The Sports Curmudgeon

As Final Four Weekend approaches, this is a year of change for TV viewers.  From 2004 until last year, Jim Nantz had been the play-by-play guy on CBS; Nantz has relinquished that role this year and Ian Eagle will take his place along with Grant Hill and Bill Raferty to present the games to the country.  Based on the games this trio has done so far in this year’s tournament, the transition has been seamless.  My only “regret” is that Eagle’s promotion broke up a great announcing tandem of Ian Eagle and Jim Spanarkel – – but such is the way of the world.

Jim Nantz is not retiring completely.  He will continue as the lead play-by-play guy for CBS presentations of NFL games along with Tony Romo.  And, you will recognize his voice if you tune in to see The Masters the weekend after next.

Moving on … I have shared many historical and statistical sports notes here that have come to me from the “reader in Houston”.  Yesterday, he demonstrated that his access to historical events crosses over into the world of entertainment.  Yesterday, I closed with an observation by actor Jack Palance; late yesterday afternoon, I got this email from the “reader in Houston”:

“FYI – Jack Palance, before his career as a boxer and then as a WW2 bomber pilot where he was in a test-flight plane crash in the Arizona desert, which disfigured his face, resulting in plastic surgery that gave him that tight, leathery look, was an All-State FB in Pennsylvania in the late 1930s and then played football at UNC for two seasons, but quit the team when the coach wanted to make a lineman out of him. The rest is history.”

So, now we know…

Switching gears …  There was a major trade in the NFL yesterday; and on the surface, it looks lopsided:

• Houston Texans get:  Stefon Diggs, a sixth-round pick this year and a fifth-round pick next year.
• Buffalo Bills get:  A second-round pick this year.

The Bills will also incur a “dead cap charge” of $31M for 2024 as a result of this trade which makes the exchange look even more out of balance that it seems on its face.  Fans of the Jets and the Dolphins are probably rejoicing at what looks like a talent loss for the Bills who have been top dogs in the AFC East over the past couple of years.  Remember, the Bills also lost WR Gabe Davis to free agency in the last couple of weeks.  Josh Allen will still be throwing the ball for the Bills, but who is going to catch it?

Diggs has been in the NFL for 9 years; he will turn 31 in the middle of the 2024 season.  He has made All-Pro twice and been selected for the Pro Bowl in each of the last 4 seasons.  He was the Bills’ #1 WR and was highly productive for most of his time in Buffalo.  In Houston, he will join a WR corps that featured Nico Collins and Tank Dell last year; that trio should be a handful for opposing defenses so long as QB, CJ Stroud does not suffer a “sophomore slump.”

If I were a Texans’ fan, I would have only one small reservation about this trade.

• To my mind, Stefon Diggs qualifies as a “diva WR”.
• He was outstanding in his time with the Vikings until such time as he decided he did not want to be there any longer and he “forced” his way out of town.
• He was outstanding in his time with the Bills until such time as he decided he did not want to be there any longer and he “forced” his way out of town.
• Diggs is under contract through the 2027 season for about $20M per year.  Will those terms and team conditions keep him happy over the next 4 years?

At the end of the last NFL season, the Bills were in a salary cap bind and it was clear that they were going to lose some players in the free agent period as they had to clear cap space.  That is some of what has happened to the Bills; here are some of the players in addition to Diggs who moved on from Buffalo since the start of NFL free agency:

1. Gabe Davis – WR – signed with the Jags; he averaged about 40 catches per year in Buffalo.
2. Mitch Morse – C – signed with the Jags; he made the Pro Bowl in 2022.
3. Jordan Poyer – S – signed with the Dolphins; he was an All Pro in 2021 and made the Pro Bowl in 2022.
4. Tre’Davious White – CB – signed with the Rams; he has been an All Pro twice and made the Pro Bowl twice.

Those four players – along with Diggs – represent almost 25% of the starting offensive and defensive units for the Bills at the start of last season.  It is not easy to replace that many starters all at once…

Finally, as you watch the Final Four games this weekend – – and the Championship game on Monday too of course – – keep in mind this question posed by Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Wouldn’t it be interesting to know how many fifth and sixth year graduate basketball players are actually working toward a graduate degree?”

