The Sports Curmudgeon

Congratulations to the Denver Nuggets; they are the NBA Champions for 2023.  Their victory last night in Denver was not an aesthetic presentation of the game of basketball, but the Nuggets won despite:

• Shooting only 5 for 28 on 3-point attempts
• Having only one player score more than 16 points

The Heat use their tenacious defense as a calling card and that defense is a big part of why and how the Heat made it to the Finals.  However, last night in the fourth quarter, it was the Nuggets that played the better defense holding the Heat to only 18 points in that quarter.

Some have characterized this season and this series as a “coming-out party” for Nikola Jokic.  Well, if you want to advance that metaphor just a tad, consider that Jokic should no longer be any sort of a mysterious entity in the world of basketball.  He was “on display” for the entirety of the NBA Playoffs and should have erased any doubt about his status as a dominant force in the game of basketball.  And in case you had not noticed, he will only be 29 years old in the middle of the next NBA regular season.

Moving on …  Normally, when the sports world intersects with government at just about any level of jurisdiction, the result is “less than totally satisfactory”.  Today we have the potential for two such intersections and at first glance one of them might be positive and the other is almost assuredly going to be sound and fury signifying nothing.  Let me begin with the one that might turn out to be a plus.

A recent memo from the Internal Revenue Service indicates that donations by boosters to NIL Collectives may not be tax deductible for those donors.  NIL Collectives take donations from alums and boosters and put them in a pool, and they use the total money to allocate it across sports and teams as a “recruiting tool”.  Wink!  Wink!!!  They are “buying” a team not “recruiting” one.

According to an IRS memo, these Collectives do not deserve status as a 501 (c) (3) organization because the Collectives exist to carry out “a substantial nonexempt purpose – serving the private interests of student-athletes.”  I have favored the idea of eliminating the tax deduction for any sort of donation to a college Athletic Department for decades and indeed there have been some loopholes closed around the margins of that fundraising system, but if this sort of thinking takes root at the IRS, it might advance the cause significantly in future years.

Notice that I said this intersection of sports and government “might be positive” and not that this is the “dawning of an age of enlightenment”.  The people who stand to be most affected by this sort of change to the tax code have deep pockets and lots of government influence going for them.  In addition, many politicians would prefer to hit a hornets’ nest like a pinata rather than mess with the football or basketball program at a major school in their jurisdiction.  So, I cautiously mention this as being potentially positive – – until I read somewhere that the idea has been tabled for further study.

The other intersection of sports and government is a grandstanding play.  Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn) chairs the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and he has plumbed the depths of the repercussions caused by the merger of the PGA and LIV Golf and concluded that there are “serious questions regarding the reasons for and terms behind the announced agreement.”

Obviously, Senator Blumenthal is not a regular reader here because the reasons for the agreement and the terms behind the agreement can be summarized as was presented here last week:

• Money talks and bulls[p]it walks.

The Subcommittee has demanded documents and communications between the parties leading up to the announcement of the merger.  Senator Blumenthal has said he wants to know how this “jointly operated commercial entity will be structured and governed”.  Really?  This commercial entity simply replaces a previous commercial entity that has operated a golf tour for the last 94 years.  This is not an entity that moves the needle on the US economy; this is not an entity that produces materials critical to the National Defense; this is an entity that organizes golf tournaments.  Moreover, this entity that organizes golf tournaments enjoys tax-free status because the architects of the US tax code have convinced themselves that the PGA Tour is a charity fundraising entity.  Ponder that for a while …

Senator Blumenthal also used the fact of this merger of golf organizations to express his dismay at Saudi Arabia’s human rights record calling that record “deeply disturbing”.  However, that human rights record must have been insufficiently disturbing a month ago before this merger saw the light of day because back then the Senator was not investigating diddley-doodle about LIV Golf as a stand-alone entity operating golf tournaments at various places in the US.  It took this merger to deepen his level of “disturb” to the point that he decided to investigate something.

There is a lot of hand-wringing these days about existential threats to mankindsuch as these four:

1. Climate change
2. Artificial Intelligence run amok – – think HAL 9000
3. Pandemics
4. Water shortages

• Memo to Senator Blumenthal:  Those are important and potentially dangerous things that need to be controlled and managed.  Not a single one of those threats will be mitigated or exacerbated in the least by who or what organizes golf tournaments.
• Investigate that …

Finally, I wonder what George Carlin might say about the tax-exempt status of NIL Collectives and/or Senator Blumenthal’s investigation into such deeply disturbing matters.  Here is one of Carlin’s observations that might give me a hint:

“If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.”

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

 

 

 

Arcangelo won the Belmont Stakes on Saturday; the winning time was 2:29  1/5.  In handicapping terms that is a mere 26 lengths behind what Secretariat did in the Belmont Stakes 50 years ago.  Secretariat won the Triple Crown in 1973 and set the record for all three races in the Triple Crown then; those records in all three races still stand in 2023.

Moving on …  Andrew Brandt has had a long and diversified career in sports and sports law, if you Google “Andrew Brandt” you can find his bona fides very easily.  He has a Sunday Newsletter – – the “Sunday Seven” – – that I get via email.  Here is what he had to say yesterday about the LIV/PGA merger:

“My sense is that the PGA Tour knew or was advised that: (1) The LIV Tour, funded by the $600 billion Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), was not going away, and (2) The mutual antitrust lawsuit, not scheduled for trial until at least 2024, had some potentially uncomfortable discovery issues, such as how the PGA Tour magically finds money for $20 million purses and escalating legal fees. Faced with these realities, the PGA Tour took the money and merged. PIF will now be the sole investor and have a right of first refusal on any future investors. In simplest terms, they bought golf.”

