The Sports Curmudgeon

Yesterday, I spent most of the rant on a story that has legs in the DC area – – the continuing saga of the “toxic workplace” that existed in the Washington Commanders’ organization allegedly reaching the highest levels of that organization.  Here is why that story has legs in the DC area.  Imagine for a moment that the Commanders’ Fairy Godmother showed up in DC and gave the fans the following two choices – – they are mutually exclusive:

• Option A:  For this season, the Commanders win the Super Bowl AND two fan favorites from the team’s glory years of the 1980s get elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
• Option B:  For this season, the Commanders go 4-13; two of their best players have demanded a trade AND Daniel Snyder sells the team.

In that imaginary circumstance, a significant fraction of the fanbase would choose Option B.

There is another story unfolding in the DC area that also has legs, but it has no sordid details, nor does it have an “evil villain figure” attached to it.  In fact, this other story evokes feelings of sadness rather than anger/disgust.  I am talking about the latest injury to Stephen Strasburg that has sent him to the Injured List yet again.

Strasburg was the first-round pick of the Nationals in 2010; when he debuted in the majors that year, he struck out 14 batters in his first game.  The Washington media and fanbase went into paroxysms of joy.  I recall saying after that first game that folks needed to pump the brakes just a bit because those 14 strikeouts left him merely 5700 strikeouts shy of Nolan Ryan.  That snarky comment proved to be eerily accurate.

Nolan Ryan was a model of availability.  In his career he pitched 5386 innings between 1966 and 1993.  He pitched more that 200 innings in 13 seasons and threw more than 300 innings in both 1973 and 1974.  Stephen Strasburg’s career has not been anything of the sort.

Strasburg suffered his first injury in his first year in the major leagues and it required Tommy John surgery.  If I have counted correctly, he has been on the IL 14 different times in his 13-year major league career.  Only twice has he thrown more than 200 innings in a season and in four seasons – not counting 2022 – he has thrown 68 or fewer innings for the season.  This year, he made his first – and so far, only – start in mid-June; he pitched 4.2 innings and left the game feeling good.  The next day or two found him with pain in his rib area and back he went on the IL meaning that since the Nats won the World Series in 2019 and Strasburg was the MVP of the Series, he has pitched a total of 31.2 innings.

In 2020 – on the heels of his MVP performance in the World Series – Strasburg signed a contract with the Nats for 7 years and $245M guaranteed.  I doubt that there were more than a handful of folks in the DC area who thought that was a bad idea; Strasburg teams with Max Scherzer at the top of their rotation would bring more pennants and World Series trophies to the Nats.  Suddenly, that contract looks as if it may have been a huge miscalculation.

Daniel Snyder’s time on the sports scene in DC has produced some bad football teams punctuated by a couple teams that were mediocre to slightly-above-average.  Stephan Strasburg’s time on the sports scene in DC has produced one magical year and 12 years of good-but-not-great performances.  The fans in DC hate Daniel Snyder and they love Stephen Strasburg demonstrating that being a good person has value of its own.

I want to stay on the subject of Stephen Strasburg for another moment here and use him as an example of how baseball has changed over the years.  Stephen Strasburg has been in MLB for 13 seasons; he has started 247 games; he has pitched a total of 1470 innings (117.2 innings par season); he has thrown 2 complete games.

In times past – – and I do not mean in the 1880s – – top of the rotation starting pitchers routinely threw 200 innings in a season; more than occasionally, they threw more than 300 innings in a season.  Moreover, there were such things as complete games:

• Nolan Ryan had five seasons with 20 or more complete games and a total of 222 complete games over his career.
• Bob Gibson threw 28 complete games in 1969 and had a total of 255 complete games over his 17-year career.
• Don Drysdale had double-digit complete games in 9 different seasons – – and 8 seasons in a row – over his 14-year career.
• Robin Roberts threw 28 consecutive complete games spanning two seasons in the 1950s and one of those games was a 17-inning affair; he threw a total of 305 complete games over his 19-year career.

If I thought I needed more street cred as an old codger/curmudgeon, I would use that sort of info to accuse current day pitchers of being molly coddled.  That may be the case –  – or it just may be that the tenets that underlie managerial tactics have changed significantly over the past 25 years.  Sometimes change is neither inherently good nor inherently bad; sometimes change is merely change.  I think baseball pitching strategy/tactics have changed and that’s about it.

