The Sports Curmudgeon

 

Lou Holtz died at the age of 89; he had been in hospice care for a few weeks, and his family announced his passing yesterday.  Lou Holtz had a peripatetic career as a head football coach making stops at William & Mary, NC State, Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame and South Carolina over the course of his career.  He led all six of those teams to bowl games and is the only college football coach to accomplish that.  For a while, he was part of ESPN’s College Football Final which used to be the best overview of the sport.  He signed to be the head coach of the Jets but lasted less than a year; when he resigned, he explained that “God did not put Lou Holtz on this earth to coach in the pros.”

Rest in peace, Lou Holtz.

The sixth iteration of the World Baseball Classic kicks off this week; there are twenty teams in the field representing five of the seven continents on the planet.  There will be games played in Tokyo, San Juan, Houston and Miami involving four pools of five teams each.  The final game will be in Miami on St. Patrick’s Day.  Before you bother to go and look, Ireland is not one of the teams in the field so that sort of serendipity cannot happen.

Teams in each pool will play a double-elimination Round Robin format to determine the top two teams in each pool; after that, everything is single elimination.  Japan has won the World Baseball Classic three times, the Dominican Republic won it once and the US has won it once.  Those three previous winners are in different pools and should be favorites to come out of pool play into the single elimination rounds.  Here is the lineup of the pools:

• Pool A:  Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Panama, Puerto Rico
• Pool B:  Brazil, Great Britain, Italy, Mexico, USA
• Pool C:  Australia, Czechia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan
• Pool D:  Dominican Republic, Israel, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Venezuela

All games will be telecast in the US on FOX and/or one of the FOX sub-networks and major-league stars will populate some of the rosters such as:

• Dominican Republic:  Sandy Alcantara, Vladimir Guerero, Jr., Manny Machado, Cristopher Sánchez, Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis, Jr.
• Japan:  Shohei Ohtani, Seiya Suzuki, Yoshinobu Yamamoto
• USA:  Byron Buxton, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge, Paul Skenes, Tarik Skubal and Bobby Witt, Jr.

Clearly, there is more than sufficient star-power represented in the tournament to make it an attractive TV offering.  In addition, the World Baseball Classic is a tasty appetizer for baseball which has been absent from the TV menu since Game 7 of the 2025 World Series won by the Dodgers.  The WBC games may not equal the MLB Playoffs or the World Series in terms of drama or gravitas, but they sure beat watching Spring Training games on TV.

Moving on – – but staying with baseball …  Arte Moreno is the owner of the LA Angels.  Since I live in the Washington DC area, I am not familiar with him on a day-to-day basis, but I took note a couple of weeks ago when he was quoted as saying:

“The number one thing fans want is affordability. They want affordability. They want safety and they want a good experience when they come to the ballpark. Believe it or not, winning is not in their top five.”

Say what?  Look, I am not going to take the position that fans would welcome price hikes at the ballpark or having stadiums declared as war zones, but how Mr. Moreno fails to recognize that “good experience when they come to the ballpark” is not intertwined with “winning” needs explanation.

The Angels and the Dodgers play in the same general market.  The Dodgers win a lot more than the Angels do and the Dodgers drew an average home attendance last year that was 17,300 fans more than the Angels did.  Sorry, Mr. Moreno; winning is much more important to fans than you seem to realize.  In fact, that comment makes me wonder if in your mind winning is not “in the top five” of your aspirations for your team; and if I were a fan in the LA area, that would make me less motivated to adopt your team as “my team”.

Let me offer an example here from a different sport and a different region as an analogy.  Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, the Washington Redskins were winners every year and won 3 Super Bowls over that time span.  Affordability went out the window as season ticket prices soared.  Nevertheless, the stadium was full to overflowing for every home game.  “Winning” kept fans coming and paying attention as “affordability” waned.

Then came the Daniel Snyder Era.  Prices continued to go up much faster than inflation and the team started losing more frequently than winning.  Forget Super Bowl wins, Snyder’s teams were considered to be successful if they made the playoffs every two or three years.  And what happened over time was that season ticket sales plummeted and there were “bare spots” in the stands when the TV cameras gave us a crowd shot.  In essence, “affordability” became an important issue once “winning” was not part of the overall experience.

