Category: Daily Rants

Just in case you live in a dark cave somewhere or have just emerged from a coma, the NFL’s TV ratings are down this year – and not insignificantly. Various folks have offered hypotheses to explain the data; these hypotheses are difficult to verify; therefore, a cacophony of views is out there offering “explanation”. I have no idea why this is the case, but I do have some observations to proffer:

1. I do not think reduced TV viewing is a response to the national anthem protests. I think that people offering that up as the reason are simply finding a way to connect their personal view of those protests with something that might make sense as a plot element in a novel.

2. I do not think reduced TV viewing is a response to the various allegations of violence against women involving NFL players. Let me be polite and just say that reasoning is a stretch.

3. I do not think reduced TV viewing is due to the violence of the game and the long-term health consequences incurred by the players. That too is a stretch.

4. I do not think reduced TV viewing has anything at all to do with the NFL’s crackdown on end-zone celebrations after a TD. That is a stretch even Reed Richards cannot make.

Some within the NFL have “suggested” that people may be distracted from football because of the intensive media coverage of the Presidential Campaigns. With regard to that explanation, I guess I could entertain it for a while because of the emotion that so many folks have poured into this election cycle; they may be more “emotionally drained” than they are “distracted”, but this could be a factor in the equation. The good part of this hypothesis is that it presents a rather clear way to test itself. Starting on Thursday November 10, the NFL will be televising games with the election cycle in the rear view mirror. If the election cycle is what is holding down ratings, they should start to climb back to their levels from last year between then and Christmas.

[Aside: If I were an NFL spokesthing, I would not be suggesting that there is more excitement and attention-grabbing value in political name-calling and poll analysis than there is in “my games”. There is a long-term negative message there.]

Personally, I think there are two factors internal to the NFL telecasts that are contributing factors to the decline in ratings:

1. The NFL has long sought “parity”; and so far this season, they seem to have achieved “parity” to a degree not seen in recent years. We are through Week 6 on the schedule; if you count the teams with “middling records” – say between 2 and 4 losses – you will find that 23 of the 32 teams fall in that category. For years, the NFL trumpeted “parity” as an ideal where every team has a real chance to win every game and every year. That was never true and real fans knew it was marketing hype, but the TV audience is more than just “real fans”. Perhaps the casual fans are tiring of watching mediocrity on their screens. What the NFL does not want to hear – let alone admit – is that there is an outbreak of mediocrity in the hinterlands and it is not welcome.

2. The games are poorly officiated with some of the officiating errors – pointedly admitted 48 hours ex post facto – changing the outcome of the games themselves. Even more importantly, some of the errors change the outcome of the games with regard to the spread or the Total Line. The NFL has never even given a nod toward the “gambling factor” as a component of its growth but the fact is that a great deal of the NFL’s popularity rests on a bedrock foundation of wagering on various games and tuning in to watch how one’s side of the wager comes out.

Speaking of wagering and NFL football, the path to partial public funding for a stadium in Las Vegas to house the now-Oakland Raiders is clear. In a special session of the Nevada Legislature, an increase in the hotel tax was approved and the Governor signed the bill. There are 3 major hurdles here and one of them has been crossed. The two remaining hurdles are:

They have to find a site for the stadium. No site proposal will please everyone; there will likely be protests and lawsuits and various “stalling tactics”. Nevertheless, there has to be a site somewhere that will emerge as “the one”. This will take time, but this is not a show-stopper.

The other 31 NFL owners will have to “bless” the move to Las Vegas. Last year, they made Stan Kroenke cough up $500M for the right to move to LA; that put approximately $16M in each of the other owners’ pockets simply by voting “YES”. I can see a motivation for them to repeat that process again soon. There are some potential “nefarious conspiracy theories” out there regarding what some owners may demand in exchange for their “YES” votes. I will not dignify them here – until and unless there is some evidence that things other than monetary gain motivates some of the owners.

The NFL owners are meeting in Houston this week but they will not be voting on this move then. In fact, the league has already said that this issue may not make it to the agenda for the owners’ meeting in January 2017 but may need to wait until the Spring of 2017 before it is considered.

In one other NFL note, Dolphins’ rookie tackle Laremy Tunsil missed a game due to an injury he incurred getting out of the shower. You may recall that proximal to the NFL Draft a video appeared on one of the social media sites of Tunsil wearing and using a bong mask. So, that makes the question here obvious:

Was he using the bong mask in the shower?

To be fair, Tunsil claims that his social media account was hacked and that is how the video appeared there. Obviously, I have no idea if that is the case or not. But putting the video in juxtaposition with the “shower injury” is not all that difficult…

Finally, here is an NFL item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Corpulent Chiefs coach Andy Reid, to reporters, on 346-pound nose tackle Dontari Poe’s 1-yard TD run vs. the Raiders: ‘I’m taking credit for that one for all the chubby guys out there.’”

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

I read a report about the ongoing actions to keep the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg and/or to find them a new stadium site somewhere in that part of Florida. Underlying all of the various activities – and arm-waving to try to disguise the lack of any real activity – is a bleak set of stats:

In 2016, the Rays had the lowest attendance in MLB – and by a sizeable deficit from the next-lowest attendance. The Rays drew 1,286,163 fans this year; that is 15,879 fans per game. The next lowest attendance was the Oakland A’s (no real surprise there) but the A’s drew 18.3% more fans than did the Rays. Oh, but it gets worse …

In 2015, the Rays were also the worst draw in MLB and they drew even fewer fans in 2015 than they did in 2016.

The Rays have finished last in MLB in attendance for 5 consecutive seasons.