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

 

 

A while back, Coach Prime offered his opinion that the Chicago Bears might want to think twice about drafting Caleb Williams in this year’s draft.  Sanders’ reasoning was that Williams had grown up and had played his college football in warm weather zip codes and that Chicago was a cold weather venue.  Indeed, Williams grew up in the DC area which is not a tropical clime but is warmer than Chicago and he spent his college days playing for Oklahoma and USC.  About a week later, Coach Prime said that his two best players at Colorado – – his son Shadeur and two-way player, Travis Hunter – – just might decide for themselves where they play in the NFL referring to the maneuverings that got Eli Manning to the Giants and not to the Chargers.  Those utterings led to this comment from Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“But what if the Colorado kids are on to something? What if pulling an Eli Manning, like the quarterback did in 2004 by refusing to go to the Chargers though they chose him No. 1, is the next wave of player empowerment? We may already be approaching the point where NIL money would allow a top prospect to remain in school and wait for the following year’s draft rather than be shipped off to the Carolina Panthers. Who could blame a kid for that? We’re not there yet, but it’s on the frontier.”

I am glad that Professor Molinaro used the word “frontier” and not “horizon” because I think those circumstances might be a bit further in the future than as presented here.  There is a big difference between “pulling an Eli” and ”waiting a year” because the NFL Draft is set up to give bad teams the highest picks.  So, a bad team picking Joe Flabeetz in 2025 may or may not be a better option than another bad team picking Joe Flabeetz in 2026 after he refuses to report and goes back to school.  Moreover, that act of defiance might not sit well with NFL coaches and execs and give them pause about drafting him at the top of that second draft go-round.

I am not an expert in the interpretation of the NFL/NFLPA Collective Bargaining Agreement but from my non-learned reading here is what I believe are the options for a player who is draft eligible:

• If a player is taken in the draft and does not sign with the team that took him, he can sit out a year and re-enter the draft in the next year.  Obviously, he gets no salary from the NFL for his “sit out year”, but he can earn NIL money – – or any other legal form of recompense – – in that “sit out year”.
• If that player is then drafted a second time by a team not to the liking of the player, he may sit out a second year and thereby become an undrafted free agent who can sign with any team that wants him and that he wants to play for in the season following his second “sit out year”.  Again, no NFL salary for “sit out year number two”.

Yes, the player can likely find a way to survive on NIL money but there is no guarantee that his contract with the NFL team of his choice is going to be lucrative.  The CBA allots each team a pool of money that can be used to sign undrafted free agents just as that CBA allots contract conditions for players taken in the first round of the draft.  Not surprisingly, a high draft pick in Round 1 will make a lot more money in his first four years under contract than any undrafted free agent will make.  The only contractual advantage for a “sitting out player” who goes the undrafted free agent route is that undrafted free agent contracts are for 2 years meaning the player gets a bite of the free agent apple in his 3^rd NFL year while drafted players must wait four/five years (if taken in the first round) or three years if taken in lower rounds.

So, if my interpretation is correct – – and it may not be – – a player would take a significant risk in sitting out two years and then playing two more years in the NFL at minimum salary in order to “pick his team”.  I am not saying that will never happen; I am saying that the financials for a top pick are going to be difficult to turn down.

Here are data from last year as people who know far more about the NFL cap and contracts than I do projected what the overall #1 pick would get:

• Signing bonus of $26.9M and a total contract value over 4 years of $41.2M.
• If the team picked up the “fifth year option” the salary in that fifth year would be more than $20M.
• Ergo… Caleb Williams would have to go back to college and earn quite a bit of NIL money in 2024 to come close to matching the approximately $30M he would earn with the Bears – – if they take him.

What is it they say about a bird in the hand …?

And while I was musing on the subject of NFL salaries for top draft picks, I happened to notice this juxtaposition:

• Nine NFL QBs have contracts in hand that earn them an average of $43M per year or more over the life of that contract.
• Four NFL QBs have contracts in hand that earn them an average of more than $50M per year over the life of that contract.
• On MLB’s Opening Day, the total value of the contracts for the 26 players on the Oakland A’s roster was $43M.

Today’s rant began with Coach Prime offering opinions about players and the NFL Draft.  Staying on that vector heading, let me say that I have reached my lifetime exposure limit to “Mock Drafts” and particularly “Mock Drafts” that involve concocted trades which allow this day’s “Mock Draft” to look different from the one produced three days ago.

Moreover, sometime before the 2024 NFL season begins, someone somewhere will put out a “Far Too Soon Mock Draft for 2025” which is stupidity squared.  Look, no one knows who will draft where before the season begins nor does anyone know what might happen in free agency after the season and before the Draft.  That sort of “Far Too Soon …” nonsense should be grounds for boiling the author in oil – – unless of course he/she is about 80% accurate or unless the author publishes a post-mortem on his/her projected selections…

Finally, much of today’s rant has been related to financial risk and projection.  So, let me close with these observations about “risk” by the economist, Peter Bernstein:

“The more irreversible the decisions, the more expensive the consequences of being wrong.”