Finally, I’ll close today with these from Lou Holtz:

 “Don’t tell your problems to people: eighty percent don’t care; and the other twenty percent are glad you have them.”

And …

 “On this team, we’re all united in a common goal: to keep my job.”

And …

“Coaching is nothing more than eliminating mistakes before you get fired.

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

 

 

We have another situation that fits the adage of bad things happening in threes even though the immediate headline/news event seems out of the ambit of two other embarrassments.  Here is the latest headline:

“Falcons fire LaTroy Lewis amid investigation into sexual assault allegations”

Sadly, those kinds of headlines have become far too commonplace, but this one rang a strange bell in my mind.  Indeed, the Falcons had just hired LaTroy Lewis to be their D-Line coach last month; that seemed to me to be a strange pair of circumstances.  And just a little more reading allowed me to make it the third event in a triumvirate of badness.

The focus of the three phases of embarrassment belongs to the University of Michigan Football Program:

• Embarrassment 1:  The Jim Harbaugh time as head coach produced a suspension for recruiting violations and the infamous sign-stealing scandal.
• Embarrassment 2:  The firing of Harbaugh’s successor, Sherrone Moore, and Moore’s subsequent arrest involving felony charges.
• Embarrassment 3:  LaTroy Hawkins was on Sherrone Moore’s staff as an assistant at Michigan until he was hired by the Falcons in February 2026.

            According to reports, the alleged sexual assault happened in Ann Arbor while Hawkins was still at Michigan and that the police there had just become aware of the incident.  Hawkins’ lawyer naturally stated that his client would “fiercely fight these false allegations” and the lawyer for the woman says that her client was a victim who met Hawkins on an Internet dating site.  There is not much there I find surprising; what I do find surprising is that the Falcons fired Hawkins almost immediately instead of saying they would let the investigation play out and that the Falcons were gathering information on their own and any final decision would await all of that.

Switching gears …  In other news involving NFL folks who got themselves crosswise with the judicial system, President Trump recently pardoned five former players who had been convicted of a variety of offenses.  Here is the list:

1. Billy Cannon:  He plead guilty to being part of a counterfeiting ring that produced large amounts of bogus currency.
2. Travis Henry:  He was convicted on drug trafficking charges.
3. Joe Klecko:  He was convicted of insurance fraud and bankruptcy fraud.
4. Jamal Lewis:  He was convicted of “facilitating a drug deal”.
5. Nate Newton:  He was convicted of drug trafficking after being arrested twice in a short span of time with almost 400 pounds of marijuana in his car.

Billy Cannon was an interesting case.  After his conviction he spent several years in jail but after he was released, he became a dentist/orthodontist and had a practice in Baton Rouge, LA where he had been a star halfback at LSU.  Billy Cannon died in 2018.

Moving on …  Chris Berman announced that he will retire when his contract at ESPN expires at the end of the 2029 NFL season.  Berman started at ESPN in 1979 – – the year ESPN first went on the air; he will have been a 50-year veteran of the network when he retires, and I believe he is the last of the “ESPN originals”.  Chris Berman is famous for his schtick of using wordplay to give nicknames to various athletes.  Everyone probably has his/her favorites on that list but here are my two favorites:

• Oddibe – Young Again – McDowell
• Jim – Two Silhouettes On – DeShaies.

In other news …  The Indy Colts have put the “Transition Tag” on QB Daniel Jones and have given Anthony Richardson permission to seek a trade.  Richardson is only 24 years old and back in 2023 – – not so long ago – – the Colts spent the overall #4 pick in the NFL Draft to acquire Richardson.  In my opinion, the Colts have decided to cut bait here:

• In three seasons with the Colts, Richardson has appeared in only 17 regular season games out of a possible 51 regular season games.
• His completion percentage in those games was only 50.6% which is notoriously low.
• He threw 11 TDs and 13 INTs in those games.

The enticement for other teams is that Richardson is freakishly athletic; if he could stay healthy and work on his accuracy, he could be a foundation piece for a team – – and he is only 24 years old.

Finally, this life assessment from Tallulah Bankhead:

“If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.”

