Fallen Leads

The fall season at the Yard had brought so much hope and promise. The Dodgers had not completely wilted since blowing up their clubhouse in August. The Giants were only up by a couple of games. The Bruins stormed into the top 25 in football which had not happened since the beginning of the Yard. The Lakers had signed Dwight Howard and the Trojans were on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The Dodgers were not going to win this year with that pitching staff regardless of the lineup. Dodger management wanted to make a statement and they did. The team that came out of Glendale, AZ in April was broken up in the early vestiges of a pennant race in August. The Giants were close with Lincecum struggling and NL batting leader Melky Cabrera just suspended for 50 games for juicing. The Guggenheim team doubled down on this season with the dealer showing five. The Giants flipped a six and took the NL west. The Dodgers started to heat up while winning six in a row. We came across that tidbit by accident when we had time to dig that far into the sports page. This Bruin season for the Yard had started so strongly with a huge upset of Nebraska and a 3-0 start for the first time since time began as calculated in Yard metrics. We had an opportunity to see the Bruins play Houston while spending the first half that same Saturday night watching the Dodgers rally to win at the Ravine. The Bruins were the most dominant that we had witnessed in the lapses previously asserted. We got sucked in like a politician with an intern. Full of optimism and Benjamin’s, the Yard took the Bruins while giving 10 to Oregon State. It was our first bet laid on the Bruins to win in many years. We had made some dough betting against them but betting with them was something new. Oregon State bitch slapped the Bruins at the Rose Bowl for most of the afternoon. Our parlay and our hopes were dashed that Saturday afternoon. The Bruins came back against the woeful Buffs last week but the Yard will be slow to return to that misguided fervor that rattled our psyche for a few weeks. The Lakers picking up Dwight Howard was to prepare of the passing of the baton from the aging superstar to the unproven one. The Lakers have engineered these trades for the past forty years dating back to bringing in Wilt to win their only championship of the Jack Kent Cook and Jerry West era. Kareem was traded to LA several years later and the foundations of Showtime were born. Jerry West went all in on the trade that brought Shaq from Orlando last century. West drafted Magic and Worthy to play with Kareem. West drafted Kobe to play with Shaq. The Buss family knows that all of the smiling faces paying $2500/night to mug on TV are there because of the stars on the floor not the ones in the seats. Dwight Howard will shepherd in the next star to carry the Laker’s star five years from now. USC making the Sports Illustrated cover was taken as a good omen by the Yard. The SI curse of being on the cover has more evidence for rather than against. It is rare that the SI pick to win the BCS championship ever does. Matt Barkley and his two heralded wide receivers mugging for the cameras and talking about coming back to win a title put a big target on their back that they do not have the horses to protect. Barkley might have considered what has happened to the last two high profile quarterbacks that opted to come back for one more year at the coaxing of their coach. Cason Palmer won the Heisman Trophy and he is now wallowing in Oakland going nowhere. Matt Leinhart stayed for one more year won the trophy and now he backs up Palmer for Raider nation. Neither won the championship that “they came back for one more season to win”. Barkley will not either. Barkley’s would have been a top five pick in April. He would be sitting on the sidelines for an average team learning his new profession. Andrew Luck is making $15 million over three years for the Colts. RG-3 is pulling down $14 million over the same period. Barkley would have been at least earning $11-13 million over the next three years. His stock is falling as fast as his coach’s. Barkley should have thought a little harder about the impact of playing one more year for Lane Kiffin would have on his future value. Kiffin knew the impact having Barkley come back for one year would have on his. He might not have another year at USC if Barkley left and USC struggled. What could Barkley possibly learn from Lane who still has so much to learn? Off Season: When the votes are in the biggest loser from the steroid era was not the fans it was the Baseball Hall of Fame. The fans had a lot of fun while all those homeruns were flying out the park and Roger the Rocket was winning seven CY Young awards. It was exciting even if it was enhanced. The long dreaded testing for PED’s outed the cheats and brought performance back into this galaxy. People are still taking chances but the Players Union and Baseball ownership saw their salaries and valuations spike because of this chemically enhanced statistics without taking a hit to their reputation. The real loser has been the Baseball Hall of Fame. To earn entry to the baseball HOF, a players needs to be named on 75% of the ballots that are cast. This past year, 520 votes were cast and Barry Larkin was the only player voted in to the HOF. Barry was a good if not great shortstop of his era but he had a career batting average of .295 with a 198 homeruns. He would not have sniffed the Hall in another era. Bert Blyleven got voted in last year. Blyleven won 277 games over a 22 year career. He won 20 games once and a career ERA of 4.74. He was outstanding serving up homerun balls. He gave up 430 for his career with records of 43 one year only to break it a few years later by giving up 50 homeruns. The Hall and its voters are working so hard to keep out the supposed cheaters that it is morphing into the Hall of Really good. Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds might have inflated their statistics by juicing but everyone was. Enhanced pitchers were facing enhanced batters. The players were great already but they decided they would go the extra dark mile while baseball looked the other way and we flooded the turnstiles. No decision will be fair on how to filter these accomplishments but allowing good players to line the walls in Cooperstown among the truly legendary is a crime as well.

