Category: Daily Rants

Aaron Hernandez died in his jail cell two days ago.  Prison officials said it was a suicide; Hernandez’ former agent and his attorney both say there is no way Hernandez took his own life.  Already the Internet in general and the “Twitter-verse” in particular have taken sides in this “debate”.  As is commonplace in Internet debates on many topics, the lines have already been drawn and sides have already been taken.  Rather than wade into those fetid pools I will prefer to state what I am confident that I know now and to await the results of any further investigations before I draw any conclusions.

1. Aaron Hernandez was found hanged by the neck using a bed sheet.  He was housed in a single cell in a Massachusetts prison.  He was pronounced dead by a physician at a medical facility near the prison.
2. Aaron Hernandez was serving a “life-without-parole” sentence in the prison for the murder of Odin Lloyd.  That conviction came several years ago.
3. Aaron Hernandez was found “not guilty” of a double murder earlier this week.  He was found guilty of a firearms violation associated with that double murder and that added 4 years to his “life-without-parole” sentence.  [Aside: That seems like not much of a deal to me…]

Those are things that I know for sure.  I am not interested in the least in participating in any discussions of conspiracy theories and so I will await the findings from at least two investigations that will happen.  Why two investigations?  Aaron Hernandez‘ family has retained the attorney who just defended Hernandez in the double-murder acquittal to be the executor of Hernandez’ estate and he is one of the people saying there is no way Hernandez took his own life.  The prison officials will need to do an investigation of the incident; the attorney will almost assuredly do his own investigation; both of these activities will reveal facts and I will then draw my own conclusions based on all the facts that are brought to light.  Until then, let me only say this:

1. Aaron Hernandez was not a wonderful human being.  We know he murdered Odin Lloyd and we know he was present at the site of the double murder of which he was acquitted.
2. I can only hope that the surviving family members of all the deceased involved in this saga find peace for themselves so that the survivors can get on with their lives in some productive vein.
3. The death of a convicted murderer is not going to elicit a tsunami of sympathy from me.  At the same time, if his death came at the hands of some other person, that other person needs to stand trial for that act.

Moving on to college basketball …  Grayson Allen announced this week that he has decided to return to Duke for his final year of eligibility and to forego the NBA Draft this season.  This announcement has generated hyperbolic reaction.  This has been called a “momentous decision” by the “most famous college basketball player in the country”.

We could get ourselves into a nuanced discussion of Allen’s level of “fame” as opposed to his level of “infamy” and then into a discussion of whether his infamy contributes significantly to his fame.  Or we might pump the brakes just a bit here.

Maybe – – just maybe – – Grayson Allen is an actual student-athlete who enjoys the college experience.  Maybe – –  just maybe – – Grayson Allen is sufficiently self-aware that he knows he is not going to be one of the most coveted players in the NBA Draft and that his standing in the draft might be better with another year of college basketball for scouts to evaluate.  Maybe – – just maybe – – Grayson Allen is attracted to the idea of playing for Duke where he and his team are very likely to win 80% or more of the times they take the court as opposed to the random chance that he will wind up with a team like the Brooklyn Nets.  Or maybe – – just maybe – – none of these things apply to this situation and Grayson Allen just decided this is what he wanted to do next year.

My point here is that there are loads of explanations and motivations here that would not come close to being “momentous”; and in fact, there could be many explanations that would only be marginally interesting if we knew them in detail.  I would not be surprised if I ever knew all that went into Grayson Allen’s decision that my reaction would be along the lines of, “Well, OK then …”

Recently, we learned that Tony Romo was going to take Phil Simms’ place as the color analyst with Jim Nantz on the CBS lead TV announcing team for NFL games.  Lots of people – me included – wondered how Romo would do in this role given his lack of broadcasting experience but we had to await further information with regard to what Simms would be doing and how he might do in whatever his new role might be.  Now we know.

• Phil Simms will replace Tony Gonzalez on NFL Today – the CBS studio show that is intermingled with NFL telecasts on that network.
• This season the NFL Today crew will be James Brown, Bill Cowher, Boomer Esiason, Bart Scott and Phil Simms.

Having seen Simms perform in a studio-like show on HBO occasionally, I suspect that he will be comfortable with his new assignment and I think he will add to the discussions there.

Finally, here is a timely observation from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the cabin wall when United Airlines discovers that its flight full of MMA fighters is overbooked?”

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

 

 

I want to talk about basketball today.  Sometime ago, I read a report that TV ratings for college basketball’s regular season were up a meager 1% this year over last year.  I find that a bit surprising because college basketball – at least in the DC area – is horribly over-exposed.  On some weekends, I can pick and choose from a menu of about 2 dozen college basketball games; I wonder how any of them draw an audience that would earn even the smallest measurable rating let alone an increase of 1% over last year.  But that is what the report said and so I take it to be accurate…

In late March, the “overnight ratings” for the first several rounds of the men’s tournament showed much larger gains – 8 or 9% as I recall – and that would seem to support the idea that interest in college basketball was on an uptick this year.  Those numbers and those sorts of conclusions do not, however, apply to the NBA.  According to this report at sportsmediawatch.com:

“In the first regular season of the nine-year deal, viewership declined for all three major broadcast partners, with TNT and ABC posting their smallest audiences in nine years.”

The total value of the NBA TV deal from all of its “broadcast partners” is $2.66B/ year and $1.4B of that total comes from ESPN which is facing financial difficulties as cable TV loses subscribers and cable companies are not likely to continue to pay ESPN increasing “per subscriber rates”.  ESPN has already shed some of its on-air talent and more cuts are rumored to be coming in the next month or two.  This is not a good time for the network and this is not a good time for the NBA to be basking in this 9-year TV deal that showed seriously diminished interest in its first year.