One might be tempted to conclude that the Rays did not contend this year or last year in any meaningful way and therefore attendance ebbed naturally. Well, when the Rays played away games this year, they played to crowds that averaged just under 30,000 fans; they were enough of a draw on the road to attract fans of other teams to head on out to the ballpark.

St. Petersburg is in Pinellas County in Florida. A group called Baseball Forever is seeking ways to keep the team in St. Petersburg near where it is currently located. Other entities/individuals have put forth ideas for 10 other locations in Pinellas County where a new stadium might be sited. Will any of these plans provide the Rays with a larger and more reliable fanbase? I have no idea, but the lack of businesses and population centers within a 30-minute drive of Tropicana Field is quite often cited as a basis for the poor attendance over the years.

The various groups who think they have the “right place” for a new stadium cite these figures:

816,000 people live within a 30-minute drive of Tropicana Field.

Every other site mentioned in Pinellas County has more than 1,000,000 people living within a 30-minute drive of the proposed site.

I’m sorry, but that sort of argumentation leaves me cold. The Rays drew less than 16,000 fans per game last year. If 816,000 folks live within a 30-minute drive of the stadium, my interpretation is not that there are insufficient numbers of potential fans; my interpretation is that the people who live there are not baseball fans and would rather do something else with their time and discretionary expense money. Even if you assume that no one EVER drives more than 30 minutes to see a Rays’ game – clearly nonsensical – that means less than 2% of the “nearby folks” care enough to go see the games.

In the past, the Rays’ owners expressed an interest in having a downtown stadium in Tampa – which is not in Pinellas County. That suggestion/overture got some folks there looking into possibilities and that got a flurry of activity going on that side of Tampa Bay to include one suggestion to put a stadium out near Plant City which is along the Interstate east of Tampa. I have not heard or read anything about those sorts of activities/ideas for about a year now so maybe the “only game in town” is the “Pinellas County Lottery”. This is a situation that needs a solution…

Baseball attendance was basically flat this year; overall, MLB attendance was down 184 fans per game; total attendance in 2016 was 73,159,044. Seven teams drew more than 3 million fans for the season; the Red Sox almost did that drawing 2,955,434 which is a tad over 96% capacity at Fenway Park. Bad teams this year like the Braves and the Twins drew 700,000 more fans than did the Rays.

However, looking at the attendance figures for MLB this year, there were a couple of numbers that stood out:

The Orioles only drew 2.17M fans (26,819 per game). The Orioles were in contention all year long and made the second wild card slot in the AL. Nevertheless, the Orioles attendance was DOWN an average of 2,427 fans per game as compared to 2015. What is going on there?

The Tigers drew just under 2.5M fans (31.173 per game). They did not make the wild card slot bur were in contention for one of the slots until the final days of the season. Nevertheless, the Tigers’ attendance was DOWN an average of 2,483 per game. Say what?

The Nationals drew 2.48M fans (30,641 per game). The Nats ran away and hid in the NL East; it was pretty obvious they would be in the playoffs in early August. Nevertheless, Nats’ attendance was DOWN 1,703 fans per game. Oh, by the way, living in the DC area I know that all season long there were promotional games and series where fans could buy-one-get-one free ticket deals and other series where seats were available for $10. And attendance was DOWN?

The Washington Business Journal also took note of the attendance slump for the Nats in this article. Local business journals/publications are very good sources of data although they rarely if ever paint any sort of bleak picture in their reporting. So I found it interesting – because it was unusual – for the lead paragraph to be:

“The Washington Nationals might be back in the playoffs after a one-year absence, but the 95-win regular season wasn’t necessarily a winner at the gate.”

Finally, earlier this season, Dwight Perry took note of a foul ball that landed in a funnel cake deep fryer during a game at Minute Maid Park in Houston. Here was his comment in the Seattle Times:

“In other words, it was a deep fry ball to left.”

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

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

“Curmudgeonly rant: With penalties for taunting up 220 percent compared to the first four weeks of last season, the NFL is taking steps to clarify the rules of deportment for the benefit of the obstreperous players. So this is how far we’ve sunk. There was a time when the primary rule governing on-field conduct was an obvious and unwritten one: don’t act like a jackass. Those days are long gone.”

I agree completely that the meaning of and the limits imposed by that simple unwritten rule are long gone – and perhaps even long forgotten. So I sent this e-mail message to Professor Molinaro:

“When did NFL on-field ‘jackassery’ begin?

“Billy ‘White Shoes’ Johnson dancing in the end-zone?

“Harold Carmichael spiking the ball in the end-zone after a D catch?

“Mark Gastineau doing his sack dance’?

“I totally agree that it is getting out of hand but trying to define what is ‘excessive’ celebration and what is ‘taunting’ as opposed to ‘talking smack’ is a fool’s errand. Maybe that is a good thing because who better to set out on a fool’s errand than Roger Goodell and Dean Blandino and the rest of the suits in the NFL Front Office?”

I think the question as to the origins of excessive celebration is sufficiently interesting to pose it to the general audience here. My personal opinion is that Billy Johnson doing his end zone dance after returning a punt or a kickoff for a TD was the impetus for today’s ubiquitous end-zone celebrations. I think it was Mark Gastineau’s “sack dance” that set things on the course for “excessive celebration” because in many cases the sack that set the celebration in motion was not immediately impactful on the game. For example, he would celebrate a sack in the 4th quarter when the Jets were behind by 2 scores. Big deal…

I know others here will have cogent opinions/observations on this matter – – so have at it.