He makes three points here that always “gave me pause” when thinking about this mess:

1. From where did that extra $20M in purse money materialize overnight?
2. The PGA was not a mortal lock to prevail in the lawsuit
3. The PIF could bankrupt the PGA with legal fees but not the other way around.

Professor Brandt had another interesting item in his missive yesterday:

“There is a bigger picture here. Saudi money—along with Qatari money and other Middle Eastern investment—is coming to bigger American sports. They have invested in the English Premier League and Formula 1 Racing; it is naive to think they won’t do the same in other American sports. They have bought golf, and that gives their money some legitimacy. The ‘Core Four’—the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL—are next.

“The price of entry into these leagues is becoming too high to rely on a cadre of multi-billionaires to purchase them. Josh Harris, one of those billionaires, owns the NBA’s 76ers and the NHL’s Devils but is still struggling to secure proper financing to purchase the NFL’s Washington Commanders for $6 billion. Institutional investment such as that of PIF would alleviate some of those issues. The NBA has just loosened investment restrictions to allow for sovereign wealth funds; other leagues will soon follow.

“LIV Golf is now part of the PGA Tour in a yet-to-be-named entity. This is an inflection point for sports finance. Human rights issues and politics notwithstanding, Saudi money is coming to American sports leagues. Maybe not this year or even next year, but soon. Count on it.”

His point about the values of NFL franchises is on point.  The NFL’s current rules do not allow for “sovereign wealth” or “Institutional investment ownership”; while that tends to keep the playing field relatively level, it also puts a “soft cap” on how much a franchise can sell for.  The Commanders price is reported to be $6.1B and there is a limit on the percentage of the price paid that a new owner may present as borrowed money.  I don’t know the details in all of this but assume that percentage is 25%.  That means the new owner – – and his minority partners – – must come up with almost $4.6B in “cash”.  [Aside:  If the percentage allowable here is higher than 25%, then the “cash requirement” is smaller.  Forget the exact numbers and focus on the magnitude.]

The US has lots of rich people but if you held a meeting of all the folks who could “write a check” for $4.6B or so I don’t think you would need to rent out Lambeau Field.  So, the fact that there are only a few qualified bidders for an NFL team under the current rules means that price increases for franchises might not be as explosive as in recent years where the Panthers sold for $2.2B and then the Broncos for $4.6B and now the Commanders presumably for $6.1B.

Next up … Barry Sverluga hade a column in Saturday’s Washington Post under this headline:

• LSU ace’s 124 pitches illicit groans around MLB

LSU is in the College World Series tournament and their star pitcher just won a complete game.  He is touted as – possibly – the overall #1 pick in the MLB Draft this year and scouts worry that he is being over-used.  When I read about their concerns, it sent me to the Internet to recall the details about a specific baseball game that I remember from my youth.  I was not there to see it in person, nor did I see it on TV – – but I remember that it happened because it was so different.

In September of 1952 – – I was 9 years old – – Phillies’ pitcher, Robin Roberts pitched a complete game that went 17 innings.  Here is his pitching line for the game – – MLB did not keep a pitch count stat back then:

• 17 innings, 6 runs on 16 hits 3 walks and 5 strikeouts {Aside: More than likely in excess of 124 pitches …]

The Phillies won 7-6 and that complete game – – actually, almost two complete games in one outing – – came in the middle of a complete game streak for Roberts.  Between August 1952 and July 1953, Robin Roberts threw 28 consecutive complete games.

Baseball is played differently in 2023 than it was in 1953 …

Finally, just because I like this quote, let me finish today with H. L. Mencken:

“Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong and that 99 percent of them are wrong.”

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

 

 

 

The big news from yesterday is the Lionel Messi had decided to sign with Inter Miami in MLS instead of taking a reported $1B deal from a team in Saudi Arabia. The initial reports said that the details of Messi’s contract with Inter Miami have not been finalized, but we can be certain that it will not be anywhere near a 10-figure deal.  Reports say that his contract will include “ownership stakes when he retires”; Messi is 36 years old, so retirement is not decades into the future; this is not going to be analogous to a “Bobby Bonilla deal”.

For perspective, the biggest contract I can find in MLS for this year is $8.2M.  That gives you an idea of the gap between soccer contracts in the US and in Europe where playing contracts can exceed $40M per year.  Messi will probably earn at or near the top of the MLS scale for however many years he is on the pitch.

This is a big move for Messi, and it is a feather in MLS’ cap; but Messi is not nearly the first major European star to come to the US for his final days on the pitch.  A good friend of mine worked at ABC Sports and was involved in promotions for the old North American Soccer League (NASL).  He got me tix for “Soccer Bowl” in 1980 which was played at RFK Stadium in DC.  That game featured the NY Cosmos and on their roster were Pele and Franz Beckenbauer.  Pele was 40 at the time and Beckenbauer was 35; both were great players in major soccer competition in their hey-day; Beckenbauer played in Germany and Pele in Brazil before joining the Cosmos.  [Aside:  Pele did not play in that Soccer Bowl game in 1980 but was still on the Cosmos’ roster; Beckenbauer played.]

In addition to Pele and Beckenbauer, I remember Johan Cruyff playing for the Washington team in the NASL in the late 70s and early 80s.  Cruyff was a great player and stood out when playing against NASL competition.

When Messi signs on the dotted line with Inter Miami, his “boss” will be the team owner, David Beckham who also came to US soccer after a long and gloried career in Europe playing for Man U in the EPL and Real Madrid in La Liga.