September Mournings

Living in Las Vegas presented the Yard with several reporting challenges this past week. The Extreme Midget Wrestling Federation was in town this week and their chant of “Half the size and twice the violence” was hard to ignore. The Beer Pong championships are right around the corner as well. But when the Frank McCourt era was finally sandblasted off the Chavez Ravine urinals this past week our attention returned home. There had been an uneasy Yard sense that the $2.1 billion deal that pried the Dodgers but not the parking lots from Snidely McCourt was a sham but what next for the new ownership? The Yard had wanted the McCourt’s put on trial for their sins against our collective history. There is no justice for the Yard when the worst owner’s in Los Angeles Sports history walks away with a profit of $860 million. Frank McCourt ranks right up there with Georgia Frontiere but he lapped her in both civic bile and financial cake. The O’Malley family shepherded the Dodger Brand for fifty years. The McCourt’s flushed it down the porcelain in eight agonizing years while pocketing $500 million more than the O’Malley family was paid for their lifetime of service by Fox in 1998. It is a crime that will never be investigated. The Guggenheim ownership doubled down on this year with the blockbuster trade last weekend. The Dodger’s took on more payroll last Friday than the McCourt run team took on during his last two miserable seasons as owner. It was thrilling for sure but what does $188 million really get you anymore in major league baseball? The Dodgers traded their unproductive first baseman, James Loney for superstar Adrian Gonzales. The Red Sox saddled the Dodgers with several other contracts that they no longer wanted to make the Gonzales deal attractive to them. The new Dodger ownership wanted to make a statement to Los Angeles and Major League Baseball that there was new ownership. You do not overpay for a team without overpaying for first year salaries as part of the investment tsunami. It is rumored the Dodgers are also getting two rows of seats from the Green Monster, the Ted Williams statue is still trying to clear waivers but the Red Sox refused to include the Pesky Pole to make the deal. Boston sports were fanatical from the beginnings of professional sports. Red Sox baseball is 111 years of exponential fanaticism from the initial baseline measurements until the endoscopic world players live in now. Highly paid Red Sox athletes are worshipped or loathed many times during the same game. Ted Williams was arguably the greatest Red Sox ever and he was not universally loved throughout his career. Hopefully, Beckett, Gonzales and Punto will thrive in LA and lead this town back to relevance in baseball. The Dodgers took on the payroll for three primary reasons which are all part of the same algebra. The Guggenheim partners are an investment group. They are in this to make money. The management team is committed to winning. Everyone wants to win rather than lose. It was the commitment to winning and making the sacrifice to win that was fleeting or non-existent if you are a McCourt. There are the usual egos that go into sports ownership but the current ownership showed their intent when they overpaid for the team and overpaid for this lineup four months later. The Dodgers valuation at time of sale was not based on the team and it’s potential on the field or the turnstile. It was based on the rights to future Dodger telecasts. Sports programming is the most valuable content available through your pay TV service. Viewers watch real time with passion. They do not go to Hulu or DVR to watch later and fast forward through the ads. This is important stuff not Mad Men. The new ownership team needed to build a lucrative product for the looming TV contract that will go out for bid soon. Fox was eager to maintain what they already had and were willing to snuggle up with McCourt and help him make payroll if he would renew with them. Fox was reeling after losing the Lakers to Time Warner. It would have been a great deal for Fox and it would have strangled baseball with McCourt indefinitely if that had happened. Bud Selig did something right and did not let that civic travesty occur. There is speculation that a ten year TV agreement could fetch the Dodgers $2 billion. $188 Million dollar payroll is not that bad when your TV contract guarantees $200 million before a ticket or hot dog is sold. The Yankees built the YES network the same type of