The Sports Curmudgeon

They say that timing is everything in delivering comedy.  Timing is also very important in other aspects of life and sometimes it allows for juxtaposing two stories that would seem not to have anything to do with each other at first.  But then…

About a month ago, I ran across a report that the University of Tennessee Athletic Department had launched an “aggressive” 5-year Plan for Tennessee athletics.  The plan’s label is “Rise Glorious” a phrase that appears in the Tennessee alma mater.  In announcing the launch of this plan, the Athletic Director said that Tennessee can and should be a leader in college athletics on the field and in strategic thinking but that the university has not lived up to those goals recently and this plan will set things right once again.

Supposedly, the student-athletes – – his phrase and not mine – – at Tennessee will be integrally involved in Rise Glorious actions and activities thereby creating the sort of ownership spirit that will create a winning culture for the Vols.  It is not clear to me how that is supposed to happen or how that might help Tennessee win any games, but every long-term strategic plan must have some qualities of mysticism contained therein.

There are specific areas addressed by the Rise Glorious plan and – not surprisingly – on-field performance is one of those areas.  In that area, each Tennessee athletic program will create an “NCAA Championship Plan” for itself and one of the standards will be:

• Tennessee will win a national championship in at least one sport every four years; and each sport will achieve at least one national Top-16 finish every four years.

That is an ambitious goal to be sure and one of the other elements of Rise Glorious – – an “SEC Championship Plan” – – is similarly aspirational:

• “Each sport will win a conference championship at least once every five years; Tennessee Athletics aims to capture five conference championships in one academic year while averaging at least three conference championships per year over the next five years.”

What will it mean to the football program to win a conference championship sometime in the next 5 years?  Well…

• The last SEC championship for Tennessee was in 1997.
• Since 2007, the Vols’ combined football record is 85 – 88.

I think the chances of such a turnaround in the next 5 years for Tennessee football are slim indeed, but I will stipulate that there are elements of Rise Glorious that could point the program in a very positive direction; and I will note that last  year Josh Heupel coached the Vols to a 7-6 record in his first  year in Knoxville.  So, after reading about the announcement and the launching of Rise Glorious I made a note to myself to keep this in mind and check back in a couple of years.

But as I said at the top, timing is everything and maybe the first checkpoint for the achievement of goals in Rise Glorious  comes only about a month into the implementation phase.  I say this because last weekend the NCAA notified Tennessee that it had identified 18 rules infractions committed by previous head football coach Jeremy Pruitt including the following charges:

• Pruitt and some of his assistants hosted prospects and their families during the “recruiting dead period” for unofficial and unrecorded weekend visits where payments in cash and/or in goods were given to prospects and/or their families.
• Pruitt’s wife made cash payments totaling as much as $13,000 to recruits and/or their families.  [Aside:  There is some irony here noting that Pruitt’s wife has previously served as an “NCAA Rules Compliance Officer” at two other universities.]

You get the idea here; the violations are blatant; if only half-true, they are still important violations of the NCAA rules and that can bring the hammer down on the Tennessee football program – – as it seeks to improve its fortunes against the likes of Alabama, Georgia, Florida …  Tennessee is not likely to contest too many of these charges because based on an internal investigation, it fired Coach Pruitt for cause and allowed the previous Athletic Director – – Phillip Fulmer – – to retire from his position.

All I can say here is this:

• Josh Heupel had a difficult task ahead of him to win an SEC Championship in football sometime in the next 5 years.
• Punishment for those sorts of infractions will fall on Heupel’s shoulders even though he was the coach at UCF when they took place.
• Penalties for infractions of this sort usually involve reductions in the number of permissible scholarships and/or limitations on visitations by recruits.
• Forget winning an SEC Championship in the next five years for a moment.  If Coach Heupel can win the SEC East and make it to the SEC Championship Game any time in the next 5 years under the restrictions he is about to endure, he should be Coach of the Decade.

Finally, since everything today has been about the University of Tennessee, let me close with this observation by H. L. Mencken:

“There is, it appears, a conspiracy of scientists afoot.  Their purpose is to break down religion, propagate immorality, and so reduce mankind to the level of brutes.  They are the sworn and sinister agents of Beelzebub, who yearns to conquer the world, and has his eye especially upon Tennessee.”

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

 

 

The weather over the weekend here in the DC area was an abomination.  Temperatures were in the upper-90s along with the signature humidity levels that make July and August unpleasant months in these parts.  Having dealt with these sorts of summers for decades, the formula consists of staying indoors as much as possible, drawing the blinds to keep as much sunlight as possible out of the living space and using ceiling fans to keep the air moving.  I and many others around here took a moment over the weekend to pay homage to Willis Carrier…

This is not a time of the year with a plethora of stunning sports attractions on TV and on Saturday the first listing that drew any real interest was a Houston Astros/Seattle Mariners game that started at 4:00PM  [Aside:  The Astros led 2-1 when I tuned out to help prepare dinner and the Astros eventually won that game 3-1.]  That left me with lots of time to let my mind wander and that often leads to flights of fancy and imagination.  Saturday was indeed a day that fell into that category.