I have been saying here for years that the NBA regular season did not begin to get interesting until around March 1^st; given the obvious disinterest in regular season games by the players who sat out regular season games with playoff implications or home-court implications, I may have to amend my thinking now to extend my period of meaningless to the entirety of the regular season.  What the NBA must hope for is that a large number of potential viewers of regular season games does not adopt my sense of regular season pointlessness.

According to the report linked above, the networks have ways to deal with eroding interest in regular season games because they can air highlights and studio programming in lieu of games.  If networks opt to do that, it could erode fan interest even more as the hardcore fan finds it more difficult to find games on TV from November until April.  This situation bears watching and the report linked above is worth the time it will take you to read it.

With that as background, it is important to the NBA and its network partners that the playoff ratings improve significantly over the regular season ratings.  [Remember, this year was the overall lowest rated season since cable TV became a staple in the US.]  In another report from sportsmediawatch.com about the early results from the playoffs:

1. The ratings for the Blazers/Warriors opening game (Sunday) were up from last year.
2. The ratings for the Thunder/Rockets opening game (Sunday) were up significantly from last year.
3. The ratings for the Bulls/Celtics opening game (Saturday) were up significantly from last year.
4. The ratings for the Wizards/Hawks opening game (Saturday) was in a time slot that did not have comparable playoff game to measure against.  The ratings for this game were a meager 1.8 (the lowest of the opening games by a wide margin) and perhaps the message is that an early game on a Saturday is not a good time to air an NBA early round playoff game.

Obviously, the playoffs have a long way to go – perhaps up to two more months before ending.  Nonetheless, the early ratings should be encouraging to the folks who have their money on the line.  The trick for everyone will be to carry that interest forward into the next regular season.  Good luck with that…

There is one other basketball note for today.  Lots of folks have observed and complained that the intentional fouling at the end of basketball games does not add to one’s viewing pleasure and when mixed with all the timeouts that the coaches have hoarded during the game it makes the final 2 minutes seem like a half-hour.  Moreover, the team doing the intentional fouling in order to “catch up” usually does so without a positive result.  There was an ESPN.com report about a high school principal in Dayton OH, Nick Elam, who has come up with an idea to obviate that tactic.  This is real “out-of-the-box thinking”; I like the idea and wish I had thought of it first.  Here is how it would work:

“Under Elam’s proposal, the clock would vanish after the first stoppage under the three-minute mark in the NBA and the four-minute mark in NCAA games. Officials would establish a target score by taking the score of the leading team and adding seven points — then restart the game without a clock. The team that reaches that target score first wins.”

Without a clock running there is no need to foul in order to stop the clock.  What the trailing team would need to focus on is playing defense to prevent the team in the lead from scoring and getting to the target winning score.  There are data and logic behind this proposition and they are well explained in the ESPN.com report here.

Finally, here is a basketball-related comment from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times:

“Who says pro sports aren’t show business?

“Andrew Bogut broke a leg in his Cavaliers debut.”

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

 

 

Last week, I had lunch with a former colleague who moved away from the DC area when he retired.  He was “back in town” for a family reason and we caught up over burgers and beers.  He is a baseball fan first and foremost and he asked me a question during lunch that I had not given much thought to.

“Do you still listen to baseball on the radio?”

I said that I did and he acknowledged that he did too.  He then said that he preferred listening to baseball on the radio than listening to the commentators on televised games.  Here is his reasoning – paraphrased of course since I did not record our lunch conversation and then transcribe it:

“I can see what just happened in a game on TV.  I don’t need the announcer to tell me someone hit a double; there he is standing on second base.  I don’t need the analyst to psychoanalyze the pitcher to explain why he threw that last pitch where he did; that is all B.S. anyway.  A televised game is much better with the mute button engaged.

“Radio is different.  The play-by-play guy is telling me what happened because I cannot see it and I get to reconstruct the game in my mind based on his words and his descriptions.  I have to pay attention to what he says because that is the only way to follow the game.  I get invested in the game by getting invested in the announcer(s).”

My friend is absolutely correct in this regard.  The way televised baseball has evolved, the audio portion of the game adds precious little to the experience.  However, in a radio broadcast, the onus on the play-by-play announcer is pretty much the same as it was when Red Barber was behind the mic.

Another major topic of discussion at our lunch was about his view that MLB has a really bright future ahead because there are so many very young players in the major leagues today who appear to be ones with great careers ahead of them.  He started rattling off some of his young “stars-in-the-present/stars-of-the-future” and I added some to the list and that resulted in my writing our consensus list on a napkin so I can present them here:

1. Javier Baez
2. Mookie Betts
3. Kris Bryant
4. Xander Bogaerts
5. Carlos Correa
6. Bryce Harper
7. Francisco Lindor
8. Manny Machado
9. Lance McCullers
10. Wil Myers
11. Roberto Osuna
12. Aaron Sanchez
13. Gary Sanchez
14. Kyle Schwarber
15. Corey Seager
16. Dansby Swanson
17. Noah Syndergaard
18. Mike Trout
19. Trea Turner

We compiled this list without the aid of Google to scan all of the MLB rosters so I am sure we left some really good young players off this list – Addison Russell comes to mind at the moment.  However, once again, my former colleague is on the money here.  All of these players are very good now and none of them have reached their prime years in a typical career.  The future of MLB is indeed bright.

I would like to add one other contributing factor to the bright future of MLB.