Having led off today with the issue of on-field jackassery, let me point to a recent NFL example of off-field jackassery. During the BYE Week prior to yesterday’s game in Detroit, the Eagles’ linebacker, Nigel Bradham, was arrested in Miami for carrying a loaded gun in his backpack in Miami airport. Earlier this year, Bradham was also arrested in South Florida for allegedly punching a hotel employee; his trial for assault and battery in that case is scheduled for January 2017.The Eagles’ defensive coordinator, Jim Schwartz, had coached Bradham in other stops in the NFL and had recommended that the Eagles bring Bradham to the team. However, Schwartz did get right down to the heart of this matter with this comment:

“You do enough dumb-ass things, pretty soon, you’re going to be labeled a dumb ass.”

I think coach Schwartz’ comment there has myriad application and it explains many of my sentiments with regard to people and institutions. For example, that explains pretty much the way I feel about the folks at the NCAA who write the silly eligibility rules and then enforce them stupidly. That pretty much explains how and why I think so poorly of the 535 members of the US Congress. I think this may be an important “principle” that will need invocation in the future and so I will declare that statement to be:

The Schwartz Conjecture.

Profootballtalk.com reported last week that Johnny Manziel has now served his 4-game suspension and can therefore be signed by any NFL team and put on the field next Sunday should that team choose to do something that dumb. Somehow, the fact that Manziel was not under contract to any team in the league had nothing to do with starting the clock on his 4-game suspension. In fact, his “suspension” coincided with a stretch of 4 NFL games where no team wanted him to play in the first place. Not a lot of “deterrent value” in that there punishment, I would say…

Roger Goodell could suspend me for 4 games just the way Manziel was suspended for 4 games and the effect on me and the NFL would be exactly the same. Neither of us would care; none of you would care.

The Atlanta Falcons will have to give up 3 days of Organized Team Activities (OTAs) in 2017 because the team violated the work rules spelled out in the current CBA between the NFL and the NFLPA. According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, the Falcons let players “engage in excessive levels of on-field physical contact” back in May 2016. This provision of the rules was put there with the idea of promoting player safety in practice settings. You can read the rest of the account of this matter here.

Finally, since I began today talking about on-field jackassery and excessive celebrations, let me close with this comment from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald on that subject:

“The NFL is cracking down on touchdown celebrations. I think it was the guy who did the 11-minute naked Lambada atop the goal post crossbar that pushed the commissioner over the edge.”

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

I think we have been here before; I think we know how this story plays out. The Philadelphia 76ers had the first overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft and they took Ben Simmons. Now, just as NBA teams were getting set for training camps and exhibition games, Ben Simmons suffered a broken foot; he has undergone surgery on that foot; he will be out for a TBD length of time. The Sixers say they will not “hurry” him back; Simmons’ agent hinted that he might advise Simmons to sit out the entire season.

Let me do a quick review here of the Sixers “prime” acquisitions” in recent off-seasons:

In 2012, the Sixers acquired Andrew Bynum from the Lakers in a multi-team swap that essentially cost the Sixers Andre Iguodala. Andrew Bynum had a bad knee and never played a minute for the Sixers. They let him go to Cleveland in 2013.

In 2013, the Sixers traded to get Nerlens Noel on Draft Night. Noel had torn his ACL during his only year at Kentucky. He did not play at all in his first year in the NBA as he rehabbed from that knee surgery.

In 2013, the Sixers drafted Michael Carter-Williams with their own pick in the draft. Williams won Rookie of the Year – – and then needed shoulder surgery. Halfway through his second season, the Sixers traded him to Milwaukee in a multi-team deal where they essentially got a future draft pick.

In 2014, the Sixers selected Joel Embiid near the top of the NBA Draft. Embiid suffered a stress fracture in his back while at Kansas and then prior to the draft he broke a bone in his foot. That surgery and rehab kept him out all of what would have been his rookie year. That surgery required a second operation and he also missed all of what would have been his second NBA season.

In 2015, the Sixers took Jahlil Okafor near the top of the NBA Draft. Okafor managed to start the season with the Sixers and played a little over half the season before he suffered a partial tear of the meniscus in his knee.

And now, Ben Simmons …

You know, if we did not have the Affordable Care Act on the books, I think health insurance companies might look at players acquired by the Sixers in the off-season and declare that acquisition to be a “pre-existing condition” as a means to increase the premiums for the player’s insurance coverage …

Last week during the run-up to the Bills/Pats game, there was speculation that the Pats might have to play Julian Edelman at QB. Edelman had been a QB in college at Kent State but let me just say that his quarterbacking experience at the NFL level was “meager”. Bob Molinaro had this item in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot last week as a way to remind folks that this sort of thing had happened before in NFL history:

“Back in the day: For some of us of a certain age, speculation that receiver Julian Edelman could fill in at quarterback for the Patriots on Sunday recalls the time that Don Shula’s Baltimore Colts, having lost quarterbacks Johnny Unitas and Gary Cuozzo to injury late in the 1965 season, turned to running back Tom Matte. Wearing the NFL’s first play-calling wristband, Matte quarterbacked the Colts to victory over the Rams before Baltimore suffered a playoff loss in overtime to the Packers. Matte’s wristband is displayed in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.”

Like Edelman, Matte had played QB in college at Ohio State but he was a runner and not a thrower. Matte led the Colts to a win over the LA Rams in his first game and then lost in overtime to the Packers in the playoff game that followed that one.

According to this report in the Chicago Business Journal, World Series Fever seems to have reached epidemic proportion in Chicago. The report says that TicketCity – a reseller of event tickets – had the median price for Game 1 of the World Series Game at Wrigley Field at $3900. The median prices for Game 2 and Game 3 were $3800 and $3600 respectively.