And …

“In the end, risk management is about consequences.”

And …

“Many years ago, an older partner taught me to distinguish between outcomes that are unlikely and outcomes that are catastrophic.  The latter are to be avoided even if the odds on them are tiny.”

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

 

 

The following item is NOT an April Fool’s joke.  In the Elite Eight round of the women’s NCAA Tournament, Texas and NC State played each other in Portland, OR.  The 3-point line on the court was improperly painted on one end of the court.  Looking at pictures, it appears that the distances were different and the “circle” at one end was slightly off-center as well.  Rather than incur long delays to “repaint” the court, both coaches agreed to play the game under the improper court markings without protest.

The Twitterverse is predictably unhinged over all this with some pundits suggesting this as “proof” that the women’s tournament is “rigged” and with other pundits calling out the NCAA for this blunder.  No one is going to mistake me for an NCAA apologist or lackey, but unless someone can show me that it was an NCAA official who painted the court improperly, the NCAA as an institution gets a pass from me on this one.  However, the event organizers in Portland who are staging this event should not be getting any regional basketball action from the women or the men any time soon; it is the folks in charge of staging these regional finals who should be accountable.

Over in the men’s brackets, I made these Final Four predictions before the tournament began:

• UConn – – made the Final Four
• Tennessee – – made the Elite Eight and lost yesterday.
• Duke – – made the Elite Eight and lost yesterday.
• Auburn – – lost in the round of 64 to Yale.

My predictions were probably better than throwing four random darts at the brackets; but still, they were hardly praiseworthy.  Here are three notes I made watching games this weekend – – for what they are worth:

“Purdue just too big for Gonzaga”:  Indeed, Purdue pounded the ball inside and got lots of shots inside 6 feet from the basket; the Boilermakers shot 57% from inside the arc for the game.

“Houston looks like Uva; lots of defenders and no shooters”:   The Cougars shot a combined 22 of 57 (39%) from the floor.

“Zach Edy plays full time against Tennessee with only 1 foul?”  Wow!

The most impressive thing I saw over the weekend was the first 8 minutes or so of the second half of the UConn/Illinois game.  Every college and high school basketball coach needs to get the tape of those 8 minutes or so and to show it to their teams as an instructional tool.  Illinois is a good basketball team; they were dominated to the point of embarrassment for those 8 minutes or so.  Consider:

• UConn led 28-23 at the half; the Huskies appeared to be the better team, but Illinois was still “in the game”.
• At the start of the second half, UConn put on a 30-0 run.  It was both an offensive and a defensive clinic.  The best player for Illinois this year has been Terrence Shannon; UConn held him to 8 points on 2-12 shooting from the field.
• That performance – – along with the rest of the second half – – called to mind the 1973 NCAA Championship Game where UCLA, led by Bill Walton, beat Memphis State by 21 points after the game had been tied at halftime.

Moving on …  Here are two more observations about the Tournament:

1. Prior to the start of the Tournament, the American Gaming Association estimated that the handle for betting on March Madness nationwide would be $2.7B.  Several reports over the last week said that “action” on the Elite Eight games was even heavier than expected – – so maybe the handle will be even higher?
2. College basketball teams play defense – – some play tenacious defense.  In fact, you will probably see more defensive energy expended in one half of a March Madness game than you will see in a week’s worth of NBA regular season games.

Switching gears ,,,  The Jacksonville Jaguars have not been spectacular on the field for much of their time in the NFL and it seems as if their mediocrity on Sundays carries over into their management of the team off the field.  Recall that a mid-level finance guy was recently sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison for embezzling a mere $22M over a three-year period.  It took a while to notice a $22M “discrepancy”.  Now, another Jags’ employee, Samuel Arthur Thompson, has run afoul of the law:

A federal judge sentenced Thompson to “220 years in federal prison, followed by a lifetime of supervised release” for a series of child pornography offenses, for failure to register as a sex offender and for hacking the Jags’ stadium jumbotron.

[Aside:  Thompson is 53 years old; if he were to serve out his sentence, he would be released at the age of 273 years.  I suspect that a “lifetime of supervised release” would not be a big deal.]

The DoJ referred to Thompson as a “prolific child molester” in this press release which is an English phrase I am sure I have never heard or read before.

Finally, I’ll close today with an anecdote involving Groucho Marx:

• A guest on Groucho’s You Bet Your Life TV show was a woman who had given birth to 22 children.  “I love my husband,” the woman explained sheepishly.
• “I love my cigar too,” Groucho said, “but I take it out once in a while.”

