Happy birthday, TOB! May your old man basketball game only getting more refined over time.

Altruistic Masochism

The Barkley Marathons consists of five roughly 20-mile off-road loops (most agree the actual distance is closer to 26 miles, thus, Marathons, plural) in Frozen Head State Park, in eastern Tennessee. Each loop features about 13,400 feet of elevation gain and loss, two-thirds of which does not follow an existing trail. The early spring race date practically [e]nsures foul weather. Entrance is limited to 40 people who must navigate the unmarked course without GPS, hitting 13 unmanned checkpoints along the way. The checkpoints are books stashed under rocks or wedged between trees from which the runner tears the page that corresponds to his bib number, turning in the pages after each loop to prove he finished the whole route.

What draws people to marathons these days: ego or self-discovery? Surely, there’s balance of the two, but the proliferation of mileage bumper stickers, Team in Training groups, energy bars, compression socks, and fitness wearables point to a growing industry for which the prevailing purpose just might be so more and more people can tell you they are running a long distance.

Running a long distance is a challenge. We impress ourselves for doing something challenging. We want people to know we are challenging ourselves and for them to be impressed, too.

I understand, but in recent years there seems to be a lot of weight on the ego side of this teeter-totter—maybe too much—and a man they call Lazarus is ruthlessly orchestrating the shift of some some weight back on the side of self-discovery.

The Barkley Marathons is about the accomplishment of finding your breaking point. More of the Forrest Gump kind of running than the Strava kind. No technology is allowed, and no amount of training will fully prepare you. 18 people have completed the race since 1986.

This year Gary Robbins (pictured above) “completed” the course six seconds after the 60 hour cutoff. He also got turned around in the last two miles of the race, and crossed the finish line – a yellow park gate – from the wrong direction. DNF.

If you’ve ever rolled your eyes at people and their boring marathon training ramblings, this story is for you (there’s also a fun documentary about the race on Netflix). Laz is your anti-hero. -PAL

Source: “The Brutality Of The Barkley Marathons”, Sarah Barker, Deadspin (4/10/17)

TOB: This is incredible, and I want to watch this movie, but…when is enough enough? Someone is going to die doing this, right? I can’t decide whether I like this Cantrell guy. He’s got some pluses and minuses. Charging $1.60 and a random item for the race entry fee (e.g., gold-toed socks)? Funny, cheap – a plus. Starting the race, on a whim, in an eleven hour window? Minus. Buuuut, starting the race by lighting a cigarette? Plus. Calling yourself Lazarus? Minus. Having a bugler play Taps when a racer drops out? Hilarious. Huge plus. Announcing an hour from race time with a conch? Oh, come on. Minus. Greeting runners with, “Good luck, morons.” Hahahahaha. Plus. Well, there you go. Simple math says I’m on team Cantrell. And read this great account of a guy who nearly lost his mind during the 5th loop. Highly entertaining. Finally, shout out to the 30 people, of 1,000 who have attempted this over the years, who never even got to the first book in the first loop. You are my people.

Where Does Russell Westbrook’s Season Stack Up?

In the wake of Russell Westbrook becoming the first player to average a triple-double since Oscar Robertson, The New York Times asks if his feat is the greatest season for an athlete and reached out to a stable of writers to see what their choice is for the greatest individual season. Here are some of the more interesting factoids from the nominees:  

Secretariat: I’ve watched the Belmont video multiple times now. It looks incredible, and I’m not sure where I stand including horses as athletes. On one hand, an animal doing what it was born and bred to do seems like athleticism in its purest form. On the other hand, I just don’t care about horse racing. For the purpose of comparison, I can’t weigh 3 horse races against Westbrook doing it over the course of 81 of 82 NBA games this year.

Bobby Orr: My favorite comparison of the article. If the triple-double is stat about all around play, then Orr’s leading the league in points (120) as a defenseman, leading his team in penalty minutes, and dominating the playoffs, all while capped with a Stanley Cup winning goal in iconic fashion is a pretty damn good season.

Ruth/Bonds: I love Tyler Kepner’s definition of greatness: breaking the game is a fresh way of putting it. “To find the greatest individual season in baseball history, look at the players who broke the game. Many have changed it, mastered it or nearly perfected it. But to really break it, a player has to upend the norms so thoroughly that the performance looks like a mutation.”

Ruth and Bond broke the game, and it’s plainly evident with two stats. Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs in 1920, more than any other team in the American League. In 2004, Barry Bonds was intentionally walked 120 times. No other player has ever been intentionally walked more than 50 times in a season. As Kepner puts, “Bonds was such a destructive force in 2004 that rivals simply stopped competing.”

Tiger Woods: Tiger won 9 of 20 golf tournaments in 2004, including 3 of 4 majors with a combined score of 49 under par. With a typical tournament field ranging from 132 – 154 golfers, when all of those dudes are capable to shooting low on any given day, it’s astounding that one guy was just that much better than—not just a division of 5 teams, or even a league of 30 other teams—than a field of that size in a global game. It’s not like running track, where some guys have literally never run as fast as Usain Bolt’s average time. All pro golfers are capable of shooting 65. I don’t care that Nicklaus has more majors than Tiger; no one can convince me there’s ever been a better golfer on this planet than Tiger Woods in his prime.

Michael Phelps: 2008 Olympics: Tough to beat, but I’ll admit I’m a sucker for gold medals. Karen Krouse brings up a good point about the level of competition and its role in ranking greatest seasons. There were no pushovers like the 2016 Lakers in the Olympics. However, 2 weeks of greatness can’t really stack up to 82 games of consistent excellence. And yet, these two pictures makes it hard to rank anything above Phelps. Here he is with the 8 from Beijing:

And here’s all 23 golds just for good measure:

Fun read, and an even better happy hour debate. – PAL

Source: “Is Russell Westbrook’s Season the Best Ever? Some Apples and Oranges to Pick From”, The New York Times (4/10/17)

TOB: I have to ignore individual sports. Sorry, Phelps, Tiger, and others, who had impressive seasons. It’s just a different discussion. And I tried to set bias aside…but I can’t get away from Bonds’ 2004 season being the best ever. Westbrook’s season, though, is right up there. As Sopan Deb says, Westbrook made the triple double look “routine, to the point that fans began undervaluing it.” The Triple Double Season has been, as long as I’ve been alive, one of those untouchable records. It just wasn’t possible. LeBron came…sorta close a couple times, with 30/8/8. But that’s not really all that close. Think about this: Triple Doubles were major headlines in nightly highlight shows. This dude just had FORTY TWO of them in one season, which would be the 9th most in NBA history for an entire career. If he doesn’t win the MVP, I’m going to be furious. People will look back at it in ten years and say “Hey…a guy averaged 31/10/10 on a team with very little help, still won 47 games and made the playoffs in an insanely competitive conference, and didn’t win the MVP? What the hell?” This is like Barkley over Jordan in 1993, or Malone over Jordan in 1998. Someone idiot suggests something and suddenly people start clamoring to show they’re so much smarter than everyone else and say “The triple double is nothing more than our desire for round numbers.” Or, “He’s a ball hog and hunts for rebounds.” To that I say: 30/10/10! GTFOOH.

But back to Bonds, and I’m so happy to discuss this. As Tyler Kepner noted, Bonds broke the freaking game. He was intentionally walked 120 times that year! 120! That’s almost one per game. He was once given an intentional walk with the bases loaded! He was walked with the bases empty many times. As luck would have it, I came across this fantastic video this week. It’s our video of the week, down below. It analyzed, in depth, Bonds’ 2004 season with one twist: what if Bonds played the entire 2004 season without a bat,  buuuuuut the pitchers didn’t realize he didn’t have a bat. It’s entertaining, and really goes into the depths of how insane Bonds was in 2004.

PAL: What about the idea of controlling the game, and how that impacts your ranking? As great as was, Bond’s was at the whim of the pitcher. Hitting is a reaction. Westbrook is like a pitcher. He has the ball. He dictates the game. If anything, this makes what Ruth and Bond’s did even more impressive to me.

When Sports Bring People Together

This week, just before its Champions League Match against Monaco, the Borussia Dortmund team bus was bombed. Yes, bombed. It could have been a lot worse. One player was hurt, and the game was postponed…an entire day. Many Monaco fans had made the trek to Dortmund, and some were left scrambling for a place to stay, not having planned to stay so long. Dortmund fans began tweeting with the hashtag “#bedforawayfans”, offering Monaco fans a place to stay. Monaco fans took them up on the offer, and boy isn’t the internet great?

Yes, das ist futbol, indeed. -TOB

Source: “Dortmund Fans Gladly Host Traveling Monaco Fans After Champions League Game Delayed by Explosions”, Patrick Redford, Deadspin (04/12/2017)

Short Dudes Representing

I’m short. Short dudes are hitting more long balls in baseball the past few seasons. Chicks dig the long ball. I like this story.

Why are short dudes hitting more dingers and scoring more chicks? Perhaps it’s because the strike zone has lowered in recent years. Maybe it’s because more kids are coming up knowing that dunking singles over the shortstop’s head ain’t going to get them where they want to go in a game that’s put a premium on power.

But really, my guys are swinging for the fences for the chicks, man. By the way, I hate the title of the ESPN article I’m linking here. Mighty Mites? How cute and diminutive…what the shit is that crap? – PAL

Source: “Mighty Mites are taking over baseball!”, Sam Miller, ESPN (4/13/17)

TOB: I’m sure all of the factors discussed in the article contribute. But I happen to think the majority of it happens to be the last factor mentioned: we’re in an era with a cluster of good power hitters under 6-feet tall.

PAL: Or, TOB, short people have been persecuted in sports for decades and we’ve finally had enough. By the way, you aren’t that tall either, bub. You easily qualify as short using this articles cut-off (under 6-feet).

TOB: Short people got no reason to live.

PAL: I wonder how my life would be different if I was 6’2” more often than I should.

TOB: 

Video of the Week

What if Barry Bonds had played the 2004 season without a baseball bat? It’s long, but very entertaining.

PAL Song of the Week: Neil Diamond – “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon”

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“If you keep your mouth shut, you’ll be surprised what you can learn”

– John B. McLemore

Drink it all in.

In Which Tony Hawk Teaches the Writer to Ollie

Sometimes you read an article and realize, “This writer is deeply funny.” This is one of those stories. The writer, Kelly Conaboy, had never ridden a skateboard in her life. She decided she wanted to ask Tony Hawk to teach her how to ollie. So she e-mailed him. And he said yes. And they filmed it. The results are funny, but the way Kelly writes it is even funnier. She walks us through the entire process – including video, from pitching the story to various publications, to learning how to simply ride, to Tony Hawk kinda, sorta, teaching her how to ollie. 

Victory!

