The Sports Curmudgeon

After several days of rumors and leaks, the NFL put on a press extravaganza last night and released the regular season schedule for all 32 teams in 2023.  Because the NFL schedule is formulaic, we have known for months which teams would play which other teams overall; what was revealed yesterday is the order of the games and their venues.  Last week, Bob Molinaro of the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot quite accurately predicted the hullabaloo that surrounded the announcement:

“Up next: In its ongoing quest to eclipse all other sports news and conversation, the NFL will grab headlines again next week with the release of its regular-season schedule. As always, media will treat it like the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

Because we have known the opponents for all teams for months but not their order, one of the themes about the scheduling for 2023 is that the Philadelphia Eagles have the “toughest schedule” in the league based on the cumulative record of all their opponents in 2022.  Once the schedule was announced, I went to see what the “toughest schedule” looked like when it stared me in the face.  Here are a couple of impressions:

• The Eagles – like all NFC teams in 2023 – play 8 home games and 9 road games.  Of the 8 opponents who will visit Lincoln Financial Field, 6 of those visitors made the playoffs in 2022.
• The Eagles have a 7-game stretch between November 5^th and Christmas Day where all 7 opponents made the playoffs in 2022.  Here is what that schedule looks like:
  • • Vs. Cowboys
    • BYE Week
    • At Chiefs
    • Vs. Bills
    • Vs Niners
    • At Cowboys
    • At Seahawks
    • Vs. Giants

There was another event related to the NFL earlier this week that did not receive nearly the same amount of attention as the schedule release or the amount of coverage that the start of the story received.  About a year ago, Matt Araiza was a rookie punter for the Bills until the team released him in the wake of an accusation that he had participated in the gang rape of a 17-year-old girl at a party while he was in college.  In retrospect, the coverage at the time represents a black mark for journalism.  At least 90% of the coverage/commentary assumed that Araiza was a loathsome creature from whom great punishment(s) should be extracted.  Far too many commentators generalized this purported kind of behavior and placed it on young testosterone-fueled athletes.  Here is the not-so-minor problem:

• After months of investigation, the authorities in San Diego announced that there would be no charges brought against Araiza and that a witness at the party in question said that Araiza left the party an hour before the alleged gang rape happened.

There were volumes of opprobrium hurled at Araiza about a year ago over this; this week, there was not a similar wave of apologies for jumping to conclusions without evidence.  Journalists are highly vocal when any behavior that might limit their freedom of expression arises; there is no reticence then in wrapping themselves in the First Amendment.  Well, here is a situation where those proponents of the Constitution rode roughshod over the Fifth Amendment which is the basis of the American tradition – – innocent until proven guilty.

Switching gears …  The NFLPA is scheduled to name a successor to its Executive Director, DeMaurice Smith.  The union’s rules require that there must be at least two candidates for the position and potentially as many as four.  The union president, former Browns’ center JC Tretter, announced that there would be a meeting in June of this year focused on finding Smith’s successor.  What makes this interesting is this:

• The meeting is scheduled for next month but there is no news on who the candidates for the job might be.
• The slate of candidates for this position is hardly TOP SECRET/DESTROY BEFORE READING information and with the meeting scheduled sometime in the next 6 weeks, one would think that at least some applicants for the job would be identified.

For the record, I am not implying that there is something dastardly or nefarious going on here.  I do think it is unusual to shroud this sort of thing in any level of secrecy and that makes me wonder why Tretter and the rest of the NFLPA officers would go to the trouble of holding on to that information.  It is not as if the new Executive Director will do the job opaque to the public and the press.  And in the spirit of full disclosure, I am not one of the potential candidates for the position.

Finally, let me close today with this observation by Edward Teller – – widely known as the “father of the hydrogen bomb”:

“A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes.  It is innocent unless found guilty.  A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe.  It is guilty, until found effective.”

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

 

 

Earlier this week, West Virginia’s men’s basketball coach, Bob Huggins was doing a live interview on the radio and uttered a homophobic slur.  Actually, taken in context, it may have been a dual slur – – homophobic and religious – – but that is not really important.  Huggins is 70 years old; he is clearly an adult and is in the final stages of his career as a basketball coach.  In today’s hyper-sensitive and easily triggered environment, what might be his fate?

Huggins apologized as is required behavior in such situations; and so, the first reaction was to debate the sincerity of his apology – – something only he could possibly know.  That was followed by people exhibiting and expressing varying levels of shock and horror that a person who is supposed to mold young men into model citizenry would even think such vile thoughts.  And soon after that came calls for his head on a plate – – figuratively of course; folks merely wanted him fired and shunned.

Here is West Virginia University’s course of action:

• Huggins will be suspended for 3 games next year.
• Huggins’ salary will be reduced by $1M – – and that money will go to the school’s LGBTQ Center.
• Huggins will be required to meet with “LGBTQ leaders” in West Virginia – – presumably to get him to better appreciate that segment of society.
• Huggins’ multi-year contract will convert to a year-to-year deal removing future salary guarantees.