Finally, for those who expected some sort of dismissal of young modern-day pitchers here, let me offer these two views of “youth”:

“The young always have the same problem – how to rebel and conform at the same time.  They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.”  [Quentin Crisp]

And …

“What is youth except a man or a woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?”  [Evelyn Waugh]

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

 

 

The toxic workplace scandal involving the Washington Commanders achieved a new level of smarminess yesterday.  With the Congressional Oversight and Reform Committee ready to question Roger Goodell under oath later in the day, the Washington Post dropped another extensive report on the activities taken on behalf of Daniel Snyder to intimidate witnesses and to silence them.  This is a lengthy report, and it contains within it a 29-page memorandum prepared by the Congressional Committee outlining many of its findings to date.  The Post’s reporting is an ugly story – – but it has plenty of underlying support.  If you have the time, you can read it here.

The NFL comes off looking less than honorable in the Wilkinson investigation because its behavior(s) clearly fall on the side of keeping this mess quiet as opposed to finding out what really happened and trying to make sure it does not happen again.  As the NFL was nominally in charge of the Wilkinson investigation, there is evidence that Snyder and lawyers representing him conducted a “shadow investigation” with the intent of either discrediting possible inimical  witnesses and/or intimidating them.  Moreover, there is an assertion by the Committee that Snyder sought to place the blame for everything that took place in the “toxic  workplace” on former team President, Bruce Allen.

Recall that it was a series of email exchanges between Allen and Jon Gruden – then with ESPN – that got Gruden fired as coach of the Raiders.  It seems from the Committee report that Snyder’s lawyers obtained emails from and to Bruce Allen based on subpoenas granted to support Snyder’s lawsuit against a media company in India.  Juxtaposing the attempt to place the blame on Allen for the toxic workplace environment and the mysterious release of the Allen/Gruden email exchanges makes one wonder.

Oh, but it does not end there…  In addition to the article linked above, the Post published a second report yesterday with details on an allegation of sexual assault made against Dan Snyder in 2009 where the accuser received a “seven figure settlement” accompanied by a non-disclosure agreement.

Here is the essence of the accusation according to the Post reporting:

“The woman accused Snyder of asking her for sex, groping her and attempting to remove her clothes, according to a letter sent by an attorney for the team to the woman’s lawyer in 2009. The woman alleged the assault occurred in a private, partitioned area at the back of one of the team’s private planes during a return flight from a work trip to Las Vegas.”

You can read the entirety of this report here.  It is not nearly as lengthy as the one above, but it is not flattering at all to Snyder or the team environment.  Tactics of discreditation and intimidation seem to have been in play when lawyers investigated these charges from 2009.  I am not an expert in these sorts of things, but there do seem to be parallel behaviors at play here as compared to the “shadow investigation” referred to regarding the toxic workplace mess.

Daniel Snyder did not testify yesterday.  He is out of the country and both he and his lawyer(s) say that whatever Snyder was doing yesterday was a “longstanding commitment.”  And the lawyer said that he was also committed to some other matter yesterday.  If that is the case – – at this point, I am not spring loaded to take any statement by Snyder as impeccably true – – it should not be a Herculean task for the Committee and the lawyer and Snyder to find a mutually agreeable date such that the committee can take his testimony.  This “scheduling issue” could become interesting over the next several weeks.  After the hearing concluded yesterday, the Committee said that Daniel Snyder would be served with a subpoena.  The fun never stops…

Meanwhile, in another NFL/sexual assault arena, Deshaun Watson reportedly has settled twenty of the twenty-four existing lawsuits against him.  The attorney who represented the twenty-four women says that he “looks forward to trying these cases in due course consistent with other docket obligations and the court’s schedule.”  Coming up soon on Commissioner Goodell’s calendar is a decision regarding any sort of penalty for Watson for violating the league’s personal conduct policy.  Here is a serious question:

• If the Commissioner is nominally committed to a non-toxic workplace where women are not objectified or harassed as he certainly sought to be seen by the Committee yesterday, how can he let Watson off with a slap on the wrist here particularly in light of the fact that there are still 4 civil lawsuits out against him and 2 other women who have made accusations of sexual improprieties by Watson – – but those two other women have not filed any legal action to date?

People are appalled to read that Roger Goodell makes something north of $60M per year as the NFL Commissioner.  All I can say is that he will earn a large portion of that compensation dealing with the Daniel Snyder fallout and the Deshaun Watson ongoing saga.  This is a holy mess.

Finally, since today has been about instances where women in the workplace were allegedly not treated properly, let me close with this observation:

“Anyone who believes that men are the equal of women has never seen a man trying to wrap a Christmas present.”

[Guilty as charged…]

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

 

 

I read a report in either the NY Post or the NY Times (sorry, did not make a note of the source of this info) that said the Yankees and Mets had both sold the broadcast rights for many of their Friday night games to Amazon Prime so that access to those games would require access to that streaming service.  Because the streaming service is not required to carry every game – – some of which are guaranteed to be irrelevant and uninteresting – – I am sure that on a “per game basis” this is a lucrative deal for the two teams.  However, I wonder if both teams are sacrificing a piece of the future for immediate cash-flow.