• Labor peace.

Since the strike/lockout that killed the World Series in 1994, MLB and the MLBPA have found ways to come to an accommodation on successive CBAs without a work stoppage.  The two sides have been able to find ways to line the pockets of the owners and the pockets of the players and their agents in a way that is satisfactory to all parties.  Personally, I think a large measure of the credit for this situation belongs on Bud Selig’s plate and I do not think that he gets the full measure of credit he deserves from fans or from baseball writers/commentators.

Finally, let me close with a baseball-related comment from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times:

“Cardinals outfielder Stephen Piscotty had a painful trip around the bases Tuesday night against the Cubs — getting hit by thrown balls on both elbows (at bat, then running to second) and then on the helmet while running home.

“No truth to the rumor that he just landed a Target endorsement.”

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

 

 

A couple of weeks ago, Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly said in an interview that he thought quarterback DeShone Kiser would be better off playing another year at Notre Dame instead of being in the NFL Draft this year.  Lots of people jumped all over Kelly after he said that claiming that his statement was self-serving (Notre Dame did not have a winning season last year) and that his comments were spiteful because they might hurt Kizer’s stock in the draft.

I concur that the statement was self-serving; Brian Kelly would have an easier time coaching Notre Dame next year if Kizer were still on the team.  However, unlike many commentators who saw that comment as some sort of breach of faith between a coach and a quarterback, I was not really surprised to hear a football coach say something that was self-serving.  Football coaches do that all the time; think about the stories they tell to recruits who eventually never see the field; think about the assurances they give to parents that the coach and his staff will act in loco parentis for the recruit. Those are self-serving statements and they happen constantly.

When I heard about Kelly’s remarks, I thought that he was probably closer to right than wrong in what he said.  This was before I did my pre-draft analysis but as I went through all of my college football notes from last season, I determined that I did not have any notes on DeShone Kizer.  Not that my opinion amounts to a bit of tid, but I did watch Notre Dame play last year and Kizer did not motivate me to say something positive about his projection into the NFL.

Then I remembered a parallel incident from about 8 or 10 years ago.  Mark Sanchez declared for the NFL Draft after his junior season at USC.  It was either at the press conference to announce Sanchez’ decision or immediately after it that USC head coach. Pete Carroll, said publicly that he thought Sanchez belonged in school and that he was not ready for the NFL.  Pete Carroll was accused of all the same sort of stuff that was thrown at Brian Kelly in the past few weeks but with 8 to 10 years of evidence in front of us, here is something people need to admit:

• Pete Carroll was absolutely correct.

Mark Sanchez has had a mediocre career and other than the possibility of sustaining a career-ending injury in one more season at USC, his ability to perform at the NFL level could only have been helped by one more year in school.

Time will tell if Brian Kelly was similarly correct…

Staying with NFL topics here, there are plenty of reports out there about the possibility that NFL veteran players will be involved in trades proximal to the upcoming draft.  Lots of bits have been committed to solid state memory about the possibility of:

1. Kirk Cousins going to the Niners and new coach Kyle Shanahan
2. Jimmy Garoppolo to the Browns for a cornucopia of picks.
3. Malcom Butler to the Saints for picks.
4. Marshawn Lynch out of retirement and to the Raiders from the Seahawks.
5. Richard Sherman from the Seahawks to any number of new teams.

It would seem to me that most – if not all – of the rumored trades above make sense so I would not be surprised to see a few of them reaching fruition over the next week or so.  However, there is another veteran player who is very good at his position that ought to be sufficiently “on the market” that there are rumors about him.  That would be:

• Sheldon Richardson – DE – NY Jets

Make no mistake, Richardson is a very good defensive end.  Moreover, he will not be 27 years old until late in the upcoming NFL season; he is not a player who is about to see his warranty expire.  So, why do I think the Jets should be thinking about trading him?

The Jets’ roster is a mess; they have released a bunch of veteran players from the team who were starters last year; there are more holes in that roster than there are in a wool sweater at a moth convention.  At the same time, the Jets have 3 very good defensive ends:

1. Muhammed Wilkinson
2. Leonard Williams – – and – –
3. Sheldon Richardson.

Richardson has one year left on his rookie contract so it might take some time for his agent to work out a longer-term deal with a new team than there is between now and the draft.  That is why I am surprised that talks about dealing Richardson have not been “out and about” over the past month or so.  The Jets need help in so many places that they need to amass draft picks; they are in a position where quantity of picks is a measure of quality for their draft.  This one surprises me…

The Milwaukee Brewers have a culinary item on the menu this year that deserves mention.  I do not know what it is called but it goes in the tradition of midwestern stadium food/state fair food which is to say that you take a dish that normally is eaten off a plate or with your hands and you put it on a stick and fry it.  This item is “deep fired nachos on a stick”.  Here is the composition:

• Spicy ground beef and refried beans get rolled in taco flavored tortilla chips.  Then a stick is inserted and that mass of food is deep fried.
• The dish is served with a side of nacho cheese, sour cream, pureed jalapenos and salsa roja as “dipping sauces.

Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times regarding Kirk Cousins who was mentioned in passing above:

“Washington QB Kirk Cousins, it appears, might get out of work on labor day.  Cousins’ wife Julie is due to deliver their first child during Week 2 of the upcoming NFL season.

“In keeping with the theme, all he’s asking for are no false starts, or at least a two-minute warning.”

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

 

 

Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers,  died yesterday at the age of 84.  He was a quiet but highly influential leader among the owners in the NFL.  The “Rooney Rule” is only a small part of his legacy.

Rest in peace, Dan Rooney.