lucrative deal. Few other cities have the density of fan base and market size to negotiate that deal. The Dodgers do if they have a quality or at least interesting product. The final objective is to win back Los Angeles sports mindshare. This objective makes the first two all that more valuable in this major media market that does not have an NFL team. The Lakers own LA and took it from the Dodgers during the Showtime era. The new Dodger ownership wants to reclaim the mantle of LA’s team from the Lake show. They even brought in the face of Showtime to sit in the stands at the Ravine to usher it in to our collective mindshare. It will be no easy feat without consistent deep runs in the playoffs and championships. The Lakers have won twice as many championships as the Dodgers since either team moved to Los Angeles. The Lakers have been in the NBA finals eight times and won four championships since the Dodgers were last even in the World Series. If you do not think that the Buss’ were paying attention to the Dodger hoopla Google: Dwight Howard. The Buss family seems like a perfect ensemble for reality television but this wacky group, in addition to ring master Mitch Kupchak, keeps re-inventing the team and remaining competitive for another generation of LA sports fans. The Dodgers have almost missed a generation since their last title. Guggenheim may be the sophisticated east coast hedge fund guys who roped in Laker Icon Magic Johnson to be their LA face, but Buss boy and his spawn have won over the town. It seems like Jed Clampett versus Mr. Drysdale but Jed always outfoxed the clever banker. Buss has always risked the required monies to remain competitive. O’Malley never had to, Fox never wanted to and McCourt could not afford to in their efforts to keep up with the Lakers. The initial results of this massive trade are spotty. Good pitching always beats good hitting in the playoffs. The Dodgers only have one pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, who can dominate a series. A team needs at least two to have a chance to win four of seven games. The Giants have three and that group does not include the struggling Tim Lincecum. If Timmy was having a normal year, the Giants would be ahead of the Dodgers by 7-10 games at this point. In the first game after the trade, Adrian Gonzales hit a three run home run on the second pitch he saw in Dodger uniform. Two games later in Colorado Josh Beckett gave up a home run on the second pitch he threw in a Dodger uniform. This team is trying to find out who they really are with an entirely new lineup injected into the clubhouse in a few short weeks late in the drama. The Dodgers have put a bulls-eye on their back with this trade with every team having extra mojo for beating them on the field. We hope they win out but we did not see that in April and we really do not see it now. Extra Innings: Forget this trade hoopla; the best news of the weekend is that Vin Scully will be back for another season. Current Dodger ownership will make it as attractive as possible for the greatest broadcaster in the history of sports to keep doing his day job. They will back up the Brinks truck for Vinnie. It is not because Vin was asking for it. It is because they are willing to pay it at his terms, his abbreviated schedule and his humanity. We are all in the bonus round of Vin Scully. He is a great voice, broadcaster and human. He has had one job and one loyalty since starting work with the Dodgers in his 20’s. Scully’s voice has been the only voice I have ever heard in my entire baseball memoir. He is a cultural icon as well. We shared him with the nation, Dodger haters inclusive. In 1982, Scully was there to call “The Catch” when the San Francisco 49’ers beat the Cowboys on their way to the city’s first championship game in any professional sport. Vinnie called the final round of the 1986 Masters as Jack Nicklaus stormed to victory at age 46. He was there making the call in the 1986 World Series when Mookie Wilson’s roller goal posted through Billy Buckner’s high tops ton continue the curse. The Yard hopes Vin will be here until he can call another Dodger championship. It is probably not this year but he is coming back as well as everyone else and maybe a #2 starter. Bullpen: A special Yard thanks to Giant “Panda” Timmy for the Yard’s new Dodger yard Gnome. The Gnome has become popular locally and Jo and I have taken on several trips of late. Photos can be found on the blog site and on FB.

For the love of the Games!