Imagine if you will a world where college football evolution continues over the next decade or so to the point where more changes are needed.  The driving force, of course, will be TV rights fees but what the networks will want are more games pitting two very good teams against each other.  The expanded Big-10 and the expanded SEC provide some games of that ilk – – but there are still too many offerings that do not “move the needle” and the folks who are ready to pay out big monies want that needle moved.

I argued last week that one of the reasons that college football was so popular was that its rivalries were for the most part driven by schools that are nearby each other.  So, if the financial situation I alluded to above happened, additional expansion of the two most powerful conferences would just increase the footprint even more than exists today.  How to square this circle…?

No one in the current structure of college football will want to hear this, but I believe there is lots of money to be made with a radical restructuring.  Two key elements of the radical restructuring would be:

1. Some teams in conferences other than the current Big-10 and current-SEC would need to ditch their current affiliation and move to a new conference home.
2. Some teams currently in the Big-10 and the SEC would need to be removed and take up the sport of college football elsewhere.

Right there you have a huge up-front cost to get to where I want to go, and I acknowledge that such an upfront cost might be prohibitive.  But just for giggles, let me assume that the College Football Fairy Godmother shows up and waves her wand and makes all that “athletic department free agency” happen.  At that point, college football programs are like tokens that can be moved about, and I have a plan for that.

In my  new world there will be Two Mega Conferences – – call them Alpha and Beta for now because the names do not matter.  Each Conference will have 20 teams arranged in 4 Divisions of 5 teams each.  The Divisions will emphasize proximity and the Conferences will try to join Divisions whose geography is as close as possible to its conference mates.  So here is the status so far:

• Alpha and Beta will incorporate 40 schools – – and the idea is to have these be the best 40 programs in the country such that there is lots more high quality/high interest programming for those deep-pocketed TV execs to drool over.
• Regionalism and proximity will be emphasized
• The existence of Alpha and Beta which will ONLY feature in conference games – – no more cupcake scheduling – – will make the College Football Playoff an easy decision.

Here is how the scheduling would work:

• Each team will play its 4 Division opponents home and home every year; that accounts for 8 games.
• Each team will play every team in one other Division in its Conference on a year-by-year rotating basis; that accounts for 5 games.
• The CFP would become a “tournament” involving the 8 Division winners in the two Conferences.  The simple system would be to have the four Alpha winners compete to see who the Alpha Champ is and have the Alpha Champ play the Beta Champ for the national title.  Or you could get fancy and seed the 8 teams based on records and not on conference residence and go from there.  Take your pick…

I warned you above that I had all day Saturday until the late afternoon to ponder this gedanken experiment so here is a very rough cut at what the 8 Divisions might look like.  In some cases I have two teams there separated by a slash; that means take your pick…

• Division 1:  Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Miami, NC State
• Division 2:  Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss, Tennessee
• Division 3:  Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Texas, Texas A&M. Baylor/TCU
• Division 4:  Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Utah
• Division 5:  Clemson, UNC, UVa, South Carolina, Va Tech
• Division 6:  Michigan, Michigan St. Notre Dame, Penn St., Ohio St.
• Division 7:  Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Purdue, Wisconsin
• Division 8:  Arkansas, Iowa St., Kansas St., Missouri, Nebraska

I know I have left out some notable schools here; so, before the long knives come out, let me try to explain.  I know that there is no Division in the Great Northwest.  The reason for that is I could not come up with a geographic cluster of 5 teams in that area.  Oregon and Washington would be obvious; after that the pickings get slim if the idea is to keep this to “Top 40 football programs”.  Please note that there is no “Northeastern Division” either because the best team in that part of the world – – after Penn State who fit elsewhere in this scheme – – is Boston College and that is not particularly attractive.  I thought about Boston College, Pitt, Syracuse, WVU and “somebody else” for a while and then dropped it.

The two Arizona schools are not here either; absent also are Pitt, Syracuse, Cincy, Kentucky, WVU and Louisville.  If someone wants to argue that they ought to be included in this fantasy, please do so by suggesting which team should be removed from any of the Divisions.  Oh, and please remember to keep up a semblance of “regionality” in any suggestions.

Finally, apropos of nothing other than the fact that I found this humorous, let me close with a commentary by stand-up comedian, Bill Hicks:

“And on the seventh day, God stepped back and said, ‘This is my creation, perfect in every way … oh, dammit I left all this pot all over the place.  Now they’ll think I want them to smoke it … Now I have to create Republicans.’”

For the record:  I was not smoking pot or any under the influence of any other hallucinogen last Saturday when I took this flight of fancy.

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

 

 

 

 

 

This week saw various college athletic conferences put on “media days” where the football coaches and the conference commissioners get up and rhapsodize about the current state of their team and their conference and college football as a whole.  In past years, these “media days” were formulaic because of the relative stability of college football.  Every season, fans could bank on a few things almost to the same degree of certainty that night follows day:

• Alabama will be good
• Rutgers will be bad
• Attendance at weeknight MAC games will be sparse
• You get the idea…

This year, things are a bit livelier because the landscape of college football has fundamentally changed – – and it is not clear that all the change is for the better. The event that seems to have kicked this snowball over the cliff was the Supreme Court ruling that allowed college athletes to retain their eligibility even if they were paid “royalties” for the use of their name, image or likeness (NIL).  Most folks agreed with that outcome, but I do not think that too many fans saw where it would go in short order.  If a pizza chain wants to pay Quincy Quarterback to talk up their brand and use his picture on their pizza boxes, that should not make him ineligible to play football in the Fall.  However, when a bunch of rich alums get together and pool together millions of dollars to recruit and retain Quincy Quarterback and the Beefy Brothers on the defensive line and Randy Running-back, that alters the perception just a bit – – at least it does for me.