If the oddsmakers are to be believed, some of the good folks in Chicago will actually get to shell out that kind of money to see the Cubbies play in the World Series. In addition to bucking the trend of not having won the Series since 1908, the Cubs also need to recognize that only 1 team since 2000 has won the World Series after winning 100 or more games in the regular season – as the Cubs did this year. Nonetheless, here are the odds to win – not just participate in but to win – the World Series as of now:

Cubs 7-4
Rangers 5-1
Red Sox 6-1
Dodgers 7-1
Nationals 7-1
Blue Jays 14-1
Indians 14-1
Mets 20-1
Orioles 25-1
Giants 25-1

I think a Cubs/Red Sox World Series would be fun to watch given the potential for offensive fireworks from both teams.

The playoffs got off to a rousing start last night with an 11-inning game in Toronto where the Blue Jays managed to advance to the next level of the playoffs beating the Orioles 5-2 on a monstrous HR by Edwin Encarnation in the bottom of the 11th inning.

Tonight’s game between the Mets and the Giants portrays itself as a battle of pitching titans. Noah Syndergaard takes the mound for the Mets; he and Madison Bumgarner go at it in this game for the honor of playing the Cubs in the NLDS.

The stats that surprise me for this playoff team are these three taken in juxtaposition:

Rangers scored 765 runs for the season
Rangers allowed 757 runs for the season
Rangers record was 95-67

Finally, here is some data and commentary about another set of baseball stats from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times:

“Home runs in Major League Baseball, according to ESPN.com, are up 13.8 percent from 2015 and up 33 percent over 2014.

“What, are they dipping the balls in flaxseed oil or something?”

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

I must start today with a tip of the hat to Broderick Crawford and his catch phrase on the old TV show, Highway Patrol.

Since yesterday’s rant focused on my position that this is the time to legalize and regulate sports gambling, I want to present two issues here that tangentially related to that. In the past week or so, the IOC found it necessary to channel the words of Baron Pierre de Coubertin – the man who resurrected the Olympic Games – with regard to three boxers from the recent games in Rio. The good Baron once said:

“The day when a sportsman stops thinking above all else of the happiness in his own effort and the intoxication of the power and physical balance he derives from it, the day when he lets considerations of vanity or interest take over, on this day his ideal will die.”

It seems that these three boxers – two Irishmen and one from Great Britain – stopped thinking of the happiness in their own efforts long enough to wager on some of the boxing events that were ongoing. I read the reports here as carefully as I could, but I did not see any indication that the IOC thought that they had bet on the matches that they participated in.

Here are the punishments handed down:

Each of the three boxers received a severe reprimand from the IOC. [Aside: If “severe reprimands” were worth more than unit of unicorn upchuck, there would be no crime problems in the world.]

Each boxer – should he be eligible to compete in future Games and should he qualify – will have to show that he followed an educational program established by the IOC. [Translation: They have to take a training course.] The way the IOC thinks about this is that they must actively participate in the educational programs established by the IOC, the Olympic Organizing Committee in either Ireland or the UK and the AIBA which is the international federation that oversees amateur boxing competitions.

The Olympic Committees in Ireland and in the UK were also reprimanded for failing to inform their athletes about the content of all the IOC rules that might apply to them. [Aside: Unless that means those Committees get a smaller share of the various bribes that flow through the Olympic Movement, I doubt that will “leave a mark” on any of those folks.] Moreover, they are directed to do a better job at this sort of “informing” in future Olympiads. [Wow! I bet that stings. Oops, Am I allowed to make a gambling reference here?]

The AIBA does not receive a reprimand here but the IOC puts it on notice that the IOC expects the AIBA to make sure that its regulations for its competitions are congruent with the regulations contained in the Olympic Code. The AIBA is to set up its own education programs and is to inform the IOC of the content of those programs to assure congruency with the Olympic Code.

I know nothing about these 3 boxers other than what is above. If Rio was the end of their amateur boxing career, I doubt that any of the stuff summarized above means anything at all to them. If any of them are turning pro, none of that means anything to them. All of this is great theater and allows the IOC to appear to be on a moral high ground – a place they occupy about as frequently as the Chicago Cubs win the World Series.

If – based on the example above – you have the idea that the “gambling related” items for today are only of marginal importance, you will be happy to know that the second one is about as important as the first one. According to a report last week in the Dayton Business Journal, lawyers representing Pete Rose have sent a letter to the Baseball Hall of Fame asking the Hall of Fame to reconsider Rose’s eligibility for inclusion there.

This issue is a sports version of Whack-A-Mole. As soon as it is bludgeoned out of sight in one venue, it pops up in another. It seems that the basis for this letter for eligibility reconsideration stems from the reconsideration that Commissioner Rob Manfred conducted about a year ago where he chose not to reinstate Rose into baseball. The lawyers have seized upon this statement from Rob Manfred with regard to Hall of Fame eligibility:

“It is not part of my authority of responsibility here to make any determination concerning Mr. Rose’s eligibility as a candidate for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In fact, in my view, the considerations that should drive a decision on whether an individual should be allowed to work in baseball are not the same as those that should drive a decision on Hall of Fame eligibility. … Thus, any debate over Mr. Rose’s eligibility for the Hall of Fame is one that must take place in a different forum.”

My position on this issue has been for the last 25 years that Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame for what he did on the field during his career. If in the modern day incarnation of the Hall of Fame there need be societal norms attached to one’s candidacy, then my solution would be to put two narrative plaques beneath the busts of the players in the Hall:

Plaque #1 would recount his statistical achievements and explain why – as a baseball player – he was one of the elite ever to play the game.