Congrats, Kelly. And, please, keep writing. -TOB

Source: “I Asked Tony Hawk If He Would Teach Me How to Ollie and He Said Yes”, Kelly Conaboy, The Outline, 03/31/2017

Killing Them Softly With His Threes

This has not been Steph Curry’s best season. That’s undebatable. The bar was set VERY high though, and he’s still been fantastic. Unrelated: The Ringer is largely, in my opinion a dud, but Shea Serrano is a Grantland veteran who still does a very good job there. Shea Serrano writing about Steph Curry couldn’t have been anything but good, and it was. Serrano discusses the different and devastating ways Curry uses the three-pointer to demoralize a team. But, he does it in a funny way. My favorites are The Wire-inspired “You Want it to Be One Way” 3:

This is the 3 where you want it to be one way, but Steph shoots it to let you know it’s the other way. The most perfect example was that 3 at the end of the third quarter of Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Grizzlies in 2015. The Warriors led the series 3–2 and they were playing in Memphis. The game was close (73–68) and the Grizzlies had the ball with a chance to cut it to two or three. Also, remember, this was before the Warriors had won a championship, so most people didn’t quite understand how all the way terrifying that team was yet. There was a feeling that if Memphis could just squeak out a win in Game 6, their veteran leadership would prove the difference in a big, Big, BIG Game 7. Only Jeff Green dribbled the ball up the court in the final seconds, tried to shoot a 3 at the buzzer, had it blocked, and then everyone watched as Steph, who’d grabbed the loose ball, chest-passed a 75-foot shot at the buzzer toward the other rim that swished in. The Grizzlies were suddenly down eight, the crowd was stunned, and 12 game minutes later the Warriors were headed to the next round of the playoffs. The Grizzlies wanted it to be one way, but it was the other way.

And the Apocalypto 3: “This is the 3 Steph shoots where he toasts somewhere from three to five different defenders on his way to getting it off.”

https://giphy.com/gifs/clippers-schools-KGJilMBLfNNTy

Start the playoffs already! -TOB

Source: “The Five Stephen Curry 3s You Meet In Basketball Heaven”, Shea Serrano, The Ringer (03/31/2017)

Can a Pair of Headphones Improve Athletic Performance? I dunno. Maybe?

This year, the San Francisco Giants have adopted brain-stimulating headphones from Halo Neuroscience for their players to use during practice. How does it work? Well… let’s let the scientists explain it:

When you put on Halo Sport, those special features underneath the headset naturally go over the motor cortex. Those features are actually electrodes that send out electrical pulses that stimulate the motor cortex. After a 20-minute neurostimulation, which we call neural priming, Halo Sport will induce a state of hyperlearning, known as hyperplasticity, in the motor cortex. We tell athletes to use the headphones 20 minutes before their workout while stretching and warming up. When the neural priming session ends, they start their athletic training session and begin feeding their brain with movement-based repetitions. For a basketball player, that can be shooting free throws or dribbling. For a baseball player, it can be throwing or fielding grounders. If athletes feed their brain deliberate and trained repetitions after neural priming, their brain will learn more in that training session than they would’ve without it.

Makes sense. Does it work, though? The Giants used it on some of their top minor league prospects at their annual winter workouts ahead of Spring Training. Half of the players used the Halo headsets, and half did not. The players who used the headsets “did much better” than the players who did not. The Giants were convinced and adopted Halo throughout the organization. I just hope the bullpen starts using it. That 6.65 ERA after the first series of the year is an eyesore. -TOB

Source: The San Francisco Giants Think These Headphones Will Help Them Win“”, Joseph Misulonas, Good Sports (04/04/2017)

VICTORY

A few weeks back, we invited our readers to join the first annual 1-2-3 Sports! NCAA Tournament Bracket Challenge. No cash was involved, but we offered a guest column on the blog to the winner. Uh…

I won. Suckers. -TOB

Video of the Week

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Life advice.

Jim Harbaugh Never Ceases to Amaze

I do not say this facetiously: Jim Harbaugh might be the Most Interesting Man in the World of Sports. He’s a hell of a football coach. We recently covered his insane competitive streak. But Harbaugh is interesting because his interests don’t stop at the turnstiles to the football stadium. Harbaugh first made a name for himself as a coach at Stanford, and he did that in no small part due to his early adoption of Twitter as a recruiting tool. He’d use veiled references to potential recruits to send them public messages, without running afoul of the NCAA prohibition against coaches commenting publicly on unsigned recruits. Some of these tweets were pretty heady, laced with obscure literary references.

So it was only with some surprise that I read Harbaugh’s tweet critical of President Trump’s proposed defunding of Legal Services Corp., a group providing legal aid to low income persons.

It was, however, with much surprise that I read this corresponding interview of Harbaugh by Politico. Harbaugh, it seems, has been involved with LSC for a number of years. Frankly, Harbaugh reveals himself to be well-educated on the issues LSC aims to address. For example:

One of the biggest issues that got me most fired up is how fines and fees are being used to punish the poor. I’ve learned how the devastating effect it can have on lives of low income Americans. I mean across the country 48 states have increased civil court fees since 2010 and they’re using those fees to pay for government services and not just courts but roads and generating millions and in some states billions of dollars.

But basically the crux of it is when people can’t afford to pay a fine or a fee for things like a speeding ticket or municipal violation then they get additional fees. Late fees can start piling up and these fees can double, triple, quadruple the total amount due and if somebody has an inability to pay that fine that can quickly snowball into a driver’s license suspension or driver time. People aren’t even able to go to work. So you can’t pay a fine or a fee and then you lose your driver’s license. You’re not able to get to a job, and a lot of people, I mean, they’ve got to work.

As you can see, Harbaugh is fully into this, which should be no surprise because Harbaugh doesn’t do anything half-assed. Though I do love how Harbaugh he is about it, talking about how it got him “fired up.” But I really loved this exchange:

Politico: Is there a line you try to walk on political issues? There are other high profile coaches who have increasingly begun speaking out about politics.

Harbaugh: No, I wouldn’t say that. I’m not saying this as a football coach, I’m saying this as an American. I’m for America first.

Politico: Well that’s a Trump slogan right now—America First.

Harbaugh: I wasn’t aware of that.

Politico: Yeah, he likes saying that.

Harbaugh: As [Madison] said in Federalist 51, ‘Justice is the end of government, the end of civil society. It ever has been [and] ever will be pursued until it be obtained or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.’

Oh, DANG. First, Harbaugh “unknowingly” drops a Trumpism. Is it really unknowing, though? Or is Harbaugh throwing shade Trump’s way? And then Harbaugh drops an off-the-cuff quote from the Federalist Papers!? Are you kidding me? Get the hell out of here, man! Harbaugh for public office! -TOB

Source: “Why Jim Harbaugh Took a Shot at Trump’s Budget”, Daniel Strauss, Politico (03/25/2017)

PAL: If you think that Federalist Papers quote was off-the-cuff, then I have some magic beans to sell you, TOB. I’ll admit that I’m impressed he’s been involved with the organization for a number of years. It’s no surprise that he’s all-in for real, because I can’t imagine him having a passing interest in anything. All this is good—a genuinely interesting tidbit—but if you think he wasn’t up the night before the Politico interview googling “justice quotes”, or at least copying the quote from the bottom of the Legal Services Corp. monthly newsletter, then you’re simply kidding yourself, TOB.

TOB: You continue to underestimate how deeply obsessive and weird Jim Harbaugh is.

What ‘Hitting the Wall’ Actually Means

It’s a terrible, irreversible moment. We’ve all experienced ‘hitting the wall’ at some point in our lives, whether it was during your first marathon, during a competitive game back in high school, or even swimming in a lake at altitude; At some point during a physical workout, the body says ‘nope’, and that’s the end of it, whether we realize it or not.

But what’s really going on in our body at that very moment? I mean physiologically – why do our legs stop pumping and our minds get cloudy? This story, with the help from Sports Scientist Ross Tucker, provides the fascinating explanation with a painful-to-watch example, courtesy of runner Joshua Cheptegei.

In normal circumstances, e.g., out on a run at a comfortable pace in the cool evening, the brain monitors the health of the body – the temperature, the energy distribution to the muscles, blood pressure, oxygen. All this works as a complex algorithm.

In extreme situations, e.g. running in a professional cross country race in front of a hometown crowd on an 82 degree day, that algorithm can get way out of whack in a hurry. As Tucker puts it:

Body temperature is perhaps the most obvious: you go too fast, you produce too much heat, and if you can’t lose it, your body temperature rises. And which organ is under threat? The brain, because it doesn’t do well at all once it hits temperatures around 40C (104F). So basically, the judgment of pace is a balance between how much muscle can be activated before the potential for physical harm becomes too great.

For 9,400 meters of a 10K race, it appears to the observer that Cheptegei’s algorithm is processing perfectly.

Cheptegei was sailing. Smooth, untroubled, strong—you could point to him and confidently say, “That’s what running is supposed to look like.” Knees high, chest forward, the look of a champion. Sure, he’d already run a blistering 8000 meters, at a pace the very experienced Kamworor would later called “suicidal,” but see—he was clear, he was going to keep it up. With only five-ish minutes of running remaining, he was invincible, focused, glorious.

And then, in the amount of time it takes to make a few camera switches, this happens: 

The human body is spectacular — in triumph and in failure. – PAL

Source: “Ahead For 9,400 Meters, Joshua Cheptegei Wobbles To Finish At World Cross Country Championships”, Sarah Barker, Deadspin (3/28/17)

That Didn’t Take Long

The writing was on the wall, but now it’s official: The Oakland Raiders are moving to Las Vegas after Alameda County refused to publicly subsidize a new stadium. Meanwhile, Clark County (Vegas) has promised an estimated $750MM ($354 per resident) for a new stadium via a hotel tax hike.

I’ve given my rant on the scam that is publicly financed stadiums. Aside from the fact that this hotel tax will reduce the amount of tax dollars going to public schools, and let’s ignore that Oakland and Alameda County taxpayers are on the hook for $163MM after the Raiders and Warriors leave town, what’s really great about the Las Vegas Raiders is how quickly this became so, shall we say, strippy.

[B]ordello owner Dennis Hof plans to open a new Raiders-themed ‘sex palace’ some 70 miles away from the Las Vegas strip. It will reportedly be called the Pirate’s Booty Sports Brothel and it’s scheduled to open in 2020, around the time the Las Vegas Raiders stadium will open.

I wonder if Hof will have to pay a licensing fee to the NFL? Whatever the case may be, Raiders players and staff should rest assured they’ll be taken care of in the brothel department: Hof also plans to give Raiders players and staff a 50% discount. – PAL

Source: “Raiders-style brothel already planned for Las Vegas area”, Alyssa Pereira, SFGate (3/28/17)

Video of the Week: 

PAL Song of the Week: Willie Nelson – “Stay a Little Longer”

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Enjoying our side project, Bleacher Seat Brewing’s first production: Spring Training IPA

March Alchemy

Here’s a really cool story about the technical feats behind the birth of March Madness as we know it.

While some think the Bird-Magic game in ‘79 ignited a national obsession with the NCAA Tournament, this article makes a strong case that March 14, 1981 was the real moment the match was struck.

That day helped define the careers of many involved (both positively and negatively) — and changed how we experience sports today thanks to some ambitious TV youngsters willing to try something different and the luck of three games decided in the last seconds.

As writer Tim Layden puts it, before March 14, 1981, the tourney viewing experience was “very primitive: NBC, which held the rights to the NCAA tournament from 1969 to ’81, would broadcast the day’s games regionally, but in general would stay with games to their conclusion. You got your two or three games and that was it. For the rest you got highlights at 6 and 11 (again, ESPN was just ramping up) or a story in the next day’s newspaper.”

The goal for 1981 was different: Put on as many close games as possible. Seems obvious now, but NBC was still living down the “Heidi Game”. 13 years prior NBC cut away from a Jets-Raiders game to show a TV movie. The Raiders then scored two touchdowns in the final minute to complete the comeback…with no one seeing it on TV.

Still, the producers and board operators went for it, even while admitting they didn’t know what the hell they were doing. The logistics of it are hilarious.