The focus on money in college football has been dominant for at least the last several decades but now the focus is even sharper.  All the conference expansions/realignments that have taken place over the past year or so are purely financially driven.  I am positive that UCLA’s decision to join the Big-10 had more to do with TV revenue money than it did with establishing a football rivalry with Indiana.

The TV ratings for Big-10 games and SEC games – – and to a lesser extent ACC games – – will dominate the ratings books once all the conference transfers are in effect.  However, the overall growth of college football may not be enhanced by that situation for at least four reasons:

1. College football has always been a “regional sport”.  Rivalries tend to arise where there is “proximity”.  Spreading out the conference footprints removes some of that intimacy.  Think of the really intense rivalries like Duke/UNC (proximity), Alabama/Auburn (proximity), Oregon/Oregon St. (proximity), USC/UCLA (proximity), Ohio State/Michigan (proximity), Michigan/Michigan St. (proximity), Utah/BYU (proximity), Florida/Florida St. (proximity), Texas/Oklahoma (proximity), Oklahoma/Oklahoma St. (proximity)…
2. College football rivalries – because they are often close by each other – often revolve around making the rival suffer more than you do.  Ole Miss and Mississippi State have not threatened to win the SEC for quite a while, but their fans can and do focus on being better than those “other guys in the State of Mississippi.”  Establishing that sort or relational rivalry is not easy or natural; if you doubt that, check out Missouri and all its blood-rivals in the SEC.
3. Chasing big money does not always cure everything; it cures a lot – – but not everything.  Take Maryland for example… The Terps were in the ACC, but they were geographically an outlier in the conference and complained that it hindered their recruiting  efforts.  I do not know if that was necessarily the case, but it was an ongoing narrative coming from the Terps for years.  So, they jumped ship and are now in a geographic vacuum in the Big-10; I call that the Great Leap Sideways – – with a hat tip to Mao Zedong and his Great Leap Forward.  Maryland’s nearby conference neighbors are now Rutgers and Penn State.  The Nittany Lions barely acknowledge Maryland as an opponent, and who cares if they are arch-rivals with Rutgers – – which they are not?
4. The establishment of the so-called super-conferences is the athletic department equivalent of placing a bet that college football can become a national sport.    That presents no problem to me personally, but I have no real evidence to offer that suggests such a thing is going to work.

Imagine for a moment that the SEC and the Big-10 concentrate the college football talent in the two conferences to an even greater extent than it is today.  Imagine that even the ACC begins to lose stature in college football.  In that circumstance, what a nationally focused sport of college football would look like is a minor professional football league.  Imagine that either the USFL and/or the XFL manages to survive as a “developmental league” for the NFL.  Then what would that pair of nationally focused pair of super-conferences be?  Feeders to the USFL/XFL survivor?

I am not predicting the demise of college football and I certainly am not one to wish for such an outcome.  As an alum of an Ivy League school, I have no hormonal ties to MY college football team; I like college football as a large and gangly entity all on its own.  The super-conferences are not going to lose me as a viewer for the rest of my time on the planet.  But the folks who run the big conferences and the folks who run the College Football Playoff need to avoid looking at the world through rose colored glasses.  There will be bumps in the road ahead and the folks in charge need to be prepared to react to those bumps.

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

“Jon Berti of the Miami Marlins leads all of baseball in steals, with 25, at the season’s halfway point.

“Unless you count the former treasurer of the Oakville, Ontario, Minor Baseball Association, who is accused of embezzling $468,000 from the league.”

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

 

 

On Monday  night, Juan Soto won the Home Run Derby.  Soto is 23 years old and is by far the best player the Washington Nationals have on their roster.  The Nationals’ franchise is up for sale and having Soto under contract for a long time – – and therefore at a known cost – – would probably make the team more valuable to a new buyer.  So, according to reports, the Nats offered Soto:

• $440M over 15 years.

Soto and his agent, Scott Boras have turned down that deal.  Normally, I would look at those numbers and wonder how anyone could turn down such a deal to spend the rest of his career playing baseball knowing that $440M was guaranteed to appear in one’s checking account over that time.  Not so in this case, that deal is a low-ball offer.

Doing some simple math, signing that contract would pay Juan Soto $29.33M per year over the life of the contract.  If he signed that deal today and it went into effect next season, that would make him about the tenth or fifteenth highest player in MLB on a per year basis in 2023.  So where would that put him on a similar scale in – say – 2030?  The Nationals did something interesting here; they put out an offer that sounds astronomical, and now that it has been rejected, the team can tell its fans that it tried to sign their star player, but he obviously wanted more than the sun, moon and stars.