Plaque #2 would explain to the visitor how/why this person fell short of a societal norm or ran afoul of a baseball rule.

Note please that my solution to the presence of societal norms today would ease the debates about players from the Steroid Era getting into the Hall of Fame. It would – unfortunately – also require that “second plaques” be added to the busts of more than a few of the older members of the Hall of Fame whose behaviors then would surely offend lots of folks today and people who are offended today would engage in a Twitter jihad to make that person’s candidacy a cause celebre.

If we were to move to a social stature where betting on sporting events was not stigmatized, we could avoid both of the sorts of situations that I have described above. That would make the world a better place – which is sort of what Baron Pierre de Coubertin obviously hoped to do by resuscitating the Olympic Games.

Finally, here is a comment regarding the Rio Olympics that I found in Brad Rock’s column, Rock On, in the Deseret News recently:

“Late night host Conan O’Brien: ‘It’s been reported that after winning three gold medals in Rio, Usain Bolt was caught cheating on his girlfriend. More impressive, he was also found with another woman just 14 seconds later.’”

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

Earlier this week, I mentioned that LSU fired Les Miles as the head football coach. I am a firm believer that players are more responsible for winning and losing individual games than are coaches and that coaches are more responsible for the overall direction/philosophy of the program than are players. That is why it makes little sense to me to fire a coach because of a bad loss – on the last play of a game in this case. Moreover, I see the potential for parallels here that might not be attractive to LSU fans. Consider:

Frustrated by a downturn in football fortunes, Tennessee fired Phil Fulmer in 2008. Phil Fulmer had won a national championship at Tennessee in 1998. The only other coach to do that for Tennessee was Robert Neyland who did it 3 times in 1938, 1950 and 1951. Tennessee football since Fulmer left town has seen 3 head coaches and a cumulative record of 42-44. That is pure mediocrity.

Frustrated by a downturn in football fortunes, Michigan fired Lloyd Carr in 2007. Lloyd Carr had won a national championship at Michigan in 1997. The sainted Bo Schembechler was the coach at Michigan for 21 years and coached 296 games there; Saint Bo won exactly ZERO national championships. In fact, Saint Bo was 5-12 in bowl games. After Carr left, the next two coaches led the Wolverines to a cumulative record of 46-42. That is pure mediocrity. And that led to the hiring of Jim Harbaugh who seems to have set the Michigan program on an upward vector once again.

Now to the present…

Frustrated by the failure of LSU to win championships – and particularly frustrated by the fact that former LSU coach Nick Saban has been winning a bunch of them at Alabama, LSU fired Les Miles in 2016. Les Miles had won a national championship at LSU in 2007. The only other coaches at LSU ever to do that were Nick Saban (2003) and Paul Dietzel (1958). Miles overall record produced a winning percentage of .778 and that is a higher winning percentage than either Saban produced (.750) or Dietzel produced (.651). What is next for LSU football? We shall see …

In NFL news, Greg Hardy was arrested once again in suburban Dallas. During a routine traffic stop, police found cocaine in Hardy’s car and a packet of cocaine in his wallet. Hardy proclaims his innocence saying that he had been at a party and was paying for everything there and that is how his wallet got passed around to other folks. As to the bag of cocaine in his car, his explanation is that someone at the party gave it to him and he did not know what it was. Remember, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law …

Greg Hardy hopes someday to get another chance to play NFL football. The fact that Jerry Jones – the Father Flannigan of the NFL now that Al Davis has joined the original Father Flannigan in the cosmos – refused to sign him to a contract this year tells you that Greg Hardy is “radioactive” at the moment. And that decision was taken prior to this arrest.

When I read the reports of this incident, I was not surprised at all to note two things:

1. Hardy’s agent refused to comment.

2. Hardy’s agent was Drew Rosenhaus.

Speaking obliquely of the Dallas Cowboys, the Dallas Business Journal reported that the Cowboys are the only NFL team with an estimated value from Forbes that is above $4B. The Cowboys are valued at $4.2B in 2016; the next most valuable franchise is the New England Patriots at $3.4B; the least valuable NFL franchise is the Buffalo Bills at $1.5B. If you care to see the estimated valuation of all the NFL franchises, here is a link.

Staying with the NFL for now, profootballtalk.com reported that Lady Gaga will be the headline performer at the Super Bowl in February 2017. I always look forward to this annual announcement because it lets me know which “artist” I will be ignoring during the halftime of that game. While I could not pretend to be knowledgeable about Ms. Gaga at all, I do know that she once wore a dress made out of meat to some sort of ceremony and that enraged the folks at PETA. Everyone here knows that I have little time for PETA and its members because they trivialize their activism with nonsense. Therefore, anyone who can piss off PETA gets a gold star from me.

I also recall reading something that is another “plus” for Lady Gaga. I recall that the Chinese government has blocked her from citizens in China because she was considered a “hostile entity” (or some similar description) because she met with the Dalai Lama. The only thing I know about her music is that she once did a duet with Tony Bennett which had to have been one of the great cross-generational events of the decade.

As the MLB season draws to a close, you have precious little time left to get to a park to sample some of the outrageous food offerings that are still out there.

Go to a Cleveland Indians game and get a hot dog with bacon, pimento mac-and-cheese, ketchup, and Froot Loops. That sandwich has two violations:
Ketchup on a hot dog is never permissible.

Froot Loops is miserable as a cereal; what makes anyone think it belongs on a hot dog.

Go to a Detroit Tigers game and get a BratPop. This is pure simplicity. You take a bratwurst, put it on a stick, dip it in batter and deep-fry it. Probably best served with a side order of Zocor.

