Category: Daily Rants

There are two items in the sports landscape today that I find a bit disquieting.  Sports ought to be about entertainment, competition, achievement and things like that.  There are plenty of outlets in life for drudgery, frustration, and failure in life; sports need not take on that sort of aura.  And then I read about what has come to be known as “Wakey-leaks”.  Here is the Cliff’s Notes version:

• A former Wake Forest QB and assistant coach was let go when a new coaching staff was assembled.  The ousted assistant coach became part of the school’s radio broadcast team.
• He had extensive access to the team, the coaches, the practices and – evidently – the game planning.
• He then took game plans and material of that sort and provided it occasionally to assistant coaches on Wake Forest’s upcoming opponents.

This degree of treachery does not rank with that of Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold or the Rosenbergs because “leaking a game plan” just is not a big deal compared to the betrayals of those other folks.  However, in sports, that is pretty far down on the scale of “acceptable behavior”.  We can take some solace in the fact that the leaker is going to find it very difficult to get a job in or around football down the line; he had better have paid attention in class while an undergrad at Wake Forest.  But there is another side to this coin…

As many as three assistant coaches on opposing teams allegedly got these pilfered/leaked game plans over the past couple of years and none of them blew the whistle.  I understand the importance of winning in sports.  Bill Parcels famously said you are what your record says you are and if your record is something like 3-9, that means you are a loser and you are likely to be out of a job.  Nevertheless, what will put an end to “Wakey-leaks” is the fact that it came to light and it could have come to light a year ago or maybe two years ago had just one opposing assistant coach stood up on his hind legs and said something akin to:

Sorry; this is wrong; I will not be a party to anything like this.

The “Wakey-leaks” leaker is someone you should never trust again; I think that pretty much goes without saying.  For me, the folks who were the recipients of the leaker’s largesse and who also kept silent about it are hugely untrustworthy now and down the line.

There is a second “situation” in the sports world – sadly it too relates to college football – that I find disheartening.  The University of Minnesota football team threatened to boycott all football activities – meaning they would not play in whatever bowl game they were supposed to play in – because the school authorities suspended 10 players on the team over an incident of sexual assault.  It seems that there is exactly no doubt that sexual activities happened here because one of the geniuses took a video of the activities on his phone.  Once again, here is the Cliff’s Notes version:

• A woman – allegedly inebriated – was assaulted by multiple men on the football team.  She said the first activity was consensual but the ones that followed were not.
• Police investigated and found insufficient evidence to press charges where the evidentiary standard is “beyond a reasonable doubt”.
• The school conducted its own investigation as mandated by Title IX and found a “preponderance of evidence” showed culpability for ten players and it suspended them from school activities and recommended expulsion for some of the ten.
• The remaining teammates allege that there was no due process in the school’s investigation and decided that a boycott of football activities was the way to stand with their teammates.

There are loads of elements to this story that can engender debate and confrontation.  In this case, the fact of the assault seems not to be in question so this is not something equivalent to the Duke lacrosse case or the fraternity rape at the University of Virginia that did not happen.  However, the names of the players who the school found to be culpable are out there – it is pretty easy to see who is not on the team anymore – while the identity of the victim remains protected.  If even one of those ten players is – in reality – innocent of wrongdoing, that situation is genuinely unfair.  If the players wish to protest that element of this story, that is their right.  I would not support them in their cause, but I could understand their displeasure.

Not knowing the full details of the school’s investigation, I do not know to what degree there was or was not “due process”.  I cannot pretend to be a legal scholar but it seems to me that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the US Constitution describe what “due process” is and they also specify that “due process” in all its forms apply to “criminal prosecutions” and/or “capital or otherwise infamous crime”.  What that says to me is that whatever the University of Minnesota does in its investigation is not constrained to accommodate “due process”.  Moreover, the explicitly different standard for judgement in a so-called Title IX investigation stands those procedures apart from the judicial handling of criminal cases.  Did the university’s investigation run rough-shod over what might pass for “due process’ in a Title IX investigation?  That is impossible to know since the school shields itself from public scrutiny here based on federal privacy laws.

There is plenty of meat for discussion and debate – and possibly reform – here.  Alas, it seems as if none will happen.  After a meeting with school administrators, the team called off the boycott without the suspended players being reinstated after getting assurances from school administrators that the ten players would get a fair hearing next month.  That is pretty thin gruel after the original statements of “solidarity with teammates” and appeals to a foundation piece of US jurisprudence – even if due process may not apply here.  My willingness to side with the players here was significantly diminished when I read reports along this line.

However, here is where I got off the train completely.  In this morning’s Washington Post, in a short article summarizing the current state of play in this matter, here is the concluding paragraph:

“Many of the players who initially backed the boycott Thursday had not read the university’s 82-page report detailing the woman’s specific allegations.”

It seems to me that one needs to know at least some of the particulars prior to any sort of claim that due process was violated or not afforded by the university in its investigation.  Without reading that report, I am left to imagine what level of analysis and critical thinking went into the original fervor that led to the announcement of a boycott – prior to folding one’s cards and moving on to play in the bowl game without the ten suspended teammates.

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

 

The NBA owners and players have seemingly followed the lead of MLB’s owners and players and found a way to avoid a work stoppage.  Like baseball, the NBA is hitting high notes in the chorus of revenue streams; everyone – players and owners – are awash in cash.  And, sanity prevailed in whatever negotiations took place because there is a deal ready to be ratified that will allow those revenue streams to continue to flow inward.

There is one item that I wish were in the new CBA that is not there.  I would have liked to see the NBA and the NBPA negotiate a way to put an end to “one-and-done” in college basketball.  The NFL and MLB have agreements in their CBAs that avoid the one-and-done scenarios in those sports and those provisions have been around for a long time.  I would have preferred for the NBA’s new CBA to have taken care of that problem.