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

 

 

Half of yesterday’s rant dealt with the CBA negotiations between the WNBA and the WNBPA.  Several hours after the rant was posted, there were reports of a new proposal from the league regarding revenue sharing and statements from both sides that they were actively engaged in ongoing negotiations.  Other than misanthropes who purposely want to see the league fail and fade into oblivion, that must be positive news.  And so, using the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc – – (Google is your friend) – – I will suggest today the outline of a plan for the NFL and the NFLPA that is a win-win-win- win for consideration if either side opts out of the current CBA.

1. Owners win:  The regular season expands to 18 games; Exhibition Games reduced to two; revenue increases; every team gets nine home games every season.
2. Players win:  Each team gets two BYE Weeks during the regular season; active rosters expand to 55 players; salary cap goes up.
3. Networks win:   NFL games are programming successes; expanded regular season means 16 more “large audience” events for them.
4. Fans win:  Regular season games are more interesting than Exhibition Games; scheduling changes give fans what many have clamored for.

            And that brings me to the schedule.  To accommodate an added regular season game plus an added BYE Week for each team, the current calendar for the NFL season must change and that can be done in a plus way for fans.

• The NFL season has kicked off on Thursday after Labor Day in recent times.  In my expanded regular season, that start date needs to be pushed back one week so that it would have regular season games on Labor Day Weekend.  Starting the season on a Thursday night featuring the reigning Super Bowl champion would still be a scheduling option for the league; it would just happen seven nights earlier on the calendar.
• The league seems to love the idea of a two-week break between the Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl, and it allows them to continue “Pro Bowl Nonsense”.  So, to avoid any handwringing about the loss of that “hallowed tradition”, I will leave the extra Super Bowl hype-week in place.
• The second added week to the NFL season will come by pushing the Super Bowl back one week.  The NFL scheduling algorithm for the Super Bowl is about as simple as possible:
  • • The Super Bowl happens on the second Sunday of February.
• I suggest moving it back to the third Sunday of February and that gives lots of NFL fans an additional “win”.

Every year, there is a vocal minority of fans who lament that the day after the Super Bowl is a workday – – or a school day.  Since many fans enjoy adult beverages and party on after the game, the Monday after the Super Bowl can be “challenging” and those fans annually suggest one of two remedies:

1. Play the Super Bowl on the second Saturday of February leaving the second Sunday as a day of recuperation – – OR – –
2. Petition the Congress to make the Monday after the Super Bowl another Federal holiday.

Well, in my expanded regular season, the Super Bowl would be contested on the third Sunday in February.  And in what would seem to be pure serendipity, the third Monday in February is already a Federal holiday defined by Federal law; it is called President’s Day.

So, there are winning points for all the segments of the NFL’s universe – – owners, players, networks and fans.  As Yul Brynner said in the character of the Pharaoh in the move The Ten Commandments:

“So let it be written, so let it be done.”

Finally, this from humorist Franklin P. Jones:

“One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody’s listening.”

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

 

 

Two US sports appear to be headed for “Labor Hell”.  Major League Baseball has a CBA that expires proximally to the end of this year’s World Series and if the reporting on the positions for the two sides is accurate, a lockout or a strike seems likely.  Since lockouts and strikes are weapons of one side but not the other, let me refer here to “work stoppages” as a neutral term that shows support for and heaps blame upon both sides at the same time.

The owners and the players will assert – loudly to be sure – that they do not want a work stoppage, but it is the intransigence of the other guys that has brought the blight upon us.  Deal with that rhetoric when it comes as you will; here is truth:

• Much as the players and the owners protest that they do not want a work stoppage, fans and networks want one even less.
• Fans lose something that they enjoy – – even love; that is why they are fans; that is why they spend discretionary income on “baseball stuff”; they are the economic engine of the sport itself.
• Networks lose something tangible – – the ability to fill a lot of airtime with programming that is attractive to a reliable audience.

We are about 9 months away from the expiration date for the MLB/MLBPA Collective Bargaining Agreement.  Already the major battle line is clear:

• Owners want a salary cap – – and some also want a salary floor.
• Players want a salary cap like most folks want abdominal surgery.

That is the conundrum that needs to be resolved in the next nine months to avoid a work stoppage.  Rhetoric won’t do it; serious negotiation will.