Go to a San Diego Padres game and get Poke Nachos. This is a cross-cultural monstrosity consisting of nacho chips covered with jalapenos, edamame, pickled ginger, scallions, kimchee, shishito peppers and avocado cream.

Finally, consider this commentary from Brad Rock in the Deseret News recognizing a nexus between politics and sports:

“Mark Cuban has offered to pay $10 million to charity if allowed to interview Trump for four hours.

“Cuban, a former Trump supporter, apparently got upset when he heard The Donald plans to build a wall around Germany to keep out Dirk Nowitzki.”

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

The MLB regular season has only one week to go and there are lots of things about the playoffs leading to the World Series that remain undecided. Five of the six division winners are mathematically decided; the Red Sox lead in the AL East is such that they will lose that title only if they lose all of their remaining games and the Blue Jays win all of their remaining games. Could happen – – but I would not bet on it. The situation in the AL Central is not locked in but the Tigers are in even more dire straits than the Blue Jays. The Tigers need to win their last 7 games AND have the Indians lose their last 7 games to forge a tie there. Could happen – – but I would not bet on it.

The Wild Card slots are a totally different story.

In the National League going into last night’s games, the Pirates and the Marlins were still mathematically in contention. I acknowledge that here for completeness but both teams are hanging onto playoff hopes in pure desperation.

The Mets, Giants and Cardinals remain the three most likely teams to produce the two wild card teams in the National League. I said back before the season began that the schedule maker had been nice to the Mets giving them the Marlins and Phillies as the two final series of the year. The Mets can finish off the Marlins and should be able to deal with the Phillies. I like the Mets chances to get into the playoffs

The Giants have stunk it up since the All-Star break playing .375 baseball since then. Nonetheless, they are on the brink of getting into the playoffs which is what they will need to do if they want to continue their “even-year World Series Champion” string. The Giants are at home for the rest of the year hosting the Rockies and then the Dodgers.

The Cardinals finish with 7 games at home. In any normal year, I would just pencil the Cards into a wild card position because they are normally a good team at home. Not this year… They entered last night’s games with a home record of 33-41. Only Atlanta and Arizona have worse home records in the NL. The Cards have 4 games with the Reds (not a good team) and then 3 with the Pirates who ought to be out of the running by that time.

The National League should be interesting going to the wire…

If the National League has the potential to be “interesting” then the American League shapes up to be “potentially outrageous”. The Blue Jays, Orioles, Tigers, Astros and Mariners are within shouting distance of one another. The Astros and Mariners can settle their differences mano a mano with a 3-game series in Houston. If either team executes a sweep here, they will stay alive and kill of the other team. If they split, they will likely doom both sides.

The team with an interesting schedule wrinkle is the Orioles. They finish the season with all 6 remaining games on the road against the Blue Jays and the Yankees. Here is the rub:

The Orioles are 50-31 at home and only 35-40 on the road. That is the worst road record of all the “contenders”

The Orioles are only 36-34 against the AL East.

As of today, the Orioles would claim the second wild card slot but if they play poorly on the road against AL East opponents, they could get caught by one of the teams currently on the outs.

Of course, what I would prefer to have happen would be a 3-way tie in the NL and then a 4-way tie in the AL just so we can all see some extra baseball games. Could happen – – but I would not bet on it.

The Atlanta Braves have been “hot” – sort of – since the call-ups at the beginning of September. The Braves are 13-9 in September and they are 7-3 in their last 10 games. Why bring that up? Well, the race at the bottom to see who gets the #1 overall pick in the draft looked like it would go to the Braves 3 weeks ago. Now they have ceded that position to the Twins who have had one of the more miserable seasons in 2016. The Twins have already lost 100 games – with 6 more to play – and no other team in MLB can possibly lose 100 games for the season. However, now the Braves are in danger of dropping even lower in the draft pecking order. Here are the standings in the race for the bottom as of last night:

Minnesota 56-100
Atlanta 63-92
Arizona 64-91
Cincinnati 65-90
Tampa Bay 65-90
San Diego 66-90

Here in Curmudgeon Central, we always enjoy watching the bottom of the standings almost as much as we enjoy watching playoff races as they come down to the wire.

Finally, since I have been on the subject of teams suffering some baseball futility this year, consider this comment from Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald about a game between the Twins and the Astros earlier this year:

“The Twins-Astros game in Minneapolis was rained out on Umbrella Night. The Twins’ new Director of Irony called it ‘The greatest night in sports history.’”

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

I do not intend this to be a maudlin morning, but things happened last weekend that were not uplifting. José Fernandez – the Miami Marlins’ pitching ace – died at age 24 in a boating accident that also claimed the lives of two other people. Fernandez was only 24 and arrived in the US to start a baseball career as a Cuban defector. The accident that took his life involved a boat probably traveling at high speed hitting the rocks of a jetty in waters near Miami. Authorities say there was no evidence of drug or alcohol involvement here.

Rest in peace, José Fernandez.

Arnold Palmer died on Sunday at the age of 87. Everyone who reaps benefits from the PGA Tour should show up at his funeral/celebration of life service. Arnold Palmer made golf a television sport; before him it was a curiosity on TV; his charisma and his daring style of play – feast or famine – drew millions of followers that came to be known as Arnie’s Army. In terms of being the media focus for golf, he was Tiger Woods before anyone even thought of Tiger Woods.

Rest in peace, Arnold Palmer.

I found the following e-mail in my inbox this morning from a former colleague who now lives in southern California and who is an avid LA Dodgers fan.