Russell Westbrook broke the NBA record for most triple doubles in a season.  That record had been held by Oscar Robertson for decades upon decades.  That record had often made the list of “Sports Records That Will Never Be Broken”.  Congratulations to Russell Westbrook; he achieved something that a lot of folks thought would never be done; he deserves nothing but accolades for his season-long achievement.

At the same time, Westbrook’s breaking that long-standing barrier proves that any athletic accomplishment by one of the “all-time greats” in a sport can possibly be overtaken if the right “future-time all-time great” comes along.  Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in an NBA game; no one has done that for decades-upon-decades; however, the record is not literally unbreakable.  The same goes for these records that surely look to be well outside the realm of potential danger – – but you never know:

1. Cy Young:  Everyone knows that he won 511 MLB games – the most in history and that record is likely beyond the reach of any pitcher in today’s game.  I do not want to focus on that record; I prefer to focus on the fact that Cy Young completed 749 MLB games.  Given the way today’s MLB is managed, it is extraordinary when a pitcher has double-digit complete games in a season.  James Shields had 11 complete games in the AL in 2011; the time before that in the AL was in 1998.  Randy Johnson was the last pitcher in the NL to throw more than 10 complete games in a season; he had 12 complete games in 1999.  Even if a modern day pitcher were to average 15 complete games in a season, he would need to pitch for almost 50 seasons to equal Cy Young’s record.  Not impossible – – but as Arte Johnson might intone – – “highly unlikely!”
2. Grover Cleveland Alexander:  He threw 16 shutouts in a single season in 1916.  Given modern MLB management, that record looks to be safe for a long time to come – in addition to the fact that it has stood for a century already.  In the NL, Bob Gibson threw 13 shutouts in 1967 – 50 years ago.  Since then, only one NL pitcher has reached double digits in shutouts; that was John Tudor with 10 shutouts in 1985.  In the AL, only 2 pitchers since 1947 have had double-digit shutouts; Dean Chance had 11 in 1963 and Jim Palmer threw 10 in 1975.  That record is not impossible to overcome – – but it is unlikely.
3. Byron Nelson:  Back in the 1940s, he won 11 consecutive PGA tournaments.  Given the depth of the competent golfers on the PGA Tour these days, that record is going to be hard to reach – – let alone break.
4. Boston Celtics:  They once won 8 consecutive NBA Championships.  In this time of free agency, that record will be monstrously difficult to break.
5. Oklahoma University:  In the 1950s under the tutelage of Bud Wilkinson, the Sooners won 47 consecutive football games.  Today the NCAA imposes scholarship limitations that allow for top talent to spread out to more than a few schools.  That situation makes this record difficult to reach.

I have pointed out before that there is one sports record that CANNOT possibly be broken.  It can be equaled or tied but will never be broken unless there is a fundamental change in the rules.  Here is THE unbreakable record:

• In January 1991, the Giants beat the Bills in the Super Bowl by a score of 20-19.  That is not only the smallest margin of victory in a Super Bowl game to date; it is the smallest POSSIBLE margin of victory in a Super Bowl game because the rules for that game do not allow for a tie game.  Down the line, two teams might match this record but they cannot break it without a change in the rules to allow for tie games or a change in the scoring rules to allow fractional points.

Let me stay with an NFL theme here for another moment.  The City of St. Louis has filed suit against the NFL, the Rams franchise and against the 57 owners/partial owners of NFL franchises individually seeking about $1B from the defendants for moving the Rams from St. Louis to LA.   I am not going to pretend to be able to explain the totality of the meaning of these allegations, but here is what the plaintiff claims:

1. Breach of contract,
2. Unjust enrichment,
3. Fraudulent misrepresentation (against the Rams and owner Stan Kroenke) and
4. Tortious interference with business expectancy.

According to my understanding of the reports on this legal action, the charge of “unjust enrichment” is backed by data from Forbes saying that the Rams – now in LA – are worth about $1.2B more than they were when they were in St. Louis.

I have no idea how Forbes makes these sorts of determinations but if the plaintiff says this is a critical analysis – and if I am on the jury at this trial – I would not think this strengthened the plaintiff’s case even a little bit.  If moving to LA added $1.2B to the value of the team, then the owner would have to have been dumber than oatmeal to leave the team in St. Louis; if that is the factor that makes the team more valuable, then the plaintiff has proven that indeed the team should have moved.  In fact, it shows that the team should have moved at least several years before it did.

 

[The preceding commentary is why no attorney worth his/her billable hours should ever allow me to be on a jury at one of their trials.  The entire process of voir dire is in place to keep people like me off juries.]

 

Finally, here is a comment from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times:

“The Florida Panthers’ Jaromir Jagr turned 45 Wednesday, joining Hall of Famers Gordie Howe and Chris Chelios as the only ones to play in an NHL game at that age.

“Teammates showered him afterward with Molsons and Metamucil.”

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

 

 

Mexico, Canada and the US have “joined forces” so to speak to present a unified bid to FIFA which – –  if accepted – –  would assure that the 2026 World Cup Tournament would be held in North America.  Mexico and the US have hosted this tournament in the past; Canada has not.  This is described as an “historic event” because bids in the past have been limited to a single country.

By distributing the games among the countries, none of the three countries would need to construct new venues from scratch; there might be a need for some upgrades at some venues, but any costs associated with those activities would be trivial as compared to building new venues from the ground up.  The 2026 World Cup will be the first such event where the number of participating nations increases from 32 to 48; that indicates to me that an already HUGE international event will be even bigger at that time.