Instead of a comingled headset, Aagaard had a bank of landline telephones, each connected to a game site. If Ohlmeyer called out a switch, Aagaard would pick up the phone and execute the change by talking to producers in a coordination room in New York and the production crew on site. (Bryant) Gumbel (in-studio host) was the traffic cop charged with receiving from one site and tossing to the next.

They couldn’t have picked a better day to try this out. 3 buzzer beaters in one day: St. Joe’s over DePaul, Arkansas over Louisville, Kansas State over Oregon State. 2 of them within 47 seconds of real time, all before a network audience.

The article also tracks all the key players on this day. The players that became local legends and the players that fell hard. The producers that became TV executives, and the sportscasters (Marv Alberts and Bryant Gumbel) well before their apex. In the broader context, the tournament became what it is today back in 1981. 

Wherever it was that the NCAA tournament lived in the sports pantheon before March 14, 1981, it lived somewhere bigger and better afterward, someplace more significant, and certainly more profitable. Broadcast professionals took chances that day that helped make their careers. Basketball players succeeded and failed in such outsized ways that it defined their legacies. Because of what transpired that day, and where it fell on the continuum of the game, there has never been another day quite like it.

You have to remind yourself that this was not how sports were broadcast in 1981. And the fact that we come to half expect this nowadays is only further proof how pivotal this moment was. A Fun and fascinating behind-the-scenes look at a cultural phenomenon. – PAL

Source: “March 14, 1981: When the NCAA Tournament became Madness”, Tim Layden, Sports Illustrated (3/14/12)

World Baseball Classic Fever: Catch It

Look, Alex Pflepsen is just wrong. And I feel comfortable saying that because I have a self-given platform and he does not. The World Baseball Classic is great, even though I couldn’t watch a single game because I apparently don’t get the MLB Network despite paying a pretty penny for satellite television service, a fact I didn’t realize until I tried to tune into the U.S./Dominican Republic elimination game on Saturday night. I did follow what I could on Twitter, and enjoyed seeing the highlights, though. I also did get to watch the final on ESPN2…en español. And of course it was a blowout. Marcus Stroman, who almost played for Puerto Rico, no-hit the Puerto Rican team for 6 innings, and the U.S. ran away with it 8-0. But it was still a blast. For one, Latin players and fans know how to have fun, despite what Herbs like Ian Kinsler say, about how Americans know how to win The Right Way (read: boring as hell). Perhaps to Kinsler’s chagrin, teammate Stroman certainly had a good time:

More than being great theatre, the WBC is catching on. Ratings were up 32% from 2013, and attendance totaled 1,086,720,  The best part about the WBC is it is FUN. The players are having a blast. No one is worrying about getting earholed for celebrating too much, because everyone is too busy celebrating to care.

https://twitter.com/JATayler/status/843995741823614977

https://twitter.com/JATayler/status/844057642339368960

The players are into it. The fans in attendance are into it. Hell, the announcers and reporters are into it.

Long live the WBC!

But the WBC did call attention to one problem. Monday night’s semifinal between Puerto Rico and The Netherlands seemed (again, I couldn’t watch) like great theatre. And then they got to the 11th inning. The WBC is using the rule MLB has kicked around as a possible future rule change – beginning the 11th inning, each team starts with runners on first and second. The results were predictable and awful. Both hitting teams opened the inning with a sacrifice bunt, moving runners to second and third. Both pitching teams responded with an intentional walk. The Netherlands’ 11th inning ended in a double play. Puerto Rico’s ended with a sacrifice fly to win.

If MLB implements this stupid rule, get ready for a lot of sac bunt/intentional walk/sac fly sequences. What a terrible way to end a great baseball game. I get that MLB wants to shorten game times – but the key to that is to cut time between pitches, not to actually shorten the games. Baseball is a fantastic game that doesn’t need fixing. Just let baseball fans enjoy baseball, damnit! And, players, lighten up. Be more like the WBC. The WBC is good. -TOB

Source: “The WBC Was Baseball As It’s Going to Be”, Barry Petchesky, Deadspin (03/23/2017)

The WBC Missed Shohei Otani

Consider this a really long response to TOB’s post above. The WBC is also an opportunity to watch the next crop of international players making their way to Major League Baseball. Which is why it’s such a shame we weren’t able to watch Shohei Otani of Japan.

Otani, 23, is a legit power prospect — as a hitter and a pitcher. Over his career on the Nippon Ham Fighters, he’s posted a 2.49 ERA as a pitcher (10+ strikeouts per nine innings). This past year, he belted 22 HR, hit .322 in the 144-game season on his way to MVP honors. It’s no surprise MLB teams have taken notice.

Stalwart Japanese prospect: We’ve heard this story before, right? Aside from Otani’s hitter-pitcher talents, what makes this story interesting is how new rules around international players is putting a tough financial decision in front of Otani.

Ken Belson explains it as follows:

Major league teams that want to negotiate with Otani must offer a posting fee to the Fighters (his current team) that would be paid only if they reached a deal. The Fighters will almost certainly set the fee at the maximum: $20 million.

Under the new rules, (MLB) teams are subject to a financial cap for certain international players who are not free agents. To be exempt from the rules, a player must be at least 25 with six seasons in a foreign professional league, but Otani will not meet those criteria until after the 2019 season. The salary cap previously applied to players who were 23 and had five years of service.

Most teams will have between $5 million and $6 million to spend on international players subject to the new rules, though they can trade with other teams to increase their pool of money. Even so, the cap limits how much teams can possibly offer Otani for his first year.

Otani’s clearly a big league prospect right now. So the decision before him is as follows: Does he wait until after the 2019 season (3 years!) to become a free agent, hope his stock continues to rise, and demand a massive contract from an MLB team; or does he accept a one-year, 5-6M contract now, in hopes of signing a second, ideally monster MLB contract the following year at a younger age?  

Current Yankee Masahiro Tanaka’s advice to Otani: Get to the MLB as soon as possible. His rationale is pretty simple: “If you have what it takes, I think the younger you are, the better contract you get.”

It should be noted the team that currently holds his rights will almost assuredly allow him to leave, as they would receive $20M posting fee from the MLB that signs Otani.

“With the exception of the Yomiuri Giants, the country’s most famous team, almost all Japanese teams are unprofitable and view posting fees as a way to balance their books.”

Solid read on the international impact on MLB in the wake of the WBC. I have to say – I got into the tournament the past weekend. The players looked legitimately pumped, and it’s cool to see Adam Jones (USA) robbing Orioles teammate Manny Machado (Dominican Republic) of a home run. The tournament needs a real moment, though, and I wonder if it comes in the form of a phenom of a Lebron or Gretzky magnitude to introduce himself to the world by way of the WBC before ever putting on an MLB uniform. – PAL

Source: “For Japan’s Hitting-Hurling Double Threat, a Complex Path to the Majors”, Ken Belson, The New York Times (3/19/17)

TOB: Good lord, those rules are frustrating. Otani is screwed – I don’t see why an MLB team would try to sign him now if he’s looking for a 1-year deal. What team is willing to pay the $20 million posting fee, plus their entire annual international signing allotment of $6 million for a 1-year deal, and risk Otani leaving for another team as a free agent after that?

LaVar Ball…C’mon Bruh.

LaVar Ball has been talkin a lot of trash – that he’d beat MJ one on one (note: LaVar scored 2 points per game as a college player at Wazzu). He also said his son, Lonzo Ball, who is a great college point guard as a freshman at UCLA , is better RIGHT NOW than Steph Curry, the two-time defending NBA MVP. The list goes on. This week he appeared on ESPN and argued with Stephen A. Smith:

Hmm. Ya know what? I gotta admit it. He won me over. He’s ridiculous. But that was hilarious. -TOB

Source: ESPN First Take, 03/23/2017

PAL: God, all of this sucks. Stephen A. Smith sucks. ESPN is dying, they know it, so they run daily updates on Tim Tebow’s minor league at-bats and shouting matches between an overbearing sports parent and a professional carnival barker because it gets clicks today. This entire thing — you guessed it — sucks. The main reason LaVar Ball sucks most of all is, as Max Kellerman points out in this clip, daddy’s doing all the talking while his sons will have to back it up. I wish the kids all the best.

Video of the Week (this guy’s 40, folks)

Hockey explores flow. Baseball explores bad facial hair. Just the way it is.

Floetry In Motion

You know it. You love it. A tradition unlike any other. The annual All Hockey Hair team from the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament. Before we get to this year’s Top 10, I just have to say how much I thoroughly respect the delivery and writing on these videos. Someone give John King a sitcom already. Hockey Dads, premiering Tuesday nights on ABC. Just has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? – PAL

TOB: He did say he moved to New York. Maybe he got a job in the biz?

First, enjoy the full video, then check out our commentary on the rankings.

#10: Tommy from the champs, who reminds us long hair don’t care as he catches the wind just right.

PAL: The P.D.M and layered wings is timeless. The ladies love it, and Tommy B. knows it.

TOB: Truthfully, this is the best hair of the bunch. A real snub to fall all the way to #10.

#9 They say life is a series of ebbs and flows. Well, Nick, from Eden Prairie hasn’t seen an ebb in quite a while.

PAL: Classic filth. Nick plays it off like he’s joking about loving his hair, but he seriously loves his hair. I wonder if his mom has that fried bleached look like Dr. Zasio on Hoarders? I bet you she does. 

TOB: Bill Simmons did not get that joke.

#8 Anyone named Dallas has a shot of making the team. What’s he’s smirking about? He just shot J.R.

PAL: Great symmetry in the back. It’s really about that up-curl. The mustache is narsty with a ‘r’. The detail that really completes the ensemble here is the untied jersey laces. This is a kid who will not wear undershirts to work as an adult.

TOB: Imagine your daughter brings this guy home. You’d know you did not read to her enough when she was a little kid.

#7 You’ve heard of an afro? Say hello to an af-flow.

PAL: I like this. #7 might be a reach, but it’s natural. Wild. He really got the most out of it.

TOB: Not everyone can have flow like us, Phil.

#6 You know what the definition of intense is? Being the only guy on your team to dye your hair. We call this the Raggedy Andy.

PAL: Can’t believe this made the top 10. King is a visionary, but this pick was terrible, and nearly in the top 5, no less! That’s hallowed ground.  

TOB: Is this kid already going bald? That’s a high hairline he’s hiding.

#5 Do not adjust your screens. We’re not in HD. That’s just the perfect hair of Tyler from O.M.G.

PAL: This is the stuff of top 5. Feathery. Light. Is he the villain from an 80s high school movie? He could be, and that’s the point.

TOB: Not my style. I prefer #10.

#4 Next up, Griffin from Wayzata gives us some old school dirtay. That’s D-I-R-T-A-Y.

PAL: A ‘Griffin’ from Wayzata, eh? Cake-eater name from a cake-eater town. His dad drove to this game in a Mercedes…but the cake-eater nails the hair, dammit. Worthy of a top 5.

TOB: Call me old-fashioned, I don’t like the “dirtay”. I like natural flow.

#3 We found the Hanson brothers of special hockey here.

PAL: For my money, the guy on the left should’ve been number 1. It’s just perfect. No bells and whistles, and he isn’t joking around like Dallas up above. I can’t imagine this dude having any other flow, and I don’t want to. It’s perfect. His hockey hair is meant to be.

TOB: He looks like Noel Gallagher. It’s great. And you can tell he does it for the love of the flow, and not the limelight, because he’s very unhappy about the camera in his face.

#2 We call this next look the Charlie Sheen, because Tanner’s mullet has party in the back and the front.