“It’s been an emotional week here. Vin Scully’s last game at Dodger Stadium just ended, appropriately with the clinching of the NL West. Each player, as he came to bat, took off his cap and waved good-bye at Vin in the broadcast booth. I’ve been listening most of the year, and I can tell you that he has sounded better than ever, but he seems at peace with his decision. Half of southern California is in tears. It’s not a death, but it feels like one.”

Vin Scully started in broadcasting in Brooklyn as part of a radio team for the Brooklyn Dodgers that was led by Red Barber. [Aside: Ernie Harwell was also part of that team. If you compile a list of the “10 best baseball broadcasters”, I assure you that all three of these folks would be on the list.] Scully has been at the microphone for 67 years.

Bonne chance, Vin Scully.

Three coaches in college football lost their jobs last weekend. LSU fired head coach, Les Miles, and offensive coordinator, Cam Cameron, after losing to Auburn 18-13. Miles had been on the hot seat for a while in Baton Rouge; he was almost fired last year after LSU suffered a 3-game losing streak for the first time this century. LSU is 2-2 this year; Miles’ firing demonstrates the “What Have You Done For Me Lately” nature of college football in the SEC. Miles started at LSU in 2005; here is what happened on his watch:

One national championship

Overall record of 114-34 (Winning percentage = 77.2%)

Winning percentage is the highest in school history (higher than either Nick Saban or Bill Arnsparger)

Ed Orgeron – formerly the head coach at USC and at Ole Miss – takes over the team. Orgeron’s overall record as a head coach is 16-27 (winning percentage = 37.2%); obviously, that sort of performance will not satisfy the folks at LSU.

The fact that Cam Cameron was also fired along with Les Miles does not come as a shock. LSU’s offense has been disappointing for the last year or so and if the frustration built to the point that the school – and its boosters – were willing to pony up the money to fire Miles, it is pretty clear that Cameron would also get the ax.

Paying off a fired head coach at a major college football program and then hiring another one is not a cheap proposition. Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald recently had this comment in one of his columns that will give you an idea of the sort or money we are talking about here:

“New University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds is expected to receive a 6.3 percent pay raise to $510,400. No, no, no! It’s just wrong when the president of a major university earns almost one-fifth as much as the head football coach.”

The third college football coach to be shown the door over the weekend was Brian VanGorder – defensive coordinator at Notre Dame. The Irish had CFP aspirations at the beginning of the season; their record now stands at 1-3 and they lost at home last weekend to Duke. That was bad enough but they lost to Duke by giving up 38 points to a team that has struggled to score against opponents of far lower stature than Notre Dame. VanGorder will be replaced by Greg Hudson who has been a defensive coordinator at Minnesota, E. Carolina and Purdue.

Good News: Hudson has been a defensive coordinator before so he knows what the job entails.

Bad news: His defenses in the past have not done very well at all. His best defense was at E. Carolina in 2006 when it ranked 59th in the country. In two years 2009 and 2015, his defense ranked 100th or worse in the country.

Finally, since I mentioned Brad Dickson above, let me close here with another of his observations related to college football:

“Johnny Manziel has reportedly re-enrolled at Texas A&M. I look for him to drop out after Oktoberfest parties are completed.”

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

I have pointed out here in the past that college football is not nearly as big a deal here in the Northeast US as it is in other parts of the country. A recent report in the New York Business Journal underscores the situation here.

Maryland and Rutgers – the two schools most recently added to the Big 10 in order for the conference to have a footprint in the heavily populated megalopolis of the Northeast US – will play each other in football this year. That game will take place on 4 November and it will be in Yankee Stadium in NYC. Yankee Stadium will seat 54,000 people and if you have tuned in to see any Rutgers’ football games on TV recently, you can convince yourself easily from the crowd shots that they tend not to draw that many fans to the stadium.

Not to worry, someone in the “marketing division” involved with this game came up with a way to goose attendance.

“The two schools announced the ‘Big Ten Battle in the Bronx’ on Tuesday, hosted by Rutgers University. That day [November 4], the Terps and Scarlett Knights will face off in a wrestling match, the first to be held in the 54,000-seat stadium, followed by a football game later that afternoon.”

Think about this for a moment.

Most college wrestling matches take place indoors with a few hundred fans – or possible a couple thousand fans – in attendance. The seats are close to the action.

Imagine for a moment watching a college wrestling match in a baseball stadium – any baseball stadium. Now that you have that picture in your head does it surprise you that this will be “the first to be held in the 54,000 seat stadium?”

One more point … It might be cold outdoors in the morning in NYC in early November. Think for a moment how Yankee fans might be dressed if there were a baseball game there on the evening of 3 November. College wrestlers normally do not wear parkas while limbering up or while competing.

I am not someone who is averse to change; I spent a major portion of my career in jobs that required and rewarded “thinking outside the box”. When one does that over a period of time, one comes to realize that every new idea is not necessarily a good idea. We had a saying in the office that thinking outside the box was something to be encouraged – – unless of course you were talking to your cat.

Since I mentioned the college football game between Maryland and Rutgers above, let me segue here into another issue that involves college football. The games are getting longer and longer – – and longer still. I read a report that the Florida State/Ole Miss game from Week 1 took 4 hours and 4 minutes to play. [Aside: That datum comes from a report; I did not time he game.] That is too long; remember the running clock for the game is only 1 hour and at least some of that time involves no action as the clock runs while players line up and figure out what to do on the next snap.

Also, consider that this negative reaction to the length of some college football games comes from someone who really likes college football. I pay a lot more attention to college football than the vast majority of sports fans who live in the Northeast US and I think the games should not take 4 hours to play.