MLB has had to confront – – even though it has tried to ignore – – the flat fact that baseball’s audience skews old and that surveys show that young people are not falling in love with baseball as entertainment nearly to the degree that has happened in previous generations.  Because I like baseball, I do not understand how young folks cannot be attracted to the game as I was when I was growing up, but I am sufficiently grounded in realism to recognize a simple actuarial fact:

• Older folks (baseball fans) die off at a higher rate than young folks.
• Young folks (not attracted to baseball) are not “replenishing the ranks” of departed fans.

Every team ought to be concerned with the two trends noted above, but it is not really the business of individual franchises to “go it alone” as the entity of “baseball” tries to secure the future of the game.  This is an issue for MLB and the MLBPA.  And as is often the case, when it comes to big issues about the future of the game, both sides recuse themselves and hide behind the assertion that there are other important issues that need to be addressed in the immediate term.

• Horse hockey!  There is a CBA in place through the end of the 2027 World Series.
• This is the “down time” that both entities could use to address long-term issues related to the health and growth of the game itself.

Friday night games are ones that kids might – perhaps and maybe – be able to watch on TV because it is not a school night and MLB night games rarely if ever end before kids have to be in bed on school nights.  Do not blame the Yankees or the Mets for taking the money and running here; their “job” is to maximize their individual revenue streams.  This one rests on the shoulders of MLB and its Commissioner and on the union and its CEO who ought to be working together now that a new CBA is in place to find ways to grow the game.  Trust me, I shall not be holding my breath until I see any such behaviors from either side of the labor divide here…

Since I am off on the baseball vector today, let me share with you a report I read over the weekend that said the pitch-clock experiment in the minor leagues has shortened the average time of games at the AA and AAA levels by 29 minutes per game.  Games took an average of 3:04 in 2021; and so far in 2022, games take an average of 2:35.  Having seen minor league baseball games, let me assure anyone who has not seen them that his is not something that destroys the game and makes a mockery of its history.  In fact, catching a game that goes 9 innings and ends in two-and-a-half hours takes me back to the baseball games of my youth.  Such occurrences were commonplace then.  Here are the pitch-clock rules in place in minor league baseball this season:

• In AAA, a pitcher has 14 seconds to begin his pitching motion if no one is on base and 19 seconds to do so if there is/are baserunners.
• In AA and below, a pitcher has 14 seconds to begin his pitching motion if no one is on base and 18 seconds to do so if there is/are runners on base.

The pace of play is increased but it is not crazed; I have never seen a pitcher panic as time was running out.  Basically, pitchers have adjusted their “mound practices” to fit their needs and simultaneously fit the countdown clock.  I recognize that for some ultra-pure baseball fans the insertion of a clock onto the core of the game is an abomination in the sight of the Lord.  I am not in that camp; I think a pitch clock in MLB is an addendum that is necessary and that it is something that might make the game more attractive to potential young fans.

Sticking with baseball one more time, the Yankees are on a pace to win 119 games this season.  Let me put that in perspective for you:

• The 1927 Yankees – – the team with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and Tony Lazzeri and Earl Combs – – won only 110 games in a 154-game season.
• The most games ever won in a 162-game season is 116 – – a record set by the 2001 Seattle Mariners.
• The most games ever won in a 154 game season is also 116  by the Chicago Cubs in 1906.

For the balance of the season, the Yankees can be seen as chasing greatness as a team in a season.  For most fans, that could be a significant reason to pay attention to baseball even after football season starts around Labor Day.  Moreover, it would represent a positive record that could be under assault as opposed to the negative record that seemed to be in the offing just a month or so ago.

Recall that the Reds began the 2022 season with only 3 wins in their first 25 games.  That would have shattered the record for most losses in a season, but the Reds seem to have pulled themselves out of that miasma and have a record today of 23-44.  While that is nothing to write home about, it means the team that started the season at 3-22 has gone 20-22 in the intervening games.  I doubt that anyone would be unable to see that there is progress in that latter part of this season…

Finally, since today has been all about baseball, let me close with a comment from Marsha Warfield – of Night Court fame on TV:

“Every time a ball player grabs his crotch, it makes him spit.  That’s why you should never date a baseball player.”

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

 

 

I am back from Seattle where my jinx on visiting baseball teams continued to obtain.  I was supposed to see 3 games over the weekend; through a series of miscommunications and logistical flubs that would have scuttled the D-Day invasion, I only got to see 1 game.  Here are the weekend results:

• The Mariners lost 4 of 5 games to the Angels.  Indeed, I was in the stands for the single victory.
• In the 4 losses, the Mariners scored a total of 3 runs and were shut out twice.  When I was in the park, they scored 8 runs and won handily.