On one hand, I doubt that any of the sanctions leveled here will change whatever it was in Bob Huggins’ mind or soul that led him to say what he did.  Then again, I doubt that firing him from his job and relegating him to the status of a non-person would make that sort of change either.

At the same time, please do not take the position that Huggins’ remarks have gone unnoticed or unpunished.  Granted that the suspension means little to nothing and the meetings with “LGBTQ leaders” will probably be staged events at best.  But Huggins has been “fined” $1M and has had future salary guarantees taken from him.  That loss of salary will not put Huggins and his family in the poorhouse, but it is something significant.

• [Aside:  The WVU President is E. Gordon Gee who – interestingly – has a history of uttering religious slurs of his own.  When he was President of Ohio State, he was asked about the possibility of Notre Dame joining the Big Ten Conference and he said that would not happen because Notre Dame’s priests are “not good partners” and that you can’t trust “those damned Catholics”.  And this is the guy handing out punishments to Bob Huggins.  Physician, heal thyself…]

Moving on … The ongoing search by the Oakland A’s for a new stadium/home appears now to rest on the Nevada State Legislature appropriating some funds to flesh out the financing for a new stadium in Las Vegas on a tract of land that the A’s owners have purchased there.  There is posturing and dancing going on as this comes to a head; legislators say the A’s have not given sufficient guarantees about moving should the monies be appropriated and the A’s saying they can’t do anything more without funding certainty.  Tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum…

Personally, I do not like the idea of taxpayers footing the bill for stadiums unless the jurisdiction owns the stadium and leases it at a reasonable price to the team in town.  That never seems to happen.  However, the folks who are in power to govern Las Vegas seem to have decided that having major league sports in the city is beneficial to the city and the residents there.  If the A’s actually take up residence in Las Vegas, that will give the city franchises in the NFL, NHL, WNBA and MLB.  Last I checked, Nevada was a jurisdiction based in democracy; if the folks in charge in Las Vegas are wrong and the people who live in Las Vegas recognize that the vison of the city as a sports hub is not what the people want, then the people can go to the polls and run these guys out of town.

If I were a resident in some other part of Nevada remote from Las Vegas, I would surely not want my legislative representatives to spend some of my tax dollars in this way.  But I am not a resident of Nevada so my opinion on that subject is just that – – my opinion; I have no dog in this fight.

It does seem to me that the city of Oakland has more to lose here than Las Vegas has to gain.  The economy of Las Vegas is rather robust as is; adding an MLB team to the list of “attractions” there seems to be of marginal value to the city of Las Vegas and its “prestige”.  Oakland, on the other hand, stands to lose something that is an identifier for the city – a recognizable entity directly associated with the city.  Moreover, this is not the first such recognizable entity that has been lost by Oakland:

1. Oakland lost the NFL’s Raiders – – twice
2. Oakland lost the NBA’s Warriors
3. Oakland lost the NHL’s Seals – – eventually becoming the San José Sharks
4. Oakland now stands to lose MLB’s A’s …

The folks in power in Oakland have chosen to resist agreeing to plans that would cost the city large sums of money to retain the A’s domicile there.  I agree philosophically with their position; I would support those elected officials were I resident in Oakland; and at the same time, I see that the city is going to pay a price for that principled position.  Even if the Nevada State Legislature does not come thorough with funding, I think the writing is on the wall that the A’s are leaving town and going “somewhere else”.

Finally, here is what Groucho Marx had to say about “principles”:

“These are my principles.  If you don’t like them, I have others.”

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

 

 

The tenth of May is abbreviated as 5/10 and so let me be the first to wish you a Happy Woolworth’s Day.

The full NFL schedule will be announced tomorrow, but the league has already announced the Europe Games for 2023.  There will be five of them and the folks in London and in Germany are going to get to see some upper-tier teams this year; lots of playoff teams from last year will be venturing across the pond this year.  And Jax – – a playoff team last year – – will play two games in London.

1. Week 4:   Jags/Falcons – – Wembley Stadium in London
2. Week 5:   Jags/Bills – – Tottenham Hotspur Field in London
3. Week 6:   Ravens/Titans – – Tottenham Hotspur Field in London
4. Week 9:   Chiefs/Dolphins – – Frankfurt, Germany
5. Week 10: Colts/Pats – – Frankfurt, Germany

With an odd number of regular season games, this is the year that AFC teams have the “ninth home game”.  That is the reason why AFC teams are the “home team” in all five of the Europe Games; that way all the NFC teams get a full slate of “home games” as part of their revenue stream.

Switching gears …  The rule changes implemented this year by MLB that have led to shorter games with a higher “action density” than in recent years seem to be working.  Notwithstanding some dire predictions by some baseball fans/historians, the Earth has not ceased to spin on its axis in response to these changes.  I love the pitch clock; the larger bases have put the stolen base back into the games.  Originally, I did not like the idea of “banning/limiting The Shift” but I have learned to live with it rather quickly.  But maybe the winds of change are not over when it comes to MLB.