I know that I will have missed more than a handful of foreign soccer stars who came to the US late in their careers so let me rattle off the ones I recall without doing any searching:

• George Best
• Thierry Henry
• Robbie Keane
• Wayne Rooney

This is a big deal, but I do not want to fall into the same trap that many commentators fell into when the likes of Pele or Beckham signed on with a US team.  This event – in and of itself – is NOT the inflection point at which soccer will grow exponentially and outstrip the NFL in popularity in the US.  Yes, ticket prices for Inter Miami games soared on the news of his decision to come to Miami; some tickets were going for $500.  Yes, this signing could well be the tipping point that allows Inter Miami to get a new stadium – – or significant expansion of its current stadium in Fort Lauderdale which only seats 18,000 fans.

•  It is a big deal for Inter Miami and for MLS, but it need not be exaggerated.

Moving on … There was another important story that came to light yesterday that is far less joyful.  The Texas Rangers announced that Jacob deGrom will have season-ending surgery to repair a “tear in his ulnar collateral ligament” meaning he will miss the rest of this season.  deGrom is 34 years old and is in the first year of a 5-year contract that he signed with the Rangers last winter; he made only 6 starts for the team in 2023.

Jacob deGrom earns his living by throwing a baseball around 100 mph from the pitcher’s mound to the catcher.  His most dominant season was in 2018 when he started 32 games for the NY Mets and finished with only a 10-9 record despite pitching to an ERA of only 1.70 for the season.  In 2018 he also struck out 269 batters while walking only 46.  Indeed, he won the Cy Young Award that year despite the mediocre won/lost record.

In the three seasons between 2017 and 2019, deGrom threw more than 200 innings and given his style of pitching, it seems to have taken a toll on his arm.  Granted 2020 was a truncated season, but since 2019, he has not thrown more than 92 innings in any year; in his 6 starts this year, he threw only 30.1 innings.

deGrom has been on the IL since late April with what was originally diagnosed as “elbow inflammation”.  After treatment and an attempt at rehab, an MRI revealed “damage that was significant” and that ended the 2023 season for deGrom.  Normally, this sort of surgery takes a year to heal; given what deGrom will try to do with his repaired elbow, my guess is that doctors and trainers will be very cautious about “rushing him back to the mound”.  deGrom says his goal is to be back “before the end of next year”.  Rangers’ fans certainly hope that he can return and pitch the way he did back in 2020 and before; baseball fans should root for his return also because when he is on, he is fun to watch.

Finally, since there is optimism in Miami and optimism about the injury to Jacob deGrom, let me close today with this observation by British physician, Havelock Ellis:

“The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum.”

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

 

 

Since yesterday’s rant dealt entirely with the merger of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, let me offer here an interesting slant on that event.  Brad Dickson – formerly a columnist with the Omaha World-Herald – posted this Tweet yesterday:

“Breaking news: The PGA just announced plans to merge with ISIS.”

And that puts everything into sharp focus there…

The NBA Finals continue and are providing some entertaining games.  The Nuggets currently lead the Heat two games to one, but the NBA is having difficulty maintaining the news focus on those Finals.  When the NFL goes into its two-week pause leading up to the Super Bowl, the focus is on the game and the teams and the players; the NFL tends to control the narrative.  One way they do that is to be sure that there are no free agents until after the Super Bowl.  The NBA has as many “loose ends” out there as a plate of linguine.  Consider:

• The Ja Morant saga.  The league hinted that it found “more info” during its “investigation” but won’t let anyone in on the details until after the Finals.  As if that would stop speculative/sensationalist reports during the finals.
• James Harden is a free agent and breathless reports say that he is “torn between two teams” as his next career stop.  Who cares?  Why is this allowed to distract attention from the Finals?
• Kyrie Irving is a free agent, and the Mavs insist they want to re-sign him.  Not to be outdone in the spotlight even by Mark Cuban, Irving has called on LeBron James to come to Dallas to play alongside Irving there.  Why is this allowed to distract attention from the Finals?

I am certainly not going to try to pretend that I am a “Communications Guru” or a “PR Expert”, but it does seem to me that the NBA Finals – – the event that has been the league’s Holy Grail since last November – – ought to stand clean in the media space.  It should be a time for fans to temporarily forget/ignore many of the annoying and ongoing stories related to the NBA such as:

• Load management
• Teams admitting they tanked games to get a better draft shot.
• Teams denying they tanked games to get a better draft shot.
• Trade demands churning rosters around the league.

But the NBA has shown that it does not have the wherewithal to control the narrative during its Finals series and the league’s warts remain on display when they should not.

Moving on …  There have been two big stories about sports media recently.  First, it seems that Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe are “breaking up” and will no longer be the co-hosts on FS1’s Undisputed.  There have been plenty of speculative pieces produced trying to explain how this came to be.  I have seen reports saying that audiences for Undisputed are in the 100K – 150K range; that indicates to me that the show is not working in the very important area of drawing and maintaining an audience.  [Aside:  As a point of reference, the estimated population of Joliet Illinois in 2022 was 150,033.  So, the audience for Undisputed is equivalent to everyone in Joliet tuning in but no one else in the US tuning in.  Not good …]

Skip Bayless has a lucrative contract with FOX for the show, so the objective on Mahogany Row at FOX Sports must be to find a way to pair someone with Bayless who will increase the audience levels.  I have no suggestions as to who that might be, but someone somewhere needs to come up with a good idea there.

The other sports media story du jour is that Pat McAfee is going to “take his podcast” to ESPN and that podcast will be available on ESPN, the ESPN app and the ESPN You Tube Channel.  The NY Post says that McAfee’s deal with ESPN is for 5 years and $85M.  McAfee says that his show will not change and the bosses at ESPN have not told him to change anything.  I do not believe that at all:

• One “feature” of the podcast is the interaction between McAfee with his crew and with his guests and Pat McAfee probably averages 10 “F-bombs” per hour.
• I just do not believe that ESPN is going to accept that sort of programming for very long.