The summer Olympics has always been a hallowed event in Yard evolution. The Olympics are a quadrennial celebration of athleticism and team work. It is the only time that the Yard is fully engaged with archery, skeet shooting and cycling. When we see that ESPN has professional lacrosse on, we know the Olympics are on five other channels. The stories create the legends that become the history of these great games. Founder Pierre de Coubertin originated the idea and felt the Olympics could instill national pride and the cooperation of the world's nations may promote peace and prevent conflict. It sounded good on paper. Those first games in Athens in 1896 were almost derailed because Greece was in the midst of political and financial turmoil. We are pleased that the Greeks have but that behind them. So as these hallowed games open to the world, here in America we would respectfully request that the partisan rhetoric stand down on the Olympics. The Olympics celebrate great athleticism and teamwork. The American political parties never celebrate team work and athleticism is limited to stone throwing and back biting. We were surprised by the outrage by Nevada Senator Harry Reid about Ralph Lauren not using an American company to make the US uniforms. A Democratic PAC ran a political advertisement this week that ran footage of Mitt Romney at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics while a narrator threw stones about jobs to China, money to Switzerland and blah, blah. Romney attended the Olympics to fluff his International feathers and every comment he makes has been under attack by the Obama regime. Probably because Barry had to stay home while Mich got to go the big dance in Air Force One with the girls. He might not have another chance to go on our dime and he might be a bit pissy. The attacks on Ralph Lauren’s decision to have US uniforms made in China are ridiculous. Uniforms for many industries are made in China and overseas every day for every major apparel manufacturer. Nike, Reebok, Adidas and all of the major sporting goods vendors produce their products outside the US for sale in the US. The outrage seemed to continue this partisan mantra about outsourcing jobs from the US. The US Olympic Committee is self-funded. The USOC does employ American personnel but it is different than the US government. The USOC has a budget that they have to stay within to operate. There are over 550 US athletes on the team with multiple uniforms and outfits. Putting the best team in London within budget is their goal and objective not subsidizing US apparel manufacturing woes. Buying 500+ uniforms from a US company is not going to save this economy. Hell, $666 billion spent on freeways could not get it done. Those that would chose to politicize that non-issue are the problem not the USOC for conserving resources for the athletes. Two of the cornerstones of Mitt’s resume are his time with Bain Capital and his stewardship of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games. Bain Capital, offshore accounts, and sketchy but legal tax returns are a bit too much for the Yard to bother dissecting. We not only do not have the skill, we do not have the interest. Bain Capital might be an example of what is wrong with the country but it is also an example of what is right. The attacks about Romney’s stewardship of the SLC games are surprising. The Olympics are special and anyone who volunteers to step in and take all of the risks with little upside is to be commended not attacked. The SLC games could have been a massive financial fiasco that Romney had nothing to do with until it was uncovered. Mitt came to the party when the feces were already in full spew from the fan. It was toxic and messy. Romney hoped for some political upside but the risks were enormous. The 2002 SLC Olympics were almost bankrupt in December 1999. Mitt is one of Utah’s tribe so he did have a higher calling. Salt Lake City had tried unsuccessfully to host the 1998 games that went to Nagano, Japan. It was rumored at the time that Nagano “wined and dined” the IOC delegates more aggressively than SLC to the tune of $4.4 million. Dave Johnson and Tom Welch lead the SLC Nomination Committee and they set their sights and their wallets