, you would think they have more money to “throw around” to their players.  Also, NFL players have – on average – shorter careers than NBA players meaning they should be demanding higher annual salaries than NBA players.  Sounds good except for:

• NBA teams have 12-15 players under contract at one time.  Counting the practice squads, NFL teams have more than 60 players under contract most all of the time.
• NBA teams pay a head coach and maybe 3 assistant coaches per team.  NFL coaching staffs can have as many as 20-25 coaches getting a paycheck.
• Because NBA teams play 41 regular season home games as opposed to 8 for the NFL, NBA home attendance averages about 200,000 more fans than the NFL.

Sammy Watkins’ tweets do not seem to acknowledge the basic math here.  While the NBA does not take in the same amount of revenue as the NFL does, there are many more “mouths to feed” in an NFL team structure than there are in an NBA structure.  Moreover, there is another important factor that Watkins seems to ignore.

The current CBA between the NFL and the NFLPA imposes a hard salary cap on NFL teams.  In that agreement, the salary cap must be at least 47% of the “annual revenue” for the NFL.  “Annual revenue” takes about 20 pages of the CBA to define so let’s just say it is a very large number.  However, that number for 2017 yields a salary cap of approximately $167M.  If that were spread out evenly among the 60 or so players each team has under contract, that would come out to be a bit less than $3M per player.

The current CBA between the NBA and the NBPA does not have a hard salary cap.  It has a cap but teams may exceed it by paying a luxury tax on all salaries paid in a year that are in excess of the cap.  The NBA’s CBA calls for the salary cap to be 49% of the “annual revenue” of the league and when you go through all the “puts and takes”, that comes out to be about $100M per team this year.  Again, if that were distributed evenly among the 15 players that an NBA team might have under contract, that would come out to be about $6.6M per player.

Sammy Watkins’ “complaint” has math working against it and it has the legality of two different CBAs working against it.  Sammy may wish it were otherwise, but I do not see him or his comrades-in-arms in the NFL getting the same kind of money that NBA players do.  Top-flight NFL stars will get huge contracts; rookies will get mandated/slotted low-wage deals.  How many players fall into the “NFL middle-class” will depend on how individual teams allocate their $167M of cap room.

Finally, this comment from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald surely provides an eleventh entry on my list of things in sports that I care less about than the hot-dog eating contest:

“At the World Cup of Darts, top-seeded Scotland has been eliminated. If this ruins your office bracket, your office has too many brackets.”

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

 

 

Let me begin today with NBA free agency and that portion of the calendar year when NBA teams adjust their rosters.  Gordon Hayward signing on with the Boston Celtics must feel like a salmon swimming upstream to spawn; he seems to be the only top-shelf NBA free agent ignoring Horace Greeley’s advice, “Go west, young man.”  Paul George went west from Indiana to Oklahoma City in a trade; Jimmy Butler went west in a trade from Chicago to Minnesota; Paul Millsap took his talents from Atlanta to Denver; Chris Paul changed teams but remained in the Western Conference; Gordon Hayward went from Utah eastward to Boston.  For his efforts, reports say Hayward will get a contract for $128M over 4 years.

The new NBA TV deals that kicked in last season have left the league awash in cap room; the soft cap in the NBA is just a shade under $100M for the upcoming season so the contract numbers you are seeing now – and will be seeing over the next year or two – are going to seem outlandish.  Get used to it…

The Celtics went to the Eastern Conference finals last year losing there to the Cavaliers 4-1.  The Celtics drafted Jayson Tatum a few weeks ago and he looks like a bona fide prospect; now they added a premier free agent – perhaps THE premier free agent of the 2017 class – to the roster.  Therefore, people now want to opine on the obvious question:

• Have the Celtics done enough to be able to unseat the Cavaliers as the “big dog” in the NBA Eastern Conference?

The Cavs have basically stood pat so far this off-season; their only major change was the firing of their GM and not replacing him to date.  Gordon Hayward definitely makes the Celtics a better team but the Celtics still lack a dominant rebounder and what has come to be called a “rim protector”.  As of today, I do not think the Celtics have overtaken the Cavs in the East but I do wonder if the fact that they have made no moves signals another LeBron James departure from Cleveland next year when his contract is up.  Were that to happen, the Celtics would be the heir-apparent to the Cavs in the East…

I said above that some of the numbers you will read regarding NBA free agency would seem outlandish.  Here is an example; the Washington Post reports this morning that the Brooklyn Nets have extended a max contract offer to Washington Wizards’ free-agent, Otto Porter, Jr.  [Aside:  Porter also had a max offer from the Sacramento Kings but did not accept it; he has accepted the one from the Nets.]  Given Porter’s 4-year tenure in the NBA, his deal maxed out at 4 years and $106M.  Last year was Porter’s most productive season as a pro and here are the highlights:

• 32.6 minutes/game; 51.6% field goal accuracy; 43.6% 3-point accuracy; 13.4 points/ game; 6.4 rebounds/game; 1.5 assists per game

Otto Porter, Jr. is 23 years old; I think this contract offer represents “betting on the come”.  Those are nice numbers but somehow, I don’t think they – as the most productive year of Porter’s career – stand out as mandating a max contract offer.