Do not hold your breath waiting for a decision here.  FIFA will announce its choice of venues for the 2026 tournament sometime in 2020.  Two things that will need to be addressed regarding this three-headed bid are:

1. The host nation automatically gets an entry into the tournament no matter how well or how poorly its national team might perform in qualifying matches.  So … what do they do with three “host nations”?
2. Will the FIFA folks look upon this as an opportunity to “plunder” three countries at one time as opposed to only one?

Recently in the Sporting Cosmos of the Earth, we have seen a lot of unlikely events and the breaking of some long-term streaks such as:

1. The Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years.
2. Leicester City (founded in 1884) won the EPL for the first time in club history.
3. Sergio Garcia won a major golf tournament for the first time.

These events raise the question as to whether we have entered a period where out-of-the-ordinary happenings are going to become commonplace or if this is just an accidental merger of these unusual events in time.  If indeed we have entered into some sort of space-time warp where strange happenings are the new normal, then here are some things to look for as confirmation of that new normal:

1. The Detroit Lions make it to the Super Bowl.
2. The LA Clippers win the NBA Championship.
3. The Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup.
4. Sam Marino wins an international soccer match.
5. James Dolan wins NBA Exec of the Year.
6. Rex Ryan actually delivers on one of his bombastic “promises”.
7. The Oakland A’s average home attendance is north of 30,000.
8. Tom Brady invites Roger Goodell over for dinner.

In another piece of recent news, Lonzo Ball’s father, LaVar, offered up this “analysis” of the NCAA basketball tournament for 2017.  The reason that UCLA did not win the championship – as he had predicted several months ago – is because they played three white guys who were slow afoot against Kentucky.  Seriously, he said that.  Here is his full commentary:

“Realistically you can’t win no championship with three white guys because the foot speed is too slow. I told Lonzo—’One of these games you might need to go for 30 or 40 points.’ It turned out that was the one game. Then once they get to the Elite Eight, they’re right there.”

Here is Greg Cote’s take on that commentary in the Miami Herald:

“Clown-dad father LaVar Ball now claims his son’s UCLA team lost in the NCAA Tournament because of the slowness of’”three white guys.’ Well, at least he didn’t name them!”

Forget the screeches of “racism” leveled at LaVar Ball for those remarks; that is not the issue here.  The real issue is that the best player on the court for the Bruins in the UCLA/Kentucky game was TJ Leaf (17 points and 7 rebounds) and it does not take a “Google genius” to find out that TJ Leaf is white.  If indeed “that was the game” where Lonzo Ball needed “to go for 30 or 40 points”, then he fell just a bit short.  His stats were 10 points, 8 assists and 3 rebounds.  Oh, and Ball was also the one who was torched by DeAaron Fox of Kentucky on many of Fox’s drives that led to Fox’s 39 points for the Wildcats.

Perhaps another of those things to look for as an indication that unusual happenstances are the new normal might be this:

• LaVar Ball says something that has a basis in reality.

If you are going to take in an Astros’ game at Minute Made Park, here is something that might catch your dining fancy:

• The Freddy Fender:  This starts with a chorizo sausage wrapped in a corn tortilla; that puppy is then deep-fried and served topped with cilantro-sour cream, cotija cheese, pico de gallo and tequila-braised onions.
• My recommendation is order this with a side of Rolaids…

Finally, Scott Ostler of the SF Chronicle had these reasons why President Trump chose not to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Nats’ home opener this year:

“MLB refused to move game to Mar-a-Lago.

“Former President Barack Obama is stealing catcher’s signs.

“Lying radar gun keeps flashing ‘36’ on his 100-mph heater.”

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

 

 

The NBA started its season around Halloween last year.  They have played 1230 games since then in order to eliminate just under half the teams from participating in the playoffs.  I have argued for years that most of the games before the end of January are virtually meaningless and that the season does not begin to present compelling games until late February/early March.  I wish to invoke a privilege that is sought by our esteemed US Senators all the time.

• I wish to revise and extend my remarks on that subject.

As of 2017, I am incorrect in thinking that regular season NBA games from about the beginning of March until the end of the year are meaningful.  These games are no more important or meaningful than the ones in November between the Sacramento Kings and the Brooklyn Nets.  Why did I change my mind?

Well, it is really very simple.  The NBA players have convinced me that the games are unimportant because they have behaved in ways that prove to me that THEY believe they are unimportant.  In the last week or so, players “rested” when the schedule had them laying back to back games even though:

1. The Cavs/Heat game had relevance to which team would get the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs – – AND – –
2. The Cavs/Heat game had relevance to the Heat’s pursuit of the #8 seeding in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

That game should have mattered to both teams.  It did not.  And so, I now do not care about ANY NBA regular season games.  This is the league that has known for decades that some teams tank entire seasons to get high draft picks and had to introduce a lottery system to try to prevent teams actually racing to the bottom.  Now they have players so stressed out by scheduling that they need time outs that extend for about 48 hours.

These players are victims of nothing except Fat Wallet Syndrome.  They deserve the scorn of sports fans everywhere.  Maybe they are in receipt of some scorn already given that regular season NBA TV ratings are universally down this year as opposed to last year.

Commish Adam Silver diverted his attention from what he identified as one of his prime tasks – assuring that there is a woman as a head coach in the NBA sooner as opposed to later – to recognize that resting players is something the league as a whole needs to address in a way that makes it less of an affront to the fans who pay the freight.  Deciding on who plays and how long they play is a coaching decision but there are “integrity of the game” issues here.