This big contract for McAfee comes while ESPN – – and parent Disney Corp – – are laying off lots of staff employees.  That could be an interesting thing to watch …

If McAfee takes the Noon to 3:00 PM slot on ESPN, that will displace two hours of SportsCenter and Max Kellerman’s one-hour show, This Just In.  I doubt that anyone will miss the two hours of SportsCenter at midday; it is always a cobbled together presentation of stale last night’s news/results with an attempt to make them sound fresh and exciting.  Pre-empting Max Kellerman’s show is different; Kellerman is an interesting piece in the world of sports debate programming.  He is opinionated without being “in your face”; he makes cogent points and will go toe-to-toe with anyone who holds a different perspective on a subject.  I, for one, hope ESPN finds a slot for him somewhere on one of their networks.

But no, I do not want to see Max Kellerman leave ESPN and slide over the FS1 to square off with Skip Bayless.  For me, that is not a marriage made in Heaven.

Finally, let me close today with an anecdote involving the playwright George S. Kaufman:

Kaufman was a bridge fanatic who did not suffer incompetent players gladly.  When one particularly inept partner asked to be excused to go to the men’s room, Kaufman replied, “Gladly – for the first time today I’ll know what you have in your hand.”

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

 

 

The subject today is golf – sort of.  It has little if anything to do with the game played by amateurs and professionals; it has only a passing relationship with the tournaments that many fans watch on weekends in the summertime; it has to do with settling the year-long spitting contest between the PGA and LIV Golf.  The two entities have merged; they now sit in serenity circles singing Kumbaya after each one declared the other to be demonic for the last year or so.

Judging from the commentaries in the immediate aftermath of the announcement of the merger, the opinion leaders here in the US who dwell on golf matters are most unhappy with this outcome.  Recall that almost all of these commentators have spent the entirety of the confrontation between the PGA and LIV Golf squarely on the side of the PGA and accused any and all persons who chose to align themselves with LIV Golf as lowlifes who accepted blood money from irredeemably evil folks in Saudi Arabia.  Yesterday, they learned that their champion in the fight had reversed course and has now chosen to “make nice” with those same irredeemably evil folks.  The commentators are not happy.

Sally Jenkins is – in my opinion – the best sports columnist of the day; she has been as avid a supporter of the PGA for the last year as anyone.  Here is the start of her column today in the Washington Post and here is a link to the entire column if you want to read all of what she has to say:

“What’s the going rate to turn an American executive into a boot boy for a despotic torturer such as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman? Just how worn out are the knees of PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan’s pants legs?

“But let’s start with this simple question first: Why would the PGA Tour join forces with a vermin-populated fourth-rate start-up such as LIV Golf, a comedic failure that can’t command any ratings, headed by that king of the white mice, Greg Norman?

“Bought. That’s the only word for Monahan and his henchies on the PGA Tour policy board, who have made an otherwise inexplicable — and still vague — deal to work with LIV and the European tour to form a new global enterprise, funded by the Saudis. They were bought. The only question is for how many bills.”

Maybe Ms. Jenkins is right; maybe the right word for all of this is “Bought”.  I think there are other possibilities, but I have exactly no inside information that might support those possibilities.  However, let me offer up one right here.

The PGA and LIV Golf have been engaged in a lawsuit that alleges that the PGA engages in practices that amount to “restraint of trade”.  That is not a trivial allegation.  So, is it not possible that the folks running the PGA decided that they did not want to take a chance with a jury in this matter and concluded that a merger which would make that lawsuit go away was the prudent course of action?  Maybe the PGA was “bought”; maybe they acted in a way to mitigate risk?

Here is another slant on that litigation.  My understanding of civil litigation – – and remember, I have never been to law school – – is that it seeks to make an injured party whole if the “injury” involved negligence or some other tortuous activity on the part of the perpetrator.  [Aside:  I have never quite understood how a monetary award made anyone “whole” in things like wrongful death suits since the victim there remains – you know – dead.  But set that aside for a moment…]  Lots of civil litigation is expensive in terms of the legal fees for representation and background information gathering; it seems to me that a case involving these allegations would be within the upper limits of legal costs and fees for the parties.

To be sure, the PGA is not a nickel-and-dime outfit.  However, if you want to compare the depth of the pockets for the combatants in that matter, the PGA is a pauper compared to the Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) which is estimated to have something north of $600B in assets.  Maybe, the PGA saw a path to a legal victory but that it would be a Pyrrhic victory that left it verging on bankruptcy?  Hence a merger?

Let me be clear.  I am not saying that either of my scenarios has a basis in reality.  What I am saying is that the media commentators who are so outraged this morning were not privy to any – let alone all – of the activities that led to the agreement to merge.  For now, this is analogous to a “he said/she said” situation and not all those sorts of situations turn out in the end to be what they were trumpeted to be at the beginning.

There are some clear winners in all this – – the golfers who took the outsized signing bonuses from LIV Golf suffered a year of ostracism and scorn but are now back on an equal footing with those who stayed with the PGA and did not get any signing bonus money.

There is a clear point of embarrassment that the PGA will try to sweep aside – – the PGA has aligned itself with the families of 9-11 victims as part of its previous attempts to paint the Saudi money for LIV Golf as blood money.  Explaining yesterday’s merger to those surviving family members should be dicey.

Golf fans are probably winners here too – – when they tune in to see a golf tournament other than the majors, they will get to see all the best golfers in the world not just some of them.  I am not a huge “golf fan” but I imagine that the measure for enjoyment for the Joe Flabeetz Invitational Tournament would be directly proportional to the number of recognizable names in the field.