Porter is a restricted free agent meaning that the Wizards can match that offer and retain his services.  The Wizards have indicated they have “every intention” to match the offer indicating to me that there are at least 3 NBA teams – Kings, Nets and Wizards – who think Otto Porter, Jr. is a max-contract player starting right now.

The Hawks loss of Millsap means that the team has lost two important players in two consecutive seasons.  Last year, Al Horford left the Hawks to sign with the Celtics.  Two seasons ago, the Hawks won 60 games in the regular season; without Horford and Millsap, I suspect they will struggle to win 35 games next year.

And what of the Utah Jazz?  In addition to losing Hayward, they also lost point guard George Hill to free-agency and replaced him with Ricky Rubio acquired in a trade with the Timberwolves.  They still have Rudy Gobert as a significant defensive presence but I do not see a way for the Jazz to find a “replacement” for Hayward at this juncture.  In the loaded Western Conference, the Jazz will struggle next year to make the playoffs.

Enough NBA stuff for now…  Let me turn to the intersection of jurisprudence and sports.  The US Department of Justice has withdrawn from a pending case in court that would have barred the Washington Redskins from maintaining their trademark based on a provision of the Lanham Act.  That act said that the US government could deny trademark protection to words or phrases or images that were offensive to peoples.  As I noted recently, a decision by the US Supreme Court in a totally unrelated case struck down that provision of the Lanham Act saying that it violated the First Amendment protection of free expression.

The protest over the team name has waxed and waned for decades.  Long before this ever went to court, I remember calls for the team to change its offensive name going back to the late 1970s or the early 1980s.  In the last 3 decades or so, there have been marches and protests; various news outlets have forsworn the use of the team name; a host of sportswriters and commentators have railed against the use of this racial slur.  Former president, Barack Obama, publicly aligned himself with the protest movement and suggested that Danny Boy Snyder change the team name.  None of that amounted to a dash of doggie doo-doo.

Finally, it seems that the protesters focused on the only path that might get them to the goal that they set for themselves – namely the team name gets changed.  They stopped trying to make this a moral issue and turned it into an economic issue.  Had they prevailed and stripped the Washington Redskins of trademark protection the path to forcing a name change would have been a lot smoother; with this defeat, they have two choices open:

1. Go back to making this a moral issue.  That is not going to work so long as Danny Boy Snyder owns the team, but it will make lots of the protesters and the sportswriters/commentators feel good about their continued righteousness.
2. Find another economic angle to this protest that allows the protesters to use the potential loss of dollars as the fulcrum for their change objective.

I am not trying to be “Negative Nancy” here, but I really do not think there are any other things to do now.  [Aside:  Some suggested that the DoJ should have kept the case alive because the Supreme Court could still have ruled favorably in this case because it has some differences from the one that generated the previous decision.  The problem with that “argument” is that the Supreme Court decision was a unanimous 8-0 decision; there is no assurance the Court would even take the case.]

Finally, let me try to end today’s rant on a lighter note.  Consider, please, this comment from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald:

“A British soldier won the National Cheese Rolling Championships where competitors chase a 9-pound wheel of cheese. A group of humans dressed in wiener suits racing around a U.S. baseball stadium stopped in front of a TV monitor to go, ‘Stupid!’”

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

 

 

Since today is America’s birthday, let me begin with a baseball item and ask the rhetorical question:

• What is wrong with the Chicago Cubs this year?

After dominating the National League from start to finish in 2016 and then winning the World Series to break a century-plus championship drought, the Cubs have been sleepwalking through the 2017 season.  This team is not one where the core of players has gone into significant career-decline; this is a very young team that figured only to get better year-over-year in 2017.  As of July 4^th – sort of the unofficial halfway mark in the MLB season – the Cubs are the definition of mediocrity with a record of 41-41.  If the playoffs started now, the Cubbies would be at home watching games on TV.