on the 2002 games. They immediately sent Stetsons to all members of the IOC nomination committee. They made numerous trips all over the world racking up dinners and courting the votes. What started with cowboy hats morphed into all inclusive ski trips, thirteen college scholarships, plastic surgery, Super Bowl tickets and cash! They were very effective and SLC was awarded the 2002 games. Three years later an IOC whistle blower outed the financial misdeeds of his associates and the generosity of Messrs. Welch and Johnson. The leaders of the SLC OC resigned almost immediately in disgrace. Ten members of the IOC were relieved of their duties and ten others were sanctioned. It was the first and still the worst scandal in over 100 years of the IOC. The sanctity of the Olympics had been denigrated to a solicitous sleazy side show. Sponsors ran towards the exits and the cash to finance the games dried up. The SLC OC had planned a $1.1 billion budget that quickly spiraled into a $379 million budget shortfall. The Mittster was raking in his millions at Bain. However they were doing it, they were doing well. Romney could have kept on taking home large paychecks within the financial cocoon he had created for himself and his family. But he resigned his day to day duties at Bain and returned to the Mother Land to attempt to right the Olympic ship. He does not get all of the credit for “saving” the Olympics but he was the very public face of that effort. There a lot of work to be done, disgraced organizers to be replaced, financing to find, lobbying in Washington and attempt to woo sponsors back. The image of those games had stepped off a cliff and no one was getting back up the hill without scrapes and bruises if at all. The games could have easily gone down into a financial abyss that the Montreal games did in 1976. It took Canada thirty years to pay of the $1.5 billion deficit from their games making their last payment in December 2006. The SLC games turned a profit of $40 million when the snow melted in the spring of 2002. That original endowment still funds the upkeep of the Olympic facilities in Salt Lake to this day. The Yard is not a Mitt Romney shill but we do get outraged when the President and his cronies are taking political pot shots using the Olympics as the back drop. The accusations are barely credible or relevant. So as they in London-“Piss off!” Overtime: USADA dogged pursuit of Lance Armstrong is also troubling. By all accounts Mr. Armstrong is allegedly an arrogant prick and many would be happy to see his reputation sullied. The USADA may think it is their mission to chase Lance Armstrong to his grave to recover the seven Tour de France medals he won. They may feel it is important to taint a man who has raised millions and millions of dollars for cancer research. The USADA feels entitled that they are doing the right thing in pursuing their current myopic effort to take down the evil Lance. The Yard feels the same way about Lance as we do about Clemens. It is impossible to imagine that Lance of the one testicle beat all comers seven times while every single challenger was busted for cheating with both of their balls. Yard sense feels that the USDA pursuit is motivated by this current economic crisis. The USADA is not a non-profit or for profit it is US government funded 110%. When municipalities are declaring bankruptcy, entitlements are strangling all levels of government an agency whose mission is to chase wealthy athletes and take away their ill-gotten rewards would seem to be the first cut of any budget. The USADA has to keep in the headlines pursuing high profile, attention getting cases or they might lose their funding. As a nation, do we have time and budget for such endeavors? It is like the arts. It makes sense to fund when there are surpluses but not when people are losing their homes and their livelihoods. We all want to keep steroids away from our children and we should. That is the job of parents and international federations not the US government. Yard Notes: Yardiot Sam wanted all readers to know that Northern Illinois Huskies have the longest current winning streak in D1 football. They have won nine in a row and face Iowa in their home opener at Soldier Field September 1.