This “tradition” of visiting friends in Seattle with the additional intent of seeing Mariners’ baseball games began sometime between 2002 and 2004.  Since then, I have seen the Mariners go 26-17 which projects to a season-long record of 98-64.  Consider that record in line with these facts:

• Since 2002, the Mariners have never won 98 games in a single season.
• Since 2002, the Mariners have won 90 or more games in a single season only 3 times.
• Since 2002, the Mariners have been above .500 only 8 times.

I have said that the Mariners should pay me to come visit several times a season.  Maybe other AL West teams should pay me to stay home?

While I was gone, FIFA announced the 16 cities in North America that will host World Cup games in 2026.  Two cities in Canada and three cities in Mexico will host games; the rest are in the US.  I was a bit surprised to see that Chicago was not on the list to host any games.  I would have thought that a city with more than 2.5M in population in addition to being a city represented in MLS would have gotten a nod.  C’est la vie…

I also read that Marv Levy has been elected to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in Hamilton, Ontario.  Levy is already in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH meaning that he will be only the third person to be inducted into both Halls of Fame.  The other two are:

1. Bud Grant
2. Warren Moon

Congratulations to Marv Levy…

The US Open golf tournament came and went over the weekend.  In the coverage leading up to and in the early rounds, there were several references to the LIV golfers as “traitors”.  Can we please put a stop to that nonsense?  For the record:

• Benedict Arnold was a traitor; Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson et.al. are not traitors.
• When I was in school, we opened the day with the Pledge of Allegiance.  That pledge was to the flag and the country; that pledge was not to the PGA.

Along that same line of “reasoning”, should anyone consider the NBA as a whole as being “traitorous” because it does hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of business with China?  Saudi Arabia is not a paragon when it comes to human rights to be sure, but neither is China.  So why consider golfers who take Saudi money “traitors” while looking at the NBA as it rakes in money from China and think of the league as “globalizing its brand”?

Another tempest in a teapot seems to be developing here in the DC area.  George Washington University has been wrestling with an issue for the last year or so that has divided the school and its alums.  The issue is the name and mascot for the university and last week the school concluded that it needed to ditch the nickname “Colonials” and find a new one.  [Aside:  A new nickname/mascot will be introduced sometime next year.  Try to contain  yourselves…]  The school stopped short of ditching George Washington’s name notwithstanding the fact that George was indeed a “colonial” for most of his life.

Opponents of that nickname say that “colonials” were people who stole land and plundered resources from indigenous peoples and that “colonials” were bad folks.  If that is the yardstick to be  used here, how can the school change its nickname and keep its official name?  Here are facts:

• George Washington was born in, lived in and fought for colonies to become a nation.
• Washington’s plantation at Mount Vernon belonged to indigenous peoples at some time prior to his taking possession of that land.

If that land exploitation was sufficiently horrible to strip the school of its nickname, how can it possibly retain the name of the specific individual who was a party to such a miscarriage of justice?  If this sort of “logic” continues to spread, the Minnesota Vikings could be next in the cross-hairs…

Finally, with the summer solstice upon us, let me close today with the definition of “Stonehenge” from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Stonehenge:  Prehistoric grouping of large standing stones in the English countryside.  Because it is not known how an ancient culture could have constructed Stonehenge, the mysterious site attracts a fair percentage of people who spend most of their free time going to Renaissance Fairs and listening to either ‘Yes” or “King Crimson’.”

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

 

 

Happy Flag Day to everyone in the US …

I neglected to mention yesterday that a series of positive events happened last weekend.  Notwithstanding some tense negotiating and a brief work stoppage, the Canadian Football League started its regular season on time.  The weekend featured 4 games with 8 of the 9 teams in action.

• The defending Grey Cup champions – – Winnipeg – – began with a tight 19-17 victory.
• The losers in last year’s Grey Cup game – – Hamilton – – seemingly suffered a hangover and lost 30-13.
• The team that beat Hamilton – – Saskatchewan – – will be the host for this year’s Grey Cup game on November 20 in Regina.

Astronomically, it is not  yet summer – – but this start to the CFL season is a harbinger of Fall…

Pat Bowlen was the majority owner of the Denver Broncos from 1984 until his death in 2019.  He left the team to a trust that was supposed to arrange for Bowlen’s seven children to own the team.  He did not specify who was to be in the lead there and legal battles broke out.  Those legal squabbles among the heirs led to the recent sale of the Broncos for a reported $4.65B.  I mention that situation as a backdrop for two other happenings that are out there today.