The baseball mavens continue to experiment with robo-umpires to call balls and strikes in minor league games.  The Atlantic League – – made up of independent teams of minor league players – uses robo-umps to call balls and strikes.  One of the noted benefits so far is that there are no arguments with the home plate umpire about a called pitch because all the human umpire is doing is relaying the call he got in an earpiece from the “computer”.  Arguing about or grousing at a call is pointless; the agent making the call in question is not human and not present.  Fewer meaningless baseball arguments cannot be all bad…

In Triple-A games there are also robo-umps, but they are used differently.  The human umpire makes the calls on balls and strikes; teams have limited numbers of challenges where they can appeal the human’s call to the robo-umpire.  I have not read much about how this is working out, but the idea seems sound to me – – if the number of permitted challenges is small.

If/when robo-umps come to MLB, there will need to be a uniform way to set the standard for a strike zone.  The dimensions of home plate do not change so two of the three spatial dimensions are fixed for every hitter.  It is the vertical dimension that will need to be set and defined.  The rulebook defines that vertical dimension, and it has been largely ignored for decades.  Is that rulebook definition the strike zone that would be enforced by robo-umpires?  Moreover, the strike zone for different players will move up and down in the vertical dimension.  Using players from baseball’s past, consider the height of the strike zone for Freddie Patek (5’ 5” tall) and Dave Kingman (6’ 6” tall).

Neither of those two “issues” should be disqualifying for the use of robo-umpires should everything else associated with their introduction appear positive, but they are issues to be addressed.  One subtlety associated with robo-umpires is in the mindset of the umpire behind the plate.  The robo-umpire is focused solely on the position of the ball as it comes to the catcher – – was it or was it not in the strike zone.  So, the robo-umpire may tell the home plate umpire that a pitch was a “Ball” – – but the batter swung and missed so it needs to rung up as a strike.  Absent concentration and attention to detail can lead to confusion for the home plate umpire.

As they say in those infomercials that air at 3:00 AM, “But wait, there’s more …”

Here are some other rule changes that are in the early stages of contemplation:

• The Double Hook:  This rule puts a burden on a team’s starting pitcher.  If he goes five full innings, all goes as normal.  However, if the starter is removed from the game before five full innings, then the DH is removed also, and the incumbent pitcher would have to bat in the slot previously occupied by the DH.  This rule would effectively end the idea of a team using an “Opener”.  I think I like this rule change…
• The Designated Pinch Runner:  A bench player can be used as a pinch runner once in a game and both players would be allowed to return to the game.  This could allow a manager the strategic advantage of a faster base runner at some point in the game without sacrificing the player who is run for.  The player in the game would return to his normal position at the end of the inning and the designated runner would be eligible to come into the game as a pitcher or position player later in the game.  I think I like this rule change too – – so long as it can only be done once in a game.
• The Single Pick-Off Move:  The rule change implemented this year limits a pitcher to two pick-off/step-back events per batter.  That tends to speed up the game and enhances base stealing at the same time.  The idea here is to limit the pitcher to only one such event per batter.  I am not nearly as interested in this concept as I am in the two listed above…

These three rule change possibilities are also being tested in the Atlantic League.  It remains to be seen if any or all of them will make their way into the normal minor-league baseball structure.

Finally, I’ll close today with these words about change from Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

“And slowly answered Arthur from the barge:

The old order changeth, yielding place to new;

And God fulfills himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”

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

 

 

Joe Kapp died yesterday.  He may not make your list of the 10 greatest QBs in history, but he was successful and involved in many aspects of the game.

• He was the QB of the last Cal team to play in the Rose Bowl in the 50s.
• He was in the CFL and won a Grey Cup with the BC Lions
• Later, he was the GM for the BC Lions
• He was in the NFL and made it to the Super Bowl with the Vikes
• He had roles in football movies including The Longest Yard and Two Minute Warning.
• He was the head coach at Cal – – and was on the job for the famous final play against the “Stanford Band.”

Rest in peace, Joe Kapp …

Based on reporting yesterday, the NBA is about to get some bad news once the NFL schedule is released later this week.  Christmas Day in 2023 falls on a Monday; Christmas Day is usually dominated in the sports world by five NBA games on TV from about noon to midnight in the Eastern Time Zone.  Many fans consider Christmas Day to be the de facto start of the NBA regular season after a bunch of meaningless games in November and early December.  [Aside:  I consider March 1^st to be the start of the real NBA regular season but that is a rant for a different day.]

Normally, the NFL plays a Monday night game.  In the past, they have aired a double-header on Christmas Day when it is a Monday.  The rumor is that this year the NFL will broadcast a triple header – – 1:00 PM through about 11:30 PM in the Eastern Time Zone – – and the showcase NBA Christmas extravaganza is going to be buried.