Here is a key element that needs to be on the back burner as the negotiations proceed:

• Baseball is entertainment.  Lack of baseball is not entertainment.  Entertainment is something people seek.  Players and owners should have a joint interest in continuing to provide entertainment to people lest they seek and find entertainment elsewhere.

I am on record saying that a salary cap and a salary floor will be a benefit to baseball because it will create more competitive balance.  Notice, I did not say that I like a “cap-and-floor” because I think the owners are right or that the players are wrong; I think it will improve and enhance baseball; and in my mind that is an unalloyed “good thing”.

The other American sport that is on the precipice of a work stoppage is the WNBA.  Those folks find themselves in an unusual situation; this is their offseason and there will be two new expansion teams in the league if/when it starts up, but there is no CBA and the two sides are still “far apart”.  About a week ago, the league told the players that there is a deadline coming up soon and if there is no resolution by that deadline there will need to be changes to the 2026 season.  I have no idea how rigid such a deadline is – – if it is reality in the first place; nonetheless, it is out there.  That deadline is March 10^th or eight days from today.

Tentatively, the WNBA season is scheduled to start on May 8^th and between now and then, here is a short list of the things that need to be done:

1. Negotiations produce a CBA
2. Players and owners ratify the CBA
3. There needs to be a free agency period for players without a contract
4. There needs to be an expansion team draft
5. There needs to be a league wide draft for college players moving up
6. There needs to be Training Camp time

When I look at that list of things that need to happen by May 8^th for the WNBA season to start on time, the “deadline” of March 10^th for negotiations to conclude starts to make a bit of sense.   I seriously hope that the WNBA players do not overplay their hand here; women’s pro basketball has started to “catch on” in the US; it is still a minor sport to be sure, but it is growing; it is not stagnant.  However, like baseball, the WNBA is entertainment and the risk for the WNBA to lose “entertainment seekers” is greater than for baseball which has been part of the sports cosmos in the US for more than 125 years.

Over the weekend, CBSSports.com had a report on the status of the negotiations; here is a link to that report.  Indeed, money is the core issue here but there are ancillary issues in this negotiation that are probably not present in the baseball talks.

Finally, an observation by Teddy Roosevelt that might pertain if either of these situations turns into a work stoppage:

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”

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

 

 

When the Washington Post announced that it was firing most of the people who manned the Sports Desk about a month ago, I pointed out here that another Washington paper had done the same thing in the past and had to go back on that decision.  So far, there has not been any indication that the Post might be regretting its decision.  Nevertheless, I wonder if the full effect of the demise of the Sports Section has been felt to date.

The Post continues to have a Sports Section, and it is usually 4 or 5 pages long.  However, one page is usually devoted to agate type showing standings and scores from the day before and various transactions; it is a part of the paper that probably gets a glance from most readers and little more.  On the other pages, at least 40% and sometimes 50% of the space is consumed by a picture or two related to the story that is printed.

Stories are mostly of Associated Press origin; they are reportorial and accurate; they are also not exciting.  Imagine someone existing on a diet of peanut butter sandwiches seven days a week; it might not be a shock to learn after a month or so that the consumer craves a meal of Mexican food or perhaps some spaghetti and meatballs.  This may turn out to be the case for the Post’s readers down the line, but the timing for such a “break-out” may not have arrived.

Washington sports fans are notoriously bandwagon riders.  When teams are good, they are embraced and even adored by fans and by other locals who normally could not care less about sports or that team.  When the Skins were winning Super Bowls back in the 80s and 90s, there were people following the team who did not know a first down from goose down.  And when the teams are bad, no one really cares.

Right now, sports in the DC area are in a trough – – to use a wave metaphor.

• The Wizards are overmatched even when they are not tanking on purpose
• The Capitals are mediocre – – good enough to sneak into the playoffs down the line but currently with the 9^th best record in the Eastern Conference.
• The Nats were awful last year and project to be merely bad this year.
• DC United finished dead last in the Eastern Conference of MLS last year.

In this area, all those those teams are marginal players in terms of fan involvement.  The Washington Spirit finished second in the women’s soccer league last year and still drew only about 15,000 fans per game and attracted TV audiences comparable to half-hour infomercials featuring Phil Swift.  The big swinger in sports in the DC area is the Washington Commanders.