If I had a way to identify the cause of this “World Series hangover” and a way to cure it, I could probably extract a princely sum from the Cubs and their fans for it.  Clearly, I do not; but perhaps the manifestation of the “hangover” can be seen in this comparison:

• 2016:  Seven Chicago Cubs were on the NL All-Star Team
• 2017:  One Chicago Cub is on the NL All-Star Team – – and he was not one of the members of the 2016 team.

Kyle Schwarber is not the cause of the malaise here but seems to represent the most debilitating form of the “World Series hangover”.  In the past, Schwarber was a hitting machine; in last year’s playoffs, he shook off the rust accumulated from an entire season in rehab to pound the ball all over the place even though he could not play the field.  In 5 playoff games, he hit .412 and drove in 10 runs.  His performance at the plate this year has been so dismal that he was sent down to the minors to get back on track.  In 2017 with 222 at bats in 64 games, he is hitting .171 and has driven in 22 runs.

The good news for Cubs’ fans is that the NL Central is a model of mediocrity.  The Cubs are only 2.5 games out of first place in the division and only 8.5 games separate first place from last place in the NL Central.  The Cubs can still make the playoffs and win their division, but it will not be the cakewalk that it was last year.

The Cubbies made another piece of news about a week ago when they released catcher Miguel Montero because of what he said after a game.  The Cubs lost to the Nats and the Nats stole 8 bases in that game.  Montero griped that pitcher Jake Arietta did not hold runners on and he had no chance to throw any of them out.  Replay would seem to confirm Montero’s analysis and Arietta admitted there was a kernel of truth in the comments but those comments are not in line with “proper teammate decorum” and so Montero lost his job.  The story has a “happy ending”; Montero was signed a few days after his release by the Toronto Blue Jays; he is still in MLB.  However, I do want to draw an analogy here:

• Miguel Montero’s comment had no social or political significance, but he lost his job in MLB – temporarily – because he said what he thought.
• There is a lot of similarity here to the Colin Kaepernick situation in the NFL who lost his job in the NFL – seemingly not so temporary – because he used a symbolic gesture to express what he thought.

Staying with MLB, the average 2017 MLB game takes 3 hours and 8 minutes; that is the longest average game-time ever.  Evidently, the addition of the time-saving rule to avoid the four pitches in an intentional walk has not resulted in shortened games.  The people who do “advanced analytics” for baseball have determined that the average time between pitches in 2017 is 23.8 seconds and that is the longest interlude in the 10-15 years that people have been measuring that statistic.  Let’s do some math here:

1. If each team throws 120 pitches in a game, that means there will be 240 pitching interludes.
2. Given the average time between pitches that amounts to 95.2 minutes – more than an hour-and-a-half – wherein the pitcher is standing there holding the ball and staring at the catcher.
3. That represents about 50% of the time it takes to play the average MLB game of 3 hours and 8 minutes.

If MLB wants to increase the pace of play and cut down game times significantly, they need to stop focusing on the time it takes to walk a batter intentionally and to look at the things that take a lot of time in a game.  The pitcher holding the ball is one such thing; the time it takes umpires to complete a review is another such thing.  Consider these two items from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times:

“Headline at TheKicker.com: ‘Umps go to video replay to see if they’re slowing game down too much.’”

And …

“United Airlines is about to unveil the world’s longest flight, 8,700 miles from L.A. to Singapore — nearly 18 hours.

“To help pass all that air time, the in-flight movie will be replays of three Yankees-Red Sox games.”

Finally, syndicated columnist Norman Chad also had something to say about the length of MLB games in his weekly Couch Slouch column:

“Watching baseball on TV these days is like putting a pot of water on medium heat and waiting for it to boil.”

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

 

 

It is good to be back and – not surprisingly – I have a bunch of stuff on the clipboard on which to comment.  Just as a matter of recordkeeping, I saw the mariners lose twice to the Phillies last week.  That means the Mariners have a record of 24-21 when I am in attendance since 2001 – the first year of my baseball trips to the Great Northwest.  That may not look like a spectacular record, but it is better than the Mariners’ cumulative record over the same period.  They ought to pay me to come more often – or at least comp me the tix…

In the middle of last week, Dodgers’ closer, Kenley Jansen walked his first batter of the year.  When that happened, he had faced 112 batters so far in the season and had struck out 51 of them.  Not a bad strikeout to walk ratio…

After the NBA Draft where the Lakers took Lonzo Ball with the #2 overall pick, LaVar Ball declared that Lonzo would lead the Lakers to the NBA Playoffs next season and that when that happened, he would be back at the Draft next year wearing a hat that says, “I Told You So”.  After a period of relative quiescence, LaVar Ball was back on his game and that reminded me of a comment several weeks ago by bob Molinaro of the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Static alert: About 2,500 years ago, Plato anticipated the arrival of the boorishly brash LaVar Ball, father of future NBA guard Lonzo Ball, when he said, ‘An empty vessel makes the loudest sound.’ Judging from Ball’s easy access to the media, it also makes a popular talk show guest.”