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

 

 

Around noon yesterday, I was up to my ear brows in my 2023 Income Tax preparation.  Frankly, I would have used just about any excuse to put that aside for a while; so, when my computer “announced” that some email had arrived, FORM 1116 went on hiatus.  The email came from the “reader in Houston” who you will recognize as a font of sports history and stats.  I mentioned yesterday that MLB’s Opening Day traditions have changed in recent years and that probably spurred him to provide a minor treatise on the history of Opening Day in MLB.  None of what follows is mine; today is courtesy of the “reader in Houston”:

1. President Howard Taft threw out the first ball on Opening Day in 1910.  In all, 12 US Presidents have thrown out the first ball on Opening Day.
2. Tom Seaver was the starting pitcher on Opening Day 16 times (with 3 different teams).  That is the most for any pitcher in MLB history.
3. Ted Williams’ batting average on Opening Day was .449.
4. The record for the most consecutive Opening Day wins is 10 – – a record shared by the Boston Beaneaters (1887-1996) and the Houston Astros (2013-2022).
5. Walter Johnson started 14 Opening Day games and pitched 9 shutouts in those games.  One of those shutouts was a 15-inning game against the A’s that ended with the score 1-0 and the game only took 2 hours and 33 minutes to play.
6. Four players have hit 3 HRs in their Opening Day games – – Matt Davidson, George Bell, Tuffy Rhodes and Dmitri Young.
7. In 1903, the Boston Americans and the Philadelphia A’s played a doubleheader on Opening Day.  The last time there was a doubleheader on Opening Day was in 1971 between the Chicago White Sox and the Oakland A’s.
8. In 1907, the Phillies won on Opening Day by a forfeit when NY Giants’ fans threw snowballs onto the field and refused to stop.  The umpires declared a forfeit and the Phillies won 9-0.
9. In 1923, the Yankees and Red Sox opened the season in the newly constructed Yankee Stadium.  Babe Ruth hit a homerun in that first game in the original Yankee Stadium.
10. Opening Day in 1925 produced the highest scoring first game of the season.  The Cleveland Indians beat the St. Louis Browns 21-14 thanks to the Browns committing 10 errors resulting in 11 runs for the Indians.
11. In 1940, the Indians’ Bob Feller threw a ho-hitter at the White Sox; that is the only no-hitter ever on Opening Day.
12. In 1947, Jackie Robinson made his MLB debut – – and the “reader in Houston” was at that game and still has memorabilia for it in a box in his attic.
13. In 1950, the Cardinals beat the Pirates on Opening Day in the first night game played on Opening Day.
14. Hank Aaron’s 714^th homerun – – the one that tied Babe Ruth’s career record – – came on Opening Day in 1974.
15. The longest Opening Day game in MLB history was played in 2012 between the Indians and Blue Jays ending with the Blue Jays beating the Indians, 7–4, in 16 innings. (It took 5:14.) The previous record for longest Opening Day game was in 1960 lasting 15 innings (4:54), which also saw the Indians in a losing effort, 4–2, vs. the Tigers. Recall from above Walter Johnson’s 15-inning shutout in 1926 that only took 2:33 to play.
16. The first interleague game on Opening Day was in 2013 between the Angels and the Reds.  The Angels won 4-3 in 13 innings.

I knew exactly one of those Opening Day facts listed above before receiving my email yesterday – – the one about Hank Aaron’s 714^th homerun.  Sincere thanks to the “reader in Houston” for this enlightenment.

Moving on …  Earlier this week, I said that this year’s March Madness had not been nearly as compelling as tournaments in the past.  The weekend when the field is cut from the Sweet 16 to the Final Four is almost always the best mix of quality and quantity of games.  There are more games in the previous weekend but too many of them are always mismatches and the Final Four weekend is always great – – but there are only 3 games.  Last night the first part of “Sweet 16 Weekend” did not disappoint.  Yes, the UConn game was a blowout, but the defensive tenacity of the Huskies was interesting to watch.  The other three games were thrillers:

• Clemson was a 7.5-point underdog against Arizona, but Clemson led for much of the game and were simply the better team on the court last night.  The Tigers move on with a 77-72 victory.
• Alabama was a 5-point underdog to UNC last night.  Alabama’s defense looked to be overmatched against UNC, but Alabama went toe-to-toe with the bigger Tar Heels and won the game 89-87.
• Illinois was a 3-point underdog to Iowa St. last night.  Terrence Shannon and Curtis Jones each put on a show last night, but Shannon and his Illinois teammates prevailed 72-69.