The NFL aired a triple header last year because Christmas fell on a Sunday and the NFL has a triple header every Sunday.  The TV success was sufficiently large last year that the league is rumored to try to make this a calendar fixture.  I don’t know how they might try to do that in 2024 when Christmas will fall on a Tuesday, but we can leave that to the scheduling mavens at NFL HQs.

In addition to Sunday triple headers, the NFL also presents an all-day football orgy on Thanksgiving Day and those games always draw mega-audiences.  I would not be surprised to see a “Christmas Triple Header Tradition” start if the NFL can figure a way to make such a thing happen when Christmas is either a Tuesday or a Wednesday – – days where there is no ”NFL presence” on the sporting calendar.

Moving on …  The EPL season is in the deep stretch.  Sixteen of the twenty teams have 3 games left to play; Man United, Newcastle, Chelsea and Man City have 4 games remaining.  Man City is at the top of the table with a 1-point lead over Arsenal and with a game in hand.  Toward the top of the table, there is a tight battle for 4^th place and 5^th place which means something in English Football.  The top 4 teams are included in the UAEFA Champions League; the top 5 teams are invited to participate in the Europa League; the Champions League is a much bigger deal.

As of this morning, Man United is in 4^th place and they lead Liverpool by 1 point with a game in hand.  Liverpool has been on a run lately winning their last 5 games; Man United has hit a rough patch lately winning two and drawing one in its last 5 games.  Two of the three remaining games for Liverpool are against teams that would be relegated if the decision were made today so the pressure is on Man United.

Of course, here in Curmudgeon Central there is a mandate to focus on the bottom of the table to see which teams will be “sent down” to the Championship next year due to low quality performance this season.

• Southampton is at the bottom of the table with 20 points.  They are not mathematically consigned to relegation yet, but it would take a miraculous turn of fortune for them to stay in the EPL next year.  They have lost 4 of their last 5 games and tied the fifth one.
• Leeds United is next-to-last with 30 points.  They too have lost 4 of their last 5 games along with a draw and two of their final three games are against teams in the top six of the league.  Things look bleak for Leeds United.
• Leicester City is third from the bottom with 30 points but holds the lead over Leeds United based on goal differential.  They have 1 win and 2 draws in their last 5 games but two of their remaining three games are against top-five teams.
• Everton is fourth from the bottom with 32 points.  They are fighting relegation; the last time Everton was in something other than the top tier of English football was in 1951.  Their remaining schedule appears to be softer than either Leeds United or Leicester City.
• Nottingham Forest is fifth from the bottom with 33 points.  [Aside:  Wouldn’t it be great if their goalkeeper was named Robin Hood?]  They have won 2 of their last 5 games giving them a bit of breathing room here and their remaining schedule is not nearly as tough as some others here.

Three of these five teams will be relegated to the Championship next year.  Burnley and Sheffield United will be promoted to the EPL next year; they finished first and second in the Championship this year and are automatically promoted.  The third promotion will be decided by a playoff involving the teams finishing third through sixth in the table for the year.  That playoff begins this weekend; here are the matchups:

• Sunderland vs. Luton Town
• Middlesbrough vs. Coventry

If Sunderland were to win this and gain promotion to the EPL, it would create a situation where Sunderland and Newcastle United would meet twice next year thereby re-establishing a longstanding rivalry known as the North East derby.  Having no other rooting interest here, let me back Sunderland in this playoff round.

Finally, apropos of nothing, let me close with this observation by Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

“In the beginning the Universe was created.  This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

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

 

 

Mage won the Kentucky Derby on Saturday; this year was the 50^th anniversary of Secretariat’s definitive Triple Crown and I would like to put that feat in perspective today:

• Secretariat set the record for the Derby and the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes in 1973.  Fifty years later those three records still stand.
• Secretariat won the Derby in a time of 1:59 2/5; Mage won on Saturday in a time of 2:01.57.  In handicapping, a fifth of a second is considered to be one length on the track; it’s an approximation to be sure, but it is generally accepted as a measurement.  That means Mage would have finished 11 lengths behind Secretariat in an imaginary match race.
• How big is 11 lengths?  Well, the 10^th place finisher on Saturday – – a horse named Confidence Game – – was about 12 lengths behind Mage.  So, watch the replay of the Derby on Saturday and count the horses as they cross the finish line.  When you come to 10^th place, that is the margin of Secretariat’s imaginary victory.

Bob Molinaro of the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot had this to say about pageantry over the weekend:

“At the risk of beating a dead horse, the Kentucky Derby continues to recede as an American cultural event. Even the “Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports” is too much commitment for a short-attention-span society. There is this, though: with the Derby in Louisville and the coronation of King Charles in London, Saturday will be a big day for silly hats.”

Last week, the NFL suspended 5 players for “gambling infractions”.  Two were suspended for 7 games because they placed bets on their phones while they were on the premises of team facilities and that is specifically prohibited in the existing CBA.  The other three players were suspended “indefinitely” and details in those cases are still murky.  However, it should be noted that Calvin Ridley was suspended “indefinitely” when the league found out that he bet on his team to win while he was on injured reserve.  Make of that what you will and consider that Ridley was reinstated after sitting out one year.