Of Wizards and Roses

It had been days of wine and roses at the Yard. The Bruins landed one of the top basketball recruiting classes in the nation. The Lakers and Clippers were into the second round of the playoffs. McCourt was finally out as owner of the Dodgers. The Dodgers responded with their best start since their last World Series Championship in 1988. The Galaxy was bumping with Obama about their championship at the White House. The Yard became a hockey fan as the Kings took out the top seeds in the west and made the Stanley Cup Finals as an eight seed. The Staples Center hosted six playoff games in four days. It was the first time in the history of the building that all three tenants made the playoffs. It was the best of times. A week later, the Lakers were run out of the playoffs by the OKC Thunder. The Clippers got swept by the Spurs. Matt Kemp was on the DL. The prescient had tantalized and flirted with our shallow objectives. The future grounded it fallow. The Lakers and Clippers came to the dance with much expectation. The Kings, not so much. For the first time in many years, all three teams were still playing in the building that the Lakers built. The Kings are still playing hockey in June for the first time in 19 years. The Clippers have never played basketball in June so they were just happy to make the second round for the second time in franchise history. Go Kings! It was bad enough that the young guns in Oklahoma ran the aging Lakers out of the building but then they clowned the Lakes at the post game press conference. Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant came to the press conference in their Rerun glasses and brightly colored bowling shirts. Apparently, every NBA star except Kobe and anyone on the Celtics is required to be festooned in wide framed glasses at press conferences. No one seems to have a vision problem on the court but when facing the media, clown glasses are required. They did boat race the Lakers so the Yard needs to deal. Go Spurs! The Yard is rooting for a Spurs-Celtics NBA Final. We do not particularly like either team but we despise their opponents. It is shaky ground for the Yard to root for the Celtics but Miami is the team to tip the balance. Lebron James is the league MVP but he is not the man with the game on the line. Lebron would rather be the guy inbounding the ball with 7.6 seconds left than the guy who is receiving that inbounds pass with the clock clicking. Lebron is the man for the first 46 minutes. He is rare to take an important shot. He struggles with an important free throw late in the game. Kobe Bryant is a polarizing individual but he will take the final shot in any game any time under any circumstances. He has been doing that since he was seven years old. He will fight to get open with 1.2 seconds left to attempt a ridiculous 3-pointshot. He fails more than succeeds but he takes them all. Kobe is fearless despite his failures. He shows up at the press conference without facial apparatus or excuses. Lebron fears failures so he defers to others to take that shot. He is the league MVP for quarters 1 to 3. He is still the MVP with two minutes to go but if the game is the on the line, he is always making one more pass to anyone else. Kobe rarely gives up the ball up with the game on the line. Lebron does it instinctively. Go Celtics! Many times a team gets rid of a bad manager or a disruptive player and the team responds. We do not recall an instance when a team responded, like the Dodgers, when the owner was replaced. The Guggenheim billionaires have placed Magic in the owner’s seat as the face of the franchise. Magic is popular but the sheer joy of Frank McCourt not being in that seat has brought the fans back. Last year with Jamie and Frank were haggling over our city’s most cherished team and who would own it, Dodger Stadium became a morgue of discontent. Frank was never at the games because he was reviled. Jamie was not at the games because she was just vile. Magic sits proudly in their seats with Tommy most nights and brings his smile and spirit to LA’s first franchise. It is good to see him there but better to see Frank and Jamie nowhere. We are truly sorry the new owners had to pay those bitches so much money for a team they ran into the ground. Feces happen. After the SI article about Bruins in ruins, it was great to see UCLA basketball rise like a Phoenix out of the bong water. It had been a particularly miserable stretch after Ben Howland had generated so much expectation in his first five years. The SI article probably enhanced UCLA’s chances at landing this recruiting class of McDonald’s All Americans divas. With sordid stories of VIP limo rides to Beverly Hills mansions, plenty of weed and girls, what All American would not want a piece of that action? Hopefully, Howland can corral the show ponies into a team. Howland will never replace the Wizard Wooden in UCLA history and mythology. It is a tall task for any coach at any University. But there had always been another wizard in Westwood even when Wooden was doing his basketball magic. Harry Potter was not the only sage at Hogwarts just the guy with his name on the franchise. Wooden’s name will be everywhere at UCLA for now and for always. UCLA volleyball coach Al Scates retired this year after 50 years as the head coach. During Al’s tenure as UCLA head coach, John Wooden coached UCLA to ten titles. Al Scates coached the Bruins to 19 NCAA titles in volleyball. John Wooden won 620 games in 27 seasons. Al Scates coached the Bruins to 1,217 victories over 49 seasons. Wooden won seven titles in a row. Scates won only three titles in a row but his teams did it three times. No team in any sport has ever won three titles in a row three different times. From 1970 to 1998, Scates’ teams won fifteen titles or nearly half of the available titles. In 2006, UCLA was 12-12 and was in jeopardy of missing the playoffs for only the second time during Scates career. Al Scates had not coached a championship team since the 1998 campaign. The 67 year-old Scates coaxed a team without a single All-American to fourteen straight victories to close the season. UCLA swept #1 CSULB to become the lowest seeded team to make the NCAA Final Four for volleyball. UCLA faced Penn State in the finals which were hosted at Penn State. UCLA swept the Nittany Lions to win Al’s 19th and final championship. UCLA volleyball did not pay Scates for the first ten years. He was never paid his worth and that was never his goal. Al Scates paid it forward for two generations of Olympic medalists, beach volleyball superstars and the grand University he served for most of his adult life. God bless Al Scates! "Al Scates?! Precisely. The one and only. The man who is to volleyball what (John) Wooden was to basketball, (Red) Sanders was to football, Napolean to artillery..." Jim Murray.

Let Games Begin

It has been a slow season of late at the Yard. The teams of our destiny have not performed as cached in our memories. The sordid scandals of the past year have squished the comic tendencies out of our cynical nature. Our research staff did uncover this quiet little story about an Ivy League Taiwanese kid rising from obscurity to become a starting point guard of the New York Knicks! We hoped to get the word out to our loyal membership but Sports Illustrated trumped us while we were stranded wine tasting in Napa. It was a great story but the barrel tasting at Peju Vineyards winery is not something to be skipped for a scoop. Linsanity would have to wait and it appears to have run its course anyways. There are not many priorities at the Yard but Napa cabernets always trumps Asian point guards even if they play in NYC.

We needed to rest up anyways for our largest event of the year-The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. For 14 days of March and the first two days of April, college basketball and all of its madness will rule the Yard. There will be 62 basketball games played all over the nation. We had a practice run during championship week trolling through 272 conference tournament games starting last weekend and culminating with the Big Ten title game. There have been upsets and upstarts and the first round is still four days away.