PAL: Damn, this is good. The voluminous fluff is mesmerizing. Soft-core, 80s style. This kid’s trouble, but you’re parents oddly defend him because he’s always addressed them in the formal ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’.

TOB: It’s so bad that it goes beyond being so-bad-it’s-good to just being bad again.

#1 And, man, did we need this kid. I mean, look at this. The extra bonus flip for the fans. In a year with lots of, ah, geometrics and Bruno Mars haircuts, this kid was here to remind us what it’s all about and inspire a new generation.

PAL: The hair is so good, you don’t need to see the front. God touched him and gave him flow.

TOB: I died laughing at this one: “Top of the charts we have Reagan Garden. They don’t tell you his middle name’s Olive, because he’s brought unlimited salad to the tournament for everyone.” Good god, I want this guy to narrate my life.

So there you have it, the 2017 All Hockey Hair Team. We really need to go cover the State Tourney next year, TOB. – PAL

Source: “2017 All Hockey Hair Team”, John King, Game On Minnesota (03/11/17)

Shut Down the NFL

In 2015, a class-action suit was filed against all 32 NFL teams alleging they gave players painkillers and anti-inflammatory medicines in a manner violating federal drug laws. The plaintiffs have now asked to amend the complaint to make new allegations uncovered in discovery. The short of it is, NFL teams were pumping their players with enough drugs to kill large animals, without explaining to players what they were being given and the possible side-effects, both short and long term. Team trainers and doctors talked openly about avoiding crackdowns from the DEA. Trainers, not authorized to administer or give prescription medication, did so routinely, including in so-called T-Trains, where players would line up to receive a shot of Toradol, a strong painkiller with severe side effects. Just handing them out like candy. No big deal. The part that really made me sick to my stomach was this account from former Seahawks offensive lineman Jerry Wunsch:

On November 22, 2003, the night before an away game in Baltimore, Maryland, trainer Ken Smith gave named Plaintiff Jerry Wunsch an Ambien. The next day, before the game, Coach Holmgren asked Mr. Wunsch if he could play, despite excruciating pain down the whole right side of his body, to which Mr. Wunsch replied “I can’t play, Coach. I can’t play today. It’s my first game. I just can’t do it.” Coach Holmgren then called Sam Ramsden, the Seahawks’ trainer, and asked “what can we do to help Mr. Wunsch play today.” Mr. Ramsden brought the doctors over, who gave him a 750 mg dose of Vicodin and Tylenol-Codeine #3, saying they would help, even though Mr. Wunsch was already taking anti-inflammatories as prescribed by his doctors. He played – feeling high – and after half time, the Medications wore off and he told anyone who would listen that he could not play anymore, but Mr. Ramsden, the head trainer, gave him another 750 mg of Vicodin on the field for the second half, telling Mr. Wunsch, “Don’t sue me personally for this.”

Meanwhile, as a Deadspin commenter pointed out, wide receiver Josh Morgan’s career is done because he smoked pot. Christ. Pain is your body’s way of saying there is a problem. Taking a painkiller in order to continue playing football can only make things worse, as you can’t feel the damage you’re doing. But do NFL teams care? Nope. Do the coaches care? Hell no. Do the doctors and trainers care? Not enough to have a god damn backbone and uphold the standard of care. No, instead, they do their best to keep the NFL “pill counters…off  the trail.” The only solution, other than ending football, is for the NFLPA to hire and control the employment of all doctors and trainers. The doctors and trainers should not report to the teams or coaches in any respect, and the NFL should foot the bill by granting the NFLPA the money to pay for this. What an evil corporation. -TOB

Source: “Lawsuit: NFL Teams Repeatedly Broke Federal Drug Laws, Handed Opioids Out Like Candy”, Laura Wagner, Deadspin (03/10/2017)

PAL: Let’s just stop watching the games already. Seriously, what the hell are we doing? NFL teams ignored concerns raised about concussions, and they’ve knowingly provided highly addictive prescription drugs to be used in a way they were not intended to be used at an alarming rate. Aside from those real concerns, television networks, blogs, podcasts, and fantasy sports have made a 16-game season a 365-day circus to the point where we receive daily updates about a crappy former NFL player’s publicity stunt of a professional baseball career. It sucks on a moral level, and it sucks on an entertainment level. Just stop.

Jim Harbaugh Would be the Worst Brother-in-Law

Imagine, for a moment, that one day your sister comes home and tells you she’s dating a famous quarterback, or a famous football coach. Hmm, you think. That could come with some perks. Some time passes and you get to know him a bit. He’s a busy guy, but he treats your sister well, and she’s very happy, and you get to attend football games and go on nice vacations and man isn’t life great? Now imagine that quarterback/coach is Jim Harbaugh. Welcome to your worst nightmare, pal. Jim’s brother, John, the head coach of the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens relays this story of Jim’s insane competitive streak, which veers well beyond “hyper competitive athlete” and into “absolute crazy person”:

Last Memorial Day we did vacation together. My wife and I have a cottage up north in Michigan on Lake Huron. We… have a basketball hoop in the front yard in the driveway, and we were going to play a little game with the kids, and we just started shooting around, and next thing you know it was a 4-on-4 game. It was Jack, who is two-and-a-half, Addy, who is six, Katie, who is four-and-a-half or five at the time, Allison who is 13 or 14 and she is a little basketball player, and Jim and me and Sarah, my wife. We’re playing, and you can picture the kind of game it is, right? Allison happens to hit a couple jumpers and we’re playing to seven, and we’re up maybe 5-1. Next thing you know, Jim starts going over the top of Allison for rebounds, he’s boxing her out 10 feet away from the basket. Next thing you know, it’s 5-5 and Jim has made all the shots for his team of course. I’m like, you know, maybe Addy would like to touch the ball? Maybe Katie or Jack could dribble a little bit now and then? It goes 6-6 and a long rebound comes out the side, he goes and gets it. I see Allison happens to be over there, so I see him going to the basket, he’s going to take Allison to the hole, you know, he’s about 6’3″, 235, so I’m going to go cut him off. I get him with my right arm bar across his chest and I’m trying to body check him into the pricker bushes behind the driveway, and he just powers his way to the basket, lays one over the top, a reverse layup off the board, and all he could talk about is how he won. He picks up Jack and says, ‘Doesn’t it feel great, Jack, to win? Doesn’t it feel great to win?’ An hour later we were crossing paths in the backyard to go get a soda or something, and he looks me right in the eye and he says, ‘Hey John, have you won anything yet?’”

John, of course, should have had the easiest retort in the world: “Yeah, Jim. I won a Super Bowl. How you like them apples?” It doesn’t say what he actually said. But can you imagine having to deal with a person like that at every family gathering?  -TOB

Source: “A Free Agency Free-For-All”, Peter King, MMQB (03/13/2017)

PAL: Hyper-competitive, or immature man-child dick? Maybe they are the same thing. I selling Jim Harbaugh. His act will wear thin (again).

It Costs a Whole Lot to Pretend You’re Something That You’re Not

Rutgers University joined the Big Ten (14 Teams) in 2014. Aside from one good season in football, Rutgers is not a competitive Big Ten team in the sports that generate the most revenue: football and men’s basketball.

That hasn’t stopped the athletic department from spending like a big-timer. It has has been running at a $20M annual deficit since 2006. In 2016, it reported a $28.6M deficit, including a $10M+ loan from the university bank at an interest rate of 5.75% (repayment: $18M). The Scarlet Knights are getting money from seemingly anywhere. $11M in student fees diverted. $17.1M from the university’s general fund.

Why is this happening? Because Rutgers joined a power conference, and in 2021 the university will receive its full share of that TV contract money (as much as $40M). In other words, they would like you to believe they are investing in the future.

The problem is the people making those investments haven’t done a very good job. A large chunk of money can’t be called an ideal investment, as it’s being given to fired coaches, athletic program employees, and buyouts for sports marketing firms. Over $12M in total. Giving bad decision-makers more money is how you end up paying $12M for people to not work for you.

And the school just signed an 11-year, $65M contract with a new sports marketing firm.

Yes – ramping up to become competitive football and basketball teams in a “power conference” is going to take some money (the football and basketball teams were 0-9 and 3-15 in conference play this year). It also takes a bit more competence than what has been put forth is the article linked below.

And let’s be real for a second: Setting aside scandals of Penn State proportions, Rutgers is not going to consistently compete with the big boys of the Big Ten any time soon.

With that in mind, Rutgers might want to think long and hard about the path they are on and remember the following numbers as they continue take money from academics:

• $45K: Cost of out-of-state attendance (tuition, room & board, books, etc.)
• 30 percent: Amount of curriculum is taught by contract teachers

Let’s look at the bright side: Rutgers can look forward to participating in a bunch of Big Ten Homecoming weekends. They are the kind of team better programs bring in to guarantee a win with all the alumni in town. – PAL

Source: “Chasing Big Sports Goals, Rutgers Stumbles Into a Vat of Red Ink”, Michael Powell, The New York Times (3/12/17)

Brent Musburger: Not America’s Grandpa – More Like Its Creepy, Degenerate Uncle

For years, Brent Musburger announced all manner of major sporting events – the World Series, major College Bowl Games, and the Super Bowl, among many others. I always preferred Keith Jackson (Whooooa, Nellie!”), but only by a hair. They both seemed like kindly old grandpa, beamed into your living room each week for the country’s biggest college football games – the sports I associate them with the most.

But over the years, Musburger started to show another side. It began with subtle gambling references – when a team got a late, otherwise meaningless touchdown in a blowout, Musburger said, “Some scores mean more than others.” The score had pushed the total points for the game over the over/under – so a lot of people won or lost a lot of money because of that touchdown. He grew more bold with his gambling comments, often referencing his “friends in the desert” and mentioning the insights they had provided him about that game. He even once even mentioned the early Super Bowl point spread in the closing moments of the conference championship game he was announcing, after getting the info from one of the aforementioned “friends in the desert”. Musburger came out of his shell more the older he got – few will forget the time he kickstarted Jenn Sterger’s career when the camera panned to her in the crowd at an FSU football game, and Brent said lustily, “1,500 red-blooded Americans just decided to apply to Florida State.”

In his last big game, he defended Joe Mixon, the Oklahoma running back, who had served a year-long suspension for breaking a female student’s face. The video of the punch was released just days before the game, and the 2-year old story was back in the forefront. Musburger did not come off well, and during the game was told of the Twitter backlash. He went off. Just weeks later, it was abruptly announced he was retiring, and a random SEC basketball game in January would be his last ever broadcast. Many assumed ESPN had finally had enough with Brent.

Not so, says Brent. He has “retired” to Vegas, and now hosts a sports gambling show on Sirius Radio. Brent hosts the show live in a studio in the middle of the gambling floor of a Vegas casino. This article profiles Brent as his show is getting kicked off. I knew he had become America’s creepy uncle, but goddamn, Brent loves gambling. It’s an entertaining read, as you see a side of Brent few have seen. -TOB

Source: “Brent Musburger Used to Make Veiled Gambling References. Now He’s Dropped the Veil”, Adam Kilgore, Washington Post (03/14/2017)

PAL: 70 year-olds truly don’t give a shit about what other people think. A lot of them make semi-creepy comments about younger women. Most of them love Vegas. Musberger, 77, is simply old. His not giving a damn just happened to take place on national television. Go do the lame gambling show. Those shows are the worst.