The NFL is never out-of-the-news but even the NFL has periods of quietude, and this is one of them.  So, I wonder if the Commanders’ fans have yet realized that the only stuff they are going to read in the Post is the journalistic equivalent of “peanut butter sandwiches”.  Perhaps that realization sometime around the NFL Draft or the opening of Training Camp will make current readers realize there is “something missing” which might turn them into former readers.

I have been a Post subscriber for more than 50 years.  Like former Chief Justice, Earl Warren, I too turned to the Sports Section first in the morning; then I looked elsewhere.  I miss the focused coverage in what was the Sports Section and the highly talented columnists who wrote there, but I also read much of the other content in the Post every day.  I will continue to be a subscriber unless the coverage of national, international and business news deteriorates from its current standards.  Having said that, I recognize that what is now the Post Sports Section is a poor relative as compared to a month ago.

Moving on …  The UFL will start its regular season one month from today and it will incorporate some new rules that bear watching because they might find their way into the NFL someday.  Consider:

• A pass completion only requires the receiver to have one foot inbounds not both.  [Not sure if this is good or bad; we’ll see.]
• Field goals from 60 yards or longer are worth 4 points.  [Brandon Aubrey’s NFL contract demands just went up.]
• The “Tush Push” is illegal.  [Not sure how that is illegal if blockers are allowed to assist running backs; we’ll see.]
• No punts allowed inside the 50 yardline.  [Not sure I like this; too much emphasis on long field goal tries already; we’ll see.]
  • • However, such punting is allowed in the final two minutes of each half.
• Kickoffs will be from the 30-yardline.  [Given the UFL kickoff alignment, I don’t see this as a big deal.]
• PATs will come in three flavors.  Kick for 1 point, play from the 2-yardline for 2 points; play from the 8-yardline for 3 points.  [Meh!]
• If the defense returns a failed PAT for a score, the defense will earn the value of the PAT that was tried.  [It is now possible for a UFL team to score a total of 1 point in a game; hoo-ray for that.]

Finally, this from George Bernard Shaw:

“If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.”

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

 

 

When I posted yesterday’s rant about undrafted players ultimately making it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, I did so with the knowledge that I could not possibly have listed all the folks who fit that description.  I did my “research” with a flawed methodology; I used my intuition or my memory regarding players in the Hall of Fame and “guessed at” their draft status and for players way back in the history of the NFL, there were plenty I had no knowledge of.  Hence, I was confident that I would hear quickly from “the reader in Houston” who would fill me in on players I omitted.

My hope was that the list would be a short one.  According to my e-mail program I got the response before noon Eastern Time yesterday and when I opened it, I was hoping for the list to be 5 or 6 names in length.  Not so; here is the email content:

• Others who weren’t drafted, some of whom played when we were kids were:
  • • Lou “The Toe” (Cleveland) – mentioned by you as a HOFer, but not as undrafted
    • Bill Willis (Cleveland)
    • Frank Gratski (Cleveland)
    • Marion Motley (Cleveland)
    • Joe “The Jet” (SF)
    • Jack Butler (Pittsburgh)
    • Donnie Shell (Pittsburgh)
    • Ed Sprinkle (Chicago)
    • Em Tunnell (NYG)
    • Sam Mills (NO)
    • Mick Tinglehoff (Minnesota)
    • Drew Pearson (Dallas)
    • Jim Langer (Miami)

Given those additions to my list from yesterday, let me make a couple brief comments:

• Lou “The Toe” Groza:  He went to Ohio State; how could he not have been drafted; what were the NFL scouts thinking?
• Sam Mills:  I knew his history of coming to the NFL via the USFL; I should have had him on my list.
• Joe “The Jet” Perry:  He led the NFL in career rushing yards when he retired.
• Emlen Tunnell:  He led the NFL in career interceptions when he retired.

            I suffered more omissions on yesterday’s listing than I had hoped for, but thanks again to “the reader in Houston” for stepping into the breach and completing the list.

Moving on …  Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao have agreed to fight each other on September 19, 2026, and the bout will be telecast on Netflix.  This is a rematch; these two guys fought at what everyone thought was the “end of their careers” back in 2015.  Here are data that will be relevant when this upcoming fight takes place:

• Pacquiao will be 47 years and 9 months old
• Mayweather will be 49 years and 7 months old.
• Mayweather is the favorite at odds of minus-225
• The fight will take place in Las Vegas – – no real surprise there.
• The fight will take place in The Sphere – – the first such event there.
• Their last fight produced $410M in revenue; can Netflix be paying something like that for this fight?