There was an interesting tidbit in the reporting that caught my eye.  The NFLPA has alerted all its members via e-mail that the mobile apps on the players’ phones alerted the online sportsbooks to their gambling activities and that it was the online sportsbook apps folks who alerted the NFL of the gambling events.  I think there is a lesson here for everyman and not just for NFLPA membership:

• Online sportsbook apps know who you are and what you are wagering on – – and maybe have sufficiently sophisticated tracking and locating technology to know where you are placing your wagers.
• The folks who own and operate those apps would seem to have no qualms about sharing that information with third parties like the NFL and who knows who else …

Maybe folks should consider these online gambling apps as the technical incarnation of Lamont Cranston – – known as The Shadow.

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of man?  The Shadow knows…”

The lesson taught to ne’er-do-wells by The Shadow in every radio episode was:

“The weed of crime bears bitter fruit…”

Another report last week said that the city of Nashville, TN has approved a deal that will contribute $1.25B to the cost of building a new stadium for the Titans.  The total cost of the proposed new playpen for the Titans is $2.1B.  I do not like the idea of taxpayer financing of stadiums where the team owners get to keep most of the revenue generated by the stadium facility; I am also a realist and recognize that city fathers around the country are more than willing to appropriate taxpayer funds to these purposes.  So, I cannot blame leagues and team owners for accepting their largesse.

Here are three recent stadium funding offers put forth by cities:

1. Las Vegas coughed up $750M to get the Raiders to move from Oakland.
2. Buffalo and NY State allocated $850M to the Bills for a new stadium there.
3. Now we have the Titans scoring $1.25B …

Folks, this is a prelude.  Once Danny Boy Snyder sells the Commanders, his toxic presence will no longer overhang any attempt to get a new stadium built in the DC area.  There are three jurisdictions that can aspire to host the Commanders’ new field – – Maryland, DC and Virginia – – and that bidding war will be intense.  I will not be surprised when the public financing for that deal goes beyond $1.25B.

Finally, since I mentioned crime and criminality above, let me close with a few observations on those subjects:

“The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is kind of a slander on the poor.”  [H. L. Mencken]

And …

“I think crime pays.  The hours are good, you meet a lot of interesting people.  You travel a lot.”  [Woody Allen]

And …

“The best of them were the kind of people you’d expect to drive a beer truck. They had no class.  The classy gangster is a Hollywood invention.”  [Orson Welles]

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

 

 

Ralph Boston died earlier this week.  Back when track and field was a much bigger deal in US sports than it is today, Ralph Boston was a dominant figure in the long jump.  He broke the world record held by Jesse Owens for more than two decades.  He won the Gold Medal in the 1960 Olympics in Rome and also earned medals in 1964 and 1968.  He was the first person to jump beyond 27 feet.

Rest in peace, Ralph Boston…

Last year, there were reports that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred hoped to see MLB expand from 30 teams to 32 teams.  That would make sense from the standpoint of organizing divisions and determining playoff teams.  I do not think it makes a lot of sense in terms of the existence of sufficient pitching talent to add two more teams – – meaning about 24 current minor league pitchers – – to the major leagues.  However, reports say that MLB would target a franchise fee of $2.0 – 2.5B and that is a level of motivation for owners that they will have difficulty resisting.

Frontofficesports.com now reports that several cities are getting their ducks in order in anticipation of a solicitation by MLB for bids to acquire two new franchises.  Here they are in alphabetical order lest anyone think I have prioritized them in any way:

1. Charlotte:  Atlanta is about 250 miles away so there is a natural rivalry situation there but would a team in Charlotte cost Atlanta attendance?  I have thought for several years now that MLB should consider a franchise in North Carolina – – but in the Raleigh/Durham area closer to halfway between Washington and Atlanta.
2. Las Vegas:  Obviously, Las Vegas comes off this list if the A’s move there.
3. Montreal:  The city supported the Expos for years even though they had to play in the stadium built for the Olympics there and that stadium would politely be described as a White Elephant.  With teams in NY, Boston and Toronto, adding Montreal would make for a nice regional set.
4. Nashville:  The city fathers there just approved plans to bankroll a new stadium for the Tennessee Titans to the tune of about $2B.  Is there room in the exchequer to build a baseball stadium too?
5. Portland:  This city is always on any list when it comes to expanding any US sport or as a potential site for a franchise in a newly forming league.  The geography makes sense, but no one ever seems to pick Portland as a final destination – – save for the Blazers in the NBA.
6. Salt Lake City:  This is the newest entry on the list.  It would fill in a geographic slot where there are no MLB teams assuming that Las Vegas does not get a team either by expansion or by the A’s moving there.

MLB showed over this winter that it is willing to tinker with parts of the game that were considered to be sacrosanct in the past.  It seems as if the pitching clock and the larger bases and banning the shift are producing a better entertainment product.  So — might the folks running MLB be willing to consider radical change such as …

• Do an expansion of 2 teams ALONG WITH significant franchise relocations and divisional alignments?