My preferred model for eliminating “one-and-done” is the MLB model.  A player may declare for the MLB draft and even be drafted right out of high school but if he does not sign with the team that took him and opts to go to college, he is precluded from going into professional baseball associated with MLB for 3 years.  This gives the player the right to make his own decision as to what he wants to do with himself; he does not have to go thru college baseball or independent leagues but if he chooses to go to college he commits to being there for 3 years.  Some folks have argued that in basketball, any imposed collegiate tenure should be limited to 2 years.  I would prefer 3 years but would happily settle for 2 years because that would be better than “one-and-done” for college basketball and for the NBA.

Yes, some players under that scheme would choose to go overseas and play pro basketball in Europe instead of going to college and playing there.  Good for them!  If they have targeted pro basketball as their “life’s work” and they think that playing in Europe is better for them than two or three years in college, mazel tov.  We are talking here about young men who are legally defined as adults at age 18; they would not have all the options available to them and they would get to make their own choices about what to do once they are out of high school.  They would know the rules; they could make their own decisions.  That seems to me to be pretty much along the path some like to call “The American Way”.

The new NBA/NBPA agreement – assuming it is ratified by all parties – will be in force for the next 5 years so it appears as if “one-and-done” will be with us for at least that far into the future.  Too bad.  I shall see this as a “missed opportunity” to make an improvement that would cost no one any money…

It appears that there were underinflated footballs used in the recent Giants/Steelers game.  The story goes that the Giants tested some balls and found them to be in the 11.5 psi range when the rules say they cannot be lower than 12.5 psi.  The NFL said it will not do any investigating here and then went into what I call “process talk mode”.  It is easy to recognize this mode; this is what happens as soon as anyone brings up a subject that management does not want to discuss because it is “uncomfortable” at least and “downright illegal/immoral” at worst.

The league justification here is that there will be no investigation because the chain of custody of the footballs from the time the officials measured the pressures before the game until the time the balls were used in the game was unbroken.  If that explanation is sufficient for you, let me simply say that you will never be the “Chief of Security” for any organization that I operate.

I believe – and since I do not read minds and since I do not have access to covert surveillance of the NFL executive suites – that the NFL does not want to investigate this matter for a simple and direct reason.

• If in fact the chain of custody of the balls was intact and if the officials measured and recorded the original pressures correctly and accurately, then the reason the balls on the field were too low in pressure is almost assuredly due to the Ideal Gas Law.

Those of us who majored in chemistry know a lot about the Ideal Gas Law and Roger Goodell is someone who fervently wishes never to have to make any decisions where there might be even a tangential relationship with the Ideal Gas Law.  If the league did this and found that the balls in the Giants/Steelers game were “underinflated” due to the fact of cold weather, that would reopen the whole Deflategate matter.  Roger Goodell would probably rather eat a diet of caterpillars and hagfish slime for the rest of his life than to reopen the whole Deflategate matter.

If a neutral observer wished to test the Ideal Gas Law as it applies to the NFL, there is a game this weekend that could provide a natural laboratory.  The Packers/Bears game in Chicago has a weather forecast that says it will be near zero during game time.  If someone pressurized an NFL football to 13.0 psi (the mid-range of the allowable pressure for a ball in a game) at indoor room temperature an hour before the game and then took that ball out into the stands until the middle of the 3^rd quarter for example and then measured the pressure again, I would be willing to wager a tidy sum that the internal pressure will be less than the “legal limit” of 12.5 psi.  Here is another wager I would be willing to make;

No one involved with the NFL Front Office would do such a test or sanction such a test or put any credence in such test results if confronted with them.

As Deflategate becomes history, I think it is important that we remember a couple of things about it:

1. It taught a lot of people about the Ideal Gas Law who never took a science course in their life.
2. I also suggested that there might be something identified in the future as the Ideal Ass Law and that Roger Goodell might be the example that set in motion the research to expound such a law.

Finally, an old friend and reader of these rants just gave me a book titled The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm.  I plan to use some of the material from that magnum opus on occasion and today I present the dictionary’s definition of:

“AARP: American Association of Retired Persons.  An organization that sends out welcome letters to people over fifty to remind them that they will soon be dead.”

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

 

 

In the past, I have referred to José Canseco as “the gift that keeps on giving”.  I realize that someone else has applied that label to genital herpes but my reference here has a completely different meaning and intent.  I can count on Canseco to do or say something at least once a year that will provide material for one of these rants.  He is like an ATM that never runs out of twenty-dollar bills.

On Monday, one of my news aggregators had a headline from Bloomberg.com that made me stop and do a double-take.  Here is that headline:

“Jose Canseco Has Some Big-League Advice For Trump When It Come to the Federal Reserve”

Here is the link to that Bloomberg.com item.

The report says that Canseco should become the Chairman of the Federal Reserve in place of Janet Yellen.  Should that happen, Canseco assures the President-elect that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would be at “40K in 4 years”.  For the record, the Dow is currently at 20K.

Bloomberg.com is a reliable news source; but this report seemed sufficiently outrageous, that I went looking to see if anyone else had a similar report.  It turns out that lots of news outlets had the same thing.  Fortune had an article that reproduced Tweets from Canseco to the President-elect saying that he would be open to being Ambassador to Cuba or to be the Fed Chair.  CBSNews.com had the story as did the SF Chronicle and the Wall Street Journal and Vanity Fair.  In this era of so-called “fake news” – such a contradiction in terms – one needs to be careful when taking in something that is out of the ordinary.