The Saturday night tournament games are set:

• UConn opened as a 7.5-point favorite over Illinois but that spread has expanded to 8.5 points very quickly.
• Alabama is a 3-point favorite (3.5 points at one Internet sportsbook) over Clemson as of this morning.

Both games look interesting to me.

Finally, this is a time for sports fans to be happy – – baseball has begun and it is Sweet-16 Weekend.  So, let me close with this view of happiness from psychiatrist Thomas Szasz:

“Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children and by children to adults.”

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

 

 

For quite a while, the MLB season began with the Cincinnati Reds hosting a game on one day and then everyone else starting their seasons on the following day.  Not so anymore …  The Dodgers and Padres have already opened their season a week ago in Seoul, South Korea; the teams returned to the US to play some Spring Training games before returning to their regular seasons; the Dodgers will play the Cards and the Padres will play the Giants for real later today.  Opening Day used to be a big deal; it seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird.

And it is not just a one-time deal.  The Dodgers will open the 2025 season in Asia against the Cubs.  This scheduling ploy appears to be getting a foothold in the rhythm of MLB and as long as the Dodgers have Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto on their roster, it would make sense for the Dodgers to be one of the teams playing in the “Asian Openers”.

Since the 2024 MLB season is technically underway, I guess I should take a moment today to make some predictions about the upcoming season.

• As of this morning the win total line for the Dodgers is set at 105 wins.  I think the Dodgers’ roster is the best one in MLB, but 105 wins is awfully high given a starting rotation with a couple of question marks.  I like the Dodgers to win the NL West in a walk, but I would bet the UNDER on 105 wins.
• The win total line for the Cubs today is only 84.5 wins.  I think the Cubs are going to win the NL Central; so obviously, I would take them to go OVER 84.5 wins.
• The win total for the Braves this morning is a lofty 102 wins.  I fully expect the Braves to win the NL East, but I would have to play them as an UNDER bet at that number.
• The win total today for the Houston Astros is 92 wins.  I like the Astros to win the AL West and I think they will go OVER 92 wins.
• The AL Central race could be interesting; I think the Detroit Tigers could win the division and should be “in the race” until the last week or so.  This morning the Tigers’ win total line is only 80.5 and I have to think the Tigers will go OVER that number.
• The AL East belongs to the Orioles; the win total line is set at 91 wins and that looks about right to me so flip a coin if you are going to play the win total for the O’s.  I know the O’s won 101 games last year, but I think they will be hard pressed to have everyone on the team match last year’s performances.

Looking down the projected standings to other teams, there are a couple of win total lines that stand out to me:

• The line for the Washington Nationals is 66.5 wins.  Last year, the Nats won 70 games and looked like a team that was improving month by month.  The Nats will not jump the division as the Orioles did last year, but I think the Nats can win75 games in 2024.  Take the OVER …
• The line for the Tampa Bay Rays is 85 wins.  Last year, the Rays won 99 games and while I would be surprised to see them repeat that performance in 2024, I have trouble believing they will be 15 games worse this year as compared to last year.  Take the OVER …
• The line for the Pittsburgh Pirates is 75 wins; in 2023, the Pirates won 76 games.  I think the Pirates are another one of those “young teams on an improvement curve”.  Just a hunch but I would take the OVER here too …
• The line for the NY Yankees is 93.5 wins.  Given the uncertainty surrounding Gerrit Cole’s elbow, I clearly want to take this to go UNDER …

Let the games begin…

Yesterday, I wondered how increments of $500K were paid to an alleged illegal bookie without Shohei Ohtani or any of his “people” noticing it.  About two hours after the rant was posted a friend suggested check out the circumstances surrounding a “mid-level finance manager” for the Jax Jags who managed to embezzle $22M before anyone noticed.  The person involved here is Amit Patel and he has been sentenced to six-and-a-half years in a federal hoosegow for the theft.  ESPN reported that he used the money to support a “lavish lifestyle” and a gambling addiction.  According to ESPN.com:

“Patel transferred $20 million of the funds to FanDuel, where he had a VIP host, and $1 million to DraftKings … Patel was a high-volume, high-stakes daily fantasy sports player known for racking up big losses.”

Obviously, the auditing and accounting people and practices in place with the Jags were “less than fully effective”.  According to court records, he began his thievery in September 2019 and kept it up until he was fired in February 2023.  Indeed, he created false accounts with seemingly legitimate charges contained in those false accounts to cover the stolen funds, but $22M is not a mere bag of shells.  It took over three years for the imbalances to be noticed?