The folks in Las Vegas who set wagering odds for various things posted the opening odds on teams to make the NBA Playoffs next year soon after the Draft was over.  Three of the teams who garnered lots of headlines on Draft Night drew this opinion from the Vegas oddsmakers:

1. Minnesota Timberwolves:  Make playoffs minus-260; miss playoffs +220
2. Philadelphia 76ers:  Make playoffs minus-125; make playoffs +105
3. LA Lakers:  Make playoffs +500; miss playoffs minus-700.

The oddsmakers do not share LaVar Ball’s certainty…

Staying with the NBA, the Knicks fired Phil Jackson as the team president and basketball maven.  Since he arrived in NYC, Jackson’s Knicks have gone 80-166 which is hardly laudable.  One could spot him the bad record in his first year there; the roster was a mess when he arrived.  The problem was that his moves did not make the roster nearly competitive.  In fact, other than drafting Kristaps Porzingis, I would be hard pressed to cite any of his actions that deserve high praise.

This being the Knicks, however, there has to be a strain of “unusualness” in the situation.  Earlier this year – in March or April as I recall – the Knicks had an option on the final 2 years of Jackson’s 5-year/$12M per year contract.  They picked up that option then and put Jackson in charge of the draft and all the events leading up to the draft.  Then – owing him $24M more than they owed him about 3 months ago – they fired him.  As with many of the Knicks’ decisions over the last 20 years or so, one can only shrug one’s shoulders and ask, “Why not?”

By the way, since the Knicks won 80 games during Jackson’s tenure and he made $60M while he was there, that works out to a cool $750K per victory.  Well done, James Dolan….

With the NBA Draft in the past and with hockey on hiatus and MLB coasting into the All-Star break, this is a slow time in the sports world.  Perhaps that is why folks have paid even minimal attention to the John McEnroe/Serena Williams pillow fight.  McEnroe’s comment that Serena would rank #700 in the world if she were on the men’s listing seems to have reignited the “Battle of the Sexes” one more time.  Even in this slow news period, can we please put this old war-horse out to pasture?  Let me summarize:

1. Serena Williams is possibly the best women’s tennis player of all time; she is absolutely one of the 5 best female tennis players ever.
2. Serena Williams would beat John McEnroe in a tennis match in 2017 – once her pregnancy is ended.  We do not need to reprise the Billie Jean King/Bobby Riggs soap opera once again.
3. Serena Williams would not be nearly as highly ranked among professional men tennis players as she is on the women’s ranking.  In fact, I doubt she would get past the second round at Wimbledon were she on the men’s side of the draw.
4. Regarding her ranking #700 on the men’s scale, are there actually that many male pro tennis players?

On July 1, the good folks in Canada celebrated Canada Day.  Here in the “lower 48”, July 1 is celebrated more restrictively as “Bobby Bonilla Day”.  That is because on July 1, Bobby Bonilla – despite being retired from MLB since the end of the 2001 season – received a check for about $1.2M from the NY Mets and he will continue to do so every July 1 until the year 2035.  This is a result of the Mets deferring about $6M of the salary they owed him for 2000 until 2011 which would then be paid out as an annuity that compounded at 8%.  In all, Bobby Bonilla will collect almost $30M from the Mets for the deferred payment on July 1 of every year…

Finally, here is a note from Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald regarding a variety of topics and people we noticed today:

“The New York Mets promoted Tim Tebow, hitting .222, to Class A St. Lucie. I’m thinking it may be a PR stunt because the Mets also called up Khloe Kardashian and LaVar Ball.   Tebow is now playing in high A. It’s the baseball equivalent of when he was with the New York Jets.”