Maybe this is an opportunity to fish or cut bait with the folks in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area when it comes down to getting attendance where it ought to be for a team that has been as successful as the Rays have been for the last 10 years or so.  As of this morning, the Rays rank 23^rd in attendance in MLB at 16,200 fans per game.   Is it finally time for the folks there to decide if they want the team to stay there or not?  As a yardstick, the Rockies – a team that has not been nearly as successful as the Rays over the past decade – are averaging 27,097 fans per game this year.  That is 67% greater than the Rays’ attendance and that makes no sense.

Maybe this is an opportunity for MLB to rectify the mistake it made in putting a franchise in Miami in the first place.  The Marlins – whether you list them as the “Miami Marlins” or the “Florida Marlins” – have never been successful at the gate.  This year, the Marlins average 12,942 fans per game.  Hold your breath, but that attendance is UP from last year at this time when the Marlins only drew 11,919 fans per game.  The Miami franchise has churned through ownerships and team presidents and GMs over the last 30 years; it has won the World Series twice in that time; and yet, there is not significant support for the team.

• [Aside:  Remember back in 2000 when young Elian Gonzales was ruled to be too young to be granted asylum in the US and that he had to be returned to his parent in Cuba.  There were demonstrations of 20,000 –  25,000 people in the streets protesting this act and Federal authorities broke into a residence and took custody of young Gonzalez at gun point.  At the time, I suggested that the Miami Marlins should bring Gonzalez to their stadium every night because it would give them their largest crowds ever.  Obviously, the team did not take that advice…]

If MLB were to think about moving existing franchises along with expansion, then maybe they would also be willing to shake up longstanding division and league affiliations.  With 32 teams, eight divisions of four teams makes a lot of sense.  So does the organization of geographically tight divisions that can foster rivalries.  For example, why not a division of:

• Mets, Nationals, Orioles and Phillies – – and – –
• Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays and Montreal – – and – –
• Pirates, Guardians, Reds and Tigers – – you get the idea.

Finally, I realize that what I have suggested here represents radical change for MLB.  So, let me close here with these words from economist Milton Friedman about why proposals for radical change are important:

“It is worth discussing radical changes, not in the expectation that they will be adopted promptly but for two other reasons. One is to construct an ideal goal so that incremental changes can be judged by whether they move the institutional structure toward or away from that ideal.

“The other reason is very different. It is so that if a crisis requiring or facilitating radical change does arise, alternatives will be available that have been carefully developed and fully explored.”

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

 

 

Whilst I was on holiday, two monumental soap operas came to the end of their crushing boredom.  Naturally, I refer here to:

1. The Aaron Rodgers Saga – – Theme song could be “Aaron and the Jets …”
2. The Lamar Jackson Epic – – Time to read Poe’s “Sonnet – To Silence”?

At various stages of the drama created by these folks over the past 10 weeks or so, various folks pointed out that either or both could opt to do something other than play QB in the NFL for the 2023 season.  While such a decision by either party would not have violated any of the fundamental laws of physics, both would have acted against their best interests in making such a choice.  Both men would forego the opportunity to earn tens of millions of dollars if they watched the games on TV this year.

Jackson has earned just over $30M in his five years with the Ravens; he is not ”hurting” economically and would be able to have food and shelter even if he were to sit out 2023.  But the non-exclusive franchise tag on him guaranteed him $32M just to play in 2023; so, if he opted out of playing for that number, he was turning down an annual contract that would have doubled his career earnings to date.  Not likely …

Rodgers has earned over $300M over the course of his career.  Clearly, he does not need the money; $300M will brew a whole lot of ayahuasca tea leading to as much purging of emotional baggage as one might accumulate over several lifetimes.  But leaving football would also leave Aaron Rodgers out of the social conversation and it seems to me that he enjoys being able to sit on the sidelines and coyly tell the world, “Hey, look at me over here doing nothing…”

So, let me look at the two deals that brought these stories to a close – – at least for now.  Jackson got a bigger deal than Deshaun Watson did – – as he should because he is a better QB and a better person than Watson – – but his contract is not nearly “fully guaranteed”.  If the previous reporting that said that fully guaranteed money was a critical element of his demand, then he lost the negotiation; if that reporting was “less than fully accurate”, then Jackson is the winner.

Jackson gets 5-years and $260M with – reportedly – $186M fully guaranteed.  That is almost $30M more than Watson got and it is just a tad more than Jalen Hurts got just a week or so ago.  Jackson will make an average of $52M per year through the 2027 season and the Ravens can point to the fact that yet another star QB signed a deal that was not “fully guaranteed” making the Watson contract even more of an outlier as opposed to a precedent setter.  Both sides got something they wanted/needed out of the deal.

The resolution of Rodgers’ situation required a trade agreement between the Packers who have Rodgers under contract but do not want him on their team and the Jets who do not have a decent QB on their roster let alone a good QB on the roster.  After weeks of posturing and “leaking” – –  making the story appear to be kabuki theater – -, here are the terms of the deal:

The Jets get:

• Aaron Rodgers.  That’s it; that’s the deal.