Beyond the Jags’ failure to catch on to this activity:

• What about the folks at FanDuel who had this “great client” who bet lots of money and lost much of it putting FanDuel in the black?
• Did anyone at FanDuel wonder where this “mid-level finance manager” was getting that sort of gambling stake?
• Wouldn’t someone at FanDuel want to make sure that FanDuel was not being used in some way to launder money?

The fact that Amit Patel embezzled about 5 times more than the amount involved in the Ohtani matter does not minimize the Ohtani matter.  Both are wrong and both point to the degree to which funds can be moved around “surreptitiously”.  Andy Dufresne working out of Shawshank Prison knew all about that sort of thing too.

Finally, I will close today with an Al Pacino line from the movies:

“Our ability to manufacture fraud now exceeds out ability to detect it.”

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

 

 

I have no alternative but to believe Google Translate when it tells me that the Japanese word for “saga” is “monogatari” and that leads me to believe that the sports world for the moment is consumed by:

• Monogatari – Shohei Ohtani.

We live in polarized times here in the US.  There are people in “Blue States” who would not believe a report that the sun came up in the east this morning if that assertion came from FOX News; simultaneously, there are people in “Red States” who would doubt the same assertion if MSNBC were the source.  Monogatari-Shohei Ohtani seems to have a different credibility problem:

• The people involved keep changing their stories – – and – –
• Some of the potential behaviors here defy logic.

Let me start with the alleged illegal bookmaker who was owed a reported $4.5M by someone who lost a lot of bets.  Does it make a lot of sense to you that this man would extend that level of credit to someone like the interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, who had a reported annual salary of $85K?  Before I even get to the business of how this bookie got his payment(s), I do not understand how this situation was allowed to evolve.  Either the bookie was making a huge bet on the solvency of Mizuhara – – which is not generally part of “Bookie Modus Vivendi” – – or the bookie was somehow convinced that Ohtani, who is ultimately solvent, would back the IOUs.

Now let me be clear here; I have no idea if that course of logic is even partially correct; but if it is correct, there seem to be divergent conclusions:

• The bookie was convinced that Mizuhara had access to Ohtani’s funds.  That would make sense, but it then raises the question as to how said “access” would work.  Did Mizuhara have the “passwords” to Ohtani’s finances, or did Ohtani simply assure Mizuhara and the bookie that the IOUs were covered?
• The answers to those two questions take Monogatari – Shohei Ohtani in very different directions.

Or …

• Another way that the bookie might have become convinced that Mizuhara’s credit was good is if the bookie knew or believed that Mizuhara was simply a conduit for bets made by Ohtani himself and that it is Ohtani who is in debt to the bookie.
• And if that does not take Monogatari – Shohei Ohtani in another different direction, then I have no understanding at all of this matter.

As if that were not bad enough Mizuhara and Ohtani have both changed their stories over the past week or so.  When ESPN first reported on the matter, a spokesperson for Ohtani said that Ohtani “transferred funds to cover Mizuhara’s gambling debt.”  In the original ESPN report, it said that Ohtani told his agent that he (Ohtani) had covered Mizuhara’s gambling debts in $500K increments.  About 24 hours later, the story changed to make Ohtani the victim of a massive theft of his money by Mizuhara.

Reports said that money was transferred in $500K packets.  I have no familiarity with financial assets remotely like Shohei Ohtani’s, but I do have a problem rationalizing that somehow those sorts of deductions could go unnoticed as would have to have been the case if this were a “massive theft” that occurred in increments of $500K

Shohei Ohtani held a news conference; obviously, the anticipation was that a degree of clarity would come from that event.  Not exactly.  At the press conference, Ohtani said – – through an interpreter of course:

“I never bet on baseball or any other sports or never have asked somebody to do it on my behalf, and I have never gone through a bookmaker to bet on sports and was never asked to assist betting payment for anyone else.”

That is THE statement that the LA Dodgers and the mavens who run MLB needed to have out there.  If that is the unvarnished truth, then Monogatari – Shohei Ohtani has a vector heading that is problematic for Ippei Mizuhara and possibly the alleged bookie in this matter, but it leads to a safe haven for MLB.  What that statement does not address is how and why the statements of Mizuhara and Ohtani changed so drastically in the evolution of the story.

I have no interest in trying to “convict” any of the parties to Monogatari – Shohei Ohtani here and let me assure everyone that I am not a conspiracy theorist.  But this mess is not going to be easily ignored by MLB.  Their first reaction was that it would be left to the authorities to determine the facts of the matter; it quickly became apparent that was not going to feed the bulldog of public attention to this story.  MLB changed its tune too and announced that it was looking into the matter on its own.