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

 

 

Let me give you my impressions/reactions to the NBA Draft last night:

1. The biggest winner of the night was Minnesota.  The Wolves acquired Jimmy Butler in a trade that sure does not seem as if it cost the Wolves a lot.  Butler is one of the 20 best players in the league and with the rest of the young talent in Minnesota, the Wolves are now a playoff factor in the NBA West.
2. Another big winner from last night – – with two important “Ifs” attached – – was Philly.  The Sixers took Markelle Fultz as anticipated.  Now, IF Fultz is as good as advertised and IF Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons can stay healthy, the Sixers have built themselves a really good young roster core.
3. For the moment, a big winner from last night was Sacramento.  Using a trade to acquire 2 picks, the Kings got 4 very talented players in De’Aaron Fox, Justin Jackson, Harry Giles and Frank Mason.  Now we must wait to see how the Kings will screw all of that up; remember, this is the franchise that puts the “fun” in dysfunctional.
4. A big winner and a big loser at the same time from last night was New York.  The Knicks win because they did not trade Kristaps Porzingis; the Knicks lose because they did not trade Carmelo Anthony.  The Knicks made draft picks but that does not matter nearly as much as the two trades that were not made.
5. A big loser last night was Chicago.  The Bulls traded away a star in Jimmy Butler and got in return Zach Levine (coming off a “horrific knee injury”), Kris Dunn (coming off a mediocre season) and a draft pick they used to take Lauri Markaanan (Ho-hum…).  Then to put icing on the cake, they made a 2^nd round pick and sold that pick for cash to the Golden State Warriors.  That pick was Jordan Bell and he is a big winner from last night going to a great team in Golden State instead of a miserable team in Chicago.

Yesterday, the announcement came that the Raiders and QB, Derek Carr, had reached an agreement on a contract extension.  The deal is billed as 5 years and $125M with $40M of that money guaranteed as of the time of the signing and with the possibility of $70M being guaranteed as the contract moves forward.  In normal circumstances, NFL contracts – which are never fully guaranteed mainly due to the injury potential in the sport – teams and players “back-load” the contracts to make them seem longer and bigger than they really are.  I often call those late years of contracts “ego massaging years” in that they look great at the time of the announcement of the deal but they never really occur.  For most players, they need to seek a lot of “front-loading” in the contract in order to assure that those “big-time dollars” actually show up in their bank accounts.

Derek Carr may be in a situation that is very rare in the NFL: he may want to “back-load his contract” and maybe postpone much of that $40M guaranteed money for several years.  Let me explain:

• Carr currently is employed by a team in California and is subject to California taxation.  If I read the California Tax Service Center website correctly, the marginal state income tax rate on incomes in the millions of dollars is 13.3%.  That is over and above the 39.5% marginal tax rate Carr will pay to Uncle Sam.
• For purposes of simplicity, let me assume for a moment that the 5-year $125M contract is paid out at $25M per year.  It surely is not, but that assumption will be illustrative.
• If that were the case, Carr would owe the IRS about $9.5M in tax and then he would owe the State of California another $3M in tax.
• A couple of years from now, Carr will be employed by a team in Nevada where there is ZERO state income tax.  He would still have to pay Uncle Sam, the that other $3M or so that he used to send to the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento can stay in his bank account.  [Aside:  Seven states in the US do not levy income taxes; they are Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.]
• In this particular case, Carr might be in a better financial state by deferring large chunks of that income until he moves to Las Vegas.

There was another NFL contract announced yesterday with none of the fanfare of the Derek Carr deal.  It is nowhere near as large; in fact, my guess is that Derek Carr will make more in a signing bonus that this contract will pay out over its lifetime.  Nonetheless, it may be just as significant for the player and the team.

• The New England Patriots signed linebacker David Harris who had recently been cut by the NY Jets after their OTAs.  Harris is “long in the tooth” but he still has time before he passes his “sell-by date”.
• The Pats love veteran players and they signed Harris to a 2-year deal for a nominal $5M.  With incentives met, it could escalate up to $6.75M; the total guaranteed money is up front and amounts to $1.25M.

According to reports, the Jets approached Harris after releasing him about re-signing with the Jets but that they low-balled him and would not match the Pats’ offer.  Unless, Harris has lost it all over this off-season, this is another contractual coup for the Pats – – and even if Harris cannot play a lick, all it would cost the Pats is the $1.25M guarantee…

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

“The NFL has reinstated touchdown celebrations. The Cleveland Browns plan to work on one just in case it’s necessary.”

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

 

 

The TV ratings are in and they are not encouraging if you are an exec in the USGA.  It would appear that golf fans found other things to do last weekend instead of watching the US Open.  Ratings for Sunday’s final round were down 8% from last year and 28% from 2015.  The ratings from last Sunday were 3.5; to give you an idea, that is the lowest rating for a final round of a major tournament except for the 2015 British Open where the final round had to be postponed until Monday due to inclement weather.