Canseco ended some his tweets with “#Yeswecanseco”.  I gotta give him high marks for creativity on that one.  And once again I have to acknowledge José Canseco as “the gift that keeps on giving” …

I also read yesterday that the NFL will play 4 “London Games” next year:

1. Saints/Dolphins
2. Ravens/Jags
3. Vikes/Browns and
4. Cards/Rams.

In addition, the Pats and Raiders will play in Mexico City next year.  That will be two years in a row for the Raiders in Mexico City; could that be a signal that the NFL might want to put the Raiders there instead of in Las Vegas?  I am not a tea-leaf reader but I am sure someone will find a way to build a logical bridge between the facts of the games and the prospects of a new home for the Raiders.

However, since the beginning of this rant ventured every so slightly into the realm of politics, that announcement by the NFL seems as if it might draw the attention of the President-elect.  After all, one of the cornerstones of the message from the President-elect throughout the campaign was that he wanted to keep American jobs in America.  There are lots of people who work on an “as employed basis” at NFL games as parking attendants and as concession vendors and as security personnel.  Those folks will be missing out on “five work days” and their jobs will surely be out-sourced to the UK and to Mexico.

Before anyone takes the political argument here seriously, let me say that my hidden agenda here is to put a lid on “London Games” specifically and on foreign games – outside of places such as Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver etc.  The Pats have to travel 2300 miles to get to Mexico City for a one-off game; is that really necessary?  Does that make a significant difference to the NFL?

The NFL has been experimenting with putting an 8^th official on the field for the past several Exhibition Seasons.  Division 1 college games often had 8 officials on the field and in 2015 the “eight-man crew” became standard.  Some folks now say that the NFL is poised to do the same and expand its officiating crews.  There is a yin and a yang to that expansion – if indeed it is being seriously contemplated:

Yin:  More officials on the field will mean more eyes on close plays with more officials having a good view of what happened; that ought to mean “getting more calls right”; it is hard to contend that this would be anything but beneficial.

Yang:  More officials on the field will almost assuredly mean more penalty flags; it is hard to contend that this would be anything but detrimental.

Finally, here is an item from Brad Rock’s column Rock On in the Deseret News yesterday regarding the upcoming bowl game between Boise St. and Baylor in Phoenix:

“The smaller bowl in Phoenix this year is the Motel 6 Cactus Bowl.

“Nobody’s saying it will be lightly attended, but when the motto is ‘We’ll leave the light on for you …’”

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

 

 

The 2016/2017 NFL coaching merry-go-round is now in gear and in motion.  Jeff Fisher became the first coaching casualty of the season opening the first slot for aspiring coaches or folks hoping for another bite of the apple.  The Rams’ special teams coordinator, John Fassel, will be the interim coach for the final 3 games of the 2016 season.  If by some predestined forces the Rams were to win all 3 of those games, it will not be due to some nascent genius in the drawing up of “x’s and o’s”; it will be coincidental.

I am rarely in favor of firing coaches in mid-season.  Normally, what it shows is not much more than the frustration of the “higher-ups” with the results on the field combined in equal measure with their impotence in effecting change that manifests itself in different results on the field.  I do not expect the LA Rams to become world-beaters in the final weeks of December – but in this particular case, I do understand why Stan Kroenke thought he had to do something drastic.

The Rams have just returned home after a couple of decades of dalliance in St. Louis.  There is something you need to understand bout the sports market in LA; it is potentially very large but the fanbase is fickle and shallow.  Los Angeles is not a great sports town; Los Angeles is a great town for winning franchises.  Had the Chicago Cubs franchise been the LA Cubs, they would never have survived 108 years of losing; the Cubs would have been either outta town or outta business.

Stan Kroenke is building a new stadium complex and he is going to want to sell PSLs and season tix in a couple of years.  Look at the product on the field now and ask if this resembles in any way what a front-running fanbase demands:

• Overall record is 4-9
• Lowest scoring team in the NFL – even below the Browns
• Lost the last 3 games by a combined score of 117-45

I did not see the Falcons/Rams game last Sunday; that was not the game in the late afternoon slot in the DC area and I have not had a chance to look for a replay on NFL Network.  However, there have been multiple reports that the crowd at the game was “disappointing”.  Evidently, there were plenty of empty seats at the kickoff (one report characterized the stadium as “half-empty” at the start); with the score 21-0 at halftime, reports say that some people did not come back for the second half kickoff; by the end of the 3^rd quarter, the score was 42-0 and reports say that the stadium “emptied out”.  Forget the embarrassment factor and the competitive factor; the important thing here is the economic factor.  All of those folks who chose to do something else last Sunday instead of attending the Falcons/Rams game and/or who abandoned the stadium in mid-game are less motivated now to buy those PSLs and or season tix down the road.

Something had to be done and there are no realistic “player options” with regard to wholesale and splashy changes to be made.  The NFL waiver wire and unsigned free agent list in December is not fertile ground.  So, Stan Kroenke did just about the only thing he could do in this situation; it was really the only playable card in his hand.

Now comes the real challenge…  The next coach has to rebuild the program.  The defense has players; the offense has exactly 1 proven top-shelf NFL player (Todd Gurley).  There is another dimension to the challenge in LA.  The fickle/shallow fanbase would really prefer to have a recognizable coach – a “celebrity coach” if you will.  After all, the beautiful people deserve that – – right?

Immediately, rumors have surfaced with regard to Jim Harbaugh and Nick Saban from the college ranks.  Toss in names like Mike Shanahan, Jon Gruden, Sean Payton and the ghost of Vince Lombardi to create sweet smelling stew simmering on the stove.  According to Forbes, Stan Kroenke has a net worth of $7.5B.  That means he can make a financial offer to any of the folks named above – including the ghost of Vince Lombardi – that would assure their agent would “take the call”.  I have no idea if any of them would be the “right call” from a football perspective but any/all of them would appeal to the need for a “recognizable coach” for the Rams.