Preparing for the 48 hour Thursday-Friday shift of 32 tournament basketball games later this week is not a regiment we take likely. With three TV’s playing three different games, the Yard was scanning round robin through the ACC, SEC, Conference USA, Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, Atlantic 10, Big 10, Southland Conference, Pac-10 and Mountain West Conference season ending tournament games. We got started on the Deuce at 8:00 AM settling in for the highly anticipated Vermont Catamounts versus the Stony Brook Seawolves matchup. We warmed up the second 48 inches of LCD madness at 8:30 with the Marshall-Memphis game on CBS. Remote dexterity had to be taken to another level with the SEC and ACC Semifinals tipped off simultaneously on ABC and ESPN. Four games and only three TV’s, our skills were being tested to extreme viewing levels. Jo at the Yard was caught switching on the Food Channel on the main screen when we took a quick lunch break after the UNC-NC State game. No explanation was needed as we recovered the remote with extreme prejudice and returned to our myopic programming. Anthony Bourdain will still be on TV April 3 and Jo is just going to have to hang in there until then.

With household priorities re-established, the day marched on. There was a small tear when the Norfolk State University Spartans earned their first ever NCAA bid with their victory over the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats. Duke gave us another reason to root against them when they signed Austin Rivers. The Dukies were already in our cross hairs but signing the progeny of Celtic head coach Doc Rivers was another pinch of venom in our legacy cauldron of distain. It was nice to see them get upset in the ACC semifinal by Florida State. Ohio State looked formidable against the Michigan school in Ann Arbor. The State University in East Lansing will be a more formidable opponent for the Buckeyes. Coach Tom Izzo is gearing up for another long run into March. If Missouri does not get the #1 seed in the Midwest after winning the Big 12 Tournament, there should be an SI investigation. The Tigers boat raced Baylor in the Championship game after Baylor boat raced the Jayhawks in the semifinal. Kansas and Missouri split the season series. Kansas will get the #1 seed because they are Kansas. Missouri will get shipped out as a #2 seed because they are Missouri. Pacific 10 conference tournament is the worst of the lot. Colorado versus Arizona is like watching a mid-major before that was a cool thing. UCLA may be on well documented hard times but the whole conference sucks this year. The Mountain West has better players and is more entertaining to watch than any team in the moribund Pac-12. Let the games begin!

All of the major recruits who left UCLA in the past three years will be playing in the NCAA tournament this year. If all of them had stayed at UCLA, the Bruins would have been a Final Four type of team. Chace Stanbach and Mike Mosher of UNLV left UCLA and were All Conference selections in the MWC. Kendall Williams and Drew Gordon were MWC All Conference selections at New Mexico. Matt Carlino was all WCC Honorable mention as a freshman point guard at BYU. With those who stayed, UCLA will be lucky to get an NIT bid.

Final Seconds: UCLA has marketing posters at the Sports Arena asking for donations to help support athletics. The poster broke down all of the related costs for a student athlete including tuition, housing and books. The data factored in $3,875 for health and fitness per student athlete. The numbers sounded reasonable but the student athlete that was the canvas for the narrative was UCLA’s 6’10” 305 pound center Joshua Smith. Observing Josh’s health and fitness these past few years as he has piled on the pounds while huffing and puffing up and down the court, one has to wonder where that money went? Not the best example for that marketing pitch.

Overtime: There are some records that will never be broken in every major sport. Most of them are unreachable because of changes in the games related to numbers of games, longevity of players, performance enhancements and other clinical stuff. One such record that had escaped our radar was the NBA record for average minutes per game by a single player. For any player to play all 48 minutes of an NBA basketball game is rare. It has happened on occasion and it is always well noted in the sports world. In 1961-62season, Wilt Chamberlin averaged 48.5 minutes per game for the entire season. He played an 80 game season.

Happy New Year from the Yard

At the heart of a New Year’s resolution is the desire to resolve to do something, ideally to the betterment of something or someone. Resolutions are easy to define and elucidate. Resolutions require resolve if they are going to happen. The Yard has defined many resolutions to pursue. Resolve is a more difficult resource to allocate with our limited focus, sports myopia and vices. We have resolved to take a much closer look at this resolution thing in 2012. We have created a task force internally and expect to have suggestions by Q2 2012 and hope to have a plan in place by this fall.