Video of the Week:

PAL Song of the Week: Sylvan Esso – “Play It Right”

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“I’m over here in my unit, isolated and alone, eating my terrible tasting food, and I have to look over at that. That looks like the most fun I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and it’s B.S. – excuse my language. I’m just saying that I wash and dry; I’m like a single mother. Look, we all know home-ec is a joke – no offense – it’s just that everyone takes this class to get an A, and it’s bullshit – and I’m sorry. I’m not putting down your profession, but it’s just the way I feel. I don’t want to sit here, all by myself, cooking this shitty food – no offense – and I just think that I don’t need to cook tiramisu. Am I going to be a chef? No. There’s three weeks left of school, give me a fuckin’ break! I’m sorry for cursing.”

-Seth

Adrian knows it: Adult autograph seekers at Spring Training are an embarrassment. 

The story of MLB’s first true free agent has absolutely everything to do a with a farm loan.

S.I. ran an excerpt from Jason Turbow’s recent release about the Oakland A’s titled Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s. If the following story is indicative of the broader work, then I’m going to love it. 

In 1970 A’s owner Charles Finley loaned a then 23 year-old Catfish Hunter 150K for a farm in North Carolina. Hunter would pay back the loan at a minimum of 20K a year + 6% interest.

No problem for a big league ball player, except that it was, because Hunter was making about 33K playing for the A’s in 1970.

Shortly after making the loan, Finley purchase an A.B.A. basketball team and was a little cash- strapped. The quickest way to get some money back was recouping his loan. He harassed Hunter and even Hunter’s father for the money, repeatedly calling the pitcher minutes before he took the mound on game days. But the loan was gone. Hunter had already purchased the farm.

Eventually, Hunter sold 80% of the farm to a family friend and returned the money Finley loaned him. But the experience set the stage with Finley the next time a contract came up.

“On Feb. 11, 1974, Hunter agreed with Finley on a two-year deal at $100,000 per—only the second multiyear contract the Owner ever awarded. Hunter was by that time among baseball’s best pitchers, with three straight 20-win seasons, three All-Star appearances in four years, and back-to-back top-five finishes in the Cy Young voting. Although his contemporaries were earning much more—Tom Seaver made $173,000 in 1974, and Steve Carlton $165,000—Catfish had no way of knowing that. He’d always wanted to earn six figures, and when Finley made the offer it seemed just fine.

“There was only one caveat, Hunter said. His attorney back home in North Carolina, J. Carlton Cherry, had advised him to defer some of it. Put it into a life insurance annuity, he said, which could be cashed in for additional income once Hunter’s baseball career ended. The benefit to this arrangement was that instead of being in a high tax bracket in 1974, Hunter would be taxed later on, when he was effectively unemployed and on the hook for a smaller amount.

“That is exactly how Cherry wrote the addendum: $50,000 per year, to be paid at regular intervals through the season, and $50,000 disbursed to an entity of Hunter’s choosing. Finley agreed. The benefit to Finley was that he got to hold on to the money in the interim, earning interest on it all the while.

“The difference with Hunter’s stipulation was that the Owner wouldn’t have the money at all—the annuity would. Even less palatable for Finley was the discovery that about $25,000 in taxes was due immediately, and he would be the one paying them.”

Immediately, Finley failed to pay the annuity. Hunter and his representatives demanded payment throughout the season, but Finley refused. Hunter and his representatives began to make noise that Finely was in breach of his contract and would try to get out of the contract and be a free agent after the season. The story started to make its way to he public during the 1974 World Series between the A’s and the the Dodgers. The A’s won, completing a World Series 3-pete, with Hunter tossing a gem in Game 3.

After the World Series, a 3-arbitrator panel ruled Finley had breached his contract, ordered him to pay Catfish the $50,000 annuity, and declared Hunter a free agent. MLB, and the A’s, were furious, but couldn’t do much. The best pitcher in baseball was suddenly a free agent. In the years before free agency, this was a big story. A bidding war took place in a small town in Hunter’s home state of North Carolina. Remember, a true free agent was uncharted territory for baseball, and some of the offers to Hunter were pretty fascinating:

• Pirates offered limited partnership in 5 Walmarts
• Royals: College tuition, money for the farm, and 50K for life (Hunter almost went with this one, and maybe would have, if not for a poorly timed joke by Royals’ brass)
• Padres (owned by Ray Kroc) : McDonald’s stock, and a McDonald’s franchise.
• The Yankees were involved, too (obviously), but Steinbrenner’s out of the picture due to a suspension making illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon and was temporarily banned from contact.

Hunter’s free agency has a hint of Forrest Gump to it. Baseball innocence – a player named Catfish – becomes a free agent due to a farm loan gone bad. In the process he’s a brushes up against giants of American industry (Walmart, McDonald’s) and politics (Nixon by way of Steinbrenner).

This is my favorite story of the year so far. – PAL

Source: “How a contract breach led Catfish Hunter to baseball’s first real free agent”, Jason Turbow, via Sports Illustrated (3/6/17)

TOB: This book sounds great. Deadspin also had an excerpt, about the time A’s first baseman and former Cal football and baseball player Mike Epstein whooped the hell out of Reggie Jackson:

The team’s pass lists sat atop a picnic table at the far side of the room: a blue sheet for players to leave tickets for family members (the better seats), and a white sheet for friends. Reggie Jackson hovered above them, eyes squinting in scrutiny, until one name in particular caught his eye. “Berman?” he asked, perusing the blue list. “Who put down for these?” Per Rangers policy, players were allowed four seats from the blue list and only two from the white, so first baseman Mike Epstein had used his family passes for friends of his father—the delightfully named Sherman Berman and family—to ensure that they sat together. This was not unusual practice.

“I’m appointing it my business,” replied Jackson.

…

“Don’t buy more than you can handle,” Epstein warned.

Years’ worth of proximity enabled the players who came up with Jackson—Duncan, Rudi, Bando—to differentiate his confrontational, bark-not-bite nature from something actually nefarious. For guys like Epstein who were new to the team, however, such distinctions were not always so easy.

Most of the players had only just arrived at the ballpark and were still dressing when the exchange took place. Watching the brewing confrontation warily, Joe Rudi was the first to pipe up. “Back off,” he sternly warned Reggie. “Don’t mess with him.”

Epstein threw Jackson to the floor, straddling him and peppering him with punches. When he grabbed Reggie by the throat and began choking him, traveling secretary Tom Corwin raced to get Dick Williams, and players jumped up to intercede. First to the fray was Gene Tenace, hardly a diminutive figure, who found himself entirely unable to budge the irate behemoth. “Reggie’s eyes are spinning around in his head and I think, this ain’t working,” said Tenace, looking back. “I’ve got to get his hands off of Reggie. How am I going to do that?” Eventually the catcher wrapped his forearm around Epstein’s windpipe and, with full force, pulled. Epstein fell backward onto Tenace, sending both men tumbling to the floor.

Reggie Jackson, what a piece of work.

Blue Chip Recruit Has Yet to Play a Down

We’ve heard stories of – for lack of a better term – size marvel athletes at the in the youth ranks, usually in basketball and football. The rail-thin 7-footer from some random place. The 200-pound 5th grader who the league has barred for the safety of the other kids. Daniel Faalele isn’t exactly that story.

First of all, it’s not just that he’s a massive human being, it’s that he’s proportional and seemingly normal in terms of coordination and flexibility. He played rugby and basketball as a younger kid.

Writer Andy Stark puts in this way:

“Seeing Faalele in the flesh can yield one of two radically different impressions: When he’s by himself, he looks smaller than advertised because he’s so well-proportioned; when he’s alongside a normal-sized human being, he looks even more massive than his dimensions would suggest. It’s as if someone fed the size of the ideal NFL offensive tackle into a 3D printer and set the output to 120%.”

Second, he hasn’t yet played a down. He was living in Melbourne and football wasn’t on his radar. Faalele was working out in a gym when a Hawaii coach noticed him. The coach offered Faalele a scholarship on the spot. Next was a Michigan satellite camp held in Australia. It wasn’t long before Faalele and his mom grasped the potential for a college education and potential for a professional career, and they realized he would need to move to the U.S. to play high school football. He ended up at IMG. This is not a regular high school.

IMG is a sport academy. Actually, it’s the sports academy, with an alumni that includes José Fernández, Michael Beasley, Elton Brand, Kyle Turley, the Williams sisters, and André Agassi.

Third, he’s “playing” against some of the best high school players in the country. When he’s practicing, he’s practicing against a boatload of big time college football commits. He’s not a sideshow, and he already has offers from Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida State, Hawaii, Miami, Michigan and Oregon State while he learns the game.

When he came to IMG, he knew zero about football and its rules. The coaches on the team decided to keep him on as a practice squad to start with the basics (what a yard is, why and when teams punt the ball – stuff like that).  But Faalele is getting it, and has demonstrated a sincere interest in learning the game. When it comes together, the results are radical.

“In one of Faalele’s early practices (Derrick) Elder (offensive line coach) taught him to punch the pass rusher with both hands, then grab his chest. During a one-on-one drill that day, Faalele fired his hands to disrupt the lineman’s charge. Then one hand disappeared inside the rusher’s shoulder pads and the kid went limp. Sensing something wrong, Faalele let go and backed away. ‘He had grabbed [the defender’s] collarbone,’ Elder says, shaking his head at the memory. Elder clarified: Seize the chest plate of the shoulder pads. ‘His hands are steel,’ Elder says. ‘If he gets them on you, it’s over. Doesn’t matter if he has good technique or bad technique, it’s over.’”

Fourth, the coaches understand their responsibility here. They are likely never going to have someone so big with so much raw talent come into their lives. Faalele’s literally off the charts, and so they try to adjust accordingly. The head of sports science at IMG (like I said, this is not a regular high school) put it this way: “The pressure is on us. The support structure around him here and at his college needs to do right by him.”

All this is fun to think about, but as Staples writes, “[I]t won’t matter how huge Faalele is or how much power he can generate if he can’t perform as a player. By the time he makes his debut, he’ll be one of the nation’s most sought-after offensive line prospects.”

This is a well-written piece, and a fun read to boot. – PAL

Source: “Think big: 6’9″, 396-pound Daniel Faalele has coaches drooling—and he’s never played a down”, Andy Staples, Sports Illustrated (3/6/17)

TOB: I know juuuuuuust enough about both offensive line play and coaches trying to sell a product to be skeptical. Don’t get me wrong, I’m rooting for Faalele. He seems like a good kid, and it would be fun to see someone that big dominate football. But to be an offensive lineman requires at a high level requires much more than power, which Faalele has in spades. It requires foot speed, balance, agility, and a keen understanding of the game of football. He’s going to soon be facing some of the best athletes in the world whose goal is to run by him and crush the quarterback. Faalele’s coaches talk a lot about his power – the power he generates in the gym, the power he generates on the field, knocking players over in practice. And they mention he played rugby and basketball. But you don’t hear them actually say anything about how well he pass blocks, and that speaks volumes. The coaches say the pressure is on them to do right by Faalele – I think they would serve him best by moving him to nose tackle/defensive tackle, where he can use his weight and strength to anchor the defense, and blow up the offensive line. But, what do I know? I just write a sports blog.

PAL: Mark Schlereth, is that you?

Treacherous Baseball Dream

Great Cuban baseball players with MLB dreams have a scary proposition to face. They need to get out of Cuba and prove they no longer reside in Cuba before an MLB team can sign them to lucrative contracts (this is connected to the economic embargo). Defection from the island country is dangerous for all who attempt, but especially so for big time prospects. Getting players out of Cuba is a cottage industry, and it’s run by some scary dudes. Two such dudes – Bartolo Hernandez and Julio Estrada –  are currently on trial for their part in a human smuggling ring.