I am certainly not a boxing afficionado and would never pretend to be.  But I wonder why this fight is happening in the first place.  It cannot be that the combatants “need the money”.  According to my “research” Manny Pacquiao earned about $500M in his active boxing career and his net worth today is estimated at $220M.  Floyd Mayweather earned about $1B over the course of his career and his net worth today is estimated at $450M.

Back in the days of traveling circuses, there were things known as side shows or freak shows.  People paid to see strange and unusual things; obviously, the promoters and backers of this event believe that people will do so again in September 2025.  I say that because I simply don’t believe that it is a “mainstream sentiment” to look forward to a fight between two men whose combined age is over 97 years old.

Finally, an observation by Oscar Wilde:

“America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.”

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

 

 

When the NFL announced this year’s entrants into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, I thought it was interesting that one of the new members – – Adam Vinateiri – – went undrafted as he came out of college.  My first reaction was to use that fact as an example of the NFL’s Draft as a crapshoot and not a science.  However, that thought got sidetracked when I asked myself if there were other players already in the Hall of Fame who were undrafted free agents.  Tracking down some data on that question has led me to this:

• There are indeed some very good football players in the Hall of Fame who were never drafted by any NFL team – – AND – –
• There are some undrafted players who are not in the Hall of Fame but have a résumé worthy of consideration for that honor.

Two very obvious examples came to mind:

1. Warren Moon – – not only undrafted, but he also got no camp invitations and had to go play in Canada to attract attention.
2. Kurt Warner – – he was famously bagging groceries prior to getting an invitation to Training Camp by the Rams.

Perusing the list of members already in the Hall of Fame yielded some other undrafted honorees:

• Willie Brown – – DB – – Named to the NFL’s All-Decade team for the 1960s and for the 1970s.
• Antonio Gates – – TE – – He never played college football; he was a basketball player in college.
• Cliff Harris – – DB – – Six times selected for the Pro Bowl he was named to the NFL’s all-Decade team for the 1970s.
• “Night Train” Lane – – DB – – Seven times selected for the Pro Bowl and 64 career interceptions.
• Larry Little – – OL – – Five times he was selected for the Pro Bowl and was named to the NFL’s All-Decade team for the 1970s
• John Randle – – DT – – Six times he was named an All-Pro.
• Emmitt Thomas – – DB – – He had 58 interceptions in his career.
• Willie Wood – – DB – – Eight times selected for the Pro Bowl and 48 career interceptions.

And here are some undrafted players who are not in the Hall of Fame now, but it would not desecrate the Hall of Fame should they be elected down the line:

• Coy Bacon – – DE – – Three times selected for the Pro Bowl and 130 sacks in his career.
• James Harrison – – LB – – Two times an All-Pro and two other times a second team All-Pro; also, he was Defensive Player of the Year once.
• Priest Holmes – – RB – – Three times an All-Pro and Offensive Player of the Year one time.
• Jason Peters – – OT – – Nine times selected for the Pro Bowl and named to the NFL’s All-Decade team for the 2010s.
• Wes Welker – – WR – – Five times named as All-Pro and led the NFL in receptions three times.

I am sure I have missed some entries on both of these lists; it was not intentional; it was merely oversight.  But there is one other thought that sprang to mind when Adam Vinatieri’s name was announced as a Hall of Fame inductee:

• There are only two members of the Hall of Fame who were kickers and nothing else – – Morten Andersen and Jan Stenerud.
• [Aside: Yes, George Blanda was a kicker, and Lou Groza was a kicker, and they are both in the Hall of Fame.  But they also played “regular positions”.]

Obviously, the Selectors do not go overboard when considering kickers for entrance to the Hall of Fame.  And so, I wonder what might happen when Justin Tucker becomes eligible for consideration.

• Justin Tucker – – K – – Five times named as an All-Pro and the most accurate kicker in NFL history.  At the time of his last game, he also held the record for the longest field goal in NFL history (66 yards).