One bit of bad news that may come out of this merger – – LIV Golf has a “team golf” concept baked into its tournaments.  Golf is not a team sport notwithstanding the Ryder Cup, the President’s Cup and the Who Gives A Rat’s Ass Cup.  If this merger results in the rise of “Team Golf” every weekend, that is not a plus.

Sally Jenkins attributes the merger to the fact that the PGA was “bought” by the LIV Golf folks.  By implication she attributes this decision to the money available to the LIV Golf folks.  At that level of abstraction, I agree with her; I prefer – at least until there is more information available – to think that a more accurate way to look at this is that “money talks and bulls[p]it walks.”

Finally, it seems to me that these remarks by Abraham Lincoln are a fitting way to close today:

“Discourage litigation.  Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can.  Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser – in fees, expenses and waste of time.  As a peacemaker, the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man.  There will still be business enough.”

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

 

 

Today will be a randomized trip through some of the items I have on my clipboard for “future use” in these rants.  If you think you have discovered a thread that goes through them, you may be certain that your discovery is not something I had in mind while assembling this.

The NFL continues to investigate instances where players or coaches or team officials have wagered improperly.  Lions’ WR, Jameson Williams, received a 6-game suspension for gambling activities and he has said that he had not been aware of the full extent of the NFL prohibitions there.  Last year, Calvin Ridley was suspended for the season for betting on his own team to win even though he was on injured reserve and could not possibly play in the game or affect its outcome.  So, what are the rules in effect here?

The prohibitions about gambling are codified in the CBA between the NFL and the NFLPA.  Here is a summary:

• Football betting:  No way and no how.  Betting is prohibited on games, practices, the Draft, the Combine, futures, or props.  If the sport is football, forget about betting on it.
• Other sports:  NFL personnel other than players are also forbidden to bet or facilitate betting on any other professional, college, international or amateur sport, tournament, or event.

Gambling at legal casinos involving table games seem to be OK for NFL players and wagers on horse or dog races create a grey area in that they are “professional” events but are not enumerated anywhere by the NFL mavens.  I think the rules are overly restrictive; I doubt that a revelation of a team scout betting on who will win The Masters is a threat to the integrity of NFL games; but those are the rules.  Even though I think they are overly restrictive, they are also very clear and anyone – – players or anyone else – – who risks all or part of their career by making sports wagers can only claim “misunderstanding” if simultaneously they admit abject stupidity.

A report yesterday said that a player for the Colts is under investigation for placing “hundreds of bets” from within the Colts’ facilities and that those wagers took place in 2022 and 2023.  Please note that these alleged activities came after the announcement of Calvin Ridley’s suspension meaning the accused player still “did not understand” the rules after that demonstration of the rules.  Time to cue in Bugs Bunny:

• What a maroon!

Next up is an update on the sale of the Washington Commanders.  There are continuing reports that the Finance Committee has “problems” with the structure of Josh Harris’ bid to buy the team.  At some point, someone needs to whisper in the ear of those august members of the Committee that they need to tread a bit more lightly here because:

• If they turn down the deal, they are stuck with Danny Boy and the public stench that he bears as one of their colleagues.
• If they piss of Harris and his colleagues sufficiently, they may pull their bid off the table.  That attaches Danny Boy to the league to plus it could open the league up to litigation by Danny Boy should he be unable to find another buyer willing to pay $6.1B for his team.

Getting rid of Danny Boy has to be a plus for the other 31 owners and putting someone else in charge of the Commanders would make the league appear to be run by adults.  Two years ago, when the team chose to “rebrand itself” and went through a period calling themselves the Washington Football Team, they went about selecting a more permanent name.  After two years of thinking and investigating and strategizing, they came up with the Washington Commanders – – and then learned that the Patent and Trademark Office would not give the team a trademark for the name.  That boneheadedness does not dip into the pockets of the other 31 owners whose team names and logos are indeed trademarked, but it puts one more “dumbass chip” on the scales for one of the league franchises.

• Memo to the NFL Finance Committee:  Get this deal done.  Now.

Along those lines, let me also opine that even if the Commanders are sold and the deal were to close this evening, there is a potential for Danny Boy to continue to intersect with the NFL down the road.  Jon Gruden has a lawsuit pending against the league; the NFL has tried to get the suit dismissed and – -failing that – – to force it into arbitration where the proceedings are not made public.  To date, the NFL has not been successful in those motions.  Critical to that suit are some 600,000 emails many of which were between Gruden and the former Skins’ team president, Bruce Allen.  Some of those emails were leaked and Gruden alleges that was the basis for his losing his job.

My point is not to try this case here.  My point is that if this becomes a public trial, those emails could easily become part of the public record.  The obvious question that would have to be answered is how did those emails leak; and since most of the leaked ones involved the time when Allen and Danny Boy were running the Skins, that could easily drag Danny Boy back into the same orbit as the NFL.  Oh joy!

Complicating that matter even further is that Bruce Allen and Danny Boy are no longer “besties”.  Allen filed an arbitration claim against Danny Boy and some accommodation was reached in the process even though the two sides do not agree on how that accommodation came to be.  The Gruden lawsuit will not “bring down” the NFL by any stretch of the imagination, but it has the potential to be a thorn in the foot and a huge source of embarrassment.

Finally, much of today has dealt with the foibles of very rich people so let me close with this observation about rich people by George Bernard Shaw:

“What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.”

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

 

 

In the process of trying to follow the fits and starts of the potential move of the A’s from Oakland to Las Vegas, I neglected an important curmudgeonly duty.  The 2023 iteration of the Oakland A’s is a hot mess caught in the middle of a dumpster fire.

• The season is almost 40% over and the A’s record is 12-49.
• That is a winning percentage of .197.
• For the season that projects to a final record of 32-130.