What makes this story more interesting to me is the elephant in the room that’s being called out through the testimony of the defense’s witnesses (3 employees of MLB teams): Major League Baseball – more specifically personnel from teams – know this is going on, and they have real incentive to know the moment a defector player is free to sign.

To assume personnel from teams are not aware of where and when players have defected – and who is helping them – is quite a leap for me. They know something illegal is happening, they know when it’s happening, and they know who’s facilitating the illegal activity. I believe this. And if I believe this, then I have to believe personnel from MLB teams also are aware that the people who help players defect also demand a cut of a player’s contract. In other words, there’s a bunch of illegal activity going on, MLB knows about it, and likely is smart enough to not ask any questions.

The players want to get out of Cuba to earn a life-changing amount of money for themselves and their families. Guys like Hernandez and Estrada help them, and are compensated for doing so. What’s wrong with that, you might ask. The players are put in a position of zero leverage, even after they successfully defect, and they can be held hostage until they agree to have a specific agent represent them (an agent like Hernandez, who is accused of more or less running the smuggling ring). People have been murdered over this cottage industry. Players face the threat of constant kidnapping while waiting to enter the United States. Yasiel Puig’s defection story, for instance, which we featured way back on May 11, 2014, is nothing short of a nightmarish thriller.

Of course the three team employees that have testified say they had no knowledge of the smuggling ring, and it’s mere coincidence that they happen to send over terms of the contract via email or have phone calls with Hernandez the very day players just happened to have entered the U.S.. Make of that what you will. At least they are being asked the questions under oath. – PAL

Source: “MLB Execs Testify They Had No Idea Cuban Players Were Entering Country Illegally”, Francisco Alvarado, Deadspin (3/8/17)

TOB:

Beer and Loathing in Scottsdale, a Guest Article

Scottsdale, Arizona–what a town eh? All the charm of a Kirkland-brand downtown Disney, combined with Cabo at a Nascar event. Sorry Portland and Austin, tattoos, beards and craft beer don’t really move the needle these days; Scottsdale is weird.

Copy/Pasted between the McDowell Mountains, sprawling across dramatic desert terrain, Scottsdale is a city that shouldn’t exist. But it does. For one reason. Spring Training Baseball.

Every year at the end of February, 15 Major League teams send a hodgepodge of superstars, journeyman, and future P.E. teachers down to the desert to get in playing shape for the upcoming season. I get why the players like it: hanging with your bros, a chance to impress and make the team, a break from the missus, I don’t know, get paid to play a child’s game. Sign me up.

Video of the Week: 

PAL Song of the Week: Michael Kiwanuka (playing The Fillmore on May 19)- “Love & Hate”

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Serena, Serena: Queen of the Mission

Serena Williams is the greatest female tennis player of all time. Few would dispute that assertion. Serena Williams is the greatest female athlete of all time. Not many would dispute that, either. Serena Williams is also cool as hell. She recently announced her engagement to Reddit co-founder Alex Ohanian. For most, the announcement came out of nowhere and was deeply funny. What an odd pairing (sample headline: “Who the heck is Alex Ohanian, and why would Serena Williams want to date him?” – Slate.com). I say good for her, though. Ohanian lives in San Francisco, which means Serena has been spending time here, especially in the Mission. On Sunday night Serena stopped by the tennis courts at Dolores Park and asked some locals if she could join them for a game of tennis. Their reaction is entirely appropriate: “Holy crap.”  So Serena played, in fuzzy boots:

Presumably, she beat the crap out of them. When I first read this I decided I’d pay $75 to get 30 minutes’ notice of this so I could see it, and maybe play. It also made me mad because we parked in front of those courts the day before. I missed her by only like 30 hours! I have famously maintained I could score at least one basket on Mike Bibby in ten tries. I still believe it. If I played Serena in tennis, though, I think I’d be lucky to put a ball in play. -TOB

Source: “Serena Williams Surprises Dolores Park Tennis Player”, Laura Wenus, Mission Local (02/27/2017)

PAL: You would not score on Bibby (unless he allowed it), and you would not put a single ball in play on Serena (unless she allowed it). Based on the 5-7 times I’ve played tennis, it’s a true athlete’s sport (caution: expert analysis), and – damn – she’s impressive. Good work, Ohanian. Very good work, indeed.

We do forget that icons are people that walk their dogs at night, and sometimes that walk goes by a park. If I were the G.O.A.T., I’d like to think I’d make someone’s day like Serena did in this video. We also separate their age from their wiki page. Serena is my age, and this story makes complete sense to me. An 35 year-old legend with even a tiny bit of perspective making someone’s day makes so much more sense than a 21 year-old superstar making someone’s day.

With that said, I need to see her kicking this guys butt on video!

TOB: Bibby Assumptions: He has to play defense as hard as he did in the NBA (not very hard). He does not get to know it’s a bet, based on how bad I think his defense is. It’s just normal Bibby defense. I’d get 1 in 10, no sweat.

Baseball Players Remain Silent on Politics, Much to My Delight

Yes, I am a complete hypocrite in this regard, and I am deeply deserving of shame for it. I have been openly applauding professional athletes standing up for their political/social beliefs over the last year or so. Athletes like Kaepernick, LeBron, Melo, WNBA stars, and more, have earned my praise, because they agree with me. Jayson Stark points out, though, that baseball players have been noticeably silent, and attributes it to greater diversity within MLB, and the fact MLB teams have evolved to maintain the clubhouse as a sanctuary from the outside world. I’m not sure I agree. I just have a very strong suspicion many of my very favorite players would be much harder to root for if their social and political beliefs are in fact what I suspect them to be. Oh well. Go Giants! -TOB

Source: “With Nation Deeply Divided, MLB’s Silence Speaks Volumes”, Jayson Stark, ESPN (02/28/2017)

PAL: This was a long-winded story about the flip-side: Athlete’s don’t have to take a political stand if they don’t want to take a political stand. However, I would warn MLB players that there is a historical cost to this stance. When we talk about politics in 2017 – and we will for decades and decades – not one baseball player will be mentioned. Football players and basketball players will make cameos in history books. In other words, what’s the cost-benefit analysis of short-term criticism vs. a legacy of any real value? In other, other words – grow a pair, baseball players. The collective eye-roll that takes place every time you refer to the clubhouse as a “sanctuary” is all but audible. 

Breaking News: Baylor Coach with No Perspective

Let’s get right to it. Baylor Women’s basketball coach had this to say on the court during senior night:

“If somebody’s around you and they ever say, ‘I will never send my daughter to Baylor,’ you knock them right in the face,” Mulkey said (my emphasis added). “Because these kids are on this campus. I work here. My daughter went to school here. And it’s the best damn school in America.”

She then proceeded to drop the mic, as if she was anything other than the pathetic shill at a pathetic athletic department to a pathetic school that sold its soul for a temporary relevant football program.

And then she doubled-down post-game:

“I’m tired of hearing it. I’m tired of people talking about it on a national scale that don’t know what they’re talking about,” Mulkey said in a press conference after the game. “If they didn’t sit in those meetings and they weren’t a part of the investigation, you’re repeating things that you’ve heard. It’s over. It’s done.

“I work here every day. I’m in the know. And I’m tired of hearing it. The problems that we have at Baylor are no different than the problems at any other school in America. Period. Move on. Find another story to write.”

What is she tired of hearing about, you might ask?

52 alleged sexual assaults by 32 football players at Baylor over a four year period.

Let’s do the math on that, Kim. 52 alleged assaults divided by 48 months equals 1.08 alleged sexual assaults per month by the football team over the four year span. That is not the same on all college campuses, you idiot. And guess how many players were kicked off of the football team…

Two.

I’ve watched the videos several times, and I remain dumbfounded. At best, Mulkey is pandering to a base of Baylor faithful who feel personally threatened by the actions of their football program gone rogue (see: Penn State). At worst, she is undercutting victims of sexual assault in an institutional environment that, through either ambivalence or enablement – and those are the only two options here – allowed for this to continue.

Clearly, Baylor knows this is more than a – and I hate the implications of this phrase – witch hunt. School President: Gone. Athletic Director: Gone. Football Coach: Gone. Title IX Coordinator: Gone. Oh, and they offered to pay the tuition of one victim in order to keep her mouth shut. Christian values, indeed.

Go to hell, Kim Mulkey. You’ve forgotten what makes great institutions great – the students. I don’t know if Baylor was ever a great school, but I know it’s not now, and it’s partly because people like Kim Mulkey choose to stand by the institution of Baylor in the name of football relevancy rather than support its students.  

Source: “Baylor’s Kim Mulkey was out of line with her comments on Saturday”, Rob Dauster, NBC Sports (2/25/17)

Plagiarism at Its Finest

I read this article and thought, “Why have I never thought of this?”. That’s a great indicator of a 1-2-3 Sports! Story, my friends.

Steve Green coaches a JuCo in Texas. They’ve been good for some time, but last year wasn’t very good at all by South Plains College standards (21-9). He decided it was time to re-think his philosophy. More specifically, he decided it was time to steal another philosophy.

Green become a student of the Golden State Warriors. Don’t get my characterization of student wrong: By student I mean the student who copies the homework of the best student.

“Green scribbled down every cut, every back screen and every curl. In pursuit of a goal that was so ambitious that it bordered on audacious, he consulted with his assistants and overhauled his playbook.”

In other words, Green watches what the Warriors do and tells his team to do the same thing.

He’s not clever or nuanced about it. He literally watches every Warriors’ game, takes notes, and implements. The results are – and this shouldn’t come as a surprise – very good.

Why isn’t half of college basketball doing this?

Incredibly fun story about a no-name junior college doing something noteworthy. Take five minutes and give it a read. – PAL

Source: “Team Plagiarizes Golden State Warriors. Team Is Undefeated.” Tom Cacciola, The New York Times (3/2/17)

TOB: He makes it sound so easy, we should try it. Phil, can you start charting plays this weekend?

Video of the Week

PAL Song of the Week: Prince – “When You Were Mine”

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Ball Zero, Take Your Base

This week, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced the league is scrapping going through the motions of making four pitches on an intentional walk, in order to save time. Managers will now just signal from the dugout. For the record, there was one intentional walk last season every 2.6 games, so if you assume each intentional walk takes 60 seconds, they are shaving maybe 20-25 seconds from each game. The impact on game length is negligible. MLB is right to want to cut down on the dead time of a game, but this is not the solution. It’s not even a solution. It’s an attempt to look like you’re trying to solve a problem when you aren’t.

When the news was first announced this week, I couldn’t decide how I felt. Phil and I were at the Giants 2014 NLDS game when the Nationals tried to intentionally walk Panda, with Posey on third. The pitcher overthrew the catcher. Posey sprinted for home, but was tossed out.

It was still so exciting! I thought of that play immediately upon hearing the news this week. And there’s so much more we will miss, as Grant Brisbee points out. First, pitchers with the yips, like in the play above.  Second, the fake intentional walks, like this:

Third, when the pitcher doesn’t quite get it far enough outside, and gives up a hit:

Fourth, those moments you can’t even predict. Grant relays this great story:

In 1976, Rod Carew was being walked with a runner on second in the 11th inning. This was in a stretch where he had hit .350 or better in each of the last three seasons, so you can get the strategy. But Carew swung at the first two pitches. Not real swings, and not with the intent to put the ball in play. He did it just to get the two strikes on him.