My problem is that the Nationals have done this before.  They have signed players to big deals where the total value of the contract is paid out only after the term of the contract has expired – – sort of like the Bobby Bonilla deal with the Mets.  And they have made what look like splashy offers to other players that were turned down because of those “extended payment clauses”.  The Nats have done exceptionally well in acquiring talent in the past ten years or so; they have not done such a great job at retaining it:

• Bryce Harper – – lost to free agency with the Nats getting nothing in return.
• Anthony Rendon – – lost to free agency with the Nats getting nothing in return
• Max Scherzer – – traded away for prospects
• Trea Turner – – traded away for prospects
• Juan Soto – – looking as if he will be lost to free agency with the Nats getting nothing in return.

So, the Nats are now ready to shop Soto at the trade deadline.  He has value to a team in contention for the World Series because he has not yet reached his arbitration year.  A team acquiring Soto today would have him on the roster – – and an unknown cost to be sure – – through the end of the 2024 season.  For a contending team, that would equal 3 shots at a World Series win.

Another sports milestone happened on Monday of this week.  NFL Training Camps opened when the rookies for the Bills and the Raiders reported to their training facilities in Rochester, NY and Henderson, NV respectively.  The NFL regular season will open on Thursday September 8 this year meaning there are less than 8 weeks until the NFL elbows its way onto center stage where it will remain for US sports fans until early February 2023.  Over the next 7 weeks or so, you can count on reading six “flavors” of reporting from training camps:

1. Impressive rookies
2. Veterans trying to add one more season to their careers
3. Contract squabbles and progress/lack of progress on same
4. Injuries
5. Trade rumors – – related to injuries
6. Deshaun Watson – – regardless of whatever punishment he receives

An NFL story that has not been a huge deal yet involves the Chicago Bears who are threatening to move from downtown Chicago (Soldier Field) and build a new stadium in the Chicago Suburbs at the site of a defunct racetrack in Arlington, IL.  Soldier Field is the smallest NFL venue seating “only” 61,500 fans and it is the oldest NFL venue having been constructed in 1924.  Back in 2002, the stadium owner – – the Chicago Parks District – – added a controversial renovation to the facility.  What was once a classic looking structure with stone pillars and open promenades now looks like an old stone stadium upon which an alien spaceship had landed.  I do not recall anyone denying that Soldier Field “needed work” but what was done to the stadium was an eyesore.  That project cost $630M.

• [Aside:  I believe it was Jay Mariotti – then a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times – who dubbed the new version of Soldier Field as an “eyesore on the lake shore.”]

The folks who run Chicago would certainly prefer not to have the Bears move out of the city.  They have proposed putting a dome on Soldier Field – along with other renovations and upgrades – as an enticement for the team to stay where it is.  I have never been to a Bears’ game at Soldier Field, but I have seen Soldier Field before the alien spaceship landed there and after the ship took up residence there.  Let me say this clearly:

• Putting a dome on top of the architectural monstrosity that is the current version of Soldier Field would be like adding wallpaper to the inside of a porta-potty and thinking it made for a nicer environment.

This story is far from over.  The Bears lease on Soldier Field runs through 2033 and according to a report I read, it would cost the team $84M to get out of that lease after 2026.  So, there is plenty of time for posturing and politicking here.

Finally, since much of today has involved talk about money, let me close with this observation by Will Rogers:

“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress peoples they don’t like.”

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

 

 

Let me begin this morning with something that might damage my standing in the Congress of Curmudgeons where the maintenance of crankiness is central to one’s membership.  This was the lead item in Dwight Perry’s column, Sideline Chatter over the weekend:

“No kidding — Simone Biles got reverse-carded at the airport.

“The 4-foot-7 world-champion gymnast was mistaken for a child when she caught a flight home after receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom this month.

“’The flight attendant (tried) to give me a coloring book when I board…” she wrote on Instagram. “I said, ‘No, I’m good, I’m 25.’

“’The other flight attendant gave me a mimosa, so we’re in the clear.”

“Even better, the pilot stuck the landing.”

I have seen Simone Biles in real life while transiting an airport; and I can indeed sympathize with the flight attendant who mistook her for a young girl; she really is that small.

Normally at this time of an even-numbered year where there are no Summer Olympic Games, we would be in the early stages of the FIFA World Cup Tournament.  Not so in 2022 because about 10 years ago when the venue for the 2022 FIFA World Cup was to be decided upon, Qatar used its abundance of petro-dollars to grease enough palms among the FIFA membership to land the games in Qatar.

It was only after the votes were counted – – and the bribes sequestered in safe havens – – that anyone bothered to sign onto www.weather.com to check out the typical conditions in Doha in July.  Let me just say that it is a good thing there are no games scheduled there for this week because the high temperatures are:

• Monday – – 111 degrees Fahrenheit
• Tuesday – – 107 degrees Fahrenheit
• Wednesday – – 102 degrees Fahrenheit (a cool front must have come through)
• Thursday – – 105 degrees Fahrenheit
• Friday – – 108 degrees Fahrenheit
• You get the idea …

[Aside: In case you were wondering, the highest temperature ever recorded in Doha was 122.7 degrees Fahrenheit in July 2010.  Now you know…]

The World Cup Tournament was put in Qatar based on bribery and there have been allegations made by various human rights advocates that the working conditions for the people building the stadium venues have bordered on slavery.  I have no insight into any of that sort of thing, but it provides yet another element of the landscape to make one wonder how anyone who did vote for this venue manages to sleep at night.  I know, they do so with the air conditioning running…