I believe the major culprit in stretching out the game times is the college rule that the clock will stop on every first down until the ball is set and the chains are set and the officials signal the ball to be alive again. Consider that Florida State/Ole Miss game from above. In that game, there were 53 first downs made by the two teams. That probably stretched the game out by 10 minutes as the clock was stopped for everything to happen prior to the next snap.

Wondering if that game was an anomaly, I checked a few games from that same week between competitive teams:

Notre Dame/Texas had 48 first downs
Oklahoma/Houston had 42 first downs
UCLA/Texas A&M had 51 first downs

That is not an exhaustive survey by any stretch of the imagination but I think it does indicate that one could shorten some college games a bit if the NFL rule on clock running applied to the college game.

There are other factors to consider here and let me point out one of them that cannot be cured by any sort of rule change.

College football is a higher scoring sport than NFL football.

There are plenty of reasons for that and the fact that it is higher scoring is part of its appeal. Every time there is a TD or a field goal, the game stops for a series of TV commercials. That happens more frequently in a college game than in a pro game and I do not think one should try to tinker with that aspect of college football. However, one could consider doing one or both of these things:

1. Why is halftime 20 minutes long? It was not always that long. Does it really have to be that long?

2. Put a hard and fast time limit on the review of plays by the folks doing the reviewing. Honestly, some of them seem to take 4 or 5 minutes all by themselves.

These are merely constructive suggestions because I do enjoy watching college football…

Finally, since everything today related somehow to college football, let me close with a comment from Bob Molinaro of the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot right after Wisconsin beat LSU to start this college football season:

“Nonsense ahead: With Louisiana State’s loss to Wisconsin, Tigers coach Les Miles is on the hot seat one game into the season. If worse comes to worse, Miles can always find a cooler coaching seat in Canada, but first, he’d have to change his name to Fewer Kilometers.”

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

About 60 years ago, Judy Garland sang:

“Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina … in the morning.”

The song goes on to extol the natural beauty of Carolina – not specifying North or South and so by implication it can be both or either – and how wonderful life is there when you are with loved ones. That is all probably true and it all probably still exists today – – unless you are a sports fan in North Carolina.

The NCAA came down hard on the State of North Carolina moving all of its championship tournament activities out of the state due to the “Bathroom Bill” that is extant there. The ACC followed suit last week and announced that 8 Conference Championship events over the next year will be relocated. Here is the list, in case you did not see it and where each event was supposed to happen:

Women’s soccer – – Cary NC
Football – – Charlotte NC
Men’s and women’s swimming/diving – – Greensboro NC
Women’s basketball – – Greensboro NC
Men’s and women’s tennis – – Cary NC
Women’s golf – – Greensboro NC
Men’s golf – – New London NC
Baseball – – Durham NC

Perched atop all of these sanctions and all of the acrimony associated with the sanctions, the NCAA is still dealing with the decades-long academic scandal at UNC. The NCAA is in an uncomfortable and contorted position here – and frankly, I hope they stay there for a while until it hurts. I do not want to get down in the weeds here so here is the overview of the NCAA’s conundrum:

What UNC did by sending athletes to sham courses and having them take Swahili as their foreign language – not particularly useful in terms of employment here in the US – strikes at the heart of why the NCAA exists.
The glorified “student-athlete” at UNC was not really a student. The “student-athlete” was taking courses that did not exist or which had minimal academic content/value.

The “amateurism ideal” requires that the “student-athlete” provide service to the university in exchange for the costs of his/her education. Well, if they were not being educated, then their “free tuition and board” must have been something other than what supports “amateurism”.

The NCAA overseers did not find out about any of this for about 20 years which might cause some folks to ask what those overseers do for a living. And that would be a fair course of inquiry – one with more intellectual content than some of the sham courses provided for UNC athletes. Even more maliciously, one might ask if the overseers “kinda sorta knew” about this but turned a blind eye because UNC is a major presence in several NCAA sports – – including the two that produce 99% of the revenue. Before you call that inquiry overly cynical please recall:

The only difference between a cynic and a realist is whether or not you agree with him.

The NCAA position in all of this is sort of a hodgepodge of wreckage surrounded by a jumble of debris. To a large extent, it is a problem of their own making and the only way for them to get out of it will be to pay lots of money to a bunch of people in exchange for a confidentiality agreement so that all of the clutter does not come to light. Meanwhile, pardon me for enjoying their discomfort…

Speaking of problems of one’s own making – sometimes referred to as shooting oneself in the foot – the Indianapolis Star had a report last week about a man who overreacted just a bit to losing out on a job opportunity. It seems as if this man aspired to be a 4th grade teacher and a basketball coach in Indiana but the school district involved picked someone else to do those jobs. Obviously, anyone would be disappointed if he/she were among the applicants not selected for the position but I do not think I would ever be in such a state to do what this guy is alleged to have done.

He began harassing the man who got the jobs – – and the man’s fiancée.

He mailed packages containing dead animals (4 skunks and a raccoon) to the man and his fiancée.

The package with the dead raccoon included a note telling the man to “Resign, it will not stop.”

He mailed letters to the employer claiming that the man had a sexual relationship with an underage student.

He informed Child Protective Services that the man was abusing his fiancée’s daughter.

He spray-painted threats on the personal vehicles of the man and his fiancée.

If only half of these allegations are indeed correct, I think I can say with confidence that this person is not someone that I would want to be part of the elementary education system in my county. Lest you think I am making this up, here is the link to the story in the Indianapolis Star:

Finally, since I began this rant with a reference to an old song, let me close with this item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“From the Sometimes You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up file comes word that fibbing swimmer Ryan Lochte’s choice of music for his ‘Dancing with the Stars’ debut was ‘Call Me Irresponsible.’”

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