Obviously, I have a preference for the new Rams’ coach.  If I could make it so, Jon Gruden would be their new coach not because of anything he might do positively or negatively for the franchise.  My preference here is that when he becomes the coach of an NFL team – any NFL team – he ceases to be on MNF.  To my mind, that would be a great leap forward…

The Washington Post had a story recently that makes you stop and wonder about the thought processes of some of our elected officials.  Evidently, several legislators in the State of Washington think that it should be legal for licensed gun owners to be able to bring their weapons with them into stadiums where baseball and football games are played – – such as Safeco Field and Century Link Field in Seattle.  I know; you think I am making this up; well here is the link to show you that I am not.

The NFL and MLB do not allow firearms in the stadiums; when they do the bag searches and the metal detector screenings, one of the things they want to keep out of the stadium is your random loaded gun. I feel confident that both organizations would oppose this sort of legislation.

There are sufficient incidents of fights and violence at sporting events – baseball and football games – that sometimes result in serious injuries and even death.  Wouldn’t it be great if the combatants were armed so that they might have the opportunity to injure some innocent bystanders in addition to the immediate objects of their dissatisfaction?  The “tailgating culture” particularly at football games is such that half of the people who enter the stadium for the opening kickoff would probably fail a breathalyzer test if they were driving a motor vehicle.  Clearly, this is the demographic that you want to be “packing” …

On the other hand, many fans have been very upset and very critical of bad officiating at NFL events for the past several years.  If the crowd included folks who were armed, you might see the quality of officiating improve.  Hey, I am trying to find any little nugget here that might make this idea something better than the dumbest thing I have heard so far this year.

Finally, since I mentioned – tangentially – the Chicago Cubs above, here is an item from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald about the Cubbies:

“The Chicago Cubs will pay $388,000 to repair damage to a park during their World Series victory celebration. No big deal. They’ve been saving up for 108 years.”

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

 

 

Last week, there were two things side-by-side at the top of the Sports Section of the Washington Post.  The first was a report by Rick Maese and Matt Bonesteel regarding the findings in a new report on the Russian doping conspiracy.  You can find that report here; I commend it to your reading.

The report summarizes the findings of a Canadian lawyer, Richard McLaren, after an investigation done at the behest of WADA – the World Anti-Doping Agency.  This statement from Mr. McLaren will give you an idea of the tone and the conclusions drawn in the report.

“It is impossible to know how deep and how far back the conspiracy goes.  For years, international sports competition has been unknowingly hijacked by the Russians. Coaches and athletes have been playing on an uneven field. Sports fans and spectators have been deceived. It’s time that this stops.”

I have not taken the time to find and read the original report but I am willing to believe that McLaren – on behalf of WADA – has developed evidence to support the conclusion that this whole thing was an institutional matter directed by someone or someones far beyond the level of an individual athlete or a team trainer.  It appears that urine samples were “swapped out” and the “testing establishment” was duped.  It should be no surprise that there are calls to ban the Russians from the Olympic Games in Korea in 2018 and for other severe sanctions.

Right next to this reporting on McLaren’s findings and report was a column by Sally Jenkins that took a different tack on this matter.  She points out that the report is “more embarrassing for WADA than for Vladimir Putin’s empire.”  You can find her column here; I commend it to your reading.

Sally Jenkins calls for the dismantling of WADA and replacing it with something that is independent of the IOC.  [Aside:  Indeed, it is difficult to put blind faith in any person or entity attached to the IOC.]

I do not know if WADA needs to be dismantled and replaced; I do know that they have been “less than fully successful” in catching athletes who may have “cheated” in various athletic competitions.  In this case, the doping practices go back at least as far as 2011 and they continued to obtain through – at least – the Winter Games in 2014.  McLaren’s findings here in late 2016 does not inspire great confidence in anything WADA has said or done in the last 5 years – at least – when it comes to “providing a level playing field for international athletes” …

While at least tangentially on the subject of the Olympics, I want to be sure that you know about two new sports that have been granted “provisional recognition” by the IOC.  These sports will be in this provisional status for 3 years and then can apply for inclusion in the Olympic Games.  These two sports are:

1. Muay Thai – – and – –
2. Cheerleading

Muay Thai is a martial art which – not surprisingly – originated in Thailand.  Cheerleading is team gymnastics set to music.  Muay Thai maintains the original Olympic focus on events that were related to war and combat.  Cheerleading is not a sport.

In addition to sports that seek IOC “blessing” as something that may become Olympic events, each host city is permitted to include sports in their games that in a one-off status.  The 2020 Games are scheduled in Tokyo and here are five of the one-off sports that will be included in those Games:

1. Baseball/softball
2. Karate
3. Skateboarding
4. Sport climbing
5. Surfing

A while back, I commented on a win by the LA Rams where the team had not scored a TD in that win.  What made that unusual in today’s NFL is that it was the second win for the Rams this season where the Rams did not score a TD.  I said that I could not recall that sort of thing happening recently although it was probably prevalent in the NFL in the 30s and 40s. You should not be surprised to learn that I received an e-mail from the sports stats maven in Houston on the subject.  Let me share his information with you.

“In the 1920’s, there were 77 games in which a team won without scoring a TD. There were also a load of 0-0 and 3-3 ties and some 6-6 games that no TD was scored during that period. Please note that in the 20s, the average number of games per year was less than 80.

“In the 1930’s, there were 37 such games won without scoring a TD and there were still ties, but not as many as the previous decade. Please note that in the 30s, the average number of games per year was less than 55.

“In the 1940’s, there were only 4 such games and that includes both the NFL and the four years of the AAFC.

“More recently, there were no NFL games from 2013 to 2015 in which the winning team scored fewer than 10 points, but there have been two this season [the two games won by the Rams].  LA is the first team since the 1997 Bills to win two games in one season in which it scored fewer than 10 points. Buffalo did that in Marv Levy’s final season as its head coach, with victories against Indy and Miami, each by a 9-6 score on all field goals.”