If USGA execs want to put a positive spin on all of this, perhaps then can convince themselves that the folks missing from the TV sets were out on the links playing a round of golf…

CBSSports.com had a report recently about a new legal instrument called a CAP Agreement which is characterized as a replacement for a National Letter of Intent by college athletes and which represents a “legally binding contract between a college prospect and his school”.  I am not going to pretend to understand the legal stature of this new instrument but here is the link to the report at CBSSports.com that will give you an overview.

There is one quote in the report that is pretty much a malaprop.  The Executive Director of the National College Players Association said this about the new CAP Agreement:

“We think this will change things.  This will be a good place to start. It opens Pandora’s Box.”

The problem with that statement is that in Greek mythology, Pandora’s box contained all the evils of the world and that they only escaped to exist in the world after Pandora opened the box.  I suspect that the National College Players Association would prefer not to release legal evils upon the players themselves with the new CAP Agreement.

There were a couple of trades earlier this week in the NBA as teams prepped for the upcoming draft.  Trades on draft day are commonplace in the NBA so there is likely more to come on that front but here are some thoughts on the trades that went down:

1. Lakers trade D’Angelo Russell and Timofey Mozgov to the Nets for Brooke Lopez and the 27^th overall pick in this year’s draft.  The Lakers win this trade by default.  Russell is talented but his tenure in LA has been tumultuous to say the least and Mozgov was next to useless for the Lakers despite signing him to a big free agent contract last year.  This trade rids them of what they perceive as a “problem child” and of a “bloated contract” in exchange for a mediocre center and a third first round pick in this year’s draft.  The Lakers now have picks #2, 27 and 28 in tonight’s draft and that might presage another trade coming up.  Meanwhile, the Nets just stink and the addition of Russell and Mozgov will not change that very much.
2. Hawks trade Dwight Howard and the #31 pick in this year’s draft to the Hornets for Miles Plumlee, Marco Belinelli and the #41 pick in this year’s draft.  Howard is a good defensive player and rebounder; his offensive skills seem to be eroding at age 31.  When the Hawks were eliminated in the playoffs this year, Howard was benched in the 4^th quarter of a couple of those games.  The Hawks got a bit younger with this trade but neither Plumlee nor Belinelli can be considered “centerpiece players”.  On the assumption that the Hornets are not going to ask Howard to do a lot offensively, I guess they win this trade by a slim margin.

More interesting than these two actual trades are the trade rumors running amok now.  Players with significant skills and with wide name recognition are mentioned in the rumors to include:

• Jimmy Butler
• Paul George
• Kyrie Irving
• Kevin Love
• Kristaps Porzingis

I certainly do not expect all of those players to be moved in the next few days but playing with them as chess pieces as teams seek to catch up to the Warriors makes for some interesting mental exercises.  Interestingly, in the midst of all this “intrigue” the Cavaliers found time to fire their GM, David Griffin.  [Aside:  Many people believe that LeBron James is the de facto GM for the Cavs so perhaps this is not such a big deal.]  What it does show, however is that Cavs’ owner, Dan Gilbert, is not a man of patience and long-range vision.  Gilbert has owned the Cavs for 12 years; in that time, he has had 4 GMs and is about to hire a 5^th.  Given that the team has been in plenty of playoff series and has won a championship, that seems like a lot of front office turmoil to me.

The other part of this saga that I find interesting is that – according to an ESPN.com report – Gilbert refused in the past couple of months to grant the Magic and the Hawks permission to talk with David Griffin about executive positions with those teams.  Now, with jobs filled, he decides to fire Griffin.  Here is the link to the ESPN.com report on this firing.  It provides a peek behind the curtain regarding some of the inner workings of one NBA franchise.

Finally, since I began today with disheartening news regarding the TV ratings for the US Open, let me close with this comment from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald regarding a way to “goose those ratings”:

“In Anchorage, Alaska, a bear chased some golfers on the course. If more golfers were chased by bears, TV ratings for golf would double.”

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

 

 

Let me begin today with two “Las Vegas items”.  Earlier this year, the Nevada Gaming Commission expanded the number of things that the sportsbooks there could include on their betting menu.  For the first time, sportsbooks in Las Vegas could take bets on propositions related to the NFL Draft.  That experiment was deemed a success even though the handles reported seem awfully small to me by Las Vegas standards.  According to an ESPN.com report, some books said their handle was “as much as $60,000”.

Presumably based on that declaration of success, the Nevada Gaming Commission has now approved proposition wagering on the NBA Draft taking place tomorrow.  Here is a sample of the propositions offered by the Westgate sportsbook:

1. Number of Duke players drafted in the first round.  O/U = 3.5  OVER = +145 and UNDER = -160.
2. Number of Kentucky players drafted in the first round.  O/U = 2.5  OVER = -300 and UNDER = +250.