The World Cup Tournament will happen in November of 2022 when temperatures in the mid-80s are more the norm.  So, how are things going in preparations?  Here is data provided by FrontOfficeSports.com:

• As of July 1, Qatar organizers report the sale of 1.8 million tickets for various games in the World Cup tournament.  There are 63 games in the World Cup Tournament involving teams from 32 countries.
• Qatar citizens have purchased the largest number of tickets so far.  Surprisingly to me, the country whose citizens have bought the second largest number of tickets is Canada.
• As of July 1, folks from the US have purchased the tenth largest number of tickets.
• A total of 3 million tickets will be available for the games overall.
• Organizers in Qatar project 1.2 million visitors will come to the country as a result of the World Cup Tournament.
• Ticket prices range from $69 to $1600 depending on how late in the Tournament the game is and the seat preference.  [Aside:  Expect there to be an active after-market for tickets too…]
• To limit ticket scalping, a fan can buy only 6 tickets per match and no more than 60 tickets for the entirety of the World Cup Tournament.

There could be one other “rub” with Qatar as the venue.  “Futbol” fans have been known to indulge in what we in the States call “adult beverages” before, during and after the fixtures.  Qatar is a Muslim country where alcohol is strictly controlled – – with an emphasis on the word “strictly”.  Here is the deal:

• Inside the stadium venues will be alcohol-free.
• Fans may have beer “on arrival” and/or after the game, but not in the stadium.  [Aside:  Remember that global brands of beer are major sponsors of FIFA events and of the World Cup tournament itself.]
• Technically, consumption of alcohol in a public space is illegal in Qatar but plans are for beer to be available to fans in specific areas of Doha at restricted times during the day.
• Visitors to Qatar may not bring alcohol into the country – – even from duty-free stores – – and there is only one liquor store in the country which can only sell alcohol to permanent residents of Qatar and only for home consumption.

Stand by … this might get interesting.

Finally, having spent sometime today pondering alcohol consumption issues, let me close with this definition of an alcoholic by the poet, Dylan Thomas:

“An alcoholic is someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you do.”

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

 

 

The MLB All-Star game will happen tomorrow night.  Anyone who has been reading these rants for any period of time knows that I believe that each and every All-Star Game in each and every major sport in the US should have been cancelled retroactively for about the last 10 years.  Nothing in recent history has managed to change my mind.

The baseball All-Star Game is the best of the lot by a long shot, but it is not nearly what it used to be.  I believe the instrument of the MLB All-Star Game’s demise was the introduction and then the expansion of interleague play which began in the 1997 season.  Prior to 1997, the only time a team from the American League would play a team in the National League would be:

• Spring Training – – so what?
• In-season exhibition games – – even bigger “so what”?
• World Series – – Big Deal Indeed!!!

In that scheduling regimen, one could look forward to the “best AL players” taking on the “best NL players” as a one-off major event in the All-Star Game in the middle of the season.  After all, lots of the “best players” on both teams would not be in the World Series so the All-Star Game was likely to be the only chance to see if Sandy Koufax could strike out Mickey Mantle.  Fans really looked forward to the game so much so that for a brief period around 1960, they played two All-Star games per year – – one in early July and the other at the end of July.

Fans set aside time to watch All-Star games in the past.  TV audiences for MLB All-Star Games peaked at around 16M viewers 25-30 years ago.  To give you an idea as to how the luster has come off this product, the game tomorrow will certainly not attract an audience of half that size and may struggle to have an audience a third of that size.  I am convinced that the primary reason is that fans can now see how AL players compete with NL players simply by paying attention to the normal MLB schedule as it unfolds.

I said above that the MLB All-Star Game is much better than the spectacles put on by the NFL, NBA and NHL and the reason I say that is that the MLB All-Star Game resembles very closely a real MLB game that would count in the standings.  The other three “All-Star Games” are glorified skills competitions with no defense being played.

• In the last three NBA All-Star games, the total number of points scored in the game was 312 points or more.  [Aside: In the 2019 game, the final score was 178-164.]
• In the Pro-Bowl snippets I have seen over the past several years, I do not recall a single hard tackle by a defender, and I have never seen nearly as many pass catchers run out of bounds in a regular season or playoff game.
• In the NHL All-Star games, scores of 17-12 have happened.  I am nowhere near being a “hockey guru”, but I am confident that it would take quite a while for someone to find a regular season or playoff game where 29 goals were scored.

It seems that there is a parallel between the MLB All-Star Game and the NBA All-Star Game.  Both have lost some of their attractiveness in recent times so each sport tried to put together a companion attraction to spark interest.  MLB added the Home-Run Derby, and the NBA added the Three-Point Shooting Contest.  Maybe those “experiments” worked too well because my sense is that lots of fans are far more attracted to those “companion attractions” than they are to the All-Star Games themselves.

Moving on …  The MLB regular season is a little more than half over, so I want to take a moment here to summarize the status of players who have spent time on the Injured List this year and how much time has been lost to injury – – and how much the injured players have earned while not being able to play.  The good folks at Spotrac.com provide the raw data here.