• When top teams rest all their good players at one time in a nominally meaningful game, they tell the fans that the game is not really meaningful because they do not give a spit.
• When bottom-feeding teams play “the end of their bench” for long stretches in late season games seeking to lose and get more ping-pong balls in the hopper, that tells fans they value a high draft pick more than winning.  The Lakers tried – not very successfully – to use this strategy late in the season when all of a sudden Metta World Peace became a 20-minute per game presence on the court instead of a 5-minute per game presence.

Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald had an interesting perspective on this need to rest NBA players recently:

“The new NBA trend is resting your star players. I remember when this was called ‘defense.’ ”

There is another embarrassing situation going on in the NBA world this morning and – – no great surprise here – – it involves the NY Knicks and the team owner James Dolan.  CBSSports.com reports that the fan who got into a “verbal altercation” – probably better described as a shouting match – with Owner Dolan now claims that the team is making it difficult for him to renew his season tickets and that his ticket representative will not even take his calls.  James Dolan surely does not like anyone getting up in his face and calling him a “rhymes with glass bowl” and James Dolan is the owner of the team and the arena in which they play.  I doubt that this situation infringes on any of the fan’s inalienable rights even were he to claim that attending Knicks’ games in the Garden is essential to his Pursuit of Happiness.

Having said all that, this is yet another “bad optic” for the NY Knicks and Lord knows they have become the masters of bad optics over the past decade or so.  The Knicks are a bad team and this fan wants to renew his tickets – – translation: he wants to spend his money on that bad team – – and the team is behaving like a hard ass by making that difficult.  Here is a link to the CBSSports.com report so you can see for yourself what is going on here.

I began today saying that I am now convinced that none of the NBA regular season matters anymore.  Well, here is something else that falls into the bucket of “does not matter yet it has become a big deal”:

• NFL Network had a “special program” to announce the upcoming schedule for the NFL Exhibition Season.

Let me be clear; the NBA regular season is more important than the NFL Exhibition Season for the basic reason that the NBA regular season games count for something and the NFL Exhibition games are meaningless with a capital “M”.  The NFL stages 65 of these Meaningless events – or 64 in seasons where the Hall of Fame Game field is unplayable and the league cancels it because the NFLPA won’t allow its members to take the field – and none of those events means a damned thing.  Notwithstanding that reality, the schedule announcement becomes a “Special” on NFLN.  My only reaction to this is:

• Give me a [bleep]ing break!

Finally, here is one more comment from Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald:

“Klay Thompson was asked to sign a fan’s toaster. It speaks volumes when an American in public doesn’t have any paper on him but he’s lugging around his toaster.”

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

 

 

Progress usually comes as a result of a sequence of small steps in a positive direction.  Sometimes, in order to get a person or an entity to cooperate in taking those small steps, a bludgeon needs to be used.  Such has been the case in recent times with women athletes in the US.

Recall about a month ago that the US Women’s Hockey team said it would boycott the World Championship Tournament that was going to be held in Michigan unless the governing bodies and the US overseers of that sport came up with better compensation for the players and support for growing the sport itself.  There was a lot of posturing that led up to that declaration but once it became clear that these women were going to stay home, a deal was struck.  Amazingly, money that was unavailable and/or non-existent became part of the deal that got the women’s team back on the ice.

Simultaneously, the US Women’s National Soccer Team had an analogous standoff with the folks who run women’s soccer here in the US.  Despite the world-class performances of the women’s team over the last couple of decades, they too did not have what they believed was the proper level of support and compensation.  That dispute dragged on for far too long and even involved the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission for the last year because the women alleged wage discrimination in their situation.  That matter was settled last week when the team members and the US Soccer Federation agreed to a new CBA.

A key element of the deal intends to “provide stability and growth potential for the National Women’s Soccer League.”  That is a big deal because a key element of the continued excellence of the US Women’s National Team is the ability of its players to make a living here in the US playing their sport and growing their sport.  If this CBA moves things in that direction, it is a win for both sides.

I think there is a lesson to be learned here that can apply to other conflicts in the sports world.  These issues balanced on financial matters – and at the core, most conflicts in the sports world involve the same basic issue.  Once the two sides put aside things like “a boycott” or a “Federal complaint to the EEOC”, the parties could sit down more comfortably and figure out a way to divide the available resources in a way that both sides could live with.  The key is to make sure that money is the paramount issue under discussion; if it gets lumped in with things like “discrimination” or “entitlement” or stuff like that, the negotiations become more difficult.

I mention this because there is an ongoing contretemps between the NHL and the IOC over the availability of NHL players for the 2018 Winter Games.  If there is to be a “meeting of the minds” here, the two sides need to stop finger-pointing and name-calling and start to look at the finances so they can strike an economic deal that each can live with.

 

[Aside:  I purposely put “meeting of the minds” in quotation marks above given the two entities I am talking about.  The NHL canceled an entire season to make a point that was unclear then and is probably unrecalled by most folks today.  The IOC’s behaviors over the years simply makes it impossible to consider them as acting in a rational or cooperative environment.]

 

Shifting gears … the Seattle Seahawks signed free agent running back, Eddie Lacy, to a 1-year deal.  According to a report on ESPN, there is a “weight incentive clause” in the contract that could be worth up to $385K for Lacy.  According to Pete Carroll, his preference would be for Lacy to play games weighing somewhere “in the 240 range”.  Looking back at the draft projections for Lacy coming out of college at Alabama, the scouting reports said he weighed 235 lbs.  Using only the eyeball test, I think it has been quite a while since Lacy saw that weight; if you told me that he played at 270 at times over the past 2 years, I would not argue with you for very long.