The Packers get:

• 2023 Draft pick swap in the first round.  The Packers moved up two spots to #13 and the Jets moved down to #15.  This is something but it is not seismic.
• 2023 Draft pick #42 (second round).  High second round picks are usually considered valuable draft capital.
• 2024 Draft conditional second round pick.  This pick converts to the Jets’ first round pick next year if Rodgers plays only 65% of the snaps in 2023.  Unless he breaks a leg, he will surely do that given the rest of the Jets’ depth chart at QB.

I do not understand exactly how or why this is also a fallout from the deal, but various reports say that the Packers also get “cap relief” to the tune of $60M from the deal.  I put it here only for the sake of completeness.

So, who “won the trade” between the Jets and the Packers?

• The Jets now have Rodgers under contract for 2023 and 2024 with options that could take him out to the end of 2026.  Rodgers would be 43 years old at the end of the 2026 season.
• The Packers want to begin the “Jordan Love Era” in Green Bay and can now do so without any of those dreaded distractions that Rodgers would surely bring if he still belonged to the team.
• The Packers drafted LB, Lukas Van Ness (Iowa) with the swapped first round pick, and TE, Luke Musgrave (Oregon St.) with this year’s second round pick from the Jets.  And … the Packers have what looks to be a first-round pick coming to them in 2024.

Both sides got what they needed from the deal which is to say Aaron Rodgers now plays in NY and not in Green Bay.  Both teams must think they are better today than they were a week ago.  Fans surely give thanks that they do not need to hear any more about the backing-and-forthing of these trade talks.

Finally, having mentioned Edgar Allen Poe above, let me close with one of his observations that applies to the fanbases of just about every NFL team in and round “Draft Time”:

“Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.”

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

 

 

I returned late on Monday from an enjoyable change of scenery to find this headline on a story in Monday’s Washington Post sports section:

• “Eagles soar, Lions stumble during chaotic draft weekend”

Obviously, this was one of six bazillion articles/columns written at the time grading each team on their selections in the NFL Draft.  And since it takes – in the real world – at least two years and more likely three years to get an in-depth assessment of the team’s selection(s), these articles are as bad if not worse than the six bazillion “Mock Drafts” that fill space and contribute to the entropy death of the universe.  Anyone who reads “Mock Drafts”, and instant draft analysis should be struck by the fact that there is an interplay at work there:

• The person writing the “instant analysis” is often/usually the same guy who published the “Mock Drafts”.  So, his yardstick for how well or how poorly a team did is his ratings of players he told you about in the “Mock Draft” pieces.
• If he rates a player as a first-round pick and a team drafts him in the third round, then that team gets lots of bonus points for finding this hidden gem.
• The only thing that is certain is that not a single player drafted has ever taken a single snap in an NFL game.  Only time and direct observation will reveal which teams acquired the most assets and which acquired the fewest assets in the 2023 NFL Draft.
• Reading about the “Draft Grades” the day after the Draft written by the same folks who have been hawking “Mock Drafts” for the last 4 months is like buying a self-eating watermelon.

And along the same lines, the folks on TV who are covering the Draft need to examine their language choices too.  Instead of saying that Joe Flabeetz has “fallen in the draft”, they might – just occasionally – – say something along the lines of:

“Wow!  Here we are in the middle of the fifth round and Joe Flabeetz is still on the board.  I had him going in the second round.  Man, did I ever get that one wrong?”

Don’t expect to hear such an exclamation from any of the TV gurus any time before Godot shows up …

Having said all that, I want to focus on one pick in this year’s Draft that looks like a “boom-or-bust” situation.  That was the overall #4 pick in the Draft:

• Anthony Richardson QB – Florida – taken by the Indy Colts.

In my Pre-Draft rant, I said he was definitely worth a high pick and that he reminded me of Randall Cunningham in terms of his athletic gifts.  My knock on him was that he was not an accurate passer – – he completed less than 55% of his throws last year at Florida – – and he would need coaching and development to improve that sort of performance significantly.

Here is the interesting – at least to me – part of this situation.  Shane Steichen is the new head coach for the Colts; his last job was as the Offensive Coordinator for the Eagles where just a couple of years ago, he had Jalen Hurts as his pupil.  Hurts is very fast and very athletic, but he too was not an accurate passer, and his pocket mechanics were politely described as “random”.  That was two years ago; last year, Jalen Hurts led the Eagles to the Super Bowl and even though the Eagles lost that game, Hurts was not overshadowed by Patrick Mahomes.

Obviously, Jalen Hurts learned a lot from Shane Steichen, and he learned it rather quickly.  In any “student/teacher situation” a critical element for success is the willingness of the student to take direction and develop the skills taught by the teacher.  In football terminology, they like to say that the player is “coachable”.