• As of this morning, 557 players have spent a total of 23,433 days on the Injured List and those players have earned a total of $446,987,434 while on the Injured List.
• Stephen Strasburg has earned the most money while on the Injured List.  He has been on the list for 101 days and has earned $19,145,996 while there.
• Four players have earned $10M or more while on the Injured List.
• One hundred and twenty-three different players have earned more than $1M while on the Injured List.
• Fifty-seven players have been in the Injured List for the entirety of the season starting back on 4 April.
• Six players have been on the Injured List three times during the 2022 season.
• One player – – Mike Moustakas (Reds) – – has been on the Injured List 4 times during the 2022 season.  He is currently on the 10-day Injured List.
• The Dodgers have had the greatest number of players put on the Injured List so far in 2022; they have put 36 different players on that list.
• Four other teams – Cubs, Pirates, Reds and Twins – have had 25 players or more on the Injured List at some point in the 2022 season.
• The Orioles have put the fewest number of players on the Injured List so far in 2022; they have only put 11 players there.
• Two other teams – Braves and Blue Jays – have been similarly “uninjured” so far in 2022; they have  each put only 12 players on the Injured List.

Finally, since today has been about baseball, let me finish with this Item from Dwight Perry’s column last weekend in the Seattle Times:

“This regional qualifying score just in from Japan’s 104th National High School Baseball Championship: Chiba Gakugei 82, Wasegaku 0.

“Chiba Gakugei scored 32 in the first and 33 in the second and, all told, hit 17 homers before the 10-run ‘mercy’ rule kicked in the fifth.”

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

 

 

There is an adage that seems appropriate for today’s rant:

“Silence is the virtue of those who are not wise.”

Another way to put it this:

“It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear to be stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

Either or both of those adages should apply to LeBron James today.  Earlier this week in a trailer for his TV show, The Shop, James questioned how he might feel about returning to the US if he were in a situation like the one Brittney Griner is in right now in a Russian jail.  Here is what James had to say:

“Over 110 days, now how could she feel like America has her back?  I would be feeling like, ‘Do I even want to go back to America?’”

Really…?

Let me just say that those words were not universally taken well by a large segment of the population and LeBron James took to Twitter about a day after that comment went public to “clarify” what he meant:

“My comments on ‘The Shop’ regarding Brittney Griner wasn’t knocking our beautiful country.  I was simply saying how she’s probably feeling emotionally along with so many other emotions, thoughts, etc inside that cage she’s been in for over 100+ days! Long story short #BringHerHome.”

Earlier this week, I said that I did not know enough about the circumstances leading up to Griner’s arrest and charges to determine if she should be a “priority case” for US diplomatic efforts to secure her release.  Since taking that position, I have not come across any additional information to make me change my stance.  If Brittney Griner is innocent and being held hostage, then the US should do whatever it can to secure her release; if that is not the case then the country’s diplomatic efforts to free her might not be front and center at the moment.

LeBron James surely changed the tone of his remarks over a short period of time even though he also had no new information regarding how Brittney Griner came to be in her circumstances.  And that “reversal of field” tells me two things about LeBron James and his episodic “pronouncements”.

First, not all his “pronouncements” are representative of his core beliefs.  After all, it took only a bit of “blowback” from folks who heard about his original statement here for a stunning reversal.  One of the two positions taken here is not one of his core beliefs; I have no idea which one is genuine – – if indeed either one is genuine.  As I have declared here many times, I do not read minds, so LeBron James’ core values and beliefs are not open to me.

The second thing this “reversal of field” tells me about LeBron James requires a bit more explanation.

• Perhaps the time has come for people to ignore what LeBron James says he thinks about subjects other than subjects he clearly knows something about.

Please do not take that to mean that LeBron James’ free expression should be curtailed in any way.  He is – as he ought to be – free and clear to express his thoughts on anything.  What I am saying is that maybe people should listen to what he says and then decide if he is someone whose commentary is worthy of parsing and analysis.  And when that decision comes out in the negative, maybe everyone should let it rest and fester in the marketplace of ideas.

Moreover, I am not suggesting that LeBron James “stay in his lane” so to speak.  What I mean here is that there are issues about which James’ opinions are simply no more important than my opinions on crocheting – – and the only thing I know about crocheting is that it involves yarn.  If I opine on anything related to crocheting, you should ignore me because I know so little about the subject that it makes no sense for you to try to “educate me” or to reprove me.  I would not be worth the time and energy in that case.  I submit that was – and remains – the case with LeBron James depth of insight into Brittney Griner’s circumstance.

Yes, his second “position” makes sense; she is a human being who is in a very precarious situation; she could face a 10-year prison sentence in a Russian jail.  It is natural to feel compassion for another person in that situation and to align oneself with those who hope to “#BringHerHome”.  But there is no content to that second position that makes the original expression meaningful.

Staying with basketball – obliquely – I read a report that the New Orleans Pelicans have offered Zion Williamson a 5-year “rookie max” contract worth $231M guaranteed.  Zion Williamson is a great player and someone who can easily be a “face of the franchise”.  However, he missed all of the 2021/22 season; he missed 21 games in the 2020/21 season, and he missed 48 games in the 2019/20 season due to injuries.  [Aside:  Recall that in his one year at Duke, he also missed significant time due to injury.]  The Pelicans are taking a leap of faith here that Williamson will be able to take the floor for a much larger percentage of their games in the next 5 years as compared to the last 3 years.  In the last three seasons, Williamson has played in 85 games and has not played in 141 games; that means he was only on the floor 38% of the time.