Finally, here is some potential good news – at least it is for me – from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Lifting weights can lead to better brain function, according to a study at the University of Sydney.

“So maybe getting called a dumbbell isn’t such a bad thing after all.”

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

 

 

 

You want to know why some people just cannot stop themselves from beating a dead horse?  Because it is so easy…  Indulge me for a moment today; I am going to flog a dead carcass that is tainting the sporting landscape.  Naturally, I speak of the over-abundance of college football bowl games.  These meaningless events serve only 2 purposes and neither is noble:

1. They provide ESPN and other sports networks with programming which provides a revenue stream to schools/conferences.
2. They provide a “tourism attraction” to host cities thereby bringing revenue from outside that city to that city.

That’s it; that’s the list.

Once we recognize that 40 college bowl games are nothing more than a bald-faced money-grab, we can point out what it is and try to ignore the games that mean nothing.  Believe me; that is what I try to do – until hypocrisy gets heaped on top of the money-grab and then I am drawn back to the thinking about the whole mess.  If I allege that there is hypocrisy associated with the college bowl games, it should not take a Stephen Hawking-level intellect to figure out from where said hypocrisy might emanate.  Indeed, you are correct; it comes from the NCAA.

We have had to tolerate the NCAA’s unfounded assertion that college athletes are amateurs; they are student-athletes.  Moreover, to protect college athletes from corrupting influences, the NCAA writes and enforces a ton of rules; one of the foundation pieces of that entire rule book is this principle:

• Student-athletes should not have any access to any privilege or any stature or any element of college life that is not also available to the student body at large.

Forget about the obvious violations of that principle like athletic dorms and the like.  The topic here is how does this apply to bowl games?  Here is a link to a table published at sportsbusinessdaily.com.  Let me quote the heading for the table:

“Welcome to SportsBusiness Journal’s 11th annual rundown of the gift packages provided by college football’s bowl game organizing committees. Click here to read more about the stories behind some of the gifts and gift suites — private shopping events for game participants — and here to learn how much money in gifts the CFP champion could take home.”

These “gift packages” are approved and sanctioned by the NCAA as the overseeing body for college athletics.  Please note that these “gift packages” are not available to the student bodies at the participating schools.  But these “tokens of appreciation” from the organizers of the bowl games – that generate revenue streams – are perfectly all right because the NCAA says so.

I do not mean to imply in any way that the players should not receive their “gift packages”.  I hope they all enjoy whatever they get from the organizing committees.  And along with that wish, I hope that at least someone who writes or enforces the NCAA rules develops a case of agita bad enough that he/she cannot sleep for a week.

Moving on …  Yesterday (December 8^th), there was an article at CBSsports.com with this headline:

Top 10 NCAA Tournament Résumés

The picture associated with this article made it clear that the “NCAA Tournament” involved here was the men’s basketball tournament in March.  This is “bracketology” under a different name and changing the name does not make it smell any less fetid.  At this point in the college basketball season, a large fraction of the 350-or-so Division 1 basketball schools have yet to play a meaningful game let alone an important one.

Fifty years ago, The Byrds sang:

“To everything – Turn! Turn! Turn

There is a season – Turn! Turn! Turn! …”

Let me take a deep breath and say this slowly and calmly:

• Early December is not the “season” to be examining college basketball résumés.  There are not enough useful entries there yet.

Examining a basketball résumé about now is sort of like reading a memoir written by a teenager.  My guess is that if you were given such an oeuvre, you would not pay a whole lot of attention to it for very long.  There is a simple reason for that; it is highly unlikely that a typical teenager’s memoir would contain anything worth serious consideration.  That is the state of affairs for college basketball teams as of this morning…

A couple of weeks ago, Bob Molinaro had this item in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot.  It happens to speak to women’s college basketball but it also is relevant to the current “state of play” in the men’s game in early December:

“Coachspeak: What would you call a women’s exhibition basketball game between highly ranked Maryland and Division II Bluefield State College which ended 146-17 after Maryland outscored their victims 72-0 in the second half? Maryland coach Brenda Frese called it a “good tune-up.” Not the first words that leap to my mind.”

Finally, here is a comment from Brad Rock of the Deseret News earlier this week:

“Big Mac creator Jim Delligatti died at 98, last week.

“Here’s to the man who provided countless lunches to countless teams on countless bus trips.

“He deserves a break today.”

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

 

 

It should be no secret around these parts that I do not like the excessive number of college football bowl games.  I really like college football but more is not better in this circumstance.  Good college football involves rivalry games and/or games that have meaning with regard to conference standings or poll placement and/or an intersectional game with two good teams.  Note the emphasis on the word “good” in that last sentence.

This year, there will be 40 bowl games; 80 teams – from a field of 128 Division 1-A teams – will play in bowl games.  Five out of every eight college teams will be in a bowl game.  Those numbers do not add up to “interesting” or “important” or “attractive”.  Most of the games are meaningless wastes of time and energy.  Their role in the grand scheme of things is that they will contribute ever so minutely to the entropy death of the universe.