Prior to the Draft, teams and analysts try to pretend that there is some sort of science involved in creating a team’s draft board.by measuring and recording numerical data of all the players.  Fans eat that stuff up; fans will “favor” one player over another because the 40-yard time for the “better player” was 4.33 as opposed to only 4.35 for the “lesser player”.  Notwithstanding the silliness of that over-indulgence in details, there is a need for every team to have a very good idea about how “coachable” are the players they take.  And there is no reliable objective measure for that critical characteristic.

If Anthony Richardson is similarly “coachable” as was Jalen Hurts, then the Colts and Shane Steichen have star-potential in their locker room.  If Anthony Richardson is not coachable – – let’s call him possibly a “meathead” – – then the Colts wasted a significant draft opportunity.  I think we will have a very good handle on Richardson’s coachability/meat-headedness index sometime around Christmas 2026. Until then …

Finally, let me close today with a story about Bum Phillips – Wade Phillips’ father – who was the coach of the Houston Oilers around 40 years ago.  At the start of training camp, the training staff had all the players run a mile; they had set time objectives for various positions and once players met that time objective, the players were not subject to certain fitness drills.  The Oilers had a star running back, Earl Campbell, who not only did not meet the standard for running backs, he could not finish running the mile and just “dropped out”.

Someone asked Bum Phillips after the practice if he was concerned that his all-world running back could not run a mile, Phillips demonstrated the proper attitude toward Making decisions according to the numbers:

“Well, I guess whenever it is third-and-a-mile, I won’t hand him the ball.”

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

 

 

I hate to keep harping on this but something new came up.  Remember that the Dallas Mavericks tanked their final game of the regular season intending to miss the playoffs and retain their first-round lottery pick for this year.  NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver responded to this situation by fining the team $740K which is a pittance to owner Mark Cuban whose net worth is estimated at $5.1B.

Something analogous happened in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) playoffs.  The situation there is complicated so I will provide this link for those who want to decipher why the following situation obtained:

• It was advantageous for both teams to have a specific team win and the other team lose a playoff game.

The two teams involved were the Shanghai Sharks and the Jiangsu Dragons; there would be a benefit to both teams if the Dragons lost.  In the second half of the game, the Dragons committed five consecutive turnovers in the final two minutes to assure a victory for the Sharks. The CBA Commissioner is a familiar name to US sports fans; his name is Yao Ming.  Unlike Adam Silver who administered a slap on the wrist, Yao Ming chose to call the activities of the Jiangsu Dragons and the Shanghai Sharks “game-fixing”.  Wow!  That puts a different slant on what happened as compared to “tanking”.  So, here is the sanction handed down by the CBA Commissioner:

• Each team was fined the Chinee equivalent of $727K – – very close to how much the Mavs will have to pay.
• The Sharks’ coach and GM were each given a 5-year ban from the CBA.
• The Dragons’ coach and GM were each given a 3-year ban from the CBA.

Here is what Yao Ming said when the sanctions were announced:

“For sports games, the most important thing is reputation, rather than ability. Credit is what everybody, every team, the league, and the association is based on. We need to draw a profound lesson from this and change some things in the future to make what we have paid for valuable.”

Adam Silver always holds a press event during the NBA Finals.

1. Wouldn’t it be great if some member of the media asked him to compare and contrast the punishments handed down in these two situations?
2. And wouldn’t it be great if someone asked him to differentiate between “tanking” and “game-fixing”?

Silver is never going to use the term ”game-fixing” lest the gambling interests that provide lots of funding for the league get very antsy.  People hate to lose money gambling, but they will hate it a whole lot more if they find out – – or even suspect – – that the game was “fixed”, and they were not “in on the fix”.  But this is an issue that sports leagues must deal with when they dip their beak into the fountain of cash that can come from the myriad gambling sites out there today.  The English Premier League (EPL) seems to have recognized the potential dangers here; the EPL has voted to ban teams from having logos or names of gambling companies on the fronts of their jerseys.  This is not a total ban; logos and names can appear on the jersey sleeves and throughout the stadiums, but this is a step in a direction toward control by the league officials.

Currently eight of the twenty teams in the EPL have some form of sponsorship on the fronts of their jerseys that represent gambling interests.  Currently in Britain, the government is considering new gambling legislation; perhaps the EPL is simply trying to get ahead of some issues that will arise in that process; perhaps this is an indication that the league officials want to be more firmly in control.  Time will tell on this.

To accommodate current sponsorship deals and avoid litigation, this new regulation will take effect in 2025.  As is always the case when political campaigns and issues are advanced, there is an advocacy group involved here called The Big Step.  That group would like to see all gambling sponsorships banned completely including stadium sponsorships.  Obviously, they like the announcement by the EPL even though it does not go nearly as far as the group would prefer.

Finally, since today has been about gambling and gambling companies and game fixing, let me close with these words about problem gambling from comedian Artie Lang:

“You know you have a gambling problem when it’s 4:00 AM at The Mirage Sports Book and you’re walking around going, ‘Hey, you get the lacrosse scores?’”

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