Finally, I will close today with an observation by someone who is familiar with conditions in Russian prisons, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

“It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes … we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions – especially selfish ones.”

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

 

 

Happy Bastille Day.  In France, they will celebrate with what is considered to be the oldest and largest military parade in Europe.  Here in Curmudgeon Central, I will celebrate by recounting some good news and some potentially good news – – maybe – – about baseball…

Don’t look now, but the Baltimore Orioles have won 10 straight games and as of this morning the team is a game over .500 in the middle of July.  I certainly did not see that coming – – and I suspect that even the team brass had such a status filed under “Wild Dreams for 2022”.  This is an extremely young team, and they are playing with enthusiasm; when they take the field or come to the plate, they look as though they are really enjoying what they are doing.  They look like they are playing a game and not going through the motions of a person doing a job.

The Orioles are only 3 games behind in the race for the last wild card slot in the AL.  This would be an incredible Cinderella story should they stay that close to contention over the next couple of months; but for now, this team is fun to watch and is a team that should be enjoyed for what they are doing now.

That’s some good news; now for some not so good news that might be better news in the future.  MLB has a few endemic problems that need addressing:

• Pace of play is too slow.
• Over-reliance on analytics is hurting the game – – particularly the use of “The Shift”.
• The establishment of the “Universal DH” has not brought unbridled excitement to the games in 2022.
• Creation of playground scenarios like “ghost runners on second base” has not been particularly interesting.
• Umpiring – particularly home plate umpiring – is an embarrassment.

So, what are the baseball mavens going to do about any or all of these “issues”?  Maybe there are rays of hope here – – and if not, there will come a time when fans might just think about Bastille Day and storm the barricades of MLB HQS.

First, the pace of play problem is clear and so are potential cures.  The pitch clock used in minor league games works; if you do not believe that, please take yourself to a minor league game and try not to focus on the lower level of talent on display but focus on the action presented to you.  The game is faster and more entertaining; pitchers do not get the ball back from the catcher and then take a stroll around the mound pondering the origins of the universe; batters do not step out of the batter’s box on every pitch to adjust their gloves even if they took the previous pitch.  The games move; there is action; it is far more dynamic than a game in MLB.

• MLB needs a pitch clock and restrictions that are enforced on batters leaving the batter’s box.

The over-reliance on analytics is hurting MLB.  Seriously now, are you better entertained listening to or watching a baseball game when you are informed about a player’s WAR or a pitcher’s spin rate or the exit velocity of a line drive?  I certainly am not.  Moreover, the most successful achievement of baseball analytics – – “The Shift” – – is a major factor in the number of strikeouts in the game today.  When over-shifted defenders make “singles hitting” much less likely, many batters adjust their swings to hit the ball over the defense and out of the park.  That has always been – and continues to be – a boom or bust hitting strategy.

• MLB will experiment with a new “anti-Shift” rule in the low minor leagues starting now.  [Hat tip to Jayson Stark here]
  

Minor league games have made teams put two players on either side of second base for this season.  That has not had much of an effect on “hitting against The Shift”, because defenders line up inches to the required side of second base and then slide to the other side as soon as the pitch is released.  Nice try, MLB…

The new experiment will put two lines on the infield; it will create an area of the infield that looks like a slice of pizza.  Picture that the line from first to second base is extended to the outfield grass and the same thing happens to the line from third base to second base.  Under the experimental rule, no defensive player may be in that excluded area and all infield defenders must be on the dirt when the pitch is thrown.

This is an interesting experiment, but is this “cure” a cockamamie creation that will end up as welcome as the infamous “ghost runner on second base” to start extra innings?  And just for the record:

• MLB needs to get rid of that “ghost runner” nonsense ASAP.

I am on record for decades that I do not like the DH and after watching some NL games this year where they have adopted the DH, I have to say that I am not blown away by the dynamism those hitters bring to the game.  Yes, they hit better than pitchers – – but they are not lighting it up on a nightly basis.  I do observe, however, that DH players do strike out an awful lot.

And finally, let me talk about umpiring – – particularly home plate umpiring.  I have not been a fan of “robo-umps” and if you think electronic sign-stealing was bad, wait until you learn about some team adjusting the “robo-ump’s” strike zone from half inning to half inning.  And even with all that negative thinking in place, I have to say that every time I watch Angel Hernandez behind the plate, I am forced to believe that “robo-umps” are a necessity.  I am not picking on Hernandez here; he is reliably the worst of the home plate umpires in terms of calling balls and strikes relative to a home plate that fixed in place on the field, but other umpires are not paragons in this endeavor.  If there are two umpires that have the same strike zone game-to-game, I think I would like to see video evidence of that.  I never thought I would get to this point, but:

• MLB needs seriously to consider using electronics to call balls and strikes.

Baseball is a great game to see in person.  However, the future of baseball as a major sport in the US demands that it be an entertaining TV or streaming property.  That is where the big money will come from to support paying players guaranteed salaries of $400M or more; there is not enough revenue that will come from the live gate to make that sort of thing viable.  And on TV, baseball does not appeal to a young audience in 2022; the fanbase is aging – and dying off – and it is not being replenished with viewers that create TV ratings.  The real warning sign seems to be ignored; in addition to low TV ratings, average attendance in the parks is also dropping.  I am not trying to be Chicken Little here; attendance is not dropping in a free-fall, but it has been eroding slowly for the last 5 years or so.  The game must adapt, but the game is adapting painfully slowly.