According to a report from Adam Schefter, Lacy’s contract could be worth as much as $5.5M but only $2.8M of that is guaranteed.  The rest of the contract value must be earned as incentives related to Lacy’s weight, his production as a running back and how often he is dressed and active for a game.

The second two incentive criteria may be affected by the fact that Lacy is still rehabbing a foot/ankle injury he suffered early last season with the Packers.  If that injury comes around, he should be a useful running back for the Seahawks; if it lingers, he may have to settle for seeing limited action.  In any event, making the weight targets should be something he can control completely on his own.

The Milwaukee Brewers have an interesting – if not completely healthy – culinary offering for the upcoming season.  I would suggest arriving at the ballpark a bit before game time because this is not something you want to try to eat in your seat as you watch the game.  It has an apt name; they call it:

• The Beast:  It starts with a grilled bratwurst sliced in half lengthwise.  That baby gets stuffed with a footlong hot dog and then gets wrapped in bacon for a flash-frying.  The whole thing is put on a pretzel roll and served with onions, sauerkraut and mustard.  Oh, and you get a bag of chips on the side too.

Finally, Brad Dickson has these two observations about the recently concluded NCAA basketball tournaments in the Omaha World-Herald:

“During an official review at the women’s NCAA tournament, Washington and Oklahoma held a dance-off. This isn’t to be confused with that NFL booth review when a couple players had time to complete a half-marathon.”

And …

“Arena security reportedly had to visit the seat of Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall’s wife three times during the loss to Kentucky. If a game had been decided by a technical foul on the coach’s wife, it would be my favorite ‘One Shining Moment’ ever.”

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

 

 

Don Rickles passed away yesterday at the age of 90.  I remember Johnny Carson once calling him The Merchant of Venom; others called him The Master of Malice.  There is a good chance that when he first encountered St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, Rickles said he was as dumb as a hockey puck.

Rest in peace, Don Rickles…

A state legislator in Nevada wants to try to convince the NCAA to put the Sweet 16 games and the Final Four games for the women’s basketball tournament in Las Vegas.  As you may imagine, the NCAA dismissed the idea out of hand because – gasp! – there are casinos in Las Vegas where gambling on college basketball games takes place.  This well-intentioned legislator must not realize that the NCAA can hide its head in the sand better than any ostrich ever born.

• The NCAA can avoid seeing the obvious when it would prefer that the obvious not exist.  Case in point: the continued “investigation” of the academic fraud at UNC.  The NCAA really does not want to drop the hammer on a school that is a major revenue generator in football AND basketball so it ignores the obvious evidence of serious infractions and just kicks the can down the road hoping that it will all go away.

What is the NCAA preferring not to see when someone suggests putting the women’s basketball tournament in Las Vegas?  Let me start with a bit of background.

• One criticism of the women’s tournament has always been that the early round games are scheduled almost as home games for the top seeded teams.  The disparity in the women’s brackets assures that the top seeds are going to advance but making those game home games turns them into nothing but glorified scrimmages.  Fans show up to support the highly-seeded teams and to watch them blow out their early competition.
• However, once the games are played at neutral sites as the women’s tournament proceeds, the attendance disappears.  This year, Notre Dame and Stanford played each other in Lexington, KY and the winner would go to the Final Four.  There were 2,527 souls in attendance for that game.
• Two other regional finals could not draw flies either.  For the Baylor/Mississippi St. game in OKC, the attendance was 3,128.  For the S. Carolina/Fla St. game in Stockton, 3,134 people showed up.
• Only UConn – playing Oregon in Bridgeport, CT as almost a home game for the Huskies – could draw a decent crowd.  That game had 8,978 fannies in the seats.

That data would seem to imply that fans are not willing to travel to see women’s college basketball when the destinations are Lexington, Oklahoma City or Stockton.  Fans of UConn will travel from various parts of Connecticut and New England to see the Lady Huskies play locally, but then the taint of “home-court advantage” for the favorites comes into play.

Now, if I were trying to analyze this sort of problem, I would want to see if I could goose up attendance just a bit.  I would ask myself these sorts of questions:

1. Is the low attendance due to a fundamental lack of interest in women’s college basketball?  If so, any scheduling other than home games for one of the sides is doomed to failure.
2. Or … Is it possible that the low attendance here is a combination of “less interest in women’s college basketball than men’s college basketball” plus “a minimal desire of folks to travel great distances to arrive in Lexington, OKC or Stockton?

If I consider the second of those questions to be interesting, one test would be to put all those regional final games in a much more attractive venue.  Meaning no disrespect to Bridgeport, Lexington, OKC and Stockton, Las Vegas probably gets more tourist interest in an average week than any of those cities gets in a year.  Just maybe there would be more interest in folks following their teams in tournament games if those tournament games were put in a more interesting setting.

Is the NCAA going to listen to this idea with an open mind?  Don’t hold your breath…

With the MLB season in full swing, I feel the need to advise you of new food offerings at various major league – and minor league – parks.  I shall do this in small doses lest the act of reading about these offerings causes you gastric upset.  Let me start at Citizens Bank Park in Philly:

• The Triple Triple:  This is described as a 9×9 cheeseburger because it has 9 burger patties and 9 slices of cheese on a bun.  You add the condiments of your choice – or your daring.  This is a simple menu option – and one designed to get your cholesterol levels headed toward the 4-figure range.

Finally, with The Masters underway, here are two comments from Brad Rock of the Deseret News regarding that “tradition unlike any other…”:

“WalletHub.com reports the amount of time TV devotes to the Masters has increased from 2½ to 18 hours since 1956.