As noted above, the self-interests of the Dodgers and MLB are obvious here and those self-interests will cast a shadow on just about anything that MLB determines to be the facts of the matter during its ‘investigation”.  As an example of a clearly biased analysis of this mess, consider that there is a video on the Internet where Pete Rose says – – paraphrasing here – –

“If I had an interpreter back in the 70s and 80s, I’d be in the clear today.”

Good luck to those folks in MLB who will be associated with this ‘investigation”.  Monogatari – Shohei Ohtani may not be as intractable as untying the Gordian Knot, but it will not be an endeavor that brings inner peace to the investigators.

Finally, I will close today with this truism that may have relevance to gambling:

“The surest way to double your money is to fold it I half and put it in your pocket.”

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

 

 

The NFL owners have agreed to three new rule changes proposed by the Competition Committee at the owners’ annual meeting in Orlando.  They are:

1. Banning the “hip-drop tackle”:  I mentioned this last week; it is a “player safety motivated” rule that requires a very complicated definition of what is and what is not a hip-drop tackle.  The NFLPA opposes the change; I suspect defensive players also oppose the change.  Some fans have expressed disapproval asserting that this is another step toward transforming the NFL into a touch-football league.  I will reserve judgment until I see how and if the rule is called consistently and logically.
2. A new kickoff rule:  This is an adaptation of the rule used by the XFL, and it is more complicated to explain than I prefer to do here.  SI.com has already declared that it will have a “profound impact in 2024.”  If you Google “new NFL kickoff rule” you will find dozens of reports that describe the new procedure.  It was passed as a “one-year trial” and will be reviewed prior to the 2025 season.  Once again, I will reserve judgment until I see what it is and what it does.
3. An added coach’s challenge:  If a coach challenges a call during the game and his challenge is upheld, that team will get a third challenge in the game.  No longer must a team be right on both challenges that it makes to earn a third challenge; now, one correct challenge is sufficient.  I do NOT like this change.  Watching officials look at monitors showing dozens of replays so they can “get it right” is less enticing than a root canal on your birthday.  Making it easier for teams to challenge extra calls by the officials does not enhance the viewing product.

Moving on …  I have said here multiple times that the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is the single best sporting event held every year.  I have loved college basketball for more than 65 years.  And this morning I feel like the proverbial old codger sitting on my porch yelling at people to get off my damned lawn.  This year’s tournament is far less interesting than in previous years.  Before anyone jumps down my throat here:

• Oakland beating Kentucky was a big surprise and super-exciting – – unless you are a Kentucky alum or a member of John Calipari’s family.
• Yale’s win over Auburn – – a team I picked to go to the Final Four – – was an exciting and surprising game.
• Other than those two games, there have been a lot of “not-much-doubt games” and “blatant mismatch games”.

Look, the “Cinderella team” for 2024 is the 11^th seeded North Carolina State TEAM who just happens to have won the ACC Tournament – – an event only slightly less prestigious than March Madness itself.  It seems to me that one of two situations obtain here:

1. The Selection Committee tried to get it right but did not.  They gave tournament slots to 8 teams from the SEC and 6 teams from the Big-10.  Remember, this is basketball and not football.  Of those 14 teams only 4 teams are still involved.
2. College basketball has become polarized to the point where the “haves” are just too much for the “have nots”.  The reputations of teams’ past are not of much current value today.  Eight teams earned seedings of #1 or #2 in their bracket; all eight of those teams are still playing.

And in that environment, the calls to expand the tournament field grow louder.  How is that supposed to generate more exciting games?  This year the Atlantic Sun Conference sent Stetson to the tournament where they were destroyed by UConn.  That game was not in doubt from the start, and it was uninteresting to watch after about the first five minutes.  So maybe expanding the tournament might add a second team from the “little guy” Atlantic Sun Conference such as Austin Peay?  Pardon me while I feign interest in the possibility.

Or maybe the tournament would be “kicked up a notch” [Hat tip to Emeril Lagasse] with the addition of a ninth team from the SEC?  If you believe that you probably also believe that a dog chases its tail in order to make ends meet.

The NCAA has a model in its face demonstrating that more is not always better.  That would be the college football bowl system; there were 41 of them last year if my count is correct.  More college football teams (82) out of eligible teams for bowl games (132) play in bowl games than the 68 March Madness teams.  And there are – – theoretically – – 355 teams eligible for March Madness.  How many of the bowl games not related to the CFP or the ones played on New Year’s Day are exciting/enticing events and how many might even achieve “marginally interesting status”?   Here is a harsh reality:

• More games do not equal more good games!