Finally, in honor of Bastille Day, let me close with this definition from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“France:  A country that inspires an almost pathological contempt in Americans who, much to their dismay, cannot eat all the freaking Brie they want and still not gain any weight.”

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

 

 

On the former ESPN Radio morning show, Mike and Mike in the Morning, Mike Greenburg would often proclaim that they were “back and better than ever”.   Well, I’m back and I’m whatever I was before, and I am what I am now.  Would that I could proclaim what Mike and Mike did for years upon years…

I want to focus this morning with commentary on Kevin Durant’s request to be traded from the Brooklyn Nets.  I want to focus on this because it is a tad unusual even in the world of the NBA where star players rule the roost.  And because the situation is a “tad unusual,” I think the Nets ought to  tell Kevin Durant to “go fly a kite” – – or whatever the current jargon of the day is its equivalent.  Let me explain…

Please forget all the details of “annual salary” and “likely incentives” to be earned under Kevin Durant’s existing contract.  The only important figure in the deal that would be important to me if I were the owner, or the GM for the Nets is this one:

• The current contract is in force through the end of the 2025/26 season and Kevin Durant does not become an unrestricted free agent until the summer of 2026.

Kevin Durant says he wants to play somewhere other than for the Brooklyn Nets.  Everyone has freedom of expression; everyone has a fundamental right to express what might make them best aligned to “pursue happiness” as is postulated as a Divinely granted right in the Declaration of Independence.  The burr under the saddle here is that humongous contract that is in effect between the Nets and Durant from now through 2026 when he is scheduled to collect about $190M for playing basketball in a Brooklyn Nets uniform.  Now, with four years to run on that guaranteed contract, Kevin Durant wants out.  And if I am the owner or the GM for the Nets, I tell him – figuratively and ever so diplomatically – to go suck eggs.

If Kevin Durant wants to play NBA basketball – – and “chase rings” or to “ polish his legacy”, he has to do that in a Brooklyn Nets uniform – – unless the Nets decide to trade him.  He can demand a trade; he can arrange a trade with compensation to the Nets for his services; but none of that means a pinch of pigeon poop if I am the owner/GM of the Nets.  If I am in that position, here is my stance:

• I will only trade you to a team when/if I get an offer that I – and no one else – considers beneficial to the Brooklyn Nets.
• That means I – and not you – might get to pick the team  you will play for next.
• That means you need to waive your “no trade clause” – – and if you do not, I will limit your choices to two things.  Play for the Nets or sit out and play for no one in the NBA.
• Only by incredible fortuitousness will you get to play for a team of  your choosing – – because I am not trading  you to anyone unless I get what I think is a worthwhile return.  And as soon as you even hint that you want to play for any  other team in the league, my price for a deal with that team just went up by a factor of two.

Why might an owner even try to think about such a harsh interaction with the empowered players in the NBA?  Here’s why:

• Kevin Durant is locked in for four seasons.  I as an owner control his life and his desires for that period of time.  He cannot threaten me to become a free agent and leave me with “nothing in return” the next three seasons.

The deal here is simple; it has three possible ways to play our:

1. Play for the Nets; collect the annual salary that we agreed upon in previous negotiations.
2. Waive your no trade clause such that the team can search to find a deal that is acceptable to the team for your services.  If that is unacceptable because you only want to play for certain other teams – – tough bunny.  The Nets own your NBA services until 2026; you may be unhappy with that fact – – but it does not negate the fact that it is a fact.
3. Withhold your services from the NBA and the Nets and go play in the Uzbekistani League.  My only caveat to you there is to be sure you don’t’ suffer a significant injury there that might require immediate and cutting-edge medical treatment because you might find yourself treated with a concoction of bats’ wings and spirits of hartshorn.

NBA superstars – – and Kevin Durant is one of them – – have gotten used to the idea that they call the shots on where they will play and where they will not play.  But that works for guys on short term deals where the team is in danger of pissing off the player and then having them sign elsewhere with no recompense to the original team.  Kevin Durant is in no position to pull such a stunt; if anyone in this saga is in a position to “play hardball” it is the Nets’ owner or the Nets’ GM.  The message is clear and stark:

• If you don’t want to play for the Nets – – and therefore in the NBA – – I hope you enjoy your time in cities like Samarkand, Tashkent and Andijan.
• And if you think that is going to enhance whatever you might have tried to create as an “NBA legacy”, Buona Fortuna!

Do I expect the Nets’ ownership – – or any other NBA owner – – to play hardball with star players in this sort of way?  Hell, NO!  But they ought to consider it – – especially when they have 4 years of contract commitment on their side.

Finally, today has been about an NBA situation so let me close with this item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle times regarding the comments of another NBA player about his “fame”:

“Pelicans forward Larry Nance Jr., via Twitter, when asked if he is the most famous person from Richfield, Ohio’s Revere High School: ‘You would think so … but, I’m not sure what I’d have to do to pass Jeffery Dahmer.’”

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