In baseball, the “Modern Era” is said to begin in 1900.  In the Modern Era, the worst record ever posted by a team in a season was that of the expansion NY Mets in 1962.  Those Mets went 42-120 over the season so if the A’s continue on anything close to their current trajectory, they will shatter that mark of infamy by a stunning margin.

In the entire history of MLB, the worst record ever was in 1899; the team was the Cleveland Spiders who went 20-134 for the season (winning percentage = .130).  But that record needs a giant asterisk because:

• The owner of the Spiders also owned the St. Louis Browns.
• He thought he could draw more fans in St. Louis with a good team.
• So, he ‘traded” all the good players from the Spiders to the Browns.

Why might the A’s be able to eclipse the Mets’ record of futility this year?  Two current stats stand out here:

1. The A’s run differential as of this morning is minus-212.  They have played 61 games; so, they are losing games on average by 3.48 runs.
2. The A’s team ERA is 6.69.  The worst ERA in history was in 1930 when the Phillies’ staff pitched to an ERA of 6.60.

Bottom Line:  The A’s don’t score and they don’t get enough opponents out.

No one had high expectations for the A’s this year, but no one predicted a start to the season evidencing this level of ineptitude.  There are two teams for which there were high hopes in 2023 that have dramatically underperformed to date.

1. St. Louis Cardinals:  Many folks assessed the Cards as the best team in a not-so-formidable NL Central Division.  As of this morning the Cards are dead last in that NL Central Division race at 25-35.  That puts them 7,5 games out of first place there and 2 games behind the Reds who are in 4^th place.
2. San Diego Padres:  Back in March, the Padres were seen as a team poised to challenge the Dodgers’ dominance in the NL West.  As of this morning the Padres trail the Dodgers – – and the D-Backs too – – by 7.5 games and the Padres are 5 games under .500.  The team is loaded with talent but seems not to be able to “put the pieces together” even though reports have it that the Padres have had three player-only meetings.

In the tradition here of looking at both sides of the coin, there are also two teams that have done surprisingly well to this point of the season:

1. Arizona Diamondbacks:  Expectations for the D-Backs were not high in March; most prognosticators had them fighting it out with the Rockies for 4^th place in the NL West.  As of this morning they have the same record as the Dodgers atop that division; both teams are 35-25 to this point of the season.  The Dodgers are winning by bludgeoning opponents; the Dodgers’ run differential is +55.  The D-Backs are winning by scraping by; the D-Backs run differential is only +19.
2. Texas Rangers:  Before the season began, most folks had the AL West as a race between the Astros and the Mariners with the Ranges running a respectable third to those teams.  Right now, the Rangers lead the Astros by 3.5 games and have the second-best record in MLB – – behind only the Rays.  Even more than the Dodgers, the Rangers are winning by dramatically outscoring opponents; the Rangers have by far the best run differential in MLB at a stunning +152.

As noted above, the season is only about 40% in the books; so, these comments reflect more than the kinds of things one might see in the first month of a season.  But the baseball playoffs are still not in focus out there on the horizon; there is plenty of time for disappointing teams to right the ship or for over-achievers to come back to Earth.  The only “certainty” for the 2023 MLB season right now seems to be that:

• The Oakland A’s will stink!
• But will they stink to the point that they will “historically stink”?

Finally, Casey Stengel knows a few things about winning and losing in MLB.  So, let me close today with three of his observations:

“Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa.”

And …

“Most ballgames are lost, not won.”

And …

“Going to bed with a woman never hurt a ballplayer.  It’s staying up all night looking for them that does you in.”

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

 

 

Recent reports say that the NBA and Commissioner Adam Silver are “nearing the end” of the investigation into what all happened regarding Ja Morant and his second gun-waving incident, but the Commish says he does not want to disrespect the two teams in the NBA Finals by breaking news that would take attention away from those Finals’ combatants. If that were really the case, Adam Silver would not have even said what he did because what he said took attention away from the NBA Finals.

The NY Post quoted Silver saying the following prior to the tip-off in Game 1 of the NBA Finals:

“We’ve uncovered a fair amount of additional information.  We probably could have brought it to a head now, but we’ve made the decision that it would be unfair to these players and these teams to announce that decision in the middle of this series.”

Maybe I am too dumb to grasp the significance here, but I have no idea what sort of investigation is so important here.  Since the police have not charged Morant with possession of an unregistered handgun – – which is sort of obvious in both of his “flashing incidents” captured on cell phone video – – I must assume that he is licensed to own the gun and to carry it on his person.  If that assumption is correct, then Ja Morant has not broken any laws, nor has he done anything other than demonstrate that he is an immature young man who appears to lack self-control.

So, how does an investigation into that sort of stuff lead the Commissioner to say:

“I don’t think we yet know what it will take to change his [Morant’s] behavior,”

Adam Silver is an adult who ought to realize that he is not going to change Ja Morant’s behavior until and unless Ja Morant is open to having his behavior changed.  Silver can suspend him and not allow him to participate in any NBA activities thereby taking away Morant’s source of income.  Maybe that would convince Morant to be open to changing his behavior; maybe not.  But I wonder why Adam Silver seems to think that it is his responsibility to change Ja Morant’s behavior and why he thinks he might succeed in that endeavor once he tries.  Meanwhile:

• Memo to Ja Morant:  When you are out and about with your entourage, collect everyone’s cell phone and put them in your pocket so they cannot take videos of you.
• And do not video yourself.
• You’re welcome!