“Experts credit the increased airtime to Jim Nantz’s descriptions of the azaleas in bloom.”

And …

“WalletHub.com also says a green jacket for the Masters’ winner costs only $250, but Horton Smith’s blazer from 1934 sold for $682,000 at auction.

“This is also the difference between online pricing and what a car actually costs at the dealership.”

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

 

 

There is one more thing that needs to be said about March Madness 2017.  It certainly looks as if it was enjoyed by a lot of folks.  On average, the ratings on CBS and the associated TBS networks for the whole TV package were up 13% over 2016.  The final game between UNC and Gonzaga had ratings up 21%.  Based on early Nielsen ratings 24% of the TV sets in use during the game were tuned into the game.  The number of video streams sent out by the NCAA for the final game was up also.  Here is why I think that is important…

Ratings for the NBA so far this season are down.  Every time I run across a report of weekly ratings for NBA telecasts, the picture is not pretty and I believe that an important element of the NBA’s falling ratings is reflected in the March Madness increased ratings.  Tune in to see an NBA game that you have been anticipating because it is between two good teams and you just might see all the best players for one team in street clothes.  Since you do not have hundreds of dollars invested in arena tickets for that event, you just might turn the game off; moreover, you may not be so “anticipatory” about the next game between two good teams because you also read about other games where players “needed a rest”.

[Aside:  Back-to-back road games are the things that cause NBA players to “need rest”.  In the ACC tournament held in NYC, every team was on the road and to win the tournament, a team had to win 4 games in 4 nights.  No one needed a rest…]

In the college tournament games, you are going to see the best players even if they are injured and should take a rest.  In addition, those players are totally invested in the games in terms of focus and emotion.  After an NBA team loses a playoff series, you do not see tears; after a March Madness tournament loss, you see them frequently.  Even sitting in your living room, you can sense how important the game is to the college players vis a vis the pros.

NBA ratings will increase once the playoffs begin and as the playoffs proceed.  However, the huge money paid to the NBA for its TV deal is not going to be sustained if the only good ratings come in May and June but the airwaves are occupied from November to June.

Changing subjects … I am pleased to announce that our long national nightmare is over [ /Gerald R. Ford ].  We now know the answer to the question that has been smoldering for the last 8-10 weeks:

• Whither Tony Romo?

Yesterday we learned that he will no longer be playing football on Sundays; he will be in the television booth doing color analysis for CBS on Sundays.  Romo will be paired with Jim Nantz as the #1 announcing team for CBS displacing Phil Simms from that chair; there was no explanation as to what Simms’ role with CBS – if any – will be starting this Fall.

[Aside:  There is a symmetry here.  Dak Prescott showed up as a rookie in Dallas and took Romo’s job causing Romo to retire and show up at CBS as a rookie where he took Phil Simms’ job.  Wheels within wheels…]

Tony Romo is in a challenging situation here.  The color analysts on the lead announcing teams at FOX and NBC are:

1. Troy Aikman
2. Cris Collinsworth.

Notwithstanding the fact that there are fans around the country who will swear that both Aikman and Collinsworth hate their favorite team, both of those men are excellent at what they do and they have been doing it for a long time.  Troy Aikman did not step into the lead analyst role straight out of the NFL; he did some “apprentice assignments” first.  Cris Collinsworth spent more than 5 years in various broadcasting roles before his ascension to the top slot.  Tony Romo is going to do this “cold” and the comparisons are inevitable.

Please note; I said Tony Romo is in a “challenging situation”.  I did not say he was doomed to failure or anything of the sort.  I am merely putting down a marker here to remind myself not to draw conclusions about his future after a game or two – – unless of course he comes out of the gate as the reincarnation of John Madden.  We shall see…

The MLB season is under way.  Baseball more than any other US sport celebrates its history as well as its present.  However, that is not to say that there cannot be changes in baseball even when it comes to an iconic venue that is part of the National Register of Historic Places – – Fenway Park.  The Red Sox played their first game in Fenway Park in April 1912. They did not broadcast that game for a simple reason; there were no radio stations in existence at the time; this is a place where one bathes in “baseball history”.

Notwithstanding all the above, Fenway Park has leaped from its beginnings in the early 20^th century directly to the 21^st century with this new addition:

• A Virtual Reality Batting Cage:  According to the folks who run the stadium (Fenway Sports Group) this new feature will give fans a chance to ““feel what it’s like to take swings against Major League players at Fenway Park.”
• Nothing says “2017” like “virtual reality” …

The folks at Fenway also made two gustatory additions for this year:

1. The Tully Tavern:  This is a new full-service bar area named for and featuring Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey.  This happens to be a whiskey to my liking so I would definitely check this out were I to get to a game in Fenway Park.
2. Lobster Poutine:  One of the vendors will offer this concoction that I doubt I could resist.  I like lobster in just about any way other than as a topping for chocolate ice cream.  Poutine is a Canadian specialty made of French Fries, cheese curds and a light brown gravy; there is a restaurant in our area that makes this dish by frying the potatoes in duck fat; the word “spectacular” comes immediately to mind.  I have no idea how these folks might combine “lobster” and “poutine”, but I would surely give it a try if I saw it.

Finally, here is an item from Brad Rock in the Deseret News; I am in full agreement with his conclusion here:

“The Salt Lake Bees have announced their promotional schedule for 2017.

“Among the special nights are Golf Night, Frank Layden Night, ‘70s Night, Yoga Night, Star Wars Night and Singles Night.

“Considering the Bees had the second-worst record in the Pacific Coast League last year, maybe they should work on Win the Game Night.”

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