Peter Angelos is the majority owner of the Baltimore Orioles and has been since 1993.  Angelos is 92 years old and even though Peter Angelos’ is still alive, there is sufficient family strife related to the team that it has spilled over into court.  John Angelos is one of Peter Angelos’ sons and is the CEO of the Orioles; his brother, Lou Angelos, asserts in a lawsuit filed recently that John has “seized control of the team in defiance of his father’s wishes.”  As if that were insufficient family drama to have a court sort through, Lou Angelos also asserts that their mother, Gloria Angelos is culpable here in that she has been manipulated by John Angelos in order for him to carry out his nefarious intent.

The lawsuit asserts that Peter Angelos had heart surgery in 2017; and subsequently, he executed a revocable trust and durable power of attorney.

“A principle purpose of these documents was to ensure that Mr. Angelos’ sons worked together in support of their mother, shared decision-making and enjoyed equal rights of inheritance.  Mr. Angelos never intended that one son should wield control over his estate to the exclusion of his other son.”

So, Thanksgiving dinner at the Angelos’ residence ought to be a fun time for all…  A brother is suing his mother and his brother over control of the team.  Might the Orioles be up for sale anytime soon…?

As they say on those infomercials that are on at 3:00AM:

• “But wait … there’s more!”

Alex Spanos bought the then San Diego Chargers’ franchise in 1984  When he died in 2018, he left 15% of the team to each of his 4 children and 36% of the team to a family trust.  His daughter, Dea Spanos Berberian has filed a lawsuit seeking control of the family trust which would give her 51% control of the franchise.  The basis for her lawsuit is:

• She claims her brother, Dean Spanos, has engaged in “financially ruinous” behavior and that the family may need to sell the Chargers to pay off outstanding debts.
• She also accuses Dean Spanos and another of her brothers – Michael Spanos – with operating “out of their deeply held misogynistic attitudes and sense of entitlement as the men of the family.”

Let me ignore the business around misogyny simply because at least part of any decision making on that front will involve a bit of mindreading.  What I found interesting was the assertion that when the Chargers decided to move to LA – to cohabitate in SoFi Stadium with the LA Rams – Berberian’s lawsuit asserts that move put the family trust $358M into debt.  In addition, she asserts that Dean Spanos “diverted $105M from the trust” and used $60M “for the wasteful purchase” of a private aircraft that has no business justification.

If the Berberian lawsuit is taken literally, the claim is that the trust may be forced to sell the team just to pay off its debt load.  That would put another NFL franchise on the market in the wake of the Broncos commanding a $4.65B price tag.  I have no idea how this action – or the Angelos family squabble – will resolve itself but I am certain of one thing:

• There will be a phalanx of attorneys amassing great numbers of billable hours in the procedures that lead to whatever resolutions obtain in these matters.

One last “economic note” for today.  Over the last year or so, several pro athletes opted to take part or all of their contract payments in cryptocurrency.

• Trevor Lawrence reportedly put his signing bonus of more than $22M into cryptocurrency.
• Saquon Barkley reportedly put $10M into cryptocurrency.
• The list goes on…

Trust me, I am no expert on cryptocurrency; I have never owned any of it; my understanding of what it is and how it works is a mile wide and an eighth of an inch deep.  However, let me present some data:

• For the year to date, 1 Bitcoin was worth $47,733.40 on Jan 1, 2022.  As of close of business yesterday, 1 Bitcoin is worth $22,162,60.  That is a decline of 54%.
• For the year to date, 1 Dogecoin was worth $0.17 on Jan 1, 2022.  As of close of business yesterday, 1 Dogecoin is worth $0.056.  That is a decline of 67%.
• For the year to date, 1 Ethereum was worth $3767.54 on Jan 1, 2022.  As of close of business yesterday, 1 Ethereum is worth $1222.39.  That is a decline of 68%.

Finally, since much of today’s rant had to do with family squabbles on a grand scale, consider these two adages about families:

“An apple never falls far from a tree … And isn’t it amazing how many bad apples one tree can produce?”

And …

“Family:  A social unit where the father is concerned with parking space, the children with outer space, and the mother with closet space.”

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

 

 

I want to begin today talking about LIV golf.  For the record, I do not play golf; I only watch golf on TV on the final day of some of the major tournaments; I am not a consumer of information about golfers.  So, what follows are the reactions of “Just A Guy.”  And the first thing this guy wants to do is to tell everyone to read Sally Jenkins’ column from yesterday’s Washington Post about the LIV Golf tour.  If there were a Pulitzer Prize for sarcasm, this column would be on the short list to win the prize for 2022; here is the link; take a moment to read it and enjoy it.