I have surveyed the field of 40 bowl games.  There are about a half-dozen that meet my criterion of “intersectional game with two good teams” and those games may attract my attention even though they really do not mean a blessed thing.  Penn State versus USC in the Rose Bowl is an example of such a game.  However, there are a bunch of bowl games that just make me shake my head in disbelief such as:

 

Heart of Dallas Bowl:  Army versus North Texas.  OK, it is good to see Army in a bowl game again; it has been a while since that happened.  However, this game is a repeat; these teams already played once in October.  No one – and I mean NO ONE – was clamoring to see an encore when the final whistle blew.  Nonetheless …

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl:  Idaho versus Colorado State.  Here is the only interesting fact related to this game.  Idaho is going to a bowl game for the third time in school history – – and all three of those bowl games have been played in Boise.  Lots of teams get invitations to bowl games that are far from campus in places where the weather is balmy in December.  Idaho gets invited to take a bus ride about 200 miles north to play in Idaho in the winter…

New Mexico Bowl:  New Mexico versus Texas-San Antonio.  New Mexico is playing a home game; the bowl game is played on their home field.  These guys don’t even get to take a 200-mile bus ride to go to this “special event” …  [For the record, this is the third time New Mexico has played a “home game” in the New Mexico Bowl which only came into existence in 2006.]

Quick Lane Bowl:  Maryland versus BC.  [Aside: I dare you to name the venue for this game without peeking.]  Both teams are 6-6; neither team is even marginally interesting to watch.  The organizers of this game could not have a full stadium if they gave out free tickets along with a voucher that the fan could turn in for a $100 bill at stadium concession stands after the final whistle…

St. Petersburg Bowl:  Miami (OH) versus Mississippi St.  Miami is 6-6 and Mississippi St. is 5-7; they needed more teams to fill bowl slots than there were teams with 6 wins this year.  The upshot of this is to root for Mississippi St. in this game so that after this bowl game, both teams will end the season with losing records.  Such fun …

 

There are 3 games that might be interesting enough to go and check out the scores and stats because of the teams involved but I doubt that I will watch more than a couple of minutes of any of them:

 

Military Bowl:  Temple versus Wake Forest.  Wake Forest does not score a lot; their 6-6 record was built on giving up only about 20 points per game.  Temple’s defense has allowed a total of 33 points in its last 5 games and two of those games were shutouts (against UConn and Tulane).  Lots of punting here…

Outback Bowl:  Florida versus Iowa.  If you do not like defense, do not watch this game or pay any attention to it at all.  It would not be a shock to see the final score be 10-9 with the TD coming on a fumble recovery in the end zone…

Holiday Bowl:  Minnesota versus Washington St.  The interest here comes from the diametrically opposite ways these teams approach offensive football.  Minnesota throws the ball only under duress; they have only recorded 8 TD passes in the entire season.  Washington St. on the other hand threw the ball more than 50 times per game on average this year.  It is the “air force” versus the “infantry” here…

 

I will try to watch the Cotton Bowl to see W. Michigan play Wisconsin.  It will be interesting to see how a 13-0 MAC Champion who beat two Big 10 teams this year fares against one of the top teams in the Big 10.  I will watch the Orange Bowl to see Michigan and Florida State slug it out with one another; and as I said above, I will watch Penn St. and USC in the Rose Bowl.

Obviously, I look forward to the two CFP semi-final games on Dec 31.  However, one or both may need to be seen after-the-fact depending on social arrangements made by my long-suffering wife for New Year’s Eve.  That is one of the main reasons that I gave thanks about 2 weeks ago, for the invention of the DVR.

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

 

 

Over the weekend, Tiger Woods played in the Hero World Challenge golf tournament in the Bahamas.  There was plenty of good news that came from that tournament and because much of it involved Tiger Woods, the media were all over it.  Let me highlight some of the many pieces of good news:

1. Tiger Woods finished all four rounds of the tournament without having to withdraw and without limping from hole to hole.  He has not done that for a while now; his physical condition seems much improved.
2. If you are a TV exec and your network carries golf, you have to be thrilled at what happened last weekend and by Woods’ statement that he plans to play again next year.
3. If you are a PGA Tour exec, you have to be thrilled because your TV revenues are tied to ratings and TV ratings for golf have plummeted since Tiger Woods has been on the shelf.
4. If you are a golf writer or broadcaster, you have a meal ticket again – someone who can assure that there is never a “slow news day” on your beat.

With all that good news and a sense of euphoria, one wonders why anyone has to take it over the top.  Kyle Porter writes about golf on CBSSports.com; naturally, what he was writing about over the weekend and into Monday all centered around Tiger Woods.  Let me be clear; I do not know Kyle Porter from Cole Porter from Cole Hamels from Dorothy Hamill from Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  I have no reason to like or dislike him or his work.  So why did he have to lead one of his reports with this:

“Tiger Woods’ first tournament back at the Hero World Challenge was a raving success by any feasible metric. Woods led the field in birdies, looked genuinely interested in the event and did not grimace after hitting a single shot.”

Let me address the phrase “…a raving success by any feasible metric.”  I will start by saying “Bulls*it!”  Now let me provide a couple of “feasible metrics”:

1. There were 17 golfers in the tournament field.  Tiger Woods finished 15^th.
2. In addition to leading the field in birdies, he led the field in double bogeys too.
3. Woods’ 76 on the final round was the worst round shot by anyone in the field.
4. The two guys Tiger Woods beat out were Russell Knox and Emiliano Grillo.  I am not sure that even the PGA Tour Commish could pick those two guys out of a lineup with the Smurfs.

There was plenty of good news from the Hero World Challenge.  However, this sort of phony praise and looking at the world through rose colored glasses does not add to the good news; what it does is to diminish it.  Moreover, it diminishes any sense one might have regarding the objectivity of the journalism that under-girds the reporting.

Moving on …  The 2018 Winter Olympics will take place in PyeongChang, South Korea; and as is customary with the way NBC televises Olympic competitions here in the US, there will be saturation.  I do not just mean there will be saturation in the winter of 2018; the saturation starts now.