This post was going to be a New Year’s Day-ish post but the Yard plays by the same rules as college football and the Rose Parade. We don’t blog on New Year’s if it falls on Sunday. College football was very sacrosanct that there will be no college football whenever New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday. So when the BCS starts on a Sunday we have college football games all week most of which used to be played on one day. Apparently, on Sunday January 8 it is possible to play a college football game and not just any Sunday college Football game-The Go Daddy Bowl! So the Rose Bowl can never be played on a Sunday but Go Daddy on the following Sunday?! Bring it on! It is more about the Benjamin’s than the guy in the flowing robes.

The blog was having fits and starts underscored by issues with resolve to get to post for the New Year. Monday, we got caught up in the most amazing Rose Bowl Game in recent history. Oregon has been tearing up the Pacific-10 or 12 for the past three seasons but never won a bowl game. Wisconsin has been lighting up the Big Ten or Big Eleven-ish but lost to TCU last year in the Rose Bowl. Oregon and Wisconsin would have played in last year’s game if the Ducks had not traded up to play Cam Newton and the Auburn Tigers in the 2011 BCS Title game. It was a game for the ages and having the Ducks secure the final win in a nice Yard parlay helped ease the pain of the Bruins not saving hunger in the Kraft Fight Hunger bowl on New Year’s Eve.

The Bruins played in a better bowl game than the team deserved in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl. The Bruins were the first team in NCAA history to earn a bowl berth with a losing record. It was a second tier bowl for a third tier team and they played like they would rather be at home eating rather than in San Francisco leading the fight against hunger one miserable play at a time. We also forgot that one of the brother-in-laws went to the University of Illinois when the post-game phone call reminded us. The Illini were navigating on the precipice of mediocrity as well in 2011 but they were the cream of the crap on New Year’s Eve. The game was the first game since the end of the Neuheisel era if there was one. UCLA did play in the first Pacific 12 championship game although they were 31 point underdogs. Yard interns are researching that but that might have been the heaviest underdog in any championship game in any sport, at any level…ever! The Bruins easily covered the spread losing only 49-31 in Rick’s last game. The 50-0 beat down by USC the week before is one of many reasons Rick is not coaching today. Our earnest wish for Christmas was a bright future in the NFL for Mr. Barkley in 2012. It has been a wonderful season but that gift was not found under the tree.

Barkley decided to return for his 6th or 7th year at USC. Lane Kiffin told the press that Barkley really needed one more year at USC to be ready for the NFL. What Lane meant was that USC really needed one more year of Barkley to compete with the SEC for a BCS berth. When Barkley won the starting job as a freshman, not too many top prospects were eager to come to USC and play the Matt Cassel role. It is hard to understand why Barkley would come back for another season. Even with the new NFL labor deal, a first round pick will be getting nearly $15 million on a guaranteed contract. At time of press, the Yard is not certain how much of his USC money is guaranteed but anonymous sources say that it is not Reggie Bush type money. Barkley should have considered that he will never have another opportunity during 2012 to earn $5 million. He will earn NFL money and probably a lot of it. But the $5 million that would have been in his checking out account next year will be gone forever. Barkley should have also considered how his predecessors fared by staying for one more year of being Trojan nation’s epochal center. If the end game is being well paid in the NFL, staying one more year at USC is bad bet on your future. Carson Palmer and Matt Leinhart stayed one more year when the NFL beckoned. Palmer has wallowed in Cincinnati and now Oakland. Leinhart has just wallowed.

It would be impossible to review all of the stories that we thought of covering in 2012. The popularity of the Kardashians was one carousel we missed. We just do not get that one but Kim’s porn tape is not bad…from what we hear. Ruth Madoff’s revelation that she and Bernie attempted suicide after the scandal broke was not surprising. Trying to commit suicide by taking a couple of Ambien before going to bed did not show much resolve in their plan! Yard favorite Adele had a break out year in music. Her soulful songs about boyfriends who wronged her have been atop all of the award lists. One universal axiom for the Yard audience is never date and then piss off a chick songwriter. Taylor Swift, Alanis, and Avril have all had chart toppers about failed relationship and the bastards that failed them. Russell Brand better keep an eye out for the Katy Perry shit storm heading his way in 2012.

As the sun rises in 2012, we at the Yard sincerely hope that our musings and rants have provided humor and distraction in your day. We never have set the bar high just a constant stream of random utterings about stuff that incites or amuses us. We appreciated your feedback all year and plan to continue with the same random resolve that makes this all possible.

New Year's Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Mark Twain