However, Justin Tucker stands accused of “inappropriate sexual behavior” during a series of massage therapy sessions with about a dozen masseuses.  There have been no criminal charges filed that I can find; so, it might be interesting to see what the Selectors do with that situation.

Finally, since I obviously took myself down a rabbit hole with this train of thought, I should close today with this from Alice in Wonderland:

“Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?”

The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know,” Alice answered.

“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”

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

 

 

There is an adage that bad things happen in threes.  If there is truth in that aphorism, then a few folks in the sports world need to be on guard.  Here is the deal:

1. About 6 months ago, the Executive Director of the NFLPA had to resign his position after an internal investigation revealed that he had used union funds to pay for at least one visit to a strip club.  Not only a misappropriation of funds, but that was also skeezy behavior.
2. Last week, the Executive Director of the MLBPA had to resign his position after an internal investigation revealed that some union funds were unaccounted for and that he had an “inappropriate relationship” with a union employee who was also his wife’s sister.  Not only a potential misappropriation of funds, but that is also skeezy behavior squared.

So, if bad things happen in threes, the Executive Directors of the unions representing players in major American sports need to mind their “Ps” and “Qs” carefully.  No one should want to be the third entry on that trend line …

Moving on …  The Cincinnati men’s basketball team has a mediocre record so far this season; overall, the Bearcats are 15-12 with a 7-7 record in the Big 12; they have a winning streak going of 4 games.  Why is that noteworthy, you ask?

• A couple of weeks ago, Cincy went to play K-State in Manhattan KS and won by 30 points.  K-State coach, Jerome Tang, called out his players for “dogging it” and the AD fired Coach Tang.
• Last weekend, Cincy went to play Kansas in Lawrence, KS and won by 16 points outscoring the Jayhawks 48-34 in the second half.  Kansas coach, Bill Self, could not have been happy about that result, but he made no derogatory comments after the game and remains the head basketball coach at Kansas.
• Here is my conclusion:
  • • Cincy needs to find a way to play more games in the state of Kansas.

Switching gears …  Thinking about Bill Self as the basketball coach at Kansas reminds me of the stability that has surrounded that position over the years.  These days, people like to point to the Pittsburgh Steelers as the paragon of coaching stability; the Steelers will have only their fourth coach since 1969 once the 2026 season kicks off in about 6 months.  However, please recall these data:

• Kansas has been playing college basketball since 1898.  The first coach there was Dr. James Naismith who is credited with inventing the game of basketball.
• In the 127 seasons since Dr. Naismith was the coach, Kansas has had a total of 8 head coaches.
• When considering long-tenured coaches, “Phog” Allen was the coach at Kansas for a total of 37 seasons – – broken into two stretches.

Perhaps, that is why the arena at the University of Kansas is called “Allen Fieldhouse” …

Allen Fieldhouse has a reputation as being one of the loudest and most difficult places for a visiting team to play at.  The facility opened in 1955, and Kansas has won more than 90% of its games in that arena.  Jay Bilas, who is one of ESPN’s most prominent college basketball analysts, does not adhere to the concept that Allen Fieldhouse as a facility has much to do with that winning record.  As Bilas has said on at least two occasions that I have heard, the reason teams have such a problem winning at Allen Fieldhouse is that they always have to play Kansas when they go there.

Next up …  ESPN announced a big change in their programming schedule recently.  For years, ESPN has had a MLB game on Sunday nights, but the network opted out of its deal with MLB and will replace “Sunday Night Baseball” with “Women’s Sports Sunday” starting in June which will feature WNBA games and NWSL games.  That seems to me to be an interesting calculation on the part of ESPN.  Obviously, they will pay less for the rights to WNBA and NWSL games; the network’s costs will be reduced.  I think it is also likely that the audience for “Women’s Sports Sundays” will be smaller than they were for MLB games probably leading to reduced revenues from advertisers.

Baseball fans need not go into mourning there.  When ESPN dropped Sunday Night Baseball games, NBC picked up the rights and will air the games there and on Peacock.  Here is the way the new schedule is going to open:

• On Peacock only, the first game will be March 29^th featuring the Guardians at the Mariners.
• On NBC and Peacock simultaneously, the first game will be on April 12^th featuring the Guardians at the Braves.