Last month, NBC began televising some of the test-events leading up to the games on various outlets under the NBC umbrella.  In case you did not know, they have already covered the “big air event” associated with the FIS Snowboard World Cup.  I used quotation marks there because I am not a snowboarding aficionado and could not tell you what the rules are regarding the “big air event”.  To be candid, the phrase “big air event” conjures up in my mind the aftermath of a chow-down at Taco Bell…

But do not worry if you missed the first telecast of these events.  There are eleven more to follow between now and March 2017.  As a public service, let me alert you to the ways you might avail yourselves of this coverage:

“NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app – NBC Sports Group’s live streaming product for desktops, mobile devices, tablets, and connected TVs – will stream coverage. The NBC Sports app will stream coverage via ‘TV Everywhere,’ giving consumers additional value to their subscription service, and making high-quality content available to MVPD customers both in and out of the home and on multiple platforms.”

Consider yourselves alerted and forewarned; I seriously doubt that I will have much more to say about any of the dozen or so events that will air here – – unless of course a serious confrontation between competing teams involving live ammunition comes to a head in the IBU Biathlon World Cup…

Finally, I began today with commentary on the Hero World Challenge golf tournament so let me close with an item from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald about another non-major golf tournament:

“There is a golf tournament in northern Oregon exclusively for marijuana smokers and growers. It’s the second athletic competition of its type. The other, of course, is called the NBA season.”

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

 

 

Late last week – at about the eleventh hour – MLB and the MLBPA reached an agreement on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).  There were only about 24 hours left on the old agreement when the bargaining concluded and now it needs to be ratified by the owners and by the players as a whole.  The term of the new CBA would be 5 years which would mean that there would be no threats or danger of strikes, work stoppages, lockouts and the like through 2021.  The last time there was a work stoppage in baseball was in 1995 so when this agreement is ratified, there will be a 26-year period of “labor peace”.

In 2016, the estimated revenue for all of MLB was $9B.  An off-handed interpretation of the new agreement would be that the folks representing the billionaire owners and the folks representing the millionaire players found a way to continue to bathe in the flow of $9B annually.  I am sure there was more to it than that; but when I read about the things that baseball writers and commentators consider noteworthy in the new agreement, I am not so sure that the off-handed interpretation is so wrong.  Let me dispense with a couple of terms in the new CBA that seem self-evident to me:

 

1. The use of chewing tobacco and other forms of smokeless tobacco is banned in MLB.  Current players who use these products are grandfathered but new players will not be users.  I hope it did not take long for both sides to agree that this was a good idea.
2. The All-Star Game will no longer determine the home-field advantage for the World Series.  The fact that it ever did was abjectly stupid from the moment it was first uttered aloud.  Home field advantage will now go to the team with the better regular season record which is as it should have been for about a century now.  This issue does not put or take a single penny in or out of either side’s pockets; I hope it did not take long for both sides to reach agreement here.  In algebra class in high school, we all learned that removing a negative number is a positive; therefore, I choose to call this CBA provision the World Series Algebraic Clause.

Missing from the new CBA is a provision to put a pitch clock in MLB games.  Too bad…  They use a pitch clock in minor league games and it seems to work just fine.

There are changes in the rules governing Qualifying Offers for potential free agents.  Briefly, under the old CBA, if a player turned down a Qualifying Offer and then signed with another team as a free agent, the signing team lost a draft pick and the money associated with that pick in the signing bonus pool and took a reduction in the amount it could spend on intentional players.  Now, the “costs” associated with signing such a free agent are scaled.  Teams who are over the luxury tax threshold will lose a second round and a fifth-round draft pick – plus associated money in signing pools – while teams under the luxury tax limit will only lose a third-round pick.  That is the abbreviated version of the changes; if you are interested in the “wherefores” and the “moreovers”, Google is your friend…

Since I mentioned the luxury tax threshold above, that number is going up over the 5 years of this agreement.  In 2016, it was $189M in total payroll per club.  Here is how it changes in the new agreement:

•             2017: $195M
•             2018: $197M
•             2019: $206M
•             2020: $209M
•             2021: $210M

Penalties for teams that exceed these new thresholds increase too.  First time “offenders will pay a 20% luxury tax; second time “offenders will pay a 30% tax and third time offenders will pay a 50% tax.  Moreover, there is a new “luxury surtax” for teams that are way over the threshold.

•             Over by $20M to 40M = 12% surtax
•             Over by $40M the first time = 40% surtax
•             Over by $40M the second time = 42.5% surtax.

Th last thing in the new CBA that I find interesting is that “Moneyball” is about to undergo a significant change.  The Oakland A’s have been recipients of the MLB version of revenue sharing based on their low attendance and revenue status.  That is going to change; the A’s are in a large metropolitan area and should not be considered a “small-market team” like Milwaukee or Tampa.  Some reports said that there are owners in MLB who do not think that the A’s have taken the revenue sharing money and plowed it back into “team improvement initiatives” and that those voices prevailed on the MLB side of the bargaining table.  Obviously, I do not know if that is the case or how all of this came about in the new CBA.  However, if those reports are correct, the Oakland A’s are a troubled franchise.

The A’s are clearly the “junior partner” in the Bay Area market.  The Giants drew 3.37M fans in 2016; the A’s drew 1.52M fans in 2016 – second lowest in MLB.  The A’s play in a stadium that would be paid a compliment if one were to call it an upholstered toilet.  They are going to be phased out of the revenue sharing money meaning they will likely be fielding teams for the foreseeable future comprised of young players who are auditioning to go to other teams.