“Here. I’ll spot you two strikes.”

It was hubris. Earned, hilarious hubris of the most magnificent order from one of baseball’s greatest hitters. The intentional walk went on as planned, and the Twins won the game in the next at-bat anyway.

And, finally, the best of all – the home crowd booing. BOOOOOOO:

One of the many best parts of going to a baseball game is getting a couple beers in you and then booing the hell out of some poor schmo, just because. And an intentional walk is a perfect such opportunity. Listen to those boos, Manfred! Those aren’t bored fans. Those fans are ENGAGED. The intentional walk allows for a full minute of booing. It’s cathartic! It’s fun! That’s now gone, replaced by a “huh, what just happened…oh, huh” moment, as fans realize why the hitter is suddenly trotting to first. Congrats. You just saved 20 whole seconds per game. -TOB

Source: “Ranking What We’ll Miss the Most About Intentional Walks”, Grant Brisbee, SB Nation (02/23/2017)

PAL: TOB nailed it with describing this as “an attempt to look like you’re trying to solve a problem when you aren’t.” Listen, if the game’s too long for you, then don’t watch. If the game’s too slow, then don’t watch. I’m perfectly content with baseball being the 3rd or 4th most popular sport. I don’t care.

I’ve never heard of the fake intentional walk, and I can’t believe this actually happened in the World Series involving two hall of fame players (Johnny Bench and Rollie Fingers). What a cool surprise. This is the inane minutia that baseball fans love, love, love to bring up over a couple beers, so – yeah – we better get rid of it.

(Rant Alert) How Much Longer Do the Warriors Put Up With Draymond’s B.S.?

Draymond Green is very good at basketball. He defends, rebounds, scores, and keeps the ball moving in a lineup with 3 of the best 15-20 players (depending on where you put Klay) in the league.

Does this rant sound familiar? I opened another writeup about Green pretty much the exact same way on 10/21/16.  And the only thing that’s changed in the time since is Green’s scoring and rebounding (they are down, but the addition of Durant is a big part of this, too).

Steve Kerr and the Warrior’s must be so sick of the Draymond sideshow. Another kicking incident Thursday night (they are not incidental). Another night going at his coach after getting another technical foul…And another Warriors dismantling of the Clippers, complete with a 50-point quarter.

The answer to how long the Warrior’s put up with this is obviously tied to their ability to win at an alarming rate and Green’s essential role in the revolutionary style of small ball. But know that there’s some serious eye-rolling in that locker room right now, and it’s directed at Green. They have to be sick of answering questions about him acting like a jackalope all the time.

Chemistry does matter, I just wonder if the Warrior’s are simply too damn good for it to matter for them. Afterall, winning a championship is hard, even for a team this good.

Oh, wait, they lost last year! They choked up a 3-1 series lead in historical fashion. A major contributing factor was that Green was suspended from game 5 of the Finals due to exceeding his limit of flagrant fouls in the playoffs (not just the groin smack on James). He had to watch game 6 of the NBA finals from the Oakland Coliseum, for crying out loud, and he’s still pulling this crap.

The act is getting old, Green. I love you, man, but stop kicking people and stop showing up your coach. – PAL

Source: “Draymond Green Talks Wild Shit, Tries To Kick An Opponent, Has Very Draymond Green Game”, Patrick Redford, Deadspin (2/23/17)

TOB: Yeah, maybe they lost the Finals because he missed Game 5. But he played one of the greatest Game 7s in history, in defeat, and he is the straw that stirs their drink. Without him, they are soft, and don’t play much defense. He allows them amazing versatility. So, unless they find someone who gives them what he gives, they won’t get rid of him – because they won’t win 73, or go up 3-1 in the Finals, without him.

PAL: If they are soft without Green, then he should take some pride in that and figure out a way to stay on the court when it matters most. 

AT&T Park: What Might Have Been (Awful. Really Awful)

For my money, there’s no better setting to watch a sporting event than the San Francisco Giants’ AT&T Park. And, as John Shea points out, we can officially put the possessive apostrophe on that, because this past December, the Giants made their final debt payment on the stadium. The Giants officially own their privately-financed stadium. It sure is a gem. But…it almost wasn’t. Thanks to McCovey Chronicle’s Grant Brisbee for linking to this Chronicle article from 2011, looking back at many of the failed stadium proposals in San Francisco history. And…it is not pretty. Just look at some of these monstrosities:

Alas, we got this:

And it is good. Rejoice, Giants fans! And get ready for some baseball. It’s just around the corner. -TOB

Source: “Five Decades of Failed San Francisco Stadium Ideas”, Peter Hartlaub (07/07/2011)

PAL: Pflueger was ahead of his time proposing a baseball-only stadium back in 1982. Everything he says is right and in line with the baseball stadiums built in the past 20 years. Baseball only facilities. 40-50K seats. Better sightlines for baseball. Cheaper to construct…God, I’m so ready for baseball that I’m responding to a story about stadiums that were never built and I almost wrote about what amounts to a youth baseball tournament in Panama.

Video of the Week: 

“Way to go, Paul!”

PAL Song of the Week: Willie Nelson – “Will You Remember Mine”

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That’s how you arrive to spring training.

College Football’s Aging Attendee Crisis

College football is very popular, there is no dispute about that. But other than the elite programs, a vast majority of college football programs are staring down a real crisis to which there is no easy solution: The paying fanbase is getting older and, relatedly, smaller.

Those guys are UNLV fans, while the article focuses on Fresno State, where 49% of season ticket holders are 56 years or older, and only 9% are 35 and younger. As a result, ticket sales are dropping, and revenues are way down. But it’s not just at Fresno: ticket sales nationally have dropped for six consecutive years.  The reason is pretty simple: In the past, very few games were televised. If you wanted to see your team play, you went to the game.

But unlike decades past, every single major college football game is now available on TV. Every week, fans are faced with a decision: (1) travel some distance, fight traffic, pay a lot for parking, pay for the ticket, buy overpriced and mediocre stadium food, (in most cases) be unable to buy a beer, and sit in an uncomfortable seat or bench for, these days, nearly five hours per game including seemingly endless TV timeouts, then fight the crowds to get out and fight traffic to get home; or (2) sit on your couch with a 70-inch TV screen, drinking your beverage of choice and eating anything you’d like, with the ability to pause the game at any time and later fast forward through commercials, and when the game ends, either get on with your day or go to bed.

More and more fans are opting to stay home, and that’s a real problem for college football programs. As Richard Southall, director of the College Sport Research Institute, puts it:

“By and large you have a whole generation of fans, and not just young fans, who have grown up with college sports and all sports being consumed primarily on television,” Southall said. “And as season ticket costs have increased and the need to donate to get better seats, etc., etc., the fact of the matter is for the affordable tickets, the sight lines are not comparable to what you get on television. So, do I want to go to a stadium where I’m up in the nosebleed seats or do I want to have that view on my nice flat-screen TV? And think of what’s going to happen with virtual reality … if I plop my goggles on and I’m going to watch this thing in virtual reality, that’s going to be even more of a challenge because then the experience is immersive.”

Winning, of course, helps a lot. But college football will not survive without a strong middle class, and those programs are hurting. It doesn’t help that the tactics touted in the article are not the solution:

“It has to be an entertainment experience that hits all of the buttons,” said Whitney Wagoner, director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon, citing the vastness of competitive options. “It has to be interactive. There has to be a real, modern contemporary sense of what it is. The in-stadium entertainment has to stack up with all of the other entertainment options that they could potentially choose from. Music is part of that. Food is part of that. Engagement between timeouts is part of that. They could go to a club or they could go to a comedy show instead of going to a game, so the stadium experience has to deliver on all of those entertainment must-haves.

“Is it a fun place to be? Is the environment great? Is it connective? Can you share experiences? Is it a hyped-up, really great environment? If it is, then they’ll show up. But if it’s run-of-the-mill and kind of looks like it did when they were 10 years old and they went with their mom and dad, that’s not going to be enough.”

No. No, no, no, no. No. As a Cal football season ticket holder I can tell you this crap mentality is how Cal games got inundated with crap like “Simba Cam” and “Muscle Cam” and an endless parade of annoying games during breaks. It’s stupid. Not one person enjoys it. It’s loud and it’s distracting and it sucks. Just shut up and let the band play.

So what is the solution? How do you make attending games fun, while also attracting a likewise lucrative TV audience? The NFL, of course, had a local TV blackout policy for decades: if the game didn’t sell out, the local fans could not watch. This incentivized fans to go to the game. This policy should be on the table for NCAA football.

More than that, though, they need to improve the gameday experience. Games should not be 4 and 5 hours long. Get it back to 3 ½ hours. To do so, TV timeouts need to be shortened, and occur less often. The means of doing so is simple – constant TV ad banners, as in soccer, instead of actual commercial breaks. Soccer does it worldwide, football can do it, too. This will cut the length of games way down, and prevent those long in-game breaks that make attending a game boring and “inspire” people like zWhitney Wagoner, above, to think college football fans are looking to be blitzed with “interactive” crap like the BART race game at Cal games.

This should improve things, considerably. And there we go. I just solved college football’s third biggest problem. -TOB

Source: “Fresno State’s Red Wave Turns Into Gray Wave as Bulldogs Struggle to Attract Young Fans”, Robert Kuwada, Fresno Bee (02/11/2017)

PAL: I, for one, love the “Muscle Cam”, and I will not – I cannot – stand idly by while you and your “in the good ol days” mentality besmirch its name. 

The oversaturation of games on TV is the killer. And while the schools get a paycheck from the conference from TV deals, there appears to be a cost in terms of butts in seats.

The TV timeouts are insufferable. While a baseball game can be a 4+ hour experience, that’s due to how the game plays out. With football, it’s the TV timeouts seemingly every 5 minutes. There’s zero flow. The in-person experience for a non-marquee game is worse than the TV experience. No doubt in my mind.

5-Star Nepotism?

Michael Johnson Jr. is a top 2019 high school football prospect. Jim Harbaugh hired his dad to be an Offensive Analyst for Michigan. Smells fishy, right? I agree. I dug a little deeper (and by “dug” I mean googled his name).  The dude is qualified for the position:

• Offensive Coordinator, San Francisco 49ers
• Quarterbacks Coach, San Diego Chargers
• Offensive Coordinator, UCLA
• Interim Head Coach, UCLA

However, this isn’t the first time Harbaugh has hired parents of a recruit:

“In 2015, Harbaugh hired the mother of Stanford transfer Wayne Lyons to be a director of player development. Last January, he hired the high school football coach from Paramus Catholic, and then signed the country’s top recruit, Rashan Gary from—you guessed it—Paramus Catholic. Last February, after Devin Bush Jr. signed with the Wolverines, Harbaugh added Devin Bush Sr. to the coaching staff.”

Harbaugh is playing the game within the rules of the NCAA, and I have zero doubt other coaches across multiple sports are doing the same thing. It’s just slimy and lame. I’m beginning to wonder if that’s my big take-away from sports in the past couple years: They provide me with some fantastic, awestruck  moments, and there’s a lot of slime underneath those moments. It’s getting harder and harder to compartmentalize. – PAL

Source: “Jim Harbaugh Hired The Parent Of A Top Recruit Again,” Laura Wagner, Deadspin (4/14/17)

TOB: This has been going on forever. And as Phil points out, this guy is qualified. But Harbaugh makes headlines, so here we are.

PAL: It’s still lame. I sense a little sensitivity in TOB’s Harbaugh fanboy response.