I do not intend to try to justify the LIV Golf tour nor am I going to rant and rave about it.  I want to focus on the PGA’s reaction to all of this.  It has “banished” anyone who plays in any LIV Golf event from playing in any of the PGA’s events.  Presumably, that is a lifetime ban because if it is not, then it is a feckless move indeed.  I think that is a dangerous road for the PGA to go down.  Even if the signing bonuses handed out by the LIV Golf tour are smaller in the future as compared to the ones handed out at the beginning, there could well be a serious temptation for top-shelf golfers in the future to take the money and run.

• [Aside:  Please spare me the handwringing over golfers choosing to “take the money and run.”  They are professional golfers meaning they play golf to earn money; that is the whole point; take the money and run.  If you want altruism, go follow your local high school golf team.]

And the money difference(s) do not end with those signing bonuses.  Don’t peek; tell me what golf event the PGA players competed in last weekend.  It was the Canadian Open.  Seventy players made the cut; of those 70 players only 20 earned more than $100K for the weekend.  [Aside:  Remember, everyone who missed the cut also earned less than $100K for the weekend.]  Now, compare that to the fate of Andy Ogletree who played in the LIV Golf tour event and finished the tournament 24 strokes over par.  He was dead last in the field and 31 strokes behind the winner.

• Andy Ogletree earned $120K for the weekend.

For now, the PGA banishment lacks real bite.  The big events for the PGA are the four major tournaments.  Three of those four tournaments are open to LIV Tour golfers as of today.  The USGA says if you can qualify for the US Open, you can play; the R&A has not shut its doors to LIV Tour players for the British Open; I have not heard the official declaration from the folks who run the Masters but given their reverence for the history of the tournament, I doubt they are going to ban previous winners from the grounds.  So that banishment applies only to one of the four majors and to other such gripping events as the John Deere Classic, the Charles Schwab Challenge and the Rocket Mortgage Classic.

My brother-in-law is an avid golfer and someone who follows the sport on TV far more than I do.  He sent me a link last week to an article in Golf Digest that was less than laudatory in its view of LIV golf.  My response was that Golf Digest is guilty of the same financial survival motive that LIV golfers are derided for following.  Golf Digest is not owned by the PGA, but Golf Digest is totally dependent on the PGA for its existence.  The magazine is owned by the same folks who own The Golf Channel on TV and if the magazine were to piss off the PGA to the point where the magazine was banned from PGA events and stories, Golf Digest would be out of business within two issues.

I really do not care if the LIV Tour succeeds or fails.  I think rooting against it because it might teach a lesson to the “repressive Saudi regime” is worse than virtue-signaling because it clearly will not teach those folks any lessons.  I think rooting for the LIV Tour is pointless for now because no one has any idea what it might become if it is sufficiently successful to be in existence five or ten years from now.  Here is a metric for you to consider regarding the viability and the growth of the LIV Tour over time:

• In addition to individual play, there are teams of players on the tour; as of last weekend, there were 12 of these teams.
• I have no idea how the teams were chosen/formed.
• I have no idea why there are teams.
• I have no inkling as to the scoring system for the teams
• I have no clue what the team standings represent nor what reward there might be for the best team sometime down the road.
• LIV Tour golf will take a step forward in relevance when and if I care enough to dig in and find out more about any of those topics listed above.

Enough golf…  Another big story of the weekend was Jack Del Rio – – defensive coordinator of the Washington Commanders – – being fined $100K by the Commanders’ head coach for expressing his view(s) on the events of January 6, 2021.  That fine leads me to wonder why any athlete or coach would ever try to answer any question about politics or social issues.  No matter what the answer is, you can be sure some segment of the audience will be pissed off by the answer.  Were I in such a situation, my response would be along the lines of, “Next question…”?

Jonathan Allen is the Commanders’ best defensive player and a leader on the defense.  His remarks about the fine for Del Rio tell me that he is also an intelligent man:

“Me personally, I don’t care about his opinion as long as he shows up every day and he works hard; that’s what I want from my defensive coordinator.

“In my opinion, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.  Some guys decide to share it on Twitter; some guys don’t. It doesn’t make one person better than the other. At the end of the day, you can have a difference in opinion and still respect one another. I feel like that’s what our country is about. That’s what our team is about.”