Finally, here is a piece of advice from Henny Youngman:

“If you’re going to do something tonight that you’ll be sorry for tomorrow morning, sleep late.”

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

 

 

According to a report in today’s Washington Post, NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver, will explore “every possible remedy” to rid the NBA of blatant tanking.  Let me take this moment to welcome Commissioner Silver to Planet Earth where this blight on the sport he is entrusted to preserve and grow has been evident to every life form here in a higher state of advance than antediluvian pond slime.  And since he is looking for possible remedies, let me toss out a few for him to consider.  [Aside: Yeah, right!]

• Remedy One:  No draft picks can be traded.  Once a draft order for a season is determined, all teams will draft in that order, and draftees will stay with the “parent club” for some period of time – – say 3 years.
• Remedy Two:  If Remedy One is too drastic, then eliminate draft pick protection when picks for future drafts are traded.
• Remedy Three:  No team may draft in the Top 5 more than once every three or four years.
• Remedy Four:  Eliminate the lottery advantage for posting a bad record by giving each team one ping pong ball in the lottery and determining the draft order for the whole league with that lottery.
• Remedy Five:  Eliminate the draft.  Put the name of 60 players on ping pong balls in one hopper and two balls each for every NBA team in another hopper.  Draw a ball from each hopper and that team gets that player no matter the record of the team or the needs of that team.  And then, Remedy One would apply to that player staying with that team for a specific period of time.
• Remedy Six:  Eliminate the lottery entirely.  Give the picks to the teams in the reverse order of their record – – but not just the record from the current year.  Make it the cumulative record for the last three or four years.  That will not eliminate tanking in the current year, but it should reduce it.  Combine Remedy Six with either Remedy One or Remedy Two above and tanking should be further minimized.

And while I am at it, let me offer up a “Remedy” that should not be considered under any circumstances.  The college football and basketball championships are determined at the outset to include only certain teams, and both use a Selection Committee to pick the potential champions.  The NBA might consider this as a possible remedy, but it is a bad idea.  I know that people like Mark Cuban think that anytime people are talking about the NBA, it is a good thing for the NBA.  And Selection Committees produce lots of debate and focus on their actions.  [Aside: If you are tempted to subscribe to the theory that all publicity and attention is a good thing, ask yourself how that worked out for the Archdiocese of Boston.]

Nonetheless, there are too many fountains of conspiracy theories in such a system.  Imagine for a moment that the NY Knicks and the New Orleans Pelicans have the same lousy record at the end of a season – – say 12-70 for example.  And if the Selection Committee chose to give the higher draft pick to the Knicks, imagine the outcry about “fixing” that would emerge.  References to the “frozen envelope” would inundate the Internet.  The justification for any and all conspiracy theories in that area would be money; the Knicks will draw more eyeballs when they are good than the Pelicans will and more eyeballs means more TV ratings which means more revenues which means …

• Memo To Commissioner Silver:  No “Selection Committees” please!

This is a serious problem, and it is not going to go away on its own.  It is bad enough when the players show pure disdain for the fans who pay their freight by being “healthy scratches” in games just because they played the night before.  There are no rules that are going to cure that problem; until and unless there is a mass “attitude adjustment” among players that minimizes their own sense of entitlement to their “load management”, the NBA will just have to deal with it.  However, there must be some sort of sanction in place to prevent teams from refusing to try to win games by sitting out starters for half a game or by playing the guys at the end of the bench for 40 minutes each in a game.

It is that second pimple on the NBA’s butt that needs addressing because certain teams are currently incentivized to lose games in the current environment instead of trying to win them.  If a player were to perform intentionally below his capability in order to cash a bet or have his second-cousin cash a bet, the fans and the league would do anything to put a stop to that behavior.  Meanwhile, that is exactly what teams are doing when they are tanking – – except the bet they hope to cash is in that upcoming draft lottery.  That is why the current system needs to disincentivize the way the NBA Draft order is determined.

A former colleague used to say that things had to get “real broken” before there was any real energy around making changes for the better.  In my opinion, the NBA tanking situation has reached the point of being “real broken”.

Finally, here is some advice for Commissioner Silver from author Margaret Wheatley:

“Too many problem-solving sessions become battlegrounds where decisions are made based on power rather than intelligence.”

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