Finally, I used to watch Sesame Street with my kids when they were of an appropriate age for that program.  Every day, the program would be “brought to you” by a letter of the alphabet – and a number – and they would feature words that began with that letter.  Well if you are a Sesame Street alum and an NFL fan, you might conclude that the 2016 season is not being brought to you by the letter “C”.  Four teams in the league are from cities that begin with “C” and here are their records:

•                         Carolina: 4-8-0
•                         Chicago: 3-9-0
•                         Cincy: 4-7-1
•                         Cleveland: 0-12-0
•                         TOTAL:  11-36-1

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

 

 

 

The US Men’s National soccer team (USMNT) has had two bad losses in international qualifying play in the past several weeks.  Naturally, the response to those losses (to Mexico and then to Costa Rica) was to fire the coach, Jurgen Klinsmann.  The soccer-adorers in the US would have their emotions somewhere between orgasmic and rapturous in the event that the US were to win something big like the World Cup or the Olympic Gold Medal in soccer.  Precisely because they can imagine such euphoria, they simultaneously imagine that such achievements are not just possible but are likely if only they could get the right guy to “coach ‘em up” properly.

The soccer-adorers are living in a delusional state; but when one is in such a state, reality and fantasy blur at the edges.  Moreover, they so fondly want the fantasy state to become the reality state that their mood is improved when the coach gets fired and a new victim/coach is put in charge.  Hope springs eternal … and all that stuff.

The new coach will be Bruce Arena.  He had the job once before and not surprisingly, he did not take the USMNT to the sorts of heights that the soccer-adorers envision for their national team heroes.  There was a time when the soccer-adorers were only happy to see Bruce Arena replaced at the helm for not getting the job done; today he is the maven that will kick down the barricades keeping the USMNT from its glory.

Let me be clear; I am not someone who roots against the USMNT.  I also admit that there are tons of people out there who recognize the subtleties of play in soccer games that totally escape my notice.  Having said all of that, here is something that is very clear to me when I watch international soccer games:

• There is an obvious difference in the way the players on other teams play the game of soccer as compared to the way the players on the USMNT play the game of soccer.  The difference is qualitative and not quantitative; nonetheless, it is real and it is not hard to see – – unless one prefers not to see it from the get-go.

That qualitative difference is why the USMNT is on a different plane of existence in the world of international soccer from the plane occupied by teams from Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and the rest of the usual suspects when it comes to top international competition.  I have a hypothesis – it is not even sufficiently established to call it a theory – as to why this is the case.

The US has 320 million residents; that is a large pool of potential soccer players from which to distill 20 or 25 guys who will represent the country in international competition.  By comparison, here are the rough populations of some countries that are far more accomplished in international soccer than the US:

1. Argentina has a population of about 42 million
2. Brazil has a population of about 200 million
3. England has a population of about 53 million
4. Germany has a population of about 60 million
5. Italy has a population of about 60 million

Costa Rica – the team that just beat the USMNT by a score of 4-0 – has a population of less than 5 million people.  So why would it appear that the US is mining such “low-grade ore” when it comes to finding about 25 guys to play consistently at the top levels of international competition?  I reject the argument that there are not enough natural athletes in the population here in the US or that all the really good athletes go into baseball or football or basketball because that is where the money is.  There are plenty of minor sports where American athletes consistently competitive and soccer is on a higher potential income level than many of those other minor sports.  [Aside:  As soon as I write this, I am certain that someone will form a National Luge League and start offering six figure contracts to lugers everywhere…]

My hypothesis is that the youth sports culture in the US is the problem.  I have read in several places that “Soccer Academies” are commonplace in much of the rest of the world.  These “Soccer Academies” take children – some as young as 6 years old – and begin to give them the skills necessary to be a top-shelf player.  The key word in that last sentence is “skills”.  These academies stress fundamentals and techniques and learning the game through drills and repetition and practice.  Here in the US, we take kids and have them practice and then put them into “game situations”.  If the “most promising” players here were taught skills more than given the opportunity to play games and spend hours en route to games for travel teams, I think the USMNT would be in a better place 10 years down the road.

One of those “qualitative differences” that I see when watching the USMNT play against an English or Spanish team is this:

• The foreign players seem to know what they are going to do with the ball as it is approaching them while the US players seem to be trying to control the ball first and then figure out what their next move shall be.

I think that particular “qualitative difference” can be explained by the constant repetition of skills exercises that foreign players undergo in their development; they do not need to do things sequentially and in finite quanta of play; they seem to know what to do – and how they are going to do it  – before they are in a position to do it.  Moreover, their teammates appear to be able to see what is happening and to recognize what the player about to receive the ball is going to do next even before he is in possession of the ball.

If I am even close to correct, the thing that is keeping the US from the pinnacle of international soccer competition is not the coach and it is not really the players themselves.  I think a large part of the “problem” is that we develop our young players in a less effective manner than the rest of the world does.  Players who grew up developing skills and anticipation will distill down to a better national team than players who grew up playing games whenever possible and letting the outcome of those games depend on superior natural athleticism.  In the US, our youth player system favors the offspring of young affluent parents; there are loads of kids who could not possibly afford to be part of a “travel team” and in the US, if you are not on that track, you are not likely to be recognized as a “high potential player” on school teams.  We have limited our pool of talent and we do not teach skills the way they do internationally.

Jurgen Klinsmann lost games because – and this is only a bit of an exaggeration – he took a knife to a gun fight.  That happened to Bruce Arena in the past prior to his firing as the coach of the USMNT and it is going to happen to him again sometime in the next 3-5 years.  Unless of course, Bruce Arena finds a lamp on a beach somewhere and rubs it and a genie appears and …

Finally, there was an “incident” involving a player on the South African National Soccer Team that drew commentary from two sportswriters:

“A player was kicked off South Africa’s national soccer team for passing gas in the direction of the coach.  You can’t help but feel the team chemistry may be slightly off.”  [Brad Dickson, Omaha World-Herald]

And …

“SowetanLive.co.za reported that striker Tokelo Rantie got booted from South Africa’s national soccer team for passing gas in the direction of manager Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba.

“Somewhere, the late Margaret Mitchell is smiling.”  [Dwight Perry, Seattle Times]

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