Can I get an AMEN! for Jonathan Allen’s remarks…

Finally, since much of today’s rant was focused on golf, let me close with these two views of golf as a sport:

“Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it is open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.”  [Dave Barry]

And …

“It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.”  [Mark Twain]

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

 

 

The acronym “KKK” has totally negative connotations; so, I need to use something else today because I do not want to have such a negative overhang on this rant.  Let me adopt the label “3Ks” standing for Kaepernick, Kapler and Kerr.  All three men have an identity/association with the Bay Area in California; all three men have “used their platform” to protest events and practices in our society that they believe to be wrong.  And the reaction to those protests has not been the same for those three men.  As a reset, recall:

• Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the National Anthem on the sidelines of NFL games to protest unfair/disparate policing practices in minority neighborhoods.
• Gabe Kapler chose to remain in the clubhouse during the playing of the National Anthem to protest gun availability in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting.
• Steve Kerr used the occasion of his press conference at an NBA playoff game to call for action to prevent further events like the Uvalde school shooting.

Like most rational people, I am opposed to unfair policing practices and I am opposed to active shooters in schools and shopping malls.  I support the 3Ks in their protests; what they call for is right and proper.  So, why is Colin Kaepernick effectively out of a job while Kapler and Kerr are only suffering minor criticism from some far right individuals/groups?

The most obvious answer is that Kapler and Kerr are white and Kaepernick is not.  Stay with me here; I think that answer is simplistic and incomplete.  Yes, that is a perfect description of the racial/ethnic makeup of those three men; and yes, there is a racial divide in the US; and yes, race does play a part in the different ways folks have reacted to the three men and their protests.  However, I do not think that is the complete answer.

I believe that Colin Kaepernick chose a way to express his protest that allowed people to focus on his act and not on his issue.  While I would not choose to kneel during the National Anthem, I do not take kneeling then to be an outrageously offensive action.  However, others did and still do.  And take a deep breath here – – those folks have as much right to be offended by kneeling during the anthem as Kaepernick had and has to kneel during the anthem.  The problem here is not about who has what rights and who or what has been offended; the problem is that the act of kneeling during the anthem on the sidelines of an NFL game is an example of the idiom, “Right church, wrong pew”.

How did Kapler and Kerr avoid such compromise of their protests – – especially since Kapler’s protest also involved the National Anthem?  Well, Kapler made his protest in a way that did not send a mixed message to those people in the stands and watching on TV who are spring-loaded to be offended by “improprieties” during the anthem.  Kapler simply boycotted the anthem – – as did every person on the planet who was not in attendance or watching on TV at that time.   Moreover, Kapler acted to assure that those folks who are avid anthem supporters would not have an edge to alter the focus of his protest by coming out of the clubhouse and standing for the anthem on Memorial Day showing his support and appreciation for veterans who died in support of their country.  Kaepernick never recovered from the outrage that his protest spawned.

Kerr’s protest came at a press conference proximal to an NBA playoff game.  I suspect that even the biggest NBA fan on Planet Earth does not hold coaches’ press conferences in any sort of idyllic embrace to the point that said fan would be horrified that someone would violate the sanctity of that event by bringing up a school shooting incident.  So, Steve Kerr’s protest was broadcast from “his platform” but in a way that kept the focus on his issue and not how he delivered his message.

You may be thinking at this point in my rant how Colin Kaepernick may have used his position as a starting QB in the NFL to deliver his protest message in a way that may not have offended as many people as it did.  Remember, I am not one of those horribly offended folks.  Well, here is one possible way it might have gone down:

• First of all, the actions that Kaepernick was protesting do not take place on a football field during a game or during the National Anthem played before that game.  The venue provides wide dissemination of the protest, but the venue is far removed from the actions under protest.
• So, I believe Kaepernick’s protest would have been even more effective and would certainly have generated less blowback had he taken the protest to a venue which is more germane to the protest – – such as the steps of a police precinct where Kaepernick believed improper policing was happening.
• The aftermath of his “kneeling protest” showed that there were plenty of other players who agreed with the target of his protest.  He would not have been alone had he organized a group of NFL players to join in that protest.
• Moreover, NFL players get a day off each week; it is part of the CBA.  So, those protests could have been organized to take place several times a month and would likely have drawn media attention at a place where there was the potential for a “meaningful conversation” regarding the subject under protest.

The 3Ks provide an interesting opportunity for standing back and thinking about how and why some protests are received and supported in US society and why others are less well received/supported.  As I said above, the racial difference among these men may be part of the picture here but I do not think it is the complete answer.  Nor do I think that any of my exposition here had changed the mind of anyone who is still offended by Colin Kaepernick’s “disrespect” for the National Anthem.

But I feel better having said it all…

Finally, since today’s rant tangentially referenced the Uvalde shooting, let me close with some words from Ellen DeGeneres:

“I say to the gun owner who owns an AK-47, if it takes a hundred rounds to bring down a deer, maybe hunting isn’t your sport.”