So, let me do some math here and offer a suggestion that will both please the folks in charge of the “Power Conferences” and at the same time ruin March Madness:

• Keep the field at 68 teams!
• The SEC will have 16 teams as of next year + The Big-10 will have 18 teams as of next year + The ACC will have 18 teams as of next year + The Big 12 will have 16 teams as of next year = 68 teams.

No more bitching and moaning about the Selection Committee; no more teams from conferences no one has ever heard of; no more teams from Nowheresville.  Just teams everyone has heard of before – – and it would be the death rattle for March Madness which is an event best left alone.

Finally, let me close today with these words from my favorite curmudgeon, H. L. Mencken:

“Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.”

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

 

 

Peter Angelos, the majority owner of the Baltimore Orioles, died over the weekend at the age of 94.  To say he was a polarizing figure would be an understatement.  Many fans saw him as miserly and unwilling to spend to put a winner on the field.  Other owners saw him as some sort of kook as he “sided with the union” during the strike/lockout in the mid-90s refusing even to consider fielding replacement players.  At one time, he was considered to be a sufficiently serious political force in Maryland to make a run for Governor.  And Jim Palmer tweeted:

“… Kept the O’s in Baltimore.  And did so much for so many without much fanfare.  Always treated so well by Mr. A …”

Rest in peace, Peter Angelos.

When the NCAA Tournament began last week, UConn was the betting favorite to win it all with odds of +600.  After the first two rounds, here are the money line odds at FanDuel for teams to cut down the nets on April 8^th:

1. UConn = +210
2. Houston = +550
3. Purdue = +600
4. Arizona = +850
5. Tennessee = +1200
6. UNC = +1300

The shift in the odds definitely reflects the dominance that UConn has shown in its two wins so far; the Huskies won in a rout in its games against Stetson and Northwestern.  Houston has been impressive too; the current odds are down from +750 before the Tournament began; those were the odds that “Mattress Mac” got for his $1M bet on Houston to win it all.

My Final Four predictions have not fared so well.

• Auburn lost in its first game to Yale as a 14.5-point favorite with money line odds of minus-900.
• Baylor dominated Colgate in the Round of 64 but lost yesterday to Clemson by 8 points.

My other two predictions – – Duke and Tennessee – – remain alive …

The most impressive stretch of basketball I have seen so far in the tournament has to be Gonzaga’s performance at the start of the second half of its win over Kansas.  The Jayhawks led 44-43 at halftime; the game looked as if it would go down to the final minutes as a nail-biter.  Then Gonzaga put on a 15-0 run at the start of the second half and did not miss a 3-point attempt until there were less than two minutes left in the game.  Wow…

Regarding Zach Edey – – Purdue’s gigantic center – – he is the 2024 version of an observation made long ago by Wilt Chamberlain.  Lots of people dismissed Chamberlain as simply a winner in the genetic lottery and not a skilled basketball player; some folks feel the same way about Edey these days.  Chamberlain explained that sentiment like this:

“Nobody roots for Goliath.”

Let me say this next thing carefully.  There were some embarrassing performances by some teams that clearly did not belong in this tournament against this level of competition.  I understand the goal of “inclusivity”, and the “Cinderella stories” that emerge every few years are heartwarming; but when one stops pulling on the heartstrings, several teams showed they had no business participating here.

Kentucky had an embarrassing loss in the Round of 64 to Oakland.  But the Kentucky “embarrassment” had a different flavor to it.  The Wildcats were not shown up to be clearly inferior talents in their loss – – but they were the highest seeded team to be eliminated in the first round of the tournament and lost to a team that it should have beaten at least 9 times out of 10.  John Calipari and Kentucky have been among the most prominent of the schools that feature “one-and-done players” who choose to go play college basketball only because the NBA is not open to them until a year after they graduate from high school.  Well, this is the second time in three years that Kentucky has been “one-and-done” in the tournament; in 2022 they were bounced in the first game then by St. Peter’s.

Illinois looks like a good team that could provide a meaningful challenge to Iowa St. in their Sweet 16 game – – or maybe Illinois is merely slightly above average with its apparent strengths not much more than a mirage after beating two marginal opponents.  Neither Moorhead St. nor Duquesne falls in the category of a team that clearly did not belong in the tournament to begin with.  At the same time, neither Moorhead St. nor Duquesne offered any evidence that they were going to make it to the Sweet 16 without the intervention of a Fairy Godmother.

Finally, I’ll close today with these words from Dave Barry:

“Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face.”

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