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.