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

 

 

I spent much of yesterday’s rant on the Deshaun Watson situation and the “punishment issue” facing the league and The Commish.  About an hour after posting the rant, I was searching for issues to write about today and tomorrow when I ran across the NY Times report by Jenny Vrentas that amplified this sordid mess to the point where it deserves a title of its own.  From here on I will refer to it as TDWS – – The Deshaun Watson Situation.

Here is the link to Vrentas’ report; it may be behind a paywall, but if you can read it, I suggest that you do.  And let me take a moment here to make clear that Jenny Vrentas has been covering the NFL for a while now and she is widely recognized as a reporter; her byline on the story gives it significant credibility.

Here are new “details” for TDWS:

• It appears that Watson had appointments with 66 different female massage therapists over a 17-month period.
• Watson had a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) he had some – not all – of the therapists sign before their sessions.  That NDA was provided to him by the Texans’ Director of Security after Watson told him that someone had posted some dicey information on Instagram about his massage sessions.
• Multiple women who did not sue him – or file a criminal complaint – have now alleged that Watson sought or initiated sexual contact in their sessions with him.
• The owner of a spa in Houston allegedly provided Watson with access to massage therapists who worked for the spa and also provided “security” when he was there for treatments.  Four therapists from that spa are among those who have sued Watson.

As I said yesterday, Deshaun Watson is not guilty of any criminal behavior here simply by the fact that he has not been convicted of such behavior.  Nonetheless, Vrentas’ report in the NY Times presents new and sordid information for public consumption making the NFL’s challenge in the realm of Public Relations even more difficult.  The fact that Watson sought out approximately one new massage therapist per week over a year and a half is unusual – – although not probative for impropriety.  The fact that Watson asked therapists to sign an NDA seems highly unusual to me and the fact that the NDA was given to him by an official of his team means that the Texans were aware of a potential problem.  You could probably convince me that the Texans were part of an enabling process in TDWS.  And the  spa owner who set Watson up with her employees seems like another enabler to me.

The NFL should not care about the spa owner’s relationship to all of this – – but the NFL had best find out through its own channels just what the Houston Texans’ organization knew and when the knew it and what the did or did not do about it.  As of today, this is The Deshaun Watson Situation; the NFL has a significant interest in preventing this from becoming The Houston Texans Situation and/or The NFL Cover-Up Situation.

I tried yesterday to come up with precedents for NFL sanctions that might apply to TDWS.  I focused my attention on suspensions and the offenses that led to suspensions.  Let me also provide here the precedents that the NFL has for “lifetime ban” from professional football.  I believe there are only two such precedents:

1. Rae Carruth:  He was tried and found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.  He was sentenced to 18-24 years in prison and served 18 years prior to his release in 2018.
2. Frank Filchok/Merle Hapes:  These men were offered bribes related to their performance in the NFL Championship Game in 1946.  A jury convicted some gamblers of bribery but neither Filchok nor Hapes was ever convicted.  The NFL Commissioner at the time – – Bert Bell – – suspended them indefinitely because he found the players “guilty of actions detrimental to the welfare of the National Football League and of professional football.”

            Those two “lifetime bans” point in opposite directions  in my mind.  TDWS is indeed a sordid mess; and if even half of the allegations against Watson are true, he deserves significant punishment by the NFL.  Having said that let me be clear:

• Conspiring to murder one’s pregnant girlfriend is a whole lot worse that soliciting sexual acts and/or sexual assaults as alleged here.  If indeed there are rings of Hell, murderers should be tortured more strongly than folks seeking sex from massage therapists.  [Aside:  I would love to see a reporter ask Robert Kraft what he thinks of this whole matter – – but that ain’t gonna happen.]
• Involvement with gamblers who are subsequently convicted of bribery to throw an NFL game – the equivalent of the Super Bowl at the time – is potentially far more deleterious to the existence of the NFL than any of the allegations here.

It seems to me that TDWS falls into a behavior space that does not have a significant precedent to guide the league and its current Commissioner.  I am glad not to be the one in the role of handing down punishment here simply because whatever Roger Goodell decides to do will be shouted down as inappropriate.  There will those who claim that whatever he does is too harsh and that he has caved to a bunch of accusers who did not have enough evidence even to get Watson to a trial for criminal behavior.  Others will say whatever he does is too lenient and that it perpetuates the narrative that men with money can treat women as sex objects with impunity.

Good luck, Mr. Commissioner.  Your task in resolving TDWS was dicey from the start; Jenny Vrentas’ reporting did not make it even a little bit easier.

Finally, no matter the outcome of TDWS, I believe all this puts the lie to an observation by former US President Chester A. Arthur:

“Good ballplayers make good citizens.”

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