Don’t Stick to Sports

Obviously, we’ve posted our fair share of stories that land in the intersection of sports and politics in the recent past. TOB and I talk pretty much every day, and the conversation almost always touches on both topics. Wherever you are on the political spectrum, we’ve all been consumed by the the presidency since well before January 20th.

What is the value of athletes’ political beliefs? Should we care what Tom Brady thinks about the president? Is Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem an attention-seeking stunt, or a peaceful protest worth discussing? These are tough questions during a time where all sides seem to be on edge. It’s palpable.

Please read Jay Caspian King’s article on the topic. More than anything I’ve read recently, King adds some much needed perspective to the “stick to sports” debate.

He makes many thought-provoking points, but none more insightful than the following:

“The settled politics of the past, where details can be kept few and the tone nostalgic, are fine. We know, for example, that Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color line, stole home and wore 42 on his back. Muhammad Ali championed equality and said some funny stuff to Howard Cosell. Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs. Their lionization reassures us that the stands they took were good — and can now be consigned to bygone eras.”

“The settled politics of the past…” – That’s what we lack right now, and it’s easy to forget, especially for younger folks, not everyone thought of Robinson, Ali, and King as heroic pioneers in the moment. It’s foolish to ignore that athletes speaking up helped settle the politics of the past.  

None of the debates and social issues of today are settled. Not even close. But believe this: Athletes will shape the national attitude towards many social and political issues. Don’t worry. The smart ones, the courageous ones – those are the voices that will resonate.

So I say keep talking, athletes. I may not agree with all of them, and I’ll likely criticize some of them, or – in Tom Brady’s case – make fun of them, but keep talking. – PAL

Source: “Should Athletes Stick to Sports?”, Jay Caspian King, The New York Times Magazine (2/14/17)

TOB: I’ve written about this a few times over the last few months, and could not agree more. I don’t understand fans who put athletes on a pedestal and then ask them to shut up and play. My beef with Tom Brady was not that he supported the other guy. but because he showed his support and then wanted to pretend like that support didn’t mean something. Have the courage of your convictions and stand up for what you believe. I might not agree, but I’ll respect it. It’s a heck of a lot better than the “Republicans buy sneakers, too,” philosophy of Michael Jordan and other athletes of my youth.

The Invention of a Sport

The history of most sports, minor and major, are largely disputed. The only major sport with no real dispute as to its origins is basketball, invented by Dr. James Naismith at a YMCA in 1891. But who invented baseball? Soccer? Football? Rugby? Golf? All unclear, and hotly debated, as they all evolved over time. What about leisure sports like croquet? Horseshoes? The same. Even a relatively young and popular game like cornhole doesn’t have a definitive origin story. And so it was with great interest I read this story about Fowling. Invented by accident at an Indy 500 tailgate in 2001 by friends from Detroit. 16 years later, Fowling is taking off in Detroit, as inventor Chris Hutt has opened a massive Fowling warehouse.

The rules of Fowling (football + bowling) are simple. Ten bowling pins are set up. And two teams of two try to knock down all ten pins by taking turns throwing a football at them.

It’s silly and stupid and easy to play – I know I’d love it. What do you say, Phil? Let’s get some pins and go fowl. -TOB

Source: “Fowling: A Detroit Original”, Frank Sorise, TBD Mag (November 2016)

PAL: Get some pins and go fowl? Nah. Let’s go to Detroit and do this for real. What a dumb, fun, entertaining story. The guy as the perfect chin goatee – of course he invented a new beer game.

Video of the Week: 

PAL Song of the Week: Sinkane – “Runnin'”

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The force was strong.

Bettman’s Bust

C.T.E. sure seems real. Of the 96 N.F.L. players who’ve donated their brains to C.T.E. research, 92 have been found to have been diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy. For the N.H.L. players, it’s an ominous 5 for 5. Between the two sports, 97 of 101, or 96%. If you want more qualitative data, check out the story we posted a couple weeks ago about Zac Easter, or check out the HBO Real Sports segment on Kevin Turner. Every early indication tells us the dam on C.T.E. has already broken, and we’re just waiting for the flood.

With that known, I’m flabbergasted by the N.H.L. right now. After watching a far bigger entity in the N.F.L. settle and get the hell out of the way, the N.H.L. is taking a wait and see approach to C.T.E.

In the fall of 2016, N.H.L. Commissioner Gary Bettman planted his flag on the following hill:

“The science regarding C.T.E., including on the asserted ‘link’ to concussions…remains nascent, particularly with respect to what causes C.T.E. and whether it can be diagnosed by specific clinical symptoms. The relationship between concussions and the asserted clinical symptoms of C.T.E. remains unknown.”

Furthermore, the N.H.L. has “demanded troves of information from research done by neurology experts at Boston University who have examined the brains of more than 200 athletes for C.T.E. and have done groundbreaking work on the subject.”

Bull. For one thing, The N.H.L. is not an impartial party. Also, the B.U. research – some published and some unpublished – is based on donations provided under the condition of anonymity and are protected by medical privacy laws. And for good measure, most of the people who donated their brains never played hockey.

What is the N.H.L. thinking? The N.F.L., which pulls in 3x-4x more in revenue per year ($4B for N.H.L. vs somewhere near $13B for the N.F.L.), wanted no part of a class action lawsuit and settled more or less right away with former player. It makes sense. From a league standpoint, there is no victory here. You can even set aside the science, and – you know – loss of life. There is no dollar amount you can place on the P.R. nightmare.

If you’re not so sure – again – I encourage you to read Zac Easter’s story or watch the Kevin Turner segment on HBO.

This article does a great job showing the N.H.L’s response within an even scarier context: Big Tobacco back in the 50s. Research came out connecting smoking to lung cancer. Their response: Let our folks take a look at the research.

How does the saying go? Something about history and being doomed to repeat itself? Get your head out of the sand, Bettman. No league is too big to fail, especially not yours. – PAL

Source: “The N.H.L.’s Problem With Science”, Juliet Macur, The New York Times (2/8/17)

Back in the Day When I Was Young I’m Not a Kid Anymore…

Alex Mack (Go Bears!) is the best center in the NFL. Maybe the best offensive lineman. The dude just played the entire Super Bowl with a broken leg, and played well. Alex provided, to me, the most interesting story of the Super Bowl. In the week before the game, he was asked who was the best high school football player he ever saw. Alex thought about it and dropped the name Duncan Krier, a childhood friend and high school teammate. The reporters had never heard of Duncan Krier, and the L.A. Times’ Bill Plaschke did some digging. He eventually found a Duncan Krier working as a ticket salesman for a minor league hockey team in Portland. Sure enough, it was Alex’s old buddy.

It reminds me of the story we featured on go-kart racer Terry Fullerton, who the great Ayrton Senna said was the best driver he ever faced. Was Alex being serious about Krier?  Krier seems to think so, lamenting the knee injury that ruined his football career before he even left high school: “That’s wild. That’s insane. Holy hell. Alex really said that about me? The crazy thing about it is, I think he’s probably right. And I still think about that almost every day.” I’m not so sure. I think Alex was looking back on the road that led him to the pinnacle of his profession, and taking a moment to remember someone he cared about and lost touch with along the way. Krier said he hadn’t spoken to Alex in 12 years. Maybe this was Alex’s way of reaching out to his old friend. I hope the two can reconnect. -TOB

Source: “Not Forgotten: For Every Super Bowl Star, There’s an Equally Talented Player Who Didn’t Make It”, Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times (02/03/2017)

PAL: Plaschke nails the supposed fine line –

“For every Alex Mack, there is a Duncan Krier. For every star, it seems there is an equally bright light who grew up alongside him and yet somehow faded. Maybe it was injury. Maybe it was fate. Whatever it was, it illustrates the fine line between a man playing in the Super Bowl and a former teammate watching on TV.

“It is a line so thin that their career paths may have diverged with one play. Yet it is a barrier so thick that when one of those fallen stars is mentioned in a Super Bowl news conference, a reporter must resort to Google to determine whether he even exists.”

Later in the article, Krier says he was dealt a bad hand. Come on, man. Simplifying the difference between he and Mack down to a fluke play in high school undercuts Mack’s accomplishments. Their destinies were not etched in stone in some high school game. Mack is a pro because of so much than what he was in high school, and Krier is who he is – good and bad – because of so much more than a high school injury.

Sports Suck

Sometimes we feature stories that make me think, “Man, this is why I love sports.” This is not one of those stories. While sports can bring out the best in humanity, it can also bring out the worst, and that’s the case here. In an excellently reported piece, Matt Stanmyre and Steve Politi of NJ.com uncover a brewing scandal. Paterson Eastside High School in Paterson, New Jersey’s boy’s basketball coach, Juan Griles, has been finding kids from across the globe and moving them into his two-bedroom apartment and becoming their legal guardian, all so they can play basketball.

That’s a little shady, but it gets worse. As you might imagine, Griles is not doing this out of the kindness of his own heart. At present, approximately six players are living in his apartment. The players complain of lack of food. One player said they were fed spaghetti for dinner was spaghetti for “a whole two weeks” or worse, “just a loaf of bread to last two people for like two weeks.” And, of course, if the players don’t produce, they are exiled. One players, having been kicked out of the house, “was found alone and hungry by a district teacher after spending a night alone in a local Dunkin’ Donuts.” Christ. The coach denies wrongdoing, but a child protection investigation is underway. This story is crazy. It’s HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL. There’s not even a lot of money at stake. It’s just ego. I’m disgusted. -TOB

Source: “Hoops Power Packs Roster from Overseas; State Questions Safety of Teens Living With Coach”, Matt Stanmyre and Steve Politi, NJ.com (02/06/2017)

PAL: What more is there to add? Sports can bring out the best – especially in kids – and it brings out the worst in adults.

Adult Autograph Seekers: Re-examine Your Life

I don’t get autographs. I don’t get pictures with celebrities. What do they actually mean, and what story do they tell? You happened upon someone by dumb luck. We know this person. They signed this thing, and that’s proof that you met them. The end. Cool story, bro.

Golfer Jordan Spieth recently ranted about adult autograph seekers. There’s no real story here, other than to agree with Spieth. While I don’t love the goodie goodie “they swore in front of kids” argument from the golfer (spoiler alert: Welcome to the big bad world – people swear in public, especially at sporting events), Spieth is right. Who are these guys, and – honestly – how much does a Jordan Spieth autograph go for on Ebay (between $100 – $1000). What a fun way to make a living.

Hey, younger, successful person. Sign your name so I can put it online and profit off of your success.

Get a life. Honest to god – can someone explain autographs to me? Here’s a autographed golf ball from Spieth, going for $750 on ebay. Signatures and dimples do not mix.

My dad has a pretty solid collection of signed baseballs (Willie Mays, Bob Feller, and a J.D. Drew ball signed while he played for the St. Paul Saints during his holdout with the Phillies…cherry) – maybe he can explain it to us. I must note that my dad didn’t hound players for their autograph. He paid a premium to buy them in a store with a nice plastic case like any self-respecting adult would. – PAL

Source: “Jordan Spieth Has Had It With Professional Autograph Seekers”, Tom Ley, Deadspin (2/8/17)

Video of the Week: 

PAL Song of the Week: Justin Townes Earle – “Harlem River Blues”

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“So, you see, the puppy was like industry. In that, they were both lost in the woods. And nobody, especially the little boy – ‘society’ – knew where to find ’em. Except that the puppy was a dog. But the industry, my friends, that was a revolution…Knibb High Football rules!”

-B. Masdison