All wagers have to be in by close of business tonight (June 21); don’t get shut out at the windows…

Unless you have been on a tour of one of the newly discovered exoplanets for the last several weeks or are just coming out of a coma, you know that Floyd Mayweather and Connor McGregor are going to fight one another in Las Vegas in August.  Before I retired, I had to spend a week at a conference at Nellis Air Force Base just outside Las Vegas in mid-August.  I do not have a degree in meteorology, but I can report that it is generally outrageously hot in that part of the world at that time of the year; when I was there, temps all week got into the 110 – 114-degree range.  As you might suspect, this is not the peak season for Las Vegas tourism…

The hotels in Las Vegas do not charge premium prices for the rooms that they do sell in August – – except for one weekend this year.  As soon as the date for the fight was set and the hype begun, room rates in Las Vegas jumped.  ESPN.com reported that a weekend stay (3 nights) at the Rio on the strip in Vegas cost $133 per night before the fight was announced; once that announcement hit the streets, the price of a room for the weekend of the fight was $233 per night.  That is a 75% increase.

According to ESPN, this is in line with the price jump at other hotels in Las Vegas for the weekend of the fight:

• Flamingo – up 72%
• Harrah’s – up 76%
• New York New York – up 68%
• Treasure Island – up 60%
• Wynn’s – up 70%

The two fighters are going to make a whole lot of money for this fight; it appears that the Las Vegas economy is going to do very well also…

I do not eat a lot of “fast food”.  This is not some sort of sanctimonious statement about the healthiness of fast food or the sustainability of fast food; I do not eat much of it because I do not think most of it tastes very good.  Specifically, regarding McDonalds, my main patronage for these restaurants over the past 20 years or so has been to go in to relieve myself of previously consumed coffee along the highway and to get another cup of coffee that will eventually be delivered to another locale along the highway.   Based on recent reports, however, I may need to reassess my patronage and stop in for a Big Mac – – assuming of course that McDonalds still sells those things.

McDonalds has been a TOP partner – The Olympic Partner Pregramme – with the IOC for more than a couple decades.  McDonalds has terminated its relationship with the IOC before it expired.  The IOC characterized the split as McDonalds seeking to “focus on different business priorities”; McDonalds said basically the same thing.  What I take this to mean are these things:

1. McDonalds has disassociated itself with an entity that is venal and corrupt to the core.  I give them points for coming to that realization and doing something about it.
2. Future Olympic athletes will have to eat something else in the Olympic village when the IOC finds another food vendor to take McDonalds’ place as a TOP partner.

Prior to McDonalds’ withdrawal from the TOP Programme, the composite of the TOP partners was:

• Alibaba
• Bridgestone Tires
• McDonalds
• Omega Timepieces
• Panasonic
• Toyota

The IOC said it had not decided whether it would seek to replace McDonalds with another entity in the retail foods business segment.  What I take that to mean is that the IOC is accepting offers from companies in all business segments to assume the position that McDonalds had occupied; they will take money wherever they can get it.

If I remember correctly a Big Mac was “two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion on a sesame seed bun.”  I need to go an eat one of those bad boys just to show my support for this divorce.

Finally, with the College World Series underway in Omaha, here is some reporting from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World Herald:

“The TD Ameritrade Park concession is offering an item consisting of two Omaha Steaks patties topped with melted provolone, cheddar, mozzarella and jack cheese. It’s called the Double Play Burger. Sounds more like Triple Bypass Burger.

“There’s also the giant “Strike Zone” Calzone, which is 1-1/2 feet long. It’s the first concession item that could be mistaken for a section of the Keystone XL pipeline.

“Since large umbrellas aren’t allowed inside TD Ameritrade Park, in the event of rain take refuge under the 1-1/2-foot calzone.”

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

 

 

The Supreme Court of the United States is not a normal source of material for these rants but that was not the case yesterday.  In a unanimous 8-0 decision, the court struck down the provision of the Lanham Act that allows the Patent and Trademark Office to deny trademarks in cases where the name being trademarked may be offensive.  The Court said this was a violation of the First Amendment – and indeed, it is.  The Lanham Act was passed by the Congress and signed by the President meaning that it was the force of law and the US government that was regulating such speech/expression.  As someone who places high value on the First Amendment – and who gets annoyed when people try to invoke it in situations not involving the “interference” of federal laws – I applaud this decision.