Moving on …  Tom Brady is in the process of seeking NFL approval to buy a minority interest in the Las Vegas Raiders and that has created speculation that he might be the QB for the Raiders starting in September.  Brady continues to deny this and there would be hurdles he would have to cross to get approval to be an owner/player, but those hurdles are not insurmountable.  Brady continues to assert that he is “retired for good” and that he is not interested in another “unretirement”.  Here is what he had to say on that matter:

“But I’m looking forward to my broadcasting job at Fox next year.  I’m looking forward to the opportunity ahead with the Raiders and we’re in the process of that along with the other different things that I’m a part of professionally and in my personal life.”

And …

“Just spending as much time with my kids as I can and seeing them grow up and support the different things that they have going on, and that’s a very important job. And I take them all pretty seriously.”

I am on record saying that I do not believe that Tom Brady will be a great color analyst for NFL games on TV.  Obviously, he knows the game extremely well and he is clearly bright and articulate; those are fundamental elements that go into being a great color analyst.  However, I think there are two factors that work against him and the second of those factors is reflected in his statements above:

1. Tom Brady has been in hundreds of press events after games and proximal to training camp activities.  As I have watched many of them, I never got the impression that Brady was enjoying himself.  Some folks love being on camera and behind a microphone; Tom Brady does not look like one of those sorts of folks to me.
2. More importantly, Tom Brady says he wants to be with his kids as much of the time as possible.  Well, NFL color analysts don’t get a lot of “home games” where they can spend multiple weekdays at home with their families.  Moreover, NFL color analysts do not just “helicopter in” for the broadcast(s) on Sundays; the preparation and production meetings often begin on Thursdays meaning he will be away from his kids most of the week from around Labor Day until late January of the next year.

I think that is a tough exacta to deal with.  I don’t think he will be doing something he loves to do, and I think that something will take him away from his kids more than just a little bit.  As that “exacta” begins to manifest itself, it would not be shocking if Tom Brady came to the personal realization that TV was not his calling in life.  And if that happens, his performance will deteriorate simply because people rarely do well when they do not like what they are doing.  This is not a knock on Tom Brady; this is simply not the way human beings are wired.

Finally, I woke up this morning with this quotation in my mind for no apparent reason.  So, let me close with it even though it has nothing to do with anything above.  It is from General George S. Patton:

“Now, I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.  He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

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

 

 

The Nuggets and the Heat will tip off for Game 1 of the NBA Finals tonight at 8:30 EDT.  The recently concluded Eastern Conference Final series was a TV monster for the NBA setting more than a few records for audience size along the way.  Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals averaged 11.3 million viewers and that number had to be drawn down to some extent by the blowout in Game 7 meaning some fans turned the game off before it ended.  I suspect that the Finals will have difficulty living up to that standard as a TV property even though I expect that the audience size will be significant.

Jerry Brewer is a national sports columnist for the Washington Post, and this is his lead paragraph for a column in today’s sports Section:

“During these NBA Finals, basketball will have to be enough. There are no championship-collecting icons to obsess over, no dynasties to dissect, no obvious pizazz to entice casual followers to join the avid. It’s just the Denver Nuggets and the Miami Heat — two teams full of substance but lacking garnish — ready to give the sport what it needs, even if some of the audience may not want it.”

He’s right.  This series will be about basketball on the court and not about grand philosophical considerations.  Both teams play sound, fundamental basketball and you are not going to see any players on the court “dogging it” for very long because both coaches will pull any player doing so.  This will be a steak and baked potato type of Series not a chateaubriand and scalloped potato type.

Switching gears …  Think back about a year or so to the story about wealthy parents trying to buy their kids’ way into prestigious schools by getting a coach of a minor sport to tell the admissions people that the kid was a potential athlete.  The involvement of various celebrities gave the story panache and when those minor celebs plead guilty to various charges the story was refreshed and imprinted on peoples’ minds.  Well, a recent twist in that story seems not to have gotten nearly the same amount of “splash coverage”.

It turns out that two men chose not to plead guilty to a variety of charges and went to trial.  A jury convicted them of a whole bunch of things and the defendants appealed that conviction.  A US Court of Appeals recently ruled 3-0 to set aside all the charges against one defendant and all but one charge against the other defendant.  [Aside:  The conviction that was upheld was for filing a false tax return.]

That whole investigation and set of charges for violating Federal Laws always struck me as an edifice balanced on a knife edge.  It never occurred to me that the US Congress in its infinitesimal wisdom would have even tried to legislate what a parent could or could not do regarding college admission applications.  Of course, because the presumed ne’er-do-wells in this case were either very rich or had celebrity status, this generated public agita and the process went forward.

I am going to say something here that sounds very elitist.  I do not intend it to be elitist, but I do believe that it is American reality in 2023:

• Kids with rich parents have specific and tangible advantages over kids with poor parents in many arenas – – including college admissions.  That may offend sensibilities but that cannot be made illegal.

Allow me to give a specific example here.  Phil Knight is the co-founder and “Chairman-Emeritus” of Nike.  Forbes says that his net worth is $41.7B.  Knight is an alum of the University of Oregon and according to reports he has donated more than $1B to the University of Oregon for things such as the renovation of the school library and the construction of a law school facility.  In addition, his gifts to the school also funded major athletic department projects.

Now, imagine for a moment that Phil Knight has a grandchild – – gender does not matter here – – and that child decides to apply for admission to the University of Oregon.  Imagine the applicant is simply that – – an applicant – – with no outstanding athletic or academic prowess in evidence.  The kid is a good student, (s)he has not had any police run-ins; (s)he is the classic alter ego of your friendly neighborhood super-hero.  Question:

• What are that child’s chances for acceptance by the University of Oregon?

The answer is 100% – – and there is nothing wrong with that.  The difference between my hypothetical here and the celebrated cases from about a year ago is that Knight did not make those contributions with a specific grandchild’s admission in mind – – even though he virtually guaranteed such a result absent a felony conviction for the applicant.  What those rich parents from a year ago are actually guilty of is stupidity.  Instead of trying to pay off some minor sports coach or athletic department factotum to get an edge in the admissions process, they should have dug into their wallets and made a six-figure donation to the school’s general fund.

Stupidity is not against the law – – and if it were, the biggest growth sector of the economy would be in prison construction.  The US Court of Appeals thinks that is the case.  The judge writing for the decision to set aside the convictions also said:

“Nothing in this opinion should be taken as approval of the defendants’ conduct in seeking college admission for their children.  We do not say the defendants’ conduct is at all desirable.”

Finally, having mentioned stupidity above, let me close with this assessment by Albert Einstein:

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”

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

 

 

I have commented frequently on the potential move of the Oakland A’s to Las Vegas.  As long as 4 or 5 years ago, I said that the team needed a new place to play when I read reports that a sewage backup delivered wastewater to the dugouts in the Oakland Coliseum for the second time in a season.  There have been fits and starts in the plans to move or to build a new stadium in Oakland, but the scene now appears to favor the team moving to Las Vegas.  It’s not a done deal – – but it sure looks as if that is how it will all end.

John Feinstein had a column in the Washington Post recently under this headline:

As greedy owners abandon Oakland, fans are innocent bystanders

From that headline, it is not difficult to fathom which side of this issue Messr. Feinstein favors and I agree that the A’s owners have not behaved like model citizens throughout all of this.  Nonetheless, there are multiple sides to this story.

• The existing facility is unsatisfactory; it must be replaced.
• The officials in Oakland could not come to any agreement with the team about obtaining/building a new facility over a period of at least 5 years and maybe 10.
• The team’s lease runs out after 2024.

Call the owners greedy and I will agree with you.  Try to exonerate the city officials in Oakland by putting all the blame on the owners and I will completely disagree with you.  Moreover, the fans are not innocent bystanders.

• 2022:  A’s average home attendance = 8,283 fans per game
• 2023:  A’s average home attendance = 8,750 fans per game
• Earlier this season the Oakland Soul – – a minor league women’s soccer team – – out-drew the A’s on the same night.

Notwithstanding the headline on John Feinstein’s column, the fans are not “innocent bystanders”.  They are ignoring the A’s and have been for at least the last two seasons.  Maybe they are staying away because the facility is so dreadful – – but if that is the case then add the City Fathers of Oakland to the blame list.  The bottom line here is that there are no heroes in the saga; there is plenty of blame to throw around.  If you want to follow John Feinstein’s reasoning to see how he comes to his conclusion, here is the link to his column.

Switching gears …  There is a report this morning that the University of Colorado held “substantive talks” with representatives of the Big-12 conference and that Colorado is considering a jump from the PAC-12 to the Big-12.  Right now, the only reason that Colorado athletics is particularly interesting is the fact that Deion Sanders took over the football coaching job there last winter.  In and of itself, Colorado is not a big-ticket item for the Big-12 – – but Colorado might just be the way for the Big-12 to expand to a point where it virtually puts the PAC-12 out of business as a Power 5 Conference.

When the PAC-12 lost USC and UCLA to the Big-10, it dealt a serious blow to that conference because those defections cost the PAC-12 a huge portion of its television base in the LA area and that is where the big money comes from.  Please forget for a moment all the fantastic memories of athletic glory for the conference and the great traditions and rivalries of the remaining schools in the conference; those are all nice, but they don’t feed the bulldog.

There have been rumors for months that the Big-12 covets the so-called “Four Corners’ Schools” currently in the PAC-12 – – Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Arizona St.  If they were to convince those four schools to jump to the Big 12 it would accomplish the following:

• It would give the Big 12 representation in all four time zones for the Lower 48.
• It would remove what is now the second largest TV market (Phoenix) from what remains of the PAC-12.
• It would leave the PAC-12 with only 6 teams and only 1 TV market in the Top 10 in the country.

As I said above, Colorado is not the “grand prize” in this saga, Arizona State with its TV market ranked 11^th in the country is the big fish in the pond.  But Colorado has linkage to the Big-12 because it used to be part of the Big-12 even in those days when the Big 12 was merely the Big-8.

Imagine for just a moment that the PAC-12 lost the “Four Corners’ Schools”.  Left with only 6 schools, the conference would have to try to add schools and that will present a problem for the Conference.  It is difficult to come up with a list of 6 schools that the Conference might add such that the PAC-12 maintains a semblance of “Power-5 status”.  The remaining schools would be:

1. Cal
2. Stanford
3. Oregon
4. Oregon St.
5. Washington
6. Washington St.

What might fit with that footprint?

• San Diego St. – – probably – – captures some of the already lost LA market.
• Boise St. – – OK – – team is best known for its blue artificial playing surface.
• Hawaii – – Wow – – lots of traveling to be done there.
• New Mexico St. – – Wow – – they were asked to leave the Mountain West
• Idaho – – Not likely – – they have dropped down to Division 1-AA
• Utah St. – – OK – – not quite a replacement for Utah, but better than nothing
• Fresno St. – – OK – – geographically better than other possibilities
• UNLV – – maybe/maybe not?

This is off the top of my head; I have probably ignored a school or two that might be of positive benefit to a PAC-12 in need of expansion.  Nevertheless, any new additions here would not replace the two teams that are already gone from the PAC-12 plus the loss of the “Four Corners’ Schools”.

Finally, let me close here with this entry from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Confucius:  Chinese philosopher from 551 BC.  Known for his inspiring and humanistic quotations such as ‘Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without,’ or ‘No matter where you go, there you are,’ and ‘I can’t believe you morons think this crap is profound’.”

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