Right about now, I can imagine people wondering what the heck this has to do with sports.  Here it is:

• This decision is going to make it very difficult for the Patent and Trademark people to prevail in their action to deny the Washington Redskins a renewal of the team trademark.  [Aside:  This case did not involve the Redsiins; this case involved the “trademark folks” and a rock band with a name that the trademark folks found to be offensive.]

Given that there are a significant number of folks who find the name “redskins” offensive, my reaction – were I the owner of the team – would be to change it to something else.  However, I do not own the team and never will.  Therefore, this decision now rests in the hands of Danny Boy Snyder and the odds of him changing the team name are about the same as the odds that I will buy the team from him.  This has to remain the owner’s decision and not the US Government’s decision.

Since my preference would be to change the team name – and I acknowledge that my preference does not matter a whit as compared to the preservation of the First Amendment – I have paid attention to the protests and the actions taken by folks who seek that change.  This Supreme Court decision deals them a serious if not fatal blow.  I have said this before; let me say it again here with regard to this “protest movement”:

1. If you try to make the team name a moral issue, you can save your breath to blow your beans.
2. The only way to effect a change here is to make this an economic issue – one that turns the team from a cash cow into a cash drain.

Denying a trademark renewal would have been an economic blow to the team; now it seems as if that is not going to happen.  So, if the activists are going to do anything useful now, they have to come up with some other economic aspect to their activism.  And as I finish typing those words let me say unequivocally that organizing and maintaining a boycott against an entity as large and popular as any NFL team or the NFL itself is more than merely a daunting task.

For a far more informed analysis of this decision and its potential impact on the Redskins/Trademark Office contretemps to come, please check out this link from Forbes.

Since I began today with a sports issue that seems to ricochet off the First Amendment of the US Constitution, let me take a moment here to comment on a sports issue that has nothing to do with the First Amendment – – even though some would have you believe that it does.  Over the weekend, Colin Kaepernick made his job hunt in the NFL more difficult.  After a jury in Minnesota returned a verdict of “not guilty” in the trial of the police officer who shot and killed Philando Castile.  Kaepernick was hardly the only person who protested the verdict and every person who protested peacefully simply exerted their fundamental Consitituional right to do so.  However, what Kaepernick did as part of his protest makes his job search more difficult.

In a Tweet, Kaepernick compared police officers to the people who hunted down runaway slaves in the 1800s; he posted a picture of the badges worn by those slave hunters juxtaposed with a police badge from today.  Before going a millimeter further, let me state clearly:

1. I think it is inappropriate to equate – or even suggest – that police officers in the US in 2017 are analogous to the runaway slave hunters of the early 1800s.
2. Nonetheless, if Colin Kaepernick or any other folks think that is a valid expression of their feelings, they are free to say so and to post images like the ones Kaepernick did.
3. There must be NO legal consequences from any level of government to such expression in order to preserve the First Amendment.

At the same time, this latest expression of protest from Colin Kaepernick makes him “more controversial” for a team that might consider signing him to be part of their roster.  Now, even if some teams – or even all of the NFL teams – make a decision that his level of controversy is more than they wish to incur, that is not a legal consequence of Colin Kaepernick’s protest or his latest appropriate expression of his protest.

There are precedents in sports where individuals have made inappropriate/offensive remarks and it cost them their jobs on a permanent basis.  Consider:

1. Al Campanis:  He was the GM for the LA Dodgers for about 20 years.  In the late 80s, he said on TV that Blacks “may not have some of the necessities” to be baseball managers or general managers.  Campanis had been a teammate of Jackie Robinson and was good friends with Robinson; Campanis had been a very successful GM in his career.  Nonetheless, after his remarks, he became radioactive and never worked in MLB again.
2. Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder:  As a TV personality/commentator, Snyder was widely known for his flamboyant style and his definitive viewpoints.  Arpound the same time that Al Campanis made his career-killing remarks, Snyder said on camera that the reason Blacks were so good as athletes was that they were bred to be big and strong by the slave masters in the Old South.  CBS fired Snyder in the wake of those remarks and he never worked in network TV again.

            It is more than merely “OK” to hold controversial positions; it is absolutely one’s right to express one’s views and to advocate for those controversial position.  That does not mean that such expressions can be done without any consequences at all.  Those expressions cannot be squelched by the government but those expressions can cost one a career or at least force one into a change of career.

Finally, let me end on a lighter note here with this “sports/political analysis” from Brad Rock in the Deseret News:

“WWE legend Kane has filed to run for mayor of Knox County, Tennessee.

“In 2013 Kane was voted Most Hated Pro Wrestler of the Year.

“Which means becoming a politician should be a natural transition, right?”

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